Cassie - fic - "The Deviant Job"
Title: The Deviant Job
Author: bookstorequeer
Giftee: Cassie
Rating: NC17
Characters/Pairing: Eliot/OMC; Eliot/OMC(non-con); pre-Eliot/Nate
Word Count: 4,000+
Spoilers: None, really (Although I am writing with Eliot in “The Tap Out Job” in mind)
Warnings: M/M sex. References to past non-con. BDSM (Dom!Nate, Sub!Eliot). Original character death (past).
Disclaimer: Not real. I made it up. Promise. (and I'm not getting anything for it)
Summary: He knows that a large part of this job is reliant upon getting into the company’s computer and stealing a list of names bought from a baby name website that those unscrupulous characters are then using to blackmail, commit fraud against, and eventually steal the identities of innocent people. But he had never imagined that Nate would ask him - him, as if the mastermind really knew those secrets he tried so hard to keep hidden - to go undercover at a BDSM phone line and sex shop in order to get Hardison remote access to the computer system. That he never saw coming at all.
Notes: Using these ideas from the prompt: Dom!Nate/Sub!Eliot and “I’m also a serious sucker for death fic” - although I didn’t want to kill any of our favourites.
He goes like he always does, dressed in leather and looking like a Dominant unless you look closely enough. And the Doms always do. They see the flicker of his eyes away, the minute curve of his shoulders that’s just begging someone so inclined to take the weight of a tired life from his shoulders. His body is strong and quivers when he’s taken to the brink. Doms vie for the opportunity to touch scarred skin, to feel those muscles go limp in their grasp as that body is given over to their pleasure. The feel of such a strong man submitting is heady enough that none of them complain when he never lets them tie him, when there’s a length of coiled tension in him that never truly seeps away.
Only a few of them can remember a time when he wasn’t here, when he wasn’t curving his body into the shapes they wanted. Only a few of the Doms haven’t taken him to a private room, haven’t seen such beautiful skin slick with sweat and maybe a little blood if he doesn’t use his safeword. Only a few of them haven’t heard him beg them to tell him he’s a good boy, to promise that they’ll stay when, really, everyone knows that it’s one show only, no encores. None of them knows what he’s really looking for but, selfishly, they’re grateful that he hasn’t found it.
-----
It’s been a long time and he can feel the itch beneath his skin. He’s been ignoring it for coming up on a month and soon it won’t be something he can hide any longer. Soon it will be something that leads to acquiescing to Nate when he shouldn’t, something that could endanger the team because he instinctively follows an order he shouldn’t. He promises himself that when this meeting is done, when this con is over, he’ll give in. He doesn’t want to, he hates the way it makes him shake afterwards, when the room is empty and so many things are drying tacky on his skin. He hates the way it makes him feel when he’s alone the next morning and he can’t stop shaking. It’s barely worth quieting this weak, crying thing within him. He sips his tea and tries to listen to Nate’s words and not just the sound of that voice washing over him.
There’s silence and he casts his mind back over what’s been said that he wasn’t listening to. He freezes, stomach locking on the knots within it as Hardison looks at him, an indignant, confused look that cannot be for him on that mobile face. Parker is tilting her head like a puppy not in on the joke and Nate is still looking at the computer screen like he doesn’t know this will tear his hitter apart.
He can’t. He can’t. No matter how much it might ache to say no, to disappoint his mastermind, he can’t do this. He can’t submit, not when it’ll be a more worthless lie than it usually is. He knows that a large part of this particular job is reliant upon getting into the company’s computer and stealing back a list of names bought from a baby name website that those unscrupulous characters are then using to blackmail, commit fraud, and eventually steal the identities of innocent people. But he’d thought that it would only require him playing his muscly, meat-headed back-up as Parker pulled yet another amazing feat of thievery from her hat. He had never imagined that Nate would ask him - him, as if the mastermind knew those secrets he tried so hard to keep hidden - to go undercover at a BDSM phone-line-and-sex-shop in order to get Hardison remote access to the computer system.
That it can’t be Parker is obvious in that she's a woman when they only hire men and she'd likely stab anyone who tried anything, probably with something more lethal than a fork. That it can’t be Hardison is glaringly obvious; the man doesn’t have a subtle bone in his body and Eliot can just imagine him having a t-shirt made that reads “Dom to your Sub.” That it can’t be Nate gives him pause. He’s seen flickers of something hungry in those shrewd blue eyes and it isn’t impossible to imagine the man telling some sub - some nameless sub who will never be Eliot for a million reasons he can’t name and quite a few that he can - what to do and how to pleasure him. Eliot’s mouth goes more than a little dry at the thought but Nate isn’t finished talking.
“Eliot, you’ll probably have to pretend to be a sub for this to work.”
He doesn’t hear anything further over Hardison squawking - “Nate, have you seen at Eliot? Does he look like anyone’s buttboy to you?” - and over the sudden, painful stillness in his chest.
“I ain’t doin’ it.”
He can’t. Not even if Nate begs him. He can’t, won’t do this because even if he wanted to there’s no way he can pull off being a Dom even close to convincingly. And this con will take time, a few days longer than he’s managed to sustain the right headspace for submission in over 15 years. It's too long to fight back against those dark things flickering at the edges of his periphery. If he does this, then he's afraid that certain memories that he’s avoided thinking about for those 15 years will be inescapable.
“Guys, give us a minute?”
He's vaguely aware of Nate coming over to where he's struggling not to hyperventilate. He’s never told anyone about the panic attacks, about the flashbacks, and the dreams.
“Eliot…”
He isn't about to.
“I can’t, Nate.”
There's a pause and he can feel the mastermind’s eyes on him but he doesn’t let himself look.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Nate’s glare gets colder and Eliot can feel himself starting to tremble; he won’t be able to take Nate’s cold shoulder.
“If you don’t give me a reason, Eliot, you’ll have to do it.”
He wants to protest, point out cons that Hardison has begged off or Parker has refused, but the betrayal, even unwitting, stings him, especially with everything already stirred up today, and he can’t force any words out. Eliot nods a down-turned head.
“That everything?” he makes himself growl, leaving when his team leader has nothing to add. Nate’s gaze is a physical weight for a long time after the door shuts between them.
He thinks about going to the club where everyone knows an assumed name, in order to soothe the itche beneath his skin, but decides that maybe going into this con hungry will help him to pull it off. It won’t do for him to bite someone’s head off when he's supposed to be posing all weak and demure - or as demure as he ever gets. Usually Eliot finds himself looking through his hair and keeping his shoulders loose until he's comfortable enough to find it easy. Instead, 3am finds him wide-awake and tense with an unopened beer in his hand, watching the clock tick time away.
When 6am rolls around, he's still sleepless but restless. No lights are on in the office but he has keys this time and the earpiece is where he’d left it. He reads the file over sweet tea and doesn’t learn anything he didn’t already know about the kinds of scumbags that get off a pushing around the people who don’t know any better. Eliot feels himself working towards anger but a shower, a cleanse, and changing into leather pants and his favourite jacket go a long way to getting him in the right frame of mind. A collar would have gone further.
He wasn’t planning on needing the extra help of a small toy, discretely hidden, but a subtle distraction at the right time can’t help but aid in controlling some of his more violent tendencies. He’s never been too impressed with these sex-line things but it's probably better than prostitution - not that he isn’t aware that a little demonstration of his abilities as a Sub might be necessary to get him in the door. He wonders if Nate knows what he might have to offer but that just sets him off to angry and hurt again.
“Name?”
“K-Kid Jones.”
His voice is softer, gentler over the earbuds than they've heard it but Eliot is confident that only Nate of all of them is likely to hear the truth in the timbre. If the other man is even listening. He fully expects Hardison to congratulate him for his acting when all this is done. He just hopes that he remembers to take out the earbud when this is over - he can already feel the tell-tale trickle of needles down his fingers; when this panic attack hits, it's going to knock him on his ass.
He's a little surprised when it only takes submitting to a quick fondle through his leathers and a couple of photos with his shirt off before he's set up with his own desk, headset, and bottle of lube. They tell him that they might have something for him in the video portion of the site if he does okay his first day on the phones. He's unaccountably nervous and keeps fiddling with the jump stick or the joy drive or whatever Hardison’s magic stick in his pocket is called, as he answers the first one.
“H-hello?” he murmurs, casting his eyes down and trying to ignore the tightening of his shoulders and how cold his neck feels without a collar.
“Eliot, have you planted Hardison’s leak yet?”
That it's Nate’s voice in one ear three days later as the Dom in his headset tells him to suck his fingers like the slut he is, just makes it something dirtier and that much further from what he can actually have.
“Yes sir,” he moans around his knuckles, answering them both. He’d planted the bug, stick, thing the day before, with a caller on his headset who wanted to know what he sounded like when he climaxed. He’d obeyed, literally, without thinking and now he's hoping that he doesn't have to look Hardison in the eye anytime soon because the hacker is probably monitoring everyone’s earbud feeds, like usual. The one thing that Alec said before they’d started this was that he never, ever wanted to hear what Eliot sounded like at orgasm. Faked was okay, in the name of the con, but Hardison was adamant that he would never be able to get it out of his head if it were real.
“G-goo- Uh, good, Eliot. Thanks.”
“Good pet. Now, hurt yourself for me. Pinch those pretty nipples, I want to hear you whimper.”
“Y-yes sir.”
He flinches a little but it’s Nate’s gasp that reminds him of why he’s doing this and it’s not to get off with an audience he doesn’t want. With spit-slick fingers, he pries out the earbud and slips it into a warm leather pocket. He’ll catch hell for that but his nerves are raw enough and he just can’t do this while being judged for the things he’s made to do.
The worst part is working in the sex shop. It doesn’t have anything to do with the info Hardison is siphoning off but that hacking is taking time and Eliot has to stay in place so no one suspects anything and bolts. He hates it. The touches, the looks; it all makes his skin buzz and the itch of wanting grow stronger. He wishes he could tie his hair back but the curls falling around his face make his submission easier like his obvious physical strength makes it sweeter. Hardison laughed that morning when he’d showed up at the office after letting his hair dry naturally into frustrating curls rather than taking the time to straighten it, but more than one horny shopper has stopped today to tangle their fingers in it.
“You’d look so fucking good sucking my cock,” growls a voice in his ear and Eliot is tense before he's limp. This muscle-heavy idiot is not his idea of a good Dom, obviously more intent on inflicting pain for his own pleasure than listening to the sweet song of a satiated Sub. But it's a part of the job and a part of the con and he relaxes back into the body behind him.
“When’s your break?”
“I- I’m not supposed to…”
He doesn’t want to go anywhere with this idiot; he doesn’t trust the man to take “stop” or even a safeword as enough.
“Aw c’mon, sweetheart. Don’t say no to me.”
He tries to break the hold but memories are coming too fast and strong now, drowning him in the sense-memory of the first time he’d ever been touched by a Dom, just like this guy who couldn’t take a “no” without a collar and an owner to back it up.
It had been over 18 years ago. He was just shy of his 19th birthday and still coming to terms with the fact that he liked his women feisty and his men to push him down and dominate him. It wasn’t something he'd heard of growing up -- although the army taught him differently -- and it was difficult to reconcile wanting someone to have such power over him, to take care of him, with never feeling like he trust again, not after what he’d seen his mama go through. He’d found this club by accident, overhearing some pretty boys talking about it at the bar where he bussed tables, and now he was outside, his heart shaking and his fingertips tingling with nerves. He had just convinced himself to open the door or to bail completely but at least to move, when a body crowded up behind him, shoving him until he was trapped between hard pecs and a brick wall. His stupid curls caught on exposed crags of masonry and his heart caught in his throat.
“Hey, pretty.”
He shuddered as the words dripped hot and ugly down his skin. Struggling only tightened the grip on his body and he was heading full-speed into full-blown panic.
“Why don’t you put that pretty mouth to good use, little boy, and suck my cock? I want to see you choke on it.”
He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut but this wasn’t going away. He kept trying to tell himself that this wasn’t happening but reality wasn’t listening. The tears on his cheeks - unseen since his stepdad had kicked out of the house a year and a half earlier - went unchecked and unnoticed except for a hungry grin and a dirty hand pawing at his face.
“Suck it, you little cocktease.”
“N-no. Ple-ease. I don’t want to.”
He’d never stumbled over speaking this much in his life; he’d never shaken this hard either. The sound of the Dom’s belt hitting the asphalt was loud in the silence of his fears.
Seeing Master Nick for the first time wasn’t some romanticized scene from Pretty Woman when the hero appears in the nick of time to save his virtue. Master Nick showed in time to help him up from the pavement. He’d still been shaking but the Master’s hand had been steady on his arm and the shirt the other man had given him to replace the one torn from battling away a man half-again his size, was warm. He’d brushed his teeth until his gums were numb to get the taste of the strange man out of his mouth but when Master Nick had asked, he was proud to say that he had no other injuries, aside from bruised knuckles. The approval in warm hazel eyes had made him flush and he hadn’t really understood his own reaction to the Master’s obvious pleasure until the next morning when he served omelettes and bacon scrounged from a foreign fridge and was told that he was a “good boy.” That made him flush and got him hard. Master Nick just smiled at him and kissed him when he didn’t protest a possessive hand low on his back.
-----
He’s outside when he comes out of the bittersweet memory and his reaction is violent. Eliot barely even spares a moment to hope that Hardison got what they needed out of this, he just runs. He’s done. He should have listened to his instincts back when he could still untangle himself from this “hitter” that he had become in order to stay so close to one Nathan Ford.
He stops at his apartment to grab the duffle that he never unpacks and then he’s renting a room under a name he doesn’t remember in a place where they won’t ask why his eyes are empty and his knuckles bloody. He showers hotter than he can stand it and its still not enough to erase the phantoms of the most loving touches he’s ever felt. With a shaking hand, he fumbles to shut off the water before he drowns in what he knew was coming before this even started. Eliot knew that eventually he’d have to confront the things he’s been running from for 15 years, 6 weeks, and a day and a half. Not that he’s counting. Not that he’s felt it like a physical ache for the five-thousand, five-hundred and eighteen and a half days that it’s been since he watched, helpless and ordered still, as Master Nick was killed by three men that he could probably kill now with salad tongs.
He tells himself that he doesn’t think about it at all - he just dreams it. Except for those times, like now, when his breathing is hoarse pants that ache in his throat and black spots are fighting with old nightmares to take over his consciousness. Now is when he falls into it, remembers every last ache and pain and how blood felt warm in droplets on his face because he didn’t duck. Because he didn’t move. Because Master Nick told him to be still.
He speaks 17 different languages but none of them well enough to beg hard enough to undo this. There's blood in his mouth and in his eyes but it's not his and he's shaking. He's crying but the weakness doesn't even matter when his Master is dead and there's no one to tell him that it's not his fault. All he can smell is the copper tang clawing at his lungs and he retches but manages to keep position. He wants Master to be proud of him when those warm brown eyes are warm again. he wants to be good so his Master won't leave him. He wants to not be alone like he always has been, not when he's tasted the sweetness of a body beside him that cares for him. He knows that if he can just be good enough, strong enough to give his Master everything he is, which is all Master Nick has always wanted from him, then Master Nick will come back. He will.
So he keeps position, even though spilt blood is soaking into the threadbare jeans he wears and snow is starting to blow through the broken window. He bites his lip and struggles to stop shivering because the last thing Master told him was not to move and maybe, if he's good enough, Master Nick won't leave him.
He doesn’t react when the door is opened. He doesn’t flinch when his name is called. He doesn’t blink when the bathroom door hits the wall. But he does lash out when his shoulder is grabbed. It’s only Nate calling his name again that stops him from killing the man beneath his hands. Then he blinks and climbs off the prone mastermind.
“What do you want?”
His voice is hoarse like he’s been screaming and he won’t be surprised if he has been. He runs a hand through his drenched hair and walks out to the bedroom on legs cramped from sitting in the same position for too long, although he really has no idea how long it's been.
“Eliot, damnit, you’re not supposed to take out your - ”
“Did y’all get what you needed?”
“Eliot - ”
“We’re not having that conversation, Nate.”
The mastermind sighs and runs a hand through those short curls; Eliot twitches with the urge to do some touching of his own but mostly he just wants Nate to stop look at him like he’s mad or sad or disappointed. It’s making Eliot’s stomach twist.
“But what you had to do - ”
“What you made me do,” Eliot snarls, ignoring the way it makes his eyes sting to see guilt flinch across Nate’s face.
“Elio - ”
“What, Nate? You didn’t know? Or you didn’t think anyone would want to see me submit? Would be willing to force me to?”
There’s an angry heartbeat between them and Eliot has to look away.
“I didn’t know you’d be a natural submissive, Eliot.”
The low murmur startles an exhausted, rueful laugh out of him.
“You can’t be that fucking blind, Nathan Ford. Seriously?”
“If I’d known…”
The mastermind is talking to himself and usually Eliot loves to watch Nate working out problems and lost in his own world but this time Eliot Spencer tilts his head back against the cheap headboard and closes his eyes.
“This explains…”
“Is this goin’ t' be a problem?”
“N- No. God, Eliot, I - ”
“Good,” Eliot sighs, trying and failing to ignore the pounding in his head and the ache in his chest. Nate can barely look at him. “Please leave.”
Nate stares at him for a heartbeat, then two.
“No.”
“Please, Nate.”
“No.”
When that familiarly unfamiliar body sits close enough to feel on the bed, Eliot flinches and backs away.
“What’re you - ”
His eyes snap open when a hand settles on the bed between his knees and Nate leans closer.
“Why didn’t you want to do this con, E?”
He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at the nickname he’d never heard before.
“None of your business.”
“Wrong answer,” Nate growls.
A part of Eliot bares its soft underbelly and purrs as Nate grabs his hair and wrenches his head back. Caught off guard, he squeezes a fragile wrist in a white-knuckle grip instinctively. He releases it when the other man shakes him gently.
“If it’s you, then it’s my business,” the mastermind tells him.
“You never cared before.”
Hard blue eyes soften as Nate moves close enough to breathe on Eliot’s drying skin.
“I’ve always cared. Now tell me.”
“N-No.”
Eliot closes his eyes when the other man’s expression softens further. He can’t do this; he can’t revisit those memories already so raw and bleeding. Especially not if Nate is looking at him like that.
“Eliot, E. Tell me.”
It's the nickname again, said so softly, that makes his eyes sting. The hand still tangled in his curls gentles and he leans unconsciously into the fingers carding through them.
“I… I lost my Dom.”
His cheeks are wet as he’s pulled close; he takes comfort from the fingers that never still in his hair.
“It was… a long time ago. I’d been seeing Master Nick for a couple of years. I… I should have known better. Should have known that there would be men coming after me but I wasn’t used to it. I… He took care of me and I forgot.”
He swallowed hard around the things clawing at his throat from the inside.
"W-when they came, I couldn't- I didn't- They broke in through the front window. It was so loud after the silence he always put me in and... T-they had guns and he... He'd told me not to move."
Nate’s voice is a soft murmur in counterpoint to Eliot’s hoarse whisper, a warm breath against the side of his head that keeps him grounded from remembering the sound of glass under boot heels and the pop of a silencer when the target’s too close.
"Th-they killed him because of me. Because of me, sir, and I did nothing. I did nothing. He was my Master and I didn't even try to protect him."
“Shhh, E. Shhh.”
“I didn’t even try.”
His eyes slid shut when Nate’s hand tightens in his hair again but a tap to his cheekbone snaps them open.
“E, I want you to listen to me very carefully. Are you listening?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
Eliot can’t take his eyes away from Nate’s and he feels no urge to. This is the headspace he’s been craving, the firm hand that he can trust to make the pain go away.
“E, what happened was not your fault. You are not to blame for other people’s gambling debts.”
“Y-you - ”
“Shhh, E.”
Nate’s smile is soft and indulgent as his fingers trail across Eliot’s face.
“I did a little research. I wanted to know who had touched you before me, who had trained you so well.”
“But - ”
“You’re supposed to be listening,” Nate cautions and Eliot goes absolutely still, only relaxing minutely when he sees the smile in those bright blue eyes.
“Ye-es, sir.”
“Good boy.”
Nate smiles and Eliot gets hard beneath the towel wrapped around his waist.
“Do you understand, E? What happened was not your fault. Nick Ives had debt and that debt caught up with him. It had nothing to do with you.”
“Bu - ”
Nate quirks an eyebrow and Eliot subsides.
“It. Was not. Your fault.”
Each word is a forcible shake of Eliot’s head for emphasis and at long last Eliot nods on his own, shining eyes falling shut. The kiss that is pressed to his forehead is unexpected and he can’t stop the whimper that escapes him.
“Shhh, E,” the mastermind soothes, tucking him beneath the covers and sliding in beside. "Just sleep. We'll get you a collar and tell Hardison tomorrow."
Eliot falls asleep dreaming of leather and steel and, later, when he wakes them both with dreams of blood and snow, Nate will take the opportunity to fuck him through submission right into unconsciousness. They'll both wake in the morning sore but happy and will probably fuck again before being late for the debrief from yesterday's con because they'll have lost track of time when testing out Eliot's new collar. Hardison will gape at them and demand that they never share anything. Ever. Parker will grin and ask if she can play. Nate will let Eliot suck him off under the table after the meeting when Eliot doesn't growl at the thief for attempted poaching. They have a lot of things to work out, rules to write, limits to stretch, and scars to soothe, but in the meantime Eliot is determined to make Hardison twitch as often as possible. Having Nate to take care of him just makes it all sweeter.
-----
He goes like he always does, dressed in leather and looking like a Dominant except for the black braid coiled around his neck and the Dom keeping pace beside him. They all see the flicker of his eyes towards the man in buttersoft leather, the way his body is always inclined towards his Dom. They see and they ache to taste but Master Nate never lets you share and regulars know better than to try and touch this Sub. From time to time a stranger will make moves and the rest will watch as E demonstrates all the skills and muscles that make his submission to be treasured. No one tries a second time because, you see, Master Nate never orders E to be still. That's a thing that E offers all on his own. And if you're really lucky, they just might let you watch.
End.
Author: bookstorequeer
Giftee: Cassie
Rating: NC17
Characters/Pairing: Eliot/OMC; Eliot/OMC(non-con); pre-Eliot/Nate
Word Count: 4,000+
Spoilers: None, really (Although I am writing with Eliot in “The Tap Out Job” in mind)
Warnings: M/M sex. References to past non-con. BDSM (Dom!Nate, Sub!Eliot). Original character death (past).
Disclaimer: Not real. I made it up. Promise. (and I'm not getting anything for it)
Summary: He knows that a large part of this job is reliant upon getting into the company’s computer and stealing a list of names bought from a baby name website that those unscrupulous characters are then using to blackmail, commit fraud against, and eventually steal the identities of innocent people. But he had never imagined that Nate would ask him - him, as if the mastermind really knew those secrets he tried so hard to keep hidden - to go undercover at a BDSM phone line and sex shop in order to get Hardison remote access to the computer system. That he never saw coming at all.
Notes: Using these ideas from the prompt: Dom!Nate/Sub!Eliot and “I’m also a serious sucker for death fic” - although I didn’t want to kill any of our favourites.
He goes like he always does, dressed in leather and looking like a Dominant unless you look closely enough. And the Doms always do. They see the flicker of his eyes away, the minute curve of his shoulders that’s just begging someone so inclined to take the weight of a tired life from his shoulders. His body is strong and quivers when he’s taken to the brink. Doms vie for the opportunity to touch scarred skin, to feel those muscles go limp in their grasp as that body is given over to their pleasure. The feel of such a strong man submitting is heady enough that none of them complain when he never lets them tie him, when there’s a length of coiled tension in him that never truly seeps away.
Only a few of them can remember a time when he wasn’t here, when he wasn’t curving his body into the shapes they wanted. Only a few of the Doms haven’t taken him to a private room, haven’t seen such beautiful skin slick with sweat and maybe a little blood if he doesn’t use his safeword. Only a few of them haven’t heard him beg them to tell him he’s a good boy, to promise that they’ll stay when, really, everyone knows that it’s one show only, no encores. None of them knows what he’s really looking for but, selfishly, they’re grateful that he hasn’t found it.
-----
It’s been a long time and he can feel the itch beneath his skin. He’s been ignoring it for coming up on a month and soon it won’t be something he can hide any longer. Soon it will be something that leads to acquiescing to Nate when he shouldn’t, something that could endanger the team because he instinctively follows an order he shouldn’t. He promises himself that when this meeting is done, when this con is over, he’ll give in. He doesn’t want to, he hates the way it makes him shake afterwards, when the room is empty and so many things are drying tacky on his skin. He hates the way it makes him feel when he’s alone the next morning and he can’t stop shaking. It’s barely worth quieting this weak, crying thing within him. He sips his tea and tries to listen to Nate’s words and not just the sound of that voice washing over him.
There’s silence and he casts his mind back over what’s been said that he wasn’t listening to. He freezes, stomach locking on the knots within it as Hardison looks at him, an indignant, confused look that cannot be for him on that mobile face. Parker is tilting her head like a puppy not in on the joke and Nate is still looking at the computer screen like he doesn’t know this will tear his hitter apart.
He can’t. He can’t. No matter how much it might ache to say no, to disappoint his mastermind, he can’t do this. He can’t submit, not when it’ll be a more worthless lie than it usually is. He knows that a large part of this particular job is reliant upon getting into the company’s computer and stealing back a list of names bought from a baby name website that those unscrupulous characters are then using to blackmail, commit fraud, and eventually steal the identities of innocent people. But he’d thought that it would only require him playing his muscly, meat-headed back-up as Parker pulled yet another amazing feat of thievery from her hat. He had never imagined that Nate would ask him - him, as if the mastermind knew those secrets he tried so hard to keep hidden - to go undercover at a BDSM phone-line-and-sex-shop in order to get Hardison remote access to the computer system.
That it can’t be Parker is obvious in that she's a woman when they only hire men and she'd likely stab anyone who tried anything, probably with something more lethal than a fork. That it can’t be Hardison is glaringly obvious; the man doesn’t have a subtle bone in his body and Eliot can just imagine him having a t-shirt made that reads “Dom to your Sub.” That it can’t be Nate gives him pause. He’s seen flickers of something hungry in those shrewd blue eyes and it isn’t impossible to imagine the man telling some sub - some nameless sub who will never be Eliot for a million reasons he can’t name and quite a few that he can - what to do and how to pleasure him. Eliot’s mouth goes more than a little dry at the thought but Nate isn’t finished talking.
“Eliot, you’ll probably have to pretend to be a sub for this to work.”
He doesn’t hear anything further over Hardison squawking - “Nate, have you seen at Eliot? Does he look like anyone’s buttboy to you?” - and over the sudden, painful stillness in his chest.
“I ain’t doin’ it.”
He can’t. Not even if Nate begs him. He can’t, won’t do this because even if he wanted to there’s no way he can pull off being a Dom even close to convincingly. And this con will take time, a few days longer than he’s managed to sustain the right headspace for submission in over 15 years. It's too long to fight back against those dark things flickering at the edges of his periphery. If he does this, then he's afraid that certain memories that he’s avoided thinking about for those 15 years will be inescapable.
“Guys, give us a minute?”
He's vaguely aware of Nate coming over to where he's struggling not to hyperventilate. He’s never told anyone about the panic attacks, about the flashbacks, and the dreams.
“Eliot…”
He isn't about to.
“I can’t, Nate.”
There's a pause and he can feel the mastermind’s eyes on him but he doesn’t let himself look.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Nate’s glare gets colder and Eliot can feel himself starting to tremble; he won’t be able to take Nate’s cold shoulder.
“If you don’t give me a reason, Eliot, you’ll have to do it.”
He wants to protest, point out cons that Hardison has begged off or Parker has refused, but the betrayal, even unwitting, stings him, especially with everything already stirred up today, and he can’t force any words out. Eliot nods a down-turned head.
“That everything?” he makes himself growl, leaving when his team leader has nothing to add. Nate’s gaze is a physical weight for a long time after the door shuts between them.
He thinks about going to the club where everyone knows an assumed name, in order to soothe the itche beneath his skin, but decides that maybe going into this con hungry will help him to pull it off. It won’t do for him to bite someone’s head off when he's supposed to be posing all weak and demure - or as demure as he ever gets. Usually Eliot finds himself looking through his hair and keeping his shoulders loose until he's comfortable enough to find it easy. Instead, 3am finds him wide-awake and tense with an unopened beer in his hand, watching the clock tick time away.
When 6am rolls around, he's still sleepless but restless. No lights are on in the office but he has keys this time and the earpiece is where he’d left it. He reads the file over sweet tea and doesn’t learn anything he didn’t already know about the kinds of scumbags that get off a pushing around the people who don’t know any better. Eliot feels himself working towards anger but a shower, a cleanse, and changing into leather pants and his favourite jacket go a long way to getting him in the right frame of mind. A collar would have gone further.
He wasn’t planning on needing the extra help of a small toy, discretely hidden, but a subtle distraction at the right time can’t help but aid in controlling some of his more violent tendencies. He’s never been too impressed with these sex-line things but it's probably better than prostitution - not that he isn’t aware that a little demonstration of his abilities as a Sub might be necessary to get him in the door. He wonders if Nate knows what he might have to offer but that just sets him off to angry and hurt again.
“Name?”
“K-Kid Jones.”
His voice is softer, gentler over the earbuds than they've heard it but Eliot is confident that only Nate of all of them is likely to hear the truth in the timbre. If the other man is even listening. He fully expects Hardison to congratulate him for his acting when all this is done. He just hopes that he remembers to take out the earbud when this is over - he can already feel the tell-tale trickle of needles down his fingers; when this panic attack hits, it's going to knock him on his ass.
He's a little surprised when it only takes submitting to a quick fondle through his leathers and a couple of photos with his shirt off before he's set up with his own desk, headset, and bottle of lube. They tell him that they might have something for him in the video portion of the site if he does okay his first day on the phones. He's unaccountably nervous and keeps fiddling with the jump stick or the joy drive or whatever Hardison’s magic stick in his pocket is called, as he answers the first one.
“H-hello?” he murmurs, casting his eyes down and trying to ignore the tightening of his shoulders and how cold his neck feels without a collar.
“Eliot, have you planted Hardison’s leak yet?”
That it's Nate’s voice in one ear three days later as the Dom in his headset tells him to suck his fingers like the slut he is, just makes it something dirtier and that much further from what he can actually have.
“Yes sir,” he moans around his knuckles, answering them both. He’d planted the bug, stick, thing the day before, with a caller on his headset who wanted to know what he sounded like when he climaxed. He’d obeyed, literally, without thinking and now he's hoping that he doesn't have to look Hardison in the eye anytime soon because the hacker is probably monitoring everyone’s earbud feeds, like usual. The one thing that Alec said before they’d started this was that he never, ever wanted to hear what Eliot sounded like at orgasm. Faked was okay, in the name of the con, but Hardison was adamant that he would never be able to get it out of his head if it were real.
“G-goo- Uh, good, Eliot. Thanks.”
“Good pet. Now, hurt yourself for me. Pinch those pretty nipples, I want to hear you whimper.”
“Y-yes sir.”
He flinches a little but it’s Nate’s gasp that reminds him of why he’s doing this and it’s not to get off with an audience he doesn’t want. With spit-slick fingers, he pries out the earbud and slips it into a warm leather pocket. He’ll catch hell for that but his nerves are raw enough and he just can’t do this while being judged for the things he’s made to do.
The worst part is working in the sex shop. It doesn’t have anything to do with the info Hardison is siphoning off but that hacking is taking time and Eliot has to stay in place so no one suspects anything and bolts. He hates it. The touches, the looks; it all makes his skin buzz and the itch of wanting grow stronger. He wishes he could tie his hair back but the curls falling around his face make his submission easier like his obvious physical strength makes it sweeter. Hardison laughed that morning when he’d showed up at the office after letting his hair dry naturally into frustrating curls rather than taking the time to straighten it, but more than one horny shopper has stopped today to tangle their fingers in it.
“You’d look so fucking good sucking my cock,” growls a voice in his ear and Eliot is tense before he's limp. This muscle-heavy idiot is not his idea of a good Dom, obviously more intent on inflicting pain for his own pleasure than listening to the sweet song of a satiated Sub. But it's a part of the job and a part of the con and he relaxes back into the body behind him.
“When’s your break?”
“I- I’m not supposed to…”
He doesn’t want to go anywhere with this idiot; he doesn’t trust the man to take “stop” or even a safeword as enough.
“Aw c’mon, sweetheart. Don’t say no to me.”
He tries to break the hold but memories are coming too fast and strong now, drowning him in the sense-memory of the first time he’d ever been touched by a Dom, just like this guy who couldn’t take a “no” without a collar and an owner to back it up.
It had been over 18 years ago. He was just shy of his 19th birthday and still coming to terms with the fact that he liked his women feisty and his men to push him down and dominate him. It wasn’t something he'd heard of growing up -- although the army taught him differently -- and it was difficult to reconcile wanting someone to have such power over him, to take care of him, with never feeling like he trust again, not after what he’d seen his mama go through. He’d found this club by accident, overhearing some pretty boys talking about it at the bar where he bussed tables, and now he was outside, his heart shaking and his fingertips tingling with nerves. He had just convinced himself to open the door or to bail completely but at least to move, when a body crowded up behind him, shoving him until he was trapped between hard pecs and a brick wall. His stupid curls caught on exposed crags of masonry and his heart caught in his throat.
“Hey, pretty.”
He shuddered as the words dripped hot and ugly down his skin. Struggling only tightened the grip on his body and he was heading full-speed into full-blown panic.
“Why don’t you put that pretty mouth to good use, little boy, and suck my cock? I want to see you choke on it.”
He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut but this wasn’t going away. He kept trying to tell himself that this wasn’t happening but reality wasn’t listening. The tears on his cheeks - unseen since his stepdad had kicked out of the house a year and a half earlier - went unchecked and unnoticed except for a hungry grin and a dirty hand pawing at his face.
“Suck it, you little cocktease.”
“N-no. Ple-ease. I don’t want to.”
He’d never stumbled over speaking this much in his life; he’d never shaken this hard either. The sound of the Dom’s belt hitting the asphalt was loud in the silence of his fears.
Seeing Master Nick for the first time wasn’t some romanticized scene from Pretty Woman when the hero appears in the nick of time to save his virtue. Master Nick showed in time to help him up from the pavement. He’d still been shaking but the Master’s hand had been steady on his arm and the shirt the other man had given him to replace the one torn from battling away a man half-again his size, was warm. He’d brushed his teeth until his gums were numb to get the taste of the strange man out of his mouth but when Master Nick had asked, he was proud to say that he had no other injuries, aside from bruised knuckles. The approval in warm hazel eyes had made him flush and he hadn’t really understood his own reaction to the Master’s obvious pleasure until the next morning when he served omelettes and bacon scrounged from a foreign fridge and was told that he was a “good boy.” That made him flush and got him hard. Master Nick just smiled at him and kissed him when he didn’t protest a possessive hand low on his back.
-----
He’s outside when he comes out of the bittersweet memory and his reaction is violent. Eliot barely even spares a moment to hope that Hardison got what they needed out of this, he just runs. He’s done. He should have listened to his instincts back when he could still untangle himself from this “hitter” that he had become in order to stay so close to one Nathan Ford.
He stops at his apartment to grab the duffle that he never unpacks and then he’s renting a room under a name he doesn’t remember in a place where they won’t ask why his eyes are empty and his knuckles bloody. He showers hotter than he can stand it and its still not enough to erase the phantoms of the most loving touches he’s ever felt. With a shaking hand, he fumbles to shut off the water before he drowns in what he knew was coming before this even started. Eliot knew that eventually he’d have to confront the things he’s been running from for 15 years, 6 weeks, and a day and a half. Not that he’s counting. Not that he’s felt it like a physical ache for the five-thousand, five-hundred and eighteen and a half days that it’s been since he watched, helpless and ordered still, as Master Nick was killed by three men that he could probably kill now with salad tongs.
He tells himself that he doesn’t think about it at all - he just dreams it. Except for those times, like now, when his breathing is hoarse pants that ache in his throat and black spots are fighting with old nightmares to take over his consciousness. Now is when he falls into it, remembers every last ache and pain and how blood felt warm in droplets on his face because he didn’t duck. Because he didn’t move. Because Master Nick told him to be still.
He speaks 17 different languages but none of them well enough to beg hard enough to undo this. There's blood in his mouth and in his eyes but it's not his and he's shaking. He's crying but the weakness doesn't even matter when his Master is dead and there's no one to tell him that it's not his fault. All he can smell is the copper tang clawing at his lungs and he retches but manages to keep position. He wants Master to be proud of him when those warm brown eyes are warm again. he wants to be good so his Master won't leave him. He wants to not be alone like he always has been, not when he's tasted the sweetness of a body beside him that cares for him. He knows that if he can just be good enough, strong enough to give his Master everything he is, which is all Master Nick has always wanted from him, then Master Nick will come back. He will.
So he keeps position, even though spilt blood is soaking into the threadbare jeans he wears and snow is starting to blow through the broken window. He bites his lip and struggles to stop shivering because the last thing Master told him was not to move and maybe, if he's good enough, Master Nick won't leave him.
He doesn’t react when the door is opened. He doesn’t flinch when his name is called. He doesn’t blink when the bathroom door hits the wall. But he does lash out when his shoulder is grabbed. It’s only Nate calling his name again that stops him from killing the man beneath his hands. Then he blinks and climbs off the prone mastermind.
“What do you want?”
His voice is hoarse like he’s been screaming and he won’t be surprised if he has been. He runs a hand through his drenched hair and walks out to the bedroom on legs cramped from sitting in the same position for too long, although he really has no idea how long it's been.
“Eliot, damnit, you’re not supposed to take out your - ”
“Did y’all get what you needed?”
“Eliot - ”
“We’re not having that conversation, Nate.”
The mastermind sighs and runs a hand through those short curls; Eliot twitches with the urge to do some touching of his own but mostly he just wants Nate to stop look at him like he’s mad or sad or disappointed. It’s making Eliot’s stomach twist.
“But what you had to do - ”
“What you made me do,” Eliot snarls, ignoring the way it makes his eyes sting to see guilt flinch across Nate’s face.
“Elio - ”
“What, Nate? You didn’t know? Or you didn’t think anyone would want to see me submit? Would be willing to force me to?”
There’s an angry heartbeat between them and Eliot has to look away.
“I didn’t know you’d be a natural submissive, Eliot.”
The low murmur startles an exhausted, rueful laugh out of him.
“You can’t be that fucking blind, Nathan Ford. Seriously?”
“If I’d known…”
The mastermind is talking to himself and usually Eliot loves to watch Nate working out problems and lost in his own world but this time Eliot Spencer tilts his head back against the cheap headboard and closes his eyes.
“This explains…”
“Is this goin’ t' be a problem?”
“N- No. God, Eliot, I - ”
“Good,” Eliot sighs, trying and failing to ignore the pounding in his head and the ache in his chest. Nate can barely look at him. “Please leave.”
Nate stares at him for a heartbeat, then two.
“No.”
“Please, Nate.”
“No.”
When that familiarly unfamiliar body sits close enough to feel on the bed, Eliot flinches and backs away.
“What’re you - ”
His eyes snap open when a hand settles on the bed between his knees and Nate leans closer.
“Why didn’t you want to do this con, E?”
He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at the nickname he’d never heard before.
“None of your business.”
“Wrong answer,” Nate growls.
A part of Eliot bares its soft underbelly and purrs as Nate grabs his hair and wrenches his head back. Caught off guard, he squeezes a fragile wrist in a white-knuckle grip instinctively. He releases it when the other man shakes him gently.
“If it’s you, then it’s my business,” the mastermind tells him.
“You never cared before.”
Hard blue eyes soften as Nate moves close enough to breathe on Eliot’s drying skin.
“I’ve always cared. Now tell me.”
“N-No.”
Eliot closes his eyes when the other man’s expression softens further. He can’t do this; he can’t revisit those memories already so raw and bleeding. Especially not if Nate is looking at him like that.
“Eliot, E. Tell me.”
It's the nickname again, said so softly, that makes his eyes sting. The hand still tangled in his curls gentles and he leans unconsciously into the fingers carding through them.
“I… I lost my Dom.”
His cheeks are wet as he’s pulled close; he takes comfort from the fingers that never still in his hair.
“It was… a long time ago. I’d been seeing Master Nick for a couple of years. I… I should have known better. Should have known that there would be men coming after me but I wasn’t used to it. I… He took care of me and I forgot.”
He swallowed hard around the things clawing at his throat from the inside.
"W-when they came, I couldn't- I didn't- They broke in through the front window. It was so loud after the silence he always put me in and... T-they had guns and he... He'd told me not to move."
Nate’s voice is a soft murmur in counterpoint to Eliot’s hoarse whisper, a warm breath against the side of his head that keeps him grounded from remembering the sound of glass under boot heels and the pop of a silencer when the target’s too close.
"Th-they killed him because of me. Because of me, sir, and I did nothing. I did nothing. He was my Master and I didn't even try to protect him."
“Shhh, E. Shhh.”
“I didn’t even try.”
His eyes slid shut when Nate’s hand tightens in his hair again but a tap to his cheekbone snaps them open.
“E, I want you to listen to me very carefully. Are you listening?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
Eliot can’t take his eyes away from Nate’s and he feels no urge to. This is the headspace he’s been craving, the firm hand that he can trust to make the pain go away.
“E, what happened was not your fault. You are not to blame for other people’s gambling debts.”
“Y-you - ”
“Shhh, E.”
Nate’s smile is soft and indulgent as his fingers trail across Eliot’s face.
“I did a little research. I wanted to know who had touched you before me, who had trained you so well.”
“But - ”
“You’re supposed to be listening,” Nate cautions and Eliot goes absolutely still, only relaxing minutely when he sees the smile in those bright blue eyes.
“Ye-es, sir.”
“Good boy.”
Nate smiles and Eliot gets hard beneath the towel wrapped around his waist.
“Do you understand, E? What happened was not your fault. Nick Ives had debt and that debt caught up with him. It had nothing to do with you.”
“Bu - ”
Nate quirks an eyebrow and Eliot subsides.
“It. Was not. Your fault.”
Each word is a forcible shake of Eliot’s head for emphasis and at long last Eliot nods on his own, shining eyes falling shut. The kiss that is pressed to his forehead is unexpected and he can’t stop the whimper that escapes him.
“Shhh, E,” the mastermind soothes, tucking him beneath the covers and sliding in beside. "Just sleep. We'll get you a collar and tell Hardison tomorrow."
Eliot falls asleep dreaming of leather and steel and, later, when he wakes them both with dreams of blood and snow, Nate will take the opportunity to fuck him through submission right into unconsciousness. They'll both wake in the morning sore but happy and will probably fuck again before being late for the debrief from yesterday's con because they'll have lost track of time when testing out Eliot's new collar. Hardison will gape at them and demand that they never share anything. Ever. Parker will grin and ask if she can play. Nate will let Eliot suck him off under the table after the meeting when Eliot doesn't growl at the thief for attempted poaching. They have a lot of things to work out, rules to write, limits to stretch, and scars to soothe, but in the meantime Eliot is determined to make Hardison twitch as often as possible. Having Nate to take care of him just makes it all sweeter.
-----
He goes like he always does, dressed in leather and looking like a Dominant except for the black braid coiled around his neck and the Dom keeping pace beside him. They all see the flicker of his eyes towards the man in buttersoft leather, the way his body is always inclined towards his Dom. They see and they ache to taste but Master Nate never lets you share and regulars know better than to try and touch this Sub. From time to time a stranger will make moves and the rest will watch as E demonstrates all the skills and muscles that make his submission to be treasured. No one tries a second time because, you see, Master Nate never orders E to be still. That's a thing that E offers all on his own. And if you're really lucky, they just might let you watch.
End.