Fic: What He Wanted
Fic: What He Wanted
Author: LMX
Fandoms: Leverage
Rating: PG
Pairings: Nate/Sophie, Nate/Sophie/Eliot
Spoilers: 3.16 (The San Lorenzo Job), 4.18 (Last Dam Job)
Warnings: Angst out the wazoo
LMX has been failing on this fic since: 14/6/11
AN: So I started writing this for a Sheryden Prompt when the nate-eliot comm had its pre-season 4 promptathon (yes, pre-season *4*) and also Sheryden reprompted shortly afterwards for a Leverageland minibang prompt request. Sorry for the wait!
AN2: I cheated a little because this was already part-written, but still the first writing in a very long time. Let me have it, guys. The good, the bad...
Prompt: After San Lorenzo, Eliot can't stand watching Nate with Sophie. It just guts him too much. One day, he leaves, and the team is mystified.
--
There was a quiet buzzy emptiness in his head that Eliot normally associated with his being seriously injured, and normally it would indicate that he needed to find somewhere safe to hole up and sit very still for a while until everything came back under control and he could move forward and get himself fixed up. Only this time there was no injury, no blood, no head-spinning stomach-lurching concussion. Just... them.
You should never begrudge your best friend anything, let alone a second chance at happiness with a woman he loves and who loves him in return. Thing is... sometimes 'best friend' is just second best to what you want to be, and all hope for perspective is long gone.
He didn't sit down when he got home from the most recent job, he didn't even take a shower. He knew the symptoms, even if the cause was unfamiliar. If he stopped now there was a good chance he'd not get started again until someone noticed he was missing and came to find out what had happened. He couldn't explain to them what was wrong, why he felt like he was falling apart. Not without ruining things which were right and good. He put everything he needed in a bag, ditched all the technology he was carrying and everything but the cash out of his wallet, hesitated only to glance regretfully at the katana in its stand and walked out of the apartment.
If there was one thing he knew best it was self-preservation. He wasn't going to break himself into pieces over some guy he might have loved who wouldn't even look in his direction.
-
"And that's all I got..." Alec gestured to the freeze-frame of Eliot's last longing glance towards the sword. "He didn't drive his own car if he drove out of there. His whole inventory is accounted for. And that's including the bike and the two trucks he keeps in storage in L.A., and the three classic cars which are in a museum in Austin - just in case you were wondering. Financials haven't been touched on any of the many, many, slightly obsessive number of accounts Eliot has. No notable calls in or out - nothing really that wasn't us or his sister." Alec held up a finger as Nate took a breath to interrupt. "I checked with his sister, they just talked about what Ashley, his nephew - who's eight by the way, and likes little league and drawing and looking after his neighbour's dogs - wanted for his birthday. Didn't sound like anything was wrong there, he was planning on going down and seeing them soon. She said he sounded tired, but she also said that if Nate was still working him too hard she was gonna come up here and... Well, she sounded used to it."
Alec took a breath and Sophie jumped on the opportunity. "So no real leads then? He's fallen off the map."
He shrugged in reply. "Dude's in the wind. Didn't even leave us a note. Gotta assume he doesn't want to be found."
"Have we checked past contacts?" Nate pressed, not satisfied. "Is Moreau still in situ?"
"It's all quiet out there, Nate." Hardison shook his head in frustration. "You know I'd have notifications all over me if anything changed on that front. Eliot didn't turn the radio on, he doesn't have a TV... He had no way of knowing even if something had changed."
"Was it something from the job?" Parker asked, head on one side as she processed everything that had happened in the last week and a half. "He didn't even get beaten up. Could it be that he didn't get beaten up?" She shook her head, as if to herself. "No, that's just silly."
"Nate, we got nothing here. Nothing."
"He's been more irritable since we got back from San Lorenzo," Sophie observed quietly, "I was wondering if it might have been left over stress from our confrontation with Moreau but... well it could be a sign of something or just... Eliot."
"So what do we do now?" Parker pressed.
"We can keep trying to work out what happened," Nate said calmly, but with a distant frown. "But other than that we just have to wait for him to come back."
"He's planning on coming back." Sophie's tone was only just firm enough for that to be considered a statement rather than a question.
The four of them shared uncertain looks and they huddled unconsciously closer for the rest of the night.
-
He used a little of his cash to get a taxi out to the edge of the more camera-sparce freeway and ignored the cab driver's curious stare. Hitch-hiking was easier when you knew where you were going, so Eliot picked St. Louis without really thinking about it and started walking. He got picked up after twenty minutes or so by an 18-wheeler, introducing himself to the driver as Joey and talking animatedly for a couple of hours about a life he patched together from vague remembrances of the soaps of his childhood. The truck driver seemed to enjoy the story anyway, and it passed six hours and kept his mind away from sensitive areas until they parted ways. He did the same all over again with a family of three headed to see the grandparents for some birthday or other.
The faked enthusiasm left him cold and tired when he stumbled into the motel that night and fell into the uncomfortable bed. He'd expected a sleepless night, full of self-doubt or replaying images of Nate and Sophie standing shoulder to shoulder, but maybe he'd worn himself out constructing stupid stories, because he fell straight into a deep sleep and didn't rouse until dawn hit the horizon.
He headed back out onto the highway into a hazy dawn and walked until the sun was all the way up and burning off the clouds before anyone picked him up. He just nodded his thanks to the trucker, confirmed where he was going and where Eliot planned on getting off and stayed silent for the rest of the ride.
The silence suited him better, but it wasn't long before he couldn't keep his mind blank and focused on the road; other things started surfacing. At first it was just a plan for what to do next - finding cash in hand work, making sure he had somewhere to stay until he got paid, remembering all the tricks for staying alive without ID or a bank account. It wasn't too surprising that his thoughts wandered past the ubiquitous image of Hardison hammering away at his computer, Nate stood at his shoulder with a frown of concentration. Nate turning around and accepting comfort from Sophie.
They might not even be looking for him. Nate probably didn't need any comforting, that was just wishful thinking. He was a member of the team and he'd left under his own power, it was no different from Sophie's little jaunt a couple of years ago, only Nate wouldn't be phoning Eliot up when things really hit the fan to tell him he needed him. By leaving his phone behind Eliot hadn't left him the chance, even if Nate really wanted to. He hadn't wanted to risk the soul destroying eventuality that he might not call. He might not care.
Flinching a little at the realisation that he'd left them without anyone to turn to if the shit did hit the fan - even Sophie had been careful enough to send them Tara, if only after Hardison had been kidnapped by the Russians - he borrowed the trucker's mobile and made a couple of calls when they stopped for fuel. He had plenty of favours he could call in, even if there were only a couple of them who he'd leave that level of responsibility to.
Satisfied his duty was done, he sat back and let himself sink back into the pit that wanted to swallow him. That was it, then. He'd made sure they were covered, now they really didn't need him anymore.
-
"I've been going through it in my head again and again." Sophie pressed closer in to Nate's side, absorbing his closeness. "Whether he said anything, whether he acted out of the ordinary. He just seemed... tired."
Nate tightened his grip, feeling his own exhaustion pull him deeper into the sofa's cushions. "He's a grown man," he observed, hating the expression even as he said it. "He's made a decision - for whatever reason - and unless he changes his mind I don't think we're going to find him."
Sophie sighed, turning just a touch so that her nose was pressed against his neck. Resting there for a second. It all felt so illicit, this old-but-new thing they had. So tentative. "We've been so wrapped up in this..." Sophie sat back just far enough to talk, her breath hot on Nate's neck. "And with Parker and Hardison doing their own little thing... He's stopped talking to us. Stopped telling us when we're doing things wrong."
"You think this is all about Eliot feeling ignored?" Nate tried not to scoff. "He's not a child."
Sophie pulled back a little more. "When was the last time you spoke about anything important, Nate? Anything that mattered? He's your friend."
Nate was stunned by the realisation that he hadn't really spoken to Eliot at all since the day he'd asked the man to pick up a gun. The weight of the lives in that warehouse hung far too heavily between them, and Nate's spare time was committed to Sophie these days. The soft and easy nights on the sofas, shared food and beer and a game on TV; those nights were a distant memory hanging under the umbrella of 'before we knew about Moreau'. However often they swore that it changed nothing in the team dynamic... along with so many other things that had shifted; now everything was different and he couldn't deny that Eliot's knowledge of Moreau was part of that.
-
The team were sat in a single booth in McRory's, all staring with single-minded intent at the stranger stood in front of them, shifting from one foot to the other.
"Sorry," Nate shook his head. "Could you repeat that."
"Name's Rhodry," the stranger said, repeating himself, vowels rolling in an accent that only Sophie would have been able to identify as Welsh. "Eliot sent me." He shifted again, obviously uncomfortable under the combined stare.
It was Sophie who broke first, with a voice made tight with upset. "Oh God, Nate. He's not planning on coming back."
"You sent Tara," Hardison pointed out. "It's not like..."
"But we had Sophie's phone number," Parker interrupted. "Eliot didn't even take his phone."
"We can't over-react," Nate started, talking over them, but hesitated as Rhodry took a step back from the table.
Suddenly all four pairs of eyes were on him again.
"Umm... wow. Look... this is all a tad domestic for me. I'm gonna..." he gestured vaguely at the door. "I'll be back later, alright. Here's my card. Phone me when you... need me. Or... whatever."
And he nearly ran for the door.
Three pairs of eyes turned to Hardison. "He's going to phone Eliot," Nate said what they were all thinking. "We need that number."
"I can do one better than that," Alec replied, laptop already out on the table and fingers flying on the keys. "What about... this."
Out of the speakers of his computer, a dial tone sounded. They held their combined breaths for five rings before someone very much not Eliot answered the phone. Rhodry's voice held as much confusion as the team was feeling as he quizzed the man to find out that he was a trucker headed south and yes he had lent Eliot his phone, but he'd gotten off the truck the day before in Colombus, hadn't said where he'd intended on ending up.
When Rhodry hung up, it left them all feeling like they were hanging in limbo.
-
The work was mindless - shift work at a haulage company packing and loading trucks during the day, and security work at a bar in the centre of town during the night. It was all cash in hand, no records and no background checks. Eliot slept just enough to keep himself alive, saved what money he could and stayed in a hole of an apartment block, only a small step up from the derelict building he'd been squatting in until he made enough for his first month's rent.
It was a strange kind of freedom, living without a phone or a computer or a bank account. It was a relief not to have that hideously, indecently large number staring back at him every time he checked. It hadn't lifted the weight of knowing that there wasn't enough money in the world to repay his debts, but it helped with the guilt that struck every time he failed to give it away. He'd lived too hard a life to ignore the deeply ingrained need for enough money to keep him safe.
The trouble with not having a phone or internet access was that his freedom came at the price of never knowing when it was about to be taken away. He saw them on every corner. Hardison would be driving a truck into the yard, Parker would be standing in line for the club on the other side of the street, Sophie and Nate would be silhouetted in a kiss in the early hours of the morning. It was never them, and he always walked away wondering what he would have done if it had been.
He hadn't intended to be gone long, just long enough to get a grip on himself and his emotions. He'd sent Rhodry because he didn't want any of them to get it into their head that they could do his job while he was away - that was going to end up with worse things than Hardison kidnapped by Russians. He'd expected that he could take a couple of weeks; heal up, get laid and get his head back on straight and then he'd be able to dive right back in there. He'd be able to see Sophie with Nate without that sick feeling in his stomach. He'd be able to feel happy for them.
Not much had turned out the way he planned. Two months later and he still went to bed dreaming of a team where Nate turned to him to advice and then took the damn advice. Where Sophie was friendly and affectionate and had time for all of them. And in his wilder fantasies, where he fell into Nate's bed and he was happy there and everything was good.
-
"What if it was just jealousy," Hardison put forward tentatively, sat 'round the pizza- and glass-littered table with the others. This was an old conversation now, Eliot's leaving turning into an unsolvable puzzle that niggled at all of them in their spare time. "I mean, we were a team, but then the four of us all paired off..."
"I don't think it can be that," Rhodry said with a reminiscing grin, "Eliot never suffered from not being able to get what he wanted, at least not for as long as I've know him. It used to be a running joke on base that his squad wouldn't get new orders until Eliot had slept his way through his choice of the consenting adults where ever we were stationed. He usually started with the marines, said they 'had what it took'." Rhodry's sniggering grin faded a little at the stares all turned his way. "That was more information than you needed, hmm," he mused, not for the first time. Rhodry's tendency to over-share was becoming legendary.
"Eliot was bi?" Hardison asked. He flinched when Parker smacked him in the arm with a hissed, "IS, not was. Stop talking like he's dead."
Hardison shook it off; "Seriously!?"
"I don't think he was picky," Rhodry shrugged. "We never asked, see. But he used to spend his nights with whomever sparked his interest. He only got teased for the men, but that was 'cause we were all jealous about the ladies... How did you not know this? I can't believe he's given up his philandering ways."
"We've seen him with girls," Sophie said quietly, her attention on Nate who had gone very quiet. "But he's always been very... touchy about physical affection with men."
"Sophie?" Parker asked, noticing her distraction.
"Nate, what is it?" Sophie pressed, steering everyone's attention. "What are you thinking?"
Nate shook his head with a distant smile. "That song, the one Eliot sang with Kaye Lynn. It was on the radio earlier, and... There was something in the lyrics of that song that made me remember..."
"Hang on," Rhodry interrupted. "How do you guys know Kaye Lynn? She's that girl off the radio, right, with the brother she always brings on stage with her. She's a cute one, she is."
And the moment was broken as the conversation spiralled out into a bickering description of another con that Rhodry had missed, and if he noticed the hesitation every time Eliot passed through the story, he didn't comment on it.
-
Eliot had never taken a night off work because of a song before, but it had caught him by surprise - the strength of emotion Kaye Lynn's voice had inspired. It was like a wave, crashing in to him, numbing his thoughts and leaving him shaken and cold. He'd changed the station to something loud and thumpy where there was absolutely no chance of him hearing her again, and he'd sat in the dark with the bass drowning out the lyrics that wouldn't leave his mind.
There followed the delayed realisation that if a song that hadn't ever been about the man could make Eliot choked with emotion he couldn't even process, then this whole separation thing wasn't working out the way he'd planned. He wasn't healing up the way he was meant to, instead he was obsessing about Nate on the other side of the country and getting caught up on the vague hope that he might be thinking about him.
The separation had turned the whole meaning of the song around. Back then, Eliot had been singing about how Nate was pulling away from him, how he was falling into orbit around Sophie and starting to block out the rest of them, but now it was Eliot who was a long way from home and he couldn't even hope that Nate might hear the song and think of him.
The club music wasn't helping, just giving him a pounding headache, so Eliot shut it off and tried to get some sleep. It was as likely to help as anything else.
Two sleepless hours later he rolled out of bed and started packing his bag. This wasn't working, this whole thing. He needed something new.
-
"It feels like we've moved on," Nate observed to the ceiling, speaking slowly because he didn't like the idea despite the fact it was true. "I hate that he's done that to us. We never moved on from you."
Sophie rolled over on the bed and pressed her face into Nate's side. "Nate, what would you do if Eliot walked back in the door right now, into our bedroom, and said he'd come back for you. Just for you. And only if you asked."
"I'd ask him to come home," Nate sighed.
"Nate..." Sophie sighed, sitting up and moving to curl her hand around Nate's jaw. "What if he said you had to walk away from me? Keep your distance from me, go back to being just friends and co-workers?"
"What?" Nate spluttered, shifting to try and get a better look at Sophie. "Eliot loves you, Sophie. He wouldn't..."
"I think maybe there's more here than just Eliot going walkabout, Nate. Until you work out what you want from him, and what you're willing to offer..." Sophie yawned, settling back into his side. "He needed more from you than you ever allowed. You're going to have to give more to get him back."
"How can I offer him anything when we can't reach him?"
Sophie chuckled, disbelieving. "Nate... really. You honestly think we couldn't reach Eliot if we needed him? He's asked us for space, the same way I asked you for space. I can't help but think Eliot's waiting for the same call home." Sophie rolled over, giving Nate her back and closing her eyes. "Try not to screw it up quite so badly the second time."
-
He'd not saved up much money in St. Louis, but on the ranch if you did your fair share of work you got your fair share of the spoils. The owners charged him a pittance to sleep in their barn, even threw in a pile of blankets to keep him from the cold, and he washed up in the yard under the hose.
Being with the animals helped, because there was no time to let your mind wander. The work was just as physical, and he was more than welcome to work dawn 'til dusk as soon as he'd proved he was good around the horses and safe around the cattle. And if his mind drifted for more than a minute he'd get a hoof to the foot or a bull ploughing holes in the fences.
The noises of the horses settling down was a decent enough lullaby, and he slept better when any noises that might wake him were easily identified.
It was a couple more months before he even had a moment to think back, but when he did he realised he was getting better. He felt more awake during the day, he near slept through each night and he could think of the team - of all of the team - as something good in his past. It had ended badly, perhaps, but the good times were starting to wash over all that in his memories.
He still thought of what Nate and Sophie had with a kind of longing, imagined the two of them keeping him on the outside as if they were protecting the bright thing between them from his darkness. It wasn't as if he blamed them.
He never talked about his past here, he let the others think what they wanted to. The owner had taken a good look at him and just asked if he was running from prison, said pretty much anything else was his own business, but he wouldn't take no fugitives. Eliot'd felt a bit bad lying, truth was he'd be in prison a handful of times over if any Police were to take his prints, but he wasn't running from any *direct* threat.
He was getting better. He was healing. He should have known they'd find him eventually. They were just too damn good at what they did.
-
Rhodry had his arms crossed over his chest and was shaking his head, the same way he'd been for the last half hour. "I know you think I have some kind of direct line to Eliot whenever I need him, but I don't. I'm sorry. The fact is we need someone, and there's plenty of folk who'd be easier to find than him right now."
Parker and Hardison exchanged glances, but Sophie kept her eyes on Rhodry. "You're going to give Hardison every piece of information you have, every thought or clue or guess..." Sophie looked away, glanced towards Nate's room, where she'd finally convinced him to go and catch an hour's sleep. He was supposed to be resting, recovering, but she knew all he'd been doing for the last few days was staring at the wall for hours on end, reliving the moment his father had died and plotting the kind of revenge that turned her cold. "It has to be Eliot. I don't care if he doesn't want to be found, this is bigger than him right now. We need Eliot."
She headed back towards the stairs as Rhodry turned to Hardison. The man had been behind his computer for the last forty eight hours at least, trying to fix everything that had gone to shit, trying to work out why and who and how the hell they hadn't seen this coming. She didn't like to pile more onto his plate, but pulling in Chaos and Archie Leech wasn't going to be too hard, even Maggie was going to be easy to persuade; after all, Sophie knew exactly what they wanted. The hardest thing was going to be working out what Eliot wanted, and making sure they were in a position to get it for him. Not that she didn't have some idea... Nate wasn't exactly in the emotional place to make it easy though.
In the room behind her, Rhodry was racking his brain for ideas. "We need to get a message to him, right? To let him know that things have gone bad here and we need help. Don't bother with the TV or internet, he'll have taken himself away from that. Maybe the radio, though. He won't be expecting..."
"Rhodry," Hardison interrupted. "You think too small, man." He span his computer to show a simple missing person ad., with a headshot of Eliot and a big bold: 'If you know this man, please contact missing persons', with a phone number that Rhodry recognised as one of Hardison's.
Below that a smaller section of text read: 'This man has a baby boy who is very ill. His father may be the only hope he has. All we need is for him to come home and give a little blood, and little Bobby has a chance of making it through this year. If you know him, if you work with him, if you've met him or know where he is, please get in contact with us. We need to find him.'
There was a smaller photo, inset on Eliot's headshot of a boy, about ten, who looked remarkably like Eliot.
"Is that photoshop - that kid?" Rhodry asked, slightly in awe of the plan, simple as it was.
"This is what you call, 'leaving town without taking potential bribery material with you'. Meet Master Eliot Spencer, aged eight and a half." Hardison opened another folder with a series of scans and enlarged the original on the screen. In it was four kids, one teenaged girl and boy, and two younger boys. The middle boy - that Hardison had decided was Eliot - was frowning seriously, and the youngest boy had a wild grin on his face, as if he was about to start trouble. There were a series of ages scribbled on the mount, but no names. The kids had obviously been posed for the photograph - their clothes too clean and unrumpled and the surroundings too bland to be anything else, but it looked like there'd been an argument about it; the older boy's smile a little fixed and the girl glaring down at the frowning boy, her arms crossed over her chest. There was no doubt it was Eliot's family. The two youngest boys were nearly identical, apart from their ages.
"How did you decide which was Eliot?"
"I picked the one that looked the angriest." Hardison shrugged apologetically.
"Hardison, he's going to be angry that you took this from his place." Rhodry reached out to touch the screen, feeling like he wanted to hold the photo in his hands. Feeling like it'd been too long since he last saw his family.
"There was a photo album in a safe under the bed. I mean... a safe? He was practically *asking* Parker to find it." Hardison shot Parker a shit-eating grin, and she rolled her eyes in agreement.
Rhodry shook off his distraction. "Well... let's just hope he's in the country."
"Man, this is going to go viral so fast no one on the planet won't have seen it by the end of the month."
-
"Eliot," the owner of the ranch flagged him down as he was riding out onto the hills, and he pulled his horse around and dismounted smoothly, letting everyone else ride off the yard past him. "Sorry, for interrupting your work," he said, scrubbing at the back of his neck, embarrassed. "Thing is, my girl Grace, she showed me this. Said it got put up on the Twitter, or something..."
Eliot frowned, and let the man thrust a piece of paper into his hands. He looked down on the picture of himself... on both pictures, and thought about how much he'd enjoyed being out here. "It says there's a kid. Your kid," he added, as if he were making sure Eliot was reading it. "An' he's sick."
"I'll work until you can find a replacement for me," Eliot ground out, knowing he couldn't ignore this cry for help, however underhanded it was.
"No need. You go make sure that child's got what he needs, y'hear? We'll make do here. Fatherhood comes first."
Eliot burned with the guilt that came with a lie he'd been strong-armed into going along with. "If I can come finish the season out with you, I will."
"I think there's gonna be other places you'll be needed more'n here," the other man rolled his shoulders in a shrug. "But thank you."
-
Rhodry was sat alone in a booth. Eliot wasn't quite sure what he would have done if it had been Nate there to meet him. Or Nate and Sophie - that was more likely. But it was Rhodry; he knew Rhodry. He understood Rhodry.
He slid into the booth after twenty minutes watching from the other side of the street, making sure there wasn't anything else going on. No one else waiting in the wings, or threat or trap he wasn't seeing.
Rhodry looked up at him, then back down at the table. "Thank God," he muttered into his coffee.
"You were supposed to call Anish if you needed backup," Eliot growled, shaking his head at the waitress offering him coffee. He didn't need to be any more jittery, this whole situation already had him on tenterhooks.
Rhodry met Eliot's gaze again, "He's dead, Eliot. Two months dead."
"Shit," Eliot sighed, reviewing his shrinking list of people he'd trust at his back, thinking of the guy who'd always been smiling, always talking about the girl he was going to go back and marry one day, when the tensions died down. When everyone could find their own peace. "What happened?"
"He was doing rally work for Richardson out in Turkey," Rhodry offered, his eyes distant. They'd been friends, the three of them. For as long as they'd spent on the same sand-scoured base, they'd made fast friends.
"Why the hell did he go back to..."
"Why do you think?" Rhodry snapped back, and then shook his head. "That's really not the point right now, Eliot."
"Sabine still out there?" Eliot pushed, knowing he was putting off the other discussion and not caring.
"Not any more. She saw what happened to Anish and finally made a move for herself. Too late, granted but then who are we to talk? She found a place in Iran with a third cousin or something." Rhodry fell quiet again, and Eliot found himself unable to look at him, studying the cracked surface of the diner table.
"What do they need?" Eliot asked in the following silence. "They wouldn't have called me out for..."
"Victor Dubenich and Jack Latimer have been gunning for Nate for months. His father ended up in the line of fire, and he's dead. Nate is..." Rhodry waited for Eliot to look up and held his gaze. "He's off the rails, and he wants blood. Nate wants you to come in to play decoy. Sophie wants you to come in because she thinks you're the only one who can stop Nate killing someone."
"Nate's never listened to me before," Eliot ground out, lead in his stomach at the thought of Jimmy Ford, and Nate with a gun in his hand.
"Bull," Rhodry snorted. "He listened to me from the day I walked through the door, just because you told him to. That's a truckload of trust, Eliot, especially after you left them without more than a word goodbye."
"I didn't... I sent them you." Eliot was trying to pull together all the defences he'd worked on in the months he'd been gone. It was harder than he remembered, talking to people he cared about.
"They didn't want a stranger in replacement for a friend, and screw you Eliot, for making out this was some kind of professional favour." Rhodry's face was flushed red with anger, "You haven't been here in a professional capacity since day one."
"It worked before, when Sophie..."
"Yeah, Sophie left because she wanted Nate and he was too turned around to notice. And look, here you are doing the same damn thing. I'll tell you, it took me a while to work it out, he isn't exactly what I'd call your type."
"Tastes change," Eliot growled back.
"If you were waiting for Nate's heartfelt call home, your chance to dive in with the daring helicopter rescue, now's the time to move. But I gotta tell you, winning him off Sophie isn't going to happen unless you're planning to off her in the process or you're gonna make a party of it."
"You think she'd be willing to share?" The depth of the desire in Eliot's voice, not the joking tone he'd been expecting, made Rhodry hesitate to reply. "Yeah, me either."
-
There's a moment, when Eliot walks through the door into their newest base of operations, where he feels simultaneously like he's back home and that he's in completely the wrong place. Sophie and Nate were stood close to one another as Hardison and Chaos enjoyed their new surroundings, and Eliot observed Parker's easy smile and Chaos and Archie's little tiff from the shadows, lurking the way he did best.
Rhodry stepped up to his shoulder and shoved at him. "Come on then, help me move this monstrosity." Eliot couldn't restrain a grin at the sight of Old Nate leaning against the wall. Now he did feel at home.
There was a stilted silence as he stepped out of the shadows with Rhodry, lasting long enough for the two of them to hang the painting and take their seats. Eliot said nothing, waiting for the verbal explosion or whatever else was coming.
Nate just met his eyes and nodded his thanks and they ran through the con as if nothing had changed. As if Eliot had never been away.
He felt cold inside.
-
"Never get involved with a murderer," Sophie told Nate seriously, completing the trifecta and making sure that Nate knew that there would be no going back from this. She wouldn't be able to accept a killer back into her bed. If neither she or Eliot could stop Nate, get him off this self-destructive path he was on, then this thing they had was as good as over.
"Eliot's killed," Nate threw out, carelessly. As if he thought he was making a point. As if he was defending himself with another man's guilt.
The air went out of Sophie for a minute, honestly shocked he'd stoop to such a low blow. "You're too bright for me to dignify that with a response," she replied, softly, sorry for him instead of angry like she'd intended.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Eliot slide out of the shadows and walk away. She closed her eyes and bit back tears, turning her back on Nate. Of all the things for Eliot to come back to, this wasn't what she'd wanted. This was so far from what she'd wanted.
-
The job, this job, took so much from them it felt like they were still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Rhodry had become a familiar face, and he promised that he wouldn't be gone long as he headed to the airport. Eliot stayed. He'd stayed to see Nate through his final challenge.
They'd decamped to a cheep motel for the night, all too exhausted to do much more than sleep. Sophie didn't share a room with Nate, still too angry at having to stand there - too far away - while he threatened and ranted, at having to listen to Eliot's litany of 'don't do it, don't do it, please don't do it', at having to stitch up a bullet wound because Eliot's hands were still shaking any time he stood still enough and near enough for her to see them.
She was still picturing the gun in his hands, and she honestly didn't know whether or not she was thankful that Eliot hadn't pulled the trigger when he'd had the chance. But then she didn't get involved with murderers, and she had plans. She was thankful he'd pulled himself back from that edge, she reminded herself. Just because she hadn't wanted Nate to get so close to his own undoing, didn't mean she would have preferred Eliot to take the fall. She had plans. Plans for both of them.
She slept through the night as the adrenaline wore off, but woke in the early gray morning in time to hear the door to their suite click open and shut again.
She threw a long coat over her nightgown, pulled on a pair of flats, and chased Eliot out into the street. He had his bag over his shoulder, dressed against the elements. He was running again, and he heart caught in her throat. She choked out his name, breathless and desperate, and he stopped but he didn't turn or look back at her. Swallowing down her uncertainty, she moved up beside him. The street was empty around them, the early morning light weak and pale. Eliot looked tired. So tired.
"Eliot," she said, reaching out so that she could put a hand on his arm, trying to arrange sleep-muddled words. "I know this isn't what you wanted. What you really..." She shook her head, turning slightly, shoulders tightening, preparing to take a blow. "Nate's not going to change, believe me, I've tried. I can't make him take your advice, make him... stop drinking or start listening or..." She shook her head, not needing the tears of frustration she could feel gathering. Now wasn't the time. "I'd like you to consider a compromise. Eliot, I know you love Nate." She caught his flinch, stroked his arm to soothe him through it before she continued. "And you should know that he cares for you too. And I... I care for you as well." She swallowed hard, trying to read his expression. Looking for a moment of understanding. "Just... consider that for a while. And if you're interested in following it further, you can let me know. Let... us know."
"Sophie," Eliot sounded a little choked, his lips forced into a strained line as he considered his own words. He pushed his hair off his face, scowling defensively. "I don't think you know what you're offering." It was close to a snarl, but Sophie didn't take it personally. She could see the tension coiling inside Eliot. Could see how it was twisting him up.
She moved in closer, aware she was taking her life into her own hands but trusting Eliot. She moved up close enough to put a hand on his waist, and then to cup his jaw with the other. She stole a kiss while he was still looking startled, and then pulled back.
"If you could bring yourself to do it, Eliot," she whispered, inches away from him. "I would share him with you."
And she knew it wasn't much, it wasn't everything he'd dreamed of, or hoped for, but it was something.
Sophie stepped away, turned and walked back towards the hotel room. A moment later, Eliot followed her inside.
Author: LMX
Fandoms: Leverage
Rating: PG
Pairings: Nate/Sophie, Nate/Sophie/Eliot
Spoilers: 3.16 (The San Lorenzo Job), 4.18 (Last Dam Job)
Warnings: Angst out the wazoo
LMX has been failing on this fic since: 14/6/11
AN: So I started writing this for a Sheryden Prompt when the nate-eliot comm had its pre-season 4 promptathon (yes, pre-season *4*) and also Sheryden reprompted shortly afterwards for a Leverageland minibang prompt request. Sorry for the wait!
AN2: I cheated a little because this was already part-written, but still the first writing in a very long time. Let me have it, guys. The good, the bad...
Prompt: After San Lorenzo, Eliot can't stand watching Nate with Sophie. It just guts him too much. One day, he leaves, and the team is mystified.
--
There was a quiet buzzy emptiness in his head that Eliot normally associated with his being seriously injured, and normally it would indicate that he needed to find somewhere safe to hole up and sit very still for a while until everything came back under control and he could move forward and get himself fixed up. Only this time there was no injury, no blood, no head-spinning stomach-lurching concussion. Just... them.
You should never begrudge your best friend anything, let alone a second chance at happiness with a woman he loves and who loves him in return. Thing is... sometimes 'best friend' is just second best to what you want to be, and all hope for perspective is long gone.
He didn't sit down when he got home from the most recent job, he didn't even take a shower. He knew the symptoms, even if the cause was unfamiliar. If he stopped now there was a good chance he'd not get started again until someone noticed he was missing and came to find out what had happened. He couldn't explain to them what was wrong, why he felt like he was falling apart. Not without ruining things which were right and good. He put everything he needed in a bag, ditched all the technology he was carrying and everything but the cash out of his wallet, hesitated only to glance regretfully at the katana in its stand and walked out of the apartment.
If there was one thing he knew best it was self-preservation. He wasn't going to break himself into pieces over some guy he might have loved who wouldn't even look in his direction.
-
"And that's all I got..." Alec gestured to the freeze-frame of Eliot's last longing glance towards the sword. "He didn't drive his own car if he drove out of there. His whole inventory is accounted for. And that's including the bike and the two trucks he keeps in storage in L.A., and the three classic cars which are in a museum in Austin - just in case you were wondering. Financials haven't been touched on any of the many, many, slightly obsessive number of accounts Eliot has. No notable calls in or out - nothing really that wasn't us or his sister." Alec held up a finger as Nate took a breath to interrupt. "I checked with his sister, they just talked about what Ashley, his nephew - who's eight by the way, and likes little league and drawing and looking after his neighbour's dogs - wanted for his birthday. Didn't sound like anything was wrong there, he was planning on going down and seeing them soon. She said he sounded tired, but she also said that if Nate was still working him too hard she was gonna come up here and... Well, she sounded used to it."
Alec took a breath and Sophie jumped on the opportunity. "So no real leads then? He's fallen off the map."
He shrugged in reply. "Dude's in the wind. Didn't even leave us a note. Gotta assume he doesn't want to be found."
"Have we checked past contacts?" Nate pressed, not satisfied. "Is Moreau still in situ?"
"It's all quiet out there, Nate." Hardison shook his head in frustration. "You know I'd have notifications all over me if anything changed on that front. Eliot didn't turn the radio on, he doesn't have a TV... He had no way of knowing even if something had changed."
"Was it something from the job?" Parker asked, head on one side as she processed everything that had happened in the last week and a half. "He didn't even get beaten up. Could it be that he didn't get beaten up?" She shook her head, as if to herself. "No, that's just silly."
"Nate, we got nothing here. Nothing."
"He's been more irritable since we got back from San Lorenzo," Sophie observed quietly, "I was wondering if it might have been left over stress from our confrontation with Moreau but... well it could be a sign of something or just... Eliot."
"So what do we do now?" Parker pressed.
"We can keep trying to work out what happened," Nate said calmly, but with a distant frown. "But other than that we just have to wait for him to come back."
"He's planning on coming back." Sophie's tone was only just firm enough for that to be considered a statement rather than a question.
The four of them shared uncertain looks and they huddled unconsciously closer for the rest of the night.
-
He used a little of his cash to get a taxi out to the edge of the more camera-sparce freeway and ignored the cab driver's curious stare. Hitch-hiking was easier when you knew where you were going, so Eliot picked St. Louis without really thinking about it and started walking. He got picked up after twenty minutes or so by an 18-wheeler, introducing himself to the driver as Joey and talking animatedly for a couple of hours about a life he patched together from vague remembrances of the soaps of his childhood. The truck driver seemed to enjoy the story anyway, and it passed six hours and kept his mind away from sensitive areas until they parted ways. He did the same all over again with a family of three headed to see the grandparents for some birthday or other.
The faked enthusiasm left him cold and tired when he stumbled into the motel that night and fell into the uncomfortable bed. He'd expected a sleepless night, full of self-doubt or replaying images of Nate and Sophie standing shoulder to shoulder, but maybe he'd worn himself out constructing stupid stories, because he fell straight into a deep sleep and didn't rouse until dawn hit the horizon.
He headed back out onto the highway into a hazy dawn and walked until the sun was all the way up and burning off the clouds before anyone picked him up. He just nodded his thanks to the trucker, confirmed where he was going and where Eliot planned on getting off and stayed silent for the rest of the ride.
The silence suited him better, but it wasn't long before he couldn't keep his mind blank and focused on the road; other things started surfacing. At first it was just a plan for what to do next - finding cash in hand work, making sure he had somewhere to stay until he got paid, remembering all the tricks for staying alive without ID or a bank account. It wasn't too surprising that his thoughts wandered past the ubiquitous image of Hardison hammering away at his computer, Nate stood at his shoulder with a frown of concentration. Nate turning around and accepting comfort from Sophie.
They might not even be looking for him. Nate probably didn't need any comforting, that was just wishful thinking. He was a member of the team and he'd left under his own power, it was no different from Sophie's little jaunt a couple of years ago, only Nate wouldn't be phoning Eliot up when things really hit the fan to tell him he needed him. By leaving his phone behind Eliot hadn't left him the chance, even if Nate really wanted to. He hadn't wanted to risk the soul destroying eventuality that he might not call. He might not care.
Flinching a little at the realisation that he'd left them without anyone to turn to if the shit did hit the fan - even Sophie had been careful enough to send them Tara, if only after Hardison had been kidnapped by the Russians - he borrowed the trucker's mobile and made a couple of calls when they stopped for fuel. He had plenty of favours he could call in, even if there were only a couple of them who he'd leave that level of responsibility to.
Satisfied his duty was done, he sat back and let himself sink back into the pit that wanted to swallow him. That was it, then. He'd made sure they were covered, now they really didn't need him anymore.
-
"I've been going through it in my head again and again." Sophie pressed closer in to Nate's side, absorbing his closeness. "Whether he said anything, whether he acted out of the ordinary. He just seemed... tired."
Nate tightened his grip, feeling his own exhaustion pull him deeper into the sofa's cushions. "He's a grown man," he observed, hating the expression even as he said it. "He's made a decision - for whatever reason - and unless he changes his mind I don't think we're going to find him."
Sophie sighed, turning just a touch so that her nose was pressed against his neck. Resting there for a second. It all felt so illicit, this old-but-new thing they had. So tentative. "We've been so wrapped up in this..." Sophie sat back just far enough to talk, her breath hot on Nate's neck. "And with Parker and Hardison doing their own little thing... He's stopped talking to us. Stopped telling us when we're doing things wrong."
"You think this is all about Eliot feeling ignored?" Nate tried not to scoff. "He's not a child."
Sophie pulled back a little more. "When was the last time you spoke about anything important, Nate? Anything that mattered? He's your friend."
Nate was stunned by the realisation that he hadn't really spoken to Eliot at all since the day he'd asked the man to pick up a gun. The weight of the lives in that warehouse hung far too heavily between them, and Nate's spare time was committed to Sophie these days. The soft and easy nights on the sofas, shared food and beer and a game on TV; those nights were a distant memory hanging under the umbrella of 'before we knew about Moreau'. However often they swore that it changed nothing in the team dynamic... along with so many other things that had shifted; now everything was different and he couldn't deny that Eliot's knowledge of Moreau was part of that.
-
The team were sat in a single booth in McRory's, all staring with single-minded intent at the stranger stood in front of them, shifting from one foot to the other.
"Sorry," Nate shook his head. "Could you repeat that."
"Name's Rhodry," the stranger said, repeating himself, vowels rolling in an accent that only Sophie would have been able to identify as Welsh. "Eliot sent me." He shifted again, obviously uncomfortable under the combined stare.
It was Sophie who broke first, with a voice made tight with upset. "Oh God, Nate. He's not planning on coming back."
"You sent Tara," Hardison pointed out. "It's not like..."
"But we had Sophie's phone number," Parker interrupted. "Eliot didn't even take his phone."
"We can't over-react," Nate started, talking over them, but hesitated as Rhodry took a step back from the table.
Suddenly all four pairs of eyes were on him again.
"Umm... wow. Look... this is all a tad domestic for me. I'm gonna..." he gestured vaguely at the door. "I'll be back later, alright. Here's my card. Phone me when you... need me. Or... whatever."
And he nearly ran for the door.
Three pairs of eyes turned to Hardison. "He's going to phone Eliot," Nate said what they were all thinking. "We need that number."
"I can do one better than that," Alec replied, laptop already out on the table and fingers flying on the keys. "What about... this."
Out of the speakers of his computer, a dial tone sounded. They held their combined breaths for five rings before someone very much not Eliot answered the phone. Rhodry's voice held as much confusion as the team was feeling as he quizzed the man to find out that he was a trucker headed south and yes he had lent Eliot his phone, but he'd gotten off the truck the day before in Colombus, hadn't said where he'd intended on ending up.
When Rhodry hung up, it left them all feeling like they were hanging in limbo.
-
The work was mindless - shift work at a haulage company packing and loading trucks during the day, and security work at a bar in the centre of town during the night. It was all cash in hand, no records and no background checks. Eliot slept just enough to keep himself alive, saved what money he could and stayed in a hole of an apartment block, only a small step up from the derelict building he'd been squatting in until he made enough for his first month's rent.
It was a strange kind of freedom, living without a phone or a computer or a bank account. It was a relief not to have that hideously, indecently large number staring back at him every time he checked. It hadn't lifted the weight of knowing that there wasn't enough money in the world to repay his debts, but it helped with the guilt that struck every time he failed to give it away. He'd lived too hard a life to ignore the deeply ingrained need for enough money to keep him safe.
The trouble with not having a phone or internet access was that his freedom came at the price of never knowing when it was about to be taken away. He saw them on every corner. Hardison would be driving a truck into the yard, Parker would be standing in line for the club on the other side of the street, Sophie and Nate would be silhouetted in a kiss in the early hours of the morning. It was never them, and he always walked away wondering what he would have done if it had been.
He hadn't intended to be gone long, just long enough to get a grip on himself and his emotions. He'd sent Rhodry because he didn't want any of them to get it into their head that they could do his job while he was away - that was going to end up with worse things than Hardison kidnapped by Russians. He'd expected that he could take a couple of weeks; heal up, get laid and get his head back on straight and then he'd be able to dive right back in there. He'd be able to see Sophie with Nate without that sick feeling in his stomach. He'd be able to feel happy for them.
Not much had turned out the way he planned. Two months later and he still went to bed dreaming of a team where Nate turned to him to advice and then took the damn advice. Where Sophie was friendly and affectionate and had time for all of them. And in his wilder fantasies, where he fell into Nate's bed and he was happy there and everything was good.
-
"What if it was just jealousy," Hardison put forward tentatively, sat 'round the pizza- and glass-littered table with the others. This was an old conversation now, Eliot's leaving turning into an unsolvable puzzle that niggled at all of them in their spare time. "I mean, we were a team, but then the four of us all paired off..."
"I don't think it can be that," Rhodry said with a reminiscing grin, "Eliot never suffered from not being able to get what he wanted, at least not for as long as I've know him. It used to be a running joke on base that his squad wouldn't get new orders until Eliot had slept his way through his choice of the consenting adults where ever we were stationed. He usually started with the marines, said they 'had what it took'." Rhodry's sniggering grin faded a little at the stares all turned his way. "That was more information than you needed, hmm," he mused, not for the first time. Rhodry's tendency to over-share was becoming legendary.
"Eliot was bi?" Hardison asked. He flinched when Parker smacked him in the arm with a hissed, "IS, not was. Stop talking like he's dead."
Hardison shook it off; "Seriously!?"
"I don't think he was picky," Rhodry shrugged. "We never asked, see. But he used to spend his nights with whomever sparked his interest. He only got teased for the men, but that was 'cause we were all jealous about the ladies... How did you not know this? I can't believe he's given up his philandering ways."
"We've seen him with girls," Sophie said quietly, her attention on Nate who had gone very quiet. "But he's always been very... touchy about physical affection with men."
"Sophie?" Parker asked, noticing her distraction.
"Nate, what is it?" Sophie pressed, steering everyone's attention. "What are you thinking?"
Nate shook his head with a distant smile. "That song, the one Eliot sang with Kaye Lynn. It was on the radio earlier, and... There was something in the lyrics of that song that made me remember..."
"Hang on," Rhodry interrupted. "How do you guys know Kaye Lynn? She's that girl off the radio, right, with the brother she always brings on stage with her. She's a cute one, she is."
And the moment was broken as the conversation spiralled out into a bickering description of another con that Rhodry had missed, and if he noticed the hesitation every time Eliot passed through the story, he didn't comment on it.
-
Eliot had never taken a night off work because of a song before, but it had caught him by surprise - the strength of emotion Kaye Lynn's voice had inspired. It was like a wave, crashing in to him, numbing his thoughts and leaving him shaken and cold. He'd changed the station to something loud and thumpy where there was absolutely no chance of him hearing her again, and he'd sat in the dark with the bass drowning out the lyrics that wouldn't leave his mind.
There followed the delayed realisation that if a song that hadn't ever been about the man could make Eliot choked with emotion he couldn't even process, then this whole separation thing wasn't working out the way he'd planned. He wasn't healing up the way he was meant to, instead he was obsessing about Nate on the other side of the country and getting caught up on the vague hope that he might be thinking about him.
The separation had turned the whole meaning of the song around. Back then, Eliot had been singing about how Nate was pulling away from him, how he was falling into orbit around Sophie and starting to block out the rest of them, but now it was Eliot who was a long way from home and he couldn't even hope that Nate might hear the song and think of him.
The club music wasn't helping, just giving him a pounding headache, so Eliot shut it off and tried to get some sleep. It was as likely to help as anything else.
Two sleepless hours later he rolled out of bed and started packing his bag. This wasn't working, this whole thing. He needed something new.
-
"It feels like we've moved on," Nate observed to the ceiling, speaking slowly because he didn't like the idea despite the fact it was true. "I hate that he's done that to us. We never moved on from you."
Sophie rolled over on the bed and pressed her face into Nate's side. "Nate, what would you do if Eliot walked back in the door right now, into our bedroom, and said he'd come back for you. Just for you. And only if you asked."
"I'd ask him to come home," Nate sighed.
"Nate..." Sophie sighed, sitting up and moving to curl her hand around Nate's jaw. "What if he said you had to walk away from me? Keep your distance from me, go back to being just friends and co-workers?"
"What?" Nate spluttered, shifting to try and get a better look at Sophie. "Eliot loves you, Sophie. He wouldn't..."
"I think maybe there's more here than just Eliot going walkabout, Nate. Until you work out what you want from him, and what you're willing to offer..." Sophie yawned, settling back into his side. "He needed more from you than you ever allowed. You're going to have to give more to get him back."
"How can I offer him anything when we can't reach him?"
Sophie chuckled, disbelieving. "Nate... really. You honestly think we couldn't reach Eliot if we needed him? He's asked us for space, the same way I asked you for space. I can't help but think Eliot's waiting for the same call home." Sophie rolled over, giving Nate her back and closing her eyes. "Try not to screw it up quite so badly the second time."
-
He'd not saved up much money in St. Louis, but on the ranch if you did your fair share of work you got your fair share of the spoils. The owners charged him a pittance to sleep in their barn, even threw in a pile of blankets to keep him from the cold, and he washed up in the yard under the hose.
Being with the animals helped, because there was no time to let your mind wander. The work was just as physical, and he was more than welcome to work dawn 'til dusk as soon as he'd proved he was good around the horses and safe around the cattle. And if his mind drifted for more than a minute he'd get a hoof to the foot or a bull ploughing holes in the fences.
The noises of the horses settling down was a decent enough lullaby, and he slept better when any noises that might wake him were easily identified.
It was a couple more months before he even had a moment to think back, but when he did he realised he was getting better. He felt more awake during the day, he near slept through each night and he could think of the team - of all of the team - as something good in his past. It had ended badly, perhaps, but the good times were starting to wash over all that in his memories.
He still thought of what Nate and Sophie had with a kind of longing, imagined the two of them keeping him on the outside as if they were protecting the bright thing between them from his darkness. It wasn't as if he blamed them.
He never talked about his past here, he let the others think what they wanted to. The owner had taken a good look at him and just asked if he was running from prison, said pretty much anything else was his own business, but he wouldn't take no fugitives. Eliot'd felt a bit bad lying, truth was he'd be in prison a handful of times over if any Police were to take his prints, but he wasn't running from any *direct* threat.
He was getting better. He was healing. He should have known they'd find him eventually. They were just too damn good at what they did.
-
Rhodry had his arms crossed over his chest and was shaking his head, the same way he'd been for the last half hour. "I know you think I have some kind of direct line to Eliot whenever I need him, but I don't. I'm sorry. The fact is we need someone, and there's plenty of folk who'd be easier to find than him right now."
Parker and Hardison exchanged glances, but Sophie kept her eyes on Rhodry. "You're going to give Hardison every piece of information you have, every thought or clue or guess..." Sophie looked away, glanced towards Nate's room, where she'd finally convinced him to go and catch an hour's sleep. He was supposed to be resting, recovering, but she knew all he'd been doing for the last few days was staring at the wall for hours on end, reliving the moment his father had died and plotting the kind of revenge that turned her cold. "It has to be Eliot. I don't care if he doesn't want to be found, this is bigger than him right now. We need Eliot."
She headed back towards the stairs as Rhodry turned to Hardison. The man had been behind his computer for the last forty eight hours at least, trying to fix everything that had gone to shit, trying to work out why and who and how the hell they hadn't seen this coming. She didn't like to pile more onto his plate, but pulling in Chaos and Archie Leech wasn't going to be too hard, even Maggie was going to be easy to persuade; after all, Sophie knew exactly what they wanted. The hardest thing was going to be working out what Eliot wanted, and making sure they were in a position to get it for him. Not that she didn't have some idea... Nate wasn't exactly in the emotional place to make it easy though.
In the room behind her, Rhodry was racking his brain for ideas. "We need to get a message to him, right? To let him know that things have gone bad here and we need help. Don't bother with the TV or internet, he'll have taken himself away from that. Maybe the radio, though. He won't be expecting..."
"Rhodry," Hardison interrupted. "You think too small, man." He span his computer to show a simple missing person ad., with a headshot of Eliot and a big bold: 'If you know this man, please contact missing persons', with a phone number that Rhodry recognised as one of Hardison's.
Below that a smaller section of text read: 'This man has a baby boy who is very ill. His father may be the only hope he has. All we need is for him to come home and give a little blood, and little Bobby has a chance of making it through this year. If you know him, if you work with him, if you've met him or know where he is, please get in contact with us. We need to find him.'
There was a smaller photo, inset on Eliot's headshot of a boy, about ten, who looked remarkably like Eliot.
"Is that photoshop - that kid?" Rhodry asked, slightly in awe of the plan, simple as it was.
"This is what you call, 'leaving town without taking potential bribery material with you'. Meet Master Eliot Spencer, aged eight and a half." Hardison opened another folder with a series of scans and enlarged the original on the screen. In it was four kids, one teenaged girl and boy, and two younger boys. The middle boy - that Hardison had decided was Eliot - was frowning seriously, and the youngest boy had a wild grin on his face, as if he was about to start trouble. There were a series of ages scribbled on the mount, but no names. The kids had obviously been posed for the photograph - their clothes too clean and unrumpled and the surroundings too bland to be anything else, but it looked like there'd been an argument about it; the older boy's smile a little fixed and the girl glaring down at the frowning boy, her arms crossed over her chest. There was no doubt it was Eliot's family. The two youngest boys were nearly identical, apart from their ages.
"How did you decide which was Eliot?"
"I picked the one that looked the angriest." Hardison shrugged apologetically.
"Hardison, he's going to be angry that you took this from his place." Rhodry reached out to touch the screen, feeling like he wanted to hold the photo in his hands. Feeling like it'd been too long since he last saw his family.
"There was a photo album in a safe under the bed. I mean... a safe? He was practically *asking* Parker to find it." Hardison shot Parker a shit-eating grin, and she rolled her eyes in agreement.
Rhodry shook off his distraction. "Well... let's just hope he's in the country."
"Man, this is going to go viral so fast no one on the planet won't have seen it by the end of the month."
-
"Eliot," the owner of the ranch flagged him down as he was riding out onto the hills, and he pulled his horse around and dismounted smoothly, letting everyone else ride off the yard past him. "Sorry, for interrupting your work," he said, scrubbing at the back of his neck, embarrassed. "Thing is, my girl Grace, she showed me this. Said it got put up on the Twitter, or something..."
Eliot frowned, and let the man thrust a piece of paper into his hands. He looked down on the picture of himself... on both pictures, and thought about how much he'd enjoyed being out here. "It says there's a kid. Your kid," he added, as if he were making sure Eliot was reading it. "An' he's sick."
"I'll work until you can find a replacement for me," Eliot ground out, knowing he couldn't ignore this cry for help, however underhanded it was.
"No need. You go make sure that child's got what he needs, y'hear? We'll make do here. Fatherhood comes first."
Eliot burned with the guilt that came with a lie he'd been strong-armed into going along with. "If I can come finish the season out with you, I will."
"I think there's gonna be other places you'll be needed more'n here," the other man rolled his shoulders in a shrug. "But thank you."
-
Rhodry was sat alone in a booth. Eliot wasn't quite sure what he would have done if it had been Nate there to meet him. Or Nate and Sophie - that was more likely. But it was Rhodry; he knew Rhodry. He understood Rhodry.
He slid into the booth after twenty minutes watching from the other side of the street, making sure there wasn't anything else going on. No one else waiting in the wings, or threat or trap he wasn't seeing.
Rhodry looked up at him, then back down at the table. "Thank God," he muttered into his coffee.
"You were supposed to call Anish if you needed backup," Eliot growled, shaking his head at the waitress offering him coffee. He didn't need to be any more jittery, this whole situation already had him on tenterhooks.
Rhodry met Eliot's gaze again, "He's dead, Eliot. Two months dead."
"Shit," Eliot sighed, reviewing his shrinking list of people he'd trust at his back, thinking of the guy who'd always been smiling, always talking about the girl he was going to go back and marry one day, when the tensions died down. When everyone could find their own peace. "What happened?"
"He was doing rally work for Richardson out in Turkey," Rhodry offered, his eyes distant. They'd been friends, the three of them. For as long as they'd spent on the same sand-scoured base, they'd made fast friends.
"Why the hell did he go back to..."
"Why do you think?" Rhodry snapped back, and then shook his head. "That's really not the point right now, Eliot."
"Sabine still out there?" Eliot pushed, knowing he was putting off the other discussion and not caring.
"Not any more. She saw what happened to Anish and finally made a move for herself. Too late, granted but then who are we to talk? She found a place in Iran with a third cousin or something." Rhodry fell quiet again, and Eliot found himself unable to look at him, studying the cracked surface of the diner table.
"What do they need?" Eliot asked in the following silence. "They wouldn't have called me out for..."
"Victor Dubenich and Jack Latimer have been gunning for Nate for months. His father ended up in the line of fire, and he's dead. Nate is..." Rhodry waited for Eliot to look up and held his gaze. "He's off the rails, and he wants blood. Nate wants you to come in to play decoy. Sophie wants you to come in because she thinks you're the only one who can stop Nate killing someone."
"Nate's never listened to me before," Eliot ground out, lead in his stomach at the thought of Jimmy Ford, and Nate with a gun in his hand.
"Bull," Rhodry snorted. "He listened to me from the day I walked through the door, just because you told him to. That's a truckload of trust, Eliot, especially after you left them without more than a word goodbye."
"I didn't... I sent them you." Eliot was trying to pull together all the defences he'd worked on in the months he'd been gone. It was harder than he remembered, talking to people he cared about.
"They didn't want a stranger in replacement for a friend, and screw you Eliot, for making out this was some kind of professional favour." Rhodry's face was flushed red with anger, "You haven't been here in a professional capacity since day one."
"It worked before, when Sophie..."
"Yeah, Sophie left because she wanted Nate and he was too turned around to notice. And look, here you are doing the same damn thing. I'll tell you, it took me a while to work it out, he isn't exactly what I'd call your type."
"Tastes change," Eliot growled back.
"If you were waiting for Nate's heartfelt call home, your chance to dive in with the daring helicopter rescue, now's the time to move. But I gotta tell you, winning him off Sophie isn't going to happen unless you're planning to off her in the process or you're gonna make a party of it."
"You think she'd be willing to share?" The depth of the desire in Eliot's voice, not the joking tone he'd been expecting, made Rhodry hesitate to reply. "Yeah, me either."
-
There's a moment, when Eliot walks through the door into their newest base of operations, where he feels simultaneously like he's back home and that he's in completely the wrong place. Sophie and Nate were stood close to one another as Hardison and Chaos enjoyed their new surroundings, and Eliot observed Parker's easy smile and Chaos and Archie's little tiff from the shadows, lurking the way he did best.
Rhodry stepped up to his shoulder and shoved at him. "Come on then, help me move this monstrosity." Eliot couldn't restrain a grin at the sight of Old Nate leaning against the wall. Now he did feel at home.
There was a stilted silence as he stepped out of the shadows with Rhodry, lasting long enough for the two of them to hang the painting and take their seats. Eliot said nothing, waiting for the verbal explosion or whatever else was coming.
Nate just met his eyes and nodded his thanks and they ran through the con as if nothing had changed. As if Eliot had never been away.
He felt cold inside.
-
"Never get involved with a murderer," Sophie told Nate seriously, completing the trifecta and making sure that Nate knew that there would be no going back from this. She wouldn't be able to accept a killer back into her bed. If neither she or Eliot could stop Nate, get him off this self-destructive path he was on, then this thing they had was as good as over.
"Eliot's killed," Nate threw out, carelessly. As if he thought he was making a point. As if he was defending himself with another man's guilt.
The air went out of Sophie for a minute, honestly shocked he'd stoop to such a low blow. "You're too bright for me to dignify that with a response," she replied, softly, sorry for him instead of angry like she'd intended.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Eliot slide out of the shadows and walk away. She closed her eyes and bit back tears, turning her back on Nate. Of all the things for Eliot to come back to, this wasn't what she'd wanted. This was so far from what she'd wanted.
-
The job, this job, took so much from them it felt like they were still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Rhodry had become a familiar face, and he promised that he wouldn't be gone long as he headed to the airport. Eliot stayed. He'd stayed to see Nate through his final challenge.
They'd decamped to a cheep motel for the night, all too exhausted to do much more than sleep. Sophie didn't share a room with Nate, still too angry at having to stand there - too far away - while he threatened and ranted, at having to listen to Eliot's litany of 'don't do it, don't do it, please don't do it', at having to stitch up a bullet wound because Eliot's hands were still shaking any time he stood still enough and near enough for her to see them.
She was still picturing the gun in his hands, and she honestly didn't know whether or not she was thankful that Eliot hadn't pulled the trigger when he'd had the chance. But then she didn't get involved with murderers, and she had plans. She was thankful he'd pulled himself back from that edge, she reminded herself. Just because she hadn't wanted Nate to get so close to his own undoing, didn't mean she would have preferred Eliot to take the fall. She had plans. Plans for both of them.
She slept through the night as the adrenaline wore off, but woke in the early gray morning in time to hear the door to their suite click open and shut again.
She threw a long coat over her nightgown, pulled on a pair of flats, and chased Eliot out into the street. He had his bag over his shoulder, dressed against the elements. He was running again, and he heart caught in her throat. She choked out his name, breathless and desperate, and he stopped but he didn't turn or look back at her. Swallowing down her uncertainty, she moved up beside him. The street was empty around them, the early morning light weak and pale. Eliot looked tired. So tired.
"Eliot," she said, reaching out so that she could put a hand on his arm, trying to arrange sleep-muddled words. "I know this isn't what you wanted. What you really..." She shook her head, turning slightly, shoulders tightening, preparing to take a blow. "Nate's not going to change, believe me, I've tried. I can't make him take your advice, make him... stop drinking or start listening or..." She shook her head, not needing the tears of frustration she could feel gathering. Now wasn't the time. "I'd like you to consider a compromise. Eliot, I know you love Nate." She caught his flinch, stroked his arm to soothe him through it before she continued. "And you should know that he cares for you too. And I... I care for you as well." She swallowed hard, trying to read his expression. Looking for a moment of understanding. "Just... consider that for a while. And if you're interested in following it further, you can let me know. Let... us know."
"Sophie," Eliot sounded a little choked, his lips forced into a strained line as he considered his own words. He pushed his hair off his face, scowling defensively. "I don't think you know what you're offering." It was close to a snarl, but Sophie didn't take it personally. She could see the tension coiling inside Eliot. Could see how it was twisting him up.
She moved in closer, aware she was taking her life into her own hands but trusting Eliot. She moved up close enough to put a hand on his waist, and then to cup his jaw with the other. She stole a kiss while he was still looking startled, and then pulled back.
"If you could bring yourself to do it, Eliot," she whispered, inches away from him. "I would share him with you."
And she knew it wasn't much, it wasn't everything he'd dreamed of, or hoped for, but it was something.
Sophie stepped away, turned and walked back towards the hotel room. A moment later, Eliot followed her inside.