Two Knights Opener
Title: Two Knights Opener
Author: Magpie
Rating: pg
Genre: pre-slash Nate/Eliot
Verse: BlackKing!WhiteKnight!Verse
Summary: After the Nigerian Job Nate and Eliot play chess and talk about things.
Notes: This is my first story in The Two Knights Opener arc which will pretty much cover everything from the start of the series to after The Mile High Job and is me writting how Nate and Eliot get together in my verse.
This story will make *much* more sense if you've read my story Cell Number Eight Though I'm relativly sure you can understand it if you havn't.
Later Nate would admit he shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, after the whole discussion and decision to split up until everything was ready Nate had told Eliot they needed to have a chat. Eliot had nodded an agreement. “Your place.” Before departing in the opposite direction of where Nate’s “place” was.
In retrospect coming back to his hotel room only a little buzzed for once and finding Eliot there shouldn’t have been a surprise.
When Nate walked in Eliot was lounging in the armchair in the corner with the old magnetic chess set he’d given Nate years ago out with the pieces in place. Nate guessed he was still trying to decide his first move. Back in Cairo when Nate had taught Eliot how to play it had only taken a few games for Eliot to understand just how important an opening move was.
Nate put down his bag and shook his head. “Come in. Make yourself comfortable. Can I offer you something to drink?” He deadpanned but crossed to sit in the chair pulled over to the other side of the table nonetheless. “Been practicing?” Nate asked before moving a knight.
“When I can.” Eliot said with a non-committal shrug. He studied the bored. Nate could almost see him playing out move after move down the line in his head. There was the reason he’d caught Eliot when Sterling had never quite managed it. Nate never made the mistake of assuming Eliot was dumb muscle.
He was probably one of the few people in the world who knew how much Eliot was capable of when given half a chance.
Eliot moved his own knight and Nate looked up, rueful smile on is face. “The two knight opener I see.”
“Seems appropriate.” Eliot said looking up to meet Nate’s eyes.
“Two Knight Opener” Nate said, tapping the pebble that was serving as one of his knights and looking up to Eliot.
The kid was grinning for reasons Nate didn’t really understand but didn’t really care at that moment.
It had been four days since Nate’s most recent job in Cairo had gone rather badly and ended up getting him caught and thrown into some dank little cell in the middle of nowhere.
He’d been surprised to find out he had a cell mate, glad to discover his cell mate wasn’t likely to try to kill him, but also more concerned than he’d admit at first. The boy couldn’t be much older than his early twenties but half healed burns and lacerations and other marks clearly left from torture had become infected some time ago and gotten worse. As it was he was loitering on death’s doorstep and waiting for an answer.
And the boy didn’t seem to mind at all.
When Nate had set about trying to do what he could the boy had looked at him through pain glazed eyes and turned away. His message unspoken but very clear. “Just let me die in peace.” And Nate wondered if he should leave him be. It didn’t look like he’d survive much longer.
But he was barely more than a kid, and with Sam only a year old back home, and with Paul’s voice in his ear Nate had done what he could.
The kid didn’t die that night, though it was two days before he was lucid more than he wasn’t. By then the scars the kid bore and words murmured in fevered dreams had told him plenty about the kind of life that had made the kid whoever he was.
It was three days before the kid spoke. Muttering commentary on Nate needing to suppress his gag reflex if he wanted to get their “breakfast” down his throat. He’d introduced himself as Eliot Spencer. He didn’t say thanks then. He still hadn’t. But Nate wasn’t holding his breath.
It had been that afternoon when Nate got the idea of chess. He’d pulled stray stones and straw and whatnot together until he could set up something close to a board. He’d played with himself, but it hadn’t taken long for Eliot to give in to curiosity.
Before long Nate had taught Eliot the basics and one game melted into the other. As the games melted together something shifted and the oppressive silence translated into conversation as slowly they found somewhere halfway to meet. Hitter and Hunter formed a tentative bond.
And maybe this wasn’t the first time Nate saw Eliot smile. But it might have been the first time whatever it was that had left him broken and waiting to die didn’t linger like a shadow behind those clear blue eyes.
“Care to share the joke with the class?” Nate asked after a moment, still not understanding what Eliot found amusing.
He shrugged, nudging a pawn forward. “Nothing, just seemed appropriate.”
Nate nodded, looking down at the board, moving a piece.
“Doesn’t seem like ten years does it?” Eliot asked, moving his own.
“Eight.” Nate muttered the correction. “Almost four since we’ve seen each other.”
“Somehow across the table in an interrogation room in Tuscany doesn’t seem like a reunion of old friends.” Eliot muttered moving his own piece. “Though maybe not friends…” He trailed off. “I know we said...” Eliot started but stopped, his expression changing. There was distrust there, more so than Nate remembered.
Then again it was eight years. It was time enough for a broken young man to grow up and grow hard. It was time enough for Nate to lose everything that had mattered back then. It was time enough for the world to change them both.
“We agreed we weren’t friends.” Nate reminded him. “It was better that way.”
“We were on different sides then.” Eliot pointed out.
After everything that had happened, everything they’d seen, everything they’d done together and for each other… it was odd. Nate finished buttoning up the collar of his shirt and stared back at himself in the mirror of the hospital bathroom. The dirt, blood, and grime of two weeks in captivity had been washed away. The torn and filthy pants exchanged for business like attire suitable for what he did, now covering up the seven lacerations on his back.
It felt like he was hiding them, hiding from them even. He’d gotten them when he’d earned the guard’s wrath asking for water when he and Eliot had been given none for two days and Eliot was relapsing quickly.
He didn’t have more because Eliot had acted, faking an escape attempt to draw their anger from Nate and take the beating himself. Taking the punishment to protect those he cared about was something of an instinct for the boy.
In the aftermath, trying to stop Eliot from bleeding out, Nate’s hands had been marked by both their blood and something inside him felt it was symbolic. Blood for blood. A friendship forged on unstable ground solidified by sacrifice.
A seal hidden from sight under the guise of who he was and why it was impossible.
Inside Cell Number Eight lines cut in the skin had blurred the line between them.
Outside it was clear again and they couldn’t look back.
“Still are.” Nate insisted, moving a piece. “I’m not a thief.”
“But you’re not one of the good guys either.” Eliot pointed out. “Guard your bishop.” He added as he moved a piece. “All this time chasin’ us and we’re the ones who caught you. Seems ‘ronic.”
“Who said I’m the one who got caught?” Nate asked, moving his knight and taking the piece threatening his bishop. “Seems to me you all are playing my side now.”
Eliot cocked a smile. “I think someone once told me sometimes bad guys are the only good guys you get. Robin Hood was still a thief ya know.” He took Nate’s white knight with his own, twirling it in his fingers before setting it on the side of the board and looking much too pleased with himself.
The game continued in silence as minutes stretched on. Nate had to say Eliot must have been doing more than just a little practicing. He’d improved a lot over the years and they seemed to be playing on even footing now.
He was so focused on countering Eliot’s plays and breaking his momentum he almost missed what Eliot said when he broke the silence. “What didya want?”
Nate backpedaled a moment, catching up with the train of thought that had brought them here. Nate studied the bored and made his move before speaking. “What happened during our escape? I never asked you, never thought it would be my business again, but we’re working with a team and judging from how you acted...”
It had happened fast, and seemed even faster in his memory. They’d escaped cell number eight, Eliot leading them to the garage where they could steal a ride that would get them out of the desert before it killed them. The guards had caught them, a hail of bullets only missing him when Eliot tackled him and all but dragged him behind a car.
Pinned down with only seconds until the guards called for backup or realized they weren’t armed Eliot had stood, saying he had to stop them.
Eliot had been cut off by a window shattering, taking a bullet in the side. The shock had ran across his face, replaced by something else. Something Nate didn’t recognize.
Something he feared for reasons he couldn’t, didn’t want to, place.
A guard had come around the corner to their hiding spot then only to be left broken and dead on the floor next to Nate before Nate even registered Eliot had moved.
“Stay down.” Was all Eliot said before walking to leave their hiding spot.
Nate had rolled under the car and closed his eyes, unable to block out the screams that soon echoed through the garage.
When the screams stopped he’d rolled out, moving carefully out of hiding.
The sight that met his eyes stayed in his mind and haunted his dreams for years to come.
Eight guards lay dead on the floor, weapons, body parts, and blood scattered from one side to the other. In the center of the carnage stood Eliot, spattered with blood, a knife in one hand, and a look on his face somewhere between confusion, shock and pure terror.
Nate was pretty sure whoever had wreaked the havoc scattered about them it was only Eliot by loose association.
Eliot bit his lip, considering the chess board a long moment, and settling over a black knight before speaking. “I call it the black knight…” He said with a rueful grin. “Someone once told me you give somthin’ an entity and it’s easier to control. That’s what I do now. Control it. The Black Knight… It’s violence, anger… I don’t really know. But when I cross over…” He moved the piece. “It happened a lot when I was younger. I’d be hurt or out numbered or somthin’ and I’d slip under, white out. I’d wake up to dead bodies and blood, never even remember how it happened.”
“Does it happen anymore?” Nate asked, keeping his voice calm. He’d seen enough with his own eyes to believe what Eliot had said.
Eliot shook his head. “I’ve… I learned control.”
“Good.” Nate said, moving a piece. “Cause Eliot? If you lose control you’re out. I can’t pull this team together and ask them to sit next to a time bomb. If you can’t control that violence in you and lash out at us… we’re all dead. I’m not going to risk that.” He looked up, meeting Eliot’s eyes. “Understand me?”
Eliot let out a long breath and nodded, turning to the board in front of him an odd mix of the famous retrieval specialist of today and the young man he’d been when they met.
It was odd, how a reunion could take them both back years, projecting images like memories of how they used to be.
They made moves and exchanged pieces for a few more minutes, silence growing heavy before Eliot spoke again. “So you still mean what you said. Even now we still aren’t friends. Black knight and white knight still can’t go together.”
Nate moved a piece, buying a moment to try to put together some kind of response. Eliot sounded ten different emotions not one of them touching anywhere near hurt, but Nate was pretty sure the rejection still stung the man.
He let out a long slow breath. “They can’t.” He said finally. “But I’m not a white knight anymore and you’re not the black knight.” He added looking up. “It’s been Eight years Eliot. We’re not who we used to be. We couldn’t go back to who we were and what we were anymore than we could go back to Cell Number Eight.” He met Eliot’s eyes. “I don’t know who we are now, but in a couple months the team’s comin’ back together… maybe things have changed enough.”
Eliot gave a rueful grin, reaching out a hand and pushing his queen across the board. “Check mate.” He said softly.
It took only a glance to confirm he’d lost. With a sigh he knocked over his king.
”Hey Nate.” Eliot said, drawing Nate’s attention back to him. “Why don’t you try playin’ black for awhile.” He picked up his black king and tossed it to Nate. “You try being a black king.” Eliot placed a battered white stone Knight on the chess board. The same knight Nate had mailed Eliot when he forfeited the chess game they’d kept going by mail over the years. It was one of the last ties Nate had cut after Sam died. “You try being the black king and I’ll give being the team’s white knight a shot.”
Eliot stood, heading for the door but hesitating only one moment on his way out. “An’ Nate? I am sorry ‘bout Sam. He was a good kid. Deserved better. You both did.”
He left Nate in a silent apartment, staring at a white knight, and remembering a late night nearly nine years gone when he’d realized even though his cellmate was a criminal he was still a good man.
Seems like the last thing he’d said to Eliot before leaving him in a hospital in Cairo was still true.
“You are good man who has learned to survive in a world of evil men and that makes you something extraordinary. Never forget that.”
He rolled the black king in between his fingers.
Eliot had always joked everything eventually came back to chess with him.
Next: The Way of the World
Author: Magpie
Rating: pg
Genre: pre-slash Nate/Eliot
Verse: BlackKing!WhiteKnight!Verse
Summary: After the Nigerian Job Nate and Eliot play chess and talk about things.
Notes: This is my first story in The Two Knights Opener arc which will pretty much cover everything from the start of the series to after The Mile High Job and is me writting how Nate and Eliot get together in my verse.
This story will make *much* more sense if you've read my story Cell Number Eight Though I'm relativly sure you can understand it if you havn't.
Later Nate would admit he shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, after the whole discussion and decision to split up until everything was ready Nate had told Eliot they needed to have a chat. Eliot had nodded an agreement. “Your place.” Before departing in the opposite direction of where Nate’s “place” was.
In retrospect coming back to his hotel room only a little buzzed for once and finding Eliot there shouldn’t have been a surprise.
When Nate walked in Eliot was lounging in the armchair in the corner with the old magnetic chess set he’d given Nate years ago out with the pieces in place. Nate guessed he was still trying to decide his first move. Back in Cairo when Nate had taught Eliot how to play it had only taken a few games for Eliot to understand just how important an opening move was.
Nate put down his bag and shook his head. “Come in. Make yourself comfortable. Can I offer you something to drink?” He deadpanned but crossed to sit in the chair pulled over to the other side of the table nonetheless. “Been practicing?” Nate asked before moving a knight.
“When I can.” Eliot said with a non-committal shrug. He studied the bored. Nate could almost see him playing out move after move down the line in his head. There was the reason he’d caught Eliot when Sterling had never quite managed it. Nate never made the mistake of assuming Eliot was dumb muscle.
He was probably one of the few people in the world who knew how much Eliot was capable of when given half a chance.
Eliot moved his own knight and Nate looked up, rueful smile on is face. “The two knight opener I see.”
“Seems appropriate.” Eliot said looking up to meet Nate’s eyes.
“Two Knight Opener” Nate said, tapping the pebble that was serving as one of his knights and looking up to Eliot.
The kid was grinning for reasons Nate didn’t really understand but didn’t really care at that moment.
It had been four days since Nate’s most recent job in Cairo had gone rather badly and ended up getting him caught and thrown into some dank little cell in the middle of nowhere.
He’d been surprised to find out he had a cell mate, glad to discover his cell mate wasn’t likely to try to kill him, but also more concerned than he’d admit at first. The boy couldn’t be much older than his early twenties but half healed burns and lacerations and other marks clearly left from torture had become infected some time ago and gotten worse. As it was he was loitering on death’s doorstep and waiting for an answer.
And the boy didn’t seem to mind at all.
When Nate had set about trying to do what he could the boy had looked at him through pain glazed eyes and turned away. His message unspoken but very clear. “Just let me die in peace.” And Nate wondered if he should leave him be. It didn’t look like he’d survive much longer.
But he was barely more than a kid, and with Sam only a year old back home, and with Paul’s voice in his ear Nate had done what he could.
The kid didn’t die that night, though it was two days before he was lucid more than he wasn’t. By then the scars the kid bore and words murmured in fevered dreams had told him plenty about the kind of life that had made the kid whoever he was.
It was three days before the kid spoke. Muttering commentary on Nate needing to suppress his gag reflex if he wanted to get their “breakfast” down his throat. He’d introduced himself as Eliot Spencer. He didn’t say thanks then. He still hadn’t. But Nate wasn’t holding his breath.
It had been that afternoon when Nate got the idea of chess. He’d pulled stray stones and straw and whatnot together until he could set up something close to a board. He’d played with himself, but it hadn’t taken long for Eliot to give in to curiosity.
Before long Nate had taught Eliot the basics and one game melted into the other. As the games melted together something shifted and the oppressive silence translated into conversation as slowly they found somewhere halfway to meet. Hitter and Hunter formed a tentative bond.
And maybe this wasn’t the first time Nate saw Eliot smile. But it might have been the first time whatever it was that had left him broken and waiting to die didn’t linger like a shadow behind those clear blue eyes.
“Care to share the joke with the class?” Nate asked after a moment, still not understanding what Eliot found amusing.
He shrugged, nudging a pawn forward. “Nothing, just seemed appropriate.”
Nate nodded, looking down at the board, moving a piece.
“Doesn’t seem like ten years does it?” Eliot asked, moving his own.
“Eight.” Nate muttered the correction. “Almost four since we’ve seen each other.”
“Somehow across the table in an interrogation room in Tuscany doesn’t seem like a reunion of old friends.” Eliot muttered moving his own piece. “Though maybe not friends…” He trailed off. “I know we said...” Eliot started but stopped, his expression changing. There was distrust there, more so than Nate remembered.
Then again it was eight years. It was time enough for a broken young man to grow up and grow hard. It was time enough for Nate to lose everything that had mattered back then. It was time enough for the world to change them both.
“We agreed we weren’t friends.” Nate reminded him. “It was better that way.”
“We were on different sides then.” Eliot pointed out.
After everything that had happened, everything they’d seen, everything they’d done together and for each other… it was odd. Nate finished buttoning up the collar of his shirt and stared back at himself in the mirror of the hospital bathroom. The dirt, blood, and grime of two weeks in captivity had been washed away. The torn and filthy pants exchanged for business like attire suitable for what he did, now covering up the seven lacerations on his back.
It felt like he was hiding them, hiding from them even. He’d gotten them when he’d earned the guard’s wrath asking for water when he and Eliot had been given none for two days and Eliot was relapsing quickly.
He didn’t have more because Eliot had acted, faking an escape attempt to draw their anger from Nate and take the beating himself. Taking the punishment to protect those he cared about was something of an instinct for the boy.
In the aftermath, trying to stop Eliot from bleeding out, Nate’s hands had been marked by both their blood and something inside him felt it was symbolic. Blood for blood. A friendship forged on unstable ground solidified by sacrifice.
A seal hidden from sight under the guise of who he was and why it was impossible.
Inside Cell Number Eight lines cut in the skin had blurred the line between them.
Outside it was clear again and they couldn’t look back.
“Still are.” Nate insisted, moving a piece. “I’m not a thief.”
“But you’re not one of the good guys either.” Eliot pointed out. “Guard your bishop.” He added as he moved a piece. “All this time chasin’ us and we’re the ones who caught you. Seems ‘ronic.”
“Who said I’m the one who got caught?” Nate asked, moving his knight and taking the piece threatening his bishop. “Seems to me you all are playing my side now.”
Eliot cocked a smile. “I think someone once told me sometimes bad guys are the only good guys you get. Robin Hood was still a thief ya know.” He took Nate’s white knight with his own, twirling it in his fingers before setting it on the side of the board and looking much too pleased with himself.
The game continued in silence as minutes stretched on. Nate had to say Eliot must have been doing more than just a little practicing. He’d improved a lot over the years and they seemed to be playing on even footing now.
He was so focused on countering Eliot’s plays and breaking his momentum he almost missed what Eliot said when he broke the silence. “What didya want?”
Nate backpedaled a moment, catching up with the train of thought that had brought them here. Nate studied the bored and made his move before speaking. “What happened during our escape? I never asked you, never thought it would be my business again, but we’re working with a team and judging from how you acted...”
It had happened fast, and seemed even faster in his memory. They’d escaped cell number eight, Eliot leading them to the garage where they could steal a ride that would get them out of the desert before it killed them. The guards had caught them, a hail of bullets only missing him when Eliot tackled him and all but dragged him behind a car.
Pinned down with only seconds until the guards called for backup or realized they weren’t armed Eliot had stood, saying he had to stop them.
Eliot had been cut off by a window shattering, taking a bullet in the side. The shock had ran across his face, replaced by something else. Something Nate didn’t recognize.
Something he feared for reasons he couldn’t, didn’t want to, place.
A guard had come around the corner to their hiding spot then only to be left broken and dead on the floor next to Nate before Nate even registered Eliot had moved.
“Stay down.” Was all Eliot said before walking to leave their hiding spot.
Nate had rolled under the car and closed his eyes, unable to block out the screams that soon echoed through the garage.
When the screams stopped he’d rolled out, moving carefully out of hiding.
The sight that met his eyes stayed in his mind and haunted his dreams for years to come.
Eight guards lay dead on the floor, weapons, body parts, and blood scattered from one side to the other. In the center of the carnage stood Eliot, spattered with blood, a knife in one hand, and a look on his face somewhere between confusion, shock and pure terror.
Nate was pretty sure whoever had wreaked the havoc scattered about them it was only Eliot by loose association.
Eliot bit his lip, considering the chess board a long moment, and settling over a black knight before speaking. “I call it the black knight…” He said with a rueful grin. “Someone once told me you give somthin’ an entity and it’s easier to control. That’s what I do now. Control it. The Black Knight… It’s violence, anger… I don’t really know. But when I cross over…” He moved the piece. “It happened a lot when I was younger. I’d be hurt or out numbered or somthin’ and I’d slip under, white out. I’d wake up to dead bodies and blood, never even remember how it happened.”
“Does it happen anymore?” Nate asked, keeping his voice calm. He’d seen enough with his own eyes to believe what Eliot had said.
Eliot shook his head. “I’ve… I learned control.”
“Good.” Nate said, moving a piece. “Cause Eliot? If you lose control you’re out. I can’t pull this team together and ask them to sit next to a time bomb. If you can’t control that violence in you and lash out at us… we’re all dead. I’m not going to risk that.” He looked up, meeting Eliot’s eyes. “Understand me?”
Eliot let out a long breath and nodded, turning to the board in front of him an odd mix of the famous retrieval specialist of today and the young man he’d been when they met.
It was odd, how a reunion could take them both back years, projecting images like memories of how they used to be.
They made moves and exchanged pieces for a few more minutes, silence growing heavy before Eliot spoke again. “So you still mean what you said. Even now we still aren’t friends. Black knight and white knight still can’t go together.”
Nate moved a piece, buying a moment to try to put together some kind of response. Eliot sounded ten different emotions not one of them touching anywhere near hurt, but Nate was pretty sure the rejection still stung the man.
He let out a long slow breath. “They can’t.” He said finally. “But I’m not a white knight anymore and you’re not the black knight.” He added looking up. “It’s been Eight years Eliot. We’re not who we used to be. We couldn’t go back to who we were and what we were anymore than we could go back to Cell Number Eight.” He met Eliot’s eyes. “I don’t know who we are now, but in a couple months the team’s comin’ back together… maybe things have changed enough.”
Eliot gave a rueful grin, reaching out a hand and pushing his queen across the board. “Check mate.” He said softly.
It took only a glance to confirm he’d lost. With a sigh he knocked over his king.
”Hey Nate.” Eliot said, drawing Nate’s attention back to him. “Why don’t you try playin’ black for awhile.” He picked up his black king and tossed it to Nate. “You try being a black king.” Eliot placed a battered white stone Knight on the chess board. The same knight Nate had mailed Eliot when he forfeited the chess game they’d kept going by mail over the years. It was one of the last ties Nate had cut after Sam died. “You try being the black king and I’ll give being the team’s white knight a shot.”
Eliot stood, heading for the door but hesitating only one moment on his way out. “An’ Nate? I am sorry ‘bout Sam. He was a good kid. Deserved better. You both did.”
He left Nate in a silent apartment, staring at a white knight, and remembering a late night nearly nine years gone when he’d realized even though his cellmate was a criminal he was still a good man.
Seems like the last thing he’d said to Eliot before leaving him in a hospital in Cairo was still true.
“You are good man who has learned to survive in a world of evil men and that makes you something extraordinary. Never forget that.”
He rolled the black king in between his fingers.
Eliot had always joked everything eventually came back to chess with him.
Next: The Way of the World