The Occam's razor job - Chapter 34 - 6 (COMPLETE)
Title: The Occam's razor Job
Characters: Nate Ford, Eliot Spencer, Alec Hardison, Parker, Sophie Deveraux, Patrick Bonnano
Fandom: Leverage
Spoilers: The Lonely Hearts Club Job, The Boy's night out Job
warnings: Dead people, language, violence, medical bullsh*t, extreme violence in later chapters, and extreme angst
Disclaimer: I do not own blah blah blah
Special, special, special, special thanks to trappercreekd for Betaing :D
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***
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He sat by his bed for two hours, holding one hand on his arm, keeping him still although his sleep wasn’t restless. Keeping him there. No, fuck… keeping the pieces together that he scattered all over the place, and just hoping that Eliot would be able to glue them all together in the right order, in their places. With time. There was always a chance that the creature that would emerge from those scrapes be abominated, wrong. Destroyed.
Butterflies also carried the souls of dead warriors, he remembered Parker’s explanation. They had one warrior who had sold his soul for them, but that particular one bargained his deal, saddled up the devil and rode him, and he was not yet letting him turn around and strike back.
Yet, his strength was fading fast, and when the devil turned around, he would have to find four more to deal with.
Nate knew the three of them must be half crazy already, sitting in the bar and waiting, but he couldn’t care about it now.
He also knew that after this talk, no light conversation could stop the shaking of Eliot’s hands. The wounds were raw and open now. It would be much worse before it started to get better. He had been through it, he knew how it went, every damn step of it. Eliot Spencer wasn’t a man who would eat a bullet, but breaking points were hard to determine, even the strongest ones had a point of no return. He was still thinking about surviving this, and that was the involuntary slip of the tongue that Nate noticed and remembered.
Conscience was a strange thing; it could tear apart hearts and minds, but its presence gave hope as much as it tormented - yet, Nate knew that the worst burden laid on his back was not the pain and guilt. No, it was knowing that he would do it again, without a second thought. And that was making him a monster in his own eyes, not the number of dead.
It would be a little easier if Eliot was okay and healthy, if they were occupied with some job that could give him a chance to vent and divert himself for awhile. Having been immobile, pinned to the bed, and left completely to his thoughts, with all of them as a constant reminder of everything - that made the situation much worse. Nate knew very well the exact moment when the thoughts became unbearable, when the pain and guilt rose to the point of screaming madness that couldn’t be stopped. He had alcohol to kill the thoughts and stop them, to erase them completely into oblivion. Eliot had nothing. And the devil was trying to turn around and bite.
When he decided he could leave him alone, and went to the bar, they were frightened, and sulking, and pissed off, even Sophie. And they knew him so well, that reading his exhaustion gave them all the answers they needed.
He sat at the table and rubbed the back of his neck, chasing the headache away, and failing utterly. “If we want to keep him…” alive, he almost said, but changed his mind. “with us,” he said at last. “We have to do something to fill all these days in front of us. It’s not enough to keep him occupied - we have to make him busy. We have to make him do something.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Sophie admitted. “The last time we talked he had half of his brain occupied with… something else. It was impossible, even for me, to involve him completely.”
“Watching TV and movies is of no use,” Hardison said. “No matter what we’re watching, he will shut down after awhile and his mind will just go away.”
Morose silence spread over the table; Parker was absently playing with pretzels.
“You really thought the ‘Stealing an Eliot Job’ was finished when we got him into Lucille?” Nate asked quietly. “That was just… obtaining of all the necessary ingredients.”
Three pairs of eyes were looking at him, waiting. He sighed.
“Do you know what all four of you have in common?”
“Except brilliance?” Hardison grinned, but it was a weak try.
“Do you know what made you the best in the world?” he continued. “And what the bait was that I used to hunt you down?”
“Do we want to know?” Sophie frowned.
“You can’t resist a challenge,” he smiled tiredly. “Only something impossible is worth doing. A man who can’t be tricked, a safe that cannot be broken into, a system that cannot be hacked, and item that cannot be retrieved… all four of you have that strive for… being better. If something wakes your curiosity, you’re done. And you can’t resist a good battle.”
Sophie shook her head desperately. “Nate, he is in a bed. What challenge-”
“He needs a distraction from… everything,” he hesitated. “And he needs it fast. As in now. We have to occupy his brain, not his body.”
“With what?”
“By attacking something that he will have to defend.”
“What?” Hardison squeaked. “Not again against him! You saw where it led us? Besides, what the hell he can defend from us, and why? You make no sense.”
“Not to mention he’ll know we are up to something,” Sophie finished.
“That’s the point. That is the challenge. He’ll know we are doing something, and if we are lucky, he won’t be able to resist the play. Curiosity, people. A wish to see what will happen.”
“And what we are attacking?” Parker’s eyes were narrowed.
He pushed the bowl of pretzels to the middle of the table.
“Food,” he said.
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***
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It was much worse now.
Eliot slept fourteen hours and Betsy had to wake him up to change his bandages when she came the next morning, and Nate felt her suspicion when he just fell back to sleep when she was done. She said nothing, though, but gave him further restrictions about talking and disturbing.
When Eliot woke up, later, they were all acting like they did the previous day, and he talked with them, smiled, and even watched The Sound of Music with Sophie, much to Hardison’s dismay - but, every time they left him alone, he did nothing. The phone was forgotten on the table. Nate couldn’t say he was staring at nothing, because he wasn’t. Eliot was just looking in front of himself, with the blanket covering him almost to the neck, hiding his hands.
It wasn’t a withdrawal like the past days, he was there, and present, but it was painful to watch him now, knowing what he was thinking about, and what he fought behind those steady and normal features. He was very careful not to show anything to Parker and Hardison, or to reveal something before Sophie.
His normality was too normal, it was the same when he was silent, and when he talked to them and even joked, and Nate knew that now, after all that was said, there was no border between his thinking about that night, and silencing those thoughts. They were constant now, throbbing in his head without pause, coloring everything that surrounded him. He rested, and slept, but the deep weariness in his eyes still had that tormented glaze, no matter if he smiled at Parker, or if he drifted to sleep.
The worst sign was the change in his waking up. No more slow, confused focusing, his eyes would open in a second, alert and awake, and Nate knew that the gunshots were his alarm clock. Or the screams.
They waited with their plan until Eliot agreed to eat some Chinese, to knock out his possible future arguments about eating in general, and when he managed to eat few bites of Kung Pao, everything was set up and ready to roll.
When he fell asleep shortly after that, they all silently sneaked out and went to the bar to start things up. Sophie and Parker went through the last details of the plan. For the two of them, as it showed, this particular job brought much more stress than any grifting or danger - they weren’t in their field and the preparations were starting to look as complicated as landing on Iwo Jima.
Nate really tried not to show his impatience.
“Fuck!” Hardison’s hiss stopped a quarrel about temperatures and boiling. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck.” The hacker was on his feet and leaving the bar without any explanation, hurrying up to apartment and they could only follow him as fast as they could.
The bed was empty.
Parker2000, innocently placed on the shelf, obviously was connected to the hacker’s phone. “I’ve put motion sensors on the door and windows, he couldn’t pass by-” Hardison broke off when they saw Eliot standing at the bathroom door. He was dressed in Nate’s pajamas trousers, and his hair was wrapped in a towel.
All four of them reached for their phones at the same time, even Parker, but he raised his right hand and stopped them. “Don’t even think about calling her.”
Hardison eyed the distance between him and bed. “Ten bucks he won’t make it without help.”
Sophie grinned. “Twenty.”
“You’re giving money for that bet?” Parker sounded aghast. “I’m in. Thirty. Sparky, win me some money.”
“Who said I’m going to the bed?” his voice was a whisper, he didn’t move from the door, clutching the frame to keep himself upright, and Nate realized that the sofa was much nearer. If they let him change beds, they would never be able to force him back into the hospital one. Give him a finger, and he won’t take the whole hand, he'll break your arm and dislocate your shoulder as a bonus.
“A hundred that he’ll need only two seconds to get to the bed,” Nate said coming closer.
“No way, man, he might stand, but he ain’t able to fly, the last time I checked.”
Eliot hissed. “He is here. Able to talk.” The clenching of his teeth was unmistakable now, and Nate was giving him no more than ten seconds before his hand gave way, the only thing that was keeping him upright. For a second he thought about letting him eat the carpet, but he doubted it would knock any sense into him, he’d just try again - and Betsy’s wrath would be biblical.
Nate grabbed the bed and pushed it before him those few meters until it almost touched Eliot’s hand. He carefully swung it, blocking his way to the sofa. There was no way he could go around the bed without falling, and he took a few seconds, cherishing the sight of Eliot Spencer cornered, pissed off, and forced to obey.
“Adorable,” he smirked, and nudged him with the bed. “Now, get in, or I will call Betsy.”
It was almost the last moment, he calculated correctly; Eliot had one second between letting go of the door frame, and reaching with his hand to the railings of the bed, one second that spent all of his strength, but his falling almost looked like sitting. When he leaned into the pillows, moving away the blanket with disdain, he closed his eyes and sighed.
“See? Two seconds. I won. If I was you,” he said in a low whisper. “I would pray that Parker doesn’t realize this thing can be driven all over the room.”
“You, my man, are a damn idiot,” Hardison shook his head while helping him roll the bed to the table again, but Eliot just smiled and closed his eyes again, so they let him be without the bitching.
Sophie went to the bed a few minutes later, and just silently put a finger across her mouth, and smiled. He fell asleep maybe even before they secured the bed in its place.
“According to Betsy, we are cool the next two days, while he recovers from this,” Hardison whispered.
“Cooking time,” Parker grinned. “Nate, if we try to lower the bed down those two stairs, it won’t turn over, right?”
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***
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The first phase of their attack was dividing into two good and two bad cops, roles that needed to be changed after every meal. The second was waking Eliot up - they gave him two hours and then Parker burned the onions, and the odor stirred him faster than the gunshots would. Okay, maybe not, Nate added to himself.
Sophie went as a distraction with a hair dryer. “Good morning, Eliot. Good morning, George.”
“You don’t have to tell us good morning every time I wake up,” he growled. “And don’t come near me with that thing, it damages-”
“No sleeping with wet hair, ever again.” She turned it on and got down to business, efficiently silencing his pissed off objections with the roaring noise. It happened that those objections were his explanations about the effects that the drying had on his hair, and why it should be left to dry naturally, because it took only two minutes before it was dry. And fluffy. And almost completely curled.
“Oops.” That was only thing Sophie could say without bursting into laughter, and Nate and Hardison had the very demanding task of staying serious. Sophie tapped him on his head, lightly, trying to see if there was a chance to lessen the curls somehow, avoiding looking at his face, his lips in a tight line. No chance. She quickly gave him an elastic to put the hair into a ponytail, before Parker, still busy in the kitchen, came and saw him. He shot her a murderous glare, for good measure.
“And now…” she snapped her fingers, the cue for Parker to come with a giant bowl. “We made you lunch. We. Together, two of us. No more ordering the food - Betsy agreed, in case you wondered. From now on, you eat only home-cooked meals.”
Nate watcher her - her eyes were laced with pure innocence - there was no chance that Eliot wouldn’t flinch seeing that. He indeed eyed her very cautiously, with narrowed eyes, but Parker’s grin occupied his attention at once.
The thief came closer and put the bowl in his lap, grinning as insanely as she ever did.
Eliot then looked at the two of them at the table, and they both shrugged helplessly. Hardison shook his head in sorrowful support.
He sighed and concentrated on the bowl.
“Sophie, what are those… things… that are floating in this bowl of-” he took a closer look and added after a few seconds of examination. “… soup?”
Sophie peeked into the bowl. “Chicken soup, Eliot. You should recognize it at first glance. Mushroom, paprika and… Parker, what is this brown thing?”
“Have no idea, you put the brown things in it.”
“Did not. Brown is not the real color.”
“Let’s call it extremely an brown mushroom, okay?”
“In chicken soup?” Eliot said still looking down into the bowl.
Parker raised her hand. “I made noodles,” she said proudly. “I tried to shape them like little heads, but they kinda… overcooked with the rest of things. I tried to preserve it with pumpkin oil, but it didn’t work.” Parker perched herself on the bed, took the spoon and stirred the soup. Even from the table, Nate could see something greasy looking falling down slowly. “Look, here’s sliced red cabbage. Sophie said the colors are important, and that was the closest thing we could find to blue and purple. Google said it’s nutritious.”
“Google,” Eliot repeated and slowly raised his head. Nate followed his glances - a quick one towards the door, a longer one to the windows. Checking the escape routes, not so routine this time. However, he couldn’t blame him at all; those two were crowding around him, waiting for him to eat, and even from this distance he could see his eyes starting to glaze completely while he discovered more suspicious ingredients.
“Actually, we ran out of chicken more than seven days ago,” Nate said, turning the newspaper.
“What?” Sophie turned to him. “We found some in your freezer.”
“I have no idea what you found, but it definitely wasn’t the chicken. And we'll need the chicken, and more vegetables, and not to forget the healthy spices. You two should go and see that we have everything needed. I… I’m not sure what to buy.”
“Men,” Sophie sighed, and turned to Eliot again. “You. Eat it. It’s not perfect, but we’ll get better with practice, we’ll cook every day. And don’t get unnerved by those… what do you call those things that you used… Indian… walnuts? That you used with the eggs and beans?”
His eyes widened in horror. “I’ve never combined-”
“Never mind. Just eat it, it’s full of B vitamins, we checked,” she smiled at him gently before leaving him, grabbing her purse and jacket. “Come on, Parker, you’ll have help me choose the yellow things, I’m not fond of yellow food. Tomorrow we shall try something that’s based on A and C vitamins, but salty - that will be a real challenge, to balance the C vitamin and salt with…”
Her voice trailed off as they left, closing the door behind them.
“Hardison?” Nate said to the other good cop.
“I ordered a pizza and delivery is on the way already, but we’ll have to eat very quickly.”
Nate looked at Eliot who carefully touched something in the bowl, and almost dropped the spoon when the thing turned on the surface revealing something that made him hold out his hand as far as he could.
“Flush it?” Hardison quickly came to the rescue and took a bowl from him, not daring to peek into it.
“No, bury it in the backyard and pour cement on it,” Eliot whispered. “I swear something moved in the depths of that bowl.”
Hardison shook his head. “I’ll have to ask Betsy if she mixed some morphine in that IV, man.”
“Yeah? Okay, you eat it then. It moved, Hardison.”
“Right, the return of the Chicken Kraken King, part two, The revenge of the cut-off tentacle. Seriously, man, what’s wrong with you?”
“I saw a tiny leg,” Eliot murmured.
“Chicken have legs, it walks on them, and we eat them. Nate, did you allow him to drink Jack again?”
“It had toes, Hardison.”
“Nate!!”
“Wriggling toes.”
“Jesus.”
Hardison went back to the table, and at the moment he turned away, Eliot’s face lost its smile. He bit his lip, looking somewhere in front of him, and Nate just watched and waited.
Nate didn’t tell them that there was a strong possibility Eliot would reject this play, he didn’t want to drown their spirits. The hitter might not have been in the right state of mind for accepting any challenges.
He didn’t tell them, either, that no little game could kill the demons, nor help in that battle.
This was useful only because of one thing: it would tell him if Eliot wanted to pull himself from that swamp that held him, and if he was able to fight against it. More importantly, would he accept their help with it. After all, food as the target of their attack wasn’t important at all, they could do anything else; it was important that Eliot saw they were doing something, that they were striving… and Nate knew him. If he accepted their play, probably not wanting it at all, he'd answer their challenge because of their effort. He would do that for them - like he always did.
So he sat, watched him, and waited, trying not to expect anything.
It took ten minutes before Eliot raised his eyes from the blanket he was studiously watching, and looked at him. And a tired smile flew over his face for a second. Nate was careful not to show any relief that he felt.
“Nate,” he said quietly. “I’ll need a few things.”
He nodded to the table. “The first drawer.”
He shot him a cautious look and opened the drawer, pulling out a mirror, some paper and a pen. He stayed still for a few seconds, staring at the things, then looked at him again.
No, Eliot didn’t have to say anything - the time for words for the two of them passed. They didn’t need them anymore. Nate just leaned back in the chair, watching Eliot who leaned back in the pillows.
Then he saw it; a barely visible, amused glint in his eyes, when he politely nodded in acknowledgment.
Eliot slowly sat up and reached his left hand under the mattress, pulling out a scalpel. Nate just raised his eyebrows, thinking how Betsy naively fell for the decoys under the pillow, when Eliot opened the lowest drawer and took a bottle of beer from it, opening it with the scalpel. What the hell… He never had any beer in his table.
Yep, that glint in his eyes was definitely a challenge, and Nate smiled, raising his glass.
This would be a very interesting few weeks, he said to himself, watching the first evil grin on Eliot’s face since this shit started, when he raised his bottle in salute.
His hands were still shaking, but somehow, Nate knew that in that moment it became just another enemy that had to be beaten, just one more fight that would be won, it would end.
After all, only the enemy that Eliot really fought, was Eliot Spencer. The four of them could distract the devil while Eliot was busy with the real fight, the real opponent.
And their Eliot was a winner.
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***
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Eliot took the papers and the pen but stopped before writing, surprised by something familiar. Yep, that was definitely an annoyance, familiar, old, known, feeling that was a sign and reminder of better times. Idiots. He was obviously condemned to deal with those wackos for the rest of his life - cosmic justice of some weird, sadistic kind. Yet, he brought it upon himself, it was exclusively his fault. He ignored all the warnings at the beginning, when there was a chance to just leave, before they crawled under his skin, before he started to care - and then it was too late.
The heart was supposed to be a muscle that pumped blood, nothing more and nothing less, and it worked that way until they stole it, stabbed at it, put it in the microwave and returned it as something that was tuned to them. And with the life of its own.
He really hoped he would survive their saving him. Not that he could be saved; nope, he would just prolong those years that they gave to him, and he would try to make them worthy of… something.
Worthy of them. Ruthless criminal scum.
Some gifts could be repaid only by taking them.
And some required a Facebook account, Jesus. How, how he was supposed to do that without Hardison finding out? He had no idea what that thing was, for crying out loud, which meant he would have to use his phone to Google it, and Hardison would find his search and get curious and… Jesus.
He put away the paper and rubbed his face trying to ebb away the headache. Tomorrow, when he tried to stand up again, he would definitely shave, no matter that his hands couldn’t hold the damn razor steady; tilting blades were a disturbing sight in the mirror. Well, disturbing things were nothing new in his life, right? It took only that, just the memory of looking at his own eyes in the mirror, to cut off his breathing again, and leave him lost inside the darkness that engulfed everything except the cold touch of the scalpel that was ready to be thrown, and smell of a damp back street. And fear.
“To keep walking,” he heard himself say, and blinked, returning to present.
Sophie was standing in front of him, and he could swear she was nowhere near during past two seconds. Yeah, right, two seconds…“What?” he asked, trying to look normal, just slightly absent.
“Oh, nothing,” the grifter smiled. “I just asked you what your suggestion was for someone who walked into Hell.” Her smile widened to that brilliant, warm flash that couldn’t be left without the same answer. “Totally unrelated to anything, of course, it just came to my mind. Though, I like your answer.” Damn you, Soph, he had to smile back. “Are you ready for supper? Hardison prepared something that he called ‘The Orkish delight with a touch of Mazarbul scent’. It looks… dark.”
With that, she shot him one more brilliant smile, turned on her heel and went back to the kitchen, leaving after her the scent of her perfume, much, much stronger than she used it usually. He doubted that the real gunpowder could cover it, and smiled again.
They were taking no prisoners, and playing their game was the only way to survive it - for Christ’s sake, a vitamin based menu - but he couldn’t erase the grin he felt on his face, just like he couldn’t get rid of the warmth that was melting sharp, icy blades stabbed in his heart.
He sighed, took the paper again, and wrote the heading.
APARTMENT 2a - A SURVIVAL GUIDE (or how to, again, kill your own team (idiots) in ten easy steps, this time studiously, brutally and willing to do it.)
He had fifteen paragraphs ready without thinking, and ten recipes that would make their life a living hell, he realized, pretty much amused with everything that came to his mind, and he raised his eyes to the plant on the table.
“George, we’re so screwed,” he said quietly.
George grinned silently, looking forward to the fight.
THE END
Characters: Nate Ford, Eliot Spencer, Alec Hardison, Parker, Sophie Deveraux, Patrick Bonnano
Fandom: Leverage
Spoilers: The Lonely Hearts Club Job, The Boy's night out Job
warnings: Dead people, language, violence, medical bullsh*t, extreme violence in later chapters, and extreme angst
Disclaimer: I do not own blah blah blah
Special, special, special, special thanks to trappercreekd for Betaing :D
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***
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He sat by his bed for two hours, holding one hand on his arm, keeping him still although his sleep wasn’t restless. Keeping him there. No, fuck… keeping the pieces together that he scattered all over the place, and just hoping that Eliot would be able to glue them all together in the right order, in their places. With time. There was always a chance that the creature that would emerge from those scrapes be abominated, wrong. Destroyed.
Butterflies also carried the souls of dead warriors, he remembered Parker’s explanation. They had one warrior who had sold his soul for them, but that particular one bargained his deal, saddled up the devil and rode him, and he was not yet letting him turn around and strike back.
Yet, his strength was fading fast, and when the devil turned around, he would have to find four more to deal with.
Nate knew the three of them must be half crazy already, sitting in the bar and waiting, but he couldn’t care about it now.
He also knew that after this talk, no light conversation could stop the shaking of Eliot’s hands. The wounds were raw and open now. It would be much worse before it started to get better. He had been through it, he knew how it went, every damn step of it. Eliot Spencer wasn’t a man who would eat a bullet, but breaking points were hard to determine, even the strongest ones had a point of no return. He was still thinking about surviving this, and that was the involuntary slip of the tongue that Nate noticed and remembered.
Conscience was a strange thing; it could tear apart hearts and minds, but its presence gave hope as much as it tormented - yet, Nate knew that the worst burden laid on his back was not the pain and guilt. No, it was knowing that he would do it again, without a second thought. And that was making him a monster in his own eyes, not the number of dead.
It would be a little easier if Eliot was okay and healthy, if they were occupied with some job that could give him a chance to vent and divert himself for awhile. Having been immobile, pinned to the bed, and left completely to his thoughts, with all of them as a constant reminder of everything - that made the situation much worse. Nate knew very well the exact moment when the thoughts became unbearable, when the pain and guilt rose to the point of screaming madness that couldn’t be stopped. He had alcohol to kill the thoughts and stop them, to erase them completely into oblivion. Eliot had nothing. And the devil was trying to turn around and bite.
When he decided he could leave him alone, and went to the bar, they were frightened, and sulking, and pissed off, even Sophie. And they knew him so well, that reading his exhaustion gave them all the answers they needed.
He sat at the table and rubbed the back of his neck, chasing the headache away, and failing utterly. “If we want to keep him…” alive, he almost said, but changed his mind. “with us,” he said at last. “We have to do something to fill all these days in front of us. It’s not enough to keep him occupied - we have to make him busy. We have to make him do something.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Sophie admitted. “The last time we talked he had half of his brain occupied with… something else. It was impossible, even for me, to involve him completely.”
“Watching TV and movies is of no use,” Hardison said. “No matter what we’re watching, he will shut down after awhile and his mind will just go away.”
Morose silence spread over the table; Parker was absently playing with pretzels.
“You really thought the ‘Stealing an Eliot Job’ was finished when we got him into Lucille?” Nate asked quietly. “That was just… obtaining of all the necessary ingredients.”
Three pairs of eyes were looking at him, waiting. He sighed.
“Do you know what all four of you have in common?”
“Except brilliance?” Hardison grinned, but it was a weak try.
“Do you know what made you the best in the world?” he continued. “And what the bait was that I used to hunt you down?”
“Do we want to know?” Sophie frowned.
“You can’t resist a challenge,” he smiled tiredly. “Only something impossible is worth doing. A man who can’t be tricked, a safe that cannot be broken into, a system that cannot be hacked, and item that cannot be retrieved… all four of you have that strive for… being better. If something wakes your curiosity, you’re done. And you can’t resist a good battle.”
Sophie shook her head desperately. “Nate, he is in a bed. What challenge-”
“He needs a distraction from… everything,” he hesitated. “And he needs it fast. As in now. We have to occupy his brain, not his body.”
“With what?”
“By attacking something that he will have to defend.”
“What?” Hardison squeaked. “Not again against him! You saw where it led us? Besides, what the hell he can defend from us, and why? You make no sense.”
“Not to mention he’ll know we are up to something,” Sophie finished.
“That’s the point. That is the challenge. He’ll know we are doing something, and if we are lucky, he won’t be able to resist the play. Curiosity, people. A wish to see what will happen.”
“And what we are attacking?” Parker’s eyes were narrowed.
He pushed the bowl of pretzels to the middle of the table.
“Food,” he said.
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***
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It was much worse now.
Eliot slept fourteen hours and Betsy had to wake him up to change his bandages when she came the next morning, and Nate felt her suspicion when he just fell back to sleep when she was done. She said nothing, though, but gave him further restrictions about talking and disturbing.
When Eliot woke up, later, they were all acting like they did the previous day, and he talked with them, smiled, and even watched The Sound of Music with Sophie, much to Hardison’s dismay - but, every time they left him alone, he did nothing. The phone was forgotten on the table. Nate couldn’t say he was staring at nothing, because he wasn’t. Eliot was just looking in front of himself, with the blanket covering him almost to the neck, hiding his hands.
It wasn’t a withdrawal like the past days, he was there, and present, but it was painful to watch him now, knowing what he was thinking about, and what he fought behind those steady and normal features. He was very careful not to show anything to Parker and Hardison, or to reveal something before Sophie.
His normality was too normal, it was the same when he was silent, and when he talked to them and even joked, and Nate knew that now, after all that was said, there was no border between his thinking about that night, and silencing those thoughts. They were constant now, throbbing in his head without pause, coloring everything that surrounded him. He rested, and slept, but the deep weariness in his eyes still had that tormented glaze, no matter if he smiled at Parker, or if he drifted to sleep.
The worst sign was the change in his waking up. No more slow, confused focusing, his eyes would open in a second, alert and awake, and Nate knew that the gunshots were his alarm clock. Or the screams.
They waited with their plan until Eliot agreed to eat some Chinese, to knock out his possible future arguments about eating in general, and when he managed to eat few bites of Kung Pao, everything was set up and ready to roll.
When he fell asleep shortly after that, they all silently sneaked out and went to the bar to start things up. Sophie and Parker went through the last details of the plan. For the two of them, as it showed, this particular job brought much more stress than any grifting or danger - they weren’t in their field and the preparations were starting to look as complicated as landing on Iwo Jima.
Nate really tried not to show his impatience.
“Fuck!” Hardison’s hiss stopped a quarrel about temperatures and boiling. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck.” The hacker was on his feet and leaving the bar without any explanation, hurrying up to apartment and they could only follow him as fast as they could.
The bed was empty.
Parker2000, innocently placed on the shelf, obviously was connected to the hacker’s phone. “I’ve put motion sensors on the door and windows, he couldn’t pass by-” Hardison broke off when they saw Eliot standing at the bathroom door. He was dressed in Nate’s pajamas trousers, and his hair was wrapped in a towel.
All four of them reached for their phones at the same time, even Parker, but he raised his right hand and stopped them. “Don’t even think about calling her.”
Hardison eyed the distance between him and bed. “Ten bucks he won’t make it without help.”
Sophie grinned. “Twenty.”
“You’re giving money for that bet?” Parker sounded aghast. “I’m in. Thirty. Sparky, win me some money.”
“Who said I’m going to the bed?” his voice was a whisper, he didn’t move from the door, clutching the frame to keep himself upright, and Nate realized that the sofa was much nearer. If they let him change beds, they would never be able to force him back into the hospital one. Give him a finger, and he won’t take the whole hand, he'll break your arm and dislocate your shoulder as a bonus.
“A hundred that he’ll need only two seconds to get to the bed,” Nate said coming closer.
“No way, man, he might stand, but he ain’t able to fly, the last time I checked.”
Eliot hissed. “He is here. Able to talk.” The clenching of his teeth was unmistakable now, and Nate was giving him no more than ten seconds before his hand gave way, the only thing that was keeping him upright. For a second he thought about letting him eat the carpet, but he doubted it would knock any sense into him, he’d just try again - and Betsy’s wrath would be biblical.
Nate grabbed the bed and pushed it before him those few meters until it almost touched Eliot’s hand. He carefully swung it, blocking his way to the sofa. There was no way he could go around the bed without falling, and he took a few seconds, cherishing the sight of Eliot Spencer cornered, pissed off, and forced to obey.
“Adorable,” he smirked, and nudged him with the bed. “Now, get in, or I will call Betsy.”
It was almost the last moment, he calculated correctly; Eliot had one second between letting go of the door frame, and reaching with his hand to the railings of the bed, one second that spent all of his strength, but his falling almost looked like sitting. When he leaned into the pillows, moving away the blanket with disdain, he closed his eyes and sighed.
“See? Two seconds. I won. If I was you,” he said in a low whisper. “I would pray that Parker doesn’t realize this thing can be driven all over the room.”
“You, my man, are a damn idiot,” Hardison shook his head while helping him roll the bed to the table again, but Eliot just smiled and closed his eyes again, so they let him be without the bitching.
Sophie went to the bed a few minutes later, and just silently put a finger across her mouth, and smiled. He fell asleep maybe even before they secured the bed in its place.
“According to Betsy, we are cool the next two days, while he recovers from this,” Hardison whispered.
“Cooking time,” Parker grinned. “Nate, if we try to lower the bed down those two stairs, it won’t turn over, right?”
.
.
***
.
The first phase of their attack was dividing into two good and two bad cops, roles that needed to be changed after every meal. The second was waking Eliot up - they gave him two hours and then Parker burned the onions, and the odor stirred him faster than the gunshots would. Okay, maybe not, Nate added to himself.
Sophie went as a distraction with a hair dryer. “Good morning, Eliot. Good morning, George.”
“You don’t have to tell us good morning every time I wake up,” he growled. “And don’t come near me with that thing, it damages-”
“No sleeping with wet hair, ever again.” She turned it on and got down to business, efficiently silencing his pissed off objections with the roaring noise. It happened that those objections were his explanations about the effects that the drying had on his hair, and why it should be left to dry naturally, because it took only two minutes before it was dry. And fluffy. And almost completely curled.
“Oops.” That was only thing Sophie could say without bursting into laughter, and Nate and Hardison had the very demanding task of staying serious. Sophie tapped him on his head, lightly, trying to see if there was a chance to lessen the curls somehow, avoiding looking at his face, his lips in a tight line. No chance. She quickly gave him an elastic to put the hair into a ponytail, before Parker, still busy in the kitchen, came and saw him. He shot her a murderous glare, for good measure.
“And now…” she snapped her fingers, the cue for Parker to come with a giant bowl. “We made you lunch. We. Together, two of us. No more ordering the food - Betsy agreed, in case you wondered. From now on, you eat only home-cooked meals.”
Nate watcher her - her eyes were laced with pure innocence - there was no chance that Eliot wouldn’t flinch seeing that. He indeed eyed her very cautiously, with narrowed eyes, but Parker’s grin occupied his attention at once.
The thief came closer and put the bowl in his lap, grinning as insanely as she ever did.
Eliot then looked at the two of them at the table, and they both shrugged helplessly. Hardison shook his head in sorrowful support.
He sighed and concentrated on the bowl.
“Sophie, what are those… things… that are floating in this bowl of-” he took a closer look and added after a few seconds of examination. “… soup?”
Sophie peeked into the bowl. “Chicken soup, Eliot. You should recognize it at first glance. Mushroom, paprika and… Parker, what is this brown thing?”
“Have no idea, you put the brown things in it.”
“Did not. Brown is not the real color.”
“Let’s call it extremely an brown mushroom, okay?”
“In chicken soup?” Eliot said still looking down into the bowl.
Parker raised her hand. “I made noodles,” she said proudly. “I tried to shape them like little heads, but they kinda… overcooked with the rest of things. I tried to preserve it with pumpkin oil, but it didn’t work.” Parker perched herself on the bed, took the spoon and stirred the soup. Even from the table, Nate could see something greasy looking falling down slowly. “Look, here’s sliced red cabbage. Sophie said the colors are important, and that was the closest thing we could find to blue and purple. Google said it’s nutritious.”
“Google,” Eliot repeated and slowly raised his head. Nate followed his glances - a quick one towards the door, a longer one to the windows. Checking the escape routes, not so routine this time. However, he couldn’t blame him at all; those two were crowding around him, waiting for him to eat, and even from this distance he could see his eyes starting to glaze completely while he discovered more suspicious ingredients.
“Actually, we ran out of chicken more than seven days ago,” Nate said, turning the newspaper.
“What?” Sophie turned to him. “We found some in your freezer.”
“I have no idea what you found, but it definitely wasn’t the chicken. And we'll need the chicken, and more vegetables, and not to forget the healthy spices. You two should go and see that we have everything needed. I… I’m not sure what to buy.”
“Men,” Sophie sighed, and turned to Eliot again. “You. Eat it. It’s not perfect, but we’ll get better with practice, we’ll cook every day. And don’t get unnerved by those… what do you call those things that you used… Indian… walnuts? That you used with the eggs and beans?”
His eyes widened in horror. “I’ve never combined-”
“Never mind. Just eat it, it’s full of B vitamins, we checked,” she smiled at him gently before leaving him, grabbing her purse and jacket. “Come on, Parker, you’ll have help me choose the yellow things, I’m not fond of yellow food. Tomorrow we shall try something that’s based on A and C vitamins, but salty - that will be a real challenge, to balance the C vitamin and salt with…”
Her voice trailed off as they left, closing the door behind them.
“Hardison?” Nate said to the other good cop.
“I ordered a pizza and delivery is on the way already, but we’ll have to eat very quickly.”
Nate looked at Eliot who carefully touched something in the bowl, and almost dropped the spoon when the thing turned on the surface revealing something that made him hold out his hand as far as he could.
“Flush it?” Hardison quickly came to the rescue and took a bowl from him, not daring to peek into it.
“No, bury it in the backyard and pour cement on it,” Eliot whispered. “I swear something moved in the depths of that bowl.”
Hardison shook his head. “I’ll have to ask Betsy if she mixed some morphine in that IV, man.”
“Yeah? Okay, you eat it then. It moved, Hardison.”
“Right, the return of the Chicken Kraken King, part two, The revenge of the cut-off tentacle. Seriously, man, what’s wrong with you?”
“I saw a tiny leg,” Eliot murmured.
“Chicken have legs, it walks on them, and we eat them. Nate, did you allow him to drink Jack again?”
“It had toes, Hardison.”
“Nate!!”
“Wriggling toes.”
“Jesus.”
Hardison went back to the table, and at the moment he turned away, Eliot’s face lost its smile. He bit his lip, looking somewhere in front of him, and Nate just watched and waited.
Nate didn’t tell them that there was a strong possibility Eliot would reject this play, he didn’t want to drown their spirits. The hitter might not have been in the right state of mind for accepting any challenges.
He didn’t tell them, either, that no little game could kill the demons, nor help in that battle.
This was useful only because of one thing: it would tell him if Eliot wanted to pull himself from that swamp that held him, and if he was able to fight against it. More importantly, would he accept their help with it. After all, food as the target of their attack wasn’t important at all, they could do anything else; it was important that Eliot saw they were doing something, that they were striving… and Nate knew him. If he accepted their play, probably not wanting it at all, he'd answer their challenge because of their effort. He would do that for them - like he always did.
So he sat, watched him, and waited, trying not to expect anything.
It took ten minutes before Eliot raised his eyes from the blanket he was studiously watching, and looked at him. And a tired smile flew over his face for a second. Nate was careful not to show any relief that he felt.
“Nate,” he said quietly. “I’ll need a few things.”
He nodded to the table. “The first drawer.”
He shot him a cautious look and opened the drawer, pulling out a mirror, some paper and a pen. He stayed still for a few seconds, staring at the things, then looked at him again.
No, Eliot didn’t have to say anything - the time for words for the two of them passed. They didn’t need them anymore. Nate just leaned back in the chair, watching Eliot who leaned back in the pillows.
Then he saw it; a barely visible, amused glint in his eyes, when he politely nodded in acknowledgment.
Eliot slowly sat up and reached his left hand under the mattress, pulling out a scalpel. Nate just raised his eyebrows, thinking how Betsy naively fell for the decoys under the pillow, when Eliot opened the lowest drawer and took a bottle of beer from it, opening it with the scalpel. What the hell… He never had any beer in his table.
Yep, that glint in his eyes was definitely a challenge, and Nate smiled, raising his glass.
This would be a very interesting few weeks, he said to himself, watching the first evil grin on Eliot’s face since this shit started, when he raised his bottle in salute.
His hands were still shaking, but somehow, Nate knew that in that moment it became just another enemy that had to be beaten, just one more fight that would be won, it would end.
After all, only the enemy that Eliot really fought, was Eliot Spencer. The four of them could distract the devil while Eliot was busy with the real fight, the real opponent.
And their Eliot was a winner.
.
.
***
.
Eliot took the papers and the pen but stopped before writing, surprised by something familiar. Yep, that was definitely an annoyance, familiar, old, known, feeling that was a sign and reminder of better times. Idiots. He was obviously condemned to deal with those wackos for the rest of his life - cosmic justice of some weird, sadistic kind. Yet, he brought it upon himself, it was exclusively his fault. He ignored all the warnings at the beginning, when there was a chance to just leave, before they crawled under his skin, before he started to care - and then it was too late.
The heart was supposed to be a muscle that pumped blood, nothing more and nothing less, and it worked that way until they stole it, stabbed at it, put it in the microwave and returned it as something that was tuned to them. And with the life of its own.
He really hoped he would survive their saving him. Not that he could be saved; nope, he would just prolong those years that they gave to him, and he would try to make them worthy of… something.
Worthy of them. Ruthless criminal scum.
Some gifts could be repaid only by taking them.
And some required a Facebook account, Jesus. How, how he was supposed to do that without Hardison finding out? He had no idea what that thing was, for crying out loud, which meant he would have to use his phone to Google it, and Hardison would find his search and get curious and… Jesus.
He put away the paper and rubbed his face trying to ebb away the headache. Tomorrow, when he tried to stand up again, he would definitely shave, no matter that his hands couldn’t hold the damn razor steady; tilting blades were a disturbing sight in the mirror. Well, disturbing things were nothing new in his life, right? It took only that, just the memory of looking at his own eyes in the mirror, to cut off his breathing again, and leave him lost inside the darkness that engulfed everything except the cold touch of the scalpel that was ready to be thrown, and smell of a damp back street. And fear.
“To keep walking,” he heard himself say, and blinked, returning to present.
Sophie was standing in front of him, and he could swear she was nowhere near during past two seconds. Yeah, right, two seconds…“What?” he asked, trying to look normal, just slightly absent.
“Oh, nothing,” the grifter smiled. “I just asked you what your suggestion was for someone who walked into Hell.” Her smile widened to that brilliant, warm flash that couldn’t be left without the same answer. “Totally unrelated to anything, of course, it just came to my mind. Though, I like your answer.” Damn you, Soph, he had to smile back. “Are you ready for supper? Hardison prepared something that he called ‘The Orkish delight with a touch of Mazarbul scent’. It looks… dark.”
With that, she shot him one more brilliant smile, turned on her heel and went back to the kitchen, leaving after her the scent of her perfume, much, much stronger than she used it usually. He doubted that the real gunpowder could cover it, and smiled again.
They were taking no prisoners, and playing their game was the only way to survive it - for Christ’s sake, a vitamin based menu - but he couldn’t erase the grin he felt on his face, just like he couldn’t get rid of the warmth that was melting sharp, icy blades stabbed in his heart.
He sighed, took the paper again, and wrote the heading.
APARTMENT 2a - A SURVIVAL GUIDE (or how to, again, kill your own team (idiots) in ten easy steps, this time studiously, brutally and willing to do it.)
He had fifteen paragraphs ready without thinking, and ten recipes that would make their life a living hell, he realized, pretty much amused with everything that came to his mind, and he raised his eyes to the plant on the table.
“George, we’re so screwed,” he said quietly.
George grinned silently, looking forward to the fight.
THE END