Mod Gift for BoundsofDecency - 2014 Leverage Secret Santa Exchange
Title: Commit No Mistakes (And Still Lose)
Author: telaryn
Mod gift for: boundsofdecency
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairing: Team; Nate/Sophie, Nate/Eliot
Word Count: 5506
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: Only own the effort involved.
Summary: After a job goes horrifically wrong, Eliot pushes Nate for a mind-fuck BDSM scene and in the process gets more than he bargained for.
Author's Notes: I know your prompt was that Eliot "agrees" to a mind-fuck BDSM scene, but one of the cornerstones of all the Nate/Eliot BDSM fic I've written is Nate's unwillingness to push their relationship beyond a certain point and Eliot believing that Nate is coddling him because of Eliot's prior bad relationships. The motivation for the scene had to come from Eliot, otherwise I never could have made it work.
I hope you enjoy it nevertheless - thank you so much for playing with us again!
Washington hadn’t been this bad. The deck of that fucking ship “Il Falcono Maltese” hadn’t been this bad. Eliot could think of a couple of things that came close, but they predated his association with the team by years.
“Nate’s not going to turn himself in, is he?” Parker was still tucked up in Hardison’s lap, where she’d been since moments after they’d returned to the loft and started to accept that they were still alive and - relatively - whole.
Their client hadn’t been so lucky. A young single mother, younger than Hardison, was dead now and her three children wards of the state. Parker had gone deathly still and quiet when Nate had passed judgment on the children - turning them over to Detective Captain Bonanno before any of them could draw breath to propose an alternative scenario.
If Parker had been anyone else, Eliot knew she would still be crying. “Sophie’ll talk him down,” Eliot said, trying to infuse his words with a reassurance he didn’t feel himself. “You’ll see. If anyone can make him see reason…”
“No reason to be had,” Hardison muttered, the muscles in his arms flexing as he tightened his hold on Parker. He buried his face in the curve of the thief’s shoulder. “No reason at all.”
There was no good answer to that assessment, particularly because Eliot didn’t entirely disagree with the hacker. Unable to offer any comfort to his teammates, the hitter resumed his silent vigil - watching for a sign from above that he wasn’t needed - or worse that he was.
After a seeming eternity, he heard the sharp click of designer pumps against the spiral staircase. Hardison and Parker scrambled to their feet behind him, but Eliot remained still as stone - watching carefully as Sophie came into view. Her eyes searched him out immediately, and Eliot felt his heart drop somewhere into his stomach as she shook her head. That’s that, then.
“We need to go,” she said, reaching the bottom. “He’s not in any shape to be around…people right now.”
“I’m staying,” Eliot said automatically. Sophie’s attention shifted to him, and he could see the conflicting emotions warring inside her. She accepted, and as far as she was able to understood his and Nate’s relationship. The only times she ever felt pushed to say something were times like now - when one or the other of them was in a dangerously toxic headspace. Eliot craved that kind of attention from Nate; his early dom/sub relationships had conditioned him to want it.
Nate, on the other hand, had steadfastly refused to cross that line. It wasn’t out of any sort of twisted sadistic desire to deny his lover the one thing Eliot seemed to want most either; he was new enough to the lifestyle to recognize the inherent potential for abuse in a relationship like theirs.
Sophie was still watching him. “I’ll be okay,” he told her, softening his expression and taking her hand in his. “You know I’m the only one who can reach him when he gets like this.”
“I’m not sure we shouldn’t just let this burn itself out,” Sophie countered. “Eliot, this is as bad as I’ve ever seen him.”
Memory of Washington ghosted across the hitter’s thoughts again - one of so many secrets that bound him and Nate together. “I’ll be fine,” he repeated. Turning to their other teammates, he drew Hardison into a one-armed hug. “Breakfast tomorrow, my place. We’ll get through this.”
The hacker curled into him briefly, offering what little comfort he could in return. Parker reached out an touched his wrist. “You won’t let him go away?”
Her gaze was direct and her eyes were still dry; Eliot felt a thread of fear shiver through him. “I won’t lose him, Parker,” he said - aware that he was making as solemn a promise as he’d ever made to anyone. “This is what I do.”
The thief watched him for a long moment, gaging the truth of his words. Then, to everyone’s surprise, she launched herself at Hardison and Eliot; encircling them both in a tight, desperate hug. Eliot leaned his cheek against the softness of her hair, but his attention was still for Sophie. “How much has he had to drink?”
The dark-haired beauty’s eyes were still a shade too wide, almost as if they couldn’t hold everything Sophie was feeling in that moment. “That’s just it, Eliot. I’m pretty certain he’s sober.”
****************************
”It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose.” Nate would sooner have died than admitted it to Hardison, but he’d watched Star Trek: The Next Generation in college. He’d also seen all the movies and knew the odd-even rule as well as anyone.
The idea of the no-win scenario had never ceased to fascinate him. He’d long suspected he was like Captain Kirk when it came to something like a Kobyashi Maru; when it was revealed that instead of facing the character-defining test head on Kirk had simply changed the rules, Nate had found himself nodding along in agreement. It was what he would have done.
Unfortunately like James T. Kirk, Nate had finally been forced into a situation where there was no victory to be had. Mary Nichols’ only crime against the world had been her trusting nature. She trusted each of the men who fathered her children, she trusted the loan shark who offered her a way out of her admittedly desperate financial straits, and finally?
She had trusted Nate to save her; the move that had ultimately gotten her killed.
Nate hadn’t realized he was listening for it until he felt the low thump of the door to the loft closing behind the rest of the team. ”I’m not going to do anything terminally stupid,” had been the only promise he’d felt comfortable making to Sophie before she would agree to leave him alone with his guilt and misery.
If she recognized the amount of wiggle room he’d left himself in the phrasing, she gave no sign.
Nate knew they were all afraid his guilt would drive him to take sole responsibility for Mary’s death and turn himself into the authorities. He’d considered it, but experience had taught him that as easy as he’d had it before, jail was something he would only voluntarily endure again to save his team. As long as the evidence continued to point in the direction he needed it to, the mastermind felt no deep and driving urge to throw himself on that particular grenade.
Whiskey, his hindbrain whispered. Nate’s attention ticked briefly to the decanter on his dresser - confirming that it hadn’t magically filled itself since Sophie had chased him up here who knew how much earlier.
Groaning softly, Nate pushed himself to his feet and headed for the stairs. Drunk was the safest way for him to spend the evening if he was expected to keep the spirit as well as the letter of the promise he’d made Sophie. Maybe if I’m really lucky I’ll finally get alcohol poisoning, was his last thought before the first floor came into view and he saw that Eliot was still waiting for him.
“I told Sophie I wanted to be alone,” Nate said as his feet touched down on the floor. Without waiting for a reply, he pivoted and headed into the kitchen.
Thankfully Eliot didn’t follow him, merely turned enough to keep him in view. “I wanted to make sure,” he said. “Didn’t know if you needed my kind of help?”
Nate was momentarily overwhelmed by just how loaded that offer had become in such a relatively short amount of time. “I’m fine,” he said, reaching for the closest bottle and a glass. He poured himself a full measure of the amber colored liquid, which he tossed off in a single gulp before turning back to face his hitter. “See?”
“You don’t have to turn this all in on yourself,” Eliot said, clearly refusing to be dissuaded. “Nate, please - let me help you process.”
“Not gonna happen,” Nate growled, turning his back on his hitter just long enough to pour himself another full glass. Taking both in hand, he went directly to his place at the head of the table and sat down. “Now I think it’s past time you got out of here.”
Instead of doing as he was told, Eliot joined him at the table. “I don’t feel right leaving when you’re like this. What happened to Mary wrecked all of us.”
He brushed a hand across Nate’s hair, intending only to soothe, but the mastermind grabbed his wrist - forcing it away. “I said I need you to go.”
“I don’t believe you. I think you need me to stay.”
Nate released him with a small shove, pushing smoothly to his feet. “Thinking isn’t your job. I tell you to go, you go.”
Feeling a small surge of defiance rise up in him, Eliot said, “You said you need me to go. You didn’t tell me to go. There’s a difference.”
Nate’s expression darkened dangerously. “Pushing me isn’t your best option right now, Eliot.”
“What is my best option then?” the hitter asked, crowding as close into Nate’s personal space as he dared. “Letting all that anger and guilt eat you alive from the inside out? Find the balls to put a bullet in your skull Nate - it’s at least a cleaner death.”
Nate was visibly shaking as the two of them stared each other down. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, and Eliot realized in a flash that he’d never seen Nate this angry before - not even when they’d been chasing down Victor Dubenich for the final time. “I’m not doing this with you, Eliot. I told you when we began this relationship that I would never raise a hand to you when I was in this frame of mind,” he said fiercely. “Otherwise I’m not your master, I’m your abuser.”
“You want to hit me, though,” Eliot said, trying desperately to ignore how hard he was suddenly getting, standing this close to Nate and begging his master to strike him. “I can see it in your eyes. Nate please - you know I can take whatever you need to dish out. Let me do this for you.”
“You have no idea what your limits are,” Nate said - a thread of laughter in his voice sounding like it had been dragged across a field of broken glass. “Just like you have no idea what I’m capable of, even after all this time.”
“Then show me, dammit!” Eliot said sharply, months of pent-up frustration turning what he’d meant as a plea into a challenge Nate wouldn’t be able to ignore. “Let me do this for you! For once in my life, let me be everything you need. I keep telling you I can take it - what is it going to take for you to trust me with this?”
Nate had frozen with the whiskey half-way to his lips when the word ‘trust’ tumbled into the air between them. Staring at Eliot for a long moment, he slowly put the glass down again…untouched. “All right,” he said quietly, his expression as serious and in control as Eliot had ever seen it. “You want to make this the line in the sand, we’ll do it.”
Eliot opened his mouth to speak, but Nate shook his head. “Not yet. You may ask me three questions, put three limits on tonight, or some combination of the two. Once we’ve settled that you will either walk out that door,” he nodded towards the loft entrance, “or go upstairs and strip for me.”
Silence fell between them again. Eliot wasn’t sure what had finally convinced Nate he was serious about taking things to a new level, but he could tell the mastermind was already reaching deeper into himself than Eliot had ever seen. “Why?” he asked finally. It wasn’t a perfect question as such things went, but it would tell him a lot about where Nate’s head was really at.
“The fact that you have ignored every warning I’ve ever given you about this,” Nate said, his expression inscrutable. “The fact that you picked tonight to push things, knowing full well I am as far outside the right headspace to do this as I’ve ever been - all that tells me this is a dance we’re going to be doing sooner or later. Tonight I think I can survive losing you. Next week, next month…less sure.”
Eliot almost asked him why he thought this was going to be the end of their relationship, but it was clear Nate believed the risk was real. “Okay,” he said finally. “Limit - nothing that will put me in the hospital or out of action for longer than twenty-four hours.” The fact that Nate was nodding before he even finished speaking helped steady him.
“Limit,” he said after rolling several possibilities over in his mind. “You agree not to hold anything about tonight against me in the future.”
Again Nate’s agreement was immediate, which confused Eliot. So far his lover had given him nothing substantial to work with - a fact that made him more uneasy than he was prepared to admit.
Something about his expression must have transmitted at least the essence of what he was thinking, because Nate added, “Me holding tonight against you isn’t going to be an issue. The challenge is going to be if you can keep from holding tonight against me.”
*******************************************************
After Eliot disappeared upstairs, Nate carried his unfinished whiskey to the sink and poured the contents down the drain. No armor. Not tonight. His pulse jumped a few times as he forced himself to go through the motions of rinsing the glass and setting it in the drainer, but otherwise he was surprisingly calm. We’ve been fighting this moment for too long, he thought, turning to briefly survey the quiet office.
He smiled. No, I’ve been fighting this moment for too long, he corrected himself. Ever since he’d agreed to fill this role in Eliot’s life, he’d been trying to break his hitter of looking for the kind of control he’d known from his other doms. He’d known there was a risk that Eliot would internalize a different lesson than the one Nate wanted to teach, but his feelings for the younger man coupled with his own moral code hadn’t been enough to show him a different way to proceed.
So tonight he would take a different tack. He would show Eliot everything he had been begging to see and when it was over the choice would be his whether to stay or go.
Judging that he’d given Eliot’s imagination enough time to begin teasing the hitter with possible scenarios for the evening, Nate slid his phone out of his pocket. After firing off a quick text to Sophie, he set the device down on the counter and headed upstairs.
The lights in his room had been dimmed as far as they could go. Eliot was nude, as instructed - his clothes and shoes properly folded and set aside. Not wanting to presume on Nate’s intentions for him, the hitter was kneeling on the carpet; eyes downcast, arms loose at his sides and his cock already hard between his thighs.
Licking suddenly dry lips, Nate palmed the front of his jeans - letting the sudden surge of pleasure wash over him. Whenever he was in danger of making his relationship with Eliot too cerebral, life inevitably reminded him that one of the most beautiful men he’d ever known had chosen to be with him, to make himself Nate’s plaything.
“Eyes front,” he snapped, catching a small movement of Eliot’s head as he realized Nate was watching him. “There is a part of me that wants nothing more than to put you on your hands and knees and fuck you until you forget your own name,” he added. “Watch you fall apart, begging me to let you touch yourself…it is very tempting.”
In addition to helping set the tone for everything that followed, he’d learned over their months together that Eliot grew more submissive the coarser Nate let his language and behavior become. It was a trait he rarely had a problem indulging, but like so much of what he did with Eliot he had to be careful not to go too far.
Not tonight, though, he reminded himself. Grabbing a nearby chair, he set it immediately behind the hitter. “Sit.”
While Eliot scrambled to obey, Nate went to his bed. The bag of toys he and Eliot used in their scenes was in easy reach under the frame. Dragging it out into the light, he tossed it on top of the mattress - using the sound to mask his sliding open the drawer in his bedside table
If confronted, he wasn’t sure he could adequately explain the kit he transferred into the bag, why he had it or what he’d originally intended it for. Tonight, however, it was going to be the turning point in his relationship with Eliot. “Two things,” he said, returning to Eliot’s side and setting the bag down at the hitter’s feet. “First, all your usual rules are still in place. Usual safe word, usual expectations for conduct and communication…the framework hasn’t changed.” Reaching down, he extracted a coil of rope from the bag.
“Finally, when we finish tonight I will leave it entirely up to you how you want us to go forward.” Shaking out the rope, he began the laborious process of binding Eliot in place. “You asked me to promise that I wouldn’t use anything that happens tonight against you in the future. I will go one step further - if you decide after tonight that you want nothing further to do with me, I will respect your choice and not try to talk you out of it.”
******************************
Nate was making excellent use of the rope. Working from Eliot’s ankles up - every twist binding him in place was riding the edge of true pain, and Eliot was so hard he couldn’t keep from whimpering at even the lightest brush against his cock.
Occasionally Nate’s fingers would flex possessively against Eliot’s skin as he worked. Each time it happened Eliot closed his eyes, savoring the touch. His need to be owned, to be controlled, ran deeper than anything else in his life. Most of the time he was satisfied in his arrangement with Nate. The mastermind understood him and his needs, and had willingly stepped outside his comfort zone to become the master Eliot needed.
Tonight he would touch the darkness Nate had always kept carefully out of his reach. Tonight he would show Nate that he didn’t have to worry so much about being the master Eliot wanted.
Heavy sheepskin-lined cuffs secured his arms behind his back. Eliot strained against the bonds, testing them, and was both surprised and pleased to find that Nate had left him almost no movement whatsoever. Another surprise came as Nate dropped a loop of rope around his neck and secured it to the chair back; Eliot swallowed hard, feeling the fibers move against his throat.
“So good,” Nate murmured, caressing his hair. Exhaling softly, Eliot tried to lean into his master’s touch, but the press of the rope brought him immediately back in line.
Nate crouched by the bag again; when he straightened, he was holding Eliot’s heaviest gag in his hands. Leather and rubber, when buckled in place his only oxygen would come through his nostrils and he wouldn’t be able to make any audible sounds at all. “Open up,” Nate ordered, tapping him sharply on his jaw. Eliot obeyed instantly, not resisting as Nate fastened the device in place.
Ordinarily Nate would have spent time checking the fit, making sure that nothing was too snug or in danger of damaging Eliot before their time together was done. This time though, he just stepped back - letting Eliot see the heat in his eyes as he looked the hitter over. “Very nice,” he hummed, nodding in approval.
“Okay,” he continued, settling into a calmer, more professional stance. “Keeping in mind all the rules and limits we have in place, I have one more thing I need to give you in order to make tonight work.” Bending down, he slipped a flat, rectangular case out of the bag. “It won’t damage you in any way. I give you my word.”
Adrenaline flooded Eliot’s system as he saw the hypodermic and vial resting inside the case. Eyes wide, he shook his head at Nate. He saw Nate register the gesture, then the mastermind stepped to one side, laid the kit out on his dresser, and went through the motions of filling the syringe. “In order for you to understand, I need to give you something to lower your inhibitions. It won’t hurt you.”
The list of substances that fit into Nate’s vague description was very long and very scary. Unfortunately secured as he was, Eliot’s only option to safe word out was to snap his fingers - which he did frantically. Again he saw Nate register the sound, but the mastermind continued towards him - syringe at the ready.
Eliot continued snapping his fingers and trying to communicate to Nate with his eyes how not on board he was with this course of action. His cheek and jaw muscles began twitching as his subconscious tried to fight the restrictions of his gag and he tried to pull away.
Pleasure shot through his body, nearly overwhelming him and whiting out his vision. While he was distracted Nate had put a knee between his thighs and was now leaning against his aching cock. “You’re the one who brought up trust,” Nate said - his voice terrifyingly calm. A heartbeat later Eliot felt the bite of the needle sliding into his skin and the mystery liquid entering his system.
No… Tears welled in his eyes as the realization of just how powerless he was swept over him. Nate withdrew the needle and stepped away, swiping the injection site with alcohol before going to set the kit aside.
Still reeling from the sense of betrayal, Eliot didn’t even flinch when the blindfold was set over his eyes. He didn’t want it - he didn’t want any of this anymore, but he’d agreed to it. He’d put himself in Nate’s hands, told the man to do his worst, and here they were.
“Now,” Nate said - his voice coming from directly behind Eliot. The hitter stiffened reflexively, a burst of fear lighting up his mind as a dozen different possible scenarios crowded into his head.
The point of a knife nestled into the soft flesh where his jawline met his ear. Eliot swallowed, trying to ignore his brain’s whispered suggestion that the rope around his neck was tighter than it had been. “Now,” Nate repeated, “we’re going to take a closer look at your belief that I don’t really know you - that I don’t understand what you’re capable of.” The knife point trailed slowly down the line of his carotid artery, skating along the curve of his shoulder before dipping down to dance across his chest.
“You joined the military three days after your eighteenth birthday. Special Forces at twenty, Rangers at twenty three, Black Ops at twenty-five.” The knife began a hypnotic dance across Eliot’s flesh as Nate recited his military resume. For his part Eliot didn’t dare move. Knife play was a test of trust on both sides under the best of circumstances - and this hardly qualified.
“As of this date you have a hundred forty-five confirmed kills to your credit.” The knife was withdrawn from his skin. Eliot felt his stomach clench as he realized Nate’s math was accurate - a number to this date Eliot would have sworn he was the only one who knew. “This includes men, women and children,” the mastermind went on. “The fire at the Belgrade monastery, the virus released in the clinic in Jakarta and twenty gunmen slaughtered in a warehouse in Washington DC.”
Eliot heard the whistle of a lash cutting through the air and tried to brace himself, but the blow Nate landed was exponentially harder than he’d expected - hard enough that he screamed into his gag, his entire body tensing against his bonds. “Your first kill was in Croatia,” Nate said. “You were twenty, away from your post - the shooting was ruled justifiable, but it was a near thing.”
Another blow - Eliot’s mind went momentarily blank as his skin parted under the lash and blood welled in its wake. “Second kill, Belgrade, also before your twenty-first birthday…” The list went on, steady and unrelenting - names, dates, actions, context, more detail than anyone besides Eliot should have been able to assemble.
His back was slick with blood by the time he made his first half-hearted attempt to get on top of the pain. His tolerances were impossibly high, but it required that he exert at least a minimal amount of control and for the first time in longer than he could remember he didn’t have any. He made two more half-hearted attempts to regain his mental and emotional balance before accepting that whatever Nate had shot him up with had robbed him of any will to fight back.
Ten names became twenty…forty…eighty. Nate had acquired the full roster of Eliot’s victims from a fire he’d been employed to set at a monastery in Bosnia and a clinic in Jakarta where a warlord had paid him to release a virus - dooming six aid workers and seventeen patients to certain death.
Stop. The word rose in his mind between victims ninety-three and ninety-four, not strong and defiant as it should have been, but small and pleading. Please stop. No more.
There was no way for anyone to hear him, but even in his head begging Nate for mercy became an escape of sorts. One hundred two…one hundred three…
No…please…I can’t… A fresh line of blood was ripped into his flesh as Nate detailed the crime - the worst thing Eliot had ever done in his life, the one thing his soul would never be clean of being thrown back at him by the man he loved, the man he’d trusted with everything. Body going limp against his restraints, Eliot began to shake with silent, wracking sobs.
The rest of his torture passed in a blur as he collapsed in on himself - so broken that he never registered the last handful of names Nate listed for him. Then the flogging was over, nearly as suddenly as it had begun. Nate had stopped talking, and Eliot wasn’t able to determine if he was even still in the room.
Beyond exhausted, Eliot dozed - coming to with a start at the brush of a feather-light touch against his abused back, but froze as he realized the person standing next to him now wasn’t Nate. “Close your eyes,” Sophie said softly, her voice low and soothing as she pushed up the blindfold.
The lights were dim, as he’d suspected, but he still couldn’t suppress a small pain noise as his eyes finally opened and he tried to focus on his surroundings. Sophie moved around behind him, working on the knot of his gag. Eliot tried looking around the room for Nate, but the way he’d been tied limited his effective field of vision.
The corners of his mouth ached as the gag came free. He was normally stupid about the tightness of his bonds, trusting Nate to make sure that he was never bound tight enough to cause bruising or injury. That was a Nate that cared about his well-being, who took the trust Eliot had placed in him seriously and had sworn at least to himself never to betray it. Until I pushed him too far.
“Sophie…” he began. She was in front of him again before he could make another sound, pressing fingers to his lips.
“Take it slow,” she said, her brow furrowed with concern. “Nate asked me to handle aftercare for both of you. He didn’t know if you’d let him…if you’d want him touching you after everything he put you through.”
Once again, Nate had foreseen what Eliot’s reactions would be. ”When I’m done, you can decide if you want to continue this part of our relationship.” The implication had been that he was certain Eliot would want nothing further to do with him, and Eliot couldn’t get his mental balance long enough to figure out if that was the case. “Sophie, he shot me up with something,” he said, memory of the needle penetrating his flesh coming back in a rush, along with the fear as he’d tried to safe word out and Nate had just ignored him. “Some kind of drug. I think it’s worn off, but…”
“It was saline,” Sophie said, her dark eyes serious.
Eliot blinked, momentarily unable to process what she’d said. “No, Sophie, you don’t understand. He said…” His voice trailed off as he realized his memory of the situation might not be entirely true.
“Think about what he said,” Sophie encouraged him. “Exactly what he said. He said that he was giving you something to lower your inhibitions, to make you more vulnerable.”
Eliot nodded, rolling the words over in his brain and matching them up with his memory. “Did he ever once say that was drugs, or did he just allow your mind to fill in the blank?” Something of Eliot’s realization must have shown on his face because she nodded. “He knows we trust him not to go too far - even though you pushed him into this, your preconceived notions about what he would and wouldn’t do were still firmly in place.”
“And he used them against me.” Eliot couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this stupid, but he strongly suspected Nate was a part of that time too. “Son of a bitch.”
“You wouldn’t let it go.” A thrill of fear shivered through Eliot as he heard Nate’s voice behind him. “I finally decided this was the only way, and if I lost you in the process so be it - at least you’d know what to protect yourself from and how.”
His feet whispered against the plush carpet as he moved into Eliot’s field of vision. He was wearing the black robe Eliot had given him for his birthday, loosely tied so that an unfair expanse of bare flesh showed. Eliot half-expected to see a glass of something in the mastermind’s hand - the absence of any sort of alcohol was almost more terrifying than anything he’d already endured. “You could do this to Parker - to Sophie?”
Sophie started to answer, but Nate shook his head - silencing her with a look. “This is on me, Sophie, and it’s a fair question. He’s earned the right to know.” Blowing out a quiet breath, he met Eliot’s gaze without flinching. “I can do it to anyone, Eliot. It’s my gift, and my curse - that I know what each of you can take without breaking, in your case better than you know yourself.”
“But you don’t,” Eliot said - stopping himself before he could finish the thought. He didn’t know what he would do if Nate confessed otherwise, if something truly rotten had lived at the heart of his beloved family all this time and he’d never known.
He watched, horror slowly flooding his mind along with a host of unwelcome images as Nate genuinely struggled to answer. “I’ve never felt worthy of your faith in me,” the mastermind said at last. “But to answer your entire question, I keep a very clearly drawn line in my head at all times. Tonight is the first time I’ve crossed it with any of you.” He hugged his arms across his chest. “I need it to be the last…do you understand what I’m saying?”
Eliot realized that he did. In his own way Nate had been warning them to be on watch for this very thing for years. “This is your real addiction,” he said, wincing as Sophie finally got his wrists free.
“Slow…” she warned him, pressing a warm hand between his shoulder blades. As much for Nate’s sake as his own, Eliot did as he was told - easing his arms forward and working some of the kinks out of his shoulder.
“This is the demon you fight,” he continued as Sophie started to work on the ropes crossing his torso.
Eyes full of emotion, Nate nodded. “Every day, going back as far as I can remember.”
Thinking back over everything Nate had done - everything they had endured together - Eliot realized that he couldn’t stay angry. “Well going forward, you don’t have to fight it alone,” he said finally. “I’ve got your back.”
Tears silently traced lines down Nate’s cheeks, but Eliot met his gaze without flinching. “You know everything there is to know about me, and you still trust me with their safety. Helping you with this is the least I can do for you in return.”
Author: telaryn
Mod gift for: boundsofdecency
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairing: Team; Nate/Sophie, Nate/Eliot
Word Count: 5506
Spoilers: None.
Warnings: None.
Disclaimer: Only own the effort involved.
Summary: After a job goes horrifically wrong, Eliot pushes Nate for a mind-fuck BDSM scene and in the process gets more than he bargained for.
Author's Notes: I know your prompt was that Eliot "agrees" to a mind-fuck BDSM scene, but one of the cornerstones of all the Nate/Eliot BDSM fic I've written is Nate's unwillingness to push their relationship beyond a certain point and Eliot believing that Nate is coddling him because of Eliot's prior bad relationships. The motivation for the scene had to come from Eliot, otherwise I never could have made it work.
I hope you enjoy it nevertheless - thank you so much for playing with us again!
Washington hadn’t been this bad. The deck of that fucking ship “Il Falcono Maltese” hadn’t been this bad. Eliot could think of a couple of things that came close, but they predated his association with the team by years.
“Nate’s not going to turn himself in, is he?” Parker was still tucked up in Hardison’s lap, where she’d been since moments after they’d returned to the loft and started to accept that they were still alive and - relatively - whole.
Their client hadn’t been so lucky. A young single mother, younger than Hardison, was dead now and her three children wards of the state. Parker had gone deathly still and quiet when Nate had passed judgment on the children - turning them over to Detective Captain Bonanno before any of them could draw breath to propose an alternative scenario.
If Parker had been anyone else, Eliot knew she would still be crying. “Sophie’ll talk him down,” Eliot said, trying to infuse his words with a reassurance he didn’t feel himself. “You’ll see. If anyone can make him see reason…”
“No reason to be had,” Hardison muttered, the muscles in his arms flexing as he tightened his hold on Parker. He buried his face in the curve of the thief’s shoulder. “No reason at all.”
There was no good answer to that assessment, particularly because Eliot didn’t entirely disagree with the hacker. Unable to offer any comfort to his teammates, the hitter resumed his silent vigil - watching for a sign from above that he wasn’t needed - or worse that he was.
After a seeming eternity, he heard the sharp click of designer pumps against the spiral staircase. Hardison and Parker scrambled to their feet behind him, but Eliot remained still as stone - watching carefully as Sophie came into view. Her eyes searched him out immediately, and Eliot felt his heart drop somewhere into his stomach as she shook her head. That’s that, then.
“We need to go,” she said, reaching the bottom. “He’s not in any shape to be around…people right now.”
“I’m staying,” Eliot said automatically. Sophie’s attention shifted to him, and he could see the conflicting emotions warring inside her. She accepted, and as far as she was able to understood his and Nate’s relationship. The only times she ever felt pushed to say something were times like now - when one or the other of them was in a dangerously toxic headspace. Eliot craved that kind of attention from Nate; his early dom/sub relationships had conditioned him to want it.
Nate, on the other hand, had steadfastly refused to cross that line. It wasn’t out of any sort of twisted sadistic desire to deny his lover the one thing Eliot seemed to want most either; he was new enough to the lifestyle to recognize the inherent potential for abuse in a relationship like theirs.
Sophie was still watching him. “I’ll be okay,” he told her, softening his expression and taking her hand in his. “You know I’m the only one who can reach him when he gets like this.”
“I’m not sure we shouldn’t just let this burn itself out,” Sophie countered. “Eliot, this is as bad as I’ve ever seen him.”
Memory of Washington ghosted across the hitter’s thoughts again - one of so many secrets that bound him and Nate together. “I’ll be fine,” he repeated. Turning to their other teammates, he drew Hardison into a one-armed hug. “Breakfast tomorrow, my place. We’ll get through this.”
The hacker curled into him briefly, offering what little comfort he could in return. Parker reached out an touched his wrist. “You won’t let him go away?”
Her gaze was direct and her eyes were still dry; Eliot felt a thread of fear shiver through him. “I won’t lose him, Parker,” he said - aware that he was making as solemn a promise as he’d ever made to anyone. “This is what I do.”
The thief watched him for a long moment, gaging the truth of his words. Then, to everyone’s surprise, she launched herself at Hardison and Eliot; encircling them both in a tight, desperate hug. Eliot leaned his cheek against the softness of her hair, but his attention was still for Sophie. “How much has he had to drink?”
The dark-haired beauty’s eyes were still a shade too wide, almost as if they couldn’t hold everything Sophie was feeling in that moment. “That’s just it, Eliot. I’m pretty certain he’s sober.”
****************************
”It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose.” Nate would sooner have died than admitted it to Hardison, but he’d watched Star Trek: The Next Generation in college. He’d also seen all the movies and knew the odd-even rule as well as anyone.
The idea of the no-win scenario had never ceased to fascinate him. He’d long suspected he was like Captain Kirk when it came to something like a Kobyashi Maru; when it was revealed that instead of facing the character-defining test head on Kirk had simply changed the rules, Nate had found himself nodding along in agreement. It was what he would have done.
Unfortunately like James T. Kirk, Nate had finally been forced into a situation where there was no victory to be had. Mary Nichols’ only crime against the world had been her trusting nature. She trusted each of the men who fathered her children, she trusted the loan shark who offered her a way out of her admittedly desperate financial straits, and finally?
She had trusted Nate to save her; the move that had ultimately gotten her killed.
Nate hadn’t realized he was listening for it until he felt the low thump of the door to the loft closing behind the rest of the team. ”I’m not going to do anything terminally stupid,” had been the only promise he’d felt comfortable making to Sophie before she would agree to leave him alone with his guilt and misery.
If she recognized the amount of wiggle room he’d left himself in the phrasing, she gave no sign.
Nate knew they were all afraid his guilt would drive him to take sole responsibility for Mary’s death and turn himself into the authorities. He’d considered it, but experience had taught him that as easy as he’d had it before, jail was something he would only voluntarily endure again to save his team. As long as the evidence continued to point in the direction he needed it to, the mastermind felt no deep and driving urge to throw himself on that particular grenade.
Whiskey, his hindbrain whispered. Nate’s attention ticked briefly to the decanter on his dresser - confirming that it hadn’t magically filled itself since Sophie had chased him up here who knew how much earlier.
Groaning softly, Nate pushed himself to his feet and headed for the stairs. Drunk was the safest way for him to spend the evening if he was expected to keep the spirit as well as the letter of the promise he’d made Sophie. Maybe if I’m really lucky I’ll finally get alcohol poisoning, was his last thought before the first floor came into view and he saw that Eliot was still waiting for him.
“I told Sophie I wanted to be alone,” Nate said as his feet touched down on the floor. Without waiting for a reply, he pivoted and headed into the kitchen.
Thankfully Eliot didn’t follow him, merely turned enough to keep him in view. “I wanted to make sure,” he said. “Didn’t know if you needed my kind of help?”
Nate was momentarily overwhelmed by just how loaded that offer had become in such a relatively short amount of time. “I’m fine,” he said, reaching for the closest bottle and a glass. He poured himself a full measure of the amber colored liquid, which he tossed off in a single gulp before turning back to face his hitter. “See?”
“You don’t have to turn this all in on yourself,” Eliot said, clearly refusing to be dissuaded. “Nate, please - let me help you process.”
“Not gonna happen,” Nate growled, turning his back on his hitter just long enough to pour himself another full glass. Taking both in hand, he went directly to his place at the head of the table and sat down. “Now I think it’s past time you got out of here.”
Instead of doing as he was told, Eliot joined him at the table. “I don’t feel right leaving when you’re like this. What happened to Mary wrecked all of us.”
He brushed a hand across Nate’s hair, intending only to soothe, but the mastermind grabbed his wrist - forcing it away. “I said I need you to go.”
“I don’t believe you. I think you need me to stay.”
Nate released him with a small shove, pushing smoothly to his feet. “Thinking isn’t your job. I tell you to go, you go.”
Feeling a small surge of defiance rise up in him, Eliot said, “You said you need me to go. You didn’t tell me to go. There’s a difference.”
Nate’s expression darkened dangerously. “Pushing me isn’t your best option right now, Eliot.”
“What is my best option then?” the hitter asked, crowding as close into Nate’s personal space as he dared. “Letting all that anger and guilt eat you alive from the inside out? Find the balls to put a bullet in your skull Nate - it’s at least a cleaner death.”
Nate was visibly shaking as the two of them stared each other down. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, and Eliot realized in a flash that he’d never seen Nate this angry before - not even when they’d been chasing down Victor Dubenich for the final time. “I’m not doing this with you, Eliot. I told you when we began this relationship that I would never raise a hand to you when I was in this frame of mind,” he said fiercely. “Otherwise I’m not your master, I’m your abuser.”
“You want to hit me, though,” Eliot said, trying desperately to ignore how hard he was suddenly getting, standing this close to Nate and begging his master to strike him. “I can see it in your eyes. Nate please - you know I can take whatever you need to dish out. Let me do this for you.”
“You have no idea what your limits are,” Nate said - a thread of laughter in his voice sounding like it had been dragged across a field of broken glass. “Just like you have no idea what I’m capable of, even after all this time.”
“Then show me, dammit!” Eliot said sharply, months of pent-up frustration turning what he’d meant as a plea into a challenge Nate wouldn’t be able to ignore. “Let me do this for you! For once in my life, let me be everything you need. I keep telling you I can take it - what is it going to take for you to trust me with this?”
Nate had frozen with the whiskey half-way to his lips when the word ‘trust’ tumbled into the air between them. Staring at Eliot for a long moment, he slowly put the glass down again…untouched. “All right,” he said quietly, his expression as serious and in control as Eliot had ever seen it. “You want to make this the line in the sand, we’ll do it.”
Eliot opened his mouth to speak, but Nate shook his head. “Not yet. You may ask me three questions, put three limits on tonight, or some combination of the two. Once we’ve settled that you will either walk out that door,” he nodded towards the loft entrance, “or go upstairs and strip for me.”
Silence fell between them again. Eliot wasn’t sure what had finally convinced Nate he was serious about taking things to a new level, but he could tell the mastermind was already reaching deeper into himself than Eliot had ever seen. “Why?” he asked finally. It wasn’t a perfect question as such things went, but it would tell him a lot about where Nate’s head was really at.
“The fact that you have ignored every warning I’ve ever given you about this,” Nate said, his expression inscrutable. “The fact that you picked tonight to push things, knowing full well I am as far outside the right headspace to do this as I’ve ever been - all that tells me this is a dance we’re going to be doing sooner or later. Tonight I think I can survive losing you. Next week, next month…less sure.”
Eliot almost asked him why he thought this was going to be the end of their relationship, but it was clear Nate believed the risk was real. “Okay,” he said finally. “Limit - nothing that will put me in the hospital or out of action for longer than twenty-four hours.” The fact that Nate was nodding before he even finished speaking helped steady him.
“Limit,” he said after rolling several possibilities over in his mind. “You agree not to hold anything about tonight against me in the future.”
Again Nate’s agreement was immediate, which confused Eliot. So far his lover had given him nothing substantial to work with - a fact that made him more uneasy than he was prepared to admit.
Something about his expression must have transmitted at least the essence of what he was thinking, because Nate added, “Me holding tonight against you isn’t going to be an issue. The challenge is going to be if you can keep from holding tonight against me.”
*******************************************************
After Eliot disappeared upstairs, Nate carried his unfinished whiskey to the sink and poured the contents down the drain. No armor. Not tonight. His pulse jumped a few times as he forced himself to go through the motions of rinsing the glass and setting it in the drainer, but otherwise he was surprisingly calm. We’ve been fighting this moment for too long, he thought, turning to briefly survey the quiet office.
He smiled. No, I’ve been fighting this moment for too long, he corrected himself. Ever since he’d agreed to fill this role in Eliot’s life, he’d been trying to break his hitter of looking for the kind of control he’d known from his other doms. He’d known there was a risk that Eliot would internalize a different lesson than the one Nate wanted to teach, but his feelings for the younger man coupled with his own moral code hadn’t been enough to show him a different way to proceed.
So tonight he would take a different tack. He would show Eliot everything he had been begging to see and when it was over the choice would be his whether to stay or go.
Judging that he’d given Eliot’s imagination enough time to begin teasing the hitter with possible scenarios for the evening, Nate slid his phone out of his pocket. After firing off a quick text to Sophie, he set the device down on the counter and headed upstairs.
The lights in his room had been dimmed as far as they could go. Eliot was nude, as instructed - his clothes and shoes properly folded and set aside. Not wanting to presume on Nate’s intentions for him, the hitter was kneeling on the carpet; eyes downcast, arms loose at his sides and his cock already hard between his thighs.
Licking suddenly dry lips, Nate palmed the front of his jeans - letting the sudden surge of pleasure wash over him. Whenever he was in danger of making his relationship with Eliot too cerebral, life inevitably reminded him that one of the most beautiful men he’d ever known had chosen to be with him, to make himself Nate’s plaything.
“Eyes front,” he snapped, catching a small movement of Eliot’s head as he realized Nate was watching him. “There is a part of me that wants nothing more than to put you on your hands and knees and fuck you until you forget your own name,” he added. “Watch you fall apart, begging me to let you touch yourself…it is very tempting.”
In addition to helping set the tone for everything that followed, he’d learned over their months together that Eliot grew more submissive the coarser Nate let his language and behavior become. It was a trait he rarely had a problem indulging, but like so much of what he did with Eliot he had to be careful not to go too far.
Not tonight, though, he reminded himself. Grabbing a nearby chair, he set it immediately behind the hitter. “Sit.”
While Eliot scrambled to obey, Nate went to his bed. The bag of toys he and Eliot used in their scenes was in easy reach under the frame. Dragging it out into the light, he tossed it on top of the mattress - using the sound to mask his sliding open the drawer in his bedside table
If confronted, he wasn’t sure he could adequately explain the kit he transferred into the bag, why he had it or what he’d originally intended it for. Tonight, however, it was going to be the turning point in his relationship with Eliot. “Two things,” he said, returning to Eliot’s side and setting the bag down at the hitter’s feet. “First, all your usual rules are still in place. Usual safe word, usual expectations for conduct and communication…the framework hasn’t changed.” Reaching down, he extracted a coil of rope from the bag.
“Finally, when we finish tonight I will leave it entirely up to you how you want us to go forward.” Shaking out the rope, he began the laborious process of binding Eliot in place. “You asked me to promise that I wouldn’t use anything that happens tonight against you in the future. I will go one step further - if you decide after tonight that you want nothing further to do with me, I will respect your choice and not try to talk you out of it.”
******************************
Nate was making excellent use of the rope. Working from Eliot’s ankles up - every twist binding him in place was riding the edge of true pain, and Eliot was so hard he couldn’t keep from whimpering at even the lightest brush against his cock.
Occasionally Nate’s fingers would flex possessively against Eliot’s skin as he worked. Each time it happened Eliot closed his eyes, savoring the touch. His need to be owned, to be controlled, ran deeper than anything else in his life. Most of the time he was satisfied in his arrangement with Nate. The mastermind understood him and his needs, and had willingly stepped outside his comfort zone to become the master Eliot needed.
Tonight he would touch the darkness Nate had always kept carefully out of his reach. Tonight he would show Nate that he didn’t have to worry so much about being the master Eliot wanted.
Heavy sheepskin-lined cuffs secured his arms behind his back. Eliot strained against the bonds, testing them, and was both surprised and pleased to find that Nate had left him almost no movement whatsoever. Another surprise came as Nate dropped a loop of rope around his neck and secured it to the chair back; Eliot swallowed hard, feeling the fibers move against his throat.
“So good,” Nate murmured, caressing his hair. Exhaling softly, Eliot tried to lean into his master’s touch, but the press of the rope brought him immediately back in line.
Nate crouched by the bag again; when he straightened, he was holding Eliot’s heaviest gag in his hands. Leather and rubber, when buckled in place his only oxygen would come through his nostrils and he wouldn’t be able to make any audible sounds at all. “Open up,” Nate ordered, tapping him sharply on his jaw. Eliot obeyed instantly, not resisting as Nate fastened the device in place.
Ordinarily Nate would have spent time checking the fit, making sure that nothing was too snug or in danger of damaging Eliot before their time together was done. This time though, he just stepped back - letting Eliot see the heat in his eyes as he looked the hitter over. “Very nice,” he hummed, nodding in approval.
“Okay,” he continued, settling into a calmer, more professional stance. “Keeping in mind all the rules and limits we have in place, I have one more thing I need to give you in order to make tonight work.” Bending down, he slipped a flat, rectangular case out of the bag. “It won’t damage you in any way. I give you my word.”
Adrenaline flooded Eliot’s system as he saw the hypodermic and vial resting inside the case. Eyes wide, he shook his head at Nate. He saw Nate register the gesture, then the mastermind stepped to one side, laid the kit out on his dresser, and went through the motions of filling the syringe. “In order for you to understand, I need to give you something to lower your inhibitions. It won’t hurt you.”
The list of substances that fit into Nate’s vague description was very long and very scary. Unfortunately secured as he was, Eliot’s only option to safe word out was to snap his fingers - which he did frantically. Again he saw Nate register the sound, but the mastermind continued towards him - syringe at the ready.
Eliot continued snapping his fingers and trying to communicate to Nate with his eyes how not on board he was with this course of action. His cheek and jaw muscles began twitching as his subconscious tried to fight the restrictions of his gag and he tried to pull away.
Pleasure shot through his body, nearly overwhelming him and whiting out his vision. While he was distracted Nate had put a knee between his thighs and was now leaning against his aching cock. “You’re the one who brought up trust,” Nate said - his voice terrifyingly calm. A heartbeat later Eliot felt the bite of the needle sliding into his skin and the mystery liquid entering his system.
No… Tears welled in his eyes as the realization of just how powerless he was swept over him. Nate withdrew the needle and stepped away, swiping the injection site with alcohol before going to set the kit aside.
Still reeling from the sense of betrayal, Eliot didn’t even flinch when the blindfold was set over his eyes. He didn’t want it - he didn’t want any of this anymore, but he’d agreed to it. He’d put himself in Nate’s hands, told the man to do his worst, and here they were.
“Now,” Nate said - his voice coming from directly behind Eliot. The hitter stiffened reflexively, a burst of fear lighting up his mind as a dozen different possible scenarios crowded into his head.
The point of a knife nestled into the soft flesh where his jawline met his ear. Eliot swallowed, trying to ignore his brain’s whispered suggestion that the rope around his neck was tighter than it had been. “Now,” Nate repeated, “we’re going to take a closer look at your belief that I don’t really know you - that I don’t understand what you’re capable of.” The knife point trailed slowly down the line of his carotid artery, skating along the curve of his shoulder before dipping down to dance across his chest.
“You joined the military three days after your eighteenth birthday. Special Forces at twenty, Rangers at twenty three, Black Ops at twenty-five.” The knife began a hypnotic dance across Eliot’s flesh as Nate recited his military resume. For his part Eliot didn’t dare move. Knife play was a test of trust on both sides under the best of circumstances - and this hardly qualified.
“As of this date you have a hundred forty-five confirmed kills to your credit.” The knife was withdrawn from his skin. Eliot felt his stomach clench as he realized Nate’s math was accurate - a number to this date Eliot would have sworn he was the only one who knew. “This includes men, women and children,” the mastermind went on. “The fire at the Belgrade monastery, the virus released in the clinic in Jakarta and twenty gunmen slaughtered in a warehouse in Washington DC.”
Eliot heard the whistle of a lash cutting through the air and tried to brace himself, but the blow Nate landed was exponentially harder than he’d expected - hard enough that he screamed into his gag, his entire body tensing against his bonds. “Your first kill was in Croatia,” Nate said. “You were twenty, away from your post - the shooting was ruled justifiable, but it was a near thing.”
Another blow - Eliot’s mind went momentarily blank as his skin parted under the lash and blood welled in its wake. “Second kill, Belgrade, also before your twenty-first birthday…” The list went on, steady and unrelenting - names, dates, actions, context, more detail than anyone besides Eliot should have been able to assemble.
His back was slick with blood by the time he made his first half-hearted attempt to get on top of the pain. His tolerances were impossibly high, but it required that he exert at least a minimal amount of control and for the first time in longer than he could remember he didn’t have any. He made two more half-hearted attempts to regain his mental and emotional balance before accepting that whatever Nate had shot him up with had robbed him of any will to fight back.
Ten names became twenty…forty…eighty. Nate had acquired the full roster of Eliot’s victims from a fire he’d been employed to set at a monastery in Bosnia and a clinic in Jakarta where a warlord had paid him to release a virus - dooming six aid workers and seventeen patients to certain death.
Stop. The word rose in his mind between victims ninety-three and ninety-four, not strong and defiant as it should have been, but small and pleading. Please stop. No more.
There was no way for anyone to hear him, but even in his head begging Nate for mercy became an escape of sorts. One hundred two…one hundred three…
No…please…I can’t… A fresh line of blood was ripped into his flesh as Nate detailed the crime - the worst thing Eliot had ever done in his life, the one thing his soul would never be clean of being thrown back at him by the man he loved, the man he’d trusted with everything. Body going limp against his restraints, Eliot began to shake with silent, wracking sobs.
The rest of his torture passed in a blur as he collapsed in on himself - so broken that he never registered the last handful of names Nate listed for him. Then the flogging was over, nearly as suddenly as it had begun. Nate had stopped talking, and Eliot wasn’t able to determine if he was even still in the room.
Beyond exhausted, Eliot dozed - coming to with a start at the brush of a feather-light touch against his abused back, but froze as he realized the person standing next to him now wasn’t Nate. “Close your eyes,” Sophie said softly, her voice low and soothing as she pushed up the blindfold.
The lights were dim, as he’d suspected, but he still couldn’t suppress a small pain noise as his eyes finally opened and he tried to focus on his surroundings. Sophie moved around behind him, working on the knot of his gag. Eliot tried looking around the room for Nate, but the way he’d been tied limited his effective field of vision.
The corners of his mouth ached as the gag came free. He was normally stupid about the tightness of his bonds, trusting Nate to make sure that he was never bound tight enough to cause bruising or injury. That was a Nate that cared about his well-being, who took the trust Eliot had placed in him seriously and had sworn at least to himself never to betray it. Until I pushed him too far.
“Sophie…” he began. She was in front of him again before he could make another sound, pressing fingers to his lips.
“Take it slow,” she said, her brow furrowed with concern. “Nate asked me to handle aftercare for both of you. He didn’t know if you’d let him…if you’d want him touching you after everything he put you through.”
Once again, Nate had foreseen what Eliot’s reactions would be. ”When I’m done, you can decide if you want to continue this part of our relationship.” The implication had been that he was certain Eliot would want nothing further to do with him, and Eliot couldn’t get his mental balance long enough to figure out if that was the case. “Sophie, he shot me up with something,” he said, memory of the needle penetrating his flesh coming back in a rush, along with the fear as he’d tried to safe word out and Nate had just ignored him. “Some kind of drug. I think it’s worn off, but…”
“It was saline,” Sophie said, her dark eyes serious.
Eliot blinked, momentarily unable to process what she’d said. “No, Sophie, you don’t understand. He said…” His voice trailed off as he realized his memory of the situation might not be entirely true.
“Think about what he said,” Sophie encouraged him. “Exactly what he said. He said that he was giving you something to lower your inhibitions, to make you more vulnerable.”
Eliot nodded, rolling the words over in his brain and matching them up with his memory. “Did he ever once say that was drugs, or did he just allow your mind to fill in the blank?” Something of Eliot’s realization must have shown on his face because she nodded. “He knows we trust him not to go too far - even though you pushed him into this, your preconceived notions about what he would and wouldn’t do were still firmly in place.”
“And he used them against me.” Eliot couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this stupid, but he strongly suspected Nate was a part of that time too. “Son of a bitch.”
“You wouldn’t let it go.” A thrill of fear shivered through Eliot as he heard Nate’s voice behind him. “I finally decided this was the only way, and if I lost you in the process so be it - at least you’d know what to protect yourself from and how.”
His feet whispered against the plush carpet as he moved into Eliot’s field of vision. He was wearing the black robe Eliot had given him for his birthday, loosely tied so that an unfair expanse of bare flesh showed. Eliot half-expected to see a glass of something in the mastermind’s hand - the absence of any sort of alcohol was almost more terrifying than anything he’d already endured. “You could do this to Parker - to Sophie?”
Sophie started to answer, but Nate shook his head - silencing her with a look. “This is on me, Sophie, and it’s a fair question. He’s earned the right to know.” Blowing out a quiet breath, he met Eliot’s gaze without flinching. “I can do it to anyone, Eliot. It’s my gift, and my curse - that I know what each of you can take without breaking, in your case better than you know yourself.”
“But you don’t,” Eliot said - stopping himself before he could finish the thought. He didn’t know what he would do if Nate confessed otherwise, if something truly rotten had lived at the heart of his beloved family all this time and he’d never known.
He watched, horror slowly flooding his mind along with a host of unwelcome images as Nate genuinely struggled to answer. “I’ve never felt worthy of your faith in me,” the mastermind said at last. “But to answer your entire question, I keep a very clearly drawn line in my head at all times. Tonight is the first time I’ve crossed it with any of you.” He hugged his arms across his chest. “I need it to be the last…do you understand what I’m saying?”
Eliot realized that he did. In his own way Nate had been warning them to be on watch for this very thing for years. “This is your real addiction,” he said, wincing as Sophie finally got his wrists free.
“Slow…” she warned him, pressing a warm hand between his shoulder blades. As much for Nate’s sake as his own, Eliot did as he was told - easing his arms forward and working some of the kinks out of his shoulder.
“This is the demon you fight,” he continued as Sophie started to work on the ropes crossing his torso.
Eyes full of emotion, Nate nodded. “Every day, going back as far as I can remember.”
Thinking back over everything Nate had done - everything they had endured together - Eliot realized that he couldn’t stay angry. “Well going forward, you don’t have to fight it alone,” he said finally. “I’ve got your back.”
Tears silently traced lines down Nate’s cheeks, but Eliot met his gaze without flinching. “You know everything there is to know about me, and you still trust me with their safety. Helping you with this is the least I can do for you in return.”