Cell Number Eight 3/9
Title: Cell Number Eight 3/9
Author: Magpie
Rating: pg-13
Genre: Nate and Eliot
Verse: Origins Verse
Summary: Nate was waiting for IYS to pay his ransom. Eliot was waiting to die. Neither expected sharing a tiny cell in a prison outside Cairo would forge the foundation of a relationship that would last the years.
Notes: This is my backstory for Nate and Eliot used in this verse and probably the other stories unless stated otherwise.
Well things are getting a little interesting now it seems. Warning mild violence in this chapter.
Chapter 1, 2
Eliot woke up before the sun. He lay there, staring at the darkness above thinking, feeling. He felt… better. He was healing quickly all things considered. His strength was coming back and the pain was fading away.
But it was more than that. He still felt tired, and Ammie was still in his mind like a dull ache ready to flare up at a moments thought. But at the same time it was easier, just a little easier.
He was waiting to get better but he was also anticipating sunrise in a way he couldn’t really remember doing before. At sunrise Nate would wake up and check Eliot’s injuries and they’d eat breakfast and then they’d play chess. Maybe Nate would even include one of those little lessons about different strategies or something and maybe Eliot would be able to surprise Nate with something. Yesterday Eliot had found out he liked suprising Nate. The older man would get quiet, a look on his face like he was considering a hundred different possibilities, and then after figuring out what everything meant he’d get that little smile of approval.
Eliot was honest with himself, if no one else. That smile made him feel good, warm inside. It dulled the ache a little.
And the Chess. Eliot knew Chess now, well, he knew how to play. Nate said no one could really know chess completely, which according to him was one of the great things about the game. But Nate said Eliot was picking it up quickly. It was strange but that made him feel good, like yesterday had meant something more than just another day of treading water to keep breathing.
He knew how to play chess and that was something he had that no one could take away from him. No matter what happened to him he could close his eyes and play chess in his head.
It was what he’d do until Nate woke up.
An hour later when Nate was checking his injuries and watching cautiously as Eliot sat up under his own power Eliot noticed the guards with breakfast was late. He hadn’t been counting to keep time but when they did come Eliot guessed they were almost an hour late, if not longer. Their timing had been mostly precise since his arrival.
When they did come the guards seemed agitated, arguing and muttering without a glance towards the cell’s occupants before continuing the argument as they left.
“This isn’t good.” Nate muttered looking over his options in the chess game they’d started before moving to get the food.
“What’s not good?”
“The guards are upset and the higher ups are cutting their wages. Angry guards are never a good thing for us.” Nate said with a long sigh.
“You speak Arabic?”
“A bit, you pick things up.” Nate added offhand, handing Eliot his bowl.
Eliot took two long gulps of the mush, eating quickly it was the best way to get through the disgusting nature.
Arabic. While Eliot had been in Russia during the whole monkey fiasco he’d picked up Russian to get by. It had been useful and now, a month later he realized he still knew most of it, probably all if he practiced. It was another one of the things they couldn’t take from him. It was something useful from the venture.
He hadn’t even made the decision fully before he was putting down his bowl. “Teach me.”
Two hours or more later when Eliot looked like he was developing a headache and was beginning to slur his words in even worse ways than he had been Nate called a halt to the impromptu lesson on basic Arabic. Nate had thought it odd that Eliot showed sudden intrest in such a passing remark but he’d been almost eager, showing more life than Nate would of belived him capable of two days ago.
So Nate started trying to teach. His grasp of Arabic was basic, enough to get by and a little bit more maybe, and Nate wasn’t sure how to teach languages to begin with, but it didn’t seem to matter. Eliot had attacked the opportunity with a vengeance, not even frustrated by his own difficulty to twist his accent into unfamiliar sounds. He wouldn’t be speaking fluently for a long time but Eliot had already picked up more basic phrases than most tourists ever would.
The smile on the young man’s face was more reward for the effort than Nate would have thought.
He set up the chess board and declared they were taking a break.
After a game Nate decided to test a theory. As they started playing chess again Nate started to relate a story from one of the jobs he’d been on, the one with that dark haired woman he nearly caught a few months ago. It had art in it and he went off on a tangent about the art stolen, the fair and black market value for each piece, even the origins and artists and which artist’s work was worth the most.
After rambling on through a few moves and more numbers than any normal person would remember off the top of his head he looked up, checking to see if Eliot was getting bored.
Eliot was watching him attentive, clearly paying careful attention to try to commit this all to memory.
Nate repeated one of the paintings he’d mentioned earlier with a different price and Eliot looked confused. “You said 132,000.” Eliot interrupted.
“Just checking if you were paying attention.” Nate said with a smile. “Good job.”
Eliot shrugged, took Nate’s bishop and brushed off the direct compliment, but his long hair didn’t hide the pleased smile.
Before Nate even really made a conscious decision he found himself turning nearly everything they did into some lesson or another. What Nate had discovered the first time they played chess was proven again and again as one day passed into the next. Eliot was incredibly intelligent, picking up anything Nate threw at him with startling ease.
Nate managed to figure out Eliot hadn’t even finished his freshman year of highschool before
leaving home for “reasons” Eliot didn’t clarify. It was a shame, Nate could almost imagine under different circumstance Eliot could of done anything he’d wanted to. As smart and able to think on his feet as Eliot was Nate had a mental image of him as some young partner at a big law firm or something, though he knew better than to share. Eliot seemed to share Nate’s low opinion of most lawyers.
But even in these circumstances… it was impressive. It wasn’t just that Eliot could pick up whatever Nate threw at him he wanted to. That first “teach me” turned out to be far from the last. If Nate said something or mentioned something and didn’t explain it wouldn’t be long before Eliot was asking.
Somewhere in the back of his head Nate acknowledged that he wasn’t doing anyone any favors on explaining how a certain scam worked to a unrepentant thief or citing the places that sold the best knives in the world but at the same time he didn’t care. In this cell honest man and thief had lost it’s meaning. They were together in this, and every little lesson drew that tired young man he’d met the night he was thrown in here a step further back into the land of the living.
Four days after they’d met Eliot let Nate help him stand and make a loop around the cell before lying back down. It was Nate’s turn to learn as Eliot taught him how to clear your head and measure the passing of time with nothing but your heartbeat.
It was how Eliot knew the schedule of the guards without a watch.
After they counted off an hour Nate helped Eliot back to his feet and they made another round. Nate was about to help him back down when Eliot shook his head and they made another loop. Eliot was panting and shaking by the time Nate helped him back down but he only grinned at Nate’s concern. “I have ta push myself if I wanna get outta here.”
Nate sighed cast about until he could think of something to lead into their latest topic while waiting for the next hour to wind away.
By the end of that day Eliot was moving by himself and by the end of the next Eliot declared himself on the mend enough Nate could stop hovering. He just had to get his feet under him now and it wouldn’t be long before he made his escape.
Somehow neither of them had managed to talk much to each other after that.
The sixth day passed bordering on awkward as reality, and that Eliot was healed enough to start plotting his escape, hit them both hard. They played a couple games of chess but somehow the camaraderie of the past three days had faded.
Dinner never came that day.
Later Eliot would look back and remember that he’d learned from his time in Nishka’s that once you learned the ways of your captors you learned to be wary of changed in behavior. A patrol being an hour late wasn’t particularly upsetting.
But a meal never coming when they hadn’t missed one in more than a week?
Eliot should have known nothing good would come of it.
If he hadn’t been bogged down by the fact that he was well enough to leave now and he should be planning his escape and not wondering why the hell IYS hadn’t come for Nate yet he just might of. As it was the whole peace of mind he seemed to have gained in the past week had disappeared the moment he realized this little cell wasn’t going to last much longer.
He’d been taking a break from reality, learning and feeling and being treated like a human being for once and it was nice, but it wasn’t real. It wouldn’t last forever.
Exhaustion was already settling back around him.
A night of hunger, the reminder that their lives were up to the whims of their captors, reminded Eliot why he needed to get out of here. Captivity never ended well, no matter how
much you liked spending time with your cellmate.
He did have one advantage though. Apparently the fact he’d been badly hurt and more or less suicidal when they’d taken him in meant they didn’t consider him as much of a threat as Nishka had. He’d get one chance before that changed but chances were he wouldn’t have too hard a time getting out of this mess now that he could walk more than a few feet.
Breakfast never came the seventh day, but it wasn’t the lack of food that had them both concerned. There had been no water delivered to their cell since the morning before. It had been all gone since yesterday evening.
Eliot had lasted two day with a fever and no water but it had nearly killed him. By mid afternoon Eliot’d renewed health was already taking a sharp decline and they were both faced with a new terror. Neither of them knew why the deliveries had stopped.
And neither of them knew if they’d start again.
Or if it would be before one of them died.
By evening Nate was getting desperate. Without water neither of them would last much longer, Eliot had already reverted to laying on his pallet, staring at the ceiling, and trying to conserve energy. His health was failing quickly, and so close to his escape. Nate himself felt like his throat was made of sandpaper, thirst making his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth and the first signs of dehydration had set in awhile ago.
Despite his better judgment when Nate heard the tromp of boots of guards outside the cell Nate went to the barred window calling out in Arabic. “Please, sirs, we need water.” They continued walking away. "Please!"
He didn’t see their expression until it was too late.
“What the hell didja do that for?” Eliot asked, his throat scratchy, forcing himself into a sitting position. “Do you know wh-“
He was interrupted by keys turning in the lock and the cell door opening to reveal three guards. Nate didn’t need to understand the words they were saying to realize his bad luck that had landed him here was back with a vengeance.
“Angry guards are never a good thing” His own words days ago sailed through his mind as two of the guards grabbed his arms and slammed him front forward into a wall while the other closed the door. His mind’s processing rate seemed to slow down as some rough rope was tied around his wrists and jerked his arms over his head to catch over a hook in the wall near the ceiling.
There was movement behind him, a gasp and words of protest he should of understood but his mind went blank when a crack was followed by a white hot pain striking him from shoulder to hip.
A second blow caught him just as off guard, knocking what was left of his wind out of him and making him gasp.
Nate was an insurance investigator. He was a good guy, and honest guy. He’d been in fights before but this?
This was new. This he didn’t know what to do about.
He’d lost his breath before the fourth blow, his mind fizzling out as being unable to breath added to pain and fear making any kind of lucid thought fly out the window.
Suddenly things stopped. The next blow didn’t come. There was a scuffle and the sound of flesh hitting flesh and grunts for a few moments before he heard the telltale click of a safety being removed and Eliot growled. “I hate guns.”
Suddenly someone was lifting him off the notch and tossed him haphazardly to the side, his head hitting the wall nearly hard enough to knock him out. Nate lay there dazed, slowly, pulling himself back together and ignoring the blood he could feel sluggishly dripping along his back and trying not to go under. He had to figure out what had happened.
He turned slowly, seeing guards tying a new rope around Eliot’s wrists a gun still pressed to the back of his skull. Nate’s head was still spinning but he was able to piece together enough of what they’d said to understand Eliot had tried to make his escape.
Nate was confused at the sheer stupidity for all of the minute it took to get Eliot into the position he’d been in moments ago before he felt the bottom of his stomache drop out.
Eliot closed his eyes, laid his cheek against the cold stone wall and waited, the light through the barred window of the cell door shinning across dozens of scars across his back.
Eliot had known he’d never get away.
He’d made a gambit to trade places with Nate.
As the guard raised his arm for the first blow Nate closed his eyes tight, trying to block out the sound of leather hitting flesh. All he could think was that he’d been wrong. Eliot may be a thief, he may have led a hard life.
But he was already a good man.
Previous: Chapter Two
Next: Chapter Four
Author: Magpie
Rating: pg-13
Genre: Nate and Eliot
Verse: Origins Verse
Summary: Nate was waiting for IYS to pay his ransom. Eliot was waiting to die. Neither expected sharing a tiny cell in a prison outside Cairo would forge the foundation of a relationship that would last the years.
Notes: This is my backstory for Nate and Eliot used in this verse and probably the other stories unless stated otherwise.
Well things are getting a little interesting now it seems. Warning mild violence in this chapter.
Chapter 1, 2
Eliot woke up before the sun. He lay there, staring at the darkness above thinking, feeling. He felt… better. He was healing quickly all things considered. His strength was coming back and the pain was fading away.
But it was more than that. He still felt tired, and Ammie was still in his mind like a dull ache ready to flare up at a moments thought. But at the same time it was easier, just a little easier.
He was waiting to get better but he was also anticipating sunrise in a way he couldn’t really remember doing before. At sunrise Nate would wake up and check Eliot’s injuries and they’d eat breakfast and then they’d play chess. Maybe Nate would even include one of those little lessons about different strategies or something and maybe Eliot would be able to surprise Nate with something. Yesterday Eliot had found out he liked suprising Nate. The older man would get quiet, a look on his face like he was considering a hundred different possibilities, and then after figuring out what everything meant he’d get that little smile of approval.
Eliot was honest with himself, if no one else. That smile made him feel good, warm inside. It dulled the ache a little.
And the Chess. Eliot knew Chess now, well, he knew how to play. Nate said no one could really know chess completely, which according to him was one of the great things about the game. But Nate said Eliot was picking it up quickly. It was strange but that made him feel good, like yesterday had meant something more than just another day of treading water to keep breathing.
He knew how to play chess and that was something he had that no one could take away from him. No matter what happened to him he could close his eyes and play chess in his head.
It was what he’d do until Nate woke up.
An hour later when Nate was checking his injuries and watching cautiously as Eliot sat up under his own power Eliot noticed the guards with breakfast was late. He hadn’t been counting to keep time but when they did come Eliot guessed they were almost an hour late, if not longer. Their timing had been mostly precise since his arrival.
When they did come the guards seemed agitated, arguing and muttering without a glance towards the cell’s occupants before continuing the argument as they left.
“This isn’t good.” Nate muttered looking over his options in the chess game they’d started before moving to get the food.
“What’s not good?”
“The guards are upset and the higher ups are cutting their wages. Angry guards are never a good thing for us.” Nate said with a long sigh.
“You speak Arabic?”
“A bit, you pick things up.” Nate added offhand, handing Eliot his bowl.
Eliot took two long gulps of the mush, eating quickly it was the best way to get through the disgusting nature.
Arabic. While Eliot had been in Russia during the whole monkey fiasco he’d picked up Russian to get by. It had been useful and now, a month later he realized he still knew most of it, probably all if he practiced. It was another one of the things they couldn’t take from him. It was something useful from the venture.
He hadn’t even made the decision fully before he was putting down his bowl. “Teach me.”
Two hours or more later when Eliot looked like he was developing a headache and was beginning to slur his words in even worse ways than he had been Nate called a halt to the impromptu lesson on basic Arabic. Nate had thought it odd that Eliot showed sudden intrest in such a passing remark but he’d been almost eager, showing more life than Nate would of belived him capable of two days ago.
So Nate started trying to teach. His grasp of Arabic was basic, enough to get by and a little bit more maybe, and Nate wasn’t sure how to teach languages to begin with, but it didn’t seem to matter. Eliot had attacked the opportunity with a vengeance, not even frustrated by his own difficulty to twist his accent into unfamiliar sounds. He wouldn’t be speaking fluently for a long time but Eliot had already picked up more basic phrases than most tourists ever would.
The smile on the young man’s face was more reward for the effort than Nate would have thought.
He set up the chess board and declared they were taking a break.
After a game Nate decided to test a theory. As they started playing chess again Nate started to relate a story from one of the jobs he’d been on, the one with that dark haired woman he nearly caught a few months ago. It had art in it and he went off on a tangent about the art stolen, the fair and black market value for each piece, even the origins and artists and which artist’s work was worth the most.
After rambling on through a few moves and more numbers than any normal person would remember off the top of his head he looked up, checking to see if Eliot was getting bored.
Eliot was watching him attentive, clearly paying careful attention to try to commit this all to memory.
Nate repeated one of the paintings he’d mentioned earlier with a different price and Eliot looked confused. “You said 132,000.” Eliot interrupted.
“Just checking if you were paying attention.” Nate said with a smile. “Good job.”
Eliot shrugged, took Nate’s bishop and brushed off the direct compliment, but his long hair didn’t hide the pleased smile.
Before Nate even really made a conscious decision he found himself turning nearly everything they did into some lesson or another. What Nate had discovered the first time they played chess was proven again and again as one day passed into the next. Eliot was incredibly intelligent, picking up anything Nate threw at him with startling ease.
Nate managed to figure out Eliot hadn’t even finished his freshman year of highschool before
leaving home for “reasons” Eliot didn’t clarify. It was a shame, Nate could almost imagine under different circumstance Eliot could of done anything he’d wanted to. As smart and able to think on his feet as Eliot was Nate had a mental image of him as some young partner at a big law firm or something, though he knew better than to share. Eliot seemed to share Nate’s low opinion of most lawyers.
But even in these circumstances… it was impressive. It wasn’t just that Eliot could pick up whatever Nate threw at him he wanted to. That first “teach me” turned out to be far from the last. If Nate said something or mentioned something and didn’t explain it wouldn’t be long before Eliot was asking.
Somewhere in the back of his head Nate acknowledged that he wasn’t doing anyone any favors on explaining how a certain scam worked to a unrepentant thief or citing the places that sold the best knives in the world but at the same time he didn’t care. In this cell honest man and thief had lost it’s meaning. They were together in this, and every little lesson drew that tired young man he’d met the night he was thrown in here a step further back into the land of the living.
Four days after they’d met Eliot let Nate help him stand and make a loop around the cell before lying back down. It was Nate’s turn to learn as Eliot taught him how to clear your head and measure the passing of time with nothing but your heartbeat.
It was how Eliot knew the schedule of the guards without a watch.
After they counted off an hour Nate helped Eliot back to his feet and they made another round. Nate was about to help him back down when Eliot shook his head and they made another loop. Eliot was panting and shaking by the time Nate helped him back down but he only grinned at Nate’s concern. “I have ta push myself if I wanna get outta here.”
Nate sighed cast about until he could think of something to lead into their latest topic while waiting for the next hour to wind away.
By the end of that day Eliot was moving by himself and by the end of the next Eliot declared himself on the mend enough Nate could stop hovering. He just had to get his feet under him now and it wouldn’t be long before he made his escape.
Somehow neither of them had managed to talk much to each other after that.
The sixth day passed bordering on awkward as reality, and that Eliot was healed enough to start plotting his escape, hit them both hard. They played a couple games of chess but somehow the camaraderie of the past three days had faded.
Dinner never came that day.
Later Eliot would look back and remember that he’d learned from his time in Nishka’s that once you learned the ways of your captors you learned to be wary of changed in behavior. A patrol being an hour late wasn’t particularly upsetting.
But a meal never coming when they hadn’t missed one in more than a week?
Eliot should have known nothing good would come of it.
If he hadn’t been bogged down by the fact that he was well enough to leave now and he should be planning his escape and not wondering why the hell IYS hadn’t come for Nate yet he just might of. As it was the whole peace of mind he seemed to have gained in the past week had disappeared the moment he realized this little cell wasn’t going to last much longer.
He’d been taking a break from reality, learning and feeling and being treated like a human being for once and it was nice, but it wasn’t real. It wouldn’t last forever.
Exhaustion was already settling back around him.
A night of hunger, the reminder that their lives were up to the whims of their captors, reminded Eliot why he needed to get out of here. Captivity never ended well, no matter how
much you liked spending time with your cellmate.
He did have one advantage though. Apparently the fact he’d been badly hurt and more or less suicidal when they’d taken him in meant they didn’t consider him as much of a threat as Nishka had. He’d get one chance before that changed but chances were he wouldn’t have too hard a time getting out of this mess now that he could walk more than a few feet.
Breakfast never came the seventh day, but it wasn’t the lack of food that had them both concerned. There had been no water delivered to their cell since the morning before. It had been all gone since yesterday evening.
Eliot had lasted two day with a fever and no water but it had nearly killed him. By mid afternoon Eliot’d renewed health was already taking a sharp decline and they were both faced with a new terror. Neither of them knew why the deliveries had stopped.
And neither of them knew if they’d start again.
Or if it would be before one of them died.
By evening Nate was getting desperate. Without water neither of them would last much longer, Eliot had already reverted to laying on his pallet, staring at the ceiling, and trying to conserve energy. His health was failing quickly, and so close to his escape. Nate himself felt like his throat was made of sandpaper, thirst making his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth and the first signs of dehydration had set in awhile ago.
Despite his better judgment when Nate heard the tromp of boots of guards outside the cell Nate went to the barred window calling out in Arabic. “Please, sirs, we need water.” They continued walking away. "Please!"
He didn’t see their expression until it was too late.
“What the hell didja do that for?” Eliot asked, his throat scratchy, forcing himself into a sitting position. “Do you know wh-“
He was interrupted by keys turning in the lock and the cell door opening to reveal three guards. Nate didn’t need to understand the words they were saying to realize his bad luck that had landed him here was back with a vengeance.
“Angry guards are never a good thing” His own words days ago sailed through his mind as two of the guards grabbed his arms and slammed him front forward into a wall while the other closed the door. His mind’s processing rate seemed to slow down as some rough rope was tied around his wrists and jerked his arms over his head to catch over a hook in the wall near the ceiling.
There was movement behind him, a gasp and words of protest he should of understood but his mind went blank when a crack was followed by a white hot pain striking him from shoulder to hip.
A second blow caught him just as off guard, knocking what was left of his wind out of him and making him gasp.
Nate was an insurance investigator. He was a good guy, and honest guy. He’d been in fights before but this?
This was new. This he didn’t know what to do about.
He’d lost his breath before the fourth blow, his mind fizzling out as being unable to breath added to pain and fear making any kind of lucid thought fly out the window.
Suddenly things stopped. The next blow didn’t come. There was a scuffle and the sound of flesh hitting flesh and grunts for a few moments before he heard the telltale click of a safety being removed and Eliot growled. “I hate guns.”
Suddenly someone was lifting him off the notch and tossed him haphazardly to the side, his head hitting the wall nearly hard enough to knock him out. Nate lay there dazed, slowly, pulling himself back together and ignoring the blood he could feel sluggishly dripping along his back and trying not to go under. He had to figure out what had happened.
He turned slowly, seeing guards tying a new rope around Eliot’s wrists a gun still pressed to the back of his skull. Nate’s head was still spinning but he was able to piece together enough of what they’d said to understand Eliot had tried to make his escape.
Nate was confused at the sheer stupidity for all of the minute it took to get Eliot into the position he’d been in moments ago before he felt the bottom of his stomache drop out.
Eliot closed his eyes, laid his cheek against the cold stone wall and waited, the light through the barred window of the cell door shinning across dozens of scars across his back.
Eliot had known he’d never get away.
He’d made a gambit to trade places with Nate.
As the guard raised his arm for the first blow Nate closed his eyes tight, trying to block out the sound of leather hitting flesh. All he could think was that he’d been wrong. Eliot may be a thief, he may have led a hard life.
But he was already a good man.
Previous: Chapter Two
Next: Chapter Four