The Question Mark Job 1/2
Title: The Question Mark Job
Summary: Eliot comes down with the flu during a job.
Characters: Eliot, Nate, Sophie, Hardison, Parker
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 12,885
Disclaimer: Recognizable characters/plot elements/etc. don't belong to me, alas.
Warnings: Unrepentant h/c. Very mild swearing.
Neurotic Author's Note #1: This is a very late contribution of mine for helpbrazil2011. The auction was won by the lovely and very generous usakeh, so congratulations, babe! She requested sick!Eliot with the flu, and his team mates taking care of him. Unfortunately, Eliot decided to remain close-mouthed about his past, but at least I got the h/c part down. (I know, you are all astonished that I wrote h/c. I never, ever do that.)
Neurotic Author's Note #2: So this is me venturing back into Leverage territory, and the subject matter is very similar. It's a shocking turn of events, but what can I say? Eliot apparently begs to be whumped as far as I'm concerned.
Neurotic Author's Note #3: This ended up unbeta'd, for which I apologize. I have, however, tinkered with it to within an inch of its life, so hopefully it turned out okay.
They're in the middle of a case when Eliot gets sick. It's a local case, which means that for once he gets to sleep in his own bed. It's a nice change of pace, but the respite is short lived. At first he attributes the poor nights of sleep to the nagging worry he's had for months about the team, and Nate especially, but when he wakes up aching and groggy after a day of nothing more strenuous than climbing several flights of stairs, he has no choice but to accept the fact that he’s come down with something. He takes a few extra minutes in the shower, turning the hot water up as far as it will go in an attempt to ease the stiffness from his muscles, but it doesn't do much good.
He surprises himself by breaking into a coughing fit when he steps out into the steam-filled room, the slightly colder air making him shiver. Just great, he thinks, he's getting a cold. That’s just what he needs. He shivers as the air turns cold, sneezes wetly, grabs a tissue from the box on top of the toilet tank, and pulls out a packet of non-drowsy decongestants from his medicine cabinet. He doesn't get sick often but he believes in being prepared, and that means keeping a well-stocked medicine cabinet, just in case. Working at less than full capacity sometimes means the difference between life and death, so today it means he'll be walking the fine line between feeling sick and being groggy from cold meds, and given the choice he’ll always take the latter over the former. Grogginess he can compensate for, but sickness is an unpredictable beast at best.
He forces himself to eat a proper breakfast, but even cooking it this morning holds very little interest. It's disappointing, because he was pretty excited when he found fresh basil at this time of year yesterday at the market, and had been looking forward to making a really tasty omelette. As it is, the food mostly tastes of sawdust this morning. He pops two more cold pills and a couple of aspirin for the headache that's building quietly behind his eyes just before heading to meet the others. He pockets the cellophane packet of pills, and tries not to worry about how quickly he's starting to feel worse. He's not badly congested, but it feels like there's a weight pressing on his chest, and his throat hurts from coughing.
His team mates are waiting for him at a secluded table in a small restaurant. Nate and Sophie are each nursing a coffee, Parker's tucking in happily to a stack of pancakes that's almost taller than her head -Eliot really doesn't know where she puts it all, she's so tiny- and Hardison is making short work of a couple of eggs and breakfast sausages. Eliot pulls up a chair, gestures to the waitress with a nod and a wink that gets him a coy smile, and points to Sophie's cup of coffee to indicate he'll have the same.
“Coming right up, sugar!”
“Seriously, how do you do that?” Hardison asks around a mouthful of sausage.
“The fact that you're asking me with your forkful of sausage rammed halfway down your gullet speaks for itself.”
Hardison glares, but swallows the sausage. Point made, and he didn't even have to say more than one sentence aloud, for which his throat is thanking him. Sophie, however, hasn't missed a damned thing. That's the problem with grifters: they're perceptive.
“Feeling all right, Eliot?”
He shrugs. “Got a cold.” He swivels in his seat to fix Hardison with a glare, raises a finger at him. “Not. One. Word. Not one.”
Hardison puts up his hands, eyes wide and rolling, eyebrows shooting to his hairline in an expansive demonstration of “Hey-I-didn't-say-a-word,” which is undermined only slightly by the fact that he's already got another piece of sausage speared onto his fork.
“Okay,” Nate brings them all to order quietly, with a sip of his coffee which Eliot suspects is already irished up in preparation for the day. “Are we all still clear on today's objectives?” There's a round of nods, so he continues. “Hardison, you're still on van duty. I want every conversation recorded and ready to be used at a moments' notice. Parker, you're on standby with me, in case we need physical evidence extracted on short notice. Sophie, Eliot, we're reeling in McAffrey, and today and tomorrow are going to be crucial for that. First meeting is in two hours, which gives us plenty of time to get into position.”
Eliot nods, drinks his coffee in a few gulps and gestures for a refill, and it's just hot enough to soothe his throat. With any luck he'll be able to knock this thing back before it gets out of hand, but it's not like he's never worked while he was sick before. Two more cups of coffee, and he's all but convinced himself he'll be fine. He ducks into the van with Hardison long enough to change into the nondescript suit he's been wearing as part of his disguise as Sophie's bodyguard, and grab a bottle of water. Abruptly he sneezes into the crook of his elbow, then breaks into another coughing fit, thankfully short-lived, and Hardison shoots him a sceptical look.
“You sure you're okay? You kind of look like hell.”
He shrugs, fishes a tissue out of a box next to one of Hardison's computers to blow his nose. “It'll pass.”
“Whatever you say, man.”
When he joins Sophie, she's looking even more radiant than usual, her hair up in a simple twist, kohl applied perhaps a touch more liberally than usual, draped in an elegant dark red suit that sets off her skin. She's glowing, he thinks a little dazedly, then reaches up to wipe a trickle of sweat away from his hairline. She smiles at him, and his heart kind of skips a beat in his chest.
“Ready?”
He pulls himself together with an effort and nods. He hooks a more obvious -but fake- earpiece in place over his ear, to fool whoever might be looking into thinking he's communicating with an entirely different security detail, rather than his own team. “Lead the way.”
She moves ahead of him, hips moving ever so slightly suggestively. This persona is all business with a touch of class and just a hint of unbridled sexuality kept tamped down under the power suits, and it's a good look on her. He follows a pace behind her, and she tilts her head ever so slightly and sub-vocalizes to him.
“Eliot, are you sure you're all right?”
Two people in less than twenty minutes. He must look about as sick as he feels, which is the first red flag. “I'll let you know if I'm not.”
“Right, then.”
Eliot settles into his role, glad at least that his team trusts his judgement when it comes to this. He reaches up to wipe at his forehead again, and a tremor runs through him. Shit. If he's already running a fever, no matter how slight, it's not going to go well. He should have known, in retrospect. His body always tends to want to fight off even the smallest bug by running a low-grade fever, like his own personal detox system. He keeps step with Sophie as she sweeps into the glassed-in lobby and makes her presence known to the already-intimidated receptionist. As long as today stays about following Sophie and just making sure nothing happens to her, then he can do this, Eliot tells himself. He'll tell Nate he needs to call it an early day, have someone else back up Sophie later on tonight if she needs it, and just go sleep whatever this is off.
After only a little while, though, he can tell that it's definitely more than a cold. Sweat is trickling down his back, beginning to soak uncomfortably through his shirt, and he feels like he's been sitting in a freezer for hours rather than a nice warm office building. It's all he can do to keep from shivering, his teeth from chattering, though at the very least the sneezing has stopped, and he's been able to keep the coughing under control, but it's only a matter of time before he won't even be able to do that. It’s probably the 'flu, of all inconvenient things. Whatever this is, it's hitting him like a damned freight train, although he has no idea where he picked it up. Probably somewhere in that office building during their last job -cubicle spaces are like giant incubators, which is why he's always preferred to work out in the open, and on his own. He never used to get sick when he was out in the field. Freaking office buildings. One person gets the 'flu, the whole place comes down with it in the next few days.
It's not like Eliot lacks all common sense. He's going to be a liability to the team like this, so the rational course of action is to pull back, go home and hole up until this has passed, whatever it is. It's just that the timing is really freaking inconvenient. When he does get sick, it's usually between jobs, when the adrenaline has worn off and his body decides it's had enough, not right in the middle of a job.
Sophie is shaking the hand of a tall, white-haired man with a smile like a fox and a handshake like a hyperactive marionette. His sleeve pulls up as he courteously shakes Sophie's hand, revealing an odd scar, shaped rather like a question mark. He gives Eliot a once-over, then nods once, briefly, in his direction. Eliot doesn't move -that's not what he's there for- but the gesture seems odd, out of place somehow, though he can't quite put his finger on it. Security is meant to be invisible, just a menacing presence lurking in the background. To be acknowledged like that... he clamps down on another shiver and wishes there was some way he could excuse himself to the closest washroom and maybe pop another few pills, just to get him through the morning.
Instead he just squares his shoulders, clasps his hands behind his back, and tries not to sweat right through his jacket while Sophie works her magic. Even with his head throbbing, he can't help but admire her technique -especially when she's not using it on him to force him to serve her tea- a touch here, a laugh there, a carefully-placed word in the man's ear. Eliot forces himself to watch their surroundings, to make sure nothing untoward is happening, but his gaze keeps coming back to the man he's can't help thinking of as a silver fox -he can't seem to hang onto his name, which is worrying. He's getting increasingly light-headed, his concentration shot, and his head is aching even worse than before. His chest burns with the urge to cough, but there's nothing he can do but simply try to hang on and wait for the first available window of opportunity. He can't talk into his mic now -even trying to sub-vocalize would attract too much attention- but he needs to get out, quit before he screws up the whole job. Sophie is engrossed in her role, reminding him of nothing so much as a cobra holding its prey in thrall, and even the slightest misstep on his part could not only ruin the job, but put her directly in harm's way. Eventually he manages to catch Sophie's eye, and when she tilts her head ever-so-slightly in acknowledgment he barely manages not to sigh in relief.
“Excuse me,” she lets a perfectly-manicured hand trail down the man's arm for a few seconds. “I'm just going to powder my nose. Don't go anywhere without me!” she lets out a musical laugh, drifts through the doors, and that's Eliot's cue to follow her, which he does gratefully.
“What's wrong?” are the first words out of her mouth as soon as they're in the clear. Her voice is low, and though her expression is still calmly neutral, a woman in power conferring with an employee, he can see the faintest flicker of worry in her eyes.
“I can't do this.” He shakes his head. “I'm really sorry.”
“Eliot?” Nate's voice comes over the com, his tone worried.
“I'm too sick. I thought it would be okay for today,” he forces himself not to clench his teeth when he makes the admission. “But I can't.”
Sophie presses a hand to his forehead, and he's too surprised -too shocked by the intimacy of the gesture- to even think of stopping her. “Nate, he's burning with fever.”
“All right, I'm pulling the plug,” Nate says, and Eliot can almost hear the gears in his mind turning away, already working on a new angle to the job, and finds that he's kind of pathetically grateful that Nate isn't questioning him, trusting him to know his own limits. “Sophie, make an excuse to get away for a couple of hours. I can rig up a cell phone call, call you away for an emergency meeting somewhere, and we'll set up Hardison as your bodyguard this afternoon.”
“Why does Hardison get to be the bodyguard?” Parker's voice comes over the comm, and the whine in her tone stabs right through Eliot's ear drums. “I never get to be the bodyguard.”
“Because I still need you on standby for burglarising an office if we need to.” Nate's tone doesn't change, but it's clear the subject is closed. “Eliot, can you hang in there long enough for us to get you out? Shouldn't take more than ten minutes.”
He nods, even though he knows Nate can't see him, rubs the back of his wrist against his forehead. “Yeah, it's... it's not bad. I just need to sleep this off. Sorry.”
Sophie takes him by the elbow and casually steers him into the unisex bathroom. “Did you bring anything with you?”
He reaches into his pocket and produces the cellophane packet of cold pills he shoved in there earlier, and she shrugs.
“Better than nothing. Have some water,” she lets her hand linger at the small of his back, and even though he knows what she's doing, he can't bring himself to care, because it feels good. Reassuring somehow, grounding.
He swallows two more of the pills and splashes water on his face, bracing himself against the sink for a moment to catch his breath, trying not to cough. If he lets himself go now, he'll never be able to stop. Sophie stays by his elbow, and he has to force himself not to lean into her touch, firm against his spine. Damn, he must be really far gone. He swallows as much water as he can manage, trying to cool the burning in his chest and throat. After a moment he pulls himself together, gives her a nod, and she turns back, heels clicking loudly on the bathroom tiles, not hesitating for a moment. He follows her out, already feeling a little better at least now that he knows there's an exit strategy, clasps his hands behind his back and tries not to waver too obviously when he feels their mark's gaze linger on him a little longer than he's strictly comfortable with. He doesn't blink, simply stares at a point somewhere over the man's shoulder and tries to radiate quiet hostility, and after a moment the man breaks his gaze, turning his attention back to Sophie. She doesn't give Eliot a second look, turning up the charm as far as it will go in order to deflect all attention from the fact that Eliot is about two minutes away from having to lean against the nearest wall for support.
~*~
It takes another twenty minutes to engineer a fake emergency and get out, and by the time they clear the front doors and he automatically gives Sophie his hand to help her into the van -more out of habit than necessity- the lining of his jacket is soaked with sweat, and he has to stop when the coughing fit he's been holding back finally bends him almost double.
“You look really bad,” Parker says, eyeing him critically.
He shrugs, is saved from answering by Nate. “I've got a cab coming,” he says, his expression apologetic, as though he thought Eliot might have been expecting a personal escort back to his place. “It should be here any second. You let me know when you're home, and I'll fill you in later.”
“Are you sure you'll be all right on your own?” Sophie asks quietly. “One of use can come with you...”
“It's fine,” Eliot murmurs, giving her arm what he hopes is a reassuring pat.
A minute later he spots the cab already rounding the corner, and heads off, not even bothering to take his leave properly. He drops into the back seat, gives an address a block away from his apartment purely out of habit, and realizes once he's handed over a couple of bills to the driver that he now has to walk the rest of the way. After less than ten feet he's so hot that he wavers and almost has to brace himself against the nearest building when the whole world threatens to flip on its axis. He pulls off his jacket and is immediately chilled as a cool breeze blows against his sweat-soaked shirt. He braces himself against the cold, puts his head down and just concentrates on getting one foot in front of the other until he finds himself by his own front door, fumbling with his house keys with shaking hands.
He tosses his jacket over the back of one of his kitchen chairs, goes through his routine security checks on autopilot, locking down his apartment for the night even though it's not even afternoon yet, making sure no one got in while he was away, and making doubly sure no one can get in while he's here. He sheds the rest of his clothes and drops them into the laundry hamper out of habit before pulling out a couple of 'flu tablets and some ibuprofen from his medicine cabinet and washing them down with a glass of water. He splashes water on his face again in a futile attempt to cool down, braces himself against his sink as he starts coughing again, fighting off another wave of dizziness and mild nausea. He pulls in a couple of deep breaths to steady himself before he's able to stand upright again. Stripped down to his boxers, he drags himself as far as his sofa, crawls under the knitted throw blanket he keeps there, and finally lets himself succumb to the pull of sleep.
His sleep is filled with restless dreams, faces drifting in and out of focus. Sometimes it's his team, but more often it's people from the past, and the face of the man he can still only think of as the silver fox keeps coming back, smirking at him from across a conference table.
“What was the question?” he asks, and is surprised when his voice comes out as a hoarse croak. He blinks confusedly, disoriented until he recognizes the familiar outlines of his own furniture, the events of the morning returning slowly to his memory, and gradually he relaxes enough to fall asleep again.
The next thing he's aware of is a presence a few inches away from him. He comes awake with a start that sends pinpricks of pain up and down his spine and into his head, and he curls in on himself, coughing painfully. Gradually he gets the fit under control, and when he looks up again the golden blur above his head comes into focus. He allows himself a quiet groan.
“What do you want, Parker?” He doesn't bother asking her how she got in. She's the only person he's ever met who can get past all his security measures. Well, maybe Hardison, too, but Hardison has never tried, whereas Parker has, and succeeded at it.
She beams at him, and for a moment he almost feels guilty for growling at her. “You're awake! Great! I thought I would have to wake you up, and I know you don't like being surprised. It makes you grumpy.”
“I'm surprised now,” he reaches up to scrub at his face, makes a grimace when his hand comes away covered in sweat. “What do you want?”
“You should be in bed,” she tells him solemnly. “You'll just make yourself sicker if you stay out here. Sofas aren't restful.”
He buries his face back into the crook of his elbow. “Parker, I'm an adult and I have had the flu before. If you don't have a good reason for being here, then you should go back and finish the job with Nate.”
“I do have a good reason. I'm making sure you're okay. And now you need to get up,” she tugs on his arm, “so you can sleep in your bed. And then I'll bring soup, because that's what you eat when you're sick.”
Even raising his head hurts, so he doesn't bother. “I'm fine, go away.”
“That's a lie,” she tugs harder on his elbow. “Come on! Get up and sleep in your own bed. Come on, get up! Get up, get up, get up, Eliot!”
“Okay, okay,” he pushes himself up with his free arm, trying to ignore the way the whole room tilts and swings. He's too tired and dizzy and hot to be overly embarrassed when she catches him by the shoulder and holds him steady while he succumbs to another coughing fit, chest tightening painfully. He can't quite figure out the quiet little smile she gives him when he catches his breath enough to look at her again.
“Come on, I'll help,” she chirps, and the next thing he knows she's pulling him to his feet with more strength than he thought she had. He can still break her like a twig, of course, but that's not the point, and he wonders bemusedly just how much about Parker -about all of his team- he might have misjudged. The thought isn't a comforting one.
Parker keeps a firm hold of his elbow, resisting his attempts to shake her off as he makes his way to his bedroom, and by the time he's at his bed his legs are shaking enough that he's even a little grateful for it, not that he's ever going to tell her that. She was right about the bed, too, he thinks, easing himself under his bedclothes and letting his head sink onto his pillow. It really is much more comfortable than his sofa. The sheets are cool against his skin, the fading smell of detergent soothing. He starts a little at the feel of her hand brushing gently against the overheated skin of his neck.
“You should take some more aspirin. It'll help with the fever.”
He curls up a little tighter under the bedclothes, already feeling the pull of sleep. “Took some a few minutes ago.”
“No you didn't. You were asleep.”
That rouses him a little. “What time is it?”
“It's nearly three o'clock.”
He's lost almost five hours, he realizes. Before he can say anything, Parker has disappeared. She reappears almost like magic a moment later -although now he has to wonder just how much time he's losing to this damned fever- and hands him a glass of water and an open bottle of pills. He downs all of it in record time, settles back on the bed, and doesn't bother protesting when she pulls the covers on his bed back over his shoulders in an oddly tender gesture.
“You should go back to sleep if you're not hungry. I'm going to stay until Hardison gets here.”
Eliot cracks open an eye. “No. Absolutely not, Parker. I don't want people here. Just... look. It's not that I don't appreciate the sentiment,” he clears his throat as his voice threatens to give out, “but I'm fine. I'll sleep this off, and I'll join up with you guys tomorrow.”
“Uh-huh,” Parker nods, expression bright, and his heart sinks a little as he realizes that nothing of what he's just said has sunk in at all. She's always had the uncanny ability to switch off her listening skills at will when it's something she doesn't want to hear. “I'm going to be in the living room. I have some new harnesses I want to test out. You go back to sleep, and I'll get Hardison to bring you soup later.”
He's too tired to argue with her. If necessary, he'll deal with Hardison if and when he gets here, but he's holding out hope that the others will know better than to invite themselves over. He's still trying to figure out a way to get Parker out of his apartment when he falls asleep again.
He wakens from another unsettling dream about the same man leering at him across a conference table, surrounded by inky darkness. The table itself is vast and tilts at a crazy angle, but the man doesn't seem perturbed and continues to grin in a way that makes Eliot's heart skitter crazily in his chest. What was the question? the man asks him, and the air is filled with laughter. He comes to full consciousness with a painful jerk, only to realize that what awoke him was the sound of quiet scuffling by his bed, and he finds himself staring at a very sheepish-looking Hardison.
“Oh, hey man. I wasn't trying to wake you up or anything, 'cause it seriously looks like you could use the sleep. I just thought, I mean, you know, since you're sick and all, you might want something to do when you're not sleepin'. I know I always get bored if I can't get on the internet, so I, uh, brought some things. You know, books, couple of magazines, laptop, and you don't have any DVDs, so I brought a couple of movies and whatever.” He waggles what looks like a boxed set of DVDs in front of Eliot's face.
“Battlestar Galactica?” Eliot manages, even though it comes out sounding like a croak and sends him into another coughing fit. If anything, he feels worse than he did before he went to sleep, which is more than a little frustrating, since he was expecting to be at least a little better by now. He's been asleep all day. Immediately Hardison has dropped the box onto the night table, and holds out a glass of water for him to take.
“You sound like nine kinds of crap. And don't be knocking BSG, it is quality TV.”
He ignores the water. “Hardison, I already told Parker I'll be back tomorrow. Seriously, go away.”
“Yeah, it doesn't sound like it to me. You take your temperature?”
He glares. “No. What does it matter? Why are you even here?”
Hardison shrugs a bit. “Nate's worried. And, you know, if Nate worries, then we worry. So we're just making sure you're okay.”
“I'm fine.”
“Uh-huh, sure,” Hardison doesn't bother trying to temper the sarcasm in his tone. “That's why you ain't so much as opened your eyes since I got here an hour ago.” The thought of Hardison coming in unnoticed -even aided by Parker- is a disturbing one. “So I brought take-out soup and some of the orange stuff in case you get bored of water, and I'm gonna sit here with my laptop.”
“Watching people while they sleep is creepy,” Eliot mutters into his pillow.
“Which is why I have my laptop. Edward Cullen I ain't. I have work to do, but unlike some, I can bring my work anywhere I want to. You need anything?”
“Solitude.”
“Take that one up with Nate.”
“At least take your solitaire game into the living room,” he concedes defeat, but that doesn't mean he has to be gracious about it. He's already drowsing by the time Hardison starts complaining about having stuff that's way more complicated than plain old solitaire on his computer, and is half-asleep when he hears the door to his bedroom click shut, plunging him into welcome darkness.
He's freezing cold when he next awakens, shivering so hard that every muscle in his body hurts. Sometime during his sleep he kicked off the bed clothes, and he twists on himself, trying to pull them up again, except that he can't quite wrap his mind around all the movements that would normally make that happen. His head throbs, and a wrong move has him curling up and coughing so hard that lights pulse behind his closed eyelids and bile rises in his throat. He makes a grab for the waste basket he keeps by the bed, keeps coughing until he throws up what little was left in his stomach. He manages to disentangle his legs from the sheets and staggers to his feet, has to rest his shoulder against the wall to keep himself upright on the way to the bathroom.
“Hey, man, y'all right?”
Hardison's voice follows him, but it's all he can do just to make it all the way to the bathroom before half-collapsing onto the edge of the tub, dropping his head into his hands and already beginning to cough again, shoulders shaking with the effort of trying to keep it contained because he really, really doesn't want to throw up again.
“Hey, Eliot...” Hardison pokes his head around the door. “You doing okay?”
He's coughing too hard to answer, and as much as he wants to snap Hardison's arm above the elbow when he feels his hand gently clasp the back of his neck, somehow he doesn't do any such thing. His stomach flip-flops, and suddenly he's actually kind of grateful for Hardison because the toilet seat lifts as though by magic when he pitches forward and pukes again in spite of his best intentions.
“Easy does it,” Hardison says, and even if he sounds more than a little awkward, his hand is still resting just between Eliot's shoulder blades. “You want some water?” He doesn't wait for Eliot to answer, just fills the glass by the sink and holds it up to his mouth. “Come on, man. Rinse and spit. It'll make you feel better. And please don't be ripping my arm off, all right?”
He shakes his head, fumbles with the glass and has to hold it with both hands, but it feels nice to rinse the sour taste from his mouth. He reaches out with one hand to flush the toilet, braces himself against the wall to get up, only to have his knees buckle. He lists to the side, lands on his ass on the cold tiles, and lets his head fall back against the wall with a thunk, eyes slipping shut.
“Man, you are a mess.” He can sense Hardison shaking his head, even if he can't bring himself to open his eyes. “What in the hell did you do to yourself?”
Eliot is tempted to just say he's fine, he'll be fine as long as they let him sleep this off, but he's not sure that's true anymore. Hardison presses another glass of water into his hands, and he drains it, doesn't so much as protest when it's refilled and given back to him along with a couple of pills, swallows the lot of it.
“I have to go back to bed,” he manages after a moment. He pries open his eyes, swallows his pride. “I, uh, I could use a hand.” He's pretty sure he won't be able to stand up by himself.
“Yeah, okay. I'll make jokes about it being the End Times later,” Hardison grabs him by an elbow. “You okay if you lean on me?”
He manages a weak nod, has to hold onto Hardison with both hands until he's got his feet under him. The room is spinning, but Hardison keeps a good grip on him, and it's a lot easier to get back to the bedroom than it was to leave it. He stumbles as he gets to the bed, and comes close to sending them both sprawling, but Hardison catches them, bracing a knee against the bed, and eases him back down.
“And you said I wasn't learning anything from those sparring sessions,” Hardison jokes quietly, pulling the covers up. “Man, I've felt furnaces that're cooler than you. I'm getting a thermometer.”
Eliot mumbles something he hopes sounds enough like a protest, but it apparently has no effect, or maybe he didn't say what he thought he said because a couple of minutes later Hardison is trying to stick said thermometer in his ear, taking advantage of the fact that all of Eliot's coordination appears to be screwed to hell. The thermometer beeps shrilly, making him flinch.
“Oh, hell no,” Hardison exclaims, and Eliot flinches again and wishes, not for the first time, that Hardison wasn't quite so loud. “That's it, that shit ain't normal at all. I don't care any more, I'm calling Nate and we're getting you to a doctor.”
“Don't need a doctor,” he groans, pulling away from the grip Hardison still has on his bicep from when he checked his temperature.
“Eliot, dude, you got a fever over 105. Like I said, that shit ain't normal. You gotta have antibiotics or something. Or a hospital. Yeah, definitely a hospital. You sit tight, I'm calling Nate.”
He protests, or tries to, but Hardison is already gone, and he can feel his chest tightening threateningly, giving him no choice but to lie back down before he starts coughing again. The last thing he wants is to throw up again, because all that's left is bile, and his throat is already raw and burning from the last bout of vomiting. He can hear Hardison in the next room talking animatedly into his phone, but the conversation is lost on him. He should be going out there, he thinks distantly, reassuring Nate that it's not nearly as bad as Hardison's making out -that's the problem with people like him, Eliot tells himself, soft and so used to being coddled that they overreact to everything- except that he thinks that, for once, Hardison might have a point. He doesn't remember being this sick in years, and in the moments that he's able to keep his thoughts together for more than a couple of seconds at a time, it occurs to him that he might have to worry a bit about how fast this illness hit him.
~*~
Part 2
Summary: Eliot comes down with the flu during a job.
Characters: Eliot, Nate, Sophie, Hardison, Parker
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 12,885
Disclaimer: Recognizable characters/plot elements/etc. don't belong to me, alas.
Warnings: Unrepentant h/c. Very mild swearing.
Neurotic Author's Note #1: This is a very late contribution of mine for helpbrazil2011. The auction was won by the lovely and very generous usakeh, so congratulations, babe! She requested sick!Eliot with the flu, and his team mates taking care of him. Unfortunately, Eliot decided to remain close-mouthed about his past, but at least I got the h/c part down. (I know, you are all astonished that I wrote h/c. I never, ever do that.)
Neurotic Author's Note #2: So this is me venturing back into Leverage territory, and the subject matter is very similar. It's a shocking turn of events, but what can I say? Eliot apparently begs to be whumped as far as I'm concerned.
Neurotic Author's Note #3: This ended up unbeta'd, for which I apologize. I have, however, tinkered with it to within an inch of its life, so hopefully it turned out okay.
They're in the middle of a case when Eliot gets sick. It's a local case, which means that for once he gets to sleep in his own bed. It's a nice change of pace, but the respite is short lived. At first he attributes the poor nights of sleep to the nagging worry he's had for months about the team, and Nate especially, but when he wakes up aching and groggy after a day of nothing more strenuous than climbing several flights of stairs, he has no choice but to accept the fact that he’s come down with something. He takes a few extra minutes in the shower, turning the hot water up as far as it will go in an attempt to ease the stiffness from his muscles, but it doesn't do much good.
He surprises himself by breaking into a coughing fit when he steps out into the steam-filled room, the slightly colder air making him shiver. Just great, he thinks, he's getting a cold. That’s just what he needs. He shivers as the air turns cold, sneezes wetly, grabs a tissue from the box on top of the toilet tank, and pulls out a packet of non-drowsy decongestants from his medicine cabinet. He doesn't get sick often but he believes in being prepared, and that means keeping a well-stocked medicine cabinet, just in case. Working at less than full capacity sometimes means the difference between life and death, so today it means he'll be walking the fine line between feeling sick and being groggy from cold meds, and given the choice he’ll always take the latter over the former. Grogginess he can compensate for, but sickness is an unpredictable beast at best.
He forces himself to eat a proper breakfast, but even cooking it this morning holds very little interest. It's disappointing, because he was pretty excited when he found fresh basil at this time of year yesterday at the market, and had been looking forward to making a really tasty omelette. As it is, the food mostly tastes of sawdust this morning. He pops two more cold pills and a couple of aspirin for the headache that's building quietly behind his eyes just before heading to meet the others. He pockets the cellophane packet of pills, and tries not to worry about how quickly he's starting to feel worse. He's not badly congested, but it feels like there's a weight pressing on his chest, and his throat hurts from coughing.
His team mates are waiting for him at a secluded table in a small restaurant. Nate and Sophie are each nursing a coffee, Parker's tucking in happily to a stack of pancakes that's almost taller than her head -Eliot really doesn't know where she puts it all, she's so tiny- and Hardison is making short work of a couple of eggs and breakfast sausages. Eliot pulls up a chair, gestures to the waitress with a nod and a wink that gets him a coy smile, and points to Sophie's cup of coffee to indicate he'll have the same.
“Coming right up, sugar!”
“Seriously, how do you do that?” Hardison asks around a mouthful of sausage.
“The fact that you're asking me with your forkful of sausage rammed halfway down your gullet speaks for itself.”
Hardison glares, but swallows the sausage. Point made, and he didn't even have to say more than one sentence aloud, for which his throat is thanking him. Sophie, however, hasn't missed a damned thing. That's the problem with grifters: they're perceptive.
“Feeling all right, Eliot?”
He shrugs. “Got a cold.” He swivels in his seat to fix Hardison with a glare, raises a finger at him. “Not. One. Word. Not one.”
Hardison puts up his hands, eyes wide and rolling, eyebrows shooting to his hairline in an expansive demonstration of “Hey-I-didn't-say-a-word,” which is undermined only slightly by the fact that he's already got another piece of sausage speared onto his fork.
“Okay,” Nate brings them all to order quietly, with a sip of his coffee which Eliot suspects is already irished up in preparation for the day. “Are we all still clear on today's objectives?” There's a round of nods, so he continues. “Hardison, you're still on van duty. I want every conversation recorded and ready to be used at a moments' notice. Parker, you're on standby with me, in case we need physical evidence extracted on short notice. Sophie, Eliot, we're reeling in McAffrey, and today and tomorrow are going to be crucial for that. First meeting is in two hours, which gives us plenty of time to get into position.”
Eliot nods, drinks his coffee in a few gulps and gestures for a refill, and it's just hot enough to soothe his throat. With any luck he'll be able to knock this thing back before it gets out of hand, but it's not like he's never worked while he was sick before. Two more cups of coffee, and he's all but convinced himself he'll be fine. He ducks into the van with Hardison long enough to change into the nondescript suit he's been wearing as part of his disguise as Sophie's bodyguard, and grab a bottle of water. Abruptly he sneezes into the crook of his elbow, then breaks into another coughing fit, thankfully short-lived, and Hardison shoots him a sceptical look.
“You sure you're okay? You kind of look like hell.”
He shrugs, fishes a tissue out of a box next to one of Hardison's computers to blow his nose. “It'll pass.”
“Whatever you say, man.”
When he joins Sophie, she's looking even more radiant than usual, her hair up in a simple twist, kohl applied perhaps a touch more liberally than usual, draped in an elegant dark red suit that sets off her skin. She's glowing, he thinks a little dazedly, then reaches up to wipe a trickle of sweat away from his hairline. She smiles at him, and his heart kind of skips a beat in his chest.
“Ready?”
He pulls himself together with an effort and nods. He hooks a more obvious -but fake- earpiece in place over his ear, to fool whoever might be looking into thinking he's communicating with an entirely different security detail, rather than his own team. “Lead the way.”
She moves ahead of him, hips moving ever so slightly suggestively. This persona is all business with a touch of class and just a hint of unbridled sexuality kept tamped down under the power suits, and it's a good look on her. He follows a pace behind her, and she tilts her head ever so slightly and sub-vocalizes to him.
“Eliot, are you sure you're all right?”
Two people in less than twenty minutes. He must look about as sick as he feels, which is the first red flag. “I'll let you know if I'm not.”
“Right, then.”
Eliot settles into his role, glad at least that his team trusts his judgement when it comes to this. He reaches up to wipe at his forehead again, and a tremor runs through him. Shit. If he's already running a fever, no matter how slight, it's not going to go well. He should have known, in retrospect. His body always tends to want to fight off even the smallest bug by running a low-grade fever, like his own personal detox system. He keeps step with Sophie as she sweeps into the glassed-in lobby and makes her presence known to the already-intimidated receptionist. As long as today stays about following Sophie and just making sure nothing happens to her, then he can do this, Eliot tells himself. He'll tell Nate he needs to call it an early day, have someone else back up Sophie later on tonight if she needs it, and just go sleep whatever this is off.
After only a little while, though, he can tell that it's definitely more than a cold. Sweat is trickling down his back, beginning to soak uncomfortably through his shirt, and he feels like he's been sitting in a freezer for hours rather than a nice warm office building. It's all he can do to keep from shivering, his teeth from chattering, though at the very least the sneezing has stopped, and he's been able to keep the coughing under control, but it's only a matter of time before he won't even be able to do that. It’s probably the 'flu, of all inconvenient things. Whatever this is, it's hitting him like a damned freight train, although he has no idea where he picked it up. Probably somewhere in that office building during their last job -cubicle spaces are like giant incubators, which is why he's always preferred to work out in the open, and on his own. He never used to get sick when he was out in the field. Freaking office buildings. One person gets the 'flu, the whole place comes down with it in the next few days.
It's not like Eliot lacks all common sense. He's going to be a liability to the team like this, so the rational course of action is to pull back, go home and hole up until this has passed, whatever it is. It's just that the timing is really freaking inconvenient. When he does get sick, it's usually between jobs, when the adrenaline has worn off and his body decides it's had enough, not right in the middle of a job.
Sophie is shaking the hand of a tall, white-haired man with a smile like a fox and a handshake like a hyperactive marionette. His sleeve pulls up as he courteously shakes Sophie's hand, revealing an odd scar, shaped rather like a question mark. He gives Eliot a once-over, then nods once, briefly, in his direction. Eliot doesn't move -that's not what he's there for- but the gesture seems odd, out of place somehow, though he can't quite put his finger on it. Security is meant to be invisible, just a menacing presence lurking in the background. To be acknowledged like that... he clamps down on another shiver and wishes there was some way he could excuse himself to the closest washroom and maybe pop another few pills, just to get him through the morning.
Instead he just squares his shoulders, clasps his hands behind his back, and tries not to sweat right through his jacket while Sophie works her magic. Even with his head throbbing, he can't help but admire her technique -especially when she's not using it on him to force him to serve her tea- a touch here, a laugh there, a carefully-placed word in the man's ear. Eliot forces himself to watch their surroundings, to make sure nothing untoward is happening, but his gaze keeps coming back to the man he's can't help thinking of as a silver fox -he can't seem to hang onto his name, which is worrying. He's getting increasingly light-headed, his concentration shot, and his head is aching even worse than before. His chest burns with the urge to cough, but there's nothing he can do but simply try to hang on and wait for the first available window of opportunity. He can't talk into his mic now -even trying to sub-vocalize would attract too much attention- but he needs to get out, quit before he screws up the whole job. Sophie is engrossed in her role, reminding him of nothing so much as a cobra holding its prey in thrall, and even the slightest misstep on his part could not only ruin the job, but put her directly in harm's way. Eventually he manages to catch Sophie's eye, and when she tilts her head ever-so-slightly in acknowledgment he barely manages not to sigh in relief.
“Excuse me,” she lets a perfectly-manicured hand trail down the man's arm for a few seconds. “I'm just going to powder my nose. Don't go anywhere without me!” she lets out a musical laugh, drifts through the doors, and that's Eliot's cue to follow her, which he does gratefully.
“What's wrong?” are the first words out of her mouth as soon as they're in the clear. Her voice is low, and though her expression is still calmly neutral, a woman in power conferring with an employee, he can see the faintest flicker of worry in her eyes.
“I can't do this.” He shakes his head. “I'm really sorry.”
“Eliot?” Nate's voice comes over the com, his tone worried.
“I'm too sick. I thought it would be okay for today,” he forces himself not to clench his teeth when he makes the admission. “But I can't.”
Sophie presses a hand to his forehead, and he's too surprised -too shocked by the intimacy of the gesture- to even think of stopping her. “Nate, he's burning with fever.”
“All right, I'm pulling the plug,” Nate says, and Eliot can almost hear the gears in his mind turning away, already working on a new angle to the job, and finds that he's kind of pathetically grateful that Nate isn't questioning him, trusting him to know his own limits. “Sophie, make an excuse to get away for a couple of hours. I can rig up a cell phone call, call you away for an emergency meeting somewhere, and we'll set up Hardison as your bodyguard this afternoon.”
“Why does Hardison get to be the bodyguard?” Parker's voice comes over the comm, and the whine in her tone stabs right through Eliot's ear drums. “I never get to be the bodyguard.”
“Because I still need you on standby for burglarising an office if we need to.” Nate's tone doesn't change, but it's clear the subject is closed. “Eliot, can you hang in there long enough for us to get you out? Shouldn't take more than ten minutes.”
He nods, even though he knows Nate can't see him, rubs the back of his wrist against his forehead. “Yeah, it's... it's not bad. I just need to sleep this off. Sorry.”
Sophie takes him by the elbow and casually steers him into the unisex bathroom. “Did you bring anything with you?”
He reaches into his pocket and produces the cellophane packet of cold pills he shoved in there earlier, and she shrugs.
“Better than nothing. Have some water,” she lets her hand linger at the small of his back, and even though he knows what she's doing, he can't bring himself to care, because it feels good. Reassuring somehow, grounding.
He swallows two more of the pills and splashes water on his face, bracing himself against the sink for a moment to catch his breath, trying not to cough. If he lets himself go now, he'll never be able to stop. Sophie stays by his elbow, and he has to force himself not to lean into her touch, firm against his spine. Damn, he must be really far gone. He swallows as much water as he can manage, trying to cool the burning in his chest and throat. After a moment he pulls himself together, gives her a nod, and she turns back, heels clicking loudly on the bathroom tiles, not hesitating for a moment. He follows her out, already feeling a little better at least now that he knows there's an exit strategy, clasps his hands behind his back and tries not to waver too obviously when he feels their mark's gaze linger on him a little longer than he's strictly comfortable with. He doesn't blink, simply stares at a point somewhere over the man's shoulder and tries to radiate quiet hostility, and after a moment the man breaks his gaze, turning his attention back to Sophie. She doesn't give Eliot a second look, turning up the charm as far as it will go in order to deflect all attention from the fact that Eliot is about two minutes away from having to lean against the nearest wall for support.
~*~
It takes another twenty minutes to engineer a fake emergency and get out, and by the time they clear the front doors and he automatically gives Sophie his hand to help her into the van -more out of habit than necessity- the lining of his jacket is soaked with sweat, and he has to stop when the coughing fit he's been holding back finally bends him almost double.
“You look really bad,” Parker says, eyeing him critically.
He shrugs, is saved from answering by Nate. “I've got a cab coming,” he says, his expression apologetic, as though he thought Eliot might have been expecting a personal escort back to his place. “It should be here any second. You let me know when you're home, and I'll fill you in later.”
“Are you sure you'll be all right on your own?” Sophie asks quietly. “One of use can come with you...”
“It's fine,” Eliot murmurs, giving her arm what he hopes is a reassuring pat.
A minute later he spots the cab already rounding the corner, and heads off, not even bothering to take his leave properly. He drops into the back seat, gives an address a block away from his apartment purely out of habit, and realizes once he's handed over a couple of bills to the driver that he now has to walk the rest of the way. After less than ten feet he's so hot that he wavers and almost has to brace himself against the nearest building when the whole world threatens to flip on its axis. He pulls off his jacket and is immediately chilled as a cool breeze blows against his sweat-soaked shirt. He braces himself against the cold, puts his head down and just concentrates on getting one foot in front of the other until he finds himself by his own front door, fumbling with his house keys with shaking hands.
He tosses his jacket over the back of one of his kitchen chairs, goes through his routine security checks on autopilot, locking down his apartment for the night even though it's not even afternoon yet, making sure no one got in while he was away, and making doubly sure no one can get in while he's here. He sheds the rest of his clothes and drops them into the laundry hamper out of habit before pulling out a couple of 'flu tablets and some ibuprofen from his medicine cabinet and washing them down with a glass of water. He splashes water on his face again in a futile attempt to cool down, braces himself against his sink as he starts coughing again, fighting off another wave of dizziness and mild nausea. He pulls in a couple of deep breaths to steady himself before he's able to stand upright again. Stripped down to his boxers, he drags himself as far as his sofa, crawls under the knitted throw blanket he keeps there, and finally lets himself succumb to the pull of sleep.
His sleep is filled with restless dreams, faces drifting in and out of focus. Sometimes it's his team, but more often it's people from the past, and the face of the man he can still only think of as the silver fox keeps coming back, smirking at him from across a conference table.
“What was the question?” he asks, and is surprised when his voice comes out as a hoarse croak. He blinks confusedly, disoriented until he recognizes the familiar outlines of his own furniture, the events of the morning returning slowly to his memory, and gradually he relaxes enough to fall asleep again.
The next thing he's aware of is a presence a few inches away from him. He comes awake with a start that sends pinpricks of pain up and down his spine and into his head, and he curls in on himself, coughing painfully. Gradually he gets the fit under control, and when he looks up again the golden blur above his head comes into focus. He allows himself a quiet groan.
“What do you want, Parker?” He doesn't bother asking her how she got in. She's the only person he's ever met who can get past all his security measures. Well, maybe Hardison, too, but Hardison has never tried, whereas Parker has, and succeeded at it.
She beams at him, and for a moment he almost feels guilty for growling at her. “You're awake! Great! I thought I would have to wake you up, and I know you don't like being surprised. It makes you grumpy.”
“I'm surprised now,” he reaches up to scrub at his face, makes a grimace when his hand comes away covered in sweat. “What do you want?”
“You should be in bed,” she tells him solemnly. “You'll just make yourself sicker if you stay out here. Sofas aren't restful.”
He buries his face back into the crook of his elbow. “Parker, I'm an adult and I have had the flu before. If you don't have a good reason for being here, then you should go back and finish the job with Nate.”
“I do have a good reason. I'm making sure you're okay. And now you need to get up,” she tugs on his arm, “so you can sleep in your bed. And then I'll bring soup, because that's what you eat when you're sick.”
Even raising his head hurts, so he doesn't bother. “I'm fine, go away.”
“That's a lie,” she tugs harder on his elbow. “Come on! Get up and sleep in your own bed. Come on, get up! Get up, get up, get up, Eliot!”
“Okay, okay,” he pushes himself up with his free arm, trying to ignore the way the whole room tilts and swings. He's too tired and dizzy and hot to be overly embarrassed when she catches him by the shoulder and holds him steady while he succumbs to another coughing fit, chest tightening painfully. He can't quite figure out the quiet little smile she gives him when he catches his breath enough to look at her again.
“Come on, I'll help,” she chirps, and the next thing he knows she's pulling him to his feet with more strength than he thought she had. He can still break her like a twig, of course, but that's not the point, and he wonders bemusedly just how much about Parker -about all of his team- he might have misjudged. The thought isn't a comforting one.
Parker keeps a firm hold of his elbow, resisting his attempts to shake her off as he makes his way to his bedroom, and by the time he's at his bed his legs are shaking enough that he's even a little grateful for it, not that he's ever going to tell her that. She was right about the bed, too, he thinks, easing himself under his bedclothes and letting his head sink onto his pillow. It really is much more comfortable than his sofa. The sheets are cool against his skin, the fading smell of detergent soothing. He starts a little at the feel of her hand brushing gently against the overheated skin of his neck.
“You should take some more aspirin. It'll help with the fever.”
He curls up a little tighter under the bedclothes, already feeling the pull of sleep. “Took some a few minutes ago.”
“No you didn't. You were asleep.”
That rouses him a little. “What time is it?”
“It's nearly three o'clock.”
He's lost almost five hours, he realizes. Before he can say anything, Parker has disappeared. She reappears almost like magic a moment later -although now he has to wonder just how much time he's losing to this damned fever- and hands him a glass of water and an open bottle of pills. He downs all of it in record time, settles back on the bed, and doesn't bother protesting when she pulls the covers on his bed back over his shoulders in an oddly tender gesture.
“You should go back to sleep if you're not hungry. I'm going to stay until Hardison gets here.”
Eliot cracks open an eye. “No. Absolutely not, Parker. I don't want people here. Just... look. It's not that I don't appreciate the sentiment,” he clears his throat as his voice threatens to give out, “but I'm fine. I'll sleep this off, and I'll join up with you guys tomorrow.”
“Uh-huh,” Parker nods, expression bright, and his heart sinks a little as he realizes that nothing of what he's just said has sunk in at all. She's always had the uncanny ability to switch off her listening skills at will when it's something she doesn't want to hear. “I'm going to be in the living room. I have some new harnesses I want to test out. You go back to sleep, and I'll get Hardison to bring you soup later.”
He's too tired to argue with her. If necessary, he'll deal with Hardison if and when he gets here, but he's holding out hope that the others will know better than to invite themselves over. He's still trying to figure out a way to get Parker out of his apartment when he falls asleep again.
He wakens from another unsettling dream about the same man leering at him across a conference table, surrounded by inky darkness. The table itself is vast and tilts at a crazy angle, but the man doesn't seem perturbed and continues to grin in a way that makes Eliot's heart skitter crazily in his chest. What was the question? the man asks him, and the air is filled with laughter. He comes to full consciousness with a painful jerk, only to realize that what awoke him was the sound of quiet scuffling by his bed, and he finds himself staring at a very sheepish-looking Hardison.
“Oh, hey man. I wasn't trying to wake you up or anything, 'cause it seriously looks like you could use the sleep. I just thought, I mean, you know, since you're sick and all, you might want something to do when you're not sleepin'. I know I always get bored if I can't get on the internet, so I, uh, brought some things. You know, books, couple of magazines, laptop, and you don't have any DVDs, so I brought a couple of movies and whatever.” He waggles what looks like a boxed set of DVDs in front of Eliot's face.
“Battlestar Galactica?” Eliot manages, even though it comes out sounding like a croak and sends him into another coughing fit. If anything, he feels worse than he did before he went to sleep, which is more than a little frustrating, since he was expecting to be at least a little better by now. He's been asleep all day. Immediately Hardison has dropped the box onto the night table, and holds out a glass of water for him to take.
“You sound like nine kinds of crap. And don't be knocking BSG, it is quality TV.”
He ignores the water. “Hardison, I already told Parker I'll be back tomorrow. Seriously, go away.”
“Yeah, it doesn't sound like it to me. You take your temperature?”
He glares. “No. What does it matter? Why are you even here?”
Hardison shrugs a bit. “Nate's worried. And, you know, if Nate worries, then we worry. So we're just making sure you're okay.”
“I'm fine.”
“Uh-huh, sure,” Hardison doesn't bother trying to temper the sarcasm in his tone. “That's why you ain't so much as opened your eyes since I got here an hour ago.” The thought of Hardison coming in unnoticed -even aided by Parker- is a disturbing one. “So I brought take-out soup and some of the orange stuff in case you get bored of water, and I'm gonna sit here with my laptop.”
“Watching people while they sleep is creepy,” Eliot mutters into his pillow.
“Which is why I have my laptop. Edward Cullen I ain't. I have work to do, but unlike some, I can bring my work anywhere I want to. You need anything?”
“Solitude.”
“Take that one up with Nate.”
“At least take your solitaire game into the living room,” he concedes defeat, but that doesn't mean he has to be gracious about it. He's already drowsing by the time Hardison starts complaining about having stuff that's way more complicated than plain old solitaire on his computer, and is half-asleep when he hears the door to his bedroom click shut, plunging him into welcome darkness.
He's freezing cold when he next awakens, shivering so hard that every muscle in his body hurts. Sometime during his sleep he kicked off the bed clothes, and he twists on himself, trying to pull them up again, except that he can't quite wrap his mind around all the movements that would normally make that happen. His head throbs, and a wrong move has him curling up and coughing so hard that lights pulse behind his closed eyelids and bile rises in his throat. He makes a grab for the waste basket he keeps by the bed, keeps coughing until he throws up what little was left in his stomach. He manages to disentangle his legs from the sheets and staggers to his feet, has to rest his shoulder against the wall to keep himself upright on the way to the bathroom.
“Hey, man, y'all right?”
Hardison's voice follows him, but it's all he can do just to make it all the way to the bathroom before half-collapsing onto the edge of the tub, dropping his head into his hands and already beginning to cough again, shoulders shaking with the effort of trying to keep it contained because he really, really doesn't want to throw up again.
“Hey, Eliot...” Hardison pokes his head around the door. “You doing okay?”
He's coughing too hard to answer, and as much as he wants to snap Hardison's arm above the elbow when he feels his hand gently clasp the back of his neck, somehow he doesn't do any such thing. His stomach flip-flops, and suddenly he's actually kind of grateful for Hardison because the toilet seat lifts as though by magic when he pitches forward and pukes again in spite of his best intentions.
“Easy does it,” Hardison says, and even if he sounds more than a little awkward, his hand is still resting just between Eliot's shoulder blades. “You want some water?” He doesn't wait for Eliot to answer, just fills the glass by the sink and holds it up to his mouth. “Come on, man. Rinse and spit. It'll make you feel better. And please don't be ripping my arm off, all right?”
He shakes his head, fumbles with the glass and has to hold it with both hands, but it feels nice to rinse the sour taste from his mouth. He reaches out with one hand to flush the toilet, braces himself against the wall to get up, only to have his knees buckle. He lists to the side, lands on his ass on the cold tiles, and lets his head fall back against the wall with a thunk, eyes slipping shut.
“Man, you are a mess.” He can sense Hardison shaking his head, even if he can't bring himself to open his eyes. “What in the hell did you do to yourself?”
Eliot is tempted to just say he's fine, he'll be fine as long as they let him sleep this off, but he's not sure that's true anymore. Hardison presses another glass of water into his hands, and he drains it, doesn't so much as protest when it's refilled and given back to him along with a couple of pills, swallows the lot of it.
“I have to go back to bed,” he manages after a moment. He pries open his eyes, swallows his pride. “I, uh, I could use a hand.” He's pretty sure he won't be able to stand up by himself.
“Yeah, okay. I'll make jokes about it being the End Times later,” Hardison grabs him by an elbow. “You okay if you lean on me?”
He manages a weak nod, has to hold onto Hardison with both hands until he's got his feet under him. The room is spinning, but Hardison keeps a good grip on him, and it's a lot easier to get back to the bedroom than it was to leave it. He stumbles as he gets to the bed, and comes close to sending them both sprawling, but Hardison catches them, bracing a knee against the bed, and eases him back down.
“And you said I wasn't learning anything from those sparring sessions,” Hardison jokes quietly, pulling the covers up. “Man, I've felt furnaces that're cooler than you. I'm getting a thermometer.”
Eliot mumbles something he hopes sounds enough like a protest, but it apparently has no effect, or maybe he didn't say what he thought he said because a couple of minutes later Hardison is trying to stick said thermometer in his ear, taking advantage of the fact that all of Eliot's coordination appears to be screwed to hell. The thermometer beeps shrilly, making him flinch.
“Oh, hell no,” Hardison exclaims, and Eliot flinches again and wishes, not for the first time, that Hardison wasn't quite so loud. “That's it, that shit ain't normal at all. I don't care any more, I'm calling Nate and we're getting you to a doctor.”
“Don't need a doctor,” he groans, pulling away from the grip Hardison still has on his bicep from when he checked his temperature.
“Eliot, dude, you got a fever over 105. Like I said, that shit ain't normal. You gotta have antibiotics or something. Or a hospital. Yeah, definitely a hospital. You sit tight, I'm calling Nate.”
He protests, or tries to, but Hardison is already gone, and he can feel his chest tightening threateningly, giving him no choice but to lie back down before he starts coughing again. The last thing he wants is to throw up again, because all that's left is bile, and his throat is already raw and burning from the last bout of vomiting. He can hear Hardison in the next room talking animatedly into his phone, but the conversation is lost on him. He should be going out there, he thinks distantly, reassuring Nate that it's not nearly as bad as Hardison's making out -that's the problem with people like him, Eliot tells himself, soft and so used to being coddled that they overreact to everything- except that he thinks that, for once, Hardison might have a point. He doesn't remember being this sick in years, and in the moments that he's able to keep his thoughts together for more than a couple of seconds at a time, it occurs to him that he might have to worry a bit about how fast this illness hit him.
~*~
Part 2