#the way Eliot usually fills in at Nate or Sophie's elbow or hangs back to watch all of them

[cricketchaology]

the bile of the beast

this fic includes discussion of the symptoms of PTSD, especially as it relates to eliot's past with violence (including allusions to sexual violence). if these topics are triggering for you, please proceed with caution.

READ ON AO3

it's san lorenzo (again, but different than it used to be) , and it's sweeter this time. it's fake blood on sophie's dress and damien's smirk melting off his face, a president's hands on nate's lapel. it's righting a wrong, but it's also a burning warehouse a country or so away, cops called and infiltrating, and they won't find who did it because eliot is a professional, always has been. they'll find a room full of messy corpses, turning in the evening sun, each as nameless as the last. moreau likes his men to be nothing (outside of him).

it's something eliot knows intimately: the way moreau can sink his teeth in so slowly you don't release you are nothing but a chew toy. and it's an odd thought when you are the dog, that your hide is flea-ridden and blank. that you are the soft toy he humps in the yard, not the doberman across the street that bears its teeth behind the screen door of close-cropped control. that, sometimes, you aren't even the weapon. sometimes you are the display: the show dog, heeling at the hand that no longer bears a treat. that your ribs are the home of boot-toes, breaking you down to the red dust you thought you escaped when you took up the mantle of a flag all those years ago.

so he holds the bottleneck. he clinks the right glasses, smiles appropriately in a way he prays reaches his eyes because sophie will notice if it doesn't and he can't. he's not feeling the happiness he knows is supposed to rise in his stomach at revenge because this isn't, the shapes are all pulled too long, too neat. it's moreau, it's messy by nature, it’s bloodied hands and broken chairs and little bits being removed from base-spine with even tweezers, folding on the floor like christ in the tomb, listening the tut-tut-tut of a man who doesn't love, but he loves you , or you think he does. eliot's grip tightens at the notion.

cause he knows moreau. he knows moreau like the back of his hand. knows how many times each knuckle's been busted and finger broken, constellation tracing each freckle. he knows moreau like a typewriter knows the author's touch, pounding away till the letters are worn. he knows moreau, which he means he knows it's not over, which means he can't stop running because he never, ever could, and it's why he's here now, with a team that knows him too much for him to stay. who will act like tomorrow is a new day, a free one. like with the italian off their backs, nothing is hanging over their heads.

tomorrow is day one of post-post moreau. it's not the first time he's escaped, and it won't be the last. it is a fact he knows the team won't understand- not when they got off easy, this time. last time it was by the skin of eliot's teeth, shoulder bullet-lodged and airplanes unnamed as he crossed ocean after ocean just to put enough distance between him and the hammer so that he could avoid being the next nail. he wasn't free then. wasn't free a day after moreau, wasn't even free before, because when moreau wants something, he gets it. and he wanted eliot spencer less then than he wants him now. the thought makes his skin crawl, remembering the heat of the brand as it grew closer to his inner thigh, kissing the hairs near his groin before drawing away. because moreau doesn't even need to lay claim to own you, just has to say he did. just has to release that wolf-grin and hold your collar like its always been his.

eliot's spent years clawing at that loop, the necklace that bites too tight around his skin even when no one else knows. he cooks, and he smiles, but it's always there, always weighing on the nape like a hand, skin pinching. he's spent years scratching and howling, enough that the red ring is more evident than the too-tight collar itself. enough that he knows it doesn't come off. to know even a moreau locked in a hole in san lorenzo is still the one he remembers, even if the shape is different.

so when nate offers up a glass of whiskey, raised high by an unshaking hand, it takes everything in eliot to smile, lift his beer bottle, and cheer.

///

he does not remember much of the first day post-post moreau, which is something that scares him. he's not sure how it passed him by; he remembers waking up in the hotel, turning in sunbeams as they scrape past the window screen. he remembers the panic of nate not answering the door when he knocked, and he remembers slamming his body into it until he saw nate alive and well, but he doesn't remember the conversation that followed. he doesn't remember what comes between the elevator and the airport, or what movie hardison played on the flight, or how many seats were unfilled. they're the kind of lapses that could get him- get all of them, he amends, wondering how he could forget- killed. because what eliot lacks in computer skills or acting ability he makes up for in counting hats, mapping exits. he pays his stay in blood.

except he doesn't now, or he's not supposed to. the thought haunts him the rest of the flight. he's barely conscious when they arrive back in boston, his head swimming between the then and the now, post and post-post. he doesn't even realize they've landed till the seatbelt light flickers off, and his hands go to help sophie carry all the luggage she packed in place of the carryon he didn't need.

because eliot never travels with a suitcase. when he arrives, the clothes will be laid out on the bed that’s been paid off for the next few nights. the most that ever belongs to him are the shoes, but even that is a danger- particulates are easily traced, so the red dirt is disposed of every other week, burying the people he isn't supposed to say he's been. disoriented as he is, he winds up picking up a stranger's briefcase before he realizes it's the weight of paperwork-filled folders and not a sniper rifle nestled intimately inside.

he drops it like the handle burns. the movement is abrupt enough that his elbow nudges nate's side. his furrowed brows say we need to talk.

eliot wants to meet his eyes but can't. instead, he grounds himself, taking enough of the team's bags that the straps start to wear into his skin, pulling him from the nothing that's begun to spread from post to post-post. he's silent on the drive home, oddly unperturbed by the fact that parker insists on driving (something about how airplanes don't feel fast, and she wants to feel fast, and everyone being too tired to argue) . he doesn't so much as grumble as he makes a roundabout the vehicle, jabbing each tire with the tip of his toe. he stares at the license plate for a moment too long, trying to remember why he's in boston before nate shouts something along the lines of "come on, let's get home."

it's raining; something eliot doesn't register till they've arrived at the office and are piling out of the car. his arms are loaded with bags by the time he hears someone say, "we'll worry about the luggage later," which they surely said before he loaded up. by the time he makes it inside, his hair is curling at the ends in a way it never did in the before- cropped too short then for even damien to find much comfort in running fingers through, though he'd do it anyway. petting more than soothing, and the difference was something eliot learned to sense before the hand was even laid down, the way a knee aches before a storm.

the thought must show on his face, or maybe his disheveled appearance is enough to earn the concern coloring his team as they stare at him, dripping in the doorway with their luggage draped across his body all pack-mule-like. he's shivering, though he isn't exactly sure why, by the time they pull the bags from him, ushering him upstairs as the bar staff eyes them no more curiously but perhaps more timidly than usual. the soles of his shoes squeak against the vinyl, and he flinches, thinking about all the ways a wrong sound could get him killed. moreau is tut-tut-tutting in his ear again, like before, in the during .

the whole team is talking, mumbling mercies and platitudes, and his heart is racing in his chest, pounding like heels on rooftops and down staircases in foreign countries. the rain beats down on the window like fists, like prisoners you knew before they were prisoners and allies you used to trust, and he's not really breathing; the air in the crawlspace is too thin. his hands are shaking, and his CO is saying “steady, steady,” whispering it like a mother to her babe, and the shot rings out with that familiar flashbang of lighting.

"stop," he mutters, and it feels like too much noise, too much noise (surely, they're going to catch him this time). "please, stop. stop."

the air falls quiet, like new york news as the death of osama bin laden is broadcast, like hushed last phone calls on the plane going down, army basecamps right before the armada. it's quiet like death is- like two lovers who don't know each other yet. like hair coiling, blackening, burning in the heat. his breath hitches like he can remember it.

"...eliot?" parker asks, because she's parker, crazy by design, but even now, she isn't touching him, though her hands are outstretched like she wants to. hardison looks at her like she has horns, like she's breaking a vault while the sirens scream, and she is, in every conceivable way. it makes eliot ache in a way he didn't know he could still feel. it makes him want to be the person she thinks him to be.

he meets parker's gaze like he's staring down the business end of a gun. like being the fish in the barrel.  he averts her gaze, transfixed on the city skyline behind her, peering through beating rain. he's scanning for men laying belly-down on balconies, sniper's trained and at the ready. he struggles to make out the horizon through obscuring strands of hair he doesn't remember growing out. he swallows, fingers flexing with a familiar hunger for hurt.

before he's aware of it, he's being lead to the couch, his soaking jacket somehow shed without his knowledge (he was too busy counting hats, mapping exits. moreau wants to know how many hats). the sofa is soft beneath him, swallowing him in warmth better than his standard-issue sleeping bag, and he's helpless against the hands on his shoulders pushing him purposefully deeper. the nails are enough for him to know it's sophie, even though he can't fully see her in front of him. the hair is tucked behind his ear with a tenderness he didn't know still existed. that he doesn't think he can deserve.

he isn't sure how long he sits there, his hands shaking in his lap. he isn't sure how long the silence permeates till it's replaced with the sound of knife striking board, and he comes to understand that Chopped reruns have been playing on the screens ahead, and it's sweet because they think he'd like it, not because he does. his boots have been unlaced, pulled from his feet (now bare, like christ folding on the floor in front of the disciples, moreau saying "wash my feet, eliot") and set gently near the end of the sofa. the thermostat has been turned to a temperature he lovingly calls "oklahoma august," which the rest of the team always whines is too hot, and the smell of thai food from his favorite food truck seeps into the air. he hangs on the scent like a cartoon character to fresh pie on the window.

it's too much like post , rather than post-post, the way they smile at him shambling to the island. the ache of the fights from the past weeks are starting to catch up to him; without a fresh neck in his hands, it's easier to remember the skin peeled from his knees. seeing him, nate holds out a steaming plate of his favorite and eliot takes it slowly. he stares down at it, enchanted by the authenticity of it even after it's pulled from a takeout box.

but you don't eat things you didn't see prepared; it's a lesson he learned after being poisoned in some hole in south america, and that he risked with every hors d'oeuvre moreau would hold to his lips, saying taste this, meaning die for me, like the sound of vultures overhead. something must change in his eyes because nate isn't smiling anymore. because nate is reaching out, taking the plate back, and it's clear that he doesn't understand what he's done wrong, no one does, not even sophie, if the way her gaze fluctuating between eliot and nate is to say anything.

"i'm not supposed to eat anything i didn't cook," he instinctively explains (this must be a test), wanting the sad look to leave hardison's eyes. "you either. i'm not supposed to let you eat anything i didn't prepare- that i didn't taste."

a beat of silence follows, heavy like the snow piling on slates, like soot on a seven-year-old brow. nate breaks it hesitantly.

"eliot-"

"let me taste your food," eliot says, all too much like the during and unlike post or post-post; it's too soft and ungrowled, too eliot and not enough spencer .

the look sophie shares with nate is deadly- like hiroshima at ground zero or kitum cave circa 1980. there's a silent battle wagging there, one eliot can't find the energy to care about because, without even a second of hesitation, parker hands him her plate of too-sweet noodles. she smiles at him, strange in that way parker always is, like a rat taking trap-bound cheese.

eliot takes care, inspecting the color, the smell, and though all of it is wrong, it's parker's, and it smells like how parker likes pad woon sen, which a post , but not post-post, eliot would have the energy to despise tenderly. but that's not who he is now, twirling noodles up on the fork, chewing garishly until he can gulp them down with confidence, like swallowing a key and knowing they can't beat it out of you. like downing the rations before the taste of them reaches your brain. he hands the plate back, feeling lighter, and hardison must be able to tell because he offers his dish up next. he watches as eliot inspects it thoroughly like a jeweler counting carats. the process doesn't take long, and, after a few minutes, each takeout box has been combed through for error, and eliot has determined they are safe enough to settle at the bar for the meal.

he doesn't sit down though, isn't supposed to. he goes to check exits, to stand by the door. he thinks about meetings in moreau's office, thinks about clubs and bars and women in bikinis that moreau never wanted to touch. because women were shows- because if moreau wanted something, he got it, and eliot knows this, so he knows moreau didn't want the women. he knows that moreau hungered for something different- not younger, but meaner. harder. he thinks about moreau in the sauna, beckoning eliot over, saying dismiss your post and meaning drop to your knees, folding before him like christ, like washing feet, like intimacy anew. he thinks about hardison, tied to the chair, and about chapman and his gun and moreau towel-drying sweat from his skin. he thinks about the kick, the move he invented, and hardison sucking air from the pneumatic, thinks about sucking air and-

///

"pause the show," sophie says, right before eliot goes from nervously checking the locks for the dozenth time to crumpling to the floor, his fingers digging claw-like into the edge of the doorframe. his breaths are too quick, huffing in and out, in and out, fast as chopper blades overhead screaming against wind. his whole body is vibrating by the time ted's voice is cut off, hand closing over the cloche in slow motion.

parker is the first to him, light on her feet and perching in front. she observes him like a cat might a dead bird; curiosity and hunger, unfamiliar yet innate. but then that hunger fades, is sated, and she's tucking her knees beneath her body and folding herself by eliot, kneeling. she surrounds him, skin heavy like a blanket, and eliot melts into her like one fades into the air after jumping from a plane- the way the heat melds to your back as an explosion follows you out the door.

with only slightly more hesitance, hardison joins them on the floor, his long arms enveloping them. eliot's hair tickles his nose, hardison's soft breaths blowing them away, then pulling them back like the ebb and flow of waves lapping a shoreline. he closes his eyes for a long moment, batting away the thought of water filling his lungs, and reopens them to find nate staring down awestruckenly.

sophie smiles softly in a way that means she knows something no one else does, cracking the mark open like a pistachio shell. hardison squints, searching for an answer, but she gives none. instead, she pulls nate away by his wrist, casting a look across the room before quietly trailing up the staircase, leaving eliot, parker, and hardison tucked tightly into the corner.

///

the seconds evade him while he sits there, sobbing on the floor. it feels like a weakness, something he should be hiding- he hasn't cried like this since the night his momma died (not in his pristine funeral suit. his father has pulled his tie-tight and said, "now don't you embarrass me," and he didn't then- made sure he never did again.) he hadn't cried like that the entire time during , or post , but now it was post-post and here he was, broken to bits on the wooden floor of a dingy bars' loft in boston.

not for the first time, he finds himself wondering how the hell he ended up here. how he escaped the during , how he made it to post-post. because, really, he's seen greater men die on their first tour. he's been in the hellholes they strung soldiers up in, purple heart wearers bleeding nothing but red, red, red- and he's been that man, russian roulette spun and against the odds making it a baker's dozen rounds before the tortures tired of threats and moved onto toenails. even then, he didn't cry like this- if he did cry, well, that was sweat in his eyes. that was him praying to a lord he stopped believing in at 18, saying, "if you get me out of this one alive, i'll get better" and it never, ever being true.

he isn't aware that parker and hardison have been whispering a mantra of "it's okay, it's okay, eliot, you are here, you are ours" until they pause for breath until parker's voice is addressing hardison, asking, "hey- hey, if it's too much, it's okay. you can take a break."

it's then that he realizes he isn't the only one praying then; they all are, the shoulders of his shirt on either side soaked through, not by the unrelenting rain but by the two closest things he has to family. that hardison's voice has gone from soft and strong to shaky: a leaf resisting those oklahoma winds rising from 40 to 50, from cold fronts and warm one crashing and crushing everything in their path as they war with one another. that parker's body has cooled as she gifted her warmth to eliot's still rain-frozen form.

it's then that he realizes he's lucky. that san lorenzo is sweeter because parker dashed it with maple syrup when he wasn't looking- that hardison replaced the whiskey sours with sodas. that post-post doesn't fit any of the characters sophie has taught him to play, and that he doesn't need to count the hats because nate already has; he knows each shape and each color, the brand names printed on the bill.

the next breath is a little deeper as hardison whispers, "i'm good, i'm good," across him to parker, and eliot feels the rattle of her head against his neck more than he sees it. the way they draw in a little closer, the way parker subconsciously syncs their breathing like sophie's taught her to do with marks, but it's different because eliot isn't a mark- because it isn't post-post, it's something different entirely.

it's the scent of his favorite thai food crusted in the corners of an unwiped mouth. it's his closet being reorganized by color, his go-bag packed with money he didn't put there. it's in-jokes and damnits and distinctive sounds. it's not explaining because they won't make him.

when his breathing is finally stable, he feels them pull back- not entirely, but enough that there's an instant ache in eliot's gut for them to come back to him. hardison's brows are knit, all the anger of the week prior washed away and replaced with nothing but care. parker is smiling gently with that even present lilt to her eye- like she's stolen his watch and is waiting for him to notice.

with slowly re-steadying hands, eliot brushes the last remnants of tears from his face, feeling his cheeks flush slightly when his father's voice tries to rise from somewhere within him. as though feeling the demon climbing up, hardison places a hand on the outskirts of eliot's bicep, holding him gently- grounding him.

"you good?" hardison asks simply, but the question makes all the raw things in eliot sore again in the way a second-day sunburn feels; not quite painful, but omnipresent. warm.

"yeah," he finds himself saying, and it's not something a post eliot would mean, but maybe a post-post eliot does. maybe a post-post eliot can. he finds himself smiling at the notion.

"yeah, i am."

#long post #leverage fanfiction #eliot spencer #thats all im gonna tag lmao i hate posting fic on tumblr #anyway hi everyone #im so tired #tw rape #tw ptsd #tw abuse #also i didnt care to mess with some of the formatting that was lost in translation sorryyyyy #no italics for u tumblr