Chapter Text
So here's how it happened.
Eliot loved his team. He'd always been good at what he did, even when what he did wasn't so good. Now that he finally had the chance to do good, he was even better. Not everyone realised how difficult it was to do what he did, or how much work he put into it. How hard could it be to take a bullet for someone? How hard was it, really, to dispose of anyone who asked too many questions, or who got in the wrong place at the wrong time?
In a way, they were right. It was easy enough to kill a person; people were very fragile, really. What made Eliot special was the people he didn't kill. Everyone thought that the thing which made him different was that he could take the pain, take the punishment, and outlast anyone. They were wrong. It wasn't his endurance which made him special. He didn't take what he did because he could. He made himself strong enough to take anything, because knowing that he could take the hit, take the pain, was what made him able to take his time in a fight, and choose his hits carefully.
Other hitters put in their hours on the firing range, learning how to take a man down with one shot, take him down and keep him down. Eliot skipped the firing range altogether, since even the best marksman can never guarantee that a shot won't be lethal. That was why he didn't like guns. Instead, he spent his time practising hand to hand, or with his knives, learning how to put someone down for just long enough to get the job done. He learned how to hit someone so that they did get up again. He'd killed a lot of people, but it was a long time since he'd killed anyone when it wasn't utterly necessary.
A lot of people hadn't appreciated Eliot for that. Quite the opposite. Why spend three minutes fighting a guy, when a bullet could down him in a second? Especially when you spent those three minutes getting beaten to a pulp. Seconds counted, on the job, and you couldn't afford to get injured, not when everyone else was relying on you to get them out in one piece. Letting some guy smack you around long enough to take the right shot – the shot that would incapacitate, but not kill – that simply wasn't something a hitter could get away with. Not if he wanted to keep working.
That was why he trained so hard. That was why he never slept for more than a couple of hours a night, so he always had time to practice, to perfect his art. The only way anyone would take him on for a job was if he was the best; if Eliot Spencer was so much better than anyone else, that simply having him on a team made most of the obstacles in your path run away, and the rest of them try to hire him out from under you.
He'd saved a lot of lives that way. Lives that any other hitter would have written off as collateral damage. He knew it would never be enough to atone for the other things he'd done, but it mattered. It made a difference, and if he had to strive, and fight, and push himself to the limit every day, for the privilege of being able to make those decisions, and save those lives, he would, and he'd ignore the way everyone else in his line of work looked down on him for it.
Eliot loved his team, because he knew that the thing which made him different from every other hitter out there was the reason that he was on this team, not anyone else. Finally, he was working for – working with – people who would work just as hard as he did to avoid leaving any innocent bodies behind them. He was doing good things, with good people, and he loved them for that. He knew that one of these days he would probably die for this team, for this war they'd started, and he'd made his peace with that. He couldn't imagine ever wanting to be anywhere but at their sides, no matter what was coming at them.
He loved them both, but the same compulsion that made him throw himself between them and danger would never allow him to put himself between Parker and Alec. They needed each other, and he needed them, both of them, to be happy. He needed that more than he needed them to be his. More than he needed to be theirs. So he loved them in the only way he knew how, until each blow he took for them became a caress, each drop of blood he shed, a promise.
Tonight, he sat alone on the sofa in the office, after a job which hadn't gone as well as it should, a job which had left him bruised and heart-sore. It was always harder when it was children. It had been easier when Nate had been there, to hide how deeply these particular cases affected him. Everyone had been so aware of how Nate was hurting, that they'd never even seen him. That was how he preferred it. But Nate was gone, and Sophie too, and he'd seen how careful Alec and Parker had been around him during this job. He hated that they'd seen his weakness; hated even more the feeling that he'd failed them. He was supposed to protect them, not the other way round.
He clenched his hands into fists, feeling the ache as the skin pulled tight over bruised knuckles. He'd seen plenty of action this last week. He always did when the jobs went south. Maybe he'd taken one too many blows to the head, or maybe it was one too few. Either way, despite the punishment he'd taken, he still didn't feel that release, that calm he usually felt when the violence was done and it was time to go home and nurse his wounds, as if his demons had been exorcised, if only for a short while.
His body was a palette of colour; the purple-black of fresh bruising, and the mottled greens and yellows of the ones which had almost healed. The pink of raw flesh, the white of the stitches which held it together, and the brown of dried blood. His mind though, that was monochrome. In his mind, everything was red.
No amount of money stolen or vengeance taken could return a lost childhood. That was something they all knew. That was the thing which made these jobs the hardest, because by the time anyone called them, it was already too late. The mark was humiliated and penniless now, and he wouldn't hurt anyone else, but it still didn't fix anything.
He sat on the sofa listening to Hardison and Parker move around the apartment, unable to keep from noticing the way their paths intersected more than could be put down to chance. He wondered if they had ever considered how little privacy they had with him around. He tried, but however safe he felt, he couldn't switch off his constant awareness of the space – and the people – around him. Did they know?
They probably did. Alec and Parker were a lot of things, but stupid wasn't one of them. Of course, if they wanted privacy, they could just leave; they all still had their own places, even if they just slept here most nights. They could leave, but he knew that tonight they wouldn't. After a job like this, they needed to be together, even if none of them would say it.
He was grateful for that tonight. It was their presence that kept him here, sat with a stillness which spoke of tension, not rest. A stillness broken only by the constant, reflexive, clenching of his fists. Without Parker and Hardison, would he have the strength to stay sitting there? The strength to contain those dark whispers in his mind, the ones which said that money wasn't enough? There was a part of him that believed, truly believed, that the mark owed his life for what he'd done, and never mind that his death wouldn't help the people he'd hurt. Never mind that if anything happened to him, suspicion would fall first on his victims, who had been through enough without being investigated for murder. If Eliot let himself think about what that man had done, he would be consumed with the need to end him, and so instead, he just listened.
He heard Parker open the fridge, heard the hiss as she opened one of Hardison's bottles of soda, and the faint intake of breath as she sniffed it. He couldn't see the face she made, but he knew it would be there, and pictured it in his mind's eye, holding her image up as a talisman to ward off the darker thoughts which threatened to overwhelm him. He didn't know why she insisted on smelling it each time she opened a bottle, when she knew that she hated it, but that was Parker for you.
He heard her pad over to Alec on almost-silent feet; heard him jump as she appeared beside him. Something else which never changed. It never failed to amaze him that someone who was so connected to the world around him in some ways – most of them involving his computer – could be so oblivious in others. Genius hacker or not, Eliot was sometimes surprised that Hardison had ever survived on his own.
The rustle of a bag, and then a crunch. They were eating pretzels. It was a very distinctive sound, and no one knew that more than Eliot, who'd had plenty of opportunity to study it. The sheer volume of pretzels they got through would have seemed impossible to anyone who hadn't seen just how much chocolate Parker could put away in a sitting, or how many bottles of orange soda Hardison could drink in a day.
After a moment, they came and joined him. Alec sat on his left, and Parker on his right, putting the bag of pretzels on the table in front of him as she sat. It was late, and they were all tired, but he could feel the tension in each of them which said that they couldn't sleep yet. They watched one film, and then another, all of them staring intently at the screen, though Eliot had to wonder if any of them were really watching it, or if, like him, Parker and Alec were just trying to banish the last thoughts of the job from their minds.
Gradually, he felt the tension drain from them, and by the time the huge bag of pretzels was empty, Parker was nodding off against his shoulder. When the film finished, Hardison carried Parker off to the room they shared, and after a last sweep of the place, Eliot turned off the lights and went to his own room, just down the hallway from theirs.
He stripped off his shirt, sighing as he noticed the rain of pretzel crumbs which fell to the floor. He hadn't even eaten a single one of the damn things, and he was still covered in them. Not for the first time he muttered to himself that it was lucky Parker never ate on the job. The girl was such a messy eater, she'd set off motion sensors with drips of ice cream, and leave the authorities a trail of breadcrumbs right back to her safe house at the end of a job.
Eliot knew the significance of the pretzels; that was why he didn't eat any. Hardison, being a true child of the computer age, didn't seem to understand the concept of privacy, or at least that was the only possible explanation for why he was almost never off comms. Not even during some conversations that any sane person would consider very private. Hardison even slept with his earbud still in. And Eliot? Eliot listened. He fell asleep to the comforting sound of Hardison's breathing. Parker's, too, on those nights when they slept with their heads close enough together that Hardison's mic picked them both up.
It was the sound of security, the sound that told Eliot that his team was alive, was well, and it was safe for him to sleep. There had been times, times when something had gone wrong, or he'd been up against a force greater than him, and he'd been helpless. Drugged, like that time in Dubai, or simply beaten down, the way he'd been on the carnival job. Times when he'd woken from unconsciousness and hadn't been able to breathe until he knew that his team hadn't died while he lay sleeping.
After he'd turned the lights out, Eliot lay in bed and listened as Alec's breathing finally fell into the deep, easy, rhythm which said that he was asleep. He forced himself to match his own breathing with Alec's, and finally, he fell asleep.
Sometime during the night, his earbud went silent.
Eliot was out of bed and down the hall, standing in the open door of the other bedroom before he'd even known he was awake. Hardison hadn't woken at the sound of the door opening. Eliot saw that as a victory – that Alec had never needed to learn to sleep lightly, with Eliot to keep him safe – even as he shook his head at the deep, trusting sleep which was so foreign to him. He could just see Alec's chest rise and fall in the dim light which filtered in from the street, and the sight calmed the sick adrenalin which fizzed in his stomach like he'd swallowed lithium.
Parker woke, of course. She climbed out of bed, as heedless as ever of her own nakedness. She couldn't have known why he was there, but she seemed to know what he needed, regardless. She stalked up to him, slowly, so as not to startle him, and when she was within arm's reach he raised his hand to cup her face, feeling the reassuring warmth of her skin, her breath on his palm. She put her hand over his, and – feeling him relax – used that point of contact to lead him towards the bed.
“I can't,” he whispered, pulling away slightly, but Parker only shushed him, and kept inching back towards the bed. His arm stretched out between them, until he had to either follow her or let her go. He followed.
When they stopped beside the bed, she laid her free hand on his chest, applying just enough pressure to tell him she wanted him to sit, but not enough to wake pain in the bruises there.
“Sit,” she whispered, when he didn't take the hint, but he shook his head, casting a glance over his shoulder to where Alec still slept, curled up on the other side of the bed.
“Sit,” she said again, louder this time. Alec stirred, but didn't wake. Eliot gave in. It was a large bed, and there was plenty of space for him to sit without disturbing the sleeping man. It would, Eliot reasoned, disturb him more to wake up and find a shadowed figure standing beside the bed. Kinder to leave him sleeping.
Parker eventually coaxed him until he lay in the warmth she had left behind. He was careful to lie so that there was plenty of space between himself and Alec, but that meant that when Parker joined him, she had to snuggle right up to him to avoid falling out of the bed.
She was so warm with her back pressed against his chest, and he ducked his head until his nose was in her hair, breathing in the scent of her, letting it drive away the last vestiges of the terror he'd felt, waking to sudden silence. It would be so easy to fall asleep here beside her, but he couldn't let himself.
“I should go.” He said finally.
“Why?” Her voice when she spoke was soft, dreamlike, as if she was as close to sleep as he had been. He marvelled that anyone who knew some of the things he'd done could be so relaxed, lying next to him in the dark.
“When Alec wakes up...” he said, and then cursed himself. He tried never to use Hardison's first name. It felt too familiar, too intimate, especially now. Eliot's hand found its way to Parker's hip, intending to roll her away from him, but before he could, another hand covered his, and there was another warm body pressed against him.
“When Alec wakes up?” Came a sleepy voice from behind him. Eliot started. How had he not even realised that Hardison was awake? He was so used to the constant whisper of breath in his ear that without it he felt cut off. For so long he had been able to rely on the rhythm of Hardison's breathing to tell him so much – whether the hacker was awake or asleep, happy, sad or frustrated, that he'd lost touch with the other cues which should have alerted him when Alec woke up.
“You think I don't wake up when Parker invites some guy into bed with me? You're heavy, man, no way I ain't waking up when the bed practically collapses under you.”
“Some guy?” Eliot snaps, “and I ain't that heavy.” The retort is automatic, but it comes out sounding more confused than gruff.
“Besides,” Parker chimes in, sounding vaguely insulted “it's not like I'd do this without Alec knowing about it. I know better than that.”
“You do now, “ Hardison mutters under his breath.
“Not all surprises are good,” Parker says, sounding like she's reciting something she's learned by rote.
“Well,” Eliot said, increasingly uncomfortable at the situation, “that sounds like my cue to leave.” Except that Alec's arm was still over his, still holding him between the two of them, and Eliot couldn't quite bring himself to move it.
“Not all surprises are bad, either,” Alec said softly. “You don't have to go.”
“You knew Parker was planning this?” Eliot asked.
“We both planned this. You think I wear that damn earbud all the time for my health? You snore, you know.” Eliot didn't bother trying to deny it. Get your nose broken enough times and certain things become inevitable. That was one of the many reasons he always slept alone.
“So why do you wear it?” He asked
“You know the only time I've ever woken up before you? It was after the Iowa job. Remember?” Eliot bristled. He did remember, and it wasn't a fond memory.
“I remember that I had a knife wound in my gut, and three broken ribs, and I hadn't slept in over 72 hours. I think I'm entitled to a little sleep after that.”
“Woah! Hey, not a dig, man. I'm just saying. We were all worn out after that job, and I forgot to take my comms out. I don't take them out much anyway, but I never used to sleep in them. That was the first time. And you slept for eight whole hours, like a normal person.”
“I still don't see what that has to do with anything.”
“The minute he took his earbud out,” Parker said softly, “you woke up.” Now that Eliot thought about it, that was the first time he'd slept with his earbud in. He'd stopped taking it out after that, and never let himself look too closely at why.
“So, you guys planned this? Lured me into your bed in the middle of the night, and for what? Huh? Why am I here? I don't like being manipulated.” There was an edge in his voice, and he didn't care. He trusted these two, trusted them in a way he'd never trusted Nate or Sophie, even as he'd put his life in their hands time and again. He'd trusted Nate to keep him alive, but it was Parker and Alec he trusted to keep him safe.
For a given value of safe. What was a few bullets between friends, anyway? They kept him safe in the ways that really mattered. Or they had, until now.
“I'm sorry,” Parker said, “it was my idea to get you here. There are things I wanted to say, but they were all impossible things. Things too fragile to let out in the daylight.”
“Sometimes it's easier to talk like this, curled up in the dark as though everything is a dream, and nothing can hurt you.” Hardison continued.
“But you can leave if you want,” Parker said, “if you don't want to be here... if you don't feel safe... you don't have to stay.” The words were so quiet that he barely picked them out, even with her head tucked up under his chin.
Eliot didn't leave. He didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything, but he didn't leave. They were right. Things did feel less real, surrounded by skin and breath and the soft press of silence. Maybe that could cushion him against whatever they had to say. Whatever it was, he had to know now. If he left, he would drive himself mad with wondering.
After a few moments, they seemed to take his silence as assent. Eliot heard Alec take a deep breath, holding it for a moment before speaking.
“We've been talking a lot about... things,” he said, “and we've wondered for a while whether you... well, whether we...” he trailed off.
“We've had an idea for a while that you might rather be here,” Parker continued, patting the bed beside them, “than where you were, but we didn't know how to ask. We didn't want you to feel like you didn't have a choice.”
“We need you to know how important you are to us,” Alec said, picking up where Parker left off, in a way that was starting to feel like this was a conversation that they'd maybe rehearsed a few times before tonight, “we want you with us, in this team. We're friends before anything, and nothing is going to change that.”
He paused for a moment, and Eliot didn't know how he could bear it if they carried on, so he spoke up.
“She threw a crowbar at my head,” he said, trying for levity, “if I stuck around after that, then you're not getting rid of me that easily.” The attempt at humour fell flat, words dropping like stones into the stillness of the room. Eliot felt the kick of Alec's diaphragm against his back as he laughed, a beat too late to be genuine.
“We love you,” Parker said out of nowhere, and Eliot wasn't sure whether she was ignoring the way he'd tried to move the conversation to safer territory, or whether she had simply not noticed. You never could be sure with Parker. “We love you, and that's ours. We get that. We can love you, and it doesn't have to change anything. You don't even have to love us back. Love is just a thing. It's just...” Parker gave a sigh of frustration. That particular sigh which said that she was feeling something that she simply didn't have the vocabulary to express. It was a sigh that often did more than words ever could to express the inexpressible.
“What she's trying to say is that love is a great thing, but when it comes with expectations, people get hurt, and we don't want to hurt you. So no expectations, no demands. You can get up and walk away and never see us again, and we won't try to stop you. It's your choice. Or you can go back to your bed and go to sleep, and we'll never have to talk about this again. Things can be the way they always have. Us loving you won't change that.”
“How do you know it won't?”
“Because we've loved you for a long time, man, and it hasn't changed things yet.”
“And what if I don't?” Eliot didn't recognise his voice as he spoke.
“Don't what?”
“Walk away.”