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Eliot wakes up from a nightmare with phantom screams in his ears and the feeling of blood on his hands. He gives himself a few minutes of careful breathing to slow his heart rate and then he gets out of bed. It’s not easy to get up on bad days, but he knows that if he doesn’t push through it’s all too easy to spiral into depression. So he gets up. He takes a shower. He ignores the phantom feeling of blood and doesn’t scrub his hands more than normal.
To fight the darkness in his mind Eliot pulls on his various coping strategies. He makes oatmeal instead of trying to cook anything complicated. It can be frustrating because he loves, and prefers, to make more elaborate food, but on bad days his hands have a bit of a tremor so he sticks to simpler food. He doesn’t read the news or check for jobs. On better days he trains, or he goes to the brewpub and works in the kitchen. On bad days, like today, he goes outside and works in his garden.
Getting dirt on his hands is one of the few ways he can combat the ghost of blood that will follow him today. Eliot checks the yard for weeds and removes them. He checks the health of each plant and waters them as needed. He works through a section at a time. Normally he finds this work soothing. The quiet and work bringing him back to baseline. Today he keeps getting distracted by thinking about Alec and Parker and the brewpub. It startles him to realize that he wants to be there instead of working in his garden.
It wasn’t very long ago that even the thought of being around others on a bad day was abrasive and made his hypervigilance ratchet up. Right now though, the thought of being in the apartment over the brewpub is calming. While the thought of being around people, in general, is still uncomfortable, the thought of Parker and Alec in the same space as him is comforting. With a huff, Eliot cleans up, again not letting himself overwash his hands, and heads to the brewpub.
On the way, he reflects on how much he's changed since that one job for Dubenich. In the past, he cared more about keeping busy, about not letting the past drown him. He knew that he couldn't make up for what he'd done, so he didn't even try. Jobs were about money and being the best. Nate changed all of that. He started to care, about helping folks sure, but really it was about his team. Eliot's focus became about keeping his team, his family, safe. The change from team to family had been so gradual that he hadn't even noticed at first. Then, when Nate and Sophie left, his feelings changed again. In a way that surprised him, not only did he care for Alec and Parker, and want to keep them safe. They, in turn, had come to mean safety to him. Something that he had never thought he'd find again.
Eliot walks into the apartment over the brewpub and can feel some of the tension in his posture begin to relax. This space is safe and it helps to lower his hypervigilance down a few notches. Alec is on his computer, no surprise there, so focused on his game that he hasn't registered Eliot's arrival yet. Parker on the other hand looks over from her spot on the couch. Whatever she sees on his face keeps her on the couch and not crowding up to him like she normally does. Parker can sometimes have a hard time reading social cues, but she has learned Alec and his personal quirks over the years. The same way that they have learned hers. He is grateful for the space, as nice as it is to be here with the people he cares about. He still needs a little more time to come down from the paranoia that has been dogging his steps today.
Moving into the kitchen Eliot feels calm enough now to cook. He knows that the others keep it stocked for him since neither of them cooks. Assessing what he has, he settles into a steady rhythm of cooking and it settles him even more. Creating in the kitchen is one of his go-to coping strategies. And cooking for those he cares for is one of his favorite things to do. He doesn't even notice when the phantom feeling of blood finally fades, he's too busy watching Parker and Alec enjoy his food.