The New Headquarters of Leverage, Inc, (The Apartment Above Lukes), Wednesday Evening

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Eliot was looking pretty terrible. Despite Hardison's insistence that he wasn't going to feed Eliot again after the never-to-be-discussed Pork Rind Incident (c'mon man! There were just some things you didn't do to pork rinds! Or your friends! Even friends that tased you and tied you to a chair!), that insistence didn't mean much when your best friend looked like he was gonna keel over at any minute.

"Yo," he said, standing a safe distance back. "Eliot. You feelin' okay, man? You thirsty? I ain't gonna feed you--" such lies. If Eliot said he was hungry, Hardison was a soft enough touch that he'd try to feed him anyway. "--but I can get you something you drink?"

But that drink would possibly be orange soda, because soft touch or not, Hardison was also spiteful.

"You know, dude, this could all be over if you just told us what the heck was going on."

It was possible that Hardison and Parker didn't really have an endgame here, beyond keeping him tied up for...indefinitely?

[Open!]

Comments

[vdistinctive]

"I'm fine." Eliot was anything but, and doing a terrible job at pretending to be. For instance, that would be way more convincing if he could hold his head up for more than about thirty seconds at a time. "Y'all got . . . nothin' on Colombian drug runners." He closed his eyes, trying to recenter himself again. "I could do this all day."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Uhh, do what all day?" Hardison drawled. "Sit on your ass in a chair? Congratulations, Eliot, you an' the rest of Middle America. I, for one, am so proud."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot cracked his eyes open enough to peer at Hardison. Well, he was pretty sure he was peering at Hardison. It took a couple extra seconds for his eyes to actually focus, right now. "Middle America spends . . . a lotta time . . . tied to chairs?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"If they're lucky enough to have friends who care about them when they go all whackjob on everyone, then yeah, maybe they do."

Friends who cared and who also had a ridiculous amount of bindings and an obsession with tasers.

"We could try to talk about this you know. You remember talking? It's how you communicate when you ain't grunting and hittin' people."

His stomach still hurt. There was a nasty bruise there and everything!

[vdistinctive]

Well yeah. Eliot hadn't been holding back.

The noise he made was a little bit more whimper than laugh, much to Eliot's dismay. "You gonna try and -- tell me I'm a robot, too?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Naw, that's all Parker." Though, as further evidence of spite, Hardison wasn't arguing with her about it anymore. He wouldn't go so far as to agree, but if he'd wanted someone to try to explain to her how Eliot wasn't a robot/alien/pod person, he'd have to look elsewhere.

To someone he hadn't punched! And then ruined pork rinds for FOREVER.

"I'm still tryna figure what's wrong with you. What the hell happened in Switzerland. Something like that." He settled back into the couch and made whistling noises. "But you know, if you're all good and comfortable there, you can just do your sexy silent brooding alpha male thing. You do you, Eliot."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot snorted -- or maybe groaned.

". . . Sexy?"

So apparently he was hallucinating, now.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Huh? What man?" Don't panic, Hardison. Eliot could sense panic. And maybe fear. Probably fear. Just play it cool, man. Play it cool. "Stoic. I said, stoic. You should clean out your damn ears sometime."

Nailed it.

[vdistinctive]

Eliot even kind of bought that. Mostly because he was wrecked right now.

"Right," he said, closing his eyes again. "Was gonna . . . say. Pretty kinky."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Boy, don't even get your hopes up." While you were being crazy and hurtful Eliot, instead of grumpy-but-loveable Eliot, anyway. "Like we busted out the fun handcuffs for your sorry ass. "

[vdistinctive]

Right. Of course not. Parker and Hardison had their thing, Eliot was just the teammate.

"Why d -- why d'you even --" He had to stop and swallow a few times, clear his throat. "Why d'you have all this stuff?"

I dunno, Eliot, why do you have a bear trap?

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Only while you personally went out of your way to sabotage Plan E, Eliot!

"Most of it's Parker's." Because of course it was. "Harnesses and belaying...ropes...and stuff."

Sound more certain of that vocabulary, Hardison.

"If we were limited to just my stuff, you'd be all tied up with electrical tape and Ethernet cords and junk."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot sighed and nodded a little, just enough to be visible without making the room start tilting. "I hate tape."

He closed his eyes again, wincing as a wave of nausea rolled through him. He just wanted to sleep, but he couldn't let his guard down. He hadn't been this tired since --

Fuck. He might not actually have ever been this tired, before.

"What else'd y'do t'me?"

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Hardison paused in the middle of reaching for his soda. "What else did we do to you what?" he asked, confused. "Did we skip a step?"

They weren't the kidnapping professionals of the group!

[vdistinctive]

"'zit a drug?" Eliot guessed. He tried to shift into a more comfortable position, but such a thing really didn't exist. ". . . fuggin' drugged the pork rin's. . . ."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Oh no, you did not just bring up the pork rinds!" Hardison snapped. "First of all, you don't get to talk about pork rinds. Not after what you tried to do to me with them."

Which they were never talking about, dammit!

"Second of all, you watched me eat a bunch of 'em! When do you think I drugged them, exactly? In the two feet between you and the couch? And why would I drug you? We need you to chill out, Parker's got her damn taser on standby!"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot was too tired to control the flinch when Hardison mentioned the taser. He was still sore from that.

Or maybe he was just sore.

"Fine," he said. "Don' tell me." He squinted -- he couldn't pretend to call it peering any more -- at Hardison. "I c'n handle drugs."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

Okay, so tasing Eliot and tying him up hadn't made him any less crazy or suspicious. Fancy that.

"Riddle me this, Ratman," Hardison asked, looking up to the ceiling for a divine gift of patience, "why would we drug you? What purpose would that serve?"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot shrugged as best he could. Which . . . wasn't very well. "Make me talk," he muttered. "Shits'n'giggles. . . ."

Eliot's world before Leverage had not been sunshine and rainbows.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

There were times when Hardison was really tempted to try his hand at building a time machine so he could go back and rescue Eliot and Parker before the world hurt them the way it had. Sure, he'd lose his crew, his friends, but sometimes it seemed like a reasonable enough price to save them from that.

"Eliot," he said quietly. "We ain't did that to you. We ain't gonna do that to you. We don't like hurting you even this much. But you're dangerous, man. Not just to us, but to your students and staff. And that ain't okay. If you were in your right mind or whatever, you'd never forgive yourself for hurtin' somebody that didn't have it comin'. And you'd never forgive us, either, for not stoppin' you if we could."

[vdistinctive]

The part of Eliot that understood that, that agreed with it, was a little closer to the surface now than it had been a couple days ago. Unfortunately it didn't help how close to the surface you were, if you were still drowning.

Eliot looked at Hardison for a long moment, refusing to close his eyes, then swallowed. "Yeah," he said, sneering. "I'd totally wan'you t'tie me to a chair."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Yeah," Hardison said seriously. "I know you would."

He whistled again and Val came scampering into the living room, jumping up on the couch and padding over to his lap. "See? Even Megabyte's knows it's for the best."

That, or she smelled the bag of jerky Hardison had in his pocket. One of those.

[vdistinctive]

Oh sure, Hardison. Piss off the guy tied to a chair who tried to take you out with a pork rind.

"Her name," Eliot hissed. "Is Val."

They'd corrupted the only damn thing he had left that didn't scare the shit out of him he still trusted. If he were even slightly less thoroughly tied down, he'd be at Hardison's throat.

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"When you're not crazy anymore and can tell us what the heck is going on, her name is Val," Hardison said. "Until then, I'mma call her Megabyte. Maybe even feed her table scraps."

He looked Eliot right in the eyes. "If you won't come back for us, come back for her."

[vdistinctive]

Eliot rattled the chair. "I haven' gone anywhere!" They didn't even seem to know about the necklace. What did they want from him?!

[geniuswithasmartphone]

THEIR ELIOT BACK, GOD DAMMIT!

"Yes, you have!" Hardison replied with a roar that startled Megabyte. She went running for cover--but not for the safety of Eliot. "No, you might not be an alien or a robot or an evil clone from another dimension--" please don't let Parker have heard that "--but you ain't. Our! Eliot! You changed and we don't know why, but we're not gonna rest until we know how to get the old you back!"

[vdistinctive]

"THIS IS THE OLD ME!" Eliot shouted, then had to slump forward, gasping for breath. He was shaking now, trembling hard against the ropes and cords that held him against the chair. He was spent, had used what seemed like the last of his energy in one bellow. ". . . I ain't . . . th'good guy. Never been. . . ."

He was just . . . so fucking tired.

"Lemme 'lone."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Aww, hell naw," Hardison snapped, standing up and striding over to Eliot's chair, practically getting into his face. "Don't even try to feed me that line of bullshit. I stopped believing it five years ago. You were a bad guy, yeah. And I know toy did some stuff that you don't think you can ever come back from. But were. Did. So stop hiding behind that wall of crap because it ain't true for you anymore!"

[vdistinctive]

Eliot flinched again, unable to look Hardison in the eye (physically and emotionally). He'd never been this tired. Not in Croatia. Not in Myanmar. Not in that damn park in DC when he'd been so sure his team was going to leave him behind (where they should've left him the hell behind).

He wanted Hardison to be right. But mostly he wanted to sleep.

"Please," he said, voice soft and flat. "'M tired."

[geniuswithasmartphone]

"Me too, old son," Hardison said, grabbing a blanket from off the couch and draping it over Eliot's shoulder. "Me too."

He went and found Megabyte and after soothing her, deposited the little puppy on Eliot's lap. "Keep 'im company, girl."

And then as he left the room to go to bed he added, "Remember what I said, Eliot. You're better'n this."