"Scars"

Setting: Leverage
Pairing: N/A
Rating: T
Genre: Family
Point of View: Third-person
Warnings: Swearing, some attempts at humor, fluff, violence, blood, mentions of suicide attempts, and possible OOC. Italics are typically flashbacks, thoughts, foreign words, or stressed words.
Further Notes: Based on the observation that Eliot generally (but not always) has one accessory or another (or long sleeves) covering his left wrist with the exception of certain outfits during cons. POV change with each line break.

Eliot, for a long time, didn't feel anything. Meeting Toby helped, as did learning to cook. But, when he joined Moreau, that state returned. He couldn't allow himself to feel things while he killed the people Moreau wanted him to kill. But without any warning, not one night can go by without Eliot being unable to sleep through it. The people he's killed haunt him, the deserving and the innocent alike. He goes days without sleeping until he drowns himself in bottles of hard liquor until he passes out despite how dangerous it is for him to do that in his line of profession.

But the voices are killing him and he doesn't know what to do. He hardly eats or sleeps, and Moreau is taking notice but not saying anything. Eliot still does the jobs, even with shaking hands and hesitation that could kill him. He still kills people.

Over the months, it gets worse. He isn't sure he can live with it, this punishment. So he decides to end it. He doesn't care if he is a coward, he only wants - needs the voices to just stop and for that he will do anything.

Soon, he's being sent on a mission to kill General Flores in San Lorenzo because Moreau needs to remove opposition to get his way to the top and own the country. Eliot goes since he is ordered, but he's planning on letting himself die, let Flores' men shoot him or something. He isn't planning on coming out of the exchange alive.

But his instincts keep him that way. He consciously tries to leave openings, but his body automatically protects him, and he somehow finds himself pointing a gun at Flores with no intentions to shoot it (he doesn't remember punching the guards' faces or slamming them to the ground). He would have to, it was his job, but he also can't handle anymore blood on his hands. If he hesitates long enough, maybe he can get the death he so desires. But Flores only gives him a head-on stare, eyes kind, and all Eliot can think of is the innocents he's murdered in cold blood, the children who aren't getting a future, and the gun is aiming at himself before he thinks to do anything.

The gun goes off, but he's on the ground, tackled by Flores himself. He nearly wants to cry because he's still alive, but whether out of relief or sadness, he doesn't know. Flores lectures him on the value of life. Eliot's not really listening, too busy trying to control the tears and stop them from spilling. When Flores offers him a space away from Moreau, refuge in the home Eliot just broke into, Eliot takes it. He isn't sure why, but he does.

However, even months later, after walking away from Moreau with his life intact, Eliot is still plagued by the deaths hanging over him. He eats some but still sleeps little. He adopts a ninety minutes a day rule, but it doesn't help much. Flores is supporting but there's only so much a man Eliot was supposed to kill can do. It's not long until Eliot tries again.

He goes a different route this time, taking one of his knives and making two long slashes down the veins of his left wrist. He locks himself in the bedroom he could call his own, submerges the bleeding arm in water to keep it bleeding, and lays himself down to die. He wonders, idly, if his mother would have cried, to see him this way had she not died when he was a child. His sister might have, if they were still in contact. Aimee and her dad too. His father...Eliot doesn't know. He thinks maybe he should have gone back, apologized for that fight before he left for the service all those years ago. He wonders if the little hole-in-the-wall is still open. As he sinks into unconsciousness, he thinks that Flores will get over it. He's just a killer who happened to not kill the guy, no one special. It's better if he's gone. He deserves death.

But, apparently, fate feels differently. Eliot wakes up in what he recognizes is the medical room in Flores' large home, light-headed and a bit dazed. His left forearm is wrapped in white bandages and an IV needle is in the crook of his left elbow. He suppresses the groan, pushing himself up just as Flores enters the room.

"Eliot!" Flores says in surprise.

"Why am I..." But the answer's obvious. Flores must have found him in time. Eliot almost wants to curse himself. He should have just gone the gun route. Not like there's plenty of them.

"Eliot, why did you try to kill yourself?" Flores asks, straight to the point. Eliot's always liked that in him, but not right now. He sighs, flopping back down, running his right hand over his eyes.

"I don't know." He lies, sounding as every bit tired as he feels. At least the voices are quiet.

"This is the second time you've tried this in my home, Eliot Spencer," Flores says sternly, and Eliot resists the urge to wince.

"I know."

"Then there must be a reason."

"...I'm tired, Flores." He admits, quietly.

"Tired? Of what?"

"Everything. The fighting, the voices, the sleepless nights, the nausea when I eat. What isn't there to be tired of?"

"Spencer." Ah, the General's tone. "Spencer, look at me." Reluctantly, he does. "Do you really believe that dying is a good enough punishment for killing the people you've been ordered to?" Eliot doesn't even want to know why the General knows that's the reason. "It is not. Living is. If you are truly repentant, Eliot Spencer, you will live. You will live, and you will shoulder this burden. Feeling this guilt, that's what you are feeling, is a good thing- it means you have morals and a conscience. It may not get easier to deal with, but it something you must do. Do not go down as a coward, Eliot Spencer."

Eliot doesn't know what to say to that except, "Yes, sir." Guilt. He's feeling guilt. He's feeling an actual thing. It's...weird. It's human. For some reason, that helps.

Eventually, he heals, but he's watched subtly. He notices this but does not mention it. He gets better, keeping Flores' words to heart, keeping them to keep himself alive. The wounds leave scars and he looks at them often to remind himself of the words Flores spoke, of the emotions he's feeling. By the time he leaves Flores (who he saves again at one point) and his company to be a retrieval specialist, he no longer thinks of suicide. He will still fight, but not use guns. Guns remind him too much of his past deeds, and so he will leave them behind. He will disarm the ones that come his way. Flores approves, and sees him off with a smile.

Flores always speaks of the two (one and half) times Eliot's saved him, but no one ever speaks of the times Flores saved Eliot.

It's Nate who notices first.

He doesn't notice before they become a crew, but he surmises that if, for a second, he actually got a look at Eliot when he chased him across Eurasia, he might have noticed then. But he didn't, so he notices now. Not at first, mind you, because it regularly comes apparent that Eliot is a very private person, and such it makes it harder to notice the little things.

Nate knows that Eliot is good at hiding things he doesn't want to share.

He also knows that Eliot's scars aren't really a surprise. Eliot is a hitter, and hitters get hit. Sometimes stabbed or shot. Eliot didn't have an issue changing his clothes with someone in the middle of a bank robbery to get them out, despite the fact that the others could see every scar that mars his torso and arms. To everyone, it appears as if Eliot does not mind having his scars shown, regardless of who sees them.

To everyone but Nate. But, even for Nate, it takes him a while.

He notices that on most occasions, Eliot wears long-sleeves shirts or a bracelet or a glove. He doesn't think anything of it at first because Eliot has not worn any of these things for certain cons.

That is, he doesn't think anything of it, until he sees Eliot's bare wrist one day when the hitter is cooking for the team in Nate's apartment. There are two long scars running along the veins of Eliot's wrist that stop just before the middle of Eliot's forearm. They're thin and silvery - obviously several years old - but just big enough to be noticed from a close distance (say, a foot or two from Eliot). Nate turns his head immediately because Eliot has the ability to sense when people are looking at him.

Eliot thankfully doesn't sense anything, or think anything of the brief look in his direction, and continues dicing the vegetables on the cutting board. Nate turns towards the cabinets to gather the dishes to assist in setting the table (apparently it's his turn, according to Parker, and he obliged if only to get her to stop annoying him), all the while thinking of the two scars perfectly imaged in his mind.

Torture maybe? An attempt at murder to make it look like suicide? Nate thinks. It nags at him while he puts down clean plates at his table, sets the forks and knives in place. These are perfectly logical answers in consideration of Eliot's career, but for some reason he can't stop thinking of it. When Eliot comes out with steaming plates twenty minutes later, he's got that brown accessory back on.

Nate sits and thinks while the others come to sit at the table. Hardison and Eliot bicker while Parker steals food off the hacker's plate despite the fact she's got her own. Sophie discusses the con they're preparing for with Parker, who will have to be the carrot instead of the stick again (hopefully, she won't stab someone).

Eliot's never been shy or self-conscious about his scars before, but this one seems to bother him more than the rest to almost constantly wear things that hide them. Maybe from before he was a hitter? An attack on him from when he was a child...but then the scars would have run the almost the length of his arm at the time, depending on his age. An accident? No that's nothing to be ashamed of.

Of course, one of the most logical answers nags at the back of his mind, but Nate refuses to think the thought. So instead, Nate resigns himself into not knowing the true cause of the scar or why Eliot seems to inclined to hide it from the team. The mastermind within him wants to know, is eager to press questions to get answers, but he shoves it down, unable to stomach the thought of what the scars might really mean. He also knows better than to press Eliot for answers he won't give, and he also knows to respect boundaries and that everyone has a past that they don't have to share.

"Nate?" Sophie asks, jolting him from his thoughts. He looks at her, seeing Hardison, Parker, and Eliot still talking, but quiet enough to hear Sophie and Nate without making it overly obvious. Too bad it's obvious to Nate.

"Hm?" He replies, sipping on his third drink of the night.

"Are you okay? You've been kind of quiet over there." She says, and he gives a half-smile.

"Thinking about the plan is all."

And really, right now, that's all he wants to think about. Because if that thought is true, Eliot is here now, and that's all that matters.

Sophie is good at reading people. Rather, she's one of the best at reading people since it's part of her job.

Therefore, she can say that next to Nate, Eliot is one of the hardest people to read. He's simultaneously both an open book and a closed one, sharing everything and nothing to his team. It's unlike Hardison, who shares everything and is the easiest to figure out, and Parker, who keeps things to her self and harder to read than Hardison, but is easy enough to understand once you figure out her motives and tells.

For Parker, it's mostly in her posture; when she sits cross-legged, she's feeling (mostly) safe because it would take longer to get out of that position, and when she's up straight or rigid, she's spooked and preparing for a quick getaway. For Hardison, he speaks his mind, and so it's easy to tell when he feels annoyed or sad based on his word choice in his long rants, or if there are no rants at all.

For Nate, it's mostly in how much he drinks, but Sophie is still trying to figure that one out.

For Eliot, it's in his eyes. Sometimes they are guarded and sometimes they're open. Sophie tries to get as much as possible from Eliot when his eyes give him away, but it's difficult. Eliot's had practice in withholding information during his life, even if his life depended on giving that information away.

(Later in the future, when they do the job to help the homeless veterans, Eliot will, in response to the statement that torture doesn't work, reply that it "depends on the torture, depends on the man." So she will know that if Eliot really wants to hide something, he can and will.)

That's why it takes her longer than it should have to notice the accessories that usually adorn his left wrist. Like Nate, she does't think much of it at first. She just figures it was part of the style of clothing he liked to wear.

She doesn't see the scars until the job with VerdAgra, when Eliot's pretending to be her accountant. She's meeting him at the door when he lifts the jacket off of someone's briefcase. It's when he's slipping the blazer on that she sees them. Two thin silvery scars along the veins.

It almost gives her pause, but they're in the middle of a con, so she shoves to the back of her mind for later. Days later, she's sitting home in her apartment, and she thinks of the two lines. She thinks alike to Nate, and so her thoughts are the same, coming up with reasons for the scars.

They had made her nearly pause because of the placement and the inference that can be made from it. But she also knows that Eliot is in fact a retrieval specialist, and there can be any number of reasons for the scars. It's the typical answer though that keeps popping up in her thoughts, but she doesn't think it for long. She refuses to dwell on that answer.

But she's also Sophie Devereaux, and she cares for her team immensely, so it makes her want to pursue the answers. And because she's Sophie Devereaux, and not Nathan Ford, she does. Two days after the job with the super tuber, she wanders up to Eliot, who is currently reading (and as Sophie notes, wearing long sleeves) in his typical seat in Nate's apartment. Hardison and Parker are out somewhere (casing a museum for fun, she believes) and Nate is downstairs meeting a client. Sophie is supposed to go meet the client with him, but she decides she can be a little late.

"Eliot," She says as she sits near him, but not close enough to make him uncomfortable. He grunts a greeting, flipping to the next page. Acknowledging her presence, asking what she wants, but not showing enough attention to make it seem like he's not interested in whatever she has to say. He might not be, all things considered that it's Eliot and he's in the middle of reading, but he typically gives her enough of his attention since they act more or less along the same lines: protect the 'kids' and keep Nate from going too out of line.

She clears her throat, pretending to be interested in whatever's playing on all of the screens. It's a news story about some new study. Casually, she says, "You know, if you ever wanted to talk about anything, you can tell me."

Eliot glances up at her, wary and cautious of ulterior motives. He sounds nonchalant, though, when he responds, "I know, Soph," and turns back to his book. It's kind of clear he doesn't want to have this conversation, but Sophie just pretends she doesn't notice that.

"Good," She smiles and nods, "because I wouldn't want you to think that you had to hide things from us. We are a family, after all." There's a few beats of silence after that. When Eliot looks back to her, he's frowning.

"Is there something you want, Sophie?" Straight to the point as always. He never did like neuro-linguistic programing, especially if it's aimed towards him (he had been angry at her for doing it to him several days after the tea thing).

"I'm just saying is all." She shrugs, standing. He frowns at her further.

"Alright, Sophie," He sighs, looking down towards his book. "Don't you have a client meeting to be at?"

There's nothing she could say to refute that, so she nods and leaves to go join Nate downstairs. She'll have to back off for now, but she'll get her answers eventually.

She's just not entirely sure she wants them, but right now, she's satisfied with the fact Eliot knows he can talk to her if there really was a problem. It's good enough for her for now.

Hardison is, most of the time, slow on the uptake when it comes to people, because while he can get along with people easily enough, he cannot read them as well. It's the reason he oversells when he grifts and gets kidnapped by Russians. He isn't good at recognizing the signs and tells that the majority of the team does. He can admit that. He's spent a lot of his time looking at computers, ones and zeroes, and playing games with people through screens rather than in person.

So, yes, his people reading skills are a little lacking. That's why it takes him a long, long time to see the scars. It's not until they're in Washington D.C., after facing down a terrorist threat that he sees them.

To be completely honest (as Hardison always is), he doesn't even notice Eliot's constant use of long sleeves and wrist accessories. It never occurs to him that Eliot could be hiding something underneath the clothing, because the one thing he knows about Eliot (aside from the fact he's able to kick major ass, and that he's an amazing cook, and that he's short...okay he knows a lot about Eliot- not the point) is that the man likes to keep personal things to himself, and that he can make it seem like he's not hiding anything at all.

So really, he doesn't notice Eliot's choice of clothing until after he sees the scars. It's after they return to the hotel they're staying at to rest the night before heading back to Portland tomorrow. Hardison is setting up their plane tickets for the morning, getting them first class to Eliot doesn't have to cramp up his injured leg on the flight home, and Parker is messing around with some padlocks on the floor. Eliot's in the shower.

Several minutes later, Eliot emerges, dressed in a clean (and thankfully bullet-free) shirt and pants, with the bandages properly underneath the clothes this time. He makes his way carefully over to the couch and sinks down onto it. Neither Parker nor Hardison make any comments about this, knowing he will just get more growly than usual.

"So I booked us three first class tickets for tomorrow morning at ten-thirty," Hardison tells them both, apropos of nothing, "We'll be back in Portland in no time. Thank god, I do not want to be in the city any longer. Terrorist threats are not for me man, no way. I like them better when they're virtual."

"Oh, it wasn't that bad," Parker snorts.

"You say that about jumping of buildings too."

"What's wrong with that?" She looks vaguely offended.

"You know what- never mind," Hardison backpedals.

"Nice save," Eliot rolls his eyes, moving to lay down instead.

"Listen, just because you're all used to these kinds of things don't mean I am. I very much like the safety of a room and a computer, thank you." Eliot ignores him, and Hardison huffs, going back to his phone. Parker resumes her lock-picking. It's like this for several hours until Hardison gets up to go use the bathroom. When he comes back, he realizes Eliot's fallen asleep. He keeps quiet when passing the hitter (the last time he woke up the hitter, he got punched in the jaw), glancing at the other. It's unintentional that his gaze falls on Eliot's left wrist.

The scars make him inhale sharply. He nearly says something aloud to encompass his emotions (like, maybe, "holy shit!" or "Jesus Christ!") but he cuts himself off at the last second. Waking Eliot would be a very bad idea, and he doesn't want to bring Parker's attention to the thin lines. Eyes wide, he makes his way back to his seat on one of the beds, thoughts whirring.

He's smart, but he's not like Nate or Sophie, and can think of the only reason those lines are there. He's been in foster care, he's seen it before. He may have been lucky with Nana, but the short time with plenty of other homeless kids made him see plenty of things. And some of those things were like the scars of the hitter.

Hardison has no idea why Eliot would do something like that. He's always been stubborn, persistent, and strong-headed (practically invincible, like the heroes in the comic books that Hardison loves so much), and the hacker can't imagine anything to make the hitter do it.

He doesn't think he wants to know either, even if he wants to ask.

So he looks back at his phone, realizing he's never seen them before since Eliot dresses a certain way, but locks away the thought and the image of the scars. Thinking of it reminds him too much of foster care before Nana and he would rather not think of it at all. He's concerned for Eliot, of course, but he can tell that the scars are old and figures that now, he shouldn't have to worry about a repeat. Eliot's got a family now, so there's no way it could happen again.

Pursing his lips, he gets back to work to make sure they can't be connected to the threat today.

Parker's more perceptive than people realize. She knows she doesn't understand normal people, and how they work and function. She doesn't understand why people think it's weird for her to want to use a steam vent, for her to know the average times in and out of a safe, for her to enjoy rappelling off of tall buildings. She doesn't understand these things.

But, she does understand the people like her. Those who do what they have to do to live. Those with bad pasts that are trying to have a better future. That's why she understands Eliot better than everyone else. She's not Nate, who thinks too far ahead and too deeply; She's not Sophie, who reads people like reading a book, and she's not Hardison, who gets along with people without understand the finer details. She's just Parker.

That's why she is the one to notice Eliot's scars but not think about asking about them, not even for a moment.

She doesn't notice Eliot's choice of apparel, but rather something else. When they were doing the job to take down Damien Moreau, she noticed he rubbed his left wrist often. She noticed that like she noticed how Hardison touches his chin about every two and a half minutes, how that the Debra Pierce lady from the mine job wouldn't take calls from her mother. She's good at noticing the small minor things someone normal might find unimportant.

She doesn't ever really think that they're scars there until Eliot did that. Not because she thinks his clothing choice is somehow hiding something, but more because she knows what kinds of scars go there and certain memories can make them ache. She knows this because she has one herself.

It isn't big since it is from her childhood. There was a time before Archie and after the last foster home where it was nothing but her and Bunny on the streets living off scraps and pickpockets. There had been one winter in particular where she was close to starvation and death, and she thought that maybe if she just ended her life now, it wouldn't be as bad. So she took the pocket knife she stole from a woman's purse several months prior, and made one cut down her arm's vein. It hurt a lot, and before long she saw the blood rising to the surface.

But, the blood reminded her of her brother. A bike, screaming, a car crashing to a halt, blood everywhere, all over her baby brother. And she gasped and covered and bandaged the wound before she could bleed for too long. The next day she tried to pickpocket an older man, who caught her and introduced himself as Archie Leach.

So she understands the feeling, for the most part. When she sees a kid riding a bike or when she sees the homeless shivering a cold winter day, her scar aches and reminds her of the deed. That's why she won't ask.

She doesn't officially see the scars until after the job with Value!More. While the rest of them go back to Portland, Eliot tells them he's going out of town for a few days. When he gets back to Portland on Sunday, Parker notices he looks kind of drained. Eliot is sitting on the couch watching the on-going sports games that he likes (but not baseball, which is odd to Parker, since he played the sport for a con). She plops herself down next to him, a bowl of cereal in her hands, sitting cross-legged. Nate and Sophie are busy doing Nate and Sophie things and Hardison is out getting some new tech he wants at the store not far from here.

Her eyes roam over him, noting the small things like his hair (she wonders if she can braid it soon) being wavier than usual, the way his right hand is still on his lap instead of holding the beer bottle resting on the floor, how his left hand is holding the remote. Her eyes travel down to his bare wrist while she shoves a spoonful of cereal into her mouth. She sees the scars, but she isn't surprised at seeing them. Instead her inferences from years ago are confirmed.

But even though she wonders at what may have caused them, she doesn't even think of asking. She thinks of years ago, when Eliot had pleaded with her not to ask him what he had done when he worked for Damien Moreau, and she thinks that she'll honor that now, too, even if the circumstances are likely different. To her, it's just scars. They happen when you're a criminal (unless your Hardison, since he almost never leaves the van during a con) and you live and learn.

"What do you want, Parker?" Eliot asks her, aware of her gaze on him. His tone sounds rough and annoyed, but Parker knows he just does that out of principle lately. He hasn't been annoyed with her or her questions for a long, long time.

"You know when I was little, I hurt myself here," She tells him, even though he'll be confused, and holds up her scarred wrist. Her scar by now is nearly invisible, but she knows Eliot will see it. She watches as his face turns from confusion to surprise and worry (she knows that his eyes widen when he's surprised, even if they don't widen by all that much). "I was starving and tired and wanted it to end. But then I thought of Nick and stopped. I'll always have this scar," She continues and his eyes soften subtly. "But it's okay. Cause I have Hardison and you and Nate and Sophie now. So when this scar makes me feel sad, I just think of you guys now, and become glad I didn't go through with it." She then adds as an afterthought, "And then I think of stealing something expensive."

Eliot's quiet for a long moment before he says, very softly, "Thank you, Parker."

Parker just smiles, "Thanks for being my family."

Eliot realizes he has been covering his scars subconsciously. Sometimes, bracelets and long sleeves and other times, gloves. He has been doing it since he left Flores over a decade ago, more so when he joins the team. For some reason, he doesn't want them to see the two lines that speak of his moment of complete weakness. It makes him less of a hitter than what his reputation makes him out to be.

So he hides them on purpose after that. The team doesn't appear to notice his aversion to bare wrists if he can help it, even if the scars have faded down to almost nothing. At least, he thinks this until Parker speaks to him one day about the scar on her wrist. He understands what she is doing halfway into her story, and he almost gets up and leaves. But he doesn't. He sits through it and very quietly thanks her.

After that, he notes that the team must all know, even Hardison, as dense as he is. He doesn't know why he even tried. He is with a group of the best criminals, and by now, they can see things he has never let other people see. He sighs, looking down at his arm. They haven't changed the way they acted with him, not even a little.

By now, he decides, there's no reason to keep hiding behind the accessories and other means, even if he likes them. From now on, he'll wear them because he wants to, not because he thinks he has to. The team (his family, he'll admit if he absolutely has to) doesn't care about his scars.

For Eliot Spencer, that's enough for him to forget about the scars and move on.

More than enough.

Fin.

I think the toughest part of this fic was capturing each team member's thought process. Each of them think in very different ways. I think Hardison was the hardest next to Nate, because I want to capture his snarky-ness but can never figure out how.

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