Leverage, Eliot & Team, Teams reaction when learning Eliot has an eating disorder. Authors choice if it's Bulimia, Anorexia, or his own body doesn't send the signal that it's hungry.
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The Missing Message
Somehow Nathan figures it shouldn't have been as surprising as it is to find that Eliot deals with it in the way he does. Stress and anxiety and then Eliot stops eating. That bit he gets. Too many days spent locked up with food only being dispensed at someone else's whim and his body no longer has any idea what is hunger and what isn't. Mixed messages – thirst, hunger, pain. At one time or another, Eliot has had to shut down the messages, find some way of ignoring them all and saving himself anyway.
The end result is a man who can fight and lay out three or four big burly bouncer types even when he's got broken ribs; a man who can be locked in a cell or a dungeon without food or water and survive long enough to fight his way out at the first sign of an opportunity.
The problems come at times like this, after he's broken those ribs and got away and now he's laid up in bed recovering.
Nathan had always wondered just why Eliot seemed to throw himself into cooking so much, knew so much about food, every little intricate detail or subtlety of flavor and texture. He would cook ridiculous amounts and every single member of the team had a freezer stocked full of supplies of their favorite dishes. Yet when he sits down for a meal with them all, he has the smallest plate, the smallest portion and the most particular way of cutting up and eating that Nathan has ever seen. Sometimes he looks like every mouthful he swallows is torture and yet the rest of the team are devouring it and exclaiming its perfection.
It isn't until Eliot is ill, rundown and out of action, not up to making the journey from the bedroom to the kitchen that it really becomes a problem. It's fortunate, Nathan is the first to go round and try to help. He's poking around in the kitchen trying to work out what he's up to making and he finds the real evidence of how severe the problem is.
First he finds the lists, exact calorific values of precise measurements of each food type, diet sheets that set out menus of what Eliot needs to eat in a day. It's forced, Eliot makes himself eat the minimum amount each day, not because he wants the control but because if he doesn't eat this, then he won't eat at all. Nathan pieces it all together, Eliot has tried everything he can to control the condition, he's tried to entice himself by being able to cook anything and everything and nothing has worked. When your body doesn't register hunger, eating is a chore. The most enjoyment he gets from food is when he does cook and eat with others, because the pressure is off. It's why every now and then he'll sneak an extra small spoon of deliciously creamed mash potato or an extra sliver of beautifully tender meat, not because he's hungry but because he's enjoying the experience of eating with others, eating to be sociable. Nathan figures that when he's well again, it won't be too difficult to talk him into cooking for them all more often or the others into accepting dinner invitations either.
For now though, he hides the papers and instead goes through the cupboards to see what's available. The cupboards that Eliot normally cooks from when they're all there are full of things that Nathan has no idea what to do with, but he finds the other cupboard and knows that this is the one Eliot uses when eating alone, plain rice, oatmeal, chicken soup and some nutritional shakes. There's a box of saltine crackers and some rehydration salts. He figures he can manage the chicken soup with some crackers on the side. He'll talk to Sophie before she comes round; she'll have more ideas of how to help he's sure.
Nathan makes up enough soup for the two of them before taking it through to where Eliot is laid in bed, skin sallow and eyes dark and tired. Eliot forces himself to sit up and when Nathan hands over the smaller of the two bowls he'd carried in, he can see the relief on Eliot's face that he's not having to try and face the other bowl. Picking up his own bowl and beginning to eat, Nathan chats away about this and that, not directly looking at Eliot and how he's getting on with his soup. He's keeping enough of an eye though to see that Eliot has made it a good way through the bowl so he doesn't feel the need to pressure him into eating any more when Eliot says he's had enough, he just takes the bowl away and lets Eliot relax while he clears up the kitchen. He stays long enough to chat and watch a game on TV before Eliot seems tired enough that with his last dose of meds he's likely to fall asleep again.
Sophie comes round the following day and she's made a simple rice dish with slivers of chicken chopped in. It's nothing overwhelming and she serves him up a manageable size portion, then sits and eats her own alongside him, telling him about this and that, a pair of shoes, a piece of jewellery. Eliot's always been good at listening if it keeps the attention away from himself.
It's Parker's turn next and she's adamant that she knows how to cook, despite both Sophie and Nathan's concerns. She insists she can make pasta and when they tell her not to serve it with a cream sauce, she shrugs and says she has a good meat and tomato sauce that she's sure Eliot will like.
She's right, even if she doesn't get what they tell her about keeping the portion small and she gives him way more than he's able to face ever, let alone at times like this. He dips his fork in and tries a little and tells her it tastes good, and it's not a lie. He might season it a little differently but it is good, he can admit that but there's just too much on his plate and he can't face the thought of it.
She's got better at reading the team, knowing their nuances in a way she doesn't manage with strangers and she knows she got it wrong, so she heads back to the kitchen and gets a second fork and promptly sits down with him and begins to eat off the plate as well. She doesn't mention the plate she'd left for herself in the kitchen but instead says that she didn't want lots of washing up because she doesn't like her hands going wrinkly and they were friends right, so there was no reason not to share the plate.
By the time they've finished, she is content that he's eaten and she's still hungry which means he must have eaten quite a lot of what was there so her job is done and next time she'll remember and understand it a little bit more, even if she can't imagine ever not eating when food is available. She knows what it's like to be hungry and she still has to be careful not to eat too much when there is plenty. Sophie said that Eliot is the same but where she over-compensates, his body tries to do without.
In Parker's opinion, brains are screwy things that keep going wrong and that's why hers and Eliot's don't work right, but at least now everybody knows and they can look out for each other's brains going wrong and sending the wrong messages.
They try to work out something that Hardison can cook and discover that the best they could hope for from him was a microwave dinner served with orange soda. It's not going to work, for a start, Eliot doesn't own a microwave and even Hardison will admit that half of the meals don't exactly look appetizing or at least not by Eliot's standards.
In the end, Hardison says he's got it sorted. He understands the principles of what they're telling him and he can work round that and if the worst comes to the worst, he can heat up more chicken soup or oatmeal.
They have to trust him to do this, no matter the reservations they all share. Even Parker offers to go round and cook again to save Eliot from any potential Hardison induced disasters, but Hardison is adamant, he's got the situation under control.
He stops at his favorite pizzeria, where he knows the family who run it. He talks to Signora Romano about what he needs and what he likes and she makes him a special. It's a meat-lover pizza with extra fresh vegetables, less cheese and very little oil. The seasoning is delicate, warming but not overwhelming and with a huge grin, Hardison rushes it round to Eliot's.
He grabs two plates from the kitchen and takes them along with the pizza box through to Eliot's room. When he opens the box, he discovers that she has cut the slices smaller than usual. It's big enough for the two of them, but the pieces are small enough to tempt Eliot rather than looking like more than he wants to tackle.
Hardison sets the box between them and hands Eliot a plate before pulling his first piece of pizza free. He's reaching for the remote to change the channel to some Doctor Who repeats that are running and he's already biting down and starting to tell Eliot how he's really going to enjoy tonight's episode as Eliot leans in and plucks a single slice from the box.
"Tastes good," Eliot says a few moments later. "Where'd you get it from?"
"Mama Romano," Hardison says. "A special she makes for me sometimes. Not on her usual menu." He's pretty pleased with it himself, it's all the things that Sophie said to think about : not too greasy or too spicy, but flavorsome and with what he's pretty sure is plenty of nutrition.
It takes them all time to understand Eliot's difficulty, they probably never will fully understand it anyway, but they've learnt to understand how Eliot deals with it and what they can do to help. It's amazing how often one of them pops in to have breakfast with him or appears with an extra snack just because they were getting one for themselves when they're working in the office.
They never comment when he doesn't eat much, but try to find a way to slip him a little something later in the hope that he'll manage something more then. They're not sure whether he's worked out that they know and they're never going to mention it until he does, but that doesn't stop them looking out for him and trying to make it all a little easier to manage.