Title: Remembered
Author: Devereauxx
Beta: Koryou on LJ
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: M
Pairing(s): Eliot/Sophie, Parker/Sophie (friendship/UST/dash of femslash), mentions of Parker/Hardison (mostly UST)
Timeline: Starts right after its predecessor "Forgotten", going through 2.01-2.09 (sticking to canon! yes I'm proud of myself for that), and then my perception by what happens after 2.09
Summary: Sophie can't stop thinking about what happened that night, but what scares her more is that it wasn't the act she can't stop thinking about... it's him.
A/N: Just so everyone is aware, this fic officially stamped my status as a Leverage fanfic slave. "Forgotten" was supposed to be a one time only show, but I got begged, and then I figured out a way to make it work with canon and got myself excited. Ha. Oh, also, I kind of just made Tara my own, since we really don't know anything about her real personality yet. And I have to brag that I wrote the first 20,000 words of this story in one sitting. Yay me. -slave, seriously-
Warning: Kinky, of course. Apparently Eliot/Sophie screams kink to me. Involves rape fetishes (not the really scary kind), pegging, watersports. Lord, someone stop me. Ha. Though there is kink, I will say that there's a lot of humor and heart and all that mushy crap you all beg me to write too. LOL.
PART I/3
It was supposed to be forgotten.
But something of that caliber can never truly be forgotten. You can try, put it in the back of your mind, file it "not for use," or "do not open: danger." You can label it anything you want but the fact remains that people are curious by nature. Couple that with the human brain which can't bloody stop thinking all the time, and you've got yourself a problem.
Sophie had that problem.
What's worse was that she knows Eliot has that problem too. They never spoke of it again; neither of them would dare to. It was one of those fucked up little situations that neither of them even knew now if it was even real, or just some really bizarre dream. The thing that made Sophie know that it wasn't just her mind having a go at her was when she woke up the next morning, bruised, sore, could barely even walk. Her body was screaming at her, and it scared her to realize she had something that bordered on some kind of insatiable addiction. Once she had a taste she wanted more, it was all she could think about. She did take a good long look at herself in the mirror that morning, naked as she ran her fingers delicately over all of the black, blue, and slight green patches that littered her skin, reminding her of what happened. They made her smile. Hell, they even made her horny.
Sophie used to rarely masturbate. Now, she does all the time. Just thinking about it, replaying what happened in her mind over and over. It wasn't forgotten; it was remembered… vividly. Eliot gave her something no one else would ever dare to, and more than anything she wished it could happen again. She played with herself nightly and thought of Eliot calling her a whore, throwing her to the ground, taking what he wanted from her. It was the most intense fantasy that she actually had the privilege of knowing in real life, which made it so much more vivid in her mind.
But it worried her. Every time she'd have her fingers buried inside herself and she'd pant Eliot's name into the darkness of her room, it worried her. She knew she couldn't be thinking about him that way. His hand on her throat, his cock so deep inside her that it almost bordered on painful. She couldn't think about that. She shouldn't think about that. Yet it's what she thought about.
Every. Single. Night.
She seemed to be forming a rather unhealthy obsession, but it didn't matter, right? After all, they all went their separate ways. They would never see each other again, or at least that was the plan. It was done, over. A fun run, whatever. All the bullshit they spewed to each other, making some kind of dramatized farewell when they all damn well knew it wasn't over. Six months, a year, two, five, it didn't matter. They all knew it wasn't over.
Sophie knew that something was very wrong about this. She shouldn't have this lust to be abused. But that's what she had, and she couldn't stop it. She tried, she did. Tried to think about Nate, and how he would never hurt her, how he's everything she's wanted for the last ten damn years of her life. But all it did was make her draw further away from him, because of the one simple fact being that he would never hurt her.
So she didn't call him. Didn't call anyone, except Parker. Maybe it was just cause she was worried about her, more than all the rest of them. She had some kind of motherly instinct when it came to the girl, and she wanted to make sure she was okay. Parker was unhappy, that much was clear. She never said anything about it, but when they would talk and she would tell her what she stole each week, she didn't have that joy in her voice that Sophie grew to love. But Parker, for all her lack of knowledge in the area of people, could tell something was wrong with Sophie too.
"I got the part."
Sophie can hear Parker crunching away on the other end of the line, stuffing herself with something that's probably clogging her arteries as they speak. "The singing part? You can't sing."
Sophie scoffs, but can't help but feel at home just because of Parker's blunt honesty. "How would you know? You've never heard me sing."
"Heard you sing in the shower once," she tells her, and Sophie hears another crunch. "You murder B flat." She ignores the fact that Parker was once snooping in her apartment while she was taking a shower, and the fact Parker knows anything about notes, and changes the subject.
"What the hell are you eating?"
"Frozen beef jerky."
"That's disgusting."
Parker makes some kind of noise, though Sophie can't distinguish what it means. There's more crunching for a bit, something that's working at Sophie's nerves, but she doesn't tell her that she needs to go, doesn't hang up, only because Parker's the closest connection to her family that she has. Finally Parker says, "Why don't you make everyone come?"
"Come where?"
Another crunch. "To your play."
Sophie switches ears on the phone while she opens her wine closet, suddenly feeling the urge for sangria. "Parker, you hate my plays." She's not stupid, she knows everyone hated going to her plays. All except Nate.
"They're horrible," Parker agrees, and Sophie wishes that Parker was in front of her so she could try to teach her about tact. Again. "But you like doing them, and friends are supposed to support you, even if you suck." A pause. "I mean , even if they suck. The plays."
Jeez. Well, at least she tried. Sort of. But it was kind of sweet, in that way that children try to do something right and still completely fail. She pours herself a glass of wine and asks, "You'd do that for me? Come to my play?"
There's a long pause, and a slow, awkward crunch. Sophie knew that meant that Parker was struggling with feelings. "I miss you," she says finally, flatly, trying to drain the emotions from her words. Then she apparent stuffs her mouth with those damn things, because the crunching becomes borderline obnoxious. "Plus," she continues, mouth full. "I wanna meet the boyfriend."
The boyfriend, Parker always called him that, even though Sophie did tell her his name. Stephen; a beautiful man, sophisticated and educated in the arts. He was perfect, everything she ever wanted. Or at least, everything she ever wanted, up until her encounter with Eliot. But he was convenient, he was there, he made her forget about everything that happened previously. Nate and that whole nightmare. Eliot and that whole fantasy. He just made her forget. Made her move on.
"What if no one else comes?" Sophie asks, trying not to let her vulnerability show through her words, even though she's sure Parker wouldn't catch it even if it did. It'd be nice; it would, seeing everyone again. One big reunion, the family back together. She was comfortable enough in her relationship with Stephen to think she could handle it. There was past, sure. Lots of fucked up past between all of them, but it wasn't anything she couldn't handle. Family, after all, and all that.
"Sophie," Parker says in her serious voice, the crunching gone. "Don't be stupid."
And so they came, every single one of them. The awkward greetings at the door, the bar afterwards where she drowned her sorrows in margaritas, the job afterwards where they all teamed up and conned Nate into running their crew again.
The job. That job.
The one thing Sophie vividly remembers about that job was that that's when she realized that six months and even a boyfriend couldn't make her put behind her what happened with Eliot. There were awkward looks, and what was even worse was when she tried to be normal. The problem was that she couldn't even remember what normal was like with them anymore, and when Nate finally caved and gave into helping them with the con, she smiled, gave Eliot a little half hug with, "See that? He did miss us."
Eliot looked so uncomfortable, and she could feel him tense beneath her as she touched him. She withdrew, vowed to never touch him again. Vowed to just… just let it all go. No use trying to act normal, she didn't even know what normal was. It would just be better if she avoided the whole thing. Avoided him.
The worst thing about the six months apart and the boyfriend thing was the fact that even though it didn't work with Eliot, it seemed to have worked with Nate. And of course, because life loves to have a bloody laugh at her expense, it came at the worst possible time. Nate was showing an interest. A fucking real, complete interest. Finally, after ten years. And it just didn't… it didn't matter anymore. Part of her still loved him, but she didn't want him anymore. Hell half the time she wasn't sure she even wanted Stephen, but mainly because it's been awkward with them after she tried to put herself out there to him and ask him to do something that apparently was just not… it wasn't what he was into. Her little fantasy made him look at her like something was wrong with her.
The worst part about that was that it still made her feel like something really was wrong with her.
Her vow to stay away from Eliot didn't last. The very next job she went to him, saw him in that ring; sweaty, angry, getting himself ready to be taken down. She had the thought to just walk away, leave him be, but it didn't last. Something drew her to him, though she wasn't sure what. They had barely made eye contact since they team had gotten back together, and she just needed to… hell, she just needed to know that things were gonna be alright. That yeah, things were weird, but if they couldn't be alright then the family will fall apart again. Neither of them wanted that, she knew that much.
They didn't talk about what happened, at least, not outright and directly. Sophie tried, tried to just open her damn mouth and say the words that were going through her head, but all that came out was about Nate would figure it out. Eliot just looked at her, with this look that made her know that he already knew that wasn't why she came.
"I'm losing a fight Sophie, not diving on a grenade."
She resisted the urge to just say fuck it, walk out of there. She didn't want to deal with his smart ass remarks, but she couldn't blame him for it either. After all, if she couldn't start the conversation, why should he?
"l'll be alright." He turns away from her, like they're done.
"I know, I'm not talking physically," Sophie tells him suddenly, with more meaning behind her words than what the conversation was actually about. He turns back at her, looking at her in this way that make's Sophie think they're having the boyfriend conversation or something. But that couldn't be right, because that implied Eliot was jealous. And to imply that Eliot was jealous would be to imply that he…
That's never going to happen.
"I think my ego can handle it." He turns away from her again. Damn him. Can't he see that this isn't easy for her either? All the awkwardness, all the whatever the hell this was. Can't he just bloody try?
Sophie wants to scream at him, tell him that's not what she meant, but she didn't even know if that's really what he was thinking. So she lets it go, and tries to pursue the job conversation as some sort of cover, whist trying to make her point about what she was actually talking about through subtext. "Look," she says cautiously, trying to figure out a way to word this. "You told me that it's about control. About knowing that you're never gonna be the victim."
He turns to her then, and she can tell in his eyes that he knows what the conversation is really about now. "And… that's what keeps you going, right?" she finishes, a little catch in her voice. Talking about herself, talking about him, talking about it all.
But he doesn't acknowledge it with words; he switches to talking about the actual job, the cover conversation, whatever it was. He leans over, looking down at her, and asks, "You think that I'm upset because I'm gonna let this guy kick my ass?" Sophie gives him a look, a look that clearly shows that she's unhappy with his diversion, even though part of her is wondering if it really was a diversion, and that they weren't back to the boyfriend thing again. But her annoyance is gone just as soon as he opens his mouth again, and the words reveal more meaning behind them. Meaning she can at least understand.
There was a breath, a slight sound of defeat before he tells her honestly, "I learned a long time ago that you can't control the violence."
Sophie watches him, and she knows she stopped breathing. She can't tell if he's talking about himself, or if he's talking about her. Maybe she doesn't want to know.
"I can take the punishment, it's what I do."
Okay, him, now they were definitely talking about him and the after effects of… everything, all of it. He looks at her, and she can feel her stomach drop. She's nervous all of a sudden, just by the way his eyes connect with hers, portraying something she doesn't know that she's ready to see. And it was worse, god it was so much worse when he opened his mouth again.
"But what I need to control is not out there," he tells her, and she licks her lips in nervousness, waiting for the last bit of that sentence, though she doesn't know if she's ready to hear it. He touches his heart, looking her straight in the eye and says, "It's here." He's looking uncomfortable, his eyes shifting, like some internal struggle is going on before he admits in a low voice, "Always."
She looks down, not knowing how to take that, how the hell she was even supposed to take that? What did that even mean? She knows what it could mean, she's not stupid after all, but it was just… too much. She looks up at him again, their eyes meet, and she gives him a little smile. Just… that she gets it. She wants him to know that much. But she just can't… think about it right now. So she turns, walks away, and just leaves him there in the ring, staring after her.
Fuck.
"You're eating all the oreos," Parker complains to her a couple weeks later, watching Sophie just continuously stuff her face. Fuck it if she got fat, she was just stressed out. Everything stressed her out recently. She's surprised her hair hasn't turn grey and just fucking fell out.
"Hungry," Sophie mumbles, crumbs falling from her mouth. Shit, that was ladylike. Parker just cocks an eyebrow at her as she brushes the fallen pieces off her blouse.
"Are you pregnant?" Parker asks bluntly, and it makes Sophie cough on a cookie.
"What?!" Sophie asks through her coughing fit. "No!"
"Well I don't know, you're eating everything in sight and you're starting to get fat," Parker tells her, sitting next to her on the couch. Then she sticks out her pointer finger and pokes Sophie's stomach as if to prove a point. Sophie slaps her hand away. She is not going to poked like the bloody Pillsbury dough boy.
She's regretting inviting Parker over.
"Parker, what did I tell you about the fat comments?" Sophie says angrily, offended now as she looks down and sizes up her stomach. Shit, she was getting bigger. She really needs to stop binging.
"Sorry," Parker says, and lets out a little breath, her eyes rolling up as she tries to think of what it was that she was supposed to say, then monotones, "That dress doesn't make you look fat."
"That's not—" Sophie tries, but stops herself halfway through. Nevermind. She had made some progress with the girl, not much, but some, and right now she didn't want to deal with teaching her appropriate responses. She sighs, pushing the cookies away from her. She was done.
Parker grabs the package eagerly. "So if you're not pregnant, why are you eating everything?"
"I stress eat," Sophie tells her in a flat voice, not looking at her, just staring at the wall.
Bollocks, she was getting fat.
"Why are you stressed out? We're not even on a job, and the hospital one went over fine." Parker takes a bite of her cookie and stares Sophie down, like she's trying to study her. Sophie looks over at her, and takes the girl in. She's been the one who she's been the closest too ever since the team split up. They always talked, always hung out even when they weren't on a job, but she didn't know if she could quite trust Parker with… this sort of thing.
Especially because Parker doesn't have that mechanism that enables most people to not voice absolutely every bloody thought that floats through their brain.
"Parker…" Sophie starts, and Parker stops eating, the half bitten cookie still raised to her mouth. She chews slowly, obviously getting that this could be serious, and didn't want to interrupt with her crunching. "If I tell you something, can I trust that you won't tell a soul?"
Parker blinks, seemingly caught unaware by Sophie's trust in her. She nods, putting down the cookies. Attentive. Waiting. Sophie takes a deep breath, trying to figure out what to open with, but decided with the thing that was bothering her the most, something that was bothering her ever since Eliot implied his heart was involved in this entire ordeal:
"I think Eliot might be in love with me."
Parker blinks again, as if trying to process this information. She pushes the cookies away from her, apparently finding this a sign of attentiveness. "Because of the sex?" she asks finally.
Sophie sits up straight, looking at her like she didn't understand what just came out of her mouth. "W-What?" she stutters, her brain successfully not seeming to work. "How did you… how the bloody hell did you know about that?!"
Parker isn't taken aback by her outburst, just looks at her like it's obvious. "When you came downstairs after you were walking funny, I could see really light bruises on your arms. I thought he beat you up, but you acted like everything was normal. People don't try to act normal around people that kick their ass; if he did, you would have went crying to Nate anyway. Plus, people try to act normal around people they had sex with, when they don't want other people to know."
Sophie just looks at her curiously, "How do you… I mean, how did you come up with that conclusion?" It wasn't that she was wrong that was the problem, it was the fact that she was Parker, and that she was actually right.
"The normal/sex thing?" Parker asks, and Sophie nods. Parker shrugs. "TV." Then a smirk at Sophie, "See, it doesn't fry my brain like you said. Taught me something."
"Right."
Sophie takes another breath and tries to get back to the conversation at hand, "And, I don't know, if it's about the sex thing. The sex wasn't exactly… emotional."
"Are you into bondage?" Parker asks, in that irritating way that she does that can make your brain turn to mush in a matter of minutes.
"NO! Parker, can we just… not talk about the specifics of the sex? Please," she asks, knowing her face is starting to flush red. She grabs another cookie. Fuck it, what's another kilo?
"Sorry, just asking cause you were all beat up."
Sophie tries to take a patient breath, will herself to get through this conversation, only because she knows she needs to talk about this with someone. She needs to get stuff out there, because right now, inside, it was suffocating her. And apparently making her be well on her way to being the size of Mrs. Claus.
She puts down the cookie before it even reaches her lips. Damnit.
"What about the boyfriend?"
"What?" Sophie asks, trying to tune back into what was happening. Oh, right. Sophie shrugs. "I don't know, things have been off between us lately." Her eyes shift, looking down at the cookies again. She didn't want to talk about Stephen. It's been weeks and still things weren't back to normal. Still he couldn't just… get over what she said. What she asked of him.
"Are you in love with Eliot?"
"NO!"
God, Sophie hated how she always does this. Just keep springing up questions like this that she isn't ready for. Parker tilts her head, peers at her, and observes, "But you think he's sexy."
Sophie's eyes snap up to look at her, and she defends, "You have eyes, don't you?" Clearly the man is sexy, that's not the pressing issue at the moment.
Parker just shrugs, leaning back against the couch as she grabs the cookie that Sophie left lying there previously. "I'm not into white meat," she tells her, and Sophie feels the need to divert this conversation away from her, just because she's suddenly become uncomfortable with it.
"So have you fucked Hardison yet then?"
Parker drops her cookie into her lap.
Okay, Sophie really didn't have to put it like that, but she needed to say something that would fuck with Parker's head the way Parker was fucking with hers. Parker blinks, taking in the question, and decides instead that today was not a good day to hang out. She stands up.
"I need to go." A pause. "Somewhere… else."
Of course she did. Sophie just sighs, and lets her go. That conversation didn't help, not really anyway. She didn't get jack shit on insight when it came to if Eliot was in love with her or not. Maybe she was taking that part all wrong, after all. It's not like they were exactly speaking bluntly, so really what he said was all up to her interpretation.
But what the hell did that say about her if she interpreted it into meaning that he's in love with her?
He could have meant that yeah, he did have emotional feelings for her. He cared for her. They were a family after all. He cared about her and that's why it made it weird. He cared about her, and he was trying to control himself from doing it because that's what made him feel bad about what happened.
Shit. Maybe she did take this all wrong.
Months went by. Stephen broke up with her, something that devastated her but also something she already knew was coming. He spewed all this rubbish about how he doesn't really know her, and yes, maybe she didn't give him her real name. Maybe she didn't tell him what she really does for a living. But she never lied about anything else.
Sophie had convinced herself that Eliot wasn't in love with her after all, which made it easier to go to work. She didn't dwell on why she might have thought that, but just accepted it as just a minor freak out. She took the conversation the wrong way, but she understood it now.
Not that it made it any better in the long run.
Her nights were still filled with moans echoing off of the walls of her bedroom, fantasies of being tied up, violated. The fantasies got worse, more intense, more degrading, and each and every time she thought of the sick little things she wanted done to her, she would cum with Eliot's name falling from her lips.
She was in trouble. She could barely get through the day without looking at Eliot and her mind being filled with all her late night fantasies. It wasn't healthy, she knew that. It really, really wasn't. She should be able to function, be able to do what she's supposed to do and not bloody think of sex all day long. And as if that wasn't bad enough, things got worse.
Nate tried to kiss her.
She just couldn't handle it, any of it, anymore. She needed space, needed some time to breathe, clear her head… so she just left. Up and left and didn't even say goodbye to anyone, not properly anyway, and it seemed to hurt Parker especially, really badly.
"I don't want to talk to you."
"Parker, please! Don't hang up!" Sophie yells desperately into the phone. There's a long pause, and Sophie's wondering if she just missed the click of the line going dead. Then finally:
"You just… left."
Sophie can feel her heart breaking just by the tone Parker used. So betrayed, so hurt, so angry, so upset. She knew she shouldn't have done that, Parker's… fragile. Even though she'll never admit it. Sophie sighs, "I know… I know I did. I'm…" but she couldn't say the word. Choked up in her throat. Damnit. "I should've told you," she says instead.
"Come back."
"I just… can't, Parker. Not now. I'm so…" Sophie sighs, flopping down in the chair in her hotel. She looks out the window at Big Ben. London. It used to feel like home. But nothing has felt like home since she's been with those people. Home is where they are, no longer a place. "I'm fucked up," she admits to her quietly.
Parker apparently doesn't know how to respond to that, because there's silence for awhile on the other end of the line. "Just tell Eliot that you want him."
"Tell Hardison you want him."
A beat. "Fine," Parker says, accepting her counter and taking the loss on that point. "Then fix whatever's broken."
"I'm not a machine, I can't just get tinkered with and everything goes back to normal," Sophie tries to explain, but Parker giggles. Sophie's confused, then rolls her eyes, holding back a smirk. "You know what I mean."
"What's wrong with you?"
Sophie purses her lips together, looking down, cradling the phone to her ear. She doesn't know if she can tell Parker this. "It's… complicated."
"Then uncomplicate it."
"It's embarrassing."
There's a pause, then Parker admits very bluntly, "I farted in front of Hardison yesterday."
Sophie blinks and sits up, trying not to laugh at how absurd that one sentence was, "What? How is that relevant?" But she can't help the grin that's forming on her face. It may be juvenile, but it was kind of funny.
"I just told you something embarrassing," Parker explains, as if she should have gotten it on her own. She does this little patient sigh; mocking the one Sophie gives her so many times. "Now tell me yours."
"Parker, this goes a little bit farther than farting in front of someone. Everyone does that."
"Sophie," Parker says in a flat voice. "I'm not going to tell anyone."
Sophie sighs, pinching her eyes with her fingers, trying to stop the forthcoming headache. "I just… what happened between me and Eliot wasn't just sex." She's met with silence on the other end of the line, and she knows Parker's waiting for her to finish. It takes her a bit, trying to find the words, "He… I mean I… I let him, I wanted him to…"
"Spit it out."
Jesus. Parker and her tact. "I made him practically rape me, okay?" Sophie admits, her voice filled with self loathing. She closes her eyes as she feels her face burning red. She just wanted to die, right where she sat. Least she'd go out with a view.
There's a long pause. Finally Parker says, "That's it?"
"What do you mean that's it?" Sophie asks, opening her eyes. She doesn't understand how Parker can be so casual about it. Did she not hear her properly? Did she not get it? "Parker, that's really fucked up! It wanted it all… violent and degrading!"
"You know what I like when I have sex?"
"I hardly see how that's relevant either," Sophie starts, but is interrupted.
"I like getting my clit bit. Like really hard. Really, really hard." That makes Sophie wince internally. Jesus. She doesn't even want to think about that. But Parker isn't done, "Everyone likes weird stuff. If you want Eliot to rape you, then let him rape you."
Sophie's quiet for quite some time. Parker had a point, which was weird in and of itself. What was weirder is that the girl actually, on some level, actually made her feel a little bit better. But there was also the big other issue. "What if… what if he doesn't want to?"
"He did it before."
"Yeah but I… I dunno, I bloody conned him into it. It's what I do. Besides, I meant like… what if he doesn't want to do it with… me?" God, she was sounding like such a damn girl. What was happening to her? She's never been like this. Ever.
"You're hot," Parker says, as if in explanation, "Even I'd have sex with you." Sophie's eyebrows rose. She… what now?
"You don't really want to have sex with me… do you?" Sophie asks cautiously, like she isn't sure what's going on at the moment. With Parker, you can never be too sure.
"I don't think about it extensively, if that's what you mean."
"But you have thought about it?"
"Once." A pause. "Okay, maybe twice."
"Do you even like women?" Sophie asks, this whole bizarre conversation turning into something even more bizarre. How did they get to her fantasizing about Eliot to Parker fantasizing about her?
"I dunno, I don't think so. I've never had sex with one," Parker tells her, as if this is the most casual conversation the whole world. "But you're freaking out about fantasies, right? We all have them, and they don't have to make sense."
"I really didn't need to know that I was in one of your fantasies."
"Whatever, I'm not going to jump you," Parker tells her, and it makes Sophie smile just from the way she said it. Like she was making fun of her for being so pig headed. "And it was two. One involved tying you up."
"Parker, please stop." She didn't need to make that scenario active in her head right now. Mainly because the thought of being tied up appealed to her, and if she starts having fantasies of Parker and Eliot, she might as well just check herself into the freaking nut house.
"Okay, okay. But that's what I mean. I don't like you, I'm not going to go try to have sex with you, but sometimes things just pop into your brain." A beat, and a completely unrelated topic to her fantasy with Sophie, at least, she hoped. "I want to experiment with money torture."
Sophie doesn't want to know what money torture is. She's sure of that.
"You're confusing me," Sophie tells her, trying to think, get the thought of Parker and her out of her head. "You just told me to let Eliot rape me, but now you're saying what I fantasize about doesn't have to become a reality."
"No, I was trying to tell you that everyone thinks about stuff like that. And while that one of mine doesn't need to become a reality, you already had yours with Eliot. It's part of your reality already."
"You're scaring me with your insight. I just want you to know that."
"TV is educational," she tells Sophie, and she can hear the grin on her face. Her and her damn TV. Sophie just stays silent; trying to process what Parker told her, and how to use it to fix her problem.
"Call him," Parker tells her. "He won't call you. Nate told us not to call you."
"Nate can sod off. You can call me anytime, Parker. I mean that."
Sophie can hear Parker smile, obviously feeling better as she tells her, "Okay, but if he yells I'm blaming you."
But Sophie doesn't call Eliot. She can't bring herself to. She picked up the phone so many bloody times and found his number, but couldn't hit the call button. She'd put it down, pace a couple minutes, sit down, stand up, pace, try again, fail. It was really repetitive, and it was driving her slightly mad. She's never had this problem before, and she can't figure out what's wrong. How to fix it.
Besides, she just didn't know what to say to him. How do you even start a conversation like that? "Hi Eliot, I know what happened with us was almost a bloody year ago and everything, but wanna have another go?"
It sounded stupid. It was stupid. Wasn't it?
She's accepted her rape fetish for the most part. Parker did help with that. She still thinks it's a bit screwed up, and something she should probably be ashamed of, but it was there, and it wasn't going away. If she couldn't do anything to change it, then why even bother trying? So it wasn't that that was bothering her anymore. It was the fact that she wanted to do it with Eliot. Again. Repeatedly. Multiple times.
But she doesn't know if she can even get into this thing with Eliot. They work together. Well, at least they did work together until she ran away like some kind of pussy wanker. What if things go bad, or worse, what if things go… better? She's already afraid she's starting to have some kind of feelings for Eliot, it's the only way she can rationalize the fixation. Because it's not just the sex, it's never just the sex she fantasizes about. The main focus isn't what he's doing to her, what he's making her do. The main focus is just that… its him.
Shit.
She almost jumps out of her skin the day the phone rang and she saw Eliot's name flashing on her screen. Parker had called the day before, worried about a job, worried about herself and how Hardison, apparently according to Eliot, was going to "screw it up". She hadn't called back yet to tell her how it went. Thinking the worst, she picks up the phone in a rush, "Is Parker alright?! Hardison? Everyone??"
"What? Yeah, they're fine."
A sigh of relief, then nervousness and worry seem to invade her stomach, making her feel almost ill. She sits down, trying to control it. Something is really off with her lately. "Is this… is this about the job? Or…?"
"Fuckin' job," Eliot says, and Sophie doesn't have to be there to know that he ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. "Hardison's being a little—"
"Eliot, he's young," Sophie starts to explain, trying to tell him that he's overenthusiastic, and yeah maybe he's prone to mess up because of that, but it ain't like the worlds ending. But she's interrupted half way through.
"I know. He's driving me crazy."
She sighs. This isn't the conversation she wanted to have with him, but none the less she was glad they were having it. A conversation at least, real words being exchanged. They barely talked anymore, even before she left. Sure, shit that had to do with the job, just like this was, but nothing… meaningful. After the conversation in the ring, they both apparently just tried to ignore it. Take it as whatever it was. Closure. Try to, anyway. Though it seems Eliot got more closure than she did, since she's the one that ran away after all.
And even though this wasn't meaningful, she hadn't heard his voice in weeks. She missed the sound of it. She liked how everything he said was always low, gruff, manly, even a bit angry. It was sexy.
God, that was lame.
"Eliot, you just have to trust him. Trust them. And if things go south, they trust you to help them out of it. We all always have."
"How? Huh?" he asks angrily, "I'm backup, they can't rely on me."
Jesus. He's just mad at the whole situation. "You might be a lot of things Eliot, but unreliable isn't one of them. That's not who you are and you know it, so don't feed me that bullshit."
A pause, and then he lets out a little reluctant, "Alright."
"Furthermore," Sophie continues, just trying to keep him on the line. "The last thing you're going to do is stand by if Hardison's in trouble. You might talk a lot of rubbish to him, about him, but you care about him, and you know it."
"ALRIGHT," Eliot stresses, and Sophie quits. He gets the point. There's another pause, and she knows she needs to say something before they hang up. She's been sitting over here forever, trying to think of what she would say to him if she could only bring herself to call him. And maybe she didn't call him, maybe he called her, but here was her chance none the less.
"Look… call me… anytime, okay?" It's all she could get out, and she hated herself for that. He calls, finally he calls, and all she can do is play the mother of the team from a distance. Fixing problems, stopping fights. That's not what she wants to talk to him about.
Another pause, and it feels like forever to Sophie. "Hey…" he says finally, softly. She waits, hoping he's gonna say something that has to do about just… something. Anything. "Thanks," is all he says though, but he actually sounds like he means it. She's about to say something, but he leaves her with: "Don't tell Nate I called."
Nate.
Nate came by; one week later he was there, standing in her hotel room, asking her to come back. But she just couldn't. It was ridiculous, but that time it wasn't even about Eliot. It was all about Nate. Her feelings for him weren't completely gone, and it just angered her that even after everything, with how much he clearly wants her now, he still can't even bring himself to say the damn words.
Not that if he did that it would change anything. She can't be with him, at least not now. Not while she was constantly thinking about Eliot. It wouldn't be right.
So she sent Tara. Tara, who… god, there was so much history there. So many good times, so many bloody bad ones. Tara owed her a favor, and she cashed in. It was as simple as that, but at the same time, so very not that simple…
"I thought you died," Tara says flatly, her response to picking up the phone and being greeted by Sophie's voice on the other end. Sophie winces; she knew she might get something like that.
"Surprise?"
Tara's mad at her though, she can tell. She can never hide anger unless she's on a grift. Hell, she can barely hide any of her own emotions unless she's on a grift. One thing that separated the two of them, at least until recently. Sophie seems to be a complete emotional mess now. "What do you want?" she asks.
"Well for starters, a 'hi, how are you, how have you been,' might be nice," Sophie tells her, eyes narrowing. Just cause she's pissed, doesn't mean she has to be outright rude.
"You haven't said word fucking one to me in two years, up and disappeared from Chicago, not a call, not anything. And you expect something like that from me?" She scoffs, and Sophie knows she's tapping her foot. She always does that when she's annoyed. "Clearly you never knew me at all."
Sophie sighs, pursing her lips together. She felt guilty, and she hates feeling like that. It eats her up inside. "I just… I had to go to LA for a bit."
"And that explains not calling, how exactly?"
"I was afraid you wouldn't understand," Sophie tells her honestly. She picks at her fingernails, worried. She knew this wouldn't go well, but she didn't think it would be this bad.
Damn, she just chipped her polish.
"Sophie, when you decided to give up the life you had to pursue your acting career, that I didn't understand." There was a pause, and she finishes, "But I was still your friend, wasn't I?"
"Yeah," Sophie says, feeling awful. "But this was…"
"Was what? Just tell me. What? Did you go off and kill someone?"
"No!" Sophie exclaims. She's never done a hit on anyone, god. That's not her. "It's just… different," she tries to explain. "I'm back in the game. Least, I was. Not at the moment. I just… it's completely different this time."
"Are you shitting me? You didn't call cause you didn't want to tell me that you started grifting again? What the fuck is that?"
"That's not it… exactly. I.. I started, you know, stealing to… help people." There's a really long pause, and Sophie feels like she needs to explain it more in depth. "Giving away the money to people that needed it." The pause is getting really long, so Sophie asks, "Tara?"
"I'm sorry, I think I just had a stroke."
That makes Sophie smile a little, just picturing Tara's reaction. "See? I was afraid you wouldn't get it."
"I don't get it. Did you fall and hit your head? I told you not to wear the six inches."
"It gets worse," Sophie tells her, knowing this is gonna be the part where Tara might fall down. Not wanting to be the cause of an accident, she asks, "Are you sitting down?"
"Now I am. What?"
Sophie takes a breath, "I worked with Nathan Ford."
There was a very long pause this time. "You… are so screwed up. I hope you know that. He's… he's a fucking insurance guy, Soph. He busts people like us. Hell he chased you forever."
"Trust me, I know. And he isn't with IYS anymore."
"So what? You two just ran around, fucking righting wrongs and all that Robin Hood crap? Who the hell are you?"
"It wasn't just the two of us," Sophie tells her, trying to explain the fucking unexplainable. She still doesn't even know how this whole thing got started. "You know um, well, you've had to have heard of Parker, right?"
"Parker…" Tara thinks. "Parker Frost? No, I heard he's in jail. Parker… wait, Parker? You mean that crazy broad? You ran with her? Word on the street is that she stole the Hope Diamond just for shits and giggles, then put the damn thing back."
"She's not crazy," Sophie defends, but Tara snorts. "Okay fine, maybe a little," Sophie admits. She still doesn't understand how Parker put that diamond back herself. "But she's sweet. Adorable, really. Bloody amazing thief."
"Sounds like you have a crush."
"Sod off, she's just my friend," Sophie says, rolling her eyes. "Have you ever heard of… actually no, you wouldn't have heard of Alec Hardison, he's a computer guy. I know you don't get into that scene. But he's adorable too, in his own way. Real enthusiastic. Uh…" a catch in her throat as he says his name, "Eliot Spencer?"
"Sounds familiar, but I can't place it."
"Hitter." Tara makes this little sound, and Sophie's not sure if she's supposed to take that as a yes or a no, so she just continues, "He's…" shit, how can she describe Eliot? "Built, strong, bit angry all the time, but he's got amazing control over it. He's… he's a bit beautiful."
"Okay, see now that sounded like a crush."
"Look, I need a favor," Sophie says, choosing to ignore her comment. She didn't want to talk about Eliot, not right now. But what she said makes Tara scoff.
"Oh, so that's why you called. Figures."
It took convincing, a whole hell of a lot of convincing until Tara said yes. She had to explain that she did still think of her as a friend, that she just had a bad lapse of judgment, which Tara called an understatement. It took awhile, too damn long, and she finally had to use the 'you owe me from Moscow' card, and that's what seemed to seal the deal, even though she wasn't thrilled about it. And from what she found out about a week and a half later, neither was the rest of the team.
"She called me adorable. ADORABLE!" Parker yells at her on the phone. Sophie holds it away from her ear and winces. God, Parker can really shriek.
"Parker, I was the one that called you adorable, she just repeated it," then she pauses. "Apparently." She really should have told Tara not to tell anyone anything she said about them. God, she hopes she didn't tell the rest of them what she said. Especially what she said about Eliot.
"Well you're allowed to call me adorable, I know you," Parker protests. "Even though I'm not adorable. I'm not a chia pet, I'm a human being."
Sophie ignores the chia pet comment, though only cause she has no idea what the hell it is. "How's everyone else taking it?" Sophie asks, wary of the answer. Fresh blood apparently didn't seem very welcome, not that she could blame them.
"Nate doesn't care cause you said it's fine. Eliot's being grumpy about it. Hardison keeps giving her the evil eye," Parker tells her, then with a slight whine in her voice asks, "Why can't you just come back?"
"I just… can't right now."
"Will you just talk to him? Seriously. You're being really stupid."
"It's not just Eliot, okay? There's… something else." She probably should have told Parker this sooner, but she didn't really know how. She was still trying to figure it out herself.
Parker pauses, and Sophie can tell she's worried it's her or something. But it could never be Parker. Parker was sweet, even though she probably didn't think so herself. She's been there for her through this, and she'll always love her for that. "Like what?" Parker asks.
Sophie sighs before she admits slowly, "I don't… know who I am anymore." Because she doesn't. That conversation she had with Nate in the graveyard, right before he tried to kiss her… it struck something in her. She didn't dwell on it; after all she was still too busy running away just because of the situations with Nate and Eliot. But now she's been thinking, been thinking about it a lot and it's just… it's all so messed up.
"You're Sophie Devereaux," Parker answers her factually, and like that fixed everything in some grand way. "Now come home."
"That's not even my name."
"So? Parker isn't my name either. A name doesn't make who you are," Parker tells her, annoyed. "If I change my name to Waffles right now, is that gonna change who I am? No. In fact, you know what? I'm gonna call you Waffles. Is that okay, Waffles? Oh no, did you just magically morph into someone else? I didn't think so."
Parker had an entire rant going on there, but Sophie just had to ask about one thing, amusement tinted in her voice: "Waffles?"
"I'm eating one, first thing I could think of." Sophie smirks, but Parker take a breath and goes on, "Just please come back. I need to talk to you."
"You're talking to me now."
"But it's not the same, and I need to tell you about me and Hardison's almost-moment."
That makes Sophie sit up straighter in her chair. "Almost-moment?" she asks, wanting to know the details. That was news, that was good news, and she welcomed good news.
"Yeah, like a moment only not really. Almost."
"I know what it means, Parker. Tell me what happened."
"No, not till you come back."
"Parker, I'm not coming back until—" she was going to say until she was ready, until she's figured things out; who she is, what she wants. But apparently Parker decided to take it as 'until I get Eliot.'
"Eliot!" Sophie hears Parker exclaim, and her own eyes go wide as she hears Parker say, "Here, Sophie wants to talk to you." God, she hopes he wasn't there the whole time. Sophie can only imagine her literally shoving the phone into the man's face, only because he heard:
"Alright, I got it. Just get off of me Parker, shit."
Sophie can feel herself holding her breath, so she lets it out in a rush as she hears Eliot ask, "Sophie?"
"Hi."
That's the only thing that made it out of her mouth. She didn't know what else to say, and the long silence afterwards proved that. "Uh, what's up?" Eliot asks awkwardly, "Parker said—"
"Parker's just… she's being Parker," Sophie tries to explain, and she's fidgeting in her seat. She was nervous again, when the hell did she get this way around anyone? This is bordering on ridiculous. "Um, how are you?"
"Fine, all things considered."
"Tara?" Sophie asks, hoping that's what he's talking about. She didn't want him to be talking about her. Talking about her leaving. She didn't want to know what he thought about it.
"You could have just told us she was coming."
"You wouldn't have trusted her, wouldn't have thought she was good unless she proved it to you," Sophie tries to explain, glad that that really was what he was referring to.
"Still don't trust her."
There's a long, awkward silence, and Sophie knows she needs to say something. "You never called," she says, then wants to slap herself for how lame that sounded. Out of all the things to say, why did she have to say the one thing that makes her sound like she's fourteen year old, pining away? Really. Bloody stupid.
"I just… ain't got nothin' to say. I guess."
"Oh."
There's another long pause, and Sophie's trying to figure out what to say, until she hears Eliot exclaim, "Parker, will you stop breathing down my damn neck? Gimme some space. Damn."
"She's just worried. She wants me to come back," Sophie tells him. She always has to explain Parker; no one else seems to get her.
"We all want you to come back."
Sophie bites her bottom lip, and she curls herself up into a ball on her couch, cradling the phone. She wasn't expecting that, at least not from him. "It's just complicated," she tells him.
"Leaving cause of Nate don't solve anything, he's always gonna be a prick— Parker, I can see your shadow behind the door. Go."
Sophie had a laugh at that, just a little. But then she gets serious. It wasn't because of Nate, and she doesn't want him to think that. "Eliot, that's… that's not why I left. Not all of it anyway. There's so many other things."
"Then get to fixin' it. Get your ass back here."
"I need to talk to someone before that can happen."
"Then damn well talk to them. Shit, do you need me to state anymore obvious things for you, Sophie?"
Sophie scoffs, "Fuck off, seriously."
But she knows that made Eliot smile, she can hear it in his voice when he says, "If swearing at me makes you feel any better, swear away. Ain't got nothing better to do then be abused by some woman halfway across the damn world."
"You're a dick," Sophie tells him, but she has a smile on her own face. It's probably twisted that apparently they both feel happier calling each other names, but whatever. It makes it feel like normal, makes it feel like before.
"Just talk to them, Sophie," Eliot tells her seriously. "If it ain't Nate, who the hell is it? That boyfriend you had? I can go track the bastard down for you if you want. Kick his ass if it's required."
That makes Sophie smile, even though she's never been one to condone violence over things like that. But just that he's offering to do that for her made her a little happy. "No, it's not Stephen" Sophie tells him, and then she sighs. She puts her hand over her eyes, lying back on the couch as she decides to just fucking go for it finally and admits in a really small voice. "It's… you, Eliot."
There's a really long pause, before Eliot bursts out with, "Parker, I swear to god I'm going use your money to start a bonfire if you don't give me five fucking minutes of peace!"
Sophie just waits, holding her breath. This was tantalizing, waiting. Finally Eliot must have gotten Parker to leave, because he turns back to the phone. "Then… I don't know, fuckin' talk to me." It's said quietly, hesitantly.
"I can't do this over the phone," she tells him, and the terrified feeling was shooting up her spine, making her need to get up. So she does, and she starts pacing. She just needs to move. Shit, she's become some sort of… insane person, hasn't she?
"Is this about…?" Eliot starts to ask, but already knows she knows what he's talking about so he switches to, "That was like… a fuckin' year ago, Sophie…" it's said slowly, quietly, and in a tone that Sophie can't decipher, but she decides that the way he says it doesn't sound good.
Sophie just wants to die where she stands. Have something fall out of the sky and just save her this humiliation. The way he said it, it was like because it was so long ago that it was just over for him. How can it be over for him, and not over for her? How is that even fair?
"Right. Yeah, I know," Sophie says quickly, just trying to cover it all. She knows her voice is deceiving her though, but she can't stop it. No amount of grifting in the world can make her suppress how she feels right now. "Just, wanted to make sure you were over it. Cause I am, totally over it, I mean. So. That's great. Making sure we're on the same page with… all of that. Look, I gotta go? We'll talk later okay? Bye."
She hung up on him, just like that, not letting him get another word in edge wise. She collapsed on her couch, gripping the phone to her chest, staring at the wall. She could feel it, the choking in her throat, the tight feeling, the burning in her eyes. She was going to cry. Like some little girl she was going to cry about this. God. This isn't who she is! She doesn't cry over some man!
But that's a lie. She's cried over Nate so many times. But that was different, she was in love with him, and he just continuously broke her heart.
As she feels the tears start to fall, she wipes them away furiously with the back of her hand. That was the thing, wasn't it? She was in love with Nate. She had real feelings for him, not just sexual ones, and that's what made it hurt. Sex was just a game, always a game. It never mattered either way. But this… this isn't just about some sex game anymore. This isn't just using Eliot to act out some twisted fetish. She… she had feelings for him. And it was stupid, it was all so bloody stupid, because Eliot doesn't do relationships. She knows that, everyone knows that. This was all so pointless. She felt humiliated, rejected. Plain fucking stupid.
She was never going back there.
TBC…