Notes: Written as part of the rounds_of_kink over on LJ (for Emotional themes, the prompt "Eliot has bipolar disorder and Nate does what he can to help")

WARNING: contains possible triggers for self injury

Making Circles

Nate had been here before. Had stood here in a doorway not dissimilar to this one, watching his nightmares play through this scene night after night after night. He could hear the flatline in his head as he watched his… as he watch the light in those eyes fade and each painful breath grow harder and shallower and something he had no control over killed…

He knew this nightmare. He knew this place.

But this was real.

He crossed the room, the muted sound of his bare feet on the floor obscenely loud after the silence of…

Dead silence.

He wanted a drink, but he had to stay sharp. The past few days had taught him the need for staying sharp, for paying attention.

The enemy currently after Eliot was the only one Nate had ever doubted Eliot could overcome.

Himself.

oOo

There was a lot Eliot wasn't sure about.

If the team would hold together through another year (he was almost certain; they'd survived Nate and his booze, Sophie and her real Name, two full scale break ups, losing Nate to prison for six months, and they might still survive the Italian and *Him* but… on bad days he still knew his days with the team were numbered).

If he should stay. Before the Italian, before Moreau came drifting back into his life, he could almost convince himself they could deal with any fallout of his past. But now it didn't even need to be a bad day for him to think of counterarguments. They were family, but he'd left home to protect his first family from ghosts much less dangerous than the ones haunting him now.

Those were the big things, issues, questions he'd grappled with from the beginning, that he'd struggle with as long as they were together. It was… good for him, he guessed. Kept him from being complacent.

And he doubted any of the team really had answers for them.

There were other things though, questions ranging from if Parker really thought Santa was real to if Nate knew Sophie's real name to his own mental chicken and the eggs questions.

Back when he and Nate had first got together and Nate had first learned (let Eliot know he knew?) about Eliot's… problems… (and wasn't that another question, did Nate know first or did they get together first) Nate had asked him when it started. How it started.

Eliot wasn't sure.

There had always been something off about him.

No. That wasn't true. He was pretty sure he was as normal as he could have been as a kid. Sure, his Mama and Daddy worked as school teachers instead of at home and in the mines like most of his friend's parents but they were still a normal family. Still happy. Hell, they were happier than most in their little town.

He wasn't sure when that changed.

He wasn't sure if the highs had swung out of control first. Whether his attack on those three jocks messing with his sister freshman year had been an early warning of his inability to realistically judge his abilities while manic, instead of just the stupidity of a fourteen year old boy in a small town.

He wasn't sure if the depression he'd experienced on and off before then was typical for the life he lived. There'd normally been obvious reasons, his grandma dying, breaking his arm and not being able to go to Four-H one summer. Bad grades or the end of summer. There were other times, but what child was happy all the time anyway?

He wasn't sure when that changed. Wasn't sure when exactly isolated incidents started to morph, merge together, drowning and twisting him into the kid who'd lied his way through an army psyche evaluation because he'd convinced himself it would be better for everyone if he was just gone,

He supposed he'd been right. Combat had done wonders for him for awhile.

OOo

Nate wasn't sure how he got here. He didn't remember when exactly he put the pieces together. Eliot never could tell him when he first showed symptoms but he'd been suffering from the disorder for at least twenty years by the time they came together in Chicago. Eliot had long since learned how to mask the signs and symptoms from even the best grifters by then.

Maybe it was the rehab job. Or maybe not until after the hospital and order twenty-three when Eliot went into a unusually bad depressive episode. It was somewhere in there.

It was somewhere before the thing between them started. (He was pretty sure he could place that change as between Sophie leaving and Tara coming).

But string of hit-and-miss run ins hardly amounted to a start of a relationship and the talk Nate had with Eliot, the night after a job when Eliot was trying and failing suppress the symptoms of a particularly bad manic episode, barely counted as Eliot telling him he suffered from bipolar disorder.

Somewhere in Nate's mind he recognized that Eliot's symptoms seemed to have gotten worse the longer the team was together and took particularly bad swings after Sophie left. Nate knew from that point that his letting himself open up to the team, coming out from the forced apathy Eliot had functioned under for the past decade, would probably exasperate his illness.

He'd kept an extra eye on Eliot, kept the fact that if Eliot's condition got out of hand he might be out of the job for a while as a factor in play, but for the longest time didn't concern himself otherwise.

Eliot was a grown man who'd been dealing with the civil war playing out in his head for most of his life. Nate respected Eliot's professionalism too much to invade on that mess.

If nothing else (and if for no one else on the team) Nate trusted Eliot to tell him if the situation ever got to the point he couldn't do his job.

For the life of him Nate didn't know how he got from there to here.

How he'd gotten from knowing this might happen to spending the last three days sitting through the fallout, remembering the civil war metaphor he'd once so casually used for the damage Eliot's own mind caused the hitter and watching what happened when the civil war turned into a full on genocide, unable to do anything to stop it.

How they went from a few half drunken, half manic (and now he feels sick remembering some of those times; Eliot's control and apparent stability aside, Nate wonders if someone as far gone into a manic episode as Eliot had been *that* time can even give consent) not-quite one night stands to this.

From there to no one on the team even raising an eyebrow anymore when they come in for a briefing and breakfast dishes for two are sitting in the sink. To Eliot breaking the lease on his apartment (without telling Nate) and just crashing in one of his three (possibly four, Nate's obsessive and controlling but he's trying not to add stalker-like to that list) safe houses here in Boston on the rare occasions when he doesn't just end up crashing at Nate's place.

To Nate finally calling a halt to their mad dash after Damien Moreau three days ago because he knew without Eliot even having to say anything that what Nate had predicted, before they even knew *here* was a possibility, was happening.

oOo

He'd never been asymptomatic. There were always high days and low days, days when he was climbing the walls because his skin was a size too small and the world was too slow and times when rolling out of his bunk in the morning felt more challenging than hell week in boot camp.

But they were easier to deal with. He had to suppress them or he'd get kicked out of the army. He had to keep his head screwed on straight or he'd get someone killed.

Adrenalin and endorphins were still the best mood stabilizers he'd ever used.

Eliot wasn't sure when it started to change again. When days waking up one way or another, previously suppressed and channeled with relative ease turned into episodes like the ones he remembered from high school.

Was his fling with Amiee old love or mania making him think it was a good idea? Was his mood during the rehab job worry about Nate or slipping into a depressive episode?

He hated not even being able to trust his emotions. Never knowing if he was feeling what he was supposed to or if he needed to get ready for an episode.

The first manic episode he was sure of hit him after the first job in Boston. He'd holed himself up in his hotel room for two days until he was mostly sure he was past the worst of it.

He was fighting through more than just mixed martial arts a week later when they headed to Nebraska. He'd mentally prepared for it. He knew depressive episodes followed manic and was far past denying things he knew for fact would happen.

But even then. Even with venturing back into a place so familiar and yet different, even brushing on parts of himself he'd tried to bury, even when things changed and he had to… he didn't even know how to classify what he'd had to do…

Even though he'd spent the entire job feeling like he hadn't slept in weeks, like his ribs were trying to crush his lungs, like the world was just a hair out of focus and just a little bit off center and the "distinctive" weren't as distinctive as normal…

He still managed to do his job. He still worked through the mess in his head and as far as he was concerned that made the whole mess a win.

No matter how terrified he was that it was starting again.

oOo

Nate felt his cell-phone vibrate. Third time in an hour. He wondered if Eliot would even notice if he answered it.

If Nate didn't know better he'd think Eliot was reading. Sitting on the couch in sweatpants and a muscle shirt, his hair down, book loosely held in his lap, Nate could almost pretend this was any of a dozen evenings he'd had with the hitter after the others went home.

If he could ignore the white bandages against unusually sallow skin, or the gaunt look Eliot had gotten somewhere in the third week when meals barely touched, not kept down, or forgotten entirely started to add up.

Or the fact Nate knew Eliot had only turned the page twice in the past hour and probably hadn't read anything at all.

His phone buzzed again and he looked at it, sighing before texting a response.

'No change.'

oOo

Eliot was at least (mostly) sure when the others found out.

Parker figured it out first. Found out. Something like that. She broke into his apartment (like usual - he should have made her stop long before that, he wasn't sure when he'd given up trying and started cooking her dinner whenever she broke in because she was hungry) just after the Monica Hunter Job and found him on the floor in his studio.

He'd fought through a depressive episode for three days. He hadn't meant to let himself give into it. It had just happened. He'd been training, forcing himself through his regular training routine, and just…

His head wouldn't clear and he felt like he was breathing underwater. He was tired. He'd slept for nearly four hours and he was still exhausted. But he'd had nightmares that didn't help any and it had taken him over an hour to fall asleep to begin with. He hurt. Not from a fight but just...

Hurt.

The kind of pain that was bone deep and entirely in his mind and he had no better defense against it now than when he was fifteen.

He hadn't meant to sit down in the middle of practice, he just couldn't find it in him to stay on his feet right them. He was alone. The team wouldn't be looking for him for a few days.

He let the undertow pull him down for awhile. He wouldn't drown. Not yet.

Then Parker was there, curling against his side and in his space just like his sister had when she was his secret keeper, the only one who knew, the only one he let see him hurt, the only one who could break through the fog of his head and hold him up for a little while.

Parker didn't say anything, didn't put words or a name to what she saw, but in the silence there was full of understanding.

There was something wrong with both of them.

Nate had found out next. Figured it out. Something like that. Eliot didn't know when exactly. He did know he more or less told Nate after they started sleeping together.

It had been the third time Eliot had showed up at Nate's place: three AM after the fashion-show job, too high on post-job adrenalin to sleep (and, okay, about as far gone into a manic episode as he'd been in years). Nate had been bitching about Sophie, jittery from too much coffee and the need for a drink.

They'd used each other before. Neither had any illusions it was anything else. Eliot was just a warm body to keep away the alcohol and missing Sophie. Nate was just a stand in for someone who really gave a fuck, who Eliot could let fuck him a little too fast and hard because a little bit of pain and a little connection made the world snap back into focus sometimes and it helped when Eliot was ready to twitch out of his skin.

Eliot had banged on the door at three in the morning and there had been no pleasantries, no gentleness, just a trail of clothes, hurried kisses, and contact that was all fucking and no traces of love.

Afterwards Eliot hadn't felt better. He was still twitchy. His skin was still a size to small. He felt the need to run or fight or fuck and he slipped out of bed ready to get dressed and go looking for round two.

Except he couldn't get his fingers to work right to button his shirt. He was shaking too badly.

He didn't really remember the course of events that followed. His memory during manic episodes was pretty bad.

He remembered sitting at the kitchen counter, trying to button his shirt, talking to himself about how he could take down third world countries (plural) over a single long weekend but he couldn't button his own fucking shirt.

He remembered hands suddenly just being there, doing up the buttons, Nate's voice asking him if he was high.

He remembered telling Nate… something. He doesn't remember what. The fact he didn't know what he said terrified him.

And Nate just gave him a glass of water and a shot of whiskey and let him walk out the door.

Eliot still didn't know where the whiskey came from. A part of him still worried the episode had been so bad he'd hallucinated part or all of it.

Eliot wasn't sure when Sophie found out. He thought she might have actually been first and just never said anything. Or maybe Parker told her.

He knows Sophie told him she knew, told Hardison by accident, after the helicopter landed. With Sophie's immediate rescue over, Eliot was in charge. They were still in danger and protecting them was his job.

Except when he told them all to separate, started to give them addresses for the safe houses he'd set up for this exact scenario, Sophie'd simply said, "No."

"Sterling's might still come after us. If he catches us, he can use us for Leverage against Nate," Eliot had said. He knew if Sterling had them, if Sterling told Nate that if he refused to testify they'd extradite Sophie to France and him to Myanmar Nate would talk. "We need to lay low and it's safer if we're apart."

"For the rest of us, maybe," Sophie stated. "But you?" His blood chilled at the tone in her voice. "Locked down, alone, dealing with the fallout of all this? How long before you'd go into an episode Eliot? And with no one around, nothing to do, no one to remind you that you're manic and can't actually break into a secure prison by yourself and rescue him? No one to make sure you don't get pulled so far down into that dark place that you're more of a danger to yourself than Sterling?"

Hardison was gaping like a fish. Parker looked like even she was vaguely aware Sophie had just crossed so many lines.

It took everything in Eliot to keep his voice stable when he said, "I'll be okay."

"Will you?" She asked, skepticism in her voice. "No. Like it or not I'm keeping an eye on you."

In the end they'd all crashed at the same safe house and other than a couple awkward conversations with Hardison, Eliot's problem wasn't mentioned.

Two days later when the adrenalin had fully faded and an episode hit he begrudgingly admitted, just in his head, it was nice to not be alone.

oOo

With a shaky breath Eliot closed the book, letting it fall carelessly to the side, drawing his knees up to his chest.

Nate watched, his stomach twisting, as Eliot wrapped his arms around his knees, hands gripping tightly, fingers digging into the bandages instead of skin.

Nate knew he should do something, there were wounds under the bandages on Eliot's arms that could be reopened even if…

He forced a deep breath, forced away the need for a drink, didn't let himself shy away from the thought.

Even if he'd personally cut Eliot's nails down to useless stubs the day before, after realizing Eliot had changed into a long sleeve shirt to hide the places he'd dug his nails into skin until he bled.

Repeatedly.

After that he'd called the others, told them what they already knew, that he'd put the job on hold because Eliot's grip on… everything… was getting dangerously loose. He'd told them he'd barely slept in two days and was starting to think taking his eyes off Eliot long enough to sleep was not the best idea right now.

In a couple more hours Sophie would show up. She'd keep an eye on Eliot while Nate got some sleep. He hated having to trust someone else with Eliot right now but it wouldn't do anyone any good if he fell asleep with no one there and something… happened.

oOo

As far as Nate knew nothing happened while he was in prison (At least Eliot thought so. Sophie could keep a secret from Nate better than anyone).

There was one day in that month before they moved back into their normal places and moved on with life when things…

They didn't get out of hand, probably wouldn't have gotten out of hand either, but Sophie caught him training. Specifically she caught him working a punching bag with bleeding knuckles and his breath coming in ragged pants because his head was exploding and he just… couldn't make it stop.

She'd taken his hand and told him to sit with her and told him stories about what she'd been up to and the times Nate had chased her across Europe and how she'd met Tara and she kept talking until he was focusing entirely on her and her stories and he was holding still enough for her to check his hands and he could think straight enough to follow the tales.

After she had bandaged his hands and made him lie down, promising to tell him more stories until he could get some sleep (and giving him that look when he so much as started to think about how humiliating this was), after he had settled down and was starting to relax she leaned in close, and whispered a name into his ear.

Hardison might think he saved Eliot's life, that time weeks later when he showed up one afternoon to find Eliot in another episode and insisted they watch the entirety of Firefly, but Eliot was mostly (90%) sure that he had that one under control without the space cowboys. (He would not, even under pain of death, admit that he bought a copy from a used electronics store (with cash) a week later and sometimes watches it when he can't sleep).

It wasn't until after Nate got out of Prison, wasn't until a few days later when the whole Damien Moreau thing started hitting him hard, that Nate first made an overt move to help him.

It was around then their relationship changed. Eliot wasn't sure which came first.

oOo

Nate walked over to the couch, resting his hands on Eliot's shoulders. "Eliot?" He kept his voice gentle, glad at least to see Eliot loosen his grip. "can you tell me…" What? What could Eliot tell him he hasn't said already? What could Nate do that he hadn't tried already.

He'd seen Eliot bounce in and out of episodes. Watched from the standpoint of a leader at first. Watched over him like a father or brother or *something* that didn't feel wrong when considered alongside the fact they were sleeping together by then, hesitant to intrude on someone so indeterminably independent.

He'd come back from Prison, come back from the kiss and the slap and pulling Eliot back from suicidal fights for *him* realizing, maybe, what he actually wanted but not knowing how to even approach it especially since perspective made him all too aware of how much he might have taken advantage of Eliot…

He'd come back to subtle hints that made him realize that however much or little the others had known about Eliot *before*, they clearly knew now. The little touches, the subtle looks, the silent and nearly unconscious exchange after the reunion job when they came back to the office to find Eliot not there and Nate could almost *hear* the other three coming to the mutual decision to split up and find Eliot to check on him…

Something had happened while he was in prison.

When the others went looking so did Nate.

He found Eliot on the roof of the building, the place Eliot would escape to when he needed a few minutes during a job to collect himself.

"Come inside. The others are worried," Nate stated, watched the hitter, looking for a sign of... something.

"The others?"

"And me," Nate admitted. When Eliot didn't turn Nate crossed to stand beside him. "I realized something." A raised eyebrow but no response. "I had a lot of time to think and… Somewhere along the line I stopped wishing you were Sophie."

"I ain't her Nate," Eliot said, his voice rough, face unreadable. "It ain't gonna be king of the reunion and embassy balls in Belgrade."

"It's work," Nate stated. "A relationship is hard work. Any relationship." He shrugged. "Guess it's a good thing I'm an obsessive workaholic."

"With control issues," Eliot added, a hint of humor finally touching his voice.

"With control issues," Nate conceded. He reached over, putting a hand on Eliot's shoulder. "I'm not looking for roses or rooftops in Paris. You're what I want. All of you."

Eliot turned, finally looking at him, finally meeting his eyes, his face and body language screamed exhaustion but there was the hint of a smile on his face as he nodded.

That night, as they lay together, as Nate drifted off to sleep, he heard Eliot mutter to the darkness. "It's getting worse."

"We'll work through it," Nate told him. "Together."

And they had. Nate had learned and listened and watched. He picked up on clues to how Eliot was doing and ways to make things just a little easier. Episodes had come and gone, periods of blissful normality in between, but they never stopped the job. For two months they rode it out, worked it out.

Figured it out.

Then a depressive episode hit and just… stayed.

Days became a week, two weeks, three. Eliot got tired, got exhausted, everything he had, everything he could use to carry himself through getting worn down and down and ground into dust and still it didn't let up.

And there was… nothing.

oOo

Eliot was used to the pain. He was used to the exhaustion, the way the world was constantly out of focus, the weight behind his eyes like a bad headache from lack of sleep staying and making everything so slow and so hard to concentrate on.

He knew what to do. Knew to make himself go through the motions, to distract himself, to not let himself get bogged down and slip into the undertow that would just drown him in the end.

He knew it was important, maybe more than anything else, to remember that it didn't last forever. He just had to hold on and keep his head above water and keep working and eventually his head would clear and the pain would stop and that chest deep feeling like nothing, anything, everything just… would stop.

No matter how bad it got it wouldn't last forever.

He wasn't sure when a part of him stopped believing that.

Wasn't sure if it was the third week when he stepped on the scale in a moment of morbid curiosity and realized he'd lost nearly fifteen pounds (he knew he didn't have fifteen pounds to lose to begin with, didn't have five) or a week later when he sat in the kitchen for an hour before just going upstairs and to sleep without making dinner.

He wasn't sure if it was before Nate found him in their bedroom, staring at the knife he'd been retrieving for some reason, and decided the job could wait until Parker was the least sane member of the team again or two days later when Eliot discovered pain was still a good way to clear his head for a little while.

He didn't even really care anymore.

Somewhere in his mind he knew he still had the "dental plan" Damien got for all his employees with sensitive knowledge. He still had the cyanide capsule implanted in one of his back molars. Nate, Sophie, the whole team, could be watching him and he still could…

It wasn't a plan. He wasn't thinking about it. This would pass. It always had before. He'd survived torture and death camps and his own guilt. He wouldn't let a disorder break him. He was Eliot fucking Spencer.

Nate's hands on his shoulder were a reminder of that, of more than that. Three weeks like this and Nate was still here.

For Nate, for the team, for the reason he hadn't run straight back to his old ways the moment these episodes started again, for a life he was finally living… sometimes.

For that he could hold on a little longer.

For that he could always hold on a little longer.

oOo

Nate stood there, waiting, praying, for some kind of reaction. The longer the episode lasted the more Eliot disappeared into him own mind and Nate wondered if he was even aware of the world around him anymore.

Seconds ticked by into minutes, Eliot showed not even the slightest hint that he even registered Nate's touch.

Eliot didn't like to be touched sometimes. He'd once admitted to Nate that sometimes, in the worst part of episodes, physical contact was painful. Nate had been trying to give Eliot his space while giving him support but he never really…

With a sigh Nate dropped his hands, preparing to back off. Maybe get that drink. He wouldn't have to be sober for much longer.

"D…" Nate wasn't even sure the sound really came from Eliot at first. He still turned, still knelt beside the hitter, trying to catch what he was saying. Slowly Eliot licked his lips and turned dazed eyes toward Nate. "Don't go." Slowly, painfully, Eliot moved, letting go of his legs and turning. His hand reached out, grasping a handful of Nate's shirt and pulling.

Nate was almost surprised at how strong Eliot was in that moment.

Stumbling slightly Nate tried to move with Eliot, letting himself be pulled onto the couch. Eliot paused once Nate was sitting down, trying to decide his next course of action maybe, or just pulling himself together enough to take it.

Maybe just self conscious.

Nate was tempted to make the decision for him, to pull Eliot close and tell him it didn't count as cuddling if Nate was holding Eliot together (not that, Eliot probably wouldn't like that either, he'd figure something better out later), probably would if Eliot didn't do something.

But Eliot had pulled him down, had come as close to *asking* for something, for help, comfort, as Nate could ever really remember. He'd done it while fighting himself and maybe this was one little victory Eliot could manage.

Nate's only illness was alcohol, but he knew how little victories could give you something to hold onto when you were grappling with just staying alive.

The moment stretched on longer, Nate waiting, patiently, steady, there.

The hand gripping his shirt, slowly loosening, tightened again and tugged, pulling him closer even as Eliot shifted, breaching the distance between them to lean against Nate.

"Tel…" The words died on his lips but Eliot took another breath, tried again. "Tell me it's gonna get better."

Nate closed his eyes against the nightmares playing out around him again, wrapped his arm around Eliot's shoulder, and told them both what they needed to hear. "It will get better." Eliot's hand loosened a little, his weight settling against Nate. With a small sigh Nate rested his head against Eliot's. "You're tired. Get some sleep." The hand returned, gripping his shirt. "We can stay here while you do it. I'm not going anywhere, Eliot."

Nothing else was said. Nothing else could or needed to be said.

They would get through this, they would figure it out, they would keep going forward. Together.

That was one thing they were both certain of.