Title: Control
Author: Cat Chester
Rating: M for adult themes
Paring: None
Disclaimer: Not mine. Please don't sue as all I own are 3 dogs. Actually, you're welcome to the dogs.
Spoilers: Nothing specific
Summary: Everyone has a dark side, some darker than most. Just because Eliot doesn't like killing, that doesn't mean he won't, given the right provocation.
AN: This is something that's been bouncing around in my head since the Tap Out Job. Just a little character piece.
III
It's been a long time since Eliot Spencer has killed anyone, he hasn't needed to. Tonight that will change.
He's frightened. Not of his victim, because even if he lost, Eliot isn't afraid of death. You can't be in his line of work. No, he's afraid that maybe this will be the time that the little bit of humanity he will lose will be enough to stop him returning from the brink. Enough to tip him over the edge into becoming the monster he knows lives inside him, bubbling just below the surface.
The rage, hatred, disgust, they are always with him. Always. He controls them most of the time but tonight they're stronger than usual. He needs to release those feelings if he's going to kill but bottling them up again isn't so easy.
He wonders if he'll still be the same man in the morning? Will he still be content to just roll his eyes when someone cuts inline, or when Hardison steals his soda, or when Parker says something Parker-ish. Will he be able to control his anger or will he end up hurting them?
He hates that thought. As dysfunctional as they are, they are his family now, and he would rather kill himself than hurt them. Could it come to that?
What frightens Eliot the most though, is that a part of him is looking forward to this and will enjoy it.
He knows it's the right thing to do, the only option left to him if he's to keep the team safe. This man must die. He cannot be reasoned with, he doesn't have normal emotions and he will continue to hunt Sophie and her friends until he feels he has extracted the necessary measure of revenge. That's why Eliot waits in a darkened room, ready to kill. He would do anything for his team, even those things that scare him.
He won't tell them what he's done of course, though some of them will guess. Like Nate. He'll connect the dots and he'll probably be able to see the logic in Eliot's actions, but he won't approve. Parker would probably take it in her stride, she's fearless after all. Hardison on the other hand, is still innocent. He's seen Eliot in action but Eliot doesn't really think he sees the whole picture. He knows what Eliot's capable of but he chooses to ignore it. Eliot can almost picture the fear he would see in the other man's eyes if he were ever confronted with the truth. Eliot doesn't ever want to see that look.
Then there's Sophie. He doesn't know a lot about her, but he knows enough to see that she's lead a sheltered life. Sure, she's a grifter and a con artist. In her eyes that probably makes her dangerous but she's never lived in a war zone where life is cheap and expendable. Where death a part of every day life, just another number. A statistic. She's never seen people killed for a loaf of bread or a bag of flour.
That's the real irony of this situation, that the person least likely to accept what he's about to do is the whole reason he has to do it.
Eliot doesn't blame her; she had no way of knowing Gustav was a psychopath or that he would spend ten years hunting for her. He isn't upset that she won't understand either; after all, she is a product of her environment just as much as he is. If he's completely honest with himself, he envies her that world view. Life would be brighter, kinder, nicer, if he could see things through her eyes.
Sometimes he wonders if things could have been different. If he had known then what he knows now, would he still sign up?
He doesn't know and it's pointless to speculate but sometimes he can't help himself. Somehow he can't picture himself in a suit, sitting behind a desk all day then going home to a wife and 2.4 children in the suburbs, coaching little league on the weekends.
The faint sound of a door closing brings Eliot out of his reverie and back to full alertness. He takes a few deep breaths and readies himself to pounce. As much as he would like to make the slime ball suffer a little, he knows this has to be quick and quiet, less security be alerted.
The bedroom door opens, the room lights flick on and as the door closes, Eliot grabs him from behind, one arm encircling his throat, blocking the airway and preventing him from calling for help.
"Nobody gets away with hurting my friends," he says softly, figuring Gustav has a right to know why he's dying.
Gustav struggles against Eliot but his grip is too tight. After thirty seconds without air his struggles weaken and finally he slips into unconsciousness. Eliot holds on a few moments longer just to be sure, before he changes his grip and snaps his neck.
He places the man in bed so that hopefully no one will realise there is a problem until the tomorrow morning. Then he turns the lights out, goes out onto the balcony and climbs down the trellis that covers most of the exterior of the house. If he'd been head of security, the trellis would have been the first thing to go.
He crosses the gardens quietly, scales the wall and crosses the road to the woods where he's hidden his car. He drives out of the woods and straight home. Once safely behind the closed garage door he changes the tyres on the car, transfers them to his pickup and leaves again. He stops on quiet stretch of road, coats the tyres in lighter fluid and sets them alight. As an after thought he tosses his leather gloved onto the pile then heads home again to wash both cars.
Finally he removes his clothes, putting them straight into the wash to remove any physical evidence and only then does he begin to relax. He grabs a beer from the fridge and settles on the sofa.
Now there will be another face haunting his dreams but Eliot's used to that. Besides, he doesn't think this one will bother him as much as some of the others have and somehow, he just can't bring himself to regret it.
Eliot takes a deep breath and smiles in satisfaction. His mission was a success. Given a choice, Eliot wouldn't kill. Tonight he felt he'd had no choice.
Tomorrow his team would hear about the murder and maybe things would change, but for tonight he would enjoy the fact that they were safe because of him.
Sometimes having a monster inside isn't such a bad thing.