Notes: Part two of three in this arc. Takes place roughly around the same time as The Things They Taught Her.


The Things They Said


Things had started out promising. From their first meeting Dean had felt something familiar in Eliot. They came from different worlds but somehow they had wound up at similar places, looking out into the black and seeing the same mix of freedom and danger.

Sam hadn't been at all surprised to come back to The Impala their first night in The Black to find Dean showing off his baby to a very impressed Eliot.

Maybe they would have been fine if Dean actually slept as much as a normal human instead of catnapping a few hours at a time when he had time. Maybe then he wouldn't have wandered into the kitchen at an ungodly hour of the night the second night out in time to overhear a conversation between Nate and Eliot in the conference room.

"It don't work like that Nate." Eliot said, hint of a growl on his voice. "I don't read minds I slip inta them. Get caught up in the rush of feelings and consciousness. Yeah, I can get a feel for who's around and sharp emotions but more 'en that I only get bits and pieces. And that's only i-" He stopped suddenly.

Maybe he felt Dean's shock.

Eliot was a reader.

Everything in Dean told him to get into hunter mode, to attack.

Eliot walked through the door, met Dean's eyes, and nodded before going back to Nate.

A shouting match with the captain (probably not the last they were destined to have) later Dean was dismissed, told he could go about his business and if he truly felt threatened by Eliot he was free to jump ship the next time they were planet side.

Or sooner, if he felt so inclined.

Dean had simply decided to avoid Eliot and figured The Reader would do the same.

He didn't know what to make of the fact Eliot showed up in the engine room minutes after Parker left from her latest nap.

"We need to talk." He stated simply.

"And I thought you were a reader. Can't ya tell I don't wanna talk to your likes? I've killed half a dozen like you." Dean stated as he climbed back to the main platform, hand resting on the piece on machinery, a pistol, one of many here, stashed behind it.

"You aint the only one boy." Eliot stated, folding his arms across his chest.

"You wanna call me that again?" Dean bristled.

"Yeah, boy." Eliot rolled his neck, dropped his arms and took a step forward, something in the way he moved shifting and Dean couldn't quite make his arm move to shoot the bastard when he reached across the space between them and touched the necklace Dean was wearing (always wore). When he started speaking again his voice was a little more distant. "'learned a dozen like you." He looked up to meet Dean's eyes. "Grew up to early, done some jobs here or there, killed plenty in your time." A knowing smirk crossed Eliot's lips as he pulled his hand back away from the medallion. "But less than you claim. And now you're what? A lone soldier fightin' the whole verse. Little boy lost, tryin' ta protect your brother."

Anger and bile surge up Deans throat but before words could escape Eliot leaned in, half whispering words Dean wouldn't allow himself to process until later in Deans ear before turning away, slipping out of the engine room with a backwards call of. "I'll show up again when you're ready for things to get more interestin'."

oOo

Dean wasn't sure what qualified as getting more interesting, not to mention whether or not he was ready for it, but a little more than nine hours after that first talk the main engine cluster needed a semi emergency tune up, the result of being on and active for the first time in several years.

Nothing to be worried about, just meant he spent twenty or so hours straight working to fix the problem and give every other necessary component a thorough once over with Sam doing his part in the bridge.

He didn't know how to react to climbing back topside just as Eliot came in with a plate of food and mug of what passed for beer in space.

Before Dean could think of some sort of response to this or The Words Eliot passed him the food and drink. "Eat. Take a break. I'll check your work."

By the time Dean started to put together a counter, asking what qualifications Eliot had and what the general gorram Eliot was descending the makeshift ladder with ease and Dean had to admit food was really welcome and Eliot probably was smart enough not to do anything that might break something.

And yeah, when one wrongly tightened valve could cause massive engine room fires and internal combustion? Someone checking what he did could be let go when he'd been awake for more than twenty-four hours.

"It feels mostly okay." Eliot said as he climbed back up not long before Dean finished inhaling the food.

"You're mojo works on Machines?" Dean tried to snarl but was too tired to put real venom in it.

"We read the truth in things." Came Eliot's vauge response. "Yeah. Don't know much what that's supposed to mean myself but I can get a sense when danger's comin' or weather's turning bad or somethin' aint quite right with a machine. Once spent three days on a transport shuttle trying to get my handler to tell the captain something was wrong with the engine. When the message got through and checked we were 'bout six hours away from a major explosion."

Dean tried to get his tired mind to put together a response, watching Eliot carefully, Hunter mind still caught on Reader=Dangerous even as the rest of his mind was trying to deal with the reasoning that yeah, just because he'd killed a couple (and yeah, only two) readers who'd been corrupted by their powers there could be uncorrupted ones.

He noticed a slight tremor in Eliot's hands. The way he rested them on the smooth metal, eyes tracing the contours of the ship but moving, always moving.

"哥们. You alright?"

Eliot looked up, a startled expression on his face, like he'd zoned out in the twenty seconds since he'd stopped speaking.

"Fine." He growled. "Get some sleep." He left the engine room before Dean could remark about how Dean *so* believed him about being okay.

oOo

Dean had no intentions of seeking out Eliot.

Really. He hadn't even noticed (really) that Eliot hadn't been by to bother him since the engine troubles four days ago. They'd spoken civilly to each other in the context of the crew, an improvement over the tension of that day or two somewhere in there, but didn't attempt to interact.

The first trip planet side hadn't even really changed anything besides Nate pointedly asking if he needed to seek out a new mechanic and pilot and Dean growling a negative before heading to check in with Sam.

They mostly mended bridges, at least as far as there had ever been bridges between them, and that was that.

So he hadn't been paying attention to what and where Eliot got up to. He was busy being a mechanic on a really gorram old ship, keeping Parker out of trouble by teaching her engine stuff, keeping a watch on his brother, and trying to avoid Sophie who gave off this air of a bad idea waiting to occur to someone.

And avoiding Hardison, and Nate, and okay Eliot too but he didn't play well with others for long and Parker was already a big step up for him.

But the point was he hadn't been looking to get involved in Eliot. He just didn't sleep like a normal human being and his timing was horrible as usual when he climbed out of The Impala two days after their first excursion planetside.

But the med ward door was fifteen feet from where the impala was docked and the door was open and it's not Dean's fault he's learned to pay attention to his surroundings especially the sounds of pain.

Before he was even all the way up the ladder back aboard Leverage Dean heard the harshness behind half whispered words echoing down the hallway.

"I'll be fine, just takes gorram ti-" The words choked off even as Dean registered it was Eliot.

"You can barely talk." Nate's voice countered. "You're shaking. You're eyes aren't focusing. You're getting worse. I need you functioning when we make landfall, not going through withdrawals and in a full psychotic break."

"I can make it." Eliot hissed. "Once it's outta my system I'l-" There was a shocked silence before he continued. "A sedative? When it wears off I'm gonna fuckin' kill ya Nate." Even as he said it the tension behind his words faded a little.

"I checked your file, you'll metabolize it fine." Nate said calmly. "You're recovering and at risk for a psychotic break and I don't need this crew in that kind of risk. It's stay sedated and restrained until you're not a danger or take your medication."

"Gonna. Murder. Ya." The words faded into silence.

"I know. I know." Nate reassured glibly. A moment later he was closing the door behind him, catching Dean staring.

"So our main line of defense is a recovering drug addict?" Dean asked. "Good to know."

Dean had never met a man who could say more with a single look of utter contempt than Nathan Ford.

Dean didn't expect an actual answer.

"The Alliance organization that kidnapped him when he was a child found out he was a reader and spent the better part of two years experimenting on his brain and body. The damage done was so extensive he's spent the last three decades taking a dayily cocktail of bio-chemical replacements for thing his body is now incapable of producing on it's own, nero-inhibitors to block the majority of his gift cause they severely damaged the part of his brain that should allow him to control it on his own, anti-psychotics, and pain killers."

Dean blinked. "The fuck?"

"But most of the above are hard to get and easy for the alliance to track. They put the pieces together and the whole crew's at risk so he's going off everything that isn't necessary to keep him breathing and all he's asked is that the rest of the crew doesn't know how sick he's been and gonna get." Nate paused. "If I find out you so much as have a thought of taking him out while he's detoxing I'm kicking you off my ship before we reach planetside."

"I wouldn't k-" But Nate was already walking away.

Later Dean would not be able to say what made him wait for Nate to leave the hall before letting himself into the med ward and spending the next several hours sitting on the second medical bed, watching Eliot sleep.

And thinking.

The sedative only kept Eliot fully under for a little over six hours. Dean was still sitting there thinking when Eliot shifted and moaned softly in his sleep, pain hitting their hitter before he was even fully conscious.

Dean needed a drink.

He'd been raised to fight monsters and rescue and protect the victims of them. Laying before him was a man first seen as a monster but now a victim of monsters far beyond Dean's ability to kill.

Only he doubted Eliot would be pleased with being seen as a victim.

Eliot shifted again, pained and confused eyes opening, hands tightening into fists as he fought the effects of the sedative. Terror of a kind Dean wished he couldn't imagine it's origin replaced the confusion and pain and Dean moved forward. "哥们. It's okay. You're on Leverage. Nate just had you sedated for a little while. Nothing else happened."

Shaking hands grabbed Dean's arm in an almost bruisingly tight grip.

Dean didn't let himself wonder if Eliot had been engineered to be stronger than normal humans.

Dean patted the hands awkwardly, trying to meet Eliot's unfocused eyes. "It's okay. Seriously. Nothin's gonna happen to you. No one's messin' with you on my watch. Relax."

Eliot slowly untensed, settling back onto the bed, his eyes closing halfway, seeing the room and things Dean figured only another reader could see. His hands loosened and Dean would care later about whether or not he'd actually have a bruise on his arm.

"You were right man." He stated before stepping back. "You were right."

"About what?" Nate asked behind him, a infuriating knowing look on his face.

"He told me you're a sneaky bastard." Dean stated with a cocky grin, taking his seat again.

Nate didn't ask what he was up to. Dean was beginning to get a feeling Nate had known the outcome of this before Eliot even decided to go off his meds.

That may have not been what Eliot had told him, but it was the truth.

oOo

If anyone noticed Eliot disappeared for a day no one mentioned it.

Dean left Eliot when he had to, he was a mechanic and he was human, but he always came back as quickly as he could.

He wouldn't admit it, expect maybe to himself, but those words he'd said, trying to calm down a man afraid he was waking from a bad dream to a worse reality for painfully understandable reasons…

He wouldn't let anything happen to Eliot on his watch.

Eliot was their enforcer, their hitter as someone had said. From the way Eliot looked after the others from Project Olympiad maybe he was even their protector.

But who protected the protector?

Well, Dean had fought monsters his entire life, and looked after his brother. He was pretty sure this would be thankless and close enough to impossible that he'd do just fine.

He just could never let Eliot find out, which would have been easier if the bastard wasn't a reader.

In the end it proved pointless. Eliot was only half awake, finally lucid enough and through enough of the worst of it that Nate left him to decide what next, when he turned to Dean and just smile that cocky, devil-may-care, wild smile.

Dean wondered how anyone had thought putting that man in a cage was a good idea.

"Told ya." Eliot said simply, stretching like a great cat, dangerous and graceful even when the sedatives in his system should have him weak as a kitten.

Dean just glared. "Bitch."

The word came unbidden. They'd only known each other for a week. He'd threatened to kill Eliot not all that long ago.

How the hell did they end up here?

Eliot just gave him another smile and slid his legs over the side of the medical bed.

Dean didn't need to have psychic powers to predict what came next and made it in time to prevent Eliot from taking a hard fall.

The low muttered "asshole" Eliot let out, hanging onto Dean despite his words, felt like those words Eliot had whispered (was it really just days ago?) in the engine room.

oOo

Eliot had been fine. He'd been surprised how fine.

After a thirty-six hour stay in the med ward, most of which he didn't remember due to sedation he was still going to kill Nate over, he'd recovered as best as he could.

He was still twitchy, still caught flashes of thoughts or memories or feelings littered around the ship, and he got a little lost that one night.

But he was doing better. Food was starting to stay down again. He was starting to be able to sleep. Life without a daily dose of brutality from his handler meant he could mostly deal with the pain that had no external causation without pain killers.

He was stronger.

And a lifetime of being a few pills away from crazy meant he was actually pretty good at functioning without them.

It could have been worse. He'd been worried it would be a lot worse. He hadn't been taking those meds for shits and giggles.

Though he was starting to think that they hadn't all been as necessary as his Olympiad doctors had insisted.

A day before they landed for their first job he confirmed with Nate he would be ready to play his part in their first job. He wasn't up to the level he'd been at when they first got together, he might never be at that level again. Nate of all people knew the ins and outs of how and how fast Eliot's body was and could start breaking down.

But Eliot would be able to give them some Special insight and be at least as good as any fighter they'd likely come across and if he had to do much of either Nate wasn't doing his job right.

Eliot had known it could happen, would happen eventually.

He just, wished it hadn't been at some ungodly hour in the morning before their first job. It would pass by the time the others awoke. He knew that much as he'd slid carefully out of the room he shared with his clan.

But he didn't need them seeing him like this. Not when they were about to put their lives in his hands.

Hiding in the engine room had seemed like a good idea. There were lots of nooks, the machines were noisy, and with everyone bedded down for the night no one would be in there for a few hours.

He pulled himself into the crevice under the stealth field generator at the base of the room and let the episode take hold.

Images came in a tidal wave, the undertow of feelings and sensations pulling him under and threatening to drown him. He couldn't sort it out. He didn't know how. It was physically impossible anyway.

So he let it pass over him. Listened to the screams and cries and laughter and rushes of adrenalin and soft brush of comfort contact with old loved cloth blend together and press in on him until his voice joined it, sounds indistinguishable from the mass even to him.

A hand on his shoulder, real, not in his mind, grounded him. There was someone there.

He turned, trying to see past the wash of color to what was actually registering in his eyes.

Green. Green eyes.

Familiar touch.

He could *feel* Dean.

Waiting.

Eliot told him he was alright. That Dean could leave. That it was just an episode. He'd be fine by morning.

Dean reminded him that if he wanted to be understood by someone other than Parker or Hardison Eliot needed to speak in English or Chinese.

"Maybe you should learn some fucking Greek." Eliot replied. He was too tired to bother with either of the others, and Greek was the one language that never got lost in the chaos of his mind.

"Still not there." Dean chided.

Eliot closed his eyes and cursed Dean in Greek before opening them again quickly. It was so much easier to just be here when he was looking at Dean. The second his eyes had closed it had tried to pull him back under.

He knew why he was doing this. He knew this was the path he'd chosen to walk for however long he had left.

But it was times like this he remembered the moment on their first job when one final act of defiance was starting to look like a real good option.

"So I'll give yours a shot." Dean's words pulled him back to reality. "Managed to get a translator working can't promise much about my accent." Dean made sure Eliot was looking at him when he spoke in broken Greek the phrase Eliot had told him that first night.

"You're looking for something. You'll find it here."