Title: curtain call

Disclaimer: not my characters

Warnings: speculation of character death

Pairings: none

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 230

Point of view: third

Prompt: Eliot + team, one of these days, they were going to lose Eliot and never see it coming


They all try not to think about it. You know. That final job. The curtain call. The one twist to the con that Nate can't plan for and-

Yeah. It's always in the back of their minds, is this it? is there where I fall, fail, let them all down? is this that day?

But even more than Sophie wondering if the mark is buying it, or Parker thinking maybe that rope is a little frayed, or Hardison worrying about whether or not the coding will hold up, or Nate trying to see a dozen steps ahead, Eliot thinks, this could be it, today, now, this could be it for me, and who'll protect them then?

And all of them, Sophie and Parker and Hardison and Nate, they all think that, too. Because he bleeds and he bruises and he breaks, for them, so they won't, and there's only so much a body can take.

It could be any day, any fight—he'll go down and not get up, he knows it, they all know it. And while they try to avoid wondering, he enters every fight like it'll be the last because he always fights harder if he thinks he'll never see them again.

Because if he's gone, then they might bleed and bruise (and he doesn't think they'll break, but they know better) and he's here so they never will.