AN: I couldn't update yesterday due to issues with the log-in page, but it's working now. Next chapter should come up during the week.
This was supposed to be a missing scene for s04e11 – The Experimental Job, but sort of ended up four missing scenes. Basically, it's Eliot meeting up with each member of the team during and after his imprisonment in this episode. Enjoy!
.oOo.
Eliot knows Parker is coming. He's heard them planning over the comms, heard her enter the other cells. It's all he's able to do; wait and listen to what the others are doing. In the hours when the con is inactive the cell feels boring and empty.
"These locks are just ridiculous." Parker says as she steps into Eliot's cell. "Anyone could pick these locks, with a popsicle stick." She sounds genuinely angry at this lack of oversight.
"Doesn't matter." Eliot tries and fails to keep his teeth from clattering noticeably. "The doors are mostly frame, cardboard, and insulation. Unlocking them isn't needed if you want out." He gets a heavy coat on top of his blanket. It only helps marginally.
"So why don't you leave? Or you know, the others, who's not here working a case?" Parker rubs her hands up and down her upper arms. "It's really cold in here."
Eliot unwraps a corner of his blanket and invites Parker to sit next to him. It's a stupid thing to do. She should get out of here before someone finds her, but it's nice to have company and a conversation that's not about his past.
"You know how they only give you your money if you stay the whole time?" Eliot starts explaining to her as she sits down. "And then carefully avoid telling you how long that is?" She nods. "It pushes people into the sunk cost fallacy."
"What is that?" Parker asks. The heat of her body radiates against Eliot's side and he feels marginally less cold and exponentially more tired.
"It's a logical error where you've invested in something and therefore keep investing even if it's stupid. Like here; they tell the vets they'll get money if they stay throughout the experiment. It makes them think: 'Okay, how bad can it be?' When it turns out it's really bad they won't wanna quit, or they feel they went through everything so far for nothing. Exploiting that means this place doesn't need proper locks or sturdy doors, no one will try to leave."
"I hate mind games." Parker says, and Eliot can't help but agree. What they're doing here is a particularly disgusting way of trapping people. Tricking people into believing what's done to them is their own responsibility is a cruel thing to do.
Silence falls, but it's comfortable. Eliot is still shivering from the cold. The thin cotton uniform combined with the exhaustion make it hard to do anything else. With Parker as a human radiator next to him he might be able to get a powernap.
"Does it get to you?" Parker says, disrupting Eliot's plan. It's probably just as well since she needs to get going soon. They don't keep regular hours here, trying to mess up the prisoners' sense of time. "All of this, does it get to you?" Eliot must have been silent for too long if she's repeating the question. He really is tired.
"Nah," Eliot tells her. "I'm bored out of my mind and wishing they'd let me sleep, but this isn't real." He looks at Parker who arranges her eyebrows into a question. "It's not," Eliot clarifies, "and it's not only the crappy doors. None of this is for real. Only the people here, they don't know the difference."
While not admitting to it outright Eliot knows he just told his team he's been through the real version of this. Parker might be the only one sitting beside him, but they're on comms. He doubts it's new information for any of them anyway.
Parker nods and hums before speaking again. "He said you are here to punish yourself." She doesn't pitch it as a question.
"He's wrong," Eliot answers anyway. "I am many things Parker, but not self-destructive." He says it with more force than might be necessary but it's important that she gets this. She can't be allowed to wonder if he goes into jobs looking to get hurt or injured. That is not the case.
"Good," Parker says and smiles. "I thought so." If her tone is a little bit too light and overly casual it's to be expected from her in these situations. "I should go now, before someone comes down here."
Parker slips out from the blanket, bringing a wave of cold air into Eliot's hiding place. Relaxing through the shivers make the cold hurt less, but it's exhausting to be shaking. Only a few days separates him from his hot shower, his warm bed, and real food, but he wouldn't mind either of them now. Preferably all three. Someone needs to keep an eye out down here though, and it sure as hell ain't going to be one of the others.
.oOo.
Checking in with Nate after a job has always been easy, it's one of the things Eliot likes about him. Nate just looks at him, question all in his eyes, and Eliot simply nods in response. No need for discussions or finer points, simply 'yes, I'm okay' and they're done. It feels like Nate's way of acknowledging Eliot's professional integrity.
At the end of this job - as Nate drops of props for the fake police station - the procedure is the same, even if the potential injuries would be of a different kind. Eliot's answer is the same as always, no lasting damages to expect. Nate's nods back, message received. Done.
.oOo.
"Nice outfit," detective Grayson tells Eliot as she steps into the room, Sophie at her side. "Beige's really not your color though." She smiles at him, clearly joking. Eliot shrugs but puts finding out where they put his clothes higher on his to-do-list.
"You'll need to find someone else to dock for the fashion-offense detective, I was coerced." He smiles and plays nice. She's not a part of the team, which calls for certain courtesies to be upheld. Had she been someone else he could have deflected by offering to take them off, but he feels that might turn out badly in present company.
"I'll use anything at this point." Eliot can hear the frustration in her words. "I sure hope your plan here works."
"It will," Sophie says. The calm and confidence she radiates settles Grayson easily. Eliot will always admire what she can achieve with nothing but a small gesture and the right word. "Could you give us a minute?" Sophie continues, and the detective nods before stepping out into the hallway.
Eliot knows what's coming. His conversation with Parker made it clear that nothing said between him and the interrogator had been missed by his team. Not that he ever thought it would. Now they apparently all feel obligated to check up on him. It's annoying.
"That was some impressive work with the interrogator. You obviously spooked him." Sophie starts, and it is not at all what Eliot expected. He wants to know where she's going with this.
"He had no clue what he was getting in to." Eliot says.
"Still though," Sophie leaves a short silence before she starts up again. "I happen to know all the best grifts are based on something true." And there it is, the subject Eliot's been waiting for. He has no idea why they all see the need to do this separately. The upside on being on comms with Parker should have been no more conversations like this, yet here he is. And still on comms too.
"What is the actual question here Sophie?" Eliot can hear the tiredness in his own voice, but this is Sophie, so it's okay.
"Even if this wasn't real, there's been other times and other places where it has been. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. We all have things we don't talk about." Nowhere is there any sign of a question, Eliot can't help but notice. He wonders when she'll get to the point. "But, you know," she continues, "I just need to know if you're alright?"
"Goddamn roundabout way of asking that huh?" Because Eliot says it to Sophie it's less abrasive than it would have been to anyone else. He wonders if she's reconditioned him nicer on purpose or if it's just a side effect of her own manners. "I'm alright, okay? I'm tired, I want to get this over with and go home, but apart from that I'm fine." She looks at him for a few moments, finding whatever confirmation she's looking for.
There's no point in lying to Sophie. She reads people so well Eliot sometimes feels like she can read his mind. He is surprisingly okay with that. The fact that she's impossible to lie to doesn't mean Eliot have to be entirely truthful either, and he can work with that. He can say he's 'alright', or 'fine', and that's not a lie. There's no need to pick a word that he's not as sure he can live up to, like 'good'.
You ever count'em? The question still lingers in Eliot's head. Like an echo that won't stop bouncing. Every now and then it warps into his answer. No, no I haven't counted. I don't need to.
Fact is, Eliot couldn't count them even if he wanted to.
He remembers a few names and dates, and a lot of locations. There are more than one pair of eyes looking at him in the dark sometimes, terrified or angry or defiant or resigned. He almost never remembers their colors but can sometime connect them to their respective faces. The ones that obviously didn't deserve it, the family members or innocent bystanders? He remembers most of those at least, far clearer than he would prefer. Especially the children.
There's a lot of begging to remember, but not everyone of those people died. At least not by Eliot's hands. He's not sure if that makes it any better.
Yet all those details will never add up to a number. Eliot can't tell if any pair of eyes match one of the locations. He has no idea if the man with aioli on his breath went by one of the names.
Many years have passed since Eliot could have given as much as a ballpark. Years where killing became so mundane it often didn't even register. Even rough estimates are far behind him now. Eliot wonders if he's lucky to not know the number or if it's just another testament to how fucked up he is.
Something must have shown in his face because Sophie's eyes on him sharpens. "The people we were never quite leave us, do they?" She says, and Eliot is everlastingly grateful she doesn't call him out on whatever she sees.
"Don't you have a prisoner to take care of?" Eliot answers, marking their conversation as done.
"I believe I do, don't I?" Sophie smiles at him and places a hand on his arm for a second before leaving. It's strange how she can make that feel natural and calming, but she's good at what she does. Eliot allows himself a short moment before following her out into the corridor.
.oOo.
"Jesus woman," Hardison hisses from the passenger seat, "watch how you drive!" They're on their way back to the office with Parker chauffeuring, taking the chance to get a fresh change of clothes while Travis is interrogated by Sophie and Grayson. The fact that they deemed Eliot unfit to drive himself is highly annoying.
Parker slows down slightly and Hardison twists around as much as he can to look at Eliot. "How do you do this man?" He asks. "It hurts."
Eliot can't think of a single good way to respond where he doesn't either downplay Hardison's pain or reveal things about himself he'd rather not. "I try to not go down." He says instead.
"Wow, thanks man. Great advice, why didn't I think of that?" Hardison's irony is razor sharp and Eliot slowly releases the breath he's holding.
"Dammit Hardison, it's not like there's some secret trick, alright? Places like my knuckles and elbows are hardened by use, okay? I've got more muscle mass than you to absorb the punches with and more experience in how to best lessen the impact. It's not something you could just read about and then know, and it's not really something you want to train for since it means taking hit after hit after hit." Eliot glares at Hardison and the man backs down.
"Okay, sorry." Hardison says, and Eliot would feel bad if he had the energy. He doesn't. "What now though? Do you think I have broken ribs? What should I do now?"
It's Parker who answers. "You heard them crack?" She asks and Hardison blinks at her before shifting to include both Parker and Eliot in his view.
"Eh, no? But I was laying curled up on the floor being kicked at and wasn't really listening, you know? Kicking breaks ribs though, right?" Eliot stops himself from rubbing a hand across his eyes.
"They do, but…" Eliot breaks off before he says more than he means to. Unfortunately, Hardison catches the possibly continuation and gestures for him to carry on. There's nothing to do but give in. "…but those guys were normal people, and normal people unconsciously checks their punches against someone who they perceive to be defenseless. Regular folks have barriers in situations like that."
Before either of them gets a chance to comment on that Eliot steers the conversation past it. "Take a deep breath, as deep as you can," he tells Hardison. "Hold it, then let it out slowly." Eliot's instructions are followed. From how much Hardison's ribcage expands he knows the answer to his next question before he asks it. "From one to ten, how bad?"
"Five?" Hardison says it like he doesn't really know. Or is unsure if this is the part he should respond to.
"Yeah, you should be fine," Eliot tells him. "It would hurt a lot more if anything was broken."
Parker cuts in then, telling them a story of when she fell two stories, broke three ribs, and got a cold from walking home in the rain. At first Eliot is immensely grateful for the distraction but when they reach the office without Hardison having forced him to talk about his time in 'prison' Eliot's getting antsy.
Out of all of them, Eliot figures Hardison will be the hardest. Parker is a lot like Eliot, which makes her, if not uncomplicated, so at least understandable. Sometimes. Other times she's so strange in her ways to deal with things Eliot remains oblivious to what's going on. He can handle with that. Nate is Nate and they have their system, easy enough. Sophie, while she can poke and prod at things, does it with finesse and a measure of self-restraint.
Unlike Parker, Hardison is soft. He also still believes there's such a thing as right or wrong, good or bad. It's a unique kind of innocence in their line of work. Unlike Nate, Hardison needs his answers out loud, and calls bullshit when he doesn't like them. Unlike Sophie, Hardison pushes. He also lacks her ability to weave calmness around him, and her walls.
Sophie's walls might as well be a tank for how impenetrable they are, but the rest of them are not far behind. Except for Hardison. Hardison fell faster, trusts easier, and cares harder than anyone else on their team. Not that Eliot hasn't fallen for this family or theirs, and he trusts them and cares for them more than he ever thought possible. He's just too broken and bent to do it as well as Hardison. Just seeing how committed he's become to them scares the shit out of Eliot. Things like that doesn't seem to scare Hardison at all.
Waiting for unpleasant things was never Eliot's strong suit, so when Parker stays in the kitchen for cereals he turns to Hardison the moment she's out of sight. "Can we just get this out of the way?" Eliot asks.
"Eh, what?" Hardison says, and Eliot wonders if he accidently spoke in Hebrew of something.
"The part where I have to assure you that I'm fine." Eliot can hear the exasperation in his own voice more clearly than he can feel it. For a second he thinks about missing Travis' planned arrest and go home to sleep instead, but he knows he won't.
"Oh," Hardison says, his eyes widening for a second. "Did you want me to ask? Because I heard you talking to Parker yesterday, and Sophie today, and I figured you didn't want more questions. Besides I've already heard the answers, haven't I? Unless you planned on giving me another one?" Eliot thinks Hardison might literally bite down on his own tongue to stop more words from spilling out.
A moment pass as Eliot tries and fails to formulate an answer. The turn of events sinks to slowly into his brain. "Dammit Hardison, I…" Eliot shakes his head. "No," he finally says, remembering the questions. "I didn't want you to ask, and no, my answer to you wouldn't be any different." He feels slightly stupid for not figuring Hardison's silence out earlier.
"Okay, good," Hardison smiles at him.
Eliot can't believe it turned out this easy.