Author's note: all the usual disclaimers about not owning the Leverage characters/concept and not making any money from this apply.
A nice long bonus chapter - because Valawenel and suchbadkarma needed more faster. And, as they pointed out, it is already written :)
I'm not sure if this makes me more or less sadistic, though...
Eliot didn't linger in the shower as Hardison and Parker had. While the fluids he had consumed had helped counteract some of the blood loss, he was still feeling its effects – a lethargy that tugged at the edges of his vision and threatened his coordination and balance. Moreover, his shoulder and leg were getting distinctly less enamoured with the whole standing and moving thing by the minute. Even working as quickly as he dared, fine tremors were running through his muscles by the time he shut the water off. He wrapped a towel around his waist and sat down again on the toilet lid to let it pass. He grabbed a hand towel to dry his hair while he waited – glad that the shorter cut meant he could probably avoid both blow drying it and going to sleep on a damp pillow. He didn't realise how long he had been sitting there until there was a knock at the door.
"Hey, Eliot?" came Hardison's voice. "You all right."
"Yeah," Eliot replied. "Why?"
"The water shut off ages ago, man," Hardison explained. "And you're still in there."
"So?"
"Sooo...you need anything?" Hardison asked.
Eliot looked down at his shoulder. He grabbed a hand towel and draped it over the wounds.
"You can open the door, Hardison," he said. "All the holes are covered up."
Despite this reassurance, the bathroom door opened very slowly and Hardison peered around it cautiously.
"You want the clothes sitting out on your bed?" Hardison asked.
"I can – " Eliot started, then cut himself off. He knew Hardison wanted to help, and he was pretty sure he knew why. He wasn't quite so sure about what lay behind the anger he could see lurking in Hardison's eyes, but they would get to that. "Just the boxers," he amended. There wasn't much point struggling into jeans and a shirt when he'd just have to take them off again to get stitched and bandaged, but he was shivering a little in the air conditioning. "And I think there was a robe hanging on the back of the door?"
Hardison nodded and disappeared again. He was back in moment, handing Eliot the items he had requested.
"How...?"Hardison started awkwardly.
Eliot rolled his eyes.
"I got it," he said. "Just turn around and close your eyes."
Hardison did as he was told, ignoring the sounds of the awkward manoeuvres being performed behind him as Eliot got dressed.
"You feeling better?" Eliot asked at one point.
"Yeah," Hardison said. "Sorry about that...guess I'll have to be an astronaut rather than a surgeon when I grow up after all."
Eliot grunted.
"You decent?" Hardison asked.
"Yeah," Eliot replied, and Hardison turned round. Eliot had presumably managed the boxers just fine, but the robe didn't look like it had been such a success. The right sleeve was twisted oddly and bunching up at the shoulder, pulling the left side round in an equally awkward manner. And while Eliot had tied the belt, it wasn't doing very much in the way of holding the robe closed across his chest. It didn't look like the process had been painless either. Eliot's jaw was clenched tight enough to make Hardison's ache looking at it, and there was fresh sweat beading his upper lip.
"Could you not just ask for help?" Hardison asked in frustration, stepping forward and reaching to adjust the robe.
Eliot batted his hands away, and Hardison opened his mouth to let loose a lecture about macho idiots who needed to learn that the work half of 'teamwork' might end when the job was done, but the team half carried on over. Eliot beat him to it, however.
"Shoulder's still bleeding," he said gruffly.
"Oh," Hardison stopped. "Okay...ummm..."
Hardison didn't want to embarrass himself again. The earlier incident hadn't much helped the point he was trying to make (mostly to himself) that he could do the practical stuff too. But Eliot really did look uncomfortable sitting there in that twisted-up robe. And forewarned was forearmed, wasn't it?
"I stuck a towel under the robe," Eliot went on, "but it probably doesn't look a whole lot better than earlier."
Hardison nodded, but he had gathered his resolve now, and was tugging at the knotted belt. Eliot watched him warily, but made no move to stop him this time.
"I won't look," Hardison said as Eliot slid his left arm back out of the sleeve. Relying on his sense of touch, he found the folded towel under the robe on Eliot's right shoulder, and held it in place with one hand while he eased the right sleeve the rest of the way up Eliot's arm and over the towel before offering Eliot the armhole for the left sleeve again. Checking again that the towel was lying flat and smooth in the right position, he crossed the front halves of the robe and tied them in place with the belt.
"Better?" he asked Eliot.
"Thanks," Eliot said. "Maybe if the astronaut thing doesn't work out, you could still be a nurse."
"Oh, you think that's funny, don't you?" Hardison glared at him from lowered brows, not giving him a chance to protest help standing and making his way back to the bedroom.
"Little bit, yeah," Eliot replied, noticing but going along with Hardison's 'smooth' manoeuvre to avoid an argument about whether he needed help. One of these days Hardison was going to realise that Eliot had no problem either asking for or accepting help when he actually needed it – which, yeah, right now, to cover the distance back to the bed, he probably did. Hardison just needed to adjust his definition of 'need' to figure it out.
"Yeah, well we see who's laughing when your front porch is buried under porno magazines."
Eliot smirked.
"Baby magazines, then," Hardison amended. "All those articles about Diaper Genies and breastfeeding."
"I like babies," Eliot said mildly. 'And I like – "
"iPads, then," Hardison cut in quickly. "I know you hate those."
"I'll make a fortune on the yard sale," Eliot pointed out.
Hardison muttered something under his breath in a language Eliot was sure wasn't spoken by any nation on earth.
"Why can't you be like everyone else and actually use technology so that I can occasionally get revenge on you?" Hardison complained, only half joking.
"You'll come up with something eventually, man," Eliot told him as Hardison helped him back onto the bed. "I have faith in your creativity."
"Someday," Hardison promised. He watched as Eliot selected some disposable ice packs from the first aid supplies Parker had picked up earlier and settled them on his leg and shoulder. He frowned as he noticed both sets of wounds had already bled through onto the robe. "What time's your doctor friend supposed to be here?" he asked.
"Not a friend," Eliot muttered. He glanced at the clock and added more clearly, "Ten or fifteen minutes. But she'll make a point of being late."
"You know you're still bleeding, right?" Hardison asked.
Eliot jerked upright with a curse. The blood-stained clothes and towels and robe were going to be enough of a pain to deal with. He really didn't want to bleed all over the bed on top of that.
"Can you grab me a couple more towels?" he asked Hardison.
"Bleeding on the bedspread? That's what you're worried about?" Hardison's voice carried back as he went to get the extra towels from the bathroom off the bedroom he and Parker were sharing.
"Hotel staff tend to call the cops when they find a whole lot of blood lying around," Eliot explained when Hardison came back. "We don't need the extra attention."
He took one of the towels, folded it, and placed it under his left thigh. Hardison did the same with the other, helping position it under Eliot's right shoulder.
"I found some popcorn in the kitchen," Hardison said. "I was thinking about making it and watching a movie or something while we wait for Parker and you not-a-friend-doc. You want some?"
Eliot shook his head.
"I'll trade you the remote for that second bottle of Gatorade over there, though?" he offered.
"Deal," Hardison said, accepting Eliot's implied invitation to hold movie night in his room instead of out in the living room as he turned to get the Gatorade. This one was also red...Hardison wondered if Parker knew that didn't actually make it any better for dealing with blood loss...He cracked the seal and handed the bottle to Eliot, then went to make popcorn and grab a soda from the kitchenette. By the time he came back, Eliot had downed the Gatorade and switched back to water, the bottle held loosely in his left hand as his eyes drifted closed. He blinked sluggishly at Hardison as the younger man settled on the other side of the bed and picked up the remote.
That sluggishness worried Hardison, who was used to Eliot's usual hyper-alert mode.
"Hey, E?" he said, reaching across to gauge the temperature of the other man's skin. It didn't feel particularly cool to Hardison, but he'd never been sure about the whole taking-a-temperature-with-the-back-of-your-hand thing anyway. "You falling asleep or bleeding out?"
"...sleeping...," Eliot slurred, hazily enough to negate any reassurance that may have been intended.
Hardison scrambled back around to Eliot's side of the bed, narrowly avoiding sending the bowl of popcorn flying. The towel under Eliot's leg was still mostly white, and it felt dry where Hardison slid his fingers underneath Eliot's leg. The one under his shoulder was harder to see. The corner peeking up at the top was white and dry, but the pillows might have provided enough lift for gravity to ensure any blood flowed the other way. He really didn't want to start shifting Eliot around and upset any clotting that had started, but if he needed to be dialling 911, he needed to know now. He nudged Eliot's ribs.
"Roll over a little," he told him.
Eliot looked up at him, his expression more alert but perhaps wondering if Hardison was losing it.
"I need to see if you're bleeding, Eliot," Hardison said, panic running just beneath the surface of his voice. "Roll over."
"Of course I'm bleeding, Hardison," Eliot sounded annoyed as well as confused now. "That's why we put the towels there."
"Just – " Hardison wasn't waiting any longer. He pushed harder on Eliot's ribs, and this time Eliot complied, rolling far enough to his left that Hardison could check the towel under his shoulder. There was blood, and maybe enough that over the course of four or five hours it would become an issue if it kept up, but not so much that another twenty minutes would be a problem. Hardison let out a gusty sigh of relief, not even noticing the absence of his usual squeamishness. He guided Eliot's shoulder back down to the pillows, then dropped back to sit on the floor, elbows resting on bent knees and hands cupping his head.
"What the hell, Hardison?!" Eliot demanded.
"You were –. You weren't –" Hardison stammered. He took a conscious, calming breath and tried again. "Could you just stay awake and coherent until you're all sewn up, please?" he asked. "I'm full up on panic and emergencies for today."
"Who's having panic and emergencies?" Parker demanded, appearing soundlessly in the doorway with a collection of shopping bags.
"Not us," Hardison said firmly, standing up. "We're having popcorn and mindless television. And then Eliot's going to have stitches, and everything's going back to normal."
"Okay," Parker said, as if that were a perfectly normal plan for an evening. "I think I got everything on the list."
Eliot shook his head. Hardison and Parker were just never going to make complete sense. Parker added the collection of carrier bags to the piles littering his bed, and started sorting them into first aid supplies, and clothes and entertainment for the next forty-eight hours for each of them.
"I put the snacks in the kitchen," she said. Then, catching sight of the two empty Gatorade bottles, "And more Gatorade in the fridge."
"Thanks, Parker," Eliot said.
Hardison picked up the bags that needed to go through to his and Parker's room, while Eliot sorted through the new first aid supplies. He chucked the thermometer at Parker.
"Here," he said. "You were the closest to the virus. Check your temperature."
Disinfectant, sterile gauze pads, waterproof patches to keep wounds dry in the shower, antibiotics, painkillers – both Tylenol and Percocet, medical tape...Eliot's bed was starting to look like a pharmacy.
"Any chance you found the local anaesthetic?" he asked.
"Yes," Parker set aside the thermometer and came to look through the piles. She pulled out a tube of topical anaesthetic.
Damn it, he should have explained the difference between a topical and local anaesthetic. Still, it would be better than nothing.
"Thanks," he said again.
"So, what are we watching?" Parker asked as Hardison came back into the room. They both settled into the spot on the bed Hardison had cleared earlier, Hardison reaching for the popcorn and Parker sticking the thermometer under her tongue.
They found the second half of an episode of Psych and left it on that: when you actually spend the day saving the world, watching someone do it with humour isn't a bad start to the evening. Eliot checked the time as Shawn wrapped up his Big Reveal on screen: he wanted Hardison and Parker out of the suite by the time the doc showed up.
"Why don't the two of you go get some dinner or something?" he suggested.
Hardison and Parker exchanged looks.
"We had popcorn," Hardison said. "We can wait till you're ready."
The subtle approach obviously wasn't going to work. Eliot sighed.
"Remember I said the doc I called was someone who owed me a favour rather than being a friend?" he asked.
They nodded.
"Well, she doesn't owe you any favours, so it would be better if she doesn't know about you," he said bluntly. "She should be here soon, so she'll probably be gone by the time you're done eating...I'll let you know when the coast is clear."
More looks.
"You want us to bring something back for you?" Parker asked reluctantly.
Eliot tried to think of something that would keep them away from the hotel for an hour or two.
"How about steak?" he suggested. "There's a good steakhouse a couple of blocks east from here."
"Okay," Hardison said, pulling out his phone to look up the directions. "Is this it?"
Eliot took the phone.
"No," he said. He flipped back a page and looked at the map Hardison had pulled up. "It's called RJ's or P&J's or something...Here, this one. And get the sweet potato fries."
The last comment seemed to jumpstart their enthusiasm for leaving. Eliot called ahead to make them a reservation. He had struck up a friendship with the owner-cum-chef over the years, and had exchanged enough cooking tips to now be able to request not only a table at the last minute for a couple of friends, but also to mention that he would really appreciate it if their meal followed a leisurely pace and know that Hardison and Parker would be kept deliciously and unobtrusively occupied for at least an hour and half, no explanation needed.