Title: Being What We Are
Prompt by: SammyFlower
Rating: PG-13/T
Setting: post-Season 3
Originally posted: 23rd January 2020
Notes: Treat for Chocolate Box Exchange 2020 on Dreamwidth and AO3.
Most people wouldn't know where to look for him at a time like this. The rest of the team had easy retreats to figure out. In a moment of emotional crisis, Nate headed for the nearest bar or liquor store, Sophie needed retail therapy, Parker would be on a rooftop, and Hardison would disappear into some online world or other. It was different for Eliot. He always assumed he was the least predictable out of all of them, but he had started to let them get close, one more than the rest, and so, she knew exactly where he would be.
Not that she said anything when she found him. Anybody else probably wouldn't even have noticed her approach, but Eliot wasn't like most people. Of course, neither was she.
"I'm not in the mood to talk, Parker," he said without even looking her way.
"Who asked you to talk?" she replied, shifting in her spot beside him, crossing her legs underneath her body. "I just... I didn't want you to think nobody cared."
Eliot closed his eyes at the sound of those words, let their true meaning wash over him. People cared about him now, maybe Parker most of all. That was a little miracle all its own, given how generally anti-people she really was. After what she found out about him in the past few days, well, that made it all the more amazing that she was here, that she would still give a damn.
"Wouldn't exactly blame you if you didn't," he said gruffly, eyes fixed on something unknown in the middle distance as his mind rolled on, way too far into the painful past. "After everything."
"Eliot," said Parker too softly, her hand hovering near his arm a moment before she decided she would dare to touch him. "It's not... You did what you had to do."
That almost made him smile, though the expression was painful even then.
"This time?" he asked, finally glancing at her. "Or all those times before? Because if you had any idea... when I was working for Moreau-"
"I don't care," said Parker firmly, seemingly unafraid that she was interrupting the great Eliot Spencer, that she might incur his wrath.
He saw literally not an ounce of fear in her eyes as she met his gaze. There was no way for Parker to know quite how much that meant to him.
"Always did say you were twenty pounds of crazy in a five-pound bag," he told her, lips twitching slightly, very nearly making a genuine smile.
"If crazy is wanting to make a person who takes care of me feel better about something sad, then I'll be crazy," she said, shrugging her shoulders like whatever. "I just need you to... to be Eliot," she told him definitely. "That's all, just be you."
"I'll be me, Parker," he promised, nodding his head. "Might take a few days, but I'll get there."
A sigh of what seemed to be genuine relief escaped her lips then as she leaned in a little closer, her head at his shoulder. Eliot let her rest there without comment or complaint. Strangely enough, it was easier for him to find himself, the new version that he liked better, if she was there, just being Parker.