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phantismaFandom: Leverage
Title: Unfinished Business, Part 2 (first part is here)
Characters/Pairings: Nate, Eliot, Parker, Sophie, mentions of Hardison (sort of Nate/Eliot pre-slash), OFC
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3743
Summary: Nate calls Eliot to pick him up at a bar when he's so drunk the bartender takes his keys and cuts him off...but an old mark spots them and Eliot gets the worst end of the resulting fight.
A/Ns & Warnings: This is still pre/slash, and I'm still not sure I got the character voices and stuff right, but it's my second go at the fandom (not counting![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
comment_fic). Warnings for blood and extreme violence (mostly off-scene) and a very damaged Eliot.
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
It echoes around inside him, the only words his whiskey-sopped brain can manage as he kneels in the street and tries to decide which wound needs him and how he needs to deal with it. Blood stains his hands, his clothes, the street. So much blood.
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
Eliot's face is pale, his breathing more of a wheeze and far, far too shallow. There are sirens now, but they're coming to slow, everything is too damn slow, including his hands that shake and fumble as he presses them against the gaping hole in Eliot's side. Not enough. He knows it's nowhere near enough, but he can't do any more than just hold on.
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
Hands pull on him and he fights for a minute, thoughts too slow to realize they're trying to get him out of the way so they can help, then he's falling over backwards, sprawled on the ground and other people are bending over Eliot.
"Sir, are you okay?" Hands steady him, help him to his feet, hold him when he would have staggered back to Eliot. "Sir, I need you to look at me."
Nate blinks, his vision clearing of the red and white of Eliot's blood and skin, focuses in on the woman speaking to him, her mouth moving, though the sound was distorted and wrong. "Him…his blood." Nate says when it's clear she isn't letting it drop, when she expects him to answer and he isn't sure what the question is.
"Sir, have you been drinking?"
Nate looks away, ready to deny it, despite the smell of alcohol that permeates his clothing, his breath, his sweat. His eyes fall on Eliot and he lets go of the pretense. "Yeah…yeah…" He rubs his hands over his face, forgetting that they're covered in blood. She pulls his hands away.
"Okay, sir, I need you to step over here and let me check you out."
Nate shakes his head, shivering. "Eliot…he's…he's…"
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
He hugs himself as she guides him to an open ambulance and begins checking him over, turning his hands, looking for wounds. "I told you." He pulls away. "I’m fine."
He isn't fine, he's drunk. Again. Or maybe still. And Eliot is--No, he wouldn't think that. Eliot would be okay. Eliot is always okay.
"We're losing him!" Nate jumps and the woman restrains him.
"Sir, please, let us help him."
"Okay, got him back. We need to move people."
The woman drags him out of the way as they wheel the gurney closer, lifting Eliot into the ambulance. She holds a hand to Nate's back as she guides him in after the EMTs tending Eliot. The doors close and the ambulance lurches.
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
The pain in his head is just beginning to register as the EMT shoves a bottle of water into his hands, taking the bad hospital coffee he's been sucking on away from him. He can't figure why she's still there. It's been more than an hour at least, probably more. In his current state he can't be sure.
"It will help flush the toxins out," she says in explanation to the question he doesn't ask. He cracks the bottle open and drinks from it, making a face. "How are you feeling?"
Nate knows she's trying to help, but he doesn't need yet another woman harping on him and his drinking. "I'm still drunk enough to think this," he holds up the water, "isn't what I want and not sober enough to be hungover enough to swear off ever drinking again."
"Something tells me that isn't a promise you're likely to keep anyway." She's not condescending, but it still feels that way. "I know a career drunk when I see one."
"I'm not--" He grimaces and hides it behind taking another drink. He's been denying it a long, long time. Isn't sure he knows how to do anything else. "I have my reasons." He says instead. It isn't really an admission. He doesn't look at her, doesn't want to see the concern, the knowing look.
"We all do." Her voice is soft, her hand on his arm hot. "And they seem like good ones, they feel real, and we hold on to them…until they kill us, or we figure out that they aren't what keeps us from stopping."
Nate pulls away, stands. "Fuck you. You don't know anything about me."
"Mr. Ford?"
Nate whirls to the doctor entering the waiting room. "Eliot?"
He can tell with one look that it isn't good.
"Your friend is stable for the moment, but the damage was extensive, and he lost a lot of blood."
"But he'll be okay?" Nate holds his breath, blinks. He has to be okay.
"I don't know," the doctor responds.
Nate shakes his head because that isn't the answer he expects, isn't the answer he wants. "I need to see him."
"What you need to do, Mr. Ford is go home and get sober, take a shower, get some sleep. We'll know more in the morning when--"
Nate shoves past him, looking up and down the hall. "Which room?" He picks a direction and stalks that way, the EMT and the doctor on his heels.
"Mr. Ford."
"Where is he?" Nate moves faster than is probably wise, intent on finding Eliot. When he does, he skids to a stop, holding the window frame into the room, his knees wobbling. Eliot lay amid tubes and monitors, his face pale, his shoulder wrapped in bandages, the rest of him hidden by blankets.
"Mr. Ford, Mr. Spencer needs his rest. And so do you."
She is pulling on his arm, pulling him away from Eliot. For a minute Nate fights, holding to the window frame, holding the image of Eliot in his mind. Then he is stumbling back, away, looking at the doctor, then the floors and he is outside in the small hours of the morning, trying to breathe through the rising nausea before he doubles over and vomits over his shoes.
The EMT stops, her hand rubbing circles on his back. He wants to yell at her to stop, wants to pull away, but he can't stop retching, can't stop the torrent of words in his head.
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
Nate wakes up with bricks where his brain used to be and a washing machine for a stomach, reaching instinctively to the bedside table for the bottle of booze he keeps there for mornings just like this one.
He only opens his eyes when his hand can't find it. The bottle is gone and in its place is a bottle of water. Nate groans and covers his eyes. The light coming in the windows is too bright, his head pounding as he rolls to his side and tries to sit up.
He shuffles as far as the bathroom, squinting at the rumpled, rough reflection in the mirror. There's blood on his face, along the hairline and for a long moment he can only stare trying to place the reason for it.
Eliot.
He remembers Eliot. He remembers calling Eliot from the bar because the bastard bar tender had stolen his keys. He remembers waiting for Eliot outside the bar, remembers the way everything slowed down.
The man had recognized Nate before Nate recognized him, a mark they had conned out of three million dollars a couple of months before. He had nowhere to go and he was too drunk to even try talking his way out. Eliot could have handled them, would have handled them...but, his attention was divided. Nate tried to help, but all he did was make it worse…and then he'd watched the knife, the blood, watched Eliot fall, his face already slack.
Nate is shaking as he turns on the cold water, splashing it up onto his skin and scrubbing at it. Eliot's blood runs pink into the sink. Nate pulls a towel over his face and lifts his head. Dark half circles under his eyes aren't quite black eyes yet, but they will be. A bruise dusts his jaw line. But he'd gotten off light.
Eliot is laying in a hospital bed, clinging to life.
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
The thought echoes around in his head as he shoves away from the sink and shuffles out of the bathroom. He had a bottle of whiskey in the cupboard that is calling his name. He recoils as he comes out of the hall, the light of a late afternoon streaming in windows he never left open. Fresh, cool air flows in with the brutal light and he fumbles on the hallway table for his sunglasses before he ventures far enough into the living room to get one of the blinds closed.
He can't quite manage the others, turning with one hand raised to shield his eyes as he groans and heads toward the kitchen, only as he gets there he realizes something, other than his missing bottle and the ungodly amount of light and the fact that Eliot lay dying was very wrong. There was music for one thing. In his house. In his kitchen.
And the smell of food. The kind that you cook on a stove, not dig out of the leftovers in the fridge and pop in the microwave just so you can drink a little more before you pass out. Nate gets as far as the door, feeling decidedly like he might be sick and she turns to him, a tight smile as she gestures toward the chair for him to sit.
"Um…" He doesn't remember bringing anyone home…but then, he doesn't really remember coming home, so it's hard to say. She sets a bottle of water and some aspirin in front of him, then goes back to whatever she's cooking. "I don't mean this to sound wrong…but…"
She set a plate in front of him, filled with pan-fried potatoes and eggs and toast. "Don't worry. I was a perfect lady." She sits beside him, a forkful of potatoes half way to her mouth before she looks up at him.
Red-brown hair is pulled back in a pony-tail, a smattering of freckles accent her pale skin and she smiles softly. "It's okay, I don't expect you to remember. I'm Veronica Daly. You can call me Ronnie."
"Ronnie. Right." Nate makes an attempt at the food, but the first bite is enough to tell him he isn't ready for anything quite that solid. It still wasn't making sense. He had no idea who this woman is.
"I brought you home from the hospital," she supplies as if she could tell he was fumbling. "I was with you when we brought your friend in."
"Eliot." Nate breathes the word, pain that had nothing to do with needing a drink stabbing through his stomach.
"I called the hospital. He's doing better. Hasn't woke up yet, but the doctor seems much more optimistic."
Nate pushes his chair back and stands. "I need to get down there."
She catches his hand. "You need to sit down and eat. Then you can shower and get dressed and I'll take you."
"No, now. I need to see him." His stomach twists as he remembers Eliot's face, the surprise that faded so fast into blank disbelief. The knife cut deep and the blood was hot when it splattered against Nate's skin.
"Not until you get cleaned up. The hospital won't let you in like that." She lets go of him. "Besides, I'm your only ride, from what you said last night the bartender took your keys and your car is still parked there."
He grumbles, growls, considers arguing, but he knows with one look it won't get him anywhere so he stalks back to the bathroom and starts the shower. The hot water feels better than it has any right to, and he stands under it, flashes of memory slamming into him. Fists, bruises, Eliot's body getting between Nate and the knife.
The water is cooling and that just reminds him of the way Eliot's skin went cold, so he decides he's had enough. Remarkably, he does feel better as he wipes the mirror to shave.
He's half way through dragging two days' worth of growth off his face when he hears his doorbell, and Ronnie's voice…followed by Sophie's. Shit. He heads out of the bathroom, forgetting for the moment that he's only wearing a towel and that his face is dripping shaving cream.
Sophie doesn't even blink, doesn't take mind of Ronnie standing there as she launches herself across the room toward him. Nate doesn't think he's ever seen her so angry, she's practically vibrating. "Were you going to tell us at all?" She throws her purse onto the table, hands on her hips. "The police came to the office, Hardison is hopefully still stalling them, because they were on the way over here to ask you about Eliot." She pauses, staring at him.
Nate figures he should say something. He just doesn't know what. He shrugs a little and she explodes at him. "You do know he's in the hospital? Right? You were there, weren't you? Last night. When you called him to come get you?"
Shit, she wasn't supposed to know about it. "I was at the office with him when you called."
"I—he…" What could he say?
"You were drunk. Again."
"Sophie—"
"No, Nate. I warned you. I told you this would happen."
Not this. None of them ever imagined this. "We weren't working. I was on my own time." He glances at Ronnie who is starting to look very uncomfortable. "Look, let me finish shaving and get dressed, we can go down to see him."
"I shouldn't let you anywhere near him."
She is really upset, and there will be no placating her with promises to be better. "Just give me ten minutes."
He half expects she'll be gone before he came back out, but instead, it is Ronnie who is getting ready to go. "I can see you're in good hands. I left my number on the fridge…in case you ever need someone to talk to. Someone who's been where you are now."
"New friend?" Sophie asks as they head for her car.
"EMT." Nate answers reflexively, as if that were an actual answer to the question. "I don't know, she got me home last night." He didn't tell her that Ronnie had stolen his bottles, that she had made an effort to keep him from dumping himself back into them. "This wasn't my fault, Sophie." It is his fault, everything about it.
The car screeches to a halt and she turns to him, ignoring the honking horns and the traffic around them. "Oh no you don't, Nate. Not this time. Not this. I—we've put up with an awful lot from you and we've done our best to keep you from killing yourself or one of us. But this…no." She shakes her head and turns back to the road, setting them moving again.
They drive a ways in silence, and Sophie doesn't look at him when she speaks again. "Can you at least tell me what happened?"
Nate closes his eyes. Some of the details are a little fuzzy still. He called Eliot from inside the bar. The bouncer walked him out after he'd tried, unsuccessfully, to pick a fight with at least three different guys who could have, maybe should have, beaten the shit out of him.
"Jack Harmon." Nate murmured, suddenly remembering the bastard's name. He had come to the door of the bar, eyed Nate up and down and disappeared inside. Before Nate had made the connection, Eliot was there. Eliot was angry, that quiet sort of anger that reeked of disappointment. He'd tried to make it better, tried to make it about them, about the weird, sort of relationship they'd been quietly building since that night Eliot had called him for a pickup, but that only made Eliot's face get hard and set.
It all went to hell after that, the door opening, men shouting, grabbing at them, Eliot yelling at him to get out of the way.
"The mark from Ellicot?"
Nate nodes miserably and turns to watch out the window. "He saw me, recognized me. Eliot was just trying to protect me. I…got in the way."
He sees it again and again, Eliot shoving him out of the way, missing the guy with the knife, the blood, Eliot's body just…falling to the ground.
"Hardison is working on security cameras. You will eventually have to talk to the police. Best to play to your strengths. Tell them you were too drunk to remember. Let us deal with Harmon."
"Sophie—" She holds up her hand and shakes her head.
Nate nods to himself and settles in for the rest of the ride.
Eliot lies still and Nate has to watch his chest carefully to believe he's still breathing. His normally tanned skin is pale, his beautiful eyes closed. Parker sits beside him quietly, but she feels them coming and looks up, her eyes narrowing on Nate as she stands, putting aside whatever she had been reading.
"What is he doing here?" Parker asks, her voice a harsh whisper.
"Parker, Nate is worried too."
"He should be." Under any other circumstances, Parker trying to look threatening is funny, but today, Nate doesn't see the humor, he feels the threat.
"Parker." Sophie draws Parker to the side. "What have the doctors said?"
"They've stopped the bleeding. He's stable, but he was really torn up. Lost a lot of blood."
"But he's going to be all right?"
Parker shrugs, her eyes on Nate again. He can feel them. Fortunately, he doesn't need to answer to her, because two police officers are coming toward them. "Mr. Nathan Ford?"
Nate heaves a sigh and nods, turning away from Sophie and Parker. "We'd like to talk to you about what happened."
"I--" Sophie's right, he knows she is. Play dumb, play the black-out card. "I was drunk. I guess I called my friend to come get me when I got kicked out of the bar." He rubs his hand over his face, through his hair. "I don't really remember much. One minute I was sipping on my drink, the next I was outside and then there was blood and I woke up at home."
"Witnesses say you were trying to pick a fight in the bar."
Nate really doesn't want to be talking to these guys, not when Eliot is lying in there alone. "I was drunk and pissed and I really don't remember a whole lot about it."
"You don't know who did this?"
Nate shook his head, which was a really stupid idea because his head hurt and that just made it worse.
The cop scribbles notes. The other one crosses his arms and stares at Nate. "Maybe Eliot…" Nate looks over his shoulder. "When he wakes up…" He knows it's still more on the side of if he wakes up and starts shaking. He could really use a drink. Or five. "If that's all, I'd really like to be with my friend."
The one making notes nods. "We'll be in touch."
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
He sits with one hand over Eliot's, his head bowed, his eyes closed. He isn't praying. He gave that up years before. They're alone, the girls have gone to check in with Hardison after Sophie made him promise he'd stay and not drink.
His hands shake when they aren't holding something, so he holds Eliot's hand and he holds the chair. He's sweaty and cold, his body aches in places that seem strange and unrelated to anything. He wants to find the nearest bar or liquor store and bury himself in something stiff and strong.
He lifts his head to look at Eliot. Some of the tubes are gone and he looks a little more peaceful than he had, but for the bruises and bandages. He'd told Eliot more than once that they weren't friends…and then he'd begun to think that maybe what he and Eliot had was something else entirely.
It had been months since the night Eliot called him and asked Nate to pick him up after a private job went bad. Months where they'd ended up spending time together without the rest of the team. Nate had sat with him while he was injured. Eliot had shown up at his apartment after Nate's ex-wife had called out of the blue while they were on a job. It was strange and sometimes really awkward.
Sometimes though, when they were sitting on Nate's broken down couch or at Eliot's kitchen table, shoulders or elbows or knees touching, quiet settled around them, it was good. It was nice.
And then had come that case. Nate had fallen into the bottle and it had been weeks since he last crawled out of it. He and Eliot never talked about it, other than that whole group intervention thing in Miami when Eliot made it clear he wasn't going to stop Nate from destroying himself.
Things between them had been strained ever since. And now this. He wonders if Eliot will ever speak to him again. He's pretty sure that they'll never go back to where it had been, back to the comfortable silences that were slowly leading into something else…And maybe Nate doesn't even know if he can go there again, forget that Eliot's a guy and Nate's never really considered himself gay, just the idea of letting someone in, letting someone else love the fucked up mess that he was…
Nate sighs and lowers his head, resting it atop his hand over Eliot's.
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
"Live through this Eliot and I swear to you I'll never put you in that position again." He can't promise to never drink again, he doesn't know if it's a promise he can keep. He presses his lips to the tips of Eliot's fingers, fervent and desperate. "I swear. Just don't die now. We have unfinished business you and me."
Title: Unfinished Business, Part 2 (first part is here)
Characters/Pairings: Nate, Eliot, Parker, Sophie, mentions of Hardison (sort of Nate/Eliot pre-slash), OFC
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3743
Summary: Nate calls Eliot to pick him up at a bar when he's so drunk the bartender takes his keys and cuts him off...but an old mark spots them and Eliot gets the worst end of the resulting fight.
A/Ns & Warnings: This is still pre/slash, and I'm still not sure I got the character voices and stuff right, but it's my second go at the fandom (not counting
comment_fic). Warnings for blood and extreme violence (mostly off-scene) and a very damaged Eliot.Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
It echoes around inside him, the only words his whiskey-sopped brain can manage as he kneels in the street and tries to decide which wound needs him and how he needs to deal with it. Blood stains his hands, his clothes, the street. So much blood.
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
Eliot's face is pale, his breathing more of a wheeze and far, far too shallow. There are sirens now, but they're coming to slow, everything is too damn slow, including his hands that shake and fumble as he presses them against the gaping hole in Eliot's side. Not enough. He knows it's nowhere near enough, but he can't do any more than just hold on.
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
Hands pull on him and he fights for a minute, thoughts too slow to realize they're trying to get him out of the way so they can help, then he's falling over backwards, sprawled on the ground and other people are bending over Eliot.
"Sir, are you okay?" Hands steady him, help him to his feet, hold him when he would have staggered back to Eliot. "Sir, I need you to look at me."
Nate blinks, his vision clearing of the red and white of Eliot's blood and skin, focuses in on the woman speaking to him, her mouth moving, though the sound was distorted and wrong. "Him…his blood." Nate says when it's clear she isn't letting it drop, when she expects him to answer and he isn't sure what the question is.
"Sir, have you been drinking?"
Nate looks away, ready to deny it, despite the smell of alcohol that permeates his clothing, his breath, his sweat. His eyes fall on Eliot and he lets go of the pretense. "Yeah…yeah…" He rubs his hands over his face, forgetting that they're covered in blood. She pulls his hands away.
"Okay, sir, I need you to step over here and let me check you out."
Nate shakes his head, shivering. "Eliot…he's…he's…"
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
He hugs himself as she guides him to an open ambulance and begins checking him over, turning his hands, looking for wounds. "I told you." He pulls away. "I’m fine."
He isn't fine, he's drunk. Again. Or maybe still. And Eliot is--No, he wouldn't think that. Eliot would be okay. Eliot is always okay.
"We're losing him!" Nate jumps and the woman restrains him.
"Sir, please, let us help him."
"Okay, got him back. We need to move people."
The woman drags him out of the way as they wheel the gurney closer, lifting Eliot into the ambulance. She holds a hand to Nate's back as she guides him in after the EMTs tending Eliot. The doors close and the ambulance lurches.
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
The pain in his head is just beginning to register as the EMT shoves a bottle of water into his hands, taking the bad hospital coffee he's been sucking on away from him. He can't figure why she's still there. It's been more than an hour at least, probably more. In his current state he can't be sure.
"It will help flush the toxins out," she says in explanation to the question he doesn't ask. He cracks the bottle open and drinks from it, making a face. "How are you feeling?"
Nate knows she's trying to help, but he doesn't need yet another woman harping on him and his drinking. "I'm still drunk enough to think this," he holds up the water, "isn't what I want and not sober enough to be hungover enough to swear off ever drinking again."
"Something tells me that isn't a promise you're likely to keep anyway." She's not condescending, but it still feels that way. "I know a career drunk when I see one."
"I'm not--" He grimaces and hides it behind taking another drink. He's been denying it a long, long time. Isn't sure he knows how to do anything else. "I have my reasons." He says instead. It isn't really an admission. He doesn't look at her, doesn't want to see the concern, the knowing look.
"We all do." Her voice is soft, her hand on his arm hot. "And they seem like good ones, they feel real, and we hold on to them…until they kill us, or we figure out that they aren't what keeps us from stopping."
Nate pulls away, stands. "Fuck you. You don't know anything about me."
"Mr. Ford?"
Nate whirls to the doctor entering the waiting room. "Eliot?"
He can tell with one look that it isn't good.
"Your friend is stable for the moment, but the damage was extensive, and he lost a lot of blood."
"But he'll be okay?" Nate holds his breath, blinks. He has to be okay.
"I don't know," the doctor responds.
Nate shakes his head because that isn't the answer he expects, isn't the answer he wants. "I need to see him."
"What you need to do, Mr. Ford is go home and get sober, take a shower, get some sleep. We'll know more in the morning when--"
Nate shoves past him, looking up and down the hall. "Which room?" He picks a direction and stalks that way, the EMT and the doctor on his heels.
"Mr. Ford."
"Where is he?" Nate moves faster than is probably wise, intent on finding Eliot. When he does, he skids to a stop, holding the window frame into the room, his knees wobbling. Eliot lay amid tubes and monitors, his face pale, his shoulder wrapped in bandages, the rest of him hidden by blankets.
"Mr. Ford, Mr. Spencer needs his rest. And so do you."
She is pulling on his arm, pulling him away from Eliot. For a minute Nate fights, holding to the window frame, holding the image of Eliot in his mind. Then he is stumbling back, away, looking at the doctor, then the floors and he is outside in the small hours of the morning, trying to breathe through the rising nausea before he doubles over and vomits over his shoes.
The EMT stops, her hand rubbing circles on his back. He wants to yell at her to stop, wants to pull away, but he can't stop retching, can't stop the torrent of words in his head.
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
Nate wakes up with bricks where his brain used to be and a washing machine for a stomach, reaching instinctively to the bedside table for the bottle of booze he keeps there for mornings just like this one.
He only opens his eyes when his hand can't find it. The bottle is gone and in its place is a bottle of water. Nate groans and covers his eyes. The light coming in the windows is too bright, his head pounding as he rolls to his side and tries to sit up.
He shuffles as far as the bathroom, squinting at the rumpled, rough reflection in the mirror. There's blood on his face, along the hairline and for a long moment he can only stare trying to place the reason for it.
Eliot.
He remembers Eliot. He remembers calling Eliot from the bar because the bastard bar tender had stolen his keys. He remembers waiting for Eliot outside the bar, remembers the way everything slowed down.
The man had recognized Nate before Nate recognized him, a mark they had conned out of three million dollars a couple of months before. He had nowhere to go and he was too drunk to even try talking his way out. Eliot could have handled them, would have handled them...but, his attention was divided. Nate tried to help, but all he did was make it worse…and then he'd watched the knife, the blood, watched Eliot fall, his face already slack.
Nate is shaking as he turns on the cold water, splashing it up onto his skin and scrubbing at it. Eliot's blood runs pink into the sink. Nate pulls a towel over his face and lifts his head. Dark half circles under his eyes aren't quite black eyes yet, but they will be. A bruise dusts his jaw line. But he'd gotten off light.
Eliot is laying in a hospital bed, clinging to life.
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
The thought echoes around in his head as he shoves away from the sink and shuffles out of the bathroom. He had a bottle of whiskey in the cupboard that is calling his name. He recoils as he comes out of the hall, the light of a late afternoon streaming in windows he never left open. Fresh, cool air flows in with the brutal light and he fumbles on the hallway table for his sunglasses before he ventures far enough into the living room to get one of the blinds closed.
He can't quite manage the others, turning with one hand raised to shield his eyes as he groans and heads toward the kitchen, only as he gets there he realizes something, other than his missing bottle and the ungodly amount of light and the fact that Eliot lay dying was very wrong. There was music for one thing. In his house. In his kitchen.
And the smell of food. The kind that you cook on a stove, not dig out of the leftovers in the fridge and pop in the microwave just so you can drink a little more before you pass out. Nate gets as far as the door, feeling decidedly like he might be sick and she turns to him, a tight smile as she gestures toward the chair for him to sit.
"Um…" He doesn't remember bringing anyone home…but then, he doesn't really remember coming home, so it's hard to say. She sets a bottle of water and some aspirin in front of him, then goes back to whatever she's cooking. "I don't mean this to sound wrong…but…"
She set a plate in front of him, filled with pan-fried potatoes and eggs and toast. "Don't worry. I was a perfect lady." She sits beside him, a forkful of potatoes half way to her mouth before she looks up at him.
Red-brown hair is pulled back in a pony-tail, a smattering of freckles accent her pale skin and she smiles softly. "It's okay, I don't expect you to remember. I'm Veronica Daly. You can call me Ronnie."
"Ronnie. Right." Nate makes an attempt at the food, but the first bite is enough to tell him he isn't ready for anything quite that solid. It still wasn't making sense. He had no idea who this woman is.
"I brought you home from the hospital," she supplies as if she could tell he was fumbling. "I was with you when we brought your friend in."
"Eliot." Nate breathes the word, pain that had nothing to do with needing a drink stabbing through his stomach.
"I called the hospital. He's doing better. Hasn't woke up yet, but the doctor seems much more optimistic."
Nate pushes his chair back and stands. "I need to get down there."
She catches his hand. "You need to sit down and eat. Then you can shower and get dressed and I'll take you."
"No, now. I need to see him." His stomach twists as he remembers Eliot's face, the surprise that faded so fast into blank disbelief. The knife cut deep and the blood was hot when it splattered against Nate's skin.
"Not until you get cleaned up. The hospital won't let you in like that." She lets go of him. "Besides, I'm your only ride, from what you said last night the bartender took your keys and your car is still parked there."
He grumbles, growls, considers arguing, but he knows with one look it won't get him anywhere so he stalks back to the bathroom and starts the shower. The hot water feels better than it has any right to, and he stands under it, flashes of memory slamming into him. Fists, bruises, Eliot's body getting between Nate and the knife.
The water is cooling and that just reminds him of the way Eliot's skin went cold, so he decides he's had enough. Remarkably, he does feel better as he wipes the mirror to shave.
He's half way through dragging two days' worth of growth off his face when he hears his doorbell, and Ronnie's voice…followed by Sophie's. Shit. He heads out of the bathroom, forgetting for the moment that he's only wearing a towel and that his face is dripping shaving cream.
Sophie doesn't even blink, doesn't take mind of Ronnie standing there as she launches herself across the room toward him. Nate doesn't think he's ever seen her so angry, she's practically vibrating. "Were you going to tell us at all?" She throws her purse onto the table, hands on her hips. "The police came to the office, Hardison is hopefully still stalling them, because they were on the way over here to ask you about Eliot." She pauses, staring at him.
Nate figures he should say something. He just doesn't know what. He shrugs a little and she explodes at him. "You do know he's in the hospital? Right? You were there, weren't you? Last night. When you called him to come get you?"
Shit, she wasn't supposed to know about it. "I was at the office with him when you called."
"I—he…" What could he say?
"You were drunk. Again."
"Sophie—"
"No, Nate. I warned you. I told you this would happen."
Not this. None of them ever imagined this. "We weren't working. I was on my own time." He glances at Ronnie who is starting to look very uncomfortable. "Look, let me finish shaving and get dressed, we can go down to see him."
"I shouldn't let you anywhere near him."
She is really upset, and there will be no placating her with promises to be better. "Just give me ten minutes."
He half expects she'll be gone before he came back out, but instead, it is Ronnie who is getting ready to go. "I can see you're in good hands. I left my number on the fridge…in case you ever need someone to talk to. Someone who's been where you are now."
"New friend?" Sophie asks as they head for her car.
"EMT." Nate answers reflexively, as if that were an actual answer to the question. "I don't know, she got me home last night." He didn't tell her that Ronnie had stolen his bottles, that she had made an effort to keep him from dumping himself back into them. "This wasn't my fault, Sophie." It is his fault, everything about it.
The car screeches to a halt and she turns to him, ignoring the honking horns and the traffic around them. "Oh no you don't, Nate. Not this time. Not this. I—we've put up with an awful lot from you and we've done our best to keep you from killing yourself or one of us. But this…no." She shakes her head and turns back to the road, setting them moving again.
They drive a ways in silence, and Sophie doesn't look at him when she speaks again. "Can you at least tell me what happened?"
Nate closes his eyes. Some of the details are a little fuzzy still. He called Eliot from inside the bar. The bouncer walked him out after he'd tried, unsuccessfully, to pick a fight with at least three different guys who could have, maybe should have, beaten the shit out of him.
"Jack Harmon." Nate murmured, suddenly remembering the bastard's name. He had come to the door of the bar, eyed Nate up and down and disappeared inside. Before Nate had made the connection, Eliot was there. Eliot was angry, that quiet sort of anger that reeked of disappointment. He'd tried to make it better, tried to make it about them, about the weird, sort of relationship they'd been quietly building since that night Eliot had called him for a pickup, but that only made Eliot's face get hard and set.
It all went to hell after that, the door opening, men shouting, grabbing at them, Eliot yelling at him to get out of the way.
"The mark from Ellicot?"
Nate nodes miserably and turns to watch out the window. "He saw me, recognized me. Eliot was just trying to protect me. I…got in the way."
He sees it again and again, Eliot shoving him out of the way, missing the guy with the knife, the blood, Eliot's body just…falling to the ground.
"Hardison is working on security cameras. You will eventually have to talk to the police. Best to play to your strengths. Tell them you were too drunk to remember. Let us deal with Harmon."
"Sophie—" She holds up her hand and shakes her head.
Nate nods to himself and settles in for the rest of the ride.
Eliot lies still and Nate has to watch his chest carefully to believe he's still breathing. His normally tanned skin is pale, his beautiful eyes closed. Parker sits beside him quietly, but she feels them coming and looks up, her eyes narrowing on Nate as she stands, putting aside whatever she had been reading.
"What is he doing here?" Parker asks, her voice a harsh whisper.
"Parker, Nate is worried too."
"He should be." Under any other circumstances, Parker trying to look threatening is funny, but today, Nate doesn't see the humor, he feels the threat.
"Parker." Sophie draws Parker to the side. "What have the doctors said?"
"They've stopped the bleeding. He's stable, but he was really torn up. Lost a lot of blood."
"But he's going to be all right?"
Parker shrugs, her eyes on Nate again. He can feel them. Fortunately, he doesn't need to answer to her, because two police officers are coming toward them. "Mr. Nathan Ford?"
Nate heaves a sigh and nods, turning away from Sophie and Parker. "We'd like to talk to you about what happened."
"I--" Sophie's right, he knows she is. Play dumb, play the black-out card. "I was drunk. I guess I called my friend to come get me when I got kicked out of the bar." He rubs his hand over his face, through his hair. "I don't really remember much. One minute I was sipping on my drink, the next I was outside and then there was blood and I woke up at home."
"Witnesses say you were trying to pick a fight in the bar."
Nate really doesn't want to be talking to these guys, not when Eliot is lying in there alone. "I was drunk and pissed and I really don't remember a whole lot about it."
"You don't know who did this?"
Nate shook his head, which was a really stupid idea because his head hurt and that just made it worse.
The cop scribbles notes. The other one crosses his arms and stares at Nate. "Maybe Eliot…" Nate looks over his shoulder. "When he wakes up…" He knows it's still more on the side of if he wakes up and starts shaking. He could really use a drink. Or five. "If that's all, I'd really like to be with my friend."
The one making notes nods. "We'll be in touch."
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
He sits with one hand over Eliot's, his head bowed, his eyes closed. He isn't praying. He gave that up years before. They're alone, the girls have gone to check in with Hardison after Sophie made him promise he'd stay and not drink.
His hands shake when they aren't holding something, so he holds Eliot's hand and he holds the chair. He's sweaty and cold, his body aches in places that seem strange and unrelated to anything. He wants to find the nearest bar or liquor store and bury himself in something stiff and strong.
He lifts his head to look at Eliot. Some of the tubes are gone and he looks a little more peaceful than he had, but for the bruises and bandages. He'd told Eliot more than once that they weren't friends…and then he'd begun to think that maybe what he and Eliot had was something else entirely.
It had been months since the night Eliot called him and asked Nate to pick him up after a private job went bad. Months where they'd ended up spending time together without the rest of the team. Nate had sat with him while he was injured. Eliot had shown up at his apartment after Nate's ex-wife had called out of the blue while they were on a job. It was strange and sometimes really awkward.
Sometimes though, when they were sitting on Nate's broken down couch or at Eliot's kitchen table, shoulders or elbows or knees touching, quiet settled around them, it was good. It was nice.
And then had come that case. Nate had fallen into the bottle and it had been weeks since he last crawled out of it. He and Eliot never talked about it, other than that whole group intervention thing in Miami when Eliot made it clear he wasn't going to stop Nate from destroying himself.
Things between them had been strained ever since. And now this. He wonders if Eliot will ever speak to him again. He's pretty sure that they'll never go back to where it had been, back to the comfortable silences that were slowly leading into something else…And maybe Nate doesn't even know if he can go there again, forget that Eliot's a guy and Nate's never really considered himself gay, just the idea of letting someone in, letting someone else love the fucked up mess that he was…
Nate sighs and lowers his head, resting it atop his hand over Eliot's.
Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die.
"Live through this Eliot and I swear to you I'll never put you in that position again." He can't promise to never drink again, he doesn't know if it's a promise he can keep. He presses his lips to the tips of Eliot's fingers, fervent and desperate. "I swear. Just don't die now. We have unfinished business you and me."
