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phantismaFandom: Leverage (Vamp!Nate verse)
Title: The Sky Rains Red, Part Two (Part One)
Pairings/Characters: Nate/Eliot, Parker, Sophie, Hardison, Ryna (OFC)
Rating: NC-17 (for violence)
Word Count: 2392
Summary: Follows Close the Door, Pull the Shades and I'll Find A Way. Eliot escapes, but not without some injury, and sets right back out to find Nate and whatever has made him change.
A/Ns & Summary: Second chapter of at least three. There is violence, there will be much blood kink. Hello, vampire! And just for fun, a little Eliot-whumping.
Eliot groans as he pulls himself into consciousness. Everything hurts and for a long moment he can't place the where or how of why. He rolls onto his back and opens his eyes and it all comes into sharp focus.
He is still in the dirty warehouse basement, in the dark. The smells of cinnamon and moldy fabric surround him. His head is pounding and his limbs are heavy, but he is alone. He swallows and lifts his head, his eyes combing the shadows to confirm that. "Nate?" He presses his elbows into the dirty pile of clothes and blankets under him, tensing, half expecting the vampire to pounce out of the dark.
It hurts to move, but if he keeps laying there he'll be dead before long. One of these times Nate won't stop. He's got to find his way out, figure out what's gone wrong and how to fix it.
Nate had taken his boots, leaving him in stocking feet and a blood crusted shirt. His left shoulder is dislocated and he cradles the arm close to his body as he climbs to his feet. He can't understand why Nate would leave him alive, unguarded, unrestrained.
He stumbles toward what he thinks is a door. Not that Nate is in his right mind, that much is very clear. There were moments he seemed to know Eliot, but they passed fast and then Nate was…feral is the only word that comes to mind.
His eyes are the dark, inky black they become when he's in need of feeding, or when he lets the vampire take over. His skin is pale, more so than normal, pasty and sweaty, like a junkie in need of a fix, or so far gone on one he can't see reality.
Eliot finds a flight of stairs and pulls himself up them, sliding against the railing. He's panting with the effort by the time he gets to the top, but slowly realizes the railing was pressing against something in his pocket. His right hand fumbles at his pocket, eventually pulling out his phone.
He stares at it for a minute, then opens it. He has to turn it on, and the battery is low. It's just after midnight. He's been gone almost forty eight hours. Shit. He swallows and thumbs a number, lifting the phone to his ear as he stumbles through equipment that might have been part of a textile mill at some point.
"Eliot? Where the fuck you been?"
"Don't know." Eliot can't muster the energy to bicker with Hardison. "Just…Ryna?"
"Sophie has her. Where are you?"
Eliot shakes his head as he fights his way through a boarded up doorway, hissing as he cuts his foot on something as he does. "Some old warehouse. Trying to get outside."
"I'm getting your GPS from your phone. I'll come pick you up."
Eliot leans against the building. "Hurry, I don't know how long I've got before he comes back."
"Just hold on, I'm on my way."
Eliot closed his hand over his phone, holding it tight as he looked around him, trying to figure out which of the three alleys he could see would take him out to a road to make it easier for Hardison to find him.
"You belong in a hospital." Sophie says as Eliot stands shirtless in the bathroom, working on bandaging the mess Nate made of his neck.
Eliot looks at her reflection, his face hard. "I need to find Nate."
"Right, because finding him isn't exactly what has you in this shape already."
She has a point, but Eliot isn't about to tell her that. His chest and back are mottled black and blue from the impact with the wall and his neck is ripped up and probably needs stitches, but he doesn't have time for that. His foot is cut up, but he's got that bandaged and held in a boot that will keep it from swelling up.
"Eliot!" He turns and steps out of the bathroom as Ryna comes flying in from the front door, stopping short of throwing herself at him when she sees him.
"I'm okay." Eliot sooths, going to one knee and reaching out to hug her. Instead of letting him, she hits him, smacking his shoulder hard. "Ow, what was that for?"
"You scared me." She pouted, her eyes dragging over the blood and bruises. "You don't look okay."
"I'm fine. Just a little bruised."
"Where's Nate?"
Eliot exhaled and stood. "I haven't found him yet." Which wasn't completely true. "You have homework?" She nodded, clutching her book bag to her. "Go on into the dining room and I'll fix you a snack while you work on it."
He ducked back into the bathroom to finish taping down the bandage and grab the clean shirt he'd brought in. Sophie followed after him, but thankfully kept her mouth shut until they were in the kitchen. He pulled out some cheese and an apple and took them to the cutting board. "So, what did you find?"
She sighed and leaned on the counter. "We aren't completely sure. The blood Nate got from the blood bank was filled with a new street drug."
"Some junkie dosed up, then gave blood to make more money for more dope?" Eliot kept his eyes on his fingers, kept his emotion tightly locked down.
"Perhaps. It's part hallucinogenic, part stimulant."
"Great." Eliot transferred the cut cheese and fruit to a plate and poured a glass of milk to take out to Ryna. "So, what do we do?" He asked Sophie as he came back into the kitchen. "How do we make him better?"
"Well, it looks like it should work itself out of his system. It seems that the drug is known to affect different people for longer periods of time. The faster their metabolism, the quicker the drug is in of their system, the faster it flushes, presumably."
Eliot froze, feeling the blood drain from his face. "What? I thought that should be good news?"
"Nate's a vampire, Sophie." Eliot says softly.
For the longest time she just stares at him. "He has no metabolism, he has no heart…" Eliot swallows past the lump of fear in his throat. "And he isn't getting better." He remembers the look in Nate's eye, the animal way his eyes looked at him. "He's getting worse."
He paces the kitchen, pulling a hand through his hair. "It's just pooling inside him, we need to find him."
"Parker's tracking the trail of bodies."
Eliot nods and exhales slowly. "Okay. I'm going to secure a place to keep him. Keep an eye on Ryna."
"Eliot—"
"Don't Sophie." He doesn't look at her as he pushes his way out of the kitchen. He doesn't want to hear how he should rest, how he needs to heal. He knows…but right at that moment, Nate was more important.
The news tells stories of a serial killer haunting the streets, killing two and three people each night, no pattern, no logic to the places or the choice of victims, but Eliot knows that isn't completely true.
He sees the pattern, notices how the first of the night is always the easiest, like Nate still has some control of the beast inside him then. By the last one, he's vicious, mindless. He sticks mostly to the dark alleys and abandoned warehouses where drug addicts and runaways squat, circles the same neighborhood where Eliot found himself after Nate left him alone. He's moved his nesting place though, and Eliot hunts the daylight hours for him without a lot of success.
"We need to lure him out in the open." Eliot says, pacing around the office. He glances through the window to the lobby where Ryna is playing with some toys, entertaining herself while they strategize.
"And then what?" Sophie asks. "He took you down pretty easily the last time."
"We could tranquilize him." Parker offers, sliding into a chair near the door. "One of us could set up in a window or on a roof, Eliot draws him out, we tag him and secure him when he goes down."
"If he goes down." Hardison interjects, taping at his keyboard. "I been looking into this drug. It's worse than PCP for the rush of adrenaline. A kid was hyped up on this stuff when he robbed a liquor store a month ago, took five bullets in the chest and kept coming. It took one in his head to put him down."
"And there's a possibility, if he's feeding on junkies, that he's gotten more into his system." Sophie adds.
"Anyone got any better ideas?" Eliot asks, his frustration and worry leaking out.
"I'll get something for large game." Parker says, her eyes showing her own worry as she looks up at Eliot. "Give me a few hours."
Eliot nods. "Hardison and I will pick a spot and set up cameras. We're going to need warning. He's fast."
It goes against everything he knows, he can feel the way he's being hunted, the hair standing up on the back of his neck. His heart is hammering, and he knows it's like a beacon, calling Nate to the exposed and vulnerable position where he's standing.
Just fucking standing.
"Where the hell is he?" Eliot whispers into the comm.
"I got nothing." Hardison said.
"I can feel him. He's here." Eliot turned, feeling like he should be able to pick Nate out of the shadows, like he should be able to find him, even if he didn't want to be found.
"He's not on any of the cameras." Hardison said. "Maybe he knows."
"The only thing he knows is blood." They had spotted him earlier in the night, hunting, his face devoid of anything but naked need. He had smelled Eliot and left of the prey he'd been stalking, and Eliot had really needed to scramble to stay ahead of him and draw him here.
"E-E-Elll-iott."
He whirls before the word has stopped drawing out of a mouth that hasn't spoken words in days, and Nate is there, one step behind him, reaching for him, eyes dark and vacant, blood covering his face and clothes, fangs biting into his lips.
Eliot steps back despite the fight response thrumming through his veins. "Come and get me, Nate. You know you want me."
Nate shuffles forward as if uncertain, but Eliot knows he can pounce, can move faster than Eliot dreams. He only has to get him clear, get him out in the open where Parker can take the shot. He resists the urge to look up at the window where Parker is hiding, because if he takes his eyes off Nate, he's as good as dead.
Another step back, eyes locked on Nate's face.
The vampire lunges, teeth latching on to Eliot, blood spilling between them. Eliot staggers back, just trying to stay conscious long enough. "NOW!"
He hears the sound of the gun, distant, even as he falls to the ground, taking Nate with him. He fights the dark, pushes against Nate until he feels the lips on his skin go slack and Nate falls against him, dead weight.
It seems like forever, the cold concrete pressed into his back, Nate's cold body pressed into his chest, before they come for them, iron shackles in their hands. Eliot clings to consciousness as they roll Nate off him, locking the shackles onto his wrists and ankles and getting him up into the van. Parker comes back to help Eliot up and into the van with Nate, Eliot's hand falling on his shoulder. He settles his head back against the wall of the van and lets his eyes close. Now all they had to do was figure out how to help him.
He hates this, hates seeing Nate strung up this way, but it's the only way to keep them all safe. Hates the way the others watch him, like they pity him, like they think he's lost his mind, like Nate's expendable in all this, like he's gone too far to ever come back to them the way he was.
Most of all he hates the way he thinks they may be right.
Eliot watches from the shadows of the room, looking for signs that Nate's awake, that he's aware. His arms are still in the iron shackles, pulled up over his head. The chain is tight, keeps him upright, his chin dropped forward on his chest. His feet drag the floor. The leather in his mouth is pulled tight, making it impossible for him to bite and even like this, unconscious, his fangs are extended, his brow raised.
His body twitches, a low growl rumbling through him. He'll have a pounding headache from the drugs, and he hasn't fed now in nearly twenty four hours, so he's probably hungry.
Eliot watches his eyes open and scan the room, stopping on the dark corner where Eliot is standing. The growl changes tone a little and Eliot moves from the shadows. "It's okay, Nate. We're going to help you."
Nate thrashes in the restraints, his eyes wild, his feet kicking out toward Eliot. "Just calm down. No one's going to hurt you." Eliot skirts just out of his reach, heading for the door. "I'm going to get you something, okay?" Nate only thrashes more in response as Eliot slips out of the room.
Parker meets him in the hallway outside the vault, a syringe in hand. "You okay?"
Eliot doesn't really answer, just takes the needle. "Any word from Hardison?"
She shakes her head. "Not yet. It would help if we could tell the lab rat what he's looking at."
"He wouldn't believe us if we told him. We just need him to tell us how the blood we took from Nate is different from the average junkie on this crap…so we can figure out how to treat him."
"You sure about keeping him out of it?" Parker nods at the syringe.
"Better than letting himself tear himself apart trying to escape." He sighs and puts his hand back on the door. The old building had proven perfect for their needs, the vault sound proof and nothing short of a dynamite blast was getting it open if they locked it. "Let me know when you hear something."
Title: The Sky Rains Red, Part Two (Part One)
Pairings/Characters: Nate/Eliot, Parker, Sophie, Hardison, Ryna (OFC)
Rating: NC-17 (for violence)
Word Count: 2392
Summary: Follows Close the Door, Pull the Shades and I'll Find A Way. Eliot escapes, but not without some injury, and sets right back out to find Nate and whatever has made him change.
A/Ns & Summary: Second chapter of at least three. There is violence, there will be much blood kink. Hello, vampire! And just for fun, a little Eliot-whumping.
Eliot groans as he pulls himself into consciousness. Everything hurts and for a long moment he can't place the where or how of why. He rolls onto his back and opens his eyes and it all comes into sharp focus.
He is still in the dirty warehouse basement, in the dark. The smells of cinnamon and moldy fabric surround him. His head is pounding and his limbs are heavy, but he is alone. He swallows and lifts his head, his eyes combing the shadows to confirm that. "Nate?" He presses his elbows into the dirty pile of clothes and blankets under him, tensing, half expecting the vampire to pounce out of the dark.
It hurts to move, but if he keeps laying there he'll be dead before long. One of these times Nate won't stop. He's got to find his way out, figure out what's gone wrong and how to fix it.
Nate had taken his boots, leaving him in stocking feet and a blood crusted shirt. His left shoulder is dislocated and he cradles the arm close to his body as he climbs to his feet. He can't understand why Nate would leave him alive, unguarded, unrestrained.
He stumbles toward what he thinks is a door. Not that Nate is in his right mind, that much is very clear. There were moments he seemed to know Eliot, but they passed fast and then Nate was…feral is the only word that comes to mind.
His eyes are the dark, inky black they become when he's in need of feeding, or when he lets the vampire take over. His skin is pale, more so than normal, pasty and sweaty, like a junkie in need of a fix, or so far gone on one he can't see reality.
Eliot finds a flight of stairs and pulls himself up them, sliding against the railing. He's panting with the effort by the time he gets to the top, but slowly realizes the railing was pressing against something in his pocket. His right hand fumbles at his pocket, eventually pulling out his phone.
He stares at it for a minute, then opens it. He has to turn it on, and the battery is low. It's just after midnight. He's been gone almost forty eight hours. Shit. He swallows and thumbs a number, lifting the phone to his ear as he stumbles through equipment that might have been part of a textile mill at some point.
"Eliot? Where the fuck you been?"
"Don't know." Eliot can't muster the energy to bicker with Hardison. "Just…Ryna?"
"Sophie has her. Where are you?"
Eliot shakes his head as he fights his way through a boarded up doorway, hissing as he cuts his foot on something as he does. "Some old warehouse. Trying to get outside."
"I'm getting your GPS from your phone. I'll come pick you up."
Eliot leans against the building. "Hurry, I don't know how long I've got before he comes back."
"Just hold on, I'm on my way."
Eliot closed his hand over his phone, holding it tight as he looked around him, trying to figure out which of the three alleys he could see would take him out to a road to make it easier for Hardison to find him.
"You belong in a hospital." Sophie says as Eliot stands shirtless in the bathroom, working on bandaging the mess Nate made of his neck.
Eliot looks at her reflection, his face hard. "I need to find Nate."
"Right, because finding him isn't exactly what has you in this shape already."
She has a point, but Eliot isn't about to tell her that. His chest and back are mottled black and blue from the impact with the wall and his neck is ripped up and probably needs stitches, but he doesn't have time for that. His foot is cut up, but he's got that bandaged and held in a boot that will keep it from swelling up.
"Eliot!" He turns and steps out of the bathroom as Ryna comes flying in from the front door, stopping short of throwing herself at him when she sees him.
"I'm okay." Eliot sooths, going to one knee and reaching out to hug her. Instead of letting him, she hits him, smacking his shoulder hard. "Ow, what was that for?"
"You scared me." She pouted, her eyes dragging over the blood and bruises. "You don't look okay."
"I'm fine. Just a little bruised."
"Where's Nate?"
Eliot exhaled and stood. "I haven't found him yet." Which wasn't completely true. "You have homework?" She nodded, clutching her book bag to her. "Go on into the dining room and I'll fix you a snack while you work on it."
He ducked back into the bathroom to finish taping down the bandage and grab the clean shirt he'd brought in. Sophie followed after him, but thankfully kept her mouth shut until they were in the kitchen. He pulled out some cheese and an apple and took them to the cutting board. "So, what did you find?"
She sighed and leaned on the counter. "We aren't completely sure. The blood Nate got from the blood bank was filled with a new street drug."
"Some junkie dosed up, then gave blood to make more money for more dope?" Eliot kept his eyes on his fingers, kept his emotion tightly locked down.
"Perhaps. It's part hallucinogenic, part stimulant."
"Great." Eliot transferred the cut cheese and fruit to a plate and poured a glass of milk to take out to Ryna. "So, what do we do?" He asked Sophie as he came back into the kitchen. "How do we make him better?"
"Well, it looks like it should work itself out of his system. It seems that the drug is known to affect different people for longer periods of time. The faster their metabolism, the quicker the drug is in of their system, the faster it flushes, presumably."
Eliot froze, feeling the blood drain from his face. "What? I thought that should be good news?"
"Nate's a vampire, Sophie." Eliot says softly.
For the longest time she just stares at him. "He has no metabolism, he has no heart…" Eliot swallows past the lump of fear in his throat. "And he isn't getting better." He remembers the look in Nate's eye, the animal way his eyes looked at him. "He's getting worse."
He paces the kitchen, pulling a hand through his hair. "It's just pooling inside him, we need to find him."
"Parker's tracking the trail of bodies."
Eliot nods and exhales slowly. "Okay. I'm going to secure a place to keep him. Keep an eye on Ryna."
"Eliot—"
"Don't Sophie." He doesn't look at her as he pushes his way out of the kitchen. He doesn't want to hear how he should rest, how he needs to heal. He knows…but right at that moment, Nate was more important.
The news tells stories of a serial killer haunting the streets, killing two and three people each night, no pattern, no logic to the places or the choice of victims, but Eliot knows that isn't completely true.
He sees the pattern, notices how the first of the night is always the easiest, like Nate still has some control of the beast inside him then. By the last one, he's vicious, mindless. He sticks mostly to the dark alleys and abandoned warehouses where drug addicts and runaways squat, circles the same neighborhood where Eliot found himself after Nate left him alone. He's moved his nesting place though, and Eliot hunts the daylight hours for him without a lot of success.
"We need to lure him out in the open." Eliot says, pacing around the office. He glances through the window to the lobby where Ryna is playing with some toys, entertaining herself while they strategize.
"And then what?" Sophie asks. "He took you down pretty easily the last time."
"We could tranquilize him." Parker offers, sliding into a chair near the door. "One of us could set up in a window or on a roof, Eliot draws him out, we tag him and secure him when he goes down."
"If he goes down." Hardison interjects, taping at his keyboard. "I been looking into this drug. It's worse than PCP for the rush of adrenaline. A kid was hyped up on this stuff when he robbed a liquor store a month ago, took five bullets in the chest and kept coming. It took one in his head to put him down."
"And there's a possibility, if he's feeding on junkies, that he's gotten more into his system." Sophie adds.
"Anyone got any better ideas?" Eliot asks, his frustration and worry leaking out.
"I'll get something for large game." Parker says, her eyes showing her own worry as she looks up at Eliot. "Give me a few hours."
Eliot nods. "Hardison and I will pick a spot and set up cameras. We're going to need warning. He's fast."
It goes against everything he knows, he can feel the way he's being hunted, the hair standing up on the back of his neck. His heart is hammering, and he knows it's like a beacon, calling Nate to the exposed and vulnerable position where he's standing.
Just fucking standing.
"Where the hell is he?" Eliot whispers into the comm.
"I got nothing." Hardison said.
"I can feel him. He's here." Eliot turned, feeling like he should be able to pick Nate out of the shadows, like he should be able to find him, even if he didn't want to be found.
"He's not on any of the cameras." Hardison said. "Maybe he knows."
"The only thing he knows is blood." They had spotted him earlier in the night, hunting, his face devoid of anything but naked need. He had smelled Eliot and left of the prey he'd been stalking, and Eliot had really needed to scramble to stay ahead of him and draw him here.
"E-E-Elll-iott."
He whirls before the word has stopped drawing out of a mouth that hasn't spoken words in days, and Nate is there, one step behind him, reaching for him, eyes dark and vacant, blood covering his face and clothes, fangs biting into his lips.
Eliot steps back despite the fight response thrumming through his veins. "Come and get me, Nate. You know you want me."
Nate shuffles forward as if uncertain, but Eliot knows he can pounce, can move faster than Eliot dreams. He only has to get him clear, get him out in the open where Parker can take the shot. He resists the urge to look up at the window where Parker is hiding, because if he takes his eyes off Nate, he's as good as dead.
Another step back, eyes locked on Nate's face.
The vampire lunges, teeth latching on to Eliot, blood spilling between them. Eliot staggers back, just trying to stay conscious long enough. "NOW!"
He hears the sound of the gun, distant, even as he falls to the ground, taking Nate with him. He fights the dark, pushes against Nate until he feels the lips on his skin go slack and Nate falls against him, dead weight.
It seems like forever, the cold concrete pressed into his back, Nate's cold body pressed into his chest, before they come for them, iron shackles in their hands. Eliot clings to consciousness as they roll Nate off him, locking the shackles onto his wrists and ankles and getting him up into the van. Parker comes back to help Eliot up and into the van with Nate, Eliot's hand falling on his shoulder. He settles his head back against the wall of the van and lets his eyes close. Now all they had to do was figure out how to help him.
He hates this, hates seeing Nate strung up this way, but it's the only way to keep them all safe. Hates the way the others watch him, like they pity him, like they think he's lost his mind, like Nate's expendable in all this, like he's gone too far to ever come back to them the way he was.
Most of all he hates the way he thinks they may be right.
Eliot watches from the shadows of the room, looking for signs that Nate's awake, that he's aware. His arms are still in the iron shackles, pulled up over his head. The chain is tight, keeps him upright, his chin dropped forward on his chest. His feet drag the floor. The leather in his mouth is pulled tight, making it impossible for him to bite and even like this, unconscious, his fangs are extended, his brow raised.
His body twitches, a low growl rumbling through him. He'll have a pounding headache from the drugs, and he hasn't fed now in nearly twenty four hours, so he's probably hungry.
Eliot watches his eyes open and scan the room, stopping on the dark corner where Eliot is standing. The growl changes tone a little and Eliot moves from the shadows. "It's okay, Nate. We're going to help you."
Nate thrashes in the restraints, his eyes wild, his feet kicking out toward Eliot. "Just calm down. No one's going to hurt you." Eliot skirts just out of his reach, heading for the door. "I'm going to get you something, okay?" Nate only thrashes more in response as Eliot slips out of the room.
Parker meets him in the hallway outside the vault, a syringe in hand. "You okay?"
Eliot doesn't really answer, just takes the needle. "Any word from Hardison?"
She shakes her head. "Not yet. It would help if we could tell the lab rat what he's looking at."
"He wouldn't believe us if we told him. We just need him to tell us how the blood we took from Nate is different from the average junkie on this crap…so we can figure out how to treat him."
"You sure about keeping him out of it?" Parker nods at the syringe.
"Better than letting himself tear himself apart trying to escape." He sighs and puts his hand back on the door. The old building had proven perfect for their needs, the vault sound proof and nothing short of a dynamite blast was getting it open if they locked it. "Let me know when you hear something."
