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Six Feet From the Edge and Falling
by Sam
The wind whipped around him with all the force of a New England winter, sending his hair flying in all directions, but despite having come up to the roof wearing only one layer of clothing, Eliot didn't flinch. He was too much in his own head to feel any of it. In his head he was still in that warehouse, facing down Moreau's men; facing down his own past wearing the form of the man he could all too easily have become. The man he had thought he had left behind after meeting up with Nate Ford and his merry band of thieves.
The man he thought he *could* leave behind.
He couldn't; dared not. Not if he wanted to keep them safe. He knew that now.
The slide - the slide had been calculated down to the millimeter; how fast to run to keep the momentum going, how far back to bend in order to feel the faint promise of their bullets ghost over his body instead of plugging him full of holes. The rise and spin while still on his knees, the angles, all calculated even as he stepped out from behind the crates, eyes taking on well over a dozen guys armed with guns, ready and eager to take him down. For Moreau.
He hated guns, and this was why. He hated what they brought out in people. He hated what they brought out in him.
The second he had to retrace his steps back the way he had come, diving back behind the first crate and finding every exit barred, Eliot knew he was going to kill every single one of those men.
The moment he stood up, faced the warehouse and sized up his enemy, he knew he was going to come out of it alive. But that no one was going to win. There would be too much blood on his hands for that.
One last foolish boast of skill as he slammed fresh clips into place against his hips; used one gun to ready the other, the slides drawn back as he took one last look around.
And started to run.
---
Up on the roof Eliot could still smell the cordite and accelerant over the briny smell of the water biting into him on the chill cut of the late December wind; the heat from the deliberate explosion his bullet had caused having long since been leached out of him as he stood, leaning over the edge and staring out at the city below. It was snowing, and a small part of him was glad because Parker would be happy, even if it was a New Year's snow instead of Christmas.
He didn't know what to do - didn't know how to react around them anymore. Nate hadn't told them what Eliot had faced at that warehouse, what Eliot must have done to get out in one piece, but they knew things now just as bad. They knew he had worked with Moreau.
What he didn't know was what to do about it other than hide up here on the roof. Because as much as he didn't want to answer their questions, like he had told Parker, if they asked him he would tell them. And it wasn't as if they didn't deserve to know...it was just Eliot didn't want to tell them.
They knew he was a bad man; Eliot didn't want to tell them just how bad. He had left that life behind him with the guns he had used to murder someone's wife; just another anonymous family Moreau wanted out of the way. Collateral used to send a message.
Eliot hadn't known she was pregnant when he had killed her.
Another blast of wind caught him in the chest, pushing him away from the edge, forcing him to shift his balance or fall. Eliot ignored it and the chill, simply returning his gaze to the black horizon above the lights of the city.
If he could have taken down Moreau without the team he would have. Put a bullet in him from the back if he could and been done with it, man didn't deserve any better. But Moreau had learned from him in the brief time he had worked for him; patching holes in his security, tightening his schedule, identifying potential threats. Eliot had taught him too well.
They had wounded him; *Nate* had wounded him, Taken away his spotless record; his precious, meticulous reputation. Sent him running not quite with his tail between his legs back to San Lorenzo. It wasn't enough. Not for Nate and not for Eliot.
There had to be some way to end this, for good. A plan. Or a bullet. He just needed to decide who he could trust from his days down in San Lorenzo before he made his next move. There had to be somebody...
---
He knew Nate would be the one to find him; would have been nice if he had found him earlier. Eliot was chilled to the bone.
Siding up to the edge, Nate cast him a sideways glance before resting his arms on the ledge, his own eyes staring off into the distance. "Nice view?"
"Gettin' better," Eliot admitted, his lips twitching with the small smile wanting to break through. Mother hen. He wasn't through working out the issues in his head yet, but he was closer. "Not sure how to come back from this one."
"You said it yourself," Nate shifted, brushing shoulder to shoulder, coming closer; close enough to touch.
Eliot let him. It was past time for them to admit to whatever this thing was between them. Maybe give it a try if he hadn't been reading the older man wrong. He had been given a first hand message today; a reminder that life was too short for this dancing back and forth bullshit.
"I did?"
The warm hands reaching between his ribs and the arms he used to lean against the edge found his fingers curled in their fists, frozen from cold and anger both, prying them apart in order to lace them together. Eliot didn't fight too hard to hold on to that rage; this was Nate, he never did. Though he had a brief flare of conscience that screamed that maybe this time he should.
Because he wasn't through being that man just yet; couldn't be until they took down Moreau, for good. Stuffing that part of him back in the box felt like it might not be so easy this time.
"Eliot, they were all worse than you ever were. Than you ever will be."
"Yeah, they were worse," Eliot would give him that, because it just served to prove his point. "And I killed them all, Nate. One man against how many?"
"Because you are the best, Eliot. Never because you were the worst." Nate told him firmly and Eliot caught the voice he used to make the clients, and sometimes the team, believe him that everything was going to turn out all right. He found it worked this time, too. "I shouldn't have pushed you. I'm sorry."
"You were right; had to be done. We were out of time."
"Come downstairs with me," Nate asked, and Eliot could feel the other man's body heat against his back, seeping in through his one thin layer of clothes; the lips that brushed a barely there press against the top of his spine; an offering and a promise.
"What brought this on, Nate?" Eliot demanded quietly. "Why now?"
"Because I could have lost you, Eliot," Nate admitted softly. "So don't ask me to be sorry that you are as good as you are. Don't ask me - because, if you ask me, I will tell you. I'm not sorry, Eliot. Not that you killed them, not that you look out for us - and not that you did whatever it took to survive. Because that means you came back to me."
"Nate - " He was breaking apart, trying to hold himself together. He couldn't fight himself and Nate, too. And Moreau was still out there...
Before he could answer, fireworks went off over the city, cheers rising up faintly from the street as Boston rung in a new year. Had he really been out there that long?
"What do you say?" Nate asked, voice soft and compelling in his ear. "Let me take you downstairs, we'll have a stiff drink, and I'll put you to bed. Figure out how to start living a new life in the morning?"
Eliot sized him up the way he would a client. Or a mark. A New Year for a new life. Maybe it *was* time he took a chance.
Turning in Nate's arms and stepping in close, Eliot agreed, but, "Only if we skip the drink - and I'm not the only one in that bed."
"Deal."
Nate's smile when he agreed should have scared him off - it was the smile he wore when he was ready to throw them all off the roof in order to nail the mark - but it didn't.
Because Nate's smile before Eliot's lips blurred their lines merely matched his. "Deal."
They would get Moreau. Because Eliot *was* the best, and so was Nate; so was Parker and Sophie and Hardison. They would find an in and find a way and Moreau would never hurt anyone else again.
It was what they did.
　
End