Work Text:
Patience, Grasshopper
by Sam-Tony
Snapping out a front kick just shy of full extension, Eliot winced at the twinge that panged his knee even as he took the swivel turn that would set up the next combination. It didn’t hurt enough to prompt a change in his routine from his left foot to his right - not like last week, when he could barely stand to put weight on it at all - and so he pushed through it, making sure to bury the grimace behind the yell of effort put into the punch.
They were watching him again; Ford from the shadows of their little conference room, Hardison from the camera over his left shoulder, and that was the problem; angles. They were all wrong for him to keep his weakness hidden unless he kept it under control. The fact that they were watching was a *good* thing, and it was about damned time, too. He was beginning to think he was going to have to kata naked, not just shirtless, as he had the last couple of days.
It was Alec’s electronic eyes and Nathan’s very real ones on him as he worked out that kept him going; kept him pushing himself to get the knee back into shape. Not that he could do much with a knee injury besides wait it out, but he tried not to baby it too much. One comment from Parker on his limp after the Castonetti job had been enough. From the way ‘dad’ had glared and the sharp glances that followed, Eliot’s privacy and paranoia had demanded he disappear for a couple days while he figured out what it all meant and what it was he wanted.
Not that it had taken nearly that long, though the small bit of planning and recon of their building had eaten up the rest of the first day. The second had been spent in ever more complicated fantasies that, not only required a healthy knee, but a certain level of flexibility from the other two. And, after an entertaining morning, no few cold showers from him.
Not that *they* knew that *he* knew they were watching, but…well, just because they were a team now, didn’t mean he had lost any of the skills that had made him a very excellent solo thief. And those very skills were telling him they were watching - a *lot*.
Feeling a little smug and full of himself, he put a little too much pressure on that knee and stumbled on the next pivot, cursing as he went down but managing to catch himself on the ballet bar as it buckled.
Damn that hurt.
Turning his leg into a figure four and rubbing out the ache, he caught Ford twitch out of the corner of his eye, as if to make sure he was all right. But the move was aborted before he slipped completely out of the shadows and if Eliot hadn’t already known he was there, he would have missed it. The look of confusion on the older man’s face before he stepped back into the shadows was well worth the inconvenient pain of a tricky knee.
Bending at the waist, he brought the knee up, lowered it and shook it out, feeling the sharp pain receding now that he wasn’t putting any demands on it. Maybe he should keep going? Try that pivot again and let himself go down next time…
No. No sense courting real injury just to confirm what that last little slip had told him. He had the feeling Parker would hurt him for real if he were to do something that stupid.
Patience, grasshopper. For now it was enough to know that Nathan was watching and that he cared.
Unbending from his lean, he walked it off, feeling the renewal of the slight limp that he didn’t bother to hide. Ford and Hardison had already seen it and, for now, it served his purpose to play the wounded bird, if only in the slightest sense. Turning the slow circle into his cool down routine, he kept it simple by keeping most of the weight off of that leg and paying special attention to his stretches…
Stretches that just happened to play up his long, half-naked lines and shift the muscles in his back as he turned the calf stretch into a back arch that banked only half the distance he was able as he brought his chest back up early, ending in a casual grab for the tshirt he had left on the bar to his right.
Here kitty, kitty.
He hadn’t missed the subtle whine of the camera as Hardison had zoomed in on his body (though on what, exactly, he would just have to guess) nor the soft inhalation of breath at the apex of his arch from the corner where Ford was hiding. Snickering at the giveaways, he decided he might just be able to get in to this exhibition thing after all.
Gotcha.
Hiding his smile in his shirt as he pulled it over his head, he smoothed it down over his chest before shaking his hair out of the collar.
“Dad’ was long gone before Eliot had gathered up his bag to hit the showers, though he had the feeling geek boy was still watching. He couldn’t say why he thought that other than the fact he had always had the uncanny ability to tell when he was being watched - another reason he was a really good thief.
In a fit of mischief, Eliot stopped just at the threshold where the camera had a sharp angle down onto his face and looked up. Making sure to lock his eyes with the lens, he waited for a heartbeat or two before winking once - a deliberate throwing of the ball into the other man’s court - before calmly walking out of the makeshift workroom toward the showers.
Life was about to get interesting.
End