fandomtownies | The streets past the edge of the park, Saturday, early afternoon

Look, it was Him. Aside from her regular hunting partner, this was the only person who she always knew.

Sneak, sneak. Sneak-sneak-sneak-sneak-sneak.

Or, you know. Stalk.

And a few yards away, Hardison hunkered down and waited. He'd fashioned a trap over the past few days, a simple pit trap lined with all the sharp bits and pieces he'd been collecting for years. Over the mouth of the trap lay tree branches and brush--he wasn't intelligent, exactly, but had a murderous cunning left, the last vestiges of his previous brilliant mind.

The other hunter would herd their game here. And they would finish him, once and for all.

And feast.

Eliot couldn't tell you what it was, but something had him exchanging his jerky for his nailed board. He spun it low by his side and turned in a slow circle, scanning the streets.

Don't attack. Just defend. Don't attack.

Unless it's Parker or Hardison. He was pretty sure someone told him he could attack them on sight.

She moved fast, clawing at the side of Him that didn't have a weapon. He was good with weapons. Damaging. Pain wasn't even a memory, but damage slowed her down.

..this way, yes. Drag or lure or fight over here.

Hardison skulked down, tugging on some string he'd attached to the brush a few yards away. The bushes rustled with his movement, as if there was something about to emerge from there.

Misdirection, yes. That was how he and the other one worked. She attacked and then he snuck up from behind.

Or they could attack him first anyway. That did simplify things.

Eliot had reacted, snapping his elbow up and into the hollow's jaw and whipping around to strike with the board, before he recognized who it was doing the attacking. Once he did, it only strengthened his resolve.

"I'm sorry, darlin'."

He swung again, but the rustling in the bushes distracted him from following all the way through. Ambush! Another hollow? He hopped back, putting distance between Parker and the bush and himself.

"You ain't gonna distract me!"

But -- which was the distraction?

She couldn't have told him, even if he'd asked. Keeping on-target was hard when He damaged her.

Hissing, she circled him, right, then left, not looking at the bush. Eyes only on Him. She rubbed her jaw, grumbling, then smiled.

And cartwheeled forward, aiming to kick him toward the trap.

With one last tug on the string, Hardison let it go, eeling out to another small cluster of bushes on the other side. He waited until the other hunter had their prey off-balance--and then flung himself out in a bum's rush towards the meat that was more than meat. Most were just meat, fun to toy with but their true importance lay in how they could feed him and the other monster. This prey, though...this prey was more than meat.

Hardison wanted it to hurt.

Don't worry, Hardison. Your mere existence guaranteed that.

Eliot caught the rush in time to swing, but not to avoid being knocked over by it. His breath went out of him with a whoof, which turned into a hell of a coughing fit, leaving him open to another attack.

He should've been taking better care of himself. He knew these two wouldn't go down easy.

Maybe he really had just been planning to go down with them.

You always hurt the ones you... something.

Diving low for His knees, she cackled, face blank, clawing at his coverings, looking for advantage, for openings, for blood. Tried to duck that block of wood with the nails in it, had to back off a little, crouched, ready to somersault into his face.

Remembered?

And while the other kept his attention there, Hardison pounced, trying to wrap his arms around the prey's throat and bite at his face. He wanted to sink his teeth into the soft meat of the prey's cheek.

They were rabid, and they didn't stay down. On the other hand, they didn't work well together.

Eliot had taken down worse.

Of course, Eliot had had a full grip on his faculties at the time.

He took the blow to his knees and face and traded back two sharp jabs to Parker's throat. The grip to his throat cut off his air -- not that he was getting enough anyway -- and felt teeth against his face. He slammed into them, adding a jagged tear across his cheekbone to his now broken nose. The angle was wrong, but he swung his club anyway, trying to break Hardison's ribs.

Gagging, Parker fell onto her butt, trying to get her breath back, kicking out at Him in frustration. No no no! He wasn't in the trap! No! He still had the club!

Edited 2016-12-10 22:20 (UTC)

He didn't break them, but Hardison fell back anyway, howling like a mad thing. He was only off for a moment before he was lunging back, teeth bared and arms out. He didn't want to grapple this time, though. He wanted to throw Eliot.

Let the trap do the hard part instead.

Eliot didn't get out of the way in time. He spotted the branches and leaves, thought trap! and in he went.

The hit on the bottom left him too stunned to notice at first what he'd landed on. He broke into another coughing fit. One of his lungs wasn't filling the way it should.

Eliot Spencer didn't go down easy. And when he did, he got back up. His hand clamped onto the edge of the pit a moment later, as he dragged himself to the surface again powered by sheer gumption and spite.

A breathless sound that was once laughter filled her chest, and she crawled over the pit, throwing rocks at at Him. Such a good job, partner! Look at him bleed! So perfect!

Parker dropped the rocks out of preference for hands again, and dove at him.

After the rout at Eliot's house, the three of them had gone to the village in the park. Parker had been mad she'd left the frying pan when she saw how little people were working with there. Staying overnight hadn't changed her impressions much. So they were out the next day, scavenging for food and trying to come up with ideas of how to help.

Megabyte was good at sniffing things out.

Parker was just contemplating a rubbish pile (worth pulling apart, and needing a tetanus shot, or not?) when she heard yelling, and turned.

Them. Only it looked like they'd caught someone. So running away again wasn't an option.

"Guys. Guys! The creepy couple have somebody cornered over there!" Parker tightened her grip on the climbing pick she was holding like a knife, and started to run.

Eliot immediate jogged over, reaching for his sword as he went. He'd been on the other side of the street, and coming up got a different angle --

Shock sent him skidding to a stop. He knew that face, that body. Hadn't seen it look quite that bad in a long time, covered in blood and sagging skin, his back bristling like a porcupine with blades and sharp edges of every variety as he pulled himself out of what looked like a large pothole.

"Jesus."

His other self was fucked.

Edited 2016-12-11 03:47 (UTC)

And the two monsters harrying him only made that more true. With another unearthly howl, the creature that was once Hardison, the gentlest and most caring member of the crew, leapt for the tottering Eliot once more, a jagged chunk of a TV screen clutched in his fist. He barely seemed to notice the bloody furrows it left in his already-mangled fingers and used it to swipe at Eliot's legs in an attempt to hamstring him.

You weren't getting away this time, Prey.

"Aww, hell no," Hardison said, shaking his head wildly as if he could erase the scene in front of him. "They're really tryna..."

Look, it had been one thing when the other him had been trying to kill him. But even as horrifying as that was (and what the hell had happened to his eyes?!), it was a million times worse to see that other him trying to murder Eliot, holding nothing back.

She had a mouthful of blood now. Not much. Just a little, bitten from His hand. But there were noises-- people coming, more prey-- no! Their kill! Theirs!

She turned and snarled, then threw herself at Him, intent on keeping Him for her and her partner, nobody else.

Parker also joined in on that, aiming for this other Eliot (dirty and sad and looking so, so tired) to pull him away from the other two, get him somewhere safe. The other Parker was in her way, in between them, clawing at him, and that was not going to happen.

She leapt on the back of the other her, wrapped her legs around her double's waist, and yanked back on her hair. "Get. Off. Him!"

Now it was Eliot's turn to do exactly what he'd been mad at Parker for doing yesterday. "PARKER!"

He should be going in after her. Should draw his sword and start swinging but those were his people. Those were Parker and Hardison even if they were fucked up Parker and Hardison and that Eliot, that Eliot was the one who gave Hardison a black eye --

Eliot did the unforgivable then. He hesitated.

Eliot, on the other hand, didn't.

He didn't hesitate once, even when Hardison opened an enormous gash across his thigh. Didn't hesitate when Parker threw herself at him and -- and Parker threw herself at her. He took the punishment as he reached around and pulled out the rusty knife Hardison's trap had lodged in his side. And he didn't hesitate once when he thrust that knife into black-eyed Hardison's throat.

Hardison immediately let go of the Prey to clasp at his throat, the blood bubbling from it a dark brownish color that smelled, even from a distance. Staggering, he tried to hold the wound closed, to push the blood back in. But for all of his strength and cunning, he couldn't fight this.

Instead, he collapsed, falling into the dirt at the other Eliot's feet. He gurgled, choking and grasping at Eliot's pants with pleading hands that left bloody prints behind. He locked eyes with Eliot for several long seconds before his grip went slack and his body limp.

Edited 2016-12-11 16:40 (UTC)

Hardison gasped, watching himself--a corrupted, evil version of himself but still himself---die. Killed by Eliot of all people. He gasped and closed his eyes to block out the sight, but the mental image was on permanent loop inside his mind.

"Oh god, oh god," he muttered over and over again, until a noise from the murder hobo made him open his eyes again. In two strides he was next to him, hands out to his sides and empty. "Easy, easy," he said to the wounded man. "It's--it's gonna be okay. You got 'im. You did good. Just relax now."

This version of Eliot had beaten him up and then murdered another version of him, but he was in a lot of pain and not doing too well. There was no way Hardison could ignore that. Pushing his own trauma aside, he tried to comfort the other Eliot as best he could.

Eliot collapsed to his knees. He face wasn't working anymore, but his confusion showed clear in his eyes. There was a shard of glass in his lung, he barely had enough blood left to keep his heart beating. He had no idea what was going on -- except that his team was here. Hardison was there to catch him and Parker was picking up his slack.

What remained of his mouth curled upward even as he finished crumpling.

His team was here.

And Eliot stood frozen, save for a tremor in his chest and hands.

He'd forgotten how to exhale.

NO. She howled. NO. And dove forward toward Him and her partner and past the other, the other that looked like her partner but wasn't, ignored the weight on her back, fighting fighting fighting fighting KILL YOU

And Parker was screaming too, because Eliot was dying and this crazy mess was still trying to kill him--

--so she didn't hesitate, and she stabbed this nightmare version of herself under her arm, into the brachial artery, and pulled the pick out, fast.

Then leapt off her doppelganger, and fell to her knees next to the shell of that other Eliot.

Hardison had pulled the other man up into his arms. "Hey, man, hey, it's cool, it's cool," he said, his voice not betraying the fact that it was not at all cool. It was, in fact, truly horrible and he could feel more blood soaking into his clothing. "You did it," he crooned. "You got 'em. It's all good now. You saved us."

Whether that was true or not was irrelevant. It was what Eliot would want to hear.

The remains of Eliot's mouth managed to curl a little higher. He took as deep a breath as he could and reached a bloody hand towards Parker.

"Alw's loved -- watchin' y' w'rk."

He shuddred against Hardison and went limp.

"No. No. Nonononononononoonono--"

Parker was grasping sad Eliot's hand, squeezing it with both of hers, and it felt like a cavern had opened in her chest, like she got home and found all her stashes gone, worse than having to leave a dead body on a frozen mountain, worse, worse, worse, worse even than Hardison in a coffin, gasping for air, counting on her, nonononononono not like this, they were going to save him--

"Wake up. Wake up."

"He--he ain't gonna, mama," Hardison said, voice thick. He'd felt the last breath leave the body, and the heartbeat stutter and stop and fail. He reached forward and closed Eliot's eyes with a gentle hand. "He's gone."

Eliot remained off to the side, looking down at the bloody remains of the other Hardison and the hand prints pressed into his jeans. He didn't see either of them, nor his partners, nor the street beyond. All there was was blood and rubble and bodies, so many, many bodies.

He shut his eyes, long practiced coping mechanisms kicking in. It wasn't real. His heart racing, his lungs straining, it was just a reaction. Feel it. Deal with it. Move on.

Except when he opened his eyes, it was to Hardison's dead face looking up at him. And when he looked away there was Parker's body on the ground, and there were Parker and Hardison, covered in blood, huddled together over a broken, bloody Eliot.

He spun around, dropping to his hands and knees, and threw up into the pit trap.

Parker slumped forward, grabbing for Hardison's hand, needing to feel that he was alive, he was alive and nobody hurt him, and, and... "Eliot," she whispered, this was not fair.

Loved to watch her work.

She made an animal keening sound, and looked up at Hardison with wet eyes, expression like her double's for a second in its mute confusion. Clutched at him harder, because he couldn't disappear, couldn't.

The sound of Eliot vomiting broke her, because that was relief, their Eliot was alive (but Eliot was dead) and they were together (and the other Hardison was dead too oh God) and...

Hardison gently set Eliot's body down and gathered Parker close in his arms, all the warmth and comfort he had offered freely. It felt good to just hold her, to know that she was alive and could still feel, even if those feelings were grief and hurt and confusion.

"Can I just...not put you down for a bit?" he whispered. At Parker's nod, he swung her up into his arms and stood, heading over to where Eliot was losing his lunch.

"Hey," he said softly, freeing a hand to rub Eliot's back. He never felt strong during a fight, when Eliot and Parker were doing their thing and being amazing, but he was glad of his strength now, so he could hold Parker with one arm and comfort Eliot with the other.

"Gimme a minute."

Eliot coughed and choked a few more times. Even with Parker's stashes, he hadn't really had all that much to eat the last few days, and there wasn't anything left to come up. That didn't stop his body from trying, though.

Hardison's hand on his back was life a lifeline.

There was something on the other side of the hole, past the blood and leftover glass. The other Eliot's hat had fallen off when he was thrown, and made it through the fight with only a few stains on the brim. Eliot reached over and picked it up, then stood slowly.

The world didn't shift or swing. He was solidly present again. He almost wished he wasn't.

"Alright." He looked over at Hardison and Parker, steadfastly away from the bodies. "We're alright."

Edited 2016-12-11 21:45 (UTC)

Nuh-unh. Parker made grabby hands at him. He was too far away. Hardison was warm and real and perfectly himself, and she'd never been so grateful for anything, ever. But Eliot was too far away.

"Naw, we ain't," Hardison said. "But we're gonna be. Cause we got each other an' ain't nothin' can keep us down an' out, so long's that's true."

Yeah. Eliot was sure that was a big comfort to the three bodies he was continuing not looking at. He took one of Parker's hands and squeezed, then started walking away. "Come on. I need to -- not be here."

The streets past the edge of the park, Saturday, early afternoon

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