What, was "Rudy" on cable last night?

Eliot had come up to start working on his garden for the season, but got sidetracked. First by what sure as hell felt like an impact tremor (it was a very distinctive variety of earthquake). And then by the fact that his usually largely unobstructed view of land along the horizon line in the direction of Baltimore was now a largely unobstructed view of absolutely nothing along the horizon line.

"That don't bode well," he grumbled. "That don't bode well at all."

[can be open, sure!]

Eliot was very good at putting on a good face, but he wasn't handling the events of last week very well. He hadn't been sleeping well, even for him, and it wasn't just about nightmares. He was on edge, not so much about his environment -- he'd always been on edge about that, at least since he turned 18 and joined the army -- but about himself. His own reaction to it.

Fighting evil robots in the shop had actually helped that, a little. He'd handled that just as well as he'd ever have done. Had even enjoyed it a little. But he couldn't shake the fact that he had failed last Saturday. Failed his double and failed his partners. Because of an issue he'd thought he had a handle on for years.

Finding time alone hadn't been easy. Parker and Hardison were understandably clingy, right now, and clever enough to notice, despite Eliot's good face, that he really wasn't handling things that well. That he wasn't sleeping. But he couldn't talk to them about this, couldn't look them in the eye and tell them that he wasn't a good enough hitter to keep them safe. And he couldn't think of anyone else he could talk to, either, anyone he could trust, who knew him, who wouldn't change how they treated him once they knew.

So he found his way up to his attic during a quiet moment. Locked the door just to make sure Hardison and Parker knew better than to walk in unannounced.

And made a phone call.

[ooc: for one, and likely slowplay. Mmmm, aftermath.]

Eliot had always been a fast healer -- a definite advantage in his line of work, no one was going to respect a hitter who was covered in bruises all the time -- so while he still had a black eye and a fairly impressive mass of scab on his temple, the swelling had gone and the side of his face was more yellow than purple. It'd taken a few hours to convince Hardison that he really wasn't letting the man out of his sight for longer than it took to use the bathroom, but once they'd managed to move from escape attempts to resigned depression, Eliot had even managed to get some actual rest in, so his headache was down from sometimes-literally-blinding to dull-throb-with-painkillers-if-I-don't-move-too-quickly. With his hood pulled up to both cut down on excess sunlight and hide the mess that was his temple, he felt almost normal.

Physically, anyway. Hardison wasn't the only one dealing with masses of guilt over what happened over the weekend. Eliot was just more used to carrying stuff like that around.

Parker wasn't going to let Eliot stand up in the kitchen long enough to even make some decent omelettes, so he called and had the busboy at the diner bring them enough food to cover all three of them for a day. This of course led to an argument with the busboy about whether him not coming in at all meant the kitchen staff had a day off, which set off exciting new throbs in Eliot's head, which in turn made Parker go all growly mama bear at the busboy, who eventually ended up running away shrieking. Then Eliot had to hurry back to the living room to make sure that Hardison hadn't tried to escape through the back door.

"You know," Eliot said as he grabbed yet another ice pack from his freezer. "We're not s'posed to have to tie you to a chair after you're done being evil."

[ooc: for the crew. Wheee aftermath!]

Eliot woke with a start, choking on his breath for a moment -- which was weird and drew far too much attention to him if there was someone watching, waiting to use his weakness against hi -- right, okay, no. He was in the loft. On the couch. Where he'd been sitting up waiting to see if ferret!Parker would come out and eat the chicken they'd left out for her.

There was a ferret sitting on the back of the couch next to him, staring at him tensely. When he looked at it it bounced in place and chittered at him. Eliot rubbed his hand down his face, trying to shake the nightmare he'd just had.

"Well at least you showed back up." His voice was still a little choked, his whole body tensed and on the alert. This dream had thrown everything at him: people he'd lost, people he'd killed, torturers, prisons, wars, the whole nine, and his heart rate was still speeding along. Parker scrambled closer to bump her nose against his, and he managed a faint smile for her. "Yeah," he said. "I'm alright. Just --" He let out a sharp breath. "Just gimme a minute. Where's Hardison? He was waitin' up for ya, too."

[ooc: for the boyfrien]

Eliot didn't sleep nearly as much as Parker and Hardison did, so he was pretty used to being up before they were, getting coffee ready and sorting through his fridge for what to make for breakfast. He'd've been perfectly happy to stay in bed and just stare at his partners and make sure they were still there, but whatever the aliens had been using to sustain them all over the week hadn't really been much more than minimal, and Eliot was pretty sure he wasn't the only one who'd be waking up today starving.

He may have stuck comms on everyone so he could still hear them the whole time, though.

It was weird being in his kitchen without Val sitting at his feet in her eternally frustrated hope for scraps (eternally frustrated from him, anyway, he was pretty sure she still did it because Hardison and Parker were sneaking her things), but Kathy had texted the night before to let him know that her little sister had been taking care of the puppy, and that Kathy was going to keep her in the dorms for one more night. Considering how much time he and the others had spent yesterday in constant physical contact, Eliot could guess why Kathy wanted to keep a nice, warm, happy puppy around for the night, so he didn't insist. He was used to getting shot at and nearly killed, after all, and what had happened in that sim --

Eliot's hand spasmed around his knife and he dropped in to the cutting board and stepped back, leaning his weight into his hands on the counter and just breathing through it as the image of Kathy silhouetted in the doorway ran through his head. He kept his head down a moment longer once the scene finished playing out in his memory, then straightened up, stretched his fingers, and got back to chopping.

He'd have to watch out for that for a little while.

[ooc: for those in the house and the one stopping by -- and anyone else who might decide to drop in and visit. Note: linked thread contains violence and simulated death.]

( The continuing adventures of Eliot in not-Deadwood )

[ooc: open for anyone who wants to come play cowboys and indians.
Content note: really blatant old school racism. Like, I feel dirty typing it. Here there be stereotypes (and even more cursing).]

Eliot found himself gripping a set of reigns as hard as he'd just been gripping a man's shirt. He was on horseback, at night, on a dirt road through the middle of a busy and haphazard looking old west town, surrounded by other people on horses.

"You were sayin'," an older man on the horse to his left said. "You were sayin' about this man's story."

Eliot twisted in the saddle, looking behind him. It didn't make any more sense that way. "What."

"I said you were sayin' about this man's story. About that white family getting hacked and scalped in the woods."

"I -- I really wasn't," Eliot said, looking back over at the man.

"You feelin' alright there, friend?" Another man, this one on foot by the door to what seemed to be a rather busy saloon, said. "You're not goin' to fucking pass out and die on us now when you're all just gettin' set to ride out and investigate this cocksucker's claims to an Indian attack."

"What," Eliot said again. He blinked and reached up to adjust the hat he only just realized he was wearing. "Indian attack. . . ."

The men on horseback nodded. "Just been reported," said the man on the horse to his right.

Eliot blinked a few more times, looking around, and adjusted his hat again.

"The fella's story on this don't hold water," the man on the horse to his right hissed, like a prompter at a grade school play.

Eliot stared at him. The man nodded.

"The, uh." Eliot cleared his throat. "The fella's story -- on this don't hold water."

The man on the horse to his right nodded. "No, it don't."

And the other two men on horses started riding off.

Eliot stared after them a moment before spurring his own horse forwards. "That's -- Wild Bill. Wild Bill fucking Hickok. . . ."

[and Eliot has been zapped into Deadwood. Because like I would throw this guy into anything but a western. . . .]