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kathierif_ficTitle: Floating In A Most Peculiar Way 1/2
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kathierif_fic
Fandom: Leverage
Word Count: 10,022
Pairing: Eliot Spencer/Alec Hardison
Rating: FRM
Warnings: none
Summary: A normal week on the good starship Leverage: the crew has just finished a job and all should be well, if Parker wasn’t acting strange - stranger than usual. Hardison investigates, but he did not expect what he found out (oh, hell, no.)
Disclaimers: Leverage is not mine. Used without permission, no profit made.
Author’s Notes: Big fat thank you toginny305 for the hunt on commas and awesome betaing. Also thanks to teaotter for the Mix (found here) and deadflowers5 for the artwork, which also can be found in deadflowers5 post here! Please let both of them know what a great job they did!
Title is a line from Major Tom, by David Bowie.
This fic was written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
spacebigbang.
Nate Ford folded his arms across his chest while staring at the scene in front of him. He couldn't help but feel proud of what he and his team had achieved that day. Because of them, a family was reunited and a big corperation that had made its business out of exploiting innocent farmers had been handed a hard blow.
He felt Sophie step up to him and stop by his elbow, her presence filling his consciousness before he even thought about turning to face her. He didn't need to. He knew that she was wearing the same expression of grim satisfaction that he could feel on his own face.
Soft rustling by his other elbow meant that Eliot was back. This time Nate risked a quick glance. Eliot was rubbing his hand with a small grimace that he forced away as soon as he realized that someone was looking at him. Parker appeared at Eliot's other side, her body hunched over defensively and her arms wrapped around herself.
A glance in the other direction, to make sure Hardison was there as well, and Nate exhaled softly.
"Well," he said, his voice quiet and filled with triumph, "let's go home."
~*+*~
~*+*~
Nate was the first to turn away from the family, but his team quickly followed him back to where they had parked the shuttle, hidden from sight.
Hardison pressed his palm flat against the access panel and waited while the computer scanned his prints and biological data.
"Can I fly?" Parker asked hopefully from behind him. Hardison hunched up his shoulders slightly, his thoughts racing, but he couldn't come up with a good excuse why he wouldn't let Parker take control of his baby, not before Eliot growled, "Hell, no. You're not flying this thing."
"Why not?" Parker asked, but she didn't wait for an answer as the lock disengaged and the doors opened. She climbed into the back of the shuttle and pulled her feet up before wrapping her arms around her knees and pillowing her chin on them.
Eliot rolled his eyes and took the seat next to her. Nate joined them, letting Sophie take the seat in front with the view.
"It's not fair," Parker mumbled into her knees, but she there was no heat in her words, and neither Eliot nor Nate paid special attention to her.
~*+*~~*+*~
The Leverage was a small ship, but it was well-equipped and filled with the latest and best of technology. Hardison had spent weeks making sure she was the best she could be and setting foot on the ship was by now a little bit like stepping into Nana's kitchen. He knew his way around the ship with his eyes closed and while half-asleep, and he knew every nook and cranny like the back of his hand. He'd programmed the main systems and had outfit the engines to get maximum performance out of them and make sure they could reach each and every part of the galaxy within the shortest amount of time possible and, even more important, to make sure they could leave just as fast if the need arose.
The sound of Eliot’s heavy boots on the metal floorplates was as familiar as the creaks and groans of the ceiling when Parker pulled herself through the ventilation shafts and vents and the whine of the engines when the Leverage went at high-speed.
Hardison found himself grinning as he ran his fingertips along the wall of the engine room. This was his domain, the part of the ship where he spent most of his time.
Sophie was an extraordinary pilot, as was Eliot, and Nate was capable of plotting a course to their next destination almost as quick as the navigation computer - almost. But the engines and computers were Hardison's responsibility, and it was his pride and joy to keep the ship running as smoothly as possible.
The Leverage was a cylindric ship, looking like an old-fashioned cigar, with the command centrum at the very tip and the engine room at the other end. The red glow of the engines' exhausts only enhanced the similarity to a cigar. Hardison had painted with painstaking care the name of the ship on the hull, even when he was pretty sure that nobody would ever come close enough to read it. He'd done it more as a symbolic gesture, and none of Eliot's sneers had stopped him from touching up on the writing every time they actually brought the Leverage down to a planet. Between the command centrum and the engine room, there were the common room and the crew quarters. It was a little cramped, but it was enough for the five of them.
It was home for all of them.
Hardison fell into his work chair. He'd built it himself out of scrapped parts of the engine, and he was careful about making sure that nobody else ever sat in it.
His long fingers brushed gently along the edges of his keyboard before he started to work. He had to erase every trace of their presence and their involvements in this case before they left the system.
It was routine and his fingers did the necessary work while his mind was wandering. Nate, he knew without checking the internal sensors, was in the command centrum, preparing for their exit from the system and Sophie wouldn't be far. She would make sure that Nate would be okay - she always did.
Eliot was in the common room. Hardison could hear him grumble quietly while he banged pots and pans around. He didn't quite know where Parker was. She had disappeared as soon as the shuttle had docked on the ship and the magnetic clamps had engaged, allowing them safe passage from the smaller to the bigger ship, but the sounds coming from the ceiling told him that she was in there somewhere. Parker knew how to move through the vents without making any sounds, but she knew that he felt better when he knew she was in there and, sometimes, she remembered to indulge him. She had been quiet when they'd come home, he realized, and he made a mental note to keep an eye on her while he deleted the grainy security feed that showed Eliot beating up five guards at the same time.
He sighed almost inaudibly as he watched the feed for a second. There was something about Eliot's gracefulness that he could watch for hours without tiring of it, and he almost felt sorry that he had to delete it.
Almost.
This would be the last thing he had to do before they could leave. He leaned back in his chair and relaxed for a moment before he reached up to his ear to activate the implanted in-ear communication device.
"Nate, we're good to go," he reported. Moments later, the entire ship vibrated gently as the engines were powered up.
There was nothing to do for Hardison right now. The engines were running smoothly and he had several programs in place to make sure to warn him in time should anything go wrong.
All he had to do was to wait and let the sounds and vibrations of the engines soothe him and hack himself into the galaxy-wide net, always on the search for new cases, new conspiracies and new challenges.
This was his favourite time, when they were still feeling the high of a job well-done and nothing urgent was going on, when he knew that his family was safe and when he could log into his game account and waste a few hours playing.
He had all evening, and there was no reason to get up, besides to get himself some orange soda from the Matter Compiler in the common room and to get some of his gummi frogs from the hiding place behind his bunk.
Everything was fine, and yet, there was a nagging feeling at the back of his mind that he couldn't shake, no matter how deeply he submersed himself into his game, but he couldn't figure out what was causing this feeling.
He just shrugged. It would come back to him eventually, he was sure of that.
~*+*~~*+*~
Hardison slowly forced his eyes open. The side of his face was smashed into his pillow and a sharp computer part was digging painfully in his side where he'd fallen asleep on it.
He groaned as he rolled over and bumped into another piece of equipment before he could press his forehead against the cool wall. If Eliot could see him right now, he would mock him mercilessly, he simply knew, but there was no low, gravelly voice threatening him for the engine parts that had found their way here, into the bunk. It was bad enough that two of the four bunks of the crew quarters had been taken over by engine parts and computer bits, making the room look like the engine room which was right next to it had organically grown and was now trying to take over the rest of the ship.
It had been late when he'd finally stumbled into bed, and he was sure that he hadn't slept that long. He was still feeling exhausted and his thoughts felt shattered and fragmented. It actually took him a moment to realize that he had been woken by a sharp, penetrating sound.
He groaned again and rolled himself over again and out of the bunk. His bare feet hit the metal floor and he bit back a sharp curse at the cold seeping up his legs before his toes found his shoes and he managed to slip into them.
The cold had one advantage: It helped his fuzzy thoughts to clear up slightly, and he figured out that the sharp sound that was still filling the room was the alarm that told him something was blocking the main ventilation shaft that ran through the ship and made sure they always and everywhere had fresh air to breathe.
Eliot was nowhere to be seen, but that wasn't much of a surprise. He'd come to bed after Hardison had, and he'd gotten up sometime in the middle of the night. Hardison hadn't heard him leave, which, he figured as he reached for his computer to run a quick diagnostics scan, wasn't all that unusual, as well. Eliot really slept only for ninety minutes a day, and Hardison had no clue what he was doing the rest of the time. He could find out without problems, but he'd chosen not to. The ship was small enough that it was almost impossible to escape from each other, and Hardison instinctively knew that, if he wanted to avoid getting stabbed by a kitchen utensil while he was sleeping, he needed to let Eliot have that little bit of privacy. Eliot was so different from the machines and computers Alec was dealing with every day, and he oftentimes simply didn't know how to act around the other man, but this was something he instinctively grasped.
He rubbed his knuckles into his eyes and yawned widely while stepping into the common area of the ship, to get some orange soda and figure out how to deal with the ventilation best.
Eliot was already there. He'd pulled his hair back into a messy ponytail and was stirring something in a bowl.
"Eggs?" Hardison asked hopefully as he slumped down into one of the chairs.
Eliot growled at him and Hardison chose to take that as an affirmative answer. He yawned again and poked at his computer again, to find out where they were and where they were headed. If Eliot wanted to be grumpy and mono-syllabic in the mornings, Hardison would not be the one to stop him.
Not today.
"What's that noise?" Eliot asked and slammed the bowl down on the table. Hardison jumped slightly, but he did his best to try and hide it.
"What noise?" he asked and made the mistake of looking up. Eliot was surprisingly close, and he was holding a long, sharp knife in his hand.
It made Hardison jump again, even if he knew perfectly well that Eliot wouldn't hurt him. He could do it, and he always threatened that he would, but Hardison knew that those were empty threats.
"That noise," Eliot said and tilted his head slightly to the side.
Hardison shrugged. "That's nothing, man," he said dismissively and turned back to his computer. "Just an alarm to let us know something is blocking the main ventilation shaft."
Eliot stared at him. Hardison knew that without looking up from his screen. He was trying to hunt down the alarm that was acting up despite the fact that he had disengaged it earlier and didn't have the time to have a staring contest with Eliot right now.
"The main ventilation shaft." Eliot's voice was even and without inflection.
"Yeah, you know." Hardison shrugged while his fingers flew over his keyboard. "The big tube that runs through our ship and makes sure we have breathable air everywhere."
"And it's blocked now."
Hardison hummed. "Yeah."
"Dammit, Hardison!" The outburst was almost expected at that point, but it still left Hardison frowning.
"What?" he said. "Don't you think I know what I'm doing, man? Don't worry, I have it all under control!" He shook his head. "I'll let Parker check it later, when she shows up. Chill, man."
Eliot's face had slowly turned a faint shade of red. "Why don't you go yourself and check it?" he asked, his words pressed slowly from in between clenched teeth.
"Hell no!" Hardison shook his head empathically. "There's things in those vents, things, I'm telling you!"
"Things." Eliot was back to repeating single words of what Hardison was telling him. In everyone else, Hardison would suspect a diminished intellect, but with Eliot, he knew that it was the other man fighting for his control.
"Yeah! I swear, I once saw a bunny up there!" Hardison shuddered theatrically. "Who else knows what's hiding in the vents?"
Eliot huffed a breath of annoyance and turned on his heel, to leave the common area. Hardison could track the sound of Eliot's heavy boots through the crew quarters and into the engine room, where they fell silent.
He grinned. He knew exactly what Eliot was looking for. He'd grown a little herb garden in the mess that was their engines, hidden from sight but not from Hardison. Hardison knew exactly what was happening in his engine room, but he didn't say anything about the sudden presence of soil and green leaves there. The engine room was the perfect environment to grow these things, apparently. There was enough light and heat, and there also was enough moisture in the air from the cooling water of the engines to keep them happy and green.
Sliding from his chair, he stood and followed Eliot.
"You know," he said and leaned against the environment controls with his arms crossed over his chest, "I know what I'm doing here. We won't suffocate."
Eliot didn't turn around to face him. He was leaning against the vents and tubes opposite his little garden - the vents and tubes that hid Nate's still, Hardison knew.
"Hey," Hardison said, suddenly uncomfortable with Eliot's stillness and the tense line of his shoulders. He took a step closer, and another one, and slowly, carefully reached out to brush his palm over the sharp line of a shoulder blade under the soft material of Eliot's shirt. "Hey, you okay?"
"Yeah." Eliot looked up slowly and Hardison grinned and took another step closer, until he was right in Eliot's personal space and Eliot needed to tilt his head up to look at him, and suddenly, a grate banged against the wall at the other end of the room.
Hardison took a step back again, regret in his eyes, before craning his neck to look over his shoulder.
"Parker?" he yelled.
"What?" came the weirdly echoing answer from somewhere above them. Seconds later, a blonde ponytail appeared from the ceiling.
"Oh, hey guys," she said brightly, but it sounded forced, Hardison thought. He frowned, but before he could open his mouth and ask her if she was okay, Eliot shifted next to him, his shoulders still tense, and Hardison gave Parker a winning smile.
"Can you do me a favor?" he asked gently and stepped closer to the vent. "Something's blocking our main ventilation vents, could you check if something's broken up there?" He was sure that everything was fine, having set up alarms for every kind of accident that could happen on board of the ship, but he still asked.
"Sure." Parker forced a grin that was so obviously fake that she could just as well have outright grimaced at him and disappeared into the vent again.
"Happy now?" he asked Eliot, but Eliot only grunted and left without a single word.
Ten minutes later a little message appeared on Hardison's screen, telling him the obstruction had been removed. Hardison nodded in satisfaction, yelled "Thank you, Parker" into the vent and went back to the common area, to finally get the orange soda he'd wanted.
He pretended not to be surprised when he sat down and an omelet was put in front of him despite their little argument, and he pretended not to be even more surprised when Eliot's fingers lingered a little bit too much while handing over the silverware. Instead, he smiled softly at the other man, allowed his fingers to be held for that little split-second Eliot allowed and then focused on the omelet in front of him and the taste of fresh herbs, something that no Matter Compiler in the entire universe could produce to this perfection.
He was almost done with his food when he realized that Parker hadn't shown up. That, he reflected while rubbing his stomach, was really unusual. Parker wasn't one to stay away from the offer of food. She might ask Eliot to put sprinkles or cheese and chocolate or something equally as disgusting on hers, but she rarely skipped a meal.
Something was definitely odd here.
~*+*~~*+*~
Alec woke briefly when a warm, comfortable weight settled against him, a curse was whispered and a piece of equipment that had found its way into the bunk was dropped onto the ground.
"That could be important," he managed to mumble into the pillow. "And breakable!"
"Not if you can sleep on it," Eliot growled and yanked at the sheets.
Alec briefly considered arguing the point, but he was too exhausted, so he let it drop without further comment. Instead, he rolled over until he was lying half on top of Eliot and inhaled the smell of his hair.
"Stop sniffing me," Eliot ordered with a quiet growl, but his arm was sneaking around Alec's waist and his hand settled low on his back, pushing up Alec's t-shirt and rubbing soothing circles into the warm skin underneath.
Alec snorted and rested his hand on Eliot's chest. His fingertips brushed over bare skin, and he hummed appreciatively.
Warm, dry lips brushed against the side of his neck, and Alec relaxed into a boneless sprawl against Eliot's side. He knew he should be dozing off again, the way he usually did after a day like this, but something kept him awake.
It wasn't much more than a little nag at the back of his mind, but it was growing stronger.
He propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at Eliot. "Hey," he mumbled and traced his fingertip down the center of Eliot's chest. "You notice anything weird about Parker lately?"
"Weird? Weird how?" Eliot twitched under his touch, but he didn't pull away.
"I don't know, man. Weird." He grimaced. "Weirder than usual."
"No." Eliot reached up and trapped Alec's fingers against his chest.
"I don't know," Alec repeated. "She's acting weird. I haven't seen her all day long. She's hiding something."
"She's Parker," Eliot said and tightened his grip on Alec's fingers for a split second. "You going to sleep now, or what?"
"Yes," Alec said petulantly and turned away from him, his forehead pressed against the cool wall next to him.
Eliot huffed behind him and yanked at the blanket, but then he fell silent and didn't try to talk to Alec again.
~*+*~~*+*~
He woke the next morning to the gentle growl of the engines, the bulkhead his cheek was pressed in vibrating gently.
"Where are we going?" he asked aloud, but he didn't expect an answer. It was obvious that he was alone and that Eliot was long gone.
At least, he thought as he unwrapped himself from the blankets, Eliot had pulled the sheets up around Alec's shoulders instead of just leaving him hanging.
He put on clean clothes, made a quick sweep of the engine room to make sure Eliot's herb garden was watered, that Nate's still was still working properly, and that the engines were running smoothly before he wandered into the common area in search of breakfast, or at least some orange soda.
He found Sophie at the table. She was reading a magazine on one of the screens and drinking a cup of tea.
"Hey, Soph." Alec tilted his head to the side and slowly unscrewed the top of the bottle. "Can I ask you something?"
Sophie looked up from her magazine. "Of course," she said and twitched her lips into a small smile.
Sophie Devereaux was not only a great grifter, but also a talented pilot. Her true passion, however, was the stage, and although she had no talent whatsoever for that kind of acting, she didn't give up on her dream. In between jobs, she left the Leverage-crew to return to the most well-known movie-producing planets in the system to further that aspect of her career. So far, she hadn’t had any success. Alec, who knew what she could do when she was grifting, was constantly amazed and shocked about how bad an actor Sophie was on the various stages of the galaxy.
"It's about Parker," he admitted in a low voice and fidgeted with his bottle. "Has she been acting...strange lately?"
Sophie thought for a moment. "You know," she started slowly, "There are days in the month when a woman needs some space, Hardison."
Hardison found himself grimacing and shaking his head, to stop Sophie from elaborating on that, but she was on a roll and it was five minutes before he could force out a thanks and flee to the safety of the engine room again.
There were things he didn't want to know about Parker or females in general.
~*+*~~*+*~
When Parker hadn't shown up for half the day, Alec dared to leave the safety of the engine room and went to the command center, where he found Nate staring into space. His hands were resting on the ship's controls, and every now and then, he would correct their course without even looking down.
"Hey, Nate." Alec leaned against the wall and unscrewed one of the panels there. He gently set it down and frowned at the chaos of wires in front of him before selecting one and tugging it carefully.
"Hardison." Nate's eyes flickered over to him. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah, yeah." Alec reached into his pocket and pulled out a screwdriver. "Just have to fix the backwards sensors, make sure we're not followed. There's a glitch." He fell silent as he worked on the wires for a few minutes, but then, he was finished with his work and turned back to Nate. "Hey, listen..."
Nate looked up.
"It's about Parker."
"What about her?"
Alec shrugged a little bit. "I don't know, man," he admitted. "She...has she been acting strange since we came back?" He didn't wait for Nate to answer. Nate had been holed up at the controls of the ship for the past few days, and if Parker hadn't shown up here, he had no clue in what way she was acting strange since their return to the ship. "Am I the only one who thinks she's acting weird?"
Nate smiled. "She's Parker," he said, his voice oddly gentle. "She's fine."
Alec rolled his eyes and put the panel back to the wall with a little more force than it was strictly necessary before leaving. Nate was, apparently, in one of his moods where he liked having secrets and being cryptic. It was bad during a job, but right now, it was downright annoying and frustrating.
He retreated back to the engine room, but he simply didn't have the patience to put together delicate pieces of computers and after a while, he carefully put them down, sighed deeply, and went to curl up in his bunk.
He was not pouting, he told himself as he pulled the blanket up to his shoulder. He was a grown man, not a teenage girl. He did not pout. No way.
The sound of steps interrupted his search for the right expression for what he was doing. They stopped right behind him. "What are you doing, Hardison?"
"Nothing." Alec turned around and frowned at Eliot unhappily. "What makes you think I'm doing something? I'm taking a break, a well-earned pause, if you want to..."
"Yeah. Scoot over," Eliot interrupted him, and before Alec could do more than open his mouth, he had taken off his boots and had stretched out next to Alec. "You all right?"
"Yeah," Alec murmured and curled himself against Eliot's side. "We should probably sleep."
"If you don't want to sleep, there's other things we can do," Eliot suggested, his lips pressed against the top of Alec's head. There was a hopeful tone to his voice, Alec noted, and he managed a small smile.
"Eliot, you horndog," he said, his frustrations forgotten for the moment, and slid his hands down Eliot's strong chest and further down, to his sides. His fingertips brushed against the edges of Eliot's waistband and slipped underneath teasingly.
Eliot chuckled warmly against the shell of his ear. His tongue curled against the whorls there before Alec turned his head and craned his neck.
Their lips connected in a kiss that quickly grew heated, and Alec felt arousal spiral through him and push all his worries about Parker's unusual behavior completely away. Eliot played his body like a fine-tuned instrument, an expensive and complicated instrument, but Eliot was a master. He was rolling his body on top of Alec's and pressing him into the thin mattress. Eliot was hot and heavy with muscles, but Alec didn't mind the weight as he ran his fingertips along the waistband of Eliot's pants, to the small of his back, where he spent several moments fingering the old scar there. There was no doubt that Eliot enjoyed the touch. He was arching his back and his breathing sped up slightly.
"Off," Alec moaned breathlessly. "Take off those pants, man, I wanna..." He stopped mid-sentence, but he didn't need to add another word. Eliot was smart enough and knew him well enough to know exactly what he wanted.
It wasn't easy to wriggle out of their clothes in the confined space of their bunk, but with some squirming, they managed. Alec pushed Eliot's pants off the edge and let them flutter to the ground without thinking about them, at least until they hit with a dull sound.
"What..." he started, but Eliot's lips were suddenly on his again, and his tongue was in Alec's mouth, thrusting in a distinctive rhythm that sent shivers down Alec's mouth and made a drop of pre-come appear at the tip of his erection.
Eliot pressed himself against Alec, pressing his own erection against Alec's. Alec's legs fell open, and the length of his hard dick pressed against his stomach. The tiny drop smeared against his own skin, and Alec reached up and squeezed Eliot's ass.
"Eliot..." he whined, and he didn't even care about it as Eliot rubbed himself against him until all he could do was squeeze his eyes shut, white spots dancing under his lids, arousal curling in a tight spiral in him. Sweat pooled at the back of his knees and the small of his back, but he barely noticed as he thrust up into Eliot's solid body, and came, hot and slick, the groan he couldn't hold back muffled by Eliot's tongue in his mouth. It was possible that he bit down, and judging by the way Eliot yanked away and growled "Dammit, Hardison!" he really did.
He couldn't find it in him to care about it as he sprawled over the space available, Eliot still half on top of him. Sweat and semen cooled on his stomach, and he was grinning widely. His entire body relaxed, his eyes slowly closed, but before he could drift off to sleep, Eliot said, his voice pitched just low enough to send a small shiver down Alec's back, "If you're that worried about Parker, why don't you go and ask her what's wrong with her?"
~*+*~~*+*~
Talking to Parker, it turned out, was not as easy as it sounded. Hardison was hanging around in the kitchen area of the ship for half a day, thinking that Parker would show up sooner or later to get some food, but all he caught was a glimpse of a blonde ponytail at the edge of his vision while Sophie was making tea and chit-chatting about clothes. He wasn't paying too much attention to her, only enough to follow her meandering thoughts about the new uniforms the Intergalactic Police, InterPOL, had introduced, while he tried to keep an eye out for Parker.
Sooner or later, he reasoned with himself, she had to turn up for food. It was a biological imperative or something. Everybody needed to eat. She had to show up here.
Half a day later, he realized that she was a cat burgler first and foremost, and if she wanted to sneak past him, she would do so. The thought made him roll his eyes and finally abandon his post at the table.
This, he decided, was asking for different measures.
He returned to the engine room and dug around his work space until he found a small, battery-powered flashlight that still worked. He also found a set of miniature garden tools, which he suspected were Eliot's, and half a bottle of moonshine, which definitely was Nate's. The diamonds hidden away at the back of his drawer, he couldn't quite figure out who had put them there. It could have been everybody. Diamonds were the best way of paying, they were untraceable and they could be sold and bought on every planet for every kind of currency. They weren't just a girl's best friend, and oftentimes, they weren't just used to purchase parts for the ship they all called home, but they also made good conductors. If Parker knew how many diamonds were used to keep their engines running, she would probably try to steal some of them.
The thought made Alec grimace, and he chose not to follow that particular line of thinking any longer. Parker knew that they needed the engines to survive. She would not endanger all their lives.
Muttering a curse which would have made Nana wash out his mouth with soap Alec carefully eased one of the access panels open and gripped the edge tightly. The vents, he knew were big enough to allow him to crawl through them, but they always made him feel claustrophobic. This was so much more Parker's environment, and he was really thankful that she had so easily agreed to do as much of the work that needed to be done in these vents as she could.
Everything to keep him out of them, he now thought as he pulled himself up and into the dark tunnel.
TBC in part 2
Author:
kathierif_ficFandom: Leverage
Word Count: 10,022
Pairing: Eliot Spencer/Alec Hardison
Rating: FRM
Warnings: none
Summary: A normal week on the good starship Leverage: the crew has just finished a job and all should be well, if Parker wasn’t acting strange - stranger than usual. Hardison investigates, but he did not expect what he found out (oh, hell, no.)
Disclaimers: Leverage is not mine. Used without permission, no profit made.
Author’s Notes: Big fat thank you to
ginny305 for the hunt on commas and awesome betaing. Also thanks to teaotter for the Mix (found here) and deadflowers5 for the artwork, which also can be found in deadflowers5 post here! Please let both of them know what a great job they did!Title is a line from Major Tom, by David Bowie.
This fic was written for
spacebigbang.
Nate Ford folded his arms across his chest while staring at the scene in front of him. He couldn't help but feel proud of what he and his team had achieved that day. Because of them, a family was reunited and a big corperation that had made its business out of exploiting innocent farmers had been handed a hard blow.
He felt Sophie step up to him and stop by his elbow, her presence filling his consciousness before he even thought about turning to face her. He didn't need to. He knew that she was wearing the same expression of grim satisfaction that he could feel on his own face.
Soft rustling by his other elbow meant that Eliot was back. This time Nate risked a quick glance. Eliot was rubbing his hand with a small grimace that he forced away as soon as he realized that someone was looking at him. Parker appeared at Eliot's other side, her body hunched over defensively and her arms wrapped around herself.
A glance in the other direction, to make sure Hardison was there as well, and Nate exhaled softly.
"Well," he said, his voice quiet and filled with triumph, "let's go home."
~*+*~
~*+*~Nate was the first to turn away from the family, but his team quickly followed him back to where they had parked the shuttle, hidden from sight.
Hardison pressed his palm flat against the access panel and waited while the computer scanned his prints and biological data.
"Can I fly?" Parker asked hopefully from behind him. Hardison hunched up his shoulders slightly, his thoughts racing, but he couldn't come up with a good excuse why he wouldn't let Parker take control of his baby, not before Eliot growled, "Hell, no. You're not flying this thing."
"Why not?" Parker asked, but she didn't wait for an answer as the lock disengaged and the doors opened. She climbed into the back of the shuttle and pulled her feet up before wrapping her arms around her knees and pillowing her chin on them.
Eliot rolled his eyes and took the seat next to her. Nate joined them, letting Sophie take the seat in front with the view.
"It's not fair," Parker mumbled into her knees, but she there was no heat in her words, and neither Eliot nor Nate paid special attention to her.
~*+*~
~*+*~The Leverage was a small ship, but it was well-equipped and filled with the latest and best of technology. Hardison had spent weeks making sure she was the best she could be and setting foot on the ship was by now a little bit like stepping into Nana's kitchen. He knew his way around the ship with his eyes closed and while half-asleep, and he knew every nook and cranny like the back of his hand. He'd programmed the main systems and had outfit the engines to get maximum performance out of them and make sure they could reach each and every part of the galaxy within the shortest amount of time possible and, even more important, to make sure they could leave just as fast if the need arose.
The sound of Eliot’s heavy boots on the metal floorplates was as familiar as the creaks and groans of the ceiling when Parker pulled herself through the ventilation shafts and vents and the whine of the engines when the Leverage went at high-speed.
Hardison found himself grinning as he ran his fingertips along the wall of the engine room. This was his domain, the part of the ship where he spent most of his time.
Sophie was an extraordinary pilot, as was Eliot, and Nate was capable of plotting a course to their next destination almost as quick as the navigation computer - almost. But the engines and computers were Hardison's responsibility, and it was his pride and joy to keep the ship running as smoothly as possible.
The Leverage was a cylindric ship, looking like an old-fashioned cigar, with the command centrum at the very tip and the engine room at the other end. The red glow of the engines' exhausts only enhanced the similarity to a cigar. Hardison had painted with painstaking care the name of the ship on the hull, even when he was pretty sure that nobody would ever come close enough to read it. He'd done it more as a symbolic gesture, and none of Eliot's sneers had stopped him from touching up on the writing every time they actually brought the Leverage down to a planet. Between the command centrum and the engine room, there were the common room and the crew quarters. It was a little cramped, but it was enough for the five of them.
It was home for all of them.
Hardison fell into his work chair. He'd built it himself out of scrapped parts of the engine, and he was careful about making sure that nobody else ever sat in it.
His long fingers brushed gently along the edges of his keyboard before he started to work. He had to erase every trace of their presence and their involvements in this case before they left the system.
It was routine and his fingers did the necessary work while his mind was wandering. Nate, he knew without checking the internal sensors, was in the command centrum, preparing for their exit from the system and Sophie wouldn't be far. She would make sure that Nate would be okay - she always did.
Eliot was in the common room. Hardison could hear him grumble quietly while he banged pots and pans around. He didn't quite know where Parker was. She had disappeared as soon as the shuttle had docked on the ship and the magnetic clamps had engaged, allowing them safe passage from the smaller to the bigger ship, but the sounds coming from the ceiling told him that she was in there somewhere. Parker knew how to move through the vents without making any sounds, but she knew that he felt better when he knew she was in there and, sometimes, she remembered to indulge him. She had been quiet when they'd come home, he realized, and he made a mental note to keep an eye on her while he deleted the grainy security feed that showed Eliot beating up five guards at the same time.
He sighed almost inaudibly as he watched the feed for a second. There was something about Eliot's gracefulness that he could watch for hours without tiring of it, and he almost felt sorry that he had to delete it.
Almost.
This would be the last thing he had to do before they could leave. He leaned back in his chair and relaxed for a moment before he reached up to his ear to activate the implanted in-ear communication device.
"Nate, we're good to go," he reported. Moments later, the entire ship vibrated gently as the engines were powered up.
There was nothing to do for Hardison right now. The engines were running smoothly and he had several programs in place to make sure to warn him in time should anything go wrong.
All he had to do was to wait and let the sounds and vibrations of the engines soothe him and hack himself into the galaxy-wide net, always on the search for new cases, new conspiracies and new challenges.
This was his favourite time, when they were still feeling the high of a job well-done and nothing urgent was going on, when he knew that his family was safe and when he could log into his game account and waste a few hours playing.
He had all evening, and there was no reason to get up, besides to get himself some orange soda from the Matter Compiler in the common room and to get some of his gummi frogs from the hiding place behind his bunk.
Everything was fine, and yet, there was a nagging feeling at the back of his mind that he couldn't shake, no matter how deeply he submersed himself into his game, but he couldn't figure out what was causing this feeling.
He just shrugged. It would come back to him eventually, he was sure of that.
~*+*~
~*+*~Hardison slowly forced his eyes open. The side of his face was smashed into his pillow and a sharp computer part was digging painfully in his side where he'd fallen asleep on it.
He groaned as he rolled over and bumped into another piece of equipment before he could press his forehead against the cool wall. If Eliot could see him right now, he would mock him mercilessly, he simply knew, but there was no low, gravelly voice threatening him for the engine parts that had found their way here, into the bunk. It was bad enough that two of the four bunks of the crew quarters had been taken over by engine parts and computer bits, making the room look like the engine room which was right next to it had organically grown and was now trying to take over the rest of the ship.
It had been late when he'd finally stumbled into bed, and he was sure that he hadn't slept that long. He was still feeling exhausted and his thoughts felt shattered and fragmented. It actually took him a moment to realize that he had been woken by a sharp, penetrating sound.
He groaned again and rolled himself over again and out of the bunk. His bare feet hit the metal floor and he bit back a sharp curse at the cold seeping up his legs before his toes found his shoes and he managed to slip into them.
The cold had one advantage: It helped his fuzzy thoughts to clear up slightly, and he figured out that the sharp sound that was still filling the room was the alarm that told him something was blocking the main ventilation shaft that ran through the ship and made sure they always and everywhere had fresh air to breathe.
Eliot was nowhere to be seen, but that wasn't much of a surprise. He'd come to bed after Hardison had, and he'd gotten up sometime in the middle of the night. Hardison hadn't heard him leave, which, he figured as he reached for his computer to run a quick diagnostics scan, wasn't all that unusual, as well. Eliot really slept only for ninety minutes a day, and Hardison had no clue what he was doing the rest of the time. He could find out without problems, but he'd chosen not to. The ship was small enough that it was almost impossible to escape from each other, and Hardison instinctively knew that, if he wanted to avoid getting stabbed by a kitchen utensil while he was sleeping, he needed to let Eliot have that little bit of privacy. Eliot was so different from the machines and computers Alec was dealing with every day, and he oftentimes simply didn't know how to act around the other man, but this was something he instinctively grasped.
He rubbed his knuckles into his eyes and yawned widely while stepping into the common area of the ship, to get some orange soda and figure out how to deal with the ventilation best.
Eliot was already there. He'd pulled his hair back into a messy ponytail and was stirring something in a bowl.
"Eggs?" Hardison asked hopefully as he slumped down into one of the chairs.
Eliot growled at him and Hardison chose to take that as an affirmative answer. He yawned again and poked at his computer again, to find out where they were and where they were headed. If Eliot wanted to be grumpy and mono-syllabic in the mornings, Hardison would not be the one to stop him.
Not today.
"What's that noise?" Eliot asked and slammed the bowl down on the table. Hardison jumped slightly, but he did his best to try and hide it.
"What noise?" he asked and made the mistake of looking up. Eliot was surprisingly close, and he was holding a long, sharp knife in his hand.
It made Hardison jump again, even if he knew perfectly well that Eliot wouldn't hurt him. He could do it, and he always threatened that he would, but Hardison knew that those were empty threats.
"That noise," Eliot said and tilted his head slightly to the side.
Hardison shrugged. "That's nothing, man," he said dismissively and turned back to his computer. "Just an alarm to let us know something is blocking the main ventilation shaft."
Eliot stared at him. Hardison knew that without looking up from his screen. He was trying to hunt down the alarm that was acting up despite the fact that he had disengaged it earlier and didn't have the time to have a staring contest with Eliot right now.
"The main ventilation shaft." Eliot's voice was even and without inflection.
"Yeah, you know." Hardison shrugged while his fingers flew over his keyboard. "The big tube that runs through our ship and makes sure we have breathable air everywhere."
"And it's blocked now."
Hardison hummed. "Yeah."
"Dammit, Hardison!" The outburst was almost expected at that point, but it still left Hardison frowning.
"What?" he said. "Don't you think I know what I'm doing, man? Don't worry, I have it all under control!" He shook his head. "I'll let Parker check it later, when she shows up. Chill, man."
Eliot's face had slowly turned a faint shade of red. "Why don't you go yourself and check it?" he asked, his words pressed slowly from in between clenched teeth.
"Hell no!" Hardison shook his head empathically. "There's things in those vents, things, I'm telling you!"
"Things." Eliot was back to repeating single words of what Hardison was telling him. In everyone else, Hardison would suspect a diminished intellect, but with Eliot, he knew that it was the other man fighting for his control.
"Yeah! I swear, I once saw a bunny up there!" Hardison shuddered theatrically. "Who else knows what's hiding in the vents?"
Eliot huffed a breath of annoyance and turned on his heel, to leave the common area. Hardison could track the sound of Eliot's heavy boots through the crew quarters and into the engine room, where they fell silent.
He grinned. He knew exactly what Eliot was looking for. He'd grown a little herb garden in the mess that was their engines, hidden from sight but not from Hardison. Hardison knew exactly what was happening in his engine room, but he didn't say anything about the sudden presence of soil and green leaves there. The engine room was the perfect environment to grow these things, apparently. There was enough light and heat, and there also was enough moisture in the air from the cooling water of the engines to keep them happy and green.
Sliding from his chair, he stood and followed Eliot.
"You know," he said and leaned against the environment controls with his arms crossed over his chest, "I know what I'm doing here. We won't suffocate."
Eliot didn't turn around to face him. He was leaning against the vents and tubes opposite his little garden - the vents and tubes that hid Nate's still, Hardison knew.
"Hey," Hardison said, suddenly uncomfortable with Eliot's stillness and the tense line of his shoulders. He took a step closer, and another one, and slowly, carefully reached out to brush his palm over the sharp line of a shoulder blade under the soft material of Eliot's shirt. "Hey, you okay?"
"Yeah." Eliot looked up slowly and Hardison grinned and took another step closer, until he was right in Eliot's personal space and Eliot needed to tilt his head up to look at him, and suddenly, a grate banged against the wall at the other end of the room.
Hardison took a step back again, regret in his eyes, before craning his neck to look over his shoulder.
"Parker?" he yelled.
"What?" came the weirdly echoing answer from somewhere above them. Seconds later, a blonde ponytail appeared from the ceiling.
"Oh, hey guys," she said brightly, but it sounded forced, Hardison thought. He frowned, but before he could open his mouth and ask her if she was okay, Eliot shifted next to him, his shoulders still tense, and Hardison gave Parker a winning smile.
"Can you do me a favor?" he asked gently and stepped closer to the vent. "Something's blocking our main ventilation vents, could you check if something's broken up there?" He was sure that everything was fine, having set up alarms for every kind of accident that could happen on board of the ship, but he still asked.
"Sure." Parker forced a grin that was so obviously fake that she could just as well have outright grimaced at him and disappeared into the vent again.
"Happy now?" he asked Eliot, but Eliot only grunted and left without a single word.
Ten minutes later a little message appeared on Hardison's screen, telling him the obstruction had been removed. Hardison nodded in satisfaction, yelled "Thank you, Parker" into the vent and went back to the common area, to finally get the orange soda he'd wanted.
He pretended not to be surprised when he sat down and an omelet was put in front of him despite their little argument, and he pretended not to be even more surprised when Eliot's fingers lingered a little bit too much while handing over the silverware. Instead, he smiled softly at the other man, allowed his fingers to be held for that little split-second Eliot allowed and then focused on the omelet in front of him and the taste of fresh herbs, something that no Matter Compiler in the entire universe could produce to this perfection.
He was almost done with his food when he realized that Parker hadn't shown up. That, he reflected while rubbing his stomach, was really unusual. Parker wasn't one to stay away from the offer of food. She might ask Eliot to put sprinkles or cheese and chocolate or something equally as disgusting on hers, but she rarely skipped a meal.
Something was definitely odd here.
~*+*~
~*+*~Alec woke briefly when a warm, comfortable weight settled against him, a curse was whispered and a piece of equipment that had found its way into the bunk was dropped onto the ground.
"That could be important," he managed to mumble into the pillow. "And breakable!"
"Not if you can sleep on it," Eliot growled and yanked at the sheets.
Alec briefly considered arguing the point, but he was too exhausted, so he let it drop without further comment. Instead, he rolled over until he was lying half on top of Eliot and inhaled the smell of his hair.
"Stop sniffing me," Eliot ordered with a quiet growl, but his arm was sneaking around Alec's waist and his hand settled low on his back, pushing up Alec's t-shirt and rubbing soothing circles into the warm skin underneath.
Alec snorted and rested his hand on Eliot's chest. His fingertips brushed over bare skin, and he hummed appreciatively.
Warm, dry lips brushed against the side of his neck, and Alec relaxed into a boneless sprawl against Eliot's side. He knew he should be dozing off again, the way he usually did after a day like this, but something kept him awake.
It wasn't much more than a little nag at the back of his mind, but it was growing stronger.
He propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at Eliot. "Hey," he mumbled and traced his fingertip down the center of Eliot's chest. "You notice anything weird about Parker lately?"
"Weird? Weird how?" Eliot twitched under his touch, but he didn't pull away.
"I don't know, man. Weird." He grimaced. "Weirder than usual."
"No." Eliot reached up and trapped Alec's fingers against his chest.
"I don't know," Alec repeated. "She's acting weird. I haven't seen her all day long. She's hiding something."
"She's Parker," Eliot said and tightened his grip on Alec's fingers for a split second. "You going to sleep now, or what?"
"Yes," Alec said petulantly and turned away from him, his forehead pressed against the cool wall next to him.
Eliot huffed behind him and yanked at the blanket, but then he fell silent and didn't try to talk to Alec again.
~*+*~
~*+*~He woke the next morning to the gentle growl of the engines, the bulkhead his cheek was pressed in vibrating gently.
"Where are we going?" he asked aloud, but he didn't expect an answer. It was obvious that he was alone and that Eliot was long gone.
At least, he thought as he unwrapped himself from the blankets, Eliot had pulled the sheets up around Alec's shoulders instead of just leaving him hanging.
He put on clean clothes, made a quick sweep of the engine room to make sure Eliot's herb garden was watered, that Nate's still was still working properly, and that the engines were running smoothly before he wandered into the common area in search of breakfast, or at least some orange soda.
He found Sophie at the table. She was reading a magazine on one of the screens and drinking a cup of tea.
"Hey, Soph." Alec tilted his head to the side and slowly unscrewed the top of the bottle. "Can I ask you something?"
Sophie looked up from her magazine. "Of course," she said and twitched her lips into a small smile.
Sophie Devereaux was not only a great grifter, but also a talented pilot. Her true passion, however, was the stage, and although she had no talent whatsoever for that kind of acting, she didn't give up on her dream. In between jobs, she left the Leverage-crew to return to the most well-known movie-producing planets in the system to further that aspect of her career. So far, she hadn’t had any success. Alec, who knew what she could do when she was grifting, was constantly amazed and shocked about how bad an actor Sophie was on the various stages of the galaxy.
"It's about Parker," he admitted in a low voice and fidgeted with his bottle. "Has she been acting...strange lately?"
Sophie thought for a moment. "You know," she started slowly, "There are days in the month when a woman needs some space, Hardison."
Hardison found himself grimacing and shaking his head, to stop Sophie from elaborating on that, but she was on a roll and it was five minutes before he could force out a thanks and flee to the safety of the engine room again.
There were things he didn't want to know about Parker or females in general.
~*+*~
~*+*~When Parker hadn't shown up for half the day, Alec dared to leave the safety of the engine room and went to the command center, where he found Nate staring into space. His hands were resting on the ship's controls, and every now and then, he would correct their course without even looking down.
"Hey, Nate." Alec leaned against the wall and unscrewed one of the panels there. He gently set it down and frowned at the chaos of wires in front of him before selecting one and tugging it carefully.
"Hardison." Nate's eyes flickered over to him. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah, yeah." Alec reached into his pocket and pulled out a screwdriver. "Just have to fix the backwards sensors, make sure we're not followed. There's a glitch." He fell silent as he worked on the wires for a few minutes, but then, he was finished with his work and turned back to Nate. "Hey, listen..."
Nate looked up.
"It's about Parker."
"What about her?"
Alec shrugged a little bit. "I don't know, man," he admitted. "She...has she been acting strange since we came back?" He didn't wait for Nate to answer. Nate had been holed up at the controls of the ship for the past few days, and if Parker hadn't shown up here, he had no clue in what way she was acting strange since their return to the ship. "Am I the only one who thinks she's acting weird?"
Nate smiled. "She's Parker," he said, his voice oddly gentle. "She's fine."
Alec rolled his eyes and put the panel back to the wall with a little more force than it was strictly necessary before leaving. Nate was, apparently, in one of his moods where he liked having secrets and being cryptic. It was bad during a job, but right now, it was downright annoying and frustrating.
He retreated back to the engine room, but he simply didn't have the patience to put together delicate pieces of computers and after a while, he carefully put them down, sighed deeply, and went to curl up in his bunk.
He was not pouting, he told himself as he pulled the blanket up to his shoulder. He was a grown man, not a teenage girl. He did not pout. No way.
The sound of steps interrupted his search for the right expression for what he was doing. They stopped right behind him. "What are you doing, Hardison?"
"Nothing." Alec turned around and frowned at Eliot unhappily. "What makes you think I'm doing something? I'm taking a break, a well-earned pause, if you want to..."
"Yeah. Scoot over," Eliot interrupted him, and before Alec could do more than open his mouth, he had taken off his boots and had stretched out next to Alec. "You all right?"
"Yeah," Alec murmured and curled himself against Eliot's side. "We should probably sleep."
"If you don't want to sleep, there's other things we can do," Eliot suggested, his lips pressed against the top of Alec's head. There was a hopeful tone to his voice, Alec noted, and he managed a small smile.
"Eliot, you horndog," he said, his frustrations forgotten for the moment, and slid his hands down Eliot's strong chest and further down, to his sides. His fingertips brushed against the edges of Eliot's waistband and slipped underneath teasingly.
Eliot chuckled warmly against the shell of his ear. His tongue curled against the whorls there before Alec turned his head and craned his neck.
Their lips connected in a kiss that quickly grew heated, and Alec felt arousal spiral through him and push all his worries about Parker's unusual behavior completely away. Eliot played his body like a fine-tuned instrument, an expensive and complicated instrument, but Eliot was a master. He was rolling his body on top of Alec's and pressing him into the thin mattress. Eliot was hot and heavy with muscles, but Alec didn't mind the weight as he ran his fingertips along the waistband of Eliot's pants, to the small of his back, where he spent several moments fingering the old scar there. There was no doubt that Eliot enjoyed the touch. He was arching his back and his breathing sped up slightly.
"Off," Alec moaned breathlessly. "Take off those pants, man, I wanna..." He stopped mid-sentence, but he didn't need to add another word. Eliot was smart enough and knew him well enough to know exactly what he wanted.
It wasn't easy to wriggle out of their clothes in the confined space of their bunk, but with some squirming, they managed. Alec pushed Eliot's pants off the edge and let them flutter to the ground without thinking about them, at least until they hit with a dull sound.
"What..." he started, but Eliot's lips were suddenly on his again, and his tongue was in Alec's mouth, thrusting in a distinctive rhythm that sent shivers down Alec's mouth and made a drop of pre-come appear at the tip of his erection.
Eliot pressed himself against Alec, pressing his own erection against Alec's. Alec's legs fell open, and the length of his hard dick pressed against his stomach. The tiny drop smeared against his own skin, and Alec reached up and squeezed Eliot's ass.
"Eliot..." he whined, and he didn't even care about it as Eliot rubbed himself against him until all he could do was squeeze his eyes shut, white spots dancing under his lids, arousal curling in a tight spiral in him. Sweat pooled at the back of his knees and the small of his back, but he barely noticed as he thrust up into Eliot's solid body, and came, hot and slick, the groan he couldn't hold back muffled by Eliot's tongue in his mouth. It was possible that he bit down, and judging by the way Eliot yanked away and growled "Dammit, Hardison!" he really did.
He couldn't find it in him to care about it as he sprawled over the space available, Eliot still half on top of him. Sweat and semen cooled on his stomach, and he was grinning widely. His entire body relaxed, his eyes slowly closed, but before he could drift off to sleep, Eliot said, his voice pitched just low enough to send a small shiver down Alec's back, "If you're that worried about Parker, why don't you go and ask her what's wrong with her?"
~*+*~
~*+*~Talking to Parker, it turned out, was not as easy as it sounded. Hardison was hanging around in the kitchen area of the ship for half a day, thinking that Parker would show up sooner or later to get some food, but all he caught was a glimpse of a blonde ponytail at the edge of his vision while Sophie was making tea and chit-chatting about clothes. He wasn't paying too much attention to her, only enough to follow her meandering thoughts about the new uniforms the Intergalactic Police, InterPOL, had introduced, while he tried to keep an eye out for Parker.
Sooner or later, he reasoned with himself, she had to turn up for food. It was a biological imperative or something. Everybody needed to eat. She had to show up here.
Half a day later, he realized that she was a cat burgler first and foremost, and if she wanted to sneak past him, she would do so. The thought made him roll his eyes and finally abandon his post at the table.
This, he decided, was asking for different measures.
He returned to the engine room and dug around his work space until he found a small, battery-powered flashlight that still worked. He also found a set of miniature garden tools, which he suspected were Eliot's, and half a bottle of moonshine, which definitely was Nate's. The diamonds hidden away at the back of his drawer, he couldn't quite figure out who had put them there. It could have been everybody. Diamonds were the best way of paying, they were untraceable and they could be sold and bought on every planet for every kind of currency. They weren't just a girl's best friend, and oftentimes, they weren't just used to purchase parts for the ship they all called home, but they also made good conductors. If Parker knew how many diamonds were used to keep their engines running, she would probably try to steal some of them.
The thought made Alec grimace, and he chose not to follow that particular line of thinking any longer. Parker knew that they needed the engines to survive. She would not endanger all their lives.
Muttering a curse which would have made Nana wash out his mouth with soap Alec carefully eased one of the access panels open and gripped the edge tightly. The vents, he knew were big enough to allow him to crawl through them, but they always made him feel claustrophobic. This was so much more Parker's environment, and he was really thankful that she had so easily agreed to do as much of the work that needed to be done in these vents as she could.
Everything to keep him out of them, he now thought as he pulled himself up and into the dark tunnel.
TBC in part 2