There was a rage within him from the day he was born, like something not quite human clawing at him from the inside, fighting to make its way out. He was fearsome and half wild and protective of his family like you only saw from animals. He was suspended from school nearly as much as he was there, every suspension was for fighting.
When he was seven, his daddy decided that there had to be some sort of reign on that mighty temper, so he took his little boy down to the town’s only Karate studio. There, Eliot learned some control, and he learned how to make sure he didn’t get hurt in fights. It was applauded that he was fast and strong, and for a time, that thing that was forever trying to claw out, fell silent.
Then, when he was ten and a brown belt, he came into the dojo to find men with guns taking money from the register, and holding Master Chen’s daughter with a gun to her head. The rage, the feral call of that thing inside, drowned out everything else. There was no fear, not that the men were so big, not that their fingers were on their triggers, not that he could die; all that mattered was defending his sanctuary of violence and the girl who laughed so easily. Inside of two minutes three grown men were crippled for life and the Chens were all safe.
It was in that moment, when he stood a victorious child over those unconscious men, when he looked up and saw the fear in Master Chen’s eyes, when he finally understood that this thing inside of him wasn’t normal. That he was a monster.
As a grown man, when he looks back at that day, he still feels the thrill of the fight and the win, but it’s so eclipsed by that look of fear that it would have been better never to have happened. He has finally reigned himself in, and the monster inside is content with what he does as a hitter and a retrieval specialist. He spent years gaining that control, fighting for it every day.
But now, as he teaches Parker how to bring down someone twice her size – and honestly, that’s a lot of people – and Sophie looks up from her shoe catalogue and smiles, and Hardison clicks his keyboard and tosses out teasing jibes from time to time, and Nate fusses into his coffee mug that if anyone bleeds on his floor he’s going to make that smartass super of his work overnight to fix it; now the control isn’t just a small tether, now it’s real and it’s strong. Because these people, his new family, don’t only accept the man, they accept the monster too.
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When he was seven, his daddy decided that there had to be some sort of reign on that mighty temper, so he took his little boy down to the town’s only Karate studio. There, Eliot learned some control, and he learned how to make sure he didn’t get hurt in fights. It was applauded that he was fast and strong, and for a time, that thing that was forever trying to claw out, fell silent.
Then, when he was ten and a brown belt, he came into the dojo to find men with guns taking money from the register, and holding Master Chen’s daughter with a gun to her head. The rage, the feral call of that thing inside, drowned out everything else. There was no fear, not that the men were so big, not that their fingers were on their triggers, not that he could die; all that mattered was defending his sanctuary of violence and the girl who laughed so easily. Inside of two minutes three grown men were crippled for life and the Chens were all safe.
It was in that moment, when he stood a victorious child over those unconscious men, when he looked up and saw the fear in Master Chen’s eyes, when he finally understood that this thing inside of him wasn’t normal. That he was a monster.
As a grown man, when he looks back at that day, he still feels the thrill of the fight and the win, but it’s so eclipsed by that look of fear that it would have been better never to have happened. He has finally reigned himself in, and the monster inside is content with what he does as a hitter and a retrieval specialist. He spent years gaining that control, fighting for it every day.
But now, as he teaches Parker how to bring down someone twice her size – and honestly, that’s a lot of people – and Sophie looks up from her shoe catalogue and smiles, and Hardison clicks his keyboard and tosses out teasing jibes from time to time, and Nate fusses into his coffee mug that if anyone bleeds on his floor he’s going to make that smartass super of his work overnight to fix it; now the control isn’t just a small tether, now it’s real and it’s strong. Because these people, his new family, don’t only accept the man, they accept the monster too.