Chapter Text
He needs to feel safe
Safety for Eliot means a secure location, knowing the people around him, knowing his exits, knowing he can handle whatever might come up. Safety is knowing that the voice in his ear values him, and that when he puts his body between others and danger, he is not being spent needlessly. Safety is knowing exactly what's happened to his own food. It's also wearing his boots, and indoors having warm and soft floors. Never, ever bare feet on cold concrete.
He needs everybody else to feel safe too
Alec is pretty sure Eliot was never much of a lone wolf. Was only on his own because there wasn't he wanted close who was safe being there. Now he has them, he's always looking out for them, checking 'round corners, hitting the brakes when Parker and Alec get a little reckless. It took a long time for Alec to trust that Eliot really wanted to be part of this... whatever the three of them have. The man isn't the most forthcoming about his feelings. But Alec ain't no fool, and after the time Eliot brought over homegrown tomatoes for the pasta sauce he ended up making, he figures not everything needs saying.
He hates it when any of the team are cold.
Nate likes it to be chilly in the apartment that's now their headquarters, and since he lives there, he gets to set the thermostat. After one planning session that ran into the night, several fleece blankets have appeared around the couches. Parker hadn't thought about it, but she snuggles into the bright red one, pulls her toes up under it, and leans against Eliot's side, humming to herself.
He likes it when they sing together
Even though Alec can't carry a tune in a bucket, and Parker throws her whole body into the music but doesn't always hit all the notes, Eliot likes it when they sing with him. He didn't used to sing. The most he did was hum, in a rare moment of relaxation. But since the studio job where they really heard his voice, which coincidentally was around the time the three of them got stuck in a motel room for a whole day and Parker had that gleam in her eyes and things just started happening .. Since then he sings a little more often. In the car, sometimes - and often when he's cooking. And when Parker goes "Ohhh, love this one!" and flings her whole self into whatever he's been singing under his breath, or when Alec makes up silly lyrics to whatever Eliot's strumming on his guitar, there's a smile that hasn't ever been there before.
He won't take pills unless he's seen them in their original packaging.
For the longest time Alec thought he was just opposed against painkillers, because he would never accept any when offered. Thought it was something about trust, about being fuzzy around the edges in the presence of other people. Even if those people were the team. Then one time there'd been a box of ibuprofen pills on the table and a sleeping Eliot on the couch, a hot water bottle in the small of his back. Alec had asked, later. The answer had been a grumbled mix of not liking the artificial sleepiness of some medication and reacting badly to some of them, with an unspoken echo of needing to know what was about to happen to him , and they could understand that. The one time that Nate had suggested slipping something into his orange juice, Parker had made sure, in her typical way, that that was not something that would be considered an option ever again.
He needs light at night
It's one of those things they would never have noticed if they hadn't started sharing rooms when the team stays in a motel. At his own place the streetlights shine through the curtains enough to provide a glow to see by. That first time in a motel, he'd grumbled at Parker, who kept turning off the bedside light which he'd kept on a dimmer. Finally, when she wouldn't stop asking why, Eliot had sighed and told them that he woke up disoriented sometimes, and needed to be able to see around him. There'd been something of embarrassment in his voice, but before he'd finished explaining, Parker had crawled out from her spot in the middle of the bed and turned on the bathroom light, leaving the door at a crack.
He's a snuggler
Well who'da thunk it? The man was always so gruff and tense and generally discouraged touching of any kind. Alec remembered very well how uncomfortable his joking attempt at 'hugging it out' had made Eliot, and how delighted he'd been at the time by having found a way to make the other man cringe.
Now the hitter was the one to reach out and hold. First it had been mostly toward Parker, who had inexplicitly developed a similar need for touch, but it hadn't been long before Alec had been drawn into those moments by a strong arm and it was the three of them, holding on hard. It usually goes on until Parker says 'squish!' and the tension drains and they're a lazy tangle of limbs, nobody in a hurry to let go.
He's an insomniac
Those 90 minutes aren't by choice. That he is an uneasy sleeper at best hadn't been a surprise to either of them, but that the snatches of sleep caught between hours of spoken books and meditation really had been all he got... that explained a few things. Like the occasional extra-gruffness after a particularly crappy night. And why he only drinks coffee in the morning, the rest of the day it's herbal tea. They each try in their own way to help him sleep, and failing that, at least relax.
Alec is good with his hands, the other two agree, and he occasionally demonstrates that on Eliot's back and shoulders until the man is asleep, or at least mumbling about his bones being jelly.
Parker has offered to read the phone directory out loud for him, an offer she's not been taken up on, but she has also found him audio tracks for guided meditation, stuff that is meant to lead you into lucid dreaming. Eliot had been weirded out, but she'd bugged him until he tried it, and to his surprise had managed some sleep without his usual restless dreams.
He really should be wearing his glasses
He likes to uses glasses as props, but that isn't the only reason he wears them. Parker has stolen his wire-rimmed pair once - off his face without him realising, which she's rather proud of - and noticed that they are prescription. Not very strong, but enough that he really should wear them more often during briefings. He has contacts too, but he's grumbled about how they make his eyes feel, and he usually goes without. Parker and Alec know he gets headaches sometimes that they ascribe to his refusal to wear his glasses. Sure, during jobs that have a chance of fighting they are not practical. But outside of that?
It isn't completely altruistic. They have agreed between them that he looks criminally hot with the glasses, and so by unspoken agreement when he wears them they pounce him whenever the opportunity arises, and sometimes when it doesn't but there is a sudden agreement that he needs to be in the bedroom with them right now . He doesn't seem to object, and after a few variations on 'keep the glasses on' he seems to be wearing them a little more often. Well, positive reinforcement is the key to building good habits, right?
When he walks into a horse stable it's a little like coming home
They've both seen it, the way he takes a deep breath when he walks into a horse stable. The way his shoulders ease and his forehead relaxes fractionally. His past is still a country with well-guarded borders, but they know that he worked in a stable as a teen, and then again after he got out of the military. They know that to him, the horses and hay and - Alec can't leave it out - the horse shit, smell like home.
Alec has done some background reading about horses and riding, ostensibly for jobs in the future but most just so that he understands what Eliot says in the rare moments he shares something about his previous life. Parker, more hands on, has taken a few lessons. She wanted to prove to herself that horses aren't murderous, and she wanted to understand the soft look Eliot gets whenever he handles a horse, the calm in his eyes, the gentleness in his hands. And once or twice, when the riding stopped being two creatures at cross-purposes and there was a sudden sense of flow , of a wave rolling, of a kite soaring, she'd understood.
They don't share his passion, and horse shit still smells like horse shit, but when he mentions, carefully casual, that he's going to help out for a week on the ranch where he used to work, they wordlessly back their bags. Eliot smiles, and takes them home.