A/N: I've been wanting to do a 'drabble/oneshot' series for this fandom for a while, finally decided to start posting (cuz I don't have enough random fics in the works). I'll be using lines from the show as inspiration, but maybe some songs or prompts from you guys too if you want. They will, more than likely, all be eliotcentric (SURPRISE! haha) and unbetad, because I already have enough stuff to keep two betas busy and there's still more pouring out of me. I don't know how often I'll be updating and I don't know how long it'll be. Mostly just a ways for me to get my review fix when my beta's are busy. lol. Enjoy! -pj
Disclaimer: Not mine. Never will be. S'okay, they're probably better off in Dean Devlin's hands anyway.
Title: More than That
Word Count: 359
Genre: General
Rating: K
Line/Prompt: "What? You think all I can do is bust heads?" - Eliot, The Wedding Job
Eliot knows most people only see the muscle and the menace and think that's all there is to him. It used to bother him, but he quickly started to see the misconception as the advantage it was learned to deal with the 'brawn and no brains' jokes, taking consolation in the fact that he could make them eat those words in a moment if he wanted.
For the record, he went to college. Only a year and in some white collar discipline he would never have gone through with, but it was Berkley if that means anything. He spent a year backpacking across Europe, calling his mother and sister back home from payphones in London and friendly farmhouses in Tuscany. Exchanging soft 'I love you's and quiet jokes and promising to break any boy's neck who had the misfortune of hurting his baby sister, he felt the burn of 'homesick' for the first time and cried like he hadn't since his father died. He met a chef in Paris who had such a way with knives that Eliot was entranced and spent a year studying under him. Learning to create a meal the way some people created a painted masterpiece.
He grew up breaking horses and nursed a newborn foul through its first few months of life when he was sixteen with a bottle and a soft touch when the little fella's momma died. He worked as a lifeguard for an entire summer in Brazil once and has surfed the waves in Sydney.
Eliot knows most people only see the muscle and the menace and think that's all there is. He's okay with that. But he can't help thinking, hoping, these people will be different.
He can't help but be happy as they slowly prove him right.