Disclaimers: Not mine. Though not for lack of emailing, tweeting, posting, harassing...etc.

WARNINGS: I have crossed to the dark side on this fic people. I am being totally serious. This is an extremely DARK fic, so read at your own risk. Descriptions of rape, though not graphic, are in this story.

Another A/N: This is from a Role-play that a friend and I have started, and therefore one of the reasons I have been absent so much. She lets me beat and wail on Eliot like there's no tomorrow, and this little ficlet was born. Some of this has been written by Irish63116, my closerthanacybersib sweetheart, to whom I owe a lot.

Dasvidaniya

Nate walked into the apartment and saw Hardison at the kitchen counter, nose deep in the laptop. He didn't even raise his head when he said, "Hey, Nate, you got any soda?"

Nate sighed, pulling the bottle out of one of the grocery bags he put on the counter, putting it in the outstretched hand.

"Thanks."

He heard voices in the other room, Parker and Sophie, arguing over the necessity of needing a good wardrobe. He looked up and saw Parker storm out of the room, Sophie close on her heels.

"But Parker, if you don't have..."

"I will never need anything like that!" Parker said, desperately trying to get away from one of Sophie's lectures about the advantages of three closets worth of designer clothes.

"Nate!" She latched onto him like a drowning cat. "Tell me we have a job, ok? A really fun job, like one that we need to rappel down a building for, or crawl through a lot of vents for, or something, anything?" Her hopeful voice made him want to laugh.

"No, Parker, sorry. Nothing like that, at least, that I know of. Hardison have anything?"

"No," Parker pouted, shifting a little so he was between her and the grifter. "He said to wait for you, and then she came in." She gave Sophie the hairy eyeball.

"Anyone seen Eliot?" he asked, trying to get both of them off the subject.

A chorus of 'No's answered him.

A frisson of worry poked at his conscience but he ignored it. A week ago Eliot had told him that he planned on cooking one of his specials for them tonight, a dish he called 'Rattlesnake Steak', something they had never heard of but were looking forward to trying.

"Oh well," he said, "Guess he's just running late."

Three hours later Eliot still hadn't shown up and they were all more than a little worried.

"Hardison, please tell me something," Nate said as he paced.

"Nothin' man. There's been no activity at all on any of his aliases, no credit cards used, no John Doe's reported in hospitals of morgues fitting his description, nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero..."

"Yes, Alec," Sophie sighed. "We get it."

Hardison just shook his head and immersed himself in the computer, doing things that none of them understood, but every one of them appreciated.

Pacing left his feet aching, but there was nothing else he could do. He saw Sophie look at him every once in a while with a worried cast to her eyes, but he just turned and paced the other way until the wall stopped him. Parker disappeared upstairs a few times, but always returned a little while later through the front door, the bedroom door, or even the fire escape once. Her entrances failed to faze him anymore.

Sophie called Le Chateau Chenreau and ordered food to be delivered, but when it was, none of them had the appetite to eat, and so it grew cold sitting on the counter.

The doorbell rang again, and they all looked up from their individual wanderings in surprise. Nate was the first to recover, and he walked to the door and opened it to find a young delivery boy standing there. The teen held out a package to Nate and then a clipboard.

"Need ya to sign, here, here and here," he indicated with his pen. Nate did as instructed and the messenger quickly walked away, intent on his next deliveries.

"Nate?" Sophie walked up behind him as he turned the small package over in his hands. "What is it?"

The older man shrugged and opened it, finding a note attached to the bottom. He held it in his fingers as he opened the package, and dropped it in horror and surprise.

Sophie looked down at the package and let out a shriek, jumping back into Hardison, who had walked up to join the others.

"Sophie, what...?" Parker started to say, darting to the woman, and she looked down and clasped her hand over her mouth.

On the wooden floor lay the small box on its side, a lock of long chestnut hair peeking out from within, lying in a small smear of blood.

Nate opened the note with trembling fingers and read it; his face grew white.

"Nate?" Sophie whispered. "What is it? What...what does it say?

He handed it to her.

"Stop looking.
We have your hitter.
He will not be returned."

Sophie dropped her hand, the note still clutched in it. Hardison gently took her hand and retrieved the paper, reading it out loud to himself and Parker. Parker made a small sound and sat down abruptly on the floor, as though a marionette whose strings had been severed.

Nate shut the door slowly, his thoughts racing like silverfish around his brain. He bent down and picked up the package, careful not to touch Eliot's...the hair inside, and took the note back from Hardison.

"We won't be needing this," he said and walked into the kitchen, throwing the box into the trash.

Nate looked up as Hardison's computer dinged. He walked over to it and saw that there was a video attachment to a new email from an address he didn't recognize.

"Hardison?" he said. "Something just came into your mailbox."

Hardison walked over to the computer and sat down, distracted in a way that he couldn't shake. He looked at the laptop like he hadn't ever seen one before.

"Open it," he said to the hacker, and it shook Hardison out of his daze. His hands went up to the keyboard and he punched in a few sequences. It was automatically set to open on the media wall, and he turned to watch, gasping as the file opened.

On the six screen wall they could see Eliot, hanging from the ceiling, manacles on his wrists and his bare feet barely reaching the ground. His wrists were torn and bleeding down his arms, blood dripped from a gash on his temple and ran down his cheek to mix with the blood on his lips. His blue eyes were half open and staring blankly without recognition. His nostrils fluttered as he gasped in a breath, and his chest jerked.

"Search all you like," said a mechanically altered voice from off-screen, "You will not find him. But I will be gracious and leave you this small image to enjoy, and if you ask nicely, more photos."

Parker screeched from her position on the floor and crawledscuttledslid to the back of the couch, hiding behind it as she crouched into a ball, her arms over her head.

Nate sat down gingerly beside the thief, rubbing her back awkwardly. "We'll get him back, Parker, you know we will. Now we know for sure he's still alive, right?" He tried to project hope into his voice.

Looking up at Hardison, he said, "I'm sorry, Alec, but I need you to look at everything you can about that video. Backgrounds, that voice...see if you can reconstruct it, trace the IP address, anything you can think of." He looked into the sad brown eyes and cringed, realizing what he was asking the hacker to do.

Hardison heard the request and nodded, closing his eyes for a second. He rewound the video and watched it again, without sound so he could focus on the images. Then he watched it again. He pushed the fact that this was Eliot out of his mind, making it just another person, another faceless pawn.

The hacker blinked a few times, his eyes burning from staring at his best friend/brother's body hanging still from the ceiling. He reached into his pack and plugged in his headphones, slightly closing the laptop to give his mind a break. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the voice and background sounds, already knowing where each beat was in the video.

He shook his head, trying to clear it of the image like an Etch-A-Sketch. He sighed softly as he knew in his heart he wouldn't be able to forget that for a long time

Nate looked at Hardison, listening to his headset with his eyes closed. Although he wanted to get Eliot back yesterday, he knew that the hacker needed his time to regroup, or Eliot wouldn't be the only one deeply scarred from this encounter.

Hell, no one was going to come out of this one sane.

Hardison heard something unusual in the background and he frowned, moving to rewind the video. He heard it again and frowned. "Nate." He whispered, motioning for the man to listen to it. He handed the man the headphones and moved it back again so Nate could listen.

Nate took the headphones and put them on, hearing the mechanical voice. He frowned. "What am I listening to?" he asked.

"Water," the hacker said. "And low horns."

Nate closed his eyes and concentrated on the sound track. He heard the sounds, but wanted to make sure they were really there and not a figment of his hopeful imagination. He swirled his finger, indicating Hardison to rewind and replay the sounds. Yes, he heard it.

"Yes, it's there, sounds like...a foghorn?"

Nate jumped as Hardison's computer chirped again. Apprehensively, he looked over at the hacker and indicated to Hardison to open the images in the email on the small screen.

The first was a short video shot without sound that showed Eliot with his hands tied behind his back. To the side a gun was held to his temple, and his eyes were looking angrily in that direction as the finger tightened around the trigger. The hammer came down and Eliot jerked, but nothing happened.

The next one was a photo that showed Eliot at what appeared to the beginning of the kidnapping because there was little evidence of blood or beatings, but his arms were tied behind his back, forced over a bar that was tied under his arms. He was kneeling on a cement floor, a black hood over his head.

The next photo showed him still in the exact same position, but the timestamp indicated it was four hours later.

The following showed the same, with a time stamp of three hours later.

"Stress positions," he murmured quietly to the hacker. "They leave little evidence, but after an hour or two they're extremely painful and the muscles start to cramp." He looked again. "And the hood..."

"So...what's the hood for? Other than the obvious?" Hardison asked Nate.

"It's used for humiliation and sensory deprivation. Russians have used it for eons. They go for the idea of breaking the spirit as well as the body of those in their possession. That's why the whole Russian Roulette thing. Messes with the head," he said softly. "From the looks of his eyes, Eliot's not only been subjected to that, but to sleep deprivation as well."

He sighed. "On the plus side, Russians like to gloat a lot. There's a chance we'll be getting more and more of these images, and you'll be able to get a fix off of one or more of them."

As he spoke, three more attachments popped up on Hardison's screen. "What are these sick fucks doing, taunting us?" Hardison growled, his voice sounding very much like Eliot's.

Nate said quietly, "You have enough to work with for now; I'll open them on the other computer."

Eliot heard voices in the background like buzzing hornets in his skull. They didn't matter anymore.

Bees swarmed through his head, making images float across his eyes, flashes of pictures, the flash of a camera...

A thousand images invaded his brain, he couldn't filter them out, they receded to the same place his pain did, in the nothingness of blackness of darkness of nothing. Nothing mattered anymore; he was a breathing, twitching husk that hung like a slab of meat from the ceiling, swinging back and forth with each punch, each kick, each jab.

************************THREE DAYS AGO**************************

The Russians untied his arms from the bar behind his back and he screamed as the muscles in his shoulders and arms cramped and spasmed uncontrollably. He fell onto the floor, listening as the men who held him laughed in their thick, rough voices.

He was pulled up from the concrete in a vice-like grip, the arm tight around his throat, and he clenched his teeth against the pain that rocketed down his spine from the dislocated shoulder. "Your shoulder is displaced, dog. We put back, yah?" he heard, and then his shoulder was viciously snapped back into place. He heard himself scream again before he passed out.

Eliot woke up blindfolded and tied to a chair. His shoulder throbbed from the cruel re-location, but at least it wasn't a spike of agony that shot through his entire body with every heartbeat. They had put earplugs in as well, and he could hear nothing. His heart sped up, realizing that he was effectively both deaf and blind. When nothing happened for what seemed like hours, he started to settle down.

A wicked punch to his abdomen forced the breath out of his lungs and he doubled up as much as the ropes would allow. Another punch to the face split his lip and he felt blood pool in his mouth. Another to his face, and the blood splattered from his mouth landing who knew where. His heartbeat ratcheted up again as he tensed for the next blow.

Minutes passed. Days passed. Hours passed. He had no idea how long he waited until a soft touch to the side of his face made him jerk. A calloused hand stroked his cheek, and his neck. He trembled at the touch, waiting for the cruelty to begin again. The hand reached behind his neck and squeezed gently, stroking the side of his face and running fingers through his hair. He felt hot breath on his neck and a wet tongue slid up the side of his neck. He shivered and tried to jerk his head away, but the hand in his hair held him firm. The breath withdrew and the fingers caressed his face, then also disappeared. He waited.

A fist slammed into his abdomen again, drawing a pained grunt from him that he couldn't hear. His hair was pulled and his head jerked back as he felt hands encircle his throat and squeeze. He couldn't breathe! Stars broke the blackness of his vision behind the blindfold and he twisted in the ropes, feeling them burn into his wrists and chest. His struggles grew weaker and weaker, and then the hands were suddenly removed.

He gulped down great gasps of precious air, but then the hands returned, crushing in their strength, and the stars returned. He bucked against the ropes again, struggling again until he almost passed out, and then the hands went away again. He gasped and sputtered, the air coming into his lungs in fits and starts. His head hung down, and he could feel the hair in his face.

*************************TWO DAYS AGO*******************************

Eliot sat in the chair, head back and hair dangling as he shivered. The currents that had burned through his body spluttered now that the cattle prod was gone. That didn't stop the nerve endings from misfiring and make him jump and twitch for no reason. The burns on his skin were sources of agony every time a breeze blew gently through the warehouse. The pain in his chest and other places now throbbed in time to his heartbeat. He distantly heard himself moaning but couldn't find it in himself to care.

He drifted.

Sounds of heavy boots dragged him from the blackness. The ropes were cut and his hands were shackled in front of him in heavy iron manacles. Two men dragged him up, their hands under his arms as he jerked from muscles too long abused and ignored. His legs didn't want to work, but they walked him around the building twice until his muscles started to remember their function.

The two men then dragged him outside into the bright sunlight and he squinted in the sudden brightness. A shovel was roughly thrust into his hands and a rough voice said, "Раскопки, собака. Выкопайте вашу собственную могилу, и после этого мы поможем вам лежать в ей." 'Dig, dog. Dig your own grave, and then we will help you lie in it.'

He spit at the feet of the man who gave him the command, then threw the shovel at his feet. A blow between his shoulder blades drove him to the ground and he landed with his face in the dirt, coughing. His hair was grabbed again, and a voice whispered into his ear, "Dig, or we will bring the pretty blonde to you and you can dig her grave, yes?"

He took the shovel and started to dig awkwardly, his face burning as he heard the clicks of a camera, and saw the flashes of the lens. When the 'grave' was deemed deep enough, they forced him down into the hole, holding him down with a boot in his ribs and another on his groin. They took out a gun and held it to his head again, taking photographs the whole time. His heart trip-hammered like it wanted to beat its way out of his chest as his eyes fastened on the barrel pressed to his forehead. Sweat dripped down into his hair. The hammer was cocked, and they pulled the trigger.

'Click.'

He shook with reaction, jerking uncontrollably.

They dragged him out of the hole, laughing at the big joke. They forced him to keep up with their long strides, and he stumbled, but they yanked him back up again.

"You displease me, dog," the Russian voice said again. "You refuse to dig grave. Now you will be punish. Yes?" The men laughed at the statement, pulling him to a steel table that was sitting in the warehouse not far from the chair he had been tied to earlier. He started to fight, but the hands that had been dragging him now started to punch him all over. He fell to the ground and curled up, trying to protect his stomach and head from the blows. They resorted to kicking him, the kicks landing on his legs, his arms, andohgodhisballs. He screamed as they kicked him there, the agony exploding through his body and rocketing up his spine to shoot into his brain.

They stopped for a moment as he writhed in the dirt, shoving his face into the ground to try to stop the burning humiliation. Dimly he felt them pull him upright again, unresisting. He felt his stomach and chest hit the table, and his arms were stretched above him and chained above his head. Rough hands touched him, caressing his back, his ass, his hair.

His cheek rested against the cold metal, a small relief against the heat of his skin. Hands were now touching him everywhere...his arms, his head, the small of his back, even reaching under him to touch his nipples.

Alarm bells rang in his head, startling him into full consciousness. He started to buck and pull at the chains on his wrists, only to have his head slammed back into the table. His head bounced off the metal, and he felt hot blood pouring out of his nose and down his chin.

Hands grabbed his hips and jerked him back, and he felt fingers unbuckling his belt and pulling down his jeans. His face burned again as he realized what they were doing, and he forced his mind elsewhere even as his mouth babbled out, "No, no, no, no no no nonononononononono..."

Nate squeezed the hacker's shoulder and walked to the kitchen where he opened the mail account and looked at the files, clenching his jaw and blinking rapidly to force the tears away.

The first two were photos that showed Eliot bound to a chair with ropes around his wrists, ankles, across his now bare chest, and over his thighs. His hair dripped with water, and the sheen could be seen on his skin. In the first photo his body was arched against the ropes and his teeth clenched in a rictus of pain as a cattle prod was applied to the side of his chest. Nate could see other red marks and burns on his ribcage where he had been electrocuted before. In the other, closer shot, his head was thrown back and the muscles in his body stood out in sharp relief, his neck corded with tension as the device was introduced somewhere lower than the photo showed.

Nate closed his eyes and bowed his head, grabbing it with his hands, as if he could squeeze the images out of his brain. He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, trying to quell the nausea that crept up on him.

Nate swallowed hard and opened the third attachment. This one was another video. He quickly muted the sound before anyone heard anything, and watched with growing horror at what played out on the screen.

He slapped a hand over his mouth as he slammed the laptop shut, racing for the bathroom. He just made it in time before he violently lost his lunch, retching into the porcelain bowl for what seemed like forever. Shaking, he slid down the wall and sat next to the toilet, arms across his knees, head down, and cried.

Nate heard voices of concern outside the bathroom, but he reached up and locked the door. He closed his eyes again, trying to control the clashing emotions of rage, guilt, horror, pity and anguish and shove them down so he could go back out there and rally the troops to bring Eliot home again, where he would be safe.

The two strongmen of Eliot's captors walked up to him and slapped him across the face. Eliot did not respond: no twitch, no blink, no sound. They laughed and traded insults in their guttural language, stepping closer to him, grabbing and fondling him like only a woman ever had, and he just stared vacantly ahead, making no movement to protest or protect himself.

Losing interest in their 'toy', they sliced the rope which bound him to the ceiling girder and let him fall to the ground in a graceless heap. They laughed at the grunt of sound that escaped the hitter when he fell, turning around to light their cigarettes and puff on them in the chill of the night air.

Eliot breathed, he thought, he drifted. He wanted to get away, and then he didn't care. Voices surrounded him, rushing through his ears at a million miles an hour and then stopped, only to return a moment later. He shook his head, clenching his eyes shut as he tried to sort reality from hallucination.

Opening his eyes, he saw black boots standing in front of him, two pair. Facing away. He closed his eyes again, letting his ears pick up the conversation, automatically translating the Russian with the ease of years of practice.

"Do you know what Mikhal is going to do with him?"

Puff. "Nyet. The dog is worthless, we have broken him. There is no bounty that will be paid in his condition."

Puff. "He should just let us kill him."

"It may come to that, there is no more pleasure to be had."

"Dah. Though there was much pleasure a while ago." Cruel laughter. "That Amerikanski ass was sweet."

Eliot glanced up and saw a Makarov pistol butt tucked into the back of one of the men's pants, and knew that this one was loaded; the gun they had used for Roulette had been a Stechkin APS. He closed his eyes again and allowed himself to drift.

"Amerikanski pig," one of them said, sneering down at the hitter. "Lying there in filth. Maybe we clean him up a little, yes?"

Deviant chuckles, and then his arms were grabbed again.

Eliot let them pull him up, sagging and forcing them to take most of his weight as he maneuvered his arm around the back of the one who had the Makarov. He didn't like guns, but that didn't mean he didn't know how to use them.

Eliot grabbed the pistol and thumbed the safety off as he jerked the gun up, shooting three rounds into the chest of the larger man, falling and rolling, shooting the other in the face.

Eliot rolled over onto his stomach, his arms and legs twitching as he lay on the ground.

Eliot heard the Russian curses echo through the building, knowing that this 'Mikhal' was coming. He tried to keep an iron fist around his wandering thoughts and consciousness. Now was not the time to fuck up.

He heard the boots stomping across the floor and right up to him, and was prepared for the vicious kick to his ribs that sent him flying over onto his back. He brought up the gun as he rolled, shooting the man right between the eyes.

"Dasvidaniya, motherfucker."

Dasvidaniya - roughly translated means 'Goodbye' in Russian. Although Eliot probably translated it to something like 'See you in hell.'
Please review and tell me what you thought, no flames though, as I did warn you that this was on the black side of dark.
Thanks