Midnight in Lala land

Business and Such

2013-08-17T01:02:55Z

Hi Flist,

Unfortunately this isn't to announce my triumphant return to fanficing, mostly just my mediocre return from Drop-off-the-face-of-the-planeting. I won't bore with details. Life happened. Life is still happening but I am coping well enough to return to the internet. Sort of.

I checked my message box and friended the waiting friend requests. If you were suddenly friended back out of the blue and are now seeing this message sorry for the delay. Hopefully I'll be checking in more regularly that eight months. Sorry about that.

I'm probably not going to be posting more Leverage fanfic in the near future (you never know though, I've been trying to get back into writing). The book still needs some major editing but I hope to have it published sometime this fall.

For those missing your moonchildfix (or just bored and looking for something to look at) I have been working on a project on and off for the past eight months or so that's posted over on Deviant Art. SotN is a comic I've been drawing for a while. It's not amazing or anything but it's out there if you're curious. The posts of late have been infrequent because of life but *gestures to existence here on LJ* life is starting to allow for attention to projects again so with that and maybe some interest I'll try to get back up to two or three pages a week.

Thats All Folks,
Moonchildfic

Goodbyes

2013-01-01T02:56:37Z

I’ve been missing from fandom for a while. For the first time since I started watching back in season one (including two different season premiers I was out of the country for) more than a week’s gone by and I havn’t seen two of the newest episodes.

Part of the problem is the fact I’ve been watching so damn long. I started watching my senior year of High School. I first decided there was something special about this fandom when I made a passing mention of getting ready to leave for college in one of my authors notes and some of my favorite authors left notes of congradulations and asked about what I was studying. This fandom was my gateway to nearly every other show I watch (if not from some crossover catching my interest then by convincing me that there were TV shows out there that I would care enough about to come back to week after week).

On the bus back to school from my first Thanksgiving I entertained myself with the very first pieces of Steal The Sky. When my grandmother died writing A Hint Of Earl Grey helped me put into words my grief and a year later writing Like Holding Back The Wind helped me put into perspective the abusive relationship I had just walked away from and start putting my life back together.

When I started college I thought of myself as something like Parker, someone once joked I was the Bastard Offspring of Parker and Spencer Reid. Fandom was one more thing I thrived in that allowed me to hide away from actual people. Even responding to a comment often left me flummoxed. While some might regret it a little (I can tell myself that, can’t I?) I can’t bring myself to really regret how few my stories have been this year. I’ve told the stories I had to tell but I also have less time to tell them, and a large part of that is I’ve managed to make friends and come out of my shell.

And that’s not even touching on the practice writing has given me, or the help beta readers have given me, or the things I’ve learned from the commentaries or blogs, or how I now am only a little embaressed to admit I tell myself to pretend I’m Eliot every time I have to go to the dentist/hospital (it’s not crazy if it works).

Leverage didn’t change my life, but my life changed while I watched Leverage.

Earlier this December, as I was wrapping up the school year and hoping to get back on track to get my book out my family found out my older brother, the brother who was in my head throughout the Joey/Eliot scenes of BKWK because his job has always been to protect me, is very sick. The doctors are optimistic, the treatment should work, but nothing is certain and it was a while before I even knew that much.

I still havn’t touched the Leverage episode that was waiting for me to finish the paper I was working on when I got the news. I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever watch it. Of course a few hours ago I wasn’t sure I’d ever finish the series. Leverage didn’t change my life but my life changed while I was watching Leverage and there is so much up in the air right now, so much is uncertain, that It’s hard to let go of one of the constants. If I never watched the final episode it never ends.

But life changes and things move forward. A week from now the student becomes the teacher and I started when I was finishing high school and I’ll finish the series as I prepare to start teaching it. The year the world was supposed to end ends with the world still in tact and me hoping my own world will hold together through the end of next year.

I’ve started working on my novel again, after a few weeks of not being able to function. It should be ready to publish soon. I might even post a bit of it here. I don’t know. After it’s up I may write something, see if I can put together one final bit of fanfic about how I feel right now. Maybe not. I don’t know.

I do know I’m glad I watched the final episode. Watched things come full circle. It’s not the end of the world, just another change. Things are always changing. We just need to adapt, and maybe find a bit of Leverage along the way.
Moonchildfic

Geek Service: The World Needs Leverage

2012-10-07T20:47:38Z

Today I read this article over on ONTD_Political about modern human trafficing. As a child I was facsinated by the Underground Railroad (my hero was Harriet Tubman for... well she's probably still a big one) and over the years I've kept up with the stories and efforts going on in the modern day. This article wasn't looking much different until I was reading the comments and a list of orginizations fighting modern day slavery reminded me of the list of charities given for charity fic auctions.

Which got me started thinking, and looking at my schedual, and wondering if there was any way of possibly putting together one. I don't know the first thing about running a fandom charity auction. I am terrible at advertizing things in general. I am in college trying to get a book published while my brain periodically goes to war with itself.

I still *want* to try.

But I figured if there was any chance of this actually getting done pulling a crew together might help a bit. I'm looking to recruit a ~~Grifter, Hitter, Hacker, and Thief~~ whoever is willing and able to help me pull together a fanfic/fanart charity auction to benifit groups that are trying to fight human trafficing. Someone who actually knows what needs doing would be nice but if you've done more than two charity auctions you've got more experience with them than I do so the bar is set pretty low. Enthusiasim and intent will probably get us far enough.

If you're interested, or know someone who might be interested, let me know. Feel free to boost the signal.

If I don't get help I'll probably end up trying on my own but it may take a lot longer. The unfortunate truth is they'll likely need support just as much next years as they do now.

In the Quiet After

2012-09-17T22:21:52Z

Title: In the Quiet After
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Eliot, Parker
Verse: n/a
Summary: After everything that had happened that day Parker is almost sure she shouldn't worry about something.
Notes: Tag to (and spoiler for) The Rundown Job.
Was originally about Eliot but ended up kind of focusing on Parker.

This shouldn’t feel this comfortable.

He’s in a random hotel bed with two bullet holes in him and more pain killers than he’s been on since…

Well his head isn’t clear enough that he’s entirely sure whether or not Bangladesh counts. Madrid though? Madrid defiantly counts.

Counting.

Parker’s sitting next to him, on the floor. They’d dragged him here to rest up and he’d bitched until he was settled down to just rest and everything was fine and he was working himself into a meditative state that would block out the pain enough that he could start sleeping off the whole damn mess when Parker had sat down next to him and the jostling had caught him just off guard enough he’d gasped and cursed.

And the next thing he knew Hardison was coming at him with pain pills and Parker was reminding him of how much he’d harassed her about taking her pain pills when she first got hurt and…

And now the world was wibbly wobbly, to use Parker’s own words, and he wasn’t sure…

“…I…” Well he wasn’t sure if Parker had actually said anything.

“What is it, Parker?”

She turned, folding her arms on the edge of the bed and resting her chin on them light enough nothing moved. She looked… concerned.

“You want to feel stuff.” She said.

“Parker, you gotta be a little more clear with me right now.” He told her. His head definitely wasn’t clear enough to translate Parkerish right now.

“Back, in the job with the cooking? You’re happy you started to feel stuff again. I…” She made a face. “That’s not why you don’t take pain meds. Right?”

Okay. Breathe in. Focus. Think. Oh.

“They make the world go weird, Parker. It’s dangerous when you’re me.” He told her.

“Okay. Yeah. Okay.” She said and turned back to her previous spot.

He could hear Nate in his head. Wait for it.

Ten seconds later she turned back. “I thought so. It… there’s a difference. Not feeling physical pain. Not feeling emotional pain. Right?” He gave a slow nod. The very distinctive smile she got when she realized she’d understood basic human emotion tugged at her lips but she held it back. “And earlier? When you said you didn’t feel afraid. That was good. Right? That wasn’t all of this… you know… making you not feel things again?”

He nodded again. “I wasn’t afraid because you two were with me.” He didn’t mean to say it but he’d blame the pain pills. “I took the pain pills because you two were with me.” He made his eyes focus on hers, tried to keep his voice even. She’d come so damn far he hoped she’d understand this. “I know you two will have my back.”

She nodded and sat back down. “I know that.” She said. Something in her tone making him smile as she repeated. “I know that.”

It shouldn’t feel this comfortable.

But it did.

Talk to Meme

2012-08-13T18:02:53Z

Mizzy2k started this, and I stole it off LMX_V3point3.

Pick any passage of 500 words or less from any fanfic I’ve written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what’s going on in the character’s heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic, lots of awful puns, and anything else that you’d expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

My Master List

The Road To Boston

2012-08-06T03:07:06Z

Title: The Road to ~~Pittsburgh~~ ~~West~~ Boston
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Hardison/Parker, Eliot
Verse: AU
Summary: During the time of Jim Crow laws and the Great Migration a young boy flees for his life to try to find a new start in Pittsburgh. He never actually gets there.
Notes: Written for the "What Time is it Mr. Ford?" Challenge over on LeverageLand. I got the prompt Migration/Immigration. My brain immediately jumped to the Great Migration north. Now I did a little bit of research for this but most of my knowledge of the period comes from classes on African American Lit. While I did my best to gracefully juggle potential hand grenades if there are any mistakes/offensive bits please just let me know and I'll happily fix them.
Also about a page in I realized there was no way I could properly imitate the speech patterns of the time period without offending someone by accident/sounding like an idiot so I didn't try. Sorry. I willingly admit to failing at accents.
Also I slipped in a Casablanca reference in here. I'm kind of proud of myself. Also blatant Firefly refference is blatant.
WarningsRacism, mentions of lynchings, mention of rape (false) allegations against main characters, abuse of my African American Lit class' notes.

The thing is he always knew it would come to this.

He was fifteen when he first saw her. Her Daddy had hired him to do some work around the house and she’d come back with her sisters looking bored and uncomfortable but then she’d looked at him and actually seen him and he’d known there was no way this could end but badly.

It was the south. He was the poor black foster son of similarly poor and black share croppers and she may have been the product of her Daddy’s indiscretions but he’d made her one of his daughters and more than that she was white.

Alec didn’t need to know what Anti-Miscegenation laws were (though he did, Nana always said his smarts would get him killed some day) he knew what lynching was.

Still somehow he’d gone from there to two years later, his littlest sister finding him in the field, crying about how someone had seen Her and him together and that was it.

He knew how this story ended. By dark whispers would turn into rumors. If he was lucky she would hold out under the pressure and not cry rape until tomorrow. It might win him another night.

He almost wished she wouldn’t hold out, it would only make this harder for her. No one he cared about would believe her and no one who mattered would care what she said. The only chance he had really had, from that first moment when she snuck in to watch him paint the ceiling of her Daddy’s study and caught him looking over the law books and talked to him…

Well the only choice he really had now was to hope that he could get clear from here before a mob showed up at his Nana’s door and pray that mob didn’t take their frustration at finding him gone out on her.

He ran for his life back home, his Nana meeting him at the door with a packed bag and tears in her eyes that he knew wouldn’t fall until later. She’d lost her husband and a son like this. The Hardisons had a willful streak, she’d always say.

“Head for Pittsburgh.” She told him. “Last letter I got from John was from there. He said a lot of us were passin’ through. There’ll be places for a boy like you to find your feet. You might even find your brother.”

Alec nodded. He wanted to say something but numb cold terror had settled around his heart and was trying to strangle him. Nana just hugged him tight and told him to go with god and use that brain of his and then…

Next thing he really remembered was crossing the county lines by night. He’d heard the stories and songs from back before the war about the underground railroad. Nana said her mother had seen Mosses once. It had taken Alec a couple years to be old enough to realize Nana wasn’t old enough that her mama had known the bible’s Mosses but that was the nickname for a conductor.

Still, remembering Nana’s voice singing helped ease the blind terror enough to remember to wade up river for as long as he could stand the cold to lose any pursuers.

The numbness stuck with him through another state. The rage that came after it powered him through two more. The grief arrived just as he was out of money and food, Pittsburgh still a long ways away.

But he was strong and he was smart and there were always jobs for someone who was both but didn’t complain. He found day work loading cargo on a train and used his first pay to send a letter home and then buy something to eat. He hoped it got there, and that Nana would be able to get it.

While he worked he listened to the others talk. The way they talked it seemed like all the south was coming north looking for better work and better wages and a chance to not spend their lives waiting for the day they end up rotting fruit hanging from a tree.

But some said they were all heading to the wrong place. One of the men Alec worked with would tell the most wondrous stories about his time out west. There you didn’t just work someone else’s land, a person could get their own. They could set up their own little homestead and live like a real person, not bothered by anyone. He’d talk about the sky, the open space, the freedom.

Freedom.

Alec waited there long enough to get a letter back from Nana before writing one more time. He was going west. He would work his way as he went and once he was there he’d find land to make his own and send them money to come and live with him. Then they could all live like real people.

He turned eighteen somewhere along the railroad heading west.

It was after work a couple months later, in yet another town in the long line of towns he’d passed through looking for work for a little while before moving on, that his mad dash “west” changed.

Well. By then he’d worn himself down to a frantic stumble.

It was later than he liked to be out, and he was farther from his night time lodging than he liked, when he heard angry shouts with words like the ones he’d been fleeing from.

Except they weren’t the words he was used to being flung at him.

He would never be sure why he turned back or went to look.

Hell, maybe his Nana’s childhood lectures on helping those in need had sunk in after all.

He found four rather drunk men in a back alley surrounding, from what Alec could guess, the first Indian Alec had ever seen. He had the hair and beads and sure he dressed like a real person and wasn’t actually red but he counted. Right?

He was wondering if he should step in. He was going to leave in the morning anyway. He had gotten pretty damn strong and this guy was short and outnumbered.

Of course that was when one of the men stepped close enough to yank on one of the beaded braids in the Indian’s hair and before Alec could really understand what had happened the offending arm had been broken and the furry of hell was being unleashed on the other three.

He was too stunned at the violence to run and then suddenly the Indian was in his face. “You got a problem?”

Blue eyes? When did Indians get blue eyes?

Hardison shook his head. “No.” The In… heck, he was a man, the man turned to walk away. “You’re leaving town tonight right?” The man stopped. “When they wake up they’ll get their friends and be out for your head. Best you can do is clear out of here.”

“What’s it to you?” The man asked.

“I’m on my way out in the morning. Road’s a dangerous place.” The man looked back at him. For the first time Alec read the humiliation at what had just happened and rage at the world in his eyes and a question. “And if you weren’t around they woulda just found me.” The man let out a long slow breath.

He’d said the right thing.

“The roads pretty damn lonely too.” The man stated. “I’m… Eliot.” He seemed to not be familiar with his own name.

“Alec.” Alec responded.

They left town that night. For the first time since he’d left Nana the pain of loneliness didn’t dig so damn deep.

They didn’t talk much at first but as days passed into weeks and months they’d open up bit by bit. A story here, an old joke there. Alec discovered Eliot had a great singing voice and liked to use it. Alec taught him every song he knew and when they were on the road or had managed to snag work together and far enough away from other workers they’d sing to pass the time. It felt like back home. Eventually Eliot got the story out of him of what an overgrown boy like him was doing out here.

That ended up getting him the reason Eliot had left the reservation. His father was a white man. When his mother had fallen sick some years ago she’d given him a letter from his father. He was living in Boston now and, if ever Eliot chose to leave home…

Eliot had been carrying that letter for the better part of a decade. He’d left to go to Boston but he’d never really been able to make himself get there.

He’d gotten lost out on the road. Like Alec was getting.

The next night Alec made Eliot an offer. They’d start working their way towards Boston. A little bit more money and Alec thought he might be able to buy some land and get himself started. They’d work their way to Boston and find Eliot’s father. After that Alec would buy a train ticket west and buy the land he’d worked so hard for and if Eliot wanted he could come with Alec when he did.

Blood and skin aside they were brothers now.

It took them another few months to make it to Boston, celebrating Alec’s nineteenth birthday on the way. The closer they got the more Alec babbled at Eliot about the history of the city and Eliot started calling him a “Smart Alec” out of annoyance. Bickering over the nickname, and Alec’s discovery of Eliot’s father’s last name, eventually resulted in Eliot taking to calling Alec Hardison.

Hardison liked it.

Of course the last challenge came where they both most and least expected it. Out on the road they’d gotten so good at staying on the edges and fringes and where they could be they’d almost…

The Whites Only sign hanging on the door of the bar felt like more of a slap in the face than it should have.

“Go on in.” Hardison said to Eliot, trying to keep his voice even. This far east Eliot could pass for white. “Find your father. I’ll wait out here.”

The look Eliot gave him, like he had to be crazy if he thought he was going to leave Hardison waiting out here like a dog or something, eased the sting a little.

“There’s a bar over there, no sign in the window.” Eliot gestured down the street. “Lets see if they’ll serve ya. If they will then how bout you wait there?”

It was a little hole in the wall place in the basement of the building. They got looks, coming in together, but mostly the folks just looked then looked back to their drinks.

The bartender didn’t bat an eye once their money was on the bar.

Hardison couldn’t really remember when they’d last been able to drink together like this.

If he thought about it what waited for him out there probably wasn’t the only thing that made Eliot stay with him until they’d both downed their first beers.

It took a little bit of prodding and Eliot suddenly getting paranoid that Hardison would be mobbed the moment Eliot left but eventually Eliot got out the door.

Half a beer and more brooding about losing Eliot than Hardison liked to admit to later a voice he never thought he’d hear again shattered… everything.

“Alec?” Joy and fear. “Is that… that’s really you?”

He turned around and saw her there, a ghost and a miracle in a dark blue dress. She crossed the bar to him and he saw her stop herself from flinging her arms around him. “I…” He went to say her name, wishing he could breech the gap between them but not daring to.

“Parker. They call me Parker now.” She told him.

“How?”

She looked to the side. “I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to leave and then I met you. After you left there was nothing to stay for. I remembered you said you had family in Pittsburgh so I went there but there was no… I met someone there.” His heart fell. “He took me in. Taught me that there was more to this world than…” She sighed. “He was like a father. But… I had to leave, there wasn’t enough work for the both of us there. So I came to Boston. I live upstairs.”

Of all the bars in all the cities of all the world…

She sat at the bar next to him, the others of the bar seeming to disregard them the moment she appeared and Hardison knew something weird was going on but…

She told him about her trip to Pittsburgh and he told her about his flight from home.

He’d just mentioned Eliot when the man reappeared at the bar.“Hardison. Who’s th-“

He’d barely started when another voice came from the back door, strange accent and commanding blue eyes drawing Hardison’s attention. “Parker?”

A man came from behind the woman and the entire bar seemed to hold it’s breath for a moment before.

“Sophie!” Parker was on her feet and across the bar to the woman without her feet ever seeming to touch the floor. “I found him! It’s Alec! He’s alive!”

“Well then.” The man stated. “I guess we all have some catching up to do.”

Several hours later Hardison found himself sitting in the man’s -Nathan Ford’s- apartment above the bar. What had started as an awkward first meeting had soon tightened into something more. He and Eliot had been invited upstairs and Parker had all but blurted out that Nate was pulling together a crime crew and had recruited her as his thief.

That had done a bit to actually diffuse the situation as Nate had stopped skirting around the edges. There were people he could hire but they didn’t feel…

Either they didn’t want to work with him because he was Irish or because Sophie wasn’t or they were involved with the mob. Or maybe they would work with him but they didn’t respect Sophie, which Hardison could figure out right quick that she demanded all sorts of respect and anyone who didn’t give it to her was an idiot. That problem had only doubled when he’d taken on Parker.

He needed someone who could fight, which made Hardison pretty damn sure Eliot would have a job the moment Nate saw him in action. He looked at Hardison a moment before adding. “And we could use someone who can move in circles we can’t.”

“Someone black.” Hardison stated.

“Frankly? Yes.” Nate said. “Between the three of us we can con, grift, or steal our way through the white population of Boston but the moment we even talk to someone like you everyone’s suspicious.”

“You’d be a member of our team.” Sophie said. “An equal to us.” The disbelief must have shown on his face because her voice softened and expression saddened a little bit but she glanced between him and Eliot including them both. “As far as we’re concerned skill rates above skin color. Or gender. We can’t change what happens out there but in here, in the bar… we’re criminals.” She shrugged. Hardison had already guessed as much but she seemed so nonchalant about it. “It’s not just laws against theft we break. You work hard, you do your job, and as far as we care you’re a part of the team. Same cut as the rest.” Her gaze slid over to Parker and back to him. “And as long as no one gets hurt we don’t care what laws you break.”

Hardison glanced toward Eliot. It seemed too good to be true but at the same time…

He wanted to go west. He wanted to go live like a real person and give Nana and the others that life. He’d worked so hard. Yes, it was so damn tempting to say yes. To stay here with Parker and these people who looked at him and actually seemed to *see* him but…

“Stealings a sin.” Hardison said, hearing Nana’s voice in his ears. “And I won’t help you rob people who don’t have anything to start with.”

“I’m not sure you understand what exactly we do.” Nate said, taking a seat across from Hardison. “Out there, out in the world, there are people and ideas with power, money, hate… and they use that to make people like you.” He looked from Hardison to Eliot and back to Hardsion and towards Parker. “people who want something more, dream of something more, go away. Right now this world is suffering under an enormous weight.”

His heart beat into his throat. Parker’s hand wrapped around his own.

“We provide… Leverage.”

Watchmen

2012-07-23T10:08:31Z

Title: Watchmen
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Hardison/Parker, Eliot
Verse: None
Summary: Parker knew it took awhile for Hardison's brain to power down for sleep. After a job it took even longer.
Notes: Tag to The Blue Line Job.

Parker woke up to a blue glow behind her eyelids.

She must have fallen asleep during the movie again. She smiled to herself and opened her eyes. They’d been in a little place in Turkey with an old VHS machine when she told Hardison she preferred the blue screen after the movie was done to the bathroom door cracked with the light on.

She somehow every tv in every room after that had a blank blue screen that could be left on when they went to sleep.

Hardison was a little bit magic like that.

She reached around, feeling the fading warmth of where he’d been sitting with her. She hadn’t been asleep that long if his insomnia was still keeping him awake.

She got up and pulled the blanket with her, wrapped around her shoulders. She knew by now that Hardison’s mind took a while to power down enough to let him sleep and she was learning it took longer after a job.

She wasn’t surprised to find him sitting in front of the display screens with the MRIs from the job.

No. Wait. They weren’t the one’s from the job. They were different ones.

“Who is it?” She asked, a thought latching onto the roof of her brain and repelling down until she knew the answer before Hardison replied. “Eliot’s?”

Hardison looked over to her and nodded.

“He know you have these?” She asked.

He nodded and clicked back, showing a different set. “Het got these after the job with the MMA, took a couple weeks to track down but I got ‘em.” There was no geek pride in his voice, that made her stomach hurt a little more. He clicked the clicker again. “Gave Sophie these after the whole Nate-Ship-Worst-Idea-Ever fiasco to make her stop worrying. By the time with the spoons and…” His voice trailed off and she winced, just thinking about that fight. Their early jobs without Nate had had some rough spots. “Well I got him to just forward them to me.” He clicked forward again, not needing to explain the dozen odd MRI scans and x-rays.

“You keep them?” She asked. It felt… a little creepy but maybe something else.

“He’s our enforcer.” Hardison said, eyes on the screens, the look on his face he sometimes got late at night when he’d been doing research with Nate and couldn’t sleep. “Keeps things from getting out of hand so we can do our jobs…”

“But who watches the watchmen?” Parker asked, trying to put what he was saying in terms that Hardison would recognize.

It startled a little smile out of him and he actually looked at her and saw her instead of the overlays of life threatening conditions he watched for so they would know in time…

“He talked about his brothers.” Hardison said. “But he knew we were listening. He wouldn’t…”

Parker nodded. She knew. She understood. He was their enforcer. They were his family. He would fight himself into the grave for them and never even notice or care he did it.

She wrapped a hand around Hardison’s wrist and tugged at him to follow her.

He shut down the projections and shut off the lights, climbing the stairs hand in hand with her.

When they reached the top, and he started explaining to her that the question of watching watchmen wasn’t quite the original intention and why, she gave him a little smile.

“But I know the answer.” She told him, playing a little into her crazy to get him going more. She normally pulled it with Eliot but… well he needed it now.

And it was true. She knew who watched their enforcer’s watchman.

Providence in the Fal off a Robin

2012-06-30T22:17:51Z

Title: Providence in the Fall of a Robin
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: none, Eliot
Verse: Steal The Sky
Fandoms: Firefly, Leverage, (Batman?)
Summary: There were lives he could have led, that he almost led, if fate hadn't led him to Leverage
Notes: Written for Jadaryl who asked for the story of how Eliot came to Olympus and in the course of telling her that there wasn't much of a story I realized, no, there actually was a story.
Title is a refference to Shakespear of course.

They say Abe Wheeler was born in the eye of the storm of the 2482 Storm, worst one to hit the village of McDonalds Creek since it was founded. They said while the storm was howling outside his family’s little home and his mother was howling with it Abe slipped out and into the world silent as a whisper, opened unearthly blue eyes, and just looked.

Babes weren’t suppose to know how to focus their eyes right away, but ‘til the day she died the midwife would swear Abe had looked at her as she’s raised her hand to smack him to get him screamin’ and make sure he wasn’t quiet cause his lungs didn’t work.

First and last baby she had left alone in that moment, checking him over and passing him along to his mama with him still silently watching the world.

It was a damn strange thing to see, she’d say later.

Course it was only another couple of years after Abe was born before the midwife was found to be outright mad and no one knew for sure if the story about Abe was any more true than her story about the odd folk from the next town over who turned to wolves.

Though there were some who’d whisper, later, that Abe might have just been the start of her madness, poor old bat.

Abe was a healthy baby, smart and mostly well behaved too. He slept through the night almost immediately, so long as his mama was around. That was the oddity, they’d discover. While any babe would fret if it’s mother left it while it was awake Abe could be in a dead sleep but would come screaming back awake if his mama set a foot past the garden in the yard.

And he through unholy fits the first time any one he didn’t know entered the house, didn’t matter If he was asleep or not. But if his mama soothed him? If the strangers came to look at him? Well he’d settle down pretty quick and sleep right on through their next visit.

Except Shepard Thompson. Abe never did seem to settle around the Shepard.

Abe learned to walk early, but he took a long time to learn to talk. He was nearly three, and his parents were starting to talk about saving up to take him to a doctor, when he said his first word. One summer day he came racing back to the house, without his older sister who’d been watching him.

He ran straight to his mother gripped her skirt, and looked, just looked at her with wide blue eyes and fear on his face that morphed to desperation and despair as she asked him to just tell her what was wrong. She couldn’t help him if he didn’t just speak to her.

He opened his mouth, he moved it and breathed. He’d stopped babbling like a babe years ago and didn’t seem to know how to form the words but he struggled and mananged a “sisssissis” sound.

“Sister?” His mother prompted.

“Sisssisster.” He said back with a nod. “Sisster Ooow.”

“Your sister is hurt?” He nodded. “Show me.”

Abe probably saved his sister’s life that day and afterwards, slowly but surely, he began to talk.

Of course that was where the real trouble began.

Because the things he’d say?

Well some days his parents wished he’d never spoken.

There were only so many times Abe could accuse a man of lying, say something he couldn’t possibly know, ask a question he had no way of knowing he should ask, before people started to talk.

When Abe was almost five one of the girl’s of the town died after a long illness. At the funeral Abe went up to her mother and told her that Mr. Briscoll wouldn’t leave his wife for her now that she’d gotten rid of Sally. He asked her why she’d thought that would work. Why did she have to kill Sally? Sally had been nice to him.

The accusation had silence the proceedings, had gotten Abe and his family thrown out.

But three weeks later it was proven that Sally had been murdered by her mother.

No one looked at Abe the same way after that. Murmurs started. They became whispers and rumors and one Sunday not long later the reverent gave a passionate sermon about the evils of witchcraft.

The Wheelers knew something was coming and their little boy was in danger.

A week after Abe’s fifth birthday a man appeared at their door. An officer of the alliance he’d been scouring the rim worlds for over a year for gifted children. “ignorance flourishes in these parts, sadly.” He’d told them. “And it can result in the loss of some of the alliance’s greatest resources –the minds and hearts of gifted children killed as witches.”

He wanted to examine Abe and afterwards was quick to declare him exceptional. He wanted to help them. There were programs in place by the alliance to see to it bright children were allowed to flourish rather than be stomped out. He was offering schooling, and care, free of charge, for Abe on a core world and a future a thousand times brighter than this rim world could offer him.

He was giving them a way to save their son from the stake or noose, to give him a better life.

He even offered them a sum of cash that would allow them to move to a new town and start over away from the “ignorance” that had threatened their son so and made such measures sadly necessary.

He gave them a month to prepare and make their decision, gave them contact information to look into the offer, even money for a trip into the nearest city where they could speak to an official about the program.

Two days before the man returned someone hung a noose from a tree in their yard during the night. Everything had checked out. Everything *looked* real.

And the threat should they keep Abe was very real.

A month and a half after Abe turned five his parents and sister embraced him one last time before sending him on his way toward a bright future.

A month later they were notified their son had been killed in an attack on the alliance transport by brown coat rebels. The transport had exploded, no survivors.

Death would have been immediate and the attack was so sudden he likely never knew it was coming and thus probably hadn’t even been scared.

Grieving happened, but with time the Wheeler family would find comfort in that quick death and the slow, terrified, agonized death their beloved Abe had been spared.

Across the verse, in another world, in another life, a boy no longer know as Abe Wheeler stood on a shuttle platform. The sky above was thick with purple storm clouds and blue lighting but no rain. Beyond the platform was an endless sea of red desert sand. Around him, like a great spider, rose eight steel towers that seemed to stab into the clouds above with a web of covered walkways connecting them.

He was cold. He was scared. He was alone. He could feel pain and fear and agony in the air here. He could not feel warmth.

But then a mind brushed his own. Warmth touched his insides. He turned to see an older man with shots of gray through his dark hair. His features were hard and there was a sense of sadness around him but there was also warmth and protection promised.

“Who are you?” the child asked.

The man knelt down and picked him up. “My name is Jason. I am the head of the Wayne clan here.”

“Where are you taking me?” the child asked.

“Home.”

Kangaroo Cry

2012-06-15T21:45:00Z

Title: Kangaroo Cry
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Eliot/Quinn
Verse: none
Summary: When Quinn calls in the favor Eliot owes him Eliot has to leave the team for a long job.
Notes: Written for Ziplocless who won this fic in the Support the Rainbow Charity auction and has been incredibly patient with me and the unfortunate mix of School finals and writer's block making this so late.

A month.

That’s how long they got.

That’s how much time passed from the dam and Nate’s big plans and their banter of the Wolf signal and them all going together to…

They got a month together. A month without some shadow hanging over them and it had been… well since before Sophie left that they got even that long without something pushing them and driving them more than just day to day.

Later they’d remember how bright the sun had been through the windows.

Right then Hardison had just complained about screen glare.

They had finished a job the day before.

They were gathered together, Nate and Sophie watching Parker, Hardison, and Eliot eating doughnuts and watching some TV show Hardison had put on.

Glee. Nate would correct himself, later, when he remembered. It was Glee. Hardison had introduced them to the show a con or two ago as an example of “The best and worst things you can do with a tv show” or something like that.

Hardison liked it for the geek pride, Nate thought. Parker liked it for the songs.

Eliot still claimed to not like it but Nate was pretty sure he’d heard Hardison teasing Eliot about getting up in arms over the bullying suffered by a kid named Kurt so…

“Just kiss him already!” Parker yelled at the screen.

Yeah. Nate would remember three thieves face palming in agreement as a fictional gay high school boy chickened out of a relationship.

He would remember choosing to ignore them muttering about him pulling a “Nate and Sophie”. He had important adult things to think about.

It had been… about as close to perfect as things got when a con wasn’t running smoothly for once.
Eliot’s cell phone rang and he stood, telling Hardison to pause the show if “That Dick” started to get what he had coming, before walking out to take the call in private.

When he came back something was different but he didn’t make them stop the show.

Nate wouldn’t know until later that was the moment when things changed.

~*~

Sophie had known. She’d known from the moment Eliot picked up his phone that something was wrong.
She’d studied his expression as he went to leave, the tension in his body, the hint of something disturbingly like resignation in his movements when he came back.

Fears and suspicions were all she had though.

The next day, though? When he stood at the start of Nate’s briefing and said he had something he had to say she’d felt her stomach drop because clues and cues were bombarding her but she didn’t *want* them.

“Quinn called me yesterday.” He said. “He’s callin’ in the favor I owe him.” He let out a breath. “There’s a job I’ve been getting offers about the past year or so. Pay’s great but it’s a long job, two months at least. Probably more.”

No.

Dead silence in the room.

“I didn’t want to tell ‘em the reason I wouldn’t go was I don’t want to leave you all that long so I said the job needed a second hitter I could trust, true by the way. That long a job you only do solo if you have to. They offered the job of the second to Quinn.” He sighed. “It needs to be done an’ I’ve been getting pressure from some of my old bosses and…” He sighed. “I leave in a week.”

The room exploded. Nate didn’t take kindly to being forced to do something and control of his team being taken away was part of that (worry for Eliot’s physical and mental well being, Sophie noted, was being nicely hidden by that but it was still there). Hardison chimed in with asking who he needed to hack to get Eliot off that plane. Sophie herself chimed in with not wanting Eliot to go and wondering if now was a good time to go to the list of generals she had cultivated…persuasion power… with for situations like this.

Parker was silent in the chaos before getting up and fleeing the room.

And the past month had gone so well…

~*~

Five days into the job Eliot gave one last call to Portland and said goodbye. Hardison had provided him with the best and safest cell phone possible to communicate with them but radio silence was about to be a necessity, not to mention he’d be a couple days away from even basic electricity for large portions of the job.

Still as he cut the line he ended up staring at the phone. Five days. Time was once he’d go that long without seeing the team and actually be happy about the break. Hell, three months passed between the David jobs and another six months before he’d seen the team again.

And maybe he’d missed them a little but…

It had only been five days. He’d called them three times just to check in and chat. Every single time Parker had answered it on the first ring and the phone had been passed around like…
Like the few times when he was still a kid that he’d managed to get a call home.

He pushed the thought away and gathered a couple other bits and pieces. There was a safe deposit box in this city he’d had for over a decade. He’d store the phone and some other things in it for the next three weeks. If all went according to plan they’d be back in twenty days and he’d be able to check in with the team then before the next part of the job got going.

It was less than a month before he could speak to them again. That was nothing.

They’d be alright.

They’d survived alone for years before the team. The four of them together could protect themselves without him for a couple months. They could.

His other phone rang, Shelly calling. Him and his boys were heading out. Quinn and Eliot would head out to their part of the job in the morning. They’d meet in four days.

He tried to focus on how good working with Shelly again would be. He tried to amuse himself with the passing thought of wondering just how long Quinn would manage to keep wearing suits before surrendering his Sterling imitations for the practicality of the field.

It used to work so well.

Eliot put everything in a bag and closed it.

An hour later, he stood in the lobby of a bank, the stero crackling with imported american music.

Of course his annoyance at the bad music, already high from the long wait and the need to get this over with so he could move forward, increased when he recognized the chorus from that damn TV show Hardison had made them watch.

Collecting your jar of hearts
And tearing love apart
You're gonna catch a cold
From the ice inside your soul

Finally the person came to let him into the vault. Ten minutes later, as he closed the lid and slid the safety deposit box back into place, the song still annoyingly playing through his head, Eliot had a passing thought about the organ in his chest the team had jerry-rigged back together in the past four years.

If there was some way he could stick it in the box for safe keeping as well.

~*~

It took the better part of five days for everyone to accept that he really was going. One by one doors and loopholes and plans to get him out of the job had closed and Eliot had been resigned from the beginning. The job was important. If it wasn’t for the team he would have taken it without a thought.

He just…

The night before he was set to leave the team gathered together. He cooked a massive dinner, trying to make at least one favorite of every member of the team. They lingered over the meal for more than an hour, chatting, joking, talking about old jobs and rehashing old arguments.

Eventually Hardison had brought out the phone he’d modified for the trip for Eliot to communicate with them back home safely and all the other details and designs that went over Eliot’s head but he understood were Hardison’s attempts at helping him stay safe.

Parker had given him two envelopes. One was full of local currency, the other American twenty, fifty, and one hundred dollar bills which were more useful than gold in some of the places he was going. He’d already had a stash of both but, coming from Parker…

Sophie had given him a smile and Nate a pat on the shoulder.

His plane was early in the morning. He hadn’t expected to see any of them after he left for the night.

But he was surprised at how unsurprised he was as one by one their cars appeared in front of his house in the cold gray pre-dawn hour as he prepared to leave.

In the end they drove him to the airport and went with him as far as he could.

“Two months.” Nate said when they were about to be forced to part ways. “We’ll meet you back here in two months.”

Eliot didn’t say it could easily be longer. It sounded like an order and, as always, Eliot would try to follow it.

“Don’t let them cut off your hair.” Parker pipped up with.

“Yeah, a high and tight would just look wrong on ya.” Hardison added in.

Eliot growled slightly but couldn’t help the smile.

He turned to look toward Sophie. She returned his gaze with the smallest of nods. She’d look after them while he was away.

One last breath and a nod and he turned. He wouldn’t say goodbye. He’d see them again soon enough.

~*~

God, please, just let me live to see mama again. He thought, staring up at the sky. The air around him was full of screams and the sound of guns, the sand beneath him soaked with his own blood. He felt cold. I’ll never tease Marci again. I’ll never sneak out again. I’ll never miss church again. Just don’t let me die here.

The world was getting fuzzier but hands appeared, a devil may care grin flittered into existence before his eyes.

His hands were sure though. One pressing against the wound on his torso, the other holding his shoulders down so he wouldn’t jerk at the pain.

“You still with me Corporal?” A voice asked. He blinked his eyes, trying to focus his vision. “Good ta see. Can ya tell me your name?”

“Spencer.” He answered, too out of breath and light headed to elaborate.

“Well, I’m Shelly.” The man replied. “Now let’s get you out of here.”

Shelly would never, ever, let him live down the fact that, right before they got evaced out of there, Spencer –delirious by that point Eliot would always remind him- asked if Shelly was an angel.

~*~

“An angel?” Quinn asked with a raised eyebrow as he passed the bottle back to Eliot. They were nine days into the first stretch of the mission and radio silence. It was night, they were somewhere in the desert, camped out around a tiny fire, drinking the beer they’d gotten their hands on through a series of events Eliot wasn’t sure he even completely understood, and telling stories.

“I was nineteen, religious, and bleeding out.” Eliot growled back. “What about you?”

“Same way I met you.” Quinn said. “On the job. Fought him. Won. Then he beat twelve guys and got away.”

“Not how I heard it went.” Eliot drawled, taking a long sip of the beer.

A hand took the beer and Quinn was suddenly very very close. “We ever gonna settle that score?”

That was what his mouth said but his body language suggested a different score.

“Dude. We’re in a fucking desert.” Eliot protested.

It wasn’t a no though.

~*~

They had holed up in some village in the border mountains. If it had a name Eliot never learned it.

Two weeks, he thought. No. One week and six days.

It was dark and late and everyone was asleep but him. He knew it would be another six hours before the next report and whether or not they could get out of there and onto…

He couldn’t sleep. During the day and during the work he could keep his head focused on the work. He had to if he wanted to get home alive.

But in the quite night of a mostly safe location when he just had to wait through until morning he couldn’t help...

The ones he’d left behind this time, old superstition keeping their names silent in his mind, and the ones a lifetime ago.

His feet found their way to the edge of the village, a space where the children sat to do their lessons when they could, the three days a week the people were able to bring a teacher up to their town.

A bitter smile crossed his face and he looked up.

The stars were different here.

“Black bird singing in the dead of night.” The words left his lips without him meaning for them to, matching a tune he’d heard with *them* before… And a song he’d heard years before. “Take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your life. You were only waiting for this moment to arise.”

“Blackbird singing in the dead of night.” A voice behind him answered. He turned sharply. He hadn’t expected Him to… “Take these sunken eyes and learn to see. All your life. You were only waiting for this moment to be free.” He grinned as he walked to stand by Eliot, looking out at the same dark black night and saying. “Beatles.”

As if of course all world class hitters would know the song.

They stood there for another hour and neither of them said another word.

~*~

The night after they sang Blackbird they’re out of the village and on their own. In some tent on a mountain trail after a long, long, day.

They still hadn’t settled scores and they were too exhausted by far to give it the kind of fight it deserved but…

With the tent hastily built to protect and camouflage them they collapsed onto bedrolls and stared at each other for a moment.

“Who takes first watch?” Eliot asked.

Quinn gave a withering look and another time Eliot might have been amused by the fact Quinn apparently got grumpy when he was exhausted.

Another long moment passed before Eliot forced himself to his feet and headed outside to make the rounds.

~*~

The next night they did actually “settle scores”.

It didn’t mean anything though. It was just something to pass the long night and fill a need.

In the morning they geared up and headed out like nothing had happened because nothing really happened.

~*~

They were calling his flight and Eliot was telling himself nothing would happen to the team while he was gone when a hand caught his and he turned back.

Parker was there, gripping his hand tightly enough to remind him she hung from buildings with that grip but…

She was looking down and to the side, her face twisted in a weird expression like she wasn’t sure how to feel what she was feeling. “Don’t g-…don’t get blown up. Okay?”

He swallowed the lump in his throat, the after image of his sister twenty years ago with that same damn…

He turned, giving her a kiss on the cheek like he’d given his sister all those years ago.

His voice didn’t want to work and he was afraid of cracking and what the hell it was only going to be two months and…

He walked away, turning to look back and wave one last time before they were gone from his sight.

The next step felt as hard as it had twenty years ago.

But just like back then he just adjusted the strap of his bag and made himself keep walking forward.

~*~

It said something about him and the change the team had had on him that his instinct upon stumbling across evidence of what looked like local mountain children getting into snowball fight some hours or days ago was not to keep walking forward.

They were making good time, would probably arrive at the next location a few hours early, and this stretch of the job had been remarkably free of peril.

Which meant both he and Quinn had settled scores again more than once in the past few days if for no other reason than not to go stir crazy from the boredom of watching desert turn into dry hills and then mountain roads.

Eliot briefly considered launching a snow ball at the back of Quinn’s head in surprise but Quinn kept a loaded gun on his person at all times. Eliot figured getting shot because he spooked a fellow hitter was probably not the best news to send home when he finally got back in touch with them tomorrow.

“Hey Quinn!” He called, waiting for Quinn to turn and register the impending threat before launching the snow ball at him.

His expression as the snow ball hit was priceless, as was the glare of injured dignity he sent in Eliot’s direction as he brushed the snow from his face.

They were ahead of schedule, they were in a relatively safe location, and the half hour they lost to a snow ball fight was more than worth the break in the three days of mind numbing boredom since they’d last seen or spoke to another human being.

~*~

It had been only a few weeks since he’d spoken to the team but that first phone call back home after being out in the field felt like…

Parker answered it before the second ring. She’d babbled at him about the job and the museum exhibit that was coming through town and Hardison’s latest attempt at a date. Then the phone was passed to Hardison and Sophie and Nate and back around again as people stuck in coms to listen in and join in on the conversation and if he closed his eyes he could almost imagine he was sitting there with him.

He stayed on longer than he meant to and Shelly smirked at him when he came back into where they were staying.

Quinn was watching with an expression usually used to study a mark.

“Don’t think too hard.” Shelly advised Quinn without even looking toward the man then back to Eliot. “Some things never change.”

“Yeah yeah.” Eliot growled. “Tell me about the bunker.”

That at least got Shelly back on track and further making fun of Eliot’s familial attachments were forestalled until after they‘d discussed the place they were infiltrating.

~*~

“You know, if you told me Eliot Fucking Spencer would settle down five years ago I would have laughed.” Quinn told him as they waited. There was something in his face and eyes that Eliot didn’t recognize. Which was weird, because spending 24/7 around the guy for more than a month is a pretty good way of getting to know someone.

He realized belatedly that he’d miss Quinn. And not just because of the sex. Sure, the guy drove him up the wall sometimes, their approaches to what they did was enough to cause them to be at each other’s throats as often as they were joking about western movies but…

Maybe spending all this time with the crew had broken him so someone annoying him made him like them.

“Wouldn’t call kickin’ some rich guy in the neck every week settled down.” Eliot grumbled back to Quinn. “And this aint settled down for sure.”

“After Mor-“ Quinn, wisely, detects the increase of tension at the almost mention of the name and changes the statement. “For years you won’t even take regular clients then suddenly you’re with a team for four years? You’ve settled in man.”

Eliot gives him a look.

“Not saying it’s a bad thing. I’m glad you’ve found a place in your old age. Portland seems like a nice place to retire.”

“Keep laughin’ it up and this old man’ll take you over his knee.” Eliot threatened.

The predatory look that got from Quinn? Eliot did *not* know what to do with that.

He looked away, trying to focus on the job at hand, just because there shouldn’t be any danger and they were with other people didn’t mean Eliot could slack off.

Though it didn’t help that something in his Lizard brain had snatched onto the conversation and thrown back up bits and pieces of a song he’d heard before this whole mess had started, back with the team and in…

Oh simple thing, where have you gone?
I’m getting old and I need something to rely on
So tell me when, you’re gonna let me in
I’m getting ti-

Then the world shook and he couldn’t remember any more.

~*~

Ambush.

The word was the first really solid thought to drift across Eliot’s consciousness as he tried to take stock of both himself and his surroundings only for his head and the threatening roll of his stomach told him to calm the fuck down or puke.

And he was in the desert with possibly broken ribs. Between dehydration and not needing to compound the trauma he should really avoid puking.

Slowly.

He couldn’t remember what had happened passed the ground shaking which suggested an ambush coupled with a head injury (which made his lack of recall at least make sense). The bright hot pain across his body was beginning to settle down and concentrate on certain areas which meant it probably hadn’t been a bomb. At the very least he wasn’t badly burned, which was a relief in a way that most outside the business probably wouldn’t appreciate.

He kind of wish Quinn was there, if only so someone could appreciate the irony of waking up in an unknown location, feeling like death stomped on you with combat boots, and being honestly grateful you *weren’t* badly burned.

Where was Quinn?

That thought forced his eyes open at last.

He was in a cell. Alone. No sign of Quinn in sight.

Best case scenario was that Quinn had gotten away clean and would let Shelly know what happened. Shelly would organize the extraction if Eliot didn’t get himself out of there first. Which he could, and would.

Just as soon as the room stopped spinning.

Worst case scenario was that Quinn was lying dead in some ditch somewhere, not even buried in the shallow grave most joked their types ended up in. Their types didn’t end up in shallow graves. Their types were lucky if they ended up in large pieces.

Either way, Quinn wasn’t coming back for him.

Quinn was a hitter and when a hitter fell behind on a job they got left behind. Eliot wouldn’t delude himself into thinking the sex meant anything. A voice in the back of his head that sounded disturbingly (or disturbingly comforting) like Sophie reminded him that there was a little more going on, surely Eliot had seen the signs and change in body language.

Eliot squashed it. He’d get out of here on his own, like always, and if not Shelly would bring in reinforcements. Shelly had never really been able to break out of the “never leave a man behind” mindset.

But getting out of here before then would be better for everyone.

He tried to sit up before his body told him to either lay the fuck down and *don’t* do that again or puke and Eliot was forced to comply.

He’d get out of there, just as soon as he’d recovered enough to stand up.

He let his eyes close. As much as he hated being unaware in a situation like this being awake wouldn’t really help him much and rest would help his body heal.

~*~

Healing from the bullet to his gut took months. The Purple Heart that came with it could have been his ticket back home for good. It nearly was.

He knew, somewhere in his mind, the reasons it wasn’t, why he got healed up and turned down the chance to head home and opted instead for more training. He knew. He just…

It seemed a convoluted path that led him to an air base that didn’t exist on legal documents, sitting across from Shelly over a couple of beers. They were in different squads but plenty of the boys had been through training at various levels together, or met in combat like he and Shelly had.

And there was that mission they’d done together, a month back, that Eliot wouldn’t know until later would change everything.

“It’s a standard K&R then?” Shelly asked. They didn’t talk about the details of their missions but he knew Eliot’s team would be leaving for a personnel retrieval soon enough. It was most of what they did, which made the question odd.

“Yeah.”

“You be careful out there. Don’t wanna have to come save your ass again.”

It would be the better part of a decade before he saw Shelly again, after that. The job was a setup, a trap sprung by those on high who thought Eliot’s squad knew too much. Eliot was the only survivor, running scared to San Lorenzo and a new chapter of his life.

He did manage to get a single message to Shelly, a warning about the fate of his team, and three years later he’d watch a news bulletin from a hotel room somewhere in Europe that reported the last of those responsible were found dead.

He never did ask Shelly if his team had done it.

~*~

He woke up shivering. Considering the heat of the area it was a very bad sign.

Though that he woke up at all made him marginally more optimistic about his chances of survival.

Eliot managed to stand at least. Though he’d have a hard time fighting Hardison in the state he was in, not even thinking about who knew how many guards or thugs were waiting between him and freedom.

He’d burn that bridge when he came to it.

He sat down and leaned his head back against the rough stone wall, thinking of the family he had to get back to and a time and place that felt so similar but what felt like a different world where he’d met…

He had to get back home. They’d be expecting him in just over a week. He had to get back home by then.

He had to.

He heard shouting in the distance as he closed his eyes, body dragging him back under, and wasn’t sure if it was real or an early starting dream.

~*~

Sophie found him on the roof. He was a bit surprised. The others probably know by now that he’d taken to going up onto the roof for time alone to think but they’d yet to follow him up there.

“Tell me the truth.” She said, coming to stand next to him. “If you could get out of this, would you?”

He sighed. “There a lot of unfinished business out there Soph. This job ties up some of it. I just…”

“Don’t want to leave us.” Sophie provided. A slim, delicate, hand raised to rest on his shoulder. “I’ll keep a watch over them, while your gone. We’ll be safe. Just focus on getting home to us the same.”

The unspoken plea to not let himself get so neck deep in the bloodbath that he changed hung in the air between them.

“I’ll come home.” He promised. He prayed to the god he hadn’t believed in since he’d been forced to leave his team’s bodies to rot in some forgotten hellhole that he’d be able to keep that promise this time.

~*~

He was moving before he was even fully awake, arm lashing out to grab at the hand prodding him.

“Woah there cowboy. Just trying to make sure you won’t bleed out on me.” That voice.

That…

“Quinn?” He opened his eyes and let go of Quinn’s hand. He’d expected the hitter to be long gone by now.

“Got away clean.” He said. “Took a while but I found their trail. Realized you’d survived. Tracked them down, made entry. Now let’s get out of here.”

“What are you doin’ here?”

Quinn gave him a look like he’d hit his head. “I’m saving you dumbass. Now shut up and don’t bite your tongue.”

A second later the world shifted as Quinn pulled him to his feet and Eliot clenched his teeth against the cry of pain at the pull to his injuries.

“Can you walk?” Quinn asked and Eliot didn’t waste breath answering, just leaned heavier on Quinn and started shuffling along as best he could.

Later, much later, when they’d reached a safe base and Eliot had gotten some medical care and convinced Shelly not to call Nate he’d find Quinn loitering nearby.

Eliot hadn’t thought it meant anything but…

“They know you were doing the job with me.” Quinn stated. “Your team.” Eliot didn’t respond. “If I left you in that place they’d kill me.”

“Fair enough.” Eliot muttered though there was something… “You can finish this job by yourself?”

“Job’s done.” Quinn stated. “All’s left is to get your sorry ass back home. Then…” He shrugged.

“Got another job lined up?” Eliot asked.

Another shrug. “I got a little time off. Don’t know where to spend it though. Not really in the mood for beaches after this.”

“Too much sand.” Eliot nodded in agreement. “Portland’s nice this time of year.”

Quinn just grinned at him.

~*~

It’s almost another week before Eliot can make the trip home safely. He considered pressing it a little, a day less in recovery and pushing it travel wise would mean getting home on time.

Of course if the team found out, or if something happened…

In the end he ended up calling ahead, telling them he’d be two days late, but that he was coming home.

Quinn flew with him as far as Paris, the trip back to Portland would already normally take three flights but with their combined paranoia they’d ended up taking a circuitous route and it had been three just to get that far.

Eliot had spent most of the first flight asleep, well as asleep as he got in a public place. They’d talked and joked through the second flight but there had been tension growing. The final flight had been nearly silent.

That hint of a song, the last thing he could remember thinking about before the ambush kept playing through his head.

If you’ve got a minute why don’t we go

It was… you never really realized what spending two months in close quarters with someone did until you got to the end and it hit you that person would be there anymore. Eliot had left plenty of people in his life. Really, this wasn’t that special in the grand scheme of things, but in the moment he could never quite completely distance himself from it.

“Well…” Quinn said as they reached Eliot’s gate. “We’ll always have Paris.” He said with a grin.

Of course Quinn was a Casablanca fan.

Talk about it somewhere only we know

“More like we’ll always have Censored” Eliot retorted before grinning himself. “Don’t know, Quinn, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”

Quinn shook his head and nudged Eliot’s good shoulder with a fist. “Take care of yourself Spencer.” Then he turned and walked away.

Eliot watched him go. There was a chance in a few days or weeks he’d get a call that Quinn had decided to see if Portland really was nice this time of year. There was also a chance he’d never see Quinn again.

That was just how things worked with Hitters, collisions and separations until they all eventually dropped dead.

This could be the end of everything
So why don’t we go
Somewhere only we know

~*~

Between injuries that weren’t nearly healed and the close to thirty six hours of travel by the time Eliot trudged up the ramp and out into the terminal he was past tired and closing in on exhausted.

He kept his head down, kept his feet moving, he’d notice if there was a threat but he was past more than that basic, instinctual, observation by about nineteen hours.

The familiarity of the voices registered before the words did and he looked up. Beyond where the gate fed back out into non secure areas the rest of the team were standing.

Hardison was yelling a greeting, Parker was jumping up and down, waving a sign that said welcome home and had clearly been an excuse to use glitter pens. Nate stood at ease, with a grin, like when his plans came together.

And Sophie wore an expression so close to the one his mama wore the first time he came home from the service Eliot felt a lump form in his throat.

It wasn’t that long that he’d been gone, really.

But he passed through the last check point and reached the team, reached his family. A hug for moral from Hardison, a poke from Parker, Sophie cooing over his injuries as he winced from both, Nate wading into the fray to move them along.

He hadn’t been gone all that long but he felt like that part of himself that had been wandering out in the desert for twenty years had finally found it’s way home.

Geek Service: This Is Just a Drill

2012-05-29T22:22:20Z

Hey All,

So I've been missing from fandom for awhile. This was due to finals, a maymester from hell, a fic I owe someone that won't get written, ect.

It is also due to me making the final last push of editing my novel.

So at various points some of you have joked about wanting to know when/if I get published. Maybe, in the not too distant future, if I can figure out how the fuck this is working, you may see a link appear here to enable you to go buy this book if you would like.

This Is a Geek Service Message: As Soon as Finals Are Over

2012-04-23T00:46:30Z

In between final exams and papers I've been watching Glee. While not my normal genre (and, okay, I'm guilty of skipping most of the scenes involving the Quin/Finn/Rachel/Sam/Puck/Santana Sexagon) and while it might be the result of too many essays and not enough sleep and/or sunlight I've become very attatched to Kurt/Blaine. /backstory.

I have only one thing to actually say in the light of the episode I just paused in order to make this post.

As soon as this twelve page paper I should be writting is written and I've done everything I can in the final days of the Leverage Land heist I will be writing a fic (that will probably never see the light of day but whatever) where Neal from White Collar's younger brother and said brother's boyfriend visit him in New York to see something on Broadway and possibly fight crime and school violence via show tunes.

In other news why did I think double majoring in less than four years was a good thing to attempt? It's not even my final year and the work load is making attempts on my life.

Mirrors

2012-03-21T18:19:22Z

Title: Mirrors
Author: Magpie
Rating: pg-13
Genre: Nate/Eliot
Verse: BlackKing!WhiteKnight!Verse
Summary: He doesn't like what he sees.
Notes: Timestamp set during the Carnival Job but refferencing the events of season 3

"I don’t like what I see."

Eliot doesn’t like it either. He’s never liked mirrors. He’s spent most of his life not being able to stand the guy he saw in them.

The earth beneath him buckles and rolls, though he knows it’s really still. A concussion will due that to a guy. A lost fight with a fucking carnival ride will do that to a guy.

The mirrors reflect his image back to him, twisting, disconnected. He here’s echoes of Molly’s cries and the team’s voices in his head and in a way he knows all of this, all of it, is in his head.

He can’t focus his eyes right. The world is spinning out of control.

Instincts and training are keeping him calm, stubbornness keeping him functional, but…
From behind him something moves, someone attacks, and he’s nearly taken to the ground.

He catches himself, defends just enough to keep his feet.

He turns, trying to avoid… and there’s a guy.

He lashes out, feeling the shatter and pain of broken glass lance across his senses before it even registers that the guy hadn’t been there.

~*~

There’s broken glass in the sink, on the tile floor, in his hand.

If it wasn’t in his hand he might be able to explain it.

They didn’t even get a month, not really. Four months after the proposal he and Nate had gotten married in what was supposed to have been a small ceremony with just family and no fuss until Sophie stated that if they were going to get married the least they could let her do is plan them a proper wedding.

And she’d said it like she really cared, like she was doing this because they were family and come hell or high water or having to manipulate them she was going to make sure they had a “proper” ceremony.

And so they’d let her do that. And so they’d had a wedding in June, two months late due to jobs and life and at least one ceremony (well, decoy ceremony) being raided by a bunch of what Hardison claimed had to be ninjas.

They’d barely been back from the honeymoon before a job went south, really south, and Nate was arrested and they’d gotten him back and out in record time, in less than a month, and they’d taken down a corrupt Prison system and…

Only they’d come back to the apartment, ready to take some more time out of Boston, on to have the Italian waltz in and Moreau to crawl out from under Eliot closet.

It was the one lie… obfuscation (lie, definitely lie) that still hung between them, something Eliot shoved to the back of his mind and carefully and meticulously banished from his thoughts whenever a reminder arose, the closest to forgetting someone like him could come. It stood as damning evidence against what Nate had told him years ago, that for a while (years) he’d forgotten that, forsaken that.

That even as he lead Nate on a merry chase across Europe that ended in an Italian prison he’d been taking some well earned leave time from Damien.

He’d saved Nate life, he knows, when it was all over. Damien had been waiting for Eliot to get home, to see how badly Eliot had been hurt and hounded, before determining whether to order Nate’s death execution style or slow. Nate was as close to a friend as Eliot had for a while, a worthy adversary. He’d helped make Eliot who he was, and helped Eliot get out of tight situations.

It had been a thin line to walk. Even that briefest of conversations between them had reminded Eliot of a man he thought long dead. Of a boy he used to be.

Damien already knew they played chess by mail, was amused by the idea, but he was wary. So, very, wary.

Nate was maybe the one man on earth in those days who may have been able to gain more sway over Eliot than Damien.

But Eliot had talked Damien down from killing Nate, had walked a few steps farther down that road to hell to keep Nate safe, and ultimately walked away.

With everything, everything, that had happened, after the better part of five years forcing himself to not remember that period in his life when he walked knowingly into the employ of the devil Eliot had almost managed to convince himself he had forgotten. To convince himself it wasn’t the sound of Silent Night playing through a house where no child would wake for Christmas Morning that chased him out of sleep in the holiday season. That the half edited stories about his scars he told Nate (told himself until he believed they) were true.

And for all the hell his childhood coming back to bite his ass had caused it had helped him to forget the rest as much as he could.

Only shit had finally stopped raining from the sky. It had been business as usual. They had been happy.

But they were going after Damien Fucking Moreau and…

He’d held it together. For a week he’d held it together.

The dreams still came and went but it had been awhile since they were bad. Something about taking down Samuel had helped finally lay some of his ghosts to rest and he’d almost believed…
He’d dreamt about silent houses and the haunting song of Silent Night mocking him. He’d dreamt about a time when the line between him and the Black Knight had become blurred. The Black Knight had been created by him shoving the violence and that stone cold calm onto someone, anyone, else.

Damien had taught him to embrace it, to slip into it, to revel in it.

Red mist. He’d dreamt about black knights and the black king he’d served before Nate.

Most nightmares he woke up thrashing, or in Nate’s arms being talked down. He rarely woke from them to stillness and Nate asleep.

But he had that night. He’d slipped out of bed and into the bathroom, and splashed water on his face to dispel the dream. He’d swipped at his nose, their last con at an elementary school had left the entire team with head colds, only to find blood smeared across the back of his hand.

And about thirty seconds later he’d punched the hell out of the mirror and he couldn’t even remember why.

And there wasn’t any blood on his hand… well other than what was appearing due to the broken glass embedded in it.

The door opened and Eliot turned, looking to Nate, watching detached as Nate moved in to examine the damage.

As they stood there, injured hand in hand, Eliot wished desperately that they’d had more than this short time but he shouldn’t, couldn’t, wait any longer.

“Nate.” He said. Nate looked up and Eliot almost felt like those eyes knew what he was about to say. “There somethin’ I have to tell you.”

~*~

He’s turning, always turning. Forces buffet him. The world’s unsteady. He can’t trust his eyes.
It’s like life, his whole damn life, looking back at him through mirrors.

He sees his reflection in a mirror and shifts slightly, watching it become Roper.

He doesn’t like what he sees.

He never does.

~*~

Nate had taken the news better that Eliot had feared, but still pretty badly.

It wasn’t the first fight they’d had since getting married. Sometimes it felt like they argued more on and off the job as they both realized that for better or worse they’d be stuck together for life and the things that pissed them off today would still be there in forty years.

But it might have just been the worst they’d had, maybe discounting Nate’s brilliant “I’ll go to jail” plan.

But all in all it could have been worse. Eliot coming out with it voluntarily probably helped a lot.

The team hadn’t taken it much better.

Though after a week or two to get over it Eliot came into HQ to find Hardison and Parker working out a timeline of his life on one of the boards, their only explanation being that so far they’d encountered three jobs involving his history and they wanted to try figure out if there were any other potential future marks they could take care of before it became an issue.

Despite Hardison’s teasing and Parker’s Parkerness they seemed entirely, disturbingly, earnest in their intentions of wiping out any more “big bads” from his past.

It was strangely touching.

But time had passed and cons had changed and he kept getting pulled down and back. The elephant in the room remained, always, the fact there was a difference between That Man, Samuel, and Damien. That Man and Samuel had victimized him. He’d been a kid and hurting and confused and they’d abused the power they had over him.

Eliot had known what Damien was. He’d walked into Damien’s employ knowingly and willingly. Damien may have messed with his head, it was the nature of men like that, but it didn’t change the fact that Eliot had donned the Black Hat entirely by choice and free will.

He’d been lost and angry and out of control but what exactly was stopping that from happening again?

~*~

He sees himself in a mirror, battered and barely standing, but standing. Always standing.

He’s always standing when the day is done because he’s been forced to his knees too many times in his life.

He won’t kneel. Not again. Not ever.

But before his eyes his reflection changes, white knight morphs to black. He sees Roper.

He turns, lashing out. He stood on the knifes edge. His control was slippery but he couldn’t lose it. The Black Knight was supposed to be dead but if it wasn’t Molly would pay the price.
But if he lost Molly would also pay the price.

Quick bursts of violence and he’s on his knees.

No. Not on his knees. He won’t be put on his knees.

And he’s back. He’s returning to the fight. He won’t stay down. He never stays down.

Only his body gives way and the floor opens up under him and he’s on the ground and he knows…

~*~

Somehow he’d known it would come to this.

Six months. A cluster fuck repeated over six months. His past coming back to…

And then they’d been in that damn warehouse.

It was a year, almost exactly a year, since L.A. and when he laid the Black Knight to rest. When he thought that maybe, finally, he could just…

Only there they were, with a kill box, and nineteen guys with guns, and Nate and the job and everything in jeopardy.

And Eliot had known. He’d known in that damn moment he killed the guy who came at them around the corner, that he couldn’t get them out of there. At least he couldn’t have a year ago. Not without.

There was no time to debate. There was no time to consider. If he hesitated he’d be dead and then Nate and the team and others and Damien Fucking Moreau would walk free.

“Are you sure you can take down Moreau?” He asked, the Italian’s answer echoing in his head and he took the gun and let himself drop. Nate’s words were muted. The concern in his eyes washed over him.

There had been no threat of the Black Knight for a year, but Eliot could still feel the violence and precision waiting to be unleashed. He didn’t know if this would blur the line or how badly. He did know there was no other way they were walking out alive.

He’d just have to hold tight and pretend it was the plan and hope he got through this and lived to give Hardison hell about inserting that line into his head.

Yeah.

Hardison, the team, Nate... That was it wasn't it? That was what kept him from going back.

Just hold tight and tell himself he couldn’t die here. The team needed him. They needed him sane.
He’d picked up the gun and let himself drop into another mindset, another time.

An eternity later he turned, seeing Chapman, actually hearing what he said, and he found he could form words and respond like Eliot and shoot to kill like the Black Knight and maybe that took him a step closer to the hellfire he felt around him.

But he’d survived. The team was safe. He’d take hell if it meant they were safe.

He disarmed the ammo from his guns and walked away.

He was not, he would again become, The Black Knight.

And the white knight still had a few moves left to play.

~*~

He doesn’t like what he sees.

The world beneath him buckles and rolls and his body is caught between white hot pain and the numbness of adrenalin.

But he won’t stay down, staying down meant death and the team needed him alive. Rising to his knees would put him on his knees and he won’t be put on his knees again. He has no choice but to stand and instead of the chaos of the Black Knight an almost tranquil clarity bleeds through his mind.

He has to get up, he has to survive, he has to win this fight, and so he would.

He stands, the throb of his body distant and removed, and closes his eyes. They lie to him.

And he turns and feels the rush of air and hears the shift of cloth and feels in his bones and muscels more than his sluggish mind when to move and dodge. The world is single actions and reactions, disconnected and singular, each moment and movement all that matters and all that can be processed.

The dead calm in the eye of the Black Knight’s storm.

He opens his eyes and knows he’s already won.

In so many ways he has already won.

Warm Cookies

2012-03-18T23:56:56Z

Title: Warm Cookies
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: gen team!fic
Verse: none
Summary: In which Eliot can't remember what happened but it doesn't really matter.
Notes: Follows Children's Hour and Bedtime Stories
Post Eliot whump.
I don't think there will be any more follow ups to this but then again I didn't think there would be any at all so stay tuned I guess.

Eliot woke up disoriented. The bed under him wasn’t familiar but was comfortable. He was hurt but it was the dull ache of tended wounds rather than the bright pain of a fresh injury.

He couldn’t remember what had happened.

The fact that should cause him more panic than it did occurred right around the same time his slightly sluggish mind registered the smell of fresh baked cookies.

He opened his eyes, breathing deep, the scent filling his senses even as he saw the ceiling above him and recognized he was safe back at home base.

He couldn’t remember what had happened.

The low pounding in his head, the feeling of fighting through fog to keep his train of thought going, the ache in his body told him he had a concussion. His memory of what had happened was likely always going to be a little fuzzy, that was just the nature of head traumas.

He closed his eyes again, and let the smell of baking cookies wash over him. He could hear voices through the cracked door to the main part of Nate’s condo. Sophie and Nate were bantering quietly, the sound of running water suggesting one of them was washing dishes. They were being quiet but it wasn’t…

He focused, listening for…

And there it was, just barely, he could hear the soft snuffling snore Hardison gave when he finally crashed after too long without sleep.

They were trying to not wake Hardison up.

The light in the darkened room brightened just a little behind his eyelids and Eliot opened them, seeing Parker slink across the room to sit next to him, munching on a cookie. “You’re awake.” She whispered.

He nodded slightly, feeling the slow spread of relief across his mind. The team was safe. Whatever had happened they were all okay.

“Want a cookie?” Parker asked, holding out a second one. “Sophie said I could only have one, so I stole an extra one.”

Their little cookie thief.

“Maybe tomorrow.” He said. He already felt his body pulling him back under. The team was safe and he was safe and he needed more sleep and he should just get that sleep.

He couldn’t remember what had happened, but he was pretty sure it didn’t really matter.

This Is a Public Geek Service Announcement: Support the Rainbow

2012-03-13T15:56:17Z

Hi everyone,

I have recently posted an offering over on Rainbow Support which will be raising money for groups such as The Trevor Project. Got a prompt you think I could do something cool with? Always wanted to know more about what was going through Hardison's head in my Phases of the Moon series? Ever wondered if Sterling's contact in New London in Steal the Sky was Mycroft?

Go and place a bid! Help support the GLBT community and get something fun to read in the process.

A Single Word

2012-03-12T21:03:26Z

Title: A Single Word
Author: Magpie
Rating: pg-13
Genre: Nate/Eliot
Verse: BlackKing!WhiteKnight!Verse
Summary: It was a single word, flung in annoyance, but it was the one thing that could destroy them.
Notes: So I found this in my folder and cleaned it up a little. I may be actually posting some more of these stories in the near future. This is a tag to The Snow Job.

Later.

Later when the jobs over and he’s calmed down and sobered up a little.

Later when things have stabilized enough for him to think

When he finds himself sitting alone in his apartment, waiting in front of a chess board for a knock he’s only just starting to realize isn’t going to come…

That’s when he’ll acknowledge that he crossed a line he should have never even touched.

Growing up his mother always told him to always make sure to fight fair with family and friends, because there’s no easier way to destroy a relationship than a low blow.

He may not know what category Eliot falls into now but he knew it was true.

It was a single word, something he’d flung in annoyance at Eliot’s perceived attempt to *control* him, that Eliot was starting to take Sophie’s side, that his second in command was questioning him.

It had been just one statement, just one word really, a bit of a mocking tone, a bit of reference to something Eliot *trusted* him with.

“You’re gonna control me?”

Control.

The one thing Eliot struggled with and Nate had mocked his ability to keep control.

With a growl of frustration, at himself and Eliot Fucking Spencer, Nate knocked over his king.

Then shoved the board off the table.

Eliot wasn’t coming and he’d probably just drunk his way out of the best thing he had going.

So why not drink a little more to help him forget that too?

Bedtime Stories

2012-03-10T18:39:25Z

Title: Bedtime Stories
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: gen team!fic
Verse: none
Summary: What happened between them being taken and now didn't matter. What came next? That mattered.
Notes: Follows Children's Hour
Post Eliot whump. Warning for some mild depictions of the aftermath of torture.
Minor character from the Carnival Job.

What had happened earlier didn’t matter.

Sure the job had gone all to hell and there had been a terrifying, heart stopping, minute when first Eliot, then Parker and Hardison, had been knocked out and their coms had gone off line and Nate and Sophie were left staring at each other trying to come up with some way to even begin to react to the disappearance of their team mates.

And sure. That moment had blurred and stretched and they’d thrown themselves into the rescue and at each other’s throats in desperation and frustration even as they worked together seamlessly.
But in the end it hadn’t mattered. Even as they made the final move before going to steal back Parker, Hardison, and Eliot Parker had burst through the apartment’s front door demanding help for bringing Eliot the rest of the way because he’d passed out in the elevator.

And really, at that moment, nothing that had happened in the last few hours mattered anymore.

Nate and Sophie ran after Parker, taking over carrying Eliot between them when they saw Hardison struggling visibly, obviously exhausted.

Parker and Hardison kept close as they made their way back into the condo, carrying him through the “forbidden door” to the neighboring condo Eliot and Parker used as a training space and where Eliot had set up a working medical room around the second or third time someone (Nate) had gotten himself shot on the job.

With Eliot settled on the medical cot in the corner Sophie started digging out the first aid things they’d need and Nate took a moment to asses the collective damage.

Hardison had a black eye and his left hand looked slightly swollen. In fact most of the damage seemed to be to his left side. He’d been supporting Eliot with his right…

So Eliot’s injuries had come prior to their escape. Hardison had been shielding Eliot when he got hurt.

Parker’s face was uninjured but there was makeshift bandage on her arm that looked like the wound was from a knife and the slightest limp she had suggested an injury to one of her legs. Coupled with the blood on her hands and the smell of gun smoke she’d been the one doing most of the fighting to get them out.

And Eliot…

“Oh…” Sophie made a noise in the back of her throat, she’d opened the shirt the others had –judging from how oversized on Eliot it was- stolen at some point during their escape, fingers a fraction of an inch away from one of a dozen small puncture wounds on Eliot’s chest. Combined with the massive bruising on his torso Nate felt his heart freeze again, wondering how deep the wounds went, and if it was possible Eliot had simply bled out.

“They’re shallow.” Parker said. Pushing Sophie’s hands away and brandishing a pair of tweezers and a sterilized thin metal probe. “Little needles. Localized poison. Might have left bits behind.”

Confused Nate looked to Hardison who looked back with eyes a lot older than the Hacker normally had. “Torture.” He said, his voice as worn and aged as the look in his eyes.

“No!” Parker’s voice was sharp and angry and Nate looked, seeing her slap away Sophie’s hands again as the woman tried to help.

“Sophie.” Nate kept his voice calm and even. “Can you look at Hardison’s hand?” Sophie looked over at him, shocked –shellshocked- expression on her face before seeming to catch herself and nod.

As she moved to look Hardison over Nate moved in to stand with Parker, holding a hand out for her to drop the bits of metal she was pulling out of Eliot into. “Parker.” He said softly as she worked. When she didn’t respond he continued. “Parker, we should call his physician.”

It had taken them awhile but they’d eventually learned Eliot had a personal physician he mostly trusted. As odd as he’d been about it when Gail had come to pick Eliot up after that carnival job it had seemed weirdly significant that they were finally getting to see this mysterious person.

Though, thinking back, that was possibly why they’d let him go so easily.

Parker’s eternally steady hand started to shake and Nate knew they really needed to get Eliot proper medical care *Now* but they had to get Parker to stand down first. Whatever had happened had forced her into a headspace and if her reaction to *Sophie* trying to help Eliot was bad her reaction to a stranger would be worse. “Parker?”

Her hands dropped and she hunched forward, shoulders shaking, and Nate glanced back to Sophie, nodding slightly for her to call Gail. They could try to patch Eliot up but the bruising suggesting broken ribs and the torture…

He seemed stable enough to wait twenty more minutes for someone who wouldn’t puncture one of his lungs while trying to help.

Juggling Eliot’s care back over to Sophie Nate looked back to Parker. He reached out and took the implements from her hands carefully, she was having a breakdown and as much as he wanted to comfort her this was still Parker. It didn’t matter if they were her pseudo family, if she was in distress her first reaction, especially after today, may be to lash out and him getting stabbed with tweezers wouldn’t help her calm down.

With sharp implements removed from her hands Nate eased in a step closer, resting a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay.” He said. “You got him out. He’s safe.”

She took in a deep, shuddering breath, trying to force back the stoicism she normally kept so easily. She looked up and over to him, bright eyes shining with tears, looking so damn *young* as she said, barely above a whisper. “I was scared.” Her lip trembled a little. She blinked and a tear fell. He didn’t know how to do this. How do you make someone who doesn’t know fear feel safe again when she finally meets it?

Following instinct, probably created by spending too much damn time around Hardison, Nate reached out and pulled her into a hug, just holding her for a minute like a little girl. Like his little girl.

“We all were.” He said, rubbing a circle into her back as he felt her start to cry harder. “We all were. But you brought him home safe. You’re all okay. Gail’s gonna come and fix him up and you’ll be annoying him again in no time at all.” She sniffed, a weirdly atonal laugh escaping her and he knew he’d said something right. He let her go and she stepped back, wiping at her face. “Go take care of Hardison. Sophie and I’ll take care of Eliot until Gail gets here.”

She nodded and went to where Hardison was trying to wrap his hand with ace bandage and taking over for him.

Nate looked up, meeting Sophie’s eyes across Eliot’s still form and nodding. Without a word they got to work, carefully pulling off bloodied clothing and checking for life threatening injuries they missed the first time around, reconfirming their initial assumption. The damage was extensive but minus the ribs relatively superficial. It probably hurt a lot and should have probably had him down for the count a long time before the elevators but he was Eliot and he’d held on until he knew they were home safe.

A knock on the door, Nurse Gail, and there was a fresh bustle of movement as she took over the sick room before pausing to glance toward Parker and Hardison. “I don’t usually have an audience.” She said to Nate. “And Eliot probably wouldn’t want one.”

Nate nodded and glanced to Sophie who brushed the hair out of her face nonchalantly, but reminding Nate she’d never taken out the comm. He nodded again and she went over, herding Parker and Hardison back into the main part of the condo and as he helped Gail he listened as Sophie got them settled on the couch. There was a low murmmer of chatter as blankets and asprin were fetched, Hardison’s hand was examined again, and finally they started to settle down.

As Nate braced himself to help Gail wrap Eliot’s ribs Sophie’s voice, telling a poorly disguised bed time story to get the two other children to get the rest they probably desperately needed help him put off the need for a drink for a little while longer.

And if, when Gail was done and had disappeared back to her place to get some fresh supplies Nate sat beside the cot to watch the hitter sleep and started repeating back Sophie’s story to hold back that god awful child-stealing silence… well if Eliot remembered later he’d never mention it.

Children's Hour

2012-02-22T17:26:18Z

Title: Children's Hour
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: gen (Parker Hardison and Eliot)
Verse: none
Summary: How they got caught didn't matter. How they got out of that room, together, was all that mattered.
Notes: Eliot whump, major Parker, Hardison, and Eliot being BAMFs.
Warning for some mild depictions of torture.
So apparently my brain is still on a Mellon Chronicals kick because it wasn't until after it was pointed out by a reader on Fanfic.net that I realized I'd done an accidental homage. Black Star to anyone who can spot it. I'll be rereading Betrayal over there.

How they got there wasn’t important.

They weren’t Nate and Sophie. Information about the job and how far south it had gone wouldn’t help them con their way out of a cell or away from the watchful eyes of men who knew what they could do.

Or thought they did.

Somewhere out there Nate and Sophie were probably doing everything to get them out but for the moment it was just Parker, Eliot, and Hardison alone in a cell they couldn’t con their way out of.

They’d woken up slowly, knocked out for transport in a way they’d concern themselves with later. The only thing about it that mattered at the moment was Eliot looked like he’d been taken down the hard way, the purpling bruise on his face and the time it took for his eyes to open and focus testifying to a concussion.

So hitting their way out was probably not option number one, as far as Hardison could see.

His own head throbbed, but the post drug kind. It took him a long moment to get himself grounded enough to turn his head away from where it had been since he’d opened his eyes and saw Eliot to see if Parker was on his other side.

Panic was seeping in along with reality but for the moment Hardison fought it. He had to keep a level head, especially if Eliot was down for the count.

He always said he wanted to lead a crew. This wasn’t exactly what he had in mind but he’d take lead if he had to.

Parker was still, her eyes just barely open but likely an attempt to hide her consciousness until she was completely ready to move. The thick iron collar around her neck and the chain that connected it to the wall all three of them were leaning against registered right around the time Hardison registered the feeling of iron against his own neck. He’d check in a minute but he was pretty sure they wouldn’t leave someone as dangerous as Eliot unrestrained either.

He took a breath and tried to take stock of the rest of his body. His shoulders hurt from being wrenched the wrong way and his hands were asleep. Attempts to wiggle his fingers almost failed entirely but Hardison was relatively sure they were still attached. His arms had just been wrenched back and up and cuffed there so his hands were somewhere around his shoulder blades.

Parker’s too. He hoped Eliot’s weren’t, the man had dislocated a shoulder three times that Hardison knew off. This couldn’t be good for him.

Of course he doubted their captors had Eliot’s long term health in mind.

At least it made whippings unlikely.

He fought down a hysteric noise as he registered that thought and clamped down on the thought of being tortured. They wouldn’t be. They just needed to get out of here first.

Slowly Hardison looked away from Parker, glancing around the room. The floor, walls, and ceiling were concrete. There were no windows. A single door stood across from them and a single light fixture hung from the ceiling.

And a chair in the middle of the room bolted to the floor.

It didn’t look like there were any cameras, which was something positive.

“Everyone okay?” Eliot asked, sounding calm and not slurring his words.

Typical Eliot.

“Despite being chained to a wall, perfect.” Hardison answered.

Parker’s voice was disturbingly disappointed when she said. “I can’t get enough leverage to dislocate my thumbs from this position.”

…typical Parker.

At least no one was losing their cool yet.

“what next?” Hardison asked.

Eliot let out a breath. “Look for something around us we could use as a lock pick.” He didn’t sound optimistic.

Which proved to be right. Nothing of use was within easy reach of them.

“Mayb-“ Hardison started after their search had proved futile.

“Quiet,” Eliot said, interrupting Hardison while climbing to his feet. “Someone’s coming.”

A few tense heartbeats later the door swung open and Hardison would have to ask Eliot how he knew later.

Assuming they made it out of this alive.

“Good evening,” The man said with the smarmy smile that made him look like a wanna be Bond Villain.

Actually that was kind of a good description for the rest of him. Short, doughy, beedy little eyes. Like a rat and the Pillsbury dough boy’s bastard son.

And no, Hardison wasn’t trying to distract himself from the way the Rat-Man had settled his hands on the back of the chair like a predator as a mook wheeled a cloth covered cart into the room behind him.

“Now, I want to know why you three are here. Who sent you. Who you’re working for. I want to know everything about you.” He paused as Eliot leaned back against the wall. “You seem awfully calm mister...”

“Spencer.” Eliot shrugged. “Just the hired muscle,” He said. “Don’t know anything. No reason for you to bother me.”

Hardison felt like the world had turned on it’s head. Eliot was supposed to be jumping to their defense not…

“You wouldn’t happen to be Eliot Spencer would you?” The Rat Man asked and there was a flash of not quite hidden surprise on Eliot’s face, he looked a little more nervous. Odd for him to be emoting even this little bit. “Ah. You are. Mistake to tell me your name.” The man shook his finger, tisking Eliot. “You see I know your rep. You are a hard man Mr. Spencer. You don’t work under or with anyone. No… I don’t think you’re just here as hired muscle.”

And the world snapped back into it’s proper place and Hardison felt his stomach twist as he recognized what had happened.

Jumping to their defense would have made Parker and Hardison an obvious weak point. Pretending to know nothing and that arrogant disregard had brought the Rat Man’s attention to him in a way that made him the target.

“I think you’re the head of this operation. No?”

Eliot looked over at them and glared meaningfully. “I… I am,” Hardison said, forcing his eyes to stay on Eliot, trying to look afraid but not oversell it. As much as he didn’t want the man to hurt Eliot Hardison knew of the three of them Eliot was most likely able to take whatever came next and still be able to function.

And he’d never forgive himself if either of them got hurt.

Nate’s voice drifted through Hardison’s head as he repeated. “I’m in charge.” Fear, there in his voice. He was afraid Eliot would hurt him if he argued. That was his motivation.
Sophie cooed praise in his head and it calmed him to think of her.

The Rat Man looked at him and to Parker, still on the ground and still, before shaking his head. “I think not.” He nodded to Eliot and two men emerged from the door behind him. “I think you and I should have a conversation.”

Eliot went quietly, limping slightly as they pulled off his shirt and forced him to the chair. The little shake of his head as he turned to sit and the way he leaned back afterwards like the movement had made the world spin was worrying.

Maybe he should have tried to take Eliot’s place. Getting out of here dragging Eliot would be difficult and if he was conscious but hurt too badly to move quick there’d probably be an argument when Eliot tried to make them leave him behind.

Once Eliot was in the chair and restrained with leather straps the Rat Man retrieved a tray of what looked like short, thick, acupuncture needles.

Eliot’s eyes narrowed and his face went grim.

“Ah… I see you recognize my little toys.” The Rat Man said, running his fingers across them almost lovingly. “Well then you know what comes next.”

He carefully picked one up and two of the goons held Eliot against the chair as he drove the needle into the flesh near Eliot’s shoulder and left it there.

It… didn’t actually look that bad. Hardison had been kind of imagining them being driven under Eliot’s nails or into his eyes or other nightmarish things but it was kind of relievingly anticlimactic.

Then the Rat man pulled out a lighter and Hardison briefly worried about fire and burns and…

The Rat Man lit the end of the little needle.

Eliot’s face was one of someone bracing themselves for…

Hardison didn’t know what but he was worried.

The little flame at the end of the needle seemed to go out.

“Now for the boring part,” The Rat Man said, twirling the lighter in his fingers. “Though…” He glanced toward the wall where Parker and Hardison were sitting. “I suppose they could entertain me…”

“I thought you wanted a chat,” Eliot growled, something fierce and strangely majestic about him as he sat there; his bruised and scared torso bare but moving with deceptively even breaths, the little needle with a small well of blood around it’s base, his chin up and eyes defiant.

The Rat Man turned back to Eliot and grinned. “Alright. Let’s chat. All four of us. Why don’t you explain to your team mates what’s about to happen.”

Eliot looked from the Rat Man to them and opened his mouth.

“And no lying. If you try to make this easier for them I’ll know that they mean something special to you.”

Eliot’s jaw tensed before he stated. “The needle’s hollow. The compounds inside is smolders and melts when heated, becoming a slow acting localized poison.“

Suddenly there was a small crack and a shower of sparks as the top end of the needle split. Eliot didn’t flinch as small embers landed on his skin.

“And the needles sometimes melt and explode when heated,” He drawled.

There was an inch of needle inside Eliot.

Hardison swallowed.

“So where did you learn about these lovely things?” The Rat Man asked cheerfully.

Eliot kept his face set, eyes on the wall above Hardison, as he answered. “Crime Lord in Russia.”

“Ah… a student of Nishka.” And seriously there was a Russian crime lord named Nishka who liked torturing people?

In any other situation Hardison just might have geeked out over this except from the look on Eliot’s face it was far from a pleasant memory and shit…

There was another mini explosion close enough to Eliot’s skin Hardison could tell it had burned him and Eliot’s jaw tensed like the poison was already in his system.

There was silence as the Rat Man just watched Eliot’s reaction for a few minutes as it burned the rest of the way.

Then the man nodded. “Very good. Very very good.” He went back for the tray. “Let’s go for three this time, shall we? And you must tell me more about Nishka. I’ve always been curious.”

Hardison heard just the tiniest scraped of metal and concrete. He pulled his eyes away from Eliot, unable to watch as the Rat Man drove three of the little things into Eliot. Parker had moved as close to him as the chain allowed and Hardison quickly closed the distance. With their neck strained slightly towards the anchors their shoulders could just barely touch.

It helped Hardison not loose his cool a few minutes later when Eliot’s description of how he got caught by Nishka was interrupted by as stutter as another needle burst close to his skin.

By the time the rat man retrieved a pair of pliers and started pulling out the leftover metal stubs there were twelve of them stuck in various places on Eliot and the man’s breathing was labored as he struggled to maintain an even rythym. His eyes were closed and he’d managed only a few sentences of the story he’d been telling during the final set.

It was disturbing to see Eliot so visibly battling pain.

“This has been fun and informative,” The Rat man said. “But I believe during our next session I’ll have to see how your co-patriots enjoy my toys.”

Hardison felt his stomach drop.

The guards undid the straps holding Eliot to the chair and started to drag him to his fe-

Quick as a cobra Eliot lashed out, knocking one of the guards holding him back and into the Rat man who stumbled into and knocked over the cart, spilling it’s contents across the floor. He turned onto the other guard, kicking him back before making a break for the door.

Two guards appeared outside of it and the first guard all but tackled Eliot, knocking the hitter to the ground hard. He scrambled to get his hands under him only for the guards to kick him hard in the ribs, causing him to go down again, a hand coming up to cover his mouth like he was going to be sick.

Hardison’s hopes fell and his stomach twisted as the guard continued to kick. A sickening crack made his stomach roll and he wasn’t even aware his breaths were coming sharper and desperate like his own rib had been broken until Parker’s shoulder pressed against his.

“Hardison.” Parker’s voice in his ear. He turned to her and she held his gaze, keeping him looking at her and not at the brutality being visited on Eliot. He had to block it out or risk losing his…

The blows stopped and they looked back, seeing Eliot dragged back over and chained up like the rest of them. The scattered tools and devices from the cart were collected and the guards and Rat Man withdrew.

The moment the door was shut Hardison moved as close to Eliot as he could. The downed hitter wasn’t moving from where he lay on the floor, new bruises quickly rising against the older ones. “Eliot? Eliot! Please don’t be dead.”

There was a murmmer that wasn’t quite words that escaped the hitter. It was proof of life. Hopefully.

“You okay? How ma…” Hardison’s voice failed as Eliot slowly turned his head toward him and bared his teeth.

He had one of the needles clenched between his teeth. He must have grabbed it off the floor when he’d been taken down.

It was thin enough, and maybe strong enough, to pick the most basic of locks.

“Bromance or not, I could kiss you,” Hardison muttered because how else do you respond to that?

“You’ll probably have to,” Parker said behind him. “If anyone can pick a lock with that it’s me and he can’t hand it to me.”

Considering their current captivity the only part of him that would be able to get the needle from Eliot was his mouth.

Well he’d done worse for plenty of other cons.

The biggest concern was Eliot being able to get over closer to him and high enough so he could be close enough to Hardison to make the trade off. “You okay to move?” Hardison asked Eliot, who nodded.

It took what felt like a painfully long time for Eliot to roll over onto his side (and pause to let out a painful sound he couldn’t quite seem to keep from escaping) and slowly maneuver himself onto his knees (shaking slightly and panting though Hardison knew Eliot well enough to pretend not to notice yet). But he did manage to get to his knees and shuffle over to Hardison.

There was a single awkward moment as they tried to figure out how to get their mouths close enough to make the trade and Hardison ended up bumping his teeth against Eliot in an almost painfully familiar rehash of his first attempt at French kissing but eventually Hardison had the needle clenched between his teeth and Eliot sank back to the ground to catch his breath.

Careful, mindful of everything riding on the needle, Hardison shuffled over to where Parker was waiting for it. With much greater ease she took the needle from him and they maneuvered so she could get at the lock holding his collar closed.

Parker seemed much more at ease with this situation than any sane human being had a right to be.

Then again it was Parker. She wasn’t sane and it was impossible to tell what she was feeling on a good day.

Eliot hadn’t moved from the spot he’d dropped to. Hiding his worry Hardison said. “I reserve the right to tease you about not at least buying me dinner first.” Hardison shot toward Eliot while trying to stand perfectly still.

“I…” Eliot started, his voice sounding breathy and failing, worrying Hardison further. He took a breath and tried again. “If we live through this I’ll make you dinner and watch whatever damn movie you want.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

A pressure on his shoulder and he looked down. Parker was crossing her eyes to look at the needle in her mouth and Hardison figured she wanted him to take it. Carefully he did so and as soon as he mouth was free she said. “I got the lock undone, just need to open the clasp.” Without further ado she went back to work. For a moment he felt her breath against his neck then the collar fell away.

The echo of metal hitting concrete seemed impossibly loud.

“Pick back now,” Parker said, sharply. They had no idea if someone had heard that. “Your hands now.”

With the collar gone Hardison could move close enough that she could free his hands. He rubbed as much feeling back into them as he could in a few seconds before taking the pick back and unlocking her collar and hands. They had no idea what timetable they were working on but the clock was running in their heads.

Eliot’s eyes were glassy when they got to him, the wounds on his chest from the needles still bleeding sluggishly and it was clear they’d have to help him get out of there.

Parker unlocked Eliot’s hands and neck and Hardison moved him to lie flat on the ground while she checked the door.

“No!” Parker said, soft but desperate. Hardison looked over to see what he’d feared.

The pick was too small for the door.

“It’s okay,” Hardison said, sitting down. “I think.” He added more to himself. He pulled off his boot and mentally crossed his fingers as he checked.

Yes.

The picks he kept hidden in his boots were still there. Seemed his theory that a lazy guard wouldn’t check a hacker as thoroughly as they might a thief or a hitter was true.

“Will this wo-“ Parker had already snatched the pick from his hand and opened the door.

“I’m going to go explore,” Parker said. “Check the area.”

Hardison carefully nodded. They had no idea what waited for them outside that door. If anyone could explore undetected it was Parker.

Barely opening the door a crack she slipped out.

A minute passed. Two. Eliot groaned and blinked, his eyes slowly focusing again.

“Hate to ask this man but can you stand?” Hardison didn’t know if they’d be able to carry Eliot out of there.

“If you help me,” Eliot responded. Hardison thought maybe he should make a joke about the great Eliot Fucking Spencer asking for help but… it felt like it would cheapen the moment.

Three minutes after Parker had left she reappeared and found Hardison struggling to help get Eliot to his feet. She confirmed that she thought she’d found an almost clear way.

“Almost?” Hardison asked.

Grimly Parker held up a gun she must have acquired somehow. Hardison wouldn’t ask. Not even after this all was done. She’d done and would do what she needed to survive. For them to survive. “You keep him moving,” She said. “I’ll clear the way.”
She opened the door and Hardison and Eliot followed her out.

How they got into that room wasn’t important. How they got out from here wasn’t either.

They were together, they were a team, and they had each other’s back and if the last hour hadn’t proven how much greater that made all of them little ever would.

This Is A Geek Service Announcement: DON'T WAIT

2012-02-11T15:13:30Z

There are some things you always think about doing "someday". They seem like major changes and commitments. They seem like something you should wait for the right time for. "Maybe when school is done for the semester" you say, "or maybe once I know I have work this summer".

Well, in the words of the female leads of Guys and Dolls who's names currently escape me.

...Join team hitter today.

*Head desk* I will never get anything productive done ever again.

Any teammates out there have advice for the newest recruit?

Handlers and Healing

2012-02-11T04:32:17Z

Title: Handlers and Healing
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Peter/El, Neal
Verse: Steal The Sky
Fandoms: White Collar, Firefly, Leverage Cameo
Summary: A case gone south, a handler abusing his agent, reminders of how this all happened... just another typical tuesday.
Notes:Written for LMX_V3point3 as a christmas present, finally getting around to posting it.
Takes place in my Steal the Sky verse and will make a whole lot more sense if you read Steal the Sky (the long fic that started the mess and introduces the verse). Reading The Two Son's Job (a long fic that ties in White Collar for which this story contains spoilers) would also probably help. Both can be found on the above linked masterlist. But if you want to wing it I try to explain as I go.
This takes place at the tag end of Front Man.
Warnings: Secret agencies enslaving main characters, Alternate Universe.

There’s chaos all around him, agents rushing around to collect evidence and take statements and make sure the hostage is safe.

Peter should be… doing something. He’s not even sure. Because he’s staring across the crime scene, watching Neal watch the girl he’d just helped save walk away, but all he’s seeing is a scene almost a decade ago, moments before Eliot went in for that ill fated first job. Peter was realizing exactly how close to the ledge Neal was standing.

He blinks away the flashback and breathes through the feeling of dread settling in his stomach.

At least the case was done. At least he knew what to do, how to reach Neal, now.

~*~

Eliot should have prepared Peter.

After all, in just over six months knowing the kid Peter’s world had been shifted so fundamentally...

But the first time Peter worked with Neal he nearly got whiplash.

Most of it was their first job together - it had started so simple and spun out so quickly.

With Neal fresh off the ship they’d started going after a pyramid scheme only for Eliot to show up, desperate and scared, and Neal had gotten into contact with a former agent to help smooth things over and…

If Peter had had a choice he wouldn’t even begin to know where to start on making that situation less of a fiasco but maybe it happened the best way that it could.

It had been less than a month since Peter had been forced to watch Eliot board a ship back to Olympus. Peter hadn’t trusted Neal, not the way he’d trusted Eliot, but the situation had given them no choice, and Neal had found out about Sebastian. He’d been the one to introduce them to Mozzie and they’d all worked together to make it work.

Mozzie said that secrets kept people together. Peter hated to say it but the knowledge that Neal had risked his life, that a complete stranger had risked his freedom, for the sake of giving Eliot's infant son a chance of a better life…

Mozzie was a criminal but much of Peter’s perception of criminals had changed in those days.

And Neal… In those days there had been something wild and reckless behind that charming smile, but Neal had risked everything for Sebastian and Peter knew that somewhere in there was something good in him, that the alliance hadn’t managed to stamp out.

The way Neal had looked at him in the days after that… the barely hidden distrust and borderline contempt was replaced by contemplation. Neal was realizing that he hadn’t figured Peter out as completely as he had thought.

When they first met Eliot had been in crisis, too far past caring to bother with suspicion and Peter had been able to pull him in and get to work. With Neal they had started out facing off like gun slingers at high noon. Sebastian had gotten them past that but they still had to carefully circle close to each other before anything could happen.

They had still been circling closer when word came that one of Neal’s clan mates had made a run for it. Olympus law dictated that following an escape all members of that clan would be taken back to Olympus for four years of re-education.

When Neal looked back from the walk to the ship there was real fear in his eyes and Peter had been sure he would never see Neal again.

~*~

Cabbot is approaching Neal, their words are stilted and awkward as Cabbot tries to not apologise while changing her behavior and Neal… he acts like Neal but Peter can tell. His voice has sharp edges instead of smooth, his hands are shaking a little, that desperate, cornered look is back in his eyes.

There’s an explosion imminent, Peter can feel it like the coming of a bad storm, only he’s not sure what form it’ll take here and now. In the offices there were little outlets and pressure valves but…

Peter heads over, hoping to be able to delay or lessen whatever’s coming, studying Neal for some clue.

It’s only as he get’s closer that Peter catches the hint of burnt clothing and singed hair, sees the signs that Taser was used on Neal, and he understands.

“Neal.” He keeps his voice even as he reaches them, settles a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I’m taking you home.” Neal looks towards Peter, the wild gleam in his eyes easing slightly despite the confusion on his face. “I’ll clear it.”

He doesn’t want to make this call in front of Cabbot, but doesn’t want to leave Neal alone. He knew Neal wouldn’t do anything here but that look in his eyes is too familiar, like a ghost of Eliot’s desperation haunting them, and Peter can’t quite make himself believe that, if pushed far enough, Neal won’t do something…

~*~

Things had been different when Neal was sent back to them, after his four years back on Olympus, and yet very much the same.

At first Peter could barely detect any mark the four years had left on Neal. His smiles were still charming, his speech perfectly indirect.

His skills were as sharp as ever.

There had been shaky moments. The room Neal and Eliot had both stayed in once was now Satch’s bedroom and Peter was aware that even if it didn’t seem like it, there were eyes watching them closely.

Still Neal had found a place (a palace, almost) to stay and they’d settled in.

It took a job. Peter would later brood with El that it had taken an entire job for him to realize it.

Decaf and caffeinated coffee pots switched, mugs moved, wallets relocated, neatly alphabetized files inexplicably reorganized chronologically. Gremlins, someone in the office had joked. The acts were annoying, but harmless.

It had taken until the end of their first job back together for Peter to realize Neal was behind it.

The acts had escalated.

When a junior agent sliced their finger open on a box cutter hidden amid files Peter had nearly lost it. He called Caffrey into his office. He laid out the pranks that had become all too vicious, laid out how he knew it was Caffrey, and watched as the boy’s face set into something impassive, but a smirk crossed his face.

“Well,” Neal had said as if they were just discussing another case and nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. “It seems like someone’s been a bad agent.” He cocked his head to the right, showing neck, reminding Peter of the chip there under his skin.

And Peter had realized the big mistake he’d made.

Eliot’s despair had turned to rage before evening out into something sustainable but in the end whatever he was feeling had always spiraled back inward. Eliot was self-contained; with his gift as it was, the only way to preserve himself was to always circle back to himself. It, unfortunately, meant his despair deepened easily and he took out his anger on himself but other than sanctioned fights and some deck furniture he never hurt anyone but himself.

That moment Peter looked Caffrey in the eyes and realized Neal wasn’t much farther away from the ledge than Eliot had been.

He was just exploding rather than imploding, lashing out in anger and desperation the only way he could.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Peter had said. “That’s not how this works.”

Neal didn’t even blink as he asked. “How does this work?”

“You stop hurting my agents or I send you back home.” Peter pulled out the transmitter from his desk and held it out toward Caffrey. “You help me catch bad guys, you use your skills to help us close cases and stay safe, hell switch the coffee to decaf if it’s the only thing that brightens your day but...” He closed his hand around the transmitter and pulled it back close. “Next time you pull a stunt that was meant to hurt someone? We’re done. You can have the good life here or rage against the verse on Olympus but you can’t have both. Understand?”

Neal only nodded.

There were no more mysterious injuries. The pranks became more frequent for a short time then faded away almost entirely. Peter liked to think it had something to do with the work they were doing. The last prank came before the case with the Book of Hours.

As they walked out of that church, bantering about the powers of god, and “found” the illegally purloined windbreaker, Neal had looked towards Peter and for just a moment there had been no shadow of fear or wild desperate edge lurking behind that smile.

It hadn’t lasted. The more Neal became comfortable in his new life the more he began to obsess about Kate, still trapped on Olympus and apparently in trouble, and the more viciously he protected the freedom he’d gained. It had taken a lot of fast talking and careful manipulations of loop holes to keep Neal out of trouble in the cases that followed, not to mention trouble seemed to follow the agent everywhere, and the conspiracy within the conspiracy had made Peter’s brain hurt but…

It was worth it. Every time Neal gave that grin of his, flush with success at stopping the bad guys and helping those who’d been hurt, life instead of wild desperation in his eyes…

Peter had raged against Olympus in his own way plenty of times but that look and going home to a laughing, growing, Sebastian?

It made the whole mess seem worthwhile.

~*~

“Neal.” Jones’ voice appears behind Peter, official and casual and there’s nothing out of the ordinary. “I need to take your statement.”

Peter normally takes Neal’s statements. Partly because, as his handler, that’s Peter’s job, and partly because he’s the only one sure to see through any attempted bullshit and judge whether or not the truth is important in the report.

But Jones is smarter than he lets on and Jones has been with Peter since Eliot.

Had been with them when Keller came back around.

Jones wouldn’t be able to stop a meltdown, but he’d be prepared for damage control if one happened in the next few minutes.

“Go with Jones,” Peter told Neal, a rare order, and stepped away to find a quiet place to call Hughes.

~*~

The mess with Kate and Project Mentor had them all wound up but Peter had been able to keep everything under wraps.

For a long time there may have been suspicions and theories but only Peter and Hughes knew the actual situations behind Eliot and Neal. As much as Peter disliked the idea of the rest of their people treating Neal as a criminal (even if, Peter admitted to himself at times, left to his own devices there was a distinct possibility Neal would have become one) it was the rules.

Then Keller had made his appearance.

Peter hadn’t understood at first, Neal was particularly closed mouth about the entire situation, and Peter had already been mentally preparing ways to keep his team off the case should any of them stumble across the situation surrounding the competition, which Peter had assumed was between two agents and sanctioned in some way.

Then Neal had let out a long breath, that old look coming back, and said. “He was the one who ran.”

Peter hadn’t understood then. Not until Neal looked up, grief and rage and that wild desperation on his face. “Matthew Keller, formerly Matthew Caffrey. He was my clan brother who ran.”

The case had spiraled out. Everything had spiraled out.

And in the end the immediate team, the handful of Peter’s closest agents had been called in and told the full details.

Told about project Olympus and Eliot and Neal and everything except for the details regarding a young boy living with adoptive parents to protect him from sharing his father’s fate.

There had been silence, followed by a low simmering rage that lingered beneath the surface to this day.

~*~

“Hughes.”

“It’s Peter,” Peter says, standing off to the side, watching, keeping his voice down. “I need clearance to take Caffrey home as soon as he’s given his statement.”

“Peter, there’s protocol to follow here,” Hughes responds after a moment, hesitancy in his voice. He knows Peter well enough by now to know he wouldn’t be asking for no reason. “If he’s badly hurt he should be taken to a hospital.”

“They used a taser on him.” Peter says. “Repeatedly, from what I can see, and it’s got him freaking out.”

There’s a long quiet. Hughes had known before the others the methods used to keep Olympus agents in line. Other than Jones, Hughes was the only other member of their team who’d known Eliot.

Hell, Hughes had received a copy of Eliot's medical report before it had been classified.

“I don’t know what’s going on in his head but he needs to be somewhere he feels safe until whatever's been brought back up’s been dealt with.”

Hughes sighs. “Take him home Burke.”

Peter finishes the call and heads back over, guiding Neal by the shoulder to their transport.

Not a word passes between them until they enter Peter’s house.

“How long?” Neal asks as they step inside and Neal visibly braces himself for Sebastian’s tackle-hug greeting.

Peter’s “Until I’m sure.” Is nearly covered by the five year old’s shriek of delight at the sight of his playmate.

~*~

Later Peter would claim Neal invaded his home and bribed his son into demanding Neal be allowed over to play whenever he wanted.

In reality no one in the Burke household really knows exactly when Neal managed to worm his way into their lives so thoroughly and Neal certainly wasn’t telling.

It wasn’t so much that Peter was against the idea. He’d gotten close to Eliot and there was a similar intelligence and spark of something in Neal. But at the same time Eliot had taught him and El a bitter lesson.

By the end of it they’d considered Eliot their son and had been forced to watch him walk back into a life of abuse and constant danger with full knowledge they’d likely never see him again.

Neal being assigned to Peter was no guarantee he wouldn’t share the same fate, and they had Sebastian to think about.

Neal knew the truth. He’d made it clear from day one he was willing to put his life on the line for Sebastian.

But having Neal around meant there was always a risk of someone watching and watching eyes meant a risk someone would discover the truth and…

They’d decided from the beginning to take it slow, to not stop Neal from getting close but to do what they had to to protect Sebastian. They owed that much to Eliot.

Of course that had entirely fallen apart within a couple months of Neal entering their lives.

~*~

Sebastian was waiting for them by the door. He always seemed to know when Peter or Neal were about to walk in. El makes her way over to greet them as Sebastian stops just short of tackling Neal, his face scrunching up; upset.

“Daddy, Neal’s hurt.” The boy looks up to Peter with disapproval on his face. Peter tells himself there are obvious signs that Neal’s not well, that Sebastian is just observant, but he knows they need to stop putting off the conversation with Sebastian about his gifts. By now it’s become obvious he takes after his father and even if their secret isn’t discovered there’s still no promise the Alliance won’t try to get their hands on Sebastian if his gift is discovered.

“Neal’s fine,” Neal says as an answer. “Just had a long day.”

Sebastian takes Neal by the hand without a word and half drags him towards the stairs, talking about how Neal needs looking after. The words are strange from the mouth of a six year old but they’re used to him saying odd things and it gives Peter a moment with El.

“What happened?” El asks. “I know the kidnapping but…”

“They used a taser on him.” Peter responds, keeping his voice down. He sees the understanding dawn on her face and she nods.

“I’ll help Sebastian.” She said with a small nod. “Go set the table. Dinner’s ready.”

She takes a deep breath and heads up the stairs. He can see her unconsciously slipping into the slower movements and deep gentle breaths she’d trained herself to use around Eliot nearly a decade ago when she’d discovered forcing herself to be calm and relaxed would relax him.

The fact it had worked so well on Sebastian as a baby had been the first hint…

Even without Neal sharing that gift, it seemed to work well enough on him.

Peter nodded and turned to go set the table for dinner.
~*~

After things had changed in the offices, after Neal stopped having those little moments where he couldn’t quite stop himself from reacting as if he was sure he was going to be struck or shocked, as he grew more comfortable with them…

They still missed Eliot. Sebastian and Neal were reminders of that absence.

But like Sebastian… in time Neal would make a place in their home, fill a bit of the space left empty when Eliot was ripped away.

There was still the fear that they’d lose him. There was still the worry about those times when that desperate, cornered, look came back into his eyes and Neal lashed out. Peter knew that, even now, Neal was searching for some way to break free of Olympus and rescue Kate and that the cost to his clan wasn’t always first in his mind…

And sometimes they narrowly avoided meltdowns or shut downs or any number of landmines that came from dealing with an Olympus Agent.

But when they sat down to dinner, or sat around a conference table, and Neal looked up and all Peter saw was a brilliant and talented young man…

They might not be able to break the system, change the verse, or bring Eliot home.

But there was a child who’d grow up free and a young man getting a taste of a better life and most days that was enough for Peter.

Seeing Red

2012-01-28T20:01:15Z

Title: Seeing Red
Rating: PG
Pairing: Nate, Eliot, mentions of team
Verse:
Fandoms: Leverage
Summary: Nate sees red.
Notes: Drabble, spoilers for The Last Damn Job

Nate had been seeing red for days.

He moved all the pieces. He had his eyes on the goal.

But he kept seeing something out of the corner of his eye, something that didn’t register when he looked directly at it.

Something he wasn’t, wouldn’t, listen to.

Then it was that moment. Dubenich and Latimer there. The gun in his hand.

They looked at something behind him and Nate turned.

He saw it, the red of Eliot’s shirt as he stood with the others, blood red against the muted colors of the damn.

And Eliot’s ghosts stared back at him.

The Man in the Mirror

2012-01-16T17:31:52Z

Title: The Man in the Mirror
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Eliot, Nate, mentions of team
Verse:
Fandoms: Leverage
Summary: Concerning the Last Dam Job, Things Sophie Said, and the Night After.
Notes: Major Spoilers for the Last Dam Job.

The job was over and Eliot didn’t know where or how they’d fall but the landing looked like it was going to be soft, wherever they ended up.

Which was why he was on a chair in the sitting room of the suite they were camped out in until they decided where to go next, with a book and beer instead of a knife.

They’d decide where they were going in the morning and…

He still probably wasn’t going to sleep that night. It was too much of a close call. There was no danger. It wasn’t going to be another all night vigil making sure the job didn’t catch up with them unaware.

No, this was a vigil for his own safety and the team’s by proxy because as fucked up as it is Eliot knew it bothered them when they knew he was having nightmares and seeing ghosts in mirrors.

So it was easier, just for one night, to pretend he’s just being paranoid.

It was late but he was not the only one still awake. Nate was, as wasn’t exactly unusual, a silent companion over by the mini bar.

Eliot’s eyes drifted over the page again, not seeing it, really. He would need some down time after this was over, vacation time. Hardison would probably mock him through to the end of summer if he found out but Eliot had an open invitation to stay at a monastery in Tibet and he was considering making use of it if he could be sure Nate was able to go a couple weeks without nearly getting himself killed.

Hell, Eliot had been meaning to take some time there since the warehouse. Between the mountain, the carnival, the college experiment, this last damn job, and every fucking little thing in between he needed some time in a quiet place.

He closed his eyes and remembered the last time he’d been there. Wounded from the job he’d pulled for the temple they’d insisted he stayed there and just…

It wasn’t just his physical wounds they’d seen to. God knew it hadn’t been much more than a year since he’d left Damien.

Yeah. Hardison would probably tease him mercilessly but the silence helped keep The Kid’s ghost quiet.

“Sophie told me.” Nate said, the words pulling Eliot out of his thoughts. He looked up, watching as Nate walked over and sat in the closest chair. His eyes seemed dark in the dim lighting but they were clear too. He wasn’t nearly as drunk as he usually was by this time of night. “About what you almost did.”

Eliot closed his book, putting it off to one side without taking his eyes off Nate. “It’s my job to protect the team.” He said. Repeating the obvious wasn’t normally his style but it was important on occasion. “I was doing my job.”

“We never talked about it.” Nate said, settling back, watching Eliot the way he normally watched a Mark. “What happened in the warehouse.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Eliot repeated Nate’s words. They’d barely avoided casualties today enough already. “And there’s no need to talk about it. I did my job then. I did my job with Latimer.”

There’s quiet, Eliot’s not sure for how long. The moment stretches between them and there’s no way to tell time’s passage.

“You didn’t kill him.” Nate said after the air becomes near solid between them. “You didn’t kill him.”

Eliot kept his gaze steady, thinking about an interrogation, a fall through broken ice, walking out of a warehouse on fire and feeling like he was walking out of hell for the god only knew what time of his life…

About the kid he killed long before a child’s blood ever stained his hands.

“I coulda killed him.” Eliot said. “But it wouldn’t have made a difference.” Stillness, white noise around them, dark eyes boring into him. “Killing Dubenich woulda taken the choice away, thing is you needed that choice. You decided to walk away and now you know that’s the choice you’d make. If I’d killed him you’d never know that.” He broke eye contact, looking down at his hands.

His scared and dirt and…

“She told me,” Eliot said, pulling himself out of the undertow of his own thoughts. He’d learned long ago letting himself linger there would only drown him. “What you said.”

He looked up, meeting Nate’s eyes. He’d never thought Nate saw him as a murderer, wasn’t sure it had been anything but Nate lashing out the way he did.

But Eliot had never completely known what was going on inside their mastermind’s head and if that was true…

He didn’t know when it had started mattering to him that these people saw him as something more than a killer.

Or when them seeing him that way started making him dare to dream it was possible to be something else.

“Sophie was right.” Nate said, hint of a smile on his face. “You’re too bright for me to dignify that with a response.” He turned to walk away, pausing for just a moment. “Eliot?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.” The silence and dim light roared around them pressing in but Eliot felt like it wasn’t so much suffocating but… silencing. The kind of silence that kept his ghosts quiet enough for him to sleep. “Get some sleep. We’ll need you to run herd on Parker and Hardison in the morning.”

Eliot pushed himself out of his chair, bones and old injuries reminding him that as far as hitters went he was getting old.

Somehow that thought made him smile.

Old, the friend of Nathan Ford, the sheep dog for a team of thieves…

They’d be alright. All five of them would be alright.

In Death

2012-01-10T02:28:58Z

Title: In Death
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Eliot +Team
Verse:
Fandoms: Leverage
Summary: Concerning heaven, hell, and retirement plans.
Notes: WarningMajor character deaths, borderline crack, esotiric themes about heaven written by a girl who's major source of Christian Knowledge is The West Wing and Supernatural.
This is basically a concept that's been floating in my head for years but finally just demanded to be written.

After Eliot died he lost track of time. Maybe there just wasn’t time after death.

First there was darkness and hellfire, hell. Demons wearing the faces of those he killed put him on a rack and they cut and burned and broke him with no measure of time but the screams wrenched from his throat until it narrowed down and any perception of time or anything else lost all meaning.

Then…

Hands, ghostly but radiating a blinding light, appeared out of the darkness, forms attached so bright the demons and ghosts were driven back. A slender hand with delicate, feather light, touches undid the chains holding him in place and pulled the spikes from his hands. Hands and arms stronger than you’d think, lifted him from the rack and cradled him close as another set of hands, nails neatly manicured even now, worked to pull off the last traces of the infernal devices from his body.

A hand touched his forehead in benediction and after that all he knew was light.

He woke up on the couch in Nate’s apartment, his back hurting, memories of fire pressing in his mind and he knew he would carry them always but the pain and fear would fade in time.

He sat up and looked around, the unearthly bright light streaming in the windows telling him this was not the condo he’d died in.

Parker landed in front of him, wings the color of shadows spreading out behind her as she grins at him and calls out. “He’s awake!”

Nate wandered over, mug in hand, wings a shifting constantly between shades of gray, black, and white. Sophie’s a step behind him with her own wings a pristine ivory, and Hardison, older than Eliot remembered but still recognizable, patters down the stairs with wings like metallic constructs of wiring and lights that shouldn’t be as beautiful as the rest but were.

“Where am I?” Eliot asked, not sure if he could trust his eyes, not sure if he could trusts the memory of the hands saving him, desperate to believe this wasn’t some trick to break him some new way because it would. It would so utterly break him if it wasn’t true.

Time had no meaning in hell, but Eliot had wanted nothing more than to see them again and know they were safe for what could possibly be an eternity.

Parker glanced toward Hardison. “It’s kind of complicated.” She said.

“The suburbs of heaven. Sort of.” Hardison answered.

Eliot blinked. Their heaven was Nate’s condo?

“Why am I here?” He asked. “I… I was in…” The fire roared in the back of his mind and he couldn’t say it. Not yet.

Sophie came forward, sitting next to him, hand settling gently on his shoulder, smile bittersweet. “Because we got to heaven and found out you weren’t here and… it’s supposed to be perfect. Perfect happiness. No more pain. No more tears. N-“

There was a ring of delighted laughter as a door burst open. Little feet.

A boy Eliot knew must have been Sam launched himself into Nate’s waiting arms and turned to look to Eliot with large, happy, eyes. “He’s here?” Sam asked, his smile widening. Nate put Sam down and the boy gave an excited clap. “So you’ll all stop being sad now?”

And that little question from a child Eliot had never known alive and Eliot had understood.

He’d joined the team looking to make amends but never seeking redemption. He was already damned.

But him being in hell had kept his team from having their heaven and so their love for him had redeemed him.

“Now.” Nate said after a moment. “Sam, tell your mother Eliot’s risen and the team won’t be down for dinner. We’ve got work to do.”

Eliot’s eyes widen and Parker patted his shoulder. “What, you think our heaven would be us all retired?” She asked before patting him again. “You’re adorable.”

After that time had meaning again.

After that everything had meaning again.

The Things They Stayed For

2011-12-31T23:35:18Z

Title: The Things They Stayed For
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Team, minor references to Dean/Eliot
Verse: Steal The Sky
Fandoms: Leverage, Firefly, Supernatural
Summary: All good things must come to an end.
Notes: This is the last story for this verse for awhile I have a bunch of other things to write for awhile. I hope to finish The Legacy Job in the not to distant future and with any luck I'll get around to starting The Next Fifteen Seconds Job at some point.

If I wasn't so dead tired I'd talk about how awesome this ride was or how psyced I am that some people are playing in my sandbox but yeah. Imagine your own happy babble here.

It was almost a year to the day from when they first met in a hotel room on Osiris that the crew of the Good Ship Leverage found themselves standing in the yard of the space port they’d spent the past few weeks in.

Eliot was as recovered as he was likely to seem to get. Just that morning the doctor had given him the go ahead to go off his insulin, muttering to herself about how she’d be going back to church after this mess. He wasn’t completely fixed but death had been pushed back for another year at least and Eliot alone could judge what exactly was right or wrong in his body.

And Eliot was coming back to life in more ways than one with each passing day.

Dean was also coming back. It had been more than a day before he’d woken up, screaming for Sam.

The nightmares still haunted his sleeping hours and he still wouldn’t speak of exactly what had happened in the two months he’d been in Hell.

But Sam was there, baiting Dean until they fell into another old argument. Parker took the job to tell Dean his Baby had been lost and quietly (awkwardly) talk about good times she remembered with the ship (following the rules from a con five months ago Sophie had given her for consoling a grieving widow, but it worked too well for anyone to comment).

Healing was slow but it was happening.

As for their angelic friend? Less than an hour after healing Eliot Castiel had put his hand on
Dean’s shoulder and told them that he wouldn’t be far. With no more goodbye than that he’d left the room and minutes later the Angel class transport had taken off from the port.

Sophie had looked out the window then back at Nate, the tears not yet dry on her cheeks, and said in disbelief. “Dues ex Machina.”

“I wasn’t aware Angels needed spaceships.”

Days had passed into weeks and with life slowed down and impending death averted something shifted.

The first market day after That Day Nate, Sophie, Hardison, and Parker went shopping to stock their recently rented house. Nate and Sophie had watched in mild shock as Hardison chatted with vendors and bargained over produce while Parker actually bought most of the things on her list and left money in place of the items she stole because they were too painfully unguarded.

“When did this happen?” Nate asked Sophie as he watched. He remembered the first few shopping trips he’d witnessed; Parker stealing everything, Hardison avoiding eye contact with strangers.

It took a moment before Sophie answered. “I don’t know… though maybe…” She trailed off before supplying. “Remember that little town where we landed to first get Eliot to the Doctor? Eliot always went to markets with them before that. After… they started going alone.”

“You called them caged birds.” Nate said, still watching. “When this started.”

“Do you think we’ve been so focused on Eliot we didn’t realize they were ready?” Sophie asked. She watched as the vendor next to the one Hardison was speaking to started to shout at his neighbor. Hardison neither flinched nor faltered.

Across the way a gaggle of children had run by Parker, the last one coughing with the first signs of the planet’s cold and flu season. Parker made a face but didn’t react more than to edge away. For months they’d been worried about Eliot’s immune system being compromised but with that fading away so apparently was their collective paranoia about minor illnesses.

That night they’d gone home and worked together to make dinner and it had been nearly another week before Nate had called the five of them together.

The meeting had been short, brief, and no one had had anything to say after. Leverage had been destroyed, Eliot seemed to be on the mend, and the three former agents were ready to return to the wild.

There had been no arguments. They all understood.

Four days.

In four days there would be two transport ships coming to port. They would take their leave of the town and each other then.

And so here they were.

“We had a good run.” Eliot said, hitching his bag higher on his shoulder. Sam and Dean were waiting for him. He was joining their hunt. It was a little comforting to the rest of the team. If Eliot started to get sick again Sam and Dean were the best people in the verse to help him find someone who could heal him.

“I’m going somewhere… else.” Parker said, small backpack swinging in her hands, a single floppy ear sneaking out from inside.

“Where are you going?” Hardison asked, glancing toward her. One of his only regrets was that it had taken until Eliot was getting sicker before he’d been able to get over the rules against dating clan mate. By then Eliot had been sick enough Hardison hadn’t had the emotional energy to deal with that possibility.

“Let’s see how hard you look.” Parker responded.

A few more stilted sentences were passed. They’d already said their goodbyes but they couldn’t quite…

Finally Nate turned away.

One by one they all followed. Turning their backs to their old crew they started off toward new lives on distant horizons.

A cough stopped them.

It wasn’t really even a cough so much as clearing of the throat that was threatening to turn into a cough.

Four pairs of feet stopped. They held their breath’s listening, fear not as far gone as they liked to believe holding them as Eliot gave a second, actual, cough.

Sophie was the first to move, turning, wiping at the tear that she would firmly deny had been making it’s way down her cheek, and going to Eliot’s side the others following only a few steps behind. “Should we get the Doctor?” She asked.

“It’s just a cold.” Eliot growled.

Parker shook her head. “That’s what you say now but who knows. It could be the whooping cough.
You whoop yourself back to your deathbed by tomorrow. We should go get you checked out.” She grabbed his arm and started pulling him back toward the Dock’s entrance.

“Better safe than sorry, right man?” Hardison added. “Maybe you ought to stay a few more days. Just to be sure, I mean. And you shouldn’t be alone.”

“Enough.” Eliot growled, pulling his hand away. “It’s just a cold.” He insisted before glancing between them and his expression softening.

Sophie glanced back to Nate who was wearing the expression he always wore when presented with a puzzle he wasn’t expecting.

Sophie reached forward to take Eliot’s hand, clearing her mind except for a question.

“With us you have to live by Nate’s rule, protect your clan, and go where we go. You’re still a caged bird with us. Even with all that would you still stay with us?”

He looked up to meet her eyes and nodded.

“Well…” Sophie said with a nod. “Sounds like he could use some observation. For a bit.”

“If there’s still a chance Eliot might drop dead we should probably stay close to the family.” Dean said, coming up with Sam. “Don’t want the witch to die on m watch.”

“So we’re staying together?” Parker asked, hugging her backpack closer to her chest.
Sophie glanced toward Nate.

“We don’t have a ship.” Nate said. “But I have an idea that might be just as good.” He tapped his chin a couple of times. “Ever wanted to live on a floating colony?”

“You mean like the Cardith satellite station?” Hardison asked.

“I was thinking more along the lines of Boston,” Nate said, then nodded. He turned and headed toward the ticket counter.

Sophie looked up toward the Black.

She’d spent her life looking for something.

She was pretty sure this feeling in her chest meant she’d finally found it.

Burn the Land

2011-12-31T23:20:30Z

Title: Burn the Land
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sam, Team, minor references to Dean/Eliot
Verse: Steal The Sky
Fandoms: Leverage, Firefly, Supernatural
Summary: Since Dean was taken Sam only ever dreamt about fire.
Notes: For the Fire square on my H/c bingo card.
Just got home from vacation, the trip was fine the return trip anything but. I rolled a one on a use items check and managed to fry my travel laptop losing a bunch of half written stories and possibly Alec (the laptop). I got home, just wanting to post and be over with it but internet was down.
/complaining.
The point is I'm frustrated and exhausted and sad about Alec so after I post these last two sttories of my Bingo card it may be awhile before I post again. If I promised you a story I'm sorry, I'm already past the date I said I'd have them but I just... Maybe I'll feel better about this once I've had some sleep but right now it feels like it'll be awhile.

After Dean was taken the only thing Sam ever dreamt about was fire.

Sometimes it was the flames that had burned down the apartment he'd shared with Jess, and his hopes for the future with it. Other times it was a different home, on a border world where his parents had tried to hide from a monster no hunter could kill.

Mostly though it was a nameless, all consuming, inferno that burned his skin and seared away his eyes so he could no longer search for his brother even as he heard Dean calling for him over the roar of the fire.

He had a lot more sleepless nights those last few weeks.

They all did, though, so no one took much notice.

After Leverage blew up, after they blew up Leverage, Sam realized the nameless fire was the one that had eaten away Leverage.

It had been a nightmare.

It took half of the long journey to meet up with the crew to finish the job for Sam to admit the feeling of loss that plagued those dreams now as well. For as long as he could remember The Impala was the only home he had.

Except for a little while it hadn't been.

The night before Eliot collapsed in the street Sam dreamt about a funeral pyre and Dean's leather jacket.

Later he'd feel guilty for being releived when Eliot collapsed, he'd spent the past several hours fighting the fear the dream meant they'd be too late.

There were a few times Sam dozed off in the clinic as they sat vigil over Eliot but he never dreamed.

Well, a part of him was still convinced that the dawn that came with an angel bearing Dean and healing Eliot only to disappear with barely more than a word was a dream but he'd take it if it meant Dean lying in the other medical bed and Eliot living through dawn.

That day passed slowly but without the sort of desperate crawl of the past few months. It was relief and exhaustion that kept the crew loitering around the clinic.

Eliot drifted in and out of consciousness but the Doctor examined him frequently and reported his surprising progress towards healing. She didn't have the equipment to diagnose exactly what was wrong with him so she couldn't say for sure it was fixed but hour by hour his condition was improving.

And Dean lay there. He didn't stir but the Doctor said she wouldn't qualify it as a coma. He was sleeping, deeply, and would wake up soon.

He did, sometime in the middle of the night, screaming.

If Sam dreamed at all that night he didn't remember.

Dean spent most of the second day sleeping, though he woke with a start frequently. When asked he pulled a weak smile and shook his head and claimed he wasn't sure what he'd been dreaming about and didn't want to talk about it. He didn't remember much and liked it fine that way.

He might have gotten away with it too except around twenty four hours after the "healing" Eliot started remaining lucid for more than a couple minutes at a time and by mid afternoon he woke up at the same time Dean did.

They had a moment, one Sam tried to make himself as invisible as possible for because as much as his inner seven year old was grossed out by his brother having a relationship with anyone... they'd come a hair's breadth from losing each other and were still too weak to cross the space between their beds.

Their thrown insults of jerk and witch faded into the kind of familiar silence Sam could feel they had shared.

Parker, Hardison, Sophie, and Nate had returned from their trip out of the clinic to look into a house nearby to rent until Eliot and Dean were recovered. Someone had said *something*, no one was entirely sure what later, and Dean had tensed up.

About twenty seconds later Eliot's heart monitor went wild, his breathing sped up, and he stopped responding, his eyes darting around the room to things no one could see.

Chaos had ensued as Parker and Hardison panicked, Sophie ran for the Doctor, Nate tried to figure out what had happened, and Sam tried to keep Dean from getting out of bed.

By the time things were sorted out Doctor Donna had tranquilized Eliot to keep the panic attack from straining his still weak heart and Nate had figured out that Eliot had been passively reading Dean when Dean was reminded of what he'd been through. The collective trauma mixed with Eliot's association between medical settings and said trauma and the mental control Eliot normally had being less than perfect meant a vivid flashback was not exactly surprising.

This summation had caused another round of chaos and Dean had insisted on being moved to a different room until they could figure that much out.

By the time the soothers wore off Dean was strong enough to walk a short ways and they moved him into the house they had rented.

Someone was always with one of them and there were nightmares and rounds of medication and check ups by the good doctor but life was slowly returning to some semblance of normalcy.

At least by day.

The third night Sam didn't get much sleep as Dean's nightmares got worse and every time he woke up he seemed pulled a little bit further away.

When Sam woke up late the fourth morning he still hadn't dreamt about anything.

There was a moment of confusion as he woke up, he hadn't been dreaming of anything but he'd come awake with a jerk normally reserved for nightmares or hunter instincts warning him about eminent danger.

The later didn't present itself until Sam realized Dean was out of bed.

"Dean?" Sam called, trying to keep his voice even despite a surge of panic.

It was probably fine.

Quiet.

Sam made his way out of the bedroom and downstairs, stopping once he had a full view of the open living room.

The house was like most border world homes, built to accommodate both modern technologies and the old fashioned. Although there was a working heat system in the house the electricity prices could be well and beyond the typical budget and the big iron and stone fireplace served as a heating source for the house.

They'd been using that themselves ever since Parker decided she liked tending the fire.
Only it wasn't Parker but Dean in front of the hearth, half sprawled out like he'd fallen and hadn't thought to pick himself up, a log dropped and forgotten by his side.

His hand, a bright burn across the palm, in front of his face which had turned pensive.
"Dean?"

Dean looked toward him and clenched the burned hand into a fist, closing his eyes like it felt good rather than hurt like a bitch like it probably did. "It feels different." Dean said. "Feels real."

Sam felt his gut do a long slow roll but nodded. "Well, it looks real. Let's get something to put on it."

Dean didn't argue or respond until they were in the kitchen and Sam was examining it, burns part of a hunter's first aid repitor unfortunately.

"Hey, Sammy?" Dean asked. "Got any decent beer? This hurts like a bitch."

Any other time Sam might have commented on self medication or... something. But there was a look in Dean's eyes and in his smile that Sam had been missing for a long time and...

He had Dean back.

That night he dreamt of fire again. This time, though, it was not infernos that burned down hopes or explosions that stole homes and families away.

It was that hearth fire, diligently attended by the crew, that they'd gathered around that night with Eliot on release from the Doctor's watchful eye, and finished the last book they'd been reading on Leverage.

In Sam's dreams they gathered around it again, their hands reaching into the fire to pull out and carry away embers that gave off sparks to become stars in the black.

He woke in the morning with no knowledge of the future except that, this time, it wouldn't end in fire.

Between Dusk and Dawn

2011-12-21T19:22:38Z

Title: Between Dusk and Dawn
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Eliot, Team, minor references to Dean/Eliot
Verse: Steal The Sky
Fandoms: Leverage, Firefly, Supernatural
Summary: Eliot runs out of time.
Notes: Takes place post my universe's equivlent of the Second David Job.
For the Archaic Medical Treatment square on my H/c Bingo Card.
Apologies to my flist who might be experiencing slight spammage as I try to get the last of these stories posted before I disapear for the holidays.
Many thanks and much praise to my beta LMX_V3point3.
Last but not least Major Tissue Warning.

There was no confirmed instance of a Reader seeing the future. Any case that might resemble that ability could easily be written off as their minds subconsciously processing information most weren’t privy to and presenting the conscious with probable scenarios.

Even though the situation had had little to do with actual precognition Eliot had comforted himself by repeating that textbook answer drilled into him nearly thirty years ago.

Before Leverage it might have been enough to drown out the knowledge banging around inside his skull, might have enabled him to tell himself it was precognitive knowledge, not to be trusted, rather than his innate knowledge of his own body that told him he was counting days now.

He couldn’t feel it in his bones or muscles anymore.

It was in his lungs and heart. The rhythm was off. Like the echo. Fading.

It was in his mind too. He was starting to see them. The day before they restarted the Blackpoole con, he had caught the reflection of his dead little clan brother Jack in a window he passed. The next day he’d looked up from washing his face to see Aimee’s mom staring at him. Ron, the Hitter who’d died on the same mission where Eliot had faked his death, had been his constant companion in the museum.

They hadn’t scared him though. That was the thing. Jack had smiled and laughed making the same motion he always had when calling Eliot to come play with him. Aimee’s Mom had beckoned him with open arms and the same steady warmth she’d offered when she had collected his broken body from the Ares project and carried him all the way back to the Spencer clanroom in Hecate Tower.

Even Ron seemed to be calling him home. Calling him to a place he could lay down his arms and let his anger fade away.

Eliot had known.

But there was a job to do and nothing that could be done for him so Eliot had fought hard and bantered with Hardison and lived.

Sophie knew.

She’d been with him the past three weeks. She’d watched as he started to get better from his injuries only for things to start to get worse. She’d even managed to convince him to rest for the majority of the last week of their journey.

It slowed down his decline enough that he could hide it. Hold it together just a little bit longer.

She didn’t say a word but that night he'd taken the excuse of their victory over Blackpole to cook a real meal in the place they were staying, everyone’s favorite.

And as he served up dinner she’d looked at him and he knew she’d known and he wasn’t even surprised that she became his accomplice for hiding the fact he didn’t eat anything. He was having trouble keeping even liquids down.

At this point dehydration was his only real concern diet-wise but there was no reason to worry the others. It was bad enough they were in some strange suite of rooms in a strange hotel rather than their home. It was hard enough to get them all to smile for just a few short hours before it was time for them to board a ship to get Dean back.

It was almost a week later, when they’d gone planet side on a border world with something close enough to a space port that they could hope to find a ship to transport them the rest of the way to where their contacts suggested they start their search.

They’d been walking down the dusty street and someone brushed past him and Eliot turned.

There was a little boy there, with his mother’s eyes and his Daddy’s smile and Eliot had known.

“Two more weeks.” Eliot had said, hand rising to his heart that was should have been racing but was pounding slowly in his ears, his chest hurting, the air becoming harder to breathe. “I just need two… two…”

A second boy. A second son who never had a chance to see the world but who should have carried the name Eliot’s own son carried appeared. A woman, a mother, white dress and gold hair and a smile on her face promising…

“I have to stay,” Eliot told them. He wasn’t sure he was even speaking anymore. “I ha…”

His knees gave out under him. There were others now. A dark haired son of the David clan he’d trained with. A brunet with unearthly blue eyes. Jack and Ron and a dozen children who’d died in the Ares project and all the ones who’d lived and died in the years since.

A hand on his shoulder. He could hear Hardison’s muted shouting.

There was a girl and boy here that still needed him, and a lover waiting for a rescue. There was a little boy he wanted to see as a grown man and a father who didn’t need to lose another son.

“Please…”

He looked at the eyes watching him, clenched his hands into fists, and fell forward.

The Black took him before he hit the ground.

~*~

There was nothing left for them to do.

Those words would haunt them all for the rest of their lives.

Eliot had fallen in the street, grasping his chest, eyes staring into empty space before closing. The town doctor had been nearby and Eliot had clung to life until they got there but…

It was a border world. There was a bed for Eliot to lie in and a doctor to look him over but little else. Doctor Donna had pulled an old fashioned stethoscope to tell them what they’d already feared. Eliot’s heart was failing, his lungs were shutting down. There were core world machines that might have been able to keep him alive but he’d never survive the trip.

When they asked what she meant the Doctor had only told them to say their goodbyes. She’d do what she could but it wasn’t likely Eliot would wake again.

And the rate he was declining at meant it was unlikely he’d survive the night.

She’d left the five of them to stood shell shocked and silenced as she went back into the room for a few more minutes before opening the door.

~*~

He didn’t look small.

That was what got Hardison. Sure, he looked sick, too damn pale (and how had the guy managed to maintain a suntan anyway), thin, and the floral patterned medical gown was asking for someone to te-

He took a breath, his eyes burning, sight blurring and clearing. He wiped at his eyes and knew that he’d have those tear stains on his hands for the rest of his life, just like the blood that would never really come off.

“What’s on his face?”

~*~

The question sounded wrong in Parker’s ears, like someone else had asked it, but she knew she
had. This was wrong, all wrong.

He looked small. It was like seeing her big brother who’d brought her bunny after the bullet had killed him and he’d fallen to the ground like…

But she couldn’t think about them. Any of them. She couldn’t think about the past. She couldn’t think about the future.

She could only… right here. Eliot in the bed. The ugly gown. The tubes around his face and tucking into his nose and the wires on his chest and the beep in the air.

“What are the tubes?” she asked again because no one had answered her and she wanted to know because it was easier to think about. Easier to ask questions and remember Eliot and her curiosity… “Why is it raining?”

~*~

Sophie had known this was coming. She’d watched as day by day this…

She hadn’t meant to cry. She couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t done so on purpose.

She’d been fine, well relatively, until Parker’s last question, her voice quiet and scared as a child as tears flowed down her face.

She reached out, pulling Parker, then Hardison, close. They were her responsibility now. Until they were ready to fly alone, maybe even after. Eliot had given her responsibility for them and she’d keep that promise.

“Why?” came Parker’s question again and Sophie couldn’t answer. She just held tighter and dropped every block she’d ever built, shouting in the silence of her mind for any edge of Eliot’s consciousness that might still linger to hear that she’d take care of Parker and

Hardison and they’d get Dean back and…

~*~

Nate had had nightmares like this before.

For months. For years.

He needed a drink.

Instead he walked over to the bed and sat down on the chair and leaned close, whispering the words he’d told himself months ago he’d say when it came time. Because…

“You’re free now,” he said. “It’s… It’s time for you…”

“No!” Parker cried. “It’s not time!” She broke free of Sophie’s hold. “He’s not. We can fix him. We can steal him back.” She clutched at the gown. “What do we need to steal. Come on. Let’s go steal a heart. Or… or lungs! Or…”

“Parker.” Nate tried to keep his voice even. “You can’t stop this,” he told her. “Eliot… he was ready. He wanted this.”

“What?” Hardison’s voice was harsher than Nate had ever heard it. “He…”

Nate turned to Hardison, repeating the words he’d been telling himself over and over, like it would somehow make this better. “Eliot got dragged into hell at five and other than a year with Peter, he spent the next thirty years there with an unstable gift and a body giving out on him. For the majority of the time we’ve known him he’s been on a daily regiment of class five pain killers just to keep it to a level he could function with.” Hardison was shaking his head, rejecting, disbelieving. “He’s tired. He’s been tired. This is how he would have wanted it. If Sam doesn’t wake up as far as he’ll ever know he died on his feet.”

He looked down. Hand reaching out. He could hear it in his head. See it in his mind.

“Eliot,” someone corrected. “You meant Eliot.”

Yeah. Nate had nightmares like this. He would for a long long time.

~*~

It was a different Sam but…

Sam Winchester slipped out of the room, out of the clinic, heading down a side alley and just…

He stood in the shadows and breathed.

He wanted to tell them to move. That Eliot was dying but Dean might be running out of time to but he knew…

It was easier to focus on saving his brother than this. Easier to calculate how much more of a mess coming back to discover his second baby (Leverage) was gone and that Eliot had died would make Dean.

The universe was coming apart and maybe Sam just wanted his brother.

~*~

The sun set and Sam came back to the room and they all waited in silence, the only noise the beeps of the heart monitor and Eliot’s rasping breaths.

An hour after sunset Eliot’s temperature began to climb and Doctor Donna gave them a bowl of cool water and some cloths. It wouldn’t do much to keep him alive but it might keep him comfortable.

And it gave them something to *do*. As she watched Parker carefully squeeze and dab the cloth maybe that was really what it was for at this point.

At midnight, during her hourly check the Doctor commented that the way he was still holding on let her know he was a fighter. She was back a half hour later with a cup of a foul smelling tea. “It’s not much. We don’t have the kind of medicine your friend needs but this is an old remedy. Good for the heart and lungs.”

“I thought you said he wouldn’t…” Sophie still couldn’t make herself say it.

The Doctor looked to Eliot before motioning for Hardison to help raised Eliot. “I never thought he’d live this long. I don’t want to give you folks false hope but the body’s an amazing thing. Every hour he holds on…”

“He’s a fighter,” Parker said, reaching for the tea with a look of hope in her eyes that made Sophie’s gut twist.

More of the tea ended up on Eliot or the bed rather than in him but if they were going to hope for a miracle the Doctor pointed out keeping him hydrated was essential.

His fever broke an hour later, the Doctor was visibly surprised at the news, and then she was helping try to get a little more tea into him.

Sometime that morning Sophie almost drifted off, exhaustion catching up with her, her hand on Eliot’s arm, willing strength toward him even as she slipped away from the world.

Later she wouldn’t know what woke her, the wild beeping of Eliot’s heart monitor or the sound of a large ship landing nearby.

“Eliot!” She clenched his arm, willing him to hold on even as she looked up to the others torn between panic about him or the ship. “What was it?”

“Sounded like an Angel class,” Hardison answered. “That’s…”

“An alliance ship,” Parker finished.

“Hardison, Parker y-“ she started. Two sets of eyes met hers defiantly daring her to finish that statement.

Nate appeared behind them his hands touching the insides of their necks where the chips that had once administered punitive electric shocks still resided under their skin. “Leave town, hide, make sure you aren’t caught.” His voice left no room for argument.

Except as one they said. “No.”

Any argument that might have followed was silenced by the sound of the front door of the clinic being broken open and a moment later a figure appeared in the doorway to their room.

“Laoshi de piao ying…”

It was a man in a tan trench coat with eyes blue as shattered skies holding Dean in his arms.

“I am an Angel,” the man said. “My name is Castiel. I have come to bring this man back to his brother.” Slowly Sam came forward, taking Dean.

Eliot jerked, a strangled shout escaping him before he gasped, his breathing increasingly labored.

The… Sophie couldn’t finish that thought… Castiel’s eyes moved, darting to the prone man. “He needs healing,” Castiel said before walking forward, and then being stopped by a wall of people. “If he is not helped he will die. There is no point to me harming him further. I may be able to help.”

“How?” Nate growled.

“I am a Angel. He is in need of healing. I can heal,” Castiel insisted. Nate gave a snort of derision. “He is a Reader. You care for him so you know of his gift. How is the ability to heal so much harder to believe than the ability to read minds?”

There was a brief pause and then Parker, Hardison, and Nate let Castiel by.

Castiel placed his hand on Eliot’s head. “He’s far gone and fading…” He looked toward them. “As gone as he is I can only help repair his body. If he does not choose to come back he will die no matter what I do.”

…

That was the thing, wasn’t it? His body was still holding on but he had been ready to die.

Was it even their right to…

“Do it,” Nate said.

“Father,” Castiel said, his voice barely above a whisper but ringing oddly in her ears. “Who art in heaven hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done as earth as it is in heaven.” He closed his eyes, hands passing down, fingers tracing odd shapes over Eliot’s heart.

Eliot had gone still, his breathing deeper than it had been in hours.

“Giv-“ Castiel paused, eyebrows furrowing for a moment, the first expression he’d shown yet before he nodded. A flicker of a smile passed over his lips before he started again. “The Lord is my Sheppard; I shall not want.” As Sophie watched she could almost swear a little color was returning to Eliot’s cheeks. He bent down, his voice lowering further but Sophie could hear, just barely. “You have walked too long in the valley of the Shadow of death, return to your family. Father, son, brother, lover, your labors are not yet done.”

Castiel stood and took his hands away. “I have repaired what damage I could. The rest is up to him.” He looked between them. “Call to him by his name, someone he is close to. He will hear them best and if he wills at all to return it will be for them.”

Silently Parker stepped forward taking the hand closest to her and Sophie released the hand she’d been holding, letting Hardison take it. Their relationship had been repaired somewhat but…

“Eliot Spencer,” Hardison said. “Come back.”

“Eliot.” Parker’s voice was still tiny. “We need you. Brother… you’re… Eliot Ford get back here.”

The heart monitor registered his heart beat, steadying with each minute, jump slightly. His breathing hitched.

Eyes they’d feared were closed forever crept open and his lips shook into a smile. His eyes drifted over them focusing on Hardison for just a moment before they closed and he slipped away.

“He’s just sleeping,” Hardison said, the confusion in his voice suggesting he wasn’t sure how he knew. “Before he went… he… I could hear him in my head.”

“What did he say?” Sophie asked.

“He said,” Parker answered, or started to before glancing back to Hardison “…it was in Greek. It meant…” She seemed unsure how to translate it.

“He said ‘bring it on’.”