#i love the shake in eliot's voice when he tells them to back off

[lindseymcdonaldseyelashes]

Leverage 1x11 - "The 12 Step Job"

[faorism]

every once in a while, when it's a quiet moment between him and one of his partners—could be anything from a stake out to a long drive in lucille to the warm moments between making love and sleep—eliot will turn to them and say, tell me something i don't know.

parker will usually tell him secrets. the bits of history that only exist between her, bunny, and now eliot. there's a lot from living on the streets, when she was young. she tells him about training with archie; eventually, she tells him what it felt like. she tells him about loneliness and not understanding and frustration and how her hands hurt when she wants to flicker them around; when he asks her why she doesn't let them, she says to ask another night. that's too big a secret to share when another's been revealed already. he does ask, and she does answer. once, she says in a shaking voice, i love you and hardison so much, and parker feels silly because duh eliot knows that, hardison knows that, but eliot heard something deeper than she could express, so he held her tight and kissed her hair as she shivered through the weight of her confession. after sharing with eliot, sometimes parker feels comfortable enough to share with hardison, peggy, sophie, or a client who needs to know they are not alone in the mess and hardship of the world. much later, the fact that parker has shared something once makes it easier to tell her shrink as she gets on SSRIs, which she seeks out after confessing to eliot that even if it had been based on a lie to grift hurley, maybe there was something to her treatment at the second act rehabilitation center that she missed. occasionally, she'll tell him about art. he listens just as patiently as anything else she decides to divulge and she loves him all the more for it.

hardison infodumps. parker didn't press eliot for what he meant the first time he asked; hardison did. eliot had shrugged, anything you wanna share. hardison nips out a testy, so if i go off about (he paused thinking of something that would surely turn eliot off) optimal simcity street design strategies, you wouldn't mind? eliot didn't back down, even when hardison went into a two-hour spiral that branched into different iterations on the concept, including rollercoaster typhoon. eliot made a few comments here and there, asked some clarifying questions now and again, but otherwise let hardison rail on. the next time, the question was framed as what you working on? but the effect was the same. eventually, hardison stopped hesitating and started looking forward to these monologue sessions. hardison doesn't think anything of them other than he's got some quality time with his partner, until one day on a job with some leverage international trainees, eliot manages (elle woods style) to untangle the lie at the heart of a condo scam with a few pointed questions about the plumbing. when one of the trainees asked how the hell he knew that, hardison expects to hear over the comms how eliot once dated a plumber or an architect; instead, eliot scoffs, you met my partner. genius knows a little of everything. which is when hardison remembers once infodumping about sprinkler systems. eliot gets the tightest of hugs when he gets home for truly listening to hardison.

[holdmecloser-gandydancer]

#29 for the 101 ways to say I love you with blupjeans except it's after they've turned into liches lol please? 💜

Barry kneels down beside the hastily tilled earth. He pulls his jacket a little closer to him as the wind weaves through the trees. The ground on this plane has started to firm up with the impending cold season, though the inhabitants, who are keen on honoring the deceased, made quick work of digging the grave. He gingerly lays down a large bouquet of odd flowers, all muted blues and greys in varying shapes and sizes. He’s not sure where they’re from. They smell nice enough, though.

The lump in his throat must be the size of a small planet, he thinks, and the wall of eyes at his back isn’t making it better.

“Lup, babe. I can’t believe you’re gone. I-“ he breaks off, shaking his head and wiping at his face. It feels weird, having his grief observed. Judged. Evaluated. But who is he to argue with the customs of the plane? He lets out a sigh. “You died as you lived. Radiant. Joyful. And a little reckless,” he says seriously. He hears murmurs from behind him and it takes everything in him to not turn around and investigate them. Instead, he lets his shoulders relax as he just stares at the place where Lup’s body is entombed.

He startles when he feels a cold, bony hand on his shoulder. A gaunt looking human man nods gravely at him. “We are sorry for your loss, Mr. Hallwinter. Please, feel free to join us at the temple this evening,” he says, voice low and solemn.

Barry nods. “T-thank you, Father Eliot. Um. I’ll be by later. But I would like some time here alone. My wife and I had been together for such a short time and… I just don’t know what do to without her,” his voice is thick with what Father Eliot presumes to be grief.

“I understand. We’ll leave you. Don’t grieve out here too long, you’ll catch your death,” Father Eliot says without a hint of irony.

Barry waits a minute. Then five. Then ten, until he’s certain they’re gone. And then he starts laughing wildly. He stands up from beside Lup’s grave and looks around the vast cemetery, giving a little wave. “Coast is clear, babe!”

He grins as he sees a familiar red form float out from behind a nearby tree. Lup floats so near to him, warming him in an instant. She rests her spectral head on his shoulder. It doesn’t really work but it gives them both a little comfort.

“That was a beautiful performance, Mr. Hallwinter,” she says, her wide grin evident in the lilt of her voice.

“Why thank you, Mrs. Hallwinter. I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“Oh yeah?”

Barry nods. “Yeah, it’s probably lame but I always tried to leave you flowers when I could.” He gives her a sidelong glance, hoping he hasn’t just admitted to something weird or embarrassing.

“Babe, you had that big a crush on me?” Lup asks gleefully, doing her best to wrap her arms around Barry.

Barry ducks his head but smiles wide. It feels so silly to still be embarrassed around Lup but sometimes he just can’t help it. “I mean, yeah, but I’m not really telling you anything you don’t know, am I?”

She hums for a moment. “Mmm, ‘spose not. You think they bought it?”

“I mean, they invited me back to the temple so I think so.”

Lup lets out a victorious whoop. “Man, we’re so fucking smart. You’ve got the Light on lock, Bar.”

“I hope so, I’d hate to think you had to go ghost for nothing.”

“I do think you forget that I am now the only one on the team who knows what it’s like to touch lava so I would hardly say it’s for nothing.”

Barry barks out a laugh and looks at Lup softly. “Have I said how much I love you lately?”

“You haven’t and frankly I’m feeling a little neglected.” She says haughtily.

“Now however can we rectify that?”

Lup flashes him a mischievous grin. “We really can’t while you’re still fleshy. How about you go get the Light and we’ll see what can be arranged afterwards.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Barry says, dusting the dirt off his pants. He pauses before leaving the cemetery. “Do you think you’d also be willing to tell me what touching lava’s like?”

She giggles brightly. “Well now you’re asking an awful lot of your dead wife.”

“But you’ll tell me because you love me so much?”

Lup heaves a heavy sigh. “I suppose that could be arranged.”

Barry grins at her once more before heading to the temple near the cemetery. The Light is well within his grasp this cycle.

[pebblesrus]

Ok I don’t think this technically counts as a hell au, but imagine: at some point - maybe during season 3 when they’re tasked with taking down Moreau and barely know anything about him other than he’s Dangerous - Eliot gets hit a little too hard on the head in a fight and gets knocked out. And when he wakes up, he’s missing the last 5-8 years of his life and still thinks he’s working for Moreau

Cue angst and confusion as Eliot tries to figure out who the hell these people are and how they know him, while the team is freaking out because Eliot worked for Moreau. And still thinks he works for Moreau

The team is trying to keep him from going back to Moreau but that’s kind of really fucking hard because he’s Eliot Spencer, people don’t tell him no. Except he listens? And can’t figure out why he’s listening to these people or why he can’t bring himself to hurt any of them, even the odd blonde woman who keeps poking his injuries, but every time he goes to break a bone there’s a little voice in the back of his mind going hey dumbass, you love these people and want to keep them safe

okay so i don’t live in the niche of memory loss au’s [except for this one eliot/quinn fic that shattered my heart into approx. 2598 pieces] so i don’t have a ton of background here 

but to play with this, i think you have two options for hell au theme: 

one. making it tangentially related to the hell au. everything is canon up to s3. based on my personal timeline, eliot left moreau in 2005, so s3 is 4-5 years post moreau. sometime in the beginning of s3 he gets bonked on the head real bad causing retrograde amnesia. he forgets the last 4-5 years, just wakes up one day and goes back to moreau, and, to make this hell au if you flipped it on it’s head and maybe dropped it a few times, the team finds out what eliot’s doing and they think he’s been working for moreau this whole time.

two. making it a hell au variant, eliot suffers a brain injury that results in essentially very complex and specified dissociative amnesia where to cope with the psychological trauma of the last 2 years of working undercover for moreau his brain just turns off that part of his life. 

in any version, i think the thing is, 

you remember how to ride a bike because of muscle memory. and your body remembers trauma, your body remembers love.

eliot remembers how to serve moreau. remembers this is what his body is made for, that moreau molded him into this perfect—

but he also remembers that he is capable of being loved. his body remembers the team. 

—

one.

eliot doesn’t get injured injured in early s3, but i think to make it the most traumatizing for everyone involved, it happens after the inside job and the gone fishin’ job.

one day everything is normal, they’re a little more than a team, gearing up to take on the biggest player in the criminal world, and in the morning eliot is gone. did he up and leave because he thinks it’s too dangerous? that can’t be it. they’ve had 2+ years of eliot running headlong into danger for them.

—

so, eliot is gone. they’re all expecting the worse. eliot has pissed off a lot of people after all. but hardison manages to find him in about three quarters of a second because eliot still has his phone on him that must be a good sign that means whoever took eliot is pretty dumb that means they can get him back he’s in san lorenzo that’s weird why would he be in—okay here’s a traffic cam, privacy is a joke, don’t you know—okay—here’s eliot—walking to a car—holding a gun—talking to—

eliot’s working for moreau. 

—

two. 

eliot wakes up alone in his apartment. weird. why didn’t he stay with moreau last night? he’s got a hell of a headache. wait—what happened—where’s the danger—where is moreau. 

a phone rings. it’s not moreau, it’s—alec hardison? 

eliot makes a grunt of a hello.  

“well someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed today” a laugh that he’s never heard before but echoes in his ears and feels like a warm hug—

eliot shakes his head, trying to knock some sense back into it. was he kidnapped? 

“the hell do you want”

“hey, hey,” he feels the voice back off, not afraid, almost—respectful? “no need to...” 

—

the conversation goes on, eliot getting more and more confused and eventually agreeing to meet at headquarters whatever the helll that means. he leaves the apartment and just starts walking—some fresh air is what he needs to knock some sense back into his brain. he’s not planning to meet alec hardison at any damn headquarters it must be a trap, moreau’s newest in the line of asinine games. 

but his feet take him to a building where he finds 4 people who act like they know how he his—act like he couldn’t take them out in six and half seconds with his bare hands—act like some kind of family—

he plays along, figures out this is nate ford, alec hardision, parker, and sophie... deveraux?? he knows nate. knows he fell out of the game years ago when his son died. he knows alec hardison, he’s the hacker who took down manticore but has never accepted a job offer from moreau.* he knows parker she’s legendary not to mention completely insane. he doesn’t know this sophie character but that’s not his biggest problem right now his biggest problem is that this rag tag group of... thieves. yeah. thieves is what they are. is talking about how they’re “this close to moreau” and that begs the question, 

first, what the hell is going on.

second, what the hell is going on.

third, why are these people looking at him like they know who he is. 

why are these people looking at him like they don’t actually know he’s moreau’s right hand man.

—

*in some dark corner of my brain there lives an au where eliot is working for moreau and hardison is hired by moreau** and the two of them are then tasked to go after parker who, while freelancing, stole something of value to moreau. in doing so they run into nate ford, who, still with IYS, is on the biggest assignment of his career: catching parker. it’s called the worst timeline au,*** or, something something pull me out of the darkest parts of what i’ve done and it will probably never live beyond this post because my brain is 99% empty. 

**we all know hardision would never work for moreau knowing what moreau does. in this version hardison is essentially tricked into it. when he realizes what he’s doing he tries to get out and moreau sends eliot to kill him. and eliot imprints on him instead. because he has the emotional capacity of a lost puppy. hardison convinces eliot that moreau needs to be stopped. eliot convinces hardison he can protect him from the inside. once parker is in the mix, they realize they are enough to take down moreau. after moreau is taken down, nate is like so, yall are a mess. wanna play the other side? [i guess somewhere in the middle of all of this nate has left IYS.......don’t ask about the timeline it doesn’t make sense]

***because it existed before hell au was born and i was going off of breanna saying “we live in the worst timeline” and i was like huh u kno what would actually be worse

[winterscaptain]

push.

Aaron Hotchner x Gender Neutral Reader

a/n: alright, team! this one covers cradle to grave and the eyes have it. i am so excited to share this with you, and we are that much closer to 100. ahh!! (i also mistakenly noted that infirmity was part three and it is in fact part four. while i can write, i made no promises in regard to counting.)

an ajf fic arc that happily stands on its own! (the pieces stand alright on their own as well, for the most part!) one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine | ten | eleven

words: 4.2k warnings: canon-typical violence and discussion of violence, language

summary: “if you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” - t.s. eliot. a shift, a transition, and a lie.

masterlist | a joyful future masterlist | requests closed!

Aaron meanders around the store, looking into the glass cases. There’s very little purpose, very little direction. He figures, just like the first time, the right one will make itself known. 

What are you doing? 

He takes a breath, ignoring that pesky little voice in his head, focused on the task at hand.

I’m listening to Haley. What are you doing?

Playing devil’s advocate because you shouldn’t be doing this right now. What are you thinking?

I don’t know. Fuck off. 

The man behind the glass greets him, asking if he’s looking for anything in particular. 

“Yes,” Aaron says, only a little startled out of his thoughts, “though I’m not quite sure what it is, yet.” His gaze wanders. “Can I see that one, please?”

He takes a close look, but it’s not quite right. 

He’ll find it. 

+++

You’re still at your desk when Hotch leaves JJ’s office, late. You throw him a little bit of a smile as he frowns at you. 

Why are you still here? 

You shrug. Work?

He snorts. Sure. and hops up the stairs to his office. There’s a moment where he stops short at the door. With a little bit of a startle, you realize Strauss is in there. 

How did I miss that?

JJ arrives in the bullpen with an armful of files, and you tip your head toward Hotch’s office. She works her distribution, setting folders down, her eyes glued to the window. 

When Strauss leaves, you both busy yourselves, looking up as she passes. 

She greets the both of you with your formal titles, and a chill runs down your spine. 

“Ma’am.”

“Ma’am.” 

You and JJ echo each other, throwing an approximation of a smile in her direction. 

What the fuck? 

You exchange a look with JJ once Strauss is out of sight, nod, and stand. 

Reaching his door, you note that he hasn’t moved. 

“Hotch?”

He’s still as he answers. “Yes?”

Something feels wrong. Really really wrong. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” 

You stand there for a moment as he turns over his shoulder and returns to his desk. He knows better than to meet your eyes - then you’ll know for sure he’s lying. 

Choose your battles. 

Protect him. 

How? 

Just try. 

“Goodnight, Hotch.” 

+++

“You’re kidding.” 

You look up from your file at Spencer, who has a manic little grin on his face. “What?”

“You’re not going to believe this.” 

“Try me.”

He laughs. “Someone started this blog called What Would Carl Sagan Do? and it’s so woefully inaccurate I’m wondering if this is some kind of 100-level school project, it’s -”

Derek walks in and you beam at him. He doesn’t return it. “What’s the case?”

“What case?” You ask, the smile falling from your face. 

“I just got three emails from Hotch about cases.” 

A little confused noise leaves you as you refresh your email once...twice. “I don’t have anything.”

Spencer follows suit. “I didn’t get any emails from Hotch, or did I?” He checks. “Nothing.” 

With a sigh and a huff, Derek puts his things down and walks purposefully toward Hotch’s office. Spencer looks back at you. 

“Wonder what that’s about.”

You hum, looking back at your file to hide your face. “I dunno.” 

What happened last night?

+++

“What’s with Hotch?” Derek catches up to you in the hallway on the way to your hotel room at the end of the first day. Naturally, he’s not at all out of breath. 

You frown at him. “What do you mean?”

You know exactly what he means. 

“You’re a shit liar.” 

You chuff at him and unlock your door, opening it and shepherding him in. “Alright. Fine. He’s stressed.”

“He’s...stressed? Really? That’s all you’ve got for me?”

Throwing your hands up, “It’s not like he tells me everything, Derek.” 

You do know, however, that Jack spent his fourth birthday in protective custody, with only a surveillance feed to satiate Aaron’s need to see his son. 

It sucks. 

“Yeah, but -” He pulls the chair from the little desk and sits backwards on it while you take your shoes off. “ - you know him.” 

“You’ve known him far longer than I have.” 

“It’s different. I’ve been working with him longer, but you know him better.”

You can’t deny that. “Well…” You search and search for a viable explanation. “...maybe he’s just more open to help than he usually is? He knows how good you are at your job, so…” Your mouth twists. “...I think it’s a compliment that he’s relying on you more and asking for your opinion on things.” 

He squints, thinking. He “hmphs” once before standing up, replacing the chair, and heading toward the door. 

“I’ll tell you if I hear anything.” 

No I won’t. 

The side of his mouth lifts. “No, you won’t.” Then, “Goodnight, kid. Get some sleep.” 

+++

Aaron hands him an aggressively annotated copy of the preliminary profile. “Morgan, in order for the profile to be useful it has to generate multiple scenarios about what the unsub is doing. Rewrite it.” 

You have to admit you’ve been looking between each of them like a particularly interesting game of tennis as they volley back and forth. 

It’s tense...and confusing. 

Derek looks completely crestfallen. You wipe the confusion off of your face as best you can and exchange it for something you hope is empathetic. 

Hotch pulls JJ aside to discuss her new findings while Derek joins you at the table. 

“What is with him?”

You shake your head. “I wish I knew.” Your gaze wanders over to him, where he’s watching the pair of you. You look away, focused on the profile Hotch returned to Morgan. 

Your next words are almost a sigh. “I know he pushes hard, but…I just...don't know.” 

+++

You take a deep breath as Derek snatches a piece of paper from the printer and stalks to Hotch’s office. 

Maybe this time, they will kill each other. 

Who would win? 

Hm. Catch-22. They both lose. 

Even then, you’ll always put your money on Aaron. 

You keep your eyes on them and you know JJ’s doing the same. Part of you is always ready to bridge a rift between Aaron and Derek. For some reason or another, they both listen to you when you tell them they’re acting like shitheads. 

So, they listen. Often. 

Hotch’s jaw tenses and, though you can’t hear him, you can tell he’s raising his voice, his tone growing harder. 

That’s it. 

You shove off from the desk and open the door without knocking, interrupting Derek mid-thought. They both look at you and don’t even have the good graces to look caught out. 

“Garcia needs to talk to us.” 

Hotch takes a talking breath, but you cut him off. 

“Now.” You tip your head. “Please,” you add for good measure. 

They brush past the both of you, Derek’s fingers brushing your sleeve as he passes. 

You catch the hem of Aaron’s suit jacket and tug. 

He turns on you - there’s still a lot of fire in his gaze and for a moment, you let yourself be intimidated, looking away from him and bringing your hand back. 

There’s a sigh, and you know he feels bad (just a little). “Yes?”

“You’ll tell me if you want help, right?”

He meets your gaze. There is so much going on behind those deep brown irises you don’t even know where to start. “Yes.” 

Liar.

I miss you. 

Not satisfied, but pacified for now, you turn and lead the way back to the table. You meet Derek’s eyes and shake your head just a little. 

Damn it. 

+++

When you’re done with Penelope, you find an excuse to get Derek alone. Your conversation, somehow, is already heated. 

“He’s just trying to challenge you, Morgan.” Your body language isn’t great, but you can’t bring yourself to care. Arms crossed, tight mouth - you’re the picture of frustration. 

He’s restless - shifting his weight back and forth. “I don’t understand it. He’s on my ass about shit he’s never been on my ass about before.” 

“Did you even hear what I said?”

“Yes, I did.” He stops moving, gesturing sharply with an open, flat hand. “Why is he challenging me, when he’s the one under the gun?” 

You close your eyes and press your fingers to the bridge of your nose. “Did you ever think, just once, maybe, he wants to make sure this team still functions if something happens to him?” 

Derek, finally, has the good sense to deflate. You follow suit, leaning on the desk behind you. 

“We almost lost him a couple of months ago,” you remind him. “If we don’t know everything his position entails, we will not be able to help him if there’s a next time.” 

You step forward, a fond little laugh in your voice. “Derek - you’re a natural leader, a great tactician. There’s no better person for him to build up, just in case.” 

He breaks your gaze, thinking. 

For good measure, you add, “He respects you a great deal. Remember when you said you tolerate him, just for me?” You hold his gaze as it returns to you. “I think that’s bullshit.” 

Another breath. He steps forward, meeting you in the middle of the isolated, small conference room. You offer him a small, closed-mouth smile. 

“Come here, kid.” 

You tuck into his arms with a little laugh. “How did you two manage before I got here?”

You can feel his laugh rumble through him. “You have no idea.” 

+++

Of course, under Derek’s careful tactical direction, everything goes according to plan. Textbook soft entry, no hostages, peaceful takeover, and four rescued victims by the end of it. 

“I love these ones,” you say, standing between Aaron and Derek in the precinct as a family forms before your eyes. 

“Which ones?” Aaron asks. 

“The ones where we all get to go home, and so do they.” 

+++

“Well, I guess it’s time,” Derek says, pushing back from his desk and rising. You’ve both stayed late for one reason or another, with the excuse of paperwork. 

Really, Derek was building his nerve, and really, you were waiting for Aaron. 

You furrow your brow. “Time for what?”

“Hotch wants to see me.” 

“What does he want?”

He laughs a little. “I thought you’d know.” 

You shake your head, so he shrugs and walks up the stairs, knocking twice on Aaron’s door before stepping inside. 

They immediately take a seat, but not at Aaron’s desk. 

Red flag.

You know it’s ridiculous to worry, but nevertheless, you pace around the bullpen as the boys talk upstairs. It looks serious, given the image before you. They both sit forward in their chairs, lit by the warm light from Hotch’s lamp, their elbows on their knees, their hands loosely laced. 

Other than on the plane, you’re not sure you’ve ever seen them sit so close together. 

Aaron didn’t close the door, but still you know to keep your distance. The coffee pot is scrubbed again, the mugs reorganized, and you return to your desk after you run out of tasks, still fidgety. 

“What?” You hear. “No!” 

Your head whips up to the office at Derek’s outburst. They simmer down again after a moment, but continue talking with low brows and lower voices. 

They rise after a few more minutes, and Derek swings out of the door and whistles for you. “Hop to, kid, let’s go.” 

Your brow crinkles, but you jog up the stairs and land in the doorway. “What’s going on?”

Derek and Hotch exchange a look. 

“Have a seat,” Aaron says, finally. You follow instructions, sitting gingerly on the couch. 

What the hell is going on? 

Aaron sits across from you, looking a little lighter than he did this afternoon. You’re hoping it’s good news. 

“I’m resigning as unit chief at the end of this week.” You open your mouth and move to protest with your entire body, but Aaron’s hand stops you. “Wait. Hold on. Feel free to get mad at me when I’m done, but I’m not done yet.”

Is he...smiling? 

No, but it’s close. 

You freeze, waiting. 

He speaks to you like a scared animal, likely remembering the last time he tried to resign and you chased him across the office. “Morgan will be taking over as acting unit chief until we catch Foyet. I will return to my post at the conclusion of the investigation.” 

You still don’t move as you ask, “You’re staying on the team, though, right?” 

He nods. 

So it’s not as bad as you thought. “Why?”

Aaron glances at Morgan, who sits heavily beside you. You settle down and mirror their postures from earlier, feeling a little like a co-conspirator. “I’ve shared this with Morgan and I’ll share it with you, but -”

“- don’t tell anyone. Got it.”

His lips twitch. “Right. The bureau thinks that my ability to lead this team has been compromised.” 

You blink at him, waiting for him to continue. 

“What do you think?” He asks. 

This is a trick. He’s tricking me. 

“What do you mean ‘what do I think?’”

His gaze is definitely a little amused as he watches you. “I mean, what do you think?”

“Hm. That’s helpful.”

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in Derek’s head. 

He’s never seen two people more well-suited for each other. The fact that you’re giving Hotch shit right now to avoid answering the question speaks only to the closeness between you. You push him harder, give him more hell, and have the power to make him more miserable than anyone else. 

And yet, he loves you. It’s so clear. Why can’t you see it? Why can’t he see it?

You’re both profilers, for fuck’s sake. 

Derek’s eyes flicker back and forth, watching the raise of your eyebrows and the upturned corners of Aaron’s mouth. There’s a fondness between you - it rests in your eyes - as you wait each other out. 

God, they’re stupid. It’s written all over their faces. 

Aaron repeats himself, but slower. “Do you think my ability to lead this team has been compromised?”

You sigh, finally breaking his gaze to focus on one of the degrees on Aaron’s wall. “Alright, fine. I have been...concerned about some of your choices in the field the last few weeks.” You meet his eyes again. “Though, I believe I’ve told you as much in the moment, so that shouldn’t come as much of a shock.” 

He snorts and you swat lightly in his direction, purposefully missing him entirely. 

“But I don’t think there’s anyone better to lead this team.” You look over at Morgan. “Not to say you can’t or shouldn’t do it, but -”

Derek interrupts you. “- No, I agree.” 

You nod, turning back to Aaron. “Out of curiosity, what’s the alternative?”

His eyebrows rise for a moment. “The alternative is, I remain in my post until I am inevitably removed. In that instance, the team will be split and budgets will be cut.” 

“Oh.” 

“But,” he continues, “if I promote internally, we can avoid that.” 

It’s unsettling, to be sure, but not the end of the world. You think about it - what the team would look like with Hotch as just “one of you,” and Derek at the helm. 

Your eyes flicker to Aaron, taking in his suit, the strong set of his shoulders, the authoritative brow, the serious mouth. It wouldn’t be quite right, but it is better than the alternative.

God, he’s handsome.

We knew that. 

I know, but look at him. 

You’ve looked too long without talking. Derek noticed. He starts to think, already excited for Hotch to resume his post so he can start a betting pool on how long it’ll take for you two to finally give in to whatever...this is. 

Weirdly, though, he wouldn’t call it tension. It’s more like a blanket - covering the both of you in a kind of warmth that radiates to everyone in the vicinity. 

Derek has no idea how you got into Aaron’s good graces so quickly, why he trusted you so early on, but it’s made him a better leader, a better agent. 

He might even go so far as to say you’ve made him a better man. 

“I think,” you say, slowly, “given the circumstances, that Morgan leading the team until we catch Foyet would be a sound decision.” Your lips twitch into a smile. “And now I get to share the burden of being the one who gets pissed at you when you pull risky shit in the field.” 

Aaron almost smiles, but it’s enough. “Alright, then.” He stands and so does Morgan, so you follow suit. He crosses around to his desk, where two massive boxes of files are waiting. 

“If you intend on getting any sleep tonight,” he tells you, “I would recommend you leave now.” 

You suppress a smile. “And miss all this?” You gesture to both the file boxes and the boys. “No way.” 

+++

The next morning is...hectic, to say the least. 

Strauss stole Morgan the second he arrived, so naturally Penelope came up to the bullpen to keep tabs. “So, did anyone say why Hotch is stepping down?” 

You keep your eyes on your work, pretending to be only half-tuned into the conversation. There are eyes on you for a minute before you look up and cursorily shake your head. 

“All Morgan said this morning is that it’s happening,” JJ says. “Business as usual, I guess.” 

Emily’s not so easily appeased, sitting on the corner of your desk. “So we’re just supposed to move forward without any discussion?”

 Oh, there was a discussion. You just weren’t part of it. 

You look up for real and put your pen down. “I think we’d have to prepare for anything after Foyet, don’t you?”

The rest of you quiet down as Hotch descends the stairs. You’re the only one who keeps your eyes on him. 

No need to pretend you’re busy when he already knows you’re paying attention. 

“...I’ll have all my things cleared out and it will be all yours.” 

No. 

Your brow crinkles and you look up at the office. It feels...wrong, somehow, to imagine that room without its shelves of legal citation books, legal dictionaries…

Legal this, legal that. 

Could he be any more of a lawyer?

No. 

“Hotch, I don’t want your office.” Their voices are low, but they carry - especially to shamelessly eavesdropping ears. 

Strauss starts talking, but honestly, it just sounds like static. 

“All due respect, Ms. Strauss,” Derek says, “but both of you have trusted me to step in as acting unit chief. I’m asking you to respect my decision.” 

You drop your head down to your paperwork, a proud smile pushing at the corner of your lips. 

“I’ve decided I don’t want Hotch’s office. That’s where he belongs. If necessary, we can discuss this again at a later date, but right now, we really need to get started on this case.” 

He looks up, and you all pretend to be doing something else. It’s a ridiculous showing, really. 

“Guys. Grab Rossi.” 

Emily huffs, jumping off your desk. “I got ‘im.” 

+++

It’s weird at first as you all settle in and get used to looking at Derek more often. He’s doing well - asking good questions on the plane and stepping in when you arrive at the precinct. 

Aaron still looks like the authority in the room, but that’s just how he is. There’s more than one occasion where you’re forced to hide your smile as he intentionally and mindfully defers to Derek in front of the local officers. 

It’s not actually funny in any comedic sense, but the strangeness of it all gets to you a little bit. 

You’re driving (another perk of Derek being in charge - he lets you drive) while Hotch takes shotgun. You’ve just hung up the phone, where Hotch said again “It’s your call, Morgan.” 

It made you smile, and now you’re under fire. 

“What’s funny?”

You check (again) that you’re the only two in the car. You are. “It’s just weird. I’m getting used to it.” 

“What? That we’re the same rank?”

Honey, we’ll never be the same rank. 

“Sure,” you reply, dubious. “Like you and I are in the same league at all.” 

He shakes his head, playing off the twinge of hurt that doesn’t come from his freshly healing wounds.

In his mind, you’re right in more ways than one. 

That train of thought led him down a rabbit hole he’s now punishing himself for. Why he should even have half a thought dedicated to any of that is completely beyond him...

“What’s wrong?” 

He shakes his head. “Nothing.” 

You glance at him out of the corner of your eye. “You know I can tell you’re lying to me without even looking at you, right?”

A sigh. “Oh, yeah?”

DIdn’t think he’d answer that one. 

“You have a tell when you’re lying to me, specifically. It’s different from your other tells.” 

“Is that so?” He sounds skeptical. 

“Mhmm.”

You can almost feel him squint. “Are you going to elaborate on that?”

“Nope. If I do, you’ll stop doing it and I have to start from scratch.” You shoot him another glance and the corner of your mouth tips up. “And I don’t take orders from you, anymore, so you can’t make me.” 

His fond eye roll finally breaks you, and you laugh at the absurdity of it all. He doesn’t break himself, but it’s the thought that counts. 

Your laughter is the best reward to him, anyway. 

+++

Goddamn it, Aaron. 

If you had a dime for every time you’ve had that thought in the last eight weeks, you’d have...a shitload of dimes. 

You’re chasing after him, because of course he ran after the unsub without backup. It’s like he’s on a mission to give you hypertension. 

“FBI! Get off her!” You hear his voice, rough and authoritative (you, of course, ignore what that does to your anatomy) and round the corner. 

You find him grappling with the unsub, cuffing him. 

With a sigh, you take over - holstering your weapon and hauling the unsub to his feet. 

Derek walks over with Emily after you’ve passed the unsub to the local officers for processing. “What happened?”

“Hotch took him down by himself.” 

“You’re kidding.” 

You press your mouth into a thin, facetious line. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

Derek shakes his head with a huff that’s almost a laugh and returns to Hotch, who clarifies the aforementioned events. He looks over at you. “Did you tell him you were right behind me?”

You just stare at him. 

Derek takes over, saving you the trouble of getting too annoyed with Aaron. “You should have waited for backup.” 

Unit Chief Derek, in with the feedback. Very nice. 

You look unfairly smug, but the look drops off your face when Hotch answers, almost smiling, “Would you have?”

You're confronted with an image - Aaron, ten years ago, only a little older than you, a young, hotshot agent with a sarcastic streak a mile wide. 

Poor Gideon...

Derek just turns with another sigh, off to do whatever acting unit chiefs do. 

Emily manages to hold her laugh until he’s out of earshot. Hotch, passing her, just smirks. “What?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing.”

+++

Alright, that’s enough. 

You rise from your desk and pat Derek’s shoulder on your way past him. “Proud of you.” It’s casual, almost a throwaway line. If it was any kind of serious, you know he’d hate it. 

A little staccato hum leaves his throat. He’s still working, and you leave him to it. 

You knock twice on Hotch’s office door before letting yourself in. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he replies but doesn’t look up. 

You sit at one of the chairs and prop your chin on the heel of your hand. “How late are you staying?”

“You should go home. it’s late.” His response is absent, at best. You’re not even sure he actually heard you. 

“Hey.”

He finally looks up, his brown eyes tired and bloodshot. “What?” His tone isn’t unkind, but it isn’t patient, either. 

“You should go home. It’s late.” 

He heaves a sigh and lets it out through his mouth, choosing not to acknowledge your use of his words against him. “Can’t.”

You hum, looking over his nameplate to the files on his desk. “He’ll still be there tomorrow, you know.”

“That’s the problem.” 

“Fine,” you relent. “Then let me help.” 

He doesn’t protest when you reach across the desk for the first case file, so you figure you have tacit permission.

Maybe, just maybe, if you learn this case backwards and forwards, too, something will change. 

Your love for the man across from you makes that lie easier to swallow. 

+++

tagging: @arganfics @quillvine @stxrryspencer @agenthotchner @hurricanejjareau @ughitsbaby @rousethemouse @criminalsmarts @shrimpyblog @genevievedarcygranger @ssaic-jareau @good-heavens-chris-evans @davidrossi-ismydad @angelsbabey @writefasttalkevenfaster @venusbarnes @hotchsflower @ogmilkis @marvels-agents100 @hotchslatte @risenfox @mrs-dr-reid @captain-christopher-pike @dwellingsofrosie @pan-pride-12 @sunshine-em @word-scribbless @jdougl-love @sageellsworth05 @dreila03 @forgottenword @aaronhotchnerr @ssa-morgan @buckybau @sana-li @tegggeeee @abschaffer2 @ssacandice-ray @ellyhotchner @lotties-journey-abroad @mrs-joel-pimentel-23-25 @laneygthememequeen @violentvulgarvolatile  @mooneylupinblack @ssareidbby @violet-amxthyst @bwbatta @roses-and-grasses @lcvischmitt @capricorngf @missdowntonabbey @averyhotchner @mandylove1000 @cevanswhre @qvid-pro-qvo @jeor @spencers-hoodrat @infinity1321 @zizzlekwum @popped-weasels @evee87 @nuvoleincielo @this-broken-band-girl @reidtomestyles @hotch-meeeeeuppppp @winqhster @spencerelds @the-falling-in-the-danger @nattylite49 @crazyshannonigans @ambicaos

[be-gay-do-heists]

another short hurt/comfort ficlet since i’m on a roll, this time for hardison because that convo about how many plans he dies in always rubs me wrong. no plan m, never.

The cool autumn air felt good on Hardison’s warm face and stuffy nose. He sniffled, adjusting his position on the floor where he sat underneath the open window in his living room. The area was surprisingly sparse, considering how he liked to wear his interests on his sleeve, but he had never been pressed to decorate it since they all spent so much time in Nate’s apartment, which was just down the hall. Tonight, however, he was feeling the need to be alone.

Hardison heaved a shuddering breath. He hadn’t had a good cry in… oh. He guessed he had been crying a lot recently. The jobs had only been getting harder and more stressful, and everyone was always expecting more of him. It was so easy to feel alone behind his computer, four other voices clamoring in his ear and not a word of appreciation afterwards. And after what Nate had said that night about backup plans, it had all just gotten to him, weighed him down. The hacker had lost track of how long he had been sitting on the hardwood floor, arms hugging the knees pulled up to his chest. It was like he couldn’t do anything but let the hot tears roll down his face.

A gentle tap on the door broke through his fugue, and he lifted his head as it clicked open. Sophie’s voice came through. “Hardison?” The grifter took a couple tentative steps inside the apartment. “Your front door was unlocked, and Parker texted me that she heard crying.”

Hardison bit the inside of his cheek. He was a quiet crier by nature, but if Parker had been out climbing after they all split up for the night there was no way her crazy sensitive hearing wouldn’t pick up the sounds coming from the open window. He couldn’t blame her for reaching out to the person she relied on most for solving emotional situations.

When Sophie rounded the couch and saw him on the floor, she stopped in her tracks. “Oh dear. I’m sorry, um, I didn’t mean to invade, I can leave if—“

“No,” Hardison croaked, “it’s alright, you can stay.” He had been feeling lonely enough recently, and crying by himself in his apartment probably wasn’t helping matters.

She slowly sat on the floor, not too close, and wrapped her sweater around herself as she studied him. There was a stretch of silence punctuated only by Hardison’s sniffles. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?” Sophie finally tried.

The words seemed to be lodged in his throat. Hardison looked at her for a second and then rested his chin on his knees again.

Sophie, ever intuitive, pursed her lips. “You’re upset about what Nate said at dinner tonight, aren’t you.” She sighed. “I’m going to have a talk with that man soon about how he tells his jokes.”

“It’s not just that,” he said, shaking his head, which felt heavy and muddled. “It’s just, you know the jobs we’ve been taking recently. There’s only so many impossible things I can do, Sophie. And everyone keeps expecting me to do everything and be everywhere and I just, I can’t. And Plan M and all that nonsense, like I’m not even worth—“ he stopped himself, feeling the tears coming again. Hardison didn’t mind crying in front of Sophie. They were both emotionally in tune enough to be comfortable with it. But he was so frustrated by how the words wouldn’t come.

The grifter nodded. “Like you’re unappreciated. Taken for granted. I understand.” Sophie rose and walked to the kitchen counter, retrieving a kleenex box. She looked like she was parsing her thoughts as she came back and handed a few tissues to Hardison.

“You are not dispensable, not in any universe,” she said, sitting a little closer to him this time. “Listen to me. This whole thing, it doesn’t work without you. And I’m not just talking about the jobs, though that’s true as well. This thing,” she gestured between them, and in different directions where supposedly Nate, Eliot, and Parker existed at some point in space, “wouldn’t work if you weren’t here. There’s a reason Nate’s place feels more like a home after you set up shop there and refused to take no for an answer, why we all followed. You’re the nester, the soft, gooey center, as it were.”

Sophie smiled at him and reached out to wipe away a tear that had found its way to his chin. “We love you, we all do. But you’re right that we ask a lot of you sometimes. I’m sorry I didn’t realize how difficult that had become. The next time you feel overwhelmed, you let me know and I’ll have your back one hundred percent.”

Hardison drew a deep breath in and let it out shakily, feeling like he finally had access to fresh air again. “Thanks, Sophie.”

She hummed, drawing out her phone and tapping at it. “Of course, darling. I see Eliot texted me asking if you’ve eaten.”

The hacker knew Eliot wouldn’t be asking if he hadn’t seen him picking at his meal over dinner tonight, too occupied to eat. He was realizing now that he was actually hungry, his stomach grumbling at the thought of food. “No,” he admitted.

The unimpressed look Sophie gave him was brief as she went back to typing. “He wants to know what you would like.”

Hardison wanted something comforting, something that would remind him of warmth and home. “Does he have any recipes for albondigas soup? No treyf ones, neither.”

A moment passed where they waited for a reply (Eliot was a notoriously slow typer), and then Sophie snorted. “He says to give him half an hour, he’s using, and I quote, that ‘damned high-tech pressure cooker of yours’.”

The short laugh that came out of Hardison’s mouth startled him. “See, I know he likes it, he’s just too proud to admit it. I caught him making applesauce in it the other day. Stubborn ass.”

Sophie smiled wide and then started standing up. “Alright, let’s get this party off the floor, it’s not good for your young bones and it certainly isn’t for mine.” She ushered Hardison, who was still feeling groggy and raw, to the couch, placing a blanket over his lap, before going to the kitchen to get him a glass of water. He didn’t even make it until her return, falling asleep without even realizing it. Not even the sound of voices at the door, drifting into his doze, woke him up fully.

“—and I just want to know if he’s alright, is all.”

“He’s fine, we’ll all talk about it later, stop mother-henning.”

“Oh I’M the mother hen, Sophie? You—“

“Shh, you’ll wake him up!”

There was a distinctly Eliot growl. “Well, you make sure he eats that when he does. I made it special.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll keep you updated, how about that? Shoo now.”

The door clicked shut, there was the sound of a pot lid being opened, and the smell of albondigas soup flooded the apartment, warm and spicy. Hardison opened his eyes at the scent, blinking back tears, this time happy ones. It was just nice to be looked after.

[swordandquill]

Leverage Writing Prompt #31

Title: Future Tides

Fandom: Leverage

Summary: Nate has been keeping a secret from the team, but an inopportune explosion forces him to reveal it.

This is a prompt fill for @leverage-writing-prompts. I actually submitted this prompt back in July, but only got around to finishing it now.

In honor of the beautiful (and also occasionally creepy) mer-May art I still have circulating on my dash: Parker (or Nate) is secretly a merperson. When a job goes wrong, they’re forced to reveal their secret.

@rinahale did a really fun fill for it already with Mer-Parker.

You can go here to read this on AO3 instead.

Author’s notes: The merrow are Irish merfolk who require a magical cap to move between land and sea.

Bone and Sickle podcast by Al Ridenour did a really great episode on the Kraken (Ep 65: The Kraken & Other Marvels of the Northern Sea). In its earliest renditions, the Kraken was a sea serpent. It was only later that it became associated with first giant octopi, then the giant squid.

*************

Nate knew as soon as the explosion knocked Eliot over the railing of the pier that he only had one option. Eliot was strong swimmer, but not stronger than the turbulent currents under the pier, particularly if he was unconscious. Nate hadn’t been able to tell in the split second it had taken to register him going over.

Even as he was yelling for the rest of the team to get off the burning structure, he was shucking off his shoes and jumping over the railings. He hoped they listened. The rickety structure was going to collapse, with or without another explosion. Getting to Eliot before he got bashed into the pylons was going to be enough of a challenge without having to worry about the rest of the team ending up in the water.

By the time Nate hit the water, his fingernails had hardened into claws, and he used them to tear the rest of his clothes off so he could finish the change. There was something euphoric about settling into his other form. He hadn’t changed since before Sam was born, and it was like finally allowing himself to scratch an itch that had been burning its way through his skin.

There wasn’t time to think about that though. Nate blinked his second eyelid closed, and the murky water sharpened into black and white, the fire above reflecting through the water in bright, washed-out streaks. He had to fight the chaotic currents rushing under the pier to stay still long enough to spot Eliot.

He had already been swept under the pier, probably already been driven into the pylons at least once, and was limp in the water. Nate flicked his tail and pushed into the current, using it to reach Eliot before he could be driven into the pylons again, but he wasn’t able to get them clear of the pier before the next surge. The best he could do was curl around Eliot and turn them so his back hit the pylon instead of Eliot. He was going to be bruised, but it was better than Eliot hitting again.

He pushed hard across the current and surfaced a good four meters from the pier. Eliot started coughing as soon as they broke the surface. The shear relief of it left Nate drifting for a moment, Eliot’s head tipped back against his shoulder and the rip tide pulling them out. There was blood fanning across Eliot’s face from a cut at his temple, and he wasn’t quite conscious, but he was breathing, and for now, that was enough.

Nate cut across the rip to escape it, then brought them into shore, doing his best to keep Eliot’s head above water, although there was no doubt he had breathed in more water by the time they reached the shore.

Changing back was not as easy or simple as the change to had been, but Nate had known it wouldn’t be, known he couldn’t deny his body something it had been craving for so long, then expect it to just let go of it so quickly again. It meant he had to drag Eliot up onto the beach with a tail, which was less than ideal and required more arm strength than he was used to using in either form, but he managed it.

He turned Eliot on his side in the sand as he continued to cough up water. Part of him wanted to leave him here for the team to find and make a break for it before they saw. Eliot was unlikely to remember anything, and Nate was sure he could make something up that would appease them. Then nothing would have to change.  

Eliot’s eyes fluttered open, and he shifted fitfully, his whole body shaking with cold and shock.

“Just lie still,” Nate brushed the wet hair from his face with a webbed hand, “you’re alright.”

Eliot blinked up at him, and Nate waited for the reaction, but Eliot just gave an unsurprised “oh” before another coughing fit had him curling back into himself.

Nate let out a sigh and rubbed his back. He couldn’t wait to hear what “distinctive” thing about him had tipped Eliot off to what he was.

Someone yelled his name, and he looked up to see three silhouettes, framed against the light of the burning pier and racing towards them. It was a relief to see them, but Nate couldn’t help the unease as they got closer.

Parker reached them first, too focused on Eliot to pay much attention to Nate. She dropped down in the sand next to them, grabbing Eliot’s shoulder and shaking him in the Parker version of gentleness. Eliot batted at her weakly, but curled closer to her none-the-less. It wasn’t until Nate brushed her hand away when she tried to poke Eliot that she finally looked up at him.

Nate braced himself for fear, or disgust, or any number of negative reactions, but her face lit up like she’d just received a bag of non-sequentially numbered bills.

“You have cool teeth!” she told him brightly.

Nate’s world snapped back into place and all the unease drained out of him.

“Thank you, Parker,” he said drolly, just managing to not run his tongue over the points of his teeth.

“Oh my,” Sophie stopped short as she reached them, and Hardison almost ran into her.

“What is it?” the hacker demanded anxiously, “is Eliot…”

Hardison trailed off, mouth open and eyes wide at the sight of Nate’s tail.

“Nate’s a mermaid,” Parker announced gleefully.

“Do I look like a maid to you?” Nate groused.

“Maybe if you had a feather duster,” Sophie was giving him a look that said they would be having a long, unpleasant conversation later, “and a frilly little French smock.”

“Mermaids are real?” Hardison sputtered.

“Merrow,” Eliot corrected hazily, then curled into another coughing fit.

Nate was never going to hear the end of this from any of them. The fast-approaching sirens were almost a relief.

“Get him out of here,” Nate helped Parker to sit Eliot up, “don’t let him tell you he doesn’t need a hospital. He’s got water in his lungs.”

Hardison ducked down and helped Parker get Eliot to his feet. He swayed unsteadily, and the two were quick to get his arms around their shoulders and take his weight.

“What about you?” Sophie gestured towards his tail.

“Changing back takes longer,” Nate made a shooing motion, “I’ll catch up with you later.”

“You promise?” Parker demanded, refusing to be dragged in the direction Hardison was trying to usher both her and Eliot, “not like the little mermaid; you won’t turn into sea foam for loving humans?”

“No, not like that,” Nate assured her with an eyeroll, “hurry up and get out of here so I can too.”

“But you promise,” Parker refused to budge, “you’ll catch up later. You won’t disappear.”

“I promise,” Nate snapped, “go already.”

Parker grinned and turned back to help Hardison with Eliot.

“Don’t think I won’t send a trawler after you if I have to,” Sophie threatened, then turned to follow the rest of the team in the direction of the waiting van.

Nate didn’t doubt she would, and that they would find him, but he didn’t have any intention of making them do that. For now though, he pushed back into the water and let the waves carry him back out towards the open sea.

**********

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us you were a mermaid,” Hardison hissed, voice low in a futile attempt to not wake Eliot.

“Merrow,” Eliot mumbled groggily.

Futile because Eliot wasn’t sleeping. Exhausted, still feeling chilly if the truly ridiculous number of blankets piled on him were any indication, and a bit out of it from a not insignificant head injury, but not asleep, at least not at the moment.

“You know, I googled that,” Hardison groused, “just because Nate wears stupid hats all the time doesn’t mean he’s some kind of Irish shape-shifting sea creature.”

Sophie snorted indelicately.

“That’s not…” Eliot started to protest, only to be cut off by Parker, which was probably for the best given how soar his throat sounded.

“You can’t have your hat back,” Parker pulled Nate’s hat down farther on her head; she must have picked it up after he dropped it at the pier, “just in case.”

Eliot moved restlessly in his hospital bed, and Nate, sitting on the edge of it, dropped his hand down to pat the hitter’s wrist. He left his hand there, fingers resting lightly against Eliot’s pulse point.

“You can keep the hat, Parker,” Nate said easily, “it looks good on you.”

Parker beamed at him from the foot of Eliot’s bed.

“It’s a con anyway,” Nate continued dismissively, “someone made it up centuries ago to trick fishermen and it stuck.”

“You really are a merrow,” Hardison deflated, as if the reality of it had finally sunk in.

“Yes, Nate,” Sophie sat back in the uncomfortable hospital chair regally, looking for all the world like a queen reigning over her court, “do tell us about being a mythical sea creature.”

Parker leaned forward like a child eager for a bedtime story.

“Well…”

Nate was interrupted by Eliot reaching up with his free hand to try to pull his oxygen cannulas off. Again. Nate caught his hand and lowered it back down to rest on his chest.

“Leave that be for now,” Nate gave his hand a pat.

“I don’t want it,” Eliot shifted, movements agitated and unsure, as if he couldn’t decide what he wanted to do, “we should get out of here. It isn’t safe.”

“I’ve got it all taken care of, man,” Hardison reassured him patiently, “we’re safe.”

“Security’s not…” Eliot started to protest.

“We’re security,” Nate let his hand fall back to Eliot’s wrist and left it there, “we’ll check in with the doctor this afternoon and reassess, alright?”

Eliot grumbled, but settled down again.

There was very little chance of Eliot being released before tomorrow. He was responding well to oxygen, and the CT had looked good, but he had been unconscious underwater, and that wasn’t something any of them wanted to take lightly. He was having trouble focusing and keeping track of what was going on around him, and it wasn’t because of the relatively mild pain meds he had been given.

Better to keep him where he could get the care he needed, at least while they could. Nate wasn’t kidding about reassessing. If the situation changed, and they needed to go to ground, they had other resources they could tap into to make sure Eliot still got taken care of. For now, though, this was best.

“Nate,” Parker was looking at him intently, “Sophie said I should pick something besides money that I want for my birthday.”

Nate turned to face her, resigned to whatever was coming.

“I like gold and gems too,” Parker grinned, “shipwrecks have lots of gold and gems.”

Nate gave a long-suffering sigh, and pointedly ignored Sophie suppressing a snicker.

“It wouldn’t even be like stealing,” Parker pressed, “it’s not like anyone really owns it anymore.”

“There are plenty of countries that would disagree with you on that,” Nate said dryly.

“Only if they know we have it,” Parker shrugged, “so can we go diving for treasure for my birthday?”

“You have to commit to a date for your birthday first, sweetheart,” Sophie pointed out, “also, if we’re diving for treasure, there is the platinum reserves Spain dumped into the ocean in the 16th century. Probably not enough to make the expense of an actual expedition worth it, but if you could just swim to it…”

“No,” Nate said firmly, “absolutely not. We are not treasure hunters.”

“But we could be,” Hardison smiled impishly, “we do need alternative revenues streams after all.”

“Not Spain,” Eliot murmured sleepily, “’s guarded.”

“By what? A kraken?” Hardison scoffed, then paused, “wait, there isn’t a kraken, is there?”

“No,” Nate said firmly at the same time that Eliot said “yes.”

He glared at the hitter, who gave him a tired, shit-eating grin.

“It’s not a cephalopod,” Eliot looked far too pleased with the way Hardison started to sputter.

Nate pinched the bridge of his nose. At this rate, they were never going to get Hardison near the water again.

“You’re making that up,” Hardison balked, “there aren’t sea monsters.”

“How would you know?” Eliot countered, “you don’t even swim.”

Hardison opened his mouth to deny the accusation, but Nate interrupted him.

“What I want to know, is how you knew what I was,” he gave Eliot a curious look.

It would be good for him to know what had tipped Eliot off so he could fix it. The fewer people that could tell what he was, the better. Maggie had known, had seen him change once before they were married, but he hadn’t wanted to split his life between two worlds. He had chosen the land, still chose the land. That remained where the things that mattered to him were.

“You bled all over me when you were shot,” Eliot said, “your blood is different than human blood. It’s distinctive.”

Not something he could do anything about then, although it was interesting to him that Eliot hadn’t bothered to say anything about it sooner. As with all the random and far-reaching knowledge Eliot had, Nate was caught between wanting to know how he knew and feeling it was probably best not to ask.

“That’s just nasty,” Hardison grumbled.

“So we’ll go to South American, and Hardison and I will track down the shipwreck sites,” Parker continued as if she had never been interrupted, “you can search the shipwrecks, and Eliot can help me update my dive certification.”

“Whatever you want, darling,” Eliot yawned.

“Do I get a say in this?” Nate asked.

“Probably not,” Sophie looked thoroughly amused.

“It will be like a family vacation,” Parker grinned, clearly excited by the idea, “you and Sophie keep saying I’m supposed to try normal people things that I haven’t done before.”

Nate knew a lost cause when he heard one. He sat back and listened to Hardison and Parker plan, keeping half an eye on Eliot as he finally drifted off to sleep.  Sophie alternated between encouraging the pair with much too much enthusiasm and giving Nate thoughtful side glances. He was grateful she didn’t push for more information. Not yet anyway.

He had told Maggie before he had proposed to her. It had seemed unfair not to. And Sam… Sam had been so young. Nate was never sure he really believed it was more than a fairy story. Maybe if he had lived longer… gotten to be older… who knew what could have happened, what potential had never been unlocked. It hurt to think about, made him want to reach for a bottle and try to forget all the things his son should have been, should have had.

Eliot reached for the cannulas in his sleep, and Nate caught his hand, bringing it back down to his side and holding onto it.

Nate had a future here. Different from the one he had so badly wanted, shaped by different tides, full of unexplored depths and currents, but still good. He was learning to live with that, slow though the process was. It wasn’t the catastrophe he had always thought it would be, having them find out.

If the trade-off for this new future was the occasional treasure hunt, Nate could live with that.

*********

Parker continued to be non-committal about choosing a birthday, but there was a lovely 16th century gold and ruby pendent necklace tucked under the tree for her at Christmas.

[kookicat]

Choose Mercy Over Blame

"We're out of our league, Nate. Every one of Moreau's men has innocent blood on their hands, every one of ‘em," he says, begging Nate to understand, because he lives with the shame and the horror and the guilt of those actions every damn day and if he has to lay out his actions, he's not sure he'd survive it. "Every one of ’em... are worse than me. You think you know what I've done? The worst thing I ever did in my entire life I did for Damien Moreau. And I- I'll never be clean of that," he finishes and has to fight to keep the shake out of his voice. It's bad enough that he's been forced to air the worst part of himself. He can't let himself break, because he doesn't deserve that. Doesn't deserve anything but their scorn and condemnation, but he's hoping that maybe, just maybe, they'll choose mercy over blame. They'll let him keep the dark pit inside of himself covered, because if he has to rip it open again, he's not sure what the man on the other side of the act will be like. 

"What did you do?" Parker asks, softly and he can't get hold of his emotions enough to get a read on her voice. Out of all of them, she's the only one who would ask. The only one who could, right here and right now. They've all earned the right but Parker is like him, the other side of his coin. 

It costs him more than he'll ever admit to turn his face towards her. He's never been a coward but seeing disgust or hate or doubt on her face might just break him and he's not ready for that. The team, the jobs they're doing are good, clean, in a way that gives him hope for his tattered and worn soul. Gives him hope not for redemption, because with the amount of blood he has spilled, he's far beyond that and has made an uneasy peace with the fact, but that maybe, he can nudge the balance back towards good, just a little. Just enough that he can maybe stop hating himself quite as much. Help people rather than hurting them. Build something rather than tearing things down all of the time. He feels like he was the one, drowning in the pool, because his chest is burning and there's a lump in his throat that he has to swallow past, once, twice, before he can speak. 

"Don't ask me that, Parker," he says and tries to put his usual growl in the words, knowing he's failing, but it's enough, maybe, to keep the shake out of his voice. Enough to shield just how much this little confession is costing him. 

Her eyes are suspiciously shiny and he can't help but soften his tone, moderate it to something almost gentle. It's a harsh contrast to his words, to the pain and guilt he can feel on his face. He keeps his hands down by his sides, tucked into his jean pockets, because he's shaking and if any of them ask if he's okay, he's going to snap and he doesn't deserve the luxury of breaking down. He's not the victim of this piece, as much as his acts haunt him, because he'd known exactly what Damien Moreau was and what the bastard would expect going in and still chosen to join his crew. He'll own the things he did in the man's service, even if it's like hanging on to broken glass with his clenched fists and making himself bleed. It doesn't matter that he'd been younger and fresh off a job for a PMC that still makes acid rise in his throat when he thinks about it and Damien fucking Moreau had taken advantage of that fact. It doesn't matter that he'd been beat three ways to hell and Damien Moreau had offered him a safe place to recover. I knew what he was and what he'd expect from me, he thinks and blinks against the burn in his eyes. There's a difference between only having bad choices and having no choices at all and he's still not quite sure exactly where joining Damien Moreau falls on that spectrum. 

"Because if you ask me that," he says and the look on her face breaks something inside of him, lets the pain and guilt and shame peek out and as much as he wants to hide, he can't, not when she's looking at him like that, like a glass that's been dropped but hasn't shattered yet. "I'm going to tell you," he continues, voice even softer, because it's the only way he can get the words out. "So, please don't ask me that," he finishes and throws himself entirely on her mercy, braced for the blow he hopes isn't coming. 

She nods, eyes filled with tears and he returns the gesture, the damn painful ache in his chest easing just a little when she gives him grace, lets him keep the dark and dirty and foul things he's done inside. It's mercy, when he's pretty sure he doesn't deserve any, and he loves her for that. 

Sophie says something and he barely takes in the words, because he's too busy feeling relief, too busy accepting this little spot of grace that Parker has given him. The team feels fragile and he'll have to find a way to fix that but right now they're going after a monster and Eliot knows this job will probably cost him more than he wants to pay, but that's okay, because as long as the rest of them make it out safe he can live with that. He's used to carving off slices of his soul to get a job done, used to turning off his feelings to let himself fall into the old patterns, the ones that only end in blood and death. 

It's a price he can live with, for them, because they choose mercy over blame and he'll bleed himself dry so they don't have to make the same choice again. 

[flowers-creativity]

Fic: The One Bed Job

Fandom:  Leverage

Characters: Eliot Spencer, Parker, Alec Hardison

Warnings: None

Summary: A rainstorm forces Eliot, Parker and Hardison to take shelter in a cabin in the woods. There is only one problem ...

Notes: Written for Spud (@callipygianspud) for the @leverage-secret-santa-exchange with the prompts “Parker/Hardison/Eliot, oh no one bed?!?!, slice of life bickering”.

There are a lot of firsts in this story for me, most notably that it's my first Leverage fic ever! It was a lot of fun working on it - thanks to the mods of the Leverage Secret Santa Exchange for organising this 😊.

I’m late in posting it because I missed that the authors had been revealed but finally, here it is on my blog, too.

AO3 link

Eliot threw the truck into park and stared out the windshield at the desolate view: a cabin in the middle of the woods, looking small and forlorn in the wind that had been picking up speed over the last hour. Rain was driving diagonally across the picture, and he didn't want to make any bets on how long it would be until it was going fully horizontal. “Damn it, Hardison, that's the best you can do?”

“Hey man, you wanna try finding a place to stay in the middle of nowhere during a rainstorm, with no advance warning?” Hardison twisted in his seat and stabbed a finger at him. “I'm not freaking clairvoyant, couldn't have known it woulda hit so hard!”

“Yeah, well, always actin' like you are,” Eliot growled as he unbuckled his seat belt. There was no use arguing, they were out of other options. Not that it would stop him from doing it anyway. “C'mon, let's look at that rat's nest you found for us.”

“No appreciation, man,” Hardison mumbled. He took off his seat belt, then twisted around and nudged the lump that was Parker on the backbench, just a shock of blonde hair peeking out from under the blanket she'd wrapped herself in. “Hey mama, we're here. Time to wake up!”

The lump protested sleepily but finally uncurled to reveal the thief who stretched and yawned mightily. “Where's here?” she asked.

“Cabin in the woods,” Hardison said. “Storm's getting pretty bad, so Eliot wanted to stop driving. Never mind that we're in a Faraday cage,” he added, raising his voice so the hitter just about to close the driver's side door could hear him, “but apparently the only thing frightening big bad Spencer is some lightning. Can't hit that, eh?”

“Hardison,” Eliot said grumpily, pulling the door open again, “you wanna wrap the car around a tree 'cause you can't see with the rain comin' down so hard, be my guest.”

Parker snorted and leaned forward to give Hardison a quick peck on the nose. “He's got a point there,” she pointed out.

Eliot flashed her a quick look of thanks, fighting down the incongruous urge to have a corner of his mouth tick up. It wasn't a smile; it wasn't. And it wasn't a problem that his face constantly wanted to do that around those two lately. He finally slammed the door shut and switched on the heavy-duty flashlight he kept in the truck's cabin at all times. He more sensed than heard the passenger side's door opening and the other two hustling after him as he made his way towards the cabin, the rain soaking him down to the skin within moments.

The door was locked; he contemplated it for a moment, then stepped aside. “Parker, do your thing,” he commanded, directing the beam of light onto the lock. She gave a quick sound of delight and dove forwards with her lock picks appearing in her hands like magic. That lock wouldn't take her more than five seconds, he knew, but even that was probably a treat for her after an exhausting job that had her do most of the grifting. No matter how much she had grown and learned since they had become a team, coming into her own in both the grifter and the mastermind role, she would never love it as much as she did the jobs where she could be what she really was, a cat burglar and safecracker.

It was maybe eight seconds until the lock clicked and Parker stood back up. She frowned a bit at the door as she pocketed her lock picks. “Sorry, I'm off my game,” she said.

Hardison huffed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Don't be ridiculous, babe, you're fine. A bit tired, that's all.”

Eliot nodded and gave her a quick pat on the back before he pushed open the door and went ahead into the cabin. “Stay here,” he told them as he swept the flashlight's beam through the room.

Hardison rolled his eyes so hard Eliot could hear it even though he had his back turned. “No need to unpack the guard dog routine, El,” he said, and another flashlight beam joined his. “It's a cabin in the middle of the woods. If there's anything dangerous, it'll be a bunch of spiders or a raccoon at best. C'mon, I wanna get inside and get dry.”

Eliot flashed him a nasty grin over his shoulder. “You're the geek, tell me how many horror movies there are that look just like this,” he said. “And how the black guy usually does in them.”

“Damn, man, don't you use pop culture against me, that's just wrong,” Hardison complained.

Parker snorted a laugh, still leaning against Hardison's side. “We'll protect you, Eliot and I,” she told him earnestly, then slipped from his arm and had his flashlight in her hand a blink of an eye later. “I'll help him make the security sweep, and you find out if there's electricity.”

Hardison sighed in defeat and waved them off, shaking his head. “Then go do what you gotta do.”

“Nice to know we have your approval,” Eliot said with a smile that was all teeth and very little warmth (no matter that he wanted to put a lot more into it). Nevertheless, he didn't further protest Parker's joining him and sent her off to check one of the two doors leading from the main room while he finished sweeping its meager contents – a small table with two rickety chairs, a wood stove and an old cupboard that held a little bit of crockery, a battered pot and a few cans of soup. He left Hardison to poke around near the stove, mumbling to himself about barbaric conditions and using his phone as a flashlight, and headed for the second door.

It didn't take much time to determine that this was the bathroom, such as it was, and little more to check the shabby toilet and sink – they worked, which was probably the best they could hope for. When he emerged back into the main room, he found that Parker had just done so, too, and was now perched on the table. For once he could not fault her for her propensity never to sit on a chair like a normal person; the table looked like a much safer bet.

“That's the bedroom,” she reported immediately once she caught sight of him coming back, pointing at the room she had checked. “Nothing there but a lot of dust and spiderwebs.” She grinned brightly. “Only one bed, though. We'll have to snuggle close, it's not very big.”

“Wa---” Eliot was vaguely aware that he was standing there gaping like a moron but his mind was stuck on Parker talking about snuggling in one bed.

“Huh, what was that, Eliot?” Hardison had abandoned whatever he had been doing with the stove – couldn't have been lighting a fire, he severely doubted Hardison could do that – and came over, leaning against the wall next to the table with Parker on it, both of them weirdly illuminated by the display light of Hardison's phone.

Eliot finally marshaled his thoughts enough to grind out: “I'm sure you'll be fine for one night. I'll take the floor.” Parker must have been talking about herself and Hardison anyway, no reason to assume that she wanted to snuggle with him – even if his traitorous heart had done just that.

Parker frowned. “What? No, you won't,” she said with a shake of her head. “Not when there's a bed and no reason for you to be on watch. We'll fit in there the three of us.”

“Wha-- Dammit, Parker, you can't just get into bed with any man!” Eliot protested.

“Fine, then Hardison and you can take the floor.” She folded her arms over her chest and stared at him, the challenge more conveyed by her tone than by her expression he couldn't see too clearly in the gray light on her face. Next to her, Hardison made an outraged sound, just as Eliot sputtered:

“What? No, why should Hardison sleep on the floor?”

“Well, if I can't get in bed with any man, then I can't get in bed with you two, since you're both men,” she said with a shrug, in that tone that clearly said that she thought she was being perfectly reasonable.

“But he's not any man,” Eliot pointed out, “he's your boyfriend.”

“Okay,” she said, cocking her head to the side in one of those moves that made her look sort of like a bird, “but you're not any man, too. You're Eliot. My--” she broke off, gave a short sideways glance to Hardison and then continued: “Our-- You're Eliot. So you can come, too.”

Eliot sputtered again, and how did she always manage to have that effect on him? He was Eliot goddamn Spencer, he was always in control, but she stole it from him as easily as pick-pocketing a watch was for her, with nothing more than a few words and looks. He desperately looked to Hardison. “Back me up here, c'mon, man!”

Hardison, the son of a bitch, just shrugged, his teeth white in the dim light as he grinned. “You heard the lady,” he said, “you're not any man, so you can get in bed with her, I mean, with us, any time.”

“I-- But--!” Eliot raked his left hand through his hair, casting around for the right thing to say, to make sense of these words in a way that didn't make warmth spread through his chest and … somewhere else that had made a very specific sense of it and was sitting up and taking notice. In the back of his mind, another part was busy pointing out that in a way, any man was probably better to have in your bed than Eliot Spencer. It was surprisingly easy to disregard this voice, though, just as Parker and Hardison disregarded his words whenever he pointed it out to them. He had told them so a hundred, a thousand times, even had shown them glimpses of it a few times – the swimming pool, probably even the warehouse, despite Nate's promise not to tell anyone – and they had always sailed past it without the slightest worry despite what he had been, what he still was. And he knew it was true: whatever danger he presented, it never was a danger connected to his past. Only to a present that he held sacred in his heart like a talisman, like he had held preciously little since he had lost faith in God and the American flag and whatever else he had believed in once upon a time.

“Helloo-ho!” Hardison suddenly loomed up in front of him, his face just inches away from him. “Earth to Eliot!”

Eliot honest to God flinched and took a step back. “Dammit, Hardison!”

The hacker raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “You back with us, man?” He looked him over seriously. “Honestly, I'm starting to think you're getting sick. You're usually more with it than that.”

Eliot took a deep breath and ran a hand over his face. “I'm fine,” he gritted out. He let his shoulders slump down. Sleeping in one bed it was. “You had any luck with that stove?” he asked Hardison in a bid of hopefully redirecting the conversation.

Hardison shrugged. “Not really, there's some old ashes and half-burnt wood in it but I don't have a lighter. I'm sure you can get it going, right? Don't tell me you haven't been a Boy Scout, too.”

“Nope.” Eliot hoped the relief and eagerness with which he fell into their banter was not too obvious. “Army boot camp's better than that, anyway. Plus, y’know, spending lots of time in the actual wilderness, not some parent's backyard.” He dug into one of his pockets for a lighter and wandered over to the stove, angling the flashlight beam into the open compartment.

Parker had her chin in her hands as she watched him with her usual Parker intensity. “Backyards sound boring,” she agreed. “But you should take us camping some time! We can throw Hardison off a cliff instead of a building!”

This time it was Hardison who was sputtering, and Eliot couldn't resist, he laughed, a bark that reverberated deep in his chest. “That's a great idea, darlin',” he drawled, grinning at the hacker.

“Now that's just unfair! Two against one! And no one's throwing Hardison off any cliffs, are we clear? Are we clear?”

Parker pouted at him. “Aww. You went on that fishing trip with Eliot, didn't you? I want to do something like that with you, too, with both of you.”

Eliot scowled at the reminder of how their fishing trip hadn't happened after that stand-off with a white supremacist militia. “Not exactly like that, preferably,” he growled under his breath. Louder, he said, “I think Hardison had a problem with the cliff thing, not with going on a trip with you, Parker. We can keep that in mind, okay? For now, just let's get through the night.”

In the meantime, he had kept working on the stove, pushing the old ashes to the side and rearranging the partly burnt wood into a neat pile. He looked around for some old paper to start the fire, then reconsidered. The small fire would be pretty useless to heat or light the room.

“Any of you hungry? There's some soup in cans.”

Hardison and Parker exchanged a look, then shook their heads.

Eliot sighed and stood up, brushing off the knees of his jeans. “Then we don't need to bother with the fire. We'd need some candles or a torch for some real light. Don't think it would produce much heat to get the room warm, either.”

Parker shrugged. “I don't have any candles.”

Hardison grinned. “I guess if we're cold, we just need to snuggle close in our bed,” he said, and Eliot's belly did another backflip at the thought of the three of them in one bed together.

Parker laughed and dropped down from her perch on the table, grabbed Hardison's hand, then lunged and did the same with Eliot's. “Come on, I'll show you,” she said brightly and pulled them over to the door she'd discovered the bedroom behind earlier.

“Parker, that's --- Parker, I can walk on my own,” Eliot protested but it was halfhearted at best. He turned towards Hardison but found little sympathy there.

“Just go with the flow,” the hacker told him. “Relax.”

Eliot bit back a retort and instead just took a deep breath, his feet automatically following where Parker led. Relax. As if that was a thing he could do when he was about to get into the same bed as his two best friends. As the two people he-- He-- His thoughts kept stalling but he knew the word that should go there.

In the small bedroom, Parker let go of his hand, and he took in the room and the furniture occupying it, which was just one more of those rickety chairs, with Parker's flashlight on it casting a beam through the shadows, and the bed itself. It was small indeed, and short enough that Eliot guessed Hardison's feet would hang over the edge. Parker and he should be fine – for a certain measure of fine when he was intruding where he didn't belong. Never mind that they seemingly didn't see anything wrong with it, even though they were the couple…

Meanwhile, Parker had taken possession of the bed, pulling back the covers. She looked back at the two men contemplatively, then shrugged and quickly pulled off her shirt, sending it flying toward the chair. At Eliot's spluttered “Parker!”, she shot him an annoyed glare. “What? It's wet,” she explained as she unzipped her pants and shimmied out of them, then threw them after the shirt. Eliot averted his eyes and prayed for strength.

When he looked back, she had slipped under the covers, and Hardison was sitting at the edge of the bed, taking off his shoes and socks, his phone on the quilt next to him. Hardison looked up at him, and his dark eyes were soft in the beam of Eliot's flashlight. “Eliot, man,” he started, then stopped, then started again. “Look, man, you don't have to if you don't really feel comfortab-- Ouch, Parker!” The thief had straightened up and slugged him in the back of the shoulder. “C'mon, he should only do it if he really wants to!”

“But he does!” she hissed at him, then turned towards Eliot. “You want to, right? You want to be with us. Like, here with us.” She gestured between the two of them and then the bed as a whole, and Eliot's heart constricted in his chest. Yes, God, how he wanted to.

“Because we want you, too.” She looked at him hopefully, not bothered in the least that the blankets were pooling in her lap and she was only wearing a simple black sports bra in the cabin's cool air. He tried to look away but couldn't, not when her eyes were holding him captive like that. They wanted him? Just for snuggling in a small, unheated cabin in the middle of nowhere? Or… for something more?

Eliot pushed that thought way back in his mind. He needed to stay in the here and now. And maybe, just maybe, he could just be selfish tonight and take what they were offering. If that was all it was, he would deal with it. Would it be better or worse than never having had any of it? He didn't know.

Hardison was looking at him steadily. “Your decision, El,” he told him, “but we're here. Whenever you're ready, we'll be there.”

And that—that did actually sound like this was more than just a night of snuggling close for warmth. Eliot took a deep breath, closed his eyes and released it. When he opened them again, he nodded. “Yeah,” he said roughly. “Yeah, I'm--” He stopped and decided to give up trying.

Instead, he put his flashlight on the chair next to Parker's, then bent down to untie his boots and quickly stripped off his jeans and his soggy outer layers, leaving him in a mostly dry T-shirt and boxers. A few more steps brought him to the bed where Hardison had joined Parker under the covers, his torso bare. Both of them were looking at him with so much hope that it was the easiest thing in the world to lift the edge of the covers and slip in after them. He smiled at them and said softly, “Hey.”

“Hey you,” Hardison said and as if it was nothing, he put his arm around Eliot's shoulders and pulled him close. From his other side, Parker put her arm across Hardison's body until her small, strong hand rested on Eliot's chest. “I'm glad you're here,” she told him. Then she gave him a short whack. “So now, snuggling and sleep,” she ordered. “The rest can wait until tomorrow.”

Eliot felt his smile grow into a grin and turned it into the crook of Hardison's neck. “Yes, ma'am,” he replied seriously.

And as he crowded closer to Hardison and reached for Parker with an arm across the other man's stomach, Eliot did as any good soldier would do and followed the order given by his leader. It was probably his favorite order of all time.

[aloysiavirgata]

In The Gale

Title: In The Gale

Author: Aloysia Virgata

Rating: PG

Category: MSR

Author's Notes: For @perplexistan, who asked and helped me make it better. This is shortly after settling into the Unremarkable House. I tried making sense of their legal status, but it’s simply impossible and I gave up.

Our heroes quote from Melville, Shakespeare, Sagan, Baudrillard, and (Emily) Dickens.

***

Because I know that time is always time And place is always and only place And what is actual is actual only for one time And only for one place I rejoice that things are as they are and I renounce the blessed face And renounce the voice Because I cannot hope to turn again Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us And pray that I may forget These matters that with myself I too much discuss Too much explain Because I do not hope to turn again Let these words answer For what is done, not to be done again May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly But merely vans to beat the air The air which is now thoroughly small and dry Smaller and dryer than the will Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday

***

She recites The Raven to herself on the drive in, lists all the state capitals in alphabetical order, and goes through the periodic table. Her body fizzes like a shaken soda, tiny anxious bubbles rising through her blood. They’ve done so much for this, called in so many favors. Mulder put his book on hold for a month, quizzing her with dog-eared notecards. 

“Immediate treatment of myocardial infarction,” he’d call, and she’d say “MONA TASS.”

She feels a pang for the simplicity of the other life, the hiding one, where she just had to ring up cigarettes and herbal Viagra at gas stations.

***

She’s the new girl at the cafeteria table, awkward and alone. Mulder had prepared her a lunch like it’s the first day of school, and she stares at it, wishing for an appetite.

From the corner of her eye she sees two colleagues - an MRI tech and an obstetrician, she thinks - talking softly and glancing over. Scully thinks she hears “FBI,” and she looks up and smiles, uncertain.

They blink at her, look away.

***

Ybarra comes around the corner, gliding in his cassock like a disapproving ghost. “Dr. Scully,” he says, in his pinched voice.

She smiles thinly. “Father Ybarra.”

“Nurse Mossing was looking for the chart for Mrs. Sullivan. Imagine my surprise when I found it in Room 314 instead of Room 413. That’s a potential HIPAA violation, Dr. Scully. That’s a federal law.”

Scully curls her hand so that her nails dig into her skin. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “Father Ybarra, please forg-”

He holds up his palm. “It won’t happen again,” he says, and glides onward.

Scully closes her eyes and leans against the wall. She breathes through her nose until the ringing in her ears stops.

***

She wants to collapse into his arms and cry when she gets home, but that would be giving in. It would be letting them down.

“How’d it go?” he asks. He’s wearing basketball shorts and a Knicks shirt, a five o’clock shadow.

She smiles brightly. “It was good. Learning curve, but good. I think Father Ybarra might be a tough nut to crack, is all.”

Mulder rubs his cowlicked hair. “Put your feet up, Scully, since you won’t wear sensible shoes.”

She does, and accepts the glass of wine he holds out. “Thanks. I’ll sleep well tonight, anyway. There are miles of hallways.”

He sits next to her on the couch. “I wrote a few pages,” he says. “I deleted a bunch, but I think there was a multi-paragraph net gain.”

“I’m glad you’re able to stop focusing on my stuff now,” she says. “Both back in the saddle.”

“Go team.”

She clinks her glass against his. She drinks her wine too fast.

***

Ybarra had come in during her rounds that morning and startled her into knocking a metal bedpan onto the floor. Scully thinks the reverberations of that sound will follow her to the grave.

She’s now in the chapel, tucked into a back pew. She’s been staring at the small altar, at the stained glass windows flanking the crucifix. The Blessed Virgin smiles beatifically down at her, a wretched sinner.

Scully laces her fingers on the back of the pew in front of her and bows her head against them. “Please,” she whispers. “Please.”

***

Mulder wakes her with tea and eggs. “You haven’t been eating,” he says, brow furrowed. 

She rubs her eyes, yawning. “What?”

He sits next to her on the bed, sets the plate and mug on her night table. “You just push your food around your plate, you hardly talk when you get home. What’s going on, Scully?”

She sits up, looking at his worried face. He’s sun-browned and tousled, beautiful, with a mouth that still makes her weak in the knees. “Nothing. It’s just a lot to jump back into.”

“I’m sure it is. And I still want to help you with it.” He pulls the flash cards from his pocket, touches her wrist with his other hand. “Let’s see - causes of upper zone pulmonary fibrosis?”

She looks at the ceiling, back at him. “I don’t need help.”

Mulder blinks, stung. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. You just don’t need to hover over me. You have your own things to work on. Work on your book, patch up your henhouse. ” Her voice sounds snappish to her own ears.

His changeable eyes, now mossy green, darken. He chews his bottom lip, nodding slowly. “I thought you were one of my ‘things.’ Sorry to bother you.” He rises, walks downstairs.

“Mulder,” she whispers.

The tea goes down fine. Scully tries to eat the eggs but feels bile rise in her throat. She flushes them down the toilet instead of leaving them behind, because that is love.

***

She arrives at the nurses’ station on the second floor with three dozen donuts and two cardboard boxes of coffee. She deposits them on the desk. “Good morning, Annabel,” she says.

“Anneliese,” the woman says.

Scully nods, walks away.

*** 

He slides his hand up her pajama top, tracing circles on her ribs, sliding his fingers around to her breasts. He kisses the back of her neck. “Scully,” he whispers, his breath warm and ticklish in her ear.

She wants to pretend to wake up, to turn towards him and lose herself in his body. She wants to tell him everything, to be held and loved and petted and reassured. She wants him to remind her that she once stared down Congress, that some backwater priest and his prickly staff should be a joke to her. She wants them to laugh together at these silly, petty people.

But she can’t, she can’t disappoint him. He’s been so proud of her.

Scully stays still, breathes evenly until his hands move away and she’s alone again.

***

Her car rattles over the driveway, through shimmering waves of heat that rise from the crisping grass. It is the kind of late July afternoon where the sun is a hazy white ball in the west, and clouds of gnats are a permanent feature of the landscape. 

Scully parks, avoiding a puddle in which a peacock is standing. Mulder has recently become enamored of yard fowl. She narrows her eyes at it while opening the car door. 

“Good boy, Kevin,” she calls to it, wary.

Scully picks her way over the gravel in her thin heels. The peacock mews an alarm as she approaches, but doesn’t charge. She lets herself inside, shuts the heat and sun and wildlife outside. The house smells of coffee and microwave popcorn.

She walks into Mulder’s office and finds him hunched at his desk, typing. “Hey,” she says, and drops a kiss on his head. There’s a sketch of Baphomet taped to his monitor, her worn flash cards atop a tome about Raëlism.

He turns in his chair. He puts his arms around her hips. “Hey.” 

“Kevin behaved himself,” she offers.

“You two will be friends yet, you’ll see.”

She peers at the computer. “You get a lot done today?”

Mulder shrugs. “Eh, a bit. Waiting on a few emails, and I had to run that tubing to drain the sump down into the woods. Ate up most of the afternoon.”

Scully shakes her head in admiration. “I don’t know how you manage all the multitasking.”

“Well, the book helps me avoid the house, and the house helps me avoid the book. It’s a perfect system. That Ybarra guy still riding your ass?”

She chews her lip. “No,” she lies. “I think we’re okay now.”

“Good,” he says. “I’d hate to have to beat up a priest.”

***

Scully gazes at herself in the empty locker room. She looks thin and tired, and her hair is frizzing up, even pulled back like this. All her makeup has sweated off except for smudged crescents of mascara. Her bra is the color of a Band-Aid, her underwear white and sensible. Between the two is the hard white rose of her gunshot scar, like a second navel, an artifact of a second birth. It is numb when she touches it, indifferent. There are no stretch marks from William, a tale missing from the anthology of her skin. She unhooks her bra, lets it slide down to the damp floor. Scully turns to observe her body in profile. The scar is gone this way, the tattoo hidden as well, and she smooths her hands along her ribs. Her breasts seem out of place to her when they are unbound, frivolous somehow. Vestigial. 

She looks away.

***

The hospital is labyrinthine, having been constructed of various additions when funds allowed. There are dead ends, pointless staircases, and a mysterious storage closet filled with old televisions. She makes little maps on notepaper. 

“So where did you work before this?” an orthopedic surgeon asks her.

A diner in Wyoming. 

“I was out West for a while,” she says.

***

A week in, and Mulder has made a cake to celebrate. A bouquet of Kevin’s shed tail feathers ornaments the table.

An offering, Mulder calls it, tickling her chin with one.

A week down, she thinks, and blows out the candle. She wonders when she’ll stop counting the time.

***

Shy, he gives her a chapter to read. It’s good, and she tells him so. It’s very good. She hears his voice in her head when she reads it, his passion. She loves the esoterica tucked into his gyri and sulci.

“Your prose was never this clear in your reports,” she remarks. 

“Hey if you can’t blind them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.”

Scully laughs. “You want to read a few medical reports?”

He looks at her, suddenly serious. “Yeah,” he says. “I would. It would be nice to hear about your day for once.”

She wonders if love is the weapon that lets them wound so casually.

***

“You’re late,” Ybarra says softly. 

She doesn’t explain that she’d somehow ended up at the TV closet again, that the room numbering system in this hospital had been designed by nihilists, that the nursing student had Dermabonded her glove to a patient’s forehead.

She lowers her eyes like she did at Catholic school. She promises to do better.

***

“What’s going on?” Mulder asks her for what feels like the hundredth time. “Talk to me, Scully.”

She presses her hands to her face for a moment, drops them to her sides. “Nothing,” she says again, frustrating them both. “I’m tired. It’s a hard schedule.”

He places a throw pillow on his lap and pats it. “Come here,” he says. “Please.”

She acquiesces, curling on her side with her back to him. He runs his fingers through her hair, traces the Fibonacci spirals of her ear. She wants to relax, to melt into his touch. She indulges in a Mulderesque conspiracy theory that the hospital microdoses the water with tetanus toxin to keep everyone rigid and tense.

Scully gazes at the windows, at the hard white light of summer streaming in. The curtains are blue with an arabesque pattern, and they looked very chic in the store. She wonders now if they seem desperate in this odd little house. She thinks of Meg March, dressed up in borrowed finery at the Moffats’ ball.

***

Scully clomps up the steps to the porch and kicks her rain boots off next to the umbrella stand. It contains four umbrellas and a gnarled hickory limb that Mulder claims is going to be polished into a fine walking stick one of these days. She goes into the house and is dismayed to find it stale and stifling and dark. Dust motes waft in Brownian motion through shafts of sunlight, undirected by fans or air conditioning. 

“Mulder,” she calls, and there is silence.

She twists her hair into a bun as she pads upstairs, old wood satiny under her bare feet. She pushes open the bedroom door, and the air is hot and still. 

“Mulder?” She needs his help with her zipper, but there is no reply.

She wrestles herself out of her silk sheath, sticky and irritating, and lets it puddle on the floor. Her bra follows. She feels guilty, as Mulder has turned out to be a surprisingly diligent housekeeper. His office is filled with perilous stacks of home improvement books and arcane journals about lake monsters, the walls papered with clippings and blurry photographs, but he seems able to quarantine his own entropy.

She is trying to do the same.

Scully pulls on soft cotton pajama shorts, a gray tank top imbued with the compressive powers of Lycra. She uses lotion to rub away the mascara beneath her eyes. She goes downstairs and out the back door, shielding her eyes against the piercing sunlight. A mosquito whines at her ear and she pinches it out of the air.

“Still got those reflexes, kid,” Mulder says from somewhere off to her left. 

She turns and sees him crouched next to the hulking green block of the transformer. “All the lights are off, and the house feels like a rainforest. I take it you’ve had an eventful day?”

He sighs. “Not really. Well, not the event I was hoping for, which is the power coming back on. There was a pretty heavy thunderstorm around one and that’s when the electricity blew.”

She sits on the bottom step, knees drawn up. She likes to watch him working, a side of him they’re both still learning about. There was never much call for home maintenance at Hegal Place, or living out of cash-only motels. “You call the power company?”

He huffs. “Yeah, they told me they had no reported outages and the power should be fine. I explained that I was trying to report an outage and that it definitely was not fine and she promised someone would be here between tomorrow and eventually.”

Scully smiles. “And that’s why you’re out here toying with death?”

“Not much else to do, really. Can’t write with the power out.” Mulder sits back on his heels and shrugs. “You, uh, have a good day?”

She hadn’t. “Yep. Starting to feel like part of the team.”

“Good. You need to get your career standards as high as your standards for men,” he says, getting to his feet.

“Oh, well, that’s an obviously unattainable bar.”

“Obviously.” He sits next to her on the step. “You wear that to work? You know I think bras are a tool of the patriarchy and you shouldn’t bother, but I’m just surprised Our Lady of Perpetual Shame takes such a liberal view.”

She laughs a little. “I figured as long as I tossed a lab coat over it, I’d look like a real doctor. It worked when I was a kid.”

“Hey, that’s what I did with my badge half the time. Listen, Scully. The house is pretty tropical. You want to bunk up in a hotel until they get the power sorted out?”

Scully thinks about the convenience it would afford. Maids and room service and maybe a pool, depending. But she is tired of hotels, even nice ones. She is tired of polite signs that remind her that the pillows and towels and hairdryers aren’t hers, the tiny toiletries an indicator of her temporary status. She is tired of living out of suitcases and dressers that made her clothes smell strange, tired of running from her own life.  She wants to be home.

“Nah,” she says. “We’ll manage.”

Mulder looks surprised, but doesn’t question it. “I’ll call Lowe’s about getting a generator delivered tomorrow. We ought to have one anyway out here.”

She’d always had a vague idea that Mulder had money - it was the only explanation for his complete disinterest in it. But when they’d come back, when they’d talked to his lawyers, she'd been staggered. The Vineyard house alone explained his casual international jaunts. They can have things now, endless things, and there is something frantic in her that wants to spend the money. Bingeing chocolate bunnies after Lent.

Mulder peels his shirt off, wadding it into a limp ball. He tosses it so that it hooks over the doorknob. “Still got it,” he says. He preens.

“Does the NBA realize the tremendous talent they’re missing out on?” she asks. “Do they even know that, at this very moment, a six foot tall middle aged white man is out here flinging his clothing a distance of several feet?”

He snuggles up to her, wrapping his sweaty arms around her shoulders. 

“Ugh,” she says, and pushes at him. “Mulder, you’re disgusting and it’s a thousand degrees out here.”  

“Hoping that cold, cold heart of yours might cool me off.” She sniffs disdainfully, and he releases her. “Scully, how do you feel about bees?”

“We have a history, bees and I,” she observes, tapping the back of her neck.

Mulder curls his hand over the scar, kneads the muscles there. “Well, these wouldn’t be fancy bees.”

“Hmmm,” she says. “I’m not inherently opposed. Why do you want bees, Mulder?”

He shrugs. “I’m getting older, and I’ve got to consider funeral plans. The last one didn’t really go as expected, so I thought maybe I’d mellify myself this time.”

She nods. “Makes sense. I mean, of course, there’s no actual proof that mellification actually occurred, but that’s never stopped you.”

“I also like honey,” he adds. “And bees are good for the planet.”

“Honey often contains botulism spores,” she remarks. “Botulinum toxin is the most lethal toxin known, and it’s estimated that as little as 40 grams of it would be enough to kill everyone on earth.” She doesn’t say you shouldn’t give it to babies, that she sweetened her smoothies with dates and maple syrup so that -

“Well, nobody better piss off my bee army and me,” he says darkly. 

“Everybody eventually pisses you off. Mulder, is that old tent in the shed still? We could sleep in that tonight.”

He shakes his head. “Heavy mildew and dry rot, so I threw it out. We could sleep out here if you want, though. We’ve got that big air mattress.”

“Let’s do that,” she says. “We can put it on the porch. Tell you what - you get stuff together, and I’ll even make dinner.” Scully doesn’t like cooking, but she wants to create order, to complete a finite task. She can be domesticated again, like a lost house cat finally returned to a hearth.

“We having eggs or peanut butter?” he asks, smirky.

“I’d hate to spoil the surprise,” she snips, and goes back into their sauna of a house. 

In the kitchen, she stands in front of the open fridge, letting the delicious leftover cold soak into her skin. She’ll deal with the spoiled food later. Eggs had, actually, been her plan but it’s just too hot. The stove doesn’t work, and she doesn’t have the fortitude to turn the grill on. She finds some leftover shrimp pasta that Mulder has made, some vegetables, and assembles it all into a passable salad.

There, she thinks, pleased. I’d pay twelve bucks for that somewhere. She uses her foot to scratch a mosquito bite on her calf.

Her skin is clammy, hair stringy and damp from sweat. Maybe they should just go to a hotel after all. Perhaps she should stop ascribing symbolism to every damn thing and enjoy herself once in a while. But she thinks of packing, of driving, of unpacking and somehow it’s all too much and her eyes start to fill and her sinuses sting.

Scully pinches her wrist until it passes, feeling weak and hating the weakness in herself. It’s the heat, it’s the exhaustion, it’s the heavy mental load. She considers going outside for a dip in the pond, but suspects the water will be unpleasantly warm. Instead, she drags herself back upstairs for a cold shower.

She sits on the edge of the bed, weary, and stares at a framed picture of a sea turtle on the far wall. If she lets her eyes drift out of focus, it looks like it’s swimming. She tips her head back for a better angle, watches it float across her vision. It slips away then, into the black of the deep waters.

***

She startles awake when he touches her shoulder, gasps.

“Jesus,” Mulder says, and sits next to her. “Bad dream?”

Scully sits up, dazed. “What? No, was I asleep?”

“You’ve been out cold for over an hour, but I wanted to make sure you got some food. Water at least, it’s too hot up here.”

She blinks, confused. “I don’t remember,” she says. Peering to her right reveals night outside.

Mulder holds a hand out and she grasps it, letting him pull her to her feet. She wavers and he steadies her, arm about her shoulders. 

“I just need some water,” she says, defensive.

He guides her down the stairs and out the front door onto the porch. The air outside is substantially cooler, a light breeze kissing her face. She settles into a chair, stares deep into the felty dark. She still can’t remember falling asleep. 

Mulder hands her a water bottle from the little table and she rolls it between her palms, the plastic crinkling. “Hey, I thought you were setting up the air mattress out here,” she says.

“No air flow behind the wall,” he replies. “Drink that up like a good girl and I’ll show you what we’ve got.”

Scully obeys and feels better. The water tastes stale, but it’s cool and wet. “Maybe you should have my job,” she says, looking up. “Caring for live people is so much work.”

“Everybody eventually pisses me off,” he reminds her. “Come on, Doc.”

She follows him down the steps and around the side of the house. Their property is vast and feral, pocked with mole burrows and rabbit nests. The floodlights are out with the power, and the house is nearly swallowed up by the vast night. Scully glances up at the Milky Way, at the waxing moon, and marvels again at the sky they have out here. We are star stuff, she thinks.

“Moonstruck?” Mulder asks.

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars.”

“As long as you can tell a hawk from a handsaw,” he says, and tugs her along.

She follows him to the back of the house and then stops, smiling. Mulder has hammered some old two-by-fours into a frame, draped the structure in white bedsheets. Inside, the air mattress is piled with sofa pillows. Outside, camping lanterns, candles, and two strands of solar lights make it into a kind of fairy circle.

“Mulder,” she says, delighted. “This is ridiculous.”

“Indian Guide saves the day,” he says.

“Your architecture badge is definitely more impressive than your fire badge,” she says, walking over to the little tent. He’s brought her salad inside, and there is a cooler packed with ice and water bottles. Cans of bug spray sit at the flap. She crawls inside, suddenly ravenous. 

Mulder joins her on the mattress, which bounces in response. “Remember my water bed?”

She laughs, piling food on a plate for each of them. “What a swinging bachelor you were.”

She remembers the water bed fondly, the leather couch and the fish and the postage-stamp bathroom in his apartment. It shouldn’t hurt still, but it does. She knew herself there, her place on the map. She eats her salad, wistful for Chinese food and beer at that battered coffee table.

“Scully,” he says.

“What?”

“Scully.”

“Just middle-aged nostalgia, I suppose,” she murmurs.

He reaches out to take her hand. “You’re scarcely middle aged.”

She smiles, squeezes his fingers. “If you go by life experience, we’re both about two hundred years old.”

“Like those Galapagos tortoises. But you need to tell me what’s going on at work. You won’t disappoint me.”

It can be very disagreeable to live with a profiler.

Scully drops his hand. She bites at the fleshy part of her thumb. This is real, she thinks. This place. It is not down in any map; true places never are. She can only deflect for so long, and her armor is rusting away. “I’m afraid,” she whispers, then chances a look at his face.

His eyes are soft, searching. “Why?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know, I don’t…” Her sinuses sting again and she presses her palms hard into her eyes. “Please.”

Mulder’s hand on her back, in endless, gentle figure eights. He pulls the elastic from her hair and lets it tumble down to her shoulders. He shifts so that her back is to him, his long legs on either side of her body.

“Mulder, what -”

“Shhhh,” he says, and gathers the hair at the crown of her head. “It’s not a real sleepover if you don’t get your hair French braided.”

Scully blinks. “Since when do you know how to braid hair?”

“Little sister, absent parents. Now stop moving and talk.”

She keeps her head very steady, thinking of her own sister’s deft fingers when their mother was too busy for anything but ponytails. Mulder tugs at another little section of hair. Scully thinks she might be okay if she isn’t looking at him, if she can’t read herself in his eyes.

Moth shadows dance across the white sheet wall, drawn to the flickering candles outside. It fascinates her that they never figure out that fire burns.  “I don’t know how to do this,” she says, and her voice is thick.

“To talk, or to be still?” he says in his Oxford psychologist voice.

She isn’t sure of what she means either. “Yes,” she says, with a hiccupy laugh. “Both.”

“Me too,” he says, slipping his thumb through the strands behind her ear. “I don’t know how to do this.”

She swallows hard. “I just...I’ve always had something to consume me. I had the FBI, we traveled all the time, and then we were running and I thought it was hard but it was so easy to just survive. There were no decisions. I didn’t care about, I don’t know...plates.”

He pauses in his work. “Plates?”

Scully chews at a hangnail, frustrated. “Just things, the things you buy for a house. Long term things. I did with William and then…” she trails off, her chest tight. “I feel like I’m playing a game sometimes, like improv theater. Fox and Dana Build A Home.”

“Fox and Dana?” he repeats. “Surely not.”

“Well, we’re hardly Mulder and Scully anymore, are we?” Her stomach clenches and that’s it, she sees. That’s the fear.

He finishes the braid and fastens the elastic at the end of it. “Of course we are,” he says. “We are who we are.”

She turns to him then, the whispering anxiety back with a roar. “And who is that, Mulder? I was plain old Dana Scully until I met you. And we had this life, this strange and wonderful and terrible life where I was Scully because I was your partner and now that’s over. It’s all nothing.” She’s crying openly now, quietly, and it feels cleansing.

“You’re still my partner,” he says, and his eyes are shining too.

She wipes her nose with a paper napkin. “Am I? At what? I go to work and see patients but I forgot there’s no closure with the living. People get sick and get better and get sick again. It doesn’t end. And this house, the power is always going to go out and the chickens will always be hungry and -“  she stops, feeling hysterical.

“You don’t have to work,” he says softly. “The settlement from the FBI, my inheritance…”

She shakes her head. “You know I have to work.” 

He sighs, rubs her knee. “I know you do. But it doesn’t have to be this. It doesn’t have to drain you.”

He’s right, of course he’s right, but he’s also so terribly wrong that she wonders if he knows her at all. She has to be a doctor for her father, for William. For him. She has to see something through. Scully smooths her hand over the back of her head, feeling the even ridges of the braid. Mulder is so competent with everything he does, so easy with himself. He’ll get his damned bees and become some kind of honey magnate in no time.

“People at the hospital, they ask me what I did before. And I don’t know how to answer. How can I possibly answer that question? I just say I was with the government, but that isn’t really the answer, is it?”

Mulder shrugs. He’s never felt the need to explain himself to people. “It’s true.”

Scully stretches out on her stomach across the mattress, chin on the pillows, watching the moths again. They tumble like acrobats, untethered in the thick air. “There’s this number called Graham’s number, used in Ramsey Theory, which is, well, nevermind. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, it was in the Guinness Book for being the largest specific number used in a proof at the time. And Mulder, this number is so big that writing out all the digits would exceed the bounds of the known universe.”

“Nobody likes a math nerd, Scully.”

She rolls onto her back to glare at him. “Yes they do, they give them Nobel prizes. Anyway. A whole new notation system, Knuth Notation, had to be developed to express these massive numbers. Graham’s Number, Tree(3), et cetera. And I feel like that at times. That there’s this endless amount of vital, inexpressible information inside of me that is so essential but that I have no way to share.”

She blinks a few times, spent by this unburdening.

Mulder stretches out next to her, propped on his side. “You can express it to me,” he says, massaging her temple with his thumb.

Scully closes her eyes. “I feel like a ghost sometimes. How do you do it, Mulder? How do you just keep moving forward without getting lost?”

He sighs. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but you have a tendency to compile people into perfect specimens, then measure yourself against that imaginary standard. It’s the precession of simulacra.”

She looks at him, indignant, then realizes he could be right. “Well,” she says. “It’s possible. But Mulder, is that such a bad thing, to want to hold myself to the highest goals?”

He tugs her onto her side so that she’s facing him, nearly nose to nose. Her lips feel tingly. “Yes,” he says, stroking her hair. “When the goal isn’t attainable. And when it puts everyone else on pedestals where we’re ill equipped to balance. And when it puts you in a constant state of frustration and anxiety. No one is perfect. Not even you.”

“I don’t want to be perfect,” she lies. “And I don’t need you to be either.” That part is true, at least.

He laughs in reply. “Apropos of being Galapagos tortoises, Charles Darwin once said ‘I am very poorly today, and very stupid and hate everybody and everything.’”

“He rode the tortoises,” Scully says, calming. “I can’t defend his methodology.”

“See? You’re better than Charles Darwin.” He kisses her forehead.

“Well,” she says. “Well.”

“Scully, look. You’re not alone here, feeling at sea. I went to the feed store and some guy picked a fight, shoved me pretty hard with his shoulder. And this reflexive part of my brain wanted to grab my badge, stick it in his face, and put him against the wall for assaulting a federal agent. But I ignored it and bought the chicken feed and just headed out. And I felt like, is this who I am now? Some pushover with yard birds and home improvement books?”

“You made a little fast and loose with your authority sometimes,” she says, thinking of Roche. She curves her palm against his cheek, thumbs the fine ridge of his zygomatic bone.

He bumps her nose with his. “You broke into a secret morgue.”

“You made me.” She sniffles, laughs a little. “The good old days.”

“These can be the good days too,” he says. “They can, if we work at it.” He traces her mouth with his finger.

“Okay,” she says. Hope stirs in her, a thing with feathers. “Partners?”

“Partners.”

He kisses her, in their small tent, in their ring of light.

[felagund-fiollaigean]

Tea leaves and trust

A Leverage fanfiction, by me.

Just under 1k words of Eliot and Sophie understanding each other better. A coda to 3.02 and specifically the scene where she uses NLP to trick him into pouring tea for her.

Read it here or under the cut

Sophie is lingering on a bar stool at McRory's, winding down from the reunion job and catching up on some emails on her phone when she's interrupted by one retrieval specialist and the clattering of china on a tray.

The rest of team Leverage had retreated to their respective places of residence after the job except for her and Eliot, who had been puttering through the bar and kitchen, preparing something that she hadn't had enough energy to be curious about. Now, he enters her field of vision and sets a tray down in front of her. On it is a teapot, two cups with saucers, honey, sugar, lemon, a small pitcher of milk, and an assortment of spoons. He rests his hands on the bar and fixes her with a heavy stare as if waiting for something.

She looks from the tea tray to Elliot and back again, unsure what he’s expecting of her.

“Anything the matter, Eliot?”

“This is for you to practice.” His tone isn’t aggressive, but it doesn’t leave room for argument either.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. What am I supposed to be practicing?”

“You want me to pour you a cup of tea?”

Oh. So that’s what this is about. She puts her phone down.

“Eliot, I am sorry about earlier. It was only a cup of tea and I just-”

“I know,” he says, his voice hard with distinctly Eliot-like earnestness that would be endearing if it wasn’t quite so intense. “It is only a cup of tea. You know I’d take a bullet for you, right?”

No matter how good Sophie is at reading people, the morbid shift in tone catches her off guard.

“I… You don’t… What does that have to do with the tea?” She’s well aware what Eliot’s role as the hitter fully entails, and the responsibilities he puts upon himself, but discussing it this frankly always makes her stomach turn with a sadness that feels a lot like guilt, a feeling that’s hard to shake.

He leans more of his weight onto his hands. “No,” he says, evidently not about to let her off the hook. “I need to hear you say you know that.”

She swallows, and when she next speaks, it comes out as a whisper.

“I do.”

“Good, ‘cause I would without hesitation.” And it hurts Sophie how much he means it. “You trust me enough to keep you, and I mean all of you, alive out there. But you feel like you gotta play mind games on me just to get me to fix you a cup of tea. Why?”

“I don’t know,” she says, but she does know, and is avoiding saying what she doesn’t want to say. But Eliot’s an honest person and doesn’t deserve anything less than an honest answer from her, even if she is a liar by trade.

“Because… I thought you would refuse if I had merely asked you to do it.”

“But you didn’t ask me, did you.”

“No, I didn’t,” she admits.

“So you have no idea what I would or wouldn't have done. ”

He takes a deep breath.

“I don't want you to mess with my head anymore, Soph. I know that’s what you do, but you save that for the marks, you'll never have to do that to me. You need somethin' from me, all you ever need to do is ask. So,” he waves a hand at the tea service set up between them. “Practice. I wanna hear it.”

Now she knows what he wants, she feels more at ease, because now she knows how to respond. But with it comes a twinge of regret. Convincing a mark that they wanted to do something for her came as naturally as breathing, but she should have known all along that Eliot wouldn’t want or need convincing. As far as she could tell, the man had two ways he showed someone he loved them: Acts of service, and food. And she had inadvertently robbed him of an opportunity to show her of his own free will.

She’s grateful he’s giving her the chance to give it back.

Shaking her hair back from her face, she squares her shoulders and allows the fondness she feels for Eliot and the whole team to come through in her affect.

“Eliot, would you please be so kind as to pour me a cup of tea?”

He doesn’t move. “Sure. Now tell me what you want in it.”

“One spoon of sugar, please. And some lemon.”

Even the way he pours tea is methodical and professional. His eyes don’t leave hers as he pours tea into the cup without spilling a drop. Sugar is scooped with a flourish and lemon wedge tastefully squeezed into it. He gives it a stir, two, three with the spoon before nudging the cup and saucer towards her. He stands back, crossing his arms over his chest, once again waiting for her next move.

She obliges him by taking a sip. It really was delicious; Eliot Spencer was a man who understood that there was more to tea preparation than letting a bag of leaves sit in hot water, but the tea itself wasn’t the point he was trying to make.

It was about trust, and Sophie had the feeling that they had just restored some in each other.

She sets her cup back on her saucer.

“Thank you,” she says, and she hopes he knows she’s talking about more than just the tea.

For the first time that conversation he smiles, soft and real.

“You’re welcome, Sophie. Any time.”

And she knows they understand each other now.

[eyrieofsynapses]

so today I just watched the first episode of Almost Paradise! And I’ve gotta say, I am impressed. I already had it on my watchlist but I was planning to wait to watch it for a while until I could let Eliot fade a bit from memory, just so I wouldn’t automatically think of him while watching Kane. But I ran into an article this weekend about how it was filmed in the Philippines and the details of that, and my curiosity was piqued considerably more, so I figured... why not? 

(I also started White Collar this weekend and that was very enjoyable, but that’s a post for another day.) 

Anyway, my brain’s buzzing now, so have some first impressions and reactions, plus initial meta-analysis because I am intrigued. In hindsight I probably should have recorded first impressions while I was watching, but I’ll do my best to remember the bits that stuck out. Warning for... exceedingly long post.

ooo, okay, so he’s got a medical condition. I faaaaintly remember reading about this in the summary but I didn’t pay much attention to that, oops.

telling a guy played by Chris Kane not to get his heartrate up! that’s definitely gonna happen. definitely. one hundred percent. not like this guy loves fighting or anything

(also tbh the joke about, ah, sexual dysfunction admittedly left a sour taste in my mouth, because I do not go for that kind of thing, but... this is Devlin and Kane, so I’m trusting, based off Leverage experience, that they aren’t gonna be too inappropriate. [In hindsight there are actually interesting meta reasons for this so the sour taste has dissipated somewhat.])

this poor doctor. she’s so done with him. 

...he’s definitely not gonna pay attention to the monitor is he

that journal’s gonna get zero use oop

(I was duly impressed when he actually did use it later)

huh, liking how we immediately dive into the effect tourism has had on the Philippines. so we’re getting some commentary here too? I can deal with that

...wow. bad shop. eek

I’m sorry but I am loving the touch with the floorboards and such breaking beneath Alex. the look on his face is just perfect

and the monitor goes off! for tbh the last reason I expected it to first go off for, excellent 

MOTORCYLE? did they give him a motorcycle?!

awww no it’s the baddies who have the motorcycle :(

hmm this should be interesting. loving the look of this leader guy tho

--aaaand good asthetic guy is dead! with an ice pick! creepy and creative! 

bar. no way this could go wrong

internal battle! understandable that Alex wants out, buuuuuuut if he’s anything like I suspect he is--

--yup, picking a fight, with a damn pool cue--

--not picking a fight?

...picking a fight. by being friendly. *sigh*

yuuuuuuuup. that’s definitely good for your heart

badass fighting scene! with a pool cue, that’s a new one! love seeing Kane take ordinary objects and turn them into fighting tools

(ngl this had Eliot vibes. that said I am thrilled to see how damn good these fight scenes are and this is making me even more excited for Redemption)

aaaaaaaaaand oh fuck this was a police setup. which. I actually did not see coming, huh

ahahah they’re pissed! because he messed up their bust? or because he just saved their asses? 

...probably technically the former but I suspect the latter is also true

refusing to get Involved being foreshadowed by his indecision earlier! of course he’s going to get Involved anyway, only question is how

“hitter” I SEE YOU. I SEE YOU AND YOUR REFERENCES. I SEE YOU DEVLIN AND KANE

pfffffffffffFFFFFT the meditation, oh gods

that voice. oh Alex. 

I genuinely cannot tell if this is him actually trying or if this is him begrudgingly making an attempt because he has to

lacquering(?) the doors, which, hey, actually look pretty nice--this place is gonna look good when it’s done isn’t iii--

oh fuck Alex is being attacked

(this is definitely something to be concerned about. yes. totally. not like we haven’t already seen him take down a bunch of guys.)

with a garrot! this is definitely totally not how he’s gonna get Involved

oh my gods the detail with the paint. nothing says Competent like getting irritated at how the baddie interrupted your house restoration

hehehehe Involved

oooh, hmm, he thinks they sent the guy after him? what kind of corruption has Alex faced? I mean it’s not an unreasonable fear, but jeez, it sounds like this has happened to him before. doesn’t say much good about the DEA...

huh, this is a level of disturbed I haven’t seen from Kane before. which, granted, I have only seen him in Leverage, but I’ve never seen him pull this out before. the voice crack is an excellent touch

also, worth noting, Alex is definitely a notable level of... hmm, paranoid? this is just a tad bit frantic, though that’s understandable from a guy who almost got killed while in the middle of an attempted meditation

oh god being cocky in the middle of a briefing. poor Kai 

--being cocky and competence porn! of course he takes the watch and turns it into a lesson

...he must be a hell of a teacher

(also, bonus points for actually using the journal. maybe he’s taking this health thing more seriously than I thought he would?)

may I repeat: COMPETENCE PORN

uh-huh, you’re so not involved, definitely, Alex, not like you’re gonna get pulled straight into this or anything

Ernesto is just watching to see how things play out, Kai is... trying to do things the right way, and Alex...

...Alex gives precisely zero fucks. buddy you are so not subtle

right, walking straight into the lion’s den! radiating confidence! terrifying

this is a disturbing level of truth he’s sharing for this lie. I mean, best lies are crafted from truth, but... jeez

hm. so is Alex also a “I don’t like guns” type guy? 

(probably not for the same reasons as Eliot doesn’t [his is definitely more in the “they make it too easy to kill” department whereas I would guess Alex has either more tactical or PTSD reasons], but, hmm. this is something to watch for)

(did they know they were bringing back Leverage when they set up Almost Paradise? I’m genuinely wondering if they didn’t write some Eliot traits into Alex specifically bc they knew Kane missed playing him)

this is a fantastically confident level of grifting--what exactly did he do in the DEA, precisely?

...ah. cool asthetic guy. stuffed in the freezer. gotta admit, I definitely didn’t see that one coming. creepy! 

(and it looks like you actually managed to shake Alex a little, hah)

aaaaaand in the meantime we have Kai following his advice! in an... interesting way. hm. 

(surprisingly this does not annoy me that much in hindsight. not sure why)

and understandably, this does not go over well! except, oh, fuck, DEA guy. this ain’t gonna be good

...worse. worse than I thought. what happened to you, Alex? former partner? whaaat

“attacks”? 

this gonna be the typical “traumatized white dude has Anger Attacks” type thing? 

honestly I immediately went “probably not” given how it was handled in Leverage. wasn’t sure though. but that does leave the question of what sort of attacks? it doesn’t seem like it’d be meltdowns, so what does that leave? 

hmmm. DEA guy is an Ass. we Do Not Like him. I’ve known Alex for less than half an hour but you do not do that to him. you do not use trauma against your guy, Jerkface. 

cutting a deal? this should be interesting

...well shit. I. am sincerely hoping Kai isn’t about to walk in on anything too bad

this definitely isn’t gonna be a fight though, that I called right off the bat

--bottles. dammit

oh, Christ. attempted OD or just drunk?

just drunk! good! well, very Not Good, but better than the other thing

pffffft dunking him in the water and then him going straight back to the water when he sees her, that is both absolutely hilarious and deeply concerning

aaand I’m agreeing with Kai but also, poor guy just got confronted with a hell of a lot of things that would raise his trau--

...mm. yeah. that’d be it. 

...I. was. not expecting that much backstory info straight off. holy cow, Alex. that is. messed up. someone get this man a hug

“one of the guys that cared too much”

(...like you?)

(or is that why you won’t let yourself care now?)

fuck, there was a lot more to that boat scene than I thought. ow

partner who betrayed him like that? I’m just. gods. 

Trust Issues is definitely gonna be a Thing isn’t it

can we just take a second to appreciate how Christian Kane is playing the absolute hell out of this character

aaaand Kai brings him back to the city for a Heartwarming Reminder of why he was in the game! this is very tropey but it is, as John Rogers has pointed out, an instance of the “well-worn writing tool” rather than feeling cheesy! 

holy crap Kai has lost. a lot of people. oh man

ahahahaha classic “why did you bring me here?” line! you know why, Alex. you know why

oh, and Ernesto gets a chance to help him out! I’m already enjoying this so much

awww and Kai shows up to help encourage him! with coffee! supportive friend and very obvious but honestly okay love interest! good!!!

(what the heck is with Devlin and his crew and sticking Kane with two besties? based on Ernesto’s dynamic with him I’m guessing this isn’t gonna be an OT3 but. I am loving the trend)

“I’m gonna regret this in the morning” pfft

huh, working with the DEA agents. not like he’s gonna go off script or anything. that’s totally not gonna happen is it

hehe irritated look while they’re putting on the mic. he is so very unimpressed

--”little episodes”--episodes? 

moment of appreciation for the un-forced-feeling diversity in these police squads

“how’s the anxiety?” I’m sorry what

hold up, when we say “episodes”--are we talking panic attacks? does Alex have actual goddamn anxiety? 

...actually with PTSD? that would make complete sense. I am... intrigued. I am really hoping that that’s the case, actually, because having seen how well they handled Parker and her PTSD in Leverage (as well as Nate’s and Eliot’s) I have a lot of faith that they could pull that off really well, actually. That would be good. 

ppFFFT TAKING OFF THE WIRES RIGHT OFF THE BAT

wait what. you’re telling them everything? what’s your game here? 

“get that frikkin gun outta my face!” yup, not a fan of guns! no disarming though? huh

(also can we just. appreciate how Kane manages to make “frikkin” sound just as much like the cuss it’s replacing?)

(LET ALEX SAY FUCK)

oh. OH

hi Ernesto! hi Kai! I see what y’all doing

ohhhhhhhhhh Alex you goddamn genius. Getting rid of all of the drugs so there’s no way the precise thing he was claiming to be doing can happen. I like this

THE MEDITATION COMING ON ON THE RECORDING I CAN’T--OH MY GODS

Alex please tell me you know how to disarm a gun. please. guns are not effective at that distance

OH. OH I DID NOT SEE KAI COMING. 

got ‘em! murder confession, how did I not see that coming? good stuff

Kai can fight! 

KAI CAN FUCKING FIGHT WOW

I am very much appreciating Kai right now

also is that a FLYING KICK from Ernesto?

they better give these people more fight scenes

aaaaand straight into the water, oh god. I’m assuming this was a choice made because Alex is familiar with this territory? ...I do not think I want to know where Alex learned to fight underwater.

(I really really really want to know.) 

how the fuck has your monitor not gone off by now Alex

choking him out underwater, okay, wow 

what size are your lungs? this is long

extra kudos for excellent underwater filming and wow I am hoping the actors actually came up for air

(this is also unreasonably beautiful for a scene where you’re choking out a drug lord. the water is so pretty)

Evil DEA guy (no I am not going to learn his name, he doesn’t deserve it) is gonna be Alex’s Agent Sterling, isn’t he? this should be interesting

heh, police chief is taking his side! good stuff, good stuff

(it is very nice to see Alex getting some people in his corner after knowing what hell the DEA put him through)

Alex has fallen so damn hard for Kai. this is very very adorable actually

awww he’s really getting into fixing up the shop, isn’t he? I’m sincerely looking forward to seeing how he gets this up and going, it really looks like he’s enjoying himself

somehow I am starting to wonder if the cocky “oh yeah I’m opening up a gift shop how exciting huh” thing at the start wasn’t... actually genuine. he... is enjoying this, isn’t he? good. very good

I am unreasonably invested in this man’s wellbeing for one episode in

!!!!!!!!! HE GETS HIS PARADE

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

giving him his reason to keep going! yes! yessss

oh Alex you are attached now. you are very attached. good luck my dude and don’t let the trust issues get in the way

this is a good show. this is a heckin awesome show. 

also, side note, it is SO PRETTY

I am just loving loving loving all of the scenery. competence porn AND landscape and city porn. beautiful. perfection. excellent

...that was. much longer than I anticipated oops 

anyway, conclusion: hot damn this is a fun show! I am very excited to keep watching this. Alex officially has my heart, even if he’s a bit of a cocky bastard sometimes. Kane is fucking hilarious. (More reasons to be excited for Redemption!) Kai and Ernesto also have my heart, and I am extremely interested to see their character development. 

Honestly, the beauty is surprising. I didn’t expect to just enjoy how pretty it is. The blues of the ocean, the intense tropical colors, even the run-down gift shop--there’s such a gorgeous aesthetic to it all. If I wasn’t already invested in the characters and plot, I’d be invested for that alone. 

So... I have some thoughts on Alex and the show structure.

He’s obviously very disillusioned. There’s a lot of nods to the idea of war--he’s commonly referring to himself as a soldier, as a veteran, maybe as a casualty. I’m gonna take a totally wild guess here and say this show is going to be focused on the drug issues in the Philippines. (Wow, Synapse, how the heck’d you guess that?) I do find describing the war on drugs as a war, and going into the terminology that comes with it, very appropriate, and I like how this show is actively calling this to attention rather than using it as a convenient plot. They’re actually addressing the issue and discussing its impact. And given how overlooked certain aspects of the impact of the drug war on the Philippines is, this is a good choice, especially in order to alert American viewers to the issue. I’m curious to see how they handle that.

Again, interesting drawing parallels to war, too, and comparing it against the likes of WWI and Vietnam. It really gives that sense of weight to the issue and defines a vital aspect of it: the impact of the war on drugs on the people involved. It emphasizes that the people who are fighting it suffer consequences and PTSD just as a soldier in the field does, and it also emphasizes, with Kai, that it isn’t just the people actively fighting who bear the consequences. It’s also the people on the sidelines--it’s the families, the people on the streets by the gunfights, the economical impact, etcetera. 

But there’s also an element to Alex’s character that automatically makes him relatable to a lot of people... and it has nothing to do with the PTSD, nothing to do with the war on drugs, nothing really to do with the main issues. It is, simply, the intense hopelessness and depression that comes with trying to make a difference. In his case it’s making a difference on a severe worldwide issue. But the vast majority, if not all, of Almost Paradise’s audience should be able to relate to a feeling of never doing enough. And there’s certainly a large section of that group who can relate to being part of a fight that never seems to end. Doesn’t matter what you’re doing--if it’s driven at helping, it rarely ever feels like you ever do enough. But the advice given is excellent. One of the best things to do, when you’re feeling hopeless over this, is to focus on and take deep joy in the impact you do make. 

Alex is an expression of a frustration that a lot of people deal with. This, I think, is one of the reasons why he instantly drew me--and presumably the rest of the audience--in (outside of a fantastic actor and great humor). He’s relatable. He’s something that most people can see a part of themselves in. 

Anyway, symbolism and real-world talk aside, this is just... fun. It’s genuine fun. We’re covering rough issues, but there’s a lot of well-written tropes in here too that are written in that way that makes them enjoyable to relive rather than painful. The humor is delightful and plentiful. There’s a lot of beautiful feel-good moments. I’m suspecting this’ll be a comfort show, and I am perfectly all right with that. 

Onto the next episode!

[faejilly]

Let’s Go Steal Some... Magic?

This is entirely the fault of a prompt from the Hunter's Moon Discord: “A Leverage Shadowhunter crossover where Alec gets desperate enough to hire a band of good thieves who’re known for being able to steal back ANYTHING to steal back Magnus’ magic.” 

I take no responsibility whatsoever for any of this, but man, I had a great time writing it, so I hope you enjoyed reading it, too 😅 (With an extra thanks to @greentealycheejelly for double-checking it at least sort of made sense.) 

Alec knows more about the mundane world than most people realize. He may, in fact, have helped encourage the impression that he's ignorant; it's not like he's been impressed by most of what he knows, so it's easier to just... not deal with it when he doesn't have to.

But there's nothing anyone in the Shadow World can do about this, so maybe... maybe it's time to try something else.

Only he's not sure where to start. He's going to have to ask for help.

Not his favorite thing, but. This is for Magnus. He'd do worse for Magnus.

Lindsay's probably his best bet, she's the one who tracks the bots and AIs that the Clave has keeping as much of an eye on the internet as anyone can manage, hoping to catch those mundanes who might cross the line from figuring out that what they're seeing is because of the Sight, into trying to do something like summoning demons or playing with dark magic.

Her reports on some of the conclusions their machine learning algorithms come up with are sometimes the highlight of his week. He liked the one that tried to figure out which folk songs were based on real adventures with the Seelie and Unseelie Courts versus the ones written by people who'd drank too much or gotten stuck in a cabin in the middle of nowhere for a longer than usual winter.

So he asks her to come see him. She looks, unsurprisingly, deeply nervous when he closes his office door behind her, and he sighs as he sits down in one of the armchairs rather than behind his desk. "I need your help, please."

She doesn't look any comforted by that comment, but she sits across from him, and refrains from either glaring or babbling, so that's something.

"I need." He stops. He's not sure what he needs. "I need to think outside the box, and as the current box is Edom and the entire Shadow World is pretty convinced that that's an impossible box to open—" Alec stops, realizing his metaphors got slightly more tangled than he'd intended. "I think I need someone who is in the know but still mostly mundane, so they're not stuck on the same preconceptions the rest of us are?"

Linday blinks at him. She clearly didn't follow that.

He frowns, but she doesn't get more tense, so at least she figured out he's frowning at himself rather than her.

Clary might have given him multiple migraines and almost as many heart attacks, but she'd barrelled through things he'd thought inviolable just because she didn't know any better, and he could use some of that, right about now.

"Magnus traded his magic to a Greater Demon in order to banish Lilith's demon, and..." He trails off again. And I have to do something about it, but the only thing I can think of is trying to negotiate with said Greater Demon myself and that's a clusterfuck of epic proportions just waiting to happen.

He'll do it, if he has to, he knows this, but that should probably be a last resort, not the first attempt.

"You want to steal it back?" Lindsay's voice cracks half way through the words, and he doesn't blame her, that sounds more insane than anything even Clary would attempt, but...

He hadn't actually framed it that way himself, and he should have. She's probably right, and that is exactly the sort of thinking he needs.

"Do you think that's possible?" He tilts his head, spreads his hands in something that's almost a shrug. "I know there are Sighted thieves, and there's a thriving grey area of mundane and Downworlder interactions with magic that don't usually end up with dead bodies or demons so we don't do anything about them."

Lindsay frowns back at him, but she looks like she's thinking, so he waits.

"Well." She starts, stops again. "There is this hacker..."

Alec blinks. "I don't think the Prince of Edom keeps his stolen magic in a server."

Lindsay snorts, and rolls her eyes at him. "Ha, ha. Sir."

Alec shrugs, and waits.

"There's a warlock, Edda White. She fosters mundane children, usually ones that lost their parents to the Shadow World, or who have the Sight."

"And she's a hacker?" That's an odd combination of jobs, but he supposes it's something one could do from home while keeping an eye on a bunch of presumably traumatized children.

He wonders if there's anything they could do to help her out. Unofficially. Or officially? The Clave really should stop pretending the Shadow World's completely separate from the mundane world, no one believes that.

"No." Lindsay shakes her head. Pauses. "Well, yes, but she's not the hacker I was thinking of, I meant one of her kids."

"If said kid's already in the Shadow World, that's defeating my outside of the box request." He's not really trying to argue with her, he's just not sure where she's going.

"Sir." Lindsay levels a stare at him. It's not as good as the ones his mother or sister can pull off, but it's not half bad.

"Sorry."

Lindsay nods, and adjusts her glasses. "He's Sighted, and he's active on some of the forums the Clave tracks, helps people find resources or contacts, which is how I know about him, but he works in the mundane world. With a team of thieves who have pulled off some really impossible jobs."

"Edom impossible?"

"No, but you said you needed some creative thieves, and they're arguably the best in this world." That is something the Clave would know, just because the few truly occult artifacts the mundane world knows about tend to be expensive, so they attract the attention of the worst sorts of people and the best sorts of thieves... who then attract the attention of the Clave, to make sure no one actually tries to use the things they've stolen. "It's a place to start."

Alec nods. It is, and that's all he asked for; he hopes it's enough. "What's his name?"

Lindsay shrugs. "No idea, but I do know how to get a message to his team. They've an open call out for people who need help and don't have anywhere else to turn."

Alec feels his lips twitch with reluctant amusement. "That certainly fits this situation, doesn't it."

Lindsay concedes with a small nod. "I'll reach out, and let you know what they say."

"Thank you."

She nods again, slightly less smoothly, as if she's not sure what to do with gratitude, though he's not sure if it's because it's him personally or the Head of her Institute in general, and slips away to get to work.

Alec closes his eyes, and lets out a sigh, and tries to hold onto the flicker of hope in his chest.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe this is what he needs; maybe this is what Magnus needs.

Please.

***

Hardison blinks at the email he just opened.

He double checks the sender's address, and IP, and everything else he can think of to confirm it's not somehow a joke or a scam or something, but as far as he can tell by every test he can think up, it's genuine.

Leverage just got a fucking email from a Nephilim. On behalf of the goddamned Head of the New York Institute.

He pokes his computer screen, as if that'll make it disappear or something.

It doesn't.

Which is probably good, he's Sighted, not a warlock, if he started making the world change outside of a computer, he'd be in deep shit.

The email's surprisingly straightforward, in contrast to their usual potential clients, the Shadow World in general, and everything he's ever heard about Shadowhunters in particular. Shadow Hunters? Shadowhunters? He's not sure he's ever had to write that word out, he wonders which is considered proper grammar.

Holy shit, he's distracting himself with grammar.

He calls his Nana.

"I got an email about Alec Lightwood and Magnus Bane."

"Fuck."

Hardison pulls his phone away from his head and stares at it for a moment before he can handle that. "Did you just swear at me?"

"Not at you, baby." He can practically hear her roll her eyes at him. "I was old enough to swear before your grandma was a gleam in her daddy's eyes, and you know it."

Yes, but you don't, Hardison almost says out loud, not around your babies, you don't, but he swallows it down. "Some Nephilim is asking for help from us, from my team. Do you think it's legit?"

She hums, some melody he's never been able to track down or place, never heard from anywhere or anyone else, and he's glad that that's normal at least. Nana's thinking noise is exactly what he hears in his head whenever he's trying to crack a particularly tough system.

"I do. New York's gone through some shit, and I've heard some rumours about Magnus..." She trails off. "Lightwood's reputation is pretty solid, I think he'd stretch those Nephilim Laws as far as he could, if he thought it was worth it."

"Should I take the meeting then?"

Nana pauses, but she doesn't hum this time. She's not thinking, she wants to make sure he is. "You'd have to tell your team what sort of meeting it really is."

Hardison's whole body tenses up along with his face as he scrunches his eyes as closed as he can get them. He wonders if Parker and Eliot really are part-fae, like he's always thought. They've both got more than a touch of the other when he looks at them out of the corner of his eyes, and it would certainly explain how hard they are to injure, how easily they lean into each other's space, as if they've never before found someone that makes some weird sixth sense relax.

Then again, he loves them enough it might just be his own aura sparking in the way.

He wonders, if they are just a little magic, if either of them know, and just don't think they can tell him.

He wonders if they'll be mad to realize he's kept a secret from them all these years, or if they'll be hurt.

"Yeah," he sighs, and opens his eyes back up. "Don't suppose I could get a family dinner to help uh... illustrate my point?"

Nana laughs, but it's sharper sounding than usual. "If New York's as messed up as I've heard you don't have much time. Tonight good?"

Damn.

This is clearly more serious than he'd thought, and he wonders what he's missed, busy focusing on his mundane life rather than the Shadow World.

"I guess it has to be. Thanks."

Nana doesn't bother to say anything else before she hangs up on him.

He turns around, and no he does not scream, that was just a gasp, and Parker and Eliot are in the doorway, both of them staring at him.

Check mark in the supernatural column.

He smiles at them.

They don't smile back.

Hey guys, want to meet my Nana, the centuries old warlock who taught me how to see demons so they wouldn't eat me?

Yeah. That's gonna go over well.

"Don't suppose either of you believe in magic?"

Eliot does that thing where he's not frowning but is really obvious about how he's refraining from frowning so it actually feels worse than if he'd just scowled at you. "You mean science we can't explain yet, or actual magic?"

Hardison tilts his head and hands with an eh maneuver. "Vampires and werewolves and fairies, oh my?"

Parker shrugs. "Archie always said he thought I was a changeling, does that count?"

Hardison shakes his head, and sees Eliot frown for real, and knows they both wish they'd been harder on Archie when they had him in their sights. "Yes, but that's a terrible thing for him to have said."

"Why?" Parker comes into the room proper to perch on the edge of the table extending out from his desk. "If it's the truth?"

"Because he didn't think it was true," Eliot answers, his voice low and rough. "He was using it to pretend it was okay for him not to take care of you."

Parker rolls her eyes; they've had this argument before. "But if he'd tried, I wouldn't have realized how much better at it you are."

Eliot jerks, like his whole body just tried to shut-down. Hardison can't even appreciate how remarkable that is, because he's too busy feeling his brain stutter right in sync.

"What?" Parker did that are you being stupid or did I make less sense than usual? face of hers, eyes a little squinty and shoulders just starting to hunch.

"Thank you, baby girl." Hardison manages, before she thinks it's the second. "I'm still gonna be mad at him for not trying though."

She frowns, as if she thinks that's dumb, but shrugs, clearly having decided that that's just the way it is. "So does that mean you think he was right, even though he didn't know it?"

"Uh." Hardison does a whole body shrug, because he's not sure why he ever thinks his conversations with these two are gonna go the way he intends. "I have no idea, but it wouldn't surprise me? You're uh. Better at things than most humans. You both are."

"Huh." Eliot says, but not like he disagrees. "But neither of us have a problem with steel or cold iron or whatever it is."

Hardison stares at him.

"What." Eliot stares back, and Hardison can't tell if he's fucking with him on purpose or not. Damn Eliot and his poker face.

"Did you say that because you know things, or because you read fairy tales when you can't sleep?"

Eliot's face looks like he wants to say damnit Hardison but doesn't want to give Hardison the satisfaction.

"Second one, got it."

"Kindaalwaysthoughtitwasaliensanyways." Eliot mutters.*

Hardison is pleased to note that Parker joins him in giving Eliot the look.

Eliot crosses his arms in front of his chest, and looks back, and Hardison sighs. He's right, they don't have time for that right now. "We are revisiting this," Hardison says, pointing at Eliot. "But first we're going to Nana's for dinner."

Parker actually literally squeaks, and he can't tell if she's excited or nervous. "Is she a fairy too?"

"No, and they prefer Seelie or Unseelie, depending on which Court they were born into, but you know, that's a whole separate thing we also don't have time for right now. Nana is a warlock which means she can do magic and she's immortal which I know sounds like more fairy things because they are practically immortal and also do magic, but I swear it's not."

It's his turn to be getting the look from both of them, and he stops. Starts again. "So. Uh. Demons? Totally a thing?"

Eliot sighs, and finally stops lurking as his shoulders relax into something more like at-home-Eliot rather than working-Eliot. "You made a multi-media presentation, didn't you?"

Hardison opens his mouth, and shuts it again. He did, like three different times, and he keeps deleting it and starting over, but he supposes that might be one way to go in order without thinking about Nana swearing and the email and trying to jump to angels are real and angel-blooded people kill demons and the Head of the New York Institute wants our help! before that means anything to anyone.

"Ooh." Parker sits up straighter. "Should I go get some popcorn?"

"Why not." Hardison can't help the smile, doesn't even try. "We'll have a proper briefing in five."

***

Magnus is not entirely sure why Alec invited him to his office, it's not like I can help with missions anymore, and seeing Alec sitting on the edge of his desk wringing his hands when he walks in the door doesn't calm his nerves any.

"Magnus!" Alec looks up, and his smile's not any more comforting than the wringing hands were.

"You're here."

"You asked me to be here." Magnus offers, and makes himself walk further into the office. He's not sure what else to say, and just lifts an eyebrow in Alec's general direction.

Alec shrugs, and bites his lip as he shifts his weight, and then suddenly his tension melts away and he's standing at parade rest and oh, whatever this is, it's clearly important. "I did."

Magnus holds up one finger, turns around to close and lock the door behind him, and faces Alec again.

Alec offers him a crooked almost smile, much more sincere than the last one, and the tension between Magnus' shoulder-blades eases a little, though it definitely doesn't go away. "I have a potentially terrible idea, but it's for you, so it's your choice to make, not mine."

Oh.

Magnus considers that, nods to himself, and goes to sit on the couch. He lifts his head, and makes himself meet Alec's eyes. "All right."

"I want to hire some... consultants, to see if there's a way to get your magic back without having to try and make another deal with Asmodeus."

Magnus doesn't move. He doesn't even blink. If he had his magic he'd probably blow up the chair next to him. "No."

Alec's shoulders slump. "Magnus."

"No." Magnus stands up, his hands clenched and his jaw too tight and he wants to scream, but he doesn't. "Asmodeus is too dangerous."

"And he's going to be less dangerous later if with your magic he can overthrow Lilith while she's still weak from the Mark of Cain?" Alec's voice is quiet, but even so Magnus can barely hold in the wince. "Do you really think he'll be more inclined to stay quietly in his own Realm without interfering with the rest of us if she's no longer there to keep him in check?"

Magnus swallows, refuses to think about the things he did at his father's side the last time Asmodeus freely wandered around Earth. "You said this was for me."

"It is!" Alec's voice and hands lift, and then he stops, his arms drop. He's holding himself so tightly it looks like he's a breath away from shattering. "I would sacrifice anything to help you Magnus, just like you did to stop Lilith, to save Jace, but that doesn't mean helping you isn't also doing my job."

Magnus can't move, can barely breathe.

He exhales, long and slow, and closes his eyes.

He can't argue that, because if he did, it would make everything he'd done to save Jace, to stop Lilith, all of it, for nothing. They can't let either Lilith or Asmodeus take over Edom without the other, can't afford the risk of that much power being concentrated in one person. Demon.

Monster.

Magnus opens his eyes again, and somehow Alec can tell, Alec can always tell, and he's right there, reaching out to cup Magnus' jaw in his warm hands before kissing him, soft and sweet. "Thank you."

Magnus huffs out a breath, and leans in to rest against the warmth of Alec's chest. "Thank you. So who are these... consultants then?"

"Um." Magnus tilts his head enough to look at Alec, who's looking at the ceiling as if too embarrassed to meet Magnus' gaze. He rolls his lips in tight, then pops his mouth open and sighs. "Thieves?"

"What." Magnus steps back, so he can glare properly. And also enjoy the way Alec's squirming, because it's not often Alexander gets tongue-tied around him anymore, and if he's going to go through with this insanity, he might as well try and get some enjoyment out of it. "You. Want to steal my magic back?"

"I mean, that seems slightly more likely than negotiating it out of a Greater Demon?" Alec shrugs, and rubs the back of his neck, and his mouth twists before his whole body sags with a sigh. "I don't know, but I certainly don't know how to get it back without risking Asmodeus pulling one over on us, do you?"

"But you think your thieves might?" Magnus can't help it, his voice cracks.

"Not my thieves." Alec shrugs again. "Lindsay found them, and Edda White said she could portal them to us whenever we come to an agreement on a meeting time and place."

"Edda?" He stops again. Edda, who fosters mundane children and likes to play with computers and has the weirdest running bet with Catarina about the stupid excuses they've used to convince mundanes that the magic they just saw wasn't really magic... "Mundane thieves?"

"Well, anyone in the Shadow World would start already convinced that it was impossible, wouldn't they?"

Magnus can't argue with that, either, and this is the weirdest conversation he's possibly ever had, and that's saying something, considering the number of times he's been high or drunk and determined to not let it stop him from doing... well. Anything. "Huh," is all he manages. "That. Almost makes sense."

Alec grins. "I know, weird, huh."

Magnus' chest aches, because oh, he hasn't seen that sort of look on Alec's face since they found out about Jace, before Magnus went to Edom, before he lost...

Before they lost so much.

Magnus laughs, and Alec's grin widens, a glint in his eyes as if he's as delighted and surprised as Magnus is to realize they're both actually looking forward to this. "Let's go meet some thieves."

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

So I love and appreciate the Healing Journey/Cuddle Party that Queliot fandom has been having for the last two years, but -- uh, as a person whose psyche is the animate form of Placebo’s discography, I’m VERY INTO the fact that we’re starting to get more, like, bare-knuckle blood sports in our collective oeuvre.  Basically, this is a rec post, because are you reading these stories?  You should be reading these stories:

damage control for a walking corpse, by theheartischill / @prettyboysdontlookatexplosions

“That doesn’t matter,” Quentin says. “I mean it matters, because it means I can fuck who I want and you don’t get to have an opinion about it, but — I’m not dating Alice, but if she told me she was fucking a bunch of other people it would hurt my feelings.”

“Really?” Eliot sounds skeptical.

“No,” Quentin admits. He kind of hates proving him right. The weed came from some herbalist at the safehouse in Cedar Rapids and he thinks it might have been a mistake. “But I think it would if I still had feelings.”

“You don’t not have feelings.”

Quentin ignores this. “Plus, I dumped Alice. You actually wanted to date me.”

“I wanted to date a version of you that was not exclusively composed of the most dickish parts of your personality, yes,” Eliot says. “But at the moment you seem really committed to the bit, so right now it’s like, what exactly am I missing?”

“Wow,” Quentin says. “Harsh. But fair.” He manages not to tell Eliot that he thinks that the most dickish parts of his personality are maybe the only ones that made it back from the Underworld, but it’s a struggle. Next time he buys weed off some hedge he is going to ask a lot more questions about what exactly “revelatory” means.

This is the story that currently has a goddamn car battery clamped onto my spinal cord.  I can’t fucking stop thinking about it.  It’s stunning, but to appreciate it you have to have a pretty high tolerance level for Quentin being a total fuck-up.  My tolerance level for Quentin being a fuck-up is MAXIMAL, so I’m golden, but even so this story does hurt all three of my feelings.  It is somehow laugh-out-loud hilarious and also just one of the most brutally stripped-bare stories I’ve ever read about the ugly shit that goes along with depression, the self-sabotage and the self-loathing and the way you can resent and lash out at the people who are trying to save you.  Seriously, this story has floored me in every way, at every step, it’s infuriating and addictive and buoyant and honest and sardonic and thrilling, I cannot wrap my head around how fucking good this is.

is it too late (or could this love protect me), by Rizandce / @nellie-elizabeth

“Great, well,” Eliot says, still staring past Quentin. His voice is blank, dull. “That’s… that sure is great, Q.” Then he shakes his head, letting out a sound that bears only the most tangential relationship to a laugh. “You show up here, you—you—you haven’t so much as sent me a text message in a month, Q, and then you show up to force me to be the shoulder to cry on when shit goes south with Alice? You know that’s not fair to me. You know it.”

“I didn’t!” Quentin says, grasping on to the defense before he can think it through. He’s almost relieved at the opening. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. That’s why I came here, I had to—I didn’t know. I didn’t realize—Alice had to tell me, El.”

“Tell you what?” Eliot grits out, walking with purpose over to the honest-to-god drink cart he has set up against the diagonal wall by the kitchen, because of course he does, he’s Eliot, and there’s always room for a drink cart, there’s always time for a cocktail, god, he’s utterly terrifying, Quentin’s afraid of him, afraid for him, still, all this time, all these years, he’s the scariest thing in Quentin’s life

Okay, well, this one is a little less of a gut punch, except for the parts that absolutely are.  A non-magic AU where everyone is just regular degular friends from college, and there are fights and breakups and broken hearts, but even more there’s just -- being almost thirty and drifting further and further away from the intensity and intimacy of your 18-year-old friendships, losing people you love while they’re still on your calendar for brunch.  This is just so intricate and detailed and realized, the contours of grief and regret, the way life narrows in on you as you make your choices, the way the biggest feelings of your younger self manage to survive under adverse conditions.  It’s heart-rending, and it’s also just so purely beautiful.

So that’s it, read these two stories!  They’re both WIPs, but -- I don’t know, do it anyway, don’t be a wuss.  But seriously, these are both just amazing assets to the fandom and gorgeous pieces of art, you deserve to give yourself the pleasure of reading them.

[in-a-pynch]

Talk to Me

A Pynch Fic

Words: 2919

TW: Abuse (typical Robert Parrish bullshit), Food issues due to anxiety

Ronan paused in the entry way to the dorms at Harvard, struck by what some might call anxiety. Except it’s not. Because Ronan doesn’t get anxious.

What if he doesn’t want me here? What if everything is fine and I’m overreacting?

Ronan clamped down on that idea fast. He knew Adam. And because he knew Adam, he also knew that things have been off, and Adam was trying to pretend that they weren’t. At first, Ronan was going to wait for Adam to come to him, like the adults they were. Ronan didn’t like the idea of him having to beg Adam for information any time something was wrong. But that was before Adam’s roommate, Eliot, texted Ronan. Ronan swiped at his screen to look at the message again.

Yesterday 5:30 PM

Crybaby 1

Hey, I hate to do this but I’ve got to ask, is anything up with you and Adam? He’s been acting strange and distant for like 3 weeks now and every time we mention it he says he’s “fine.” The man is running exclusively on 5 hour energy drinks and granola bars twice a day. We’re getting worried but he won’t talk to us.

That text was what put Ronan over the edge. 

He’d hoped that if Adam wasn’t talking to him, he would at least be getting support from his other friends. He hadn’t seen it until late, but he had immediately sent a response.

Yesterday 10:03 PM

No idea. Be up tomorrow.

Ronan paused, then:

Don’t tell Adam.

So now Ronan was in Cambridge. Standing outside his boyfriend’s building like some sort of coward. He knew Adam missed him. At least, he sure missed Adam. Still, the fear that Adam wouldn’t tell him what has been bothering him or, worse, Ronan is what has been bothering Adam, kept him glued to the sidewalk.

Deep breaths. What the fuck is wrong with me?

Ronan decided to take the stairs. For exercise, obviously. Not because he was nervous. Despite his racing thoughts, Ronan had to admit he was excited to see his boyfriend. Adam hadn’t made it back for spring break this year, and it had been far too long since Ronan had a chance to see his Magician. Stopping in front of Adam’s door, Ronan shrugged his backpack more squarely onto his shoulders, gave his trademarked slouch, rolled his eyes at his own ridiculousness, and then knocked.

The door opened. Adam stared. Ronan blinked. It was Adam that broke the silence.

“Ro? What are you doing here?”

For a second, Ronan had to gather himself, not really believing his eyes.

What the fuck Parrish?

Ronan wrapped his arms around Adam and pressed his cheek to the top of Adam’s head. Rather than give a real reply, a reply which Adam certainly would not have liked, he shrugged into the embrace and simply said,

“I missed you.”

Ronan doesn’t lie, but he also loves his boyfriend enough not to tell the whole truth. Yet. Instead, Ronan squeezed tighter.

Fuck he’s lost weight… Eliot wasn’t kidding about the granola bars.

Adam pulled away enough to look at Ronan’s face, likely trying to read his expression to see if there was more. Whatever he decided, he didn’t elaborate, replying with a tentative smile and a kiss.

“Yeah, well I missed you too, you sap.”

Ronan scowled without any real malice. “Shut up Parrish.”

Adam pulled away fully, but linked their fingers together, using them to tug Ronan into the dorm. Ronan shut the door and followed Adam into the tiny, but still cozy, bedroom. Ronan tossed his backpack on the floor and turned around to Adam pushing himself up onto the slightly elevated twin bed. Ronan stopped and took Adam in for just a moment.

As sexy as his boyfriend was, it was not a good moment.

Despite the smirk on Adam’s face as he watched Ronan get situated, his face showed the marks of what could only be pure exhaustion. Dark circles lined his kind eyes, and his bottom lip was chapped from where Adam nervously chewed on it. Just like he was doing right now, as Ronan so obviously analyzed his appearance. Fuck. Ronan forced himself to smile, he didn’t want to ruin the reunion.

We’ll talk about this tomorrow, Parrish.

“You know, Opal’s going to kill me for coming to see you without her,” Ronan admitted.

Adam laughed.

Damn if I didn’t miss that laugh more than anything.

“Oh yeah?” He replied, “Chainsaw isn’t enough to keep her occupied for the weekend? What ever will she do without you there to brood at her?”

“No you idiot,” Ronan vaulted himself onto the bed, planting himself firmly on the pillows. “The problem isn’t that I’m not there. The problem is that she isn’t here with your smiling face…” Ronan faltered for a second, realizing that if Eliot was being honest, this is probably the first time Adam has smiled in a while. Ronan pulled his leg onto the bed to untie his combat boots. Pulling one off and chucking it at the wall, before repeating the process with the other to procrastinate starting another conversation other than, ‘What is your deal?’. Adam must have sensed his hesitation, quickly saying,

“So, have you completed any of those projects you had set out to do on the farm the last time I was home?”

Ronan glowed at Adam’s description of the Barns as home and, just like that, Ronan and Adam talked as though nothing was wrong. Chattering about the new floors Ronan was putting in one of the stables and the new cow Opal had taken a liking to. Time slipped away as the two boys filled each other in on things too trivial to be worth mentioning in their phone calls. Not that Ronan didn’t notice Adam deflecting questions about himself or how his classes were going or what he had been up to with his friends lately. Ronan absolutely did, and each denial and topic change had his hackles raising because why won’t he just tell me what’s wrong?

Ronan was uncomfortably reminded of the early days of his and Adam’s friendship. When it had been clear that they had more in common than Gansey’s unyielding loyalty, but still didn’t quite trust each other with the things that mattered. The days when Adam would show up with a black eye and reply “Oh this? My hand slipped at the shop and I dropped a tool on my own face while under a car, dumb right?” Or the weeks after that god-awful dream when Ronan didn’t sleep because “fuck off Parrish, if I needed another Gansey I’d let you know.”

Ronan went to pick up pizza so as not to absolutely lose it.

And it worked. Mostly. Well, it worked until Adam sat there on the bed claiming he was full after having only picked at one small piece of pizza. Ronan ignored him, shoving another slice of veggie into Adam’s hand.

“You need to eat. Chainsaw eats more than you.”

Adam sighed, putting the pizza back into the box, not doing anything to help Ronan’s already stellar mood.

“I eat.”

“Fuck off with that bullshit, Parrish. When was the last time you ate a full meal?”

“Ronan,” Adam rolled his eyes playfully, clearly trying to lighten the mood. “You’re overreacting—“

“Am I Adam? You see, I don’t think I am, because it appears this isn’t the only thing you’ve not been upfront with me on recently.”

Adam’s eyes went cold.

“Cool, I was wondering when we were going to get to the actual reason you’re here right now.”

“Can I not just want to see my boyfriend after two fucking months apart?”

“Don’t lie to me, Ronan. You’re bad at it.”

“That’s fucking rich coming from you.” Ronan combated dryly, trying to restrain his frustration.

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

Ronan laughed without humor. “It means that for some fucking reason my boyfriend has been falling apart at the seams for weeks and didn’t tell me shit until it got so bad that his roommate texted me to see if he was okay! It means that you don’t look like you’ve been sleeping enough and you definitely haven’t been eating enough but you still start every phone call with ‘I’m doing fine how ‘bout you, Ro?’ It means that for some reason I’m being shut out, and you won’t tell me what I did wrong!”

After airing his frustrations, Ronan deflated. He rubbed his hands over his face, then through his hair to rest on his neck, curling in on himself. He sighed, resigning himself to whatever answer his boyfriend had to give. 

“What did I do wrong, Adam?” His voice cracked.

Ronan looked up at Adam, who looked smaller than Ronan had seen him in a long time. As soon as the question had sunk in, Adam was immediately shaking his head, reaching to hold Ronan’s face between his warm dry palms.

“No, no.. Fuck, Ro, this isn’t your fault at all.”

Ronan put his hands on top of Adam’s, whose thumbs were rubbing small circles on Ronan’s cheeks.

“Then what is going on Adam? If it isn’t me that’s the problem, then why won’t you open up to me? I haven’t felt this distant from you since before you left that fucking trailer—“

Adam froze, a look in his eyes that Ronan hadn’t seen in a while: fear and… is that guilt? Ronan grabbed Adam’s hands tighter as the realization seeped in.

Robert Fucking Parrish.

“When?” Ronan said with steel in his voice, lowering their hands from his face but still gripping them tightly.

Adam avoided his eyes and gritted his teeth. “When what?”

“When did he fucking contact you Adam?”

“Ro you don’t get it. This is my fault.”

“In what universe has anything he’s ever done to you been your fault..”

“I told them they could—“

“Could what?!”

“Could contact me and—“

“And why the fuck did you tell him that?!”

“For god’s sake Ronan would you let me finish?” Adam said harshly.

Ronan closed his mouth, took a deep breath, and then opened it to use a word he’d been practicing.

“Sorry. Go ahead.”

Adam’s face softened, and then returned to the guilty look from earlier.

“When I graduated..” Adam swallowed. “When I graduated I went back to see my mom. I did it while my dad was at work. I had some crazy idea in my head that now that I had graduated and made it into an Ivy League that she would maybe listen to me for the first time in my life…” Adam trailed off, lost in his thoughts.

Ronan squeezed his hands and Adam’s eyes focused again.

“I had gotten it in my head,” he continued, “that my mom wanted to leave just as bad as I did. That she too was tired of my da— Robert’s behavior and would want to leave if she had another option. I asked her to move to Cambridge with me.”

Ronan inhaled sharply. Why didn’t he tell me?

“I figured that we could get an apartment and drop off of Robert Parrish’s map. It wouldn’t have been easy, but god if I didn’t want to do for her what you did for me.” Adam’s eyes went glassy and he squeezed Ronan’s hands tighter. “She said no, of course. Told me that she loves him and everything that happened was my fault, but it was obvious she was trying to convince herself more than she was trying to convince me.” Adam took a big inhale and then exhaled. “I said okay. I know as well as anyone that you can’t leave a situation like that until you’re ready, and even then sometimes it just doesn’t work out like that.” A tear leaked down his cheek, which he wiped clumsily on his shoulder as to not let go of Ronan’s hands.

“I gave her my phone number, just in case she changed her mind. I wanted to let her know that there’s a way out, even if she chooses not to take it.” Adam stopped, trying to calm himself, but Ronan could tell that wasn’t the end of the story.

“She called for the first time about a month ago and told me she was done, that she wanted to leave. I was so relieved. I told her to pack a bag and let me know a time and place, that I would drive down to pick her up. That we would figure something out. I immediately got online and started looking for apartments… I even applied for another job so that I could pay for it. But then I didn’t hear from her for a whole day, and I was getting worried. I didn’t want to call her in case he picked up because then she wouldn’t be safe, so I waited. A day and a half after she called the first time she called again and said she had made a mistake. That I needed to stop planting ideas in her head and that their marital problems were all my fault anyway. I could tell she didn’t mean it, that she was scared, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.” The tears were flowing freely down Adam’s face at this point, but he seemed not able to bring himself to care.

“To make things even better, somehow Robert got ahold of my number,”

Ronan felt his shoulders tense.

“And, now, he calls me three or four times a week to remind me of how I ruined him and my mother, how his drunkenness is a result of how difficult I have made their lives, and how my entitlement was really the root of his inability to hold a job. Somehow.” Adam managed a watery chuckle in spite of himself, and then sobered. “I can’t block him because mom might change her mind. I can’t possibly imagine where I would be if you and Gansey gave up on me every time it caused you a bit of trouble.”

Ronan’s heart ached in his chest, knowing Adam was never any trouble to either him or Gansey, but also knowing Adam was not in a place to hear this. Instead, he pulled Adam into his arms, as if cradling him to the source of the hurt would soothe the pain. In some ways it worked. Ronan took a minute to gather his thoughts (also something he had been practicing) before he spoke.

“You have the kindest heart of anyone I know and the patience of a saint, Adam Parrish. You shouldn’t be punished for that kindness.”

Adam shook his head and the tears ran faster down his face as Adam turned around and swung his leg over Ronan’s. Now straddling him, Adam leaned his head on Ronan’s chest, hearing his voice vibrate through his good ear.

“I know you think that there is no other way to deal with this other than continually putting yourself through the very abuse you worked so hard to escape from. I want you to remember that, as much as your mom is a victim, she also had a duty as your mom to protect you and care for you.” Ronan kissed the top of Adam’s head. “She hasn’t held up her end of the bargain for the last 20 years. It’s a lot to ask of yourself to play the part she should have been playing all along when it means you have to face the very same verbal abuse she was complicit in.”

Adam nodded, but Ronan could tell that, while Adam knew logically that his mom’s situation is not his burden to bear, he couldn’t yet make his emotions reflect that reality. Suddenly, Adam sat up, face to face with Ronan.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, Ronan,” he said softly. “I was embarrassed I got myself into this, and I knew you wouldn’t have approved of me talking to my mom again. I didn’t want to burden you with a problem that you would have been able to avoid.”

Ronan scoffed gently. “Idiot. I wouldn’t have known if I could avoid that problem or not because I’m not you. As much as I care about your experiences and try to empathize, it would be very unfair of me to make assumption based on my own life. I need you to talk to me. It sucks feeling distant and hopeless.”

Adam sniffed though the slowing tears, but smiled slightly. “Yeah, okay, Ro.”

“And we can handle this however you want. I am here for you regardless.” Ronan pulled his sleeves over his hands and used them to gently wipe off Adam’s face. “I just need you to work towards being okay again. Eating, sleeping… you know the basic bullshit we have to do as humans.” Ronan said with a half-smile.

Adam just looked at Ronan for a minute, giving him time to think, damn I’m lucky, before being pulled into a gentle kiss.

“Now,” Ronan said with a yawn and a smile, “it’s time to catch up on some of that sleep you desperately need.” He ran his thumbs feather-light over Adam’s dark circles before tipping the two of them over in bed.

Ronan tangled their legs as he pulled the covers over them both.

Fuck, I missed this.

“Tamquam,” Adam whispered into Ronan’s neck.

“Alter idem.”

Ronan closed his eyes as Adam snored softly.  

This was my first fic so I’d love to know your thoughts!

AO3 @ in_a_pynch 

[wordsaresimple-imnot]

New Hope - Eliot x Reader drabble/one-shot

A/N: Okay, so I’m re-watching Leverage and I just wrapped season 2 where Nate is arrested and the angsty idea of his daughter being part of the team and losing him came to me so I started writing that and then the rest just sorta happened. Basically a drabble that turned into an unplanned one-shot I’m not entirely sure I like. I feel like I should give it additional parts but y’all can decide that. I also have another Eliot angst/fluff I’m almost done with and about 2-3 one-shots/multi fic ideas for Eliot I’m trying to organize.

Details: You are Nate’s daughter (either by Maggie or maybe gf/hs sweetheart before Maggie) that’s part of the team and already established gf/love of Eliot. Nate is arrested and it spirals you down, until you find something out and your life changes. Kinda sucks, please be kinda, haha. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the span of maybe two minutes, everything came to a screeching halt. Well, not quite a halt. More like trying to watching a video that was trying to load and play at the same time. Every part of your body felt heavy, heavier than you ever remember feeling. You try to focus on the situation at hand but things register too late.

Sterling, standing with cops, surrounding you and the team. Guns pointed at you. Trapped. Your dad speaking, walking to the rail. He cuffs himself to the rail. Why? What’s happening? Him and Sterling talking. What’s happening? 

“Dad? What are you doing?” You take a half step towards him, when Eliot grabs your hand to hold you back. The guns shift in your direction. 

Your dad tells the team how you’re his family and he will never forget that. None of this is computing. He’s yelling for you all to get on the helicopter. You feel Eliot tug at your arm to get you to move. It snaps you out of your haze and everything is in crystal clear focus. You pull away from Eliot and rush to your father. 

“No. No! You aren’t doing this. There’s another way.” You frantically start tugging at the handcuffs, believing if you pull it hard enough it’ll break apart and free him. You hear your teammates call your name, but ignore them still rambling. “This isn’t happening. We lost Sam. I lost Sam. I can’t lose you too. You can’t leave me. Dad, no!” 

He shifts his cuffed hand to gently and firmly grab yours, saying your name. You freeze and look up into his eyes. “Do you remember what I use to tell you when you were little?” 

“That I was your first true love, and true love is about protecting each other.” You whisper, your voice shaking. He gave you a gentle smile, his eyes softening. 

“That’s right. I couldn’t save Sam, and I’ll live with that guilt forever. But if I don’t do this to protect you, and them, I couldn’t live with myself. I love you, so much.” He leaned forward and gave your forehead a kiss. As he pulls back, he nods to Eliot to grab you. 

“Daddy.” You try to keep hold of his hand, but Eliot pries you apart and keeps a firm hold on your arms, following the rest of the team to the helicopter. Your eyes lock with Sterling as you move past him. The look you give him makes him take a side step back. You hear Eliot telling him to watch his back; Eliot will be the least of his problems. 

Then, it was like the video fully loaded and everything sped up at once. You barely remembered the flight, or the following weeks after your fathers arrest. It was a blur spent in bed, crying off and on with random bouts of anger. Sophie and Eliot spent the most time with you, trying to make you eat and stay somewhat in a routine of at least wondering around Eliot’s apartment. About a month after his arrest you tried to ease back into being with the team and wanted to help in planning his escape. Then you got sick. 

You were sitting in the bathroom in your dad’s flat, loving the cool side of the tub against your neck as you focused on breathing. A soft knock made you open your eyes a crack, seeing Eliot quietly step inside and close the door again. He grabbed a washcloth, got it damp, and sat down in front of you while holding it to your forehead. 

“How you feeling?” Every part of him showed concern. 

“Like death.” You gave a dry chuckle. “Why aren’t you sick? We’ve been eating  the same things for months.”

“Minus your comfort food,” Eliot joked. 

You rolled your eyes, “I haven’t had that in...” You trailed off trying to remember the last time you had any comfort food aka period cravings. When you realized you couldn’t give a confident answer on the last time that happened, you said the only thought you had. “Uh, oh.”

Eliot tensed, “Uh, oh? What ‘uh, oh’?” His eyes follow your hands as they settle on your stomach, his own arm dropping from your forehead. “Uh, oh.” 

One not-so-secret trip to the corner drug store (courtesy of Parker eves dropping and blabbing to everyone else in the apartment) and twenty minutes of drinking water and waiting to pee later had everyone sitting in the living room looking at the timer on your phone. Well, Eliot was pacing but everyone else was sitting. 

“Man, if this is positive Nate is gonna break out just to kill you. We might not have to do anything.” Hardison tried to joke, looking at Eliot who was far from amused. 

“Hardison I’m gonna jump over this couch and -” Eliot started before Sophie jumped in. 

“Can everyone just stop for a minute? We need to be supportive right now.” She gave them a pointed look and went back to rubbing soothing circles on your back. 

The timer went off and you couldn’t shut it off fast enough. Beyond that quick movement, you found yourself stuck to your seat. You turned and looked at Eliot, standing at your side, neither of you seemed able to move. Then you hear a huff and a flash of blonde as Parker sprints to the bathroom and comes back just as fast holding the stick. Her face is unreadable. 

“Well?” Sophie asks. 

“Negative.” Parker looks between you and Eliot. 

“Oh.” You feel your shoulders drop, processing the news. 

“That’s good, though, right? That’s what you wanted?” Hardison asked. 

“I mean, yeah. That’s the smart outcome. It’s just...” You felt tears prick at your eyes and turn towards Eliot. He sits on the arm rest and hugs you to his side. “I guess I had just assumed it was gonna be yes so I started thinking of all the memories we’d make and our life...” 

“Me too.” Eliot confessed, kissing the top of your head. 

“Well, good news then. It’s positive.” Parker’s face broke into a smile. You and Eliot’s heads snapped over to her. “I lied before. Just wanted to be sure you knew your real emotions on it.” 

You jump up and rush to grab the test from her hands. She’s still smiling like she somehow won the jackpot. “You are the craziest person I’ve ever met.” You mumble to her, but she didn’t seem remotely fazed. There it was, big and pink and plus. You look back up at Eliot and nod in confirmation. “It’s positive.”

He walked over and took the test from your hand, staring at the symbol as you had done. Then his arms wrap around you and hold you close, being as gentle as possible so you don’t get sick again. Your arms wrap around him and you start to cry and laugh at the same time. Eliot pulls back enough to see your face. 

“Those happy tears?” He looked slightly worried. When all you could do was nod and smile at him, he smiled back. Eliot put one hand on your check and moved the other to rest on your stomach, leaning down he gave you a passionate and loved filled kiss. The euphoric moment ended once you heard Parker speak yet again. 

“So what’s Nate gonna be more pissed about: Eliot getting his daughter pregnant or not knowing Sophie’s real name?” 

“Those are problems for another day. Right now, we are going to celebrate the newest member of our family!” Sophie came forward and gave you both hugs, followed by Hardison and a typical semi awkward Parker hug. 

You looked at your team, laughing and smiling. They would be there for you and Eliot and your growing baby, and that made you feel a happiness you’d been missing for the past month. Your dad was right - they are family. And you saw hope and a future for your family. You’d get your dad out and once everyone was together again, no one would be able to break them apart again.