#olivia sterling

[insertusernameici]

When Sterling's theme spoiled the twist in The Queen's Gambit Job.

[theories-of]

Olivia Sterling, A Heavy Tread, 2022 (Acrylic on linen, 120 x 100 cm).

[leverage-ot3]

I'm channeling the cat cafe I went to an hour away from where I live and am saying that they have a certain number of cats that live there full time and the rest are cats that you can adopt (they have a chalkboard near the entrance OR the register with a continuous count of how many cats they have had adopted out. it's an IMPRESSIVE number. like, this probably is a world record but eliot is too afraid to check and hardison doesn't want to register it because of they can't be associated with notoriety)

the team members take turns naming each cat that comes through and they range from normal to unhinged

hardison's names are usually fandom-related and semi-easily understood: a bonded trio is han, leia and luke (OR rey, finn and poe) (jedistormpilot you will always be famous). hissy stand-offish cat is named dalek. charismatic cat named tennant. etc

eliot's cats have fairly 'normal' cat names, but sometimes he lets himself name them stereotypical ones (white cat = snowball; black cat = shadow, onyx, etc; black and white cat named spot; and so on)

sophie's cats are usually named after famous actors and actresses OR paintings that she has stole. sometimes she names them after her aliases (not that customers know that)

nate's cats are all given human names, like the names where you have to do a double take because it just doesn't feel right to call an animal by that Very Human Name (he thinks it's funny)

parker's are all the most unhinged by far: sir barfs a lot (barf for short); meowking 2000; steranko (derogatory); cosmic brownie (cosmo if you're a wimp and don't respect the name enough); diputs (stupid backwards. she has to explain to patrons how to pronounce it). she also names cats after different types of gems (diamond, emerald, jade, opal, etc)

the core cats that live at the cafe are diputs (named by parker-orange cat, say no more), mr mittens (american shorthair, black with white paws that was named by eliot), van gogh (elegant persian named by sophie), franklin (hissy tomcat named by nate), zuko (tan cat with eyepatch coloring named by hardison), nate (named by parker, hardison and eliot when nate was gone one weekend. it yowls constantly and oscillates from wanting attention and biting everyone), trashcan (tiny female runt with patterning similar to raccoons affectionately named by parker)

trashcan, mr mittens and zuko are a bonded trio much like the people that named them. trashcan, while favorited by parker, likes to ride on eliot and hardison's shoulders. zuko lets parker hold him when she dangles from her rigs (he arguably sleeps better upside down). mr mittens likes to play with hardison's empty soda bottles and bats them around on the ground of the briefing room

other headcanons under the cut because I can't shut up

sometimes their clients will be offered a free cat (they also get free supplies and coupons for a years worth of quality cat food and litter)

mcsweeten has adopted two from two separate visits to the cafe over the years. parker entices every time he comes and she has been wearing him down to adopting a third.

bonanno adopted a three legged senior tomcat who hisses at most people but loves to snuggle with him.

olivia begged sterling to get one for her and he relented (the cat immediately was his baby. you know the meme about the dad not wanting the pet but then babying it? that's him.) olivia has blackmail of sterling babying loki the cat and threatens him with them on the regular that she will send them to hardison

quinn fosters cats for them when he is around and not on missions. is surprisingly good at accommodating even the angriest and meanest of street cats and strays into loving and family-ready cats

shelly entered with no cats and never having owned a cat and left with luke, han and leia. he doesn't know how it happened and is too afraid to ask. all he remembers is parker going to show him a cute tio of kittens and then he had two cat carriers, three bags of toys from petsmart, one cat tree and enough food and litter to last for 6 months in his car. he would have called it a fever dream but there are three distinctive meowing animals coming from the carriers in his back seat

The Bridgeport Cat Café

New Leverage AU, based on this video of someone from a cat café account introducing their cats and describing what types of crime they (allegedly) engage in:

Hardison bought them a cat café instead of a brewpub.

Parker thinks it's a great idea. As soon as Hardison shared the idea with her, she started planning out the incredibly elaborate system of climbing structures, catwalks, tunnels, and hidey-holes at both cat and human scale. Hardison wasn't able to implement all of her ideas, especially not before the rest of the team arrived, but he managed a lot, including purchasing the rest of the building the original café occupied and expanding into that space.

The renovated café quickly becomes known for the fact that it is both the physically largest cat café any of the patrons have encountered and that sections of it essentially double as an indoor play structure for both kids and adults.

Hardison, as someone with allergies himself and knowing Leverage would want to bring clients here, poured a lot of thought into the cat-free and "allergy-friendly" side of the café, where patrons can enjoy all of the café's food and beverage offerings, watch the cats, and even climb a limited portion of their signature human-sized "cat tree" while remaining separated from the cats by enormous windows. The two areas are served by separate ventilation and both have thorough air filtration. The cat-free side quickly becomes popular with the remote-work crowd who like to bring their laptops and watch the cats without any actually climbing on them and their work materials. (There are also customer-free portions of the building the cats can retreat to and optionally view the customers through glass.)

Eliot and Sophie, of course, say the idea is absolutely insane. Sophie's mostly ticked off about the unilateral move to Portland and them taking on the extra burden of a (weird, niche) business (although she makes little secret of being charmed by many of the cats themselves), but Eliot is particularly incensed about the difficulties of trying to run a café that's full of animals. "Running a good café isn't child's play, you know. You planning make food on site with cat fur everywhere? You think the Health Department's gonna stand for that? Sure, you can probably get away with some kind of automatic coffee machine and prepackaged food, but that ain't a café, that's an animal shelter with a damn vending machine."

His complaints trail off as Hardison steers him into the (newly renovated) kitchen, through the airlock-style double doors from a hallway not open to the cats, each with an automatic air curtain to keep cat fur as well as cats from slipping through. The other side of the kitchen has pass-throughs and doors directly to the cat-free side of the café. The gleaming new espresso machines are already in place, along with other basic kitchen equipment, although Hardison comments that he's still researching the best ovens and layout for baking all of their pastries on-site (the printouts and notes on his research are already bundled up and ready to be "spilled" on top of the materials for their next job, in front of Eliot).

The kitchen also features several plexiglass tunnels so that cats can watch the action in the kitchen without contaminating the space. Eliot will never admit, even under torture, to making squinty eyes and kissy noises at the cats that come to hang out with him while he cooks with no other humans around to see, especially when prepping pastry in the wee hours of the morning before anyone but the cats is awake.

Finally, Nate regrets having turned Hardison loose with free rein to pick the Portland HQ. When he suggested a restaurant or something as a front, he assumed he knew the limits of what that could entail--in hindsight, he's glad they didn't end up operating out of a Medieval Times* knock-off. He's performatively grouchy about the cats, yet never seems to chase away the ones that mysteriously end up on his lap during job planning. There's one particular "shoulder cat" that seems to love nothing more than riding around on Nate's shoulders during a briefing, occasionally punctuating particularly passionate sections with supportive meows.

Another quirk the café becomes semi-known for is the prominent lost-and-found counter where patrons can try to reclaim items that have vanished from their pockets, as the cats at this establishment seem to be oddly prone to pickpocketing...

*Consciously or not, Nate is on some level aware of how much Hardison and Parker would enjoy watching Eliot "joust."

[nonbinarydollie]

💚 my baddest babes 🩵

[vampirehe4rt]

some rainbow high girlies for the color wheel trend <3

[dmollyc]

Did Sterling tell Olivia about Nate's son? Sometime? That is a scene we should have had.

[leverage-ot3]

the kid from the underground job could be the hitter if he ever feels like he wants to pursue a career outside the mines and is looking to blow off some steam (I think his name was cory???)

that OR molly from the carnival job ends up becoming the hitter for that team

sterling would HATE it but I would think it was funny if olivia ended up being the mastermind of the group

I feel like some of the kids that the OG Leverage crew interact with (mostly Shorty & the kid from the Potato Job) grow up and join Leverage International in some form or another.

Shorty does take over the landscaping business eventually and expands it, but she lets International crews use the trailers/equipment for a distraction, or recon. She might also be a part-time thief. 

The Potato kid is a combo Thief/Grifter, where his type of Grift is to be as loud/cause as much chaos as possible so The Mark’s attention is on him and not whatever the crew is after.

[iobsessoverfictionalmen]

I don’t play fair darling (1)

AN: The plot bunny strikes again!

Warnings: mentions of manipulation, mention of divorce, mentions of dark Bryan Mills and cursing.

“You had better hope that your friend remembers enough of her past to be able to keep Bryan Mills away from you.”

Sergeant Olivia Benson stared down the Interpol agent. In her opinion, Jim Sterling was a master manipulator and she regretted that their paths had ever crossed. Strangely though, the man appeared to harbour a degree of affection for you if the worried lines on his face were anything to go by.

“How the hell did we attract his attention?” Sonny inquired.

“More importantly,” Rafael added. “How can we refocus his attention so that he’s not targeting us or (Name)?”

Sterling dragged a hand down his face, “This isn’t a court room and you can’t treat this situation as if you’re in one. Bryan Mills isn’t the type of man who can be distracted. Even if you had the power to move heaven and earth, it wouldn’t slow him down.”

“There has to be something that we can do!” Olivia exploded. “Our friend is out there alone with an ex CIA and special forces agent on her tail.”

The British man closed his eyes, “Both of them have gone so far underground that the only way we’ll see or hear anything is if they purposely poke their heads up. I don’t have much faith that they’ll do that; they are too well trained.”

“How the hell did we attract his attention?” Sonny repeated his question with a forceful tone.

“He’s been watching you ever since you put Nevada Ramirez away.”

“And you’ve known for how long?”

“Don’t put this on me!” Sterling snarled. “Your best lead would be to interrogate Buchanan. He was Ramirez’s lawyer.”

Rafael snorted disbelievingly, “That’s your advice?!” He scoffed, “Buchanan won’t reveal anything. He’ll claim client confidentiality and by the time we get a court order, (Name) could be in even more danger because Bryan’s caught up to her and there’s no way we’d know.”

“Then I’d suggest working on that court order now,” Sterling snapped.

Olivia’s brown gaze met Rafael’s green one and the ADA left the office, pulling his phone out of his pocket as he went.

“Time for me to go.” The Interpol agent stated and he made to leave the office.

“Be honest. How much danger is (Name) in?”

Sterling paused with his hand on the doorknob, “She’s in quite a bit of danger, even with her particular set of skills.” He admitted quietly. “Mills hasn’t been the same since he and his wife divorced and she took his daughter to the other side of the world.”

[thescriptorium]

wait why does predator 2018 have such a baddie cast like everyone is so gorgeous

[indarlingarmor]

Some hair styling, some outfit swaps, etc.

[leverage-ot3]

good father but piles up expectations:

-billy

adopts every child they see:

-eliot

was trying to find something else in discord and instead found the time i ranked dads in leverage by the quality of their dad-ing

[theories-of]

Olivia Sterling, Minor Inconveniences, 2022 (Acrylic on linen, 120 x 100 cm).

[prxttythngs]

continued from here !

" who says i'm not ? " he offered her a grin, shaking his head at his own words. ace didn't usually do flirting. he focussed on himself, on his business, on keeping out of trouble and making a shit ton of money. " where would you be, then ? " resting his elbow on the back of the couch, he turned to face the girl more directly. " if you were doin' your own thing ? "

[gardenofedenuniverse]

Date Night: OSCARS 2024.

[leverage-ot3]

Reblogging with more additions because this fandom is hilarious (copy-pasting because I'm on my computer and it makes me twitch when I reblog the same post 5 times in a row)

#jvn would be so happy with his hair#I wanna see what havoc karamo would wreak#because either he makes everyone cry OR he gets eliot to admit he's been in a throuple for 10+ years without actively admitting it#even to himself#also wanna see him and antoni either be bffs or get into a shouting match over something stupid#side plot where Hardison spends the entire time trying to stay one step ahead of Bobby and his team so they don't find all the crime stuff#like they sent them to a random safe house and then Parker was like: oh the one I stored all the gold?#and Eliot is like dammit hardison what if they find all the hidden knives

tags via @innytoes

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Sterling's daughter sees the episode.

Half of Eliot's exes see the episode.

In prison, the Butcher of Kiev sees the episode.

Quinn gets nominated for the next season and is pretty sure he knows who did it.

In an even prisonier prison, Colin Mockery Mason sees the episode and after the other inmates watch him spend the entire time screaming and freaking out, figure out how to make it play at random wherever he is, because he has that kind of effect on people.

response from @digitaldiscipline

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THIS!!! PLEASE THIS!!! Because all I can see in my head is Eliot’s persona being the most fucking INSANE basket case the guys have ever seen, which of course leads to chaos, but we also see the actual Eliot poke through in the randomest fucking places because he just. Forgets/gets frustrated. Which knocks the Fab 5 WILDLY off kilter. I would also LOVE to see JVN try to convince that man to cut his hair. Imagine Antoni trying to teach this man how to cook. Eliot walks into this thinking he’s gonna never see these people after whatever con he and the crew are pulling then walks out with 5 new best friends a la Hurley after having the most INTENSE identity crisis.

……I may or may not write something, thank you OP for opening my eyes to the possibilities

response from @kyogre20

Look, the new season of Queer Eye is in New Orleans. Leverage: Redemption is based in New Orleans. Where's my "the crew needs to pull a heist without being spotted in the background of a Queer Eye episode" fic?

(Convo w/ sister:

"Eliot's most recent persona gets nominated!"

"Hardison nominates Eliot as a prank?"

"Breanna nominates Eliot as a prank!"

"Harry nominates Eliot sincerely and everyone else goes along with it as a prank.")

[caelwynn]

Reader Requests Masterpost

Thank you to all of you who participated in my birthday bash this week, both those of you who submitted requests and those of you who read my little one-shots. This is post to collect links for them all in one spot.

Bluebell

An AU/Crossover between Andrea_P_Quintell's Coffee Beans, Candles, & Keyboards and my series Choices. Takes place during Chapter 11, "Straw Hats and Purple Shorts" of CBC&K.

Pairing: Ben (Original Male Character)/June (Ridgeside Village)

Word Count: 4k

Rating: Teen (there's a few f-bombs in the there)

Warnings: Fluff, teasing, swearing, dancing, penguins

Sweet and Sour

The first time Shane met the new farmer, it was hate at first sight. To be fair, the feeling appeared mutual.

Pairing: Shane/Female Farmer

Word count: 3.5k

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Drinking, drunkenness, drunken confessions, semi-public sex, dirty talk, swearing, enemies-to-friends-to-lovers

Whatever Keeps You Around

Sterling and June had danced around each other for years, always flirting yet never following through, until one night a mutual friend took matters into their own hands. But with Rhett now out of the picture, what were they? Still lovers? Old friends with just a touch too much forbidden knowledge?

Or had feelings gotten involved?

(Prequel to Choices.)

Pairing: Sterling/June

Word count: 2.2k

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Implied/Referenced Sex, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, and piss-poor communication

Mrs. Jenkins

Fearful of losing or damaging the Jenkins' books, Nettie refuses to take any home with her. Instead, night after night, she returns to their home to share wine, books, and companionship. She wonders if Victor realizes just why she lingers so late.

Pairing: Olivia/Fem!Farmer

Word count: 1.2k

Rating: Teen and up

Warnings: Nothing too risqué, just a lot of... tension.

Comfort and Joy

The morning after Jeric's birthday, Sterling dotes on both of his lovers.

Pairing: Sterling/Jeric/June

Word count: 1.1k

Rating: General audiences

Warnings: Tooth-rotting fluff