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phantompoguefangirl · 10 months ago

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GREEN LIGHT-SPENCER REID

'Love compels cruelty To those who do not understand love.'

'I learn a great deal by merely observing you, and letting you talk as long as you please, and taking note of what you do not say.'

'In my end is my beginning.'

T.S. Eliot

A/N: Based on the episodes Green Light and Red light and basically that whole section of Season 12. Fluff and ANGST. This is also on my wattpad SerpentBeauty1710 and will be on my AO3, MayaGillespieReid

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Y/N POV:

Nothing could have prepared me for any of this.

Not for the way my soul left my body when the words "Spencer is in jail in Mexico" came out of Emily's horrified mouth.

Not for the anxiety being stuck home waiting for answers when half the team went down to get him.

Not for the relief and yet underlying tornado of emotions when the beautiful, kind and innocent boy wonder, the love of my life, my sweet Spencer...walked into the BAU in handcuffs.

The frustration when my short legs and rapidly expanding belly wouldn't let me get to him faster. The pain when he couldn't hug me back, then the love and desperation I felt him return by nuzzling his face into my neck as best he could while his bound hands caressed my bump. The soft but urgent warmth of his lips as I reached up to kiss him. The brief touch of his forehead to mine and the whispered reassurances right before Emily led him back to the elevator.

The way I broke down sobbing when the judge denied bail.

And the agony of waiting, of knowing he was so close to home and not being able to hold him or keep him safe. And on top of that, the stress of not knowing if he would get out in time, if at all...

The team did their best to support me through it and took turns helping with Diana when they could, along with the caregiver Spencer and I had hired for her. We had decided to move into a house with a mother in law suite for Diana when Spencer brought her to live with us in DC. We'd agreed Diana would do better with her own space and it ended up being a really good thing we moved. The team helped me finish settling in. Garcia was all over decorating, Emily JJ and Tara helped me organize everything, Derek and our new agent Luke handled any repairs and/or replacements that needed done and Rossi brought his delicious food regularly. Hotch had very recently gone into in witsec with Jack, but I knew he'd be here helping too if he could.

I smiled appreciatively at the thought of our friends as I struggled to roll out of bed and padded to the kitchen for breakfast. I was grabbing a croissant from the container when I felt a small pinch in my neck and everything went dark.

The next thing I knew, I was waking up in what seemed to be a trunk. I was going to kick a tail light out or or scream or something but my hands and feet were tied up and there was duct tape over my mouth. It was cold, much more so probably due to the fact that I was only in a tank top and pajama shorts.

I didn't recognize my captors' voices but I tried to listen to the youngish girl and older man when they spoke. They mostly talked in low tones so it was difficult, but I heard them whisper Diana's name and something about the caregiver which caused my heart and stomach to constrict in terror. I wanted to scream at them to tell me where my mother in law was, but I knew it would probably do no good and I still had the tape on my mouth anyway.

What felt like days(but was probably only hours) passed and the only respite I had was when the man moved me to a different trunk and removed the tape before holding the phone to my ear. I recognized the phone number on the screen.

"Spencer?" I whimpered, shifting umcomfortably as the man held on to the ropes around me.

"Y/N, are you okay?!" He cried out desperately.

"Yeah we're okay, I think," I answered softly. "But Spencer, they have Mom. I don't know where, she's not with me but-"

The man shoved the tape back over my mouth and closed the trunk. I thought I heard Diana's scared voice right before he took the phone away, which was odd. I did hear a gunshot right outside a second later though, followed by a loud explosion, before the vehicle I was in roared to life and was suddenly in motion.

I tried to mentally document all of my surroundings, while simultaneously looking around for something to cut my bindings with, in order to keep myself from panicking. However, every so often the tightening feeling would return and I felt like I couldn't breathe.

Spencer's soft voice in my mind reassured me and reminded me how amazing our team is, which helped to soothe me a little. That led me to distract myself with thoughts of my wonderful husband. Of every little thing about him that I was so in love with. Things like his ridiculously cute laugh, our shared fascination with books and learning, the way he loved so deeply with his entire heart, his gentle kindness, his relentless determination, etc. One of my favorite things was the expression on his face whenever he concentrated hard on anything or whenever he was deep in thought. The way his brow furrowed while he rested his chin on his folded hand, every so often running his thumb or knuckle across his bottom lip or sometimes against his chin. I'd never seen him do this so intensely until the day he figured out this special puzzle box I'd had made for him.

*FLASHBACK*

It took me a bit to think of a good way to tell him the news. I didn't want to just say the words or show him the test or something simple. I wanted it to be as special as he was to me. It was a conversation we'd had about Sherlock Holmes that finally gave me the idea. I created a little scavenger hunt for him, the last clue of which was a puzzle box for him to solve. He loved puzzles and riddles. The answer to open the box was a phrase that he would have to guess.

He figured out the clues to the hunt much faster than expected, but the puzzle box actually took him quite a while to figure out. He got so determined to crack it that he brought it to work, unbeknownst to me. I was shocked when I walked into the round table room(I'd stopped in the break room for some tea which we were sadly out of) and found him studying it, eyebrows furrowed very deeply, head on hand and thumb brushing against his lip while Garcia and Hotch were briefing us on a case. I tried not to stare at him, because let's be honest it was unbelievably hot when he looked like that, and silently hoped he would not crack the code till later. Of course I had no such luck. He was a genius after all.

"I'm pregnant? What? I'm not-" Spencer suddenly said out loud, causing us all to stop and look at him. He was silenced by the box unlocking as he finished turning the small knobs to the correct letters. He saw what was inside and his eyes grew to the size of bowling balls as he picked it up. His face snapped up to look at me and he jumped out of his seat at the same time. "YOU'RE PREGNANT?!"

Everyone gaped at us. I froze, having not even made it into a chair yet.

"I...um...yeah," I managed to get out after a moment.

Spencer's mouth dropped open and his eyes somehow softened while staying wide. His floppy brown curls made him look even more like a puppy as he reached for me and squeaked out the word "Really?"

My heart melted, every emotion flooding to the surface, as I stepped closer to him.

"Yeah really. We're gonna have a baby, Spence," I said softly, smiling tentatively.

A gasp escaped Spencer's lips as he pulled me into his arms and spun me around while everyone cheered. He set me down and kissed me passionately through happy tears before the team engulfed us in hugs.

"Congratulations, you two," Hotch said, revealing a rare, genuine smile.

"Tanta Felicità!" Rossi exclaimed in Italian as he kissed our cheeks.

"You guys! This is amazing!" JJ said, "You're gonna be great parents!"

Tara echoed this enthusiastically, affectionately wrapping her arms around us for a brief moment before backing up.

"Wow, I was totally kidding when I asked if you wanted little baby geniuses some day. I'm so glad I was right though. This is wonderful news!" Emily quipped, grinning.

"BABY GENIUS THERE IS GOING TO BE A BABY GENIUS OH MY GOD I'M SO HAPPY FOR YOU RIGHT NOW OH MY GOD!" Penelope all but screeched as she embraced us tightly, continuing to ramble. "Auntie Penelope is gonna spoil the heck out of this little one just like I do with Henry and Michael! I hope it's a girl but as long as he or she is healthy that's all that really matters."

"Way to go, Pretty Boy. I didn't know you had it in you!" Morgan joked once Garcia was done, clapping Spencer on the shoulder as we all giggled. "But I couldn't be happier for you both."

"Thanks man," Spencer chuckled, as he looked down at the object in his hands and teared up some more.

"What is it?" Morgan asked. Nobody had seemed to notice the object before but now they all zeroed in on it.

"A onesie?" JJ asked.

"It says 'Daddy's little Genius'...Daddy... I'm gonna be a dad...," Spencer murmured, smiling in that adorable way he does when he's emotional.

A chorus of awwwws filled the room followed by them scruffing Spencer's hair or clapping him on the shoulders again. I also received more hugs and a couple kisses on the head from Morgan and Rossi.

Hotch let us celebrate for a second, and celebrated with us, before drawing our attention back to the case at hand. Of course, Penelope told us we were having a real celebration when we got back and would not take no for an answer. And that's exactly what we did.

I hadn't meant for everyone to find out like that, but it ended up being the happiest moment in my life so far.

The memory faded as the tightening intensified. It felt like a weight pressing on me, like I wasn't going to be able to relax until I knew that Diana was safe. If anything happened to her, I wasn't sure what the hell I would do. She'd been doing so much better and she'd been absolutely over the moon upon learning she was going to be a grandmother. She'd nearly screamed out joyfully when we told her the news. She'd insisted that Spencer and I take turns reading to the baby every day and when Spencer was away, she took his place, picking up wherever he left off while I rested. Diana was genuinely wonderful and I was not violent by nature but I would go absolutely feral on anyone who hurt her, even in my current condition.

I tried to keep distracting myself with thoughts of Spencer and eventually began to doze off.

SPENCER POV:

I realized who the girl was as soon as she left the visiting room with my mother. I contacted the team as soon as possible to let them know, unable to keep from panicking.

Convincing them to believe me and the wait for news was excruciating but that was nothing compared to what I felt when Emily visited to update me on everything.

As soon as she walked in the room, I could see that something was very wrong, aside from Lindsey taking my mom. I think subconsciously I already knew what it was when I first saw Lindsey, but I couldn't bear to let myself even consider it.

"We found your caregiver dead in a house just a few houses down from yours. Ballistics came back and turns out Lindsey used her father's gun. We don't know whether it was to prove a point or something else, but the reasons are unimportant." Emily began, urging me to sit. I politely refused and she continued, "The point is that you were right, Reid. You were right and I didn't believe you. I'm so sorry."

"She's a daddy's girl. She can't help but use his gun," I mused out loud, going over the memories of her case in my mind.

"Good. That's good. That helps," Emily said, but there was something about her voice that alerted me.

I sat there across the table, shaking at this point, but I made myself look at her. "There's something else you're not telling me, isn't there?"

Emily looked down, hesitating for a second before answering.

"It's Y/N," she finally said, holding back tears,"Lindsey took her too."

My heart stopped. I heard Emily shout my name but couldn't focus on her at all. I couldn't think. I couldn't even pull oxygen into my lungs.

This was not happening.

This could not be happening.

Not my wife... not our baby...

I felt a hand on my arm. I shoved it off of me.

"You have to find them, Emily. Promise me you'll find my mom and Y/N." I begged, desperately.

"I promise you, Reid. We will find them," Emily assured me. "Right now you just have to find a way to isolate yourself."

I stormed toward the door and had the guard take me back to my cell.

I ended up having to make it look like Shaw stabbed me with a shiv to get put in solitary confinement. I couldn't handle anything else happening and I had to least try and stay safe on the off chance I got to get out and search for my wife and mom. Not that I had any hope that I would get out at this point in time, but I trusted my team with everything and I knew they would not rest till they found my family.

Sometime later, I found myself being brought out of isolation without any warning and I was terrified that Shaw had conjured up his own way to get to me. The guard left me in a room alone and I tried to remain calm, bracing myself for what was to come.

I was not prepared for my best friend to walk through the door.

"We're taking you home," JJ choked out as her eyes watered.

I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding as I pulled her into a tight hug. After a minute, she led me out the door and took me back to the BAU.

The sense of ease at seeing my work family again, especially the radiant embodiment of sunshine that was Penelope Garcia, was brief. It was soon overshadowed by unbridled rage when we discovered that Cat Adams was the true mastermind behind all of this.

She had Lindsey frame me for murder.

She had me put in prison.

She risked my sobriety by drugging me.

She had Lindsey kidnap my family.

Now, she was demanding to speak to me by using them as leverage.

Of course she wanted to play a game just like we did before when I arrested her, using my watch as the timer. She was angry that I'd outsmarted her so she wanted to break me. I was not about to let her have even a sliver of satisfaction.

She almost succeeded, however, when she revealed she was pregnant with my child.

Almost.

Apparently she'd told Lindsey to pretend to be Y/N after she dosed me with drugs so she could collect a sample from me down in Mexico. I knew it should not be possible, but I had been drugged and my memories of that day were still very hazy so I couldn't be sure.

"That's right, Y/N's not the only one carrying a baby protegé," Cat said in almost a sing song voice as I rushed out of the room. "I was thinking, if it's a boy, Spencie Junior. Or if it's a girl, Y/N. You know, since she played a part in her own conception."

JJ was waiting outside with Cat's file, hesitantly holding it up. I barely heard the words she said as I read it, then threw it against the wall once I saw the confirmation of pregnancy.

"Sorry," I said gently, upon noticing I had scared JJ. I ran my fingers through my hair. "I just...just need a minute."

JJ just nodded in understanding.

Some time later, the team discovered that Cat was lying about the child being mine and we eventually got her to call her cohort for proof of life.

My heart swelled when I heard the love of my life's voice on the other end of the phone.

"Yeah we're okay, I think," she answered softly. Dread filled me at her next words. "But Spencer they have Mom. I don't know where, she's not with me but-

She'd conferenced in the call for my mom too and their voices made me hopeful for a second before both calls were cut off with explosions.

I forced the metal table out of my way before shoving Cat against the wall by her throat.

"I'm gonna kill you," I hissed, enraged once more. "I'm gonna kill you."

I kept repeating that until JJ pried me off of Cat, reminding me over and over that she was pregnant.

I stormed out again with JJ hot on my heels. I didn't have time to break down before the team told us that there was a call in about an amber alert Emily put out for Lindsey. Two vehicles at the scene were blown up but the only victim inside was male.

I felt bad for the man who was killed, but this meant there was hope again.

JJ and I talked some things through and pieced together what Cat really wanted me to say. While I told Cat what she wanted to hear, the team discovered the prison guard who had actually been the one to impregnate Cat and found two properties he owned.

I won the game by telling Cat that I could have done several different things to get out of the situation with Shaw and his men but I chose the one that would cause the most pain. In the process, Lindsey overheard us on Emily's tablet which had been connected to the visiting room cameras, realizing Cat betrayed her and therefore giving up.

As I was heading out, Cat piped up again. "How are you going to be a father now that you've proven you enjoyed hurting those men in prison? I mean, because once you've crossed that line, you can never go back."

In a split second I was on my knees in front of her, yanking my watch off of her wrist.

"Watch me," I retorted before walking out.

The team found my mom first and they let me see her briefly, then they took her to the hospital to make sure she was okay. We went to a secondary location we'd discovered which was where they were holding Y/N. I wasn't technically supposed to go because I was not reinstated yet but I couldn't think clearly enough to obey that rule when my girl and my unborn child were in danger.

Luckily, JJ was a parent and knew me too well so she had my back. Rossi also understood and had a helicopter standing by. We managed to make it there in time for the team to breech the house and I rushed in along side them without thinking.

That's when my whole life changed.

Y/N P.O.V.

My captors brought me to a house and left me in a room on the floor. I was alone for awhile and attempted to move to relieve the tight cramping sensation, which had gotten so much worse. I tried to conceal my pain from the man who was walking around the house setting stuff up and attaching rectangle shaped objects to the walls.

I was horrified when I saw that they were C4 charges. The resulting panic ran concurrent with another very intense tightening sensation, followed by what felt like a toilet flushing inside me and then a few minutes later, warm liquid spilled out between my legs.

All at once, the realization hit. The pains I'd been feeling all day were contractions and the liquid was my water breaking.

I was in labor. I had been kidnapped, was about to be blown up and I was in fucking labor.

I wasn't even due for another few weeks so this shouldn't be happening yet. I mean, I knew from the books Spencer and I read that babies rarely came on their actual due dates, but I was still incredibly frightened.

I wept quietly. Three or four more excruciating contractions ripped through me much more quickly before I was distracted by the doors being busted open.

I almost didn't even notice Tara knocking out the unsub or the others disarming the bombs because all I could focus on was the beautiful face of my sweet Spencer as he rushed over to me.

He hijacked Luke's pocket knife from his belt, swiftly slicing through the ropes before wrapping his arms around me.

"Spence," I sobbed hysterically into his shoulder.

"I'm here, love. It's okay," he murmured into my hair, kissing the side of my head.

"How are you here?" I asked, almost unable to conceive that he was really in front of me.

"I'll explain later. Right now we have to get you out of here," He answered, reaching to help me up.

"Wait, is Mom-" I started to say, but he was way ahead of me.

"Mom is fine, Emily and Luke got her back." he responded, relief in his voice.

"Oh, thank God. I-oh!" I grimaced, grabbing my belly.

"What's wrong?" Spencer asked, his face instantly distressed.

"The baby is coming," I managed to say through gritted teeth. "Like, right now."

"What?!"He nearly shouted. He located and motioned to the paramedics that had followed him in. "She's in labor. We need to get her to the hospital immediately!"

The EMTs rushed over to us.

"Ma'am how far apart are your contractions?" one of the paramedics asked as he opened his bag, applied a blood pressure cuff to my arm and took my vitals. Another EMT started setting up a stretcher for me.

I gripped my husband's bicep for dear life as I felt another contraction after a little bit. He winced in pain but he supported me through it.

"I don't know, but close enough to know we ain't making it to the hospital," I groaned, leaning against him once it passed.

"Damn it, you're right. That last one was 2 minutes and 48 seconds from the one you had when I got here. How are you in active labor so quickly? The books said the first child usually takes the longest and it could be hours if not days before the baby is born," Spencer rambled anxiously.

"Um, pretty sure I've been having contractions since they took us," I told him,"How long has it been since then?"

He gaped at me,"It's about 1:30am. It's been approximately 17 hours. God, I'm so sorry, Y/N. This is not how this was supposed to happen. It's 3 weeks early and you're under too much stress-"

"It's okay, Spence. We're okay," I reassured him, grabbing my belly as another pain shot through me. "Oohh nope we're not!"

Spencer looked so freaked out which was sort of scaring me.

The EMT seemed to notice and stopped what he was doing,"Hey, it's going to be okay, guys. Her vitals and everything look good and babies are delivered a few weeks premature all the time and are in perfect health. We'll take good care of you all, I promise."

It seemed to work. Spencer relaxed a little bit and switched into doctor mode, holding my hands.

"You're alright, just remember the birthing classes. Breathe with me like this, okay?" He instructed in a gentle voice, demonstrating what the lamaze teacher taught us. I did what he said as best as I could.

The team, who was still standing there awkwardly, left when Spencer and the paramedic started to remove my short bottoms and slid a large pad thing underneath me. JJ said they would meet us at the hospital since they needed to check on Diana anyway. At some point in the process Spencer slipped behind me, sitting with his legs on either side of me and his arms under mine, probably without thinking about it. We sat like this a lot in the classes and also at home because he'd read that sitting like this while carefully lifting my belly provided some much needed relief from it weighing down on me.

"Looks like you're fully dialated. It's time for you to push," the paramedic said, after he checked me. "Uh, what are you doing?"

"I need," I grunted, shifting back against Spencer, who as quick to assist,"I need to be up..."

"What?" the medic asked, confused.

"Statistically, it's much more beneficial and effective to give birth in an upright position such as squatting or kneeling on all fours," Spencer prattled off facts as he lifted me so I was sitting up against his chest. He kept his arms underneath mine and entwined our fingers so I could squeeze his hands whenever I needed to."In fact, up until the 1700's, women were even known to give birth standing up. It allows the pelvic bones to open up for the child to pass through more easily and gravity helps the process move faster."

The medic gave him the look everyone gives him when he spouts facts and I supressed a giggle.

"Are you a doctor?" he asked my husband, incredulously.

"I have 3 phD's so technically yes-oh owww,"Spencer's sentence was interrupted by me squeezing the life out of his hands as another one hit.

The medic gave him a 'wow' look and then focused on me again,"Okay, anyway I'm gonna have you push through this contraction. Are you ready?"

I nodded and inhaled deeply, pushing on his cue. He counted down and told me to stop. I exhaled harshly and rested for a second before I was told to do it again. We repeated this a few times, Spencer lovingly encouraging me through it. The medic also reassured me that I was doing great, even though I was exhausted and didn't feel like I was doing well.

Sooner than expected, a tiny wail filled the room, changing everything and stirring an indescribable feeling inside me.

"It's a girl!" The paramedic announced, cleaning her, wrapping her in the blue towel things they use and placing her in my arms.

"Oh my gosh" I gasped as I stroked her small head, in hysterical tears at this point. "Hello my little love...oh Spence, look at her..."

Spencer, gaping at her in awe, managed to speak, "H-hi princess, I'm your dad...wow you're so beautiful...you look just like your mommy."

He wasn't wrong. She had his round, hazel eyes, but most of her facial features and her hair color were the same as mine. I smiled warmly down at her through my tears.

I was going to throw back a smart remark but it was forgotten as more tightening and the need to push again overtook me. "Something else is coming out what the-?"

"It's probably the placenta needing to be delivered," Spencer said, without taking his eyes off of our daughter.

"I don't think so," The medic said, reaching his hands out as I instinctively pushed some more.

Just when I thought I could not exert myself anymore, whatever it was came out and the medic grinned, holding it up. "Does that look like a placenta to you, Doctor?"

Our eyes just about popped out of our heads at the sight of the tiny wriggling form.

Another baby??!!

"I-No but- that's impossible," Spencer stuttered, in shock. I mirrored his expression completely.

"You didn't know?" The medic looked confused as he grabbed another towel thing.

"No, the ultrasounds only showed one baby," I said, in disbelief.

"This is a surprise then!" the medic chuckled. "Well congratulations Mom and Dad, it's a boy!"

He placed the baby in my other arm and reminded Spencer, who was still completely astounded, to cut the umbilical cords.

"We have twins?" Spencer whispered increduously, staring at the two small bundles wiggling against my chest.

"We have twins," I repeated, gazing back and forth between my babies and my husband, dumbfounded, "I can't believe it."

The second baby looked exactly like his father. The same brown curls, the same nose, lips, eyes, everything. He was perfect. Both our children were. I'd never felt so much love and joy in my life and I could tell Spencer hadn't either.

"Hi, sweet boy, we were not expecting you, but we are so happy that you're here," I cooed at my son.

"Yes we are. We love you so much, little buddy," Spencer agreed, resting his head on my shoulder as he brushed the boy's cheek lightly with his thumb.

I turned my head to face him and he pressed his lips to mine, murmuring. "I love you and I'm so proud of you."

"I love you too," I murmured back, feeling the warm wetness on my cheeks return as I pressed my forehead to his.

"Congratulations, again. They're adorable," The medic said, warmly as he cleaned everything up.

"Thank you," We answered simultaneously, smiling widely.

When the EMT was done, Spencer moved out from behind me and took the babies so the medics could lift me onto the stretcher. They put a warm blanket over me and then Spencer handed me one of the babies, still wanting to hold one.

Once we got to the hospital, Spencer went with the nurses who took the babies to get checked out. I was taken by other nurses who set me up in a room and made sure I was okay. While he was gone I asked one of my nurses to bring Diana and our friends up to my room.

Diana was a little confused for a minute when she saw me, but luckily her son walked in with a rolling bassinet at just the right moment, parking it next to my bed.

"Spencer's here," I told her softly.

She looked up at him and after a second she rushed into his arms and he embraced her happily, crying.

"Hi, Mom," he murmured.

She pulled back and took his face into her hands. "Don't you ever leave me again."

"I won't," He told her, pulling her back in for a hug. "I love you."

She said it back and after a bit, he was the one to pull back.

"Mom, I have a surprise for you. For all of you, actually," He said, looking at our friends. He smiled as he handed me one baby and then picked up the other and turned to face the group.

Everyone gasped or looked at us wide eyed.

There was a chorus of attempted quiet reactions from the team while Diana moed closer to us, some recognition beginning to spark in her eyes. I could see Garcia using every ounce of her strength not to freak out and accidentally scare her.

"Am I a grandma?" She asked, tentativel.

"Yeah, you are," Spencer answered, warmly.

Diana looked back and forth between us, confused. "But I thought there was only one?"

Spencer chuckled, gesturing to the blue bundle in his arms. "Yeah, we thought so too, until this little guy showed up unannounced."

"He's shocking people just like his father already," She grinned, earning a light laugh from all of us. "Well, do they have names yet?"

"Well, we have a girl name since we knew we were having a daughter, but we are still trying to figure out a boy name since he was a surprise," I answered.

"What's the girl's name?" she asked, sitting on the bed next to me. Spencer sat on my other side.

"Say hello to Amelia Diana Reid," We told her happily as I shifted the pink blanket away from our daughter's face so she could see better.

She gasped again and looked back and forth between Spencer and I in shock once more before smiling and gently hugging us. Awwww's filled the room at the scene.

"The middle name obviously needs no explanation, but the meaning behind the first name is something we want to share. Neither of us had good fathers and I don't have a good mother. So Amelia is the closest thing we could think of as a kind of combination of Aaron and Emily, our work mom and dad,"I explained, smiling adoringly at Emily.

She came over and embraced us carefully. "Thank you. I wish Hotch were here. I think you two are the only ones beside Jack that can get him to smile, and this would definitely turn that stoic frown upside down."

We giggled and so did several of our team members.

I helped Diana hold Amelia for a little bit, and then our son in turn until she started to be less lucid and wanted to rest. Emily had arranged for her to sleep and be cared for in a room close by ours so she could be near us. JJ took her to that room with a nurse and the others left our room for a little while so I could feed the twins. We were burping and changing them when everyone came back.

As soon as she was able to, Penelope pretty much exploded, accidentally interrupting Spencer as he was trying to tell me something. "Oh my gosh TWINS? Two baby geniuses for the price of one! This is the best news ever and I am going to buy tons of stuff for baby boy since you're gonna need double the baby supplies and you only have girl stuff right now and I am going to love them and hug them and be there for them and teach them lots of cool things and-"

"Garcia, breathe," Rossi said, patting her on the back as we all giggled. He turned to us, "Congratulations, both of you."

"Oh they're so precious, guys!"JJ cooed, coming over for a closer look. She was very careful as she hugged us,"You know, anything you need, I'm here for you. Okay?"

"Yeah same, we got you," Luke agreed.

"Well done, Dr. and Mrs, Reid," Tara said in admiration.

"Thanks everyone," we responded happily.

"You did good, mama. The babies are beautiful," Morgan said, leaning down and kissing me on the head as he touched Amelia's hand with his pinky finger. He smiled over at Spencer, "You too, kid. Gideon would be proud of you, you know."

The look on Spencer's face brought me to tears. I'd only been on the team a short time before Gideon left, but I did get to briefly experience the kind, caring, brilliant man he was, who loved Spencer like his own son and knew him better than he knew himself. He even knew the second Spencer and I met that we were falling for each other because he would pair us up a lot and whenever we were together or he caught us looking at one another, he got a look on his face like he was seeing something we were not. He later told Spencer this in his letter and told him to hold on to me and to not let the job get in the way of us. He said to find solace in each other and remind each other of the good things in the world when we were bogged down by all the bad things we saw at work.

This was what finally gave Spencer the courage to ask me out and thank God for that because I was going out of my mind over him by that point and I was so close to just giving up entirely.

Suffice it to say, that man meant the whole world to Spencer and by extention, to me as well. His loss had been beyond devastating for us and I had since been looking for a way to honor his memory....

I looked at my husband, "Hey love, what were you saying before Garcia's outburst?"

"Hmm?" He mumbled, having been pulled out of whatever thought process he was in, "Oh, I was saying I have an idea for our son's name..."

"Oh? What is it?" I asked, curiously.

"I noticed that the medic who delivered the twins had a nametag that said Elliot and I really liked it because it makes me think of the author T.S. Eliot, but also because it reminds me of my friend Elle who used to work with us and who I miss very much. So I was thinking we could name him Elliot, if you're okay with it, of course," He whispered, rambling a bit excitedly.

I knew who Elle was. He and some of the others had talked about her a lot and she seemed like a good person who had just been through a lot. She was like an older sister to Spencer and the name was really cute and meaningful so I was sold.

"I love it...and I have a suggestion for his middle name," I told him, eagerly.

"What?" he asked.

"Gideon," I whispered back, tentatively.

He stared at me for a second with his huge puppy eyes, looking like he was about to cry. He nodded fervently, his eyes moving to his tiny carbon copy sleeping in his arms. He'd barely taken his eyes off the twins since they'd been born and watching him become so enamored by them made me fall even more in love with him.

"Hey guys, we came up with a name for our son," He said out loud, grabbing everyone's attention as he lifted one of the baby's hands, waving it. "I'd like you all to meet Elliot Gideon Reid."

Tara and Luke only partially connected the dots, since they only knew stories of Gideon and Morgan had just mentioned him.

The rest of the team, however, got both names immediately and there was not a dry eye amongst them. More hugs happened and then everyone took their turns holding the twins and talking with us for awhile until they saw us having trouble staying awake. They handed the babies back and quietly made their way out, one by one.

We put the twins in their bassinet and Spencer curled up next to me while we stared at them.

"Welcome to the world, Amelia and Elliot," we whispered. "We love you."

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

EPILOGUE(Spencer POV):

I was reinstated to the FBI, after some substantial time off to be with my wife and new babies, with mandatory sabbaticals every so often. I did my best to balance work and home, actually electing to stay behind with Garcia sometimes so I could be close to home. A few years later, we had another set of twins, this time both showing up on the sonograms. They were a boy and girl again, and we named them Lilliana Jennifer Reid and Theodore Morgan Reid(Lilly and Theo for short).

Then, another year and a half later, we got pregnant with our last child, a complete surprise since we were told we could not have any more. We named her Davina Penelope Reid, Davina being the closest female name to David(for Rossi).

After that, we were done and our family was complete. Of course, the team adored them and spoiled them rotten. We also realized not long after Amelia and Elliot were born that my mom would be much better cared for in a facility, which was very difficult for me to come to terms with. Fortunately, we found an amazing facility nearby. She's actually thriving there and she loves her grandbabies so much. We bring them to visit her or bring her home sometimes. She often reads to them or teaches them about literature and history the way she taught me.

Life is good. And I am thankful for every day with my gorgeous wife, my five wonderful children, my awesome friends and of course, my mother.

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

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fablesrose · 6 months ago

Text

Season 3

Ch 19 - The Jailhouse Job

Series Rewrite Masterlist

Pairing: Eliot Spencer x Ford!Reader

Description: Nate is now in jail for the stunt he pulled last season saving the team. Despite this, he still finds a job in taking down his warden.

Words: 7.7k

A/n: Hey guys, sorry this took so long. This summer has been busier and more stressful than I had anticipated with work, trying to figure out my physical health, and a number of other factors in regards to my future. Unfortunately I am still under a lot of stress, so I'm unsure how regular updates will be, but I'm hoping to post once or twice a month for now. I've been so touched by the support coming through and the desire for this series to continue and I am so thankful for all of you, I hope you enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I stared at my laptop sitting on the coffee table in my living room. Over the past month that Nate has been in jail awaiting trial, I have been contemplating what my next steps should be. When I started working with the team full time, I had temporarily shut down my socials and suspended my website for freelancing. Still, I had a somewhat regular stream of repeat clients asking if I had any project openings. Thus far I had simply told them that no, I didn’t have any openings and possibly even pointing them to possible alternative freelancers that I had worked with previously and thought they did a good job.

Did I take it back up again? Was this last job with the mayor and Nate going to jail the sign that I needed that this was the time to walk away? If it was, could I really follow through? Or was I so deep into this already, in too deep with the team, too deep into crime, in too deep for Eliot, that I wouldn’t be able to get out until the whole world fell apart?

And so, I just started at my laptop. At my emails, sitting in my inbox. They might as well have been collecting dust. I sat, thinking about everything and nothing at all.

I wasn’t sure how long I had been there when a knock came to my door.

“It’s open,” I called, remembering that I hadn’t locked the door when Sophie came and went earlier today to check on me.

I didn’t move from my spot, staring at my laptop. It felt as if my eyes were glued to the spot, that pulling my gaze away would be painful, or at least physically difficult.

“Hey, sweetheart.” The deep voice floated to my ears, one that I wouldn’t forget. It somehow pulled my eyes from where they were nailed in front of me towards the door where Eliot stepped through carefully.

“Hey,” I said softly in reply.

“How’re you holding up?” He stepped around the furniture till he found a chair he liked near where I was sitting.

I sighed, “Okay. Those first two weeks I was so stressed that I don’t remember much, to be completely honest. Now I’m just tired and trying to figure out what to do next.”

He tilted his head a fraction, “Like what? What to cook for dinner in the next day or two or…”

I huffed, “More like what to do with my life.”

Eliot’s brow furrowed in confusion, “What do you mean? You’re gonna stay with us right? Help us break Nate out of prison?”

My lips curled into a small, but sad, smile, “Do you guys even still want me around when Nate’s not here?”

He scoffed, “Are you kidding? Of course we do. Didn’t you hear Nate on that boat? We’re family. To be honest sweetheart, I think we all like you better anyway.”

My smile cracked into a wider one, “Really?”

“Really.”

We just sat looking at each other for a few moments before my eyes dropped to my hands for a moment, “So, uh, where you just popping by to check on me or…”

He coughed, “Uh, actually I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, uh, remember the job we did in LA? With the two David statues?”

I raised an eyebrow in confusion, “Where I met you and helped with my first job? That happened well over a year ago? Yeah, what about it?”

He agreed that we were thinking of the same event and stuttered over his words a bit, trying to figure out how to articulate what he wanted. Eventually he said, “I just… I wanted to let you know that I’m glad I met you and inadvertently pulled you into the job.”

This conversation felt like it was getting deeper and more heartfelt with every exchange, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it. It was nice, in an uncomfortable kind of way and I knew he meant well, but I couldn’t stop myself from lightening the mood a bit with a more awkward angle. “You mean that you’re glad Maggie brought me along on your date?”

Blush rose across his face and scrunched in what seemed like disappointment, “It was Nate’s idea. For the record, I would have rather taken you out on a date, but Maggie had the museum access.”

That stopped me in my tracks and it was my turn for blush to spread across my face and surely my neck and ears. I wasn’t sure what to reply, so I didn’t even try.

Eliot seemed to register what he said, and quickly changed the subject, “Besides that, we kind of came up with a plan to break Nate out. Sophie is heading to the jail and is going to tell him. Do you wanna come over and listen in?”

I could still feel my heart racing, but this was a good excuse to get out and escape the hypnotizing gaze of my laptop. And if it got Nate out of prison and the team back to rockin’ and rollin’? Then it was a double or even triple win in my book.

We crossed the hall to Nate’s apartment where the team has continued to meet up and use as their - our? - headquarters. I had been unsure of how I felt being in there with Nate being in jail so I hadn’t come over very often. Hardison did make another upgrade to the room with a tall desk facing the screens placed behind the couch wide enough to fit all of us.

When we walked in Sophie had begun explaining the plan to break Nate out. Hardison was somehow channeling the conversation through the speakers like a phone call so everyone could hear and had the security footage on the screen so we could watch. Sophie and Nate were separated by some sort of plexiglass as they chatted from the prison phone booths. I had gone a couple of times to visit him so I was somewhat familiar with the room. It all seemed performative, the glass walls for some sort of privacy, the plastic phones to talk through even though you could still hear through the glass. All for the illusion of separation.

From what I gathered of the plan, we would have to break him out directly after his hearing at the courthouse. Eliot would take out any FBI agents and guards on the outside. Parker would be waiting in the elevator shaft to do the actual breaking out of the cuffs and his guards. The rest of us are on distraction and misdirection duty until we can all load up and drive away.

“No,” Nate said when he heard it.

“No!?” Sophie replied.

“Uh… no,” he repeated.

“What do you mean no?”

“It’s a horrible plan. None of it times out, and there’s no way you can get to the car that fast,” Nate explained.

“Ah, but you’d have to admit, it’d be a lot more dramatically satisfying if I’m the one driving the getaway car.”

I shrugged in partial agreement to the both of them. The way Sophie explained the plan was for her to meet Nate right when he came out of his courtroom, putting her behind him in getting out of the building. Nate was right, where it would be impossible for her to be driving the car to pick them up (the way she described it), but she was right that it would bring a full circle moment to the operation.

“You know they record these calls,” Nate whispered, as if it would help. Sophie raised a cellphone at him that was plugged into the wall next to the prison phone she was talking to him through.

“I created a carrier signal for our conversation,” Hardison explained, “But I’m dumping another conversation onto the prison recording system.”

“Spanish soap opera?” Eliot asked as he passed a beer to Hardison and my drink of choice to me.

“Oh yeah, check it out man. Look, it turns out Pepe’s twin brother Peppi is actually Guadalupe’s baby’s daddy.” Hardison explained the plot he was transmitting to the recording system.

“You seriously keep up with that?” I asked. I could vaguely hear it in the background of his systems.

Hardison shrugged at me.

“Is this thing two way?” I asked him.

“It can be, you wanna say hi?”

I casually nodded. Once he gave me the go ahead I said, “Hi Nate.”

He startled a bit on the camera feed when he heard my voice, “Hey Birdie.” He hesitated for a moment before continuing, “You didn’t have a hand in that plan, did you? Because I would expect better from you.”

Sophie looked a little offended in the camera feed.

I laughed, “No, I haven’t had any involvement in anything until just now.”

“What have you been doing the past couple of weeks, then?”

I rolled my eyes, “having an existential crisis over what to do with my life. Do I go back to boring normalness or risk following your footsteps and landing in prison with you? Any advice? How’s the food? And the beds?” I said the last half sarcastically, but the first statement was very much true and I tried not to show it. At least, not too much.

Nate chose not to answer me verbally, but I watched as he twisted around in his chair until he found the camera pointed at him and Sophie and gave it a pointed glare.

“Hey,” I said flippantly, “you chose this. Don’t kill me for asking.”

Behind me, Parker walked in with a large duffle.

“He don’t want to do it,” Eliot told her.

“Aw, but I love jumping down elevators,” she reacted.

“I know,” Hardison validated.

“This is my special elevator rig he got me for Christmas,” Parker said as he put down the large bag.

“Alright, look, Nate, you took the fall for us,” Eliot began.

“After you lied to us!” Hardison cut in, “He’s a liar.”

“You took the fall for us.” Eliot continued, “You went to jail so we wouldn’t have to. We get that, so we’re square. But now, you’ve got to let us get you out of prison.”

“But if we’re gonna do that…” Parker added.

“And not all of us are convinced that we should,” Hardison also added which earned an raised eyebrow from me.

“Then we have to hit you at your next hearing,” Parker finished her thought. “That prison’s escape-proof.”

“Okay, you know what? Fine, Nate,” Hardison said. “We’re still out here, we’re doing the job. We help people nobody else helps. That’s important. You want to stay around and miss out just because you gotta figure out your guilty conscience, that’s your loss.”

Nate began to respond with his nervous ‘I’m explaining’ laugh when Hardison turn

“Guys, no.” Nate said firmly. He then spoke slowly, as if spelling it out for us, “I committed a crime, I got caught, now I’m going to serve my time.”

“Boo,” I said as I took a sip of my drink. “Can’t we live by the spirit of the law, not the letter?”

“And what law would make this okay?” Eliot asked skeptically.

I shrugged, “I don’t know, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?”

“That sounds right,” Parker said, somewhat helpfully.

“Nate,” Sophie said pointedly. “What kind of world would it be if everyone who committed a silly little crime went to prison, huh? Complete madness!”

Those of us in the office shared a baffled look. While I was being somewhat contrary, it was clear that Sophie actually believed what she said. And I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

“Did you get the kielbasa?” Sophie asked.

Nate nodded and held up a packaged sausage with a bow on it, “yeah.”

“There’s an earbud inside,” she explained with a dramatic wink that I could see through the fuzzy camera.

“Now listen to me,” Nate doubled down, “in no way, shape, or form are you going to break me out of this prison. Understood?”ed his screens and programs off, cutting off the call.

“What a burn,” I said to the quiet room.

Eliot approached me, “Sorry about bringing you over here, that wasn’t how I thought that was gonna go.”

I shrugged, “I’ll admit, it stings a little, but that’s not your fault. You can never tell what Nate’s gonna do. Besides, you didn’t bring me very far and I got a drink out of it.” I raised my drink and Eliot tapped his beer against it.

“To whatever future you choose,” he said spontaneously.

“To whatever the future may bring,” I replied.

I stayed around and chatted for a little while, but eventually retreated to my own apartment. There were enough emotions for today.

A couple of days later Hardison invited me across the hall to help assemble or create a helicopter-esc gadget. The small talk didn’t last long and we slipped into a comfortable silence, the contraption alternating between us as we fiddled with pieces and screws.

“Were you serious, the other day?” Hardison finally asked, breaking the silence.

“About what?” I replied somewhat distractedly as I struggled to thread a screw correctly.

“About figuring out what you wanted to do now that Nate’s behind bars.”

“Oh.” I paused before answering, “I mean, kinda.” I kept my eyes on the pieces and focused on putting them together even though I could feel Hardison’s eyes on me. “I kind of wondered if him getting arrested was the universe’s way of telling me that this was the end of the line for me and this life. That the opportunity and path had reached a dead end and it was time to go back to where I belonged, with a quote on quote ‘normal’ life.” I could tell Hardison wanted to say something, but I continued before he had the chance. “But, I’ve mostly decided that I’ll stick around for as long as y’all let me, wherever it leaves me.”

“Y’all? Really? I think you’ve been spending too much time with Eliot,” Hardison teased at my unconscious choice of words.

I finally looked up at him, “Slip of the tongue from when I’ve said it ironically. I don’t know if I ever remember hearing Eliot say it.”

Hardison shrugged, “He’s some sort of southern, I’m sure he says it.” There was a lull between us before he continued, “But regardless, I’m glad you’ve decided to stick around.”

I smiled at him in appreciation when I heard Nate’s voice come out of his computer that was sitting next to us on the counter.

“Oh, no. Mnh–mnh,” Hardison replied immediately. “No, we extended our hand of forgiveness, and you slapped it away. Now go away.”

“Please, please, I just want you to check the records of inmate Billy Epping. Fast.”

It sounded like there was someone near him as a distant voice said, “Who are you talking to?!”

Hardison rolled his eyes and started typing on his laptop before pulling something up. “Whoa… Okay, uh, William Epping’s conviction was for transporting liquor across state lines, but his sentence was way longer than anyone’s received for that crime since, like, the Pilgrims, man.”

“That’s suspicious,” I commented.

“That’s weird,” Hardison continued, “Your warden was consulted on the sentencing.”

“That’s really suspicious,” I amended.

“It’s hinky,” Hardison agreed.

Nate then turned to who I assumed was Billy and assured him that we would check it out. He then apologized and there were some panicked sounds coming through his comm that wasn’t from Nate.

“Uh, Hardison, Y/n, why don’t you guys gather the team and get me a background check on the warden.”

“You stabbed me!” The other voice called.

“Oh, come on, just a little,” Nate minimized.

“Was that necessary, Nate?” I asked.

“Yes,” he responded without elaborating.

“Nate, did you find us a client in prison?” Hardison teased.

“Yes, we are going to help Billy Epping, and maybe take down a warden at the same time,” Nate said matter-of-factly.

Billy exasperatedly demanded who Nate was talking to and eventually came to the conclusion that he was going to pass out.

Hardison turned to me and muted us on the comm network, “What was that about signs of the universe?”

“I’m not sure what this sign is telling me other than that Nate, my uncle and the person who raised me, is insane. Which I already knew and am still figuring out how that reflects on me.”

“Fair.”

We gathered the team and started preparations to do some recon. Hardison did the background check on the warden, Adam Worth, and drew up some credentials for Eliot to go into the prison as a doctor. He would be there to keep Billy safe and give information to Nate. Parker and Sophie (she had told us her real name at this point, but wanted to be petty and not tell Nate, so it was easier to just call her Sophie) were going to be working the courthouse and judge, getting information on Billy and their relationship with Mr. Worth.

Hardison and I dressed up a bit to meet with Mr. Worth on the pretense of business.

“How I got started?” Mr. Worth repeated Hardison as he poured us some drinks, “Well, hedge funds, actually. And then a little bit of international finance. But then ten years ago, I hit on this – National prison properties. Get the government out of the justice business.” Everything that came out of his mouth sounded like a political slogan. This man seemed to be born a politician, and from what Hardison found on the background check, it seemed to run in his family. His grandfather, father, and brother were all in pretty powerful political positions, but the Mr. Worth that stood in front of us couldn’t seem to get elected in his campaigns.

When asked for our names, we introduced ourselves with the best English accents we could muster and maintain for this whole meeting.

“Brilliant,” Hardison remarked, “Corporate-run prisons, five facilities, thousands of inmates, it’s tremendous.”

“Indeed, it’s a marvel,” I added with a smile despite the fact that my thoughts and feelings on the matter were quite contrary.

Mr. Worth led us over to his sitting area of his office, Hardison came behind me as he took a step to Mr. Worth’s computer and planted a bug into his system.

“The U.S. has the fastest growing prison population in the world,” Mr. Worth explained. “Well, it’s like the real estate boom,” he laughed, “except of course, the problem with real estate, you eventually run out of land. You never run out of people to put in prison.”

“Hmm, we haven’t had much success in the private prison concept in England,” Hardison said. “Our investment firm has large real estate holdings for construction of facilities.”

“You see, any yahoo can lay some concrete and throw up some razor wire,” Worth countered. “The profit comes from proper management. For example, the big money for us is in prison labor.”

Hardison pulled out his phone to ensure that his bug was accessing the system, but this had him a bit distracted.

“Really?” I asked, pulling the attention to me and to keep the conversation going.

“Yes. Goods and services made by prisoners in America – two billion dollars a year. One out of every five office chairs and desks, made in America, made by convicts. And those jobs are not going to the Chinese,” he laughed and raised his glass in a cheers.

Around this time Eliot arrived at the prison infirmary and handed over his credentials. Before we left, Eliot was agitated.

“What’s up?” I had asked him.

“We tried to break him out, but now we’ve got to do this job. We shouldn’t just be at his beckon call after he ran a con on us,” he said through slightly gritted teeth.

“Well, when you see him, don’t rough him up too badly,” I commented, not denying his feelings. I was a bit peeved too, and I knew Eliot wouldn’t do something rash, I said it in a teasing way to try and lighten his mood.

He looked at me for a hard moment before he sighed, his shoulders dropping, “Fine, I won’t do anything.”

“I never said that,” I corrected, that teasing lilt still in my voice, “You can still scare him a little bit.”

His expression was a bit skeptical, but intrigued.

“Please? For me?”

His face broke into a smile, “Okay, I think I can do that, sweetheart.”

And he did once he and Nate were alone after he was introduced to Billy and assured he would be safe.

It sounded like they popped into a dental office to talk and with some rustling and clinking of buckles, it sounded like Eliot was physically strapping Nate in.

“Restraints,” Eliot said. “They’re in the infirmary manual.”

Then the sound of a dental drill came through the comms.

“That’s – uh – for the guards, right?” Nate asked with a bit of a nervous laugh.

“Do you know what I usually do, Nate, to the people that run a con on their own team?” Eliot asked seriously with a pause. “That almost get people killed, ‘cause they’re out of control?”

“Are we okay, Eliot?” Nate asked, that tone of nervous challenge shifting in his voice.

I smiled to myself behind my glass. Eliot knew what he was doing when it came to scaring people, even when trying to be subtle.

As an answer, Eliot turned the drill off and started relaying the information that we knew on Worth. He told him about his family’s political dynasty and his failure to get elected himself which led to him going the business route.

“Okay, first, we have to figure out how to nail the warden on whatever scam he’s running here,” Nate said. “Second, we’ve got to get Billy out of here in case things go bad.”

“Told ya, this place is escape-proof,” Eliot countered. “Twenty-first century prison, fewer guards, more tech. Infrared cameras, motion sensors, lockdown doors.”

“Okay, does Parker have any ideas?”

“She’s working with… Sophie.”

“What was that?”

“Sophie told us her real name. I’m not allowed to say it in front of you.”

“Seriously?”

“Her and Parker, they’re running the judge.”

At the courthouse, they were able to find a bunch of files of inmates and evidence of a safety deposit box. Hardison and I wrapped things up with Worth to go do some research and discuss what they found.

It turns out that the judge who sentenced Billy opened up a safety deposit box around the same time that he started sending civilians down for hard time. Four other judges seemed to do the same.

“I mean, there are hundreds of cases here,” Sophie said once she, Parker, Hardison, and I got back from our respective assignments. “And these are just the ones we found.”

“Records I pulled off of Worth’s computer show that each time an inmate checks in at Rockford, their judge gets an email. Now, it looks coded. I’m thinking, Cayman Islands bank account?” Hardison speculated.

“Hardison,” Nate said through comms, “private prisons have a contract with the state just like any company that provides a service. Now, do they have to maintain a head count?”

“Yeah, Rockford can’t drop below 70% occupancy. If they do, they lose their state funding. No state money, and they close. They came very close two years ago,” I answered.

“Hmm, so private prisons are like the hotel business. They live and die by occupancy, headcount. Now, Worth wasn’t gonna lose $100 million in profit just ‘cause he didn’t have enough hard-cases to fill the prison, so he puts a few judges on the arm to send him non-violent offenders, easy prisoners to supervise.”

“But why these people?” Parker asked.

“Because they’re citizens,” Eliot said as he walked in from the neighboring room. “‘Cause they’re honest, middle class citizens. These are the people, they don’t wanna cause any trouble. They can’t afford a lawyer, so if some judge sends them away, well, yes sir. They were taught to trust the courts.”

“They believe in the system,” I added, summing it up.

“So, Nate, whatcha got?” Sophie asked.

“Well, Worth makes money sending innocent people to prison.” Nate answered, “I have just the thing.”

To put it simply, Nate did have just the thing for Mr. Worth: make all of his ambitions come true and get him elected United States Senator.

Sophie got Worth on the hook for the election by posing as the current senator’s campaign coordinator, vying for reelection. Parker posed for pictures that got photoshopped to make it look like the current senator was having an affair. A scandal that could lose him his job. Hardison and I put together a campaign ad for Worth that Sophie also showed him and caught him hook, line, and sinker.

“Now, I’ve got to give it to you Nate,” Hardison said once Sophie got back. “Nobody can read a mark quite like you.”

“Oh, come on,” Nate replied, “he tried to run twice and failed. That had to have been eating at him. Now find me a way out of this place.”

“Oh, now he wants to get out,” I said sarcastically with the intent to tease, but Nate chose not to comment.

There was a pause before Eliot started speaking from inside the prison infirmary, “Billy showed me where he found the first dead gang member. Blind spot – no cameras.”

“Nice coincidence,” Nate acknowledged.

“Yeah, and Hardison checked the incident reports, all of them happened in camera blind spots – places convicts wouldn’t know existed.”

“Guards,” Nate concluded simply.

“They killed him, accident, whatever. They let Billy here find him, wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Can we use the blind spots?” Nate asked. “I really want a back door out of this place.”

“No, Nate, I can’t access those cameras from here,” Hardison said. “They’re dumb, they run straight to the server.”

“Yeah, and they could have upgraded the motion sensors and the infrareds since these plans,” Parker added. “You’re gonna have to map it out. Old-school.”

Nate and Eliot proceeded to map out the prison, finding every security camera, motion sensor, lock bolt, and heat sensor in the prison. Eliot marked it on his phone and Nate dictated it to us back at the office so we could map it both on a digital blueprint and a physical map taped to our clear erase board.

Once they had finished the rounds in finding everything Hardison said, “Nate, if you could see this, you would not be encouraged”

“Yeah, I see it,” Nate said a bit distractedly, telling me that he had it mapped out somehow and somewhere and he was looking at our predicament at that very moment. “I hope Sophie has more luck with the warden.”

“Who’s Sophie?” Parker asked.

“You remember, we’re not supposed to use her real name with, uh…” Hardison answered.

“Right, Nate hasn’t earned it yet.” Parker then started repeating Sophie over and over again in different pitches and tempos as if to remind herself.

It got to a point where I knew Nate must have been losing his mind and I was getting a bit irritated myself, so I took it upon myself to cut her off, asking her to show me the ranges of the security equipment we just mapped out to see if there were even slivers of blind spots. I already had an idea that there were very few if any, but it distracted Parker from saying Sophie over and over and helped me get a better idea of what we were working with. She happily redirected and started rattling off information at me and pointing at the map with Hardison piping up occasionally about a specific tech thing here or there.

Eventually Eliot came back and we started analyzing the digital blueprint we made of the security measures, trying to figure out how to get Nate an escape route.

“Alright, we cut that wire,” Eliot said, pointing at the screen.

“No, no.” Hardison said, “Look, once a lockdown is called, all these sensors go hot and all those door bolts drop into place.”

“I got it!” Parker said as she sat up from where she was lying down on the table desk. “The furnace room.” She then stood up and walked to the front of the room to face the rest of us who were extremely skeptical. “There’s no sensors because it’s too hot. They crawl straight down along the heating pipes until they reach the sewage system. Ha ha!”

“Now Parker, it’s a hundred and fifty degrees in there,” Nate pointed out through comms.

She paused before answering happily, “The average human can withstand that for 27 seconds.”

The boys rolled their eyes and turned away from her.

“Could they make that crawl in 27 seconds Parker?” I asked, trying to point out the problem.

She hummed and hawed for a couple of moments but before she answered, Sophie walked in.

“Worth is on the hook,” she said as she joined us in the living room, “But, with $250,000 of ours as a buy in.” She was referring to getting Worth to transfer a quarter million into a ‘campaign fund’ account, it seems he wanted us to match it.

“Ouch,” Nate commented flippantly.

“Oh, did I say ours? I meant, what’s left of your life savings. Yeah, we took it out of your account.”

I winced, but still had an amused smile since Sophie was trying to rub it in, but we had to use Nate’s money to make Worth look even more incriminating.

“Any luck here?” Sophie asked us, all of us answering in the negative, except for Nate.

“Yeah, yeah, got it,” he answered, convinced he was right. “B corridor, through to the kitchen, into the freezer, into the freezer air exchange, into the machine tunnels, which will lead me to the roof, or the parking lot.”

“You gotta beat the lockdown door to the corridor,” Hardison reminded him. “There’s a thousand pounds of pressure on that bolt.”

“There’s motion sensors in the kitchen,” Eliot said.

“And infrared in the machine corridor,” Parker added.

“All to get to the roof or the parking lot where you’ll be trapped and probably brutally gunned down,” Sophie pointed out. “Got a way out of that?”

“I’m working on it,” he replied, not as confidently, but still determined.

“Okay, you do that, I’m sure we have all the time in the world,” I responded a bit distractedly as I analyzed the blueprint in front of me, not seeing a possible way out, but there had to be one. There had to be.

Sophie and I were brainstorming with Nate on how to bypass the security measures and get out safely. We eventually got it mostly figured out with Nate taking the route he dictated. For the first door, he would need a wedge to keep it from latching. I proposed a folded up newspaper if he could get his hands on one. Parker said that if Nate could fog up the kitchen enough, he could bypass the motion sensors in the kitchen. If Nate could disguise his heat signature with materials in the freezer, he could get by that obstacle too. As for being trapped afterwards, we needed a distraction on the roof so Nate could get through the parking lot and into Worth’s car. He was the only one who could conceivably leave the prison in a lockdown.

Eliot, Hardison, and Parker went back to the prison to lay down some ground work and prepare for the escape. Hardison brought some clothes to switch with Worth’s drycleaning for Nate to change into afterwards. He was also going to tip Worth off that Sophie might be crooked. Eliot was there as physical backup and protection. Parker was going to be flying a remote controlled helicopter for the rooftop distraction.

I stayed behind with Sophie to make sure everything ran smoothly.

What we weren’t expecting was when Hardison was going to tip off Worth about Sophie, he got an urgent call that pulled him away from their meeting. Hardison checked Worth’s computer to find that all of the security cameras had been turned off, faking a system reboot.

“Eliot, get ready. They’re coming for Billy,” Nate said when Hardison told him what was going on. After a few moments of what sounded like Nate making preparations, he said, “Parker, please tell me you’re at Hardison’s new van.”

“Yeah, it’s really nice,” she answered nonchalantly.

“Did you bring it?” he asked, referring to the remote helicopter.

“Wait, are we doing that now?”

“Yeah, we’re gonna break out right now.”

I looked at Sophie. This was certainly unexpected, but hopefully we had prepared enough for it to pass.

“Sophie, y/n, I need you to help guide me through it.”

“We’re on the count,” Sophie immediately replied.

“Nate, when they call ‘lockdown’ every door in the prison seals tight,” I reminded him.

“Right, on it,” he answered.

There were a lot of thumps over the comms telling me that Eliot was keeping the guards at bay. I had to take a deep swallow when I heard him demand a guard look at him before he knocked him out.

“A little sloppy,” Nate told him when he arrived.

“New glasses,” Eliot explained.

Eliot was wearing glasses when I met him, though I didn’t know his name was Eliot or that he was the world’s best retrieval specialist at the time. Whenever his glasses are mentioned, my mind seems to slip back to then. How he brought me champagne, complimented me, listened to me. How warm his hands were when they brushed against mine. How I’ve come to learn that they are always that warm. And how gentle they can be when they held my fingers when he said goodbye with a slight bow. How as he stood back up the lights of the party glinted off his silver frames and made his eyes sparkle.

I had always wondered if they were real, but mostly assumed they were fake. Him using new glasses as a reason for him being sloppy made me think that they actually were prescription. I should ask him about that.

Nate grabbed Billy and they made a dash to the doors while ‘Lockdown’ got called over the intercom along with an alarm and a countdown. Billy lamented that they weren’t going to make it before the door closed and it sounded like he was right.

After a moment, I heard a door open and Nate say, “Newspaper folded eight times can hold a ton of weight.”

I smiled to myself as it sounded like he took my suggestion.

Sophie’s phone began to ring. She looked at it and tossed it to me, “It’s Worth calling the bank, stall him please.

I instantly answered the phone, thickening my voice to have a more pronounced Boston accent along with my customer service voice, “First Boston Independent Bank. How can I help you?”

“This is Adam Worth. I want to close an account. Move money out of it right now,” he said, somewhat out of breath and anxious.

“And what account is it?”

“$250,000, the Worth campaign fund.”

“I’m sorry, sir, for a transfer that large, we require an in-person request to verify identity.”

He sighed and immediately hung up.

“Well, that should stall him. He’s heading to the bank now,” I told the group even though I’m sure they heard already.

Nate and Billy got to the kitchen where they separated, Billy going further into the prison, and Nate starting his route out of it.

“Nate, the motion sensor,” Sophie reminded him.

“Steam’s filling up now,” he answered. I started gently chewing the tip of my thumb when he told us that he beat the motion sensor.

I sighed and released a bit of tension, but he wasn’t out of the woods yet. I could tell Sophie was feeling the same as I was as she continually told herself to breathe.

Soon enough he told us that he made it through the maze of security measures and made it to the parking lot where he was home free in Worth’s car, who was on his way to the bank.

Sophie and I let out a breath of relief. Now all that was left was to send some helpful anonymous tips to the State police, specifically, the newly promoted Detective Captain Bonanno, who was on the mend.

With Hardison switching Worth’s dry cleaning with some of Nate’s clothes, making them fit better than anything Worth owned for himself, it made Worth look like even more of an accomplice of his escape when Nate exited Worth’s car at the bank. Nate made sure to catch himself clearly on a security camera. Worth took all of the money out of the campaign account, including the $250,000 of Nate’s money, making it look like a bribe. It seemed like the judges that Worth had on his payroll would also be on the receiving end of an investigation since the police found a list of them in Worth’s car.

Now that that was out of the way, we all had to exit the city. Quickly. Hardison was getting flights and I had most of my essentials gathered so that we could all head to the airport as soon as Nate walked in the door. I had prepared to be a fugitive when we took down the mayor, but now it was actually happening with Nate escaping from prison. I had stepped across the hall to my own apartment to grab a couple more things. Just when I was zipping up my bag, I heard Nate open up his door across the hall. I exited my apartment just as the door closed behind him.

I crossed the hall and was about to open the door again when there was a very distinctive click of a gun, right behind my ear.

“Don’t move,” a voice said behind me. Based on my experience with Sophie, I should have been able to guess the accent, but I was a bit too preoccupied to really think about it.

I turned my head slightly to see that there were five men standing behind me. I wasn’t sure where they came from to get behind me so fast, but they were all armed and pointed their firearms at me and the door in front of me.

I did what he said and didn’t move. I knew that the rest of the team was going to be opening the door any second, so I willed myself not to cry. I took a deep swallow, but could feel my eyes start to sting. There was always something when it came to this team, wasn’t there.

I could hear Hardison through the door mentioning rendezvousing in Paris when the door swung open to reveal the team. He immediately paused and the moment I made eye contact with Eliot, he took a forceful step towards me, ready to fight. Nate stopped him, grabbing his arm, but Eliot still tugged a bit before halting. They both gave me reassuring looks with a fire behind their eyes when a woman walking down Nate’s stairs pulled everyone’s attention to her. The thought crossed my mind wondering how she got up there when there has always been at least one of us in the apartment. These guys seemed to move like ghosts.

“Buono sera, signor Ford,” she said, definitely Italian.

Nate stared her down, but his body language seemed relaxed considering there were still several guns pointed at the back of my head and through me to the rest of the team.

“Why don’t you have your boys here put their guns down and we’ll head downstairs to talk?” He phrased it as a question, but his tone made it sound like there was no room for argument. This was still a bit confusing to me as it seemed she had all of the leverage here, again, since I had several guns right behind me.

Luckily, she nodded. The men lowered their guns and I quickly walked through the door. The Italian woman gracefully followed Nate as he exited the apartment past me and walked down the stairs, closing the door behind them, keeping her goons in the hallway. I let out a shuttered breath, and Sophie comfortingly stroked my shoulder and arm. My bag slipped through my fingers and fell to the floor with a thump that startled me as I had forgotten I was even holding it.

It seemed to snap the rest of them out of it as well. Eliot stepped up to me, hands gently on both of my arms and looked me over, making sure I was okay. I just nodded at him to say that I was. Hardison and Parker were discussing who they were, why they were here, and where they came from.

“They came out of nowhere,” I said a bit distantly. “I blinked and they were behind me.”

“Highly trained,” Eliot said. “But you’re okay, you did good. You didn’t lose your head.”

“If you say so,” I let out another deep breath that made me feel a lot better. I walked over to a chair and flopped myself on it. “So, guess we aren’t going to Paris?”

Hardison looked at me, “Probably not anymore.”

“We have to figure out what that woman wants first,” Sophie said, sitting more gracefully in one of the chairs than I did.

Parker started spitting out theories which Hardison seemed to encourage with a couple of his own. The rest of us just sat in silence, knowing that this was more of a waiting game to see what Nate came back with.

It didn’t take long before Nate came back into the apartment, a full glass in his hand. We all sat around the table, anxiously waiting for what was in store for us. Nate didn’t leave us waiting as he told us who exactly the Italian wanted us to target.

“Are you out of your mind?” Sophie exclaimed. “Nobody touches Damien Moreau!”

“Nate, Moreau finances the Sicilians, the Russian mafia, the Colombian cartels,” Hardison rattled off.

“Yeah, he moves money for the North Koreans,” Eliot added, “stolen artifacts for Iraq, nuclear materials for Iran.”

“Moreau is the big bad,” Hardison emphasized. “He is the central bank for international crime.”

Parker was flipping through the files that the Italian had given to Nate and just barely spoke up, “Nate, these files are CIA, FBI, Mossad, Japanese security.”

I peeked over her shoulder to see that she was correct, these files came from every major government and security agency. I didn’t know who this guy was, but I could tell that we were in a real deep shit from both sides it seemed. Two parties, both very powerful and very connected.

“So… who is this woman?” Sophie asked.

Nate told us that while she confirmed she wasn’t police, she didn’t expand much into who she was. He also added that she gave us a six month timeline.

“She wants to hire us to go after Moreau? Absolutely not,” Sophie said, the others quickly following with similar sentiments.

It got to the point where the one sided argument started to get out of control so Nate had to stop them.

“Guys! Just wait a second. This is not a job.” He then proceeded to tell us that if we did it, we would be free of Nate’s… legal troubles, in so many words. If we failed, on the other hand, Nate would be imprisoned in an absolutely horrible way and the rest of the team would be killed. Nate wouldn’t even repeat what she said they would do to me.

“She’s blackmailing us?” I asked, both parts in disbelief and resignation.

Nate stuttered, trying to find a way to deny it, but eventually just agreed that yes, she was blackmailing us.

“Sucks to be on the wrong side of that, finally,” Parker said.

“You don’t have to say ‘finally’ as if it was inevitable, Parker,” I said with a sigh.

“Right now, they have the leverage, so what we have to do is we have to get it back,” Nate tried to say reassuringly.

I could tell I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t quite convinced.

“We can’t go straight at a guy like Moreau,” Eliot said. “They’ll vaporize us.”

“Right, so what we do, is we do like we’ve always done in the past: we do jobs that help people. Only this time, some of them are gonna lead us right to Moreau.”

“Okay,” Hardison said, but he didn’t sound skeptical, it almost sounded like he was on board. “I mean, I do have a pretty big client list waiting for us to check out.” Yup he was on board. Hardison pointed at Parker and she gave a shy smile that said that she was in too. “Oh, we back in business,” Hardison said with a smile.

Nate nodded and tapped an uneven rhythm on the table to somewhat signal that there was nothing else to discuss.

We all stood, walking away from the heavy conversation.

I eyed the glass of whiskey that Nate had been holding this whole time, made eye contact with Nate and then Sophie before deciding that I was going to make the choice to not worry about it. It wasn’t my problem.

“Well, I’m gonna head to bed and dream about the horrible life of servitude and death that I’m going to experience if we don’t pull this off in the next six months. Hope you all sleep better than me, and I will see you in the morning!” I called with faux cheerfulness as I walked out of Nate’s apartment to cross the hall to my own. I snatched my bag that I had dropped when I was released from the line of fire and dragged it to my apartment where I left it in a similar position, not wanting to deal with it at the moment.

I really just wanted to sleep.

A/n: Reblogs and comments are welcome and encouraged! Thank you for reading!

Tags: @instantdinosaurtidalwave @kniselle @technikerin23 @kiwikitty13 @plasticbottleholder @mushycore @who-actually-cares-anymore

#eliot spencer x reader #eliot spencer #leverage #rewrite #slow burn #multichapter #nate ford #sophie devereaux #alec hardison #parker #ford!reader

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eliotferrer · 2 months ago

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The Benefits of Chair Massage for Stress Relief in the Workplace by Massage Therapists like Eliot Ferrer

In today's fast-paced work environment, managing stress is crucial for maintaining productivity and overall well-being. One effective method that has gained popularity is the use of chair massage as a tool for stress relief. Chair massages offer a convenient and efficient way to alleviate tension and improve workplace morale. By integrating chair massage into workplace wellness programs, companies can enhance employee satisfaction, reduce stress levels, and foster a more positive work environment. This blog explores the numerous benefits of chair massage for stress relief, providing insights into how it can be a valuable addition to workplace wellness strategies.

Reducing Stress and Tension

Massage practitioners such as Eliot Ferrer underline that chair massages are highly effective in reducing stress and physical tension, which are common issues in high-pressure work environments. During a chair massage, employees receive targeted relief to areas such as the neck, shoulders, and back, which are often affected by prolonged sitting and stress. This focused approach helps to alleviate muscle tension and promote relaxation, leading to a more comfortable and stress-free work experience.

Furthermore, regular chair massages can contribute to a decrease in overall stress levels. The process stimulates the release of endorphins, which are natural stress relievers, and helps balance cortisol levels, the hormone associated with stress. By incorporating chair massages into the workplace, employees can experience a reduction in stress and an improvement in their overall mental well-being.

Enhancing Employee Productivity

Incorporating chair massage into the workplace can lead to significant improvements in employee productivity. Massage therapists including Eliot Ferrer point out that stress and tension often result in decreased focus and lower energy levels, which can negatively impact work performance. Chair massages provide a quick and effective way to refresh and rejuvenate employees, helping them return to their tasks with increased concentration and efficiency.

Moreover, the relaxation achieved through chair massage can lead to improved cognitive function and problem-solving skills. By reducing stress, employees are better able to think clearly, make informed decisions, and approach tasks with renewed vigor. As a result, businesses that offer chair massages may see enhanced overall productivity and better outcomes in terms of project completion and goal achievement.

Improving Workplace Morale

Chair massage sessions, as highlighted by massage practitioners like Eliot Ferrer, can significantly boost workplace morale by creating a positive and supportive work environment. When employees feel valued and cared for, their overall job satisfaction and commitment to the organization improve. Offering chair massages as part of a wellness program demonstrates a company's investment in employee well-being, fostering a sense of appreciation and respect.

Additionally, the social interaction and relaxation associated with chair massage can contribute to stronger team cohesion. Employees who participate in group massage sessions may develop better relationships with their colleagues, leading to a more collaborative and harmonious work atmosphere. This improved morale can translate into a more engaged and motivated workforce, benefiting both employees and the organization as a whole.

Supporting Employee Health

The health benefits of chair massage extend beyond stress relief, contributing to overall employee well-being. Regular chair massages can help reduce the risk of musculoskeletal issues, such as back and neck pain, which are common among desk-bound workers. Massage therapists such as Eliot Ferrer convey that by addressing these physical concerns, chair massage helps prevent injuries and promotes better posture and spinal alignment.

In addition, chair massages can improve circulation and reduce muscle soreness, which can be particularly beneficial for employees who spend long hours sitting. Enhanced blood flow and reduced muscle tension support overall physical health and comfort, leading to fewer health-related absences and improved workplace attendance. By prioritizing employee health through chair massage, organizations can create a healthier and more resilient workforce.

Implementing Chair Massage Programs

To successfully integrate chair massage into the workplace, organizations should consider several key factors. First, it is essential to identify the frequency and duration of massage sessions that will best meet employees' needs and fit within the company's budget. Options may include weekly or monthly sessions, with varying lengths depending on employee preferences and availability.

Massage practitioners including Eliot Ferrer suggest that organizations should select qualified and experienced massage therapists who can provide high-quality services and create a comfortable environment for employees. Clear communication about the availability and benefits of chair massage programs is also crucial for encouraging participation and maximizing the program's effectiveness. By carefully planning and implementing chair massage programs, companies can ensure a successful and impactful addition to their wellness initiatives.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Chair Massage Programs

Evaluating the success of chair massage programs is important for determining their impact on employee well-being and productivity. Organizations should gather feedback from participants to assess their satisfaction with the services and identify any areas for improvement. Surveys and interviews can provide valuable insights into the perceived benefits and overall effectiveness of the program.

Additionally, tracking key metrics such as employee productivity, absenteeism, and overall stress levels can help measure the tangible effects of chair massage on the workplace. By analyzing these metrics and adjusting the program based on feedback and data, organizations can continuously enhance their wellness initiatives and ensure that they effectively support employee health and satisfaction.

Chair massage offers a range of benefits for workplace stress relief, including reduced tension, improved productivity, and enhanced employee morale. By implementing chair massage programs, organizations can create a more positive and supportive work environment, contributing to overall employee well-being. Effective planning, qualified therapists, and ongoing evaluation are key to maximizing the impact of chair massage initiatives. Embracing this wellness tool can lead to a healthier, more engaged workforce, ultimately benefiting both employees and the organization as a whole.

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gnar-slabdash · 2 years ago

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I suddenly woke up stupid early on my day off with multiple weird random aches and pains and a revelation about the Leverage chess metaphors.

They’re all wrong.

Look, I obviously adore the white knight/black king motif, and it works really well for that very specific discussion of Nate’s shift in morality and position at the opening of the series. But the show as well as I and other fans have then tried to take that equation and apply it to other jobs and to the crew as a whole. This is fun and awesome, but I believe you’re going to get it wrong every time if you start from the white knight/black king line.

Because in all other situations, Nate is not the king.

Couple important things about kings in chess: 1. They don’t move much. They can only move one space at a time, and for most of the game they stay in their own little box, well guarded by other pieces. This is because 2. When the king is checkmated (threatened with capture and no possible escape), it’s game over. There is no more hope. This is the sole requirement for losing the game. No matter who else is in play, if the king is down, you lose.

This is NOT how Nate operates. Yeah, he makes the plans, but he doesn’t just hide in the office while everybody else carries them out. He’s almost always right up in there playing the most obnoxious guy you’ve ever met or smashing windows or something. And if Nate gets captured, it’s not game over, in fact, it often isn’t even a PROBLEM. Let’s look at a few times that happens, just for fun: - In The King George Job, Nate’s getting beat up and Eliot slightly panics and is about to run to help, when Sophie says “NOPE, don’t do that, I can fix this without blowing our cover” and saunters in at her leisure. The jig isn’t up and she’s not even particularly concerned about him getting punched. I love it. - In the Maltese Falcon Job, Nate sacrifices himself to save the team. This is a classic thing to do in chess and chess metaphors, but, I cannot stress this enough, you cannot sacrifice your king. That’s just called LOSING. -In The Long Goodbye Job of course the whole con is structured around Nate getting caught. I guess this one kind of makes sense because the whole point is to look like they HAVE completely lost, but then at the end it appears that Nate’s going to secret prison and everyone else is escaping WITH the black book, so they STILL would be losing Nate but winning the job.

So if Nate isn’t the king, who is?

Hardison.

Let’s look at our points about kings again:

1. Doesn’t move as far or as quickly: Yes, Hardison ALSO gets out there and participates in the cons, everybody does. But Hardison does stay in the background more often, because that’s where his power is. He does the behind the scenes tech stuff and the remote stuff, he can wreck your shop without showing up through the power of the internet. He also does the forgeries of identities and objects, which are also done in his own space. At the same time, he has less physical power and less range -- you don’t want him in a fistfight, or a gunfight, and his grifts are notorious for being a little. . . uh. . . interesting. So he has limited physical range and power but at the same time. . . .

2. The game is over if you lose him. That far-reaching behind the scenes power is absolutely vital for 90% of the jobs. He does the massive amounts of research and hacking legwork needed just to START a job, even before you get to actually completing the job. You are pretty much dead in the water without Hardison. But that’s just from a practical standpoint. Losing Hardison is also a crisis from an emotional standpoint. He’s our moral compass and our sweet baby brother and when Hardison gets in trouble there is no “well he’ll be fine for a few minutes” and no “well he kinda had it coming.” No, when Hardison is in trouble everything else grinds to a halt and everyone comes running. (See: The Experimental Job, The Grave Danger Job, The Long Goodbye Job.)

So like, yes Nate is in charge. But the king isn’t in charge on a chessboard, the king is just a piece with a very unique role, which Hardison fills much better than Nate does. So, now that we have our real king, who are our other pieces?

Queen: Parker. This has nothing to do with her dating Hardison. The thing about the queen is she can do a little bit of everything -- she can move in any direction, making her the most dangerous piece on the board. Parker’s whole character arc is about learning all the different roles and how to access the whole playing field. She’s the only one who plans and executes an entire episode-length job by herself (okay, with a little help from her girlfriend). Plus, the other cool thing about a queen is she has a built-in transformation story -- a pawn that crosses the board can become a queen, which Parker mimics by initially being dismissed as “the crazy one” and ultimately becoming the mastermind.

Knight: Sophie. I know, I wanted Eliot to be the horsie too, but this makes more sense. The knight’s deal is that it’s sneaky -- it’s the only piece that can turn corners -- and it can jump over obstacles. Sophie’s whole philosophy of grifting is that she shouldn’t need to know about safes or security systems, she should be able to bypass (jump over) all that by insinuating herself with the mark (being sneaky by playing a character to get behind enemy lines)

Rook: Eliot. This is the straightforward one -- it goes in a straight line. It also literally represents the castle walls. It’s also so, so fucking helpful to have around, I fucking hate losing my rooks. It’s your solid right hand man, basically. Is this a little reductive of Eliot? Absolutely, but I’m jamming five complex characters into five predetermined boxes, it’s not all gonna be nuanced. And I think Mr. Punchy would like being seen as the fortress that everybody depends on, and to let all the nuance go under the radar. That’s where he likes it.

Bishop: Finally, here’s where Nate is hiding. While the rook can only go straight (lol), the bishop can only go diagonally. Nothing can be straightforward for the bishop, he always has to come at things from an angle. Like, you know, constantly looking at all the different angles of a situation and finding the right angle to come at a mark from. Also, the bishops sit right in the middle right next to the king and queen. I don’t know that this is historically accurate, but when my dad taught me to play he told me that was because the bishops were important councilors to the rulers, they were the ones who had important wisdom that would tell them the best plan of attack. So the king here isn’t necessarily the one making the plans -- that’s the bishop. And finally, apparently the bishop is called lots of different things in other languages, but we’re operating in English, which means it makes Nate a priest, and that makes me happy.

#leverage #nate ford #alec hardison #parker leverage #eliot spencer #sophie devereaux #chess #seriously what kind of divine intervention happened in my sleep #i feel like some god beat me up and then threw the manuscript of this post at me before disappearing #is this an odin thing #might be an odin thing

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yoyomarules · 3 years ago

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While recognising that Hardison likes Parker for exactly who she is right off the bat, and Nate clearly sees leadership potential in her from early on, and Sophie is quick to notice and empathise when Parker lets herself be vulnerable with the team, I’m really enjoying thinking about Eliot being the first to have total faith that Parker’s going to come through in a crisis.

In fairness he doesn’t have a lot of choice, because it’s a specific crisis and it’s his ass on the line. It’s a mistiming, or their timing is based on misinformation, old information, something—no one’s fault, just shitty luck. Bound to happen sometime. He’s trapped a dozen floors up, alarms blaring around him, and Hardison is in his ear and he’s apologising and apologising.

‘It’s okay,’ Eliot says. A part of him is panicking; a bigger part of him is ruthlessly shutting the first part down, doors slamming on the fear and stress and other emotions that aren’t helpful right now. ‘Just—can you find me another way out?’

‘They’ve locked down the elevators at the other side of the building,’ Hardison says. ‘I’m trying to override the security, but it’s—it’s gonna take me a second.’

‘Define a second.’

‘I—I don’t know, man, I’m sorry; I’m working as fast as I can, but I don’t—’

‘Okay,’ Eliot interrupts. ‘How many guys headed up here right now?’

There’s a pause. ‘Thirteen.’

Eliot grimaces. ‘Unlucky for some.’

Here it is: thirteen guys is… doable, if you’re a hitter of Eliot’s calibre. But probably not in an open space. If he goes to the other end of the building, and Hardison doesn’t get the elevator running in time, they’ll be on him from all sides.

If he heads back the way he’d originally planned, though, meets them in the tight, narrow stairwell and takes them out one by one, he stands a decent chance.

But a fight like that, with the likelihood of bullets ricocheting and the long drop over the railing… well, odds are someone’s going to get pretty seriously hurt, or worse. And it won’t be Eliot.

‘Get the elevators working,’ he says, turning. ‘I’m headed there now.’

‘No,’ Parker says suddenly. ‘Eliot, go up two floors; head for Simmons’ office.’

‘What?’ Eliot asks, thrown.

‘Trust me,’ Parker urges.

His feet are moving before he even really thinks about it; he’s racing up the stairs, trying to discern from the pounding of feet how many floors below him the mark’s security team is.

‘Parker, that’s fourteen floors up,’ Nate says, a warning note in his voice. ‘You didn’t stash a rig in there, by any chance, did you?’

‘No,’ Parker says. ‘Eliot’s gonna make one right now.’

The others erupt.

‘No way, too risky!’ comes Sophie’s frantic voice.

‘She’s right. I mean, Parker, those rigs, they take you days to build; even if he had all the equipment Eliot only has about five minutes—’ Nate says.

‘Look, I’m working on the elevator, man, just—’ begins Hardison.

‘Everyone except Parker shut up,’ Eliot snaps, locking himself in their mark’s office and jamming a heavy filing cabinet up against the door. ‘I’m here. Talk me through it.’

‘Start with every computer wire you can get your hands on,’ she says.

‘Ohh, Parker, I really hope you know what you’re doing,’ Sophie moans.

‘She knows what she’s doing,’ Eliot says, and gets to work.

There is a moment, when he’s crouched on the window ledge with a rig assembled in record time from office supplies, where the stark reality of how insane this is is staring him in the face, but he manages to not say that out loud when Parker asks him how he’s feeling.

‘Fine. I did it all just like you told me.’

‘I’m not there,’ she says. ‘I can’t check it. You’re the one about to rappel down a building with this thing, so tell me: how do you feel?’

He closes a hand around the braided wires and series of knots standing between him and a very nasty drop and breathes out. ‘I’m okay. And I trust you.’

It’s the first time he’s realised it. Trust in the team as a whole, sure, he’s accepted that he feels that by now. Trust in Nate as a leader? The guy can be a real son of a bitch, but that was never in doubt.

But every instinct his career has ever instilled in him tells him not to trust things until he can understand how they work, and it’s taken him a while to understand Parker.

If she realises they’re having a moment, here, she doesn’t show it.

‘Okay, you need to take it slow,’ she says.

‘Uh, but not that slow ’cause security just got to your floor,’ Hardison adds.

Eliot hears someone’s shoulder slam against the office door, grits his teeth, and lowers himself out the window.

It can only take seconds for him to make it to the bottom of the building, but it feels like hours. Parker informs him at regular intervals what bones he’d be likely to break and how badly if he were to fall right now, which is weirdly comforting, because at a certain point it stops being “neck, fatally” and becomes “arm, six weeks to heal”, and then, when she’s assuring him he’d probably just sprain an ankle by now, he hears yelling from the office he’s just left and lets his descent continue a little faster, landing with a hard thud on the ground.

He fumbles with the knots but Parker’s there immediately, cutting him free of the harness and yanking him to his feet as Lucille screeches to a stop in front of them.

Hardison tackles him the second he’s in the van, and honestly if Hardison finds it comforting to hug him right now then who’s Eliot to take that away from him? Sophie’s asking from the passenger seat if he’s okay, and Nate’s talking about regrouping as he pulls out into the traffic.

Parker is watching him from the other side of the van.

‘Hey,’ he says to her, after a moment. ‘Nice teamwork.’

‘It was mostly on you,’ she says.

He shakes his head. ‘I can do a lot of things but I ain’t ever used a stapler to make a belay device before.’

‘And you never will again,’ Sophie says severely over her shoulder. ‘That was absolutely terrifying.’

‘It was fine,’ Eliot says.

‘Hey, you’ve never asked how I feel before pushing me out a window,’ Hardison complains to Parker.

She rolls her eyes. ‘That’s because you’d never go. And I know my rigs are safe.’

‘Yeah, man, I’d better not hear you bitching about that ever again,’ Eliot says. ‘Parts of that thing were held together with duct tape, okay—’

‘Oh, please stop talking about it,’ Sophie begs. ‘Really, I feel slightly queasy.’

‘I’m just saying, no more complaining about reinforced steel.’

‘’Scuse you,’ Hardison says. ‘I’ll complain about whatever I damn well please.’

‘Course you will,’ Eliot says, trying and failing to keep the fondness out of his voice.

‘Hardison,’ Nate calls, ‘if we change direction a little here, I’m thinking maybe move to the Shanghai Songbird con, how soon could you change Sophie’s cover story to plausibly explain why she’s now in charge of shipping for a piano company?’

Hardison huffs and goes to lean in between Nate and Sophie. ‘First of all, what the hell is the Shanghai Songbird con? Second of all—’

Eliot smiles, shaking his head, and looks over at Parker again. She’s pulled her knees to her chest, and her eyes are still on him. ‘Parker,’ he says. ‘Thank you for getting me out of there. I owe you.

She lifts a shoulder. ‘No, you don’t. Like you said, we’re a team. It’s what we do.’

‘Yeah,’ he says, and he’s about to weigh in on the argument currently taking place between Hardison, Nate and Sophie when Parker speaks again.

‘Thanks,’ she says quickly, picking imaginary dust off her knees. ‘For trusting me.’

So she did realise they were having a moment.

He nods, offering her a small smile. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Yeah, always.’

#my fic #leverage fic #parker x eliot #leverage #a fun thing about writing leverage fic is you don't need to worry about whether they could pull off this highly improbable thing #the answer is probably 'eh they'd figure it out'#set the bar by stealing a michelangelo with foil and gum #nonetheless please don't try this at home

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onyxbird · 3 years ago

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Hell AU thoughts after re-reading the bit about the Nigerian Job and other team payouts in @darkfinch's early posts on the idea, and what happens to Eliot's share of the money.

The Nigerian Job payout is probably a loss.

Moreau would have known about the initial promised paycheck from Dubenich, and Eliot would have to explain what happened when everything went pear-shaped, with the fact that they punished Dubenich and made a fortune off his demise being one of the strongest arguments that Eliot made the right call in sticking it out rather than abandoning the others and going back to Moreau to plan to bury Dubenich in their own way.

Plus, even if Moreau didn't know about the final payout, Eliot still considered himself to be solidly Moreau's at that point, and he'd be playing with fire if he tried to deliberately hide the funds, even if he were tempted.

Money from later in Leverage's operations is a different story.

They don't charge a standard fee that would come in at predictable intervals that Moreau would miss. Often most or all of what they steal goes directly to their clients or other victims. But, Eliot would still have the problem of being able to hide any money he received well enough to ensure Moreau would never find out.

What if he never got the money, though? What if, after a few times of the team getting a payout (with Eliot's portion dutifully handed over to Moreau), he "casually" tells Hardison to put his portion towards something else? Maybe something for their offices. Or something extra to help some of the victims. Or just to donate to some charity ("No, I don't want any receipts! Do it anonymously! I don't want that linked back to me!"). Anything to redirect it to somewhere it'll do some good rather than fund Moreau, without it ever touching Eliot's accounts.

Hardison knows something is up. Eliot's being awfully weird about it, and seems really unhappy for someone taking the opportunity to donate a whole heap of money to worthy causes because he thinks it'll do more good there. But Eliot's snappish when he tries to ask anything, so Hardison obligingly distributes Eliot's share as instructed and just starts paying a little more attention to what he can see of Eliot's finances.

And it's weird. Eliot's doesn't spend much; he doesn't have a ton of apparently expensive stuff, but the only accounts he ever seems to touch don't have a ton in them either. (Relatively speaking--he's always got ample funds, but not "this guy is worth 10s of millions of dollars" ample.) As far as a virtual footprint goes, it's like Eliot's first payout and any other significant savings just don't exist, unless he cashed it out and stored it in gold bullion or something.

So after a couple instances of Eliot not accepting his share, Hardison very casually floats a "Sure, man. But you haven't taken anything from the last 3 payouts--you sure you don't need to top up any of your emergency funds or anything? I can split it up any way you want."

Eliot's face does something really weird in response to that, and Hardison knows he's on to something. He doesn't know what is going on, but whatever it is, Eliot's not giving the money away just because he's feeling flush and charitable. So Hardison pushes a little. "Look, I can drop it into a brand-new account if you still don't trust me with your emergency accounts. You can move it wherever you like from there."

Eliot never touches the money in the new account.

He can't, since he says he'll get the account info from Hardison "later" and then never does. Hardison doesn't bring it up--he knows Eliot hasn't forgotten about the account, because every time there's a team payout, he tells Hardison how much to put in the "emergency account" versus something else. If he hasn't asked the account info, it's because he doesn't want to be able to access it.

Eliot asked for the balance once, as they gathered for the first new job after a break, seeming kind of stressed. Hardison told him and asked if he needed the account info. "Oh, not now. I'll get it from you later."

So Hardison just keeps maintaining the account. He makes sure the identity linked to it is squeaky clean and the taxes are paid. He spins off a couple of other accounts as it grows so the money isn't all in one place where it could all be drained by a single attack.

At some point after the truth comes out, he asks if Eliot wants the account details now. Eliot's a little shocked that Hardison is still willing to hand it over after his betrayal. He's even more surprised by how much money there is after all this time. (Eliot's pretty sure that there is more money than there should be. Hardison refuses to comment.)

#eliot spencer #alec hardison #undercover eliot au #we have never had a hitter (that wasn't actually moreau's) au #leverage aus

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darkfinch · 3 years ago

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Okay. First off fuck you for this au it lives rent free now. Second, i cant get the thought of Eliot trying to get his head around the whole ’id rather Hardison be dead than Me’ thing and THEN i thought about the nate or parker knows!au and Eliot being so tangled up in his own head and stress and panic that he goes to either parker or nate and just. Tells them everything he can. Like ‘this is my line. I didn’t know i had it but its here how do I stop this’

If Nate’s the one who knows there’s definitely a level of- I want to say surrender? No matter if they are ’the good guys’ this is still him telling a mastermind that already has reasons to distrust him Exactly which buttons will make him fold and come to heel.

Parker, telling parker is much more about how do we stop this/protect him and involves both or them kinda placing the implications of why Eliot categorically Cannot let this happen to the side until things(hardison) are safer

first: ur welcome <3

second OH YOU'RE SO CORRECT oh this is compelling...like up until then he's been sitting with the weight of the knowledge that, yeah, at any given moment moreau might have him kill these people he's started to care about. at any given moment eliot might mess up and moreau might hurt all of them, might kill all of them, eliot included, and that's just something he's been carrying and dealing with and of course being very sleep deprived about but. he's done worse to people. he's had worse happen. he's fine

and then moreau shows interest in having hardison come meet him, in person, and for eliot to bring him there, not to kill him but to Keep him, and suddenly every single alarm in his brain starts going off at once and it's the fastest reshuffling of priorities in his Life

like. okay. it's fine if his cover's blown and moreau kills him or moreau kills all of them, it's fine, that's fine, but moreau is not recruiting alec hardison, and he doesn't care what he has to do to make sure of that

so nate has the deeply bewildering and frankly terrifying experience of having known violence-doer eliot spencer show up at his place at 4:36 AM, flick all the lights on, and say, "we need to talk"

[i personally think he would confess to Parker if it was to get something off of his chest, or to have SOMEONE in his corner, or because she figures it out on her own and he's just too worn down to lie to her about it, but like. for this specifically, for this being an Impending Doom Scenario TM, i think eliot makes a beeline for the nearest Person In Charge Of Him like i am a threat to the team, here's my metaphorical leash, help me]

#like it's a panic response and he can't go to moreau because moreau's the source of the panic #so he goes to nate and is like. do whatever you have to do. tell me to do whatever. you're the mastermind help me fucking fix this #like the con doesnt matter and their opinions of him don't matter and what happens to him doesnt matter because the priorities have changed #Make Sure This Specific Thing Doesn't Happen To Alec Hardison is now above everything else #so he doesn't need to go to parker for Advice he is burning down this entire grift he is going to nate and handing himself over #and trusting that nate will be able to find a way to protect hardison while eliot like. runs interference or Something #he's giving nate context so nate can think and tell eliot what to do!! panic response. anyway v compelled by this #finchtalks #undercover eliot au #wait hang on i'm still talking. i think our CURRENT eliot in REAL canon would go to parker first #or would try to fix it on his own #but WORST AU eliot is Moreau's Eliot specifically #and so would be like. nate gives orders im going to nate etc

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wolves-in-the-world · 3 years ago

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unintended benefit of the setup in quinn was almost always there AU with the captive situation / obvious bickering in front of the team / "I am untying you for transport only please don't make this difficult, yes sophie will get you more tea when we get there, we're not jackasses" stuff going on is that there is some team awareness about the situation that quinn and eliot met in. the team know Something about it. quinn was hired to do something to or against eliot and decided not to for some reason. eliot owes him for that. eliot is invested because of that, to a unique degree. Something.

and quinn doesn't have to be a genius to figure out it's a private topic, but that first day was… a bit hectic, alright. quinn wasn't expecting to stick around the team, neither of them ever expected or planned to be anywhere near moreau again. it wasn't meant to be a problem that they let a few things slip.

but the team Knows Something. so I'd say it gets halfway through season three before they're picking up on enough weirdness (eliot visibly stressed, quinn paying more attention in briefings) that nate just looks over at them during a planning session like alright, it's time we knew.

and eliot is just deer-in-the-headlights, not moving an inch but his body language suddenly all screaming shame. he should be planning exit strategies but he's just staring at this team he's been lucky enough to get and won't possibly be lucky enough to keep; he was hoping to get through this and find a way to act (but he hadn't been doing anything, had he, it's just that moreau knows him too well and every time he tried to plan-)

and it's quinn snapping at nate on eliot's behalf that snaps him out of it.

or rather, would snap him out of it. would be enough. by itself.

probably.

but first quinn tosses his current book at the back of eliot's head, and eliot flinches so hard with it he's standing up and swearing at quinn, and he has to keep standing and pace a few steps to avoid feeling trapped like that again. while quinn calmly defends him.

(sometimes the best tricks for dealing with occupational hitter trauma are dirty ones. quinn's not ashamed.)

so the team finds out. it sucks and it's awful but the team knows eliot's been lying to them for months and quinn's been enabling it. what they know because of quinn and what he chose to fill in for them helps. eliot clearly isn't betraying them, it's kinda scary that he might just never have told them, that he, what, might have just gone off and killed moreau while they were still planning to take him down properly; nate's looking at him very sharply sometimes and quinn's taken to only reading paperbacks just in case—

and maybe there's a talk, an awful talk, about how eliot can't be useful to them as eliot-spencer-the-reputation if he's known to break confidentiality. maybe quinn being there helps a bit. because eliot is steadfast, is loyal, is some sort of honourable despite everything he's done and been through. quinn is more practical. if quinn shrugs and says that's what the hitter world's like, they'll believe him.

or maybe eliot breaks it. maybe they take moreau down quick enough it doesn't matter or maybe they damn the consequences.

but hardison doesn't take any risk without first knowing the lay of the land. none of the team take any risk at all without quinn being there as extra backup.

they keep eliot away from the bastard, but quinn gets to see moreau again in san lorenzo, showing up at the end with general flores and michael vittori. (quinn was technically present during that awful gloating videochat, yes, but he was reading in the corner at first and decided to keep that advantage.) moreau takes one look at him, looking like this is just the icing on the insult cake that has been his entire day, and says "you? seriously?"

there's probably a rule against decking people in the face when they're being taken into lifelong custody, but nobody told quinn he couldn't.

#qwat au #qwaat au #quinn was almost always there au #oops I took a craft knife and rearranged season three again #me picking up a new toy and taking it directly to the Less Trauma zone #season three is a lot okay!!#I am v undecided on eliot and confidentiality! apologies. why is he like that. if he is like that.#thinking back on my amateur trauma research like 'could that book thing actually work? possibly yes. oh dear.'#long post

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fandomfoodiedancer · 3 years ago

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It’s Always the Quiet Ones

summary: When on a con with Eliot a few secrets are shared

warnings: fighting, smut

a/n: posted at 2 am for me, sorry it’s unedited. :)

You shifted in bed, nervous about how the con would go down. The mark had several henchmen, and this con wouldn't happen without a fight. You knew Eliot would be safe, he always is, but you couldn't stand the idea of him getting hurt. But him finding out about you seemed worse. Throwing back the covers, you shuffled into your flannel pyjama pants and bunny slippers, taking comfort in the softness before grabbing your book and heading downstairs and across the hall to Nate's living room.

After becoming a family with the leverage team, and once Hardison bought the building of the Boston pub, you had moved into an apartment that connected with Nate's. An apartment that you also shared with Eliot and Hardison, whilst Parker had a room if she wanted it, but usually chose to sleep in her warehouse. It was fun sharing an apartment with your closest friends, but made you extra nervous at times as you hoped Eliot wouldn't find out how you felt about him.

Curling up on the lounge, you opened your book, immersing yourself in its world, losing all your stresses. Faint footsteps cam closer to your seat, but you only bothered to look up when a shoulder brushed yours.

“What're you doing up so late sweetheart?” Eliot's voice was gravelly, as if you had woken him up when you turned the kettle on for a cup of peppermint tea.

“I just couldn't sleep” There was something about Eliot that made you open up to him, even when you usually wouldn't. “I'm worried about the con tomorrow. I know this guy won't go down without a fight and I know he has dozens of people working for him. I just don't want you to get hurt”

Wrapping his arm around you, Eliot sighed, warmed by how much you cared but also wanting to laugh. He had been through so much, a few goons wouldn't be the end of him.

“Y/n, I'll be alright, it's my job. Yes I throw the punches, but I know how to take them too. I'll be fine, don't worry about me”

Snuggling into him, you nodded and tried to think of something to say until you softly fell asleep on him, leaving Eliot to pick up your book and take a chance reading it for himself.

“Fuck”

You were cornered by thugs. Eliot was beside you, but there were about fifteen of them, slowly walking closer to you both. When the con started to turn bad and the mark got suspicious, Eliot needed help with the distraction. Clearly it had worked too well. Taking in a deep breath, you released a part of you that you had kept secret, held in the back of your mind in hopes of forgetting it, forgetting where it came from and why it was there. Searching through the goons, you found him. The typical thug, tall, body builder type muscles that aren't too useful and next to nothing behind his eyes. Yep, this was the guy to knock down first. Consider it a warm up. Get fucked bitches. With that you felt your past self slip onto you like a warm worn through coat. As you stalked towards your prey, you saw his eyes flash with uncertainty. Now was the time to hit. Eliot must've seen it in another thugs eyes, throwing the first punch.

Hooking your arm around the closest guys neck, you pulled him down, forcing him to bend his legs, where you climbed onto his knee then shoulder, throwing yourself towards your prey as you hit his temple with your elbow on impact, quickly catching your own landing. One was already down, thirteen left thanks to Eliot. The fight went fast and you used every bit of knowledge you knew. Go for the soft point to distract, then hit them hard where it counts. A kick to the nuts and a knee to the forehead. Catch their punch, twist their arm, use their momentum to swing yourself onto their shoulders black widow style and cut off their air way until they pass out. Kick behind the knee and fan kick to the head. Most of your fighting used your legs, as you had more muscle there than in your arms. Soon enough there were a pile of thugs at both of your feet as Eliot stared at you. Unsure what to tell him, you called an ambulance for the unconscious men, hoping you hadn't given them concussions or brain damage. You'd never had to fight that hard, or knock many people out so you hoped they were alright. They may have been 'baddies' but they didn't deserve a hard life or to die.

“You should've seen her man!” Eliot practically yelled at Hardison as everyone drove back to Nate's apartment in Lucille. Apparently you'd left an impression on him, as he told the team in almost exaggerated detail how the pair of you fought together.

“Are you for real? Little miss loves-reading-and-fluffy-blankets, who cries at romantic comedies-”

“That's because some of them are really beautiful and you know it!” You cut in needing to defend yourself, but Hardison continued.

“-can hold her own in a fight. You know, I've got to watch this footage. Gimme a sec” If it wasn't for Nate driving you feel Hardison would have pulled over to check. Within seconds the security camera footage showed everyone but Nate how you fought.

“Damn girl! Maybe you should be teaching Eliot” This made Parker snicker as he slapped Hardison's shoulder in agreement. Were you really that good? Apparently so considering the sound affects Parker and Eliot were making as they re-watched the footage.

The soft sound of Notting Hill filled the living room as you and Eliot swapped ice packs for the different bruises.

“Eliot?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you, um, do you think of me any differently now that you know I can fight?” This is what made you nervous. Would he care? Would he ask about your past?

“Honestly? No. You're still you. You're funny and smart and cheesy, you still love making history puns and laugh at your own bad jokes. So, you might've been through some stuff to know how to fight like that but I don't see you any different. At least, not in a bad way” A small smirk made you curious.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I mean, come on. You're already one of the most beautiful women on the planet, but watching you fight. Damn. That was hot of hell.”

“You're only saying that because your on your fourth beer of the night”

“Nah, I've thought it for awhile, I just needed a bit of liquid courage to say it”

You held your breath, hoping it was true. For once you shut down your anxiety and acted without caution, brushing back a loose hair of his and cupping his cheek, hovering for a second before kissing him. Not waiting a second, Eliot kissed you like adding wood to a fire, feeling the heat and passion as you pressed into each other, shifting onto his lap.

Between kissing you somehow ended up in his room, holding each other close. His rough hands pressed into your hips and he pushed you against the wall.

“y/n, I'm only going to ask this once because you're sexy as hell right now. Are you sure you want to do this?” There was a lot of lust in his blue eyes, but past that was a sense of compassion and love. You knew you wanted this, and you knew how.

“Yes, I'm certain Eliot. And, um, I feel a bit embarrassed saying this, especially considering everyone thinks I'm some delicate innocent thing, but we don't need to be gentle if you get what I mean.” This made him chuckle. Of course you'd find such an awkward way of asking to be rough. Just when you started to internally face palm, feeling like you killed the mood, he pressed you further against the wall, sliding a thigh between your legs, making you bite your lip as he whispered “Oh baby, I can do that. I'm going to make you fall apart, feel so amazing. Tell me if you need me to stop or if anything gets too much”. Placing a kiss to your neck he pulled away, stripping his shirt off as you rushed to take off your top and bra. In between kisses you both lost the rest of your clothes and soon you were tangled on the bed. Your hands in his hair, pulling slightly, eliciting a groan from him as he ran a finger through your folds.

“Oh honey, you're so wet for me”

“Eliot, please don't tease me. Normally I'm all for foreplay, but I need you right now”

“I can do that sweetheart” You nearly melted from the nickname.

Lining up with your entrance, Eliot cupped your cheek tenderly, kissing your forehead, your chin, your cheeks and your nose as he pressed into you. A loud moan came out before you could stop it, as Eliot quickly covered your mouth, remembering that this was a shared apartment.

“We've got to be quiet baby, don't want to wake everyone up.” All you could do was nod, as he stretched you, and started a fast pace. His thrusts were merciless, pounding into you hard and fast, rough exactly as you wanted. Your nails raked down his back as you kept your moans as quiet as possible. Sliding a hand down between your bodies, Eliot started to play with your clit, swirling in circles. You both fell apart in ecstasy, wrapped up in each others arms. Catching your breath you curled into Eliot, finally letting exhaustion take over after 30 hours without sleep. Just before you passed out, you heard a faint whisper.

“I love you, y/n.”

Tag list: @being-worthy @wannabemarlenabutiscoraline

#eliot spencer x reader #eliot spencer smut #eliot x reader smut #eliot x reader #leverage fanfiction

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