#and they would know that even with hardison not around

[aardvaark]

expanding on that post about sophie devereaux backstories, grift ones and real ones and the things in between:

a year or two after they meet, tara and sophie are somewhere near drunk in a hotel room after a con, high heels thrown against the wall, dresses unzipped and halfway off. tara asks for her Story. the Story. and maybe she wouldn’t have asked if she were sober or maybe tara is simply a little too bloody brave sometimes, a little too determined.

so sophie tells her about a father in the military, a mother who died young, a family that moved houses, towns, regions, countries, all the time growing up. about lying to impress kids at every new school. about desperately doing almost anything to fit in for the months or year she’d stay in that area. about sweet talking her way out of a few little crimes here and there, cash that she would certainly never steal from her rich friends’ parents’ wallets, some driving rules she broke when she was too young to even have a license, yet old enough for a cop to encourage her flirting. sophie tells tara that her father died when she was 19, and the grief had led to recklessness. she made a mistake on a too-ballsy grift. she would’ve gone to jail. instead, she faked her death (for the first of many times) and never looked back. it’s the only funeral of hers that she didn’t attend.

and then, tara told her an equally untrue Story in return.

when sophie is duchess charlotte prentiss, her husband william asks far too many questions about her past. of course, charlotte has a Story. all of her aliases have Stories, even the ones she only uses for a day - they all have birthdays, childhood pets, first kisses, people they love. so she tells him that her parents died in a car crash when she was 16 and instead of going into the foster system, the authorities figured she was old enough to become an emancipated minor. she tells him how it was difficult at times, incredible at others, and sad and exciting and embarrassing and bittersweet. she weaves a damn good tale about charlottes life, if she may say so herself - one that’s just painful enough for william to stop asking questions. it works perfectly. but when she tucks astrid into bed that night, and the little girl looks up at her with big round eyes and asks if ‘charlotte’ misses her mummy and daddy and says that she’s sad for ‘charlotte’ because she knows what it’s like to miss a mama… sophie freezes. there’s a lump in her throat and goosebumps on her skin. she blinks down the tears and recovers just enough to fake a smile and kiss astrid’s forehead as she leaves the room. lying has never hurt like this before. it takes all her strength to shut it down, shove the emotions in some tiny box in her head that she simply refuses to acknowledge. she decides, then, that she has to leave this house as soon as possible.

the charlotte Story is one of many that hardison finds. it’s inevitable, when he has to cover all their tracks so thoroughly, that hardison would stumble upon various old aliases. he only learns about the charlotte one from the job in england - there’s no links between her and sophie, but he destroys a decent amount of excess duchess charlotte prentiss information just in case, and then looks for any other mysterious women who happened to pop up or vanish around that time. he notices that there are some things that all of sophie’s aliases share: their parents are dead, they have no siblings, and their life changed dramatically somehow in their mid-to-late teens (usually with those parents’ deaths, or gaining an inheritance, or moving far away). he knows that these are all pretty standard, convenient details for a fake identity. but he wonders, sometimes. couldn’t she have made up dead siblings? estranged but alive parents? a dramatic event in her early childhood or in her twenties? he doesn’t know if the consistent parts mean anything. he doesn’t ask for her Story - not outright, at least. though for the first couple months of knowing her, he does sometimes enquire about little things here and there. did she grow up with sisters, what was her high school like - that sort of stuff. information is his thing, sue him! sometimes sophie just smiles. sometimes she answers, and he eventually learns that her truths, at least, are very much relative. when he decides that she is family - which is pretty early on, to be honest - he also decides not to ask anymore. he destroys old aliases when necessary, but he never reads more than he has to. he loves sophie and that is enough.

eliot never asks anything about her life. not even the innocent, casual, unthinking questions that sophie is used to from other people: where’d you grow up? did you ever have any pets? i always had to share a room with my sister, what about you? eliot clearly avoids asking her any of it. she’s somewhat surprised by that. sure, he’s polite, but he’s also suspicious both by nature and due to certain unfortunate experiences, so she sort of expected him to interrogate her when they first met.

one night, they’re the last two left at nate’s apartment. even nate had gone to bed and left them there, long given up on shooing his team out at appropriate times. sophie’s been drinking tea and flipping through a latvian phrase book to refresh her memory for tomorrow’s grift, and apparently that 90-minute-a-day sleep schedule allows for eliot to be doing one-handed push ups in the living room at this ungodly hour. too tired to retain any more information, sophie studies eliot instead. he’s a straightforward guy. she decides to be straightforward too. she breaks the silence of the apartment and simply asks - is he ever curious about her Story? eliot pauses a moment. looks her in the eye, quiet. doesn’t brush her off gruffly like she thought he might. instead, he asks if she’s ever curious about What He’s Done. that is answer enough for the both of them. they don’t talk for the rest of the night, each going back to their own activities, but the silence isn’t uncomfortable. on the contrary - the mutual understanding ends up solidifying their relationship.

nate isn’t always so intensely careful about his questions like eliot. well, actually, there were many times back in his insurance days that he very much did ask her questions on purpose. and of course, for five years, he asks after her real name. sophie generally thinks of it as a fun game. she smiles at his useless determination and teases him when he comes back from jail. after a while, though, she realizes that the questions about her Story mostly stopped when leverage formed, and stop completely once he proposed. nate never hears any version of her Story. she’s here now, and that’s all he needs or wants to know - just like how sophie is her real name in any way that matters.

the moment that sophie realizes this is the moment she stops caring about the real Story, the burden of the secret and the guilt and shame of keeping it from her newfound family. in that moment, she understands that what happened back then is just a small drop in the ocean, irrelevant to the life she’s built and come to love. she never tells them the story, and she never needs to.

[suddenrundown]

Parker braiding eliot's hair in season 2 please and thank you

[harveen-denzel]

Writing a leverage episode in my head. It's wonderful.

[leverage-ot3]

okay I absolutely get and adore harry being oblivious about ot3 developments, but consider:

after breanna makes it explicitly clear she’s queer in the card game job, harry starts Researching™

he’s trying to be good, be better. he likes this girl and wants to be there to support her and be her friend, someone she can trust. it doesn’t help that she’s around the same age as his daughter, who barely wants to associate with him anymore

he learns breanna is queer and dives into researching. watching TED talks in his spare time. reading ebooks on his phone in between playing roles in a con (bringing a physical book is less convenient and he doesn’t want to wave around the fact that he’s researching like he’s trying to be performative about it). he reads about legislation and book bans and wonders about how they could work their magic through a con to fix those things. he reads about asexuality and recognizes the flag colors from the sticker on breanna’s laptop, which he files away for later

he learns a lot! he has been peripherally aware of queer stuff- it’s kind of hard not to be in the 2020s, but now he is much more informed on a lot of issues. he has memorized at least 50 different labels and terms and has an index of resources in his head (and on his phone) if anyone might need them. he wants to understand the people he loves and cares about, whether it’s breanna or one of his daughter’s friends, or anyone in his life that is queer and he doesn’t know it yet. he wants to be ready and prepared to support them!

he learns about sapphicness and bisexuality and intersex rights and the gender spectrum. he learns about karyotypes and stonewall and other queer history. he learns about kink (blushing, but still reads because it’s important!) and relationship diversity… which leads him to discover the term polyamory

he tries not to actively apply the terms he has learned on the people in his life because he knows it’s wrong to assume things about other people. BUT. harry spends a few days reflecting on parker, hardison and eliot’s interactions and wonders. he thinks about the long hugs and lack of personal space and near telepathic communication not just between parker and hardison, but parker and eliot AND hardison and eliot. how parker knows how to make eliot take care of himself, how he knows when she forgets to eat because she’s so hyperfixated on planning a con. how parker jumps on his back for fun and no matter what, he always catches her. hardison’s absence is felt when he’s gone, deeply by the both of them.

it could just be a deep friendship, he knows. they have been working and living together for over a decade, of course they would be close!!! maybe they could even be queerplatonic! (another new word he learned!)

but. still. he quietly observes, watches closely, and thinks.

[faorism]

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

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

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

[geekynightowl1997]

Okay, somebody can correct me if I'm wrong- but at the end of The Nigerian Job, when the team was convincing Nate that they should keep doing what they did- Eliot's whole argument was Nate. Nate falling apart. Nate needing the chance. Nate not being able to walk away. Nate.

Then, suddenly Eliot became the whole team's body guard. (Something he's grunt and gruffed about.) Yet. Yet. Somewhere (I say it was The Iceman Job and The Inside Job,) Eliot's brain switched from protecting the team to protecting Hardison and Parker. (Again correct me if I'm wrong.) Suddenly his job became more about having Hardison and Parker's back than having Nate's back. Maybe I'm the only one whose noticed- but Eliot become more softer with both Hardison and Parker after those particular jobs. Sure he keeps that gruff, sarcastic wit about him but there's often tones of... protectivness(?) when he interacts with them. Almost like he's telling other people around them- whose in ear shot- that Hardison and Parker are his. Like he's possessive.

Now, I'm not saying Eliot just stops caring about the rest of the team. I mean- he beats up Sterling for Nate and in Redemption Eliot is following Sophie around a handful of times. Their are even times where he has Breanna's back and Harry's. But he seems to treat those situations like a case. He compartmentalizes those situations. With Hardison and Parker- he doesn't. It's like his brain won't let him. He sees Hardison and Parker and it's like- all bets are off.

And on the flip side- has anyone noticed that Parker and Hardison seem to be the only ones that know how to... defuse (is that the right word?) Eliot? Like even Maria couldn't get Eliot to relax in The Hurrican Job. (Of course that's probably because Eliot was hiding who he was to her.) But Eliot always seems to be more relaxed when he's around those two.

In The Iceman Job after when Hardison tries to hug him? Eliot wasn't really fighting it. (I would know- I do that to my brother ALL the time when he tries to hug me.) In The Inside Job- when Eliot went to attack that employee- Parker stopped him. In The Double-Edge Sword Job, when Eliot is furious because an abusive ex comes after a women that they tried to hide- it's Parker that calms him down. It's Hardison who pays off the bartender when Eliot attacks Sterling. It's Parker who is always by his side or close to it. It's Parker who trusts Eliot when their in the back of the van with Vance. (Yes, Parker trusts Hardison too, but Hardison is a hacker- not a protector.) It's Eliot who Hardison listens to when he's not confident. It's Eliot who grabs Hardison from the coffin. It's Eliot who crouchs behind Hardison as Parker flips around him. It's Eliot whose hands are shaking when he they have half a second on a bomb.

Eliot Spencer is Hardison's and Parkers. They own him. In the same way Hardison and Parker are his. He owns them. (Does that make sense?)

For the record- I don't know why I'm pointing all of this out. It's just interesting to me... I guess.

[onyxbird]

OK, turns out I'm not done way overanalyzing the hospital scene from "The Nigerian Job." But in the interests of not continuing to spam the poor stranger who touched off that conversation, I'll dump the new overanalysis into its own post. @trivalentlinks @wolves-in-the-world

As I've been thinking about this, I'm just fascinated by what the setup seems to imply about their choices here:

1. Nate and Hardison are both handcuffed to hospital beds--Nate unconscious, Hardison apparently only still on the bed because he doesn't know how get himself out of handcuffs.

2. Parker is free of her cuffs and pacing. (She gets handcuffed to the bed after feigning nausea to lure the doctors in.) Her dialog implies she has already formulated a plan for getting at least herself out (that will be ruined if Eliot kills someone).

3. Eliot is sitting in a chair, handcuffed to the arm. Going off of other Hollywood hospital scenes, I assume Eliot being in a chair reflects both being very minimally injured and some off-screen grifting on his part. He'd want to be cuffed to the relatively light-and-compact chair instead of a bed, since he could maneuver and fight without necessarily having to get the cuffs off first, which would be consistent with his assertion that "I can take these cops"--he's got an escape plan, too.

The dialog also indicates that 1) they have been in the hospital with Nate unconscious for at least 20 minutes (because that's how long ago they were fingerprinted) and 2) everyone else has been conscious since before getting brought to the hospital (Parker: "Cops and firemen got there just as we were waking up.").

So, all three of them sat there for at least 20 minutes waiting for Nate to wake up, knowing their time before their identities were uncovered was ticking away, and none of them just ditched the others and left.

Eliot and Parker both had exit plans that were plausible given their skills displayed in the rest of the series--Eliot almost certainly could have gotten the jump on the cops immediately guarding them, probably using the chair as a weapon, gotten the handcuff keys from them if necessary, and plowed his way through any remaining resistance; Parker could have found an openable window or a vent system or a route through a drop ceiling or something to sneak out. Eliot had even more of an advantage that his "roommate" was unconscious--Parker and Hardison wouldn't have known he was abandoning them until they heard him fighting the cops, and that would have been too late for them to ruin his plan by eliminating the element of surprise.

Like, part of me wants to say I'm probably reading too much into this--the writers needed the rest of them to still be there when Nate woke up or it would break the story... but that "problem" only exists because they chose to knock Nate out for 20+ minutes*. If the team was supposed to still be hostile and in every-man-for-himself mode, then all they would have had to do would be have Nate wake up with the others and them all start bickering as soon as the cops leave earshot.

They waited for Nate. The dialog didn't suggest that they were waiting for Nate to make the plan--maybe they wanted to make sure everyone made it out; maybe they just wanted to make sure Nate was OK, but either way they all stuck around for 20 minutes when it probably wasn't in their personal best interests in terms of escape and 2/3 had exit plans already. They may not trust each other yet, but they do seem to have decided to make sure everyone's accounted for before they split up.

*I'm going to ignore the fact that Nate probably has some serious brain injury if he was unconscious for 20+ minutes because Leverage clearly works on Hollywood harmless knock-out logic.

[ailelie]

I want a Leverage/Stargate crossover in which Parker, Hardison, Eliot, and Sophie all know about Stargate and all think they are the only ones who know.

Eliot is easy. He worked for them. He's been off world and has seen aliens up close. He doesn't want that danger anywhere near his team and, if they knew aliens were real, they would seek them out.

Parker, pre-Leverage, was once going to steal from a goa'uld. She's hidden away and safe, but sees the goa'uld change hosts or similar. It is one of the few times she walked away without her score. She still stole something, just not what she had gone for. She also neatly accepted that mind controlling snake monsters are real and that made her much more accepting of the impossible and, weirdly, less afraid in general. Nothing beats a mind controlling snake monster.

Hardison hacked his way into the mountain base while setting up in Portland. He didn't go in deep; he was just looking for something cute and Santa related for Parker. Instead, he found a mission report some idiot had sent in via email. The report had video. Brutal video. He watched. Three times. And then bought himself a new computer solely to hack deeper and figure out if what he saw was real or fake. It was real. He was thrilled--space ships and aliens were real! He was terrified--space ships and aliens were real and not very friendly. He wanted no part of that.

Sophie conned her way into a dinner with military officials. It wasn't even for a job. She was just bored and wanted to test out her skills. (Part of her also wanted to get caught. Part of her post-Nate was a bit self-destructive). She found a man fuming and lent a listening ear. With a bit of alcohol and a lot of pretending to know more than he did, she learned about the Stargate program. She locked that knowledge up deep, ready to wield it if ever needed.

And then, one day in New Orleans, SGC comes knocking for Eliot. It is one of the times that Hardison is home with them. Eliot is cooking and Hardison and Parker are teasing him in the kitchen. Harry is out. Breanna is working to undo a virus Hardison created for her as a challenge.

Then, say, Cameron Mitchell walks in. Eliot glances over from where he's cooking at the stove and says, "No. Turn around. Walk away."

Hardison has gone still. He remembers Cameron's face from the reports he read and watched. "How do you know Eliot?" he asks.

"We used to work together."

Hardison turns to Eliot, eyes wide. "Eliot?"

"Better question," Eliot says, turning off the heat. "How do you know Mitchell here?"

"Someone has to keep an eye on what the government is doing," Hardison vamps, part of him still hoping to end this conversation without Parker learning about the spaceships and aliens.

"Dammit Hardison."

By this time, Parker has hopped off the counter and walked up to Cameron to get a better read on him. She also nicks his wallet and firearm. "Catch," she calls to Eliot as she tosses the firearm to him.

"Parker!" Eliot chastises as he snatches the gun. "Don't throw firearms."

She shrugs. "I knew you'd catch it."

This is the first time Cameron has looked wrongfooted this entire time. "What?"

"Cameron Mitchell," Parker reads from his ID. "Airforce."

Cameron swipes it back from her. Parker lets him. As she turns, she catches Breanna's eye and gestures to her ear.

Breanna pulls out of the code she was working on and starts looking for any foreign frequencies to find out who is talking to Mitchell.

Sophie, who has been watching quietly this entire time and noting Cameron's military standing, takes into account his actual division and the ways Eliot and Hardison are acting and clearly talking around something. She decides to make a gamble.

"Does this have anything to do with the Stargate program?"

Eliot, Hardison, and Cameron all freeze and look at her.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," Cameron says, "But how do you know about the Stargate program."

Sophie offers him a beatific smile. "People do talk--" she pauses and gives him a searching look "--commander is it? Interesting that the commander himself came to talk." She turns to Eliot. "This might be important."

Cameron spins to Eliot. "Did you tell her?"

Eliot crosses his arms. "I've not said anything."

Parker raises her hand. "What's the Stargate Program?

Hardison is the first to speak up. "It is a secret program that deals with threats from space."

"Like aliens?" Breanna asks, continuing to hack into Cameron's comms. She's surprised by the layers of protection.

"Yes."

"Okay," Breanna mutters. "Cool. So aliens are real."

Parker raises her hand again.

"You don't need to raise your hand, Parker," Eliot mutters into his hand.

"Are any of these aliens mind controlling snake monsters who like Egyptian antiquities?"

Now every eye is on her.

"Yes," Cameron says, stretching the word out. "How?"

Parker just hops back up onto the counter. "I stole from one."

"Did she just say she stole from one?" A woman's voice plays from Breanna's corner.

"So I've hacked their comms," Breanna says.

Cameron nearly growls in frustration. This was not how this was supposed to go.

"Why don't you invite the rest of your team in?" Sophie says. "Eliot, will we have enough food?"

Eliot rolls his eyes and turns back to the stove. He turns the heat back on and gives his dish a stir. "I was making enough for leftovers. We'll be fine."

"Who are you people?" Cameron asks. "I mean, I've read your files, but--"

"Oh, how did you like those?" Hardison asks. "Beauties, aren't they?"

"You forged your records?" Cameron asks, his tone flat.

Sophie touches his elbow and guides him to a seat. "When you've taken over a small country, darling, paperwork is child's play."

Cameron looks at her, sees she isn't lying, and laughs. "Okay. Fine." He calls his team in. They'll have dinner. And then they'll discuss saving the world.

[werewolfsmile]

tysm for answering my qs about werewolf!eliot !! not to keep bugging you lol but i remember you mentioned in the tags of a post one time about a hc/au of parker being some sort of fae or otherworldly being who’s just kinda found herself here in the non-magical world - could you elaborate on that? like how come she’s in the non-fantasy part of the leverage universe, or whether the other characters know, etc? only if you want to of course, no pressure :) i’m really enjoying reading your posts about all these ideas!

You're welcome! And you're definitely not bugging me, I love getting the chance to ramble about my thought lol (werewolf!eliot post here) (link to the post and my tags that started this)

Honestly I don't have as clear ideas for Parker as I did for Eliot, but I imagine her being some kind of changeling or air/wind sprite that was left with humans for whatever reason.

(ooh i'm getting more ideas for this the more i think about it..)

okay, Parker is actually half-fey, half-human

no one really knows who her parents were or how she came to be on her own (me included lol), she was just found on a doorstep as a baby

the people who took her in had their own issues and the state eventually intervened and sent Parker into foster care

she found out at a very early age that she was different to other kids - she could move around without making a sound, she could fit into tiny spaces - all very helpful for a young girl in a foster system that was chewing her up and spitting her out

she also discovered that she could ... not turn invisible exactly, but she could be less visible if she wanted to be; all she has to do is think about not being seen and people's eyes just drift over her

Archie had absolutely no idea what she was when he got his hands on her, but even he knew that she was beyond just a gifted child

he only realised there was something magical about her after she fell off the roof of the warehouse he'd been training her in - then walked it off like it was no biggie

fey creatures love puzzles and riddles, so of course Parker has always had a natural affinity for puzzles (aka locks)

her super artistic talent is a trait that is Entirely Parker and, given that she entered a life of crime early and was surrounded by artistic masterpieces all the time, she never even considered that other people would draw/paint/whatever with any lower skill level

this contributes to her not understanding what the fuss is over art

she gave herself the name Parker when Archie met her and asked her name; it was the first thing that came to mind

she doesn't remember her birth name and isn't bothered by that in the slightest

Eliot was the first of the team to figure out she was fey - being a werewolf, he can smell and/or sense that kind of thing on others

Hardison suspected something was up with her, but then felt bad for thinking that, but then strange things kept happening around her so he started to keep a list ...

pretty much Hardison has a red-string conspiracy theory-style board of Parker Things. He's too terrified of offending her to ask her outright, but he's more convinced every day

(he's also more in love with her and just thinks her fey-ness is another thing to celebrate)

Parker finds Hardison's board of Parker Things and is utterly fascinated. It's like he understands her better than she understands herself. He's super flustered when he finds her poring over the board and tries to make excuses, but Parker's quick to steamroll over that and demands if he knows what she is

Eliot finds them 15 mins later, stuck in an endless loop of confusion over which of them actually knows what Parker is

he just rolls his eyes, says she's half-fey, it's obvious, like, "what? it's a very distinctive smell!"

which leads to how the hell would he know what the fey are and Eliot's like, oh crap, right, they still don't know I'm a werewolf whoops

Hardison and Parker stage a coming-out for her to Nate and Sophie

(Eliot refuses to be involved but still gets roped into carrying the banner. He's still finding glitter in his hair weeks later)

Sophie is thrilled about the reveal and confesses to being a siren (or some other supernatural/magical creature that can manipulate people, idk i have less thoughts about her than i do about parker)

Nate is all like are you kidding me right now what the hell is my life

after a lot of badgering, he confesses he didn't know about Parker, although he has been ... aware of magical beings for some time

no he will not be discussing this any further, can we just get back to the con now??

Parker finds that, now she's aware of her fey-ness, her magical abilities develop further

she doesn't quite gain the ability to fly but ... yeah okay, she can pretty much fly

she wants to test how far this flying ability goes - by, of course, jumping off tall buildings with Hardison in her arms (and no harness for either of them)

Hardison flat out refuses this, so Eliot somehow finds himself the unwilling victim

of course, Parker masters flying while carrying people in no time and proves it to Hardison by just grabbing him and jumping off a building one day

(he's still in therapy for it)

Parker also discovers she can make herself kind of ... misty

this skill is harder to learn but she's already been able to make her hand go misty and whoosh inside a lock

picking the lock is harder in this incorporeal state but Parker's instincts say there's a way to do this, so she keeps practising until she can pretty much disintegrate herself and float through locked doors to rematerialise on the other side

it's a nightmare for the whole team because, sure, it's not like locked doors stopped her in the past. But now she's so excited about it all the time that any concept of privacy completely leaves her brain and she jumps in and out of rooms and safes etc any time of day or night

Wow. This ended up longer than expected! Guess I did have some ideas about fey!Parker after all..

[skullcandy11111198]

Leveragetober23 Day 3: family

Soon after Breanna came to live with Nana, she got a visit from one of her new big brothers. Nana was all in a tizzy for a few days beforehand, when she first learned one of her children would be coming back home for a few days. Apparently Hardison was a legend around here. Nana was baking like crazy, and when Breanna built up the courage to ask why she was making so much food, she learned that her "big brother and his partners" would be coming to stay with them.

Now, Breanna was pretty open minded, her parents raised her well, but she will admit she did a slowblink when she was first told. No one else seemed to have any thoughts on that topic, no weird or judge-y faces from any of the other children in hearing range, so she shrugged and went with it.

When they finally arrived, she was only more intrigued. Hardison could best be described as a whirlwind. He moved fast and talked faster. His two friends, on the other hand, were the direct opposite. They both smiled when talking to others, and answered rather succinctly, but otherwise they didn't move very fast, and in the scheme of things, barely talked at all.

Breanna wasn't quite sure what to do with them. She had accepted her parents were gone, and her definition of family had to change rather quickly, but every time she met a new child of Nana's, it hit her again how much her life had changed over the last two-ish years. Therefore, she was back in her room, decompressing a bit after meeting Hardison and his "partners."

(After meeting them, she honestly couldn't tell if they were romantic-partners or business-partners. They talked about work, a lot. They were vague about it, but they obviously worked together. On the other hand, Parker was a very clingy person with both Hardison and Eliot. Inevitably she would be hanging off one of them, touching them in some way. Hardison and Eliot were known to share a knowing look with each other too, whenever Parker did something. Parker and Eliot always made sure an orange soda was in Hardison's reach, and Parker and Hardison would make googly eyes whenever Eliot even just talked about cooking.)

A knock on her door distracted her.

She opened her door to reveal a slightly nervous looking Parker, who kept checking over her shoulder while she asked if she could hide in Breanna's room for a little bit. Breanna was unsure about this new person, but eh, why not? When she said as much, Parker beamed and thanked her while sliding inside and sitting on the ground behind where the door would hinge open.

Okayyyy. Breanna hesitantly sat down criss cross apple sauce, facing her. "Not to, like, stop you or anything…but, why are we sitting on the ground, exactly?"

Parker looked at her with a sharp eye. "Well, I'm sitting on the ground. You just decided to do it because I did. Sophie says that has to do with psychology, but I don't remember which theory right now."

"Hey! It feels perfectly reasonable right now to go to ground when the only adult in here right now is doing the same!" Breanna pouted, but all she got back was a small smile from Parker. "And hey, don't distract me! Why are we on the ground?"

Parker laughed, then suddenly went quiet. Breanna started to open her mouth to ask her what was happening when Parker suddenly whipped her hand up to stop her from speaking. A few moments later Breanna heard footsteps walking down the hall, pausing at the end, then turning around and walking back to the main part of the house.

Once she was sure whoever it was was gone, she lowered her hand. Breanna was even more curious now, and slightly worried. She knew Nana, and she knew how she raised her children, but either way there was another woman in her room, an adult, who seemed to be hiding from the other adults. Breanna needed to know what was going on.

Parker must have been able to read her face because when she turned her head back towards the younger girl, she immediately started to explain.

"Okay, so to be honest, I've gotten wayyy better with people. Like, way better. I haven't stabbed anyone with a fork in two months, Hardison and Sophie are really proud of me. But there are still a lot of people out there, and they were starting to get loud, and I don't like loud. Loud means notice and I don't like to be noticed, so I went to the place I was sure no one would check because I know Hardison, which means I know Nana, which means I know they will give you privacy because new people are around, which means people are way less likely to come looking for me in here, and when Nana introduced you, you were really quiet, so you are not likely to be as loud as it is out there. So, safe space."

Breanna's head was reeling from trying to keep track of…all of that but yeah, it made sense, in a weird way. She was the newest kid, and one of the previous kids was coming home to visit for the first time since she arrived, plus they were bringing other people too, so Nana was likely to quietly tell everyone to give her some space.

Breanna nodded definitively. "Okay, that makes sense. But…floor?"

Parker nodded, very serious, "First lesson: even when you're hidden, don't assume you're safe, always hide somewhere in a hidden place. Then you're way less likely to be caught" She paused, eyeing Breanna's head speculatively. "You have really curly hair. That's good. You can hide a lot of things in there, lots of pins, maybe even a key or two." Another pause, Breanna felt like her soul was being weighed. "Do you want to learn how to pick a lock in less than 5 seconds?"

Oh, they were going to be friend-friends. "Okay!"

[ziorite]

buckle up lads— i’ve played cello since before kindergarten and even if i’m no virtuoso, i’m about to unleash my thoughts on the scheherazade job upon the world anyways.

look, if hardison was good enough to play the scheherzade solo at fourteen there’s just no way he sounds that shit even if he hasn’t touched the instrument for ten years. he’s supposed to have been the most promising violinist in the city which has to be stiff competition because most classically trained string players start playing young. like three to five years old young. and we know hardison was a foster kid so he almost certainly started later than most. obviously he was talented, but now he can’t even play a scale? it just doesn’t make sense to me from what i know. i’ve gone a month without touching my cello and pretty much hopped straight back into the stuff i was practicing before after fifteen minutes of warm up. the knowledge of how to hold a bow and pull it across the string and make quality sound is the kind that doesn’t leave you— for anyone of teenage hardison’s supposed skill, that instinct is part of you for LIFE. so no, the persistent portrayal of present day hardison as completely incompetent just doesn’t sit right with me.

but that doesn’t mean i think he could pull off scheherazade’s solo without nate’s rather convenient hypnosis. so i googled around and here’s the sheet music:

to be honest i thought it would be absolute batshit crazy the way they treated it in the show. the shifts are kind of crazy but i can see a very dedicated fourteen year old who practiced the shit out of this solo being able to play it. not to say it’s not still hard! there are some SERIOUS high notes that you’d be hard pressed to hit perfectly every time even with weeks of practice under your belt. shit makes me sweat and i don’t even play that instrument.

it’s a damn impressive solo for a teenager to be playing and an absolutely deranged one to try and perform on such little notice. that’s why i need someone to rewrite the scheherazade job with more focus on hardison and his violin dammit! i feel like hardison would be able to bluff his way through the other parts of the piece with enough practice in the time he has before the job, but there’s just no way he’d be able to play that solo on his own after ten years of not touching the violin. he might not even be able to practice during all the time he has— his calluses would be gone!! that’s a whole other story!!

string instruments strings are vicious y’all. and a VAST majority of the scheherazade solo is on the teeny tiny e string that basically slices through raw fingertips. i can barely make it through five minutes of dedicated practice shifting around on my thinnest string and i’ve had my calluses built up for years; i can file these babies with a nail file and poke a hot pan with them— they get pretty damn thick, and hardison’s working with nuthin y’all. you can only go so far before you give yourself an actual blister you physically cannot play on.

as a result, i feel like hardison would’ve let nate hypnotize him if ONLY the oily little slime ball (with hate and love) had told him. i really don’t understand why nate didn’t say anything until the first place. aren’t they supposed to have learned that you’re not supposed to con your own crew already?? (not that i think nate would ever really take that to heart.)

anyways, that’s my hardison-should-be-better-at-violin propaganda as well as my why-the-scheherazade-job-needs-to-be-rewritten manifesto. maybe i’ll write it myself one of these days— leverage brainrot is real and it is a sickness. hope this 2 am rant didn’t disrupt anyone’s dashes too much!

[fablesrose]

Hiiiii! Your leverage rewrite is giving me Eliot Spencer BRAINROT and I saw your requests were open, so I was wondering if you would be interested in writing something about the reader getting a bit beat up on a job, and falling asleep on Eliot while recovering? I don’t mind if it’s a oneshot, or if you want to put it in the rewrite or something. Thanks regardless, I love your writing so much!

Hi!!! Thank you so much, you can't even believe how much that means to me! I'm glad someone else is in the Eliot brainrot with me! I'm so sorry it took so long to post this, ever since you sent this I have been thinking about it and what I wanted to do with it and I finally got it on paper. Hope you like it!

Stay With Me

Eliot Spencer x Reader Words: 2.4k

As far as jobs went, this one wasn’t too bad. The ultimate goal was to steal some files for our client to prove gross misconduct. They would then go to the press or police, probably both, knowing how these types of jobs usually went. We were approaching the end game when some guards started to catch on. Parker and Hardison needed some more time and everyone else was preoccupied. So, it fell on me to be a distraction.

I quickly made my way through the building, dodging guards along the way until I made it to where Hardison and Parker were holed up, collecting files. 

“What are you doing here?” Hardison asked when he saw me step into the room. “You’re supposed to be keeping the guards away from us!”

“And I’m working on it!” I replied. 

Parker didn’t acknowledge me as she sorted through the physical files that she pulled from a cracked safe. 

“Parker, hand me a file we don’t need,” I asked and she quickly handed one over without looking at me. I grabbed it and turned back to Hardison, “Do you have a spare flash drive that has stuff that isn't important or nothing at all?”

He looked at me with a puzzled expression before pulling one out of his bag, “What are you doing?” 

I pocketed it quickly before answering, “Well the guards are coming to this room, they know something is up. What do you think they’re gonna do when they see someone walking out of the room carrying a file?”

Hardison started to nod along, “they’re gonna go after you and not bother to check the room.”

“Yup!” I called as I approached the door to leave. 

“What about the flash drive?”

I faced him before stepping over the threshold, “If I get caught, give them something to find.” I winked before stepping backwards into the hall. 

Just in time too. As the door latched, a group of three guards stepped around the corner. They made eye contact with me and I froze momentarily. 

“Hey!” One of them yelled at me.

I quickly dashed down the hall in the opposite direction. As I turned a corner, I looked back to see that all of them were hot on my heels and passed the room without a second thought. The one who yelled at me was talking through his radio to the other guards, directing them to my approximate location to try and head me off. It worked alright. Now to test my navigation and escape abilities. 

One thing I was blessed with was a pretty good memory and an interest in architecture. I liked reviewing blueprints and with the help of Parker, I was able to remember the layout of the current building. We were also able to identify interesting weak points and possible escape routes. This wasn’t the time to doubt my memory or my speed, so I just kept running. 

The original guards chasing me had fallen further and further behind, but I could still hear them behind me, so I couldn’t slow down. I turned another corner to find a lone guard running towards me. 

Change of plan. 

He got within a couple of yards when I threw the file I had in my hand in his face. It caused him to stumble just enough for me to get a head start down a different hallway. I finally made it to a stairwell and started making my way down. I had a large enough head start that I had almost thought I had lost them as I approached the bottom. I was proven wrong when a stairwell door above me burst open and sounds of shouting echoed down the stairs. I didn’t wait to see which direction they went before I burst through a door myself into the basement of the building. 

“Y/n,” Eliot said through comms, “Where are you? You still dealing with guards?”

“Yeah,” I panted, continuing to run and navigate the twisting hallways, “I’m doing okay, I’m in the basement heading to the north east corner where there should be-”

I turned yet another corner where the largest man I had ever seen stood barely three feet away.  He was dressed in a guard uniform and had his arm outstretched right in front of me. I couldn’t finish my sentence to Eliot before the guard clotheslined me, landing me flat on my back and knocking the rest of my breath out of my lungs.

I groaned, trying to scramble to my feet. “Where the hell did you come from?” I gasped, trying to catch my breath and run away.

The guard didn’t say anything as he grabbed my arm in a tight grip, pulling me to my feet. 

I wriggled and thrashed, trying to land a blow anywhere I could to break free, but the guard still didn’t budge. “Where do they keep you? In a cage?” I yelled exasperatedly, still not finding any opening. 

The guard didn’t seem to like the insinuation and with a grunt threw me against the wall. My shoulder and hip hit first, but it didn’t completely stop the momentum of my head from hitting the wall. A jolt of pain shot through my whole body before dulling to a throbbing ache. The only thing I could seem to do was curl into a ball, hoping it would make my body feel better. 

It sounded like someone was talking to me through the earpiece, but I couldn’t focus on it or decipher who was saying what. A slight whimper escaped my lips as I tried to raise my head. 

The guard approached me and started to rustle through the pockets of my jacket. He stuck his hand into the pocket where the dud flash drive was and I mustered all the strength I could into my less injured arm and launched it at his face. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going for, a punch, slap, or scratch his eyes out, but I made forceful contact and I did feel my nails catch skin. 

The guard stumbled back, holding his face and swore loudly, the first word I had heard him utter. 

“He speaks,” I said with a pained chuckle from the floor. 

That comment also wasn’t appreciated as the guard gave me a swift kick to the gut. I simply gasped, not being able to muster up a sound to voice the pain. I wasn’t even sure if I could breathe anymore. My eyes screwed shut and I rested my head against the floor, not wanting to muster the strength to hold it up anymore. I was expecting the guard to come back and start searching me again, or even some more pain, but it didn’t come. 

I pried one eye open to see Eliot standing a few paces down the hall.

“Don’t touch her!” He growled, taking calculated steps towards the guard. 

The guard grunted, “Make me. I’ll snap you like a twig, too.”

I saw Eliot’s lips twitch into a smile before taking a fighting stance. The fight didn’t last long once the guard made the first move. He did get a couple hits on Eliot, but not enough to slow him down and knock him out. The guard hit the ground with a large thud that I could have sworn shook the ground. 

During the fight, I was able to maneuver myself into a sitting position against the wall. I started to try and use it to stand up when Eliot quickly approached me and gently helped me to my feet. He pulled my arm over his shoulder and wrapped his arm around my waist, carrying most of my weight as we walked down the hallway. 

“Where are the rest of the guards? Do we have to hurry out of here?” I asked slowly, trying to keep the ache out of my voice and calculate how to get out. I couldn’t use my previous route with how injured and sluggish I was now. 

“On a wild goose chase,” Eliot replied, not hesitating in his steps back toward the stairwell. 

“I’m not the goose, am I?” I asked humorously, but trying to keep laughing to a minimum. I had a feeling it would hurt if I tried.

Eliot chucked though. “No, I got them out of the picture so we can get out of here.”

My mind started running in circles trying to decide what he did, but eventually I half whispered to myself, “you know what? I don’t even want to know.”

When we got to the stairs I sighed heavily, anticipating how much effort it would take to climb them. 

Eliot looked at me and could see the dread in my face. “Here, sweetheart, I’ve gotcha.” He bent down and lifted my feet, putting me in a bridal carry and started up the stairs. 

“You don’t have to do that Eliot, don’t tire yourself out for no reason,” I said, but rested my head on his shoulder, feeling oh so tired. 

“I can carry you one flight of stairs, sweetheart, don’t worry about it.”

Another sigh escaped my lips involuntarily, “I’m so tired. I want to take a nap.”

Eliot purposefully jostled me a little bit, “Stay with me, sweetheart. Don’t fall asleep before I get you out of here and see if you have a concussion. It sounded like you hit that wall pretty hard.”

I groaned just remembering that initial pain, “Don’t remind me.”

When we reached the ground floor Eliot gently placed me back on my feet to seem a bit less conspicuous when walking through the building. This floor had a lot of offices and employees milling around. When I was distracting the guards I considered it a hazard, they could have slowed me down trying to not run into them. Now as we carefully walked through, Eliot still supporting much of my weight, the employees provided a bit of cover until we reached a side door to exit into the parking lot and the van. 

Eliot loaded me into the back and sat in front of me as Nate drove off, leaving the company and its guards far behind us. Eliot took a flashlight from Hardison and shined it in my eyes. 

“Your pupils look okay, responding well to light and are the same size,” he said almost distractedly as if talking to himself even though he was addressing me. 

 I simply blinked slowly and watched him think for a moment before he turned back towards me. 

“I’m gonna ask you some questions to test your memory, okay?”

“Okay.”

“What’s your name and birthday?”

I recited it quickly in the same pattern I always did when asked.

“Good,” he praised, “now what building were we just in?”

“Jackass Incorporated,” I replied. I paused before adding on sarcastically, “Oh sorry, I meant Jackson Inc.”

I finally got Eliot to crack a smile, “Glad to hear another confirmation that your sense of humor is intact. Last thing, say the months of the year in reverse order.”

This question took a little more time as I paused every few months to think, making sure I was right. When I finally landed on January I asked, “How’d I do doc?”

His eyebrows furrowed and his nose scrunched slightly, “I’m still nervous that you got a concussion.”

I sighed, “So no nap?”

He smiled grimly, “Not yet.”

The over hour drive home was relatively quiet, but the team kept me awake by talking to me. We finally made it back to Nate’s apartment. Normally we would be celebrating afterwards, but all I wanted to do was go home, and voiced as such. Eliot left no room for argument when he said he would drive me home, still not convinced of my cognitive capabilities. Frankly, I didn’t even want to argue with him, both because it was no use, and I didn’t mind the free ride home. 

He kept talking to me when driving, making sure I stayed awake. We finally pulled up to my place and Eliot insisted that he walk me in. Again, I didn’t put up a fight. 

“Do you have any other injuries that we need to take care of?” he asked once the door closed behind us. 

“It took you this long to ask?” 

He gave me a small glare, “I figured you would have told me if anything hurt more than you could handle, but I’m just double checking.”

I smiled, showing I was kidding, “Uh huh, sure. But no, nothing feels broken, everything seems to be in working order. If anything, mostly bruises.” I patted myself down gently, finding some tender spots, particularly around my ribs where the guard kicked me. Then remembered where my head hit the wall, “Hey Eliot, would you mind checking my scalp? I don’t think I broke skin, but…”

He nodded wordlessly and pulled me towards the couch and sat me down. He sat beside me so I turned away from him so he could see the place where my head hit the wall. He gently started to comb his fingers through my hair. His fingers immediately brushed against the spot where I hit and I flinched.

“Sorry, sweetheart. I don’t feel a cut though,” he whispered to me. Even after checking the area, he continued to card my hair through his fingers. 

It felt even better than I expected and a sigh escaped my lips. My head tilted back as his fingertips explored my scalp beyond the sore spot. My eyes drifted closed and that urge to sleep washed over me again. 

“Can I fall asleep now?” I mumbled, mostly to myself. 

Eliot sighed and stopped his movements, “Yeah, I’ve kept you up for a couple of hours now, you should be okay. I should go and let you sleep.” He started to remove his hand and shifted to stand. 

I turned back around to face him and grabbed his hand, “Stay with me? I hear I’m supposed to be monitored for at least twelve hours for a possible concussion…” My eyes were fixed on our hands being clasped, but I eventually lifted my gaze to his own to find that he was transfixed on me. 

His lips curled into a smile as he shifted, leaning back into the couch, “Yeah, I think I can do that sweetheart.” He gently grabbed my shoulders and pulled me down to lay on his lap. He resumed running his fingers through my hair and across my scalp. 

I grabbed his unoccupied hand and held it to my chest, occasionally squeezing it in gratitude. It didn’t take long for the sounds of our consistent breathing to drift me off to sleep.

[leverage-ot3]

okay I’ve seen a lot of posts about sterling just being crowley and. guys. the implications just hear me out 😭😭😭

bending lore slightly here BUT let’s say crowley’s body was once inhabited by a human and crowley is possessing the body (maybe he kills the initial inhabitant bc he doesn’t care)

but he still has the guy’s memories. he doesn’t bother keeping up appearances with his ‘ex wife’ because he is too busy building up his hell empire. BUT for some reason he can’t quite identify, he still feels something towards his ‘daughter’. he lets the divorce happen and doesn’t feel the need (or desire) to fight for custody, but he can never quite forget her, to cast her out of his mind for good

some hijinks ensue with the leverage team. it’s mostly because even a grind culture demon wants some off time every once in a while, and for him the insurance investigator stuff is more of a hobby. interacting with the leverage crew is very low stakes for him, and honestly, quite amusing. they aren’t on his level power-wise, but that ford character gives him the mental exercise he hasn’t experienced in, well, he can’t even remember

he can feel their frustration and anger when they learn he has become employed by interpol and feeds off it. it’s great, and relaxing in a way he is never able to achieve while conducting hell-related business

one year he gets wind that olivia is in a really bad situation associated with his ‘ex wife’s’ new husband. he’s selling vital hardware to terrorists, and while that might actually be the kind of chaos he would normally support or be entertained by as the king of hell, something feels wrong about letting olivia stay anywhere near that man

he calls upon the body’s adversaries. he wouldn’t admit it, even under duress, BUT he feels slightly fond of them. nate for the three dimensional chess they play, sophie for her ability to charm and disguise, parker for her chaos and slightly unsettling nature (it’s the autism swag and being bad with human interaction but he doesn’t know that lol), hardison for his unapologetic intelligence and eliot for his hardened violent past and take-no-shit persona (he’s fun to tease)

they perform exactly as he expected, right into his carefully crafted plan. and then olivia is under his care and things get more complicated. he keeps her FAR, FAR away from anything related to the supernatural (heh). no one can find out about her, ESPECIALLY not those imbecile hunter brothers (if for nothing else than the embarrassment in revealing he has a weak spot)

not sure how to work it into this post but I also want to add that somewhere along the way he develops feelings for nate and sophie. the frame up job is near and dear to my heart and you can’t convince me that isn’t fighting as flirting behavior. his interpol persona is more of a side hustle so to speak, but he finds it fun (relaxing, even) to fill that role. there aren’t any obligations of other demons, bothersome hunters, or anything like that. nate and sophie are low stakes, except, they aren’t, really. they make him feel things he can’t ever really remember feeling. his heart beats fast when sophie sat in his lap and cradled his face, his hands sweat when nate gives him that certain smug look. he’s exasperated by the way they can run circles around him like no one else has ever before. they annoy him and get under his skin in a way no one else can and it’s infuriating. but also not, at the same time. maybe he likes it

and then the long goodbye job happens

hear me out and suspend your belief here for a second, because I can’t remember if crowley supernaturally knows when ppl die/are dead or not.

so nate is in interpol custody and the interviewer is obviously out of her depth. (most people are, when it comes to nathan ford.) he walks in and pours the man a drink, but he’s fuming. somewhere along the way he came to care about the team. hell and suffering is literally in his (official) job description, but he can admit (only to himself) that he admires what they do. it’s not for him, not anything close to where his passions and interests lie, but he respects their drive and purpose. he is also aware enough to acknowledge that they are a family, a group of misfits that never belonged quite anywhere except to each other.

and nate fucking blew it up, ruined it, because his vice is being so obsessed with the end game that he is apparently willing to let his team, his family, the people that anchor him to reality, die because the ends supposedly justify the means.

not this time. not to sterling crowley

he is enraged. he can admit within the confines of his mind that he cares for nate, for sophie, even for the other three (though nate and sophie have somehow made it a hierarchy where they are more important to him. which he will dissect later in private. maybe.)

nate let them die, he let sophie die, and for what? the black book? hell below, crowley would have made things easier somehow, if he knew that this was where nate’s sights had lied. he would have prevented this somehow. he wants to have prevented this. he doesn’t want any of them dead and is too afraid to check and verify because that would make it real. the idea of sophie (or any of them) somehow making it to hell instead of heaven would probably break something in him he might not be able to reapir fully.

he yells at nate- he’s angry. hellfire burning in his heart because everything is ruined. the deaths aside (however hard it is to set them aside in his mind), nate will not recover from this, not ever. this will be the start of the end, he is sure. a miserable, guilt-ridden existence where he drinks himself to death and nothing will save him. it plays out in crowley’s mind in a thousand different ways that are beyond painful to conceptualize, even in theory.

the story starts to unravel and there is a game afoot. a solemn, miserable, infuriating game because the con is still in session because parker is alive and in the building- which sets another fire alight in his chest. ‘parker even know you got hardison killed?’ he rages for her grief when she finds out. he knows it will double when she finds out eliot has perished, too, because he isn’t fucking blind.

but nate is a brilliant man, lest he forget too quickly. they are all alive, and somehow still the entire crew slips through his fingers. he’s not even angry (he never would have been- he doesn’t actually try too hard to catch them. it’s about the game, not the consequences). he lets them keep the black book because he’s fucking exhausted and honestly, they more than earned it.

‘now we’re even. tell sophie to drive carefully’. they will never be even, not really. crowley would never admit or agree that being human is the superior state of being, but that have made him feel human in a way he doesn’t actually mind. they keep him on his toes and match him in a way unique to them, they remind him that there are other things than the realm of hell. not necessarily bigger than hell, but maybe just as important in a different sense.

watching the van drive away, something inside him settles. when he walked into the interrogation room that day he thought this was the beginning of the end. it’s not the end at all, not an end to anything. it’s a continuation of their story. maybe, he thinks, a beginning to a new era in it

[lemissingmask]

[ID: Sketch of Eliot Spencer with long hair and in a sleeveless top, tied to an upright chair with his hands bound behind it and his neck held to the back of the chair with a thick leather band. He has blood and bruises visible on his face. In the background, beyond him, is Alexandra Bligh walking towards him and talking, and in the foreground is a close up of someone drawing a bright red liquid from a vial into a syringe. Black bars above and below the sketch is the text 'COMPOUND 002 -- 15 % w/v' and 'DOSE # 1 12/26/22 -- 17.04', respectively. End ID]

-

Day 15: Experimentation

Bligh makes a deal with some high ups in the FBI or CIA, gets released in order to oversee and run experiments into more effective methods for torture and interrogation using untraceable chemicals. Each experiment is recorded visually as well as notes taken.

Ficlet below the cut - part 2 of the three-parter started on Day 8

-

Parker hated the velvet softness of the night. Almost as much as she hated the glimmering stars that broke the darkness like thousands of unattainable diamonds.

How dare the evening be so peaceful and calm and beautiful when Eliot was in so much pain?

Or probably in pain.

He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead. He had promised not to leave her and he wouldn't break a promise.

But they knew by now who had him and why, and it was impossible that Eliot was enjoying anything less than torment.

Because that was the point.

That was why they took him.

Using Hardison’s hacking access, they had managed to find out who took Eliot after almost two weeks of searching, and what they found was horrifying.

Alexandra Bligh, released before ever really getting to jail, had been extremely active.  Expenses that took some digging to find revealed rental payments for a building on a private island off the east coast, the hiring of a complete security team and of several scientists from within various government institutes, and purchase orders of chemical ingredients for some of the most brutal enhanced interrogation drugs currently in existence.

The funding had come from within government, through several layers of secrecy, but ultimately under the ordinance of a former member of the CIA. Someone who Vance - after being made to understand that Eliot was in severe danger - revealed had worked with Eliot on some classified operations under his command.

The funds had been transferred under the name of an operation that had very little digital trace, beyond the purpose, whose lengthy wording boiled down to: design new chemical means for breaking people, and the person in charge: Alexandra Bligh.

Hardison had researched the components while his and Breanna’s programs worked to search for Eliot, and privately told Parker what he thought they would do.

Like red haze mixed with toxins designed variously to trigger pain receptors, alter the threshold for pain and other unpleasant stimuli, and cause something called central sensitization, which Parker didn’t understand but it sounded bad.

Hardison’s simplified summary sounded worse. All the memory and sensation heightening effects of red haze, but now with added very real and very strong pain.

They were using Eliot Spencer as the test subject to develop more brutal, untraceable, methods of enhanced interrogation.

And all that on an island almost inaccessible by any stealthy means.

Now Parker was standing with Breanna on a dock in the darkness, waiting for Dr Not-Dead-Paul to bring around the boat they’d need to get to the island. They'd called him in to help in the recovery mission, in part because they needed someone trustworthy who could fight, and in part because they didn't know what state they'd find Eliot in. Having a medic who Eliot knew on hand could prove very useful.

It was Paul who suggested Harry and Sophie remain behind. Having been told what they believed Eliot had been kidnapped for, he cautioned against having too many people around at the point of rescue. Only the three of them needed for the rescue itself - Breanna to stay in the boat or just beside the building, using the proximity to get into their servers and then guide Parker and Paul to where Eliot was, and the thief and temporary hitter would then break him out and escape.

“What if you need more muscle to get out and Eliot can’t fight?” Breanna asked nervously, watching the headlights of the boat as it approached, “Shouldn’t we call in another hitter? Bligh looks like she hired a hell of a lotta security...”

“No time,” Parker watched beyond the boat into the darkness that hid Eliot somewhere inside it, “And Eliot will be able to fight.”

“He’s been tortured for weeks…”

“He’s been shot, stabbed, beaten, drugged, poisoned, and hit by cars, trucks and carnival rides, and still been able to fight. He’ll be fine.”

"Parker's right," Paul said, and Parker thought he sounded sad, "Eliot can handle being tortured. And, usually before, he’s had to fight his way out alone. No team to back him up."

"But he does this time," Parker smiled at Breanna and hoped it looked reassuring, "Eliot's going to be fine."

He had to be fine.

Like Paul said, Eliot had been through torture before, and probably for much longer than this. He’d been injured physically and tormented mentally more than enough times for this to be almost meaningless.

In theory.

But theory didn’t stop her being on edge and upset and angry at the beautiful night.

-

[piratefalls]

a leverage quinn/eliot thing i'll never write that’s been sitting in my drafts for a literal year so i'm just yeeting it out into the void

okay so who the hell knows if this is in any way an original thought but i think it’s sort of accepted by fandom that quinn and eliot knew each other long before they fight in the first david job. so let’s run with that. maybe when they met eliot was fresh out of the service and trying to figure out what he was going to do with his life. private security would be the obvious choice, but he still needs the adrenaline, and a break from people giving him orders. so he becomes an independent contractor, a retrieval specialist, and on a job he runs into mr. quinn. same place, same time, but different targets, and they hit it off while digging through an old storage space. and they just keep running into each other, time and time again, and eliot gains a reputation for being the best while quinn is happy to remain in the shadows. being lesser known has its own set of benefits.

and then they hang out after a heist, and things happen, and they find themselves becoming more than friends. this goes on for the next year, maybe two, and then...then they work a job together. something they’ve never done before, for some reason. and it feels off from the beginning, but it's quinn, and eliot trusts him more than anyone in the world, so he pushes those concerns aside until he can’t. the job goes so wrong so fast, and eliot finds himself taken hostage, waking up in an old warehouse, bruised and bloody and so tired. all he has to do is survive, because quinn is coming, he just has to hang on until quinn finds him. quinn will always find him. and then quinn does find him, and he looks so guilty, so fucking sad, and it hits eliot like a kick to the stomach that he’s been sold out. eliot gets free somehow and they fight their way out, and at the end of it all, a trail of bodies behind them, they stand there and look at each other. quinn is devastated, trying to find the words, and eliot just... shakes his head and walks away. he never hears quinn quiet plea for him to wait.

in the interim eliot finds his way to moreau, the awful things he does to forget, never telling anyone why he will only work alone. after a while he realizes he either needs to get out or lose himself completely, so he gets out, spends some time with toby learning to cook, and eventually goes back to working solo. then he’s hired to do a job in LA, a one and done with a team of thieves, and he does it. what a massive miscalculation on his part, because he does not want to like these people. liking people means wanting to be around them, giving them power over you even if you don’t mean to, and he just won’t do that again. but he does. and he keeps coming back, and despite the fact that hardison never shuts up, and parker loves jumping off buildings in a way that makes him deeply concerned, and nate is a ticking time bomb, and sophie is as warm as she is a terrifyingly good liar, he finds himself building a home there, working with these four people, beating up bad guys because he's helping people.

and then sophie cons the team, and the betrayal hits twice as hard this time. but before he even finds that out, he sees a face he’s done his level best to never see again. he lets quinn beat him up a bit, lets him think he’s winning, because eliot knows quinn has always been one thing above everything else, and that’s cocky. and when eliot grunts “now that rib’s broken,” he doesn't tack on like my fucking heart the way he wants to. it’s been years, and it wouldn’t have the impact he wants it to. and then the team separates and he’s never felt so adrift in his life.

in the immediate aftermath, quinn tries to reach out, and eliot keeps changing numbers, because really quinn should have gotten the fucking hint after the first five unanswered calls. eventually eliot shoots him a text, saying that quinn needed to leave him alone, and that he would reach out when he wanted to. the calls stop after that.

three years later, eliot has to go hunting for quinn because he needs a favor. and all quinn wants in return (besides the money, of course) is for eliot to just let him explain. they can go back to not talking, but he wants eliot to know the truth.

and when the job is over, when dubenich and latimer have been dealt with and the bat cave has been deserted, quinn tells him what really happened that night. how eliot wound up in that warehouse, why the job went sideways. [there’s some kind of bribery/secret that he was just desperate enough to keep quiet that he’d sell eliot out] and the price was that quinn had to turn eliot over. he tried, tried so hard to think of a way to get them all out of it alive, and they were almost home free and everything went so wrong so fast and he couldn’t think fast enough. and then eliot walked away never knowing that had the right amount of pressure not been applied to the exact right spot, quinn never would have put eliot within 100 miles of that job because even though they never said it in so many words, quinn had loved him and he knows eliot loved him too.

and so eliot takes a few days to think while everyone else scatters to parts unknown but this time with the full understanding that they’ll all eventually be reunited. eliot thinks, and thinks, and eventually texts quinn and invites him out. they can start with a beer.

[onyxbird]

The Bridgeport Cat Café

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

Hardison bought them a cat café instead of a brewpub.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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