Drabbles
Disclaimer -- Leverage is owned by Electric Entertainment and TNT. If I owned it, we'd have more episodes, and Eliot would have a lot more screen time!
Comments and feedback to Ralkana47@yahoo.com would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Author's Note -- A drabble is a story of 100 words. No more, no less.
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A Learning Experience
(05/20/10)
Absorbing the blow, Eliot shook his hair back. Smiled.
"Where is it?" his captor demanded.
Eliot glanced past him, to the woman who'd betrayed him. She stared wide-eyed, and he spat blood and grinned.
"Eto tvoya sestra?" Eliot growled. The man's eyes narrowed, and he looked at the woman before returning his attention to Eliot.
"U neyo krasivaya ulibka," the retrieval specialist leered.
When consciousness swam back, the others were gone. Eliot lay curled on the floor of the tiny cell. Everything hurt.
"New rule," he muttered through swollen lips. "Never tell a Chechen his sister has a nice smile."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Choose Your Target Wisely
(04/28/10)
Without looking away from the security guard rotations he was memorizing, Eliot unlocked his desk drawer and reached in.
Instead of his private cookie stash, he encountered crumpled plastic. He growled.
"Parker!"
"Yeah?" she yelled from her own office.
"Why do you always steal my cookies? There's a whole jar in the freaking kitchen!"
"Getting them from the kitchen's boring! Besides, Hardison ate those!"
"So steal Hardison's stash!"
"No!"
"Why not?"
"Hardison won't bake more if I eat his!"
Eliot had to concede the point. Sighing, he pushed away his paperwork and went to see if he had enough flour.
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The Reluctant Fairy Godbrother
(05/06/10)
Widmark whimpered on the floor, cringing away from the fencing foil.
Get up, dammit! Fight back!
Eliot swallowed his anger. He'd started fighting early. He'd never been big, so he'd had to be strong. Fast. Smart. He knew a dozen ways Widmark could take Skyler.
Widmark. Skyler. Jesus.
These kids made him twitchy. They'd grow up into his team's marks -- it was in their eyes.
He had little sympathy for Widmark. He kept remembering Randy Trent, with his wounded, resigned eyes.
He sighed, hauling Skyler off. Focus on the clinic. He'd do the job -- he didn't have to like it.
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Finders Keepers
(05/10/10)
"Get! Off!" Eliot growled again, finally shoving Hardison away.
The hacker sulked, and Eliot tossed the curious waitress a friendly smile.
"Do that again," Eliot muttered, "I will hurt you."
"Whatever, man. Look, can y'all just take me to my car?"
Eliot paused, bottle halfway to his mouth. "Y'mean the Ice Man's car?"
"'s gone," Parker said airily.
Hardison choked. "Gone?"
"You left a Ferrari in the industrial district," Eliot reminded him.
"Hello!" Hardison sputtered. "Kidnapped!"
"Car's either in sixty pieces or halfway to Mexico."
Hardison just stared.
Eliot smirked. "Wanna hug it out?"
"Shut up, man. Just… shut up."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Fraternal Instinct
(05/12/10)
Eliot didn't consider himself a violent man.
His world was a violent place -- he simply reacted accordingly.
There were maybe three people he'd purposely punch on sight.
But Parker lay there -- eyes puffy, nose red, voice scratchy from tears -- and he knew killing Dalton Rand would be easy.
The last time he'd felt like this, he'd walked in on his sister crying in the barn after Jimmy Patton cheated on her in the eleventh grade.
He realized Aimee'd been right -- whatever cosmic cataclysm had led him here, it had given him what he'd never expected to have again.
A family.
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Sharing
(05/09/10)
Eliot barreled into Nate's apartment, slamming the door.
"Unbelievable," he growled again. They'd found the freaking money, and did they share it? He'd worked his ass off, hanging webcams, moving boxes, stringing det cord, but no --
He stopped. Stared at the counter. Walked closer.
Dutch oven. Le Creuset. 5 1/2 quarts. Cobalt blue. With a shiny red bow, and a note in Parker's childish scrawl.
Sorry I killed your other one. I really wanted Rice Krispie treats! :)
Running a hand lovingly over the enamel, Eliot lifted the lid.
Neat stacks of tightly banded twenties, fifties, and hundreds.
He laughed.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Split Second
(05/24/10)
In the instant Sophie looked through her peephole, her friends died a thousand times.
Eliot, crumpled and broken on the unforgiving concrete, blue eyes empty glass.
Hardison, beaten and bloodied, those laughing eyes and brilliant mind silenced forever.
Parker, a shattered wreck amid ropes and gear, blonde hair a crimson shroud.
She yanked the door open, vowed she'd give anything, do anything to have them healthy and whole.
They were fine, and Nate was… Nate. And she was a liar -- the one thing she couldn't do was go back. Not yet.
Because she wasn't a liar. She was a lie.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The First Step Back Down
(05/24/10)
The sudden comm silence at Doyle's demand spoke louder than any frantic exclamations.
His team was pulling off The Wire without prep -- they were the smartest group Nate had ever seen. There had to be another way. A way that wouldn't destroy everything. Wouldn't destroy him.
Nate stared at the glass. He could already feel how it would burn, sliding down his throat, the welcome numbness that would seem like sharp focus. How reality's razor edges would dull and blur.
He refused to look, to see the concern -- and the disappointment -- in Eliot's eyes as he chose the easy way.
The Lesser of Two Evils
As usual, the team tried to ignore the sounds of fighting over the comms.
"Dammit!" Eliot snarled, followed by someone else's cut-off scream.
"Eliot?" Nate asked.
"Sonofabitch broke my glasses. Damn things were brand new!"
"Isn't that the third pair this month?" Sophie wondered.
"You have awesome insurance," Hardison reasoned. "LASIK, bro. Wave of... now."
Parker laughed. "You want Eliot to voluntarily go under anesthesia so some guy can aim a laser at his eyes."
"Have you met?" Nate asked, amused.
"Not. Happening," Eliot growled.
Hardison sighed. "Point. Fine, then, Four Eyes. Get back to work."
"You're dead, Hardison. Dead."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The Waiting Game
(07/15/10)
The monitor's steady beeping and the ventilator's whoosh were all that broke the silence.
Nate paced as Hardison slept fitfully in the bedside chair. Sophie curled in the other chair, arms around her tucked-up knees, watching Parker put the finishing touches on the dozen tiny, intricate braids in Eliot's hair.
The thief had carefully sponged the blood out, gently patting his hair dry before starting her project.
"He's going to kill you for that when he wakes up, you know," Sophie whispered.
Parker flinched, hearing the unspoken words. If he wakes up.
"Good," she murmured, tracing his bruises. "Can't wait."
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The Price of Leadership
(01/03/12)
Eyes cold, Hardison listened with grim satisfaction as his team reported success over the comms.
He was proud of them -- and himself. He'd always known he'd be a damn good leader.
But he'd never wanted it like this.
His memories drifted to the job that had gone so wrong, so fast. Hot blood splashing his face, the sounds of death in his ear.
Every job he pulled off, their ghosts crowded around, evaluating him as he'd once asked them to.
He'd never be free of their voices. The day he didn't hear them would be his day to join them.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Soul Searching
(01/20/12)
Eliot ignored the way his hand shook as he held the gun on Dubenich.
It would be so easy.
He’d done it before, in both self-defense and cold blood. Hell, he’d even done it for Nate. But not like this.
His soul was irrevocably stained. One more blot wouldn’t matter.
Redemption was impossible, but Nate had offered him atonement. This would just be... repayment.
So easy.
But some things a man had to learn on his own, and Nate had to find out if he was the kind of man who could pull that trigger.
Eliot prayed that he wasn’t.
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