#leverage ficlet

[dapper-nahrwhale]

Now hear me out because I typically detest soulmate aus with the fiery burning passion of a thousand bad bus schedules and all.

But for leverage, a soulmates au, with their name written on you, is more like the hope and promise that you have the capacity to care about someone one day, maybe. But also:

I think Sophie would be terrified of it I think it would keep her up at night, that someone knows her name, but they don't know her. That there's no way anyone can because she's not real. She's such a hopeless romantic, but to her it's not romantic, it's terrifying. It's an existential crisis. I think she would try to lose herself in the romance of it but when she thinks about soulmates too much it makes her feel sick.

Nate, predictably, is cynical about soulmates. Just a fluke, just pointless hope, just connecting with anyone who has their name on you, it's just a placebo effect, it's not real. It's just the convenient mathematical probability of how many soulmates stay together and lying to yourself to do so. That's just what love is. It doesn't matter.

Hardison thinks soulmates could be pretty cool, if they were real. Unfortunately, they're not. At least not for him. He's looked, he's tried, he's searched every single person on earth with the names on him, but no such luck. With his skills, he should be able to find them. Alas, he can't find them so they can't be real. He thinks soulmates would be nice, sure it's some weird thing that this, but this is just the way the world works. For everyone but him.

The amount of thought Parker has given to soulmates is the exact same she gives to anything that doesn't concern her or thieving. Almost none. She just thinks it's kinda creepy. That the words written on your skin say who you're going to be with. It's weird. She doesn't give any thought to hers. Whoever they are, they don't matter. They'll just get in the way of her doing thief things. She works alone.

Eliot isn't scared of pretty much anything. Except soulmates. Seeing those names on him terrifies him, just a bit. Knowing him will get them hurt in the end. That's how this works. He doesn't want to know them, or meet them, or ever see them. He avoids anyone with similar names, he can't get attached, they won't last, it can't bring anything good. Soulmates are a very real thing, and he won't be burned by them again. When he was a kid, he thought it was a sweet thing. Now he knows better. Now he knows it's not.

Of course, all of them are wrong.

[trivalentlinks]

The Uncharacteristically Cuddly Kitty Job

[Reposted from this thread about Quinn's cat, Pancake]

Imagine Eliot sitting on the couch with a nice square of homemade, southern-style cornbread that he’s getting ready to enjoy when suddenly Pancake jumps up onto his lap.

“Hey,” he greets her, and she starts purring loudly, rubbing her face against his chest.

So far, so normal, Eliot thinks, taking a bite of his delicious, warm cornbread, which has turned out just the way he likes it.

Where things get a little strange is when Pancake starts bumping her head against his hand, the one not holding the cornbread.

“You don’t even like to be pet,” Eliot frowns, tentatively touching her head.

She leans all the way into Eliot’s hand, walking across his lap while pushing up against his hand until it’s run the length of her body.

She then moves forward towards the other hand.

“Hey, what’s with you today?” Eliot asks, moving his other hand out of the way. (He doesn’t want to get cat hair on his cornbread.)

“You don’t like pets, and you definitely don’t like cornbread–you ain’t Megabyte.”

Speaking of which, it’s strange that Megabyte isn’t there begging for a bite. Maybe she has finally learned that after her recent vet trip, Eliot has decided to be more serious about keeping to her diet.

Pancake gives him only a plaintive meow before reaching out farther towards the hand holding the cornbread trying to bump her head against it to solicit pets.

As soon as the cornbread is held as far out of the way as Eliot can reach, more than a little ways off the edge of the couch, a sixty pound blur of Belgian Malinois comes barrelling in out of nowhere.

Eliot freezes, unable to move the cornbread out of Megabyte’s path without throwing Pancake off of him violently, and in that moment, Megabyte swipes the cornbread right out of Eliot’s hand.

Megabyte strolls off to the other side of the room, sitting down to enjoy her ill-gotten snack.

Pancake immediately loses all interest in getting pet and jumps off of Eliot to go sit next to her friend.

That’s when Quinn looks up from where he’s been reading on the other couch.

“Eliot, did you just get conned by a cat and a dog?”

[v-as-in-victor]

Wednesday Waiver

“Alec”, Parker said.

Hardison paused his game and turned to look at his partner. She was sitting on the counter top swinging her legs and licking a lollipop in a way that probably would have been seductive if any other woman did it, but that she contrived to make vaguely threatening.

“What’s up babe?”

“I was just thinking…” Parker took a long suck on the lollipop and pulled it out of her mouth with a pop, baring all her teeth. Again, should have been hot, mostly terrifying. Which when it came to Hardison’s wiring in regards to Parker was getting to be the same thing.

“Yeah, and what were you thinking about?” he asked, not sure if he should be hopeful or trepidatious.

“You know how it’s Wednesday?”

He did know that.

“You know how we said that there was no stabbing on Wednesdays?”

“Ye-e-es?” Hardison said, drawing the word out and beginning to wonder how worried he should be.

“Well, I was just thinking,” she chomped on the lollipop, breaking off a large piece of the hard sugar and crunching it noisily, “what if some people need stabbing on a Wednesday.”

She slid down off the counter and started to slink toward Hardison. He had to admit, the slink was more effective than the lollipop thing. Parker and ideas she got from pop culture were always a baffling combination.

“Yes, mama?” he asked. No point trying to figure out where this was going. This was going wherever Parker wanted it to, and he’d been on that ride too long to think about jumping off now.

“You’re the one who came up with No Stabbing Wednesday, so I think,” Parker said, climbing comfortably onto Hardison’s lap in his gaming chair, straddling his knees, “I think you’re the one who should be able to give me a waiver.”

She looked into his eyes and ran her tongue around the half-bitten off lollipop, once again with way too many teeth showing and a gleam of bloodlust in her eyes.

Damn, but he shouldn’t find that hot.

(90% @antelucyferum’s fault, 10% @51pegasi-b’s fault.)

[runaway-timeout]

For the tropes mashup... 48 (Fake Dating) + 69 (Flirting Under Fire), a Leverage ship of your choice

I know it’s short, but this is my first time writing for Leverage and I love Sophie/Nate so much so here it is. Thanks for the prompt.

Sophie/ Nate

A split second is all Nate had as he saw the glint of the gun. He would have thought about it harder, if it were anyone other than her. He would have gone through his options, analyze. But it was her.

“Sophie!”

His body moved forward and collided with hers. He made sure to turn them so she landed on top of him. Now that he had time to think about it, he probably should not have done that.

“You know that you just blew our cover,” Sophie said moving her hair from her face.

               Nate opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by multiple guns going off.

24 HOURS EARLIER

“You know it’s the only way to get to him,” Sophie said after repeating her plan for the fifth time.

“No, no, no, I get that, but why us,” Nate asked pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Nate, he’s a man. He’s a rich man. If there were any reason to have me on this time, it would be because I know how rich men think. I know their weaknesses and how to use them to my gain. This is what I do Nate. I’m right and I know you know it.”

               Nate does know it. Sophie is the best in the business. She is known by everyone whether they know it’s her or not. He would never question if she knew what she was doing or not. He knew it was the right play, he could not have thought of one better. He was having problems with being one of the players and moreover with Sophie playing his counterpart. If he’s not careful with the way his mind has been lately, he will get too lost in his part.

“Alright, alright, you win. You run point on this one. It is after all your mark.”

               Sophie had the power to control any room she entered. And as if on cue the mark’s eyes locked on Sophie. Nate’s hand tightened on Sophie’s waist. He was making this a bit too easy.

“This might be over quicker than I thought,” Sophie whispered as she fixed Nate’s tie.

               Nate was relieved that she thought so, at the rate they were going, he wasn’t going to last. The subtle touches were quickly becoming instinct and addicting. Sometimes he would feel Sophie lean into some of the touches, and it made him curious. This was getting dangerous and when Sophie took his hand and led him to the dancefloor, he knew he did not care.

“Why are we doing this,” Nate asked as he pulled Sophie close.

“Oh this is just for fun,” Sophie said mischievously.

PRESENT

“You look beautiful in the light of gunfire,” Nate said smiling up at her.

“Is now really the time, Nate,” Sophie said rolling her eyes.

“Is there a wrong time to tell a woman she’s beautiful?”

“Ever the romantic,” Sophie said with a smile.

“Only with you.”

               There was a pause and it was suddenly just them.

“Would you like to have dinner when we get out of this,” Nate asked reaching up and tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.

“Yes, yes I would,” Sophie said with a smile.

[v-as-in-victor]

Peace comes dripping slowly

A leverage ficlet- I’ll probably edit it a bunch before posting it elsewhere, but it’s a future I need right now.

-------------------------------------

There'd been a war, when it came down to it. Leverage, Inc, looking back, was just the first skirmishes of the big showdown to come, between the transnationals and oligarchs who did not give one shit for the little people, and people like the five of them who were willing to stand up and fight.

A lot of it was out of Eliot's scope. Hardison, of course, had a lot on his hands countering election tampering. With teams led by Cyrus Mahadavi, and, ugh, Chaos, Hardison had created a world-wide network of grey hats who quietly fostered functioning democracy.

Parker had taken one look at the real landscape ahead of them, once she'd absorbed the contents of the Black Book, and gone for a long think hanging off a tall building. Putting the puzzle pieces together she'd realized that they'd need to branch out, expand with trusted people. She'd proven to have a knack for organizing on a scale that made Nate proud.

Still, no-one had quite expected her to have the chops to grift her way into the Senate and work her weird influence there to take out bad blood and champion election finance reform and business regulation. The age of shame had passed so it was no longer a simple matter of finding a marital infidelity or a financial crime, but between the skills of the three of them, a surprisingly large number of members of Congress had quietly decided to retire to spend more time with their families.

The American people seemed to respond to Parker's bluntness, although Hardison thought that being blonde and stunning might have helped as well. And his impeccable character background for her - she'd been untouchable, to the chagrin of their political enemies. He did have to draw the line at a run for Presidency. America wasn't quite ready for two first gentlemen.

Eliot had been on the ground a lot. Union organizing mostly. The way things had gone down, a return to labor having collective strength was a downright necessity. The big billionaires were hard to touch in a way that cut out enough of their power. People didn't realize just how vast the difference between a million and a billion dollars was. But without people on the ground doing the work to make their companies profitable, there was nothing to make money on.

Eliot got his hands bloodied at the frontlines, taking on the worst of the union-busters and slipping in next to corrupt local police officers with his good ol' boy act to cut the feet out from under them too. Parker's big picture thinking had picked out key cities and regions and the momentum had grown. Though none of them could take credit for the massive labor movement that had swept through India and Bangladesh's textile industries.

It'd been a war, and a long one, but they'd made a difference, a real difference to how the world ran.

So now it was this - a better time, and a time to slow down. Eliot had picked the island, right off the coast of Portland, the climate they were all used to, some beautiful rock formations for Parker to free climb, and still in hailing distance of good internet for Hardison.

And for him, beehives, chickens, rows and rows of fresh growing vegetables. His hands in the soil, arthritic knuckles and all. His two most loved people with him, and Nate and Sophie in to visit whenever they were in the Pacific North West. Nate like some kind of proud grandpapa of democracy, white haired but sharp eyed still. Sophie with her phone in hand always cultivating connections and growing the next generations of smart sneaky people who'd make a difference.

Had he earned this peace? Not a question Eliot bothered with much any more. This peace, this gentle grip on the land and tight embrace of his family, deserve it or not, he'd always treasure it.

[gingerpolyglot]

trick-or-treat!

trick! it is the day AFTER Halloween! ha HA!

Now for a treat: a three sentence Leverage fic for you!

"You know, it occurs to me in retrospect that we could have just broken into the building after hours instead of hacking our way into their system, setting up a phishing scheme, and faking a call center." "But I wanted to try out my sweet new computer setup!" "DAMMIT HARDISON!"

[flowerparrish]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Leverage: Hardison/Parker/Eliot

Rated: G | No Warnings | Length: 133 words

Summary:

Heart in his throat, Alec watches Eliot go down.