Here is the thing, because I'm rewatching Leverage and I've just finished the Order 23 Job. There is a way to make a character care about kids, without making it out like they were abused when they were younger. I mean, in the literal next episode, Eliot remarks that he's uncomfortable using a kid to get to a mark, he's great at teaching/working with kids, and he's also willing to keep his fighting quiet when Widmark's on stage (in part because Sophie asks, and in part because I think he also wanted to give Widmark a chance to shine). There was no need to have the subplot in Order 23, if you weren't going to make him a victim of child abuse. Fuck, if you wanted to have a similar subplot, just have it be a child who has a bad injury/illness, or who doesn't have parents to take care of them, or who's just having a generally bad time. But you can't tell me a whole crew of people wrote that subplot, directed it, had a test audience watch it, and no-one was like 'hey boss. Getting abused vibes here. We might want to change a few things around.' But whatever, *kicks rock down the road with my hands in my pockets* it's literally fine.
Listen ok Eliot is protective like whoa and that doesn’t just mean in the dangerous way; he’s mom friend, he’s the older sister you never had, he’s your actual mom, the “have you eaten today?” friend. All that being said, he routinely takes down private security teams, in his head, on his day off. Once he said he only sleeps 90 minutes a night and I’m not so sure he was lying - it’s half probably unnecessary hypervigilance and something he picked up when he needed to keep watch for two weeks straight with a team of three and four months of constant attack.
Alec Hardison is thirsty for someone to be close to. He had a great homelife (relatively) and he knows what it’s supposed to be like but he’s actually a classic computer nerd and has never been with someone past his fantasies of what romance should be like. Which brings me to my next point which is he’s a classic romantic. I think Hardison had a real job at some point, like he was a tech guy or he worked at a cybersecurity company or he hacked like garcia. Anyway he knows basic stuff. He’s the emotional one of the bunch, the one who experiences emotion like a typical person Like Eliot, can sense when someone isn’t telling the truth or isn’t being true to himself through high level CIA training but lacks the emotional intelligence to deal with it gracefully. Which is where Hardison comes in
Then there’s Parker. She keeps everyone at arm’s distance, to the point where it’s actually shocking if she touches you. She takes extreme risks because she’s incredibly impulsive. She doesn’t lie, doesn’t even know how or why she would because she always has an escape route. She hates hospitals because she spent her entire 7th year in one after a beating so bad she almost didn’t walk again. But she’s not adverse to romance and friendship, it just takes her a very long time to suss out whether you’re going to hurt her or not. She’s gullible about real world knowledge bc she has a very specific set of skills. A bizarrely blazeh attitude until helpless children being exploited or respect for Good dead men gets brought up, basically she knows what the right thing is but she needs people to point her in the right direction.
Eliot and Alec really do use that to their advantage but would rather kill each other and themselves before hurting her. Thus even though they fight, they really do go well together.
It's so sad how you can see the set up for season 6 so clearly in season 5, bc they have a new base in a new city, Nate has gotten his revenge and is moving on and settling down with Sophie, Hardison and Parker have found their groove, Eliot is following his passion in the brewpub.
Like they're settled and strong and it's time to up the stakes and go after the big guys, they were gonna end the season with a hit list for the next one, a hit list Jim Sterling, Nate's rival is tied to. It was probs gonna focus more on that rivalry, one the whole team has gotten into, and how they navigate working down that list, which is probably when that CIA agent they pissed off was gonna come into play, bc they know the black book is gone and suddenly those people are being targeted, so they would have big league people on their heels
You can see the set up so clearly and it would have been epic as fuck, but it just got cancelled :(
I wrote something but I honestly don’t have the energy to finish it. But I also really like it. Comments, reactions and replies welcome.
heres like 1500 words of Leverage ot3 angst
cw: canon typical violence, mention of blood/bodies/injuries/nightmares but nothing too graphic:
Eliot's wrist buckled under the force of his punch and he knew it was over. He knew it immediately, in the way that you do when unforgivable words leave your mouth and that tell tale silence falls. The twist in the movement had knocked the breath out of him pulling his focus to his cracked rib. It only took him a second to recover but in that time the pain in his wrist set in. The rest of his senses dulled as shock enveloped him, dulling the pain. He had two more guys to take out before the team was done, fifteen give or take already lay groaning on the floor. Alec was trying to fight one of them off, rather pathetically if Eliot were being honest. He stopped listening, focusing on the pain for one moment. A quick glance told him his right arm was useless, the pulsing ache he could ignore but he knew from experience that if he kept pushing he’d lose control real fast. He really didn’t feel like killing anyone today. Especially when-
A scream pulled their attention to the doorway and a burly man with a buzz cut and a nasty snarl of a smile on his face entered the room, a body draped over his shoulder. Eliot couldn’t see who it was. Then it hit them like a punch right to the solar plexus. Parker. Then Eliot saw it; the blood trail following the man into the room, dripping from the ends of her blonde hair. Suddenly he thought he was going to be sick. The fuzz in his head had become overwhelming. Everyone moved in slow motion.
“Eliot!” Alec dodged the bodyguard’s right hook and he didn’t even have the wherewithal to hide the shock from his face. He threw a terrified glance at Eliot when the guy pulled out a pistol. “I need a little help here! Come on!” Eliot had clocked the gun the moment the bodyguard walked in but then he assumed it wouldn’t be a problem. The situation had clearly changed.
The anger and panic in Alec’s voice sounded far away like he was yelling from a different room. Alec turned to the man with Parker over his shoulder.
“What did you do?!” The hacker lunged at the man and before anyone could react Buzz Cut lifted his arm. Two echoing gun shots pulled Eliot back into his body. He gulped in air as time caught up with him. A fire inside him shook what was left of the shock out of his system and finally he snarled, bright eyed and furious at the two men who had just taken the people he loved most.
A loud BANG echoed off the walls. This was it. He tasted blood. With everything left in his body he lunged at the man with the gun but he didn’t make it that far. A third gunshot. But maybe it was better that way.
##
Eliot was lying on his back. His hair was damp and his breath came in short, shallow, sharp gasps. The ground became soft around him. Someone was shouting his name in his ear. It was like they were right there-
“ELIOT?”
But...how?
“Eliot, you’re safe! You’re here with us.” The ground bounced beneath him like it was soft, like there were springs. A bed. Eliot couldn’t move. His thoughts were slow, he couldn’t figure out what was happening.
This time when Alec spoke it was with trepidation. “What’s wrong with him?”
Wrong with me?
“Nightmares,” Parker spoke from experience. She looked up at Alec and motioned him to move away. “Don’t touch him, he could get violent.”
A dream. Eliot opened his eyes. Alec and Parker pulled back in sync. They were ready for the man in their bed to react with the violence they’d become accustomed to, although never directed at them. It hurt him to think that they would ever be afraid of him. That they could even for a second think he’d do anything to hurt them.
He didn’t say anything, neither of them did. He just kept breathing. Nightmares were not a new occurrence for Eliot, he’d been having them since his service. What was different is how seeing Parker’s body and Alec shot affected him. He had just shut down, gone numb, something he promised himself he wouldn’t do again. He was not a hired gun. He was a hitter and a good one. For a team that needed him. Pure anger pulsed through him as he remembered the dream. Then his chest ached.
“E- Eliot,” Alec said softly. “Can you hear me? Are you awake?”
Eliot looked at him and then at Parker. Something in his stomach dropped. These are the people he most cared about. Parker took a measured risk and put her cold hand on his cheek. Eliot leaned into it, blinking at her. Just feeling their presence.
“You were-” he didn’t want to say it.
She shook her head. “I’m right here.” When he was sure she wasn’t lying he turned his attention to Alec, eyes wide. “Hardison,” Parker growled.
Alec’s eyes were glued to Eliot’s pale face. “You were sleep fighting - which really isn’t that weird - you do that all the time. But then you started yelling our names. I thought you were mad, I thought I pulled your hair in my sleep or put pressure on your cracked rib. But then you started…” Parker took his hand, steadying him. “You were crying, man.”
Eliot wiped his face and sat up. “I gotta-” he needed air. “I have to go.” When he got up Alec reached for him but he wouldn’t be pulled back. He needed room to think. All he could do was focus on their smell, their soft warm bodies next to him. Warm. All he wanted to do was feel the blood pulsing under their skin, feel their chest rising and falling. The ultimate signal that their breaths were still coming, that they were still here. Solidify that his dream was nothing more than that. A fiction his brain had come up with to deal with….
“Eliot.” Parker called, worry deep in her voice. He didn’t look back. In fact he changed into sweats - in plain view of the bed - and went out for a run.
Confusing her like this ached deep in his stomach. He’d promised never to give her mixed signals, she explicitly asked him when she was still struggling with voicing the things she was feeling. He insisted it was just as hard for him but he knew what she meant. She’d spent too many years yearning after abusive people, family who couldn’t decipher the difference between pain and love, relationships where manipulation was top priority. She’d become hardened, faced everything with a smile but she hadn’t let anyone in for years before them. She’d come so far since then. He’d promised he wouldn’t hurt her- or either of them - you don’t get into this business without needing to hide some scars yourself.
And yet. He never thought about how losing them would hurt him.
##
The run had given him time to think but it hadn’t calmed his nerves. He was still weighed down by the contents of his dream, still jumping at every sound. This was not good, a spring loaded hitter was dangerous. Every time he closed his eyes he snapped right back to seeing them both, lying still and covered in blood. It was hard to get close to people as a Hitter. He knew that, they knew that. But somehow they’d snuck up on him.
After three hours of running his chest was burning and he was legitimately worried his legs were about to give out under him. But he didn’t want to see them. Not because he didn’t want to see them, because he did. More than anything he wanted to collapse into their arms and let them take care of him like they often did in the comfort of their shared apartment. A role reversal that took him a long time to come to terms with but now treasured above all else. But he didn’t want to be reminded that he’d acquired such a weakness. Knowing that he had to deal with that, and that knowing he’d die for them at any given moment. It killed him to think about leaving them open to threats from all sides.
It wasn’t dying he was afraid of. It was losing them, not being a part of this thing they’d built. This comfort they’d fought endlessly to achieve. He coughed and his throat burned.
Entering the seemingly empty apartment from the front door always set off alarm bells in his head. He always felt the urge to check every bedroom for intruders and tense his shoulders for a fight. Today he was too mentally and physically exhausted.
Then just like that it hit him; he more than anyone could die tomorrow, he probably would. He had to tell them what they meant to him. He listened closely, waiting to hear the soft whispers of their voices. When he didn’t he wondered if they’d gone back to sleep. But Parker wasn’t the type to fall back asleep after something like that.
Season 4 is so good. They do the most to let the trio shine. Eliot getting hit in the face with a fucking carnival ride and when he wakes up, taking down two guys in the house of mirrors with his EYES literally CLOSED. To save a little girl he met A DAY ago
I’ve seen the Leverage episode “The Double Blind Job” (s3e5) like 3 times now.
And every. Single. Time. At the exact same point in the show. I go “is that Katie Lowes?” and then one second later her name appears on screen LITERALLY on top of her torso as part of the credits. And it is in fact, as always, Katie Lowes.
And because I’m nothing if not predictable, I think to myself “huh asked and answered.”
Not only is it a delightful bit of TV timing, her name popping up right on top of her character, but hilarious to me I do the same thing every time.
