Mixed Bag of Comment Fic
Brothers
Supernatural/Leverage; Jake & Hardison; twins.
Alec never talked about Jake, not with Sophie or Nate or even Parker. He didn't blog about him or talk to his internet friends about him, even if he kept an eye on traffic cams and INTERPOL and everyone else's websites, just in case he saw his face.
He hooked up with the team about a year after Jake went MIA. He'd almost been happy that it was after Nana died; it would have broken her heart to see Jake go missing.
They'd been a tag team, a package, a pair. Nana had adopted them both, no questions asked, and they'd breathed identical sighs of relief when they got to stay together. They'd been older brother to Melody, who took over Alec's violin lessons when she was ten, and Jim, who, in retrospect, was too much like Eliot for his own good. They'd all loved Nana for making them a family.
Sometimes Hardison felt guilty for not talking to Melody and Jim anymore. But Melody was engaged now and Jim was living in San Francisco doing drag shows and avoiding him as well. He kept an eye on them, electronically and in person, when he could. He hoped that was good enough for Nana.
By the time five years had gone by, Alec was at a point where he wasn't thinking about Jake everyday. He wasn't double checking his own face in every camera feed in case it could be him. He wasn't scanning every army e-mail, just in case. He thought he might have been moving on.
And then, in the back of Lucille, while Sophie and Nate conned the mark and Parker worked the safe, Eliot asked, "Do you have a brother?"
And that was enough to bring it all back. Somehow he managed to choke out, "Yeah. Yeah, I did."
Eliot paused for minute, letting Alec catch his breath. “I thought you were Jake, back when we met in LA. I figured you were conning Nate, saying your name was Alec, but the last name was the same.”
“He was my twin. We were identical.”
Eliot nodded and looked as serious as Alec ever saw him. He pulled his hair into the half ponytail they all associated with fights and positioned himself so Alec could take a swing at him, if he wanted and was feeling suicidal. “I wasn’t posted with him; I was supposed to be in Iraq, but you know how that can go. And I’m a specialist - and Jake was special.”
Alec blinked, realising that Eliot had actually known his brother. “‘Course he was. Boy woulda given his leg for you if he thought it could help.”
“Naw. I mean, he would, but not like that.” Eliot wouldn’t look him in the eye and that unsettled something in Alec’s stomach, remembering DC and Moreau. “He was special. Saved my life twice. I was gonna ask to get him transferred.”
“You saying you were sleeping with my brother? In Afghanistan?”
“No! I mean - “ Eliot caught himself and shook his head. “The transfer papers were going through the night he disappeared. I know he wasn’t my brother, but we both lost him.”
Alec looked away from Eliot and fiddled with the volume on the ear pieces, just to have something to do. From the look on Eliot’s face, Jake had done the thing Jake was so good at and grabbed at Eliot’s heart. Good on Jake. Alec knew he never could. He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “Too bad there’s nothing we can do now.”
“No. If I ever me that yellow eyed bastard, he’s gonna pay.”
Alec didn’t have the heart to ask Eliot what he was talking about then. But that night, and over the next few months, he found some very interesting websites. And the incident in the roadside motel with Eliot and Parker and the weird dude in the trenchcoat was a story for another time.
Changes
Supernatural, any, in an AU wherein Michael is the Devil, Lucifer is the Sword of Heaven, Raphael is the Messenger-gone-Rogue, Healer!Gabriel struggles with his responsibilities.
Sam blinked. He had to stop - no, this was definitely Castiel's fault.
"Come on!" Raphael said, her voice somehow successfully conveying that she was there to help. Her body language was different and Sam wondered, briefly, if she was no longer possessed. Then she proved she was by grabbing Sam's hand and transporting him to a shitty motel out cornfields that could have been Iowa or Nebraska.
"What - what the hell is going on?"
"Your brother has been asking for you," Raphael said, sticking just a little too close too Sam for his own comfort. "He has been talking about Michael coming to him in his dreams again."
Sam started at that and could tell that Raphael, the sneaky bastard, had been aiming for that. She took off at an easy pace to Room 117. It worried Sam that he could see something like pressing friendship in Raphael's face and movements, even under the powersuit and, well, the fact that she was Raphael.
Dean was in Room 117 alright. And he did look he'd been going a couple rounds with Michael the Archangel, but it was really, really wrong to see Gabriel, alive and whole, sitting on the edge of Dean's bed.
"What- what's going on?" Sam asked, freezing just inside the doorway.
"I don't think God would approve of this, Raphael," Gabriel said, in the stilted way most angels had, but Sam never associated with him.
Raphael bit her lip, but look on her face just screamed, 'Screw God's approval.' Instead, she said, "God made all of Creation. We were given stewardship and this is a part of that stewardship."
"Lucifer does not approve," Gabriel continued. "According to Uriel and Aniel, he is prepared to do war to defeat Michael once and for all. Even if it brings an end to Creation."
Raphael scowled. "We simply won't allow that. Will we, Gabriel?"
Gabriel looked a little cowed at that and fiddled with something in his pocket. Dean looked at all of them with big eyes in his pale face. "If I just said yes to Michael, we could end this."
"No!" both angels cried at once.
"He would burn through you like a husk," Gabriel said. "He wears you out when he can only find you in dreams. We can't risk losing you to him."
"Losing me? I'm just a guy. A hunter, but a guy."
"Haven't you been paying attention?" Raphael asked. "The Winchester Gospels haven't been written, Rebecca wasn't chosen, you haven't lived chosen lives for nothing. Samuel and Dean Winchester are meant for more."
Dean turned a fairly revolting shade of gray and puked into the trashcan by the side of the bed. He made a very uncharacteristic whimper and Gabriel did something complicated with his hands. Dean looked more white than gray afterward and the smell of vomit was gone from the room.
Raphael grabbed Sam by the wrist and pulled him toward the bed. "I know you are all about the macho game, but your little brother needs you. Come on."
Oh god. What happened this time? Sam wondered.
The Rules Eliot/Nate, Eliot/Moreau
Leverage, Nate/Eliot, Nate's worried when Eliot starts drinking. He's sure that somehow it's Moreau's fault.
Everyone else had gone home for the day, but Eliot was still in Nate's apartment. And he was hitting the bottle of Jack like he had a grudge against it.
"Do you really think you should be drinking?" Nate asked at last, having put aside his own tumbler after Sophie walked out the door.
"None of your business," Eliot said and, worryingly, Nate could hear the slur in his voice. "You're not my father."
Nate knew what drinking could do to a man. His father and grandfather had been alcoholics. He'd grown up mostly in the bar downstairs, watching men drink and sometimes beat the shit out of each other. He was pretty sure that Eliot knew what it could do, too, even as he was walking down that path. And he knew, he wanted to know, that neither of them wanted Nate to be scared Eliot would lose control because he'd been drinking, too much.
"No, I'm not, I'm your lover." Nate swallowed. He remembered when he and Eliot could just have a couple of beers while watching the Bruins or Red Sox. Since San Lorenzo, though, it turned into this, at least once a week. If he thought he could get away with it, he'd kill Moreau.
No, who was he kidding? Nate knew he could get away with it. He just didn't want to see the look on Eliot's face when he learned Nate had blood on his hands.
Eliot barked out a short, unhappy laugh and tossed back the last of the Jack. "My lover. You've got to be the first one who likes pretty words."
"They aren't just pretty words, they're true," Nate said, closing his eyes. He knew he wouldn't like where this was going, but maybe, just maybe, it could help.
"You like fucking me, Nate," Eliot slurred, rummaging in the cabinet and coming back triumphantly with half a bottle of Seagram's. "Lots of people like to fuck me. I'm good at it. Look good, know how to make you feel good, make you feel like a man, and when you don't have your dick in my ass, I can be your hired muscle." He swigged from the bottle this time. "Seems like a win-win situation."
"That's not what it's like," Nate told him, feeling the muscle in his jaw start twitching.
"Then how is it? 'Cause I know how this goes. I've been that guy since I was nineteen and now you know it and everyone else does and -" Eliot cut himself off for another drink. "I've seen how Sophie looks at me. Just... put me out of my misery."
"No. You're my lover and you're my teammate and we're not playing by their rules anymore." And it wasn't just the rules of Eliot's old bosses. They weren't playing by IYS rulebooks or Nate's father's games. They weren't going by Archie Leech's say-so or using Sophie's old personas or making Hardison hack to pay the bills. These were Nate's rules now and he had very specific thoughts on how his teammates were treated. On how Eliot was treated.
"Then what are the goddamned rules?" Eliot's eyes looked blurry and Nate wondered if he'd even remember this conversation in the morning. He didn't know which would be better: remembering or forgetting.
"That I love you. Even if you're drinking. That Sophie wants to mother you and maybe make you buy her a new pair of shoes. That Parker might know what you're going through. And that Hardison, he's planning on pouring Listerine into the next bottle of whiskey you bring into the apartment."
Burning for You
Supernatural, John/Mary,
You think you couldn't bear it,
your child dying,
think you couldn't survive. (Diane Lockward)
With Sammy in the backseat, Mary drove away from Lawrence, Kansas in John's VW van.
She had cousins in Colorado and Nebraska and Indiana. They could give her the weapons and watch her son. She was sure they'd be happy to see her back and even happier to see John gone.
She almost wished she could have stayed in Lawrence with him, could go to Dean's tiny, empty grave weeping beside her husband.
But Mary had seen what had taken her son and knew what those yellow eyes meant. And she'd follow that demonic son of a bitch to the ends of the earth if she had to. And while she did, the Campbells would know how to keep Sammy safe.
Supernatural/Leverage; Jake & Hardison; twins.
Alec never talked about Jake, not with Sophie or Nate or even Parker. He didn't blog about him or talk to his internet friends about him, even if he kept an eye on traffic cams and INTERPOL and everyone else's websites, just in case he saw his face.
He hooked up with the team about a year after Jake went MIA. He'd almost been happy that it was after Nana died; it would have broken her heart to see Jake go missing.
They'd been a tag team, a package, a pair. Nana had adopted them both, no questions asked, and they'd breathed identical sighs of relief when they got to stay together. They'd been older brother to Melody, who took over Alec's violin lessons when she was ten, and Jim, who, in retrospect, was too much like Eliot for his own good. They'd all loved Nana for making them a family.
Sometimes Hardison felt guilty for not talking to Melody and Jim anymore. But Melody was engaged now and Jim was living in San Francisco doing drag shows and avoiding him as well. He kept an eye on them, electronically and in person, when he could. He hoped that was good enough for Nana.
By the time five years had gone by, Alec was at a point where he wasn't thinking about Jake everyday. He wasn't double checking his own face in every camera feed in case it could be him. He wasn't scanning every army e-mail, just in case. He thought he might have been moving on.
And then, in the back of Lucille, while Sophie and Nate conned the mark and Parker worked the safe, Eliot asked, "Do you have a brother?"
And that was enough to bring it all back. Somehow he managed to choke out, "Yeah. Yeah, I did."
Eliot paused for minute, letting Alec catch his breath. “I thought you were Jake, back when we met in LA. I figured you were conning Nate, saying your name was Alec, but the last name was the same.”
“He was my twin. We were identical.”
Eliot nodded and looked as serious as Alec ever saw him. He pulled his hair into the half ponytail they all associated with fights and positioned himself so Alec could take a swing at him, if he wanted and was feeling suicidal. “I wasn’t posted with him; I was supposed to be in Iraq, but you know how that can go. And I’m a specialist - and Jake was special.”
Alec blinked, realising that Eliot had actually known his brother. “‘Course he was. Boy woulda given his leg for you if he thought it could help.”
“Naw. I mean, he would, but not like that.” Eliot wouldn’t look him in the eye and that unsettled something in Alec’s stomach, remembering DC and Moreau. “He was special. Saved my life twice. I was gonna ask to get him transferred.”
“You saying you were sleeping with my brother? In Afghanistan?”
“No! I mean - “ Eliot caught himself and shook his head. “The transfer papers were going through the night he disappeared. I know he wasn’t my brother, but we both lost him.”
Alec looked away from Eliot and fiddled with the volume on the ear pieces, just to have something to do. From the look on Eliot’s face, Jake had done the thing Jake was so good at and grabbed at Eliot’s heart. Good on Jake. Alec knew he never could. He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “Too bad there’s nothing we can do now.”
“No. If I ever me that yellow eyed bastard, he’s gonna pay.”
Alec didn’t have the heart to ask Eliot what he was talking about then. But that night, and over the next few months, he found some very interesting websites. And the incident in the roadside motel with Eliot and Parker and the weird dude in the trenchcoat was a story for another time.
Changes
Supernatural, any, in an AU wherein Michael is the Devil, Lucifer is the Sword of Heaven, Raphael is the Messenger-gone-Rogue, Healer!Gabriel struggles with his responsibilities.
Sam blinked. He had to stop - no, this was definitely Castiel's fault.
"Come on!" Raphael said, her voice somehow successfully conveying that she was there to help. Her body language was different and Sam wondered, briefly, if she was no longer possessed. Then she proved she was by grabbing Sam's hand and transporting him to a shitty motel out cornfields that could have been Iowa or Nebraska.
"What - what the hell is going on?"
"Your brother has been asking for you," Raphael said, sticking just a little too close too Sam for his own comfort. "He has been talking about Michael coming to him in his dreams again."
Sam started at that and could tell that Raphael, the sneaky bastard, had been aiming for that. She took off at an easy pace to Room 117. It worried Sam that he could see something like pressing friendship in Raphael's face and movements, even under the powersuit and, well, the fact that she was Raphael.
Dean was in Room 117 alright. And he did look he'd been going a couple rounds with Michael the Archangel, but it was really, really wrong to see Gabriel, alive and whole, sitting on the edge of Dean's bed.
"What- what's going on?" Sam asked, freezing just inside the doorway.
"I don't think God would approve of this, Raphael," Gabriel said, in the stilted way most angels had, but Sam never associated with him.
Raphael bit her lip, but look on her face just screamed, 'Screw God's approval.' Instead, she said, "God made all of Creation. We were given stewardship and this is a part of that stewardship."
"Lucifer does not approve," Gabriel continued. "According to Uriel and Aniel, he is prepared to do war to defeat Michael once and for all. Even if it brings an end to Creation."
Raphael scowled. "We simply won't allow that. Will we, Gabriel?"
Gabriel looked a little cowed at that and fiddled with something in his pocket. Dean looked at all of them with big eyes in his pale face. "If I just said yes to Michael, we could end this."
"No!" both angels cried at once.
"He would burn through you like a husk," Gabriel said. "He wears you out when he can only find you in dreams. We can't risk losing you to him."
"Losing me? I'm just a guy. A hunter, but a guy."
"Haven't you been paying attention?" Raphael asked. "The Winchester Gospels haven't been written, Rebecca wasn't chosen, you haven't lived chosen lives for nothing. Samuel and Dean Winchester are meant for more."
Dean turned a fairly revolting shade of gray and puked into the trashcan by the side of the bed. He made a very uncharacteristic whimper and Gabriel did something complicated with his hands. Dean looked more white than gray afterward and the smell of vomit was gone from the room.
Raphael grabbed Sam by the wrist and pulled him toward the bed. "I know you are all about the macho game, but your little brother needs you. Come on."
Oh god. What happened this time? Sam wondered.
The Rules Eliot/Nate, Eliot/Moreau
Leverage, Nate/Eliot, Nate's worried when Eliot starts drinking. He's sure that somehow it's Moreau's fault.
Everyone else had gone home for the day, but Eliot was still in Nate's apartment. And he was hitting the bottle of Jack like he had a grudge against it.
"Do you really think you should be drinking?" Nate asked at last, having put aside his own tumbler after Sophie walked out the door.
"None of your business," Eliot said and, worryingly, Nate could hear the slur in his voice. "You're not my father."
Nate knew what drinking could do to a man. His father and grandfather had been alcoholics. He'd grown up mostly in the bar downstairs, watching men drink and sometimes beat the shit out of each other. He was pretty sure that Eliot knew what it could do, too, even as he was walking down that path. And he knew, he wanted to know, that neither of them wanted Nate to be scared Eliot would lose control because he'd been drinking, too much.
"No, I'm not, I'm your lover." Nate swallowed. He remembered when he and Eliot could just have a couple of beers while watching the Bruins or Red Sox. Since San Lorenzo, though, it turned into this, at least once a week. If he thought he could get away with it, he'd kill Moreau.
No, who was he kidding? Nate knew he could get away with it. He just didn't want to see the look on Eliot's face when he learned Nate had blood on his hands.
Eliot barked out a short, unhappy laugh and tossed back the last of the Jack. "My lover. You've got to be the first one who likes pretty words."
"They aren't just pretty words, they're true," Nate said, closing his eyes. He knew he wouldn't like where this was going, but maybe, just maybe, it could help.
"You like fucking me, Nate," Eliot slurred, rummaging in the cabinet and coming back triumphantly with half a bottle of Seagram's. "Lots of people like to fuck me. I'm good at it. Look good, know how to make you feel good, make you feel like a man, and when you don't have your dick in my ass, I can be your hired muscle." He swigged from the bottle this time. "Seems like a win-win situation."
"That's not what it's like," Nate told him, feeling the muscle in his jaw start twitching.
"Then how is it? 'Cause I know how this goes. I've been that guy since I was nineteen and now you know it and everyone else does and -" Eliot cut himself off for another drink. "I've seen how Sophie looks at me. Just... put me out of my misery."
"No. You're my lover and you're my teammate and we're not playing by their rules anymore." And it wasn't just the rules of Eliot's old bosses. They weren't playing by IYS rulebooks or Nate's father's games. They weren't going by Archie Leech's say-so or using Sophie's old personas or making Hardison hack to pay the bills. These were Nate's rules now and he had very specific thoughts on how his teammates were treated. On how Eliot was treated.
"Then what are the goddamned rules?" Eliot's eyes looked blurry and Nate wondered if he'd even remember this conversation in the morning. He didn't know which would be better: remembering or forgetting.
"That I love you. Even if you're drinking. That Sophie wants to mother you and maybe make you buy her a new pair of shoes. That Parker might know what you're going through. And that Hardison, he's planning on pouring Listerine into the next bottle of whiskey you bring into the apartment."
Burning for You
Supernatural, John/Mary,
You think you couldn't bear it,
your child dying,
think you couldn't survive. (Diane Lockward)
With Sammy in the backseat, Mary drove away from Lawrence, Kansas in John's VW van.
She had cousins in Colorado and Nebraska and Indiana. They could give her the weapons and watch her son. She was sure they'd be happy to see her back and even happier to see John gone.
She almost wished she could have stayed in Lawrence with him, could go to Dean's tiny, empty grave weeping beside her husband.
But Mary had seen what had taken her son and knew what those yellow eyes meant. And she'd follow that demonic son of a bitch to the ends of the earth if she had to. And while she did, the Campbells would know how to keep Sammy safe.