Maybe You Can Owe Me

[jendavis]

Title: Maybe You Can Owe Me
Fandom/Pairing: Leverage: Alec/Eliot
Rating: PG-13 for language
Summary: scout_lover  wanted Alec bitching at Eliot while fixing him up. Not exactly to the letter, here, but I'm hoping it's close enough.

Comments

[carinascott]

I love this. Especially the way Eliot distinguishes between Hardison and Alec. I do this in my own head and in my writing. I refer to Hardison as Alec more often in my fic because I feel that, to Eliot at least, Hardison refers to his team mate. The one that he counts on in the field to back them up and assist with the technological aspects of their cons. But Alec is the lover. The one that Eliot can be himself with, the only one that Eliot is able to be somewhat vulnerable with, the only one I think he truly, truly trusts to have his back no matter what. Yet I think that when it comes to certain things, like Hardison being in danger, there is no difference for Eliot. Hardison is Alec and vice versa. But when it comes to Hardison, he doesn’t really distinguish between the hitter and Eliot. For him it’s all rolled up into one person, and even though he tries to keep them separate for the sake of their jobs, when it comes to Eliot being in danger, especially if he feels somewhat responsible for it, he can’t see the difference either. All he can see is Eliot, and as you’ve shown, he’ll move out of his comfort zone to save him in any way he can. You captured that here very well, in a way I wouldn’t have expected too. Very nice. Thanks for sharing!

[jendavis]

Thanks! My feeling exactly. I mean, "Hardison" works really well when one's growling it out through annoyed clenched teeth on a job, but it's a little awkward and impersonal, and I think Eliot would be the type to try and keep his personal stuff out of the workplace, to be sure, but I think Alec's the type to work around that, since I see him as being probably the most, I don't know, emotionally coherent of the bunch. :)

So glad you liked it, and I really dug your meta, too!

[carinascott]

When I started writing Alec/Eliot fics a lot of people asked me why I referred to Hardison as Alec so much since they rarely, if ever, do in canon. And this is why. Because it's like a separation between their on the job personas and who they really are. I do this in more fandoms than Leverage. I did it all the time in the CSI fandom, having Warrick refer to Grissom as Gil, because I just couldn't get the same level of intimacy between them otherwise. And I think that's the main thing. The difference in names, to a certain extent, speaks to a level of intimacy that they'd likely try to keep away from their work.

Glad you liked my meta, I think its the first time I actually put to paper (or computer screen, lol) why I do this in my fics. :)

[jendavis]

I totally agree, and it's weird, because the way I see it, Eliot is the most likely to compartmentalize between work and personal life (hence using the two names) and on Alec's end, I read him as the least likely to compartmentalize anything, so I don't think he'd notice the names being used one way or the other. But he'd probably think it was weird to be called by his last name by someone he's really close to. So. Yeah. Big long way of saying that I totally agree, here. :)