Fic: What Livin' is For, Losers/Leverage, Eliot/Cougar/Jensen (part 2)
Title: What Livin’ is For
Author: ladyjanelly
Artist: entwashian
Beta: peaceful_sands
Fandoms: Leverage/Losers
Characters/pairing: Jensen/Cougar/Eliot
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Violence, language, attempted non-con, vague mentions of previous non-con
Summary: A one-night-stand becomes a whole lot more. If only life were that simple.
Art Link: ( Banner + Fanmix )
Eliot almost calls them after Moreau, after the team sees what he is, what he’s done. A dozen hired guns dead on a warehouse floor and Eliot the only one to walk away. He sits on his bed, the place where they’d fucked him and he’d fucked Jake and holds that white card in his hand, stares at the numbers until they’re as impossible to forget as his own name.
“Call if you need us,” Jake had said, but Eliot’s pretty sure this isn’t what he meant. “If you need us to shoot someone,” maybe, or “If you need to borrow a hundred grand.” Not “If you need somebody to hold your hand because you’re scared your team will look at you different.”
He sneers at his own weakness and puts the card back in his wallet. Whatever happens, however bad it aches, he deserves it, with all the people he’s hurt for money. He’s just sorry for Sophie and Parker and Hardison, to have their trust trampled upon. So many times he tried to tell them; he wishes now they’d believed him.
==========
He comes home from the next job, and there’s another of Jake’s white business cards pushed under his door, and he feels a pang of regret that he missed them. Somehow it’s good to know though, that they’re back in the country safe, and that they thought of him. He thinks about calling, not that he really needs anything. Jake would say something ridiculous. Translate Cougar’s eyebrows and lip-quirks over the phone. They might be gone again already, but he’s sure they’d make him smile.
He considers having Hardison trace the phone, just to see where they are, how close, but he doesn’t feel like buying him a new computer if Jake takes offense at the snooping.
=====================
“He has a crew,” Cougar reminds Jensen, knowing it won’t put an end to his pouting.
Jensen drops himself onto the sagging mattress of their latest dive hotel. “No, I know that. I just thought. You know. That we were in town, so maybe.”
Truth to tell, Cougar had hoped, also. For another night, for Eliot’s calm and strength. For the chance to rest, knowing Jensen was watched over.
It wouldn’t be the same, but he offers anyway, “We could go out. Find someone.”
Jensen turns his head, meets Cougar’s eyes. “Do you want to?” He sounds guarded, like he’s asking for Cougar’s sake and not his own desire.
“No.”
A smile flickers over Jensen’s sweet mouth. “Will you fuck me?” he asks, and Cougar rolls his eyes. Like he’d ever say no to that.
“Hey Cougar?” Jake asks after, their sweat cooling in the breeze from the noisy air-conditioner, “You know, right? That this thing, this Eliot thing. It doesn’t mean I want you any less.”
Cougar tucks in closer to Jake’s back, against his warm and sweaty skin. He thinks about “this Eliot thing,” and yeah, it’s something. He’s not sure what he would name it, but it’s there. He thinks about Jake, with Eliot, and there’s no burn of jealousy, no fear. Just the warm spark of desire. The soft brush of comfort.
“Go to sleep,” he tells Jake, lips pressed against his shoulder. They’ll try again next week, hope to catch Eliot then.
=============
Okay, so Hardison is not a man who likes to complain (Wait, okay, he enjoys complaining, but usually only so people recognize the difficulty of the project they’ve dumped in his lap; he rarely means it), but Nate’s to-do list is out of control. “Look, man, I may be a genius? I may be able to create a website, build Sophie a background as she spins it and hack a god-damn financial institution at the same time, but not while I’m playing Ruprecht the monkey boy!”
He throws his hands up in frustration because otherwise he’s going to commit an epic keyboard smash and he cannot afford the time it takes to switch out equipment at this stage in the game.
“I trust you to get it done,” Nate says and Hardison wants to scream.
“I can only divide my dice pool so many ways!” he yells at Nate’s back.
Nate just continues out of the van, leaving Eliot and Hardison in the buzzing cocoon of electronics.
“Call Jake,” Eliot suggests.
Hardison considers. The man certainly has the skills. It feels a little weird to call in back-up, but the worst that can happen is he’ll say no.
He expects Jake to give him shit for it, to rub it in his face that he’s gotta call in backup to do a job he should be able to handle on his own, but the man is straight-up professional about it, “Tell me what you need me to do,” and not screwing around like Chaos would have done.
After, when Hardison has the time, he clicks through the resume J-Mageddon made up for Sophie, the ten years of job history. On impulse he hacks one of her “previous employers” and there she is in their personnel files, job-reviews, tax forms, social security, everything.
It’s good work. Damn good work.
=========
Eliot’s been hit by cars, bulls, motorcycles, muscle-men and fast-strikers, baseball bats and crowbars, bullets and once by a frozen leg of lamb. He still wouldn’t have predicted that getting smashed by a carnival ride would hurt so damn bad, knock him out for what Parker said was nearly a full minute. A fist-fight afterward, while he’s still dizzy from being concussed? That didn’t help anything, either.
“You need a hospital?” Nate asks when the fighting is over.
Eliot is careful not to shake his head. “I’m fine. Looks worse than it is.” He cleans up in the carnival’s abandoned men’s room, glad for the privacy as he washes off the blood, puts Steri-strips on the cuts and bandages the wounds. A hospital visit means tests, drugs, strangers’ hands on him when he’s helpless. He can hold it together until after the debriefing and then curl up to lick his wounds alone, can and does. He even has a “nurse” lined up to keep the guys from worrying, an escort named Brigitte that he once helped out of a bad situation.
He holds it together until he’s out of the bar and into a cab, lets his eyes close as they drive back to his place. Brigitte’s fingers are cool on his arm when the car stops and he tosses the driver a few bills without looking at them and gets out. “Eliot,” she says as they walk up the building’s front steps and into the main hall, “I don’t mind helping you out, not at all, but I don’t really think I’m qualified to…”
She goes tense and Eliot looks up and sees two men coming down the stairs. He steps out in front of her, even knowing he’s about as effective as a two-day-old kitten right now.
“Eliot?” Jake’s voice is high-pitched with distress as he closes in the last few feet and reaches out. “Jesus fuck, what happened to you?”
Eliot clenches his jaw (and remembers why he didn’t want to do that as pain laces through the left side of his head and all the way down his spine). He doesn’t want their pity, doesn’t want them to see him like this.
“Sorry,” he says like he really isn’t, “Not in the mood to be a fuck-toy tonight. Maybe next time.”
“No fucking shit!” Jake snaps back, and Eliot’s surprised the guy is so pissed about not getting laid.
He steps around Jake but Brigitte doesn’t follow. He looks back and her eyes are wide. He follows her gaze and Cougar is staring her down. Eliot sighs and opens his wallet, passes her a couple hundred bucks tip. “Take the rest of the night off,” he tells her, not that he was planning on letting her past the threshold of his apartment anyway. “It’s okay, really. Treat yourself to something nice,” and she smiles uncertainly but goes.
He takes a slow breath and steels himself. He has to get rid of these idiots, and then walk up one flight of stairs, and he can crash. That’s all. He can do this. Should be able to do this, but Jake is behind him somehow, and Cougar in front, gazing into his eyes and gently turning Eliot’s face towards the overhead light.
“Don’t,” Eliot says, but it would hurt too much to pull away. “Get the hell off of me, Cougar.” Fuckers listen about as well as a brick wall, Jake hemming him in while Cougar does a quick once-over there in the stairwell.
“Yeah, okay, I’ve got him,” Jake says and Eliot thinks he just missed a little time there. “Come on, El,” Jake urges, “One foot in front of the other or I’m carrying you up these stairs like a prom date who’s had too much champagne.”
“I got it,” Eliot grumbles, “Leave me alone already,” but they go up with him and he’s panting and seeing spots by the time they get to his floor.
“I say we vote on it,” Jake says, “Leaving Eliot alone in his apartment with nobody to bring him soup. All those in favor?”
Eliot manages a growl, but he’s sure as hell not raising his hand for this shit. He’s not positive he could raise his hand if he tried.
“All those opposed? Sorry, Eliot, we voted; you’ve been overruled.”
“Not a damn democracy,” he grumbles and leans on Cougar as Jake frisks him for his keys and opens the door. There’s another white card on the floor and they step over it as they half-carry Eliot into his own place.
“If it’s not a democracy, then it’s a military oligarchy, might makes right. Seriously, are you going to try to stage a coup right now against Cougs and me? Really?”
They move him through the living room and down the hall to the bedroom, and he’s done with fighting, knows a losing battle when he sees one. Jake piles and fluffs his pillows and then the pair of them get him horizontal.
“Med-kit?” Jake asks, and Eliot can’t help but remember the first time they were here, Jake asking for wash-cloths to clean them up.
“Closet in th’ hall,” he answers and Jake goes to get it while Cougar starts stripping him.
“Said not in th’ mood,” Eliot protests, and even he can hear his words starting to slur with exhaustion.
“Don’t be an asshole,” Cougar admonishes, tone fierce and angry. “This? Is not sexy.”
Eliot focuses up at him, sees a glitter to his eyes that’s never been there before. Jake comes back with the med-kit and Cougar blinks rapidly. Something in Eliot’s stomach twists to see it, even the hint of tears in the tough man’s eyes.
“Eliot,” Jake calls softly, “If we have to take you to a hospital, what ID do you want to use? Just in case I don’t have time to make you one.”
“Floor safe, built in under the kitchen sink.” He rattles off the combination and Jake nods like he’s memorizing it. “Eugene Watts. Good insurance.”
“Got it.” Jake steps out then and Eliot wonders if they’ve already decided he’s too banged up to deal with at home, but he comes back with a glass of water and a straw and Cougar hands him some pills and he swallows without asking what they are.
He doesn’t remember falling asleep, not even the moment when Jake pulled the straw away from his lips. He wakes and the sun is out, a bright streak through the part in his curtains. Cougar is there in a chair by the bed, still and quiet, his pistol on the nightstand. Jake shares the bed with Eliot, asleep, glasses off and fingers occasionally twitching like he types in his dreams.
“How do you feel?” Cougar asks, a soft whisper.
“Fucked,” Eliot answers, his tone assuring that it’s not in the good way.
Cougar brings him some more pills and water and he sleeps again, knowing he’s watched over.
The next time he comes to, it’s because there’s movement, someone fucking with his hair and he flinches awake, Jake’s hands on his shoulder holding him down, quiet words soothing him. “It’s okay,” he says, “You’re safe. We’ve got you.”
Eliot lays his head down again and Jake goes back to what he was doing, spreading Eliot’s hair out, strand by strand, dabbing it with a wet cloth and picking the knots out with a small comb.
“It was really matted,” he says, like the state of his hair is high on Eliot’s list of concerns. “You’ve got blood in here, and like engine grease of some sort.” He sighs. “Did this for Cougs once. He. He got taken. Didn’t make it back to the rendezvous. They had him six days. Six days of Clay and Aisha plotting, trying to make the rescue into an attack, trying to ‘make Cougar’s suffering worth something.’ Like getting him out alive wasn’t as important as how much we could hurt Max in the process.”
Eliot opens his eyes and Jake’s lips are pressed tight together. “Pooch and I finally said ‘Fuck it,’ and went and got him. But yeah. His hair was a mess, man. I didn’t even want to know what all was in there. Took me three days to get it all clean and straight.”
Eliot wonders if that was what fucked Cougar up, sex-wise, wonders if he used to talk more. Six days is plenty to break a man, even a strong man.
He falls asleep again before he can ask, Jake’s gentle touches soothing him.
Turns out, six days is enough to put a man back together, too. They stay until he’s on his feet again, can cook his own meals and wash his own hair. They guard his sleep and bring him take-out from some really good restaurants. Jake spends a day on the computer and then announces that Eugene Watts has a brother, James, to call if he’s ever in need of a next-of-kin. He leaves a backup set of ID in Eliot’s safe, just in case.
The last night, they make love to him, gentle hands and mouths, slow kisses. They fall asleep when they’re done, Eliot between them, arms overlaying his stomach to touch each other and him at the same time.
He’s alone in the morning.
============
They visit more after that, once a month, maybe more. They stay the nights now, sometimes three or four in a row if he isn’t on a job, and he sleeps between them. He gives them a copy of the keys to his place and it seems like a major thing. If they were different men, he would see if they wanted to help out with a con every now and then, but he can’t see the crew working with a man whose primary skill is putting bullets into people from a long way away. He isn’t sure Jake could trust Nate’s brand of leadership, his need-to-know intel distribution and “Trust me to fuck with you but not fuck you over.”
Sometimes, when they leave to go to whatever job they’ve taken now, he thinks about going with them, leaving the effort of hiding what he is, what he’s capable of, from his team. He can’t quite wrap his head around it though, leaving them to find another hitter. There’s nobody he trusts to be as good as he is, to care as much as he does.
Jake and Cougar slip out of his grasp with a wink and a smile and an unspoken promise to come back again, and he lets them.
===========
The Leverage crew is between jobs and Eliot’s planning to use the time to re-stock his freezer with some good meals that he can re-heat or bring to Nate’s for everybody when time is tight and stomachs are empty. He’s in the gourmet grocer’s when his phone rings, Parker’s number and he answers knowing either something really bad has happened, or she’s going to give him a headache with her nonsense.
“Yeah?” he answers as he looks at the meat in the display case, contemplating how much of the grass-fed beef he needs for a big batch of curry chili.
“So I’m at your place, because I have a necklace I wanted to show you, and there are men in your living room,” Parker states without preamble.
He leaves his cart and heads for the door, “Where are you? What are they doing?”
“I’m on the ledge outside. I can’t see in because your curtains are closed, and they’re…bickering? One is saying there’s no use making bets anymore if they both always choose Eliot and Eliot always says yes.”
Eliot stops and turns back to his cart. “They’re allowed to be there. Don’t startle them, though. Just go downstairs and I’ll…” his phone beeps that there’s an incoming call. “Hang on.” He switches connections, barks “What?” into the phone.
“Hey Eliot,” Jake’s chipper voice greets him, and that headache is starting to build. “Your blond burglar is out on your ledge, should I let her in?”
These are parts of his life that he really shouldn’t mix together, but both are important to him, and Parker will make him crazy with her questions if he doesn’t. He signs to the butcher that he’ll take four of the Kobe sirloins. What the hell.
“Sure,” he says and hopes he’s not making a huge miscalculation. It’s not until he’s on the way back home with food for four that he thinks about what Parker said, about Jake and Cougar always choosing him. He thinks maybe, just maybe, he’s not the only one for whom this is becoming something more.
The apartment is quiet when Eliot gets there. Silent except for Jake on the couch tapping away at his laptop, either negotiating their next job or maybe battling against Hardison’s “clan” on that wow thing they both talk about.
“Hey,” Jake says without looking up.
Eliot isn’t sure if his casual non-concern at someone coming in behind him is a show of trust in Eliot’s home security or a serious flaw in his sense of self-preservation.
“Hey,” Eliot returns. “Where’s Parker and Cougar?”
Jake closes the laptop and looks up at him, a faint edge of unease in his expression, the set of his shoulders.
“They um.” He gestures vaguely over his shoulder. “It was totally her idea, man.”
Oh, Eliot thinks. So it doesn’t mean all that much to them after all. He sits heavily on the couch, lets the shopping bag fall beside his feet. The apartment is still eerily quiet, so at least they aren’t doing it in his bed.
“You cooking tonight?” Jake asks, hopeful and worried too. “They’ll be back in an hour or so.”
And Eliot can be a man about this. There were never any promises made on either side. It’s not like he hasn’t fucked anybody else since they started this thing. Just because it’s been a couple of months doesn’t mean anything. Just. Parker and Cougar. He trusts the man. Knows he’ll be good with her. Just hopes she knows it’s not a permanent arrangement.
“Yeah,” he says, getting his shit together. “I brought steaks. Thought we’d take them up to the roof and fire up the grill.” He stands and picks up the bags, figuring he’ll start them marinading now and work on the sides until Cougar and Parker get back.
“Eliot?” Jake asks, more serious than Eliot usually hears him. “You aren’t pissed, are you?”
“Why would I be pissed?” he asks, hearing the anger leaking out all over.
Jake shrugs. “We know you’re not the biggest fan of guns. Him teaching her to shoot. This is your team; if you don’t approve, we’ll back off or something. Not sure how anybody says no to that girl, though. Maybe we’ll leave the country for a while until she stops asking?”
Eliot bangs around in the fridge to hide the stupid relief Jake’s words give him. He gets out the balsamic vinegar and Dijon mustard, a couple other jars. He pulls down a bowl and mixes up a quick sauce. So not fucking then. Shooting. He plays the idea over in his head, Parker with a gun.
“She’s going to anyway,” he finally decides. “A couple months ago, that job that left me laid up for a little while. She took a rifle off of a Russian sniper. Not so much planning to shoot anyone with it, just flash the laser sight and do a little intimidating. I had to point out, after, that if it’d gone off it would have taken the target and Nate too. I think it scared her.”
“Good,” Jake says, “I mean not good that she has to handle the guns, but good that if she’s going to, she’s learning from the best. And good that you’re okay with it and we’re not gonna be hiding in Alaska or something until she loses interest. I seriously don’t want to ever have to hide from either of you.”
Jake’s voice gets closer and closer as he rambles. It’s no surprise when his hands settle at Eliot’s waist, no surprise when he nuzzles Eliot’s pony-tail to the side and licks at the side of his neck. Kind of a surprise when he turns Eliot to face the room and sinks to his knees. They’ve never done this, Eliot and one of them without the other. He trusts Jake not to lead him into breaking some sort of rule, because if they are, he’ll never see Cougar’s shot coming.
============
Cougar checks back with Jensen, skimming the cross hairs of the scope around his shape as he passes by. He scans the sidewalk cafe for potential problems, for feds or cops, for the client’s back-up, for any sign of a double-cross.
He hates these meetings, when the potential client insists on a face-to-face. They’re too vulnerable, just the two of them, Jensen tied up with the talking instead of hacking, no wheel-man, no demolitions, no strategist.
He sees the client coming up on Jensen’s six, recognizes the set of his shoulders and the roll of his walk from the videos Jensen found in the preliminary recon.
“On you in three, two, one,” Cougar counts down into the throat mic.
“Mister Montgomery,” he hears Jensen say, his own microphone a little tinny, smaller and better hidden, his back still to their contact. Cougar smirks as the client falters and looks around. Perfectly off balance for the interaction.
“Please,” Jensen says, his voice confident, and turns to meet the man’s eye, “Have a seat. I hear you have a project for my team.”
Jensen talks. The client talks. Cougar tunes it out except to listen for Jensen’s code words for potential trouble. He’s busy, watching Jensen’s back, making sure it ends as smoothly as it began. Half a mile away a patrol car crosses the road that Cougar’s sight line runs down, keeps going and doesn’t turn back. The pattern matches the route Jensen told him to expect; he notes that they were on schedule and moves his focus elsewhere.
“You’ll hear from us in an hour,” Jensen tells Montgomery, and Cougar keeps the cross hairs on the man’s back until he’s in his car-keeps them on the car until it’s out of sight.
“Clear,” Cougar tells Jensen, and Jensen smiles but doesn’t betray Cougar’s location by looking that way.
“Meet you back at rendezvous one,” Jensen says and finishes his latte as he stands up.
Jensen is sprawled on their hotel bed when Cougar gets there, file open under his hands, still dressed from the meet. He calls it his “Serious Business” suit. The clothes he wears to meet clients and act like a grown-up in. Cougar secretly thinks he’s dressing up like Clay, in his white shirt and black suit. Imitating the closest thing he’s ever had to a father figure, for all that Clay ended up letting Jensen down too, in the end.
Cougar also thinks that Jensen makes it look a hell of a lot sexier than Clay ever could, and as soon as they decide on this client, he plans to eradicate any thought of their old CO from either of their minds.
“So?” Cougar asks, nudging the file as Jensen flips the last photo over.
“It’s bullshit, fucked on way too many levels.” Jensen says, and sits up to tick them off on his fingers. “Okay so first, he wants his former lieutenant killed before he can testify in a federal court. Even if we wanted to, we don’t have the manpower to run a distraction and the hit, and make sure you get away clean.
“Second of all, I’ve been through his finances, and he can’t pay what he’s promising until the feds release the hold they’ve got on his funds.
“Third, the job’s centered around the federal courthouse in Boston. I don’t like working in Eliot’s back yard.”
The silent fourth lingers unspoken: that Jensen prefers to avoid the wet-work, that he’d rather take jobs where people die when things go wrong, not when they go right. That he feels like he’s whoring out Cougar’s soul every time he asks him to put a bullet in someone.
Cougar nods, and thinks for a moment to see if he can come up with any reason to counter Jensen’s decision. “Pooch? The girls?”
Jensen shrugs. “Pooch says him and Jolene are okay for now. He’s working and the IDs I made for them haven’t gotten pinged anywhere. Amber and Hailey are doing pretty good. I’d like to top off their savings account soon, but we can live without this job.”
“So you’ll tell him no,” Cougar says, and tosses his hat to the bedside table. He’ll shower while Jensen makes the call, and then he’ll strip the stark black and white of those clothes off of his man, fuck him senseless, reclaim him from the realm of dark and serious thoughts this meeting has brought him to.
And hell, they’re in the neighborhood. Maybe tomorrow they’ll drive in to Boston and see if Eliot has some time for them.
( part 3 )
Author: ladyjanelly
Artist: entwashian
Beta: peaceful_sands
Fandoms: Leverage/Losers
Characters/pairing: Jensen/Cougar/Eliot
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Violence, language, attempted non-con, vague mentions of previous non-con
Summary: A one-night-stand becomes a whole lot more. If only life were that simple.
Art Link: ( Banner + Fanmix )
Eliot almost calls them after Moreau, after the team sees what he is, what he’s done. A dozen hired guns dead on a warehouse floor and Eliot the only one to walk away. He sits on his bed, the place where they’d fucked him and he’d fucked Jake and holds that white card in his hand, stares at the numbers until they’re as impossible to forget as his own name.
“Call if you need us,” Jake had said, but Eliot’s pretty sure this isn’t what he meant. “If you need us to shoot someone,” maybe, or “If you need to borrow a hundred grand.” Not “If you need somebody to hold your hand because you’re scared your team will look at you different.”
He sneers at his own weakness and puts the card back in his wallet. Whatever happens, however bad it aches, he deserves it, with all the people he’s hurt for money. He’s just sorry for Sophie and Parker and Hardison, to have their trust trampled upon. So many times he tried to tell them; he wishes now they’d believed him.
==========
He comes home from the next job, and there’s another of Jake’s white business cards pushed under his door, and he feels a pang of regret that he missed them. Somehow it’s good to know though, that they’re back in the country safe, and that they thought of him. He thinks about calling, not that he really needs anything. Jake would say something ridiculous. Translate Cougar’s eyebrows and lip-quirks over the phone. They might be gone again already, but he’s sure they’d make him smile.
He considers having Hardison trace the phone, just to see where they are, how close, but he doesn’t feel like buying him a new computer if Jake takes offense at the snooping.
=====================
“He has a crew,” Cougar reminds Jensen, knowing it won’t put an end to his pouting.
Jensen drops himself onto the sagging mattress of their latest dive hotel. “No, I know that. I just thought. You know. That we were in town, so maybe.”
Truth to tell, Cougar had hoped, also. For another night, for Eliot’s calm and strength. For the chance to rest, knowing Jensen was watched over.
It wouldn’t be the same, but he offers anyway, “We could go out. Find someone.”
Jensen turns his head, meets Cougar’s eyes. “Do you want to?” He sounds guarded, like he’s asking for Cougar’s sake and not his own desire.
“No.”
A smile flickers over Jensen’s sweet mouth. “Will you fuck me?” he asks, and Cougar rolls his eyes. Like he’d ever say no to that.
“Hey Cougar?” Jake asks after, their sweat cooling in the breeze from the noisy air-conditioner, “You know, right? That this thing, this Eliot thing. It doesn’t mean I want you any less.”
Cougar tucks in closer to Jake’s back, against his warm and sweaty skin. He thinks about “this Eliot thing,” and yeah, it’s something. He’s not sure what he would name it, but it’s there. He thinks about Jake, with Eliot, and there’s no burn of jealousy, no fear. Just the warm spark of desire. The soft brush of comfort.
“Go to sleep,” he tells Jake, lips pressed against his shoulder. They’ll try again next week, hope to catch Eliot then.
=============
Okay, so Hardison is not a man who likes to complain (Wait, okay, he enjoys complaining, but usually only so people recognize the difficulty of the project they’ve dumped in his lap; he rarely means it), but Nate’s to-do list is out of control. “Look, man, I may be a genius? I may be able to create a website, build Sophie a background as she spins it and hack a god-damn financial institution at the same time, but not while I’m playing Ruprecht the monkey boy!”
He throws his hands up in frustration because otherwise he’s going to commit an epic keyboard smash and he cannot afford the time it takes to switch out equipment at this stage in the game.
“I trust you to get it done,” Nate says and Hardison wants to scream.
“I can only divide my dice pool so many ways!” he yells at Nate’s back.
Nate just continues out of the van, leaving Eliot and Hardison in the buzzing cocoon of electronics.
“Call Jake,” Eliot suggests.
Hardison considers. The man certainly has the skills. It feels a little weird to call in back-up, but the worst that can happen is he’ll say no.
He expects Jake to give him shit for it, to rub it in his face that he’s gotta call in backup to do a job he should be able to handle on his own, but the man is straight-up professional about it, “Tell me what you need me to do,” and not screwing around like Chaos would have done.
After, when Hardison has the time, he clicks through the resume J-Mageddon made up for Sophie, the ten years of job history. On impulse he hacks one of her “previous employers” and there she is in their personnel files, job-reviews, tax forms, social security, everything.
It’s good work. Damn good work.
=========
Eliot’s been hit by cars, bulls, motorcycles, muscle-men and fast-strikers, baseball bats and crowbars, bullets and once by a frozen leg of lamb. He still wouldn’t have predicted that getting smashed by a carnival ride would hurt so damn bad, knock him out for what Parker said was nearly a full minute. A fist-fight afterward, while he’s still dizzy from being concussed? That didn’t help anything, either.
“You need a hospital?” Nate asks when the fighting is over.
Eliot is careful not to shake his head. “I’m fine. Looks worse than it is.” He cleans up in the carnival’s abandoned men’s room, glad for the privacy as he washes off the blood, puts Steri-strips on the cuts and bandages the wounds. A hospital visit means tests, drugs, strangers’ hands on him when he’s helpless. He can hold it together until after the debriefing and then curl up to lick his wounds alone, can and does. He even has a “nurse” lined up to keep the guys from worrying, an escort named Brigitte that he once helped out of a bad situation.
He holds it together until he’s out of the bar and into a cab, lets his eyes close as they drive back to his place. Brigitte’s fingers are cool on his arm when the car stops and he tosses the driver a few bills without looking at them and gets out. “Eliot,” she says as they walk up the building’s front steps and into the main hall, “I don’t mind helping you out, not at all, but I don’t really think I’m qualified to…”
She goes tense and Eliot looks up and sees two men coming down the stairs. He steps out in front of her, even knowing he’s about as effective as a two-day-old kitten right now.
“Eliot?” Jake’s voice is high-pitched with distress as he closes in the last few feet and reaches out. “Jesus fuck, what happened to you?”
Eliot clenches his jaw (and remembers why he didn’t want to do that as pain laces through the left side of his head and all the way down his spine). He doesn’t want their pity, doesn’t want them to see him like this.
“Sorry,” he says like he really isn’t, “Not in the mood to be a fuck-toy tonight. Maybe next time.”
“No fucking shit!” Jake snaps back, and Eliot’s surprised the guy is so pissed about not getting laid.
He steps around Jake but Brigitte doesn’t follow. He looks back and her eyes are wide. He follows her gaze and Cougar is staring her down. Eliot sighs and opens his wallet, passes her a couple hundred bucks tip. “Take the rest of the night off,” he tells her, not that he was planning on letting her past the threshold of his apartment anyway. “It’s okay, really. Treat yourself to something nice,” and she smiles uncertainly but goes.
He takes a slow breath and steels himself. He has to get rid of these idiots, and then walk up one flight of stairs, and he can crash. That’s all. He can do this. Should be able to do this, but Jake is behind him somehow, and Cougar in front, gazing into his eyes and gently turning Eliot’s face towards the overhead light.
“Don’t,” Eliot says, but it would hurt too much to pull away. “Get the hell off of me, Cougar.” Fuckers listen about as well as a brick wall, Jake hemming him in while Cougar does a quick once-over there in the stairwell.
“Yeah, okay, I’ve got him,” Jake says and Eliot thinks he just missed a little time there. “Come on, El,” Jake urges, “One foot in front of the other or I’m carrying you up these stairs like a prom date who’s had too much champagne.”
“I got it,” Eliot grumbles, “Leave me alone already,” but they go up with him and he’s panting and seeing spots by the time they get to his floor.
“I say we vote on it,” Jake says, “Leaving Eliot alone in his apartment with nobody to bring him soup. All those in favor?”
Eliot manages a growl, but he’s sure as hell not raising his hand for this shit. He’s not positive he could raise his hand if he tried.
“All those opposed? Sorry, Eliot, we voted; you’ve been overruled.”
“Not a damn democracy,” he grumbles and leans on Cougar as Jake frisks him for his keys and opens the door. There’s another white card on the floor and they step over it as they half-carry Eliot into his own place.
“If it’s not a democracy, then it’s a military oligarchy, might makes right. Seriously, are you going to try to stage a coup right now against Cougs and me? Really?”
They move him through the living room and down the hall to the bedroom, and he’s done with fighting, knows a losing battle when he sees one. Jake piles and fluffs his pillows and then the pair of them get him horizontal.
“Med-kit?” Jake asks, and Eliot can’t help but remember the first time they were here, Jake asking for wash-cloths to clean them up.
“Closet in th’ hall,” he answers and Jake goes to get it while Cougar starts stripping him.
“Said not in th’ mood,” Eliot protests, and even he can hear his words starting to slur with exhaustion.
“Don’t be an asshole,” Cougar admonishes, tone fierce and angry. “This? Is not sexy.”
Eliot focuses up at him, sees a glitter to his eyes that’s never been there before. Jake comes back with the med-kit and Cougar blinks rapidly. Something in Eliot’s stomach twists to see it, even the hint of tears in the tough man’s eyes.
“Eliot,” Jake calls softly, “If we have to take you to a hospital, what ID do you want to use? Just in case I don’t have time to make you one.”
“Floor safe, built in under the kitchen sink.” He rattles off the combination and Jake nods like he’s memorizing it. “Eugene Watts. Good insurance.”
“Got it.” Jake steps out then and Eliot wonders if they’ve already decided he’s too banged up to deal with at home, but he comes back with a glass of water and a straw and Cougar hands him some pills and he swallows without asking what they are.
He doesn’t remember falling asleep, not even the moment when Jake pulled the straw away from his lips. He wakes and the sun is out, a bright streak through the part in his curtains. Cougar is there in a chair by the bed, still and quiet, his pistol on the nightstand. Jake shares the bed with Eliot, asleep, glasses off and fingers occasionally twitching like he types in his dreams.
“How do you feel?” Cougar asks, a soft whisper.
“Fucked,” Eliot answers, his tone assuring that it’s not in the good way.
Cougar brings him some more pills and water and he sleeps again, knowing he’s watched over.
The next time he comes to, it’s because there’s movement, someone fucking with his hair and he flinches awake, Jake’s hands on his shoulder holding him down, quiet words soothing him. “It’s okay,” he says, “You’re safe. We’ve got you.”
Eliot lays his head down again and Jake goes back to what he was doing, spreading Eliot’s hair out, strand by strand, dabbing it with a wet cloth and picking the knots out with a small comb.
“It was really matted,” he says, like the state of his hair is high on Eliot’s list of concerns. “You’ve got blood in here, and like engine grease of some sort.” He sighs. “Did this for Cougs once. He. He got taken. Didn’t make it back to the rendezvous. They had him six days. Six days of Clay and Aisha plotting, trying to make the rescue into an attack, trying to ‘make Cougar’s suffering worth something.’ Like getting him out alive wasn’t as important as how much we could hurt Max in the process.”
Eliot opens his eyes and Jake’s lips are pressed tight together. “Pooch and I finally said ‘Fuck it,’ and went and got him. But yeah. His hair was a mess, man. I didn’t even want to know what all was in there. Took me three days to get it all clean and straight.”
Eliot wonders if that was what fucked Cougar up, sex-wise, wonders if he used to talk more. Six days is plenty to break a man, even a strong man.
He falls asleep again before he can ask, Jake’s gentle touches soothing him.
Turns out, six days is enough to put a man back together, too. They stay until he’s on his feet again, can cook his own meals and wash his own hair. They guard his sleep and bring him take-out from some really good restaurants. Jake spends a day on the computer and then announces that Eugene Watts has a brother, James, to call if he’s ever in need of a next-of-kin. He leaves a backup set of ID in Eliot’s safe, just in case.
The last night, they make love to him, gentle hands and mouths, slow kisses. They fall asleep when they’re done, Eliot between them, arms overlaying his stomach to touch each other and him at the same time.
He’s alone in the morning.
============
They visit more after that, once a month, maybe more. They stay the nights now, sometimes three or four in a row if he isn’t on a job, and he sleeps between them. He gives them a copy of the keys to his place and it seems like a major thing. If they were different men, he would see if they wanted to help out with a con every now and then, but he can’t see the crew working with a man whose primary skill is putting bullets into people from a long way away. He isn’t sure Jake could trust Nate’s brand of leadership, his need-to-know intel distribution and “Trust me to fuck with you but not fuck you over.”
Sometimes, when they leave to go to whatever job they’ve taken now, he thinks about going with them, leaving the effort of hiding what he is, what he’s capable of, from his team. He can’t quite wrap his head around it though, leaving them to find another hitter. There’s nobody he trusts to be as good as he is, to care as much as he does.
Jake and Cougar slip out of his grasp with a wink and a smile and an unspoken promise to come back again, and he lets them.
===========
The Leverage crew is between jobs and Eliot’s planning to use the time to re-stock his freezer with some good meals that he can re-heat or bring to Nate’s for everybody when time is tight and stomachs are empty. He’s in the gourmet grocer’s when his phone rings, Parker’s number and he answers knowing either something really bad has happened, or she’s going to give him a headache with her nonsense.
“Yeah?” he answers as he looks at the meat in the display case, contemplating how much of the grass-fed beef he needs for a big batch of curry chili.
“So I’m at your place, because I have a necklace I wanted to show you, and there are men in your living room,” Parker states without preamble.
He leaves his cart and heads for the door, “Where are you? What are they doing?”
“I’m on the ledge outside. I can’t see in because your curtains are closed, and they’re…bickering? One is saying there’s no use making bets anymore if they both always choose Eliot and Eliot always says yes.”
Eliot stops and turns back to his cart. “They’re allowed to be there. Don’t startle them, though. Just go downstairs and I’ll…” his phone beeps that there’s an incoming call. “Hang on.” He switches connections, barks “What?” into the phone.
“Hey Eliot,” Jake’s chipper voice greets him, and that headache is starting to build. “Your blond burglar is out on your ledge, should I let her in?”
These are parts of his life that he really shouldn’t mix together, but both are important to him, and Parker will make him crazy with her questions if he doesn’t. He signs to the butcher that he’ll take four of the Kobe sirloins. What the hell.
“Sure,” he says and hopes he’s not making a huge miscalculation. It’s not until he’s on the way back home with food for four that he thinks about what Parker said, about Jake and Cougar always choosing him. He thinks maybe, just maybe, he’s not the only one for whom this is becoming something more.
The apartment is quiet when Eliot gets there. Silent except for Jake on the couch tapping away at his laptop, either negotiating their next job or maybe battling against Hardison’s “clan” on that wow thing they both talk about.
“Hey,” Jake says without looking up.
Eliot isn’t sure if his casual non-concern at someone coming in behind him is a show of trust in Eliot’s home security or a serious flaw in his sense of self-preservation.
“Hey,” Eliot returns. “Where’s Parker and Cougar?”
Jake closes the laptop and looks up at him, a faint edge of unease in his expression, the set of his shoulders.
“They um.” He gestures vaguely over his shoulder. “It was totally her idea, man.”
Oh, Eliot thinks. So it doesn’t mean all that much to them after all. He sits heavily on the couch, lets the shopping bag fall beside his feet. The apartment is still eerily quiet, so at least they aren’t doing it in his bed.
“You cooking tonight?” Jake asks, hopeful and worried too. “They’ll be back in an hour or so.”
And Eliot can be a man about this. There were never any promises made on either side. It’s not like he hasn’t fucked anybody else since they started this thing. Just because it’s been a couple of months doesn’t mean anything. Just. Parker and Cougar. He trusts the man. Knows he’ll be good with her. Just hopes she knows it’s not a permanent arrangement.
“Yeah,” he says, getting his shit together. “I brought steaks. Thought we’d take them up to the roof and fire up the grill.” He stands and picks up the bags, figuring he’ll start them marinading now and work on the sides until Cougar and Parker get back.
“Eliot?” Jake asks, more serious than Eliot usually hears him. “You aren’t pissed, are you?”
“Why would I be pissed?” he asks, hearing the anger leaking out all over.
Jake shrugs. “We know you’re not the biggest fan of guns. Him teaching her to shoot. This is your team; if you don’t approve, we’ll back off or something. Not sure how anybody says no to that girl, though. Maybe we’ll leave the country for a while until she stops asking?”
Eliot bangs around in the fridge to hide the stupid relief Jake’s words give him. He gets out the balsamic vinegar and Dijon mustard, a couple other jars. He pulls down a bowl and mixes up a quick sauce. So not fucking then. Shooting. He plays the idea over in his head, Parker with a gun.
“She’s going to anyway,” he finally decides. “A couple months ago, that job that left me laid up for a little while. She took a rifle off of a Russian sniper. Not so much planning to shoot anyone with it, just flash the laser sight and do a little intimidating. I had to point out, after, that if it’d gone off it would have taken the target and Nate too. I think it scared her.”
“Good,” Jake says, “I mean not good that she has to handle the guns, but good that if she’s going to, she’s learning from the best. And good that you’re okay with it and we’re not gonna be hiding in Alaska or something until she loses interest. I seriously don’t want to ever have to hide from either of you.”
Jake’s voice gets closer and closer as he rambles. It’s no surprise when his hands settle at Eliot’s waist, no surprise when he nuzzles Eliot’s pony-tail to the side and licks at the side of his neck. Kind of a surprise when he turns Eliot to face the room and sinks to his knees. They’ve never done this, Eliot and one of them without the other. He trusts Jake not to lead him into breaking some sort of rule, because if they are, he’ll never see Cougar’s shot coming.
============
Cougar checks back with Jensen, skimming the cross hairs of the scope around his shape as he passes by. He scans the sidewalk cafe for potential problems, for feds or cops, for the client’s back-up, for any sign of a double-cross.
He hates these meetings, when the potential client insists on a face-to-face. They’re too vulnerable, just the two of them, Jensen tied up with the talking instead of hacking, no wheel-man, no demolitions, no strategist.
He sees the client coming up on Jensen’s six, recognizes the set of his shoulders and the roll of his walk from the videos Jensen found in the preliminary recon.
“On you in three, two, one,” Cougar counts down into the throat mic.
“Mister Montgomery,” he hears Jensen say, his own microphone a little tinny, smaller and better hidden, his back still to their contact. Cougar smirks as the client falters and looks around. Perfectly off balance for the interaction.
“Please,” Jensen says, his voice confident, and turns to meet the man’s eye, “Have a seat. I hear you have a project for my team.”
Jensen talks. The client talks. Cougar tunes it out except to listen for Jensen’s code words for potential trouble. He’s busy, watching Jensen’s back, making sure it ends as smoothly as it began. Half a mile away a patrol car crosses the road that Cougar’s sight line runs down, keeps going and doesn’t turn back. The pattern matches the route Jensen told him to expect; he notes that they were on schedule and moves his focus elsewhere.
“You’ll hear from us in an hour,” Jensen tells Montgomery, and Cougar keeps the cross hairs on the man’s back until he’s in his car-keeps them on the car until it’s out of sight.
“Clear,” Cougar tells Jensen, and Jensen smiles but doesn’t betray Cougar’s location by looking that way.
“Meet you back at rendezvous one,” Jensen says and finishes his latte as he stands up.
Jensen is sprawled on their hotel bed when Cougar gets there, file open under his hands, still dressed from the meet. He calls it his “Serious Business” suit. The clothes he wears to meet clients and act like a grown-up in. Cougar secretly thinks he’s dressing up like Clay, in his white shirt and black suit. Imitating the closest thing he’s ever had to a father figure, for all that Clay ended up letting Jensen down too, in the end.
Cougar also thinks that Jensen makes it look a hell of a lot sexier than Clay ever could, and as soon as they decide on this client, he plans to eradicate any thought of their old CO from either of their minds.
“So?” Cougar asks, nudging the file as Jensen flips the last photo over.
“It’s bullshit, fucked on way too many levels.” Jensen says, and sits up to tick them off on his fingers. “Okay so first, he wants his former lieutenant killed before he can testify in a federal court. Even if we wanted to, we don’t have the manpower to run a distraction and the hit, and make sure you get away clean.
“Second of all, I’ve been through his finances, and he can’t pay what he’s promising until the feds release the hold they’ve got on his funds.
“Third, the job’s centered around the federal courthouse in Boston. I don’t like working in Eliot’s back yard.”
The silent fourth lingers unspoken: that Jensen prefers to avoid the wet-work, that he’d rather take jobs where people die when things go wrong, not when they go right. That he feels like he’s whoring out Cougar’s soul every time he asks him to put a bullet in someone.
Cougar nods, and thinks for a moment to see if he can come up with any reason to counter Jensen’s decision. “Pooch? The girls?”
Jensen shrugs. “Pooch says him and Jolene are okay for now. He’s working and the IDs I made for them haven’t gotten pinged anywhere. Amber and Hailey are doing pretty good. I’d like to top off their savings account soon, but we can live without this job.”
“So you’ll tell him no,” Cougar says, and tosses his hat to the bedside table. He’ll shower while Jensen makes the call, and then he’ll strip the stark black and white of those clothes off of his man, fuck him senseless, reclaim him from the realm of dark and serious thoughts this meeting has brought him to.
And hell, they’re in the neighborhood. Maybe tomorrow they’ll drive in to Boston and see if Eliot has some time for them.
( part 3 )