Lonely Ain't Easy, (Losers comic!verse Jensen/pre-Leverage Eliot, abandoned WIP)
There aren’t many places Eliot’s felt safe since he left the military. Not the thousand-dollar-a-night hotel his client put him up in in Paris, not the underground bunker that survivalist group that was trying to recruit him was so proud of. Not the bombed-out factory in Iraq where he spent ten days hiding as he nursed a gunshot wound.
This place is about as close as he gets, a home he’s carved out for himself from a condemned apartment building. He’s got a generator hidden down the elevator shaft, wires snaking through the place to the rooms where he sleeps. He’s got the entrances secured, and his homeless neighbors so scared of him that they don’t even try to get in anymore. He’s careful coming and going. Always watchful, always choosing a different route.
He’s sure he hasn’t been followed, so when the alarm chirps that the side door has been opened, he thinks he’ll just have to get his security guard uniform on and go roust the bums who’ve mistaken this for a warm place for them to sleep.
And then the motion sensor on the stairs trips, and then the one just off the landing to Eliot’s floor. One person. Moving sure and steady right to where Eliot is. He checks the clip on his pistol and slides over to the door, light on his feet, ready for anything. He’s got a camera set up there, a tiny screen on his side where he can see who’s there from a position where he can just shoot them through the door if he chooses.
There’s a man there, baseball cap and messenger bag, leather jacket and board shorts, haphazardly dressed for the weather at best. Eliot watches as he raises his fist and bangs on the door. He can’t see enough of the guy’s face to decide if he wants to shoot him or meet him.
The guy bangs again, and then looks straight up at the camera. “You gonna let me in, or just leave me here in the hall with my dick in my hand?”
He almost doesn’t recognize Jacob Jensen, a man he’s met all of twice and that years ago. He’s a stranger, practically-- a man that, last Eliot heard, was currently sleeping with a man Eliot used to sleep with, back when Eliot used to let Uncle Sam tell him who needed to die and who needed to live.
He opens his door and Jensen raises his head, and Eliot steps back to let him in. The guy looks like hell, too-thin and hollow around the eyes. Hair longish and greasy, his face unshaven. He looks broken, and Eliot knows, just looking at him, why he’s here.
“Cougar gone?” he asks, and Jensen nods, shoulders sagging with relief that he doesn’t have to find the words. It shouldn’t hurt so bad, the end of a man that Eliot spent a summer fooling around with whenever they got a night off to go into town or more than a few hours to rest in a secure location. It shouldn’t have mattered, he should never have allowed himself to feel so much, not back then. To be intimate, to care. They should have just been team-mates, not close as brothers, not sweet as lovers.
Jensen shifts his feet, fidgets with the laptop strap over his shoulder.
“He talked about you,” Jensen says, his voice hoarse like he hasn’t been speaking much lately. “I thought he would want you to know. That whackadoo, Max, that was on the news with his fucking island nation. Cougar stopped him. He died stopping him.”
Eliot lets that sink in. Takes a deep breath and lets it out slow. Thinks about the threats and the danger Max had represented before the mini-nuke blew him all to hell. Thinks of Cougar, gone, just gone, the center of a crater a mile wide.
Eliot nods, because he doesn’t know what to say. “Yeah. I... Shit.”
He looks at Jensen, and the man is half-dead on his feet, a ghost of the cheerful goof Eliot had met those years back.
“You want a drink?” Eliot offers, figuring it’s the least he can do in gratitude for the personally delivered news.
Jensen shakes his head. “Nah, man, I’ve been drunk four months running. It’s time to dry out some before I drown, y’know?”
Eliot should show him the door then, should kick him out so he can start scouting out a new place to crash since this one’s compromised.
“I’m just-” Jensen shrugs. “I’ll get out of your hair now.”
He steps back, and Eliot can’t let him walk out, not like this, looking like he’s one shitty night from eating his gun. He’s seen guys in worse shape, but never anybody that was this bad and still alive the next year.
“Wait.” Eliot says, and he can’t believe he’s doing this, saying this. “It’s late. You wanna crash here?”
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(What I had planned: Eliot lets Jake mooch off him for a couple weeks. Sleep on his couch and eat out of his fridge. Doesn't complain when Jake's computer stuff appears one day when Eliot gets back from a job, taking up an entire table that Eliot never saw before. Figures he'll just let Jake stay until he moves on or gets the nerve to eat his gun.
And then one day Eliot's on a retrieval job, and his phone vibrates in his pocket, and it's Jake telling him it's a trap, and to turn here, dodge there, three doors down and left. Eliot makes it out alive, and they have some "I loved him and you loved him and let's fuck to those feels" sex. )
This place is about as close as he gets, a home he’s carved out for himself from a condemned apartment building. He’s got a generator hidden down the elevator shaft, wires snaking through the place to the rooms where he sleeps. He’s got the entrances secured, and his homeless neighbors so scared of him that they don’t even try to get in anymore. He’s careful coming and going. Always watchful, always choosing a different route.
He’s sure he hasn’t been followed, so when the alarm chirps that the side door has been opened, he thinks he’ll just have to get his security guard uniform on and go roust the bums who’ve mistaken this for a warm place for them to sleep.
And then the motion sensor on the stairs trips, and then the one just off the landing to Eliot’s floor. One person. Moving sure and steady right to where Eliot is. He checks the clip on his pistol and slides over to the door, light on his feet, ready for anything. He’s got a camera set up there, a tiny screen on his side where he can see who’s there from a position where he can just shoot them through the door if he chooses.
There’s a man there, baseball cap and messenger bag, leather jacket and board shorts, haphazardly dressed for the weather at best. Eliot watches as he raises his fist and bangs on the door. He can’t see enough of the guy’s face to decide if he wants to shoot him or meet him.
The guy bangs again, and then looks straight up at the camera. “You gonna let me in, or just leave me here in the hall with my dick in my hand?”
He almost doesn’t recognize Jacob Jensen, a man he’s met all of twice and that years ago. He’s a stranger, practically-- a man that, last Eliot heard, was currently sleeping with a man Eliot used to sleep with, back when Eliot used to let Uncle Sam tell him who needed to die and who needed to live.
He opens his door and Jensen raises his head, and Eliot steps back to let him in. The guy looks like hell, too-thin and hollow around the eyes. Hair longish and greasy, his face unshaven. He looks broken, and Eliot knows, just looking at him, why he’s here.
“Cougar gone?” he asks, and Jensen nods, shoulders sagging with relief that he doesn’t have to find the words. It shouldn’t hurt so bad, the end of a man that Eliot spent a summer fooling around with whenever they got a night off to go into town or more than a few hours to rest in a secure location. It shouldn’t have mattered, he should never have allowed himself to feel so much, not back then. To be intimate, to care. They should have just been team-mates, not close as brothers, not sweet as lovers.
Jensen shifts his feet, fidgets with the laptop strap over his shoulder.
“He talked about you,” Jensen says, his voice hoarse like he hasn’t been speaking much lately. “I thought he would want you to know. That whackadoo, Max, that was on the news with his fucking island nation. Cougar stopped him. He died stopping him.”
Eliot lets that sink in. Takes a deep breath and lets it out slow. Thinks about the threats and the danger Max had represented before the mini-nuke blew him all to hell. Thinks of Cougar, gone, just gone, the center of a crater a mile wide.
Eliot nods, because he doesn’t know what to say. “Yeah. I... Shit.”
He looks at Jensen, and the man is half-dead on his feet, a ghost of the cheerful goof Eliot had met those years back.
“You want a drink?” Eliot offers, figuring it’s the least he can do in gratitude for the personally delivered news.
Jensen shakes his head. “Nah, man, I’ve been drunk four months running. It’s time to dry out some before I drown, y’know?”
Eliot should show him the door then, should kick him out so he can start scouting out a new place to crash since this one’s compromised.
“I’m just-” Jensen shrugs. “I’ll get out of your hair now.”
He steps back, and Eliot can’t let him walk out, not like this, looking like he’s one shitty night from eating his gun. He’s seen guys in worse shape, but never anybody that was this bad and still alive the next year.
“Wait.” Eliot says, and he can’t believe he’s doing this, saying this. “It’s late. You wanna crash here?”
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(What I had planned: Eliot lets Jake mooch off him for a couple weeks. Sleep on his couch and eat out of his fridge. Doesn't complain when Jake's computer stuff appears one day when Eliot gets back from a job, taking up an entire table that Eliot never saw before. Figures he'll just let Jake stay until he moves on or gets the nerve to eat his gun.
And then one day Eliot's on a retrieval job, and his phone vibrates in his pocket, and it's Jake telling him it's a trap, and to turn here, dodge there, three doors down and left. Eliot makes it out alive, and they have some "I loved him and you loved him and let's fuck to those feels" sex. )