Fic & Wallpaper; Gift for Whimoffate!
Title: Traditions - Old and New
Genre: Team Fic
Word Count: 2390 words
Rating: G
Pairings: Eliot/Sophie
Warnings: None
Summary: The Leverage Team attempts their first Thanksgiving as a family, but they bring their memories of the past with them.
Written for whimoffate, who requested team fic, fun, light things and character exploration. I didn't get entirely fun and light with things, but hopefully everything else turned out okay!
“Samuel Ford! I am not joking young man - we are leaving for Grandma and Grandpa’s in twenty minutes and you will be dressed!”
“Nate! You’re boiling over!”
Nate shuddered, blinking rapidly as he pulled away from the memory of Maggie lecturing their son that last Thanksgiving they’d been a family. The hiss and pop of water splashing onto the surface of his stove finally reached him, forcing him to scramble for a cloth and the temperature controls. “Sorry,” he mumbled, deftly avoiding Eliot’s eyes as he did his best to save the potatoes.
The hitter wasn’t fooled - he was never fooled. “You all right there, boss?”
Nate inhaled sharply, bringing himself under control by sheer force of will. Even if the faintly apologetic smile he finally showed Eliot never touched his eyes, he’d been able to make it happen. That had to count for something, right?
Three weeks later we were living on hospital food, watching our life drain away.
“I’m fine,” he said, before Eliot’s look of concern could take hold. “Sorry. Didn’t sleep too well last night - guess I zoned.”
Eliot didn’t look at all convinced, but he let it go. Nate was absurdly grateful he didn’t push; anyone who didn’t know them would have assumed Sophie was the best at taking Nate’s emotional temperature and reacting accordingly. They would have been correct, but farther back than he cared to think Eliot had also consistently read his moods and given him back exactly what he needed - whether he wanted it or not.
A week shy of his seventh birthday, Sam had been too big for outright tantrums. Nate had recognized the stubborn set of his son’s jaw, however, when he’d finally tracked him down in the bathroom. It was his own face done in miniature looking up at him from Sam’s seat on the tile floor.
“It itches, Dad!” he’d complained, small arms crossed defiantly over his chest. Nate had barely been able to repress a grin. Maggie had been trapped at work until nearly midnight on Wednesday, and there’d been no time to wash the new dress shirt.
“If you’d stop growing, you could have worn your old one,” he said, crouching down so he would be more on Sam’s eye level.
His son rolled his eyes - a much older expression than he would ever live long enough to use properly suddenly shining out at him. “You’re not helping.”
“Dump these into the strainer and rinse them with cold water.”
With a small start, Nate realized that Eliot had leaned in around him, testing the potatoes with a fork. Exhaling softly, he took the pot and did as instructed while Eliot turned his attention back to basting the turkey.
“What time is everybody supposed to be here?” he asked, pitching his voice over the running water. Conversation… Maybe that was the answer to his brain’s sudden jaunts down memory lane. He didn’t want to be thinking about Sam and the last normal holiday he’d ever known. Today was supposed to be about new traditions, his new life and family.
Besides - if he didn’t start paying attention to his work, Eliot was going to lose patience with him very quickly. The hitter had already growled out his usual rant against the state of Nate’s kitchen and how much more smoothly dinner would be going if they’d gathered at his place where he had everything they needed to do Thanksgiving up properly.
Everything except the best digital video technology Hardison could beg, borrow or steal. The Auburn/Alabama game couldn’t be watched on anything less than the wall of hi-def screens that dominated the first floor of Nate’s apartment.
“I told them dinner would be ready about two,” Eliot said. “Leave those there.” His eyes narrowed as he met Nate’s gaze. “Think you can handle a sharp object?”
Nate’s smile was almost genuine this time. “I’m fine, Eliot. I promise. What do you need?”
Eliot studied him for a long moment, weighing Nate’s words with the evidence of his own eyes. “All right,” he said finally. “Peel the parsnips and slice them in half length-wise.”
Nate eyed the thin white vegetables doubtfully, but took the knife Eliot handed him and went to work. He’d never eaten parsnips before, didn’t even know what they were going to taste like, but Eliot’s knowledge and skill when it came to food hadn’t steered him wrong yet.
”Dad, this is gross. He chuckled softly, flashing on Sam scowling at his plate later that day .
The offending food had been something Maggie’s mother had referred to as “grape salad”. Privately Nate agreed with his son - everyone had gone on and on about how great it tasted, but it looked to him like a science experiment gone wrong.
He'd squashed his true reaction however, reminding himself to back Maggie up. It was the key to raising a child - no matter how he felt privately, it was important to his wife that Sam try every food on the table.
”Give it a shot, Champ,” he said, gently bumping shoulders with the boy. “Grandma wouldn’t make anything that would hurt you.”
Still wearing a very doubtful expression, Sam had finally done as he was told. Nate was glad he managed it without any gagging noises - he would have felt obligated to discipline the boy in front of his in-laws. And the pleading eyes Sam had turned on him once the offending morsel had been dutifully chewed and swallowed had tugged at Nate’s own heartstrings.
He hadn’t liked the messy concoction either.
******************************
“Happy Thanksgiving!” The other three had shown up en masse, despite Sophie’s earlier assertions that she didn’t see the point of the holiday. Up to his elbows in potatoes, Eliot settled for nodding a greeting at them and letting Nate leave the kitchen to handle the actual hosting duties. It being his place and all.
Truth be told, he was relieved to have Nate out from under foot. He hadn’t begrudged the help; Thanksgiving dinners were too massive an undertaking for one person, and Nate was the only member of the team Eliot trusted to take orders and not get in his way. ’Course he’s usually not so lost in thought, he was forced to acknowledge.
In retrospect it made sense that his first attempt to celebrate the holiday in years would wear on their leader. Of all of them, he’d had the closest to a normal family and normal Thanksgivings. Any attempts to move past that were bound to carry some pretty weighty baggage. The closest Eliot had been in recent memory to what Nate had lost was a Thanksgiving nearly a decade ago. He’d been invited to spend the day with Aimee and Walt, and the experience had been so damn perfect he’d never wanted it to end.
Like so much of the good in Eliot’s life, however, it had been the exception - not the rule. Most of his Thanksgiving memories involved large dining halls filled with men in uniform. His childhood memories were much hazier. He was reasonably sure there’d been family meals early on, before the flu, before the poverty, before the death.
They were nothing he wanted to remember. Certainly the only thing he was thankful for from his childhood was that his mom and dad had tried - most of the time - to do the best they could with what life had given them.
“Hey man!” Hardison said. “You look like you’re a million miles away.” The hacker was leaning on the counter, grinning at Eliot.
Eliot chuckled softly, glancing at Nate. “Seems to be the day for it.”
Hardison considered that for a moment, then shrugged. “Can I help?”
“You can set the table. We’re about thirty minutes out from dinner.” He finished softening the potatoes and set them under the mixer.
“Set the table?” Hardison looked decidedly nonplussed at his job assignment. “You know man, when I asked if I could help, I was only being polite.”
Eliot made a point of turning on the mixer. “What?” he asked, gesturing to Hardison that he couldn’t hear over the whine of the machine. The hacker scowled at him and went to the cupboard.
“Grinch that Stole Thanksgiving, that’s what you are,” he grumbled.
Eliot smiled.
*******************************
Set the table. It’s almost like he knew. Hardison tried to work through his sulk as he got the plates down from Nate’s overhead cabinet, but it was hard.
Plates and utensils, cups and napkins - they were his strongest memories of Thanksgiving growing up. The food had been wonderful; Nana had always saved the money she got from the state to make sure they had more than the turkey given to them every year by one of the local churches. Hardison had never got past being told that since he was the most responsible of his brothers and sisters, it was his job to stay inside and set the table while the others played outside.
”Knowin’ how to keep a house and entertain is important, Alec. You mark my words - some day you’re gonna have a family of your own to spend Thanksgiving with, and you’re gonna be grateful I taught you how to behave.”
He hadn’t been grateful, not at first. At ten all he’d thought about was the play time he’d been missing. Now though…
“Hardison? Can I help?” He blinked, looking up to see Sophie standing across the table from him. Slightly embarrassed at having been caught daydreaming, Hardison grinned at her. Nate and Parker had their heads together by the DVD player - Parker had “acquired” a copy of “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” and wanted to watch it as her contribution to their attempt at a holiday get together.
“Yeah - that’d be great,” he said, passing half his stack to the grifter. She’d better have left enough time for the game, he thought with a final glance at Parker. He couldn’t remember whether Charlie Brown was an hour or a half hour - and it would be cutting it close either way. And I don’t know if I have it in me to stop her if the time runs out.
Hardison started practicing his speeches to Nate and Eliot in his head as he and Sophie began distributing items around the table.
*************************************
The turkey was starting to smell really good. Parker felt her stomach twinge with the first stirrings of real hunger. “Maybe we should just ask Hardison to take care of it,” she said, noting Nate’s increasing frustration with the video equipment.
“No…no…I’ve got it,” Nate said. He pressed another button, but the screens stayed blank. Parker huffed out a breath and perched on the back of a nearby chair to wait.
She couldn’t remember which one of them had first proposed the idea of doing a “real” Thanksgiving together, but she knew it had been almost impossible to hide her excitement. For the first time in her life Parker had a real family, and every time they did something normal together it filled a hole in her heart she hadn’t even known existed.
“Cartoons are part of the holiday,” she said.
“So’s football,” Nate said distractedly, ejecting the DVD and checking it over. “Parker, you sure we can’t do this after the game?”
The thief bit her lower lip, trying…badly…to conceal her disappointment. “Football games go all day - they’re going to be playing until late tonight.” She hoped she wasn’t whining. She really didn’t want to whine.
Nate glanced up at her. He studied her for a long moment, and then looked past her at the table where Hardison and Sophie were working. “Hardison? Little help here?”
Parker smiled. Nate would make sure she had the holiday of her dreams.
They all would.
************************
“Are you all right?” Sophie asked when Nate had joined her at the table, picking up where Hardison had left off. He looked…haunted. Even more so than usual, which was saying something where Nate was concerned.
He smiled, but the expression never reached his eyes. “It’s that obvious, huh?”
Yes, she thought. Out loud, she made a dismissive gesture. “I’m sure no one else has picked up on it.”
His look told her more plainly than words that he didn’t believe her, but he appreciated the effort. “It’s Sam, isn’t it?” she asked. “You haven’t celebrated Thanksgiving since he died.”
“Thanksgiving is about family, Sophie,” he said softly, looking down intently at the fork he’d just set in place. “Without Sam and Maggie…”
He looked so raw, so vulnerable, that Sophie lost her heart to him all over again. “Nate, you should have said something.” She came around the table and took his hand. “We didn’t have to do this.”
Tears sprang to her eyes when he covered her hand with his and met her gaze. “Yes we did.” His attention ticked briefly past her shoulder, where Parker and Hardison were finished wrestling with the DVD player. The opening credits of “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” were playing on the wall of monitors.
Sophie followed his gaze. “Isn’t that football game on soon?”
Nate pulled her into a one-armed hug. “Hardison’ll record it.”
“Hey!” Eliot called from the kitchen. “Little help here, people - it’s time to eat!”
“The show just started!” Parker complained, stamping her foot.
Hardison put a hand on her arm, shaking his head. “I got ya covered, Mama. Don’t worry.” The two of them headed towards the kitchen where Eliot was busy setting serving bowls and platters overflowing with food on the counter.
Sophie leaned into Nate. “You’re going to carve the turkey, right?” she asked, looking up at him. “That is what the head of the family does, right?”
She felt a small shiver ripple through him, and he looked away from her. Even though he was the one who had first put voice to the fact that they were a family, Nate had been terrified of emotionally committing to the concept.
He’s so damaged. It was disturbingly obvious, but not for the first time Sophie wondered if she was being masochistic by continuing to give her heart to him so completely.
“Yeah,” he said at last, looking back at her and smiling sadly. “I guess you’re right. That is what the head of the family does.” Leaning down, he kissed her gently on the cheek.
Damage can be healed, Sophie thought, closing her eyes and savoring the feel of his lips against her skin. But only if someone cares enough to try.
====================================================================================
And as a bonus, because I loved how you phrased your Nate/Sophie love as a "cheap date" way to buy your affections:
This is the 1280 x 800 version.
This is the 800 x 600 (actually 800 x 500) version. PM me if there are any problems with the files, or if you need me to tweak anything further.
Happy holidays!
Genre: Team Fic
Word Count: 2390 words
Rating: G
Pairings: Eliot/Sophie
Warnings: None
Summary: The Leverage Team attempts their first Thanksgiving as a family, but they bring their memories of the past with them.
Written for whimoffate, who requested team fic, fun, light things and character exploration. I didn't get entirely fun and light with things, but hopefully everything else turned out okay!
“Samuel Ford! I am not joking young man - we are leaving for Grandma and Grandpa’s in twenty minutes and you will be dressed!”
“Nate! You’re boiling over!”
Nate shuddered, blinking rapidly as he pulled away from the memory of Maggie lecturing their son that last Thanksgiving they’d been a family. The hiss and pop of water splashing onto the surface of his stove finally reached him, forcing him to scramble for a cloth and the temperature controls. “Sorry,” he mumbled, deftly avoiding Eliot’s eyes as he did his best to save the potatoes.
The hitter wasn’t fooled - he was never fooled. “You all right there, boss?”
Nate inhaled sharply, bringing himself under control by sheer force of will. Even if the faintly apologetic smile he finally showed Eliot never touched his eyes, he’d been able to make it happen. That had to count for something, right?
Three weeks later we were living on hospital food, watching our life drain away.
“I’m fine,” he said, before Eliot’s look of concern could take hold. “Sorry. Didn’t sleep too well last night - guess I zoned.”
Eliot didn’t look at all convinced, but he let it go. Nate was absurdly grateful he didn’t push; anyone who didn’t know them would have assumed Sophie was the best at taking Nate’s emotional temperature and reacting accordingly. They would have been correct, but farther back than he cared to think Eliot had also consistently read his moods and given him back exactly what he needed - whether he wanted it or not.
A week shy of his seventh birthday, Sam had been too big for outright tantrums. Nate had recognized the stubborn set of his son’s jaw, however, when he’d finally tracked him down in the bathroom. It was his own face done in miniature looking up at him from Sam’s seat on the tile floor.
“It itches, Dad!” he’d complained, small arms crossed defiantly over his chest. Nate had barely been able to repress a grin. Maggie had been trapped at work until nearly midnight on Wednesday, and there’d been no time to wash the new dress shirt.
“If you’d stop growing, you could have worn your old one,” he said, crouching down so he would be more on Sam’s eye level.
His son rolled his eyes - a much older expression than he would ever live long enough to use properly suddenly shining out at him. “You’re not helping.”
“Dump these into the strainer and rinse them with cold water.”
With a small start, Nate realized that Eliot had leaned in around him, testing the potatoes with a fork. Exhaling softly, he took the pot and did as instructed while Eliot turned his attention back to basting the turkey.
“What time is everybody supposed to be here?” he asked, pitching his voice over the running water. Conversation… Maybe that was the answer to his brain’s sudden jaunts down memory lane. He didn’t want to be thinking about Sam and the last normal holiday he’d ever known. Today was supposed to be about new traditions, his new life and family.
Besides - if he didn’t start paying attention to his work, Eliot was going to lose patience with him very quickly. The hitter had already growled out his usual rant against the state of Nate’s kitchen and how much more smoothly dinner would be going if they’d gathered at his place where he had everything they needed to do Thanksgiving up properly.
Everything except the best digital video technology Hardison could beg, borrow or steal. The Auburn/Alabama game couldn’t be watched on anything less than the wall of hi-def screens that dominated the first floor of Nate’s apartment.
“I told them dinner would be ready about two,” Eliot said. “Leave those there.” His eyes narrowed as he met Nate’s gaze. “Think you can handle a sharp object?”
Nate’s smile was almost genuine this time. “I’m fine, Eliot. I promise. What do you need?”
Eliot studied him for a long moment, weighing Nate’s words with the evidence of his own eyes. “All right,” he said finally. “Peel the parsnips and slice them in half length-wise.”
Nate eyed the thin white vegetables doubtfully, but took the knife Eliot handed him and went to work. He’d never eaten parsnips before, didn’t even know what they were going to taste like, but Eliot’s knowledge and skill when it came to food hadn’t steered him wrong yet.
”Dad, this is gross. He chuckled softly, flashing on Sam scowling at his plate later that day .
The offending food had been something Maggie’s mother had referred to as “grape salad”. Privately Nate agreed with his son - everyone had gone on and on about how great it tasted, but it looked to him like a science experiment gone wrong.
He'd squashed his true reaction however, reminding himself to back Maggie up. It was the key to raising a child - no matter how he felt privately, it was important to his wife that Sam try every food on the table.
”Give it a shot, Champ,” he said, gently bumping shoulders with the boy. “Grandma wouldn’t make anything that would hurt you.”
Still wearing a very doubtful expression, Sam had finally done as he was told. Nate was glad he managed it without any gagging noises - he would have felt obligated to discipline the boy in front of his in-laws. And the pleading eyes Sam had turned on him once the offending morsel had been dutifully chewed and swallowed had tugged at Nate’s own heartstrings.
He hadn’t liked the messy concoction either.
******************************
“Happy Thanksgiving!” The other three had shown up en masse, despite Sophie’s earlier assertions that she didn’t see the point of the holiday. Up to his elbows in potatoes, Eliot settled for nodding a greeting at them and letting Nate leave the kitchen to handle the actual hosting duties. It being his place and all.
Truth be told, he was relieved to have Nate out from under foot. He hadn’t begrudged the help; Thanksgiving dinners were too massive an undertaking for one person, and Nate was the only member of the team Eliot trusted to take orders and not get in his way. ’Course he’s usually not so lost in thought, he was forced to acknowledge.
In retrospect it made sense that his first attempt to celebrate the holiday in years would wear on their leader. Of all of them, he’d had the closest to a normal family and normal Thanksgivings. Any attempts to move past that were bound to carry some pretty weighty baggage. The closest Eliot had been in recent memory to what Nate had lost was a Thanksgiving nearly a decade ago. He’d been invited to spend the day with Aimee and Walt, and the experience had been so damn perfect he’d never wanted it to end.
Like so much of the good in Eliot’s life, however, it had been the exception - not the rule. Most of his Thanksgiving memories involved large dining halls filled with men in uniform. His childhood memories were much hazier. He was reasonably sure there’d been family meals early on, before the flu, before the poverty, before the death.
They were nothing he wanted to remember. Certainly the only thing he was thankful for from his childhood was that his mom and dad had tried - most of the time - to do the best they could with what life had given them.
“Hey man!” Hardison said. “You look like you’re a million miles away.” The hacker was leaning on the counter, grinning at Eliot.
Eliot chuckled softly, glancing at Nate. “Seems to be the day for it.”
Hardison considered that for a moment, then shrugged. “Can I help?”
“You can set the table. We’re about thirty minutes out from dinner.” He finished softening the potatoes and set them under the mixer.
“Set the table?” Hardison looked decidedly nonplussed at his job assignment. “You know man, when I asked if I could help, I was only being polite.”
Eliot made a point of turning on the mixer. “What?” he asked, gesturing to Hardison that he couldn’t hear over the whine of the machine. The hacker scowled at him and went to the cupboard.
“Grinch that Stole Thanksgiving, that’s what you are,” he grumbled.
Eliot smiled.
*******************************
Set the table. It’s almost like he knew. Hardison tried to work through his sulk as he got the plates down from Nate’s overhead cabinet, but it was hard.
Plates and utensils, cups and napkins - they were his strongest memories of Thanksgiving growing up. The food had been wonderful; Nana had always saved the money she got from the state to make sure they had more than the turkey given to them every year by one of the local churches. Hardison had never got past being told that since he was the most responsible of his brothers and sisters, it was his job to stay inside and set the table while the others played outside.
”Knowin’ how to keep a house and entertain is important, Alec. You mark my words - some day you’re gonna have a family of your own to spend Thanksgiving with, and you’re gonna be grateful I taught you how to behave.”
He hadn’t been grateful, not at first. At ten all he’d thought about was the play time he’d been missing. Now though…
“Hardison? Can I help?” He blinked, looking up to see Sophie standing across the table from him. Slightly embarrassed at having been caught daydreaming, Hardison grinned at her. Nate and Parker had their heads together by the DVD player - Parker had “acquired” a copy of “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” and wanted to watch it as her contribution to their attempt at a holiday get together.
“Yeah - that’d be great,” he said, passing half his stack to the grifter. She’d better have left enough time for the game, he thought with a final glance at Parker. He couldn’t remember whether Charlie Brown was an hour or a half hour - and it would be cutting it close either way. And I don’t know if I have it in me to stop her if the time runs out.
Hardison started practicing his speeches to Nate and Eliot in his head as he and Sophie began distributing items around the table.
*************************************
The turkey was starting to smell really good. Parker felt her stomach twinge with the first stirrings of real hunger. “Maybe we should just ask Hardison to take care of it,” she said, noting Nate’s increasing frustration with the video equipment.
“No…no…I’ve got it,” Nate said. He pressed another button, but the screens stayed blank. Parker huffed out a breath and perched on the back of a nearby chair to wait.
She couldn’t remember which one of them had first proposed the idea of doing a “real” Thanksgiving together, but she knew it had been almost impossible to hide her excitement. For the first time in her life Parker had a real family, and every time they did something normal together it filled a hole in her heart she hadn’t even known existed.
“Cartoons are part of the holiday,” she said.
“So’s football,” Nate said distractedly, ejecting the DVD and checking it over. “Parker, you sure we can’t do this after the game?”
The thief bit her lower lip, trying…badly…to conceal her disappointment. “Football games go all day - they’re going to be playing until late tonight.” She hoped she wasn’t whining. She really didn’t want to whine.
Nate glanced up at her. He studied her for a long moment, and then looked past her at the table where Hardison and Sophie were working. “Hardison? Little help here?”
Parker smiled. Nate would make sure she had the holiday of her dreams.
They all would.
************************
“Are you all right?” Sophie asked when Nate had joined her at the table, picking up where Hardison had left off. He looked…haunted. Even more so than usual, which was saying something where Nate was concerned.
He smiled, but the expression never reached his eyes. “It’s that obvious, huh?”
Yes, she thought. Out loud, she made a dismissive gesture. “I’m sure no one else has picked up on it.”
His look told her more plainly than words that he didn’t believe her, but he appreciated the effort. “It’s Sam, isn’t it?” she asked. “You haven’t celebrated Thanksgiving since he died.”
“Thanksgiving is about family, Sophie,” he said softly, looking down intently at the fork he’d just set in place. “Without Sam and Maggie…”
He looked so raw, so vulnerable, that Sophie lost her heart to him all over again. “Nate, you should have said something.” She came around the table and took his hand. “We didn’t have to do this.”
Tears sprang to her eyes when he covered her hand with his and met her gaze. “Yes we did.” His attention ticked briefly past her shoulder, where Parker and Hardison were finished wrestling with the DVD player. The opening credits of “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” were playing on the wall of monitors.
Sophie followed his gaze. “Isn’t that football game on soon?”
Nate pulled her into a one-armed hug. “Hardison’ll record it.”
“Hey!” Eliot called from the kitchen. “Little help here, people - it’s time to eat!”
“The show just started!” Parker complained, stamping her foot.
Hardison put a hand on her arm, shaking his head. “I got ya covered, Mama. Don’t worry.” The two of them headed towards the kitchen where Eliot was busy setting serving bowls and platters overflowing with food on the counter.
Sophie leaned into Nate. “You’re going to carve the turkey, right?” she asked, looking up at him. “That is what the head of the family does, right?”
She felt a small shiver ripple through him, and he looked away from her. Even though he was the one who had first put voice to the fact that they were a family, Nate had been terrified of emotionally committing to the concept.
He’s so damaged. It was disturbingly obvious, but not for the first time Sophie wondered if she was being masochistic by continuing to give her heart to him so completely.
“Yeah,” he said at last, looking back at her and smiling sadly. “I guess you’re right. That is what the head of the family does.” Leaning down, he kissed her gently on the cheek.
Damage can be healed, Sophie thought, closing her eyes and savoring the feel of his lips against her skin. But only if someone cares enough to try.
====================================================================================
And as a bonus, because I loved how you phrased your Nate/Sophie love as a "cheap date" way to buy your affections:
This is the 1280 x 800 version.
This is the 800 x 600 (actually 800 x 500) version. PM me if there are any problems with the files, or if you need me to tweak anything further.
Happy holidays!