4x Leverage Commentfics / Over-points for Big Bang
Picking up the pieces
Rating: PG
Pairing: (separated) Nate/Maggie
Summary: Mornings are not Nate's favourite times.
Word count: 211
Morning was a harsh vision, spiking into his head with ruthless abandon and grinding away at the soothing blanket that alcohol had settled over his mind. He had nothing to do, not since he'd been removed from IYS with some force and told not to return. Maggie wouldn't return his calls, and the last time he'd been to an interview he'd been too hungover to make it through the opening stages. Culled with the first bunch of under-qualified yuppies, the panel looking at him with a mixture of pity and disgust.
He rolled over and willed his stomach to settle. His motel bedroom showed the results of the previous night's excesses. His life, in a series of suitcases, was scattered across the floor, and the desk was populated by empty bottles, and a lone glass. He had another interview tomorrow, and he'd already identified half a dozen entry points, not to mention a team that looked very much like they were scoping the place out, in his initial survey. Maybe this time, he could get through this. Maybe this time, he could pick up the pieces of his life and make a new start. He wasn't sure how much more of this he was going to be able to survive.
Light
Rating: PG
Pairing: Nate/Maggie (pre-series)
Summary: Nate steps back into the light.
Word count: 264
Nate stood silently outside his house, dusk settling around him, the taxi that had picked him up from the airport already disappearing away down his street. Even in the half-light, he could see that the grass was a little overgrown, and the paintwork peeling on the window frames, and he knew if he could just get some time off work he'd be able to do all the things Maggie had been asking him to do.
But that was Maggie's point, wasn't it. He didn't *want* time off work, he didn't want to stop. He loved what he did, loved playing in the underworld, in the darkness, so much he would happily let it take up every moment of every day. As soon as he started losing himself in a case, everything else fell away. He could never *forget* his wife, or Sam, but somehow they took a back seat when the fervour took over.
Until the end of the day, or the end of the case, when he stood here in front of his weathered house, sun fading from the sky and the porch light casting a welcoming glow, and he remembered that he missed them. That he loved them and he wanted to spend time with them, and that they were important to him. And suddenly it seemed madness that he'd ever thought otherwise.
A light flicked on in the bedroom window, and then a moment later another in the hall, and suddenly Maggie was in the doorway, smiling at him, welcoming him home. He stepped back into the light.
Shades of Grey
Rating: PG-13 (polyamoury and bondage)
Pairing: Team OT4/OT5 <3 (Tara outsider POV)
Summary: When Tara had come in to this strangely domestic little criminal gang, she'd had her suspicions.
Word count: 589
When Tara had come in to this strangely domestic little criminal gang, she'd had her suspicions.
It wasn't like she was unobservant, and she'd noticed the hacker's besotted gazes in the oblivious thief's direction. She'd worked out pretty quickly that Nate was filling Sophie's space at his side with his hitter - though how far that interaction went past the job she didn't dare guess and had already decided not to even mention to Sophie herself. The hitter and the hacker had some kind of love-hate friendship going on, where one wound up the other and then acted oblivious in the face of the resulting explosion, and Nate had a protective streak a mile wide when it came to the young thief. Not to mention, each of them had their own strangely quaint adoration for… well, for whoever 'Sophie' was playing today.
The main thing Sophie was right now was 'not here', but that didn't seem to have changed their opinion of her. It amused Tara that they wouldn't even entertain the thought of Sophie leading them on; that she might be grifting them even now, keeping them on the hook.
The *why* didn't become entirely clear to Tara until she came face to face with Parker one day, stark naked and standing in the middle of Nate's lounge, her head tipped slightly to one side as if considering an especially difficult problem.
"Parker?" she greeted, a little hesitantly.
Parker turned that considering gaze on her, thought for a moment and then shook her head. "I know we're one short, but you just won't do," she verbalised, before turning and heading towards Nate's bedroom. Half way to the staircase, she turned back with a loud 'HA!' and grabbed a kitchen knife out of the block before sprinting up the stairs.
Tara was frozen in place, waiting for the screams of terror, the mortal wounds and flowing blood. Instead, Nate appeared at the top of the stairs, hurriedly tying a dressing gown around himself.
Tara waited for him to get to the ground before stepping into his space. "You're sleeping with…" she started, but was cut off by a very *distinctive* voice.
"Scissors, Parker. Scissors. You're not taking that to rope. You'll blunt it."
Tara could feel her eyes widening.
"Parker said you were down here," Nate said, clearing his throat.
"You're sleeping with…" Tara started again, the pitch of her voice noticeably higher the second time.
"Damnit, Eliot. Stop pulling," Alec's voice came through very clearly, over Parker's cackling.
"All of them?" Tara squeaked.
Nate ducked his head and nodded. "All of them," he agreed.
Tara felt like her cheeks were on fire, but she didn't know why *she* was the one blushing.
"I know we're late for a briefing," Nate said, eyes everywhere but on Tara, "But there was some discrepancy between what Parker thought was an acceptable escape knot and what Eliot could…"
"No. God, stop. For God's sake, stop. I do not need to know anymore." Tara covered her face with her hands and breathed deeply. When she was fully re-composed, she dared to look up again. "When you're all ready and… clothed," she choked a little on the hesitation. "I'll be down in the bar. With a very stiff drink."
Tara never liked to feel like she was fleeing a situation, but the way she left Nate's apartment that afternoon was definitely not a casual stroll.
Reflection
Rating: PG
Pairing: Eliot/Quinn (but can be read as GEN)
Summary: It's an instinctive reaction for them both, different because they're different people, but similar enough because the experiences they've lived through are more than passingly comparable.
Word count: 374
It's an instinctive reaction for them both, different because they're different people, but similar enough because the experiences they've lived through are more than passingly comparable.
When Eliot is first challenged he throws up a wall - his face goes stoney and his shoulders make a hard tense line. It gets him into as many fights as his fists get him out of, that defensive posturing taken as aggressive.
Quinn, on the other hand, meets challenges with soft charm and easy amicability. His fists are plenty hard enough to get him out of dodge, but more often than not he can walk away without needing to fight.
Force either of them into a corner, though, put them up against a challenge they don't feel they can face, and everything changes.
When faced with something extreme, something beyond his ability to cope - and more often with challenges more emotional than physical - Eliot's walls fell, this shoulders softened and his body relaxed. He flowed around punches and absorbed hits - whether physical or emotional. He coped by taking everything as deep as it could go, and pulling his walls back up around it.
Quinn met such excesses with hard fury - tension coiling down his back and stiffening his spine, snapping and spitting and growling his defences at the threat. His blows hardened, his reach lengthened and all the while he got stiffer and stiffer, knowing that if it ever became too much, if any punch landed that he couldn't repel, he would fall like a tree in winter.
There is a moment, a breath. They both uncoil, step back, take stock. The fight was over nothing, really, and neither had wanted - or expected - to drive the other so far. Quinn's chuckle still held a hard edge, and Eliot was fighting back the urge to yield to his aggression.
They know each other too well, these days. Know how to hit to hurt, know how to hit to damage. But they know this, as well - neither of them is too hard to get past it, or too soft to let it happen.
They share a grin, hard against soft, and life goes on.
Rating: PG
Pairing: (separated) Nate/Maggie
Summary: Mornings are not Nate's favourite times.
Word count: 211
Morning was a harsh vision, spiking into his head with ruthless abandon and grinding away at the soothing blanket that alcohol had settled over his mind. He had nothing to do, not since he'd been removed from IYS with some force and told not to return. Maggie wouldn't return his calls, and the last time he'd been to an interview he'd been too hungover to make it through the opening stages. Culled with the first bunch of under-qualified yuppies, the panel looking at him with a mixture of pity and disgust.
He rolled over and willed his stomach to settle. His motel bedroom showed the results of the previous night's excesses. His life, in a series of suitcases, was scattered across the floor, and the desk was populated by empty bottles, and a lone glass. He had another interview tomorrow, and he'd already identified half a dozen entry points, not to mention a team that looked very much like they were scoping the place out, in his initial survey. Maybe this time, he could get through this. Maybe this time, he could pick up the pieces of his life and make a new start. He wasn't sure how much more of this he was going to be able to survive.
Light
Rating: PG
Pairing: Nate/Maggie (pre-series)
Summary: Nate steps back into the light.
Word count: 264
Nate stood silently outside his house, dusk settling around him, the taxi that had picked him up from the airport already disappearing away down his street. Even in the half-light, he could see that the grass was a little overgrown, and the paintwork peeling on the window frames, and he knew if he could just get some time off work he'd be able to do all the things Maggie had been asking him to do.
But that was Maggie's point, wasn't it. He didn't *want* time off work, he didn't want to stop. He loved what he did, loved playing in the underworld, in the darkness, so much he would happily let it take up every moment of every day. As soon as he started losing himself in a case, everything else fell away. He could never *forget* his wife, or Sam, but somehow they took a back seat when the fervour took over.
Until the end of the day, or the end of the case, when he stood here in front of his weathered house, sun fading from the sky and the porch light casting a welcoming glow, and he remembered that he missed them. That he loved them and he wanted to spend time with them, and that they were important to him. And suddenly it seemed madness that he'd ever thought otherwise.
A light flicked on in the bedroom window, and then a moment later another in the hall, and suddenly Maggie was in the doorway, smiling at him, welcoming him home. He stepped back into the light.
Shades of Grey
Rating: PG-13 (polyamoury and bondage)
Pairing: Team OT4/OT5 <3 (Tara outsider POV)
Summary: When Tara had come in to this strangely domestic little criminal gang, she'd had her suspicions.
Word count: 589
When Tara had come in to this strangely domestic little criminal gang, she'd had her suspicions.
It wasn't like she was unobservant, and she'd noticed the hacker's besotted gazes in the oblivious thief's direction. She'd worked out pretty quickly that Nate was filling Sophie's space at his side with his hitter - though how far that interaction went past the job she didn't dare guess and had already decided not to even mention to Sophie herself. The hitter and the hacker had some kind of love-hate friendship going on, where one wound up the other and then acted oblivious in the face of the resulting explosion, and Nate had a protective streak a mile wide when it came to the young thief. Not to mention, each of them had their own strangely quaint adoration for… well, for whoever 'Sophie' was playing today.
The main thing Sophie was right now was 'not here', but that didn't seem to have changed their opinion of her. It amused Tara that they wouldn't even entertain the thought of Sophie leading them on; that she might be grifting them even now, keeping them on the hook.
The *why* didn't become entirely clear to Tara until she came face to face with Parker one day, stark naked and standing in the middle of Nate's lounge, her head tipped slightly to one side as if considering an especially difficult problem.
"Parker?" she greeted, a little hesitantly.
Parker turned that considering gaze on her, thought for a moment and then shook her head. "I know we're one short, but you just won't do," she verbalised, before turning and heading towards Nate's bedroom. Half way to the staircase, she turned back with a loud 'HA!' and grabbed a kitchen knife out of the block before sprinting up the stairs.
Tara was frozen in place, waiting for the screams of terror, the mortal wounds and flowing blood. Instead, Nate appeared at the top of the stairs, hurriedly tying a dressing gown around himself.
Tara waited for him to get to the ground before stepping into his space. "You're sleeping with…" she started, but was cut off by a very *distinctive* voice.
"Scissors, Parker. Scissors. You're not taking that to rope. You'll blunt it."
Tara could feel her eyes widening.
"Parker said you were down here," Nate said, clearing his throat.
"You're sleeping with…" Tara started again, the pitch of her voice noticeably higher the second time.
"Damnit, Eliot. Stop pulling," Alec's voice came through very clearly, over Parker's cackling.
"All of them?" Tara squeaked.
Nate ducked his head and nodded. "All of them," he agreed.
Tara felt like her cheeks were on fire, but she didn't know why *she* was the one blushing.
"I know we're late for a briefing," Nate said, eyes everywhere but on Tara, "But there was some discrepancy between what Parker thought was an acceptable escape knot and what Eliot could…"
"No. God, stop. For God's sake, stop. I do not need to know anymore." Tara covered her face with her hands and breathed deeply. When she was fully re-composed, she dared to look up again. "When you're all ready and… clothed," she choked a little on the hesitation. "I'll be down in the bar. With a very stiff drink."
Tara never liked to feel like she was fleeing a situation, but the way she left Nate's apartment that afternoon was definitely not a casual stroll.
Reflection
Rating: PG
Pairing: Eliot/Quinn (but can be read as GEN)
Summary: It's an instinctive reaction for them both, different because they're different people, but similar enough because the experiences they've lived through are more than passingly comparable.
Word count: 374
It's an instinctive reaction for them both, different because they're different people, but similar enough because the experiences they've lived through are more than passingly comparable.
When Eliot is first challenged he throws up a wall - his face goes stoney and his shoulders make a hard tense line. It gets him into as many fights as his fists get him out of, that defensive posturing taken as aggressive.
Quinn, on the other hand, meets challenges with soft charm and easy amicability. His fists are plenty hard enough to get him out of dodge, but more often than not he can walk away without needing to fight.
Force either of them into a corner, though, put them up against a challenge they don't feel they can face, and everything changes.
When faced with something extreme, something beyond his ability to cope - and more often with challenges more emotional than physical - Eliot's walls fell, this shoulders softened and his body relaxed. He flowed around punches and absorbed hits - whether physical or emotional. He coped by taking everything as deep as it could go, and pulling his walls back up around it.
Quinn met such excesses with hard fury - tension coiling down his back and stiffening his spine, snapping and spitting and growling his defences at the threat. His blows hardened, his reach lengthened and all the while he got stiffer and stiffer, knowing that if it ever became too much, if any punch landed that he couldn't repel, he would fall like a tree in winter.
There is a moment, a breath. They both uncoil, step back, take stock. The fight was over nothing, really, and neither had wanted - or expected - to drive the other so far. Quinn's chuckle still held a hard edge, and Eliot was fighting back the urge to yield to his aggression.
They know each other too well, these days. Know how to hit to hurt, know how to hit to damage. But they know this, as well - neither of them is too hard to get past it, or too soft to let it happen.
They share a grin, hard against soft, and life goes on.