Fic: Faceless
Fic: Faceless
Author: LMX
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: None
Warnings: Big Bang Job fallout for Eliot
Spoilers: Big Bang Job (3.15)
AN1: I wanted to write something off the back of how I felt reading MoonChild's You Stand Your Ground but got caught up in the emotion of that piece and a little lost. Hopefully that hasn't lead to me bastardising her ideas any.
AN2: Inspired to completion by the awesome fanvid by Scout_lover, here
- 0 -
It's a clearance. Go in guns blazing, clear the room for the more important people to walk through, he'd done a good few of those in his time. Rooms, warehouses, buildings... villages... Gone into them a damn sight heavier armed than this, too.
Thing is, until the adrenaline wore off and all you were left with was a room full of dead bodies and bullet casings, it was a hell of a buzz. Using the gun kata, predicting every bullet and plotting your path, just intensified it to the point of religious ecstasy, where getting through the field without a scratch was some kind of acknowledgement that you were meant to survive it. That you were the better fighter.
It was an addictive feeling, just as much as Nate with his alcohol and Parker with her kleptomania, that feeling of power... it wasn't something you just walked away from. You wanted more, and more, and you took it from anyone who could give it to you. It became less and less of a task and more of a celebration. You forgot about what you were doing to others, all you could think about was how it made you feel. But he had walked away. He'd given it all up.
He'd forgotten how it felt, after so long without it. Half of him was floating on that still, when Chapman decided he had a deathwish. There was something so depersonalising at shooting at a whole mass of people who had guns trained on you. You paid attention to the gun, not the person, you didn't really identify any of them until after they stopped hitting the ground. Couldn't even say if they were men, women... children. The realisation broke through him, painfully. He thought he'd stopped doing that. Depersonalising. But then again, he thought he'd never pick up a gun again.
Chapman's question only made it twist in his gut, face after face flashing through his mind, but right now Eliot knew Nate would have a hard time finishing this without him. The man had promised, and Eliot didn't doubt he'd deliver, but he didn't want this to cost Nate what it had cost him to walk away from Moreau alive. Eliot knew exactly who Chapman was when he pulled the trigger. He was Eliot's younger self.
The thought rose up unbidden - 'I was better than him. I would never let myself get shot'. The bile that followed brought back the memories of all those faces of people who had been faceless when they had been holding guns on him. He threw the guns aside and ran, trying to convince himself he just had to get back to Nate.
Moments later he regretted throwing the guns away, and at the same time hated himself for that regret, as Moreau aimed his own at Nate. He couldn't run fast enough. The bullet was always going to win. He screamed his defiance, begged for Moreau's aim, and hoped to all hope the bullet would kill him before he had to see the realisation of what he had returned to in the others' eyes.
If Moreau killed Nate... Well, then neither of them were going to see the end of this day.
Author: LMX
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: None
Warnings: Big Bang Job fallout for Eliot
Spoilers: Big Bang Job (3.15)
AN1: I wanted to write something off the back of how I felt reading MoonChild's You Stand Your Ground but got caught up in the emotion of that piece and a little lost. Hopefully that hasn't lead to me bastardising her ideas any.
AN2: Inspired to completion by the awesome fanvid by Scout_lover, here
- 0 -
It's a clearance. Go in guns blazing, clear the room for the more important people to walk through, he'd done a good few of those in his time. Rooms, warehouses, buildings... villages... Gone into them a damn sight heavier armed than this, too.
Thing is, until the adrenaline wore off and all you were left with was a room full of dead bodies and bullet casings, it was a hell of a buzz. Using the gun kata, predicting every bullet and plotting your path, just intensified it to the point of religious ecstasy, where getting through the field without a scratch was some kind of acknowledgement that you were meant to survive it. That you were the better fighter.
It was an addictive feeling, just as much as Nate with his alcohol and Parker with her kleptomania, that feeling of power... it wasn't something you just walked away from. You wanted more, and more, and you took it from anyone who could give it to you. It became less and less of a task and more of a celebration. You forgot about what you were doing to others, all you could think about was how it made you feel. But he had walked away. He'd given it all up.
He'd forgotten how it felt, after so long without it. Half of him was floating on that still, when Chapman decided he had a deathwish. There was something so depersonalising at shooting at a whole mass of people who had guns trained on you. You paid attention to the gun, not the person, you didn't really identify any of them until after they stopped hitting the ground. Couldn't even say if they were men, women... children. The realisation broke through him, painfully. He thought he'd stopped doing that. Depersonalising. But then again, he thought he'd never pick up a gun again.
Chapman's question only made it twist in his gut, face after face flashing through his mind, but right now Eliot knew Nate would have a hard time finishing this without him. The man had promised, and Eliot didn't doubt he'd deliver, but he didn't want this to cost Nate what it had cost him to walk away from Moreau alive. Eliot knew exactly who Chapman was when he pulled the trigger. He was Eliot's younger self.
The thought rose up unbidden - 'I was better than him. I would never let myself get shot'. The bile that followed brought back the memories of all those faces of people who had been faceless when they had been holding guns on him. He threw the guns aside and ran, trying to convince himself he just had to get back to Nate.
Moments later he regretted throwing the guns away, and at the same time hated himself for that regret, as Moreau aimed his own at Nate. He couldn't run fast enough. The bullet was always going to win. He screamed his defiance, begged for Moreau's aim, and hoped to all hope the bullet would kill him before he had to see the realisation of what he had returned to in the others' eyes.
If Moreau killed Nate... Well, then neither of them were going to see the end of this day.