comment_fic of the day
for honeyjojames who asked for Leverage/AtS, Eliot/Lindsey, vulnerability
:::::
Eliot Spencer had a secret, a rather large secret that he never told anyone; he hadn’t always existed. He wasn’t born, not like the rest of the team - though frankly he thought sometimes that Parker would have lucked out to have come into existence the way he had. Eliot had come into existence for one reason and one reason only, to bring culture to Lindsey McDonald, to cut away all the bar room brawls and thick, cowboy drawl and animalistic tendencies. The creation of Eliot had been a mistake. Lindsey had been too cocky and hadn’t been paying enough attention. And then suddenly they’d been standing there looking at each other, identical on the outside.
They were fine living their own lives, so long as they didn’t see each other, didn’t think too hard about each other; they’d learned that right off. One side effect of Lindsey’s miscalculation was that there was always a part of them that wanted to be one being again. Whenever they saw each other, or thought too hard about each other, they wouldn’t have a choice in their actions, they had to try to become that single being again.
The first night Eliot was his own person on the planet, he and Lindsey had fucked like animals until they were both raw and sore and drenched in sweat and scratches and bite marks. Slamming Lindsey down to the bed and pushing into him, hot and hard and tight and good and perfect, felt like he was going home again, like this was what he was meant to be doing.
It hadn’t been long until Lindsey had sent Eliot out on his way. He was too much of a distraction. And that was contrary to the purpose of his creation. Perversely, he totally understood. Eliot had walked out of Lindsey’s dorm room at Yale Law with fifty bucks, two knives, and brimming with the superfluous aggression of a future lawyer. Finding a niche hadn’t been difficult.
They had managed to avoid each other pretty well over the years, occasionally they would run into each other, screw hard and fast against the nearest available surface, and then go on with their lives.
That’s why this was so strange.
Eliot and the team came back to their new headquarters, it was late and they were tired, but they’d won. There was a shimmer of excitement over the bone-deep tired after none of them had gotten more than two consecutive hours of sleep all week. Or there was, until Eliot spotted his own face in the office.
No one moved.
Well, that’s not true, Eliot’s cock stood up pretty damned quickly, but it was the only one not frozen in place. And then, slowly, the invisible tennis match started - the whole team tracked their eyes slowly from Eliot to the stranger in their midst. Back and forth. Back and forth. One to the other.
“What’s with the tattoos?” Eliot asked at last.
Lindsey smiled at that, and his smile had become a lot more like Eliot’s over the years. “Little something I picked up along the way. I like the hair. Been thinking about growing mine out.”
Eliot used all of his strength, all of his will, all of his pure-southern-stubbornness not to walk across the room, grab Lindsey and kiss that smirk off his face. “Get your own look,” he said at last. That just pissed him off more, there wasn’t enough blood left in his brain to form a single witty retort.
Lindsey caved first and stalked across the room.
Eliot was proud that his team moved like they were on high alert. But he was annoyed too. He could damned well take care of himself. They didn’t move, just watched closely.
Lindsey reached out and gently touched Eliot’s hair, fascinated with the texture as it flowed through his fingers. And then his eyes moved, locked with Eliot’s and they both started panting like a couple of dogs in heat.
Eliot reached out and touched the ink on Lindsey’s chest. “Protection… invisibility?” he read the magic woven into them. Some of the magic was dark and some was light, but that didn’t surprise him, Lindsey had always been able to walk on both sides of the fence when it came to sorcery.
“Ran into a bit of trouble with the Senior Partners. Keeps me hidden from them. Thing is, they’re looking for something.”
“What?” Eliot asked.
“My venerability. My weakness. My Achilles’ Heel. You.”
“The worst they could do is kill me,” Eliot shrugged the idea off, more interested in Lindsey’s tattoos and the natural draw of his other half.
“That’s not true.” Lindsey pushed to him then, lined up their bodies perfectly, both of them groaned at the contact. “This? Right here?” Lindsey forced himself to say, even though every instinct he had was telling him to take Eliot right now. “They can force us back together.”
“No, they can’t,” Eliot whispered into Lindsey’s ear, taking the time to smell Lindsey’s hair.
“They can, if they couldn’t, this wouldn’t happen whenever we’re in the same room. It’s our natural state, one being.” He was nuzzling his nose along Eliot’s jaw and neck now, enjoying the play of that long, fine, soft hair against his cheek and face. “Thing is, after this much time, and with the… miscalculations at the start… it wouldn’t kill us, it would lock us up inside of one mind. We would go crazy, Eliot.”
Eliot’s hands were roaming now, seemingly of their own mind about the proceedings. “So why are you here? You’re leading them right to me.” He ran his tongue along the shell of Lindsey’s ear.
“You’re in LA now on a regular basis. You have friends, family, your own set of vulnerabilities.” He was pulling Eliot’s shirt slowly from his jeans.
“I’m not leaving them.” Eliot nipped lightly at Lindsey’s earlobe. “I finally belong.”
“I know,” Lindsey admitted. “Watched you guys for a while… jerked myself raw watchin’ you kick some mob boss’ muscle halfway to China. So sexy when you’re fighting.”
“You too. Aren’t miscalculations fun?” He gripped Lindsey’s ass in a firm hand and squeezed.
“When they make us both as strong as a master vamp? You bet your sweet ass.”
“Bet my ass all you want, I have plans for yours,” Eliot growled. He crashed his mouth to Lindsey’s in a hot, brutal kiss even as he pulled his double in closer.
Suddenly Lindsey was pulling away violently. “We can’t!”
“We have to,” Eliot panted.
“No. Too dangerous. We tend to leak more magic then come when we’re fucking, and that’s saying something. It’s too dangerous. Senior Partners know my magic, they’d show up quicker than we could move. Put us into living hell.”
“Then why the fuck are you here?!” Eliot demanded.
Lindsey took a piece of paper out of his pocket. “If I had any brains at all I’d kill you where you stand. But there’s a part of me will never let that happen. Same part that always wants you, probably. But the point is, I can’t keep you safe from them any way but being far, far away. Shit starts to go down with them, you’re gonna need a Champion on your side.” The paper was tossed onto the floor between them. “His name is Spike. You can trust him… usually. Keep a pack of cigs and a bottle of whiskey on hand just in case. And El? You watch that sweet ass of yours.” With that he turned and ran, full out, out of the house, into the courtyard, gaining speed until he could scale the back wall easily. Tires screeched and Eliot knew he was gone.
Eliot looked around at an empty room. Then he realized he was still in the main entryway. “Ya can come on out now,” he called. “No floorshow tonight.”
Hardison was the first to come out of hiding. “Just tell me y’all ain’t brothers, because… ew. There is not enough therapy in the world.”
Eliot went and picked up the paper, it had a phone number on it and that was all. “Not brothers,” he said honestly.
“What then?” Nate asked softly from the stairway.
“Yeah, why does he look like you?” Parker asked as she and Sophie came out of a darkened corner of the room where they would have been able to see everything.
“Somethin’ way more complicated. He’s my Achilles’ Heel.”
:::::
Eliot Spencer had a secret, a rather large secret that he never told anyone; he hadn’t always existed. He wasn’t born, not like the rest of the team - though frankly he thought sometimes that Parker would have lucked out to have come into existence the way he had. Eliot had come into existence for one reason and one reason only, to bring culture to Lindsey McDonald, to cut away all the bar room brawls and thick, cowboy drawl and animalistic tendencies. The creation of Eliot had been a mistake. Lindsey had been too cocky and hadn’t been paying enough attention. And then suddenly they’d been standing there looking at each other, identical on the outside.
They were fine living their own lives, so long as they didn’t see each other, didn’t think too hard about each other; they’d learned that right off. One side effect of Lindsey’s miscalculation was that there was always a part of them that wanted to be one being again. Whenever they saw each other, or thought too hard about each other, they wouldn’t have a choice in their actions, they had to try to become that single being again.
The first night Eliot was his own person on the planet, he and Lindsey had fucked like animals until they were both raw and sore and drenched in sweat and scratches and bite marks. Slamming Lindsey down to the bed and pushing into him, hot and hard and tight and good and perfect, felt like he was going home again, like this was what he was meant to be doing.
It hadn’t been long until Lindsey had sent Eliot out on his way. He was too much of a distraction. And that was contrary to the purpose of his creation. Perversely, he totally understood. Eliot had walked out of Lindsey’s dorm room at Yale Law with fifty bucks, two knives, and brimming with the superfluous aggression of a future lawyer. Finding a niche hadn’t been difficult.
They had managed to avoid each other pretty well over the years, occasionally they would run into each other, screw hard and fast against the nearest available surface, and then go on with their lives.
That’s why this was so strange.
Eliot and the team came back to their new headquarters, it was late and they were tired, but they’d won. There was a shimmer of excitement over the bone-deep tired after none of them had gotten more than two consecutive hours of sleep all week. Or there was, until Eliot spotted his own face in the office.
No one moved.
Well, that’s not true, Eliot’s cock stood up pretty damned quickly, but it was the only one not frozen in place. And then, slowly, the invisible tennis match started - the whole team tracked their eyes slowly from Eliot to the stranger in their midst. Back and forth. Back and forth. One to the other.
“What’s with the tattoos?” Eliot asked at last.
Lindsey smiled at that, and his smile had become a lot more like Eliot’s over the years. “Little something I picked up along the way. I like the hair. Been thinking about growing mine out.”
Eliot used all of his strength, all of his will, all of his pure-southern-stubbornness not to walk across the room, grab Lindsey and kiss that smirk off his face. “Get your own look,” he said at last. That just pissed him off more, there wasn’t enough blood left in his brain to form a single witty retort.
Lindsey caved first and stalked across the room.
Eliot was proud that his team moved like they were on high alert. But he was annoyed too. He could damned well take care of himself. They didn’t move, just watched closely.
Lindsey reached out and gently touched Eliot’s hair, fascinated with the texture as it flowed through his fingers. And then his eyes moved, locked with Eliot’s and they both started panting like a couple of dogs in heat.
Eliot reached out and touched the ink on Lindsey’s chest. “Protection… invisibility?” he read the magic woven into them. Some of the magic was dark and some was light, but that didn’t surprise him, Lindsey had always been able to walk on both sides of the fence when it came to sorcery.
“Ran into a bit of trouble with the Senior Partners. Keeps me hidden from them. Thing is, they’re looking for something.”
“What?” Eliot asked.
“My venerability. My weakness. My Achilles’ Heel. You.”
“The worst they could do is kill me,” Eliot shrugged the idea off, more interested in Lindsey’s tattoos and the natural draw of his other half.
“That’s not true.” Lindsey pushed to him then, lined up their bodies perfectly, both of them groaned at the contact. “This? Right here?” Lindsey forced himself to say, even though every instinct he had was telling him to take Eliot right now. “They can force us back together.”
“No, they can’t,” Eliot whispered into Lindsey’s ear, taking the time to smell Lindsey’s hair.
“They can, if they couldn’t, this wouldn’t happen whenever we’re in the same room. It’s our natural state, one being.” He was nuzzling his nose along Eliot’s jaw and neck now, enjoying the play of that long, fine, soft hair against his cheek and face. “Thing is, after this much time, and with the… miscalculations at the start… it wouldn’t kill us, it would lock us up inside of one mind. We would go crazy, Eliot.”
Eliot’s hands were roaming now, seemingly of their own mind about the proceedings. “So why are you here? You’re leading them right to me.” He ran his tongue along the shell of Lindsey’s ear.
“You’re in LA now on a regular basis. You have friends, family, your own set of vulnerabilities.” He was pulling Eliot’s shirt slowly from his jeans.
“I’m not leaving them.” Eliot nipped lightly at Lindsey’s earlobe. “I finally belong.”
“I know,” Lindsey admitted. “Watched you guys for a while… jerked myself raw watchin’ you kick some mob boss’ muscle halfway to China. So sexy when you’re fighting.”
“You too. Aren’t miscalculations fun?” He gripped Lindsey’s ass in a firm hand and squeezed.
“When they make us both as strong as a master vamp? You bet your sweet ass.”
“Bet my ass all you want, I have plans for yours,” Eliot growled. He crashed his mouth to Lindsey’s in a hot, brutal kiss even as he pulled his double in closer.
Suddenly Lindsey was pulling away violently. “We can’t!”
“We have to,” Eliot panted.
“No. Too dangerous. We tend to leak more magic then come when we’re fucking, and that’s saying something. It’s too dangerous. Senior Partners know my magic, they’d show up quicker than we could move. Put us into living hell.”
“Then why the fuck are you here?!” Eliot demanded.
Lindsey took a piece of paper out of his pocket. “If I had any brains at all I’d kill you where you stand. But there’s a part of me will never let that happen. Same part that always wants you, probably. But the point is, I can’t keep you safe from them any way but being far, far away. Shit starts to go down with them, you’re gonna need a Champion on your side.” The paper was tossed onto the floor between them. “His name is Spike. You can trust him… usually. Keep a pack of cigs and a bottle of whiskey on hand just in case. And El? You watch that sweet ass of yours.” With that he turned and ran, full out, out of the house, into the courtyard, gaining speed until he could scale the back wall easily. Tires screeched and Eliot knew he was gone.
Eliot looked around at an empty room. Then he realized he was still in the main entryway. “Ya can come on out now,” he called. “No floorshow tonight.”
Hardison was the first to come out of hiding. “Just tell me y’all ain’t brothers, because… ew. There is not enough therapy in the world.”
Eliot went and picked up the paper, it had a phone number on it and that was all. “Not brothers,” he said honestly.
“What then?” Nate asked softly from the stairway.
“Yeah, why does he look like you?” Parker asked as she and Sophie came out of a darkened corner of the room where they would have been able to see everything.
“Somethin’ way more complicated. He’s my Achilles’ Heel.”