Theraputic Nature of Lock-Picking
Title: Theraputic Nature of Lock-picking
Fandoms: Leverage and Teen Wolf
Prompts Used: Crossover: tv shows & movies and Family
Word count: 2103
Warnings: Spoiler for season 3 of Teen Wolf
Summary: After everything that happened in Beacon Hills, Sheriff Stilinski thought it was time for his son to get away from everything and spend some time with his other relative.
Written for Challenge 11 of Leverageland.
It was a Tuesday when Parker got the phone call. It wasn’t particularly unusual for her to get phone calls during meetings, but the unusual part was that she interrupted one of Nate’s talks in order to pick up the phone. Hardison looked around the room - one, two, three, four - that was all of the team accounted for so his mind jumped to the possibilities of who could be phoning her if not a member of the team.
They all saw her talking into the phone, gesturing wildly with her hands as she talked animatedly to whoever was on the other end of the line, her eyes glittering with what seemed to be excitement. As she wrapped up the call, the other members of the team who had been staring at her all looked away and attempted to look busy. Hardison went to the fridge, Sophie started powdering her nose, Nate started to fix a drink and Eliot, well Eliot just looked dead ahead.
Parker skipped back into the room, and then stopped in her tracks when she noticed the team and their strange behaviour.
“Guys, what are you doing?” She asked, cocking her head to one side as she looked at each member of the team. They all fumbled around with their excuses and Parker just shrugged it off, nothing was going to spoil her good mood.
“So, erm...” Nate began, floundering slightly, not knowing how to broach the topic with Parker.
“They want to know about the phone call Parker, tell them and then let’s get back to what we were doing before, some of us have places to be this afternoon,” Eliot said nonchalantly.
“Oh, so that’s what’s causing you all to be,” she said as she pulled a funny face. “Apart from you Sparky - you’re all,” she pulled a straight face.
“I got a call from my cousin,” she said.
“Wait,” Hardison said, interrupting Parker. “You have actual blood relatives?”
“Well, yeah, I wasn’t born from an egg or grown in a lab. Although that would be cool. I’m only close to my cousin and his son.” She said.
“My nephew’s needs to get away from his town for a while, for various reasons, so my cousin thought where else but to visit his favourite cousin. This is going to be so good - I haven’t seen him since before we all started working together,” she said excitedly, bouncing from one foot to another.
“Your nephew? Parker, you’re cousin’s son is your second cousin, not your nephew,” Sophie said gently, not wanting to hurt the younger girl’s feelings.
“We know that, but he doesn’t have any other relatives from either side of the family outside of a Polish grandparents, so it’s easier to say nephew rather than second cousin,” Parker said, making everything sound completely logical.
“So what were we talking about again,” she said, gesturing towards the monitors. With that final statement, everyone got back to the topic in hand, but the question on everyone’s mind was: when will the mysterious Parker second cousin/nephew be arriving to Portland and Leverage Incorporated and how would they keep their work a secret from him?
***
The team waited patiently for the mysterious nephew to turn up, they went about their day to day business but always in the back of their minds they were aware of their visitor’s imminent arrival. As the days ticked on, the anticipation for his arrival grew and grew. It got to the point that Hardison started frequently checking the security footage of the offices to make sure he hadn’t come and gone without anyone noticing.
Then one day a tall, thin boy with a mop of brown hair appeared in the bar area. This wouldn’t have caused any alarm if it weren’t for Parker’s head jolting up to look at the security feed and then slinking off out of the room. Eliot and Hardison turned to look at each other, then back to the feed and took off out of the room - they didn’t want to miss this. This had to be the nephew/second cousin - it had to be.
The members of the Leverage team arrived in the bar just in time to see Parker jump on the guy in excitement, and for him to grip back with equal enthusiasm. She then pulled him at arms length and started commenting on varying features - they heard vague parts of her talking, such as about his hair being long, looking too skinny, not getting enough sleep. He then rebutted each comment with a comment of his own. The scary part was that she sounded like a proper aunt.
“Dear lord, it’s like a male Parker,” Hardison murmured, Sophie nodding in agreement. They both had the same flailing hand gestures and animated conversation patterns.
After this examination was complete, she slung her arm over his shoulder and turned back towards the offices and started walking over to the team.
“Guys, guys, guys. This is my nephew. Nephew - this is Nate, Sophie, Hardison and Eliot,” she said, pointing each one out in turn. Nate waved, Sophie smiled, Hardison made the Star Trek sign and Eliot, well Eliot simply nodded.
“Hey, it’s nice to meet you all,” he said. The team waited expectently for a while, then Sophie rolled her eyes.
“Parker, we’ve talked about this - when making introductions, always assume the other person doesn’t know unless they are already acquainted,” Sophie said, gently chiding the younger girl.
“Oh right, sorry Sophie. This is my nephew Stiles, Stiles - meet the team,” she said. There was a moment’s silence, and then it was interrupted by Hardison coughing.
“Stiles? What kind of a name is Stiles?” Hardison asked incredulously.
“A nickname, by definition a familiar or humerous name given to a person instead of or as well as the real name,” Stiles said simply, as though he’d had this discussion many times before.
“C’mon Stiles, let’s go in and talk. I need to see how your skills are doing,” she said before dragging him into the office.
They moved over towards one of the back tables and Parker produced a shiny silver box. In it lay several locks and lock-picking sets. She took out two and gave one to Stiles to work on, leaving one for herself. Parker knew that Stiles needed to be kept busy, based off of what his father had told her.
They worked on them in relative silence for a while, before Stiles cracked his lock and put it down on the table.
“Nice going, kid,” she said, taking the lock back and putting another one in front of him. He looked at it for a second and then she asked, “What’s new with you Stiles?”
“Not much, made the lacrosse team, doing alright at school - starting to potentially think about college,” he said, but Parker could tell that there was something more, when she looked into his eyes, she saw something similar to what she saw in Eliot’s.
“You can tell me Stiles, I won’t judge,” she said gently.
He looked up at her and she saw something like an internal battle taking place in the back of his mind. She nodded encouragingly and he seemed to make up his mind.
“You promise you’ll hear me out? No judgement?” He said. Parker mimed zipping her mouth closed and so Stiles started talking. It was as though she’d unleashed a dam, he talked about everything - all of the strange happenings in Beacon Hills, Scott being bitten, Kanimas, hunters, Darach and human sacrifices. Parker sat there, letting him talk, but all the while nodding along to make sure that he knew that she was believing him, that he wasn’t alone in this.
Then he went quiet. He had to choke something down. He started to talk about being possessed about the Nogitsune. That he couldn’t control it, but at the same time he could remember everything that he did. He killed so many people, and hurt so many others and he couldn’t stop himself. He blamed himself for Allison’s death, for so many deaths.
When he finished talking, he just sat there with a broken look in his eyes. Parker looked at him dead in the eye.
“I believe you Stiles. Nothing that happened was your fault, I know it’s hard to believe and you’ll carry that on your conscience for forever, but you couldn’t stop it, and you tried to mitigate it as much as possible. Deep down, you know that if you could have stopped it then you would, but circumstances meant that you couldn’t. It was not you - you were not the Nogitsu-whatsit. You are Stiles, my little Polish nephew who has so many prospects for the future, who can do anything that he puts his mind to,” she said, and for a second, he looked relieved.
He knew that Parker would understand - she always had an interesting perspective on life which made others think that she was a bit nuts but Stiles always knew that she was the most sane person in the world. Sure, she liked to jump of buildings for fun, but at the end of the day, she always knew what to say - not just words to placate him.
“Thanks Auntie Parker,” he said quietly. He didn’t know where to go from here, what he wanted to do. That’s why he was so glad that his Dad suggested it was time to visit Parker, he needed to get away from all of the things that were happening in Beacon Hills. He needed time away from all of the madness, to heal a bit.
“Say, I’ve got an idea - you’re on summer break, right? Why not stay with me for a bit longer - I’m sure I can clear it with your Dad, besides - you need to learn the tricks of the trade,” she said excitedly, and she could see the spark of interest in his eyes. Parker knew that being with the team would help with him - they had certainly helped her over the years to feel less broken and she knew that Eliot felt the same way.
Eliot would be good for Stiles, she thought, and vice versa, Stiles would be good for Eliot. They both have similar scars beneath the surface, just that Stiles’ were a bit more recent than Eliot’s.
“Sure, I think that would be good,” Stiles said, smiling brightly at Parker.
“Besides, you should spend some time with Eliot - with all of these things, learning some self defense is probably a good thing,” Parker said. She then spun around to face where her team were sitting in the main part of the hall.
“Hey, Stiles is going to be sticking around for a while to learn the ropes of things. He already knows what we do so you don’t have to cover it up,” she said loudly, so that everyone could hear her.
“Wait, what? You told her what we do? Parker...” Nate said angrily. It was one thing to let a client in on what they were doing, but a family member?
“You told your ex-wife Nate, I told my cousins - how are the scenarios any different? Besides, they’ve always known what I do - my cousin is a Sheriff after all,” Parker said bluntly,
“Wait, you’re cousin’s a what?” Hardison asked.
“A Sheriff. You know, the lead of the local law enforcement in a town,” Stiles said sarcastically. Hardison chuckled at the revelation of how different the two cousins’ professions were.
“We’d love to have him around, wouldn’t we Nate?” Sophie said sweetly, looking at Nate in such a way that implied he would regret it if he said no.
“I suppose it’ll be fine - although he’ll be staying with you Parker and you’ll need to get permission from his parents,” Nate said, resigned to the fact that he’d be having a teenager around for the foreseeable future.
“This is going to be fun,” Parker said, identical smiles on both Parker and Stiles’ faces.
Fandoms: Leverage and Teen Wolf
Prompts Used: Crossover: tv shows & movies and Family
Word count: 2103
Warnings: Spoiler for season 3 of Teen Wolf
Summary: After everything that happened in Beacon Hills, Sheriff Stilinski thought it was time for his son to get away from everything and spend some time with his other relative.
Written for Challenge 11 of Leverageland.
It was a Tuesday when Parker got the phone call. It wasn’t particularly unusual for her to get phone calls during meetings, but the unusual part was that she interrupted one of Nate’s talks in order to pick up the phone. Hardison looked around the room - one, two, three, four - that was all of the team accounted for so his mind jumped to the possibilities of who could be phoning her if not a member of the team.
They all saw her talking into the phone, gesturing wildly with her hands as she talked animatedly to whoever was on the other end of the line, her eyes glittering with what seemed to be excitement. As she wrapped up the call, the other members of the team who had been staring at her all looked away and attempted to look busy. Hardison went to the fridge, Sophie started powdering her nose, Nate started to fix a drink and Eliot, well Eliot just looked dead ahead.
Parker skipped back into the room, and then stopped in her tracks when she noticed the team and their strange behaviour.
“Guys, what are you doing?” She asked, cocking her head to one side as she looked at each member of the team. They all fumbled around with their excuses and Parker just shrugged it off, nothing was going to spoil her good mood.
“So, erm...” Nate began, floundering slightly, not knowing how to broach the topic with Parker.
“They want to know about the phone call Parker, tell them and then let’s get back to what we were doing before, some of us have places to be this afternoon,” Eliot said nonchalantly.
“Oh, so that’s what’s causing you all to be,” she said as she pulled a funny face. “Apart from you Sparky - you’re all,” she pulled a straight face.
“I got a call from my cousin,” she said.
“Wait,” Hardison said, interrupting Parker. “You have actual blood relatives?”
“Well, yeah, I wasn’t born from an egg or grown in a lab. Although that would be cool. I’m only close to my cousin and his son.” She said.
“My nephew’s needs to get away from his town for a while, for various reasons, so my cousin thought where else but to visit his favourite cousin. This is going to be so good - I haven’t seen him since before we all started working together,” she said excitedly, bouncing from one foot to another.
“Your nephew? Parker, you’re cousin’s son is your second cousin, not your nephew,” Sophie said gently, not wanting to hurt the younger girl’s feelings.
“We know that, but he doesn’t have any other relatives from either side of the family outside of a Polish grandparents, so it’s easier to say nephew rather than second cousin,” Parker said, making everything sound completely logical.
“So what were we talking about again,” she said, gesturing towards the monitors. With that final statement, everyone got back to the topic in hand, but the question on everyone’s mind was: when will the mysterious Parker second cousin/nephew be arriving to Portland and Leverage Incorporated and how would they keep their work a secret from him?
***
The team waited patiently for the mysterious nephew to turn up, they went about their day to day business but always in the back of their minds they were aware of their visitor’s imminent arrival. As the days ticked on, the anticipation for his arrival grew and grew. It got to the point that Hardison started frequently checking the security footage of the offices to make sure he hadn’t come and gone without anyone noticing.
Then one day a tall, thin boy with a mop of brown hair appeared in the bar area. This wouldn’t have caused any alarm if it weren’t for Parker’s head jolting up to look at the security feed and then slinking off out of the room. Eliot and Hardison turned to look at each other, then back to the feed and took off out of the room - they didn’t want to miss this. This had to be the nephew/second cousin - it had to be.
The members of the Leverage team arrived in the bar just in time to see Parker jump on the guy in excitement, and for him to grip back with equal enthusiasm. She then pulled him at arms length and started commenting on varying features - they heard vague parts of her talking, such as about his hair being long, looking too skinny, not getting enough sleep. He then rebutted each comment with a comment of his own. The scary part was that she sounded like a proper aunt.
“Dear lord, it’s like a male Parker,” Hardison murmured, Sophie nodding in agreement. They both had the same flailing hand gestures and animated conversation patterns.
After this examination was complete, she slung her arm over his shoulder and turned back towards the offices and started walking over to the team.
“Guys, guys, guys. This is my nephew. Nephew - this is Nate, Sophie, Hardison and Eliot,” she said, pointing each one out in turn. Nate waved, Sophie smiled, Hardison made the Star Trek sign and Eliot, well Eliot simply nodded.
“Hey, it’s nice to meet you all,” he said. The team waited expectently for a while, then Sophie rolled her eyes.
“Parker, we’ve talked about this - when making introductions, always assume the other person doesn’t know unless they are already acquainted,” Sophie said, gently chiding the younger girl.
“Oh right, sorry Sophie. This is my nephew Stiles, Stiles - meet the team,” she said. There was a moment’s silence, and then it was interrupted by Hardison coughing.
“Stiles? What kind of a name is Stiles?” Hardison asked incredulously.
“A nickname, by definition a familiar or humerous name given to a person instead of or as well as the real name,” Stiles said simply, as though he’d had this discussion many times before.
“C’mon Stiles, let’s go in and talk. I need to see how your skills are doing,” she said before dragging him into the office.
They moved over towards one of the back tables and Parker produced a shiny silver box. In it lay several locks and lock-picking sets. She took out two and gave one to Stiles to work on, leaving one for herself. Parker knew that Stiles needed to be kept busy, based off of what his father had told her.
They worked on them in relative silence for a while, before Stiles cracked his lock and put it down on the table.
“Nice going, kid,” she said, taking the lock back and putting another one in front of him. He looked at it for a second and then she asked, “What’s new with you Stiles?”
“Not much, made the lacrosse team, doing alright at school - starting to potentially think about college,” he said, but Parker could tell that there was something more, when she looked into his eyes, she saw something similar to what she saw in Eliot’s.
“You can tell me Stiles, I won’t judge,” she said gently.
He looked up at her and she saw something like an internal battle taking place in the back of his mind. She nodded encouragingly and he seemed to make up his mind.
“You promise you’ll hear me out? No judgement?” He said. Parker mimed zipping her mouth closed and so Stiles started talking. It was as though she’d unleashed a dam, he talked about everything - all of the strange happenings in Beacon Hills, Scott being bitten, Kanimas, hunters, Darach and human sacrifices. Parker sat there, letting him talk, but all the while nodding along to make sure that he knew that she was believing him, that he wasn’t alone in this.
Then he went quiet. He had to choke something down. He started to talk about being possessed about the Nogitsune. That he couldn’t control it, but at the same time he could remember everything that he did. He killed so many people, and hurt so many others and he couldn’t stop himself. He blamed himself for Allison’s death, for so many deaths.
When he finished talking, he just sat there with a broken look in his eyes. Parker looked at him dead in the eye.
“I believe you Stiles. Nothing that happened was your fault, I know it’s hard to believe and you’ll carry that on your conscience for forever, but you couldn’t stop it, and you tried to mitigate it as much as possible. Deep down, you know that if you could have stopped it then you would, but circumstances meant that you couldn’t. It was not you - you were not the Nogitsu-whatsit. You are Stiles, my little Polish nephew who has so many prospects for the future, who can do anything that he puts his mind to,” she said, and for a second, he looked relieved.
He knew that Parker would understand - she always had an interesting perspective on life which made others think that she was a bit nuts but Stiles always knew that she was the most sane person in the world. Sure, she liked to jump of buildings for fun, but at the end of the day, she always knew what to say - not just words to placate him.
“Thanks Auntie Parker,” he said quietly. He didn’t know where to go from here, what he wanted to do. That’s why he was so glad that his Dad suggested it was time to visit Parker, he needed to get away from all of the things that were happening in Beacon Hills. He needed time away from all of the madness, to heal a bit.
“Say, I’ve got an idea - you’re on summer break, right? Why not stay with me for a bit longer - I’m sure I can clear it with your Dad, besides - you need to learn the tricks of the trade,” she said excitedly, and she could see the spark of interest in his eyes. Parker knew that being with the team would help with him - they had certainly helped her over the years to feel less broken and she knew that Eliot felt the same way.
Eliot would be good for Stiles, she thought, and vice versa, Stiles would be good for Eliot. They both have similar scars beneath the surface, just that Stiles’ were a bit more recent than Eliot’s.
“Sure, I think that would be good,” Stiles said, smiling brightly at Parker.
“Besides, you should spend some time with Eliot - with all of these things, learning some self defense is probably a good thing,” Parker said. She then spun around to face where her team were sitting in the main part of the hall.
“Hey, Stiles is going to be sticking around for a while to learn the ropes of things. He already knows what we do so you don’t have to cover it up,” she said loudly, so that everyone could hear her.
“Wait, what? You told her what we do? Parker...” Nate said angrily. It was one thing to let a client in on what they were doing, but a family member?
“You told your ex-wife Nate, I told my cousins - how are the scenarios any different? Besides, they’ve always known what I do - my cousin is a Sheriff after all,” Parker said bluntly,
“Wait, you’re cousin’s a what?” Hardison asked.
“A Sheriff. You know, the lead of the local law enforcement in a town,” Stiles said sarcastically. Hardison chuckled at the revelation of how different the two cousins’ professions were.
“We’d love to have him around, wouldn’t we Nate?” Sophie said sweetly, looking at Nate in such a way that implied he would regret it if he said no.
“I suppose it’ll be fine - although he’ll be staying with you Parker and you’ll need to get permission from his parents,” Nate said, resigned to the fact that he’d be having a teenager around for the foreseeable future.
“This is going to be fun,” Parker said, identical smiles on both Parker and Stiles’ faces.