Happy VDay :)
1. Can my random icon picker pick 'em or what? Granted, Gwen will never love Gwaine the way this icon suggests BUT Eoin Macken is hot & Original!Gwaine is amazingly fun & lovable so I'm taking the win.
2. I'm abt to fall asleep at my desk
3. I hope all of u lovely ppl r having a GREAT day with liberal sprinklings of chocolate
4. There was a leverageland challenge that required us to kill a major character. I wrote a piece but had to cut it. Posting the original unabridged version here. I realise this is completely inappropriate for a day where fluff is front & centre. /o\
Title:
Rating: PG
Warnings: Major Character (temporary) Death
Word Count: 920
Fandom: Leverage
Genre: Gen
Hardison coughed after taking a swig of his orange soda which Eliot promptly grabbed from his hand. The hacker held his hands out, palms up. “What-?”
“Nate, we need to get Hardison to the hospital. He’s been poisoned,” Eliot said, his body half turned in Nate’s direction, his eyes narrowed as he observed Hardison for more symptoms.
Hardison smacked the desk in front of him. “Alright, man, alright! I ate the damn sandwich. There is no need for these scare tactics.”
Anger made Eliot raise his voice. “I knew it! And you made me-My cooking is NEVER forgettable!”
Nate stopped in between both men, confusion in his eyes. “How do you-?”
“It’s a very distinctive cough. I’d say we have about 15 minutes to get him some treatment before the paralysis becomes irreversible.”
Hardison bounced up and down just to make sure he still could. Everyone else looked to Eliot, who put a firm hand on Hardison’s arm.
“Stop. It’ll just hasten the spread of the poison through your blood stream.”
As if on cue, Hardison let out a series of hacking coughs.
It was hard to believe that the still figure in the bed was the same Hardison who had led his fraternity to victory in Black Ops, or hacked history, or had yelled from the ground floor of the Patent Building that he was going to have a “serious talk” with Parker and Eliot about always throwing him off of stuff. By the time Hardison’s doctors had figured out what the poison was, he was on a respirator with more IV lines and tubes going into him than there were cables supporting the Golden Gate Bridge.
Nate got the same haunted look he always had whenever he was re-living Sam’s final hours in a hospital not unlike this one, Eliot watched the monitors like the poison was an actual person holding a gun to Hardison’s head that he was about to engage and disarm, Parker was nestled into Sophie’s side, a death grip on the clothes Hardison had been wearing before a nurse made him change into a hospital gown. She was so far gone that she didn’t realise she had been steadily crying for the past half hour and made no effort to wipe her tears.
“It had to be when Hardison was posing as an art dealer at that cocktail party,” Nate said, apropos of nothing.
Eliot nodded, eyes never wavering from the monitors that now told the story of Hardison’s fight for life. And then: chaos. Equipment started beeping wildly within the room and nurses rushed in, one herding them all out of the way as the attending physician barked orders that were efficiently followed. Then, the sound of Hardison flat lining, impossibly loud and riveting in the confined space. Nate crumpled to the floor, unable to watch another son die in front of him, Sophie sunk with him, holding him in her arms, giving comfort as much as receiving it as real tears tripped over her eyelids for the first time in years. Reflexively, Eliot hit the glass window to Hardison’s room.
“Dammit, Hardison!” Eliot cursed the fact that he had not been able to hack his way out of this life and death situation and who could tell what this would do to their family?
“Live, man! LIVE!” Eliot shouted in Hardison’s direction, as though Alec was slipping away from them because he didn’t have clear directions on what to do now. Sophie reached up to pull Eliot into the circle of her arms too and rocked both the remaining men of the crew as though they were saplings and she was their nursemaid, soothing tears over a skinned knee instead of a grief that threatened to swallow them whole.
Parker was already in her gear standing on the hospital’s helipad by the third round of failed defibrillation. If she wasn’t so good at what she did she would have died up here, she thought because she was crying too hard to see to check her rig: she was doing it all by touch. And then “died”. Like Hardison, who had told her that she didn’t have to be quick and light anymore because she was not alone. She had a crew. And she had him. And he had her. Except he was dead now, so that wasn’t true anymore was it? She couldn’t help herself: she just ran. After she had had some time jumping off of stuff she’d go back downstairs because, no matter what, they were her family now. She cried harder, thinking of that time in Dubai when Alec had packed her a parachute and strapped iron to her feet that made the best jump of her life possible. It was scary enough needing him when he was alive. She had no idea what would happen now that she needed him-“Know what I’m in the mood for? Pretzels.”- and he was no longer here.
She shook out her blonde hair, wiped her eyes rapidly- “I like how you turned out”-and focused on taking off running. As she entered free fall, -“Parker, look down.” “Did you do this?”-she felt like her heart was shattering.
On the ground floor of the hospital, far below where Parker was, and just feet away from the Nate/Sophie/Eliot pretzel, Dr. Smith sighed.
“Time of death, 10:5-“
“Doctor!” a nurse said, wide-eyed, pointing to the beginning of a tiny series of blips on Hardison’s heart monitor.
He followed the trail of her arm and actually smiled.
2. I'm abt to fall asleep at my desk
3. I hope all of u lovely ppl r having a GREAT day with liberal sprinklings of chocolate
4. There was a leverageland challenge that required us to kill a major character. I wrote a piece but had to cut it. Posting the original unabridged version here. I realise this is completely inappropriate for a day where fluff is front & centre. /o\
Title:
Rating: PG
Warnings: Major Character (temporary) Death
Word Count: 920
Fandom: Leverage
Genre: Gen
Hardison coughed after taking a swig of his orange soda which Eliot promptly grabbed from his hand. The hacker held his hands out, palms up. “What-?”
“Nate, we need to get Hardison to the hospital. He’s been poisoned,” Eliot said, his body half turned in Nate’s direction, his eyes narrowed as he observed Hardison for more symptoms.
Hardison smacked the desk in front of him. “Alright, man, alright! I ate the damn sandwich. There is no need for these scare tactics.”
Anger made Eliot raise his voice. “I knew it! And you made me-My cooking is NEVER forgettable!”
Nate stopped in between both men, confusion in his eyes. “How do you-?”
“It’s a very distinctive cough. I’d say we have about 15 minutes to get him some treatment before the paralysis becomes irreversible.”
Hardison bounced up and down just to make sure he still could. Everyone else looked to Eliot, who put a firm hand on Hardison’s arm.
“Stop. It’ll just hasten the spread of the poison through your blood stream.”
As if on cue, Hardison let out a series of hacking coughs.
It was hard to believe that the still figure in the bed was the same Hardison who had led his fraternity to victory in Black Ops, or hacked history, or had yelled from the ground floor of the Patent Building that he was going to have a “serious talk” with Parker and Eliot about always throwing him off of stuff. By the time Hardison’s doctors had figured out what the poison was, he was on a respirator with more IV lines and tubes going into him than there were cables supporting the Golden Gate Bridge.
Nate got the same haunted look he always had whenever he was re-living Sam’s final hours in a hospital not unlike this one, Eliot watched the monitors like the poison was an actual person holding a gun to Hardison’s head that he was about to engage and disarm, Parker was nestled into Sophie’s side, a death grip on the clothes Hardison had been wearing before a nurse made him change into a hospital gown. She was so far gone that she didn’t realise she had been steadily crying for the past half hour and made no effort to wipe her tears.
“It had to be when Hardison was posing as an art dealer at that cocktail party,” Nate said, apropos of nothing.
Eliot nodded, eyes never wavering from the monitors that now told the story of Hardison’s fight for life. And then: chaos. Equipment started beeping wildly within the room and nurses rushed in, one herding them all out of the way as the attending physician barked orders that were efficiently followed. Then, the sound of Hardison flat lining, impossibly loud and riveting in the confined space. Nate crumpled to the floor, unable to watch another son die in front of him, Sophie sunk with him, holding him in her arms, giving comfort as much as receiving it as real tears tripped over her eyelids for the first time in years. Reflexively, Eliot hit the glass window to Hardison’s room.
“Dammit, Hardison!” Eliot cursed the fact that he had not been able to hack his way out of this life and death situation and who could tell what this would do to their family?
“Live, man! LIVE!” Eliot shouted in Hardison’s direction, as though Alec was slipping away from them because he didn’t have clear directions on what to do now. Sophie reached up to pull Eliot into the circle of her arms too and rocked both the remaining men of the crew as though they were saplings and she was their nursemaid, soothing tears over a skinned knee instead of a grief that threatened to swallow them whole.
Parker was already in her gear standing on the hospital’s helipad by the third round of failed defibrillation. If she wasn’t so good at what she did she would have died up here, she thought because she was crying too hard to see to check her rig: she was doing it all by touch. And then “died”. Like Hardison, who had told her that she didn’t have to be quick and light anymore because she was not alone. She had a crew. And she had him. And he had her. Except he was dead now, so that wasn’t true anymore was it? She couldn’t help herself: she just ran. After she had had some time jumping off of stuff she’d go back downstairs because, no matter what, they were her family now. She cried harder, thinking of that time in Dubai when Alec had packed her a parachute and strapped iron to her feet that made the best jump of her life possible. It was scary enough needing him when he was alive. She had no idea what would happen now that she needed him-“Know what I’m in the mood for? Pretzels.”- and he was no longer here.
She shook out her blonde hair, wiped her eyes rapidly- “I like how you turned out”-and focused on taking off running. As she entered free fall, -“Parker, look down.” “Did you do this?”-she felt like her heart was shattering.
On the ground floor of the hospital, far below where Parker was, and just feet away from the Nate/Sophie/Eliot pretzel, Dr. Smith sighed.
“Time of death, 10:5-“
“Doctor!” a nurse said, wide-eyed, pointing to the beginning of a tiny series of blips on Hardison’s heart monitor.
He followed the trail of her arm and actually smiled.