A Lesson in Violence
A Lesson in Violence
Leverage, Eliot+team
PG-13 for language, implied violence
Written for tigriswolf at comment_fic
Hardison had a very bad feeling.
He was seated at the desk, ripping through the files on the computer before him like a madman, trying desperately to find something, anything, that would help them find Sophie. Across the desk from him sat the man whose office they’d invaded, slumping, pale and sweating, chewing his lower lip nervously and looking very much as if he would be sick at any moment.
Hardison knew how he felt.
Nate was pacing slowly back and forth before the large window overlooking the city below, his face as cold and hard as Hardison had ever seen it. Now and then he spoke in a soft and icy voice, keeping in contact with Parker as she swept through the other offices they’d targeted. Hardison shivered unconsciously, actually able to feel the chill rolling off the older man.
Whereas all he felt from Eliot was heat.
The hitter stood against the far wall, where he’d been for the past ten minutes, seething blue eyes glaring holes into the wretched figure across from Hardison. Now and then, Hardison’s gaze drifted past the computer screen to Eliot, but he quickly snatched it back down again, unable to bear looking at the man for long. Too frightened - no, terrified - of what he saw staring back.
He’d always known, objectively, what Eliot Spencer did, what he was. He’d just never known it, hadn’t allowed himself to know it, to understand and internalize it, until now. When all that was dark and deadly in the man was clawing its way out.
“Parker’s got nothing,” Nate said in a cold, clipped voice, turning to the desk, and the man slumped pale and sweating before it. “Mr. Hayes, you are our only hope. You have what we need. It’s in your best interest to give it to us.”
Hayes swallowed, shuddered, and went a shade whiter still. “I- I don’t- I don’t know,” he stammered, his voice thick with fear. He was talking to Nate, but his wide, wild eyes never left Eliot.
And Eliot’s never left him.
“Of course you do,” Nate said with absolute certainty. “You know Grainger better than anyone. You know his every secret, his every scheme.” He flicked a glance over his shoulder. “Eliot, maybe you can persuade him to cooperate.”
Eliot didn’t say a word, merely straightened and stepped away from the wall, though Hardison couldn’t understand how. Hell, he couldn’t understand how the other man was still standing. Grainger’s security thugs had used Eliot as a diversion while the man himself had taken Sophie, and they had thrown themselves into their work with a vicious enthusiasm. By the time Hardison and Nate had arrived, Eliot had taken down four of them, at least one of whom would never get up again, but he’d been a mess - concussed, bleeding, and trying in vain to protect broken ribs whose grating Hardison could almost hear. By all rights, the hitter should be down.
Hell, by all rights, the man should be in a hospital.
But he was here, was upright, and was moving slowly toward Hayes, his face a livid mask of cuts and bruises and his blue eyes filled with something truly unspeakable. Hardison knew Eliot didn’t have a gun, didn’t like guns, and almost wished the man did. Somehow, a gun would have been far less terrifying than the simple sight of an unarmed, silent and battered Eliot Spencer advancing steadily and with an entirely predatory purpose on Thomas Hayes.
Hardison swallowed a surge of nausea and forced his fingers to fly even faster over the keys, tearing through firewalls, slamming into networks, wreaking his own kind of carnage in a desperate attempt to make Eliot’s kind unnecessary. For once, though, a system refused to bend itself to his will.
And Eliot was fixed on his prey. Hardison threw a sharp glance at Nate, waiting for the man to intercede, to call Eliot down, to come up with Plan G or T or whatever the hell it was they were up to now. But Nate just stood there, watching through cold eyes as Eliot advanced upon his victim.
He was close enough now that Hardison could see the effort it took to move, could see the effort it took to control his pain, and that sent an entirely new rush of terror through him. Eliot was all about control, about holding down by sheer will the dark thing that lived inside him, about keeping his rage on a very short leash and under tight command. Now, though, he couldn’t spare the effort. It took everything he had just to manage the pain, just to keep himself here and functioning instead of sinking into the collapse Hardison knew he desperately needed. He had to choose between either controlling the pain or controlling the rage, and Hardison knew with a sick certainty which choice he’d made.
They had to find Sophie, and in order to find Sophie, Eliot had to be able to move. And in order to move, Eliot had to focus all his will on just ignoring the pain-
The beast was about to slip its leash.
Eliot stopped just before Hayes and stared down, giving a terrible, beautiful smile as Hayes shuddered violently and moaned sickly. Mere inches separated them. Hayes could easily have struck out and very likely dropped Eliot with one good blow. Instead he simply sat there, staring up helplessly, mesmerized by the eyes boring into him.
And then Eliot spoke. “You know where she is. And you’re gonna tell me. Or I’ll take it from you in pieces.”
Hardison shivered. Eliot’s voice was low, rough and steadier than it had any right to be, given his condition. It held a hint of breathlessness, a hint of pain, and was shot through with the promise of violence.
“You play chess, don’t you?” Eliot asked, his drawl heavier than usual. Fresh blood welled from the deep split in his lower lip as he spoke, but he merely wiped it away with his tongue. “So do I.” He leaned down, setting his hands on the arms of Hayes’ chair, and Hardison couldn’t begin to imagine how much that must hurt. Eliot never flinched. “You’re protectin’ your king, I get that,” he rasped. “That’s your job. Me, I’m tryin’ t’ save my queen. And my job is takin’ out whatever piece gets in my way.” He smiled again, and more blood spilled from his lip and down his chin, dripping onto Hayes’ white shirt. “One way or the other, I’m takin’ your king.” He lifted his right hand from the arm of the chair and slid his fingers slowly across Hayes’ throat in a gesture that was both caress and threat. “But it’s up ta you,” he breathed, “whether I take you down with him.”
And Hayes broke. With a shriek, he flung himself out of the chair, away from Eliot, and landed on his knees on the floor, burying his face in shaking hands and sobbing out the name and address of the “safe house” where Grainger stored his most valuable possessions. Including Sophie Devereaux.
Hardison hit the keys immediately, plunging once more into the network. He found a path to the safe house, hacked his way into the security system and was rewarded for his efforts with real-time camera footage that showed Sophie bound and bruised but very much alive. And very, very pissed.
“Got her!” he announced triumphantly, looking up and shooting a huge grin at Nate.
The grin died immediately. Nate had come forward at last, but only to catch Eliot and keep him from falling. In hurling himself from the chair, Hayes had slammed into Eliot, who now hung in Nate’s arms like something broken and clung tightly, desperately to the older man, gasping harshly, hideously through clenched teeth, his battered face a mask of agony. Hardison knew Hayes must have hit Eliot’s ribs, and swallowed against yet another surge of sickness.
Jesus, how was the man still on his feet?
Yet, far from going down, Eliot slowly began to pull himself upright again, still clinging to Nate for support and noticeably unsteady, but, and God alone knew how, standing. Nate was speaking to him in a low voice, his former icy indifference given way to obvious concern, and Eliot was nodding dazedly, trying to reassure him.
“’M all right,” the hitter muttered thickly. “Gotta get Sophie.”
“We will,” Nate said, then looked at Hardison. “Get what you need from the system, and let’s get outta here. Parker,” he called through the com, “meet us at the van. We know where she is.”
The blonde thief gave an exuberant whoop, and Hardison knew at once just how she’d get to the van. Their little bird was about to fly.
He ripped every incriminating file, then rose to his feet. “I’m done.” He glanced down at Hayes, who was sitting now and staring out at nothing. Or, more likely, at the ruin of his world. “What about him?”
“Leave him,” Nate said. “He’s not goin’ anywhere.”
Hardison frowned. As Grainger’s longtime, well-paid assistant, the man wasn’t exactly without assets of his own. “You don’t think he’ll run?”
“No point,” Eliot rasped. He somehow pulled out of Nate’s grip and lurched forward to Hayes, then nudged the man sharply in the thigh with a booted foot until the white face lifted toward his. With an evil, bloodstained smile into terrified eyes, he almost purred, “No point in runnin’ when there’s nowhere you can hide.”
Hayes shivered and looked away again, and Hardison swallowed. Then Eliot was staggering out of the office, with Nate hovering close but not touching him, and Hardison could only follow, his mind alternately recoiling from and trying to grasp what he’d seen of Eliot here today, of what the man was so obviously capable of doing. And what it meant that Nate had just as obviously been prepared to let him do it.
This wasn’t exactly what he’d bargained for … was it?
At the elevator, he ran the stolen ID card over the reader, held his breath as the door slid open and they stepped inside … then watched in shock as Eliot crumbled. The hitter’s legs gave out beneath him, pitching him heavily to the floor, and without a second thought Hardison went down beside him, helping Nate ease him into a sitting position. If one of those broken ribs went into a lung-
And it was too much. Fury rose up hot and hard within him, not at what Eliot had been prepared to do to Hayes, but at what he was doing to himself. “Look at you!” he said sharply, his voice shaking. “How the hell you gonna kill somebody when you can’t even stand up? And you think there’s somethin’ wrong with Parker? Seriously, man, just how fucked up are you, anyway?”
“Shut- shut up,” Eliot breathed, leaning heavily into the arms holding him up. “Makin’ … m’ goddamn … head … hurt.” He wrenched open his eyes and lifted a badly unfocused gaze to Hardison. His lip was bleeding again. “Shape I’m in … most I coulda done … was fall on the bastard.”
Hardison blinked, then frowned deeply in utter confusion. “You- Then- Wait. Seriously? You knew that? Then what the hell was all that back there?”
Eliot’s eyes slid closed again and he slumped more heavily still against Hardison. “’S called a con,” he slurred, a faint grin ghosting about his battered mouth.
Nate settled some of Eliot’s weight against himself and lifted two eyebrows as Hardison looked to him for an explanation. “Hayes was our only link to Sophie, and we needed him to be more afraid of not helping us than he was of betraying Grainger. And, well,” he shrugged, “Eliot can be frightening.”
Hardison snorted and shook his head. Frightening? Hell, from what he’d just seen, Eliot could be the stuff of nightmares!
“This is what we do, Alec,” Nate said quietly, voice and eyes serious. “If you’re gonna play the game, you’ve gotta learn to play it right.”
End
Leverage, Eliot+team
PG-13 for language, implied violence
Written for tigriswolf at comment_fic
Hardison had a very bad feeling.
He was seated at the desk, ripping through the files on the computer before him like a madman, trying desperately to find something, anything, that would help them find Sophie. Across the desk from him sat the man whose office they’d invaded, slumping, pale and sweating, chewing his lower lip nervously and looking very much as if he would be sick at any moment.
Hardison knew how he felt.
Nate was pacing slowly back and forth before the large window overlooking the city below, his face as cold and hard as Hardison had ever seen it. Now and then he spoke in a soft and icy voice, keeping in contact with Parker as she swept through the other offices they’d targeted. Hardison shivered unconsciously, actually able to feel the chill rolling off the older man.
Whereas all he felt from Eliot was heat.
The hitter stood against the far wall, where he’d been for the past ten minutes, seething blue eyes glaring holes into the wretched figure across from Hardison. Now and then, Hardison’s gaze drifted past the computer screen to Eliot, but he quickly snatched it back down again, unable to bear looking at the man for long. Too frightened - no, terrified - of what he saw staring back.
He’d always known, objectively, what Eliot Spencer did, what he was. He’d just never known it, hadn’t allowed himself to know it, to understand and internalize it, until now. When all that was dark and deadly in the man was clawing its way out.
“Parker’s got nothing,” Nate said in a cold, clipped voice, turning to the desk, and the man slumped pale and sweating before it. “Mr. Hayes, you are our only hope. You have what we need. It’s in your best interest to give it to us.”
Hayes swallowed, shuddered, and went a shade whiter still. “I- I don’t- I don’t know,” he stammered, his voice thick with fear. He was talking to Nate, but his wide, wild eyes never left Eliot.
And Eliot’s never left him.
“Of course you do,” Nate said with absolute certainty. “You know Grainger better than anyone. You know his every secret, his every scheme.” He flicked a glance over his shoulder. “Eliot, maybe you can persuade him to cooperate.”
Eliot didn’t say a word, merely straightened and stepped away from the wall, though Hardison couldn’t understand how. Hell, he couldn’t understand how the other man was still standing. Grainger’s security thugs had used Eliot as a diversion while the man himself had taken Sophie, and they had thrown themselves into their work with a vicious enthusiasm. By the time Hardison and Nate had arrived, Eliot had taken down four of them, at least one of whom would never get up again, but he’d been a mess - concussed, bleeding, and trying in vain to protect broken ribs whose grating Hardison could almost hear. By all rights, the hitter should be down.
Hell, by all rights, the man should be in a hospital.
But he was here, was upright, and was moving slowly toward Hayes, his face a livid mask of cuts and bruises and his blue eyes filled with something truly unspeakable. Hardison knew Eliot didn’t have a gun, didn’t like guns, and almost wished the man did. Somehow, a gun would have been far less terrifying than the simple sight of an unarmed, silent and battered Eliot Spencer advancing steadily and with an entirely predatory purpose on Thomas Hayes.
Hardison swallowed a surge of nausea and forced his fingers to fly even faster over the keys, tearing through firewalls, slamming into networks, wreaking his own kind of carnage in a desperate attempt to make Eliot’s kind unnecessary. For once, though, a system refused to bend itself to his will.
And Eliot was fixed on his prey. Hardison threw a sharp glance at Nate, waiting for the man to intercede, to call Eliot down, to come up with Plan G or T or whatever the hell it was they were up to now. But Nate just stood there, watching through cold eyes as Eliot advanced upon his victim.
He was close enough now that Hardison could see the effort it took to move, could see the effort it took to control his pain, and that sent an entirely new rush of terror through him. Eliot was all about control, about holding down by sheer will the dark thing that lived inside him, about keeping his rage on a very short leash and under tight command. Now, though, he couldn’t spare the effort. It took everything he had just to manage the pain, just to keep himself here and functioning instead of sinking into the collapse Hardison knew he desperately needed. He had to choose between either controlling the pain or controlling the rage, and Hardison knew with a sick certainty which choice he’d made.
They had to find Sophie, and in order to find Sophie, Eliot had to be able to move. And in order to move, Eliot had to focus all his will on just ignoring the pain-
The beast was about to slip its leash.
Eliot stopped just before Hayes and stared down, giving a terrible, beautiful smile as Hayes shuddered violently and moaned sickly. Mere inches separated them. Hayes could easily have struck out and very likely dropped Eliot with one good blow. Instead he simply sat there, staring up helplessly, mesmerized by the eyes boring into him.
And then Eliot spoke. “You know where she is. And you’re gonna tell me. Or I’ll take it from you in pieces.”
Hardison shivered. Eliot’s voice was low, rough and steadier than it had any right to be, given his condition. It held a hint of breathlessness, a hint of pain, and was shot through with the promise of violence.
“You play chess, don’t you?” Eliot asked, his drawl heavier than usual. Fresh blood welled from the deep split in his lower lip as he spoke, but he merely wiped it away with his tongue. “So do I.” He leaned down, setting his hands on the arms of Hayes’ chair, and Hardison couldn’t begin to imagine how much that must hurt. Eliot never flinched. “You’re protectin’ your king, I get that,” he rasped. “That’s your job. Me, I’m tryin’ t’ save my queen. And my job is takin’ out whatever piece gets in my way.” He smiled again, and more blood spilled from his lip and down his chin, dripping onto Hayes’ white shirt. “One way or the other, I’m takin’ your king.” He lifted his right hand from the arm of the chair and slid his fingers slowly across Hayes’ throat in a gesture that was both caress and threat. “But it’s up ta you,” he breathed, “whether I take you down with him.”
And Hayes broke. With a shriek, he flung himself out of the chair, away from Eliot, and landed on his knees on the floor, burying his face in shaking hands and sobbing out the name and address of the “safe house” where Grainger stored his most valuable possessions. Including Sophie Devereaux.
Hardison hit the keys immediately, plunging once more into the network. He found a path to the safe house, hacked his way into the security system and was rewarded for his efforts with real-time camera footage that showed Sophie bound and bruised but very much alive. And very, very pissed.
“Got her!” he announced triumphantly, looking up and shooting a huge grin at Nate.
The grin died immediately. Nate had come forward at last, but only to catch Eliot and keep him from falling. In hurling himself from the chair, Hayes had slammed into Eliot, who now hung in Nate’s arms like something broken and clung tightly, desperately to the older man, gasping harshly, hideously through clenched teeth, his battered face a mask of agony. Hardison knew Hayes must have hit Eliot’s ribs, and swallowed against yet another surge of sickness.
Jesus, how was the man still on his feet?
Yet, far from going down, Eliot slowly began to pull himself upright again, still clinging to Nate for support and noticeably unsteady, but, and God alone knew how, standing. Nate was speaking to him in a low voice, his former icy indifference given way to obvious concern, and Eliot was nodding dazedly, trying to reassure him.
“’M all right,” the hitter muttered thickly. “Gotta get Sophie.”
“We will,” Nate said, then looked at Hardison. “Get what you need from the system, and let’s get outta here. Parker,” he called through the com, “meet us at the van. We know where she is.”
The blonde thief gave an exuberant whoop, and Hardison knew at once just how she’d get to the van. Their little bird was about to fly.
He ripped every incriminating file, then rose to his feet. “I’m done.” He glanced down at Hayes, who was sitting now and staring out at nothing. Or, more likely, at the ruin of his world. “What about him?”
“Leave him,” Nate said. “He’s not goin’ anywhere.”
Hardison frowned. As Grainger’s longtime, well-paid assistant, the man wasn’t exactly without assets of his own. “You don’t think he’ll run?”
“No point,” Eliot rasped. He somehow pulled out of Nate’s grip and lurched forward to Hayes, then nudged the man sharply in the thigh with a booted foot until the white face lifted toward his. With an evil, bloodstained smile into terrified eyes, he almost purred, “No point in runnin’ when there’s nowhere you can hide.”
Hayes shivered and looked away again, and Hardison swallowed. Then Eliot was staggering out of the office, with Nate hovering close but not touching him, and Hardison could only follow, his mind alternately recoiling from and trying to grasp what he’d seen of Eliot here today, of what the man was so obviously capable of doing. And what it meant that Nate had just as obviously been prepared to let him do it.
This wasn’t exactly what he’d bargained for … was it?
At the elevator, he ran the stolen ID card over the reader, held his breath as the door slid open and they stepped inside … then watched in shock as Eliot crumbled. The hitter’s legs gave out beneath him, pitching him heavily to the floor, and without a second thought Hardison went down beside him, helping Nate ease him into a sitting position. If one of those broken ribs went into a lung-
And it was too much. Fury rose up hot and hard within him, not at what Eliot had been prepared to do to Hayes, but at what he was doing to himself. “Look at you!” he said sharply, his voice shaking. “How the hell you gonna kill somebody when you can’t even stand up? And you think there’s somethin’ wrong with Parker? Seriously, man, just how fucked up are you, anyway?”
“Shut- shut up,” Eliot breathed, leaning heavily into the arms holding him up. “Makin’ … m’ goddamn … head … hurt.” He wrenched open his eyes and lifted a badly unfocused gaze to Hardison. His lip was bleeding again. “Shape I’m in … most I coulda done … was fall on the bastard.”
Hardison blinked, then frowned deeply in utter confusion. “You- Then- Wait. Seriously? You knew that? Then what the hell was all that back there?”
Eliot’s eyes slid closed again and he slumped more heavily still against Hardison. “’S called a con,” he slurred, a faint grin ghosting about his battered mouth.
Nate settled some of Eliot’s weight against himself and lifted two eyebrows as Hardison looked to him for an explanation. “Hayes was our only link to Sophie, and we needed him to be more afraid of not helping us than he was of betraying Grainger. And, well,” he shrugged, “Eliot can be frightening.”
Hardison snorted and shook his head. Frightening? Hell, from what he’d just seen, Eliot could be the stuff of nightmares!
“This is what we do, Alec,” Nate said quietly, voice and eyes serious. “If you’re gonna play the game, you’ve gotta learn to play it right.”
End