Fic: Picture
Title: Picture
author: scout_lover
Fandom: Leverage
Character/Pairing: Eliot Spencer/Aimee Martin
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Word Count: 598
Summary: He’s never gotten over her
Author’s Note: Written for leverage-bingo for the prompt “Aimee Martin”
He still keeps her picture in his wallet.
It’s stupid, he knows that. She’s lost to him, just one more piece of his past, of himself, he’s had to sacrifice along the way.
As much for her sake as for his. Or maybe more. She deserves better, she always has. She deserves a life not darkened and dirtied by his … mistakes.
She deserves a man who can touch her with clean hands.
He knows that. He does. It’s just-
He still keeps her picture in his wallet.
It’s an old picture - it would have to be, wouldn’t it? - one she sent him while he was still in the Army. It was one on a strip of four, taken in one of those photo booths found in malls. She had done all the requisite poses - sexy, silly, slightly embarrassed at playing so blatantly for the camera - but this has always been his favorite. Just her, laughing, hair slightly mussed after all her playing with it, eyes sparkling.
Just Aimee, the way he always thinks of her.
Because he does think of her. Probably more than is good for either of them. She’s that one piece of his past he can’t quite make himself let go completely, the one mistake he can’t quite bring himself to regret.
Except for the way he fucked it all up. That he regrets. A lot. He’d had it all with her - love, a home, the promise of a family, a future - and he’d walked away. Again and again and again.
Until he’d finally failed to walk back.
And, yes, the bars and captors and other “delights” of a North Korean prison might have been a factor … but he knows that’s really only an excuse. He’d gotten out of that mess in a few months and could have gone back to her any time after that.
Except that he let months stretch into years-
Eight years. No phone calls, no letters. You don’t earn a homecoming parade.
And maybe that had been it. By the time he’d gotten out of that prison, he’d known all too well what he was, what he was becoming … and he just couldn’t face her knowing as well. She’d always possessed the maddening - and frightening - ability to see through him, to see into him, to see him, and he’d just grown too scared of what she might finally, really see.
And seeing the horror in her eyes might actually have killed him.
So he’d stayed away, telling himself it was for her own good. And it was, really. Because she deserved better.
He thought she’d found it when he heard she was getting married. That news had sent him on a week-long drunken bender, but he’d come out of it okay. Mostly. It had been the break he needed. She’d found somebody else … and he no longer needed to worry about what he might see in her eyes when she looked at him.
He’d joined Damien shortly after that, finally embracing the darkness he’d tried for so long to hide from her.
And he’d burned all her letters and pictures.
Except for one. He tells himself it was an oversight, a mistake, and that one day he really will burn it, too. But he knows better.
It’s stupid and pointless and a shameful sign of weakness, he knows that, too.
But …
She’s that one piece of his past he can’t quite make himself let go completely, the one mistake he can’t quite bring himself to regret.
And he’ll always keep her picture in his wallet.
The End
author: scout_lover
Fandom: Leverage
Character/Pairing: Eliot Spencer/Aimee Martin
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None
Word Count: 598
Summary: He’s never gotten over her
Author’s Note: Written for leverage-bingo for the prompt “Aimee Martin”
He still keeps her picture in his wallet.
It’s stupid, he knows that. She’s lost to him, just one more piece of his past, of himself, he’s had to sacrifice along the way.
As much for her sake as for his. Or maybe more. She deserves better, she always has. She deserves a life not darkened and dirtied by his … mistakes.
She deserves a man who can touch her with clean hands.
He knows that. He does. It’s just-
He still keeps her picture in his wallet.
It’s an old picture - it would have to be, wouldn’t it? - one she sent him while he was still in the Army. It was one on a strip of four, taken in one of those photo booths found in malls. She had done all the requisite poses - sexy, silly, slightly embarrassed at playing so blatantly for the camera - but this has always been his favorite. Just her, laughing, hair slightly mussed after all her playing with it, eyes sparkling.
Just Aimee, the way he always thinks of her.
Because he does think of her. Probably more than is good for either of them. She’s that one piece of his past he can’t quite make himself let go completely, the one mistake he can’t quite bring himself to regret.
Except for the way he fucked it all up. That he regrets. A lot. He’d had it all with her - love, a home, the promise of a family, a future - and he’d walked away. Again and again and again.
Until he’d finally failed to walk back.
And, yes, the bars and captors and other “delights” of a North Korean prison might have been a factor … but he knows that’s really only an excuse. He’d gotten out of that mess in a few months and could have gone back to her any time after that.
Except that he let months stretch into years-
Eight years. No phone calls, no letters. You don’t earn a homecoming parade.
And maybe that had been it. By the time he’d gotten out of that prison, he’d known all too well what he was, what he was becoming … and he just couldn’t face her knowing as well. She’d always possessed the maddening - and frightening - ability to see through him, to see into him, to see him, and he’d just grown too scared of what she might finally, really see.
And seeing the horror in her eyes might actually have killed him.
So he’d stayed away, telling himself it was for her own good. And it was, really. Because she deserved better.
He thought she’d found it when he heard she was getting married. That news had sent him on a week-long drunken bender, but he’d come out of it okay. Mostly. It had been the break he needed. She’d found somebody else … and he no longer needed to worry about what he might see in her eyes when she looked at him.
He’d joined Damien shortly after that, finally embracing the darkness he’d tried for so long to hide from her.
And he’d burned all her letters and pictures.
Except for one. He tells himself it was an oversight, a mistake, and that one day he really will burn it, too. But he knows better.
It’s stupid and pointless and a shameful sign of weakness, he knows that, too.
But …
She’s that one piece of his past he can’t quite make himself let go completely, the one mistake he can’t quite bring himself to regret.
And he’ll always keep her picture in his wallet.
The End