aaand again
Title: trapped
Ficverse: Leverage
Series: five times Eliot caught Parker and one time he didn't
Rating: Gen, PG13
Length: 850 ish / 6100 ish
Characters: Eliot, Parker
Teaser: The fourth time Eliot caught Parker, she was trapped.
Notes: I'm cheating. Most of these times occurred in canon. (Anyone interesting in beta-ing to make sure I got them all?) But my muse needs a kick in the pants and hopefully this can still be fun. Also, by now most of you should know that I'm not much of a shipper and I'm generally fine with canon ships, so I'm not planning on taking this in an E/P direction. Just in case that's important to you.
Warnings/Spoiler: these are events in 3.03, "The Inside Job".
Disclaimer: Stuff that's not mine is not mine.
Feedback: let's hear it. The good, the bad, the ugly....
before:
Moscow. Ten years ago.
Miami. Four years ago.
Los Angelos. Four years ago.
Boston. Two years ago.
The fourth time Eliot caught Parker, she was trapped. And he was furious.
It was broad bright daylight in downtown Boston and they were breaking into a forty-story building - on the fly - to get Parker out. A building that was protected by the damn Sterenko, which Nate had just ordered him to climb.
It's not that Eliot didn't get it. He wasn't arguing about the principle; they were family, and he got it. Hell, over a year ago he'd already offered to kill for her, largely on impulse, and that kind of thing was reserved for family only. This was what you did for family, what you did when something belonged to you. He knew all about that, and by now he had accepted that included all of them, even Hardison. He'd even accepted that Parker was crazy, and it wasn't going to change.
It was when her crazy spilled over into the entire team - the team that currently had more members inside the deathtrap than out of it, and all of them beyond the range of his protection - that he had serious issues with it all. It wasn't that he didn't know what Parker was doing; after all, this is what you did for family, and it mystified him that the others (except Sophie, sometimes) had such trouble getting what went on in her head, or found her "home" surprising. Eliot had a very good idea of how far she'd go for family, and Archie's No idea what she was thinking just made him want to punch the old man, regardless of how much he meant to Parker.
He rode the slow-assed window washing scaffold up the face of the building toward the hole Hardison had located, stewing as Parker's father figures got into a pissing contest about what to do with her and the inside job that had set her up, and tamping down the desire to give her a shaking she wouldn't forget in a hurry when he did finally catch her.
Finally he heard it in his ear - "Eliot, she's coming out hot, are you in position?" - and he flipped his crowbar impatiently. "Yeah I'm in position! She's the one that -"
Through the window he saw her slip into the room. The relieved grin she gave him mollified his temper a little, and he focused on that rather than how the tight knot in his chest, which he'd been ignoring since this whole thing started, loosened too. "Nevermind, scratch that. There she is." He tapped the window, and he could swear the words came out with more concern than he actually felt when he cautioned her to move away. He just didn't want to have her bleeding from glass shards along with everything else, especially now that she was almost in reach of him and their exit.
Of course, when the damn fool girl ignored him, he stopped feeling any concern at all. "Parker, move!"
"No ... no, I can't!" she said, eyes wide when they met his.
Dimly Eliot heard Archie ask her what she was doing, a question Eliot could have answered himself if he had any inclination to explain the stupidly obvious to idiots even if he weren't completely infuriated and getting just a little bit desperate. He slammed the rail. "This is no time for crazy, alright! We gotta get the hell out of here!"
"I have to go back!" she exclaimed, launching into the unnecessary explanation for apparently everyone who wasn't him, and ending on, "- we need proof."
"What proof?" he asked discouragingly, in a last ditch effort to make her realize her own crazy, but she only answered exactly the way he was afraid she would.
"I have to go back and steal the blight."
Eliot stopped wasting his breath, because he could see how this was going to go, no matter how suicidal it was. The others didn't, though, and there was a whole commotion of wasted breath on the comms before everyone was on the same page, and Nate gave Parker her head to finish the job.
She caught Eliot's eye and grinned gleefully, as though she had absolutely no concept what she was dragging them all into - for the second time that day - even as he shook his head don't. It didn't make a difference, of course; she turned and dove right back into the aptly-termed deathtrap, leaving him behind to throw his hands out in sheer exasperation.
When he caught up with her in the hall, he'd rarely felt such cathartic satisfaction in hitting anyone as he got from punching the security guard Parker had maneuvered around for him. The smile she gave him was entirely too pleased with herself - entirely too sure that he would be there, come for her, catch her once more - and he scowled. It only made her smile widen, which only made his jaw clench. Pretty much nothing that was going to come out of his mouth by now was going to be at all civil, so he silently gestured at her to get on with it, and took up station at her shoulder.
If they had to do this job, he was going to rip the entire building a new one.
later:
Boston. One month ago.
Cairo. Now
Ficverse: Leverage
Series: five times Eliot caught Parker and one time he didn't
Rating: Gen, PG13
Length: 850 ish / 6100 ish
Characters: Eliot, Parker
Teaser: The fourth time Eliot caught Parker, she was trapped.
Notes: I'm cheating. Most of these times occurred in canon. (Anyone interesting in beta-ing to make sure I got them all?) But my muse needs a kick in the pants and hopefully this can still be fun. Also, by now most of you should know that I'm not much of a shipper and I'm generally fine with canon ships, so I'm not planning on taking this in an E/P direction. Just in case that's important to you.
Warnings/Spoiler: these are events in 3.03, "The Inside Job".
Disclaimer: Stuff that's not mine is not mine.
Feedback: let's hear it. The good, the bad, the ugly....
before:
Moscow. Ten years ago.
Miami. Four years ago.
Los Angelos. Four years ago.
Boston. Two years ago.
The fourth time Eliot caught Parker, she was trapped. And he was furious.
It was broad bright daylight in downtown Boston and they were breaking into a forty-story building - on the fly - to get Parker out. A building that was protected by the damn Sterenko, which Nate had just ordered him to climb.
It's not that Eliot didn't get it. He wasn't arguing about the principle; they were family, and he got it. Hell, over a year ago he'd already offered to kill for her, largely on impulse, and that kind of thing was reserved for family only. This was what you did for family, what you did when something belonged to you. He knew all about that, and by now he had accepted that included all of them, even Hardison. He'd even accepted that Parker was crazy, and it wasn't going to change.
It was when her crazy spilled over into the entire team - the team that currently had more members inside the deathtrap than out of it, and all of them beyond the range of his protection - that he had serious issues with it all. It wasn't that he didn't know what Parker was doing; after all, this is what you did for family, and it mystified him that the others (except Sophie, sometimes) had such trouble getting what went on in her head, or found her "home" surprising. Eliot had a very good idea of how far she'd go for family, and Archie's No idea what she was thinking just made him want to punch the old man, regardless of how much he meant to Parker.
He rode the slow-assed window washing scaffold up the face of the building toward the hole Hardison had located, stewing as Parker's father figures got into a pissing contest about what to do with her and the inside job that had set her up, and tamping down the desire to give her a shaking she wouldn't forget in a hurry when he did finally catch her.
Finally he heard it in his ear - "Eliot, she's coming out hot, are you in position?" - and he flipped his crowbar impatiently. "Yeah I'm in position! She's the one that -"
Through the window he saw her slip into the room. The relieved grin she gave him mollified his temper a little, and he focused on that rather than how the tight knot in his chest, which he'd been ignoring since this whole thing started, loosened too. "Nevermind, scratch that. There she is." He tapped the window, and he could swear the words came out with more concern than he actually felt when he cautioned her to move away. He just didn't want to have her bleeding from glass shards along with everything else, especially now that she was almost in reach of him and their exit.
Of course, when the damn fool girl ignored him, he stopped feeling any concern at all. "Parker, move!"
"No ... no, I can't!" she said, eyes wide when they met his.
Dimly Eliot heard Archie ask her what she was doing, a question Eliot could have answered himself if he had any inclination to explain the stupidly obvious to idiots even if he weren't completely infuriated and getting just a little bit desperate. He slammed the rail. "This is no time for crazy, alright! We gotta get the hell out of here!"
"I have to go back!" she exclaimed, launching into the unnecessary explanation for apparently everyone who wasn't him, and ending on, "- we need proof."
"What proof?" he asked discouragingly, in a last ditch effort to make her realize her own crazy, but she only answered exactly the way he was afraid she would.
"I have to go back and steal the blight."
Eliot stopped wasting his breath, because he could see how this was going to go, no matter how suicidal it was. The others didn't, though, and there was a whole commotion of wasted breath on the comms before everyone was on the same page, and Nate gave Parker her head to finish the job.
She caught Eliot's eye and grinned gleefully, as though she had absolutely no concept what she was dragging them all into - for the second time that day - even as he shook his head don't. It didn't make a difference, of course; she turned and dove right back into the aptly-termed deathtrap, leaving him behind to throw his hands out in sheer exasperation.
When he caught up with her in the hall, he'd rarely felt such cathartic satisfaction in hitting anyone as he got from punching the security guard Parker had maneuvered around for him. The smile she gave him was entirely too pleased with herself - entirely too sure that he would be there, come for her, catch her once more - and he scowled. It only made her smile widen, which only made his jaw clench. Pretty much nothing that was going to come out of his mouth by now was going to be at all civil, so he silently gestured at her to get on with it, and took up station at her shoulder.
If they had to do this job, he was going to rip the entire building a new one.
later:
Boston. One month ago.
Cairo. Now