Tag Archive | leverage

The Hellmouth Job, Chapters 17 & 18 (A Leverage/Buffy Fanfic)

Sep29

Part I
Part Ia
Part II
Part III
Chapters 7 & 8
Chapter 9 & 10
Chapters 11 & 12
Chapters 13 & 14
Cahapter 15 & 16

Sixteen: The Introduction, Part 2

“We’re too old for this place,” Sophie commented at the door. “You know that, don’t you?” She checked her lipstick in her compact.

“Yes, of course. It’s a teenaged hangout. And?”

“And nothing, of course. I just wanted to be sure you knew it.”

“You wanted to be sure I agreed with the we there. We’re not teenagers, Sophie. I’m not sure we ever were.”

They shared a long look, then shook their heads in mutual understanding. “Nah,” they agreed as one, and entered the Bronze.

The place was as advertised: A hangout for the young and, occasionally, for those who just wished they were young. Tara and Sophie were neither, but they were grifters, and in this case, it stood them in good stead. They wandered to the bar, where the bartender did them the favor of carding them.

His eyes travelled over their licenses. “Wouldn’t have believed it,” he offered chivalrously, of the entirely-made-up birthdates on their forged papers. “But you’re legal. Here you go, ladies, one whisky on the rocks and one sex on the beach.”

“You’re so sweet, thank you.” Tara overtipped and sipped her drink, watching the crowd. “So they come here often?”

“If they come out, it’s the only reasonable place to come out. Tara, what aren’t you telling Nate?”

“Nothing I’m going to tell you either, Sophie.”

“But Tara,” Sophie cajoled, “We’ve been friends for years. Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

“Because one, knowing could get you killed. You remember the Diamond of Saleem?”

“Oh, that awful thing? And every thief in the world wanted to steal it, but there was no way to do it without dying awfully? I remember. And I didn’t tell you, because you were having one of those weeks where you had to steal everything nobody else could. Like the Lost Tome Of Ebackanial.”

“I still have that,” Tara admitted. “I couldn’t get anyone to believe that I had the real thing.”

“-Since the real thing can’t be stolen, of course. Buyers can be so stupid sometimes. Tara, what does this have to do with the Diamond of Saleem?”

“The things I’m not telling you, I don’t think you could keep your hands off of them. And they’re dangerous, get-you-killed dangerous, worse-than-killed dangerous. Are those are targets?” She pointed one well-dressed toe across the room.

“Dorky guy matches. Blonde girl matches, and there’s the dark-haired one, pretending not to be interested. Tara,” Sophie’s voice took on a lazy, cajoling tone, “is this about demons?”

“Sophie!” Tara hissed it out in an angry admonition. “What do you think…” She took out her earpiece and dropped it in a small silk bag, then did the same for Sophie’s. “What possessed you?”

“Nobody, today, although there was that one time in Berlin… relax. I’ve known about the demonic since I was a wee girl. And here we are on the Hellmouth.”

“Here we are on the Hellmouth…” Tara agreed slowly. “Sophie, why exactly did you call me in?”

“Call you in?” Sophie aimed an innocent look over her glass. “All I did was tell you where we were going. You filled in the rest.”

“We don’t grift friends.” Tara sat up straighter and frowned.

Sophie chuckled over her glass. “Oh, look at you. I’m sorry, but you’re as funny as Nate when you think you hold all the cards. Tara, I’ve known what you are since he first time we met, but I couldn’t very well say ‘I need an expert in demons, please come help,’ now could I? You’d have shut down and stopped talking to me for months. Like the Diamond of Saleem thing. Now hsst, here comes the boy.”

The boy sauntered over, goofy smile telling the world he knew he was ridiculous and, what’s more, he didn’t care, thank you very much. He put his elbows on the bar next to Tara before turning to both of them. “Ladies.” The waggle of his eyebrow was both corny and charming. “Buy you a, um, a non-alcoholic, legal drink?”

“You’re sweet to ask.” Tara waved her glass languidly. “Are all the boys in this town so sweet?”

So they were going Russian. Sophie shifted her position and got ready for the charm offensive.

Eighteen: The Escape

Xander smiled uncertainly between the two women.

“Uh, sweet? That’s, no, not everyone here, no ma’am, that is, no miss. Lots of people might be nice or kind or even gentlemanly, but sweet, that’s all me, just Xander. That’s what my girlfriend says, oh, well, that’s the thing.” He attempted something like a bow. “My girlfriend. She’s the one over there making dagger-eyes at both of you, which is probably of course because you’re lovely. So, can I buy you a drink and return to my seat before she kills me, ma’am?”

“He is so very sweet,” the blonde one repeated. Her accent was thick. Russian maybe. “We keep him?”

“Mm. Maybe we do. And girlfriend too.” The darker one ran her fingers up Xander’s arm. “Could be fun.”

Vampire? Xander thought, but they were far too warm for that. He was far too warm. Everyone was…

Xander fled.

next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1185157.html

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The Hellmouth Job, Chapters 13 & 14 (A Leverage/Buffy Fanfic)

Aug24

Part I
Part Ia
Part II
Part III
Chapters 7 & 8
Chapter 9 & 10
Chapters 11 & 12

Thirteen: The Revelations

Hardison was freaking out. “There is no way. I mean — tell me, Eliot, what did this girl look like?”

It wasn’t Eliot that answered, it was Parker. “Hard. Veteran. She’s used to killing and she doesn’t like civilians getting in her way. Like Eliot.”

“What?!” Eliot stopped in his angry stomp across the parking lot to stare at Parker. “She can’t be more than five feet tall and she’s a kid. A teenager. She talks like a mallrat. Her fighting style is all over the place. Like she picked it off the buffet at the local Golden Palace… what?”

“Pretend she didn’t talk like a mallrat,” Parker offered. Her voice was angry enough that Eliot took a step back. “Pretend she didn’t look like a teenager. How old were you when you made your first kill?”

“What? In the army. Eighteen.”

“Some of us didn’t get to be kids, remember?”

“Parker?” Nate’s voice over the comms was quiet. “Tell Eliot what you saw.”

“She’s young, which means she hasn’t figured out where her lines are yet. She has friends — good sign, or a bad one, depending on what they’re doing. But they’re friends, or at least the guy is, not minions or pack members.”

Eliot started to scoff, but something in Parker’s expression held him back. “The boy’s in love with her.”

“He’s in awe of her. But we’re in awe of each other all the time. THe way Nate plans, the way Hardison hacks, the way you hit people… she wasn’t in awe of the way you hit people. What about her style?”

“What style? It had no discipline, no plan; she stopped in the middle to check her shoes…”

“And her killing?” Parker pressed.

“…her killing was efficient,” Elliot admitted. “She hits at least as hard as I do. She moves more quickly — she’s younger,” he added defensively. “Less injuries.”

“When she stopped to check her shoe, she distracted one fo the attackers. It made it easier for her to stick that piece of wood through its chest.”

“Stake,” Tara offered. She sounded subdued. “She staked the vampires.”

“Damnit, vampires,” Eliot complained. “Nate, you didn’t tell me this job had vampires.”

There was a pause. In the hotel room, Nate looked at Sophie, who was looking worried and befuddled. He looked at Hardison, who was busily googling vampires. His gaze settled on Tara.

“Eliot,” he asked slowly, “are you telling me that this isn’t the first time you’ve encountered ‘vampires’?”

“Don’t say it like that.” Eliot pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Come on, Parker, we’re getting out of here. Yeah, Nate.” He stalked down the nearly-empty halls of the mall. “Vampires. They’re some sort of demonic entity. We ran into a nest in Fallujah, another one in Panama.”

“Panama?” Sophie asked. “Really?”

“What, vampires don’t like Central America? Did you know vampires even existed an hour ago?” Eliot was stomping, paying only enough attention to Parker to pull her away from window displays. “No, Parker, we’re not stealing… hockey pads. Why would you even want hockey pads?”

“Oh, that—” Hardison fell quiet at a glare from everyone in the room.

“She’s a thief, Eliot, she likes to steal things.” Sophie’s answer came over soothing. “I wasn’t questioning the vampires’ presence in Panama, I was questioning yours.”

“Oh.” He slowed down enough to extricate Parker more gently from the top of what was probably supposed to be a statue and not a jungle gym. “It was a — a thing. Tara, what do you know?”

“I know you don’t wear heels you can’t run in and you always carry two mirrors and a hold-out weapon.”

“Tara!” Eliot snarled the complaint at the mall in general.

“Relax, relax. All right. Have you heard of a Hellmouth?” Tara leaned back in her chair and regarded those members of the team near her.

“Oh, yeah, that’s when a… no.” Hardison fell quiet at Nate’s glare. “No.”

“A Hellmouth.” Eliot frowned. “No. Heard of ‘em, but nobody would ever tell me exactly what they were.”

“Well, you’re on one. And what it is…” Tara paused dramatically. “…well, exactly what it says. It’s a mouth to a hell dimension, possibly to several. It’s a demon magnet, attracting all sorts of evils and some things that aren’t evil, just misunderstood.” She studied her fingernails. “It’s a power source. And the supernatural feeds off it.”

“Great. Just great.” Eliot threw up his hands. “We’re coming back. Nate, the kids knew something. The brunette. But the blonde made me. We’re gonna need someone else to talk to her.”

“Vampires, man,” Hardison complained. “Vampires.”

Fourteen: the Assessment.

“Well,” Xander offered awkwardly, “they were certainly friendly. Or something.”

“Chipper,” Buffy complained. “They were chipper.”

“Do you think maybe that’s the next, mmm, you know?” Xander offered unhelpfully, hands flailing.

“I’ve never seen a Watcher fight like that,” Buffy answered flatly. “I mean, Giles tries, and he still doesn’t…” She shifted into a combat stance and moved through Dave-Palmer-Elliot’s fighting moves thoughtfully. “He’s good. If they had been humans, they’d have been injured or dead. But he was either putting on a show, or he didn’t know he was fighting vampires.”

“And the girl?”

Buffy’s frown deepened. She thought about the way Kendra had spoken of her Watcher, and the way this girl — Alicia? Parker? — looked at her handler. Devoted. She twisted her lips.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”

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The Collar Job, Part XIX

Jul6

This is an ongoing Tír na Cali/Leverage fanfiction crossover.

Table of Contents here

Fade in from commercial to find Lord Lorcan the center of attention from the whole room. “I think I have a plan,” he begins. “You see, while the royals of Tír na Cali are as much prisoners in our country as our slaves our on our estates – some might say more so…”

Sophia, Duchess Charlotte Prentiss, is making her goodbyes while her entourage loads the car. “It was so nice of you to let me stay here, Lorcan, and so good to see you again.”

“Lovely to see you as well, Charlotte. You should visit more often, I do so enjoy your company.” He has to stand on his toes to kiss her cheeks, but he does so with no apparent discomfort or embarrassment. “You’re like a breath of fresh air here, and I do get tired of the stagnant ocean breeze.”

Charlotte’s laugh carries, the same way Lorcan’s voice and hers do – by design, without sounding as if they are doing so on purpose. Lorcan is smooth; he could be a grifter himself.

“Oh, Lorcan, you’re so funny. You really should visit me sometime.”

“Oh, I’ll try, but you know how my mother and my grandmum are. They don’t like to let me out of their sight for long.”

“You could tell them I’ll take good care of you, dear.”

“I’m sure they’d believe you, too. Oh,” He makes a moue, “where has my brain gone? I almost forgot my parting gift for you.”

Flash back to Lorcan, who is flipping through images on Lady Anastasia’s laptop – redheaded girl after redheaded girl. “The thing about Californian royalty – well, it’s two things. One. We all look the same. It’s not just dear Ana here and her sisters. We all look the same.”

“Your royals wear collars?” Parker leans forward to study an image – a mug shot, really, a girl in her late teens wearing a steel collar. Her hair is pulled back, and her face is nearly Ana’s.

“Two,” Lorcan answers, without appearing to notice the question, “we tend to fuck our slaves.”

He pretends not to notice the look that Hardison and Parker shoot Eliot.

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The Collar Job, Part XVIII (Tír na Cali/Leverage fanfiction)

Jun26

This is an ongoing Tír na Cali/Leverage fanfiction crossover.

Table of Contents here

Fade in from commercial. Lady Anastasia has Alec Hardison pinned to the floor, one hand pointing a gun at his chest. Her eyes, however, are on Sophie and Parker.

“You really are a family, aren’t you?”

The two women – and Alec – look to Nate. He clears his throat, and steps forward, commanding Ana’s attention. “We’re a team,” he begins. “We started out as a bunch of professional criminals. The longer we worked together, the more of a team we became.”

“You came here to extract your teammate.” There’s no question at all in her voice. Still on his knees, Eliot rolls his shoulders. “People just don’t get free from a Californian slave collar.”

“We came to steal us an Eliot.” Nate nods, his fingers steepled. “And you caught us out. So the ball is, ah, in your court, Lady Anastasia. What would you have us do?”

“She can’t…” Eliot closes his mouth. Parker stares at him, but the rest of the team appears to be ignoring his presence.

“Whatever we’re doing, can it involve letting me up. Please?” Hardison hasn’t really moved, but he flaps his hands in the direction of Ana.

That, of course, brings her attention back to him. “You pointed a gun at me.”

“And now you’re pointing a gun at me. Can we call it even?”

“What did I tell you about guns?” Eliot’s grumble sounds almost like himself.

“I know, I know, but freaky Californian lady has my friend, what do you want me to do?”

Sophie fields that question, with a much-put out sigh for emphasis. “Ask nicely, Hardison. She seems like a nice, reasonable Lady, doesn’t she?”

“She’s pointing a gun at me.”

“People have tried to kill her before.” Eliot finds his way to his feet. “Hardison isn’t a killer. He barely knows how to use the thing.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “Please…”

“Ana.” Lorcan’s voice drops half an octave, and he holds his hands very carefully in front of him. “I swear to you by the Goddess and the Consort that these people are not here to hurt you.”

Ana sits back on her heels. The gun vanishes into the waistband of her pants, and her hands fold on her lap; she is still sitting on Hardison’s legs, but her eyes are on Eliot. “They want their friend back.”

This time, her voice cracks. Her eyes close for a moment, and it is her turn to swallow hard. “Alessia…”

Lorcan blinks. He opens his mouth, closes it, and then nods. “I think I have a plan…”

Cut to commercial.

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The Collar Job, Part XVII

Jun20

This is an ongoing Tír na Cali/Leverage fanfiction crossover.

Table of Contents here

Fade in from commercial. Alec Hardison has a pistol aimed at Lady Anastasia. Eliot rolls up on the balls of his feet, shouting.

“Hardison, no!”

Ana is already moving. The team watches her move, but she is quick – as quick as Eliot, maybe quicker; she moves like a cheetah, grace and deadly speed.

Eliot, already moving, changes directions mid-stride. “Ana, please!”

“She’s Ana now, is she?” There isn’t time for Sophie to say anything more than that; Ana knocks over Hardison with a tackle and disarms him with a move fast enough that nobody really sees it.

“She’s like… Chick Eliot. Hey!” Parker squirms as Eliot – real Eliot, not chick Eliot – grabs her arm. “She’s got Hardison.”

“I know.” Eliot’s voice is tight. “Hardison, hold still.”

“Not that I really have a choice, man.” Ana is sitting on Hardison’s chest, his gun in her hand, her foot on his right ankle. “Eliot, you know this chick?”

“Ah.” Eliot coughs. “Right now, she owns me. Ana, listen.” He clears his throat violently. “Lady Anastasia, please.”

She doesn’t move. “You know these people.”

“They’re… they’re my friends. My team. That’s, ah-”

“Hardison, I’m guessing. He pointed a gun at me.” Her voice is dripping ice. Her finger twitches on the trigger.

“Whoah, whoah. Please.” He drops, very slowly, to his knees. “My lady, I’m…” He clears his throat again. “I’m begging you.”

“You don’t beg.”

“This is my family, my lady. They thought – they -”

Nate clears his throat. “A member of our team went missing, Lady Anastasia.” The title slides off his tongue without effort. “So, quite naturally, we went looking for him. When we realized that he had been taken by slavers, we realized we were going to have to call in local help-”

Lord Lorcan bows. “And as the Duchess and I are old friends…“ He makes the words sound scandalous. “…naturally I offered to help. Anastasia. You have my word these people are not here to hurt you.”

“They pointed a gun at me, Lorcan.” She hasn’t moved except her finger twitching on a trigger. “They pointed a gun at me.”

“And now you’re pointing a gun at them. They are not assassins.”

“Nope. Definitely not assassins. Thieves, sure. Grifters, yep. Not assassins.”

“Parker, do please don’t help.” Sophie’s snark, even, is more careful than normal.

It makes Ana look at them, though. “They – you really are a family, aren’t you?”

Cut to commercial.

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The Collar Job, Part XVI

Jun13

This is an ongoing Tír na Cali/Leverage fanfiction crossover.

Table of Contents here

Fade in from commercial to see Ana and Eliot facing the rest of the team and one small Californian Lord.

“Lord Lorcan.” Ana’s eyes trail over the rest of the team. “I see you brought… friends.” Behind her, Eliot sighs. He shifts his weight, just a bit; Parker’s eyes shoot to him. The rest of the team does a better job of staying nonchalant, but Parker’s eyes are on the collar.

It’s only a moment before Hardison’s eyes follow hers, and it’s Sophie and Nate looking at Ana, and with effort, at that.

Lord Lorcan clears his throat, which doesn’t really help matters. Ana’s eyes don’t move off of him, although her stance is every bit as combat-ready as Eliot’s. Sohpie visibly jumps; Nate’s twitch is a little less obvious.

“He’s wearing a collar.” Parker’s whisper really isn’t a whisper.

“Company,” Lorcan agrees, talking rather hurriedly over Parker. “Yes. This is Charlotte Prentiss, Duchess of Hanover. The others are her entourage; she’s in the country visiting and thought she’d like to meet some of my friends.”

“And you brought her here?” Ana makes an expression which bears some resemblance to a smile, although her bow is entirely genuine. “Duchess. It is a pleasure to meet you, your ladyship. I do hope Lorcan’s only said good things about me.”

“I wouldn’t dare do anything but, you know that.” The little lordling is beginning to babble.

Sophie/Charlotte simply smiles, and returns Ana’s bow with a little head-nod of her own. “Your Ladyship, I’ve heard lovely things about you.” Her accent is thick, almost – almost – over the top. “And Lord Lorcan did say you were a lovely young woman.”

“I’m sure he did.” Ana’s eyes rake over the group. “Was that before or after he offered to help you steal back your friend? Lorcan, you’ve always been a lousy liar and your tells are far too obvious.”

“Oh, fuck this, man.” Hardison brings out a pistol from his computer bag. Everything seems to explode at once.

“Hardison, no!”

Alec levels the gun at Ana; her eyes narrow. Eliot’s shout comes out far too slowly.

Ana moves.

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The Collar Job, Part XV

Jun9

This is an ongoing Tír na Cali/Leverage fanfiction crossover.

Table of Contents here

Fade back in from commercial. Lady Anastasia is sitting on the edge of her bed, a corner of a sheet barely covering her; Eliot is propped up on one elbow, watching her.

A knock sounds on the bedroom door. “Lady Anastasia? You have company.”

Ana slides on a shirt, then swoops up Eliot’s pants with her toes and tosses them at him. “Who is it?”

“The Lord Lorcan ap Malaney, Baron of Red Bluff, and his guest.” There’s a tone to the voice, now, as if the person knocking is quite put out by being asked. Ana sighs.

“One moment, please. If you’ll settle Lord Lorcan and his guest in my sitting room, I’ll be right out.” She opens her dresser and pulls out two weapons holsters – one a knife sheath heavy with blades, the other a cross-draw gun holster.

“As you wish, Lady Anastasia.” Yes, the speaker is definitely put out. “Your guests will be in your sitting room, waiting.”

Ana rolls her eyes as she straps on her holsters, slides home a pistol, and finishes dressing herself. “I think I have…” Her voice has dropped to a murmur. “No better clothes for you yet, sadly.”

“I can live with these.” Eliot’s put on the thin pants while Ana was equipping herself. “You expecting trouble?”

“I always expect trouble.” She rolls her shoulders in something that’s almost a shrug. “It’s saved my life a few times. Here.” She passes him a sheathed knife. “It won’t hide well, but that’s all right.”

“Thanks.” The sheath and belt vanish beneath the thin pants, leaving a dark line on his thigh. “Who’s Lord Lorcan, anyway?”

“Small time only child of a Baroness on the other side of the Duchy.”
She puts on a smile that transforms her face, making her look slightly vapid and not at all deadly. “Ready?”

He braces his shoulders. “Ready.”

Ana’s sitting room

“So, why are you helping us again?” Parker is perched on the edge of a chair, stage-whispering into Lord Lorcan’s ear. He doesn’t seem bothered by her at all.

“As I said, I find ‘Charlotte’s’ little games to be very fun, and I haven’t had fun in quite a while. Besides, if I help you, you’re less likely to make a mess of the Duchy, and that benefits all of us.”

“Hunh.” Parker leans back. “How long are they going to…” The door swings open. Lady Anastasia walks out, impeccably suited as if coming out of a business meeting and not her bedroom. Eliot, collared and shirtless, follows. As the door swings closed, the ropes hanging from the bed are clearly visible.

“Lord Lorcan.” Ana’s eyes trail over the rest of the team. “I see you brought… friends.” Behind her, Eliot sighs.

Cut to commercial.

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The Collar Job, Part XIV

Jun6

This is … *cough* Tír na Cali/Leverage fanfiction crossover.

♪♪ I think this line’s mostly filler…♫

Table of Contents here

“It seems like you’re having some trouble with the Alpha Sisters.” Lord Lorcan is every inch the Californian male – sleek and well-groomed and exquisitely dressed, short, slender, and ginger.

“The Alpha Sisters?” Hardison’s voice is flatter than it should be, and his eyes on the little Lord are not kind. “What do you mean?”

“Alessia, Anastasia, Adalia. The Alpha sisters is what we called them when we were growing up. Of course, there were more of them, back then.” The flop Lorcan makes with his hand has to be affected, nobody is quite that… that on their own. But he seemed to be oblivious both to his own mannerisms and to the way it affects Hardison. “So that’s obviously Anastasia up on your screen, but she’s not really the power in the family. Well, I mean – she’s the power but not the power, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, Lorcan, don’t be obscure.” Sophie pats him on the shoulder. “What sort of power isn’t she?”

“She’s not a political power. As far as we can tell, she never wanted it. Did her time in the service, the way we all do – even me, I can see that look, you know – and just stayed for a while.”

“So her sister is the one interested in the power, then? Alessia?” Sophie has gotten her body between Lorcan and Hardison’s monitors, which lets Hardison change the screen to something innocuous. “She’s the oldest, right?”

“She is. The problem is Adalia has as much ambition as Anastasia. It’s a mess, really.” Lorcan’s vapid smile suddenly gets sharp. “So what’s your problem with them, Charlotte? You’ve never been all that interested in Californian politics before – and you’ve never brought a whole team for a little ol’ grift.”

“He knows me so well.” Sophie pats Lorcan’s arm helplessly.

Anastasia’s Rooms

Ana untangles herself from Eliot and from the long snake of sheet wrapped around them. “I could wish that you wanted to stay. But…”

“But?” Eliot props himself up on one elbow. The sheet that half-covers Ana is not up to the task of covering much of Eliot, but neither of them appear to mind. At the moment, neither of them appear to mind much at all.

“But if you were the sort of man who would want to stay here, in my collar, you wouldn’t be the sort of man that was so much fun with.” She pats his bicep gently. “I’ll have to live with a couple weeks.”

A knock sounds at the bedroom door. “Lady Anastasia? You have company.”

Cut to commercial.

Next: Xv

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The Collar Job, Part XIII

May14

Part I (and on LJ), Part II (and on LJ), Part III (and on LJ), Part IV (and on LJ), Part V (and on LJ), Part VI (and on LJ), Part VII (and on LJ), Part VIII (and on LJ), Part IX (and on LJ), Part X (and on LJ), Part XI (and on LJ), Deleted Scene (and on LJ)
Part XII (and on LJ)

This is … *cough* Tír na Cali/Leverage fanfiction crossover.

It’s been over a month since I wrote on this, but now it’s back!!

Fade in from commercial. Eliot and the lady Anastasia are naked in bed; Eliot is in the process of untying himself and Ana appears to be asleep.

It doesn’t take long, longer than it would normally because he’s trying not to wake her. She stirs at one point; he freezes. She moans quietly and rolls over, and Eliot waits, counting silently but his lips moving, for a count of twenty.

When she makes no more noise, he finishes getting his last ankle and then, moving very slowly and a bit unevenly, he hurries to the bathroom.

Ana’s eyes open as the bathroom door shuts. She stays where she is, as if she hasn’t woken. When the bathroom door opens again, she closes her eyes and stirs, just a bit.

Eliot pauses at the door. He looks at the “sleeping” Lady, and then at the exit. His hand goes to the collar, just brushing it. His sigh is a full-body thing, frustrated and sad.

He lays back in bed as carefully as he got out of it, and begins tying his ankles as they had been.

“Don’t bother.”

Ana’s voice freezes Eliot. “How long have you been awake?”

“Woke up while you were in the bathroom. You could’ve gotten out of the ropes at any point?”

“Well, not during…” He lays down, carefully, next to her, not quite touching her. “Not when you were watching.”

“Not a very good restraint system then, is it?” She rolls over to look at him; if he was looking at her, he’d see that she was smiling.

His eyes are closed, though, and his body tense. “You could use steel.”

“I could. But you came back. Why?”

He touches the collar, carefully, as if afraid it will bite him. “There’s a tracker in here, and I don’t know how to get the thing off without killing myself.”

“A good reason,” she agrees, although her voice is rather flat. “Well, then. If you’re not going to run away – or kill me – and I’m not going to tie you up, we might as well do something entertaining.”

Now, Eliot turns to look at her. “Like what?”

Duchess Charlotte Prentiss’s rooms

“It’s going to take us a few days. This Barony – Baronessy? – they’re not exactly known for being friendly. Not surprising, with the way they’re dropping like flies. I’m working on building everything we need, but it’s not like we can slip in as slaves. They do everything in-house.” Hardison runs a hand over his short-cropped hair. “Still working, Nate.”

“Anything I can help with?” Lord Lorcan walks into the room, all five foot six and one hundred three exquisitely-dressed pounds of him. “It seems like you’re having some trouble with the Alpha Sisters.”

Cut to commercial.

XiV

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The Collar Job, Part XII

Mar28

Part I (and on LJ), Part II (and on LJ), Part III (and on LJ), Part IV (and on LJ), Part V (and on LJ), Part VI (and on LJ), Part VII (and on LJ), Part VIII (and on LJ), Part IX (and on LJ), Part X (and on LJ), Part XI (and on LJ), Deleted Scene (and on LJ)

This is … *cough* Tír na Cali/Leverage fanfiction crossover.

It’s written in an experimental style for me, and, well, it’s fanfic, so pls. be kind.

And now back to the plot

Fade in: Sophie, Hardison, Parker, and Nate are looking at the screens, standing shoulder to shoulder as Hardison flips through files.

“Dead – poisoning. Dead – pet tiger got her. Dead – slipped and fell off a balcony into a pool that happened to have a hair dryer drop into it. Seriously.” Hardison shakes his head. “Dead, assassin.”

“Well, that’s not even trying.” Sophie clucks. “Someone is picking off members of the family line here, aren’t they? This is a little crass even for California.”

“You’re telling me. The thing is – Alessia, Anastasia, and Adalia, they used to be the youngest three sisters.”

“So someone is cleaning up the line of succession.” Nate frowns.

“And there’s nothing saying it isn’t the girl who has our Eliot. Is that her?” Sophie shakes her head. “She looks common.”

“I think she looks pretty.” Parker is frowning. “Too pretty. But look at the way she’s standing, the way her hands are. Thief?”

“Parker, she’s royalty.”

“A moment ago she was common.”

“All right, all right you two. Nate, can’t you-?”

“Don’t look at me.”

“Right. So, she could be a thief, Parker, because we don’t know much at all about her. She did her mandatory two years in the service – “

“What, like Israel?”

“Pretty much exactly, except that their royals get a pass, they all do their FBI-like Agency. So there’s nothing about her service, anywhere. It’s all redacted. Everything.”

“What about the Agency servers?”

“Girl, you think I can just waltz into their secure servers?”

“Yes.”

“Well, good because I did. And there’s nothing there, either.”

“So, this girl, that owns – oh, I hate that word – that owns our Eliot right now, she’s a cipher, a blank page.”

“Does that mean we can scribble on her?” Parker smiles.

Sophie’s smile in return is unkind. “Oh, yes. We are going to scribble in all of her margins.”

~

Eliot wakes tied to Anastasia’s bed; the petite redhead is curled on top of him, her head on his shoulder, the curve of her body figleafing both of them. He twitches, but she’s got him bound pretty well. “Ana,” he whispers, and then, a little louder, “Anastasia.”

He twitches against the ropes when she doesn’t wake, and says her name a little louder. “Ana… your Ladyship.” Her shoulder twitches but she says nothing. “Damnit…” He twists until he can see the ropes binding his wrists and then, with a soft grunt and trying not to move much, he starts to twist out of the bindings.

Ana’s eyes open, but she says nothing; she watches him for a moment and then closes her eyes as Eliot manages to finish untying his first wrist.

Cut to commercial.

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