Fandom: Leverage
Characters: Eliot/Alec
Challenge: "Parallel"
There's always a moment in a con when Alec can't see how things can possibly work out.
Nate's the brains, Sophie the grifter, but honestly, put Nate and Sophie together in a room and ask them to hack a security system and you might as well ask Parker to get through a dinner party without stabbing someone with a fork.
You need true talent to do the hard work.
Alec can break down firewalls that are supposed to be impenetrable, and he's one who erases cyber footprints even as he creates the team's new identities. He's the smart one. Supposedly.
So watching Eliot using nothing more than his fists and his wits to take down four security guards should be a minor distraction at best and not a revelation.
The Texan ducks and weaves, every blow carefully aimed, his narrowed blue eyes sharp and unafraid as the bigger men come at him. They go down hard and Eliot comes out from the fight bloodied, but the smile of triumph on his face is one that Alec recognises because he's seen it reflected in a computer screen at least a hundred times.
Both of them make sure that their enemies pay, but that's where the parallel ends. Wiping a disk of encrypted information takes a lot less time than washing the blood from your hands, Alec reckons, and unlike Eliot he can always reach for the "off" switch.