For Chilla, who wanted some high drama in her Leverage, with all my love. Graciously betaed by anoneknewmoose, all remaining mistakes are mine.
On the day King and Queen leave, Her ex-Majesty looks at him and says with a surety of knowing her answer: "Promise me you'll keep them safe".
Eliot says, "Until my dying day," and knows it to be the easiest truth he ever told.
They don't do all that bad, all things considered. They let Parker deal with the diplomats and politicians, because her stark honesty makes them lose their tongues and stutter, and Hardison handles trade and roads. Eliot doesn't know what Nathan promised or threatened Lord Sterling with, but his gift of a spy network has been indispensable.
Although it's permissible for the heir apparent to have a lover-consort, the Queen has to be married to the King, and both of them have to be married to the land. The ceremony is just a month ahead, the date set by magicians and priests, and every power-hungry lord of the realm is trying to reach for their chance in the interim.
Eliot deals with two conspiracies openly, the heads left to rot on the castle walls, and with three more in secret, with only his sword and his hand and his anger, and the nobility is raging about this commoner with an unknown past being so close to throne. Eliot smirks when he thinks about how they'd howl if his past was known.
Days are dying one after another, and the night before the wedding-coronation is as serene as the quiet before the storm, but he knows that nothing is settled, yet. He lights all the candles, a rare extravagance, and writes down the required – his money for Aimee, his sword for his father - his lines orderly and precise, his direct debts long settled. Whatever king Nathan used to say or think, Eliot knows that atonement is an empty word, devoid of meaning. He will do what he ought, and pay what he owes, and he's long been at peace with himself.
He lies down and sleeps deeply, without dreams.
When the attack comes, swords flashing in the hands of first line of wedding guests, Eliot's almost relieved by the inevitability of it. He cuts the first noble in half and pushes him off, and second and third go after them; the fourth manages to slash his thigh, and it might be a sign that Eliot's growing old, only it's not going to matter. He deals with fourth and fifth, swiftly, takes a cut from a sixth but lops her head off, neatly. It takes less than moments, and he can see his people streaming in to deal with the rest, but he doesn't make the mistake of breathing out - and that's when he glances up and sees the woman raising a crossbow on the upper gallery.
He manages to parry the first bolt, no small feat with a broadsword, and the second, but he knows he won't be in time for the third one, going irrevocably for Parker's heart. He dives to meet it, bolt slamming into his chest with a terrible force as he sees somebody intercept the shooter, and falls backwards with a grateful exhale. The world goes dark for a moment.
Parker's face floats in the focus, her graceful fingers trying to stem the flowing blood, and Hardison's beyond that, and it's all wrong, so he says: "No time, no time, the ceremony - you must finish, you have to – ", and Hardison is too soft, always was, but Parker, she understands. She will be a fine Queen, not that he ever doubted that.
No time to move him, no space, so he's sprawled on the marble floor of altar between them when they give their hurried vows over his body, exchange the rings with fingers stained with his blood, kiss awkwardly angled. What an obscene way, he thinks, to fullfil his unspoken wish to be a part of this oath, what a fitting punishment for having this wish at all. But ah, death washes away all sins, done and undone.
He lingers on, and grows cold, and sees the crowns placed on the heads dark and fair, sees the unbearable light swell and crest around them, feels with an utmost certainity that all was done as it ought have been. Until his dying breath, as promised.
He lets go.
death
is
very
cold
He wakes up to Hardison smiling at him, bright and relieved.
"Finally, brother! You almost cost three very scared healers their heads, when Parker got impatient with them. Don't do it again."
He licks his lips, trying to gather his scattered thoughts. There was the wedding, and the fight, and the -
Parker sits next to him, her thin fingers cold as usual on his arm (everything hurts), and her angular face is sharp with sure, terrifying knowledge, and he shivers.
"Do you know that you talk in your dreams, Eliot?"
And oh. Oh. Death washes away all sins, but if you don't die, what's there left to pay? He tries to make his voice carry, not break.
"I'll leave. As soon as - I'll leave right now, I just need to get up."
Hardison explodes, "What? No! What's with this talk? Oh come on, darling, now you confused him, I told you not to start like that..."
The room spins around him, colors nauseatingly bright, but Hardison grabs his shoulders, leans over him.
"Listen to me now, brother. I'm a king now, and mostly by your hand, too, and as a king I order you're not going anywhere, you understand? "
Parker is lifting a cup that smells of sleeping herbs to his lips, and he's bewildered and exhausted and frightened, but they smile, so he drinks and goes back to sleep.
It takes him five days to get back on his feet, and both of them are always there, Hardison endlessly cheerful, Parker incadescently angry with him (but maybe, maybe for all the wrong reasons). Eliot pretends to sleep, watches through his eyelashes, listens as much as he can, hoards these stolen memories like a miser counting his gold coins.
Every day he thinks of creeping down to the stables, stealing a horse, getting away again (and again, and again), starting all over somewhere, somehow. But he's tied as surely as with the finest chains, and if he's to go, he'll hear it from their lips, first.
On the fifth day a page comes to get him, makes him dress in his best finery, takes him to the throne room. Seems like the whole kingdom is there, watching intently, and Eliot's fingers twitch instinctively for his sword, but no - anybody stupid enough to attack newly consecrated royals will get what they deserve without anybody's help.
Parker and Hardison stand on the dais, solemn and dark and golden, waiting for him, and Eliot swallows, makes himself move forward unbowed.
"Kneel," Parker says, and he does, blood rushing in his ears, and almost misses what happens next - words washing over him, not making much sense, about loyalty and sacrifices, about the fate of the kingdom.
But he can't miss the narrow sword she lays over his shoulder, Hardison's palm steady and sure over hers on the hilt.
"Rise, Sir Eliot Spencer, Lord-Protector of the realm," they say in unison, and Eliot rises, rises.
His new rooms are directly opposite the royal chambers. It makes a certain sense, and also strikes him as unexpected cruelty, and scares him. He slowly unbuckles his sword, pulls off his surcoat, and that's when somebody knocks on his door.
He goes to open it, for once not even thinking of weapons, and then Hardison says:
"Will you let us in, brother?"
and Parker says:
"Will you let us in, Eliot?"
and Eliot sees their stained fingers exchanging the rings over the dying rattle of his lungs, and Eliot sees every step on the long, bloody road taking him to this night, this room, this open door, this question,
and Eliot says:
"Yes."