Disclaimer: I do not own Leverage
nor am I associated with Dean Devlin or Timothy Hutton.
A/N: It
seemed to me that Nate's voice changed when he told Maggie he
didn't want her to look at him the way he did in the mirror. It was
small, and I might be crazy, but just the inflections in his voice
seemed different. And so this was born.
I'm an Honest Man
I'm told I'm an honest man. Often. Dubenich hired me in the first place because I'm an honest man. Eliot says it time and time again, (though, to be honest, I think at this point it's as much to convince himself as anything.) Sophie says I think I'm better than them because I'm an honest man and they will always be just criminals.
They couldn't be more wrong.
You've never met someone as dishonest as me. Every other word out of my mouth is a lie. I am Tom Baker, I am sort-of-happily married, I own racehorses, I work for a politician, I direct werewolf movies… The list just goes on and on and on and on… But those are only the recent, petty fibs.
Not telling the whole truth is a lie, too, you know. It's something parents tell their kids when they know they're not getting the whole story. I am an expert on the subject, only I don't have a son to say it to.
The first time in more than two years that I told the whole truth, straight from the heart, from the gut, I was sitting on a bench outside a mansion I didn't own, staring at my ex-wife.
"…If I had ever seen you look at me the way I looked at myself in the mirror, I'd have blown my damn brains out…"
Even I heard my voice change, like the distinct click when the tumblers open on an old safe. It was less out-of-breath, less full of tears. It was dry, but certainly not lacking emotion. It was matter-of-fact and utterly honest.
Maybe they are all right. Maybe I am an honest man.
I just have to find the right combination to this old safe.