Okay, so I decided to start a series of Leverage drabbles - though, I have been informed, they are not technically drabbles seeing as they are all most likely going to be more than 100 words, but they are not fics and I guess that the best way to describe them would be as a series of one-shots.

Things to be aware of:

1. They will mostly be Eliot/Parker centric
2. I just put my iPod on shuffle and went to town
3. There may be some OOCness. I apologize. I am not Sophie or Nate and am therefore unable to completely immerse myself in the characters' heads.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Leverage, or else Eliot would totally be MY gym teacher. This is totally a work of fiction from the frightening landscape of my mind, any relation it may have to a real person/place/event/any other recognizable quality is purely coincidence.


You Are Not The End - Pillar

You can try to break me down and then
Like a phoenix I will rise again
I always do
I always do

I won't let you win
You are not the end of me
(You are not the end)
I won't let you win
I won't let you bring me to my knees

Eliot doesn't remember falling asleep on the plane. Doesn't remember the nightmare. Doesn't remember jumping to his feet over California and grabbing the steward who tried to slip the tablet of botulinum into his coffee. Doesn't remember beating the man into unconsciousness. Doesn't remember doesn't remember can't remember can't remember.

What he does remember is the way his heart seemed to stop when the knife was thrust at Parker's back. He does remember grabbing the mug of steaming coffee and flinging it onto the man. Does remember grabbing the knife and hurling it into the chest of another man. Does remember finding and breakhurtkilling everyone he laid his eyes on in that God forsaken plane. But he knows most of the blood on his clothes is not his.

He doesn't know how he ended up next to the airlock, a parachute strapped to his shoulders and Parker buckled to his chest, and what was he doing up here anyway? He hated jumping out of planes. Half the time he jumped something would go wrong: cross winds, tangled steering cords, trees... trees with thorns especially… big thorns… He'd probably land in a cactus patch, and he doesn't know how he ended up free-falling from 20,000 feet, Parker's shriek of joy rushing past his ears.

By some miracle his com was still in his ear, though he couldn't make heads or tails of what Nate and Hardison and Sophie were screaming at him, and Parker kept spinning them updownsidewaysbackwards laughing happily and the ground spun like a top and he was swearing "Oh shit oh shit oh shit" and yanked the cord but they were coming in too fast and they were going to crash then they dropped past a hundred feet... ninety... eighty... he panted, just another second... only a few more... he didn't want to die... not this way... not falling from a plane... he'd survived everything... survived death so many times... he was going to go out fighting because he fought everything, but even Eliot Spencer couldn't fight gravity and physics... the ground was right there...

At the last second he twisted onto his back and cradled Parker, then hit and tumbled, sand exploding upwards, automatically his muscles jerked and he rolled and bounced upwards, flying end over end and hitting again before skipping back up into the air as he left the edge of a low dune... he barrel-rolled too quickly to focus on anything, dizzy and disoriented. Then he smashed into the ground, rolling and tumbling, skipping like a stone over smooth water, trying to keep his limbs curled in around Parker enough to form himself into a ball to roll and not give resistance to the ground and keep her safe all at the same time. His shoulder hit a boulder and he felt the breath leave his body, felt the sharp pain as he plowed through a cactus patch.

Finally he rolled to stop, flopping the last few times like a rag doll. He lay there on the burning hot sand staring upwards into the blue sky dotted with clouds. Parker giggled quietly for a moment, then burst out into full-blown, insane laughter. Eliot growled and unbuckled the harness, and Parker slid off him.

"That was awesome!" she exclaimed happily, but Eliot tried to sit up, felt the pain in his broken maybe cracked ribs, acknowledged it, and pushed himself to his feet, holding out a hand for Parker.

"Damn it," he cursed again, and wiggled his fingers and toes to make sure they were all still attatched. "C'mon, Parker, we gotta get movin', darlin'," he said, cracking his neck. "The cops'll be here soon, and trust me, we don't want to be here when they start askin' why there was an unauthorized jump from a civilian plane over U.S. soil."

Did that man seriously just kill six assassins, jump out of an airplane, crash-land in the desert, and get back up and start walking again? Hardison demanded.

He's Eliot Spencer, Sophie said. He takes the punishment, gets knocked down, and gets right back up again. It's what he does.