Title: Striking Hard
Author: kenzimone
Disclaimer: Don't own.
Fandom: Leverage
Rating: R
Word count: 1,400
Summary: Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.
Note: For trziarre, because she helped push me into action. I wrote this last spring in an attempt to distract myself from my thesis, and since then I've tried to fit it into a longer fic only to realize that it probably stands better on its own. Very, very unbeta'd.
'The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.'
- Ulysses S. Grant
...
Under no circumstances was it supposed to be an easy job, but Hardison never expected this.
They grab him out of the back of the van. The real action is going down two blocks away, and he's so busy hacking into bank accounts and watching the con unfold on his computer screen that he doesn't even realize that he's been found out (doesn't register the car pulling up, the footsteps, the muted voices) until the van's back doors are being thrown open and he's nearly blinded by the sunlight.
On his screen the con plays out, a blueish tint to the live video feed as Sophie and Parker circle in on the mark. Nate is watching from behind a pair of shades and a latte, his attention focused solely on the mark's tells, as Eliot watches everyone else (tense and ready to protect and hurt should anything start to go down).
That is the last thing Hardison sees; his team in the glow of the computer screen, as he's grabbed and manhandled out of the van and the sudden blow to his head throws everything into darkness.
...
He stops counting blows when he realizes he can't remember what number he's on. They want him to tell them where the money is, and he thinks Bermuda and Haiti and the Caymans but says nothing. There are kicks and punches and a knife slicing the skin of his cheek (point hovering against the corner of his eye, catching on his lashes as he blinks), but he only spits blood and coughs against the pain and says nothing.
Later, Nate will tell him that they had him for close to three days. Hardison doesn't remember much of it (can only recall the flood of light as the van doors where thrown open, and then there's nothing but a haze of pain interlaced with questions until his rescue).
Three days, tied to a chair (wrists and ankles chafed and bloody) in a small, windowless room, and Hardison can only recall this:
Hands on his face, around his neck, squeezing. He can't breathe, can't speak to tell them he can't breathe, but he blinks and lets the face above his swim into focus and thinks that maybe they already know.
The coolness of the gun's muzzle against his skin surprises him. The hands are gone, but in their place is the end of a barrel, and he tilts his head backwards, ignores the way the world loses focus and thinks only of getting away, of distancing himself from the cold metal. This is it, he realizes. He hasn't talked, and won't ever talk, and now they have either found the money on their own (they can't have, not with all his trapdoors and false trails and...) or they are going to take their losses and run. And they can't bring him with them, which means that...
The man holding the gun grabs the back of Hardison's head and forces it forward, pressing it against the weapon. The action is business like, the movements efficient like they've been performed many times before. This is it, Hardison thinks and gags against the pressure on his windpipe. He doesn't expect much now. A bullet, perhaps. A quick flash and then nothing.
Only, that's not completely true, because he blinks once, twice, and when the blur in the open doorway turns into Eliot he's not surprised. Relieved, but not surprised.
Eliot. Lip bleeding and knuckles split open, hair in disarray, but it's him. Hardison lets out the breath he hasn't realized he's been holding, body shuddering, because it's okay now. It'll all be okay. And then he looks up and sees the expression on Eliot's face.
He'll think about it later, when the pain meds have dulled most of his discomfort and the lights have been turned off, the only sound that of his own breathing. He'll think about it and try to classify it, and at first he'll come up with anger, but that won't be strong enough a word. Rage, maybe. Fury, wrath, hatred. He'll go through all the words he can think of, but they won't ever be enough.
It's terrifying, the look that dances across Eliot's face (there one second, gone the next) and at the same time it's not, because the blank expression that it leaves behind is a hundred times worse. Hardison sees Eliot's eyes flicker between the gun and the gunman and himself, sitting in the chair. Back and forth, and there are calculations being made, this he knows. He wants to say something, tell Eliot that it's not as bad as it looks (only, it is), but his tongue feels swollen and detached and he can't speak.
The man is turning, movements sluggish and cumbersome, like he's underwater. Hardison groans, and it's like pushing the play button – time jerks and starts moving again, and Eliot takes two steps forward and crushes the man's kneecap beneath his steel-toe boot.
Watching Eliot fight is like watching a professional dancer perform. The fluid movements seem unplanned, each hit like a beautiful spur of the moment decision, but Hardison knows better – he sees the patterns, the rhythm. There's passion, a beat hidden in the flow of the body's movements, each kick and dodge seamless continuations of each other.
It fascinates Hardison, just like the way Parker stretches her arms out and steps off the ledge of a building, or the way Sophie morphs from one role into another like a human chameleon shedding skin. Hardison has often caught himself pausing, hands hovering over his keyboard as he watches through live feeds the way the hitter moves in ways that make his fellow dancers drop to the floor and stay there.
This, though... This is nothing like that. There's no feeling or sense, just calculated movements. Eliot's face is blank, empty, and Hardison looks for concentration, a twitch of muscle, but sees nothing. His captor is on the floor, a twisted heap of flesh (the angle of his limbs look wrong, bent like he's boneless), keening sounds of wretched agony tearing from his throat, and Eliot won't stop hitting.
Hardison whimpers, feels the bile rise in the back of his throat, and finally (finally) there's a hitch in Eliot's movements. Like he's suddenly back from wherever he went, and he makes a sound that's something between a groan and a cough – bends down, places his hands on either side of the man's face, and twists.
A snap, crunch, and it's over. Hardison sags against his restraints, and Eliot breathes deep and heavy breaths, hands braced on his knees and head bowed, hair hiding his face.
There's a small voice in the back of Hardison's head that is screaming. He didn't have to do that, it says. He didn't have to kill him. And Hardison knows that all it would have taken was a blow to the back of the head and the man would have been out for the count, but Eliot didn't do that – he just kept hitting and hitting and then it had been too late; the man had been far too gone, a mere hair's breadth away from death, so why not show mercy? Why not make it faster?
The hands on Hardison's face are surprisingly gentle. They tremble, but just a little, and by the time they've poked and prodded and made sure that he's not dying the adrenaline's worn off and they're fast and efficient again, fingers nimble as they pick the handcuffs that have been holding him in place.
He didn't have to do that, the voice says again, and Hardison lets Eliot haul him up onto his feet, lets him rest one hand on the back of Hardison's neck and place the other on his chest, above his heart.
"Easy, Buddy," Eliot grumbles.
No, Hardison thinks. Eliot didn't have to do that. He leans heavily against the shorter man's hold, muscles aching and weak, fists two handfuls of Eliot's shirt into his hands. Eliot didn't have to do that.
He closes his eyes and blocks out the sight of the body on the floor and hopes that Eliot can feel the way his heart beats a stuttering rhythm of thank you thank you thank you.