Hello there Leverage people. I'm jumping ship from my typical Burn Notice fic because I've been dying to write something for Leverage recently and I finally found a muse. I hope that it's okay and not totally out of character or something that's been written a million times before. I'm just digging into Leverage fic so I haven't looked at everything yet…there's so much to go through!
There's a view up there on top of the high rise, a world of tiny details most people never notice, and in between clicking buckles and tightening ropes she watches the tugboat chugging across the bay and the dark pink clouds heading out to sea. There's a calmness that settles in with the repetition of preparation. She's made these movements thousands of times before. They're as routine as tying a shoelace.
The ride down is not as easy for most people as it is for her. Not as much fun. Hardison threw up the first time and then avoided windows for a week. Sophie wrote a poem about seeing her life flash before her eyes and then presented it as a dramatic monologue for them one night after dinner.
She'd asked Sophie later, when they were alone, why the free fall made her think about her life like that.
"That's just what happens, Parker, when you're facing death…you see your life played out for you…all the good and all the bad."
She wonders why that's never happened to her. Is she that good? Or is she just not like other people? If she really ever found herself facing death, what would she see? A lost girl, a young thief, and then a series of cons? She feels a twinge of morbid curiosity…wishing she knew.
But for now, when she jumps, when she falls, she sees details…a vase full of daisies on a windowsill, a pigeon's nest, a rusty stain where the downspout hugs the building. It's the same attention to detail she manages to tap when breaking a safe or dipping fingers deftly into unsuspecting pockets.
She likes that feeling, that clarity of vision, where everything is beautiful because it's isolated, pulled away from the big, messy picture of life…like she's seeing it for the first time. She'd learned that trick a long time ago, a little bit of self-preservation. If you can manage to focus only on the cheerful colors of the marshmallow rainbows in your cereal bowl, for example, you just might forget to be angry that it's the first time you've eaten in two days.
It works, she thinks, because when you're helpless, just falling and not knowing who or what will catch you, there's really nothing better to do than enjoy the view.