A/N: If you're still here and reading, please do review and let me know. Oh, and brace yourself for a wild ride!
(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapters 1 & 2)
IV. Brothers In Arms
Eliot woke up fast from a nightmare even he could no longer stand. A man who had been through as much as the hitter had ought not to be afraid of simple pictures conjured by his mind, but it was these experiences that could make a bad dream so vivid and frightening to stay inside of.
Sitting up in bed, he pushed his hair from his eyes, encountering sweat that rolled down his face to his bare chest. Forcing himself to breathe evenly, Eliot was more mad at himself than anything else for allowing himself to get so worked up. Dreams were not always prophecies, though it had been known. Just because he hadn't seen or heard from the team in almost a month did not mean they were in any kind of trouble.
After all that had been revealed about his connections to the evil Damien Moreau, Eliot couldn't imagine Nate was really surprised when he told him he had to leave. As far as Eliot was concerned, it was for the good of the team as well as for himself. He didn't expect them to trust him or want him around any more, even though they all made efforts to prove to him such feelings were unfounded. He felt like a traitor and like he didn't belong, a usual set of feelings for a man in his position, but Eliot wasn't prepared to stick around and make things any harder on himself.
The day he walked away from Nate, Sophie, Hardison, and Parker, it was one of the hardest of his life, but he told himself it was for the best and got on that plane out of Boston, never to go back again.
Going back to his past role wasn't really an option anymore, working for crime lords and bent tycoons. He'd spent so long working to bring these assholes down and that was what he wanted to continue to do. He didn't need money but he did need to work, since being idle made his body itch for activity and his mind wander into dangerous territory far too often. He took jobs much like the Leverage team would, but a little simpler, a little more refined to his skill set and style. So far it was going well, but that didn't mean that when he was alone, when the nightmares set in, he didn't wish he could out-run his memories as easily as his old team.
Getting up out of bed, Eliot immediately sensed something was wrong. It wasn't as if this apartment he'd bought was on the good side of town. He could afford so much better but in his line of work, it was advisable to stay low. He wouldn't put it past some drugged up homeless guy to have broken in unnoticed whilst he suffered in his nightmare, but he was prepared for worse. Even from his prison cell below San Lorenzo, Eliot knew Moreau was capable of sending someone or something after him.
On his guard as he slipped out of the bedroom, a blade in his hand just in case, Eliot knew pretty fast that had no need to worry. He flipped on the light to find his brother huddled on the couch, drinking down whiskey like it was going out of style.
"Lindsey?" he was surprised to see him, though not exactly shocked that he was able to find him, "What the hell, man?" he asked, as he dropped his weapon and moved around the couch to better see his twin.
"Hey, El" he said with fake cheerfulness that fell terribly flat when he winced at a pain shooting through his body, "It' been a while" he gasped out a moment later.
Looking at him, Eliot could see no obvious injuries on his brother's body, but then he knew better than to presume that meant there were none. The state of him suggested Lindsey had quite literally been on the run for days. As much as he could hate the guy for things he both knew and presumed he'd done, he was still his brother, and as such Eliot could not competely cut him off, especially in a time of need.
"Talk to me, Linds" he urged him, "C'mon, man, you gotta have a reason for bein' here like this" he said as he sat down beside him on the couch, pulling the whiskey bottle from his hand when he attempted to take another swig.
"You're not gonna ask how I found ya first?" he slurred his words a little, maybe from the booze, maybe the pain he was clearly in, it was hard to tell.
"No" Eliot shook his head, putting the bottle out of reach on the floor the other side of himself, "Even I use the odd locator spell" he said grimly, hating that he ever allowed himself to resort to the smallest of magicks after the part they had played in corrupting his brother.
"Like you'd ever forget how" Lindsey smirked in spite of the state he was in, "I never could figure out if that chick Kayla liked you or me better"
Eliot didn't dignify such a thing with an answer. It seemed like a million years ago when the two of them were still in High School, chasing skirt and willing to do just about anything to get past third base. Kayla was as dangerous as she was beautiful, and though people called her a witch that was just a nasty label to most. In reality, she really was what they called her, with powers enough to entice the brothers Spencer to dabble in the dark arts just to make time with such a young woman as her. Maybe that was where it all started, though Eliot couldn't be sure, and right now didn't seem the time to dwell on it.
"Save me the trip down rose-tinted memory lane, Linds" he urged him, an angry growl colouring every word, "You came here for a reason, and I'm guessin' it's not for a family reunion" he said gruffly "This is about one of two things; Parker or Wolfram & Hart. Which is it?" he asked straight out.
Lindsey couldn't deny his brother had a point. He really couldn't blame him for being so blunt with him either. Sometimes he wished they could go back to how things used to be, before he succumbed to the lure of money and power, allowing himself to sink further and further into the darkness to achieve his goal. Eliot was no saint, that much was frighteningly true, but he had some kind of moral compass that always managed to find north in the end. Lindsey felt like the needle on his own conscience had been spinning for years and never entirely settled.
"Parker told you about us, huh?" he asked, finding the blonde thief a safer topic than what he came here for right now, "That why you walked out on her and your Robin Hood team?" he asked bitterly.
Eliot bit his tongue to save from saying what he really wanted to. When he was sure he wasn't going to verbally rip his brother a new one if he so much as opened his mouth he finally spoke.
"You don't know her, Lindsey" he told him, "Not really. Sex ain't a relationship on it's own.." he stopped when he realised his brother was laughing, a painful hollow sound, but laughter none the less.
"Y'know you almost sound jealous" he challenged his brother with his words and a servere look to match his and his chuckling died in this throat instantly "She wasn't yours to lose El or she never would have gotten close to me"
"You don't care about her, Lindsey, I know you don't" Eliot shook his head, "Okay, you like her, maybe. Like her for what you can get out of her, and 'cause she's a lost soul you thought she might understand you" he sneered, "Newsflash, bigbrother, when you sell your soul to the devil, you don't get to play soul-mates with the first girl who'll screw ya since your last near-death experience"
Lindsey's eyes darkened at those words though his smirk remained.
"You really don't think much of me, do ya, Eliot?" he asked rhetorically, "'Cause you're such a righteous man, helping the helpless like some other phoney I used to know" he challenged him, sitting up straighter than he had the entire time he'd been here, "Such a fine upstanding citizen, that's what you wanna make pretend, but I know what you did" he said, pointing an angry finger into his own chest, "Even after you found out what Moreau really was, you still worked for that thing!"
Eliot flinched just slightly at the accusation that he had no way to deny. The supposed man they called Damien Moreau was so much more evil than any human male could ever be, and he ought to have realised sooner that all that passion for power and love of pain meant he was something more, something worse. When he discovered it, he should've walked, but Lindsey was right in what he said. Eliot had stupidly stuck around, until things got just too much and he finally walked away. He let the psychotic, soulless animal they called Moreau continue to do what he did best; corrupt, injure, and destroy. It made him hardly any better than Lindsey in a lot of ways, and yet he couldn't help himself when it came to judging his brother.
"I'm not perfect, far from it, and we both know that" he said at length, "but that doesn't let you off the hook with Parker. You had the mystical equivalent of a frickin' tracker on her, Lindsey, and she didn't even know!" he said angrily, the force of his fury bringing him to his feet and Lindsey wasn't far behind.
"I needed to keep her safe" he yelled, the pain inside him close to non-existent as adrenaline and the fire of the argument kept him standing, "After she got close to me... I had to know she was okay, and yeah, I wanted to see her too. You really think I can't care about any person besides myself?" he asked, daring Eliot to say it with eyes and tone both.
Eliot never did answer the question, just shook his head eventually and looked away, trying to regain some measure of calm. Fighting over Parker was pointless right now, she was miles away and thankfully it seemed she hadn't seen either brother in a good while. Before he left Boston, Eliot had asked if she knew where Lindsey was. She swore she didn't, though she also told him it was none of his damn business if he didn't even care enough to stick around either.
"Tell me you're done with her and I might not throw you out of here on your ass" he said simply, daring Lindsey to argue.
"I don't think I get to make that choice or that promise" Lindsey shook his head, smiling slightly as a memory played through his mind, "Y'know the last time I saw her, I told her I had to leave, could be gone months before I saw her again. She said to meet her at the top of Empire State, one year to the day" he chuckled lightly, "She got it from some movie"
"Sleepless in Seattle" Eliot replied without thinking, "We watched it together, the whole team" he recalled with both a smile and a heap of pain and regret too.
Poor Parker. For a thief who had lived so long in a world full of hardships and pain, she could be shockingly innocent and frighteningly naive sometimes. There was no point arguing this with Lindsey. If he lived through whatever crap was currently coming down on his head, he would want to go meet the little blonde that Eliot had once called a friend, and she could be potentially broken-hearted if he didn't show, one more person letting her down in her life. Besides, whatever trouble his twin was in this time, Eliot knew he could not forsake him, even now after everything.
Lindsey coughed then, choking on thin air it seemed as one arm clutched at his torso. Something was very wrong here, and Eliot had a feeling it wasn't even as simple as a regular bout of pneumonia or anything. Frowning as he watched his brother fall to the couch in convulsions, he reached out a moment later to move Lindsey's shirt aside. Angry red lines marked out symbols that could only be bad news, scorched into his flesh like a red hot poker had been used to make them. In reality, it was unlikely anybody or anything had actually touched his skin.
"The Senior Partners never do give up" Lindsey winced as the shocking pain subsided some and he glanced up to meet his brother's eyes, "I guess they got busy a while with Angel and all, but now I seem to be Public Enemy No.1"
If Wolfram and Hart wanted Lindsey dead, Eliot doubted there was much he could do. Throw an army of regular men at him, and he'd make it through. He could fight with guns, swords, his bare freakin' hands if he had to, it made no difference. This was different, this was spells and magicks, demons and powers the like of which could literally rain hell down on Earth if they chose to make it so. Neither of them stood a chance of living through this, as far as Eliot could tell.
"What do you need me to do?" he asked anyway.
This was his brother, for crying out loud. No matter what he'd done, where he'd been, or who he'd pissed off, Eliot still loved Lindsey, just as he had from the day they were born. If they were going down, it was going to be together, come hell or high water, and they were likely going to have to face both now, and more besides.
Two days ago, Eliot didn't think things could get much worse. Sat in the middle of a crudely drawn pentagram with his twin brother, the smells of black wax and unholy herbs assaulting his nose, he had hoped that was as bad as it would get, but he was so wrong. The only upside to conjuring up long forgotten magicks that Eliot had hoped never have to stumble over Latin for ever again, was that it had cured Lindsey of the inhuman disease that was ripping him apart from the inside out. Of course, it didn't end there, and they both ought to have known it.
Wolfram and Hart had no enemies, because any and all were destroyed the very first chance they got. Nobody was supposed to stand up to them, and those that so much as tried were damned to pay the ultimate price. Angel and his band of merry men had been taken care of first, Lindsey had been certain of it, but now the Senior Partners were gunning for one of their own that had tried to use their knowledge and power against them. He was sentenced to suffer and ultimately die. The lawyer-turned-fighter was damned if he was going down any other way but kicking and screaming, and Eliot was not letting his twin brother take on such wrath alone.
The moment their healing spell was done, and both brothers had been flung to the floor on their backs, an unlikely earthquake had started up. The rumbling was so unusual for the state of Iowa that there was no doubt in either Lindsey or Eliot's mind that they had caused this, that the dark powers that controlled Wolfram and Hart were very displeased to have their plans tampered with again.
They had done all that two humans against such a force could think to do; they ran. With no direction in mind and no shelter to seek, they just did their best to outrun the dark cloud that was ready to strike them down for good.
Two days of panic and darkness had culminated here, out in the wilderness where no reasonable man would ever venture. Hell was raining down on the Spencer brothers, quite literally, as demon foes and dark magick forces conspired to see Lindsey MacDonald brought down for the final time.
"This is insane" Eliot yelled against the ungodly howling and lightning strikes, "We can't out-run this anymore!" he said pointlessly, though his legs still pumped alongside his brothers, feet thudding hard against the ground.
"What choice do we have?" Lindsey asked, wiping blood from his cheek, throwing his arms aloft a moment later, his puny attempt at fighting back lost amongst the onslaught against them.
Ducking behind a group of trees, they narrowly avoided the next blast that struck the ground, making the whole forest floor shake violently.
"I'm sorry, El!" his twin gasped, peeking out from their hiding place just as a further six demons appeared as if from nowhere.
"Don't be sorry" Eliot told him sternly, "Just be alive"
Their eyes met as they both went for the swords at their belts and they appeared either side of the tree, battle-ready. Three demons each might've been easier if they hadn't been awake and fighting for the better part of forty eight hours already, if the wooded area wasn't growing in darkness every second, if Lindsey thought he actually had a life worth fighting for anymore. Glancing at his brother, he realised almost too late that the headless demon Eliot thought was dead was very much alive, and approaching him again from behind, axe swinging.
"Eliot!" he screamed, saving his twins life with a fraction of a second to spare.
His relief at the survival of his brother was short lived when his own adversary took advantage of his lapse in attention. A powerful punch threw him back against a tree, as a bolt of green lightning flew down, passing clean through the fallen man's body.
"Lindsey!" Eliot yelled just as his twin had done moments before in his own name.
He fought with new vigour against the demon before him and dispatched it with ease, turning to take on those that remained. Before he had a chance to fight anymore, the figures of the creatures wavered and then fell, disappearing in so much black vapour.
Without a thought in his head, Eliot ran to his brothers side, looking for any sign of life. He was breathing, only just, but he was, pulse so weak he could barely feel it at his wrist.
"C'mon, Linds, don't do this to me now!" he begged, trying to pick his brother up and will some life into him.
No amount of prayers or pleading were going to help now, no healing spell or magick powers could save him, this Eliot knew as the sky cleared to blue above him. The war was over, the battle won. The Senior Partners had given up and gone because they knew this time they had succeeded - it was done.
Lindsey gasped a painful breath and forced his eyes open.
"El, I'm sorry" he told his brother with the little voice he had left.
"I'm sorry too" Eliot told him, tears falling unchecked from his eyes as he hugged his brother's failing body closer.
"I thought... I could fix it... with you... and her" he gasped out, painfully slowly, a couple of words all he could manage with each shallow breath.
"Don't worry about that now" said Eliot, battling to be strong enough to comfort him, "It's okay"
"Tell Darla... I'm sorry" Lindsey said next, so softly Eliot almost mistook the name for another, but there was no question in his mind who his twin spoke of.
"Darla's gone, Linds" he reminded him, "You mean Parker?" he checked, the confusion in his brother's dying moments not surprising.
An odd frown passed over Lindsey's face then, perhaps a mixture of confusion and pain, Eliot couldn't be sure and hadn't the mind to worry on it.
"She... she wasn't her" his brother gasped out, eyes rolling around in his head as he lost control, consciousness, and life itself, "I'm... sorry"
He was gone at last. Lindsey Spencer, who had masqueraded so long as Lindsey MacDonald was now dead, utterly and completely with no turning back.
His brother Eliot held his body tight to him and looked up to the sky from which hell had rained down just minutes before. In frustration, anger, and pure gut-wrenching sadness, he screamed.
To Be Continued...
