I do not own Leverage. If I did, I would've been able to watch Redemption.


When Eliot reached adulthood, he had had two career options: become a blacksmith like his father or join the king's army. What he had really wanted in life was to have become a baker, but he had known that wasn't a feasible option for him, and neither was the quickly abandoned dream of ever making it as a bard. And so, with only half the patriotism and loyalty as some of the other recruits he trained with, Eliot joined the army.

That was half his life ago, and Eliot found he couldn't go too long without once again wondering if he made the right choice. However, as he rose through the ranks, he thought about it less and less. He was good at his job, after all.

And then he was assigned as the bodyguard to the court wizard, Sir Alec of Hardison, and Eliot found himself constantly wondering if this was worth it all over again. The court wizard's tower was a mess of orange potion bottles and parchment scraps, and more than once Alec's familiar Lucille had burped embers into Eliot's path. Really, the dragon was more of a spoiled pet than anything else.

Alec was smart; he had to be since he was self-taught and raised as much a commoner as Eliot was. He was also a smart-ass among other things, and because of that Alec had made many an enemy, likely ranging in the thousands. However, only three had ever sent assassins after him. Two of the sets of assassins had been sent years ago, and they had been caught by the protective wards set around the court wizard's tower.

But a month ago, Alec and Lucille were nearly killed by assassins who had been cloaked and armored by chaos magic, and Eliot had been reassigned from teaching to a bodyguard position. Even though Eliot's current charge was years older than his former students, this felt more like being a babysitter than his former position.

Well, teaching was teaching. Eliot took the knife off of his belt – sheathed, of course, he wasn't going to actually try to kill his charge – and walked in Alec's direction, making sure to telegraph his movements. Eliot was a foot and a half away when Alec finally noticed.

"What the hell?" Alec shouted, scrambling back. "Is this payback for last week's potion bottle incident?"

Well, maybe it was a little. But that wasn't the main reason.

"Today, I'm going to teach you how to disarm someone with a knife."

"Right, right. I can already do that though." Alec waved his hand, and Eliot had to grip his knife with both hands to avoid it being flung away from him by magic. Thankfully, he had fought more intimidating wizards in the past.

"Your magic doesn't work on chaos enchantments, though. So, you're going to learn to do this the hard way."

"I mean, I don't see why I have to defend myself the hard way, not when I have you to protect me and Lucille."

"Yes, and protecting you includes making sure you can protect yourself. Besides, what if I get incapacitated?"

Alec frowned. "I… fine. But you'll go easy on me, right?"

"No. If more assassins come after you they won't go easy on you." Eliot sighed. "But the worst that will happen to you from this training is extremely mild bruising."