Title: We belong together like the open seas and shores
Fandom: "Leverage"/"Angel the Series" crossover
Disclaimer: not my characters; just for fun. Title from Daughtry.
Warnings: spoilers for Ats; AU for AtS season five
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 715
Point of view: third
Notes: not in chronological order
You gonna go after Wolfram and Hart? Lindsey asks from the mirror.
And Eliot answers, Someday.
o0o
They'd been best friends, growing up, identical twins with dirt-poor parents, two older brothers and a sister four years after.
Only Eliot and their sister are still alive.
o0o
It wasn't your fault, Lindsey tells him when nightmares wake him up gasping. I wanted out. You didn't chase me away.
I didn't chase after you, either, Eliot says, and doesn't sleep for the rest of the night.
o0o
Lindsey got the brains and Eliot got the brawns—that's what their eldest brother used to say. Lindsey spent all his time studying, had the highest grades in their year all the way to graduation. Eliot got in daily fights and only learned when Lindsey made his brother quiz him.
Lindsey graduated at the top of their class, with grades perfect enough for Wolfram and Hart to come calling. Eliot barely graduated at all.
o0o
I need to know you forgive me, Lindsey whispers. That's the only way I can move on.
Eliot doesn't say a thing.
o0o
They saw each other sporadically over the years, with random phone calls in-between. Lindsey was an up-and-coming lawyer, while Eliot floundered. And then Eliot fell into the underbelly of society and found his calling.
Lindsey had always been driven to be the best, to shine, to rise above all the rest. Eliot finally realized how that felt and he rose through the ranks swiftly, the jack of all trades in retrieving or assassinating. Lindsey once asked his brother where he was going; Eliot choked on a laugh and rumbled out, Hell.
o0o
They're good people, Lindsey says. I'm glad you've fallen in with them.
Eliot nods, but replies, Not as good as you'da been.
o0o
Lindsey never said goodbye. He said he had some loose ends to tie up in LA and he'd be back in three weeks.
Eliot had a job in Moscow. He was a world away when he heard Lindsey scream and then—nothing.
o0o
Eliot, Lindsey murmurs sometimes, turn left. Or Not that way. Or Bad guy, duck! Before Lindsey died, Eliot had been a kick-ass fighter, but after? No one could get the drop on him.
He'd trade the reputation and prowess in less than a heartbeat to have his brother breathing again.
o0o
Eliot spent a month at his little sister's home in Oklahoma City. She was the only family he had left. Her twin daughters were six and little boy eight. He took a break from retrieving to look after them and feel like a real person again.
It didn't work. He only felt alive when he was breaking bones or making people bleed, and that didn't worry him as much as it should. So he kissed his sister and the kiddos goodbye and vanished back into the underbelly of society, never pausing or resting, searching for something that died in Los Angeles when he wasn't looking.
o0o
You're gonna get yourself killed, Lindsey yells in the middle of a brawl. He's been dead for three years and Eliot doesn't look over, just ducks a punch and kicks some poor bastard in the ribs.
Fuck you, Lindsey snarls. Eliot takes a hit in the face and keeps smiling.
o0o
After they had make-up sex years too late, Aimee said, "I heard about your twin. I'm sorry."
Eliot pretended to be asleep.
o0o
Forgive me, Lindsey begs. El, come on. It's been four years. Let me go.
No, Eliot says.
o0o
Lindsey's middle name had been Spencer. Growing up, his hair had always been a wild tangle until high-school, when he cut it to look more respectable.
They'd both loved horses. Never felt as free as on the back of a horse.
o0o
Devereaux suspects there's more to you than breaking faces, Lindsey whispers. Hardison looked into your background. Ford's heard about you beyond what your file says. And Parker—man, she's twenty pounds of crazy in a five-pound bag.
Don't worry 'bout me, Linny, Eliot says. The only person I trust is dead.
o0o
Eliot was never a team player. He couldn't trust anyone—a character flaw, Dad said. Mom said it was smart.
Lindsey, though, didn't just play on a team. He led it.
o0o
You gonna go after Wolfram and Hart? Lindsey asks from the mirror.
And Eliot answers, Today.