Title: give the devil his due

Fandom: Angel the Series/Leverage

Disclaimer: not my characters

Warnings: mostly preseries

Pairings: none

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 425

Point of view: third

Prompt: Ats/Leverage, Lindsey, Eliot; fist fights and blood brothers.

Eliot hung out with the punks while Lindsey studied, determined to get far enough away to no longer be one of the hick trailer-trash McDonald boys.

Eliot was the trouble-maker, detention every week, barely passing (and even then, everyone knew it was only because of his brother; Lindsey knew it was just because school bored him even though he's plenty smart).

Most of the bullies left Lindsey alone, usually because of his brother, but also because he could talk rings around them until they didn't even remember what he'd done to annoy them in the first place. It helped, too, that while he didn't fight as much as Eliot, he could. A couple football players learned that their freshman year.

But then, their junior year, this new kid transferred in, some big-time jock who'd lead the football team to major victory. Problem was, he was dumber than a stump, and so Lindsey got tapped to tutor him.

Lindsey couldn't care less about football if he tried, and the jock didn't care about studying or raising his grades, but he needed to at least pass.

After three days, the jock just told Lindsey to take the tests for him, to do the homework for him, so that he got more time on the field.

The teachers wouldn't care, the jock said, and the bitch of it was, Lindsey knew that.

All the same, he refused.

(It wasn't so much his principles, just the jock's tone and attitude.)

And when the jock's grades sank even lower and he couldn't play the final game, so they lost... well, no one liked that, except Lindsey 'cause that was the bastard's due.

So the football team waited for Lindsey on the walk home, and a chill wind was blowing, and when the jock who refused to even try lunged for him, Lindsey didn't stand there and take it.

His brother rushed up and they fought back-to-back, and it wasn't exactly a victory, or even a draw—

But some of those kids never played football again.

And years later, when Lindsey turned his back on Wolfram and Hart because he finally found principles and Eliot joined up with a group that did the right thing instead of what was easy, and Lindsey finally found his way home to his brother, it felt like when they stood in the middle of a pissed-off football team, them against the world.

Except, this time, the white hats wouldn't betray their allies at the final hour, and Eliot said, "'bout time you showed up, Linny."