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Seeing Him Now - Leverage and Supernatural - Gen (Eliot Spencer, Sam Winchester) - Words: 2,195
Written for hurt/comfort bingo; Prompt: dungeons
Summary: A chance meeting in a dungeon has a lasting impact on Eliot over the years. Pre-series to present for both Leverage and Supernatural.
Content Notes: None. PG-13
On AO3: Seeing Him Now
Eliot woke to fingers being pressed against his face, his body and head screaming out in pain as he rose to consciousness. One of his hands darted out and he wrapped his fingers tight around the wrist of whoever had been prodding him, intent on proving that it took a lot more than being hit over the head to kill him. When the wrist was smaller then he'd expected and the owner let out a high pitched yelp at being grabbed, Eliot dragged his eyes open and looked up directly into a pair of large hazel eyes that were mostly obscured by long strands of light brown hair .
"I didn't think you were going to wake up," the boy whispered, glancing around before turning back to Eliot. "You've been out for hours and my brother says that could mean you have a concussion."
Eliot released the kid's arm and carefully moved into a sitting position. He took an internal assessment of his injuries, bad but not awful, and a more thorough assessment of his surroundings. It was a fairly standard sized cell, the walls, floor and ceiling all rough stone, with one wall made of thick heavy bars. When he could move he'd go check for loose bars and see if he could pick the lock. If that failed, he'd just have to wait until someone came to get him. He took another glance at the kid who was crouched a few feet away and still watching him apprehensively; he'd have to wait until someone came to get them. Eliot was a lot of things, played a lot of roles that were less than savory, but he wasn't going to leave a kid in a dungeon. That just wasn't done.
"Kid, how long have you been down here?" Eliot asked.
"Sam, my name is Sam," the boy said, inching closer like he wasn't sure if Eliot was going to grab him again. "And I've only been here a day or two. Not long. Dean will come and get me. He's my brother."
Eliot stared for a moment, the throbbing in his head from where he'd been taken down clouding his ability to think things through. He'd been sent to get a book, a simple in and out job where he nabbed the book and gave it back to the idiot who'd hired him. The people who had the book were supposed to just be collectors of arcane and occult books and paraphernalia: nobody had said anything about kids in dungeons.
"What's your name?" Sam asked, getting to his feet and walking towards the back of the cell before picking something up and bringing it back over with him.
"Eliot," he muttered, closing his eyes and reaching up to touch his forehead. He paused when he encountered a piece of fabric over what must have been a pretty decent wound right at the edge of his hairline. The blood had dried and the cloth was stuck on pretty well. "You did this?"
Sam nodded, lifting an arm to show where he'd torn a piece from his sleeve. "You were bleeding a lot. I tried to clean it up the best I could, but I didn't have anything to really bandage it or stitch it up. Do you want something to eat? I'm not sure how well you'll manage if you have a concussion, but you should at least drink some water. When Dean had a concussion he threw up pretty much everything for a few days." He nudged the metal tray across the floor towards Eliot.
Eliot examined the contents, just basic bread and water rations. He wasn't sure that he had a concussion, but he wasn't sure he didn't either. He poured some water from the dented metal pitcher into the small tin cup and drank. It helped a little and Eliot took a good look at Sam. The kid was scrawny with long limbs, like his body had decided to shoot up in height without letting the rest of him know. In the dim light he could make out the edges of bruising around his neck and a split lip. "Dean the one who looks after you?" he asked, both concerned and curious that the kid wasn't freaking out over being kept in a dungeon and had talked about his brother without ever mentioning a parent.
"Yeah, he's always watching after me, but I'm ten now, which is old enough to watch after myself too," Sam said, absently playing with strands of thread from where he'd torn his shirt. After a second he looked up, his eyes wide again as one of his hands popped up to brush his hair away from his eyes. "And Dad too. He takes care of me and Dean. Are you a hunter?"
"A hunter?" Eliot asked, pondering the question. He didn't think the kid meant the normal type of hunting, not from the way he'd said the word. "I guess you could say that."
"My brother is a hunter, and Dad, and me too. Well, I'm almost a hunter, my brother is teaching me," Sam said twisting around and looking out the bars of the cell before taking a quick glance at the tray sitting at Eliot's side.
Eliot nodded noncommittally. "And if your brother, and your Dad, were watching out for you, how'd you wind up down here?" He took one last swallow of the water in the cup and set it back on the tray before pushing the tray back over to Sam.
"Well," Sam paused, his mouth parting slightly as he glanced up.
"Stop right there," Eliot growled. "If you're gonna lie, do it right."
Sam frowned, tucking his knees up to his chest. "Now you sound like Dad."
Eliot snorted, wondering exactly what type of life this kid had. Sam's stomach made a low rumbling sound and Sam ducked his head, obviously embarrassed. "Eat something, you need it."
"I already ate mine, that's yours," Sam said, looking down at the remainder of the bread before looking over to Eliot.
Rolling his eyes, Eliot leaned up and pushed the tray right up to the kid. "Eat, you need it and I'm not in any shape to eat yet anyway."
After a quick glance at Eliot, Sam grabbed one of the pieces of bread and started tearing it into strips before eating.
"You never answered my question, how did you wind up down here?" Eliot asked again, once Sam had eaten.
Sam shrugged, rubbing his hands against his pants. "Wasn't paying attention to where I was going and got grabbed. Dean said they'd want me for a virgin sacrifice, but I'm pretty sure he was just kidding. Besides, they took you, and..." Sam trailed off, and even in the dim light Eliot could see the kid blush.
"Right," Eliot said, not even sure where to start answering that.
Sam sneezed twice, wiping his face against his shoulder, and then yawned. "But Dean will be here soon. He'll get us out."
Getting to his feet, Eliot checked through his pockets and his boots, disappointed that whoever had searched him had done a damn thorough job and hadn't left him anything with which to try and pick a lock. He tested the hinges of the door and the lock itself, but there was no way he was going to be able to do much of anything until someone opened the door from the outside.
Eliot sighed, walking away and sitting so that he was leaning against the wall right next to the back corner. The cool of the concrete on his back and side felt good, but he could feel the chill in the room all too well. Sam kept wrapping his arms around him and moving around like he couldn't get warm, his body and clothes both too thin for him to be able to conserve heat well. "Get over here."
"Why?" Sam asked, getting back to his feet but stopping a few feet away from Eliot.
"Because it's cold down here and we should rest until someone comes for us," Eliot said, shifting until he was as comfortable as he was going to get.
Sam seemed to considering this for a moment before he came over and sat down next to Eliot, mimicking his posture. Eliot threw his arm around Sam's shoulders and waited until Sam relaxed against him. Several minutes later Sam sunk down further and his breathing settled into a slow and steady rhythm. Eliot had never understood how easily kids just dropped off to sleep, but he figured that in this case it could hardly be a bad thing. With his free hand he brushed Sam's hair away from his eyes and settled into half-waiting-half-dozing mode. He was awake enough that he'd be ready as soon as anyone showed up but conserving energy because who know how long that might be. He'd get both of them out, find Sam's brother, and maybe have a word or two with their father about letting his kids run loose when there were people with dungeons around.
*****
12 Years Later
"Are you even listening to me?" Hardison asked from across the table, leaning so that he was in Eliot's frame of vision.
Eliot hit Hardison on the shoulder, not hard enough to actually hurt the man but enough to get him out of his face. "As much as I ever do."
"I thought so. Here I am explaining how this is gonna go down and all you can do is stare out there, probably at some lady you're gonna try and woo, and how is that going to look when Nate comes in here with a client?" Hardison twisted around in his chair to look in the direction Eliot had been staring in for the past half hour. "See, just as I.."
Eliot rolled his eyes at Hardison's trail off and finished the rest of his beer in one swallow.
"You gonna tell me why you're staring at two guys? Not that they aren't attractive, because they are, but-"
Eliot cut off Hardison before he could go any further. "I think I know them."
Hardison stiffened, making an obvious effort not to turn around and look again. "Know them? Like, 'we're here to kill you' know them, or 'we met at a cocktail party' know them?"
Eliot rolled his eyes again, firstly because the two men sitting across the bar were definitely no match for him, and secondly because he never went to cocktail parties unless it was part of a con. "No."
"What then? Do I need to call Nate?" Hardison asked, his hand already wrapped around his cellphone.
"No. I just think I know him. The tall one with long hair. The other guy called him 'Sammy'," Eliot said.
Hardison looked back, his head tipping to the side in open appraisal. "Not bad, not bad at all. The laptop though, that thing is ancient. Like, stone-age."
"Would you stop," Eliot snapped. It had been a long time, a very long time during which the thin scar had been almost completely covered by his hairline, but he had never forgotten the lanky long-haired kid from the dungeon. Eliot had taken out the guards when they'd come to take the kid, and they'd both made it onto the ground floor of the house. He'd taken two seconds to grab the book he'd originally come for, ignoring all the freaky hoodoo stuff that was scattered around the house, and when he'd looked up, Sam had gone. Outside the house, on the back road where he'd left his truck, he'd seen the kid running along side a slightly taller boy. Both of them got into a waiting car, the door slamming loudly and the engine growling as it drove away down the dusty road.
He'd spent a few days looking for Sam before figuring that they'd skipped town. For years, whenever he caught a glimpse of a long-limbed kid with shaggy hair he took another glance, his mental image of the kid evolving as the years went by. The end result, if the man really was him, was pretty close to what he'd imagined. Taller than he'd expected and with more muscles, but the same inquisitive eyes and hair tumbling forward into his face.
The men got to their feet after paying their tab and walked toward the door, the taller one pausing to slip his laptop into a shoulder bag and pull on his jacket. "Dean, wait up," he called, cementing the connection in Eliot's mind.
"You're not going to at least say hello to your mystery man?" Hardison asked, watching Eliot with unhidden curiosity.
"Don't need to," Eliot said, sitting back in his chair as Sam and Dean walked by the table without once glancing his way. Seeing Sam grown up, looking strong and capable, did a lot to ease Eliot's mind about never finding Sam over the years. "Go get me another drink."
"Go get your own drink," Hardison grumbled, already getting to his feet.
Eliot leaned back, listening as the bar door opened, Nate, Sophie and Parker coming in as Sam and Dean went out.
Written for hurt/comfort bingo; Prompt: dungeons
Summary: A chance meeting in a dungeon has a lasting impact on Eliot over the years. Pre-series to present for both Leverage and Supernatural.
Content Notes: None. PG-13
On AO3: Seeing Him Now
Eliot woke to fingers being pressed against his face, his body and head screaming out in pain as he rose to consciousness. One of his hands darted out and he wrapped his fingers tight around the wrist of whoever had been prodding him, intent on proving that it took a lot more than being hit over the head to kill him. When the wrist was smaller then he'd expected and the owner let out a high pitched yelp at being grabbed, Eliot dragged his eyes open and looked up directly into a pair of large hazel eyes that were mostly obscured by long strands of light brown hair .
"I didn't think you were going to wake up," the boy whispered, glancing around before turning back to Eliot. "You've been out for hours and my brother says that could mean you have a concussion."
Eliot released the kid's arm and carefully moved into a sitting position. He took an internal assessment of his injuries, bad but not awful, and a more thorough assessment of his surroundings. It was a fairly standard sized cell, the walls, floor and ceiling all rough stone, with one wall made of thick heavy bars. When he could move he'd go check for loose bars and see if he could pick the lock. If that failed, he'd just have to wait until someone came to get him. He took another glance at the kid who was crouched a few feet away and still watching him apprehensively; he'd have to wait until someone came to get them. Eliot was a lot of things, played a lot of roles that were less than savory, but he wasn't going to leave a kid in a dungeon. That just wasn't done.
"Kid, how long have you been down here?" Eliot asked.
"Sam, my name is Sam," the boy said, inching closer like he wasn't sure if Eliot was going to grab him again. "And I've only been here a day or two. Not long. Dean will come and get me. He's my brother."
Eliot stared for a moment, the throbbing in his head from where he'd been taken down clouding his ability to think things through. He'd been sent to get a book, a simple in and out job where he nabbed the book and gave it back to the idiot who'd hired him. The people who had the book were supposed to just be collectors of arcane and occult books and paraphernalia: nobody had said anything about kids in dungeons.
"What's your name?" Sam asked, getting to his feet and walking towards the back of the cell before picking something up and bringing it back over with him.
"Eliot," he muttered, closing his eyes and reaching up to touch his forehead. He paused when he encountered a piece of fabric over what must have been a pretty decent wound right at the edge of his hairline. The blood had dried and the cloth was stuck on pretty well. "You did this?"
Sam nodded, lifting an arm to show where he'd torn a piece from his sleeve. "You were bleeding a lot. I tried to clean it up the best I could, but I didn't have anything to really bandage it or stitch it up. Do you want something to eat? I'm not sure how well you'll manage if you have a concussion, but you should at least drink some water. When Dean had a concussion he threw up pretty much everything for a few days." He nudged the metal tray across the floor towards Eliot.
Eliot examined the contents, just basic bread and water rations. He wasn't sure that he had a concussion, but he wasn't sure he didn't either. He poured some water from the dented metal pitcher into the small tin cup and drank. It helped a little and Eliot took a good look at Sam. The kid was scrawny with long limbs, like his body had decided to shoot up in height without letting the rest of him know. In the dim light he could make out the edges of bruising around his neck and a split lip. "Dean the one who looks after you?" he asked, both concerned and curious that the kid wasn't freaking out over being kept in a dungeon and had talked about his brother without ever mentioning a parent.
"Yeah, he's always watching after me, but I'm ten now, which is old enough to watch after myself too," Sam said, absently playing with strands of thread from where he'd torn his shirt. After a second he looked up, his eyes wide again as one of his hands popped up to brush his hair away from his eyes. "And Dad too. He takes care of me and Dean. Are you a hunter?"
"A hunter?" Eliot asked, pondering the question. He didn't think the kid meant the normal type of hunting, not from the way he'd said the word. "I guess you could say that."
"My brother is a hunter, and Dad, and me too. Well, I'm almost a hunter, my brother is teaching me," Sam said twisting around and looking out the bars of the cell before taking a quick glance at the tray sitting at Eliot's side.
Eliot nodded noncommittally. "And if your brother, and your Dad, were watching out for you, how'd you wind up down here?" He took one last swallow of the water in the cup and set it back on the tray before pushing the tray back over to Sam.
"Well," Sam paused, his mouth parting slightly as he glanced up.
"Stop right there," Eliot growled. "If you're gonna lie, do it right."
Sam frowned, tucking his knees up to his chest. "Now you sound like Dad."
Eliot snorted, wondering exactly what type of life this kid had. Sam's stomach made a low rumbling sound and Sam ducked his head, obviously embarrassed. "Eat something, you need it."
"I already ate mine, that's yours," Sam said, looking down at the remainder of the bread before looking over to Eliot.
Rolling his eyes, Eliot leaned up and pushed the tray right up to the kid. "Eat, you need it and I'm not in any shape to eat yet anyway."
After a quick glance at Eliot, Sam grabbed one of the pieces of bread and started tearing it into strips before eating.
"You never answered my question, how did you wind up down here?" Eliot asked again, once Sam had eaten.
Sam shrugged, rubbing his hands against his pants. "Wasn't paying attention to where I was going and got grabbed. Dean said they'd want me for a virgin sacrifice, but I'm pretty sure he was just kidding. Besides, they took you, and..." Sam trailed off, and even in the dim light Eliot could see the kid blush.
"Right," Eliot said, not even sure where to start answering that.
Sam sneezed twice, wiping his face against his shoulder, and then yawned. "But Dean will be here soon. He'll get us out."
Getting to his feet, Eliot checked through his pockets and his boots, disappointed that whoever had searched him had done a damn thorough job and hadn't left him anything with which to try and pick a lock. He tested the hinges of the door and the lock itself, but there was no way he was going to be able to do much of anything until someone opened the door from the outside.
Eliot sighed, walking away and sitting so that he was leaning against the wall right next to the back corner. The cool of the concrete on his back and side felt good, but he could feel the chill in the room all too well. Sam kept wrapping his arms around him and moving around like he couldn't get warm, his body and clothes both too thin for him to be able to conserve heat well. "Get over here."
"Why?" Sam asked, getting back to his feet but stopping a few feet away from Eliot.
"Because it's cold down here and we should rest until someone comes for us," Eliot said, shifting until he was as comfortable as he was going to get.
Sam seemed to considering this for a moment before he came over and sat down next to Eliot, mimicking his posture. Eliot threw his arm around Sam's shoulders and waited until Sam relaxed against him. Several minutes later Sam sunk down further and his breathing settled into a slow and steady rhythm. Eliot had never understood how easily kids just dropped off to sleep, but he figured that in this case it could hardly be a bad thing. With his free hand he brushed Sam's hair away from his eyes and settled into half-waiting-half-dozing mode. He was awake enough that he'd be ready as soon as anyone showed up but conserving energy because who know how long that might be. He'd get both of them out, find Sam's brother, and maybe have a word or two with their father about letting his kids run loose when there were people with dungeons around.
12 Years Later
"Are you even listening to me?" Hardison asked from across the table, leaning so that he was in Eliot's frame of vision.
Eliot hit Hardison on the shoulder, not hard enough to actually hurt the man but enough to get him out of his face. "As much as I ever do."
"I thought so. Here I am explaining how this is gonna go down and all you can do is stare out there, probably at some lady you're gonna try and woo, and how is that going to look when Nate comes in here with a client?" Hardison twisted around in his chair to look in the direction Eliot had been staring in for the past half hour. "See, just as I.."
Eliot rolled his eyes at Hardison's trail off and finished the rest of his beer in one swallow.
"You gonna tell me why you're staring at two guys? Not that they aren't attractive, because they are, but-"
Eliot cut off Hardison before he could go any further. "I think I know them."
Hardison stiffened, making an obvious effort not to turn around and look again. "Know them? Like, 'we're here to kill you' know them, or 'we met at a cocktail party' know them?"
Eliot rolled his eyes again, firstly because the two men sitting across the bar were definitely no match for him, and secondly because he never went to cocktail parties unless it was part of a con. "No."
"What then? Do I need to call Nate?" Hardison asked, his hand already wrapped around his cellphone.
"No. I just think I know him. The tall one with long hair. The other guy called him 'Sammy'," Eliot said.
Hardison looked back, his head tipping to the side in open appraisal. "Not bad, not bad at all. The laptop though, that thing is ancient. Like, stone-age."
"Would you stop," Eliot snapped. It had been a long time, a very long time during which the thin scar had been almost completely covered by his hairline, but he had never forgotten the lanky long-haired kid from the dungeon. Eliot had taken out the guards when they'd come to take the kid, and they'd both made it onto the ground floor of the house. He'd taken two seconds to grab the book he'd originally come for, ignoring all the freaky hoodoo stuff that was scattered around the house, and when he'd looked up, Sam had gone. Outside the house, on the back road where he'd left his truck, he'd seen the kid running along side a slightly taller boy. Both of them got into a waiting car, the door slamming loudly and the engine growling as it drove away down the dusty road.
He'd spent a few days looking for Sam before figuring that they'd skipped town. For years, whenever he caught a glimpse of a long-limbed kid with shaggy hair he took another glance, his mental image of the kid evolving as the years went by. The end result, if the man really was him, was pretty close to what he'd imagined. Taller than he'd expected and with more muscles, but the same inquisitive eyes and hair tumbling forward into his face.
The men got to their feet after paying their tab and walked toward the door, the taller one pausing to slip his laptop into a shoulder bag and pull on his jacket. "Dean, wait up," he called, cementing the connection in Eliot's mind.
"You're not going to at least say hello to your mystery man?" Hardison asked, watching Eliot with unhidden curiosity.
"Don't need to," Eliot said, sitting back in his chair as Sam and Dean walked by the table without once glancing his way. Seeing Sam grown up, looking strong and capable, did a lot to ease Eliot's mind about never finding Sam over the years. "Go get me another drink."
"Go get your own drink," Hardison grumbled, already getting to his feet.
Eliot leaned back, listening as the bar door opened, Nate, Sophie and Parker coming in as Sam and Dean went out.
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