Leverage, Eliot, (m)

[Teacups]

Leverage fic with Eliot sneezing there's not enough Leverage fic. so I wrote my own and here it is, my first sneezefic! It's Eliot/Parker/Hardison, but there's not really any stuff in it except the sneezing of Eliot.

“...and this is Mr. Obersach, he's the PA and probably our b-”

Nate jumps as Eliot cuts off Hardison's briefing with a sneeze. The man's right next to him on the couch, and the sneeze is, as with everything related to Eliot, kind of violent.

“Bless you,” Sophie says.

“Wow,” Parker says, looking admiring.

Eliot rubs his nose, sniffing, and waves Hardison on.

“Okay,” Hardison says, still looking surprised, “Obersach's the guy we're gonna con, basically. Nate?”

“That's it?” Sophie asks, “no winding explanation of how you came across this and how brilliant you are?”

“Hey, no need to be sarcastic and mean just because Eliot's bein' quite,” Hardison says, throwing himself onto the sofa on Eliot's other side.

“Shut up, Hardison,” Eliot mutters.

Nate gets up and waves at them all to shut up.

“What we're gonna do is make Obersach-” Nate stops.

He'd looked at Eliot, and Eliot's head's tipped back, face a picture of attempted control. Nate waits.

“HAAaeesh!” Eliot sneezes, one syllable, harsh, into his elbow.

“Jesus,” Hardison says, passing him a box of tissues, “you don't do anything by halves.”

“Shu' up,” Eliot mutters.

“Why're you sneezin, anyway? You getting sick, man?” Hardison asks.

He reaches out, as if to touch Eliot's forehead, and Eliot slaps him away with a glare, turning to face him, mouth open to yell.

“HAAAASH!” Eliot says, sneezing instead, right into Hardison's shocked face.

“Maybe we could continue the briefing?” Nate suggests.

“He just sneezed on me!” Hardison yells, jumping to his feet and grabbing back the tissue box, tugging some out before throwing it at Eliot's head and running for the bathroom.

Parker takes his place, her eternal curiosity firmly in place in her expression. Nate thinks about telling her to move, but decides to wait until she does whatever it is she's planning. For all he knows, it might be something nice, or helpful.

“We're going to con Obersach into conning his boss, right?” Sophie says, examining the screen behind Nate.

“Into selling Lucille Severeign the idea, yes,” Nate says.

“Let's not call her that, okay?” Hardison says, coming back from the bathroom, damp faced, “Lucille doesn't need to be contaminated by her”

“Shut up about your car, Hardison! No one cares about the stupid van, can we move on, already?” Eliot says.

He sounds congested. Nate frowns, wondering if he is sick afterall. Three sneezes don't necessarily indicate it, but the congestion, and the slumped shoulders, and the irritability. Okay, the last is just Eliot. And he has been kind of quiet this morning, Hardison's right. Nate blinks and looks up, back at the others. Hardison and Eliot are bickering, Eliot throwing screwed up balls of tissue at Hardison's head and threatening to do the same with the ones he's used. Parker's giving Eliot one of her calculating looks. Sophie's texting.

“Okay, guys, let's remember that we're here to work, hmm?” Nate says, “let's focus, people.”

Parker finally decides what to do. She pokes Eliot's nose, then runs a finger down it.

“Wha- what are you doin;?” Eliot growls, turning on her.

“Eliot!” Hardison yells.

Eliot catches the water bottle Hardison just threw at his head out of the air and glowers, at Parker, then at Hardison, then at Nate. Nate holds up his hands. It's not like he can control any of this, and anyway, it's Eliot's fault for being disruptive. Even if involuntarily. Parker pokes Eliot's nose again, and Eliot catches her hand.

“Stop. What?” Eliot says, voice gravelly.

Is that from a cold, Nate wonders, or just because he's annoyed?

“I want you to sneeze again,” Parker says, “that works on Hardison.”

“Why do you make Hardison sneeze?” Eliot says.

It's been a while since Nate heard that tone of utter bafflement when Eliot talked to Parker.

“Not on purpose,” Parker says, freeing her hand and nudging Eliot's nose with her thumb.

Eliot snaps forward, sneezing violently at the floor. He does it three times in quick succession, hands on his knees, then sits up and pulls out a handful of tissues.

“Did you get snot on the floor?” Hardison asks.

“Alright!” Nate yells into the chaos, “enough. Enough, that's enough. We're going to take a break, come back to this this evening, when you're al....”

He waves a hand about to explain what they all are, then he walks over to Sophie. She looks up at him and smiles.

“Hey,” she says, “are they finished?”

“No,” Nate says, gesturing to where Eliot's holding Parker's hands against the back of the couch and Hardison's hitting him over the head with the tissue box, “breakfast?”

“Hmm. Ohh! Take me to that little cafe that's tucked away by the water and buy me waffles.”

They walk out arm in arm, leaving the others to their tiff.

**

“HARRSHOOO! HARSHOOOOO!”

“Bless you, man,” Hardison says.

Eliot grunts. They're sat in a row, all three of them slumped into the sofa. Eliot's cradling the tissue box in his lap. Parker and Hardison had had a conversation via looks and decided maybe they should leave the man alone, so here they are.

“Where's Nate?” Eliot mutters, blowing his nose for the millionth time.

It's gone reddish, flush spreading over the tops of his cheeks, too. He looks utterly miserable, nose twitching and nostrils fluttering desperately with his hitched breathing.

“Took Sophie to breakfast,” Hardison says.

“We got rid of them,” Parker adds, happily, “can I make you sneeze, now?”

“No.”

“What's with that, anyway?” Hardison asks, “dust?”

Eliot grunts and shakes his head, then groans.

“He's not allergic to dust,” Parker says, “you are. Eliot's not allergic to anything, and he never gets sick. It's a mystery!”

“No it aint,” Eliot says, “It's nothing.”

Hardison winces as Eliot's nose refutes that. Eliot scrunches his face, but there's no stopping it. It comes out half stifled, mouth clenched tight shut, nostrils wide. Hardison's really, really glad that Eliot catches most of the snot in the tissues.

“That's so gross,” Parker says, admiringly.

Eliot's mouth is hanging open, nostrils still flared, eyes squinched. They all wait. Eliot gasps, right on the edge, then again, chest jerking, but no sneeze.

“You can poke his nose,” Hardison tells Parker. Parker does so with enthusiasm, and Eliot explodes. Hardison blinks. Gone are the giant eruptions of a few moments previous, and in their place are quick, harsh bursts, huge puffs of air one after another, rapid and unstopable.

“Wow,” Hardison says, pulling out a new handful of tissues and passing them over to Eliot, “that's allergies. You ever sneeze like this before, man?”

Eliot gasps for breath and gives a final sneeze, another giant Hashoo, then burries his face in the tissues, shaking his head.

“I'm gonna get you some water and antihistamines,” Hardison says, getting up and rummaging through his own personal supplies.

Eliot has another fit of the rapid sneezes on the sofa and then yells at Parker for poking his nose. Hardison grins and grabs a bottle of water from the fridge before heading back, wriggling himself in between Parker and Eliot.

“Tha'ks,” Eliot mutters, tissues held around his nose, congestion losing his 'n's.

“The pills should help you stop sneezing, maybe we can work out what you're allergic to?”

“He's probably allergic to you, Alec,” Parker says, grinning, “it got worse when you moved over here.”

Eliot gives a single, violent sneeze into the tissues, bending over his own knees.

“Bless,” Hardison says absently, charting what he's wearing that's different, today, just in case Parker's right.

“Are you alright, Eliot?” Parker asks.

Hardison looks over and sees Eliot hasn't straightened up.

“Yeah,” Eliot says, voice hoarse, sitting back against the cushions, “tired 'a this.”

“Maybe now you'll have some sympathy, hmm? Maybe this is Karma, and I should leave it to have it's way with you.”

“Eliot sneezes much louder than you, Hardison,” Parker says, poking Hardison's nose.

“Stop it, woman!” Hardison says.

She doesn't, so Hardison attempts to tickle her and ends up on the floor, her thigh across his wind pipe, arm caught up his back.

“Let me go!” Hardison yells, laughing as her fingers find the ticklish spots.

“Say mercy,” Parker yells back, “and say that I'm right and Eliot's allergic to y-”

Eliot cuts her off with another monstrous sneeze and Parker bounces off the floor to pat his head, then she crouches, cradling Eliot's face.

“Are you alright?” she asks.

Eliot looks blurry and tired. Hardison can see why she's worried.

“It's slowin' up a bit,” Eliot says.

“Go take a shower,” Hardison says, “then I'll shower and change. Maybe it is me.”

Eliot staggers up from the couch and wanders out. They can hear him sneezing over the sound of the water upstairs.

**

Parker watches Eliot sleep. It's a strange thing, to see the man so slack when he's usually so intense and animated. Even tired, Eliot's burning with something. Usually irritation. Right now he's sacked out on the couch, head on her thigh. Hardison comes out of the bathroom in Nate's shirt and a pair of sweats that Eliot carries everywhere with him.

“How's he?” Hardison asks, coming over.

“Fine. Napping,” Parker says, tugging Hardison closer so she can do the buttons on his shirt for him, because his skin's nice to touch, “work out what made him sneeze?”

“Maybe. I ran across a stray cat this morning, and fed her. Maybe her dander.”

“Oh. I've never seen Eliot round cats. Surely he'd know that, though?”

“Probably. Oh, gross, his nose is leaking on you.”

Hardison shoves a bunch of tissues between Eliot's nose and her thigh. Not that she minds, she's had worse than snot on her clothes. She supposes it's probably for the best, though.

“Think Nate and Sophie will come back from breakfast soon?” she asks.

“Nope,” Hardison says, sitting on the arm of the sofa to pull on socks before switching the screens from con to TV.

Eliot dozes for half an hour before waking up. He sits up, startled by the explosion on the screen, and tissues stick to his cheek.

“That's disgusting,” Hardison says.

Parker peels them off for him and offers him fresh ones. Even she has to agree with Hardison when Eliot blows his nose- gross. She laughs and slumps back on the sofa, slouching as much as she can. Eliot sniffs a couple times, then sits against her side. Hardison gets off his spot on the floor and sits the other side.

“Better?” Hardison asks.

“Yeah, better. What are you doing with cats, Hardison?”

“Ha!” Parker says, “told you he knew!”

“Hassshooo!” Eliot says.

It's not half as violent as earlier, but it still jerks his body forwards and he ends up leaning into Hardison's shoulder.

“Bless you,” Parker says.

[tarotgal]

I've never read Leverage fanfic before, but I'm so glad I read this one. I haven't watched the show in years, but the dynamics of the characters all came flooding right back to me thanks to your great characterizations and dialogue. I loved Hardison's repulsion and kindness mixed together. Eliot's sneezes were awesome--I love how exhausted he gets from them. And his nose running even as he's sleeping--awww. Great dynamics and great fic!

[weepy]

Ahh, I'm with tarot gal on this one, this brought back so many fond feelings! I loved reading this, thank you so much!