The Dead Man and His Twin (Leverage and Librarians)
For once, everything in the world seemed to settle down. There weren't any people that desperately needed saving. No wealthy but currupted business folk that needed knocked down a few pegs. Not even anything weird or just plain hinky going on.
Eliot Spencer didn't trust the day at all.
He was working with the last of kitchen staff after the dinner rush, Parker and Hardison both tucked in a booth by the door, and Sophie and Nate were --at his last check in at least-- quietly conspiring at the end of the Brewpub's bar. Everything was calm and together and not blowing up, yet Eliot couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was on its way (it was a very distinctive feeling).
Terrible walked into his pub ten minutes before closing.
The door chimed open, and Eliot heard the chatter between hacker and thief pause for a beat before Parker loudly called out, "Hey Eliot!"
With a sigh Eliot snagged a dish towel on his way out to the bar, drying his hands and wondering what Parker could possibly want with him. Somehow he didn't notice how quiet everything had gotten. Not until he was through the kitchen door and looking up from his hands and surveying the place purely on instinct and-
And stopped dead in his tracks as his eyes locked with an almost identical pair. Suddenly, he wasn't the thirty-one year old hitter, retrieval specialist, killer, or ex-solider. Suddenly he was an eighteen year old kid again, bag on his shoulder and tears burning behind his eyes and his mirror image standing firm in the doorway to try to stop him from running. Suddenly, Eliot felt his world crumble around his as the anger sparked deep in those familiar and foreign blue eyes.
"You better be a doppelganger or so help me I will kill you myself." The silence shattered and everyone, including the redheaded woman and Asian man who came in with him, stared at the man. Eliot flinched, and the action only seemed to spur the other on. "We got a flag, Eliot. A flag. Had a funeral with an empty casket because they said there wasn't enough left to bury and your CO personally gave me your dog tags and you say something right now before I do something real stupid, E."
Tense silence followed, and Eliot brushed his hair out of his face with shaking hands. He was distantly aware of everyone watching him, but he couldn't focus on anything besides the man in front of him. He looked so different than Eliot last remembered. Wore their age better. Didn't have the world weary look or hard jaded edges Eliot had earned through their decade and change apart. They weren't mirror images of each other like before. And now Eliot couldn't think of anything to say besides, "You've gotten a helluva lot more grown Jake." It wasn't the right thing. Wasn't the 'I'm sorry' or 'Forgive me' or any of the other thoughts swirling madly through his head in a storm. Jake was always the better with words out of the pair, always the one Eliot could rely on to say what he couldn't, but now Eliot couldn't lean on him for the words and had already spoken and-
Jake's eyes burned with cold fury and between one second and the next he was gone, the two with him following through the slamming door as Eliot watched helplessly. Numbly. He could hear Nate dismissing the last of the staff, hear Hardison lock the front door. It was all smothered and faraway. Not important after what he'd just heard and said and didn't say. He wanted to run out into the street and go find Jake but his feet weren't moving and what would he try to tell the man anyway?
Parker was there, sitting on the damn bar top like he told her not to do all the time and her eyes finding his. Eliot flinched back, knowing he'd aided in shattering some of the innocence that was no longer in Jake's eyes and scared he'd do the same to Parker. Instead he looked down to the tiled floor, listening as the rest of the crew settled around him.
Nate, always the leader and never one to deal with bullshit, asked the most obvious question in a tone like he was asking about the weather and not something that was destroying Eliot. "Who was that?"
Who was that? Damn good question that Eliot struggled to find words for. Honestly the man was a stranger, a ghost from his past that Eliot left behind almost fourteen years ago deep in Oklahoma. What could he say about the man? Truthfully?
"That was Jake," he finally admitted, turning over the memories like a heavy stone in his heart he hadn't touched in a while. Brushing off the dirt and dust, remembering all the laughs and smiles and backyard brawls more fun than harmful. All the times they'd mess with people by dressing the same. All the nights spent watching each other's backs as Jake read his art books or Eliot plucked at a guitar or did anything else Pops didn't like. All the times they stood together to take a beating they earned or didn't or that was aimed at someone else. All the times they'd patch each other up after. Eliot swallowed, the stone only getting heavier as he remembered seeing the hope fade from Jake's eyes as he pushed past him through the door that last time. "He's.... He's my brother. My twin brother." Older by seven minutes, but always littler in Eliot's mind.
The room seemed to hold its breath for several long beats, each of his teammates --his family-- processing what exactly Eliot had said and what it meant. Not surprising, Parker was the first to speak.
"So what are we waiting for?" She hopped off the counter, Eliot finally looking up and shocked at her open expression of acceptance. "Let's go. We have an Eliot-clone to steal."
Eliot didn't feel like telling her that wasn't exactly how twins worked, but he felt himself smile just a bit and think that maybe, just maybe, Jake would come back. And maybe when he did, Eliot would be able to find the words to keep him there.