Leverage 1. Chapter 1

Title: of thieves and hoards

Disclaimer: not my characters

Warnings: fantasy AU but set in the modern-day

Pairings: Sophie/Nate

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 290

Point of view: third

Prompt: Author's choice, author's choice, "I collect kingdoms. Not really to _do_ anything with them. I just like having them."

* * *

"Well," Nate says, "I must admit, this is perhaps the most interesting hoard I've found." He steeples his fingers, gazing down at the map Sophie's spread across the kitchen table.

"I know that door was locked," Sophie says after recovering from her shock.

Nate smiles. "I knew how to pick locks long before Parker."

Sophie huffs, letting a little smoke out with the sound. "With magic, too, you irritating mage." She deliberately turns her back, rolling the map and sealing it closed again.

"So," Nate says, summoning two mugs of rowan tea, "kingdoms. How many, now?"

With a deep sigh, Sophie accepts the tea. Blasted man, it's the perfect temperature Iand/I her favorite flavor. "Twenty-nine," she admits.

"What will you do with them?" Nate asks, the same tone he uses when commenting that Hardison's spell was just a bit strong, and that Eliot should maybe leave one of the goons conscious to answer questions.

_"Do_ with them?" Sophie repeats. "Why should I do anything with them? I just like having them."

Her cousin Arabella hoards the skeletons of serial killers, and her Great-Aunt Tatiana has the greatest hoard of graveyard dirt the world has ever seen. What is Sophie's modest hoard of kingdoms compared to that? It's not like the mortals even know they belong to a dragon.

"Oh, boy," Nate murmurs.

Parker teleports in, grabs Nate's mug of tea, and teleports back out. Sophie conceals her grin behind her mug and begins plotting on how to get her thirtieth kingdom.

If she pitches it right to Parker, Hardison, and Eliot, they'll even help her steal it. Nate, of course, will have to come along to keep them all out of the kind of trouble that clings to their heels.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: of thieves and hoards

Disclaimer: not my characters

Warnings: fantasy AU but set in the modern-day; references to violence/death

Pairings: Sophie/Nate, Hardison/Parker/Eliot

Rating: PG

Wordcount: 1360

Point of view: third

Prompt: Leverage, any, Reminder: When Parker asks for us to steal a unicorn, DON'T.

* * *

"So, uh, hey," Hardison says, wringing his hands, "you remember when I promised to help Parker steal anything?"

Eliot sighs without looking up. "Yes, Hardison," he says. "I remember."

"Well, her birthday is coming up, and I can't think of anything else to get her, so..."

Sophie and Nate have been gone for eight months, and Eliot's been keeping his mage and elemental safe, no matter how crazy Parker's schemes are. (And, honestly, they're safer than some of Nate's, even though Nate had always made sure his were physically possible for a dragon, two mages, an elemental, and a shifter.)

"What do you want to get her, Hardison?" Eliot asks patiently. He lets only a little growl flavor the words.

He knows he shouldn't be surprised when Hardison admits, "A unicorn." He is anyway.

.

After the second time everyone split up and got back together, Parker had suggested stealing a unicorn.

"Oh, I'm sorry, sweetie," Sophie had said, reaching out to pat Parker's arm, "but unicorns are impossible to find unless they want to be found."

In all of Eliot's memory, he's only ever come across a unicorn once. He was dying in the desert, back in his first life, and the unicorn had knelt beside him and healed him with a touch of her golden horn. She'd risen and the very air sang around her as a pool of water appeared at her feet, a pool of clean water for him to drink.

Eliot never told anyone how he survived the betrayal that killed his whole pack. He knew, though, that there as a tiny golden mark at the spot where she touched him.

"But I want a unicorn," Parker said, pouting and crossing her arms. When even Nate and Hardison, though, had said it couldn't be done, Parker finally let it go.

.

A dragon, a technomage, an illusionist, an air elemental, and a shifter band together to rob the rich in vengeance for the poor –

"They'll write songs about us someday," Sophie had mused once, as she individually shifted each of her human fingernails into her dragonclaws so she could paint them.

There are already songs about Eliot. He doesn't mention them.

.

Since his pack died, his brothers united by the flag on their uniforms and the blood they shed and the secrets they shared, Eliot had worked alone. He trusted Nate about as much as he could trust anyone; before long, though, as all their scents mingled, as Parker fell asleep curled up next to him and Hardison chattered on about impulse magic, as Sophie asked his opinion on the safety of various kingdoms, as Nate relied on him to protect them all –

It hurt when he learned that Sophie conned them all. He gave her a second chance, though. That, more than anything else, showed him how much these people changed him.

.

There are things Eliot never says. There are shapes he once swore he would never take again.

In the desert, before the unicorn – Eliot was dying as a shadowhound, just like his pack. They were in a country they shouldn't have been in, on a mission that wasn't recorded, and when things went bad, there was no rescue. Eliot was meant to die with his brothers. The unicorn chose to save him and no one else. He hates himself for it, and he still doesn't know why.

His favorite shape has always been the puma, quick and quiet. He knows, though, that the shadowhound, his first, will always be his most powerful.

While Nate was getting their blackmailer out of the warehouse, as Moreau's pack of killers and monsters lined themselves up – vampires and wolf shifters, an elf and centaur, and three battle mages.

Eliot's pack had been assembled because each of them was unique. Three of them could shift between human and shadowhound but nothing else; two of them could assume forms for only a little while, but with Eliot's help, they learned the shadowhound.

Just like unicorns, shadowhounds are rare. Eliot was born one and shifted into other forms as easy as breathing. He went nearly twenty years without wearing his birth shape.

In the killbox, he melted into the shadows and howled.

.

Another name for shadowhound is hellhound.

.

"And how do you expect to get her a unicorn?" Eliot asks, looking away from his book.

"Please help me," Hardison begs, trying his best to give Eliot sadface puppy eyes (as Parker calls them). "Eliot, you're my only hope."

Eliot sighs. The golden spot where he was once gutshot tingles whenever he gets close to a unicorn's territory; it has tingled four times in twenty years.

"I'll think about it," he tells Hardison, looking down at his book.

.

At midnight, Eliot leaves their bed. Parker is curled up and floating just off the blanket; Hardison is spread out and taking up too much space. There are layers of protection spells seeped into the wall and floor, and only one of them or Sophie and Nate can enter the door and live. Eliot had made sure to tell them all that as explicitly as he could because this is his den.

He looks back at them, his two mates, and then he shifts, melts into the shadows, and heads west.

.

There are fewer unicorns in the world than there were once. Magic is not lesser, but the world is smaller than it was. Some of the ancient species took on human form and never returned, their blood slowly diluting as it mingled with humans.

Sophie is not the only dragon Eliot has met, but she is the only one that can resume dragon form when she wants.

"You are touched by the light, yet within you dwell shadows," Eliot hears as he steps into the moonlight. He lowers himself to the dirt, holding back a whine. "Do not fear, little hound," the voice continues, coming from everywhere at once. "I see what my kin saw."

Eliot shifts into his human form, daring to glance up. The unicorn in the desert was golden; this one is blood-red. "I have a boon to ask, my lord," Eliot murmurs, lowering his gaze.

The unicorn laughs. "I am no longer a lord," he says. "But I will listen."

.

On Parker's birthday, before she heads downstairs to where Hardison is trying (and failing) to make her favorite foods, Eliot says, "You know that you can't steal a unicorn, right? They belong to themselves."

Parker looks at him for a moment before nodding and saying seriously, "I know. I just wanna meet one, once." She shrugs.

Eliot doesn't know how old she is. Hardison's almost thirty; Eliot himself is nearing 40, though his body doesn't quite show it. He hasn't slowed down at all and knows he never will. Whether that's his own magic or the unicorn's gift, he's not sure.

There is much the world owes Parker. It's a debt that will never paid. But Eliot can give her this.

"Tonight," he says. "Me, you, and Hardison. We'll meet some unicorns."

She's an air elemental. He really should have expected the resultant explosion.

.

Even though they are both powerful and the best thieves in the world, Parker and Hardison will never be able to find their way back to the unicorn's glen. The red unicorn, a silver one, and a tiny little ebony one with a glowing white horn wait for them.

Parker's speechless. Hardison's not. The little one nudges at Hardison's hip, babbling in something Eliot can hear but the other two can't, and the silver unicorn laughs delightedly.

This isn't a favor that the red unicorn will call in one day. Just like the golden unicorn once gave him, it is a gift, and Eliot, as sincere as he can be, says, "Thank you."

He watches Parker gently wrap her arms around the silver unicorn, burying her face in that silk mane, while Hardison chatters at the baby. This is his pack. He knows that one day, he will die for them.

"Are you happy, little hound?" the red unicorn asks, standing beside him as they watch their families.

"I am," Eliot answers, laughing as the little unicorn knocks Hardison onto his ass.


End file.

Leverage