63 Open Tabs Might Be Too Many

"You're going too fast! I haven't even gotten him yet, and you're already here!"

so, we all suffered through ao3’s recent downtime:

so i got curious, because i was bookmarking things when the site went down and wouldn’t it be funny if i was the one who broke it lmao (😔no it wasn’t me but i helped)

https://archiveofourown.org/bookmarks/2147483647 is this

Alec Hardison + conscience & heart of the team

It's Hardison and Parker falling in love, holding on and letting each other go when they need to, growing up together and becoming who they want to be. It's supporting each other when they reach their breaking points, reminding each other to breathe, that they'll be there on the other side, every time.

It's Eliot and Parker understanding each other. It's Parker asking Eliot what he did and Eliot holding his heart out to her and asking her not to ask again because it would break him if he told her. Told them. It's Eliot reminding Parker that being "good" isn't always the best play, that sometimes you need to show your teeth and be ruthless to get everyone home safe.

It's Hardison and Eliot snarking and sniping at each other, both as banter and when something goes wrong. Because, in Eliot's past, when something goes wrong — people get killed. He is an ass and he's hard and he's often mean to Hardison, but it's not without cause and they both know that. They know what's at stake. It's Hardison teasing Eliot, but giving him a space where he can talk (or not talk) and express himself when he needs too.

It's the three of them choosing each other time and again.

For Parker and Hardison it's romantic, yes, but it also goes deeper than that. For Eliot, for all three of them, it's trust. It's having each other's back. It's knowing implicitly that the people beside you would walk through hell and back with you if they had to.

first it was the klingons—they’re originally supposed to be this cruel, bloodthirsty, war-obsessed people—and then tng comes along and it’s like wait no maybe war and violence is a part of their culture and actually ties back to ancient traditions and philosophies so we have to be woke about it.

hey these are the ferengi and they’re supposed to represent everything we hate about capitalist society; they’re greedy, scheming, profit-obsessed, and they look like ugly little trolls to emphasize how much we fucking HATE capitalism. oh wait fuck here comes deep space nine and we have to recognize that they’re PEOPLE. okok what if the pursuit of profit is actually part of their culture and ties back to ancient traditions and philosophies. so we have to be woke about it.

this is the borg, they’re a hivemind race of cyborgs who have no sense of individuality and their only motivation is assimilating people into their society. they want to assimilate humanity and we are completely defenseless against them because their technology is eons ahead of our own and they’re incapable of being reasoned with. oh sweet we have a borg prisoner this is the perfect opportunity to commit genocide against them. fuck actually we can’t commit genocide we’re woke and communists and in space.

hey these are the cardassians, they’re part of a cruel and vicious empire which is supposed to be a representation of fascism and authoritarian regimes, they’re a cold, bloodthirsty people with no sense of empathy or compassion, their society literally references 1984 on multiple occasions, and they’re known for the insanely cruel and inhumane methods of torture they use against their prisoners of war. we hate the cardassians…….. except, here’s a cardassian kid who grew up on bajor, and……. fuck. he’s a person. now we actually have to consider his humanity. and being racist is actually……. bad.

this is the jem’hadar, they’re genetically engineered soldiers who have no sense of individuality and only live to defend the state. they’re all born addicted to a synthetic drug that’s manufactured by the state and administered by their masters—this is how they’re kept subservient. they’re ruthless and powerful and they’re incapable of being reasoned with because their only motivation is violence and killing. so we should kill them all, right? FUCK….. what if they’re actually people. goddamnit. now we have to consider their humanity.

I love Wanted and Most Wanted so much, I really do, and I love everything Peter does to bring Neal home. But it also makes me a little sad because I do really think that if Peter had been able to just let Neal go, he could have stopped running. I don’t think Collins had the skill to find Neal on his own. After all, he only found him because Peter did literally all the leg work for him. Peter was the only one capable of finding Neal like that and if he hadn’t done everything he did, Neal could have lived safely and happily on that island for a long, long time. After all MacLeish lived on that island for years and years with no worries.

Extremely quick lil thing between commissions bc i got high on loustat cocaine

The fact that in Nate's story he spins, Eliot, Hardison, and Parker die holding each other's hands, Eliot not left out of it, that really hits for me (even if that isn't how it played out, that the three of them were never in that van together like that, let alone dying together).

I really enjoy myself an aro Eliot headcanon and I love the idea of a queerplatonic thing going on with the Leverage OT3. So much in The Long Goodbye Job proves that regardless of Hardison and Parker being romantically together, Eliot means just as much to them as they do to each other, and Nate and Sophie both see that.

Nate's telling of the Heist Gone Wrong sees and recognizes how much of a Unit the three of them are, that just bc Parker and Hardison are together romantically, doesn't mean that Eliot doesn't get to hold both their hands at the end too. Sterling has the line of "Does Parker even know that you got Hardison killed?" bc he doesn't recognize that Eliot is just as vital a part of their dynamic. Whereas Nate does. In Nate's telling of their "deaths", Hardison while dying asks if Eliot got out okay, and they take each other's hands. Parker takes Eliot's hand. She dies holding Eliot's hand, not Hardison's, you know? Eliot dies holding both their hands. Nate's story sees them as the unit they are, that Eliot is an intrinsic piece of their relationship to each other. Eliot is the bridge between them as they die in Nate's story, while Sterling only acknowledges Parker's relationship to Hardison in his antagonizing.

At the end of the ep, Sophie says "Promise me, you'll keep them safe" to which Eliot says "Til my dying day." She says it bc she Knows he will. Sophie sees it too, like Nate, just how much of a Unit they are together.

And Nate to Eliot, "You know, Eliot, I'd say call if you need anything. But you never, never need anything." And Eliot's "Yeah, I did. And thanks to you, I don't have to search anymore." Because he knows it too, he needed this work and he needed these people.