No. 108

Prompt: Leverage, Eliot Spencer, a fight that goes badly.
http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/698276.html?thread=92091556#t92091556

Eliot is a damn good fighter. He's been in everything from bare-knuckle dust-ups on the playground to Marquis of Queensbury rules in an old gym while people shouted and money changed hands all around him. He can throw a punch the way Mozart played piano, can turn a guy upside down like he was born with combat in his blood.

He knows he could be smart, but he craves the adrenaline rush of dodging, countering, striking more than he craves that subtle little moment when something finally clicks in his mind.

He's a smart fighter, though. Knows when to avoid a fight, end a fight, start a fight. Knows when he has the advantage or disadvantage, how to trick a guy into giving up his better ground, how to fake weaker or slower than he is to catch a guy by surprised. He knows when he's winning or losing – and that's so rare, and usually only by a hair – and he knows the moment when a fight starts to turn. He knows how to make a fight messy or make it neat, knows how to make a guy remember him or forget him completely.

He's been in so many fights it's like his life is one long blur of battle.

So when this fight happens, he never sees it coming, never sees it go down like this.

"I'm going to serve my country, and you can't stop me," he says, voice low and brutally steady.

His father remains in his favorite chair in front of the TV, hands clasped in his lap, and doesn't look at Eliot. He says, "I know."

No. That's wrong. That isn't how this is supposed to go. He's supposed to tell Eliot to stay, that Eliot is all he has left. He gave two years of his life and a good chunk of his sanity for his country, and he's always warned Eliot not to follow in his footsteps.

He always used to tell Eliot how smart he was, how like his mom he was, how he could be so much better than his old man.

He always used to drink, too, had drunk since the day he got home from Vietnam till the day he married mom till the day he drove mom in the car till the day of her funeral and every day after.

Eliot has tried so hard to make it better. With mom gone, he cooks, he cleans. He barely scrapes by in school so he can get a job and bring in some extra cash. He fixes the car and he fixes the house and he tries to fix his dad but all he can do is fix his dad's nightcap every evening before he falls into bed, and he doesn't know what else to do to fix their family anymore, so he does what he does best – he picks a fight.

He knew all the right things to say, all the right ways to pitch his voice and make his point. And he could see his dad take every hit, every wince and flinch as his words hit home.

But he never saw this fight ending so, so badly.

"I know," his dad says. "So go."

And Eliot, dammit, is a Spencer through and through, so he goes, and he doesn't look back, but till the end of his days, he will never be in a fight that goes as badly as this.