#spencersaturday
This is a crossover scene, two scenes technically, that I wrote a while back, between watching Leverage and The Librarian movies and watching The Librarians show, and polished up for Character Appreciation Week. It is not canon compatible for… reasons. If you’ve seen The Librarians you know why. If not I won’t spoil it. (And if you like Eliot enough to be reading fanfiction about him, you should definitely go watch The Librarians, if only for Jake Stone.) Basically it’s anEliot appreciation piece because… actually I think “because he is Eliot” pretty much covers it. There are vague spoilers for both stories here, but nothing overly specific.
(When the rest of the team is in danger, Eliot needs to use Excalibur to save them.)
Eliot stared at the sword lodged in the stone for a long moment. He was the only one of the team that hadn’t tried, and failed, to pull it out earlier.
“The way I see it,” he said finally “you have a personality, at least with Flynn, so I think you got at least some say in who uses you. It didn’t matter before because only the worthy can wield you. I’m sittin’ here bearin’ my soul to a sword so it’s possible I’m crazier than Parker, but I’m not that crazy. I’m not under the delusion that I’m worthy. But the people I’m goin’ to save are. They’re the worthiest part of me and I need… I need your help gettin’ ‘em back. So please,help me save them, just this once.”
He reached out hesitantly and the sword sprung a few inches into his hand of its own volition.
(Later. Team rescued, disaster averted, ancient mummy re-killed, day saved. So probably quite a bit later.)
As soon as they were back in the library, Eliot removed Excalibur from its scabbard and returned it reverently to the stone. He laid it flat and the sword whipped into the air and landed point don, imbedded in the rock.
“You used Cal?!” Flynn asked, sounding impressed. It took a lot to impress someone who retrieved the Spear of Destiny his first week on the job, and has been doing the job for over a decade.
“One time deal,” he said. He could have sworn he heard Parker snort with laughter, but that was Parker, she sometimes laughed at strange things. “It’s not like I can pull the sword from the stone,” he elaborated. “He just agreed to help me save them.” He nodded over his shoulder at Parker, investigating the real Mona Lisa and seamed suspiciously fixated on its frame, and Hardison, who had already put on the jetpack and glanced sheepishly over at Eliot and Flynn when he realized he had been caught.
“Well, don’t stop on my account,” Flynn said to Hardison. He then spun on his heels to speak to Parker. “You, please do stop on my account. That painting is not to be stolen. Well, technically I suppose it’s already been stolen. I’m sure your thiefly skills are to the task, but are you up to the task of not having your life sapped by its hypnotic gaze?”
“You really don’t get it,” Charlene said. “Sometimes Excalibur fights for other people. You should have seen him when the Spider Triad tried to kidnap Flynn. But no matter how important the job, and we’ve had some doozies, he only lets people he considers worthy actually wield him.”
“Apparently that includes you,” Flynn confirmed.
“That’s… I’m sure there’s a mistake,” Eliot insisted.
“See,” Parker said. She had abandoned her investigation into the real Mona Lisa and bounced over to his side. “I keep telling you we aren’t the only ones who like you.”
“But… you couldn’t draw the sword,” Eliot said. “Neither could Hardison.” Hardison hovered over on the jetpack. Flynn stared at him in amazement.
“Oh that,” Parker said dismissively. “I was gonna steal it. I was gonna give it back,” she added quickly. “One of the good guys now and all. But imagine the bragging rights for the thief who managed to steal the sword from thestone. Unfortunately Excalibur has a pretty unbeatable security system.” She sighed and looked a tiny bit pouty.
“I kinda tried to hack the system,” Hardison admitted. “There’s a pair of Arthur’s gloves a few rows over. I thought I could trick the sword into thinking I was him, like a magic fingerprint scanner. I mean, its Excalibur. That’s like the Holy Grail for anybody who grew up on Monty Python and the… Holy…” he trailed off with an unabashed grin. “That analogy got away from me.”
“That analogy was never yours to begin with,” Eliot pointed out.
“You know what man, you know what I mean,” Hardison insisted. “I mean, it’s freakin’ Excalibur. How was I supposed to resist at least tryin to hack the system? How’d you do it? Get it to like you or whatever?”
“I didn’t. I’m not. I just asked it… him… for help. Felt like a damn fool talkin’ to a sword but apparently I convince him that the mission was more important than whether or not I was worthy.”
Parker looked between the sword and Eliot, cocking her head to one side in thought. “That’s why you’re worthy,” she said. “Because it wasn’t about you. It was about saving people. And not just this time. In general. And that is what the sword likes.”
“I’m no King Arthur,” Eliot said.
“King Arthur, or Arturus as the name is often rendered in Latin,” Flynn said, “there is a lot of fascinating debate over that actually, the name commonly rendered Arthur may derive from either a Roman or a Welsh name. According to the eighteen eighty-two version of the Historia Brittonum…” he must have noticed their eyes glazing over because he reigned in some of the heavy flights of academia, “anyway, he took over much of Britain at the direction of a magician and a sword. He also tried to have his wife burned at the stake for adultery, which was a huge double standard was given that he had a kid with his half-sister. All of which is to say, it’s probably for the best that you aren’t King Arthur, because most of us probably wouldn’t be very happy with him if he were to suddenly turn up.”
“The man’s got a point,” Hardison said.
“I thought King Arthur brought peace to England,” Parker said.
“He did,” Eliot said. “But that is just a ‘winner writes the history’ way of sayin’ he swept through killin’ people until everybody left decided it was better to go along with what he said.” He frowned, considering whether perhaps he had more in common with King Arthur than he had at first thought, and not liking the idea one bit.
“The sword must judge by some other criteria then,” Hardison said. “I mean, technically we did sort of help take over that country that time, but not all of us are worthy, and I don’t think Flynn has taken over any countries. Have you?”
“I’vestoppeda few people from taking over countries, but I have never actually taken one over myself. You have?” Flynn asked.
“We didn’t take it over, we stole it. And gave it back,” Eliot said. “That’s kinda what we do.”
“You’re trying to distract us,” Parker said, poking Eliot in the shoulder. “Because you don’t think the sword will accept you, but you know we aren’t going to let it drop until you try again.”
“You aren’t?” Eliot asked. He thought for sure he had gotten them off on enough of a different track for them to let it go. He knew he wasn’t worthy of the sword. He didn’t need or want proof of it.
“No. We aren’t.” She took one arm and half dragged Eliot back over to the stone. Hardison followed along in the jetpack and Flynn trailed on foot.
“Don’t you want to know?” Flynn asked, in a tone that suggested that anyone not wanting to know, about anything, was entire incomprehensible.
Eliot sighed. “Fine. All of the rest of you tried,” he pointed out. “If it’ll get y’all off my back.”
He reached out and seized the sword’s hilt and drew it smoothly from the stone. He almost dropped it in surprise.
