lmx_v3point3

Fic: Best Sleep

Author: LMX
Fandoms: Leverage
Rating: PG
Pairings: Eliot/Sophie/Nate
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Fluffy fluff... and SNUGGLING.
AN: Double Commentfic for deanangst, 'Sophie and Nate know that Eliot sleeps the best when the room is cold and he's snuggled down between the two of them' and then 'back seat sleepy Eliot'.

-

Hardison makes a high pitched 'aww' noise, which pulls Nate's attention into the back seats of the car. Sophie's driving, and he sees her eyes flick up to the rear view mirror for a second. She meets his eyes and they share a smile when she sees Eliot asleep against the car door. It's been a long job, and Nate has never slept well away from home, so Eliot had ended up staying with him most of the night. Keeping him occupied. He hears a camera go off behind him, and shuts his own eyes so that he can claim he knew nothing about it.

When Eliot took any kind of medication that slowed him down, it was fairly inevitable that it delayed his body's ability to identify a nightmare and wake him up promptly. He usually refused to sleep in with them on those nights, except on the rare occasions he was so incapacitated that he was beyond arguing - or registering what was going on around him. It was one of Eliot's personal fears - that he would wake up one morning to find he'd hurt them during the night - so Nate and Sophie didn't argue too much on that count.

Still, Nate knew that he liked this best. It was cold enough outside and in the apartment that Eliot wasn't temped to drive out to his garden or to train in the spare room down the hall, and even though he knew Eliot wouldn't sleep any more for a while at least, Eliot was headed back into bed with them. It wasn't a word he'd dare voice in front of the man, but when he crawled into the small space between Sophie and himself, burying into their warmth... well, if it was anyone but Eliot he'd call it snuggling.

And when the man does finally get back to sleep, it will be the best sleep he has ever had. Nate knows this for sure because, if it wasn't true, why would Eliot keep coming back?

--
--

Somehow Eliot had survived all the years he'd been working mostly alone, sleeping his reduced hours whenever he could find somewhere safe to bed down and watching his own back every hour of the day, and he had never been as tired as was becoming a regular occurrence working for Nate.

Working for a team was exhausting, and it didn't help when they'd been away from home for a whole week. Nate had only slept after half a night's pacing, not giving Eliot time to relax enough to be ready for sleep, and still catch anything close ninety minutes before Parker and Sophie were up and ready to get the next part of the con moving.

Falling asleep exposed, before they were even all the way home from a con, wasn't his usual style. He'd felt it coming though, that tingle that spread up the back of his skull and pulled his chin down onto his chest. Sophie was driving, Nate sat in shotgun, and Parker and Hardison were talking under their breath. If it was any group of people other than this - one of the military groups he'd worked for, or even some of the temporary crews he had freelanced with - he would consider this hostile territory until he was back on home ground.

He didn't even remember making the decision that he was safe. He woke up to the mechanical sound of Hardison's camera, and wished he didn't feel so refreshed. Sometimes he forgot that he wasn't supposed to feel safe around people.