Fandom: Leverage
Characters/Pairings: Mr. Quinn/Eliot Spencer
Rating: Mature
Length: 2,587 words
Written for: 2022 Leverage Secret Santa Exchange
Summary: They were supposed to be heading out that afternoon. The job was done. Finally. They'd already stayed three days past the two weeks they'd planned on, and now a little storm was gonna have them stranded for who knew how much longer.
Eliot and Quinn get snowed in on Christmas Eve and shenanigans ensue.
Originally Posted: December 13, 2022
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They were supposed to be heading out that afternoon. The job was done. Finally. They'd already stayed three days past the two weeks they'd planned on, and now a little storm was gonna have them stranded for who knew how much longer. The Inn's owners were grateful enough to let them stay as long as they needed, and the chef had loaded him up with an ample supply of baked goods fresh from the kitchen.
The problem was, it was the day before Christmas, and Eliot was supposed to be home by now, getting started on the big dinner he'd planned for his crew. He'd even thought about inviting Quinn, even though they'd already spent way too much time together in this cozy cramped cabin, with everyone around them assuming they were a couple. The whole thing had been annoying. Being that close and yet so fucking far from what he wanted. Okay, yeah maybe he had a bit of a thing for Quinn, but he wasn't gonna do anything about it. Not now, not here. Not at all. This was a job, that was it. Yeah, they'd shared the bed. But it was a big bed, with plenty of room for the two of them to spread out with minimal touching. Very minimal. He could endure it for a few more nights while they waited for the storm to pass. Probably.
His arms full of baked goods and other provisions, Eliot knocked on the cabin door. It seemed easier than trying to dig his key out from his front pocket.
"Just a minute," Quinn called out.
Ah hell, what was Quinn doing that was gonna take a minute? "Come on Quinn, my hands are full," Eliot said.
"Hold your horses, Spencer."
A feeling of dread settled low in Eliot's gut. He shifted the supplies and somehow managed to grab his key and get the door unlocked without dropping a thing. He shouldn't have bothered. "What the hell man?"
Quinn stood on the table, hanging up stands of multi-colored lights. "You couldn't have waited a couple more minutes?"
Eliot dropped the provisions on the counter. "Sorry?"
Quinn hopped down off of the table. "Merry Christmas!"
Eliot frowned. "Christmas isn't until tomorrow."
"Merry Christmas Eve?"
Looking around the cabin, Eliot shook his head. Strands of lights hung haphazardly from the ceiling, plastic garland twined around various pieces of furniture, and clumps of tinsel appeared to have been tossed over pretty much everything without rhyme or reason. There was even the very distinctive scent of fake pine in the air. He tried very hard not to growl.
"Sorry." Quinn shrugged. "Parker made me do it."
Of course, she had. "Figures." Eliot sat on the sofa and picked up the remote. There had to be a weather report on one of these channels. Maybe the forecast had changed. He and Quinn would be able to go their separate ways, and Eliot could push aside these pesky and inconvenient feelings, once again. "How'd she get to you?"
"Well, apparently, she snuck a bag full of holiday junk into my pack without me knowing it."
Parker was good like that. "And you decided to just go crazy and hang everything up?"
"Believe me this is not everything."
Eliot groaned. "Awesome."
"Parker texted me while you were out, demanding I get everything all Christmassy." Quinn was wearing jeans again. While Eliot loved the way the man wore a suit, there was something about Quinn in jeans and a t-shirt that really got under his skin. In a good way. "I'm supposed to take pictures and send them to her when I'm done," Quinn said.
Eliot looked around the room. "What else could there be?"
"Well," Quinn started ticking things off his fingers. "The tree still needs to be put together, then there are all the decorations that go on the tree, and then--"
"Nope." Eliot put his palm up. He'd heard enough. "I'm going for walk, gonna see if the Huffmans need any help getting ready for the storm." It had to be better than standing here admiring the way Quinn's ass looked in those jeans.
Quinn pointed at the television. "I thought you were gonna check the weather report."
"Nothing but bad news all around," Eliot grumbled. He grabbed his key and jacket and headed out the door. It was gonna be bad enough being cooped up with Quinn later, during the night. He didn't need to go and prolong his suffering.
***
Taking a bite of raspberry danish, Quinn leaned against the counter and admired his handiwork. He'd done a damn fine job if he did say so himself. He'd sent the photographic evidence to Parker and in return, he'd gotten a couple of thumbs-up emojis, along with four Santa Clauses, three Christmas trees, two snowmen, and an elf. Why were there so many damn holiday-themed emojis? He had no idea how Eliot dealt with this on a regular basis. It was exhausting.
He wasn't all that into the holiday or anything but the way it all seemed to grate on Eliot's nerves made him feel all the more festive. He didn't know what it was, he just loved getting a rise out of the man. Not that it was all that difficult lately. Eliot had seemed on edge all throughout this job. Not that he could blame him. Sharing a bed with Spencer, had Quinn seriously on edge these past couple of weeks too. But it was an edge that he enjoyed riding. So, he didn't mind so much.
Eliot returned to the cabin roughly fifteen minutes after he'd hung the last bit of faux mistletoe a few feet from the door. Not one to be easily tricked, Eliot glared at the offending bit of plastic hanging from the ceiling and managed to bypass it entirely on his way into the room. Disappointed, Quinn sighed.
***
Eliot had spent the last ninety minutes helping the Inn's owners board up some of the larger windows in the main house and making sure that the few remaining guests were all set with food and water. After a text from Hardison reminding him to charge his phone before they lost power, he went around and reminded everyone else. Anything to delay going back to the cabin.
Not that any of these distractions had done a damn thing to dampen his raging libido. Something about the idea of being trapped with Quinn in the middle of a blizzard had him in overdrive. Coming back and finding mistletoe hanging about a foot from the doorway didn't help either.
Eliot tossed his keys on the counter and looked around. "Fucking hell," he muttered. It was so much worse than it'd been earlier. He should've never left. He should've stayed and put a stop to this holiday nonsense. He groaned. There was even Christmas music playing.
Quinn grabbed a frying pan and placed it on the stove. "Should I even bother saying merry Christmas this time?"
"Still not Christmas." Eliot crossed his arms in front of his chest. "So this it, or do you have more of this crap stashed somewhere to surprise me with later?"
He stepped back from the stove and spread his arms out wide. "What you see, is what you get." Quinn winked. "Hope that's alright with you."
Eliot ignored the innuendo. "It's fine," he grumbled, even though it was anything but. How the hell was he gonna get through another night trying to sleep next to this idiot without ripping off all his clothes?
Quinn started pulling stuff out of the fridge and lining it all up neatly on the counter. "What are you doing?" Eliot asked.
"I'm making lunch, got a problem with that?" Quinn grabbed the loaf of sourdough the Inn's cook had given them.
This was the first time he'd seen Quinn cook the whole time they'd been cooped up in this cabin. "I didn't know you could cook."
"Makes you wonder what else you don't know about me, doesn't it?"
It was definitely starting to.
***
Quinn waited as Eliot eyed the sandwich warily. It was so damn weird how snooty Spencer could be about food sometimes. "It's a sandwich, you eat it." Quinn picked up his own sandwich and took a bite.
"Fried bologna? Really?" Eliot turned the plate around in a circle, giving his lunch a more thorough examination than was in any way necessary.
"Taste it before you judge it," Quinn warned. His cooking wasn't fancy, and his repertoire may not have been all that vast, but that didn't make his meals inedible. "I even used that fancy mustard of yours, dig in." He hated to admit it, but Eliot's mustard really did kick the whole thing up a notch.
Eliot lifted the top slice of bread and squinted. "Is that cheese?"
Usually, he made his fried bologna sandwiches pretty barebones. Some good bread, bologna, and maybe a little yellow mustard. With Spencer, he thought he should put a little more work into it. "Swiss." Quinn took another bite, put his sandwich down, and leaned back in his chair.
Finally, he took a bite. "Not bad," Eliot said after several agonizing moments.
"Not bad?"
Eliot took another bite. "Mmm...one might even say - good."
Quinn had barely finished his lunch when his phone buzzed. He'd just gotten it unlocked when Eliot's phone started playing a vaguely familiar Christmas tune.
*look outside* It was from Parker.
It was snowing.
"Fuck," muttered Eliot. "It's already started."
"How does she know? Do you have cameras hooked up here or something?"
"No." Eliot frowned at his phone. "No." He shook his head. "I don't think so."
At Parker's request, Quinn snapped some photos of the snow, with promises of regular updates throughout the storm. "She's really into snow, isn't she?" What the hell had he gotten himself into?
***
He had to admit, Quinn's lunch was a lot better than he'd expected. It'd been a while since he'd had a fried bologna sandwich. It was simple, yet satisfying, and it was nice having someone else cook for him for a change.
Parker's insistence on snow updates was annoying but did have the benefit of keeping Eliot's mind off of other things. Like the way, Quinn's curls kept falling in his face and the way his hand would just casually brush the hair out of his eyes. So, instead of pushing Quinn against the wall like he wanted to, he was cooling his libido by taking pictures of snow. It was totally working. Eliot hadn't thought about what it would feel like to run his fingers through Quinn's hair and bury his tongue in his mouth in like five whole minutes. Definitely working. Like a charm.
"Wanna watch some TV?" Quinn toed off his boots and brushed the snowflakes from his hair. "I figure, now that it's dark we won't be getting as many requests for snow photography."
"One can hope." Eliot sighed. "Yeah, sure. Go see what's on, I'll grab us some beers."
Two beers, a shared bowl of popcorn, and three thoroughly horrible holiday specials later; Eliot realized his mistake. The couch was too damn small. His thigh was warmly pressed up against Quinn's, and their fingers kept touching whenever they reached for popcorn at the same time. He was just about to get up for a stretch and possibly a third beer when the lights flickered. They both stilled. When the lights stayed on, Eliot sighed and looked up. "Is that mistletoe?" How had he missed that? It was hanging right above the couch. Bastard.
Quinn grinned. "Took you long enough."
Eliot rubbed his face with his hands. "Fuck me," he mumbled.
Quinn shifted on the couch, his shoulder brushing against Eliot's. "Is that a request? 'Cause I gotta tell you, I'm very open to the idea."
Again, the lights flickered. Eliot moved the empty popcorn bowl to the table and wiped his hands on his jeans. Outside, the wind howled. The lights stayed off and he continued to ignore Quinn's comment.
Quinn on the other hand, wasn't quite ready to let the subject go, power outage or not. "So, wanna make out?"
Seriously, now? In the dark? "I hate you."
Quinn shifted beside him so that they were no longer touching. "Harsh - you could've just said no."
Eliot took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. "Maybe I don't want to say no."
"Well then, I think we just hit on the perfect thing to do to pass the time."
"Quit joking around, Quinn."
"Who said I was joking? Have you not noticed that I've been trying to get in your pants for the better part of the last two weeks."
"We've been on the job. I've been working," Eliot said.
"Job's over."
Eliot grunted noncommittally. Normally he'd be up for a post-job hookup, but this was Quinn. He liked Quinn too much and didn't want things between them to get all messed up and complicated.
"And there's the mistletoe." Quinn shifted closer. "At the very least we have to kiss." Quinn's warm breath played against the sensitive skin along Eliot's neck. "It's in the rules."
Mistletoe had rules?
"It's just a kiss. It doesn't have to mean anything. Blizzard rules."
Eliot stifled a shiver. "Pretty sure that's not a thing."
"Anything can be a thing if you try hard enough." Quinn's smile promised wicked and wonderful things and Eliot wasn't sure how much longer he could resist, or even if he wanted to anymore. "And I'm up for trying very hard tonight." Quinn brushed Eliot's hair aside and slid his hand to the back of his neck. Quinn's lips brushed against his, tentatively at first. When Eliot didn't resist, the kiss became heated and intense.
"Leaning really heavy into the innuendo there, aren't you?" Eliot said, coming up for air.
"Are you ever gonna shut up?"
Eliot thought he'd done a fine job keeping quiet while Quinn's tongue was in his mouth. "You could always give me something else to do with my mouth."
"Is that right?" Quinn gently bit Eliot's bottom lip. "Are you telling me my lips aren't enough to keep you occupied?"
"Maybe."
Quinn pulled away. Fabric rustled. "Well, I think I have just the thing." The sound of a belt being unbuckled rang loudly in the darkness.
***
Quinn opened his eyes. The light from the wood stove gave the room an otherworldly glow, shadows playing along Eliot's skin. Quinn stretched, their legs touched, and Eliot moaned softly. How long had they been asleep? Quinn's stomach growled. A few hours maybe.
"You know what I was thinking?" Eliot asked a few moments later.
Did he dare? Quinn turned so as to better see Eliot's face. "What were you thinking?"
"I was thinking that a thin layer of caramelized onions on top of the bologna, under the cheese would really elevate that sandwich of yours."
Quinn laughed. Only Spencer would be giving cooking advice while in bed. "Really, that's what you're thinking?"
Eliot brushed a wayward curl away from Quinn's face. "I'm hungry."
Quinn pulled Eliot closer, buried his face in Eliot's neck, and nibbled at the sensitive skin.
"Mmm...know what else I'm thinking?" Eliot asked.
"Do tell." Quinn pushed Eliot onto his back and rolled on top of him.
"I'm thinking that maybe it's not so bad being stuck here." A smile played on Eliot's lips. "You know, with you."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"You know, Spencer? I think you might be on to something."
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