[Len/Mick] Faith falls hard on our shoulders

[frostyfelon]

"When it rains,
It pours,
There will be blood in the water,
Cold,
To the core,
Faith falls hard on our shoulders,
This is our time,
No turning back,
We could live,
We could live like Legends"

Characters: Leonard Snart and Mick Rory
Slash Warning

Going out in a blaze of glory was only as meaningful as those who remembered it. Once they were gone, all you had after that was a whisper on the lips of the broken hearted. They were tricked into going on this mission, told they were Legends. Legends never die. But, as it turned out, this was a lie. They weren't Legends, they were the opposite. They were expendable cogs in a universe with so many spare parts that it would never miss a few that fell out along the way. That had never bothered Leonard before being told he was a Legend. Funny how you didn't know how badly you wanted something until after it was torn from your grasp. Dangled like a carrot. Once the carrot was gone, why keep running? Because somewhere in your desperate run, you hope deep down that maybe, just maybe, you'll find that carrot again.

Legends. They were ordinary people doing ordinary things that could've just been spare cogs, but something they did changed their function in the machine. Now, when those cogs are lost, the machine splutters. It groans and it aches, it loses some functionality. The entire machine notices the loss of that one cog. That ache of loss will always remind the machine that it used to have that cog, and now it was incomplete. Spare parts could always be jury-rigged into the machine and return it to working order, but it would never be mint again. Because that new cog, though it worked just as well as the old one, it had a different serial number than the rest of the machine. Legends never die.

Except, that's a misleading statement. In order to become a Legend, you must first, die.

"That speedster coulda killed you, Mick. What then?"

"I'd be dead, like you."

Never let it be said that Leonard Snart ever did anything easy. That includes dying. The human body is used to time unfolding linearly. So when that very same body ends up dispersed throughout time, fragments of self lost in memories of the past, present, and future, it should be well and thoroughly lost. Except, when something starts drawing those pieces together, pulling them from the lost folds in time, the body remembers what it's like to be linear again.

So there stands Mick Rory, downing a stolen bottle of liquor straight out of Al Capone's stash, acting as a magnet to pull the pieces of Leonard Snart back together. They manifest as corrupt images. They attach themselves to old memories, old personalities, as they shuffle themselves back together.

"Planning on drinking yourself to death? That seems a bit anti-climactic for the Mick Rory I remember." Snart snarked with a tip of his head and a raise of an eyebrow. But something was different. Like a rubber band snapping back into place, Leonard seemed to recoil. He staggered, reaching out for an empty chair in the cafeteria to catch himself on, but instead, both he and the chair toppled to the ground.

"...Mick?" Blood trickled down over his lips from his nose.

Comments

[bringstheheat]

It was almost easier, talking to Snart when he wasn't there to listen. Alone in his room, holding that stupid little ring or looking at the box that held the cold gun Mick talked to his dead partner. He remembered him. Missed him. Talking to an empty room didn't help him when things began to spiral, when depression and isolation started to take their toll and all Mick could do was mark time until the job would take him too.

He didn't care about being a Legend. A Legend was something reserved for Snart. Someone who fought his entire life to prove the world wrong, to rewrite everything that anyone had said about him.

"Shut up," his voice is rough and tired, taking another long pull from the bottle. He misses him. Hell, he'd loved him. At least as much as men like them were capable of. "For a ghost you talk too damn much."

Only ghosts don't fall the fuck down and take a chair with them.

Ghosts don't bleed.

The bottle shatters on the floor when Mick lets it go, scrambling to his knees beside his partner. A gloved hand flexes before reaching out. "Leonard?"

[frostyfelon]

Snart tried to sit up but his world seemed to jar on its axis, leaving him nauseas and disoriented. There were a few common symptoms of time travel, getting progressively worse the further you moved in time, but when pieces of yourself were pulled from different times, it had a varied and cumulative effect. Not that Leonard would even know any of this. All he knew was he was numb in some places, sick to his stomach, disoriented, confused, and generally unhappy with all of these things.

"...happened what?" Ah, right. Linguistic dysplasia. He closed his eyes tightly, letting the waves of nausea settle. He reached out to grab Mick's wrist, letting it ground him for a moment. He wasn't big on contact, but right now, he felt like he'd drown without something to hold onto. He took a steady breath, opened his eyes and tried again. "What happened? Did it work?" His memories were fragmented. He had flickers of... times he was pretty sure he hadn't been in before. Underground, talking to Mick while he waved a tommy gun around. Some lovely woman kissing on Mick. These were baffling enough on their own. The last thing he remembered clearly was... a blinding explosion.

He brushed the blood from his nose with the back of his hand, glaring at it as if it shouldn't be there. He glanced back up at Mick and tried again to sit up, succeeding this time. "You smell like cheep whiskey."

[bringstheheat]

The last time they'd touched was when Snart had clocked him with his damn gun. They didn't do touches and they sure as hell didn't do feelings. But he's got a ghost clinging to his wrist and Mick clapped his hand over his partner's just to prove to himself that he's not going completely crazy.

Temporal fragments. Anomalies. There had to be a reason, some sort of explanation.

All of which will have to fucking wait because his partner was suddenly on the ship again, solid and real and alive. "What do you mean what happened? Did what work?" Did he go into it having a plan? Did he sacrifice himself knowing he'd find a way back?

Mick rolled his eyes at the complaint, dropping a broad shoulder to help get Snart to his feet again. "Back from the dead and you're still complaining. It's Prohibition, can't exactly get my hands on the good stuff and all Gideon will cough up is beer."

[frostyfelon]

He sure did go into it with a plan, but not what Mick thought. His plan had been to defy his past, defy the Time Masters, and to save everyone. That included, most importantly, Mick Rory. So Snart accepted the help to his feet, and only sent a single hard glance at the hand over his like he didn't know how his own even got there before staggering slightly and holding tighter. He was weak and discombobulated, but he was stubborn.

"The occulus went critical and time stopped. I could see everything, for that second, and I saw a way back." Leonard Snart was a very difficult man to get rid of. Anyone who has ever tried could attest to that.

His face screwed up into a look of disgust. "Prohibition? Mick, why does Rip have you in the 20's?" Okay, so when he said he saw everything he might've exaggerated a bit. He only really paid attention to the time fragments that involved him. A little selfinvolved, but he'd been short on time.

"How long has it been?" Y'know, since he bit the dust and all. He was getting a little stronger on his feet now.

[bringstheheat]

Snart can complain all he wants, Mick isn't letting go until he's sure he can stand on his own feet without going down again. The contact is for him too, to help him get his head around the idea that his partner is back.

"Hunter ain't on the ship. He's gone."

Mick glanced away at the question. "Almost a year now. I went back, told Lise what happened. Got Red and his crew to keep an eye on her before getting back on the ship."

[frostyfelon]

The only thing that could streamline Snart's attention aside from valuables and Mick was Lisa. He'd lied to Jax when the kid asked him if he cared about anything other than himself. He'd said money, because it was easier and smarter than admitting the truth. Lisa and Mick were his weaknesses. Chronos knew it and used it. So, of course, Mick would know that that was one of the first things to update him on.

"...and you're still playing musical chairs with timelines?" He was impressed. He was also dizzy and plagued with far too much stimuli. Leonard canted his head, lifting an eyebrow after the information sunk in. "A year?" He was shredded and dispersed throughout time for nearly a year?

"Mick," Leonard's tone wasn't biting, but it wasn't as aloof as usual. "thanks for looking after Lisa. You know what that means to me." He wouldn't admit that maybe he needed the contact too, but just this once.

"Do we still have a room, or did you move in with Raymond? Because I think I need somewhere to sit that isn't going to end up infested with people asking too many questions." He couldn't hide forever, but he couldn't put up with it all right now. He just wanted to be alone with his partner while he tried to put his thoughts back together.

[bringstheheat]

"I know, partner." Lisa was one of the few people that mattered to Len. Of course he was going to make sure she was safe after her brother was gone. He couldn't stay, couldn't do it himself. Looking at Lisa was too much like looking at all the ways he'd screwed up, all the ways he'd failed. So he took the easy way out, asked Red and his people to make sure she stayed safe.

The question draws a snort from Mick as he walks him back to their room. His room. Whatever. "Shut up. Haircut's having too much fun playing with the pretty historian. And it ain't like anyone's going to come knocking unless they have to." Because he's heard the "not it" game more than once while prowling the corridors of the Waverider.

"It'll stay quiet."