The wind whipping off the river was just as bitterly cold as Mick remembered. Ten years ago on that very spot his partner and best friend had stepped into his arms and everything had changed. They'd gone back to their safehouse and didn't leave the warmth of their bed for the entire weekend. Moving together in bed, showing affection and want with their bodies because they could never find the right words.
It feels like lifetimes ago. Before the Flash, before the Waverider and Chronos and losing the one person who mattered the most to him.
Sure they were wrapping up another job in 1927 Chicago and Mick had been as reckless as ever. Charging into fights. Practically willing someone to take him down. Physical pain would at least be easier to bear. There are drugs to numb that.
Nothing has been able to numb the ache in his chest, the empty void that Snart had left behind.
He's not suicidal, at least not enough to put a round in his own head. Mick is angry and stubborn, too stubborn to check out just because he'd lost Len. His partner. His husband.
Mick tucks the ring back underneath his shirt. He should get back before Haircut and Nate blow up the damn ship.
"Leaving so soon?" The voice is familiar. The same drawl, the same infliction. But it's lacking in something. Emotion, perhaps. Awareness.
But nonetheless, Leonard is standing there, leaning against the corner as if he's been there the whole time. Dressed in black, one foot propped against the wall, his hands loosely folded by his side and his head tilted to the side. His eyes are on Mick and again, same as with his voice, there might just be something off about them.
"Shut up." The response is automatic now. He can't shake these hallucinations, the sudden and silent appearance of his dead partner and his unwanted input. Leonard Snart is dead. He can't be appearing to him randomly. It's just another manifestation of his grief, of everything that Mick has been wrestling with since the Oculus.
None of it matters. He's just marking time now, waking up every morning and finding a reason to roll out of bed. Sooner or later the job will kill him and Mick has made peace with that. He'll be dead like Len, but unlike his partner, nobody will miss him when he's gone.
"Sure I am. You think there's anything about me that's fake?" Leonard holds his hands out, keeping his arms by his side. Just presenting himself, the real him. Right here, as Mick remembers him. Hallucination or not, wouldn't make what he's saying less true. "You got someone better to talk to?"
He pushes himself away from the wall, taking a step closer to Mick. "You've been drinking too much. No wonder you're seeing things."
"You mean besides the fact that you're dead?" He's tired and bitter and angry and he's done holding back. "You're dead. You're fucking dead and I'm alone."
Which would explain why he's been drinking so much and why he doesn't have anyone to talk to - he'd lost everything the day his partner had died.
"Never took you for being so codependent." It's a lot easier to be amused from this side of things, but even so there is more than just a hint of real concern in Leonard's voice.
Yet another step closer, less and less space between them. His clothes rustle when he moves his hand to wrap around his own upper arm, his eyes never leaving Mick. "Who said I'm just waiting around for you, Mick?"
Mick snarls in reply to the crack. He's been struggling for the last goddamn year on his own. No one really noticing that he's finding it harder and harder to go on.
Until that idiot historian stepped in front of the bullet that promised him peace. Even then no one seemed to notice or care.
"You're not real." The denial is weaker this time. He can hear the whisper of clothing, and god help him he can smell him. That faint whiff of his favorite cologne laid over clean soap. "Why?"
"Why what? Why am I here?" Leonard just raises his eyebrows. Seems as if that particular question really ought to answer it self. He's so close to Mick now, every detail as it should be. "Is that really what you're asking? Seems to me like you're just asking yourself why you're still here."
It's another quip, but this time there is concern plain on his face. Then Leonard steps closer still and now it's just inches between them. "Scared to reach out?"
"The job," he answers. Right now it's the only thing keeping him moving forward. Finish the job Snart had left him to do because he had nothing else.
It takes a monumental amount of self-control on Mick's part not to back away, to put more distance between himself and the hallucination his brain has apparently cooked up. Every detail is there. The creak of leather, the way he stands, the smell of his skin and it's all threatening to break Mick. Reaching out is too much - either confirming that he's gone well and truly crazy or that through some miracle Len is alive and Mick isn't the sort of person to believe in something like hope.
"You aren't here. You ain't real Len. You're gone."
"What job? Vandal's dead." Leonard stays where he is, an eyebrow quirked. Maybe he will reach out at any moment, right now it seems to be up in the air. "You're just looking for a quick way to off yourself without pulling the trigger."
He looks down himself and shakes his head. "You really think your imagination is that good?"
There's a smile, cocky enough to be unmistakable, but it vanishes quickly, replaced by something a lot more serious, a lot more real when he catches Mick's eyes. "Get it in your thick head that whenever there's a chance? I'll come back for you."
This time anger surges forward, burning away the guilt and the sorrow and Mick reaches out to shove at the apparition, hard. "It's been a year, Snart! A year. You had no right. No right to take away my revenge and leave me like that." Leave him with a team that never really seemed to know what to do with him.
"You left me for a year."
In a moment or two it will register that when Mick reached out, he connected with something solid.
Leonard stumbles back before he can catch himself, just a step or two, but still. Definitely affected. He doesn't point it out, he waits for Mick to let it register, if it even would at all. "I wasn't going to let you do it, was I?" As if Mick wouldn't have stopped him. But that's beside the point, because Leonard has planned for it. Of course he has.
"Something like this was the only thing that could have kept me from coming back for you before." All interconnected. All leading up to the same conclusion.
"You didn't even ask! You just.." Wait. He'd shoved him hard and rather than connecting with nothing, Mick's hands had. He had hit something and in a moment his entire world goes skidding to a halt.
This wasn't a hallucination brought on by grief or despair.
Somehow, this was Len. His partner.
Mick kind of hates how small his voice sounds. "Lenny?"
"Mick." What else is he going to respond with? He's standing right there, saying his partner's name. That ought to be enough confirmation. Leonard is real, however that had happened, whatever can be made of it. He isn't sure how Mick is going to react, he is still catching up with rality in many ways. He's not sure what will happen. "I told you. I came for you."
He died in a place outside of time, a place standing over the time stream itself. Who's to say that something unexpected wouldn't happen as a result? Temporal abberations. Visions of Snart that maybe hadn't been hallucinations after all. Could he have been trying to push through somehow? Get back to him?
Mick staggers backwards a step before lunging forward, catching his jacket in both fists. His partner is alive and right now he doesn't give a damn about the details or how it happened.
There isn't much to say to make this better or worse, there isn't much of anything that would necessarily get through to Mick right away, so Leonard just stays there, until finally lifting a hand to put it on Mick's neck, holding him close, fingers moving a little over burned skin. He leans their foreheads together, quiet as he closes his eyes, as things slide into focus in a new, no, familiar way.
"You're still my priority." The words are quiet, but he realises they are true.
Those long slender fingers curl around the nape of his neck and Mick closes his eyes. He never thought he'd have this again and for now he's simply going to breathe and concentrate on the small details. Len's touch, the way he shifts closer to him.
"I tried," he murmurs, fingers flexing in his coat, but never quite letting him go. "You got no idea how hard, Lenny." But in the end it was too much, too much for him to handle on his own. Isolated even on the Waverider. No one he could trust. No one who understood him or really even bothered to try.
"Think I can guess." Maybe he really can. It's not as if there aren't signs. The dark circles under Mick's eyes, obvious signs of having drunk too much for too long and most of all, the desperation he's clinging to him now. More than that, Leonard can relate. He's never been good with emotions - neither of them has, but Leonard arguably worse - but what he feels now is... Closer to content than he ever could be without Mick. He lets his fingers gently massage the base of Mick's skull, turns his head to brush his lips against his neck.
A silent nod into the crook of his neck. For a moment Mick doesn't trust his own voice as he clings, as Len's voice reassures him that it's still the two of them.
But he forces himself to breathe, tilting his head back enough to look at him, to watch his partner close and alive and safe. "Yeah Lenny. Yeah it's still you an' me." His lips find his partner's and for a moment he can breathe again. This isn't some dream or some hallucination. It's him.
"Good." Where to go from here? That's a question and one he should perhaps ask out loud, but Leonard's the one with the plans. He's not used to not having all the cards in his hand and he definitely knows how to play it close to the chest nonetheless, even with Mick. Sometimes especially with Mick. He still gets flashes of memories, readjusting his view of the world. "How long ago did I...?"
Mick could give a damn where they went or what they did. The team didn't need (want) him around. They could steal the jump ship before anyone on the Waverider realized it, travel anywhere at all, to any time at all. "It's been almost a year now." A year of marking time, a year of struggling to do what he thought his partner would have wanted. Finish the job.
"I'm done with the job." And this time, Mick hopes that Snart is too. He doesn't want to get back on the Waverider
Leonard nods, taking this for what it is. He has no desire to return to the Waverider, at least as of now. He has other commitments anyway. "I've a more profitable job in mind for us." The smile that accompanies that is all Leonard, all him. Greedy and a bit wicked, making being bad look good. "You and me."
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The wind whipping off the river was just as bitterly cold as Mick remembered. Ten years ago on that very spot his partner and best friend had stepped into his arms and everything had changed. They'd gone back to their safehouse and didn't leave the warmth of their bed for the entire weekend. Moving together in bed, showing affection and want with their bodies because they could never find the right words.
It feels like lifetimes ago. Before the Flash, before the Waverider and Chronos and losing the one person who mattered the most to him.
Sure they were wrapping up another job in 1927 Chicago and Mick had been as reckless as ever. Charging into fights. Practically willing someone to take him down. Physical pain would at least be easier to bear. There are drugs to numb that.
Nothing has been able to numb the ache in his chest, the empty void that Snart had left behind.
He's not suicidal, at least not enough to put a round in his own head. Mick is angry and stubborn, too stubborn to check out just because he'd lost Len. His partner. His husband.
Mick tucks the ring back underneath his shirt. He should get back before Haircut and Nate blow up the damn ship.
Maybe another minute.
"Goodbye Snart." You asshole.
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But nonetheless, Leonard is standing there, leaning against the corner as if he's been there the whole time. Dressed in black, one foot propped against the wall, his hands loosely folded by his side and his head tilted to the side. His eyes are on Mick and again, same as with his voice, there might just be something off about them.
He should be caring more.
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None of it matters. He's just marking time now, waking up every morning and finding a reason to roll out of bed. Sooner or later the job will kill him and Mick has made peace with that. He'll be dead like Len, but unlike his partner, nobody will miss him when he's gone.
"You aren't real."
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He pushes himself away from the wall, taking a step closer to Mick. "You've been drinking too much. No wonder you're seeing things."
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Which would explain why he's been drinking so much and why he doesn't have anyone to talk to - he'd lost everything the day his partner had died.
"Just go away Len. I'll be there soon enough."
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Yet another step closer, less and less space between them. His clothes rustle when he moves his hand to wrap around his own upper arm, his eyes never leaving Mick. "Who said I'm just waiting around for you, Mick?"
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Until that idiot historian stepped in front of the bullet that promised him peace. Even then no one seemed to notice or care.
"You're not real." The denial is weaker this time. He can hear the whisper of clothing, and god help him he can smell him. That faint whiff of his favorite cologne laid over clean soap. "Why?"
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It's another quip, but this time there is concern plain on his face. Then Leonard steps closer still and now it's just inches between them. "Scared to reach out?"
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It takes a monumental amount of self-control on Mick's part not to back away, to put more distance between himself and the hallucination his brain has apparently cooked up. Every detail is there. The creak of leather, the way he stands, the smell of his skin and it's all threatening to break Mick. Reaching out is too much - either confirming that he's gone well and truly crazy or that through some miracle Len is alive and Mick isn't the sort of person to believe in something like hope.
"You aren't here. You ain't real Len. You're gone."
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He looks down himself and shakes his head. "You really think your imagination is that good?"
There's a smile, cocky enough to be unmistakable, but it vanishes quickly, replaced by something a lot more serious, a lot more real when he catches Mick's eyes. "Get it in your thick head that whenever there's a chance? I'll come back for you."
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"You left me for a year."
In a moment or two it will register that when Mick reached out, he connected with something solid.
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"Something like this was the only thing that could have kept me from coming back for you before." All interconnected. All leading up to the same conclusion.
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This wasn't a hallucination brought on by grief or despair.
Somehow, this was Len. His partner.
Mick kind of hates how small his voice sounds. "Lenny?"
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Mick staggers backwards a step before lunging forward, catching his jacket in both fists. His partner is alive and right now he doesn't give a damn about the details or how it happened.
He's not alone anymore.
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"You're still my priority." The words are quiet, but he realises they are true.
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"I tried," he murmurs, fingers flexing in his coat, but never quite letting him go. "You got no idea how hard, Lenny." But in the end it was too much, too much for him to handle on his own. Isolated even on the Waverider. No one he could trust. No one who understood him or really even bothered to try.
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"Still you and me, Mick?"
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But he forces himself to breathe, tilting his head back enough to look at him, to watch his partner close and alive and safe. "Yeah Lenny. Yeah it's still you an' me." His lips find his partner's and for a moment he can breathe again. This isn't some dream or some hallucination. It's him.
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"I'm done with the job." And this time, Mick hopes that Snart is too. He doesn't want to get back on the Waverider
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