#len refusing to let them close the doors before barry is home safe

[tiger-in-the-flightdeck]

Me: Ugh, Futures End is such a cheesy concept

Futures End:

Me: Hmm. That is a very compelling argument.

[qlala]

I’ve had a couple requests to see the unfinished Leonard and Lisa fic I mentioned yesterday, so I’m going to try posting it here! It’s the first ~2k words, so please let me know if the ��read more” doesn’t work.

The basic idea involves a meta who can link up two people’s memories, similar to the concept of “the drift” in Pacific Rim. Barry and Leonard get whammied by her during a fight, and they’re both pretty much incapacitated by it, because there’s a lot to deal with there on both sides. There’d be a coldflash endgame if I ever finish it, but that’s not overt in this section. If it’s not clear, italics indicate a memory not Barry’s own. 

Trigger warnings: Please be aware that for obvious reasons, this deals a lot with Leonard and Lisa’s abusive childhood. The abuse doesn’t appear “on screen,” so to speak, but the fallout from it and the strong emotions surrounding it do. There’s also a brief allusion to transactional sex. Please keep yourselves safe and don’t read if you’re in a headspace where those things could be harmful to you. ❤️

By the time Barry stopped screaming, Leonard had filled the team in on what had happened to them. 

Barry came back to himself with heaving, raw breaths. He tried to focus on the marble flooring beneath his cheek, and he twisted off his side to press his forehead to it, cool and grounding. 

He could hear Leonard talking—familiar voice, terse sentences, clipped like he was speaking between gritted teeth—but it took Barry a second to locate him in the room. He was pressed back into the corner of the room opposite from him, kneeling, his arms wrapped tight around his middle. His hands were knotted white-knuckled in the material of the parka, an apparent attempt to stop the shaking that was visible even from twenty feet away. 

He wondered when Leonard had moved, then wondered how much time had passed. The last thing he remembered was trying to push Leonard out of the way as the meta lashed out at them with… whatever it had been, a streak of white light, fragmented like a chain, a leash.

The memory was hard to pin down. It kept appearing to him from two different angles, and there was a headache pressing behind his eyes that grew sharper every time he tried to focus on one or the other. 

“Barry? Barry, can you—?” 

Barry didn’t even think when the hand reached for him and a barrage of memories hit him broadside: other hands, one other hand. He jerked backwards, his powers the last thing from his mind, and whoever it was yanked their hand away as if he’d just bitten them. 

“Stop.” It was odd to hear Leonard’s voice without the drawl, sharp with anger, clear and ringing. 

“He can’t help it.” 

Cisco’s voice—that was even better than the floor. The memories that floated up were Barry’s own: movie nights, STAR Labs, a Lady Gaga song playing on repeat.

“Not him,” Leonard said. When he looked up, his eyes were so blood-stained that it was hard to see the blue of his irises. That explained Barry’s headache, at least. “You. All of you. Stop touching him.”

“He needs help.” 

Iris’s tone was steady, careful; it was the voice she used on stray cats and nervous sources. Barry was glad to find her just off to his right, but he still flinched as soon as she lifted her hand.

In the corner, Leonard made an aborted movement as if to stop her. “Last thing I’d want right now is someone grabbing me.” It was taking him obvious effort to speak; he shut his eyes, and his brow was furrowed in what could’ve been pain, and could’ve been concentration. “Given the circumstances, I suspect that’s… operative. At the moment.” 

There was a silence in which all Barry could hear was the sound of his own breathing. Then Iris knelt a careful foot away and placed her hand on the ground, palm up. 

Barry nodded once—it was all he could manage—and reached out to clasp her wrist.  

“Barry?” 

He nodded again, and her shoulders dropped in relief. 

“Okay. You’re okay. You’re safe. Do you know where you are?”

He risked a glance around, only to wince at the double memories: sitting on his dad’s shoulders as he explained how he’d consulted on the new exhibit about the human body, showed him his name on a sign by the door; Lisa dragging him through the Jewels of the World exhibit, her hand impossibly small in his own, declaring the Hope Diamond hideous with the flippant confidence only a child could have.

Barry’s head throbbed, and when he rubbed his free hand under his nose, it came away streaked with blood. 

In his peripherals, Leonard mirrored the gesture, then wiped his wrist on his coat. 

“The natural history museum,” Barry rasped. “Central.” 

“Why is it affecting him more than you?” Caitlin’s voice, unexpected, behind him. “You’re getting his memories, too, aren’t you?”

Barry groaned as guilt panged in his chest; his whole team had been dragged out because he couldn’t take down one meta. 

Leonard finally looked at him again, then met Caitlin’s gaze with a hard glare. “Karaoke,” he said, surprising her into a blink. “Grease. You’re a terrible singer.” 

She looked offended, but when Leonard pushed himself to his feet, her doctor’s instincts seemed to take over, and she took a step toward him.

He held out a hand to stop her. “Your voice is the third-worst thing Barry’s past has to throw at me. Not all of us have lived such charmed lives.” 

Barry’s lip curled even as his mind latched onto Leonard’s taunt, grateful for the distraction. “My parents were killed in front of me,” he said. “And my father’s doppelganger broke my back on national television.”

Leonard glanced at him, his expression unreadable. “I ranked that last one lower than Snow’s Olivia Newton-John.”

Iris tensed beside him, but it shocked a snort of laughter out of Barry. “I’m—” He let go of Iris’s wrist, used the hand to push himself up to sitting. “I’m fine. Can we go back to the lab?”

He was about to offer to run them there, but a glance toward the glass doors brought a fresh wave of memories, decades of them tied to the museum steps, the restaurant across the street, a stop sign stolen from the intersection before he’d even been born. 

“Best to keep your eyes closed,” Leonard said. 

“Yeah,” Barry agreed. He wouldn’t have gotten down the block. “Cisco, can you—?”

Cisco powered up his Vibe gloves, a ripple already opening up in the space in front of them. “Yeah, man. Come on. Let’s get you home.” 

* * * * * * 

“I said not to call her.”

Leonard sounded on the edge of homicide, and Barry risked opening his eyes to glance over at him. He didn’t need the sensors taped to Leonard’s wrists and temple (he’d steadfastly refused to take off his shirt, had pulled a knife when Caitlin had tried to insist) to guess at his spiked blood pressure, though the monitor next to him confirmed it with a beep of alarm. 

They were in the medical bay at STAR Labs, had been for over six hours. Leonard was sitting cross-legged in the middle of his bed, apparently above anything as vulnerable as lying down (or, apparently, painkillers, which Barry hadn’t even had the option of taking) and Cisco was doing an impressive job of standing his ground in the doorway. 

“She called me, alright, Cold? I couldn’t lie to her, not when she’s got a tracker showing her you’re sitting in my lab—” 

“She lied to you.” 

“It’s in the tip of one of your shoelaces, if it’s in the same place as mine,” Cisco offered, not unkindly.

They were interrupted by the sharp, carrying click of high heels coming down the hallway. 

The monitor next to Leonard’s bed beeped again, and Barry glanced at it. His blood pressure wasn’t the only thing elevated now; his heart rate was spiking, more than anything that could be blamed on anger. He was afraid. Barry had half a second to wonder why, then Leonard bit out, “Close your eyes,” and Lisa shoved past Cisco into the room in a whirlwind of righteous fury. 

Barry’s own memories almost didn’t recognize her. He hadn’t seen her in over a year, and her hair was dramatically shorter than when they’d last met. It was short, boyishly so, and a dark brown he suspected was her natural color. 

But his memories weren’t the only ones living in his head anymore, and his mouth opened without his permission. “Lis,” he said. “I haven’t seen your hair like that since—” 

Nothing, not even that first blast of memories at the museum, could’ve prepared for the strength of the fear that slammed into him.

Lisa, barely ten, eating mac and cheese in front of the television. Lewis stumbling in the front door, reeking of beer. Every muscle tensing. A slurred name from Lewis when he saw Lisa, a name that made Len’s blood turn to ice, that made Lisa smile hopefully and ask, “Mom?” Lewis’s squint, his quiet, “Huh.” And then Lewis dropping on the couch, already halfway to passing out, and saying, “Gonna be a looker just like her.”

Len had pleaded with Lisa for hours that night, one hand on the kitchen scissors, one eye on the living room. The toy store, the candy store, fuck it, the pet store, anything she wanted, he’d buy it, just let him cut her hair, just this once, just til Dad went away again—

Barry remembered his powers just in time. He barely made it to the bathroom before his stomach heaved, and his hands were still shaking by the time he was able to take a full breath without retching again. He pushed up from the cracked floor—his knees had hit the ground hard enough to shatter the tile—and flushed the toilet, then limped out to the sink.

His reflection in the mirror was a mess; on top of everything else, his nose was bleeding again, too. He splashed cold water on his face, then changed his mind and stuck his whole head under the tap. He tried to focus on the sound of the water rushing over his ears; he needed a distraction, any distraction, to keep his mind from getting dragged back into the memory. The terror, the rage, the thousand better ways he could use those kitchen scissors to solve their problem instead of cutting off Lisa’s fucking baby curls— 

Someone shut off the water, and Barry pulled back from the sink with a wet gasp. He pushed the soaking hair out of his eyes, flinched when it dripped onto his shoulders. 

Getting too long, he thought, with a morbid hiccup of laughter. Then he threw up again. 

When he recovered, Leonard was leaning against the sink next to him, holding out a paper towel.

“She doesn’t remember that,” he said, not looking at him. It was a warning, not a statement, and Barry nodded weakly. 

“Our dad was back in prison by the end of the week.”

Because you planted a gun on him, Barry didn’t say. He remembered the weight of it in his hand, two rounds in the wall next to the gas station attendant’s head; had to leave something for ballistics. Wiping his prints off on his t-shirt, curling Lewis’s hand around the grip, the trigger, dead to the world; another shot into their floor to get the gunpowder on his hand and the neighbors on the phone with the cops. 

Grabbing Lisa out of her bed, Winnie the Pooh blanket wrapped tight around her shoulders, thirty degrees outside. She was asleep on his chest by the time he got her to Mick’s. He dropped her off and went back to join the onlookers to make sure his dad got arrested, felt a vicious, bone-deep pleasure at seeing him dragged out of the hands in cuffs. He mentally added an extra year to their fortunes when the drunk old man elbowed a cop in the face, and black blood joined the blue and red lights in staining the front lawn. 

Whatever else Leonard had been saying, Barry had missed it. The few fragments he heard—six to eight year sentence, legal guardianship—jarred another memory loose: a pro bono attorney who let his hand rest a little too long on Len’s arm; Len, broke, desperate, not shaking it off. 

The feeling the memories carried was overwhelming, threatened to bring Barry to his knees. He was too frazzled to do the math, but Leonard couldn’t have been much older than he was now. Barry had no idea how he could’ve managed it, the absolute certainty that he would’ve killed for the child in his arms, the knowledge that one day, he probably would. 

When Barry looked at Leonard, he found him gazing steadily back at him, and the full weight of his focus was so unexpected that Barry almost flinched again. He took the paper towel instead.

“When Lisa said you raised her. I didn’t realize…” He had no idea how to put it into words; maybe it was something that only someone who’d been a parent could really understand. 

“My sister’s prone to exaggeration.”

His tone was flat, clipped, and Barry let the conversation lapse. He ran the sink again, then risked another glance in Leonard’s direction. He was still watching him. 

“What did you give her?” he asked. “For her to let you cut her hair.”

Leonard was quiet for so long that Barry thought he wasn’t going to answer him. Then, finally, he lifted one shoulder in an unconvincing shrug. “Took her out of school for a week.” He crossed his arms and looked away again. “Told ‘em she had chicken pox. Brought her to work with me. Boss let her sit in the corner booth and color.”

It was enough; Barry remembered it. The bar—closed now—with its sticky floor, the regulars still passed out on the bar from the night before; he’d serve them coffee and peanuts and get to work cleaning, have the bar restocked with sliced lemons before the bartenders arrived and call the repair guy if the ice machine was broken again. The regulars put endless Shirley temples on their tabs for Lisa, syrupy sweet sodas for a buck apiece that stained her teeth red, until Len cut her off and they ordered nachos for her instead, pretzels with beer cheese, doing a better job of feeding her than Len did most nights. 

There were tears stinging Barry’s eyes; Leonard ignored them other than handing him another paper towel, this one accompanied by an eye roll.  

[coldflashwave-baby]

@disney-dctv-week

Waiting here for evermore

           Mick felt his heart break as Barry ran out the door, his mind flashing back to a time, not four months before, when he’d watched the same sight. Only, this time, Barry was leaving a free man. This time, he paused at the door to the West Wing to look back with a grateful smile before closing it behind him, leaving Mick with the poisonous hope that maybe, just maybe, he loved Mick.

           The same way Mick loved Barry.

           They hadn’t started off that way. Mick accepted all the blame for that.

Being cursed as a beast for the past twenty years was enough to ruin anyone’s social skills. Especially since his hadn’t been the best to begin with. He’d thrown Barry in the dungeon to take his father’s place, not even considering him as a viable option to break the curse. Sure, he was attractive, but he was young and an idiot—who would volunteer to be a prisoner? Mick couldn’t wrap his head around it.

           But, of course, the rest of the castle started to meddle. He understood why. Every day that passed, they became more and more inanimate. Mick wanted to help, but he didn’t see how Barry could break the curse.

           Then, against the rules, Barry snuck into the West Wing and tried to touch the rose.

           Mick had always been known to have a bad temper, even before he became beastly. But when he saw the fearful yet angry way Barry glared at him before running away, he knew he’d gone too far. He went after him, knowing the wolves wouldn’t let Barry leave. They’d kill him, given half the chance.

           And if Mick hadn’t shown up when he did, they would have.

           As it was, they ripped into Mick, piling on him and biting, clawing, scratching into his skin, until finally, Mick threw them off and scared them away. When he collapsed, he truly believed he was done for. Barry was safe—he could run and go home to his father. He had no reason to stick around.

           But a warm cloak was thrown over his shoulder. “You have to help me,” Barry whispered, kneeling in front of him. All Mick could do was stare up at him, confused. “You need to stand up.”

           Somehow, Barry found a way to sling Mick onto the back of the horse, and he walked them back to the castle, talking his ear off to keep him awake. Mick didn’t know why. Frankly, he was afraid to ask. But Barry nursed him back to health patiently, snapping back at him when Mick’s temper reared.

That’s when Mick knew he’d met his match.

           After he was well, he decided to do something nice for Barry. On Len’s, his best friend/candelabra, suggestion, he took Barry to the library. Seeing his face light up when he saw the books made every pain from the wolf attack worth it.

           They grew closer as the months passed—Barry reading to Mick every now and then, the two of them having dinner together, their hours walking the grounds and having snowball fights. On one occasion, they just sat together on the floor together, Barry resting his head in Mick’s lap as he read, while Mick ran his claws gently through Barry’s hair. It was nice.

           It was perfect.

           And Mick knew he was falling in love.

           When Barry suggested using the freshly cleaned ballroom to dance, Mick felt nervous. Even when he was a prince, dancing wasn’t his thing. But he couldn’t say no to Barry, and when he saw him in the fineries that Iris, the wardrobe, made, he couldn’t regret it.

           They danced so naturally together, Mick’s heart leaping every time he lifted Barry or Barry leaned in too close not to be intimate.

           When he asked if he was happy, though, the joy on Barry’s face slipped away.

           “I want to say yes, but how can I be when I’m still a prisoner?” he asked.

           “How…” Mick licked his lips nervously. “How can I make you happier?”

           “I wish I could see my father again.”

           So, Mick took him to the West Wing and showed him the magic mirror. When Barry saw the people from his village loading his father into an asylum cart, however, Mick knew he had to let Barry go.

           And he did.

           Somehow, he didn’t regret it. He didn’t even expect to see Barry ever again, but he wanted him to be happy.

           He moved to stand on top of the highest tower, so he could watch Barry disappear in the distance. No, he couldn’t regret letting Barry go.

             He stood there for nearly two hours, hoping beyond hope he’d see Barry riding back. Instead, though, a mob came charging in, led by a man in black, holding the magic mirror.

He sighed. Let them come. Let them put him out of his miserable existence.

           He just wished he’d had a drink first.

           “Hello, Beast.” He turned slowly. The man in black stood there, a gun aimed at his heart and a nasty grin on his face. He turned away again. He didn’t care.

           The man fired, knocking him off the tower. Instinct kicked in, and the second Mick hit the top of the next tower, he dug his claws in.

           “Barry sent me to kill you!” the man shouted down at him. “Gave me the magic mirror to find you and everything.”

           Mick didn’t want to believe it. Even if Barry didn’t love him, he wouldn’t have sent the people of his town after him. Still, a twinge of doubt pulled at his heart strings as he jumped to the next tower.

           “Were you in love with him, Beast?” the man continued. “Did you really think he could love something like you? Barry is mine! He’s always been mine! Even if he doesn’t know it!”

           This had to be Hunter Zolomon, the cruel man who thought that Barry was the one for him no matter how many times Barry refused him. Barry told him that he hated Hunter’s guts. Or maybe he changed his mind, a dark voice whispered in his head.

           He couldn’t believe that. He wouldn’t…

           “MICK!”

           His heart almost stopped as he turned towards the voice. Standing there, at the top of one of the nearby towers, was Barry, still dressed in his fineries, looking at Mick with such fear and hope and…was it love? Could it be?

           “Mick, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean for them to find you!” Barry shouted. “Hunter stole the mirror and locked me and my father up!”

           “Stay where you are!” He called back. “I’m coming to you, Doll.”

           Barry’s face lit up, but then… “Mick, look out!”

           He swung around with enough time to catch Hunter by the throat. Hunter’s eyes widened with fear. “Don’t kill me!” he begged. “Please don’t kill me!”

           All Mick had to do was tighten his grip, dig his claws into Hunter’s throat…a year ago, he would have.

           But that was before Barry, when he was just a beast. He wasn’t that monster anymore. He couldn’t be. He pulled Hunter forward, so their faces were inches apart. “Get. Out.” He growled, throwing the man carelessly behind him.

When he turned back to the tower, Barry was still standing there, waiting with a bright smile. He ran for the ledge, ignoring Barry’s protests that the gap between them was too far. For Barry, he could sprout wings and fly, if he had to. He leapt, smiling when he finally found himself in touching distance from Barry.

“You came back.” He whispered, resting a hand on his cheek. Barry leaned into the touch.

“Of course I did. I lo—”

But the rest of what Barry said was cut off by the loud crack of a gunshot. Pain burnt through Mick’s back, and he collapsed to the floor of the West Wing. He couldn’t see what happened after that—he heard the crumbling of one of the towers from the curse, followed by a scream that sounded like Hunter.

All he could focus on, however, was Barry, kneeling over him with fresh tears in his eyes. “Please, no…” Barry begged, running his fingers through the fur around Mick’s face. “I’ll never leave again. I promise I will stay here, happily, for the rest of my life. I’ll stay with you forever.”

Mick chuckled. How badly he’d wanted to hear that before. “I…I think I’m the one leaving now, Doll.”

Barry shook his head frantically. “No. No, you’re going to be fine. We’re together now. Everything’s going to be fine.”

Mick slowly took the hand on his face and pressed a kiss to the knuckles. “At least I got to see you again,” he choked out, forcing a smile on his face. “one last time.”

He felt his eyes slipping closed, and there was a small pressure, like someone resting their forehead against his. “Come back,” Barry whispered, tearfully. “I love you…”

Something happened the second after those words fell out of Barry’s mouth. It was like his entire body filled with warm light. A chill came over his arms and face. There was a pressure against his feet. A weight lifted off of his body.

When he opened his eyes again, Barry was across the room from him, staring in shock and awe. Mick looked down at himself—he was human. The curse was broken. Barry really did love him.

“Doll, it’s me.” He said, not sure if what Barry was thinking.

But, true to form, Barry rolled his eyes with a grin. “Of course it’s you. I just watched you transform right in front of me.”

Before Mick could reply, Barry ran at him, jumping into his arms so he could finally, finally, bring their lips together.