Chapter 3
By the time Mick got to Central after the accident the city's power was still out, even on the outskirts were Len's safe house was.
No one answered the front door, and it was locked tight. Mick didn't feel like trying to pick the lock just then and he figured if Snart was home he wouldn't appreciate Mick burning the door, and possibly the whole house, down just to get inside. So Mick went around back and tried that door, still locked. He waited another moment to see if he'd be let in like a normal human being, but when it looked like that was becoming less like a reality he took a step back, and kicked the door in.
"Snart!" He called as he stepped over the threshold, but got no response. He looked at the table and saw all the plans were still laid out, so that meant Snart was still here, man didn't just up and leave with those out in the open.
He closed the door as best he could and went farther into the house. A quick search brought him to the back bedroom where he found Len, one hand pressed flat to the bed, the other curled under his head as his upper body was laying on it. That isn't what caught Mick's attention though, no what got his attention was the imprint of a body on the bed that aught not to be there at all.
"Snart?" Mick said again, more cautiously this time as he edged into the room.
Len didn't even shift as he said, "Chain hasn't moved since the accident. He connected with our soulmate and this happened."
The man sounded broken to Mick, almost as bad as anytime he'd heard him talk about his father hurting his little sister. Then again, who wouldn't be upset if their familiar was hurt and they thought their soulmate was hurt too.
The imprint on the bed was freaking Mick out so he tried to get Len to leave the room, tried to find out the last time he'd eaten, showered, anything. Len didn't have answered, didn't even know what time it was. He'd stopped counting. He also wouldn't leave the room, and when Mick bodily lifted him up and carried him out he'd gone right back the moment he could.
Admittedly that had been after a half hearted fight between the two because Mick didn't want to hurt someone who was already hurting so obviously.
So Mick called Lisa.
In the end four days, seven hours, that phone call to Lisa and a new black eye for Len found them all sitting at the kitchen table. The papers neatly cleared away and plates and silverware set up for a meal.
Len felt like death warmed over.
"I don't think you needed to hit me so hard int he face, Mick," he deadpanned, not picking his head up from how he had it tipped back looking up at the ceiling.
"You certainly weren't listening to anything else we were saying Lenny," Lisa said from over by the stove. "And besides, he seems to have knocked some sense into you, at least for now, so win/win!"
Mick snorted into whatever he was drinking at 3am.
"I hate you both," Len said as he pulled his head up right and glared at both of them.
"Whatever, sunshine," Mick said. "You called me, remember. Don't be prissy that I actually came here like you told me to."
"I'm family, Lenny, you can hate me all you want, but I know it's really love," Lisa sing-songed.
Len still hated then.
"So," Lisa started as she brought eggs and bacon over to the table and let them dish it out themselves, "what's the story with your familiar. Mick was a bit thin on the details."
Len sighed and snapped a piece of bacon in half before he said, "we had just turned on the news broadcast of the accelerator and they were already telling people to evacuate the area, we saw the explosion and the start of the power going out and the lightning strikes and then our power went out, even out here. Chain turned to say something to me..."
Mick snorted into his eggs, subsequently actually snorting one as he jerked his head too far down to try to hide his ill concealed laugh and Len had to wait as he got his coughing fit under control.
Lisa quirked an eyebrow and said, over Mick's coughing, "you named your familiar after a 'ball and chain'? That's bad even for you, Lenny."
"He picked it himself, thank you very much. And it's from chain lighting that he saw on some stupid weather documentary that a prison had left on one night years ago. If your both done judging us, may I proceed?" Len said making a rude hand gesture at both of them.
Mick made one back and Lisa stuck out her tongue. They were the picture of maturity, Len thought to himself.
"At any rate, Chain didn't even say anything before he seized and fell to the floor, literal static bolts racing up his fur and vanishing around his head. I couldn't wake him no matter what I tried. I can't even begin to think what must have happened to my soulmate for this to have..."
Lisa interrupted this time with, "why do you think anything happened to them at all. Familiars don't act or react to their other halves until they've met before, so unless /Chain/ has met your soulmate and not told you then it's highly unlikely that anything has happened."
Len remained silent and looked at his sister like she was missing something and the gears in her head snapped into action.
"Unless he's done something like this before?" She said unsurely.
Len nodded, "once before, 13 years ago."
"Jesus, Snart," Mick said. "What happened then!"
"Something happened to my soulmates parents back then. There was only one story in any of the Central news papers that matched, but the kid was 11. Nothing else seemed to fit nationally and I didn't bother to look internationally after that." Len told them.
It was surprisingly Mick who leaned forward and asked, "do you remember the name?"
"Allen."
Mick thought for a moment and then nodded, "Doc Allen up in the Heights, he's been there 'bout 13 years. Must'a been him you read about."
"Is there anyone in any jail the two of you don't know or know of?" Lisa asked.
"No," the pair said together.
Lisa sighed and shook her head. "So, we have a name. This makes our search easy. We look up Doc Allen's kid, find out what happened to him four days ago and we can put this to rest. Easy as you please," she smiled brightly at Len.
This did not sound like a well thought out plan at all.
It was ridiculously easy to find out where Allen's son was, he hadn't moved once since the accident. Central City General Hospital. Len stood outside a set of nondescript doors that would let him slip in and check on the kid with ease.
A kid who had now passively come into Len's life twice, and both times involved incidents with Chain connecting with his soulmate. Maybe the universe was trying to help him out? Len snorted, no one ever tried to help a Snart out for free.
He pushed the door open and went to find the room for Barry Allen.
The kid was hooked up to more equipment than he had any right to be, and the air in the room felt charged with electricity. Len glanced up and down the hall before stepping in and closing the door.
He thought he heard a sound on the far side of the bed and moved to look, but there was nothing there. He stood at the foot of the bed and look down at the young man that lay comatose from a lightning strike.
"You have the devil's luck kid. Dad gets blamed for killing your mom, not that Doc did it, I don't think that man could hurt anyone. Murdered me in chess though, no mercy. And now here you are, struck by lightning and, according to this chart here, doused by chemicals from your own lab," Len paused and read more of the report.
Barry Allen, CSI for CCPD...oh the irony if this kid was somehow his soulmate. Not that he say any familiar in the room, but it was entertaining to think about now.
He put the report back in it's place and went back around to the side of the bed closest to the door.
"Here's the thing kid, this is the 2nd time some event in my life has had me look you up. The first time any one can wave away as nothing. The second time starts to look a little like coincidence. Now I don't see your familiar, so I'm on the fence for us being soulmates, but I think there's something there. If you come into my life again I will be looking into you in a much more thorough way...
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