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 in the 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 and shook his head. The Devil's luck indeed.
Barry Allen, CSI for CCPD...oh the irony if this kid was somehow his soulmate. Not that he saw 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 and leaned down so that he was very close to the comatose young man's ear.
Len then whispered, "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..."
Len stood up straight, another flicker of movement in his periphery made him blink and look away from the young man on the bed, but again there was nothing there. He quirked an eye brow and started to move around the bed again.
He didn't get very far though as the heart monitor started to escalate, as if the kid was running as fast as he could, but the number kept climbing and Len didn't like the way it looked so he turned back to the door and made his exit.
He was several doors down when the alarm sounded for a patient going into heart failure and the power started to flicker and go out. Len stopped and watched as several doctors and nurses rushed into Allen's room and he felt all of the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. It felt utterly wrong that the kid should be going into heart failure, sure his heart was beating fast just a moment before, but with numbers as high as that and still he hadn't crashed in the short span that Len had been in the room...Something wasn't adding up for Len and he didn't like it.
He left the hospital and went back to the safe house. Lisa and Mick were waiting for him, Lisa's mouth already opening to ask if the kid had been his.
He waved her off as soon as he had the door closed.
"Didn't see any familiar in the room, surely with him being knocked into a coma by a bolt of lightning the beast would be right by his side," Len said as he sat down next to Mick and tipped his head back. He wanted to go to his own familiar and check on him, but he knew that if Chain didn't respond to him he would spiral downward again.
"Did you touch him?"
Len picked his head back up and looked at his sister like she was insane.
"So that's a no," Mick said with a snort next to him.
"Lenny! Even if you can't see the familiar right away, touch is supposed to be a clue too!" Lisa said, sounding exasperated and looking at Len like he was the dumb one now.
Len rolled his eyes and tipped his head back again. "What good would it have done? Kid's in a coma, works as a CSI for the CCDP and if the report hanging off his bed was anything to go by, then one Detective J. West is his guardian and/or adoptive father. You know what I am?"
"World's best thief, even rated by Interpol?" Lisa quipped.
Len finger gunned at her because he had to give her that. He wondered how good of a CSI Allen was anyway...
"You gonna look into the kid then," Mick asked.
"Nope," Len said. "Happenstance happens. If he comes into my life a third time though, soulmate or not, kids going to be mine. One way or another."
Lisa snorted and Mick rolled his eyes. Len knew he was a possessive jerk. Upstairs a round and fuzzy ear flicked.
----------
B.Allen Observational journal, quick notes:
Have to make this quick, going out with Iris to see the Accelerator be switched on soon if I can get the tests to run faster...by force of will.
So, this observation came just after I got back from Starling City. Nor had been effecting peoples familiars while I was away, and that was the farthest we'd ever been from each other. The only other time he claims that this has happened is the night Mom died and Dad was taken away. So...maybe in my extremes (distance and emotions) Nor can effect other familiars. He certainly doesn't seem to be able to do it normally. Believe me, he was trying at the crime scene today!
...And back...
I'm sure if he could have intimidated Iris' mugger he would have too. Time to wrap this up, we've got to finish watch the Accelerator coverage from my lab at work. Semi long story about that mugger.
---
Nor sat on the far side of Barry's bed in the hospital. It had been six days since the accident and the lightning bolt and still Barry remained still. He had just shifted off of the bed when he heard the door click softly open but whomever it was didn't enter right away which was strange. All the hospital staff and Joe and Iris always came in right away when they opened the door.
There was movement and the door closed just as quietly and Nor quickly moved, not into the line of site like he normally would, but partially through the wall and behind the chair in the corner, he wanted to be able to keep an eye and ear on Barry after all, and he wasn't sure what was making him hide instead of stay in plain site. The room felt charged with something the way it didn't around every other human Nor and Barry had ever come into contact with. Still Nor remained out of site.
The man that had come into the room came to the foot of the bed and looked to where Nor had just been, almost as if he had been able to see him. The man stopped though and turned his attention back towards Barry.
"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," the man said before he paused and read from the report. Nor could hear the papers shifting.
More than that though, the man's voice had struck a cord with Nor and the wolf had sat down, still half in the wall behind the chair, a thunderstruck expression on his face. Soulmate. This man was Barry's soulmate and Nor wasn't showing himself. Was actually actively /hiding/ himself! He tried to get up and move, but remained seated where he was.
The man had moved around the bed to whisper into the ear of the unconscious Barry now, and Nor was too preoccupied with his own predicament that he wasn't paying attention to everything the man was saying now.
"...If you come into my life again I will be looking into you in a much more thorough way..." Nor registered the man saying just before he stood back up. No, no, he might leave! Nor was finally able to stand and move away from behind the chain, but something still held him back from revealing himself to this man. He wanted to howl in frustration, but his jaw wouldn't work either.
The man had started to come closer though all on his own, so maybe he could still find Nor, there might still be a chance. Nor's heart rate picked up, and at the same time so did Barry's. The monitors catching the man's attention and making him stop and look at them. Nor wanted to bang his head on the floor, especially since he was starting to realize that he might be keeping himself hidden precisely because Barry was in a coma. Nor mechanically turned to face his human and a terrible thought occurred to him. What if he couldn't reveal himself to Barry's soulmate because Barry himself wasn't conscious enough for higher brain functions? Or maybe because he'd been protecting Barry for so long at this point that there must be something that they hadn't tested for all those years ago because they had never thought about a situation like this. There were just too many variables now and no way for Nor to test on his own.
Nor's attention was drawn to the monitor when it started beeping faster and faster, something no human heart should do without crashing, but Barry's just kept escalating. The man left then and closed the door behind him and moment later the doctors and nurses rushed in because the monitor was saying Barry had crashed. The power was going out and no one had any idea what was going on.
Nor didn't feel like he was passing on, so he sat calmly on the chair in the corner and waited for the legion of humans to get on with it, his mind on Barry's soulmate that he had let get away.
He needed to figure out how to get a name to the face he'd seen, but with Barry comatose that meant he wouldn't be able to touch anything. Which meant he had two options. Option 1: wander around Central City until his paws fell off and hope for the best. Option 2: go to CCPD and wander around until he found someone looking at mug shots and hope for the best, because really, Nor thought to himself as he hopped off of the chair and walked through the door, what kind of man snuck into a hospital room in the middle of the night, made next to no noise, and left quickly when it looked like he might be discovered?
Nor padded out of the hospital and started his trek back to CCPD, it wasn't a short walk after all.
From the night Barry's soulmate snuck into his hospital room to the day Nor found out his name it had taken him six months, three days eleven hours and Nor had refused to count the minutes after that because that seemed a little obsessive, even for him.
Leonard Snart.
Nor was just trotting back into the hospital, ears up and quite a pleased look on his face, when he saw HIS BARRY being taken out on a gurney. Joe not far behind, and a man in a wheelchair next to him. They were speaking in hushed tones and Joe didn't seem too pleased. Nor waited until they came level and then turned and walked with the gurney out of the hospital.
The ambulance they all got into took them to, of all places, S.T.A.R. Labs. Nor boggled a bit as he followed Barry's gurney inside. They were greeted by just two people, only one of which seemed to be a doctor because she was the only one to help the paramedics set Barry up in his new room.
There continued to be commotion around Barry for a while, but Nor had hopped up onto the bed and lay next to him, knowing that no one would see him effect the bed because Barry wasn't actively touching him.
He rested his head just under Barry's chin and said, "I met your soulmate, pup. I didn't stop him or show myself to him though, and for that I am sorry. It was like I was the one in the coma instead of you. It took some time, maybe too long, but I have his name. It's Leonard Snart, you're not going to like how I found it though."
----------
Across town, almost on the outskirts of the city, a pair of eyes snapped open in a dark room. They quickly looked around, and when they saw no one they dashed out, a strange trail left in their wake.
Len sat in the kitchen with Mick and Lisa, a game of poker going between them when the atmosphere shifted and they all looked up at each other, the hairs on their arms and the backs of their necks standing on end.
A flicker of light had Len turning to look behind him. He only made it half way to facing the hallway before he was bowled off his chair and knocked flat on his back. Mick and Lisa were on their feet and around the table and hovering over him, unsure what to do.
Len, for his part, was just starting up, godsmacked, at open air.
"Lenny?" Lisa said hesitantly.
Len moved then, wrapping his arms around nothing and pulling them as tight as they would go, only stopping when something stopped them and Len buried his face in whatever was in his arms.
"Is'at your familiar, Snart? He's awake!" Mick exclaimed.
"I'm sorry, I don't know what happened," Chain said as he pulled back and shifted to rub his head under Len's chin and purred.
"It's ok, it's ok," Len said softly. "I'm just glad you're ok. I was so worried when I couldn't wake you up."
"He got hurt, we were more connected now than I've ever heard a familiar and their other half being. I wasn't able to learn his name though," Chain said, his ears shifting back, pressing the top of his head to Len's chest.
Len sighed and ran his fingers through Chain's fur soothingly, "it's ok. We'll find him. At least we know it's a him now that we're looking for."
Lisa sat down next to Len and put her hand on his shoulder, "he's ok then, your familiar?"
"Yea, yea, he seems fine," Len said looking up at her, he hands still moving through thin air.
Mick huffed and sat down heavily near Len's feat and leaned against the wall. "So, what we gonna do about your soulmate, Snart?"
Len's hands stilled in their motions on Chain's back and he sat up, forcing the cheetah into his lap.
"Did he wake up when you did?"
Lisa and Mick waited as Len got his answer, glancing at each other and then subtly at their own familiars. Listening to someone talk to their familiar could be so awkward sometimes, when you only got half of the conversation.
"Then we'll just have to wait," Len said, and then he smirked and it edged into an actual smile for a moment. "Actually, that diamond isn't going to steel itself you know."
Though Mick and Lisa couldn't see it, Chain hit his head on the floor and Len burst out a bark of a laugh as he ruffled the cheetah's ears.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
No comments:
Post a Comment