Chapter 4
Bartholomew H. Allen observational notes:
My familiar has been walking in and out of "my" room since we got to Joe's while the door has been closed. The door to my room at home was always open so I never noticed it before. But they can sit on my bed or the chair in my room just fine.
They say it's a matter of perspective. Vertical things can be assumed to be doors, even if they aren't, like walls and the foot board of my bed, and horizontal things can be assumed to be sitting things, even if they aren't, like my desk or the science teachers work surface at school.
I set up two chairs in the dining room with Joe's help and put a big board between them. My familiar walked right through it while it was standing up. Then Joe helped me lay it on top of the two chairs and they were able to jump up and sit on it. It was pretty cool.
Joe was looking at me like I'd been telling the story of the man in the lightning again.
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Three more months had passed, and in that time Nor had wandered all over S.T.A.R. Labs and then left and wandered around Central and a part of Keystone. One can only sit around for so long when they know their charge is going to be ok for so long after all.
In a small section of Keystone Nor found several very high end shops that had items of all kinds geared to familiars, many of which he personally thought were a crime against the familiars. Who wanted to walk around in a bright pink argyle cardigan or a midnight blue parka. For that matter, what kind of familiar would need a parka anyway?
The next shop over though, that's the one he kept going back to. It had toys in it and claimed that the familiar could play with them when their human was too busy to play with them. There was a particular red and blue ball in a locked case in the back of the shop that Nor had his eye on and would need to show Barry...if his pup ever decided to come back to him. The brat was just being stubborn now.
Nor spent his time casing the shop, learning that even though it had some very high price tags it had some pretty gods awful security. Barry would be able to get in no problem to 'borrow' the ball for him.
Two months after Nor had started coming to the shop he noticed a car sitting at the corner of the street with two men inside but it was the cheetah that he could see outside the driver's side door, perched on it and leaning in, that had him stopping dead in his tracks.
Soulmate.
The cheetah's head suddenly snapped up and over to where he was and in a shock of pale gold lightning the cat was in front of Nor, a soft exclamation from one of them men in the car following and Leonard Snart following quickly after with the other man right behind him.
Nor swallowed thickly, this wasn't how first meetings were supposed to work at all! Never mind that Leonard had already found Barry and just didn't know it.
"What's your name?" Leonard asked, looking right at him.
Nor swiveled his ears, pretending to listen for something that wasn't there, buying time before he answered, "Nor."
"Who you talking to, buddy?" The other man said.
"There's a familiar right here that Chain and I can see, it has to belong to our soulmate," Leonard said, turning to look at the man.
"Ignore Len's partner, he's been jumpy about Len finding our soulmate since I went into the coma eight months ago, but I woke up two months ago and we've been trying to find out what we can about him since. Slow going all around though, we only had one potential and he vanished just about the time I woke up apparently, so we don't know if he's still in a coma or not," the cheetah, Chain, rattled off at Nor. Definitely part of Barry's soul.
"Partner?" Nor asked and looked at the other man, his ears going flat back. It wasn't uncommon for humans who didn't find their soulmates to find others in the same boat to bond with, especially when they started to get older. Joe had done it young though because he and his wife had made a a connection, and Iris was a wonderful result from that, but joe's wife died and now Joe was alone again.
Nor bared all his teeth at this partner and that got Len's attention again from what ever he'd been saying to the man.
"Hey now, what's wrong?"
"You have a partner! My human has been waiting for you and you and you have someone else?" Nor snarled. "I won't let you near my pack, ever, now."
Leonard narrowed his eyes and Chain let out a pained noise. Leonard moved to the big cat and placed a hand on the back of the cats head in a calming gesture. Nor recognized it as something Barry did to him and his chest ached for a moment.
"You mean he isn't here right now?" Leonard said and glanced around. "How is that even possible? The farthest Chain's ever been from me has only been the length of a building."
Nor snorted, "wouldn't you like to know."
"You can't keep me from finding him," Leonard said, anger threading through his steady tone. "He's my soulmate, you are a part of me! I will have what is mine!"
"The pack protects their own," Nor said to Leonard. "And until you find him, we are not yours. Your /partner/ is behind you!" Nor snapped his fangs for emphasis.
Leonard turned to look over his should at the other man, an incredulous look on his face, "Mick is my partner in /crime/, you mongrel."
Man and wolf bared teeth and fangs at each other and the longer it went on and the more each of their hackles went up the more Nor conceded that he was part of this mans soul. Which just meant he could never back down. Barry was going to either hate this game that Nor had just decided on or love it.
"Hope you like to run, Leonard Snart, because you're going to be doing that a lot soon," Nor said, a wolffish smirk spreading over his face. "Come on, come on, catch us now. You can't catch us any how," Nor taunted with a truly ridiculous lyric from Barry's grade school days before turning and bolting through the wall of the familiar toy store. He made a sharp turn to hide behind a wall just in time to watch the cheetah bolt past.
Nor blinked at the lightning trail and wondered if the cheetah could do that after six months, what was Barry going to be able to do when he woke up?
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Len went back to the car, Mick hot on his heels, and Chain not that far behind because, in the end, he couldn't be that far away from Len, and they both wondered just how far Nor could be from their soulmate or if he'd been bluffing.
He slammed the door, started the car and drove in silence back to the safe house. Casing the shops in the little familiar area of Keystone be damned tonight.
When they got back to the safe house, Len stormed inside, picked up the first thing that was within reach, and lobbed it across the room. The genial thump of the pillow was not the noise Len had wanted to hear, but that's what he got for not looking at what he was grabbing.
"Buddy, what did the other familiar say that has you loosing your cool like this? You never get this worked up unless Lisa's involved," Mick said, still hanging back by the door, shocked.
"That mongrel said he was going to keep my soulmate from me because Chain called you my 'partner' and he picked the wrong meaning," Len all but snarled and then took a deep breath and held it. Mick was right, loosing his cool would get him nowhere.
Chain, the traitor, was lounging on the sofa, easy as you please. Belly exposed and waiting for Len to come over to him like he'd done something good.
"And why do you look so pleased with yourself," Len asked as me moved over to the low table in front of the sofa and sat on it. Mick snorted and sat in one of the nearby armchairs, now used to the ebb and flow of Len's conversations with Chain. Len had never really spoken to his familiar all those times they had ended up in jail together. It just wasn't the thing to do to show a potential weakness like that.
"Because, Len, Nor is you!" The cheetah chirped. "All over protective of his family and willing to do anything to keep others away from them. Look what you've done for Lisa! She's so good she's not even in the system! And now Nor is protecting my other half because he doesn't know the full story on you."
Chain flipped over so that he was sitting up right and bridged the gap between them, bracing on the table, his cleat like claws digging in for stability, and he head butted Len.
"I'm sorry that I upset him. I didn't know what else to call you and Mick. You've just always been partners to me, and in my head I know Mick loves fire more than anything else so that our soulmate has nothing to worry about..."
Len huffed and brought a hand up to cuff Chain on the head lightly, "probably could have called Mick my brother and the beast would have believed you."
"Don't flatter yourself, Snart. You don't look this good," Mick said as he started to pat his pockets down and dig in the inside pockets.
"If you're going to play with fire, Mick, do it in the kitchen or out back with the bucket of water near you. I don't want to loose this safe house to the CCFD," Len said with a put-upon air.
Mick flipped him off and got up, heading to the back of the house.
"Now what?" Chain asked.
"Maybe we should look into Allen again...," Len said thoughtfully.
"But there's nothing to really suggest that he has anything to do with us still. Sure he was in a coma for six months and then vanished. For all we know he could be dead and they just moved him quietly because he was a badge," Chain said softly.
Len looked at his familiar, the wide eyes, the ears that shifted so that one was angled towards where Mick had gone and one was solidly on Len and the long thick ended tail that hadn't stopped moving since he woke up.
"Our soulmate's alive, I just know it. If it turns out that Allen isn't our soulmate and he's really gone...well, I'd need to see the body because I don't think that kid'd give up without one hell of a fight."
Chain head butted him again, "you are so strange. Why was I born with such a strange and possessive human?"
Len smirked back at him and shrugged, he opened his mouth to reply but snapped it shut when he realized he was about to say 'a pack protects their own.' He groaned and buried his face in Chain's ruff, startling the big cat.
"We're going to find that wolf again and then the game is on," he said into Chain's back.
Chain chittered out a laugh and wrapped a paw around Len, wobbling a bit from still being stretched out from the sofa to the table.
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