This was churned out with no edits. Today is busy. Apologies.
And a warning: minor Three Hopes spoilers within.
-
Names were vexing.
It was never something that would have occurred to her in the life she now thought of as normal. Normal life was before - in Enbarr. Normal life was family she had always known, and familiar smells, and food she did not have to be told how to properly eat, and a pillow where her head fit just so as she snuggled into it each night. Everyone, everything, just as it had always been.
That was normal.
Nothing in Fhirdiad was normal, not even her uncle. Not even...
Not even Edelgard.
She did not like it. Her mind was like the pig's bladders she had once seen some boys playing with near the palace grounds - dirty boys, coarse and skinny as poles, but laughing and chasing after that curious toy. They blew it up, then released it, again and again as she watched, careful not to be seen - not because she feared the boys, but because she had climbed a tree to peer over the walls, and she had been told repeatedly not to do so. (Which meant, of course, simply to grow better at hiding...)
But yes - that was an apt description of what now seemed to be happening within her. Inside her skull, someone was blowing up and releasing a pig's bladder, sending it whistling and careening from corner to corner, and she could not simply shimmy back down the tree, or even close her eyes and cover her ears to escape it.
And now names. Even those were not normal, in Faerghus.
At home, they had called her El. With gentle humor, with annoyance, with derision. El, El, El. She had felt odd, when someone called her Edelgard - more odd even than when someone bowed to her and called her princess, as if she carried the importance of her father. (She was old enough to understand this now, but of course had not always been so; she had only of late turned twelve.) Edelgard was her name, she thought of herself as Edelgard, but it was not what anyone else said. Not if they knew her.
Just another reminder, here, that no one did: she was Edelgard. And something... something had finally burst within her. Smaller than the pig's bladder, but an irritation nonetheless, and finally some little claws within her had bested it. Or... so it had seemed.
"Edelgard, shall we -"
"El!"
She was not one to shout, but she did - out of nowhere. Out of nothing. She felt startled herself, as if her lips had formed the sound of their own volition. She balled her hands into fists, feeling the tension build in her shoulders.
Dimitri stepped back, but his eyes never left hers, despite their sudden uncertainty. "I... did I upset you?"
She bit her lip, shook her head - almost frantically. "No. No - I... I apologize. I'm just... it's..." It was what? What? She didn't know. She just...
"El." She said it softly, now. "It's... my sisters. Everyone. They... they call me El. My... my friends." Were sisters friends? She had no others, unless one counted Hubert, and he had always called her Lady. And unless one counted Dimitri. She wanted to count Dimitri.
She wanted him to call her El.
He cocked his head, then smiled. "Oh. Okay. Then... El. El." He spoke it as if rolling it around in his mouth - but gave a decisive nod, the taste of it pleasing. "El."
But it wasn't the end of it.
"A nickname," he said later. "I have never had one. I confess, I am rather jealous."
"Jealous? It's only because my little sister could not say Edelgard. She was very small."
He laughed. "Fair. Still - it seems... nice. Like a family should be."
He rarely spoke of his family, but she had found herself wondering more than once if it was not entirely a happy one. She had never asked - it did not seem her place.
"We are friends, are we not?" He asked it almost reluctantly; his eyes had left hers.
"We... of course. I... think we are." Similarly discombobulated, though there seemed no reason for it. She could feel faint heat in her cheeks. Was it so strange? Perhaps... She didn't know.
He scuffed the ground with the toe of his boot. "If... if it might please you - and isn't too much trouble! - perhaps... perhaps you might give me a nickname? As well? I... I think I would like one."
A simple request. The simplest she had perhaps ever been given.
And yet...
Vexing.
The little house was fast asleep, and had been so for hours. Her uncle, the few servants and attendants and guards - all at rest, now. All but Edelgard.
She crossed her arms between her head and the pillow that was still not her own, staring without seeing at the night beyond her narrow window. The moon was bright here, brighter than in Enbarr, but colder, too, somehow. She did not like it - but for now, she ignored it.
Dimitri.
There was simply Mitri, but that seemed... too simple. Too easy to understand, and too much like she was not capable of saying his name correctly. She was not her sister at three years old, tongue twisting beneath sounds.
"Dima," she said softly, trying it out. "Or... Dimi?" But no - she had seen how he formed the El, how it had pleased him. There must be something similar to suit her own tastes. And his - his too, of course.
She shook her head, digging her fingers into her scalp.
New tastes. Unfamiliar. Not-normal. But perhaps...
She fell asleep, finally, as the first tendrils of dawn crept against the city walls, far to the east and beyond the scope of her smidgen of a window.
He looked startled, once more, when she told him - though it was perhaps the way she said it, and the way her chin lifted, as if in defiance. Well, perhaps it was; she was not inclined to be laughed at.
He didn't laugh. He seemed to consider it, as he had considered his own. He looked down, slowly forming the sound, hardly a breath, a whisper.
When his eyes met hers, he was smiling - the true, open smile he had when he so rarely, for a moment, forgot that which troubled him, whatever it might be. He nodded. "Yes! Yes, I think that is it!"
She was usually in control of her own expressions - one of the few things she could control, here - but his smile was too much to resist: she allowed herself to match it. Warmth bloomed somewhere within her, filling her chest, her heart - a promise of something past the winter, the bloom of spring, even if it was no bigger than a first tentative daffodil unfurling through the snow. "Dee, then," she said. "Dee and El."
"Dee and El." He took her arm, then, and squeezed - gentle. "Dee and El. And we're... we'll always be friends."
She did not know. And she did not make false promises. "I hope so," she said.
He nodded.
Whatever happened... she would not allow herself to forget this moment. This warmth, brief as it might be.
The sound of it in his voice - the warmth there, too.
i need ANGST so please “and the saddest part of all? you’ll cling to the good memories, as if there were any” for Phoenix and Cass, or just one or the other :~)
“Why won’t you ever talk about him?” Cass folded her arms and leaned in the doorway, arching an eyebrow as she awaited her mother’s response. Phoenix was absorbed in reading the Daily Prophet, one of her favourite activities when she set Alfie down for a nap.
“You know why.” They both knew who Cass was referring to. Phoenix’s clipped response wasn’t good enough for Cass. Evan Rosier had been a Death Eater, but he’d also been her father. Surely he hadn’t been all bad?
“You said he loved me with his whole heart.” Cass snatched the Daily Prophet out of Phoenix’s hands, forcing her to focus on the issue she was constantly avoiding.
“I did.” Phoenix got to her feet. She had an effortless grace that Cass had always struggled to match. People often said Remus and Phoenix were quite the pair - her father’s casual state of attire compared with Phoenix’s glamour.
“So what, that doesn’t matter?” Cass demanded. “He was fucking dad. Don’t you think I deserve a sliver of introspect on what he was like?”
“Your father was a Death Eater.” Phoenix sounded like she didn’t want to discuss this, grey eyes narrowing, but Cass surged on regardless.
“I’ve heard some interesting things. About the nature of how he died. About who told the Aurors where to find him.”
Phoenix tensed, gripping the back of her chair with green-tipped talons. “Cass, you don’t know anything about that.”
“You got him killed!” Cass shouted, her anger exploding like an inferno as she blazed onwards, not caring if she hurt her mum’s feelings in the process. “You didn’t give a shit about him!”
“You want to talk about your father?” Phoenix’s expression was suddenly cold fury. “Let’s talk. Which part did you want to begin with, the part where he took some of my memories, the part where he emotionally manipulated me at every turn? Maybe the part where his Death Eater friends tortured me while he watched?”
Cass went quiet, the awful silence stretching between them. There was pain in her mother’s eyes now as she was forced to resurrect the ghost of a past she wanted to put in the ground. Cass hadn’t known her dad had done any of those things and she wished she could
“I...I didn’t know.”
“No, because you want to see the good in him.” Phoenix planted her hands on her hips. “And the saddest part of all? You’ll cling to the good memories, as if there were any.”
Cass felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. She had always known her parents’ marriage had been one of convenience, and she’d heard the snide comments that she’d been born to fill the hole in her mother’s heart after Phoenix had lost Regulus and Orion. But her father...
“He hurt you.”
“He did.” Phoenix clenched her jaw. “Over and over again. I don’t even think he realised it sometimes. He thought he loved me, but someone who loves you will never treat you like. I want you to remember that.”
Jon opens his eyes, the remnants of nightmares fading from his mind. It used to rattle him more, these dreams. He would awaken horrified, heart racing, and in some ways that was better. He thinks he owes it to them to suffer, too. Now he just wakes feeling refreshed and guilty. The Eye is content, at least for a while. It’s not that he doesn’t care about the people he’s hurting every night, but it is remarkable, really, what can become so routine that it loses its effect.
Sometimes, like now, even the statement givers he watches seem to grow numb to their familiar terrors as well, and when they do the itch returns; Jon's eyes will be drawn to a stranger on the tube or in a cafe and if he isn’t strong enough to fight it, which is more often than he’d like to admit, their story will inevitably be added to his collection of nightmares. He doesn’t go out much anymore.
Martin stirs beside him. He has his share of nightmares, too, but fortunately this isn’t one of those days. “Good morning.” he says softly, bleary eyes focusing on Jon.
He doesn’t answer.
“Oh no. You’ve got that look again.”
Jon blinks, startled. “What look?” If the hunger is that obvious...
“Like you’re thinking too much. Never a good sign this early.”
“I... I’m fine. It’s just the dreams.” Which is true, but not entirely. He isn’t sure why he lies. Martin will worry about him regardless.
“Right,” he sighs, letting the matter drop for now. And Martin kisses him, slow and gentle, like Jon is something worthy of great care.
I love you so much.
For a second Jon believes the thought was his own, since he does in fact love Martin, but then he quickly realizes it wasn’t and has to bite his tongue before he responds. They haven’t actually said that out loud yet, and the first time they do should not be because Jon accidentally read Martin’s mind.
He doesn’t deserve Martin’s love, or even his trust. Jon doesn’t need any powers to know that. But he lets Martin pull him closer anyway, lets himself feel warm and safe and almost human in his arms. Tries to lose himself in that kiss. It doesn’t fix anything, not really. Neither will the cup of tea he’ll have later, or the statement he will record, but it certainly helps.
You remember how mick says he and len don't have heart to hearts? Well do you think they did when they younger and as they got older it changed? Under what circumstances do you think they would have a heart to heart?
So I know this isn’t what you’re aiming for…. but this is where I had to take it. #sorrynotsorry
His lip is bleeding. No, his nose is bleeding. It sure hurts bad enough. But he tongues his lip and it stings.
They’re both bleeding.
But he’s alive. So he’s laughing and relieved and wiping the blood on his sleeve and listening to the deeper, richer laugh of the guy next to him.
“They comin’?”
Lenny peers around the corner and sees everything in order, the other inmates in juvie, their varying ages and sizes belying their status in the hierarchy. No sign of the guys who jumped him.
“Not from there.”
The guy beside him sighs, finally, and relaxes deeper against the wall their backs are pressed to. Lenny tilts his own head back. He can’t believe he cheated death. His hands are shaking and he tries to stop them. They ran all the way down here through a few winding halls and they’re probably going to catch trouble for it later but this guy knew the way and now they seem to be in the clear and it’s–
It’s worth laughing about, okay? What else is he gonna do?
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Lenny.”
“Mick.”
He grins and extends his hand. The guys looks at his face and laughs. “You look like shit.”
“Yeah, well.” He smiles and it’s a little crooked because his lip is starting to swell, he’s pretty sure. His nose hasn’t fully stopped bleeding, he doesn’t think, and wipes it away again. He should probably go to a nurse to set it. He wonders if Mick will come with him. On that note,
“So uh,” he starts in, “thanks for saving me out there.”
“You owe me.”
“Sure,” he bobs his head in a nod. “But really, thank you. You didn’t have to do that and – “
“Hey whoa what is this? A heart to heart?” The guy is laughing but there’s a warning in there somewhere. Lenny figures he’s probably sixteen and he seems easygoing enough but when he gets tense there’s something more menacing about him.
Lenny backtracks. “Have to have a heart to have a heart to heart.”
It takes a second, but Mick breaks out into a grin. He grabs Lenny with a headlock and gives him a noogie with a laugh. “You’re not so bad. C’mon kid, before anyone comes looking.”
[ … ]
It takes approximately three weeks for them to fall into a different sort of routine. Mick noticed fast that Lenny was sneaky and mean and he thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, how quick Lenny’s fingers were when he was lifting something, never caught.
“Been doing it since my dad got out,” Lenny explained. “He showed me the ropes.”
“Your old man?”
“Yeah.” Lenny felt a little sour about his dad still. He was the reason Lenny was in here. But not really. Lenny should’ve run faster. Should’ve been smarter. The plan was sloppy and he should’ve said something about the timing. He didn’t want to because Lewis was drunk and drunk meant volatile but… whatever. It didn’t matter now.
He frowned at his lunch tray and dropped the extra pudding cup on Mick’s instead. “Have it.”
“Think you could get me a lighter?”
Lenny eyed him. He’d heard rumors about what happened to get Mick in this place. “You sure that’s wise?”
His eyes went hard and he moved to stand and Lenny felt a rush of instinctual fear – his own ally in this place, burning bridges in a literal sense might be better than burning this one in a metaphorical one.
“I just mean–” he starts in fast, and Mick stops so he takes a second to lick his lips and come up with something to say, “I just mean, Mick, that that kinda contraband is gonna run us up bad if someone catches you with it.”
Mick looks suspicious still but he sits back down and Lenny relaxes a bit.
“Thought you were about to try a heart to heart with me.”
“We don’t have hearts, remember?”
Mick grins finally, the throwback to their first meeting setting him at ease. “You let me worry about the contraband. Just get me a lighter, yeah?”
[ … ]
Mick shouldn’t be here. Not that he had much else in the way of places to go, just got out of his second stint – first one as an adult, in medium security – but Lenny’s frowning and tense when he opens the front door and sees him on the porch.
He looks like hell – jumped for sure, bruising and swelling starting to form. Lenny swears and lets him in because what the hell else can he do? He gets him some frozen peas from the fridge and they’re on the side of Mick’s face a moment later and he’s letting out a sigh and stretching out his legs at the kitchen table.
So of course that’s when Lisa and her mom come in the door.
It’s world war three after that. Lisa’s mom is pissed, Lenny won’t leave Mick behind, and Lewis comes home from the bar two hours later and Lenny catches all sorts of hell for pissing off his new wife. The shouting match is epic half because Lenny never fights back. He can’t let Mick see him like that though – that weak. It would never fly.
It’s not really about Mick anyway though.
Lenny’s seventeen and the house has been reaching a boiling point for a while. It was about time it spilled over.
Lewis tells him to get out and he does. Grabs his bag, and his cash, his friend, and they’re gone.
He’s got enough for a little while, enough for a motel for the night tonight though and that’s all that matters. They’ll find a place in the morning. Mick’s already talking about knowing a guy who might have a place for them at the end of the month, just gotta make a few calls.
Lenny’s mood is foul, he’s got his own shiner and no frozen peas for it, those definitely didn’t make the cut of ‘essentials’ on the way out the door.
Mick tentatively sits next to him and Lenny’s not sure if he’s ever done anything ‘tentative’ since they met.
“Y’know, Snart, what you did back there –”
“Save it.”
“I’m just - ”
“I don’t need a heart to heart, Mick.” He couldn’t handle one right now, he really couldn’t. He’d fall apart.
Mick laughs a little, just a low chuckle. His voice is deeper than when they met. It’s age, but also all the smoking, Lenny’s pretty sure.
“No worries. We don’t have hearts, right?”
Lenny’s chest relaxes again. He remembers juvie. How did the world feel so much simpler when he was locked up at fourteen? “Right.”
“Sleep, or booze?”
Lenny considers, tilting his head. Their bruises are ugly but sleep ain’t coming any time soon. “Booze.”
“Whatever you say, boss.”
He knows Mick’s just trying to cheer him up still, but somehow, he likes the sound of that.
[ … ]
He didn’t think he’d ever point a gun at Mick Rory, but here he is. Twenty-four, scared shitless but he’s angry and he hasn’t seen Mick in two years so what the hell is the man doing sitting pretty with the Darbynians?
He’s on the wrong side and Lenny can’t fix that, not here and now when he’s sweating down his back and promising himself that he’ll never ever take a job as security for one of the Families again.
Not if it means killing three men and cocking his gun one more time to stop short when he meets the eyes of the person standing in front of it.
Mick’s bigger. He’s been working out. Leather jacket and gloves and Len’s pretty sure he killed one of Len’s crew with just his hands.
It’s just the two of them left after that small carnage. Small favors.
“Well well, Mick,” he says, a lot more confident than he feels and isn’t that nice?
Mick’s eyes look dangerous. “Outta my way, Snart.”
“Can’t do that.”
“I gotta job to do.”
“And this is how you accomplish it? Getting yourself killed breaking in the backdoor of one of Don Santini’s storage facilities?”
“I’ll go through you if I have to.”
“I’m the one with the gun.”
“You’re still a punk kid, Snart. You won’t use it.”
He tightens his grip on it, finger moving from the side to the trigger. “Try me.” Mick shifts his stance and Len realizes he’s going to try him and that’s all sorts of a disaster because Len isn’t bluffing.
It doesn’t matter because a second later the door is opening and Len’s backup has arrived. He almost wishes they hadn’t.
“Who’s this?” Nicky asks, Santini’s nephew. He’s an idiot but his gun and all his security’s guns are drawn and Len thinks fast and lowers his.
“Our messenger.”
“Our what?”
“Leave one alive to deliver the message. Isn’t that how it goes, Nicky?” he asks, droll, like leaving Mick alive wasn’t an accident caused by the seizing of his heart.
“What message?”
He really doesn’t catch on quick, does it? But Mick does, because he’s looking at Len with outright suspicion but Len can see he gets it and he won’t fuck this up.
“That Mr. Santini sends his regards.” Len pops the ammunition out of his gun and drops the bullet out of the chamber. He presses it to Mick’s palm, who’s nostrils flare.
Behind him, Nicky laughs like the threat on Mr. Darbynian’s life is a good idea for a joke or a message. It’s not. Len’s gonna have to get the hell out of dodge if this goes sour. Or else make sure Nicky takes full credit for the idea and kill his entourage at some point so no one contradicts it with the real story. That might work.
Mick looks at him, looks a the others, and steps back, palm closed. “I’ll give him the message.”
Nicky’s boys think it’s a riot. They’re clapping Len on the back. Len wishes he could enjoy having not-died and not having killed Mick but he’s sure it was a bad idea.
At least, he’s sure until five hours later when a form stumbles in the window of his shitty second-storey apartment with a bitten off curse and a knocked over lamp.
Len’s out of bed in a second, gun up, but he sees it’s Mick when the light flicks on and that’s… something. He lowers the gun but doesn’t turn the safety on. Mick’s squinting against the sudden light and from his disordered look…
“Are you drunk?” Len asks. It’s as good of opening as any.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, Snart?”
“You’re in my apartment, jackass.” How Mick found out where he lived is beyond him. It might be time to move.
“You’re gonna start a gang war.”
Oh. That. “So sue me.” He drops his gun on the counter as Mick stumbles further into the bachelor style space and finally rights himself once he detangles from the lamp cord.
Len manages not to smile at the sight. He almost would but the situation’s a little too tense.
“It was a damn soft move.”
Len glares at Mick’s accusation, crossing his arms. “Didn’t you just accuse me of starting a war? Don’t see how that’s soft.”
“Gonna get yourself killed.”
“Now who’s being soft?”
“Fuck you.”
Len snorts. But he’s relieved, or warmed, or… something. Mick’s still Mick. They’re still… something. Maybe not friends anymore. But their history didn’t disappear.
“You broke into my apartment to tell me not to save your life if it comes up again?”
Mick holds his stomach, “gonna – “
Len points at the bathroom. Mick really was drunk. Peachy.
He gets him some water and a bucket and directs him to the couch. It’s been a rollercoaster of a fucking night and sleep is the only real remedy for crazy that he knows.
Mick grabs him by the arm when he moves to retreat, glassy eyed but intense as ever. “Don’t get yourself killed, Snart. You’re too good for it.”
It’s raw and honest and not like he’s proud but like he’s desperate.
Len swallows, feeling suddenly opened out and exposed. Mick was always good at making him lose his footing.
“Right back at you, buddy.”
Mick laughs. “I’m just the muscle.”
“You’re better than that.”
“Oh yeah?” It’s like a challenge but Len swats it aside with a simple,
“Yeah. You’re my partner, asshole.”
Mick’s eyebrows draw together for a second and then he lays back down onto the couch. “Jesus this got sappy.”
Len could smack him upside the head for that. Instead he steps back and glares down at his… partner. “At least it’s not a heart to heart.”
Mick laughs. “Yeah. Those ain’t for guys like us.”
“Heartless,” he agrees with a smirk.
“Yeah.” Mick sounds sleepy, finally, eyes drifting closed. Len’s already sure he’s going to snore. He sighs and flicks off the light.
[ … ]
“I need a crew for a job.”
“Well hello to you too, Mick.”
Mick gives him a short look. “I got a job. I need a crew.”
“I heard you the first time.”
“And?”
“And I got out of the Heights three days ago.” He’s thirty-three and has vowed to never, ever, get sent back in there. It was for a robbery he was caught in the act of. With the aggravated assault charge on top of it, he’d had to hire a damn good lawyer to sweet talk the DA down and get him a half-decent plea. Thank god for good behavior and early parole.
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that maybe I don’t want to do another job right now, Mick.”
Mick stops and looks at him. He’s older now, they both are. Len hasn’t seen him in years, doing time at different times, not until yesterday when he walked into the bar. They’ve changed. They’re harder. Len sure as hell is, and he was hard to start.
He wonders if this time when Mick pulls his gun, that’ll really be the end of it. But Mick doesn’t pull his gun, at least not yet.
“It’s a good one,” Mick says instead. “Bank job.”
“Bank jobs are high risk – high security, high contingency expectations, dye in the cash.”
“I got a line on some money in transport.”
That – that could change things. But–
“I’m not interested.”
“You saying you’re out?”
Ah, now the guns’ll come out. He’s really glad he had the steak last night, but a little sad he didn’t splurge for the nicer cut.
“I’m saying,” he responds when Mick hasn’t pulled his gun yet, “it’s too soon. The heat’s on me right now. Parole.”
“The heat’s always on.”
“Not like this.”
“I’ve got seven warrants out for me right now, Snart. What’ve you got? A whole lotta clean ticket outta town?”
“Fuck you. I’m not going anywhere.”
“But you’re out?”
“No.”
“Then what’s going on, Snart?”
“Thought you didn’t like heart to hearts, Mick.”
It cuts through the tension.
“Gotta have a heart for that to work, buddy.” Mick gives him a half-grin. It’s dangerous, it always is now, has been for a decade. But it’s Mick, and he’s not about to kill Len, so he’ll take it.
“So drop it.”
“Tell me what you’re doing if you’re not doing this job.”
He should’ve known he couldn’t bluff off with Mick. “I’m still in the game. But I’m changing this. I have to up my game.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I never plan to go back,” he snarls, and even Mick looks surprised at his sudden ire. And then something slides into place on his face.
“Lewis?”
Len glares at his workbench. Mick stays quiet. The bastard can be more patient than Len when he needs to be, not that anyone gives him credit for it. Eventually, he sighs.
“Aggravated assault. Assault with a deadly weapon. Attempted robbery. He got locked up eight months ago.”
So much for no heart to hearts,but Mick just whistles. Len purses his lips, more calm.
“I’m not going back in there.”
“You won’t have to, buddy.”
“No. I won’t. Not if we start doing things my way.”
“Your way?”
He nods, and thinks about the job he really wants to do. It’s gonna take months to plan, he knows. But he did just admit how patient Mick could be. Time to test that.
“You familiar with the Central City diamond exchange?”
[ … ]
He’s forty-two and fucking tired.
Mick’s locked in the brig and everything is so fucked up in this brave new world of metahumans and time travel and so much shit that Len can hardly believe it’s his life anymore.
The one thing that was supposed to stay solid was him and Mick. He fucked that up ten ways to Sunday though and he knows it. So does Mick.
“What’d’you want?” Mick growls as soon as he sees Len. Len can’t really blame him. He schools his own nerves. This won’t be pretty.
“People seem to think we should have a heart to heart.”
“We don’t have hearts. Where does that leave us?”
It’s automatic, but there’s no warmth in it. Mick remembers, but he doesn’t care. That might make this easier, really. Len pushes on. “I’ve got a dozen reasons for killing you.You’ve got a dozen and one for killing me, so.”
“All the talk in the world is not gonna change a thing.”
“Exactly, here’s my proposal. I open this cell, we let our fists do the talking.”
It wouldn’t be the first time, but this is different and they both know it.
“When I kill you?”
He doesn’t hesitate, ready with that answer. “You take the jump ship, make your escape, live out the rest of your life anywhere you like.”
“Hmm.” Mick looks to be considering it. “And if you kill me, well, it’s better than being locked up in this place like some kind of circus freak.”
It’s a courtesy and they both know it. Len’s never been able to beat Mick in a fair fight.
“I take that as a yes?”
“Sound the bell.”
They’ve never been good at talking. They never did figure it out, how to have a real heart to heart. They weren’t built for it.
So it’s strange to try and figure it out now, when Len’s taken the beating of his life, ready to die on the cold and unforgiving metal of the Waverider’s floor under Mick’s ever-steady (but not now, they’re shaking now) hands.
“It’s what you wanted…”
He could cry but he can’t remember how, most of the time. He was ready to die. To do anything to make things right again. He’s been ready for Mick to kill him for a decade, for longer maybe. Always thought it might come down to it, one day, the margin razor thin.
But Mick doesn’t know what he wants and Len can’t fix that. He knows. He wants his partner back. He’d turn back time if he could. The irony doesn’t escape him.
[ … ]
Their destinies aren’t their own, their lives haven’t been their own, and Mick’s knocking out Raymond Palmer, of all people, to take his place at the Occulus.
Because that’s the kind of man Mick is, has always been, underneath it all. Not a puppet, not a bruiser, not an arsonist. The kind of guy to help a scared kid at juvie not get shanked just because he happened to walk by at the right time. The kind of guy to take a hit for someone else and not think twice, just because.
Len doesn’t have the time, and if he did he still wouldn’t have the words. Still hasn’t learned that skill, though here at the end, part of him wishes he had figured it out. It won’t matter soon.
He says goodbye to his old friend and proves, here at the end, that at least he deserved some of it, what Mick gave him. At least he could earn it here.
He was always sneaky and mean, but he always had a heart.
I've got Metallica stuck in my head now, thnx L. I have no ideas, so let's see what comes out~
~*~
Bele, for the thousandth time, was grateful he didn't sleep. The shadow of Castle Ravenloft looming before them was nightmare material, all dark shadows and craggy ravines.
Honestly? He appreciated the devotion to aesthetic, but he was over it.
Memir sat down next to him on the bedroll, following Bele's gaze. "Copper for your thoughts?"
"Just thinking about that asshole," Bele admitted, jerking his head toward the castle. "He's so fucking dramatic. There's only room for one dramatic asshole in this place, and it's me."
Memir hesitantly took Bele's hand and rubbed his thumb over Bele's knuckles. "You can be the dramatic asshole at home. Leave this place to him."
Bele glanced at their joined hands, and then back up at the castle. He could hear rustling in the trees--the fucker was probably listening in, as usual. "I know I'm not all that reliable, but as long as I can get you and the rest of the group home, nothing else matters."
Memir frowned and looked straight at Bele, a rare enough occurrence that Bele found himself mirroring the motion. "You matter to me. You're coming home, too."
"Yeah, you're right." Bele didn't say anything more, cautiously reaching out to push Memir's dark hair behind his ear. He tried to say it, to make sure Memir understood, but the simple fact was that Bele loved Memir with everything he had in him, even if he was bad at showing it.
He would do whatever it took to get him out of this demi-hell. If he had to sacrifice himself to do it, well. It was a small price to pay.
The empty grave in front of her was uncared for and forgotten, the marble headstone covered in moss and the patch of grass filled with weeds. Pema couldn't help but feel her heart squeeze in her chest at the sight. While she and Tarrlok hadn't been the best of friends after... what had happened, she still cared for him, even in death.
She placed the flowers tied with the thin ribbon she had worn on their first and only date next to the small plot and sighed. "I'm so sorry."
She had been so rude to him for so many years after such a petty argument. She hadn't responded to any letters or calls or attempts to make things right. She had been terrible, and he was only kind to her.
And now here she was in front of the empty grave of her missing friend bearing flowers and an apology, much too late.
