“Oh yeah, great idea, Sis, let’s ask a friendly passing police officer to stop on his rounds and help me change this tyre,” shot a grease covered Len attempting - with great difficulty - to jack up the car on the side of the freeway, “I’m sure he’ll not notice the thousands of dollars sat in the back or the face of the guy at the top of their Most Wanted.”
Lisa just rolled her eyes and continued to keep watch, hugging her jacket around herself to ward of the cold of the early hours. “I meant why not call Mick? Or another one of your cronies? Y’know, someone who actually knows what they’re doing?”
The sounds of jacking stopped and were replaced by loud swearing after Len pinched his hand in the mechanism; he peered over the hood to glare at her, oily thumb stuck between his lips. “I don’t need help, I know how to change a damn tyre. And even if I didn’t I’d rather go to Iron Heights than call Mick. He’d never let me live it down, once he’d stopped laughing at me.”
“What is it with men and their egos?” said Lisa, more to herself. “We could’ve been in a warm, dry lounge by now counting cash and sipping martinis but you insist on doing everything yourself and instead we’re on a freezing turnpike at 3am dodging cigarette butts and truck splatter.”
“Doing everything myself is what got us this far, so unless you have anything productive to say, dodge a few more, pop the trunk and pass me the spare,” groused Len, before dropping back on his heels and adding, “Oh and Sis? Welcome to the Rogues,” with a flourish, right as the car dropped off the jack in front of them.
What are your thoughts on Jewish Snart? It's always been a potential headcanon of mine that his mother was Jewish and he and Lisa potentially never learned about that part of their family. :-)
@beware-the-ravenstag asked: let's talk about Jewish Leonard Snart!!
i think his synagogue was the only safe place he could find, growing up. i think it helped keep him and lisa fed, even as he tried to keep all the overly-helpful clergy at arm’s length, no he’s fine no he doesn’t need anything else she’s just hungry
i think he never went to hebrew school but he brought lisa there, and to sunday school too, for a few more hours away from lewis. he went more, before he lost his mother--a young child, fists clutched tight on his mother’s pant leg, learning bits and pieces of hebrew before she passed and left him alone with lewis and away from the congregation.
lisa’s mom wasn’t jewish, but that doesn’t stop leonard from, a few years after lisa is born and they lose her mother, too, putting her in classes at the shul. the clergy knows his situation, pieced together from what they’ve heard, but he doesn’t stick around long enough for them to help.
it only lasts a few years, and rarely consistently, as leonard goes in and out of juvie, then jail, and lewis certainly won’t take her there. she knows bits and pieces, half-faded memories and words on the tip of her tongue. it means more to lenny than it does to her, but it means enough to lenny that it means something to her.
she steals him jewish stuff sometimes, a “hebrew for dummies” book as a joke-but-not-a-joke, a kippah with the flash symbol (another joke-but-not), a beautiful mezuzah that he carries from place to place--a mezuzah that lives on the doorpost to the library on the waverider, now. (you can see mick, especially, flit his fingers across it as he enters, but only if you’re fast enough)
Summary: Mick’s from the mountain; Len’s from the sea. A feast by the lake fills them with glee.
written for day one of Coldwave Weekend: Watery Wonderland
dedicated to an actual angel who likes dragons: @sophiainspace
Flames roared to life when Mick spit on the kindling. Meat from the mountain and the sea filled the air with succulent scents that would make even a sated entity hungry once more.
Len flicked water at Mick’s forepaw with his tail: an azure thing shimmering with damp sunlight. Len smirked when Mick looked at him. Mick rumbled playfully; Len dove underwater. Mick watched the water shift, waiting for Len to emerge.
Len leapt out of the water to splash more water at him—reaching high enough to reach Mick’s nostrils. Len had plenty of time to dive back under the water while Mick flinched and blinked.
Mick ran his paw through the water. He could cause a tidal wave with one wap of his wing if he wanted to.
Mick smiled. His snout was basically a heating rock; Len couldn’t resist it. Mick ran his claws gently along Len’s back and tail. Other dragons thought it was weird that he blunted his claws—assumed it was a weakness—but fire and fangs like his didn’t need them. Besides, going by the wails of his enemies, blunt fangs hurt more anyway.
They were soon chowing down on roasted beasts and fish. Mick purred and Len hummed because the flavors were just as scrumptious as the scents. They were juicy and tender and warmed both their tummies
Mick used a fang to get a bit out of his teeth while Len licked his fingers.
Len patted the side of Mick’s snout, code for down.
Mick frowned... He liked having Len where he could keep an eye on him. He couldn’t follow him in the water.
Len crawled over and pecked the spot between Mick’s eyes so Mick would feel better.
Mick lowered and tilted his head towards the water so it’d be easier for Len to enter it again.
Len smiled up at him and flicked more water at his face.
Mick snorted, shaking the water away; then Mick swirled the water around him until Len got dizzy.
Len laughed, a melody of popping bubbles. Len held up a waiting hand, dove under the water, and brought back a clam.
Len opened it, revealing a pearl that was so perfectly spherical and icy that it was almost like a snowball.
Mick held it carefully in his paws. Dragons tended to have treasure stolen from them, but to have treasure given to them? That made it all the more precious. Its priceless value skyrocketed by being from Len.
Mick pressed his snout to Len’s forehead. Len trilled affectionately.
Mick shielded it safely in his paw, then flapped his winged arms to fly back to his cave. Len waved goodbye before returning to the sea.
Len and Lisa explored the pools and waterways Mick had dug out for them, all connected to the hot spring in his cave that was large enough for Mick to join them in. There were so many stones on the bottom that they’d never seen in the sea: silver dotted with lavender and turquoise. The siblings gathered a small hoard by the time Len sighed wistfully.
Len whipped around when he heard a noise that sounded like air bubbling to the surface: Lisa’s laughter. He glared inquisitively at her.
She held her hands against her heart and sighed in a mockingly love-struck manner.
Len folded his arms and simmered. That just made Lisa form lips with her hand and moan against it. Len flicked his fingers against her forehead. She scoffed out a pained sound yet schooled her features into a smug expression when Len’s indignant frown softened into a smile because Mick ambled over and pressed his snout to Len’s forehead. Her smirk wrapped around her face when Len presented Mick the prettiest stone he’d found.
Mick’s smiles always warmed her brother; the effect started affecting Lisa after they started living here—where their father couldn’t follow.
Mick had a gift of his own for Len.
Lisa covered her gasp with her hands.
Len stared at it with eyes as wide as they could go.
It was a gold bangle centered with the pearl. Mick must’ve had a human craft it!
Lisa nudged Len forward so he’d accept Mick’s proposal already c’mon!
Len practically melted from the gesture. He clipped it on his wrist and wore it proudly.
Mick and Len shared another snout-forehead touch afterwards.
(sorry for the awfully long wait :’D I hope this ficlet reaches you anyway, nonnie, and I’m doubly sorry for kinda twisting that prompt around, but I had an unexpectedly hard time with 3. especially :’D)
..
“PoorLenny,” Lisa drawls, even as she smacks him over the head with her newest Chanelbag. Len’s pretty sure it’s no coincidence, but he’s in no place to contest hercasual violence right now.
“I don’twant your pity, I want your absence,” he snaps and takes another swig of hisbeer before she yanks the bottle out of his grip, snorts when she reads the label,and returns it to his sorry self.
“Didn’t youget the memo that drowning your sorrows only works if you get actual alcoholinvolved?”
He ignoresher, just like he’s trying to ignore most of his life right now. It’s probablynot the most mature way of coping with shit, but at the moment, Len doesn’tcare. All he wants is to wallow and scowl at the wall for the night, and thenmaybe go plan a heist. Something obnoxious and loud, something that would be agiant ‘fuck you’ in the face of a hero. Thehero.
Which is stupid,because Len is the one in the wrong, but he panicked and ran and now there’s noway back. Technically, Barry could probably take him back in time to the pointwhen Len hasn’t fucked up yet, but Barry would be right there with him, and hencelay the problem.
Lisa,unfortunately, doesn’t take the hint and keeps staring him down until Lenscowls at her, without much heat, because he’s reserving all he’s got for theburning self-hatred at the moment.
“What?”
“You tellme,” she shrugs and puts her legs up onto the table, crossing her ankles andwatching him like a hawk. “I haven’t seen you moping this badly for quite sometime. I think it was… oh yes, the first time Barry told you it was a mistake.”
He winces,unable to hold back the hurt at the sound of the kid’s name, and Lisa growsserious, zoning in on his pain with scary precision. Feet off the table in asecond, she leans forward, studying him like the answer’s written in his eyes.Maybe it is, the way he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the wholeordeal.
“Did he breakup with you? Is that it? I’m going to-“
“-donothing,” Len interrupts, before she can get explicit in her fantasies ofbodily harm inflicted upon the man he shouldn’t, but does, love.
And thereinlies the problem. Much as he likes Barry, they could never work long-term. Notwith Barry’s family, not with Len’s, not with the diverging paths their liveshave taken. Too bad Barry didn’t understand that fact, or dismissed it with hisendless optimism.
Lisa’sstill watching him, and Len’s beer is gone, sloshing warm and unpleasant in hismouth like it can’t quite wash away the taste of the harsh words he spoke. Hewishes he could forget, get drunk for real and stop thinking about the wholemess for a few hours, but his father has taken that from him forty years agoand Len’s not ready to become an even more screwed-up version of Lewis, noteven when he can’t think of any other way to cope.
“Lenny,”Lisa says, and he must look like shit for her to take that tone with him, softand empathetic and careful, “what happened?”
There’s nouse in putting it off or lying: Lisa has become friends with Iris during thewhirlwind of Len’s relationship with Barry, and bad news sure travel fast.
“Heproposed.”
“He what?!”
Len winces atthe memory of Barry’s bright eyes, his hopeful smile, the way his voice shook alittle as he fumbled with the words. He picks at the label on his empty bottle,because destruction is apparently his motto for the day, and sighs.
“You heardme.”
“Sure Iheard you, I just don’t get why you’re not somewhere celebra- you said no.”
Lisa sounds…shocked, and Len frowns. She was always quick to tell him that he should becareful, and that Barry was too young, too eager, too different from anythingthey’ve ever known, so it feels like betrayal that she’s not there for him rightnow, saying he did the right thing.
“You’re anidiot, Lenny. Why did you say no?! You’re obviously crazy about this guy, andmuch as it pains me to say, you’ve been good together, good for each other. Sure he’s a cop’s kid,and half a cop himself, and overall too much of a good guy if you ask me, but…the way you looked at him, Lenny, I haven’t seen you look that way at anyone,ever, and he’s been looking right back, so what’s the problem?”
Len pushesthe bottle away, almost wishing it would crash over the side of the table and shatter,but of course it doesn’t, because he can’t do anything right today.
“You’resupposed to talk me out of this. In fact, you’ve been talking me out of thisfor more than a year.”
“And youalways do the exact opposite of what I say, so don’t you dare blame it on me,chicken-shit.”
He whirlsaround to face her, anger rising in his chest like a tidal wave. “What did youjust-“
“You heardme,” Lisa scoffs, not budging an inch under the weight of his glare. “You knowwhat I think? You’re so scared of losing him, or hurting him, so you pushed himaway now rather than later. Great job. Because that’s going to make you bothfeel so much better.”
Len’sknuckles ache with the urge to punch something, a wall, or some asshole’s face –too bad he chose their private warehouse for his moping, instead of a bar wherehe could pick a fight or two. It makes sense, what Lisa’s saying, but the thingis, those words would sound better in some fucking romantic movie where theproblems magically disappear because of love.
“Wouldn’twork,” he shrugs, rolling his shoulders to release some of the tension that’s beengripping his muscles for hours now. “He’s too much of a good guy, you said it.Sees something in me that’s not there, I can’t live up to that. Eventually he’sgonna be disappointed, Lise, and it’ll be too damn hard for him to walk away ifthere’s a ring on his finger. That’s the kind of guy he is. I want to be withhim, but tonight… it changes things.”
“Have youtold him that?”
Lisa’squestion catches him off-balance and he blinks for a moment before the wordsactually make it to his brain in all their confusing glory.
“What?”
“Have youtold him how you feel, Lenny? I mean, really told him. That you’re worried you’renot good enough for him – that you want to be with him, without the rings andall that jazz. Doesn’t matter if that’s true a year or a decade from now, andit doesn’t matter if it changes for him, either. If all you can really promiseis right now, he should know. And you can’t decide for him if that’s enough ornot. Much as I like to tease you about cradle-robbing, he’s a grown man. Talkto him, Lenny. And listen.”
Len’sknee-jerk reaction is to shake his head and tell her she’s crazy… but her wordsmake a terrifying sort of sense in his mind all of a sudden, and he’s pushingaway from the table before he can think himself out of it again. He can’tpossibly screw things up any worse than they already are, and the thin sliverof hope that maybe, he could make things better,gives him the momentum to turn and walk away without a word, for the secondtime tonight.
Hopefullytowards a brighter future.
….
Lisa rollsher eyes at her brother’s retreating back: at forty-four, Lenny should reallylearn to talk about his feelings without grimacing like his teeth are beingpulled. But who better to teach him than a bright-eyed twenty-something withthe innate charm of an overgrown puppy?
Yeah, Lisacan’t say she’s a fan… but she would gladly give her brother to a sasquatch ifhe made Lenny’s eyes light up like Barry does.
Her phonebuzzes in her pocket and she pulls it out to find a very angry text messagefrom ‘TheHottestWest’.
WHAT HAS UR BROTHER DONE IM AT BARRYS HES DEVASTATED
Lisa smirksand fires off a quick reply, then reaches under the table for an unopenedbottle.
u should clear out lens on his way makeup sexto follow 4sure
An angryemoji, followed by a disgusted one, arrives in the next second.
But sinceLenny fails to come back home that night, Lisa believes that Iris took heradvice, in the end.
