Chapter Text
During the course of his life, Leonard Snart had made a lot of mistakes.
Losing his virginity in a dirty gas station bathroom when he was seventeen: that was a mistake. Dropping out of high school a few short weeks before graduation: that was a mistake.
Agreeing to flat-share with some kid he met on Craigslist: big fucking mistake.
The kid in question, who had introduced himself as Barry Allen, was bumbling around the flat making a whole lot of noise and swearing softly as he tripped over cardboard boxes, most of which were his own. So far, Len knew little of his new roommate, apart from that he was a forensic scientist, and that he was also an idiot.
He was certainly a good-natured idiot; he’d bounded out of the moving van with a grin of quite astonishing proportions stretching right across his face, shook Len’s hand and began bouncing about like a mildly excitable puppy, babbling incessantly all the while. Not being one for small talk, Len made little in the way of a response, but this did not seem to put Barry off. The occasional grunt seemed to be quite enough for him. It was endearing, really. If Len had been listening, he might have learned far more about Barry Allen than he had. As it was, he had picked up mere snippets. He knew what Barry’s job was, partially due to the ridiculous amount of forensic equipment that Barry apparently kept in his bedroom rather than at the office. He knew that he had previously lived with two people named Joe and Iris, that his friends were Cisco and Caitlin (this because they had all insisted on calling or skyping him in order to ascertain that his new room mate was not a murderer. Len though he might soon become a murderer if Barry’s phone did not stop buzzing like a bumble bee on steroids.) Other than that, he did not know much about the kid, and did not wish to. Barry was paying half of the rent, and that was enough for him.
It was not enough for Barry.
“So what do you do?” Barry asked cheerfully, sitting on the kitchen worktop and swinging his legs. His dingy sneakers dangled in mid-air and Len was watching carefully to make sure he didn’t leave dirty marks on the surfaces that a landlord could use as an excuse to put their prices up.
“This and that,” Len said, in a tone that suggested he was not in the mood for more questions.
In truth, at the moment, Len did not do very much - hence the need for a roommate who could contribute to the bills. Not long ago he had been what some people might refer to as a petty criminal - robbing ATMs, some minor art theft, clearly nothing too impressive since he was currently living in a small flat in Central City as opposed to a multi-million dollar mansion, or, alternatively, a prison cell. However, he’d grown a little tired of constantly looking over his shoulder for cops and he was looking to add something other than ‘felon’ to his resume.
Unfortunately, having little previous experience in doing anything other than stealing did not give him much opportunity for career advancement, or any career at all aside from more of the same. Currently he was living off the ill-gotten gains of the last few jobs he’d done, carefully making it last while he looked for something legal. He did not, however, think that Barry needed to know that.
“Cool,” said Barry chirpily, either acknowledging the brush-off and moving past it, or missing it entirely. Len suspected the latter. Still, he had to be grateful that the kid didn’t start asking pointed questions about how Len was going to afford his share of the rent. He had that much decorum, at least. Or maybe he was just that naive. “I’m in forensics. I guess I already said that.” At least ten times. “I just wanted to thank you for agreeing to move in with me so fast, you know? I mean, Joe and Iris are cool, but I can’t live with my dad forever - well, not my dad, more like a foster dad, I mean he’s not even really a foster dad, but - ”
Dear God, would the babble never end? For the sake of maintaining some illusion of politeness Len had been half paying attention as he leaned on the worktop with his arms folded, but the more Barry talked the more astonishing it became that his brain could keep up with the speed his mouth was going at. Perhaps it couldn’t; he was starting to stumble over himself like Bambi on a frozen lake, stuttering and repeating himself and doubling back to correct something he’d said five sentences previously. Len couldn’t keep up and didn’t particularly wish to. Barry was a sweet kid, but if he didn’t shut up then Len might just have to shoot him. He was treating this like a sleepover with his brand new best buddy and Leonard had no intention of playing along with it. This was purely a business transaction, and Barry was more than ten years his junior even if he hadn’t been mildly irritating. Already, Len was seriously regretting ever posting that advert on Craigslist.
“I’m going to go unpack,” he said, interrupting Barry midway through some babbly monologue about his friends Frisco and Caelan, or whatever the hell their names were.
“Oh,” said Barry, evidently taken aback. Len could practically see the cogs turning in his brain as he tried to figure out a response. “I’ll help!” he said.
“I think you have your own unpacking to worry about,” Len said curtly, nodding at the detritus on the floor. It could not be argued that most of it belonged to Barry.
“Oh, right. Sure. Well, I’ll catch you later - we should probably get to know each other if we’ll be living together - I can order a pizza, or maybe we could go out for a drink or something later - ”
Already retreating to his room, carrying the only box that he’d not already moved into his own space, Len wondered if the kid was capable of taking a hint. The evidence would suggest not. He also wondered if Barry could even get served - not that it made any difference. The only reason he would go out for a drink with Barry Allen would be so that he had the opportunity to drown him in it.
Barry was still following him. Len put the box down on his bed, turned around and shut the door in Barry’s face.
The kid, who up until that point had still been yapping desperately, fell silent. It was bizarre, the sudden lack of noise in the apartment, and Len felt a stab of sudden guilt that was immediately quashed by annoyance. It wasn’t his fault that the kid didn’t understand how to shut the hell up.
He could see the shadow cast by Barry’s sneakers underneath the crack beneath the bedroom door. It lingered there for a few moments, as if waiting for Len to relent and open the door again. An unwanted mental picture popped into his head, of Barry hanging his head dejectedly in the corridor like the proverbial puppy that had been left out in the rain. Irritated with himself, Len shook his head to dispel it. He didn’t do bleeding hearts. The kid needed to toughen up.
After a few more moments, the shadow vanished and Len could distantly hear the squeak of Barry’s sneakers as he walked away, heading back towards the kitchen. A minute or so later, the tinny sound of iphone speakers started up a few rooms down as Barry put on some music to drown his sorrows. Len rolled his eyes. Lady Gaga. Honestly.
Things were quiet for a while after that, only the muted sounds of various pop songs leaking through the apartment and they weren’t loud enough to get on Len’s nerves. He was beginning to be concerned about his new roommates appalling taste in music, but that was Barry’s business.
Unpacking didn’t take long; Len didn’t have much. He made his bed (the apartment came furnished and his bed was hardly the largest or the comfiest bed he’d ever had, and it was a single, but he’d take what he could get) and hung a few of his art prints (not the stolen ones, that seemed like asking for trouble). After hanging his clothes in the wardrobe, putting a few of his battered paperbacks on the bookshelf and taking a few photos of the room to show the landlord at the end of the lease (he didn’t trust landlords; he’d heard horror stories about them accusing new tenants of causing damage that had been there for years and demanding money for it) he had to sit down and think, because there wasn’t much else to do.
Their internet hadn’t been connected yet, and Len didn’t own any DVDs. He didn’t watch much TV, period. He had a deck of cards in one of his drawers, and a bottle of bourbon in the wardrobe, but he didn’t feel much like playing cards with Barry. That seemed likely to end in disaster. For a moment he considered taking one of his books straight off the shelf again and cracking it open, but he’d read them all a hundred times before and wasn’t much in the mood for reading.
With a reluctant sigh, he went to see what Barry was doing.
The kid was unpacking dejectedly. God, it was pitiful. He was putting forks into a cutlery drawer one by one, and even the clinking of the metal sounded melancholic. The music was still playing, some upbeat chart hit from a few months back, but somehow that made him look even more pathetic. Len cleared his throat.
Barry looked up dolefully. “Hey. What’s up?”
To his horror, Len realised he was about to apologise. He struggled valiantly to stop himself, but it burst out of him without his permission. “I’m sorry if I was a little cold to you earlier. Social skills aren’t my forte.”
Christ, the kid lit up like a sun lamp. “That’s okay! I guess I talk too much. Iris always said - ” he cut himself off, embarrassed. “Sorry. I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”
“Yep,” Len said, but he managed to crack a smile. Hopefully it wasn’t too encouraging. “It’s fine, kid, just try not to talk my ear off next time.”
“I’m twenty-five!”
“Whatever you say, kid.” Len turned to leave.
“Are you leaving?”
“I have to pick up some groceries.”
“Oh.” For a moment Len could see Barry grappling with the urge to offer to accompany him, but with a tremendous effort, he swallowed it down. “Uh, okay. I’ll see you later, then.”
“Sure,” Len said, and left.
It was uncanny, the ability that kid had to make him feel like a terrible bastard in just a few short syllables. He had never anticipated that Barry would be so keen to be bosom buddies. To him, it had always been a business transaction, and Barry had always seemed so quiet when he first got in contact with Leonard. Reserved, almost. In real life... he was a geek. A skinny little geek. He had not been prepared for that.
The trouble was that Barry was a sweet kid. Already, Len could see that. He had ‘good-natured’ written all over him. He was the kind of person who would help old ladies cross the street, donate to charity, take home stray cats he found on the street. And Len had never been that person. He was the hard-hearted type, who looked the other way and looked after number one. There were two possibilities here: Len would hurt the kid, which he didn’t want to do...or even worse, Barry might get under his skin. Len didn’t want anybody rooting around under there.
Clenching his jaw, he made an abrupt about-turn and went inside the bar he’d just walked straight past. He ordered something strong and threw it down without really tasting it, which was probably for the best. It burned on the way down like someone had shot a bullet straight down his throat, carving out a passage of sizzling flesh on the way down, and he grimaced. Slamming the glass back down on the bar, he left and started weaving his way back towards the grocery store like he had originally planned.
This was stupid. He was Leonard Snart. He didn’t let soft-hearted kids get to him. Living with Barry was purely a business transaction, and once he’d got on his feet and could afford to pay the rent on his own, he’d turf the kid out, or move out himself, and get a nice quiet place without forensic equipment on the kitchen table or Lady Gaga playing in the next room.
Grimly, he set his jaw and walked into the supermarket.
~*~
Len arrived back at the flat only to be confronted with the smell of something burning.
He stiffened on the stairwell, nostrils flared. He’d been friends with Mick Rory long enough to know what fire smelt like, and this didn’t smell like anything was actually alight, but whatever it was could not be far from the point of combustion. Tightening his grip on the groceries, he kicked the apartment door open and burst into the kitchen.
There was a loud yelp. Barry whirled around, immediately enveloped in a cloud of smoke that billowed from the oven. He was wearing a red and white checked apron with ‘kiss the cook’ emblazoned across the front, and a pair of oven gloves the size of baseball mitts. He looked distinctly guilty, and distinctly sweaty as well. Len narrowed his eyes at the oven, which was still pouring smoke out into the room; he snatched a tea towel off the worktop and yanked the tray out of the oven. There were several frazzled strips of what had presumably once been bacon lying on it, burnt to a crisp. There was a frying pan spitting and sizzling on the hob, with a curdling egg in it, and the whole kitchen was scattered with dirty pans and mugs and bits of cutlery.
Frowning, Len rounded on Barry, who held his hands up.
“I wanted to do something nice,” he said. “Like a housewarming.”
“Just a tip for you, Scarlet; housewarming doesn’t usually involve fire,” Len said. “It’s supposed to be a metaphorical kind of warmth.”
Barry wrinkled his nose. “Scarlet?”
Len tugged on one of his trailing apron-strings. “Would you prefer ‘Little Red’?”
“Scarlet is fine,” Barry muttered.
Pulling the tray out of Len’s hands, he tipped the bacon into the bin and pulled the frying pan towards him to start trying to scrape the bits of egg off. Exasperated, Len watched him for a moment, scraping away with a dessert fork. The first thing he did was switch the hob off, which Barry had quite clearly forgotten to do. Then, he switched off the oven, opened the kitchen window, and took the pan away from Barry, too.
“You can’t do anything with that,” Len told him. “You have to soak it first.”
Barry closed his eyes. “Oh my God. I swear to God I’m not usually this much of a disaster. I’m an adult. I’ve paid taxes before.”
“Whatever you say, kid,” said Len, dumping the pan in the sink and turning the tap on. “You realise there’s no way to salvage this? Unless you fancy having ashes for dinner.”
Barry slumped at the kitchen table, a little sulkily, and rested his hand on his chin. “I wanted to do something nice,” he grumbled.
“Did you consider buying me a bottle of wine instead?”
There was a moment of silence in which Barry appeared to be contemplating sticking one of the dirty forks into his eye.
“That would have made sense,” he said. “A lot of sense, actually.”
“I have an idea.”
Barry looked up.
“Let’s just order a take-out,” said Len.
~*~
He had not expected to spend his evening cross-legged on the living room floor, eating pizza straight out of the box with his new roommate, but it was a weirdly pleasant way to spend the evening. Barry had managed to blow a fuse when he was cooking and they couldn’t find the fuse-box, so they lit a few birthday candles and one fancy Yankee candle that supposedly smelt of electric chainsaw man-forest, or some other supposedly masculine odour, and ate almost in the dark. During this time Len found out that the only time Barry was silent was when he was eating; he wolfed down the pizza like he expected someone to take him from it if he didn’t hurry, and he scarcely seemed to take time to chew in between mouthfuls.
He ordered plain pizza, just tomato and cheese, which struck Len as singularly weird; nobody he knew ate plain pizza just on its own. Sara favoured pineapple, which was disgusting. Mick had several favourites, but usually opted for either a meat feast or something with lots of pepperoni. Lisa was the real freak; she liked tuna and sweetcorn on her pizza, which as far as Len was concerned ought to be illegal. But Barry ate his pizza plain, with garlic bread and dough balls on the side, and aside from the occasional mildly pornographic moan, he was quiet. It was nice. Weird, but nice.
The fact was that this was such a normal situation that Len didn’t quite know how to take it. He’d had roommates before - well. Cellmates, mostly. One who snored like a water buffalo, another who made fast food orders in his sleep. A few who smuggled drugs in and tried to hide them inside Len’s mattress. But even his real roommates had always been in some way unsavoury or unsanitary, and Barry was just so wholesome and cheerful that it made Len feel uneasy just looking at him. His smiles came easily and his body language was relaxed. He lounged on the floor or leaned against the furniture, and it wasn’t the practiced, faux-casual leaning that Len liked to do in order to seem at ease. Barry was genuinely comfortable in a darkened house with a relative stranger. His naivete was both appalling and sweet in equal measure. Len could only imagine what Lisa would have said if she’d seen him.
“So what did you say you do?” asked Barry, licking his greasy fingers.
Len contemplated lying, or telling him to mind his own business, but he figured it was important not to send mixed messages, and lying could come back to bite him in the ass later on. He didn’t want to tell Barry he was an accountant and then later get a job as a janitor and have to cover it up. Reluctantly he opted for the truth - a highly edited version, naturally.
“I’m between jobs at the moment,” he said curtly. “Hence the reason I’m a little bit strapped for cash. I need a little help with the rent while I get back on my feet.”
Barry made a sympathetic noise. “That sucks. What did you do before that?”
“Security,” Len said with the ease of a practiced liar. He had dealt with a lot of security - usually dismantling it. There were very few things he didn’t know about CCTV cameras and burglar alarms - specifically the best ways of breaking them.
“Sounds dangerous.”
“It had its moments,” Len said, thinking wistfully of high-speed car chases, sprinting away from banks with a case full of money while he left trails of dollar bills behind him like gingerbread crumbs, him and Mick lugging heavy paintings through the sewers ready to display it before some shady art dealer who didn’t care to wait for an auction. Good times.
But he’d had a few too many near misses of late and he’d started to have mildly disturbing fantasies of white picket fences, picnics on checked blankets, maybe even a dog. A big, lollopy one that he could take for walks and play fetch with. He hadn’t told Mick about any of this, of course, just told him that he was taking a break and settling down for a bit, in a house that felt safe, as opposed to a Safe House which was never quite as safe as you thought. Sharing a creaky little apartment with a forensic scientist was a far cry from the domestic bliss he had envisioned, but he figured he might be able to work up to it. He might be equally at risk of having the house burned down as he would have been living with Mick, but he figured that rooming with Barry was less likely to get him shot, at least.
“Mmm,” Barry said thoughtfully. “I guess that is pretty dangerous. But there are a lot of jobs like that; my step-dad Joe, he’s a cop, and - ”
Len promptly inhaled a chunk of pizza and almost choked. Alarmed, Barry leapt across the room and started thwacking him on the back, trying to dislodge it. A few bashes and the pizza lump was dislodged, but Barry kept hitting him until Len almost ended up face-first in the pizza box.
“Enough!” he managed, and Barry leapt back anxiously.
“Oh God, I’m sorry - are you okay?”
“Fine,” Len choked, although he was starting to feel decidedly dizzy. He wasn’t sure whether it was the momentary air deprivation or what he thought he’d just heard come out of Barry’s mouth. “What - what did you say?”
“My step-dad’s a cop?” Barry said cautiously. “Are you sure you’re okay, Leonard? You look really weird.”
“I’m fine.” He picked up another slice of pizza and tried to look nonchalant. He kept his hand steady with some effort. Mechanically, he moved the food to his mouth and started chewing, but he couldn’t taste it properly. All of a sudden it was too greasy, making his stomach churn with unease. “Keep talking.”
“Uh,” Barry said. “Okay.” Presumably confused by Len’s sudden interest, he paused for a moment before adding, “Anyway, he’s had a couple of near misses; stray bullets, that sort of thing. Never actually been shot, but he’s been close. Iris - that’s his daughter, she’s my best friend - she wanted to sign up for the CCPD too, but Joe said no. Didn’t want to put her at risk, I guess. It sucks, because she would have been really good at it, but I’m glad she’s not going to be in any danger. And then obviously I work for the CCPD, but that’s not a dangerous job really, unless any of the bodies in the morgue decide to rise up and turn into zombies on me.” He chuckled.
Meanwhile, Leonard could feel himself turning a very watery shade of green, like a bar of cheap soap. Jesus Christ. He’d stumbled on a whole nest of cops, gone blundering right into their midst. Slowly, he put the slice of pizza down.
“You look terrible,” Barry said.
“Well aren’t you the charmer,” Len said, his mouth managing to carry on, thank God, while his brain whizzed frantically away.
Barry blushed right to the roots of his hair. “No, I - I didn’t mean - it’s not that you look bad, you just look sick. Not in a bad way, but not - I don’t mean like, dude, you look sick ! I mean more in the context of, you know, you don’t look well. Not that that’s - I didn’t mean - ”
The kid was stumbling over himself, agonised. Len decided it was time to make a speedy exit.
“It’s fine,” he said. “You know what? You’re right, I actually don’t feel so good. I’m gonna call it a night, thanks, Barry.”
“Oh,” Barry said weakly. “Okay.”
Len got up, making very sure not to look at the kid as he sauntered out. Detachedly, he thought that he must be sending some ridiculously mixed signals - hot and cold, slamming doors in the kid’s face one minute and then buying him pizza the next, before making a dash for the exit at the drop of a hat. He must have been coming off as one hell of an enigma.
He managed to make his exit fairly calmly, even pausing to shove the pizza leftovers into the currently non-functioning fridge before he made his way into his room and promptly barricaded the door with the crappy little spinning desk chair the landlord had provided. Then, he collapsed onto the bed in a cold sweat.
What an idiot he’d been. Posting his real name on Craigslist, even a photograph of himself; he might as well have posted a mugshot and address straight through the CCPD’s letterbox. It was quite clear what must have happened. Barry was a plant. A secret operative, undercover. They’d sent him to lure Len in under the pretence of becoming his roommate and he was going to arrest him. Panic seized at his chest. He needed to get out. He needed to get out right now.
Calm, said a cold voice in the back of his head. Stay calm.
A fresh wave of panic drowned it out almost immediately, but there was still a flicker of it in the back of his mind and he seized upon it. Focusing, he brought it to the forefront, and then he managed to take a good, deep breath and pull that usual icy demeanor back over himself. Panicking never did anybody any good. Assessing the situation, however, would serve a dual purpose; to calm him further, and then to get him out of this mess.
His first thought was to walk out through the front door, claim to be going to buy advil or something and then make his escape. But no undercover cop worth their salt would let their suspect waltz straight out through the front door. He’d be in handcuffs the minute he touched the door-handle.
Rolling off the bed, he made his way over to the window and looked out. His heart was pounding. There was only a short drop from it, very manageable; the people in the apartment below had a balcony, and it would be easy to reach from here. Craning his neck, he was able to establish that the fire escape was a very reachable distance from the balcony, and from that he’d be able to reach the ground.
Even as this thought occurred to him, he knew he wasn’t going to do it. If he really meant it, he’d already be halfway to the ground by now. Already, his moment of paranoia was fading. Realistically if Barry was an undercover cop, why would he still be playing the game? He should have arrested Len by now. It wasn’t as if this was a drugs bust and he was lying in wait for Len to make a move, to start planning a heist. His last job with Mick had been several weeks ago, and Barry would have nothing to gain from waiting, other than an increased risk of Len cottoning on and scarpering. Besides which, Barry was way too goofy to be an undercover cop. There was no way he was acting; he was just an idiot. A sweet, puppy-like idiot.
Len blew out, his cheeks puffing outwards. He’d been on the run for way too long. He was starting to get scared of his own shadow.
Sitting down on the bed, he forced himself to take some more deep breaths until the tightness in his chest went away. Then, he started to think.
This didn’t have to be a deal-breaker. Sure, it made things complicated. Len’s face was well-known enough at the CCPD that if Barry’s cop stepfather walked through the front door then he probably wouldn’t have a lot of trouble identifying him, but there were ways around that. Most of these ways involved making himself scarce when anybody came over, which wasn’t the most complicated plan in the world, but complications tended to leave a lot of room for mistakes. The best-laid plans were often the simple ones.
If needs must, he could always uproot himself and start over. The smart thing to do would be to do it right now. Pack up and leave, before he’d had time to put down any more roots. Sure, Barry would be hurt, confused, ask questions, but what could he do with no one there to ask? A little Googling could tell him the basics; that his roommate was a felon and a crook. It was one of the reasons Len was having such a hard time finding employment. But if he was already gone by that time, he could falsify some new records, get a new identity. Driver's license, passport, the whole shebang. Then he could move swiftly on, find a new roommate and a new apartment and put the whole thing behind him.
In truth, though, that didn’t sound particularly appealing. He’d already unpacked, come up with a cover story and started to get comfy with his roommate. If he upped sticks and left right now, it would either mean leaving half of his stuff behind or having a very awkward conversation with Barry about why he was terminating their agreement already. All in all, he just wasn’t sure it was worth the hassle. Not for a moment of paranoia that was fading as quickly as it had come. The easiest and least suspicious course of action would be to try and act vaguely normal from now on. Almost having an aneurysm at the mere mention of the cops was hardly the most lowkey of responses.
He lay down on the bed, not bothering to take off his boots. Instead, he let his feet hang slightly over the edge of the bed, pulled the pillow down to compensate. He was a little cold, so he reached for his coat where he’d thrown it over the radiator, and pulled it over himself. The damn heating wasn’t working so it didn’t do much, but within a couple of minutes his body heat would start to warm it up.
It took him a while to fall asleep even so. The apartment was mostly quiet; Barry didn’t appear to be the kind of asshole roommate who would keep banging around and making a lot of noise when someone else was trying to sleep. But there were little noises that kept grating on his nerves. For one, the glass of the windows was almost certainly not double glazed and he could hear the whoosh of traffic roaring by every few minutes, just as he was starting to settle down. The first time, he sat up and glared at the window. After that, he just wrapped the pillow around his head and sulked.
Even so, he could still hear faint creaks and gurgles as the building shifted. They were on the top floor, and he heard footfalls tramping above his head every so often. He heard a toilet flush somewhere in the building and the faint sounds of TV from somewhere above or below. What ever happened to good old-fashioned soundproofing?
Len was just properly drifting off, the distant sounds of the traffic starting to sound fuzzy, when he heard a very distinct creak from directly outside his bedroom door. Habit had him fighting to wake up, but he’d been so close to actual sleep that the best he could muster was to raise his head and try to figure out what the noise was. He thought he could faintly hear the sound of breathing but perhaps that was his imagination.
Just as he was about to get up and beat the hell out of the intruder, he heard another creak and Barry whispered, “Night, Leonard.”
He didn’t wait for a response; he padded back down the hallway and Len heard his bedroom door click shut. Weird kid.
Still, Len was too exhausted to lie there pondering the strange behaviours of his roommate, although there were plenty to ponder. He allowed himself to loosen up again, and before altogether too long he was asleep.