entrancelogs | [closed] Oh sister when I come to knock on your door, don't turn away you'll create sorrow

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[closed] Oh sister when I come to knock on your door, don't turn away you'll create sorrow

Who: Leonard & Lisa Snart
Where: Lisa's Room
When: 2/2
Rating: PG 13
Summary: Time is an ocean but it ends at the shore
You may not see me tomorrow.
The Story:

This wasn't a pain he ever thought he'd feel. As unprepared as he was for living through everything that went wrong between Mick and him twice, now this. But he had to tell her. It wasn't his place to tell, but how could he let anyone else?

Leonard had tried and failed all her life to keep Lisa's heart from being broken.

Now he would have to fail at it once more. He didn't knock, he simply opened the door, but before he walked in further he still waited, barely inside.

"Lis?"

His voice was free of the affectation laid on by his super-villain act. Just himself, the way she had known him from when she was little. Just waiting for her to let him in.

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Lisa closed her eyes. She listened and she tried to picture it. She tried to see Mick putting himself in someone else's place. Whoever they were, they must've made an impression on the arsonist. He wasn't one to get so easily attached, especially at the expense of his own life. And of course, Leonard wouldn't let Mick get himself killed, because he was Leonard. Everyone thought he was such a terrible person. A criminal. Lisa knew better.

"It's not fair, Lenny." That was all she could manage. Because it wasn't. It was selfish of her. She didn't want to lose Mick either, but really, what more could she say? There was no way to fix it. It just wasn't fair. She lifted her shoulders close, insecurely. "What am I supposed to do without you...?"

"Ain't a thing like fair, Lisa. C'mon, sis, you knew that." Definitely a lesson they had both learned very early on. But this was different, he knew that. He wasn't pushing her to just get over it already. "You'll go on. You haven't needed me in a very long time."

He lifted his hand to preemptively cut off any protest. "I ain't saying you don't care for me. I ain't even saying I wasn't there for you." At least he'd tried. How well he'd done was debatable. "But you'll be fine. You're strong."

With his hand against her face again, he gently tilts her head back a little, leaning their foreheads together. "Stronger and smarter than I've ever been."

Leaning into the touch, she pouted when he cut off her protest. Jerk. He knew her too well. Still, he should know that she wouldn't be silenced that easily, either.

"Not actively needing you and knowing you're not there anymore is different." But his compliment defies the sorrow. Even with the tears in her eyes, a smile breaks across her lips, even if it is slightly bitter. "You're so full of shit." Despite the words, it's said endearingly.

"That ain't anything new." For a moment he spared a grin, his fingers dropping to her shoulder as he pulled back. He caught her eyes and there was still the hint of a smile. "Some things don't change."

Like him being anything other than impossible, as Iris West had become so fond of saying here. His expression became more serious again as he continued. "Mick's from before... I told you. He only just found out about it a few days ago. So, you know. I think he's still working through it too, in his way."

The smile seemed to settle more solidly. She collected herself, pulled back, out of his lap, but still stayed close enough to cling to him. She wasn't letting go just yet, dammit. Deal, Lenny.

"So, he's pissed." It wasn't a question. She knew Mick. And found out not I told was a very important distinction she picked up on. He wasn't just upset that Leonard was dead--had died to save him. Mick would be pissed that Lenny didn't tell him. "How'd he find out?" Which also explained why Leonard told her so quickly.

"Maya told him." He let out a sigh, lifting a hand to rub the side of his face and then wrap it around his upper arm, finally withdrawing a little more into his own space again. Obviously Maya telling Mick was not something he intended to happen and Leonard hated when things didn't go according to plan. Even with a lot less serious issues. "It's complicated."

Where did he start? Once more, there was a lot to tell that he didn't really want to let her know. "When Mick got here, he was angry with me. Rightfully so. I'd fucked up." An understatement. "I really fucked up with Mick, Lisa."

Lisa looked away for a moment. She's sure Maya didn't mean to cause trouble, but she can also just hear that conversation. "Sounds like." She agreed. "She didn't mean it, Lenny."

But when he continued, she was suddenly more interested in what he said next. Usually it was Mick who fucked up. Getting out of control with fire, the burns, blowing the job. He'd done it a few times, but he and Leonard always made up once Mick was back under control. "...how?"

"I know she didn't." He wasn't mad at Maya, that option didn't even occur to him. In fact, he'd apologised to Maya for even being in the position of knowing something Mick hadn't known yet.

The question Lisa asked brought up a whole host of other issues and there were only so many ways to give her the condensed version. "Mick got the idea that I changed my goals. He was probably right. He called me on it and I..." For a moment he trailed off, his mind back in Star City as he tried to decide how to explain what happened without sitting here for another hour. Finally he just offered a shrug. "I pulled rank. Knocked him out. He was pissed, I figured he'd get over it, but he tried to betray the team. Rip wanted me to take care of him."

Which obviously meant "kill", but he had no need to actually voice that. He knew Lisa would get it. "I didn't." Naturally. Mick meant a lot more to him than Rip would apparently ever be willing to grasp, just as most others on the ship failed to. "I left him somewhere to cool off and I planned to pick him back up right then after the mission. Time travel. But turns out, I didn't."

Since he knew that it was a lot of information all at once, he gave it some moments before he continued. "So you could say I had a heads up about not making it." Because he would have always, always come back for Mick. "That's the point Mick's from right now. Me abandoning him." Which should explain the anger he'd mentioned before. How he fucked up. There was more, but for now he left it at that, so Lisa could try and process.

Lisa absorbed this information, feeling a little numb all over again. She hated when they fought. It wasn't entirely uncommon for them to disagree, but she rarely witnessed Lenny pull rank on him. The rest of that made her feel almost cold. Mick could be a loose canon, but he must have been severely hurting to turn on Lenny. She didn't know how they felt about the rest of the team, but obviously, if Leo ditched Mick, then he cared enough for those people to protect them.

"Len..." Her tone was soft, conveying an empathy that she really showed no one else. She pulled back and sat up on her knees, leaning forward and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Deal with it, Leonard. She hugged him tight for a moment. "He'll cool off. He's Mick." She settled down beside him again and leaned her shoulder against his. Subtle contact, but she needed it still. "Is he gonna be okay? Back in your time, I mean. If you don't go back for him, is he just stranded?" Because, if Rip thinks Mick's dead, he wouldn't know to go back for him. Some Time Master... Couldn't even see that Len would never kill Mick.

"Mick's got every right to be pissed. Right now he can't even be that, cause he knows I don't make it." Nothing about this situation was ideal and even though they had ostensibly made up and both certainly wanted to achieve some kind of normalcy again, it was difficult. Fragile and insecure and a thousand other things that their relationship had never really been before, all with that underlying sadness and knowledge of futility. But he wasn't about to burden his sister with that kind of existential angst surrounding his relationship with his partner, especially given that there were still a lot of other things to catch her up on. Like her question now showed all too clearly.

"Nah. He ain't gonna be okay. The Time Masters get to him. Brainwash him. Torture him. He came out a different person, called Chronos. Trained to hunt us down, driven by revenge. It..." He paused, less to look for words and more because it hurt to talk about, as much as he clamped down on the emotion. The guilt was there, front and centre, and it should be. This was on him. Leonard leaned against Lisa in turn, moving his arm to wrap it around her, back to closer contact again. For her sake and perhaps for both their sake. "He broke through a lot of it, by the end. But it ain't ever gonna go away."

"Yeah, well. That's hardly a fair point to make." Because of the people in the entire multi-verse that cared about Leonard most, right now, the last thing either of them wanted to hear was that he didn't make it. Because they could be angry with him, they could even be so enraged that they hated him, but a world without him, even if it was a world in which you were angry with him, wasn't one either of them wanted to go back to.

Hearing he wasn't going to be okay seemed to drive that numbing feeling even further home. Her family consisted of Leonard and Mick. This was all one huge nightmare. None of this could be real... "...I wish you two hadn't gone on this mission." She finally says, feeling him lean into her and then his arm was around her. She felt her world threatening to shatter again. "So he doesn't even know that...? Does he know what happens? You said he's before that, right?" She reached up to hold onto his arm, clinging again. It was very much reminiscent of how Lenny would comfort her after Lewis lost his temper with her. Leonard was the one who dies. Leonard was the one who fought with Mick, and here they were. Leonard was comforting her? She was still just the pain-in-the-ass baby sister.

"He'll be okay here. You both will." Lisa insisted, forcing a confidence into her voice that she didn't 100% feel at the moment. She would make sure they were both happy, even if she had to start playing interference between them until things calmed down. Until they remembered how to function. "We don't dwell on the past, we learn from it. So learn, Lenny." Her tone wasn't harsh, but it was strong. And when she looked up at him to hopefully meet his eyes, her blue gaze was equally adamant.

"Oh, I've learned. I haven't died in months now." No, that kind of gallows humour was hardly going to be appreciated, so far he had yet to find anyone who took him joking about his death lightly. It was a way to deal, because giving in to the fear and sadness inside him, asking for that comfort that he was trying - presumably failing - to give Lisa, it wasn't ever going to be in the cards for him, it wasn't how he worked. Maybe if things were different with Mick, but they weren't. Futile to think about.

He met her eyes, lifting a hand to cup her face. Traces of tears and he hated them, once more having broken the promise he'd made to himself about keeping her from pain. "I told Mick what's gonna happen. You know as much as he does." That was important. "Mick was dangerous, when he was Chronos. Just... Keep that in mind. If he ever seems off to you here, stay clear. He might have gotten an update."

The small rush of air that left her wasn't quite a laugh, but it wasn't really a sigh either. It was something somewhere in between. "You're not funny." She muttered weakly. Too soon, Lenny. Even so, it hadn't exactly been lost to her either. She made the same quips in times of turmoil. Her features had softened with the joke. "How about you not die ever again, okay?" Well, you know what she means, Leonard.

There was that cold feeling again. Mick was dangerous. Mick's always been dangerous, but never towards her. That warning seemed heavy. She just nodded, knowing better than to argue when Leonard was this serious. "We'll be able to help him if he does, right? I mean, you helped him before..."

"I believe so." He hoped so, but there was no need to clarify that. He could sound a little more certain than he was for Lisa's sake, hardly much of a sacrifice. "But if that happens, I'll deal with him. I know how to talk to him. Besides, he's never wanted me dead."

Just suffering. Which was worse in every way, given it meant threatening Lisa, but there was no reason to get into that now. Instead he breathed out slowly and met Lisa's eyes. "Think telling you might've been the worst thing I've ever had to do." It was still the worst. This wasn't over and his fingers combed through her hair slowly. "But I'm glad to see you."

The assurance, even if it wasn't completely inspiring, did help. She seemed to relax even further when he said Mick didn't want him dead. Of course he didn't, this was Mick, after all. Even if he was broken. Mick and Len were forever, right? She'd believe that to her dying breath. Which worked in Leonard's favour, keeping her from questioning it further.

"I'm sorry." It was sincere and quiet. Telling her was the hardest thing he had to do and learning it was the hardest thing she'd ever have to do. She had no right to mope over it when it was Leonard who lost his life. He was the one who needed the comfort...

Lisa wrapped her arm around him and hugged him again, leaning her head against him. "I'm glad to see you too. And thank you for telling me. I'm so, so sorry, Lenny. I know that doesn't fix anything, but... I just... I am."

"I think all three of us really just need to hit the bar for a drink in the near future." Or thirty. Could you actually die of alcohol poisoning here?

"I'm fine, Lis. Ironically, I just gotta live with it." Not something that people usually had to do with their own deaths, but in this place Leonard knew that he was far from the only one. He wished he could say something to offer more comfort, but he had never been all that good at that part, at least in his own esteem. So all he could do is hold her, fingers buried in her hair gently massaging her scalp as he kept her close against him. "Sounds like a plan. Mick tends to be at least a few drinks ahead of everyone these days."

Which was a worry for another day, but what was he supposed to do? Tell him not to drown his sorrows in alcohol and food? Whatever coping method worked.

"That's a terrible joke." She muttered, emotionally drained. Right now, she could damn near fall asleep against him like she used to when she was little. The touch was familiar and soothing, Leonard was a safe presence--the safest presence she knew--and she was exhausted. So, if her eyes droop a little bit, forgive her.

To Lisa, they were always the prefect little family. They didn't need anyone else. They never had. Lisa, Len, and Mick were a very dynamic trio in and of themselves. But right now, they were so very broken. Mick, angry and hurt. Lisa, utterly gutted. And Leonard, watching the two people he cared about fall apart.

"Then we'll just have to catch up to him when we go."

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[closed] Oh sister when I come to knock on your door, don't turn away you'll create sorrow

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