Chapter Text
Finding colour
Leonard Snart never believed in the curse to even begin with. He wasn't into supernatural things anyway, but, to have someone so powerful to be able to do that, to him it was laughable in his opinion. With the odds being as they are to find your soulmate anyway, Leonard wasn't bothered about ever meeting his soulmate. He didn't believe in that stuff either.
Besides, in his line of work he never expected to. From a very young age, he was lead down a road of crime by his father, Leonard had no choice. He had the small hands that his father needed for certain things, it started off every few months. But then months turned into weeks and weeks sometimes turned into days. With every job he pulled with his father, he learnt what not to do. See his father never had the best laid out plans. But any suggestion to make any plans better would, well, get him hit, punched or kicked and sometimes, things thrown at him.
Which is another reason why he didn't believe in the 'soulmate' theory, how was he supposed to fall in love and be happy with some complete stranger if he couldn't even trust his own father.
But. After One night with a heist gone wrong and his father managed to wiggle himself out of it and put all the blame on Leonard using his mates on the force he had, landed the young boy of 14 in Juvie.
Leonard was easily the smallest kid on the block, he looked about 10 when he was 14- it was the malnourishment. His father never bothered cooking for him, not since his mother died giving birth to his baby sister, Lisa. His father always blamed Lisa, more to the point where he hates her. Used Lisa to make Leonard take the fall for his father. Leonard adored Lisa, always made sure she has food even if he didn't, but he was okay with that.
Anyway, Leonard was assigned to his cell- his cell mate wasn't in, it was lesson time for most of the teenagers in there- the older ones so Leonard figured his cell mate was at least 16. He was okay with that- he wasn't sure if he could deal with meeting his cell mate just yet anyway, so Leonard got to work with making his bed- which he figured was the bottom bunk as that was the one without all the sheets on.
A few hours later, was yard time and it didn't take it every long before Leonard was jumped on by 5 or 6 much larger than Leonard was. Even the smallest one would have been at least twice the size of Leonard.
"Well. Well. Well. What do we have here?" One said, which Leonard assumed he was the leader of the pack, smirking at Leonard.
"Well it appears, Rob, that we have some fresh meat here." Another answered, "Very scrawny. Can't be older than 12." He then added, giving Leonard a look which sent chills down his spine.
"I'm 14 you idiot." Leonard responded, which landed him a punch in the gut from the other.
"Easy now, James. You'll get time to do that later." The leader, now known as Robert said before turning to face Leonard again. "Seems you have a smart mouth on you kid." He then added, grinning slightly.
"Not my fault you hang with an idiot that can't tell the difference from a 12 year old and a 14 year old. I know I'm small but come on." Leonard said, trying to act like he was confident when really he was nervous. 'Is this how I'm supposed to die? I can't leave Lisa unprotected like this' was all he was thinking about. Leonard knew he wouldn't be able to fight back if they jumped him. He can't fight and the smallest was at least twice his size.
"Oh you're so going to regret calling me idiot. What makes you think you're so special kid." James snarled, being hold back Roberts arm.
"Oh trust me, I'm not anything special." Leonard responded, glaring slightly at James. Possibly the worse thing he could have said at this point but he just didn't care anymore. He just prayed that someone would save Lisa.
"Good to know kid.." Robert said, smirking before giving a signal to a couple of lads behind Leonard who grabbed him to stop him from moving. "I'm going to enjoy this." He then added, getting close to Leonard, keeping the smirk on his face.
"Go on, do your worst." Leonard spat. He had a pretty high pain tolerance anyway from the 'lessons' that his father gave him, it couldn't be much worse than those what was coming after all.
"You heard him guys, do your worse." Robert said smirking, moving his arm and letting James free, and the other three lads that had surrounded Leonard smirked and started beating Leonard up. Leonard did his best to try and fight back, but with two much older, bigger, stronger boys holding him back, there wasn't much he could do to fight back.
"That's enough boys, I want to join in now." Robert than said after a couple of minutes. The three that were beating him up stopped and backed away and the two that were holding him let go, which caused Leonard's legs to give up on him and therefore, Leonard falling onto the ground.
"Look at you, you're pathetic. Your legs don't want you, your mother didn't want you. Your father doesn't want you." Robert said smirking, kneeling down to be level with Leonard, who was now sat up. Leonard was shocked at the words, but tried not to show it. But at that moment in time, he wasn't very good ad hiding his emotions. "You didn't think this was just a coincidence did you? That we'd jump you on your very first day. He's a little story for you, Leonard. Your father works with my father. That job that got you in here, it was a set up. The cops were looking for a 14 year old scrawny kid- you can thank your father for that. He wanted you away, got my dad to get into contact with me, and well. Look at where we are now.. you can kind of figure out the rest." Robert then explained, pulling out a shiv, causing Leonard's eyes to widen.
"Go on then, do it. If you know so much about my life then go ahead. I'm not stopping you. Just know if you did do, and I die, you become a murderer and that's something you're going to have to live with until the rest of your life." Leonard said. "So do it, if you have the guts to."
"Kid, what do you think I'm in here for." Robert said, bringing his arm back, but before he could do anything another voice spoke up.
"Hey! What's going on here." The voice said, earning people to look into the direction of the voice. Robert did too, but not before stabbing Leonard in the side with the shiv, earning a yell from Leonard. All Leonard saw after was this even bigger person coming and starting to beat the gang up before falling unconscious.
Mick Rory.. he was always a grumpy child, and the forgotten one almost and the youngest. Well, only when things concerned what he wanted to do with his life. From the age of 12, his father forced him to drop out of school to help on the farm. Said Mick didn't need anything else in life other than run and help on the farm.
But
All his older siblings managed to do something with their lives and in Micks eyes, it wasn't fair. And eventually he rebelled. Turned himself down the life of crime, arson mainly. Boy did he love the flames. Almost never got caught. There was a few times he did, but all he had to do was community service and the one time a few months in Juvie. No one ever got hurt.
Until he burned down the farm with his family inside at the age of 15. Got sentenced 3 years for arson and manslaughter. Mick didn't believe in the soulmate curse either. The flames were his soulmate. The way they eat through anything and the way they danced, he was always hypnotised by them. Mick didn't care for anything else.
Which is why, a year into his sentence, he doesn't know why he saved a scrawny 14 year old kid from being killed on his first day. It was like something compelled him to go over to the crowd of people. Which was odd, because Mick always kept to the shadows away from people. But there was this strange and strong urge to stop whatever was going on.
"Hey! What's going on here?!" Mick yelled, breaking the formation. The crowd scattered away, everyone knew not to mess with Mick. A couple of the kids who were involved in the beating turned pale as they realised who stopped them.
"Man.. please don't kill us. We didn't know he was with you." One said, motioning to the scrawny kid that was bleeding out since Robert stabbed him, before running away with the other one. They were the two smallest boys involved in the attack.
"What do you want Rory. This is our business." Robert said, turning round to face him. Mick smirked. He did love a good old fight when someone was asking for it.
"I can't stand scum like you, picking, jumping and attacking the smallest kid on the block and on his first day. I can't let you bully my friend." Mick said, stepping closer to the other. "You should really pick on someone your own size." He then added before punching Robert before he had the chance to reply. Robert attempted to fight back but it really wasn't any use.
"Alright man! I'm sorry! I won't do it again!" Robert announced, terrified and giving in before him, and the rest of his gang, ran away. Mick smiled briefly before turning round and looking at the scrawny kid, which caused him to panic. The kid had fallen unconscious. Mick hurriedly picked him up bridal style, after taking off his jumper to wrap around the wound, and ran into the direction of the infirmary. He knew what it looked like, him carrying an unconscious boy into the infirmary, given his track record, but he didn't care. He needed help.
"Thank you..." A weak voice said, and Mick realised it was the boy in his arms. Mick looked down at him briefly.
"You stay with me kid. Don't thank me yet. Thank me when you're okay and alive. Everything's alright." Mick tried to reassure, as the kid feel back unconscious. He wasn't very good at reassurance though. He didn't care about people to reassure them, but the scrawny kid in his arms was different for some reason. He didn't know why, until after Mick reached the infirmary and could see how pale the kid was. At first he brushed it off as nothing when he laid him on the hospital bed and the nurse rushed over, at first accusing Mick of doing this until Mick promised it wasn't him and that he found the boy like that.
It wasn't until after Mick had gotten back to his cell, until he saw the bottom bunk made up in cheep bedding, that his jumper was a different shade of whatever colour he had gotten used too in the last year, with a different colour staining it.
It wasn't until after that he realised that he met his soulmate, and for the first time in his life that he prayed. He prayed that the boy would live. Because damn, they had a lot to talk about when he came too.