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Six.
Barry leans against the kitchen counter, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. It's too early, and the coffee maker's too slow. That's just the trouble with having super speed – every appliance seems to work only in slo-mo, and impatience makes Barry jittery.
He's staring at the steady, painfully laggard drip of coffee as if he can transfer some of his powers onto it if he only concentrates hard enough, and he's taken by surprise at the feel of a body fitting against his back. A pair of arms cages him in, lean muscles taut as Leonard presses closer, body heat seeping through layers of clothing. "Sneaking out of bed, Scarlet? Someone's getting better at being stealthy."
Barry grins and twists in Leonard's embrace until they're face to face, standing close enough to breathe the same air. Small lines crinkle around Leonard's narrowed eyes, amusement or speculation, or perhaps a mixture of both. "You don't have to make it sound so nefarious," Barry protests. "I didn't want to wake you."
The right corner of Leonard's mouth twitches. "Appreciate it. Would have appreciated it more if you'd stayed in bed with me."
He takes a step towards Barry – quite a feat, considering that there was barely a foot's distance between them to begin with. It brings them impossibly close. Leonard's leg slides between Barry's, his thigh an insistent pressure against Barry's groin. Barry's cock gives an interested twitch, even though he jerked off in the shower earlier.
When Leonard leans forward and slants his mouths against Barry's, moving their lips against each other in slow, languid movements, Barry's eyes fall shut.
The kiss is warm and soft and it feels so good. But something grates on the edge of Barry's consciousness, a sense of wrongness, tiny but insistent, like a small splinter that has buried itself under the skin, and every time he reaches for it, it slips from his grasp.
Leonard draws back, his eyebrow going up. His tone takes a dangerous edge. "Why does it feel like I don't have your full attention, Barry?"
Of course, Leonard's too insistent for his own good, and too possessive to accept Barry's wandering mind.
Barry huffs out a small laugh and reaches for him. The faded cotton of his shirt is soft under Barry's fingers when he pulls Leonard back in for a brief kiss, nipping at that full lower lip before trailing his mouth down Leonard's jawline, yesterday's stubble rasping against his skin. "Maybe you need to work harder to distract me?"
He doesn't need to look up to see Leonard's grin – he feels it in the shift of skin against his lips, hears it in Leonard's voice when he drawls, "Challenge accepted."
Leonard puts just enough distance between them so he can slide down on his knees in front of Barry in a motion that shouldn't look so smooth from a man of his height and age. Barry's almost jealous; he never had those kind of moves.
Blue eyes blaze up at him, full of promise, and Barry shoves whatever it was that's been bothering him down into the far back of his mind and firmly closes the door on it.
<<
Five.
Barry wakes at the first crack of dawn, pale light filtering in through the blinds. Like every morning, there's a moment of confusion, a moment when his brain isn't quite booted up yet and he doesn't have his bearings. Next to him, Leonard's body is curled towards Barry's, snoring quietly, and it takes all of his willpower not to reach out and touch.
Asleep, Leonard looks softer, the harsh lines of his mouth smoothed out, the pinched expression relaxed.
Barry watches him and thinks, I could get used to this before he remembers what this is and that there won't be a happy-ever-after.
Except... maybe there could be. Maybe all he needs to do is hold on to this a little firmer, believe a little harder, stop wishing for more than he can have.
Maybe this, right here, can be his happy-ever-after.
<<
Four.
A blast of ice hits the wall behind where Barry was just standing before he zapped away.
He winces from the phantom pain, imagining it hitting him right in the ribs. It distracts him enough that he fails to evade the next blast, and then he doesn't have to imagine the way the freezing cold seeps through his suit, biting into his flesh like a million tiny icicles. For a moment, until the heat sensors kick in, the pain is crippling, and Barry can't hold back to anguished shout.
"Too slow, Barry," Leonard taunts, giving Barry barely enough time to catch his breath and start running again before he fires again.
Barry evades, just so. "Still faster than you," he shoots back, trying to match Leonard's teasing banter, but his heart isn't really in it.
Leonard hums. "Didn't anyone teach you that it's not all about the speed?" His next shot goes wide, and Barry is about to rub in that he missed again, only to realize that Leonard wasn't aiming at him but at the ground in front of him. But it's already too late and he's slipping, legs pulled out from under him as he lands on his ass with a painful thud.
"Gotcha." Leonard's grin is all kinds of self-satisfied and smug, grating on Barry's nerves.
Another icy volley comes flying in his direction and Barry's frustration catches up with him as he speeds away. "Dammit, Len, is there any point to this? You don't have to do this! I thought we— You're better than this!"
The Cold Gun stops blasting at him so suddenly that for a moment Barry doesn't even register that the threat is gone, pointlessly zigzaging until his body catches up with his brain. The gun rests easily against Leonard's shoulder now, casually menacing without aiming at Barry, but it has nothing on the danger radiating from Leonard's glare.
"No, I suppose you're right. I don't have to do this."
The words sound like compromise, but Barry already knows that's not what this is. He's negotiated with Leonard enough times to tell when the other man is making concessions and when he's feigning so Barry is lulled in by a false sense of security before delivering the blow.
Barry braces himself for what he knows is coming.
"So you want me to stop, Barry? Lay down the gun for good? Play house, become all respectable? Become one of your goodie-two-shoe sidekicks? Maybe you should have chosen Iris, then." The hard razor edge in his voice cuts right into Barry's heart. "Not too late to change your mind, you know?"
The reminder makes Barry see red for a moment, and he clashes into Leonard with uncontrolled speed, tumbling them both into a wall, the bricks wobbling dangerously at the impact. The Cold Gun clatters to the floor, and Leonard throws his head back and laughs, as if it delights him when he can tempts Barry into violence.
"Don't," Barry grates out between clenched teeth, his fists tightening around the collar of the parka. "I don't want anyone else. I want you."
Their eyes lock for a moment, Leonard's gaze taxing, appraising Barry's sincerity. "Villainy and dubious morals and all?" His lip twists into a sneer. "You sure?"
If Barry didn't know better, he'd take it for insecurity. Still, he puts all the certainty he has into his voice when he affirms, "I'm sure." His hands loosen around the parka, slipping up until they meet skin and curving gently around Leonard's neck. "I want this to be real."
It's a loaded statement, and the double meaning isn't lost on the other. His lip twitches, and his tone is almost kind. "Well, you know what they say, kid. Reality is what you make it."
He catches Barry's lips in a kiss, and Barry melts into it faster than the ice on his suit when the heat sensors come on.
<<
Three.
"You're moping again," Snart says.
"Am not." Barry's response is automatic rather than genuine denial, and he flushes when he hears the petulance in his tone.
"Really, now?"
The mocking amusement only makes Barry's blush deepen. He's not moping, exactly; he just feels lonely and bored, cut off from the people he loves and everything he knows, and as much as he wants to snap for the other man to leave him in peace, the truth is that he welcomes the company too much. Any kind of company, but Snart's in particular. It's funny: he only really realized how much he's missed Snart when he came face to face with him again.
He looks away and scratches his neck. "Maybe I'm moping a little," he concedes.
Snart snorts. "Well, let me know when you're done feeling sorry for yourself and ready to do something about it."
When he turns to leave, Barry catches his arm, his fingers closing around Snart's wrist where sleeves meet skin. He could swear that he feels the pulse speed up against his thumb. Snart's gaze darts down, a pointed, wordless demand for Barry to let go.
Feeling contrary, Barry gives the wrist a little tug instead, bringing them closer.
"What did you have in mind?" he asks, recklessness bristling like lightning under his skin. It's always been like this with Snart, making him want to throw all caution to the wind, make choices he knows he will end up regretting. It's going to Snart to make a deal that Barry knew in advance he couldn't trust. It's insisting to help him with his father even when Snart told him to stay out of it. It's traveling back in time to enlists Snart's help to break into A.R.G.U.S..
It's looking at the Speed Force pretending to be Leonard Snart and feeling the need to be close to him almost swallow Barry whole.
"Barry." The sharp tone makes Barry's gaze snap away from Snart's lips and back up to his narrowed eyes that watch him with guarded emotion. "You know this ain't real, right?"
Perhaps if the Speed Force had chosen to change its form, Barry would have stumbled back, embarrassed and chastised. But even saying this, reminding Barry that none of this is actually happening, it's Snart's face that stares back at him, his voice drawling the warning, and Barry can't bring himself to give a damn about the ever blurring lines between what's real and what's not.
He swallows and refuses to be cowed into looking away. "I know Snart's dead. I know I'm stuck in here, okay? I just don't care. You're the one who wanted to be Iris for me, remember?"
Snart's eyes narrow. "And you're the one who turned down the offer. What does that say about your commitment to the lovely Miss West, I wonder?" He raises an eyebrow, his expression speculative. The irony is, of course, that the blatant attempt at manipulation, at finding a sore spot and pressing down, is classic Leonard Snart.
"Maybe it just means I care too much about her to use her like this."
"Ouch," Snart deadpans, and Barry rolls his eyes. He didn't mean it like that. But the real Snart is dead; he won't care what Barry gets up to with his Speed Force lookalike.
Absurdly, he feels the need to justify his statement. "It's not —" Barry starts, but that's as far as he gets because Snart is kissing him. He's stepped further into Barry's personal space, close enough that the cold air that's clinging to his parka makes Barry shiver. His hand is in Barry's hair, tilting his head towards him, and his lips are hungry and insistent.
Barry's too slow to react, and isn't that ironic: the fastest man alive, too late again? By the time he kisses back, Snart's already breaking the kiss and taking a step back. The glint in his eyes is almost cruel.
"How long have you wanted this?" he taunts. "Since you asked for his help for the first time? Or since you went back in time to find him? Did you think about it, Barry? Changing the past again just so you could save him?"
The 'him' is an uncomfortable reminder that breaks the illusion. Barry doesn't want to hear it, doesn't want to allow reality to crash down on him, doesn't want to think about how close he came to never dropping Snart back to 1892.
He fists his hand in the collar of Snart's parka and pulls him close.
"Shut up," he hisses, anger and desire and regret coiling in his stomach into an unholy, explosive mixture. "Just shut up." He slams their lips together again, almost viciously, spurred on when Snart gives back as good as he gets, and for a moment, it's almost enough.
<<
Two.
He looks just like Snart.
The way he leans casually against the wall, arms crossed in front of him, hands wrapped in black gloves. The familiar parka, hood and goggles pulled down to expose his face, the Cold Gun at his side. That same mocking smile quirking his lips now that he's had since he chided Barry for being out past his bedtime and derailed a train, what feels like a lifetime and a half ago.
It's hard not to get pulled into the illusion. Remind himself that Leonard Snart is dead, that he got himself killed outside the realms of time (sacrificed himself because of Barry), and that the man in front of him is not really a man at all but merely a manifestation of the Speed Force finding new and creative ways to torture Barry.
Barry sighs and rubs his neck, trying to hold on to the frustration rather than the rush of sentimentality. "What do you want now? Telling me again that Snart's death is on me? I got it the first time."
Snart— no, the Speed Force scoffs. He (it) clicks his tongue disapprovingly. "Always so keen on shouldering all the blame. You don't get to take credit for my heroic self-sacrifice, kid."
It sounds like Snart too, the familiar sharp-edged drawl, even though Barry isn't sure if the real Snart ever sounded quite so fond beneath the snark and the quips and the threats. Perhaps it's just Barry's nostalgia playing tricks on him. He smiles tightly. "Then what's the point of this?"
A one-shouldered shrug. "Thought you could use some company." He (it, it, it) makes a little flourishing gesture that startles a disbelieving laugh out of Barry.
"For real? And you thought, what? That we'd play superheroes and robbers for a bit? You try to ice me, I run circles around you?" The idea seems ridiculous, but the lightning in his veins pulsates at the very thought. It's been too long.
"Why not? We used to have fun, didn't we?" At the curl of his lip Barry is abruptly thrown back to 1892, remembering Snart's sly smile, his coy "Maybe that's why we get along".
Yeah, Barry thinks, we used to have fun. Before I convinced you there was good in you, and you went and sacrificed yourself. Before I got locked up in the Speed Force for messing with the timeline once too many.
"I miss you."
The words spill from his lips before he can stop himself, too raw and too honest and directed at the wrong fucking person, who isn't really a person to begin with. But it's not a confession he could ever make to the real Leonard Snart, not without breaking all the rules again.
"Now, Barry, let's not get sentimental."
Snart's voice is dripping with blatant sarcasm and Barry huffs out an amused laugh.
"Fuck you, Snart," he says without heat, a grin on his face even when his sight is blurry from the sudden moisture in his eyes, even when he wants so many things he can never have and his heart is breaking over and over and over again.
Maybe that's his punishment, after all.
<<
One.
"It's not a punishment," the Speed Force says, wearing Iris' face. She reaches out and touches Barry's cheek, a reassuring, gentle smile on her face that was so very Iris that it's breaking Barry's heart.
He recoils. "Don't. Don't do that, okay? It's creepy."
It's not; that's just the thing. It feels like Iris. It looks like Iris. It would take almost no effort for Barry to convince himself that it really is her.
He knows he might well be in here forever, that there's no way out of the Speed Force prison for him, and it's tempting – oh so tempting – to try and replicate his life on the outside. Make a better life, maybe. One where he has both Iris and his parents. A better Central City where no one ever died for Barry's mistakes. The perfect illusion. All he'd have to do is ask.
But pretending that the Speed Force is Iris feels wrong, in a way it didn't when it took his mom's form. Because the real Iris is out there, living her own life like he told her to. If Barry can't have her, getting to keep an imitation feels like a violation.
In front of him, the Speed Force turns back into his mother. "Are you sure, Barry? We just want you to be happy." There's something about the way she looks at him that feels out of place on his mother's kind features. It's too calculating, too sharp, belying the caring words.
"Stop me from trying to find a way out, you mean?" he counters. She doesn't deny it. He snorts and shakes his head. "Don't worry. I'm gonna stay put. Just... don't even try being Iris again, okay?"
He makes his voice sound forceful, hardened. The truth is, he doesn't know if he'd have the willpower to resist the temptation a second time. There's a hole in his heart carved by the ache of separation, by leaving his life and everyone in it behind, and he's too eager to fill it with something, anything, however ill-fitting.
>>
Seven.
Cisco reaches through the breach, pure energy bristling around his arm. "Come on Barry, take my hand. We don't have much time," he says, but Barry's rooted to the spot. He can't move, he can barely breathe, paralyzed by the way reality has intruded into the world he's built for himself inside the Speed Force.
A small part of him is absurdly angry at Cisco for shattering the illusion. (Perhaps not that small a part, he thinks wryly.)
"What are you waiting for, Barry? Your friends are waiting for you. Tick-tock," Leonard's voice snaps from behind him, and when Barry turns, he's lounging against the fridge, watching Barry with a cool glare. "You can have your life back. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"
"I want—" you, he almost says. But that's not true, is it? He swallows. "I want this life."
Leonard's features twist into a hard, cruel smile. "Too bad."
He pushes himself away from the fridge and walks over to Barry. When he rounds the kitchen counter, Barry has a flashback to the other morning, slow kisses and the slick slide of sweaty skin against skin, and it's not fucking fair.
"Wanna have your cake and eat it too, Barry? Don't even think about changing the past and saving him. I promise you, you'd regret it."
It doesn't sound like an idle warning, and as tempted as he is to break the rules, snatch the real Leonard Snart from the Oculus split seconds before it explodes and just take him back to the present, he's seen what happens with time remnants, and he can't bear to subject Leonard to the same fate. Which leaves— absolutely nothing. There's nothing he can do. The second he takes Cisco's hand, this will be over, Leonard will be gone for good.
"I hate you," Barry says, his voice breaking.
But they're standing too close, and it's hard to cling to that hatred and the anger when he can't look at the Speed Force without seeing Leonard.
Leonard leans in until their lips almost touch, and when he speaks, his breath is warm on Barry's face. "What's it gonna be? In or out?" He smiles without kindness and brushes his mouth against Barry's, brief and feather-light, barely there and already gone. "You know how it is. Once you're out... well."
Barry closes his eyes and makes a choice.
End.