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Barry’s in the middle of arguing with Cisco over the last egg roll – angel-born or not, nobody’s taking the high road when it comes to food – when the alarm sounds.
It is a testament to how much they’ve been through in the past five years with the demon surges that they all immediately switch gears, Cisco running to his tech to determine the threat levels, Caitlin stalking towards the supply room, and Barry donning the gear he never leaves too far out of reach.
“Just one,” Cisco’s voice breaks through the tense silence and all of them uncoil a little bit. “Probably a cambion, too. The reading’s all weird.”
They all exchange looks at that. Full demons have been known to get over-confident here and there, breaking into the one place in the country best equipped to deal with them. But for a half-demon to get that bold, or that stupid…
Barry grips the hilt of the blade hanging at his hip and steps forward, facing the door. Caitlin might be one of the Nephilim, but she’s a scientist much more than a fighter. And Cisco can take care of himself well enough for a human, as he’s proven numerous times already, but Barry still prefers to be their first line of defense whenever he can.
Seconds tick by, and then footsteps sound, and then, a voice, female, much too human, despite the odd coldness underneath the words:
“Don’t shoot!”
Cisco hisses at the mockery: she must know full well that they have not managed to successfully harness the angel light into a projectile weapon, and that is not something they usually advertise. Not to their enemies, at least: but Lisa Snart once counted among reluctant allies.
A mistake they’re not inclined to repeat.
“What could you possibly want to steal this time?” Barry calls out, and her laughter sounds off, reverberating against the corridor’s walls.
“Believe it or not, Barry Allen, I haven’t come to take anything from you. In fact, I’ve come to ask you for help.”
The words are so unexpected that it takes them all a few seconds to process their meaning; Cisco is the first to recover, with a derisive snort:
“Yeah right, because that’s gonna happen.”
He’s obviously still a little sore about having been kidnapped by no-one else than Lisa Snart a few years ago – even though it’s probably more wounded pride than anything else. Humans don’t usually survive demon abduction, but the Snarts seemed much more interested in getting Barry to leave them alone, guessing correctly that it would never happen if they hurt one of Barry’s closest friends.
“Come out and we’ll talk,” Barry says, ignoring the burning looks his friends send him.
“Do I have your promise that you won’t attack me?”
She doesn’t sound like she’s too worried about the possibility, and that in itself should set off a warning bell in Barry’s head, but right now, curiosity prevails over sensible wariness and he nods:
“As long as you don’t try to harm anyone, you have my word.”
Cisco hisses ‘are you serious’ and even Caitlin draws in a sharp breath, but Barry stands firm in his decision. If a cambion has to ask the Nephilim for help, chances are that the problem she’s facing is something they should be dealing with anyway. And if they manage to get some inside intel before charging into a demon’s nest, well, they’ll have to take any help they can find.
Lisa emerges then, all black leather and fluttering lashes, just like usual, but Barry can’t shake the feeling of ‘wrong’ when she smiles at him, slow and predatory and… empty.
“So what’s this all about?” he challenges, adjusting his grip on the dagger. He doesn’t trust her as far as he could throw her, not after the last time, but he’s honor-bound now to hear her out.
“My brother,” she shrugs, and Barry’s heart skips a beat. He remembers her brother well, remembers fighting the older cambion a few times, remembers the teasing, the way Leonard Snart never killed if he didn’t absolutely have to, unlike many others. Remembers asking for help with the transport of some imprisoned cambions, working side by side for a few hours, believing, tentatively and hopefully, that Snart could be reformed, could be a real ally. A foolish dream Barry’s harbored for far too long now, trying to persuade his team that cambions were still half-human, that they could be reasoned with, pulled to the Light, or at least stopped without excessive violence, without killing.
Barry also remembers looking into Snart’s icy-blue eyes as he lay paralyzed on the dirty floor of that warehouse and being told that he really only had himself to blame.
“What did you expect me to do?” Snart asked then, “Not be what I am?”
And Barry could only grind his teeth and watch the man leave, because Snart was right – that was exactly what Barry had expected, with his stupid dreams and hopes of achieving at least a semblance of peace between the half-human races of the city, if not the world. Dreams he paid for dearly… and he cannot believe that years of further proof to the contrary have not taught him better than to stand here and listen to Lisa Snart ask for a favor on behalf of the very brother who has betrayed Barry so easily.
“Let me guess,” Cisco snorts before Barry can emerge from his bitter memories, “Lenny has screwed you over one time too many, and now you want us to hunt him down for you. Is that it?”
“On the contrary,” Lisa smiles coldly, “I want you to rescue him from our father’s grasp.”
“Holy Batman, now there’s three of you?!”
“Isn’t that a family matter, though?” Barry interrupts before they can continue bickering. Lisa shrugs and flips her hair over her shoulder in a careless gesture.
“I would think you’d be interested, since daddy dearest is one of Mammon’s generals.”
That elicits a groan from all three of them: Mammon’s servants are a pain to deal with on the best of days. Which really explains the Snarts.
“He’s been trapped at another base of yours,” Lisa continues, unconcerned, “but he’s escaped recently, and he’s blackmailing Lenny to work with him. Whether they succeed or not, it’s not going to end well… Lenny will snap, and then our father will tear him apart.”
“And you care why exactly?” Cisco huffs, earning a cold stare from the cambion.
“Believe it or not, we are just as capable of familial bonds as you are,” she says, then smirks, “when we don’t have our humanity ripped away, of course.”
Caitlin gasps, and Barry feels for her: she’s had her fair share of trouble when her human half got compromised. They don’t speak about it, but Barry still remembers Caitlin with hair gone silvery-white, beautiful and deadly and cold. If that’s what happened to Lisa Snart… well, no wonder she seems unhinged in some weird way.
“That’s some father of the year material right there,” Cisco snorts, but his attempt at a joke falls flat, and Barry knows that his friend is not cold-hearted enough not to care about someone’s distress. Even if that someone is a lying, scheming half-demon who has betrayed them before.
“How do we know we can trust you?” Caitlin asks, and Lisa gives them a long, calculating look.
“I have no reason to lie… this time,” she smirks. “We’ve seen what Hell looks like, Lenny and I. And we have no wish to see it play out on Earth. Plus, I don’t want him to get hurt – I might not have much humanity left at the moment, but he’s still my brother.”
Barry can feel Caitlin’s and Cisco’s sudden tension like his own.
“What do you mean, Hell on Earth?”
“Oh, did I forget to mention that the thing my father wants to steal is the Kahndaq Dynasty Diamond?”
The diamond with one of the greatest angelic auras in the world. Barry grits his teeth. Now, they’re definitely interested.
….
“Let it be known that I disapprove of this plan wholeheartedly,” Cisco’s tinny voice grumbles into the earpiece as Barry walks towards the warehouse Lisa indicated as Papa Snart’s hide-out. “I’m just stating this for the record, so that I can say ‘I told you so’ when we find your dead body in seven different places across the city.”
“Thanks, Cisco,” Barry sighs – it’s not like his friend’s disapproval could be any more obvious. Even Barry has to admit that the plan is more or less just a wish for things to go moderately well, without any precise strategy… but it’s not like they have time to spare. One phonecall to Joe has confirmed that blueprints for the Central City Museum were stolen last night, which means that the Snarts are going to move sooner rather than later.
And while the Snarts’ betrayal still hurts, deep down where Barry’s ideals lie half-buried, the Nephilim can’t let any demon set his hands on such an important artifact. Heavens only know what someone like Lewis Snart or his demonic master could do with such power… and Barry doesn’t particularly want to find out.
The warehouse is unguarded, as far as Barry can see, which speaks either about a complete lack of vigilance on the elder Snart’s part, or, much more likely and much worse for Barry, about total confidence in his ability to defend himself against the Nephilim.
That’s why Barry is wearing Cisco’s concealment amulet: as long as he doesn’t use his powers or whip out a weapon, nobody will detect any trace of angel blood. Now, he only has to sell his cover story… which seemed far stronger back in STAR Labs, he’ll admit as much.
The warehouse door is open, just enough for Barry to slip in without making a sound. He stops and listens for a moment, but the only voices he can hear are further back, behind a few rows of crates separating the dark space. He has a feeling that Snart, the one he’s actually looking for, won’t be too close to his father, if Lisa is to be believed as to the relationship between the two of them.
It takes less than a minute to find the man: he’s sitting on a crate and cleaning a gun, his unnaturally blue eyes glowing in the dark, trained on the tiny metal parts in the lap. For a second, Barry is struck with the feeling that the man is… unhappy, or worried, or both.
And then, he must make a sound without noticing, or perhaps Snart’s reflexes have been sharpened by the constant danger of his father’s presence, because the man’s eyes snap up and suddenly, Barry’s facing a barrel of a gun.
He raises his hands, ever so slowly, and glances towards the stacks of crates on his left, but the distant voices aren’t coming any closer or changing in cadence and volume, so he must have gone unnoticed by the others, for now.
“Lisa sent me,” he shifts his attention to Snart again, mouthing the words more than whispering. “Are you okay?”
The gun lowers, almost imperceptibly, and Snart is smirking in that overconfident, dickish way of his, but the tension around his eyes can’t be concealed.
“Peachy,” he hisses. “Now fuck off before I put a bullet in you.”
“No,” Barry hisses back, glancing at the crates again. They probably don’t have much time – not enough to tiptoe around the issue. “I know what happened to Lisa. My team’s working on helping her. You don’t have to do this, if your father’s making you-”
Snart laughs at that, bitter and cold and way too loud in the dusty darkness of the warehouse. The voices on the other end of the room grow quiet. A droplet of sweat runs down Barry’s back – if Snart decides to betray him, once again…
But when the sound of footsteps approaching echoes towards them, Barry can clearly see a flash of something primal and worried in Snart’s eyes. And it’s exactly the adrenaline spike Barry needs to put on an inane, non-threatening smile before a man emerges from behind the crates.
“Hi! I’m Sam.”
He extends a hand, knowing full well that demons avoid touching: the stupid gesture establishes his cover well enough.
“Lenny said you needed help with a job,” he babbles on, trying not to betray how unsettled he feels in the presence of a demon general, even though Lewis Snart is not an imposing figure by any standards. At first glance, he’s no more than a balding man well past his prime, with a plump belly stretching his cheap, stained shirt and a weak jaw covered in greying stubble. But his eyes make Barry’s heart skip a beat: there’s not an ounce of humanity in them, only cruelty and calculation as he glances at Barry and then settles that unnerving gaze on his son.
“You think this joke of a kid can crack a blood-protected keypad?”
“Those are kinda my jam,” Barry says, not giving Snart a chance to compromise him, even though he has a feeling that Leonard doesn’t particularly want to see Barry killed by his father. “I helped Lenny last year with the Kaznian opals, and they were protected by the same.”
Snart Senior shoots his son an unreadable look, but Leonard merely smirks again:
“Couldn’t’ve done it without him.”
“Fine,” the old man – demon – grumbles. “Let’s go.”
“Right now?!” Barry yelps, almost blowing his cover himself before he schools his features into another naïve smile. The old man stalks through the door, and Barry gives Leonard a hopeful look: they could bail, run in the opposite direction, get Leonard out of his father’s reach…
But Leonard merely smiles, slips the gun into the holster strapped around his thigh, and walks past Barry towards the door.
With a sigh, Barry follows.
…
The road to the museum is filled with tense silence, stretching heavy and unbreakable and making Barry drum his fingers against his knee. Leonard shoots him a warning look, but Barry can’t contain all the nervous energy without moving, so he ignores the man and stares out of the window instead, watching the dark streets pass by.
When they finally get to the museum, Leonard knocks the guard out with the butt of his gun. Barry would normally protest, but he has a feeling Lewis would choose a much more permanent method of getting the security personnel out of the way, so he holds his tongue and controls the instinct to make sure the guardsman’s still breathing.
Soon enough, the shadowy corridors lead them to the vault, and then it’s Barry’s turn to provide. The keypad itself is not a problem, coded to accept angel blood – biting his thumb without Lewis noticing is tricky, but Leonard seems to understand what Barry’s doing before it can become an issue, and he distracts his father long enough for Barry to get it done. When the light blinks green and the vault unlocks with a quiet ‘snick’, Barry turns to the two men with a hapless grin:
“See? I told you it’s my jam!”
He doesn’t quite expect Lewis pulling out a gun – in the split second before he can decide between blowing his cover and getting shot, the choice is taken out of his hands and sharp pain laces through his shoulder, the impact hurling him to the ground.
“It’s good to go out on a high note,” Lewis sneers and steps over Barry to get to the vault. The last thing Barry hears before the pain darkens his vision is a whispered ‘sorry’ from Leonard.
…
When he comes to, a wave of panic hits him at the thought that the Snarts might be already gone. Cisco’s voice in his ear, calling his name, sounds equally distressed; Barry struggles up to his hands and knees, dull pain flaring out from the point of impact and making his shoulder stiff and sore. He’s never been more grateful for Cisco’s gear, lightweight and easily concealable under everyday clothes, but protecting against the worst of many injuries.
“I’m okay,” he rasps, glad for the moment of silence in the comms, and then Cisco’s talking again and Barry has to shake his head to try and clear his head enough to focus on the words.
“-figured it out, Lisa’s going to be fine, just gimme a minute-“
“Make it quick,” Barry hisses and gets up, using the wall to support himself as he moves forward. He has to know whether he’s too late, even if it means lingering in a place which will be potentially swarmed by the police any minute now. He doesn’t want them to run into a demon: that’s not something the Central City’s finest are equipped to handle.
It takes less than a minute for him to hear voices again, agitated and hushed, but he recognizes Leonard’s drawl and doesn’t think twice before moving forward. He probably should, facing a demon general, but all Barry can think about is the anguish in Leonard’s voice.
And betrayal or not, Barry Allen is not the kind of man who would be capable of letting someone get hurt or killed if he can stop it.
“Drop the weapons,” he says, managing to sound way more confident than he feels. Lewis, however, is not fooled: he turns to Barry with a smirk on his blotchy face and raises an amused eyebrow.
“Or what, kid? Your Nephilim friends will come crawling out of the woodworks? I should’ve known your kind would be a little more resilient… but a bullet to the head should fix that. Finish him, boy.”
The last words are spoken to Leonard, whose eyes flicker to his father briefly, and then turn to Barry, reluctance but also fear shining through, clear as day. Barry resists the urge to step backwards: he believes in Leonard, despite their history, dammit, despite everything, believes that the man is not a cold-blooded killer, and that given half a chance, he will take the right way out.
“Need some incentive as usual, huh?” Lewis sneers, mouth twisted in a nasty grin as he reaches into his pocket and produces a little glass vial, filled with what looks like a super-fluid, iridescent and trying to crawl out of its trap. Barry has never seen it with his own eyes, but he’s been through enough to know what humanity looks like, stripped from a half-blood. It’s always fascinated him that such a tiny thing could influence one’s life, one’s death, so profoundly… and judging by the way Leonard’s eyes track the little vial, it does not necessarily have to be one’s own for it to mean everything.
“You’ve always been slow, boy,” Lewis snaps, losing patience and inclining his head towards Barry. “Come on. Shoot him so I can get what I came for.”
Leonard’s hand trembles, almost imperceptibly, and he shifts his grip on the gun, pointing it at Barry.
“You don’t have to do this,” Barry says, and sees Leonard’s expression tighten. The fear of his father, for his sister, might prevail over whatever good is left in him, might murder it as surely as Leonard will murder Barry, given the choice between what is right and what will save Lisa’s life.
All Barry can do is give him all the options now.
“Do it!” Lewis snarls, and Barry becomes almost physically aware of the few seconds separating him from a certain death. Leonard is an excellent shot, Barry has seen it in action: usually, it means that people get out of an encounter with the thief with a serious, but not life-threatening, gunshot wound. And if Cisco doesn’t hurry up, that won’t be the case this time.
“Cisco?” he mutters, and he can hear the sound of breathing and some muffled groans through the comm. “Now would be a good time-“
Lewis’ grip on the vial tightens; the glass creaks, loud and ominous in the painful silence, and Leonard swallows, throat bobbing and his hand on the gun steadying, even as his eyes seek Barry’s, silently apologizing-
And then Cisco, out of breath and possibly in pain, yells into the comm, “Yes, yeah, it worked, she’s fine!” and Barry raises his hands:
“Lisa’s fine, Cisco figured it out, she’ll be fine-“
The sound of a gunshot rings in his ears and cuts off his words, and for a second, Barry winces and braces for the inevitable pain before he realizes that Leonard has moved his arm, that blood is blooming across Lewis’ cheek from where a sizeable chunk of his head is missing. In a macabre show of demonic strength, the man turns to his son, and Barry steps forward, grabbing for the small blade concealed under his clothes.
But it seems even a demon cannot withstand having his brains blown out – in the next moment, Lewis is collapsing to his knees, then toppling face-first onto the ground, blood drizzling onto the shiny tiles under Leonard’s feet.
And Leonard himself is staring in shock at his father’s body, dropping into a crouch with his gun held upwards. Barry quickly steps over the blood and reaches for the gun, operating on instinct that screams at him to remove the weapon from an obviously distressed person’s hold-
-but when his fingers brush Leonard’s, Barry yelps in pain and drops to the ground. His knee splashes in the puddle of blood, but he hardly even notices: his fingers are burning and his eyes water before the worst of the pain ebbs into a dull ache.
His hand is shaking when he blinks away the tears of pain to check for damage: he’s never had this kind of a reaction to touching another half-blood, Nephilim or cambion, and his first thought is that Lewis has put some sort of a fail-safe over Leonard, or that the thief himself has taken precautions to being captured by the Nephilim. In that moment, Barry realizes that despite their previous encounters, they’ve never touched; but when he sees the marks on his fingertips, right where he first touched Len’s skin, pink and blue and green like uneven bruising, he knows what it means.
“No,” he whispers and struggles up to his feet; one pant-leg is sticking to his knee and he grimaces at the feeling, wishing he could focus on the discomfort instead of the dawning horror that threatens to swallow his rational thinking. He needs space, needs to think (and maybe to persuade himself that his soulmate is not a half-demon who gladly betrayed him before and would’ve shot him just a moment earlier); with a ragged breath, he turns to walk away.
And is promptly stopped by a firm hand on his elbow. He whips around, glaring, but Leonard’s expression is ice, hard and cold and steady.
“I need to see my sister,” he grits out, and Barry’s stomach churns: of course the man is right, he would not want to do any less if it were Cisco, or Caitlin, or Iris. And yet, he childishly wishes he could just stalk away and be alone with his thoughts for a while.
“Of course,” he nods instead and extricates his arm from Leonard’s hold. “Let’s go, before the police arrive.”
Perhaps he should wait for them, hand Leonard over to the authorities like a common murderer – except that’s never been the way Barry operated, shoveling responsibility for his messes onto someone else. He’s made a fair share of mistakes, even ones which cost some people dearly, but he’s always accepted the weight of those wrong decisions.
And Leonard might act unconcerned but he’s rubbing at the back of his hand absently as they quickly find their way out of the museum, as if he’s trying to erase Barry’s colorful fingerprints in his skin, and the simple gesture puts Barry oddly at ease, if only because they obviously share the misery. He can’t imagine Leonard wants to be his soulmate any more than Barry wants to be Leonard’s… the thought sits unpleasant and heavy in his mind the rest of the way to STAR Labs, which seems both longer and shorter than it should.
The reunion of the Snart siblings is a quiet affair: Lisa lands in Leonard’s arms before anyone can say a word, and perhaps no words are necessary. Barry’s heart clenches as he watches Leonard’s arms tighten around his sister, his face buried in her heavy curls and hers pressed into his shoulder – it’s clear now that Leonard took quite a leap of faith when he decided to trust Barry with her safety. The thought becomes an insistent ache somewhere in Barry’s chest and he pushes it away, unwilling to focus on it.
The Snarts stay like that for just a moment, but it’s long enough to make Barry think back to his belief that cambions are, after all, half-human. Maybe if he tried hard enough, there would be hope that Leonard-
-no. That way only madness lies, and Barry is aware of how slippery a slope he’s balancing on. He sticks his hands in his pockets, unwilling to bring attention to the marks on his fingertips, but it turns out secrecy is not necessary. Because when Lisa pulls back, her cheek is marked with the same vivid pink, purple and blue, and Barry turns to his team to ask what’s wrong… only to notice the same mark across Cisco’s cheek.
And suddenly, it all clicks, with horrible, cold certainty. Cisco has given Lisa a part of his soul: that was the solution he found. She needed humanity and there was no way of getting it back from Lewis…
Barry gapes at his friend, who shrugs in response and smiles a little sheepishly:
“Don’t look at me like that. We know that no one can survive on Earth for too long without a soul, right? But I figured enough of you’ve been living with a half of one all this time and you’re doing just fine.”
The magnitude of Cisco’s sacrifice cannot be downplayed with a simple joke like that, and Barry doesn’t even know what to say. Because the thing is, Cisco saved Lisa, even if she’s not an innocent bystander, even though she was more demon than anything when she came to them for help. And Barry has been an advocate for peaceful resolutions long enough that it would make him a hypocrite to disagree only because one of his best friends got involved a little (lot) more than Barry expected.
It’s Leonard who interrupts, a frown creasing his brow as he runs the pads of his fingers across his sister’s bruised cheek. She smiles, leaning into the touch briefly and blushing just a little as her eyes dart towards Cisco:
“You saved me, and my brother. I will always remember that.”
“Well, you better,” Cisco snorts, “seeing as we just proved the whole ‘soulmate’ nonsense. Does it count if I’m just half-human, not half-anything-else?”
The word ‘soulmate’ settles like a heavy weight in Barry’s stomach; in his discomfort, he forgets to keep his hands hidden and rubs at his face, only to hear Caitlin gasp:
“What happened to… your…”
She trails off and Barry glances at her to figure out what’s wrong – she’s staring at his fingers, stealing glances at Leonard’s hand, still resting on Lisa’s shoulder. The fingerprint marks are clearly visible, and Caitlin’s eyes widen as she puts two and two together.
“Barry,” she sighs, and he shakes his head.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
With that, he takes the easy – and literal – way out, marching down the corridor and to the training room, deserted and dark and blessedly quiet. He more falls than sits on the bench, rubbing his hands through his hair and finally letting the whole mess crash through him, panic and fear and worry, silly hopes and crushed dreams, because like a naïve romantic that he is, he was hoping that if all the pretty, nonsensical tales were at least a little bit true, he would find someone who would be his other half, someone who would make him feel whole and better and strong.
Instead, his soulmate is the guy who has betrayed him, who has mocked him and been a thorn in Barry’s side for a couple of years now. A half-demon – and should that even be possible? What does it say about him that his soulmate is no one pure and good and bright? Barry has not been under the delusion of his own complete goodness for a while now, not after everything he’s had to do as one of the Nephilim, fighting to preserve balance and harmony. He can’t even count how many times he’s woken up sweaty and shaking, trying to tell himself they were just nightmares and knowing full well that they were memories, that the itch of blood on his hands was real.
And he’s hoped against his better judgment that maybe there was a grain of truth in those old tales about soulmates, and that if he ever found the other half of his soul, it would be someone who would make all of that go away.
They were pipe dreams, and he never thought for a second that it would really happen. But he also never appreciated just how much he has learned to lean onto that flicker of hope and draw strength from it in the darkest of times. To have it crushed so completely and violently… it makes Barry feel sick, and he wishes he could go back in time, never touch Leonard and never find out.
But of course, the very man he doesn’t want to see right now is who finds him sitting in the dark and wallowing in it all. Barry sighs and rests his face in his hands, wishing Leonard would take the hint.
When that doesn’t happen, Barry forces himself to speak, but only one word makes it past his lips, raspy and pleading:
“Go.”
“Lewis might find a way to come back,” Leonard cautions, ignoring Barry’s wish to be left alone. “He’s no ordinary demon: treasure might be his primary goal, but he’s vengeful, and he’ll remember you. I’ll help – I owe you for Lisa.”
And for some reason, it stings to think that for Leonard, Barry is no more than a debt to be repaid, a task to deal with.
“You don’t owe me anything,” he sighs. “It’s my job to help.”
“I owe you my gratitude, at the very least.”
Barry can’t help the bitter laugh that escapes him at the words.
“I don’t want a bond based on empty gratitude, Leonard-“
“Len.”
“Len,” Barry repeats without thinking, tasting the strange intimacy of the name as if it were a permission freely given, a question asked in a teasing whisper. The promise of that one syllable becomes a dull ache in his heart, even as he tries to reject it and forget, an impossible task with Leonard – Len – right before him, with those inhumanly blue eyes shining warmer and brighter than Barry remembers.
He struggles to hold onto the righteous indignation, to the betrayal and to the refusal to be played for a fool, but he can feel all of those reasons slipping out of his grasp, even as he frowns at Len:
“I know that the likes of us are only supposed to find peace once we find the other half of our souls… but even if the tales are to be believed, I will rather forego my peace than to live a lie based on some misguided gratitude… or even worse, pride.”
Len’s sneer is the most direct dismissal Barry’s ever heard; the man is right in front of him in just a few long strides and his long fingers close around Barry’s arms, not hurting but holding, steady and sure, and Barry finds reason melting away faster than before.
“You stupid, stubborn angelspawn,” Len snarls, and wave of heat curls somewhere under Barry’s belly-button, unexpected and startling, and then his eyes widen as Len leans in and presses their mouths together in an angry, although rather chaste, kiss. That first touch of their lips almost hurts, like there’s suddenly too much of something filling Barry’s chest, until he’s sure something’s going to burst and kill him right in that moment. But no – Len shifts and one of his hands trails up to cup Barry’s neck, brushing his thumb against Barry’s cheek, and the kiss gentles, sweetens, until Barry can’t think at all.
He closes his eyes and melts into the touch – angel blood, demon blood, none of that seems to matter at the moment. If the universe put them together, maybe there was a good reason after all: and Barry’s willing to find out why exactly that might be, as long as Len never stops kissing him like this. Barry has never had a serious relationship in his life, always feeling too different, too distant from everyone, enduring the high-school dates and college parties, but glad to escape all of it in the end.
He certainly never felt like this, like he could laugh until the end of his days, like his heart alone could encompass all of the world. When they break apart, Barry looks into Len’s eyes and he can see the same wonder reflected back at him. Suddenly, he thinks of his father, of Cisco and Caitlin and Iris and Joe, and he feels an immense wave of love for all of them… and for Len, too. For the humans who don’t know that angels or demons exist, for the world that is worth saving, despite everything.
Barry thought he knew what love was, but only as he can feel his angelic powers trickle away, leaving him a little weak and oddly elated, does he understand the true extent of a human heart’s power. His vision is blurry with tears, but instead of mocking him like usual, Len wipes away the lonely tear that streams down Barry’s cheek and smiles.
“We might survive with half a soul,” Len says quietly, “but we only truly live as a whole.”