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Leonard's neck began to prickle when he felt someone step into his personal space, too close for comfort.
"Snart." The all-too familiar voice came from right behind him, stage-whispering into his ear just loud enough to be heard over the steady beat of the music. "What are you doing here?"
Leonard didn't turn around. He raised the bottle to his lips, hiding a smile as he swallowed down a mouthful of beer.
He'd clocked Barry and his little flock of friends the moment he entered the club. In Leonard's line of work, never letting his situational awareness slip was a basic survival skill, and Barry wasn't exactly inconspicuous, even when he wasn't wearing tight red leather.
Leonard had briefly considered turning on his heel and finding a different venue that was a little... less crowded with do-gooders, but he liked the place. The music was decent and the drinks were cheap, and Kit at the bar always had his ear on the ground and wasn't unwilling to share his knowledge about the latest comings and goings in Central's criminal underbelly. Leonard had been a regular here since before Barry Allen had been old enough to drink, and he wasn't going to let the kid chase him off.
Besides, unless he was very much mistaken, it looked like Barry wasn't here on Flash business.
A hand landed on his shoulder, and Leonard's spine stiffened. His fingers clenched around the bottle as he fought down the reflexive instinct to spin around and throw a punch.
"For real, you can't—"
"Last I checked, it's a free country," Leonard drawled. He twisted his head, giving the lingering hand a pointed look that seemed to be entirely lost on Barry. "And I'm just a regular citizen. No outstanding warrants, no record. All thanks to... our mutual friend in red."
He could never resist the chance to rub it in a little that Barry had been all too ready to scrub every mention of Leonard's name off the CCPD's servers in exchange for Leonard's assistance. The effect was instantaneous. Barry flushed a lovely shade of scarlet, and his fingers tightened around Leonard's shoulder, leather creaking under the pressure.
"Trust me, I'm already regretting it," Barry muttered, either missing Leonard's gracious attempt at fudging his secret identity or not caring to keep up the pretense. "It was such a bad idea. Joe told me, but I didn't want to listen."
It was Barry's tone that gave Leonard pause. There was no edge to it, no accusation, none of the righteous anger Leonard expected.
He narrowed his eyes and let himself look at Barry the way he almost never did – really look at him, beyond measuring what kind of a threat he was to Leonard at any given time. Beyond the messy hair (as if he'd only just pulled back the cowl from his suit, or someone had buried their fingers in it and left it thoroughly tousled) and the terrible outfit (a hideous plaid shirt over a plain white tee) that shouldn't work on anyone but still looked charming on the kid.
Flushed skin. Blown pupils. Beads of sweat under his forehead.
Well, well, well. It looked like the Scarlet Speedster was the life of the party tonight.
"Are you drunk?"
The kid shook his head jerkily, too fast.
He promptly swayed on his feet, half-tumbling forward until he was no longer behind Leonard but leaning against the bar next to him. When his hand tightened once again on Leonard's shoulder in an effort to steady himself, Leonard generously decided to let it pass, given the kid's state. He raised a pointed eyebrow at Barry's claim of sobriety.
Barry's shoulders slumped a little.
"Not drunk," he said, and Leonard would have called him a liar if Barry hadn't pressed on. "I don't get drunk. Like, I literally can't. Because of— you know." He cast a furtive look around the room that made him look a lot more suspicious than the vague statement had. For fuck's sake. One of these days, he was going to accidentally out himself to all of Central City. The Flash's identity would make the headlines and all of Leonard's leverage would be gone.
The kid was babbling, the kind of easy smile on his face that he didn't usually show when he was around Leonard. "But Caitlin and Cisco made me something in the lab. It's a little like being drunk, but not really? I still burn through it too fast. It's a work in progress. But it's— It's great. Everything is so fuzzy and... slow. Like, I think I couldn't run right now even if I tried, you know?"
That sunny smile momentarily froze when he realized how much he'd revealed. "Oh no, I shouldn't have told you that."
Leonard snorted. "That you let your friends drug you to the point where it gives you performance issues? No, not something you should have shared with the class. Imagine what a man like me could do with that sort of information."
He didn't have any immediate plans to exploit Barry's momentary powerlessness. Hastily cobbled together jobs weren't his thing. Too many risks, even with the biggest obstacle out of commission. But Barry didn't need to know that, and it was always good to keep the kid on his toes.
Unfortunately, his threat, unsubtle as it was, went straight over the Barry's head because he chose to fixate on what Leonard said before, instead.
"Hey, I don't have performance issues!" he protested, loud enough that a few heads turned towards him. Somewhere, someone was sniggering. Barry looked indignant. "I'm perfectly able to— Oh, wait, you mean—" And Leonard would have sworn that he was about to announce he was the Scarlet Speedster to the entire club. Luckily, he seemed to be just about sober enough to drop his voice to a whispered, "—the other kind of performance."
"Indeed." Leonard let his voice slip back into a drawl. "Good to know that Cisco's special happy pills are not affecting your virility. Have to say, you're not making a compelling argument here against stealing that drug from your friends and using it to keep you out of commission. All mellow and slow. And fully functional, apparently."
He gave Barry a deliberate once-over, dragging his eyes leisurely down across the exposed line of his throat, the sweaty t-shirt that was clinging to his skin in all the right places, the tight jeans. It was all for Barry's benefit, but Leonard would be lying if he claimed he wasn't enjoying the sight.
And either way, it was worth it to see Barry's blush darken further at the insinuation.
"You wouldn't do that."
He sounded a little too certain for Leonard's liking, like he was about to break into another one of his 'you're a good man, Leonard Snart' speeches. His special brand of misplaced idealism never failed to make Leonard bristle.
"I'm a villain, kid. I do whatever suits my interests. Pretty sure we've had that same conversation before. You were flat on your back at the time, remember?"
He deliberately made it sound more salacious than it had been, letting any nosy eavesdroppers draw their own conclusions. Conclusions that were likely a far cry from a vicious fight between meta humans at an abandoned airfield. And if the phrasing was inspired by the fact that Leonard himself might have had a few indecent thoughts about the way Barry had looked that night, helpless and spread out on the asphalt before him... Well, that was between him and his right hand.
Barry's gaze flitted away, his teeth worrying his lower lip. "Of course I remember. Don't make—" He stopped himself mid-sentence, shaking his head as if he was trying to talk himself out of something.
When he turned back to Leonard, his eyes were sharper than before, reminding Leonard of the way they looked behind his mask.
"The thing is, Snart, you don't want me mellow and slow."
There was something about the way he said it – like he knew Leonard, knew what his game was and had no qualms of throwing it back into his face – that got Leonard's hackles up.
"Don't I?" he echoed dangerously, dragging the words out, infused with enough menace to make hardened criminals run.
Unsurprisingly, it didn't work on Barry.
His lips twitched, like Leonard had cracked a joke. "Nah. Every time you pull a job and I don't show up, you get annoyed. If you wanted 'mellow and slow', you could have a pick out of anyone around here. Admit it, you like the speed and the danger. You want a challenge."
He wasn't wrong. Leonard imagined pulling Barry out through the back door, caging him against the brick wall, Barry's body swaying towards Leonard, still riding that blissful drug-induced high, soft and powerless. He thought about their fights, electricity buzzing through the air and the chill from the cold gun making Barry shiver, imagined kissing Barry's frost-cold lips until they were warm again and Barry was vibrating underneath his touch.
Leonard knew which one he'd rather have. He also knew that, like the blissful picket fence life he wanted for Lisa and the idea of retiring by the sea one day, it was an impossible fantasy and would always remain one.
"Maybe," he pretended to concede. "Just one thing."
"And what's that, Snart?"
"Slowing you down is the challenge. Always has been, since we started this little game. And if it gets you all agreeable and easy, and you forget what a terrible idea this would be, all the better."
Barry laughed. "Trust me, there's no drug in the world that would make me forget that you're the worst kind of idea."
Well, look at that. Seemed like Barry knew how to land a blow without even using his speed.
Leonard succeeded in containing the flinch and keeping his voice deadpan. "Ouch."
He startled when he felt Barry's hand move. Had he kept it on Leonard's shoulder the whole time? When had Leonard stopped being aware of the touch, stopped consciously fighting the urge to shrug it off? The idea was uncomfortable, prickling under his skin like needles.
So much for that situational awareness. He was getting sloppy, dangerously so. He needed to get out of here and away from Barry, and fast.
Barry's fingers brushed against the side of his neck, and Leonard felt the buzz of static against his skin. A blatant, deliberate show of Barry's powers. He hadn't been wrong when he said he'd burn through the drug too quickly, then.
Clearly, sobering up didn't put a stop to his reckless impulses.
"Barry," Leonard snapped harshly, grabbing the kid's hand and pulling it off.
"Just, you know, the problem is... I've never been good at making myself keep away from bad ideas." Barry smiled. It wasn't quite the breezy smile from before, a little wry and a little teasing, a hint of the Flash in it. "Just ask Cisco or Cait or Iris. Or Joe. No, on second though, maybe don't ask Joe."
Dammit. This kid. Leonard stared at Barry. What the hell was he supposed to do with that kind of admission?
He still hadn't let go of Barry's hand. His palm tingled where the electricity bristled from Barry's fingertips. It felt like the currency was running from there through every nerve end of Leonard's body, turning him into a live wire.
Before him, Barry seemed to be drumming with tension, any trace of slow and mellow gone. His tongue darted out to lick his lips.
Fuck it.
Leonard tugged on his hand and pulled him in, tasting the ozone on his breath, a hint of sugary sweetness from some mixed drink and underneath, the sharp bite of something chemical. Barry's lips were soft, falling open when Leonard's tongue pressed against them. The kiss was a rush, like putting his finger in a power socket and waiting for the shock, all of Leonard's senses screaming danger.
It took him longer to pull away than it should have.
Barry was staring at him with a wide-eyed expression, like Leonard had been the one who turned their usual back-and-forth into something more than it was meant to be. And maybe he had. He tried to rewind their conversation, figure out who started it, when teasing had turned into innuendo had turned into something more serious, but it was all a blur and his mind wasn't as sharp as he'd have liked it to be. He'd blame the beer, but he knew it was all Barry.
He let go of Barry's hand, his fingers only reluctantly loosening their hold.
"Go back to your friends, Barry."
Barry looked a little lost, torn between the urge to flee and to plant his feet. "Or you could take me home." When Leonard scoffed, he amended, "Or to your secret supervillain lair. Whatever."
Tempting.
Barry's kiss-bruised lips went well with the mussed hair and the flushed skin, and Leonard could easily imagine him stretched out on the sheets the way he had been on the asphalt at Ferris Air, all naked skin instead of tight scarlet leather.
Too tempting.
Leonard shook his head. "Ask me again when you're sober."
"I am sober!" Barry protested hotly. "Sober... ish. Sober enough, anyway. And what happened to 'I'm a villain, I do whatever suits my interests'?"
The kid was terrible at doing impressions. Leonard did not sounds like that.
He shrugged. "You made a compelling argument. I do like the speed and the challenge." Unlike Barry, he also liked not to make rushed decisions that would come back to bite him in the ass later. Even if this one might well be worth it. "Go home, Scarlet. Tomorrow is another day for bad ideas."
Barry made a sound that was halfway between a huff and a laugh. "Okay, fine. I'm going. But just so you know, you're not being very villainous tonight."
The nerve of the kid. Leonard was tempted to pull out his gun, show Barry that he had no qualms of icing his pert little ass to the floor, but before he could, Barry had already disappeared into the crowd on the dance floor.
Leonard's lips tingled, as if someone had stolen a lightning-fast kiss.
End