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“Brrr!”
Ray sat on the couch, knees pulled up to his chest as he rubbed his hands together against the bitter cold, his teeth chattering loudly.
It was cute, Snart thought, how intolerant the Boy Scout was to the drop in temperature; donning a knitted hat and a pair of gloves almost at the mention of the word ‘Arctic’. Because that, of course, was where they’d landed, a few clicks out from a research outpost.
‘Landed’, Snart thought, was a strong word to use, given their current predicament. Len himself would have been more than happy to say they’d crashed, but Rip was confident that they’d only ‘lost a small amount of control over the ship’ and ‘gently skidded to a halt’ on the ice.
A gentle skid that had torn a hole in the Waverider’s hull.
The cause of this rocky landing, they soon discovered, had been an electrical fire deep within the circuitry of the ship.
“Most likely a leftover from the damage Chronos had inflicted in his-your past pursuit,” Stein postulated, with a pointed look at Mick, who grunted a wordless apology.
That fire had taken out a few choice controls, including the rear thruster mechanisms, and – critically – Gideon. Without the ship’s AI, ninety percent of the Waverider’s functionality was now out of the window, along with the gaping hole that was steadily letting in the cold.
The medbay, emergency lighting and door control; they all had manual overrides. But the real kicker was the loss of internal climate stabilisation, meaning that until repairs were made there was no way of heating the inside of the ship, even once the damaged portion had been isolated.
When they touched down it had been pretty liveable, but with the outside temperature hitting -30 the Waverider was cooling fast. Hours later and with no real progress on the repairs, 32 degrees had come and gone, leaving their breath misting in the air and the crew scrambling for their warmest coats.
Naturally, Snart’s parka had been an object of ill-concealed desire.
At last, Raymond had made one of his most infuriating little yelps of excitement from deep within Gideon’s circuitry and the whole team had come running...
…only to find that the one part they needed to fix the damage they did not have. Somehow, across the entirety of the time travelling spaceship, they didn’t have the right part to fix some circuit damage, not without bastardising the life support systems, anyway.
And so, the team had set off across the tundra to the research outpost, hoping beyond all hope that they had something they could use to at least get the Waverider limping again.
Ray and Snart had, therefore, been left to babysit the ship. Or at least, Ray had been left to babysit the ship. Snart had chosen to hang back and babysit Ray; the scientist was far too accident prone for his own good, and the thought of him getting trapped in the internal cavities of the Waverider for hours on end, or tripping and knocking himself out and subsequently freezing to death made Snart’s stomach clench a little. If Palmer was going to meet an icy end, Snart was confident he would be the cause of it, not some half-baked Artic snowstorm.
Ray continued to work on what repairs he could until his fingers had gone numb, and then some. To Ray’s loud complaint, Snart had hooked his fingers through his belt loops and pulled him ass-first out of the mess of wires inside the ship’s panelling, cursing at him under his breath.
“You’re no good to anyone if your fingers drop off,” Snart said with only the smallest hint of a sneer, little less than frogmarching the younger man through the ship to what constituted as Rip’s office.
Plonking him down on the couch, Snart had disappeared and returned minutes later with a stack of blankets and sweaters he’d salvaged from his and Mick’s room. Dumping the sweaters unceremoniously into Ray’s lap, he watched with amusement as the genius scrabbled to pull them on.
Len’s clothes fit Ray quite snuggly, but Mick’s spare jumpers went on straight over the top, turning the scientist into a squidgy ball of wool with a mildly singed scent. Not that Snart minded; he’d spent the best part of 30 years getting used to everything he owned smelling a bit burnt, but for once Ray didn’t seem to care either.
He jammed his hands under his thighs and looked pleadingly up at Snart, blankets still in his arms.
“Are you going to share those or…?” Ray tilted his head to the side, giving Len his best puppy-dog eyes, which Snart found irritatingly effective.
The older man shook out one blanket, stuffing a large duvet awkwardly under one arm, and draped it over Raymond’s still-shivering shoulders. Ray clutched the edges, pulling them around himself as Snart lay the duvet gently across his lap and tucked it in around him. Very paternal.
“That should stay off the hypothermia for a while,” Len drawled, taking a step back and examining the physicist with scrutiny. He seemed a little more comfortable, and crucially a little warmer. Once he started kicking out heat of his own, the blankets and sweaters would heat him up nicely.
Ray cleared his throat and smiled weakly, “thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Ray coughed again, eyes darting to Snart as he pulled his bottom lip between his teeth.
Len rolled his eyes with a sigh. “Out with it, Palmer.”
“It’s nothing. I mean… are you alright, Len? Are you warm enough?”
Snart smiled thinly, patting the fabric of his parka with affection. “Toasty. Now hang tight in there, Raymond, I’ll be back.” And with that he spun on his heel and strode back through the frozen ship.
When Snart returned, a tray in hand balancing two steaming mugs, Ray looked like the love child of the Michelin Man and the Yeti. He’d brought one blanket up over his head, the other pulled up to the bridge of his nose, so only his eyes peeped out. Clocking Len, Ray dropped the duvet to his chin and beamed.
“You’re back!”
“Said I would be, didn’t I? You still feeling cold?” Snart quirked an eyebrow at Ray, who was wiggling to extricate an arm from his plush cocoon.
“Y-yeah, a little. I don’t think I’m producing enough body heat yet to warm up the insulating pocket of air all these blankets are giving me,” Ray said with a small frown.
Snart stuck his tongue in his cheek for a moment, considering, before sighing softly. “Scooch over then.”
“What?!” Ray’s eyes were wide with alarm as Snart approached, like a rabbit in the sightline of a starving fox.
“You said you’re not giving out enough heat to warm yourself up. Two bodies are better than one, Raymond. Surely the Boy Scouts of America would have taught you that?”
A red flush spread over Ray’s cheeks as he nodded quickly. “Yeah, but I didn’t think…”
“Didn’t think I’d want to cosy up next to you, Raymond?”
“Well, yeah.” It was an honest admission, Ray’s eyes suddenly downcast as he swallowed.
“Then you don’t know much about me. Here,” Snart took a mug from the tray and held it out to the arctic sea slug that constituted as the CEO of Palmer Technologies, “I made you cocoa.”
“Uh…” Ray looked up in disbelief, his mouth opening to a small ‘o’ as his free arm reached out to take the mug. “Thank you? I mean, you didn’t have to, Snart. Not at all. I mean I’m fine, you know? Almost fine. The peripheral cyanosis has just about gone away so I don’t think I’m going to get frostbite or- oooh,” Ray had wrapped his fingers around the mug, closing his eyes at the pleasure brought on by its warmth and brought it to his lips without looking. “Mmmm, Len this is really good and- oh my God. Mini marshmallows. You put in mini marshmallows.” Ray was a picture of glee, like a ten year old on Christmas day.
Snart thought he could just kick himself at the smile trying to form on his lips. Stupid, adorable asshole. He tried best he could to maintain his aura of casual superiority, but on the subtleties of hot beverage enjoyment he was not sure how well it came across. “Is there another way to drink cocoa, Raymond?”
“Not a better one,” Ray conceded, bringing the mug back to his lips and drinking deeply. When he moved the cup away there was a smudge of chocolate on his top lip and at the corners of his mouth.
Snart fought the urge to lean forward and wipe it away with his thumb. He would not think about running anything over those gorgeously plump, red lips…
“I just didn’t think you’d put marshmallows in cocoa, you know?” Ray continued, “I mean, you kind of seem like a guy who’d drink black coffee straight out the pot with a straw…”
Snart made a face. “I think you’re confusing me with my partner, Raymond.”
Ray grinned, “I’d love to see your Jitters order. Wait no, let me guess…” he screwed up his eyes in mock-thought and tried to put on a drawl when he spoke, “I’ll take a Flash, double cream, plenty of sugar.”
“Actually, I order a soy caramel macchiato, upside down with a pump of vanilla and two pumps of cinnamon dolce. Iced.” Snart smirked, “now scooch.”
The next few minutes were an awkward mess. Ray set his mug down on the low table next to the couch, unwrapping himself from the blankets a little with a pained look. Snart unzipped his parka and shrugged it off, sliding into the Ray-warmed gap. Len tucked his coat over both of their laps, their thighs and hips meeting, before pulling the blankets back down over them.
It was a tight squeeze; stray elbows jabbing into ribs from one side or the other, but when the cocoa was done and the mugs set back down, Snart was able to pull the covers more firmly around them both and trap their arms underneath.
Even then, two fully grown 6-foot-plus men were not the easiest to cocoon. Sitting adjacent, the meat of their thighs touching and their shoulders pressed together, no matter which way they pulled someone’s elbow or knee or hip was uncovered and let open to the elements.
It was Snart who gave in first; shifting one leg up and over Ray’s lap and shimmying closer, his arm snaking around the scientist’s waist behind him. Ray’s soft gasp at the contact made Snart grin, but not as much as Ray’s own hand finding sudden purchase on Snart’s thigh, his fingers splaying on the underside of the muscle.
A team effort, they secured the blankets once more, satisfied that their newly entwined form was enshrouded in its entirety, not one appendage exposed to the frozen air. Len – ever the rogue daring to push his luck – let his head rock to the side and rest against Ray’s shoulder, his cheek crossing the man’s deltoid and pectoral as his forehead brushed against Ray’s jaw.
Ray sucked in a breath of air before exhaling slowly as he relaxed, his eyes closing. “Wow.”
Snart’s eyes snapped up in the direction of Ray’s face, his head remaining steadfast. “What?”
“I just…I didn’t realise I was your type.”
“Like I said, Raymond, you don’t know much about me.” Len let his own eyes flutter closed as he nuzzled further into Ray’s neck. “Tall, dark and handsome is everyone’s type.”
Mick was the first one through the door, then Sara, the rest of the team not far behind them, having tramped off the snow on their boots in the cargo hold. The trip had been a success: apparently isolated Arctic research outposts in 2275 were actually chock-full of future tech of a suitable grade to patch up an AI on a time ship.
Naturally, the team wanted to share their success with the two men they’d left aboard, but Mick and Sara sharply hushed the hurried footsteps that drew near.
On tiptoes, Sara approached Rip’s office as Mick’s arm acted as a bulkhead to the rest of the crew. This was a delicate operation. One wrong move could be disastrous – who knew if they’d ever get a second chance?
With a steady hand, the assassin reached into her pocket and palmed the familiar object inside, pulling it out slowly and pointing it with deft fingers.
Click
There. With a few flicks Sara keyed in the commands with practiced efficiency.
Ray and Len really should know better. Napping in the communal areas of the ship was already a firm sentence to ‘sharpied penis on the face’, but being found curled up together under blankets was inexcusable. With Len’s head tucked under Ray’s chin and their hands entwined, that made it a capital offense.
There was no way around it. No bargaining, no mercy.
The group text was already sent.