Archive of Our Own

It’s been strange enough, being…back.

Back to life. Back on the ship. He’s alive, again, and there’s a heady kind of satisfaction in that, almost overwhelmingly so. But he’s dealing with new status quos, and figuring out how he fits into the old ones. There’s a surreality to it, one that he just can’t quite shake.

Sara Lance pouncing on him in the hallway of the Waverider, and shoving an inexplicable box of craft supplies and ornaments into his hands? Wasn’t helping.

“We’re time-travellers, Sara. Any day could be Christmas if we wanted.” He points out, contrary more out of habit, than anything.

He’s rusty at this. One half-step out of touch with everyone else’s sense of time. All the things he’s missed, and he doesn’t know how to catch up.

“Look. We busted the Time Drive a little bit, anchoring you back into the timeline. So we’re stuck here, in this time, for at least another week, unless Jax figures out a quicker fix on the engine. We might as well make something out of that.”

“Fine. I just hope you’re not asking me to go playing Santa. Breaking into houses and leaving nice things behind? Kind of the opposite of my typical MO.”

It’s a lie, in a way. He always did try. For Lisa, he’d tried. Year after year, when he wasn’t stuck in juvie, when they weren’t separated. But it wasn’t a substitute. It didn’t fix everything, and he’d been young enough then, there hadn’t been much he could do. He’d never admit it, but fact was? 

He loved the idea of the holidays. The brightness, the colors. The weather, of course, and the unabashed cheesiness, the kind that didn't care about how you looked, doing it.

It just never felt like something that really welcomed him back, was the thing. Too many bad times, that no amount of tinsel covered up quite right. Too many missed moments and awful memories for the special magic of the season to not ring a little false, most of the time.

And yet. Maybe this time is different. He’s different, after all. Maybe this does help, already, with how things are. Sara poking him in the shoulder, the feeling oddly muted though it is, and walking with him to the galley. The box in his hands is a comfortable weight, even if it’s a bit tacky.

Things just didn’t quite feel tangible, the way they used to. He’d been… Ephemeral too long, enough that it still didn’t feel real. Any of it.  Like he’ll be lost, again, if he can’t find an anchor, something to help him hold steady. But his feet are hitting on the floor, solidly, and each footstep echoes.

His cold gun is on his hip, a reminder of what is still his. It’s there, it’s real, and that means he is, too. Then. Sara is talking, he realizes, so he tunes back in. If she notices his ongoing crisis of existentialism?

She at least has the grace not to mention it. Just. “Snart, you just got back from the dead. Live a little. And it’s not just about you, okay? Let us celebrate, because believe it or not, we’re all really glad that you’re back.”

“All of you?” Leonard said, and hadn’t even been sure who he was asking about, until they turn the corner, and he sees who else is getting into the Noël spirit.

Raymond Palmer. Sitting at the table, cutting out paper snowflakes, with a funny sort of intensity on his face, his brow wrinkling just a little bit. It’s not endearing. Definitely not.

“Hey Sara, did you… Oh.” Raymond trails off, as he looks up.  Spends a moment, just looking, and Leonard almost wants to let him.

It shouldn’t feel that welcome, seeing Raymond at all. There shouldn’t be this rush of emotion, complicating every effort he has to maintain objectivity. Rationality. Control, over his own circumstances.

So he doesn’t enter the room just yet. He leans against the wall, and looks away, and mutters, “Feel free to stop staring at me anytime, Raymond.”

Anyone looking at him, and seeing him? Not seeing a projection of a part of himself, not looking right through? That alone feels like enough of a miracle these days; let alone with eyes that bright, or warm, or open.

But it’s not personal, he has to remind himself. Raymond would look at anyone like that. It’s in his nature. Besides, just like Christmas, Leonard Snart has never wholly believed in miracles. They’re something other people get. Not him.

When the apology comes from Raymond, it’s soft. “I’m sorry. I’m not…”

Leonard tries not to feel guilty about it, because he has no reason to. He wants to just… Walk away, but somehow he can’t. Not just yet.

It was almost easier, in that in-between time. When he could just… fade out of an uncomfortable conversation. When he’d been half himself, and half whatever someone else was projecting onto him.

“Brought more decorations, Palmer,” Sara pipes up, brushing past Leonard, and relieving him of the box at the same time.

“He’s helping?” Raymond says, talking about him like he’s not even in the room. It stings, a little.

“Only because Sara ordered me.” Leonard drawls, as he takes a step into the room, letting his shoulders roll back into a shrug, “What? It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever done. Dying kind of covers that box for the foreseeable future.”

If he jokes about it, it feels less real. It’s how he dealt with a lot of things... Before. The more things are obvious, the less people ask. Talking about his death, so nobody gets the chance. Burying his layers under surface layers, that sometimes look exactly the same. It's not wrong, to do that.

Only maybe he did say something wrong, because Raymond is standing, abruptly, letting bits of paper flutter to the floor, little pieces of snow. “I’ve got to, um…”

Right.

Because Raymond hasn’t been in the same room as him for more than ten minutes since Leonard has… Gotten back. Returned from the dead. Whatever.

Is it possible to miss someone, when you’ve been dead for most of the time you’ve been separated? When you weren’t even sure you liked them, before. When everything you thought about them was a confusing jumble, and you’re only just putting yourself back together, so you don’t quite—

“I’m sure it’s crucial.” Leonard says, with more bite in his voice that he meant. Fragments of ice.

“To be honest, I didn’t think you’d want to go help Jax fix the Time Drive. But actually, yeah. Someone has to.” Raymond says, lightly, but with a patience that cuts far deeper than any harsh words could. Enough that Leonard’s blood runs cold, because Raymond noticed.

He knows it isn’t the same as the Oculus. He knows the Time Drive on the Waverider never did what the Oculus did to him, that it was the reverse. Raymond, Stein, and Jax had imploded it, nearly gave up the entire ship on the chance of pulling him back to the normal flow of time. Bringing him back to life.

He knows that. But the light is the same. The feel of it. Like it could pull him back in, fracture him again, until he’s lost, and nobody will bother to look for him, next time.

Raymond had seen all it, somehow. Those fears. But admitting that won’t get him anywhere, either. “Raymond, I don’t think you don’t know me well enough to dictate what I…”

“Maybe I don’t.” Raymond looks like he got punched in the chest, and somehow that hurts to look at, so Leonard looks away again. "But..."

He can’t figure Raymond out, he realizes. That’s the problem. He never has. Most people are easy to crack. Safes with a simple combination. Boxes crack with the right pressure applied. It was always easy to get a reaction, but not to figure out what that meant, or how he felt about it. How he’d react, in turn.

Somehow he wants to placate, instead of wound. It’s an odd instinct, but he indulges it, anyway.  “Raymond. Look. It's fine. Here. Why don’t I take over snowflake duty? Nothing like crafts with children’s scissors to make me feel like my presence counts.”

It comes out all wrong, anyway. Still jagged, when he'd meant to smooth things over. He isn’t really very good at this.

But then Raymond walks past him, very close, and his hands enter Leonard’s field of vision, holding out the pair of scissors by the handle. That presence, in his personal space, is oddly rattling, enough that he fumbles while grabbing the scissors. Allows their fingers brush together, before pulling the scissors away, roughly.

The sensation had felt a shock, like the first blast of warmth to frostbite. Something welcome, but almost painfully so.

He isn’t going to thinking about it. He’s going to clip out tiny little pieces of stupid paper for stupid construction-paper snowflakes. Maybe get a papercut, knowing his luck. But he is going to focus on that. On making something faintly cliché & ice-related, because he’s Captain Cold, after all. That doesn’t have to change. He doesn’t even have to look at Raymond, if he doesn’t want to. If he can’t, not without….

“It does count. For a lot, actually,” He hears Raymond say, in what sounds dangerously like a confession.

So maybe Leonard lets himself look up, just a little bit, because, what?

Raymond is leaning in the doorway, an echo of Leonard’s own habits, a mirror. The same way Leonard can see himself reflected in Raymond’s eyes, just for a moment. Sara’s eyes flit back and forth between the two of them, measuring.

“Your presence. That you’re... Back. It actually kinda counts more than I… I mean...” Raymond stutters out, makes a look of consternation, and flees.

Leonard listens to him go, as he sits down in Raymond’s place. Counts off the footsteps, just to make sure. A beat or two of silence passes, as Leonard slumps down a little more in the chair, as if that will keep Sara from noticing him.

Time fades out again. Nothing like before, just the natural process of losing oneself in a menial task. Eventually, there’s a pile of snowflakes in front of him, and he blinks, looking up to find the rest of the box of decorations nearly empty.

He catches Sara’s eye, expectant that she’ll give him something else to fill the minutes. Instead, she just says, “You know, you could always just talk to him.”

“That’s not an option.”

“Why not?”

“Nothing to talk about. Raymond and I aren’t even friends, and we don’t have to be.” He says, and it’s not a lie, exactly, but it doesn’t quite sit on his tongue, the way the truth usually does.

“Right.”

It occurs to him that Sara hadn’t mentioned a name. Just… ‘Him’. That Sara could, technically, have been referring to any number of people. Mick, for instance.

He’d let it slip to her, anyway. That Raymond had been on his mind. “Shut up.” He mutters.

“I didn’t say anything.” Sara says, because she didn’t need to. “Go get changed. And maybe take a nap.”

“I slept when I was dead,” Snart snarks, because he feels fragile again. Grasping at something, when he doesn’t know what he’s looking for. “And I’m not wearing the sweater.”

“Captain’s orders!” she says, an eyebrow raised. “Go. I’ll finish up here.”

“Fine.”

He makes his exit, hastier than he meant to, and not noticing the glance that Sara throws at the ceiling, as he leaves. Her smile, conspiratorial with only herself.

Or how she calls for one last thing from the replicators, for a final touch.

———

Music is playing, when he returns to the galley, a couple hours later, something soft and saccharine. There’s murmured conversation, and the sound of laughter. It’s never been the kind of place he belonged, before. Somewhere that brimming with camaraderie. Somewhere where he’s not in charge, not in control, just somewhere where the people there will simply let him be who he is.

So he hesitates, entering the room. A minute. Maybe several? Linear time is still something he’s having to reacquaint himself, with.

Then lets himself take one slow breath, and another, before pasting on the nonchalance, and slipping into the room, and looking at everyone there. Who are, yes, apparently nearly all wearing an ugly sweater, with varying degrees of success.

Leonard admits, that out of all of them, this blue snowflake-patterned sweater that he had reluctantly donned isn’t the worst. It’s a bit… Sparkly, but the color scheme is actually pretty decent. Besides, nobody is going to make fun of a guy who just came back from the dead, right?

He’s wrong.

Mick is the first to notice, and walks up to elbow him in his side, hard. “Just checking that you’re real, this time. Drink?”

“No thanks.”

“ What’s with the froofy sweater? You look like an idiot.”

Right. He’d forgotten about Mick’s charming brand of expressing affection. “Team unity, or something. Where’s yours?”

“I set in on fire. ”

Pursed lips, but there’s some fondness creeping in, because almost despite himself, he really had missed Mick. “Of course you did.”

“My suspenders are red. That’s festive enough.

“Looking very cool, Snart!” Great. Even Jax joins in on the teasing action. He doesn’t mind it so much, even though Jax’s own sweater is way, way uglier. A genuine level up in ugly. It’s all… Puce. And. Glittery.

“Speak for yourself.” He snarks back, but without any bite to it.

“Hey, this isn’t a Waverider original. My mom made it, it’s immune from criticism.”

Leonard chuckles, and it’s strange. How easy that feels. How much it makes him feel more settled, even with that lingering sense of depersonalization. He likes Jax, almost as a little brother. He’d forgotten how much he enjoyed talking to him, barring their scattered conversations when he’d been a temporal echo, ones that had never lasted very long.

The sweater is comfortable, at least. And his coat had gotten trashed during the whole ‘let’s resurrect Leonard, in the middle of the epic battle with the Legion of Doom, then punch him and accidentally set his coat on fire.’ Because not even Rip’s disappearance had made this team any better at plans.

“Well, if it isn’t the ghost of Christmas past, present, and future.” Stein says, with a smug face that said he’d been sitting on that joke, just waiting for the right opportunity.

“Nice to see you, too.” Leonard says, and almost halfway means it. Weirdly. Just for a moment, he thinks about holiday cheer, and it feels oddly reachable, this time around.

But that really was the key point, wasn’t it? Time.

He’d stood in front of the Oculus, looking into time itself, and just for a moment before it blew, he’d seen every moment of time. Every person who had ever lived, right before he’d been scattered to dust. He’d tried to find an anchor for himself in that, at the last moment of having any self. Collect the fragments of himself, and send them to the places where someone could put him back together.

He’d tried to find Lisa, because she’d always mattered so much, but it was too quick, too fleeting. He’d only had time to find the largest ripples, the strongest presences in the timeline, that seemed familiar. Right before he’d let go, and had been lost.  Falling throughout time, every part of who he was. Drifting.

It had taken so many tries, so many false starts, but…these are the people he died for, and these are the people he came home to. That means something, he thinks.

“You did most of the snowflakes, I hear?” Amaya says. “Very on theme, apparently. Sorry I didn’t have any wild animals to add to the decor choices.”

“I helped with the snowflakes, actually,” comes a voice, one that Leonard can’t help but search out the source of, even if he isn’t sure how he feels about that.

Or how he feels, seeing Raymond walking into the room, seeing the delighted awe in him. Hand in his pockets, self-conscious. His hair is a little slicked-back, almost styled, but in a way that looks good on him. “But, oh. Wow. You guys really put in the effort.”

It’s strange, seeing that much joy in someone’s face. Over a handful of snowflakes, a fake plastic tree. Little trinkets and fairy lights. It hadn’t taken much, really. So Raymond shouldn’t be looking at it all, like it means so much. He certainly shouldn’t be looking at Leonard like that. Like he’s someone who matters.

When he’d shattered into time, it had been along the… Stress points. Moments in himself that were warring against each other. Past/present/future, all the maybes and could be’s. A lifetime worth of potential selves. He hadn’t known, in those moments when he could think about it, if he would ever come back at all, wholly. Or what kind of person he’d be, when he did. A gamble with time, with himself. With how they would remember him.

He’d been almost afraid, when that angry, bitterly cold part of himself, had appeared to Mick, first. But that version of himself had been oddly content to be dead. To stay out in the cold, resenting.

Then Sara had seen him, a different version, one a little bit more in-between. Then Jax, and that self of his was younger. The child he'd been, once. And then... Well.

Those parts of himself are still there. They aren’t going anywhere. For him to be whole, he couldn’t have left them behind. But there’s more to him, now, that there used to be.

Or what about the version of him that Raymond had seen? Was that just as much there, as the rest of it? He doesn’t know. Maybe it doesn’t matter, because Raymond isn’t looking at him, anymore.

Raymond is ducking his head, and moving to the other side of the room, and that’s fine, and... Wow.

If Leonard keeps staring, it’s for a different reason now. He can’t believe it wasn’t the first thing he’d seen. How he’d been so caught up in the way Raymond had been looking at him, in more obnoxiously existentialist introspection, it had taken him a full minute to notice.

Now he’s staring, because Raymond shouldn’t look that nice in a sweater that ugly. He has no damn right to look that nice in a sweater like that. It’s just so… Festive, is about the best adjective he could use to describe it. Objectively, it’s a heinously acrylic monstrosity of glittery thread, sequins, overly busy motifs, and actual miniaturized lights. They’re all red, green, and… blinky. It’s distracting, to say the least.

 “Nice sweater, Raymond.” he says, because he’s still perfectly capable of being an asshole. And that’s the only reason he said it. Not because a tiny part of him really did find it cute.

Not because part of him does want Raymond to keep looking at him.

“Oh! Thanks?” Raymond says, in a tone that says he’s uncertain of Leonard’s sincerity. Which…maybe that makes two of them, really.

He’s uncertain about a lot of things, really.

So he winks, because flirting with Raymond was never the hard part.

Except, Raymond’s expression twists, with something unreadable, and just like that, it’s back to the distance between the two of them. That gulf, he never quite managed to cross. It’s fine, really.

Then Stein decides to try and talk everyone into carol-singing. Which. No. He is not going to. He is not…

Maybe one or two songs.

So that’s how the evening starts, and somehow, Leonard finds himself almost enjoying himself. Almost. Mick continued to make fun of him, and everyone else, for their sweaters. A lot, but Mick is a bastard like that. Then again, Mick was also not actively setting anything else on fire, yet, so he counted it as a win.   Someone gives Nate way too much of the very alcoholic cider, Sara and Amaya dance a little bit. Leonard remembers his cold gun’s ability to make actual, genuine snowflakes.

There’s only a few, because no sense leaving puddles of water everywhere, but it’s weirdly pretty, watching them falling, surrounded by friends.

It’s strange how much this echoey, odd ship, almost feels like home. Even if it’s almost why he took so long, getting there. Because coming home meant admitting to it. That this was what he wanted to return to. That dying had changed him, and he couldn’t cling to his own past anymore.

“Am I remembering wrong, or are you being uncharacteristically quiet?” Leonard says, finally shuffling up beside Raymond, some time later.

Because Raymond has been quiet, in a way. The pretense is there, all hyperverbal in that way that he is, when he’s too afraid to say what he means. Laughing with the new guy, cracking jokes, shoving gluten-free shortbread into his face. But there’s a wariness to him, around him, and Leonard can’t help but poke at it.

Raymond looks up at him, with his sad-puppy eyes. Which is, again, rude. Raymond really doesn’t understand how powerful they are. Decline to join your lifelong friend’s in abandoning them all to team up with time-pirates, in favour of choosing to be a good person, kind of powerful. Nearly let a crazy Russian lady destroy the world because he won’t let you die, kind of powerful.

Finally decide to let the team bring the lost parts of you home, kind.

“I could say the same, actually.”

“Raymond, has it occurred to that, that maybe you really don’t know me that well?” Leonard says, repeating himself again, and why does it always feel like they go in circles? Why does he always have to push back?

“I…” Raymond huffs, furrowing his brow in that particular way he does. “Look. This is weird for me.”

 “And being dead wasn’t weird for me?”

“Actually, you being dead is kind of closer to my normal, actually.” Raymond laughs. It’s the lying kind of laugh. The one Raymond uses, when something means too much for him to talk about, and maybe that should scare Leonard.

It doesn't.

“Or are you forgetting? Between the two years I spent in 1958, thinking you and everyone else were probably dead, and now all these months since you actually died? The weeks of  seeing you as a… temporal echo, or whatever that was? I’ve kinda spent more time with you as a ghost, than anything else.”

Raymond runs his hands though his hair, mussing it the smoothness of it, and Leonard’s own hands itch. An odd instinct to touch, as Raymond keeps talking. “Morbid as it sounds, the weird part is you being alive, Leonard. The weird part is trying to deal with the idea that… I mean. Sorry. I’m sorry. This isn’t about me. It shouldn’t… Are you okay? I should have asked that.. I didn’t even ask that when you…”

 It was a mistake to try and talk to Raymond. He should have just left well enough alone. But this is the longest conversation they’ve had, since… He isn’t sure, but he’s also oddly unwilling to let it go.  So he grimaces. “ I’ve… Been gone for a while. That’s all it is. I’ll get over it.”

Raymond blinks, earnestly. The lights on his sweater continue to blink in and out, in a strange kind of unison. “I know. That’s why I haven’t… Look. Just take as much time as you need, okay?”

“Right. Time.” He wants to laugh, again. He doesn’t.

Raymond looks so alive. It’s beautiful. God help him, but it is.

“Pun not intended, actually.” And there’s that crooked grin of his. “But I mean it. I want to…. Make things less weird, it’s just… Maybe some of us never got to know you as much as we should have. Because we were busy with…other things. Distracted. Or we didn’t know how to…”

“Some of us?” Leonard says, and he’s looking at Raymond, and Raymond is looking back, and this time he’s pretty sure does know who he’s asking about.

Raymond flinches, and, his expression lightens, falsely. Bright shutter-stop smile, sliding off almost as soon as it appears. “Oh, hey, did I tell you about the dinosaurs?”

He really wants to hear about the dinosaurs. Because come on. Dinosaurs. But it suddenly feels like talking to Raymond, right now? Could be a little more dangerous than he expected.

Maybe he really should have that drink. Except he doesn’t want alcohol. He hasn’t drunk a drop since he’s gotten back. Things are fluid enough in his own perceptions of things, and for a moment the room spins, without any intoxicants to aid it.

It’s too warm, and Raymond is too close. He needs a distraction. He needs tangibility. Something for his hands, something to…

“Maybe another time. Who wants hot cocoa?” Leonard says, tearing his eyes away from Raymond, once again. It’s for the best.

A chorus of ‘yes’es spring up, enough that Leonard almost regrets his uncharacteristic generosity. He regrets it more strongly when Raymond just… Starts helping, without even being asked.

They set up a little station. Snart programming the machine. Raymond getting the cups. Raymond even replicates a bunch of mini marshmallows, and holds them up, triumphantly. “Look!”

Leonard almost lets himself smile, thinking about the last time he’d made hot cocoa like this, in the Flash’s kitchen. Last Christmas. When he’d been wavering between who he wanted to be. Between the hero and the villain, the man who was all cold, or the one who maybe, just maybe, could let in a little warmth. Sometimes.

That feeling lasts a few minutes, as they brush elbows, and he tries not to think about how much he enjoys… All of this. This feeling of having a team. Of how much the ship feels like home, and how much Raymond…

The old doubts are still there, around the edges. Patterns he can’t shake. That it’s not really like that. It never is, for people like him. Not even now. So they finish up, and Leonard forces himself to not notice how their fingers brush when he hands Raymond the last mug.

He’s so focused on that, on not noticing, not feeling it, and ignoring everything else. That he isn’t very careful where he walks, bringing Sara and Jax their mugs. Nor is Raymond, following right behind him.

Until Sara gives a hollering whoop, and they both stop, abruptly.

“HA! Gotcha.”

Raymond almost bumps into him, and Leonard is just. Frozen, halfway between wanting to run, and wanting to hide.

Sara’s grinning less like a canary, and more like the cat who ate one. Pointing up at the ceiling, and the traitorous little sprig of mistletoe that she’d apparently put up, earlier. The one he hadn’t even seen, until just now, when he’s standing right under it, with Raymond fucking Palmer, of all people.

The one person who…damn it.

 “Really, mistletoe?” Jax says, shaking his head.

“So that’s still a thing, huh?” Amaya muses, polishing off her cider.

“Ms Lance, I cannot say that I fully approve…” Stein says, appalled, from across the room.

Leonard’s not saying he’d rather kiss Stein. Because that would be…horrible. But it would, somehow, still definitely be a lot less complicated than kissing the person that he’s apparently about to.

But he knows how to play a distraction, so he gives a false laugh, and stalls, “If you were wanting to kiss me again, Sara, I guess you’ve lost your chance, now.”

Sara snorts, not playing his game. “No. That was one-time offer, and you know it. Definitely only because A. you were about to die, and B. I knew you were bullshitting and trying to create ripples in the timeline, to throw off the Time Masters, when you hit on me.”

“Aw, come on, stop stalling, and kiss Raymond already. This is gonna be hilarious.” Jax says, laughing, and Sara laughs too, and that gives it away, somehow.

She’d planned this, hadn’t she?

He can’t get a read on Raymond’s expression, and that scares him, somehow. Leonard just wants this moment to be over with, so he can move on from it as fast as possible.

It wasn’t how he’d wanted it to go. He hadn’t let himself think about it. Not ever, in any real way, but… Even if the other man somehow manages to still look beautiful in a Christmas sweater that ugly. Even if he has a little trace of chocolate on the side of his mouth.

Even if, when Leonard speaks, it’s more soft, more gentle than he means. An acknowledgement, rather than a rebuke. “Raymond.”

“Leonard,” Raymond says, slowly. Hesitant.

He’s still not used to it. Hearing that man speak his first name. Knowing they’re on such familiar terms, when they hadn’t been, before.

“I’m not stealing a kiss from you, Raymond, if you don’t want one. I might be a thief, but that is one place I draw the line.”

“You’re a lot more than just a thief, Leonard. I do know that much.” And Raymond is looking at him again, with that intensity of regard.

“Look, the mistletoe’s fully optional, okay? You two don’t have to…” Sara says, almost desperately, like she’s picking up on the tension, a lot more than she’d anticipated, and doesn’t know what to do about it.

Leonard knows Sara is giving him an out, and he’s grateful, in some ways. But he’s also too stubborn for his own good, sometimes. Too willing to stand still, when he could run. Too willing to….

It’s his downfall, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to keep doing it.

Because Raymond speaks again, and it’s in answer to Sara’s question, but spoken wholly to him.

“It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s really not that.” Raymond says, and bites his lip. It feels like gravity, pulling him in, and maybe it is.

So just like that, Leonard forgets everyone is watching.

Leans in, until just like that, it’s happening.

He means to make it something quick and hot. Something like the kiss with Vostok, all that time ago in Russia, in front of... All show, and no feeling.

Only he can’t. He can’t pretend that hard. He’s just too goddamn tired of living for the pretense. So instead of a challenge, instead of putting on a show, it’s—

It’s delicate, gentle, it’s almost yearning, and Leonard doesn’t know how to feel about it, and he’s worried he feels a little too much. He wants to lift his hands, would have, if they weren’t full of hot cocoa. Wants to touch. But he can’t, because that would mean more than just moving his hands, it would mean playing his hand. It would mean letting the room know, just how much, that this isn’t just one kiss.

It’s just that, somewhere along the way, some time between when they’d first met, and this moment right now, he’d started to think of Raymond differently. The things that grated in the beginning, now feel almost endearing. The parts that felt like a difference too large to bridge….

It’s more than what he’d expected, far more. It’s fire, and warmth, burning away the fog in his mind. Curling into him, driving out the cold and everything that still made him feel like a ghost. Breaking him open, rebuilding, all at once.

Raymond almost seems like he’s kissing back, and Leonard lets his tongue almost—

They break off.

Raymond looks more than a little shaken, and Leonard can’t really blame him, honestly. He can’t think about that. He can’t notice it, and he hasn’t, he hasn’t, not really. He might not be just a thief, anymore, but Leonard feels caught red-handed, just the same.

This doesn’t have to mean anything. It isn’t real, even if that one moment of sensation felt realer than almost anything.

This wasn’t what he’d intended to come back to.

“Leonard, I…”

“The fuck was that.” Mick says, with his characteristic grace, and that’s enough to fracture the tenuous existence of whatever that moment had just been.

Leonard glances his direction, to see Amaya, Nick (Nate? The boring one, anyway) and Jax looking perplexed, Mick shrugging to look back down at his beer, and Stein looking faintly scandalized.

When he looks back, Raymond smiles brightly, but there’s something hollow to it, something almost false, that Leonard can’t figure out.

“Was that so bad?” Leonard can’t help but say. Because he needs to know. He needs…

Except Raymond turns away, without a word, and so Leonard lets him. Pastes on the nonchalance, and tries to pretend he isn’t shaken by that.

Sara is looking almost apologetic, but Leonard doesn’t care, because he kind of hates Sara, right now. Maybe it isn’t fair to, she couldn’t have known, not when he hadn’t, not really, not until just now.

Raymond hands out the mugs of cocoa in his hands, quickly. Half-turns back to Leonard, then turns away, again. “Um. Bathroom break. I’ll just…”

Leonard doesn’t follow him. Because it’s not like that. And damn it. Damn it.

Nate starts nattering about the cultural history of mistletoe in druidic traditions, and it’s just boring enough to keep most people’s mind off the subject.

Most people, anyway.

Raymond slips back into the party, barely five minutes later. Then avoids Leonard, almost entirely, and, far more than even before. It’s subtle, all in the way he turns his head, the way he moves around the room, but it’s there.

So Leonard begs off early, leaves the party in full ‘Sara throwing knives at the festive streamers on the wall’ swing, and then goes and tries to… Sleep, or something. Anything to wrench his mind away from whatever just happened.

—

It doesn’t work.

He paces the hallways. Takes apart his Cold Gun, and puts it back together, piece by piece, just to keep in practice at it.

But his mind can’t focus. His body is too alert, too alive. Too full of… Potential energy, as he keeps running back to that damn kiss.

He isn’t thinking about the imagery he’d conjured up, in his head, back then. Back, before. Of Raymond dying, for all of them, at the Oculus. How much that had unsettled him, somehow. How it hadn’t seemed right, for Raymond to go out like that. Even if Leonard been telling himself it would happen, all along.

Talking himself into distancing himself from Raymond, because the man cared too much about other people, because Raymond would only get himself killed, playing the hero, so it wasn’t wise to get attached.

How he’d let himself commit to a Raymond’s plan to stop the Time Bastards. The plan he knew was madness, but he’d hoped, just maybe, that it might wind up differently. How he’d still hadn’t had the courage to talk to Raymond, in case it didn’t work, or in case it did.

How he’d played a false hand, to Sara, in claiming he was thinking about the future, and planned out his own death, instead. How he’d laid out the pieces, seen how the game would play out, and chose the only option that had made any sense.

He’d just been too rattled by the idea that his entire life had been outside of his control. That every choice he’d thought he’d made. Every move, had been someone else using him as a pawn. That none of it had been his own. Not being a villain, not trying to be a hero and failing at it.

So he’d done the only things he wasn’t certain of, and one of them had been the right choice, at least. It had just seemed so clear-cut, at the time.

He couldn’t follow his own rules, because maybe they weren’t his own, after all. So he’d followed Raymond’s, instead, because they were the farthest thing he could reach.

Thing was, he hadn’t expected to make it past that. There’s dying as one great cosmic ‘fuck you’ to anyone who would use you as a pawn, dying for the chance to make your own choices… Then there’s living with them. Knowing thatever mistakes he makes? Are wholly his own now.

He goes back to the galley, anyway. On a whim, or maybe a hope.

It’s late, but maybe just this once, luck is on his side. Raymond is the only one still there, cleaning up. Leonard watches from the doorway. The record player is spinning in stuttering silence, Raymond’s back is to the door, his hands full of paper snowflakes.

Leonard leans against the doorway, because maybe he still doesn’t know if he’s not making a mistake. If maybe dying gave him a new sense of priorities. Maybe it cemented the ones he already had. Or maybe, it just made him reckless.

“Can we talk, Raymond?” Leonard offers.

Raymond turns around again, to look at him. And he’s shed the sweater, just wearing a dark red shirt, looking a little worn, but no less beautiful.

It’s not until then that Leonard knows, that he’s not making a mistake. That it’s okay for him to want this, even if it might not work out.

That when Raymond asks, “You want that?”, it’s a deeper question, than just about the offer to talk.

True. Raymond looks a little nervous, still ill-at-ease, but Leonard is hoping he understands better the cause of that, now. That, when Raymond half-shakes his head, he also takes several steps towards Leonard. Lets the snowflakes in his hands fall, except for one that still stays, stuck to his hand with a piece of stray tape.

“It’s an option.” Because it is. He’s willing, assuming Raymond is. So he stops leaning against the doorway so much, positions himself, at least halfway into the room, and hopes the gesture is enough.  “Or we could go back to ignoring each other, the way we have since I…came back. Either way, really.”

“That might be less complicated.” Raymond half-way jokes, with a wariness, to it.

So Leonard realizes someting. That maybe a small gesture isn’t going to work, this time. Freezing him out isn’t going to work, this time. It isn’t enough, his old patterns aren’t going to work anymore, he needs to push forward.

This has happened before. Almost. Him letting Raymond get close, then screwing up. Raymond pulling away, and Leonard letting the bridges burn. Trying to leave him behind. But it doesn’t have to go the same way. He’s learned that, now. If he learned one thing from dying, from coming back again?

It’s that nothing is given. Nothing is set in stone. Not time, not destiny, not the person that you think you are, right up until the moment when you realize you’re capable something different. That you can earn that. And he isn’t sure if he deserves it, but maybe that’s not really the point. Maybe he can have this, anyway.

So he steps forward. One step, then another. Heading towards something that has nothing to do with fate, is entirely of his own choosing, but feels inevitable anyway.

So he sits on the bench, beside where Raymond is standing, and feels as Raymond sits down beside him, the warmth and weight of it.  

It’s tentative, but it’s there.

For a moment, neither of them speak, until Leonard looks down at Raymond’s hand, and the snowflake half-crumpled in Raymond’s palm. He reaches over to un-stick it, and puts the little fractal of paper in his pocket, folding it away, carefully.

It’s a delicate gesture, balancing on the edge of something. Almost touching Raymond’s hand, but too unsure for that, quite yet.

“I would like to talk.” Leonard admits.

“What’s there to talk about?”

“I don’t know, Raymond. That’s why I asked. I die, come back, and nothing feels right. And then…”

“I missed you.”  Raymond says, with a sudden fierceness that rattles him, and there’s a speech coming, Leonard can tell.

So he doesn’t interrupt. He just listens.

“I mean that. It’s stupid. I know that. We never even got along, very well.  I was so wrapped up in so many other things. I thought I had you all figured out, so I didn’t need to think about it. But there were these moments. There kept being... Moments, when you’d chose to do something I didn’t see coming, and I thought… Maybe I’ve got you wrong. Maybe there’s something else to you.”

Maybe they both got each other wrong, Leonard thinks. And how can he blame Raymond, when all along, he’s been getting himself wrong?

“I loved Kendra, I did. I don’t regret that. But everything that happened kept making me think. What would I have done, if I hadn’t been stuck in 1958? Or if… A million different things, a million different choices, that were because of… Fate, or time. If maybe, I would have done something different, if it had really been up to me?”

Leonard didn’t regret making the choices he did. He regretted a lot of things in his life, but not that final one. That was the strangest thing. If he could turn back time, stop himself from making that choice, he wouldn’t.

So if he can’t go back, he has to go forward.

So maybe that starts now. With listening to this impossible idiot of a beautiful man, this obnoxiously good person that he has gotten himself all tangled up in.

To listen, as the words just keep flowing, and Raymond lets him in.

“But by the time I started to figure that out, I got scared by it, and then it was too late. Sure. I was right. You were the hero I thought you could be. But it didn’t even matter, because  you were gone, and… Time kept happening. It just…kept going. We went home, after you died. Rip told us to move on, and my life was my own again, but it didn’t fit me anymore. Nothing did. I didn’t feel like myself, because I didn’t know who that was. I’d given it all up to be a hero, and I couldn’t even get that part right. You’d beaten me to it.

“It didn’t make sense. Every single missed opportunity in my life, everything I could be regretting, everything I could make up for, that I had time for, now? And instead I tracked down Mick, of all people. Because, somehow, even though we didn’t even get along, half the time? I trusted you. I missed you being around. It should have been me, that died, so maybe… I needed to take your place. So I tried being you. I did. Because who I I was, wasn’t good enough, but you had been. And that? Even that didn’t work, either. So I started thinking of you like that. The Legend I couldn’t live up to.”

This is Raymond’s side of their story. The parts he never saw. The parts he never let himself see, and the parts that are just now beginning to feel real.

“Raymond,” Leonard tries to interrupt, because he can’t deal with this. He can’t hear it, because part of him still says that he knows better than to hope he’s hearing right. That he might be hearing what he actually wants to. Just this once.

Raymond flaps a hand, almost angrily. “No. No. You don’t get it. I was finally figuring it out. I was moving past that, too. Dinding it my new normal, and that was enough. I was friends with Mick, and with Nate, and I was being a hero again, It was fine. It was okay. I could live with it, and it felt like it made sense. I knew how to deal with you, as something I couldn’t ever be, and something I couldn’t ever have. But then you started showing up in my head. Then you were alive, again. So that all fell apart.”

“Well, sorry for inconveniencing you.”

“It wasn’t inconvenient. It was just… confusing.” Raymond’s brow is furrowed in thought, but guilessly.


So, Leonard takes the chance to speak. “I got lost, for a while. I got stuck in time. In anger, and bitterness, and I just wanted to be done with everything. What was the point? I saw where being a hero got me. And I thought... You cant be a Legend unless you’re already dead. So. I kept fighting it, I kept trying to return the way I used to be, but it didn’t work. Then I accept it. I accept that I’m a different person. I let you all save me. And you want to know the first thing that I felt in an eternity that felt tangible, getting back? You.”

“When I punched you in the face, again?” Raymond laughs, absurdly. “I swear that made sense at the time.”

“I probably deserved it.” Leonard says, letting his lips curl into a smile, and some of the tension breaks, just like that. “But no. I meant… Earlier. Under the…” He gestures at the ceiling.

“Oh.” Raymond says, quietly.

“Yeah, “.” He admits, and, “but there’s another thing you should probably know. When I got back. I was thinking about leaving the Waverider.”

“What?” And the betrayal in that one word, the hurt, there.

“When I first got back, I was thinking about it. I chose to let you all pull me back to life, but that didn’t mean I’d made a decision, past that. After Jax fixes the Time Drive, we’re going to see my sister. I get to tell her that I’m alive. After that, I thought… I was going to decide. Whether or not I want to stick around.”

“Oh.” Raymond says, and Leonard can see the way he’s closing off. “Right. I mean. If that’s what you think is best.”

Raymond huffs a little laugh, and it’s one of the saddest things Leonard has ever heard. “Of course you’re leaving. I mean, why wouldn’t you, right? You don’t owe us… I guess I just… I thought I’d have more time to figure it out. Because I wasn’t…. I wasn’t ignoring you on purpose, I just… I didn’t let myself think about it. But then…I think I just started letting myself. Right now, so... Whoops. But. I get it. I do, and…”

“I said I was thinking of leaving. Past-tense.” Leonard interrupts, gently, and watches Raymond’s eyes.

Sees the pieces fall into place, the wonder in it.

“You aren’t the only one who can’t stop thinking about it. About… Different choices. Different possibilities. I came back to life, Raymond. There were all kinds of ways I could have done that. I could see into time. All the combinations of futures I could have. I could have come back for Mick. Been a thief and the bad guy again. I could have come back for the team. The crew. I could have come back for my sister, or for Jax, who’s as good as a kid brother. Or for Sara, or for… But I didn’t. That’s not who made up my mind.”

They sit in a moment of silence, a little bubble of feeling, that neither of them are willing to break.

“This is something, isn’t it?” Raymond says, finally, gesturing between the two of them. “I’m not imagining that.”

“It could be.” Leonard admits, balancing on the precipice, and letting himself embrace the potential of falling. “I’m not… I’m still not a good person, Raymond. Dying doesn’t fix that. Coming back from the dead, even if it was to be a hero, to be a Legend… This doesn’t come easy to me.”

“Why me?” Raymond asks. “Why not Mick? Why not Sara? Why not…”

He’s right, in a way. They don’t really match up, by rights. The two of them are a one-in-a-million combination. Something that shouldn’t work, by any logic. But damn the odds. He wants this.

“Because you don’t follow the rules.”

Raymond laughs, absurdly. “Um. Have you met me?”

“Not your rules. Mine. You know why the Flash always got to me so much?”

From Raymond’s expression, he thinks Leonard is changing the subject. “Not really? I mean, Barry used to talk about you sometimes, but…”

“Because I never saw him coming. I plan everything, it’s what I do, and I always know what I’m going to do. I don’t let anyone else see me. I don’t let anyone else in, because letting anyone else in means letting them hurt you. Letting them get to you.”

“It was easier, before he showed up in the city. Before I had to think about heroes, I didn’t have to be anything different than what the world had made me. I could hurt people, take what I want, do what I wanted. See people as disposable, because nobody in my life had ever really looked at me different. Heroes didn’t exist, so I wasn’t one. There’s no white knights, when everything is a shade of grey. And I liked that. It was easier. It was uncomplicated.”

“Except him, The Flash. He didn’t match that. He reacted differently than I thought. I started reacting differently than I expected. I let it happen. Changed, because he thought I could. Started thinking about different things.”

“Wait, did you and he…”

“No. It wasn’t like… Not really. But some people are catalysts, in your life. They help change you, without even planning on it. You’re... One of those people too, Raymond. And then some. I didn’t see you coming either. You never made sense. Most of the team, I could categorize. React to, simply enough. I just never could figure you out.”

“Because I wanted to be a hero?”

“Because you thought I was capable of being one. You saw something… Worthwhile in me. You wouldn’t let me feed you the same bullshit lines that everyone else bought. You wouldn’t let me die, even when it would’ve made sense to. You got under my skin, Raymond, and I let you. And you let me. You trusted me, even when there wasn’t any good reason to. You walked into a shoot-out with only me as your back-up, and you didn’t even blink. Only... I told myself it wasn’t like that, because how could it be?”

“Before I died, it was like… I was balancing on the edge. Of whether I wanted to be a hero or not. Every time I looked at you, I wanted to cross that line. So I told myself to stop looking, except for all the times I just… Couldn’t help it. And we ran out of time. And… And I thought it was fine. Dying that way. Making up for my mistakes, but not having to deal with the consequences. Except dying didn’t stick. So now I have to deal with it. And I want to. I want to stay, but if I do…Then that’s it. I’ll have chosen. I have to admit that I care, about something like this? Which terrifies me, because I don’t know how to care about anyone. I don’t know how to be a good person. You are one. It’s easy for you.”

Raymond shakes his head. “I’m not that good, Leonard. I do good things, maybe. Sometimes. But i wanted to be a hero because I was scared. I was scared of being helpless. I was scared my life wasn’t ever going to mean anything. It was selfish, honestly.” Raymond says, gently. “But… I’m not scared, anymore. Being a hero, being a good person, it’s… All I wanted to do, for a long time. But life is about more than that.”

His hand touches Leonard’s. Very gently, with a dizzying sense of possibility, in it. “I meant what I said, Leonard. I never got to know you. Not really. And, I don’t know. I think I… I wanted to. I think I do want to. Whatever that ends up meaning.”

Leonard thinks for a moment, and nods, slowly. “I wouldn’t mind that. I don’t really know who I am, anymore. But I don’t think I’d mind, if you did.”

Raymond laughs. “I’m not sure who I am, either. Not all the time. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe we don’t need to have it figured out, in order to figure this out. ”

And that’s that, then, isn’t it? Time to choose, once again. And maybe it was always going to end up like this.

He stands, abruptly, maybe too fast, because he’s spinning with it. And he’s moving, halfway to the door, and he isn’t sure at first, where his feet are taking him.

Until his hands are lifting the needle of the record player, and he’s looking at the box of records.

As he picks something a little old, a smooth, wistful kind of jazz, and sets it going, on another whim that he doesn’t wholly understand.

Takes a breath, breathing in the possibilities, exhaling his fears. And he lets himself, this time. Turns around, to see Raymond half standing, with alarm fading into something softer in his face, as Leonard walks over once again. Lets his hand slip down, next to Raymond’s to brush against it, cautiously. Lets Raymond’s hands slide into, and spins him into a standing position.

The snowflakes are mostly down, and all of the fairy-lights, but the ribbons are still hanging, and the cool blue light of the galley is more than enough to see by. It’s not perfect. There’s an awkward moment where they both try to lead, and Raymond steps on his foot.

“Sorry!” Raymond says, trying to step backwards, only for Leonard to pull him out into a spin, then back again, close.

He thinks maybe that’s how it’s going to be, with them, and he’s okay with that. That they’ll both push each other, and pull, and wind up somewhere in the middle.

“Trust me, Raymond,” Leonard says, with a confidence that surprises even him.

The closeness is something so rare. That he gets that, without an ulterior motive. Without it being a game. That feeling of unreality vanishes, somehow, just for a moment. His heartbeat feeling right, when his chest is close enough that he can feel Raymond’s own. His hands moving, holding Raymond’s hands.

They spin, slowly, in the space they have, between the chairs and discarded elements, and Leonard forgets for a moment, where he’s leading them, he’s so caught up. Walks with him, half-dancing to the song playing on the record player, until they are standing under the mistletoe again.

He smiles at Raymond, lets down his walls enough to let himself show all of him that feels real. Until Raymond smiles back, a little soft, and half-foolish. “You know, I’ve never really known what to do, when I get a second chance at anything. But right now…”

“Raymond, I barely even know what to do with a first chance.” Leonard says, because it’s true. He’s never really had that, but maybe…

“So, we’ll find out.” Raymond challenges, and leans in, for the second time.

Leonard follows Raymond, follows him into their second kiss, their first in this new understanding. It’s warmth, and it’s a promise, and it’s a question, and an answer.

Leonard doesn’t believe in miracles. He doesn’t believe in perfect, and he’s never been too sure if he believes in most things, really.

But maybe, just maybe, in this one frozen moment of time, unfurling into a thousand possibilities?

He might be able to be convinced.

*****

*****

*****

AN- and yep, this is the sweater Leonard was wearing for most of the fic. You're welcome.