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No one will take Raymond Palmer’s case.
The monsters keep quitting. None of them would last more than a few nights as this particular child’s monster, the record being under one hour. And all of them always gives him nonsensical reasons, ranging from “unyielding curiosity” to “no sense of personal space” to “apparent lack of fear of death”.
After numerous replacements, Leonard Snart finally decides to take the matter into his own hands.
As he waits beneath the child’s bed, waiting for him to come to bed, Leonard can’t help but feel that something is…off.
Raymond comes into the room. For a few minutes he focuses on a device in his hands, tinkering with it with a screwdriver. Maybe that should have been the first clue. Who the hell lets a six year old play with screwdrivers?
Then the boy sets the device down on his desk, and makes his way over to his bed. Not before walking over to a glass case and saying good night to Slinky, and picking up a book to take to bed with him.
Half an hour passes, and Raymond finally sets the book down, turns off the night stand, and curls himself unto a ball under his comforter, and only then, as the room sits in darkness, does Leonard realize what is wrong.
No one came to say good night. No one came to tuck the child into bed. No one was there to plant a kiss on his head and tell him that they’ll see him tomorrow. No one was there to tell him to have sweet dreams, or to ask if he wanted a glass of water.
Leonard thinks back to the file back at the office, and frowns when he recalls that Raymond isn’t an orphan.
Slowly, he makes his way out of the shadows, out of hiding, the cold that follows him everywhere creeping out and surrounding everything near him. On the bed, the child begins to shiver, wrapping the comforter tighter around himself, but he doesn’t look up until Leonard stops right next to his bed, looming over him in what should have been a terrifying shadow.
When he does look up, his brown eyes are wide. But there’s no fear in them, something that Leonard isn’t used to, being looked at without fear. Instead, the eyes carry a sadness that shouldn’t be present in someone so young, a sense of resignation, and yet, deep in them, just the tiniest speck of hope.
“Hello,” Raymond says as he sits up, comforter still wrapped around his shoulders, “Are you the new monster?”
“Yes,” Leonard replies simply, watching the child carefully.
Raymond hums for a bit, then, in a voice small and hesitant, asks one question that forever changes Leonard's life.
“Are you going to leave me, too?”
The End