{All my loves are hidden in pieces within a wild night

[myheadisaprison]

PSL with whattodowithboyslikeyou & bringstheheat

The rhythm of the rain [Sara/Leonard]
Party party [Sara/Mick]
I'm an anti-social pessimist and I don't belong here [Sara/Len]
come back... be here, come back... be here
Can't sleep. Entertain me. [Sara/Len]
Fell asleep on you [Sara/Len]

Comments

{It's a frenetic spasm of my heart | Mick

[notjustalostcause]

Of all the things Leonard might have expected when he heard his dad bark at him to come downstairs and talk, this wasn't it. This wasn't even in the same galaxy. This...has him in more of a panic than knowing when another beating is coming his way. At least that he knows how to handle that.

He didn't waste much time when his dad let him go. Darted out the front door and took a bus to the stop near Mick's apartment. He bangs on the door, heart hammering in his chest and it isn't just from the run from the bus stop and up the stairs to the third floor. "Mick. Mick!"

[bringstheheat]

Footfalls are heavy and quick as he moves, dinner forgotten, beer forgotten, the entire world falling away at that frantic hammer on his door and the voice calling for him. What happened this time? What the fuck did Lewis do?

He's throwing the door open, brow furrowed in worry. "Lenny?"

His partner, his everything, looks frantic and terrified and doesn't have a scratch on him. Somehow that scares Mick more than had he arrived on his doorstep beaten and bloody. "Lenny what's wrong?"

[notjustalostcause]

For a second or two as the door swings open, he's frozen, like his brain just stalled out and he forgot how to talk. And then it caught up and went into overdrive.

"He's making us leave." The words rush like waterfalls after that, pushing his way into the apartment, his every movement jagged and panicked. "He- he's getting transferred and we're not gonna be here anymore. We're moving."

He spins to face the older boy again, something like pure panic shining in his eyes. "I don't wanna move, Mick. I've never been anywhere but Central. I don't wanna go anywhere else. I don't when I'll see you-- I don't know how I'd even get here, I don't have a car, or a way to get one, it's too far to walk, I--" The truth of it is, it isn't moving that has him so scared, but losing Mick? That's not something he knows how to handle.

{When you're strange, no one remembers your name | Sara

[notjustalostcause]

Leonard knows he sticks out like a sore thumb, the obvious new kid as he walks through the hallways of his new school, wishing he didn't have to be here. He skipped often enough at Central City High, but his dad had warned him--harshly--about what would happen if he started the same habits here. So, he was stuck sitting his way through classes he didn't care about with people he didn't know, left wondering if they were whispering about him or something else entirely.

He got really tired of doing the new kid introduction at the start of every class, wanting nothing more than for people to stop staring at him and hating each teacher that made him do it a little more than the last. But he was finally free of the whole thing when lunch came and he could at least try to stay to himself, sitting at a corner table where he could watch everyone else without having to actually deal with any of them.

[whattodowithboyslikeyou]

Sara's got a box of McDonald french fries.
That's totally a healthy lunch, right? Right.


This is totally important, when Sara Lance and her light blue jean jacket and a tilt of her head, and long blonde hair, and her french fry held not far from her mouth, but not being eaten yet, is announcing herself with smile and the following: "I'm trying to decide if you're trying to call more or less attention to yourself. It's really a kind of 50/50 scenario, isn't it?"

[notjustalostcause]

His eyes sweep up toward the girl who is every bit bounce and sunshine that he would never be found caught in a social circle with back home. That type and who he is doesn't tend to be the types to mix. "I just wanna be left alone." he mutters, eyes dropping back to the tray in front of him. Maybe she'll just go away if he ignores her. Girls didn't usually like that, and some of them got really huffy about it, but almost all of them walked away.

{ ain't going down (til the sun comes up) ❤❤ Mick

[whattodowithboyslikeyou]

"Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!" It's a chant at the secluded back corner, lost in the roaring music.

And it's the only sound in Sara's ears as she's downing shot for shot at a standing table through a line of them with the guy across from her who must be at least five years and fifty pounds on her. Don't think. Don't pause. Grab. Tilt. Swallow. Try not to cringe too hard. Barely breathe in. Keep going. That she makes it to the last one, and she's slamming it down, rim to the sticky black table just as the guy is only getting his last to his mouth, has her hands up to an all too familiar applause of clapping and whistling.

She's going to feel that in the morning, but all she does now is laugh as the guy slurs, "You cheated."
"No, I'm just better." Sara says, with the kind of pride that begs to be called starling, like their city.

Her fans, at least the few who've seen her do this more than once or twice now, whether on her own with some poor sucker who thought to drag her off the dance floor and to the bar to get her wasted, or in a dare rather like this one had, tell him to take it like a man, and be a good sport, even while some friends are half dragging him away, already more than slightly stumbling. She calls after them, "Thanks for the drinks!"

Even if he did have shitty taste in two dollar tequila. But not everyone is Tommy Merlyn.
Before pointing a finger gun at some of the people nearby, "I'll be right back. Don't move."

It might even be true. It's not really the point. There is nothing better than this feeling. "Powder room."

[bringstheheat]

The chanting is irritating. But it’s one of the few bars Mick can get into without getting hassled over his ID. He only gets off about two nights a week between his two jobs and with Lenny taking care of Lisa tonight, he’s on his own. So a beer, maybe watch the game and a cheap bite to eat before getting back to his apartment for an early as hell morning.

He's fiddling with his lighter as the pretty blonde drinks another idiot under the table. Impressive. Even if he'll bet every last cent in his worn out wallet that she's not old enough to be in here.

Still.
Makes for better entertainment than the game that's on the crappy TV in the corner.

[whattodowithboyslikeyou]

Sara comes back on those same heels, and if she's a little floaty, it's really only just that, enough to feel the glide of her steps and the lights, as her hands catch on a bar, bright like she just won an award, and she asks for -- "A peach fizzy water, please."

It couldn't be said she hadn't at least put some of that learning about dehydration formulated blood clots in the brain and the drunk tanks to good use. Even if no one who inserted them as pictures in A&P textbooks or any part of her Dad's tours meant to be used like this.

{This girl just won't stop | Mick

[notjustalostcause]

Most of the first week has passed and the girl from his first day--Sara--hasn't left him alone once. She keeps making her presence known and dropping herself into his space and Leonard isn't sure what to make of it, except that it's weird to have someone's attention like that. He's rather be invisible and fly under the radar, but for some reason ths t doesn't work with her. In fact, it seems the harder he tries to isolate himself, the more she shows up. Or maybe that part is just in his head.

Regardless, after school today, he heads to Mick's apartment. He has a couple of hours before he needs to get Lisa from the sitter Lewis hired-- Leonard is pretty sure he's trying to make himself look like a better parent than he is to his new police buddies, and he doesn't think this little charade will last very long, either.

He shoulders his bag and hops off the bus at the stop closest to Mick's new apartment. It's in the shadier part of Starling City, but it's almost a step up from the rundown place he had back in Central. At least the heat seems to work consistently so far.

Leonard trots up the steps to the second floor and bangs a familiar patterned knock on the door to let Mick know it's him.

[bringstheheat]

The knock drags him out of a sound sleep and Mick pulls himself up and off the couch. Double shifts are the worst, but at least he's making enough money to cover rent and get some decent food for when Lenny and Lisa can slip away for a weekend.

"You should just let me give you a key," he offers, opening the door to let his partner in.

[notjustalostcause]

"If I really wanted in that bad, I wouldn't need a key," he points out with a perk of an eyebrow as he walks inside and kicks the door shut behind him, dropping his bag somewhere. between the door and his travel to the couch.

"You look half-asleep, did i wake you up?" He asks as he drapes himself over half of the couch, knees drawn up enough to give Mick room to sit.

{Wear it like a bruise or black eye | Sara

[notjustalostcause]

The days came and went and things were fine for awhile after the move. Except that it was almost more unnerving than creeping on tiptoes to watch what he said so he didn't set his dad off. Leonard knew it wouldn't last, that the calm at his house was only the onset of a storm still brewing behind the facade he was presenting to the people in this city. Eventually, the mask would break and everything would be normal again. As awful as it was, at least he was used to it, knew how to handle that .

He was right. It took a handful of weeks, but Lewis started sliding back into old habits bit by bit. More and more alcohol entering his system by the day, more rage creeping into his eyes, agitation in his voice. Leonard knew where it would all end-- and sure enough, last night, it did.

Sporting a fresh black eye as he wanders through the hallway at school is possibly one of the most awkward and humiliating things he has ever had to do. People in Central more or less knew, without ever directly being told, but here? Here, it's all new and fresh and no one knows the man Lewis Snart really is behind the curtain.

[whattodowithboyslikeyou]

Sara's fingernails are pink today, and her hair has tiny braids scattered through it, and she's laughing, and closing a locker door that isn't hers, saying, "Sure, sure. I'll be ready." Still looking back, throwing one last small dig over her shoulder, even as she's turning the opposite way, "Don't honk the ho-"

Except that word dies, mid-formation, on a person, she nearly turns into. The muddle between finishing not getting in trouble with her dad, and grounded for a month before she can get out of the house, and the almost apology that is just trained social skills stopping at a completely different brick wall:

Leonard, with a black-and-purple bruise the size of a baseball all around his eye.
Surprise and shock knocking his name straight out instead. "Leonard?"

[notjustalostcause]

Oh.
He'd hoped he was late enough he wouldn't catch her in the hall before first period.
Guess not.

"That's definitely my name." He says with a nod and he shifts the weight of his backpack on his shoulder and tries to dart around her to continue to his locker.

{Bite your tongue and screw your heart

[notjustalostcause]

A week or better passes with a weird, blank spot where Sara used to be. In the hallway. At lunch. Sometimes in classes they shared, even. And all of this is not the indifferent thing he thought it would be. Each instance of the lack of Sara Lance eats away at something inside of him that, honestly, Leonard doesn't completely understand at all. The crushed look on her face that day in the hallway when he declared they weren't friends has absolutely haunted him. He hates it. That look existing on her face. The knowledge that he's the one that caused it. It twists something hard in his chest.

Mid-week after he decides he just can't handle it anymore, he goes over to her new lunch table. Or, rather, probably her forever lunch table that she just took a random detour from when he showed up and caught her interest-- for whatever reasons Leonard still didn't understand. She's surrounded by people, like she always seemed to be these days. And most days, even if he considers the times when they were still speaking. She always had to break away from this generic swarm of people that seemed to flock her. But it was different now. A tighter sort of circle. Protective, as he wanders over to... try.

He doesn't like the feeling he gets from all the eyes on him suddenly, narrowed and some of them that high-school kind of borderline predatory. Like they were just daring him to move wrong. "Sara...can I talk to you?" A beat. Two. His eyes sweep around the table, and he adds, "Alone."

[whattodowithboyslikeyou]

She doesn't looks. She just. Doesn't look. She wills herself through it.

She reminds herself, she's the younger, far more fun, of the Lance sisters, the only one left. No one looks left on her. She breaks rules as she sees fit, and most of the time she gets away with it. She can break hearts if she wants to, too. She ignores the places she used to go. The things she used to do. She skipped certain classes the next few days, most of a week, more than she has in a while.

Places to go. People to see. Remember. She's the younger, far more fun, of the Lance sisters.
Nothing like her sister, with her perfect grades and perfect friends and perfect gpa.
But Sara knows where a good time can be found. Or a distracting one, at least.

Which is to say, when Leonard's voice interrupts their table Sara is more confused than anything else. Her eyes shooting up, confused about why he's there, what he could possibly need to tell her, that he hadn't, that he didn't need to for almost two weeks, even as his last words score themselves across her mind for the millionth time (and that bruise is almost completely gone, like he said), even as someone is already moving, which makes her glance to him shorten.

Finding Melissa just as she's standing, one arm crossed, scoffing and starting to talk.
"Of course, you can't talk to her. No one asked you over here. You've already said enough."

[notjustalostcause]

Leonard blinks at the girl, suddenly standing and he thinks he recognize her, one of the regulars that floats in Sara's orbit, though he can't for the life of him remember her name at the moment.

He's taken aback for a second, before he finds his footing, as solid as it's going to be just now. The words that roll off his tongue have the smallest amount of bite to them, annoyed that this girl feels the need to speak for Sara, instead of letting her simply tell him to get lost on her own. "I wasn't talking to you."

His eyes flicker above the girl's shoulder, and down, back to Sara. Silently willing her to just speak for herself. Not that she's entirely looking at him, or even catching the non-verbal begging anyway.

{ Always one for a good time, always one for extremes

[whattodowithboyslikeyou]

[ Same day/night as this one. ]

It’s a Tuesday night, and Tuesday’s are not when Sara is here — but Sara is here. No Laurel here to watch her, to stop her, to be suspicious when she won't talk during dinner. Easy to tell her parents she wanted to just go to bed early, that she didn’t feel great. It wasn’t entirely wrong, but it wasn’t right either. Nor was sleeping what she wanted to do.

Sara waited an hour, until the house was the quiet of her father watching tv and her mother working on her students papers, and let herself out a window. Maybe they would check on her. Maybe she would get caught. Maybe she didn’t care. Maybe she wanted to. Maybe didn’t matter.

Not as she was walking away.


Not when she arrived to swell of music and the scent of smoke.
There’s a visceral success in just walking in, that makes her smile.
Something she could do. Could make happen. (Couldn’t be taken from her.)

[bringstheheat]

It's a Tuesday night and Mick is back at the bar because let's face it, he's got nowhere else to go. Lenny has a key and could let himself back in to the apartment if he needs to, but Mick also knows that he won't. Lisa needs him at the house, Lisa needs him to keep her safe.

He's been restless and irritable lately anyway.
When Lenny isn't sulking (no matter how much he insists that he isn't) he's going on about that girl. That girl who seems to care too much, that girl who wants to know him.

That girl.
That girl that may wind up one day figuring Snart out.
That girl that might take him away.

But.. but it's all right.
Mick will let him go if that's what he needs.

It's probably better that way.
So here he is, drinking and doing his damndest not to think when he sees a familiar flash of blonde making her way to the bar.

"Hey Blondie."

[whattodowithboyslikeyou]

There's more space here. More heads that turn, that she passes, and some that she tosses a smile toward. Familiar faces that are here more often than she ever is, has been, but people who've been here as long as she has, columns to her version of it, or that she's been here as long as they have, making her a column of theirs.

She's headed to the bar first. A drink, or two, or three. Something to take the burn off the day. The burn she should have known was coming somehow. Anger gone, hours now. The gutshot of the burn she wants to drown with a different kind. With more than just the bright high of walking in the door.

There's no real surprise she hears her name as she's getting there, but when she finds the person, that smile is it's own real enough, too.
"Mick." Someone familiar. Someone something like dependable, for what was dependable about a place like this.

Her head tipped, just going with the world, the choice, this place. "Are you early, or am I late?"

Killing in the Name of

[bringstheheat]

It was bullshit and they all knew it.
Standing in the hospital, a cadre of fucking pigs surrounding Snart's old man promising revenge for whoever attacked his kid when they all knew damn well it was him, that he beat the hell out of his kids on a regular basis and this time it got out of control. The break-in was just a cover up and each and every one of those pigs is just as guilty for buying into the story.

Broken ribs.
Concussion.
Broken arm.
Internal bleeding.

Lenny.
Laying so still in that bed, looking so fucking small against all that white and the swaths of bandages.

He could have killed him.
The bastard could have taken Leonard away from Mick once and for all and this time he can't turn a blind eye. Leonard isn't here to stop him and with Lisa shuttled off to her aging grandfather there's no one to talk Mick down this time.

He's going to murder Lewis Snart.
He's going to kill him so Lenny and Lisa will be safe from him once and for all.

[whattodowithboyslikeyou]

Sara's heart had nearly blown out her chest when the address Mick's text had popped up with had only 'ER' after it. No answer after that. No answer from Leonard at all. She hadn't need any other words. She'd told her dad it was emergency. She needed the car. A friend has -- been in an accident. A hospital could mean nothing else. Right?

But it could mean a lot of other things. Mick. Leonard.
Even Lisa. All of it a thrum of fear, fear, fear.
A need. Floor the gas. Switching lanes.

She didn't pay attention to parking straight. She didn't even bring a bag. All she knows is that she's making fast for the door. Finding the right hallway, not even knowing who she's going to ask for. It's the only thing circling in her head, louder, louder, faster, faster.

Too many people. Too many cops. Too many people in scrubs. Telling her to slow down. Asking who she's looking for -- only reminding her she didn't ask, even stopping to ask was too long. Mick at his job? Leonard at home? Lisa, finally not actually out of the line of sight, if Leonard hadn't been there?

Too many questions.

At least until she rounds one corner to the inner open ER doors,
and there was a familiar height with familiar shoulders and familiar mess of hair. "Mick!"


One relief as devastating as the fear winnowed harder, higher. Where was Leonard?

{Surprises? No, not a fan. » Sara, later also Mick

[notjustalostcause]

It's a Saturday, which means Leonard is stuck at home. Mick's at work, there's no school to escape to, and it's too cold to take Lisa to the park yet, this early in the day. Maybe after lunch, just so they can get away from the ever-present pins-and-needles tension that lives in this house at all times. He's the only one awake yet anyway; Lisa always sleeps late on weekends and Lewis just hasn't roused from passing out drunk the night before. At least it was a calm Friday night, by Snart house standards. No new bruises to sport, which is always kind of a win.

Leonard is in the living room, as quiet as a mouse, curled in a corner of the couch reading when a suddenly invasive sound comes from the front door. Light and almost perky in ways he isn't sure should be possible from something as innocuous as a knock on the door.

But still, it makes everything in him freeze. Partially because who is even up at barely even nine on a Saturday, but mostly because he's sure the sound, so sudden and sharp in the otherwise harsh-silent house made it to his father's ears. And who would be coming here, anyway? After Lewis started questioning his friendship with him, Leonard stopped even letting Mick come over-- nothing was worth the risk of opening anyone else to who Lewis Snart really was.

He doesn't even mark his place in his book as he scrambles to his feet, and to the door, catching a glimpse of blonde from a quick glance through the transom window at the top of the door. No.

He throws the door open to find exactly the last person he ever wanted at his house: Sara Lance. He blinks and stands glued to the spot, apparently so shocked to find her there, on his doorstep, that he has forgotten how words work entirely.

[whattodowithboyslikeyou]

Sara can't help looking at everything as she waits on the doorstep. It wasn't all that hard to figure out the roundabouts of where to locate Leonard. Somebody always knows somebody who knows some other people, and everyone has to be on the cattle buses that don't have cars, which means at least two dozen people know roundabout where you are and a good handful know exactly.

There's a giddy, nervous excitement to standing there on the porch, taking in all the details of the door, the surrounding area. Everything from here. Everything that is Leonard's world he rarely even mentions anything in the direction of. Even if she's tapping her toe after knockin on the door. Impatient excitement blooming in a grin as the door throws itself open and there's Leonard's absolutely baffle-surprised face in the space between the door jam and the door.

Who just stands there. Like he's not sure she's real. Not looking away and not saying anything.

Which causes Sara to laugh, and take a step closer. "This is the part where you say hello."