I have faith in this universe...

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.

From:

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?"

From:

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?"

From:

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.

From:

Moving.
Leaving.

No. No. Mick won't accept that. He can't. He found Lenny and like hell is he going to let him go. "Where? Where are you going Lenny?" Reaching out to close his hand gently on his shoulders. Calm him down. Center him.

"Tell me where you're going so I can follow you." Simple as that. Where Leonard and Lisa Snart go, so will Mick Rory. There isn't anything holding him to Central without them anyway.

From:

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.

From:

"Hmmm." It's a sound, before she takes a bite of half that french fry.
"Wouldn't be considered all that charitably welcoming."

Not that Sara Lance was really all that worried about what anyone considered charitably welcoming, or really all that rule-abiding. Her sister would be only too glad to remind anyone in ear shot of that. Especially as it wasn't as though there was even a McDonald's within 5 minutes drive of the school. But no one really need to be in every Trigonometry class a week availed itself of instituting.

From:

He tenses at the unexpected touch, but doesn't pull away. He lets Mick ground him, pull him out of his head and into the moment again. Slow, deep breath in and--

"Fo- you're gonna follow me?" He stammers, confused by the very idea of it. "What do yo- you can't just..." But there's no real end to the sentence because, actually, his argument dies in his head before it's out of his mouth. Mick could do anything he wanted, but somehow Leonard never saw this coming.

His knees almost buckle at the weight of the offer, and he sinks down into the chair in the living room. He stares up at Mick, a mix of fear and confusion and gratitude all on his face at once. "You'd really do that?"

From:

"So?" He doesn't even bother looking at her this time. Instead, he opts to focus on the less than great lunch on the tray in front of him. Food is food, he'd learned that years ago, but it doesn't make it taste any better.

From:

"Sure I can. Who's gonna stop me?" Offering a smile that's almost cavalier in the face of Leonard's panic and despair. Keeping a hand on his shoulder even as he sits down.

"I got nothing tying me to Central. No reason to stay."

Mick takes the chair beside him. "You go, I go. It's that simple. What partners do, right?"

From:

"So-" She says, walking over to his table, and sliding a leftover one side of the attached bench, and let herself drop down on it, sitting sideways, with something of a faint bounce. "-I'm Sara." Sara Lance. Unperturbed by the staring at his tray, or a challenge, while popping the other half of her fry in her mouth. "And you're probably right to have chosen all the way over here."

From:

He's forced to look up again when he sees her slide onto the seat across from him. An eyebrow arches, which is a lot more like annoyance than the discomfort that tenses his shoulders. "What are you doing?" Why is she sitting here? What does she want?

From:

Since they met, Mick has been there for Leonard, in a million different ways. So, this really shouldn't be surprising, but it still manages to catch Leonard off-guard and fill him up in a way that he's come to just associate with Mick.

He can't help the small smile that reaches his lips as he reaches idly to tangle his fingers with Mick's and squeezes, maybe harder than her intended. It's the best version of gratitude he can really manage right now.

But logic is always Leonard's biggest downfall. "What about your job? Do you even have the money to pick up and move right now?"

From:

That should all worry her more than it seems to, shouldn't it?

"Sitting." It's so much less question than it is amused flip-back. Especially with the way her mouth twists in an unruly sort of smile, like he should obviously know the answer to this question already. She already said, welcoming committee and all that jazz, and he's definitely not got two eyes of his own.

Sara holds out the three-quarters eaten box. "French fry?"

As though already sensing the response, it gets added to it. What can she say. Some things you pick up from having a Cop for a Dad, as well as making a habit out of the wrong sort of people in the best, right, fun, sorts of ways. Reading people. "They're better than anything this place makes."

From:

He doesn't know how to take this girl, and it's obvious in the stares he keeps giving her. She has to want something. Girls like her don't talk to guys like him-- but then, he's new, she doesn't necessarily know the type of guy he is.

He glances at the box of fries, then back up at her for a beat before taking a couple of the fries. "There's not a McDonald's in walking distance from here," he comments, popping one of the fries in his mouth. "Skip your morning classes?"

From:

A shrug as he returns the squeeze. "All I got is this crappy apartment, I can fit most of this in my truck anyway." And whatever doesn't fit, doesn't go because Leonard leaving him behind is not even in the realm of consideration.

"Restaurants always need people to rack dishes, take out trash or run a line. I'll manage Lenny." Maybe working two jobs to make ends meet for a while, a kid with a record and history like him won't exactly get the prime jobs, but he's got experience and he isn't afraid of doing the job if it'll keep him in money to stay close to Leonard.

"You make sure you tell Lisa too, okay? Tell her I'm coming."

From:

"Not very close in driving distance either," Sara brags, but perhaps that might be even more so a flash bright smiled about the boy trying to avoid her, is taking french fries, and that is at least Step One.

The rest is details for a play half the world already knows. Not that Sara Lance has a car. Not on the salary of a cop and a professor, with two teenage daughters. Laurel has one, and she might get one next year, if she's not drug into her father's office too many. For parties, or papers, or just the wrong side of choosing someone she shouldn't and something happening here at school.

She takes another fry out and eats it, too.

"Only the last one, but who really needs Trig in the real world?"

From:

His gut-reaction answer to that question get a pushed aside because she's not asking for a real answer and she isn't exactly the person he'd share that with anyway. Instead, he just shrugs and pops another fry in his mouth, watching her curiously. It's almost annoying how much she gives that smile away at a whim. Especially directed at him as a silent commentary about how she won this round of social chess because he gave in and took her fries and talked to her.

"You slipped trig just got McDonald's fries?" There's doubt inching into his voice at that. He's sure there's more to the story.

From:

Leonard isn't sure what he ever did to deserve Mick Rory, but he's damn glad he did. He nods a little and moves over to sit on the arm of Mick's chair. "I will. When I tell her we gotta leave, I'll tell her you're coming, too." Little Lisa doesn't even know they're moving yet m, but he thinks it will go better having this in hand to offer up, too.

He reaches up and cards his fingers through Mick's hair. "I dunno what I'd do if I lost you." And he does t just mean as the ever-present escape from Lewis. When he was first told they were moving, Mick was Leonard's first thought. He had to leave him behind, with no idea when he might see him again, if he ever did. It terrified him, to think he'd lose the steady presence of someone who actually cared about him and Lisa. And in true Mick fashion, he quelled all of that panic with a handful of words, like the answer was as easy as breathing.

From:

Sara's head tips with a fall of blonde hair and her smile turns a shade of wry.

"At least allegedly." There's some pointing with the newest half a fry, and a gracefully easy kind of shrug through that light blue jean jacket. "Who is to say what really happens outside the walls of this sterling institution when there's no one around to watch the watcher?"

From:

He stares at her for a second, a small frown creasing his forehead before deciding, "You're weird," and taking a sip of his drink.

From:

Summarily, without pause: "I will take that as a compliment."
Weird was fine for five minutes. "Perfect is highly overrated."

Her parents had Laurel for perfect. Perfect friends, perfect grades, perfect boyfriends, perfect life plan, perfect acceptances to all the perfect colleges, perfect recommendations written for all her law school applications by teachers two years before she'd ever needed them. Sara was in the clear to be pretty much whatever Sara wanted to be behind that.

From:

Mick tips his head into that affectionate touch with a hum. "You an' me Lenny. Always." A promise he'd made to him back during juvie and it was one he meant to keep. Leonard looked at him like he was something special. Worthwhile. Needed. Not just a dumb kid with compulsion issues and a love of fire that would probably get him killed one day.

"Tell me what you can, when you can." A pause. "Maybe you can help me find a place that's close? Something on the bus line?" Because if anyone could help Mick make sense of rental ads and tangles of bus lines it was Leonard.

From: