Coldflash and Legends One-Shots

Not All Endings Are Happy, but We'll Give it a Shot (Rated PG13)

Summary:

Len is going through some changes - big changes. But instead of facing them in Central City, he's running away - from his life, and from Barry. Barry doesn't mind Len running ... as long as he can go with him.

Notes:

Written for the prompt 'A merfolk au. It can be either or both of them. Something with a happy ending preferred'. I actually wrote both prompts given, but the other story is turning into a monster, and it isn't ready yet. It'll go up when it's done :)

***

"You runnin' again?"

Len, shirtless at the end of this weathered grey and abandoned dock, stops undressing at the sound of Barry's voice. Len hadn't heard him approach, too focused on making plans to pay attention to what might be sneaking up behind him. But he also couldn't care less. Because if it wasn't Barry - if it was another meta out on the take, or some rival back from the dead looking for revenge - that might solve his problems for him.

But no. It would have to be Barry.

It's always Barry.

Len shakes his head and rolls his eyes at Barry quoting his least favorite movie of all time – X-Men. That was the movie they saw together the first time Len ever hid out at Barry's place. Barry thought Len would like it. He figured since Len talked like a comic book villain, he might be into it. But Len hated it. He hated the story, the plot, the reformulation of the characters and the weakening of their origin stories. Basically, the franchise sucks in Len's opinion, but that's besides the fact.

Barry chose a quote from that movie to irk Len.

And to prove a point.

Barry knows Len hates that movie because Barry knows Len, inside and out. Not just the big ticket items – the things that any Tom, Dick, and Harry can find on a rap sheet, during a Google search, or splattered on the front page of newspapers across the country, but the tiny, arguably insignificant things as well.

Barry knows that Len's favorite color was blue long before he ever got his cold gun.

He knows that Len's favorite cake flavor is German chocolate, even though he eats red velvet now.

He knows that Len's routine is like a religion to him, that diverting from it tends to set him back a few days.

He knows that Len's a bit on the obsessive side when it comes to how he keeps his things and where.

He knows how Len takes his coffee – black with a heaping dash of whiskey.

He knows that Len became a pescetarian a few months or so ago (which should have been a huge clue that something was up), even though his diet mostly consists of French fries and beer.

He knows why Len wakes up at night drenched with sweat and panting as if he'd been drowning in his sleep, his head forced under water until his chest is about to explode, then yanked out in the nick of time, long enough to get a single taste of fresh air, just to be plunged again.

Barry knows whom in those nightmares is playing Russian Roulette with Len's air supply, whose sinister laugh Len hears ringing in his ears before Barry's voice seeps in and rouses him from his sleep.

Barry knows these things because they're the things a lover would know.

But the biggest secret Len has been carrying - a secret he'd kept from his sister, his partner, his team on the Waverider - Barry didn't discover until recently. Which is one of the reasons Len has yet to turn around and face him. Because Len knows that the eyes staring through the back of his neck are filled to their lightening depths with hurt over him keeping it for so long.