Fic: Very Human, Very Needy
TITLE: Very Human, Very Needy
FANDOM: DC’s Legends of Tomorrow
RATING: Explicit
PAIRING: Len/Sara
SERIES: “Lost and Found”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is an AU of an AU. On Tumblr, winterandmistletoe asked for a virgin Leonard fic. What came to my mind was a reworking of “A Basic Human Need” from my “Lost and Found” continuity. That was a first time fic with a sexually experienced Leonard Snart. Her prompt made me think about how it might have gone if the particularly damaged Leonard I’d created in “Little Boy Lost” was not experienced.
This version is a re-visioning of chapters 2&3 of “A Basic Human Need,” in which the resurrected Laurel Lance is not-quite-approving of her sister’s new boyfriend, and unwittingly opens some old wounds. You don’t need to have read the original fic (but I’d be delighted if you did).
I still don’t own the characters. My hopes to run away and join a comic book show at Comic-Con 2016 didn’t come to fruition.
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She found him in his room, in the darkness. In the light from the corridor, she could see that he’d taken his boots and jacket off, and left them scattered across the floor. She knew Len was normally obsessively neat. Even a minor mess was a sure sign of inner turmoil.
He was sitting on his bed, his back against the wall, his legs drawn up so he could rest his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “Gideon,” she said softly, “lights to 20 percent.”
The door slid closed behind her and the lights came up dimly as he made room for her to sit next to him. She set down the small bag Gideon had prepared for her and then curled up to him protectively. She draped her right arm around his shoulders and felt the tension in them. “Laurel says she’s sorry,” she told him, her voice still soft.
He nodded in silent acceptance and leaned into her. Knowing he’d talk when he was ready, she reached for his left hand with her own and wasn’t surprised when he gripped it tightly, the way he had done back in that hospital in Keystone City. He was trembling just as he had been then, relying on her as a lifeline to keep his control.
Eventually he said in a shaky voice, “I’m not mad at her. Not really. It’s just....” He paused and sighed heavily. “Old wounds.”
“And those are the hardest to heal,” Sara said knowingly. “I want to help, Len. Just tell me how.”
“You already knew that I had decades of ‘messed up’ to work through,” he said. “I’ve been trying to do it on my own for all this time. God knows that hasn’t worked.” He finally looked at her with the most vulnerable expression she’d ever seen on him. “Not even Mick knows all of it.”
She drew in a breath, realizing just how much he was trusting her. The hand on his shoulder moved to the side of his face. “I’m listening.”
He closed his right hand over the one he was already holding and looked down, as if trying to gather his thoughts. He didn’t look up as he began to speak. “I’ve been trying to bury those memories for nearly thirty years. Laurel brought them back as if they’d been through the Lazarus Pit.”
Sara winced at that and put her arm around his shoulders again. “Do you want to tell me?”
He laughed without humor. “You know, at the beginning of this trip I think I’d have rather had my fingernails pulled out than talk about my feelings. But you…” he paused as if searching for words. Then he let out a harsh sigh. “Let’s just say you deserve to know what you’re getting into with me. It’s not too late for you to back out.”
She kissed his cheek. “You know I never back out of anything. And I am not backing out of us.” She could see doubt warring with gratitude in his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He nodded in acceptance. “All right, then. You already know a little about what it was like for me in Juvie. But sometimes I think Juvie was a day at the beach compared to high school. I liked the classes, and I actually was good at school. Surprise, surprise.” He smirked a little as he said that.
“Not surprised at all,” she told him with a grin of her own. She knew just how frighteningly intelligent he really was.
“It was just about everything else that was the problem. I was still small then. Hadn’t hit my growth spurt yet, so I was still an easy target. My first week back, the football team thought it was hilarious to shove the scrawny delinquent into the lockers or trip him in the halls.”
Bitterness crept into his voice. “The cheerleaders joined the fun in the second week. One of them came up to me, told me I had pretty eyes and kissed me. My first kiss ever.” He closed his eyes, remembering. “You know, I can still taste the lip gloss she was wearing. Strawberry. So sweet.”
“I thought you hated strawberry.”
He nodded. “She followed the kiss up with a slap. My eyes were still closed, so I didn’t see it coming. She walked off, laughing with her girlfriends about it, while I stood there with my ears ringing and a red handprint on my face. Then her linebacker boyfriend showed up.” He gave her a haunted look. “Right now I’d rather not talk about what he did.”
Sara had trouble finding her voice. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I’m here for you, either way.”
He drew her hand up to his lips for a light kiss, then held it against his cheek for a long minute before lowering it and continuing. “They were clever about it, making sure nothing happened where an adult could see it. And the jocks weren’t the only ones. The ROTC guys watched me as if I was something dangerous that was about to explode. And some of the teachers…”
He leaned his head back against the wall and let out an ironic laugh. “I think my science teacher was afraid I’d go postal on his class. He wouldn’t let me touch the knives for dissecting stuff…”
“You didn’t miss much,” Sara interjected with a small smile.
He smirked a little himself. “I suppose so. I wasn’t allowed near the Bunsen burners, either. Apparently the teacher didn’t get the memo that fire was Mick’s thing, not mine.”
The slight smile dropped away as he stared at the ceiling. “So school was bad, but after school was worse. Every time I walked home, the taunting would start. At first, it was mostly the same stuff I’d heard from Lewis for years. ‘He can’t be that smart. Smart crooks don’t get caught.’ I could ignore that. Then the catcalls started getting personal, asking me when I was moving in with my old man at Iron Heights, and how many boyfriends I’d had to blow in Juvie.”
He looked back at her. “The answer to that, for the record, is none. Mick was quite the protector back then. He made sure I left Juvie as virginal as when I’d gone in.” He hesitated, then told her, “You’re the only other person besides Mick who knows that. Not even my sister knows it.”
A tear spilled over and rolled down her cheek at that confession. He reached up to brush it away, and then continued, “Then one day, a kid crossed the line. Asked me if Lisa was going to grow up to be a thief or a whore, because if it was whore he wanted to be her first trick.”
She drew in a pained breath at that. He became tense again, looking back up at the ceiling and clenching his fists. “That was the crack that made the rage boil over. I hadn’t learned how to be cold yet. That would come later, when Lewis came home from Iron Heights with lots of new techniques for hurting us. But that’s a story for another time.”
He stopped again, remembering. “That other guy with the smart mouth was nearly a foot taller than me, but Mick had taught me how to fight, and I knew how to use my small size to the best effect against a bigger guy.”
Sara nodded in understanding. The League had taught her the same tricks.
Len went on, “Somehow I held back from killing him. I guess there was still a little of the ‘Holy Innocent’ left in me at that point. I left that kid in an alley, bruised and bleeding and afraid to admit to anyone that he’d had his ass kicked by the scrawny delinquent. That was the day I was done with formal education. I never went back.”
He sighed. “But the voices keep following me. Thirty years later, I can still hear them.” He looked at her again. “Sara, that’s just part of the baggage I’m carrying around. Are you sure…”
She lunged forward to kiss him in answer, winding her arms around his neck. He stiffened a little, and she pulled back. “What did I do wrong?” she asked him.
He gently pulled her arms down, but not before she could feel a slight shudder run through him. “Sorry, Sara. Sometimes I tense up when someone’s hands or arms are around my neck. Reliving those old memories just brought it back again.”
There was that vulnerable look on his face again. Softly, he said, “You know I trust you.”
She laid one hand against his heart to feel its rapid beating. She mentally cursed Lewis Snart and everyone else who had ever hurt this man. “It means everything in the world to me that you do trust me, Len,” she said, leaning in for a soft kiss.
She ghosted both hands down to the hem of his sweater. She pulled back to look at him. “I want to take care of you. But if anything I do makes you uncomfortable, you tell me to stop.”
He put both hands over hers, pulling them away from the fabric. She felt a little pang of disappointment that must have shown on her face, because he kissed her again quickly.
“I’m not saying to stop, Sara,” he told her. “But… I need to pause for a minute because there’s something else I need to tell you.” He dropped his gaze. “This isn’t easy.”
She squeezed his hands. “Len, none of it’s been easy. But I’m still here for you, and I’m not going anywhere.”
He laughed softly. “Oh, Sara. This time it isn’t because it’s… angsty. It’s… well, it’s a little embarrassing for a man my age.” He looked back up at her. “And it’s something no one else knows. Not even Mick.”
She laid a hand against his cheek. “It’ll stay between us, whatever it is.”
He nodded and glanced up for a second, as if gathering his thoughts. Or maybe his courage. Then he took a breath and looked back at her.
“I told you that Mick made sure I left Juvie as virginal as when I went in. That…” he looked down again, and the next words came out in a whisper. “That hasn’t changed since then.”
He slowly raised his eyes back to hers, as if afraid of what he’d see in them. She leaned forward and kissed him, framing his face with her hands and letting her lips move gently against his, not trying to force anything but trying to make him understand that she accepted him, all of him, for who he was.
Even with forty years of “messed up” to work through.
He wound his arms around her, drawing her closer to deepen the kiss. When they parted, he leaned his forehead against hers. “Thank you, Sara.”
She pulled back a little. “For what?”
“For… for staying with me. For taking me as I am.”
She kissed him again lightly. “It’s no more than what you do for me. I think what you are is pretty wonderful.” One side of her mouth quirked up. “And a damned good kisser.”
He chuckled at that, and she continued, “What I don’t understand is how no one ever took you further than kissing.” At his look, she said, “No one learns to kiss like that without practice, Leonard.”
He let out a huff and leaned against the wall again, stretching out his long legs across the bed and pulling her against his side with one arm around her shoulders. “Her name was Alexa. Mick and I worked with her on a heist years ago. Our relationship… wasn’t strictly business.”
He shrugged. “Mick and I were kids back then. I’d just turned 20. She was 25 and… gorgeous. Red hair, with these green eyes that could…” He sighed. “Well, I lost my focus with her. We were going over blueprints for the Freeport warehouse, and she leaned over and kissed me. My second kiss ever.”
He looked over at Sara, who kept her expression carefully neutral. He shrugged again. “I’d been too busy learning to be a good thief up until then. And I had trouble letting anyone that close. But with her… I think I had a case of delayed adolescent hormones. Mick kept catching us necking and petting like teenagers, so I know he thinks I slept with her. But we never did get that far. Alexa wanted to save that for after the job.”
“So what did happen after the job?”
“There was no after. I started to get a bad feeling about it, because Alexa kept interrupting our planning sessions. Every time we started looking at blueprints or schedules, she’d start to kiss me, or she’d put a hand down my pants and distract me completely. But between those times, I started to think she wanted me off balance so she could double-cross us. So I pulled us out of the job. To this day, Mick doesn’t know the real reason I did it. Since then, I’ve found kissing can be a useful tool to get what I want, but I’ve never trusted anyone to get closer to me than that.”
He kissed her temple. “Until you. When I kiss you, all I want is you. All of you.” He laughed a little. “I keep telling you I’m going to be very human. And very needy.”
She moved to straddle his legs and kiss him again. “That’s okay, Len. When it comes to you, I’m also very human and very needy. Right now, I need to take care of you. Do you trust me to do that?” she asked, reaching again for the hem of his sweater.
He nodded his consent and raised his arms so she could pull the sweater off and toss it away. He stared at her intently as she looked at him. He was all lean muscle and pale skin marred by a scattering of scars. She met his eyes again. They were pretty. No, more than that. Beautiful. He was beautiful.
And she’d be damned if she let anyone give him new reasons for wearing that haunted look again, ever.
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Len couldn’t remember ever feeling as exposed as he did at that moment. Not so much because he was physically half naked, but because he was emotionally naked with Sara. For her, he’d just torn down the wall of ice he’d built over so many years to keep most people out.
He had no experience with empathy. He’d kept expecting Sara to bolt, all through his story, despite her reassurance that she wasn’t going anywhere. His fellow hard cases would have smelled blood, or at the least weakness. Best-case scenario, they’d have just walked away. Worst case could have meant his life.
Sara had amazed him. No walking away, no look of scorn for his weakness. Instead, she gazed at him with soft eyes that sometimes filled with tears. No one had ever wept for him before. Not even Lisa. Seeing that had given him a feeling he’d never experienced in his life, and he wasn’t sure what to call it. He just knew that it made him feel full to bursting.
Now Sara was watching him again with those soft eyes that showed some pain as she noted his scars. But no disgust or ridicule. And no pity, either, which was good. He didn’t want pity. Alexa had looked at him with pity, the one time she’d gotten him to take off his shirt, before his sixth sense had started screaming at him.
Sara’s gaze was simply one of acceptance.
She leaned forward to kiss him again, her mouth brushing softly against his. The taste was sweeter than strawberries. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” she whispered when they parted.
He reached up to touch her face. “That I must be dreaming, to have you here, like this. I think you’d better pinch me.”
Her mouth twitched a little. “I was thinking of much nicer ways to touch you.” She smoothed her warm hands over his bare shoulders in demonstration.
“Hmm.” He moved for another kiss. “Sara, if you really want this with me…”
“I do,” she reassured him.
“Then do we need…”
“All taken care of,” she told him. “Gideon has been very helpful. She says we’re both clean, and she gave me a 22nd -century contraceptive, so no worries about adding extra little passengers. And that’s not all she did for us.”
She reached for the little bag she’d brought in and told him, “Lie down. On your stomach.”
He quirked an eyebrow at her and complied. “What are you up to, Sara?”
“Taking care of you,” she replied. “Close your eyes.”
“All right, anything you say. I defer to the voice of experience.” He closed his eyes.
She stilled at that. “That doesn’t… that doesn’t bother you, does it?”
Surprised by the hesitance in her voice, he opened one eye to look at her. She was looking at him uncertainly. He opened the other eye and moved to his side so he could reach up to caress her face. “No, Sara. It doesn’t bother me. What happened between you and Queen eventually led you here. And what happened between you and… anyone else… is part of what makes you the amazing woman you are.”
She leaned down for a quick kiss. Then he rolled back onto his stomach and closed his eyes again. He felt her slide off the bed, and heard some quiet movements. Then she climbed back on the bed beside him. She whispered into his ear, “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want. If you get uncomfortable or nervous, you tell me to stop.”
The feel of her warm breath in his ear was making him tingle. “I trust you, Sara.”
She kissed his ear and shifted on the bed. After a moment, he smelled something herbal, and felt a warm liquid on his back. He identified it as massage oil when Sara laid her hands on him again. “A little gift from Gideon. You were so angry before, I thought you’d need something to relax a bit.”
“Not too much, though,” he replied.
“Not too much,” she agreed. She was rubbing patterns on his shoulders, alternating between firm and soft pressure. He let out a low groan of delight as she moved down his back, tracing his spine slowly. When she reached the waistband of his jeans, she paused. “Okay so far?”
“More than okay,” he purred. “Fantastic. Don’t stop.”
She chuckled. “All right, then. Pants off.”
“Hmmm. A little bossy, aren’t we?” he asked. He opened his eyes as he started to roll over, and caught his breath. Sara had already stripped down to just a lacy black bra and matching panties, her golden hair cascading around her shoulders. He just stared at her for a while, marveling that he was being given such a gift. Finally he whispered hoarsely, “You are so beautiful, Sara.”
She smiled at him softly. “So are you.” She leaned down to kiss him again, then poked his arm. “Pants.”
He smirked and slid off the bed to shuck off his jeans and socks, leaving on only his shorts, which did little to hide his growing arousal. He looked back at Sara. She was studying him, her eyes running up his body before locking with his eyes. “Alexa was an idiot,” she told him.
He chuckled as he knelt on the bed to kiss her, putting his arms around her as she laid her hands on his chest. She gave him a little push to lie down again, this time flat on his back.
“I’m not done taking care of you,” she told him. “Close your eyes.”
He shook his head. “I want to watch you.”
A smile curved her lips. “Okay.” She reached for the bottle of massage oil and began to give his front side the same loving attention she’d lavished on his back. Despite his best efforts to watch her, his eyes fluttered closed in pleasure as she straddled him and skimmed her hands over his nipples. He let out a moan, and his hips jerked up so that his erection pressed against her while he smoothed his own hands over the soft skin of her thighs.
She leaned down and kissed him again with an open mouth, her tongue sliding against his briefly before she worked her way across his jaw to his ear. “Patience,” she whispered, giving his ear a little nibble.
He made a sound between a chuckle and a groan as she straightened up and began running her hands over him again, moving lower down his abdomen. When she reached the tender skin just under his navel, he drew in a shuddering, moaning breath.
She stopped her movements and waited for him to look at her again. “Are you still all right?”
He sat back up and crushed her to him for a deep kiss, tongues clashing, breath mingling hotly. When they finally had to part for air, he pressed his forehead against hers and said in a rough voice, “I’m more than all right, Sara. This is just… not what I’m used to. Alexa… Alexa never asked what I was feeling. I’m not used to someone… caring so much.”
Now it was her turn to take a quivering breath. Amazing how the look in her eyes could change so quickly from playful to that soft, soulful gaze. He kissed her again, his tongue tracing the seam of her lips and teasing them open. He reached around her back to unhook her bra, and pulled away so she could slide it off.
They shifted so she could lay on her back, her hair spread against the pillow. Gazing at her, he decided he wanted nothing between his skin and hers, and he moved to pull off his shorts. She did the same with her panties, leaving her beautifully, enticingly naked beside him.
If he were still the wet-behind-the-ears youngster he’d been with Alexa, he would just sink into Sara, hard and hot and fast. But he was old enough to have an appreciation for beautiful things, and Sara was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He wanted to take his time to enjoy her.
To make love to her.
He leaned on one elbow beside her, tracing his free hand over her skin. His lips soon followed, first targeting her throat, then moving to the spot where her neck and collarbone met. She purred with approval at the contact, encouraging him to go on, touching and kissing and licking his way down to her breasts, guided by instinct. He cupped one with one hand, gently squeezing and kneading while he suckled the other breast, tasting salt and sweet and Sara.
From the sounds she was making, instinct was steering him the right way. He trailed kisses from one breast to the other, circling her nipple with his tongue and drawing it into his mouth. He skimmed his hand along her side, making her giggle. Ticklish. He filed that away for later as his hand moved toward her hip and his lips moved back up to hers.
When his long fingers grazed between her legs and felt the dampness there, she gasped into his mouth and jerked her hips. He pulled back to look into her eyes. “Are you all right, Sara?”
She dimpled. “More than all right, and more than ready for you… if you’re ready for me.”
He smiled, kissing her again. “Oh, yes.”
They shifted so he could settle between her legs. He held her eyes as he entered her, slowly and gently until they were fully joined. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back at the sensation of being surrounded by her warmth. He’d dreamed of this so often since meeting Sara, but the reality was so much more than he’d ever imagined.
He looked back down at her. She moaned and rocked her hips a little to encourage him to move.
He pulled back and started a rhythm of slow thrusts, again going on instinct. His lips went back to that spot on her neck, while her hands moved along his back, her nails scratching the skin lightly as they went up, and the pads of her fingers soothing the way back down.
She was whispering his name, and other words he couldn’t understand. Some other language. He’d ask after. Right now, he needed to feel her lips on his again, to taste her mouth.
He moved up the column of her neck. Before descending on her lips again, he stilled the movement of his lower body, buried completely in her, and looked into her eyes. He felt his heart turn over at what he saw there. Lust, yes, and desire, but mixed with that soft gaze.
“I love you, Leonard,” she said quietly.
His heart swelled with that emotion he hadn’t been able to name before. He knew what it was now. “I love you, Sara,” he whispered, and sealed his mouth to hers.
He began to move within her again, faster now, instinct urging him toward completion. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly, and then wrapped her legs around his waist. She broke their kiss and cried out as she went over the edge, her muscles clamping around him. His vision turned white as he followed with a shout.
The next thing he knew, he was collapsed on top of her, feeling sated and happy and… loved. Her hands were running up and down his back once again. He gave her a soft kiss and moved off her, lying on his side. She turned to face him, propping her head on one hand and looking at him with a smile.
“If you can do that now, I can’t wait until we get some more practice.”
He chuckled and rolled to his back, pulling her down to pillow her head on his shoulder. She draped one leg over his, and laid one hand over his heart. He put his own hand over hers and kissed her hair.
“No one’s ever said they loved me before,” he said softly.
She kissed his shoulder. “Get used to it,” she said playfully. “You’re going to hear it often from me.” She reached up to touch his face. “You should hear it often. Under that cold front of yours, there’s a good man who deserves to be loved.”
No one had ever told him that before, either. “I’m not good, Sara. You know the things I’ve done.”
She moved to kiss him. “It doesn’t matter where you came from. It matters where you’re going. Remember? You’re making new choices, and I still want to be around to see where those choices take you.”
He nodded. “And I still want you to be around.” He took her hand and laid it back over his heart. Sleep was going to claim him soon, but there was one more thing he wanted to know.
“Sara, you were saying something I didn’t understand. It sounded like another language. What was it?”
She smiled a little. “It was Arabic. Enta habibi. You are my love. Enta hayati. You are my life. Habib alby. Love of my heart.” She kissed him one more time. “You are all of those things, but most of all, hayati.”
She rested her head against his chest, her hand rubbing a gentle circle over his heart. He wrapped his arms around her to hold her more closely, and thought about what she’d said.
Hayati. He was her life.
Just as she had become his.
He drifted to sleep with that thought.
FANDOM: DC’s Legends of Tomorrow
RATING: Explicit
PAIRING: Len/Sara
SERIES: “Lost and Found”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is an AU of an AU. On Tumblr, winterandmistletoe asked for a virgin Leonard fic. What came to my mind was a reworking of “A Basic Human Need” from my “Lost and Found” continuity. That was a first time fic with a sexually experienced Leonard Snart. Her prompt made me think about how it might have gone if the particularly damaged Leonard I’d created in “Little Boy Lost” was not experienced.
This version is a re-visioning of chapters 2&3 of “A Basic Human Need,” in which the resurrected Laurel Lance is not-quite-approving of her sister’s new boyfriend, and unwittingly opens some old wounds. You don’t need to have read the original fic (but I’d be delighted if you did).
I still don’t own the characters. My hopes to run away and join a comic book show at Comic-Con 2016 didn’t come to fruition.
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She found him in his room, in the darkness. In the light from the corridor, she could see that he’d taken his boots and jacket off, and left them scattered across the floor. She knew Len was normally obsessively neat. Even a minor mess was a sure sign of inner turmoil.
He was sitting on his bed, his back against the wall, his legs drawn up so he could rest his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “Gideon,” she said softly, “lights to 20 percent.”
The door slid closed behind her and the lights came up dimly as he made room for her to sit next to him. She set down the small bag Gideon had prepared for her and then curled up to him protectively. She draped her right arm around his shoulders and felt the tension in them. “Laurel says she’s sorry,” she told him, her voice still soft.
He nodded in silent acceptance and leaned into her. Knowing he’d talk when he was ready, she reached for his left hand with her own and wasn’t surprised when he gripped it tightly, the way he had done back in that hospital in Keystone City. He was trembling just as he had been then, relying on her as a lifeline to keep his control.
Eventually he said in a shaky voice, “I’m not mad at her. Not really. It’s just....” He paused and sighed heavily. “Old wounds.”
“And those are the hardest to heal,” Sara said knowingly. “I want to help, Len. Just tell me how.”
“You already knew that I had decades of ‘messed up’ to work through,” he said. “I’ve been trying to do it on my own for all this time. God knows that hasn’t worked.” He finally looked at her with the most vulnerable expression she’d ever seen on him. “Not even Mick knows all of it.”
She drew in a breath, realizing just how much he was trusting her. The hand on his shoulder moved to the side of his face. “I’m listening.”
He closed his right hand over the one he was already holding and looked down, as if trying to gather his thoughts. He didn’t look up as he began to speak. “I’ve been trying to bury those memories for nearly thirty years. Laurel brought them back as if they’d been through the Lazarus Pit.”
Sara winced at that and put her arm around his shoulders again. “Do you want to tell me?”
He laughed without humor. “You know, at the beginning of this trip I think I’d have rather had my fingernails pulled out than talk about my feelings. But you…” he paused as if searching for words. Then he let out a harsh sigh. “Let’s just say you deserve to know what you’re getting into with me. It’s not too late for you to back out.”
She kissed his cheek. “You know I never back out of anything. And I am not backing out of us.” She could see doubt warring with gratitude in his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He nodded in acceptance. “All right, then. You already know a little about what it was like for me in Juvie. But sometimes I think Juvie was a day at the beach compared to high school. I liked the classes, and I actually was good at school. Surprise, surprise.” He smirked a little as he said that.
“Not surprised at all,” she told him with a grin of her own. She knew just how frighteningly intelligent he really was.
“It was just about everything else that was the problem. I was still small then. Hadn’t hit my growth spurt yet, so I was still an easy target. My first week back, the football team thought it was hilarious to shove the scrawny delinquent into the lockers or trip him in the halls.”
Bitterness crept into his voice. “The cheerleaders joined the fun in the second week. One of them came up to me, told me I had pretty eyes and kissed me. My first kiss ever.” He closed his eyes, remembering. “You know, I can still taste the lip gloss she was wearing. Strawberry. So sweet.”
“I thought you hated strawberry.”
He nodded. “She followed the kiss up with a slap. My eyes were still closed, so I didn’t see it coming. She walked off, laughing with her girlfriends about it, while I stood there with my ears ringing and a red handprint on my face. Then her linebacker boyfriend showed up.” He gave her a haunted look. “Right now I’d rather not talk about what he did.”
Sara had trouble finding her voice. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I’m here for you, either way.”
He drew her hand up to his lips for a light kiss, then held it against his cheek for a long minute before lowering it and continuing. “They were clever about it, making sure nothing happened where an adult could see it. And the jocks weren’t the only ones. The ROTC guys watched me as if I was something dangerous that was about to explode. And some of the teachers…”
He leaned his head back against the wall and let out an ironic laugh. “I think my science teacher was afraid I’d go postal on his class. He wouldn’t let me touch the knives for dissecting stuff…”
“You didn’t miss much,” Sara interjected with a small smile.
He smirked a little himself. “I suppose so. I wasn’t allowed near the Bunsen burners, either. Apparently the teacher didn’t get the memo that fire was Mick’s thing, not mine.”
The slight smile dropped away as he stared at the ceiling. “So school was bad, but after school was worse. Every time I walked home, the taunting would start. At first, it was mostly the same stuff I’d heard from Lewis for years. ‘He can’t be that smart. Smart crooks don’t get caught.’ I could ignore that. Then the catcalls started getting personal, asking me when I was moving in with my old man at Iron Heights, and how many boyfriends I’d had to blow in Juvie.”
He looked back at her. “The answer to that, for the record, is none. Mick was quite the protector back then. He made sure I left Juvie as virginal as when I’d gone in.” He hesitated, then told her, “You’re the only other person besides Mick who knows that. Not even my sister knows it.”
A tear spilled over and rolled down her cheek at that confession. He reached up to brush it away, and then continued, “Then one day, a kid crossed the line. Asked me if Lisa was going to grow up to be a thief or a whore, because if it was whore he wanted to be her first trick.”
She drew in a pained breath at that. He became tense again, looking back up at the ceiling and clenching his fists. “That was the crack that made the rage boil over. I hadn’t learned how to be cold yet. That would come later, when Lewis came home from Iron Heights with lots of new techniques for hurting us. But that’s a story for another time.”
He stopped again, remembering. “That other guy with the smart mouth was nearly a foot taller than me, but Mick had taught me how to fight, and I knew how to use my small size to the best effect against a bigger guy.”
Sara nodded in understanding. The League had taught her the same tricks.
Len went on, “Somehow I held back from killing him. I guess there was still a little of the ‘Holy Innocent’ left in me at that point. I left that kid in an alley, bruised and bleeding and afraid to admit to anyone that he’d had his ass kicked by the scrawny delinquent. That was the day I was done with formal education. I never went back.”
He sighed. “But the voices keep following me. Thirty years later, I can still hear them.” He looked at her again. “Sara, that’s just part of the baggage I’m carrying around. Are you sure…”
She lunged forward to kiss him in answer, winding her arms around his neck. He stiffened a little, and she pulled back. “What did I do wrong?” she asked him.
He gently pulled her arms down, but not before she could feel a slight shudder run through him. “Sorry, Sara. Sometimes I tense up when someone’s hands or arms are around my neck. Reliving those old memories just brought it back again.”
There was that vulnerable look on his face again. Softly, he said, “You know I trust you.”
She laid one hand against his heart to feel its rapid beating. She mentally cursed Lewis Snart and everyone else who had ever hurt this man. “It means everything in the world to me that you do trust me, Len,” she said, leaning in for a soft kiss.
She ghosted both hands down to the hem of his sweater. She pulled back to look at him. “I want to take care of you. But if anything I do makes you uncomfortable, you tell me to stop.”
He put both hands over hers, pulling them away from the fabric. She felt a little pang of disappointment that must have shown on her face, because he kissed her again quickly.
“I’m not saying to stop, Sara,” he told her. “But… I need to pause for a minute because there’s something else I need to tell you.” He dropped his gaze. “This isn’t easy.”
She squeezed his hands. “Len, none of it’s been easy. But I’m still here for you, and I’m not going anywhere.”
He laughed softly. “Oh, Sara. This time it isn’t because it’s… angsty. It’s… well, it’s a little embarrassing for a man my age.” He looked back up at her. “And it’s something no one else knows. Not even Mick.”
She laid a hand against his cheek. “It’ll stay between us, whatever it is.”
He nodded and glanced up for a second, as if gathering his thoughts. Or maybe his courage. Then he took a breath and looked back at her.
“I told you that Mick made sure I left Juvie as virginal as when I went in. That…” he looked down again, and the next words came out in a whisper. “That hasn’t changed since then.”
He slowly raised his eyes back to hers, as if afraid of what he’d see in them. She leaned forward and kissed him, framing his face with her hands and letting her lips move gently against his, not trying to force anything but trying to make him understand that she accepted him, all of him, for who he was.
Even with forty years of “messed up” to work through.
He wound his arms around her, drawing her closer to deepen the kiss. When they parted, he leaned his forehead against hers. “Thank you, Sara.”
She pulled back a little. “For what?”
“For… for staying with me. For taking me as I am.”
She kissed him again lightly. “It’s no more than what you do for me. I think what you are is pretty wonderful.” One side of her mouth quirked up. “And a damned good kisser.”
He chuckled at that, and she continued, “What I don’t understand is how no one ever took you further than kissing.” At his look, she said, “No one learns to kiss like that without practice, Leonard.”
He let out a huff and leaned against the wall again, stretching out his long legs across the bed and pulling her against his side with one arm around her shoulders. “Her name was Alexa. Mick and I worked with her on a heist years ago. Our relationship… wasn’t strictly business.”
He shrugged. “Mick and I were kids back then. I’d just turned 20. She was 25 and… gorgeous. Red hair, with these green eyes that could…” He sighed. “Well, I lost my focus with her. We were going over blueprints for the Freeport warehouse, and she leaned over and kissed me. My second kiss ever.”
He looked over at Sara, who kept her expression carefully neutral. He shrugged again. “I’d been too busy learning to be a good thief up until then. And I had trouble letting anyone that close. But with her… I think I had a case of delayed adolescent hormones. Mick kept catching us necking and petting like teenagers, so I know he thinks I slept with her. But we never did get that far. Alexa wanted to save that for after the job.”
“So what did happen after the job?”
“There was no after. I started to get a bad feeling about it, because Alexa kept interrupting our planning sessions. Every time we started looking at blueprints or schedules, she’d start to kiss me, or she’d put a hand down my pants and distract me completely. But between those times, I started to think she wanted me off balance so she could double-cross us. So I pulled us out of the job. To this day, Mick doesn’t know the real reason I did it. Since then, I’ve found kissing can be a useful tool to get what I want, but I’ve never trusted anyone to get closer to me than that.”
He kissed her temple. “Until you. When I kiss you, all I want is you. All of you.” He laughed a little. “I keep telling you I’m going to be very human. And very needy.”
She moved to straddle his legs and kiss him again. “That’s okay, Len. When it comes to you, I’m also very human and very needy. Right now, I need to take care of you. Do you trust me to do that?” she asked, reaching again for the hem of his sweater.
He nodded his consent and raised his arms so she could pull the sweater off and toss it away. He stared at her intently as she looked at him. He was all lean muscle and pale skin marred by a scattering of scars. She met his eyes again. They were pretty. No, more than that. Beautiful. He was beautiful.
And she’d be damned if she let anyone give him new reasons for wearing that haunted look again, ever.
--------
Len couldn’t remember ever feeling as exposed as he did at that moment. Not so much because he was physically half naked, but because he was emotionally naked with Sara. For her, he’d just torn down the wall of ice he’d built over so many years to keep most people out.
He had no experience with empathy. He’d kept expecting Sara to bolt, all through his story, despite her reassurance that she wasn’t going anywhere. His fellow hard cases would have smelled blood, or at the least weakness. Best-case scenario, they’d have just walked away. Worst case could have meant his life.
Sara had amazed him. No walking away, no look of scorn for his weakness. Instead, she gazed at him with soft eyes that sometimes filled with tears. No one had ever wept for him before. Not even Lisa. Seeing that had given him a feeling he’d never experienced in his life, and he wasn’t sure what to call it. He just knew that it made him feel full to bursting.
Now Sara was watching him again with those soft eyes that showed some pain as she noted his scars. But no disgust or ridicule. And no pity, either, which was good. He didn’t want pity. Alexa had looked at him with pity, the one time she’d gotten him to take off his shirt, before his sixth sense had started screaming at him.
Sara’s gaze was simply one of acceptance.
She leaned forward to kiss him again, her mouth brushing softly against his. The taste was sweeter than strawberries. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” she whispered when they parted.
He reached up to touch her face. “That I must be dreaming, to have you here, like this. I think you’d better pinch me.”
Her mouth twitched a little. “I was thinking of much nicer ways to touch you.” She smoothed her warm hands over his bare shoulders in demonstration.
“Hmm.” He moved for another kiss. “Sara, if you really want this with me…”
“I do,” she reassured him.
“Then do we need…”
“All taken care of,” she told him. “Gideon has been very helpful. She says we’re both clean, and she gave me a 22nd -century contraceptive, so no worries about adding extra little passengers. And that’s not all she did for us.”
She reached for the little bag she’d brought in and told him, “Lie down. On your stomach.”
He quirked an eyebrow at her and complied. “What are you up to, Sara?”
“Taking care of you,” she replied. “Close your eyes.”
“All right, anything you say. I defer to the voice of experience.” He closed his eyes.
She stilled at that. “That doesn’t… that doesn’t bother you, does it?”
Surprised by the hesitance in her voice, he opened one eye to look at her. She was looking at him uncertainly. He opened the other eye and moved to his side so he could reach up to caress her face. “No, Sara. It doesn’t bother me. What happened between you and Queen eventually led you here. And what happened between you and… anyone else… is part of what makes you the amazing woman you are.”
She leaned down for a quick kiss. Then he rolled back onto his stomach and closed his eyes again. He felt her slide off the bed, and heard some quiet movements. Then she climbed back on the bed beside him. She whispered into his ear, “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want. If you get uncomfortable or nervous, you tell me to stop.”
The feel of her warm breath in his ear was making him tingle. “I trust you, Sara.”
She kissed his ear and shifted on the bed. After a moment, he smelled something herbal, and felt a warm liquid on his back. He identified it as massage oil when Sara laid her hands on him again. “A little gift from Gideon. You were so angry before, I thought you’d need something to relax a bit.”
“Not too much, though,” he replied.
“Not too much,” she agreed. She was rubbing patterns on his shoulders, alternating between firm and soft pressure. He let out a low groan of delight as she moved down his back, tracing his spine slowly. When she reached the waistband of his jeans, she paused. “Okay so far?”
“More than okay,” he purred. “Fantastic. Don’t stop.”
She chuckled. “All right, then. Pants off.”
“Hmmm. A little bossy, aren’t we?” he asked. He opened his eyes as he started to roll over, and caught his breath. Sara had already stripped down to just a lacy black bra and matching panties, her golden hair cascading around her shoulders. He just stared at her for a while, marveling that he was being given such a gift. Finally he whispered hoarsely, “You are so beautiful, Sara.”
She smiled at him softly. “So are you.” She leaned down to kiss him again, then poked his arm. “Pants.”
He smirked and slid off the bed to shuck off his jeans and socks, leaving on only his shorts, which did little to hide his growing arousal. He looked back at Sara. She was studying him, her eyes running up his body before locking with his eyes. “Alexa was an idiot,” she told him.
He chuckled as he knelt on the bed to kiss her, putting his arms around her as she laid her hands on his chest. She gave him a little push to lie down again, this time flat on his back.
“I’m not done taking care of you,” she told him. “Close your eyes.”
He shook his head. “I want to watch you.”
A smile curved her lips. “Okay.” She reached for the bottle of massage oil and began to give his front side the same loving attention she’d lavished on his back. Despite his best efforts to watch her, his eyes fluttered closed in pleasure as she straddled him and skimmed her hands over his nipples. He let out a moan, and his hips jerked up so that his erection pressed against her while he smoothed his own hands over the soft skin of her thighs.
She leaned down and kissed him again with an open mouth, her tongue sliding against his briefly before she worked her way across his jaw to his ear. “Patience,” she whispered, giving his ear a little nibble.
He made a sound between a chuckle and a groan as she straightened up and began running her hands over him again, moving lower down his abdomen. When she reached the tender skin just under his navel, he drew in a shuddering, moaning breath.
She stopped her movements and waited for him to look at her again. “Are you still all right?”
He sat back up and crushed her to him for a deep kiss, tongues clashing, breath mingling hotly. When they finally had to part for air, he pressed his forehead against hers and said in a rough voice, “I’m more than all right, Sara. This is just… not what I’m used to. Alexa… Alexa never asked what I was feeling. I’m not used to someone… caring so much.”
Now it was her turn to take a quivering breath. Amazing how the look in her eyes could change so quickly from playful to that soft, soulful gaze. He kissed her again, his tongue tracing the seam of her lips and teasing them open. He reached around her back to unhook her bra, and pulled away so she could slide it off.
They shifted so she could lay on her back, her hair spread against the pillow. Gazing at her, he decided he wanted nothing between his skin and hers, and he moved to pull off his shorts. She did the same with her panties, leaving her beautifully, enticingly naked beside him.
If he were still the wet-behind-the-ears youngster he’d been with Alexa, he would just sink into Sara, hard and hot and fast. But he was old enough to have an appreciation for beautiful things, and Sara was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He wanted to take his time to enjoy her.
To make love to her.
He leaned on one elbow beside her, tracing his free hand over her skin. His lips soon followed, first targeting her throat, then moving to the spot where her neck and collarbone met. She purred with approval at the contact, encouraging him to go on, touching and kissing and licking his way down to her breasts, guided by instinct. He cupped one with one hand, gently squeezing and kneading while he suckled the other breast, tasting salt and sweet and Sara.
From the sounds she was making, instinct was steering him the right way. He trailed kisses from one breast to the other, circling her nipple with his tongue and drawing it into his mouth. He skimmed his hand along her side, making her giggle. Ticklish. He filed that away for later as his hand moved toward her hip and his lips moved back up to hers.
When his long fingers grazed between her legs and felt the dampness there, she gasped into his mouth and jerked her hips. He pulled back to look into her eyes. “Are you all right, Sara?”
She dimpled. “More than all right, and more than ready for you… if you’re ready for me.”
He smiled, kissing her again. “Oh, yes.”
They shifted so he could settle between her legs. He held her eyes as he entered her, slowly and gently until they were fully joined. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back at the sensation of being surrounded by her warmth. He’d dreamed of this so often since meeting Sara, but the reality was so much more than he’d ever imagined.
He looked back down at her. She moaned and rocked her hips a little to encourage him to move.
He pulled back and started a rhythm of slow thrusts, again going on instinct. His lips went back to that spot on her neck, while her hands moved along his back, her nails scratching the skin lightly as they went up, and the pads of her fingers soothing the way back down.
She was whispering his name, and other words he couldn’t understand. Some other language. He’d ask after. Right now, he needed to feel her lips on his again, to taste her mouth.
He moved up the column of her neck. Before descending on her lips again, he stilled the movement of his lower body, buried completely in her, and looked into her eyes. He felt his heart turn over at what he saw there. Lust, yes, and desire, but mixed with that soft gaze.
“I love you, Leonard,” she said quietly.
His heart swelled with that emotion he hadn’t been able to name before. He knew what it was now. “I love you, Sara,” he whispered, and sealed his mouth to hers.
He began to move within her again, faster now, instinct urging him toward completion. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly, and then wrapped her legs around his waist. She broke their kiss and cried out as she went over the edge, her muscles clamping around him. His vision turned white as he followed with a shout.
The next thing he knew, he was collapsed on top of her, feeling sated and happy and… loved. Her hands were running up and down his back once again. He gave her a soft kiss and moved off her, lying on his side. She turned to face him, propping her head on one hand and looking at him with a smile.
“If you can do that now, I can’t wait until we get some more practice.”
He chuckled and rolled to his back, pulling her down to pillow her head on his shoulder. She draped one leg over his, and laid one hand over his heart. He put his own hand over hers and kissed her hair.
“No one’s ever said they loved me before,” he said softly.
She kissed his shoulder. “Get used to it,” she said playfully. “You’re going to hear it often from me.” She reached up to touch his face. “You should hear it often. Under that cold front of yours, there’s a good man who deserves to be loved.”
No one had ever told him that before, either. “I’m not good, Sara. You know the things I’ve done.”
She moved to kiss him. “It doesn’t matter where you came from. It matters where you’re going. Remember? You’re making new choices, and I still want to be around to see where those choices take you.”
He nodded. “And I still want you to be around.” He took her hand and laid it back over his heart. Sleep was going to claim him soon, but there was one more thing he wanted to know.
“Sara, you were saying something I didn’t understand. It sounded like another language. What was it?”
She smiled a little. “It was Arabic. Enta habibi. You are my love. Enta hayati. You are my life. Habib alby. Love of my heart.” She kissed him one more time. “You are all of those things, but most of all, hayati.”
She rested her head against his chest, her hand rubbing a gentle circle over his heart. He wrapped his arms around her to hold her more closely, and thought about what she’d said.
Hayati. He was her life.
Just as she had become his.
He drifted to sleep with that thought.