Coming Home - aka Feelings are Stupid

[bringstheheat]

Beginning from here


Nothing makes sense.
Nothing.

Two hours ago everything had been fine. At least what passed as "fine" when you were a Legend. Weird temporal pockets of time and space and the itch in the back of his head where memories of Chronos were buried desperate to figure out what this place was and how long they were stuck there.

Now Leonard is alive, he had somehow managed to spontaneously catch on fire and damage his clothes but not himself.

Confusion and shock are ruthlessly shoved away once the expression on his partner's face registers. At Sara's suggestion he sits, but not on the couch, not on anything that might go up in smoke again. Mick pulls what's left of his jacket on again, doing his best to cover up those scars before reaching out to close a hand around Len's ankle. Nothing confining. Nothing that would jar him. Just a touch. A grounding hand to give him something to focus on again.

"I don't know how it happened. Or why." A puzzled glance in her direction. "I was in Keystone when STAR Labs went up, couldn't be the same thing that made those other metas." And while time travel has it's side effects, he's never heard of anything as radical as this.

Comments

[icejacking]

Leonard is miles away, replaying memories like movies in front of his eyes, throwing a lot of things he thought he buried painfully out into the open. Maybe it's a side-effect of being brought back to life somehow, to being brought to this place where time is fractured. Maybe something in him has broken apart and come loose too. There's a lot on his plate, a lot running through his mind between the accusations and realizations and despite how he can normally keep it all in check, its just not happening.

That hand on his ankle is meant to be a comfort, but it's too warm, almost like it's burning him. It pulls him sharply back into reality though, even if it makes him hiss and flinch and pull his ankle out of Mick's touch. He squeezes his eyes shut to push aside the demonic visage of a Mick on flames, bursting through a wall of fire to find him, to kill him, to burn him alive. He shakes that imagery free and drinks down another hefty swig of whiskey. He actually ends up swallowing too much, too fast and it burns him too quick like swallowing fire. He coughs and sputters and his head swims around from it. When he catches his breath he feels the warm relief of the alcohol and ignoring much of whats happening around him he has yet another swig before setting the bottle on the ground.

He's not used to drinking this heavily and he's thankful that he's somewhat of a lightweight because the deafening noise and the racing of his thoughts slows to molasses. He has clarity and peace washing over him as his limbs grow heavy and his eyes glaze over from the alcohol punch to his system. It's a glorious relief.