#but len's offering him a clean shirt from upstairs and barry's mouth is saying yes for him before he can stop himself

[lady-divine-writes]

Coldflash - A “Cover Up” one-shot - “The Snowflake Tattoo” (Rated NC17)

On one of Len's trips to 2016, Len asks Barry for a special favor ... he just doesn't make it all that easy for Barry to give it to him. (4759 words)

So this takes place at some point before the epilogue of the original story. It shows Barry giving Len his snowflake tattoo, and Len giving Barry his pinkie ring. It's also a prelude, a bit of foreshadowing, for the sequel that I'm writing that I hope to have up soon. There is also a nod to @crimsondomingo fic "Unexpected Ink" in here. For those of you who haven't read her fic, let's just say that Barry was originally going to threaten Len with a Tweety Bird tattoo xD Warning for Len giving Barry a handie at an inappropriate time, and a little bit of angst.

Read on AO3.

“Where is he? Where is he? Where is he? Where is he?” Barry mutters, pacing through his mostly empty shop. He picks up pieces of trash, and wipes down work stations as he passes them by regardless of if they’re dirty or not, keeping himself busy to keep from going insane.

“Who?” Molly, working late putting the finishing touches on a full sleeve, asks. She smirks as Barry obsessively tidies up her station, collecting stained paper towels and empty dye cups. “Your man?”

“No,” Barry responds without thinking, then quickly backpedals. “Well, yes, but I’m referring to my next client.” He spits the two words out like they’re tacks on his tongue. “Apparently some guy called last minute and somebody squeezed him in.” He glares at his receptionist, Colette, sitting behind her counter, calmly reading a current issue of Inked.

“Not my fault,” she claims, licking her fingers and flipping the page. Barry decides at that moment that that issue is going home with her. “He was very persuasive.”

“Oh yeah?” Barry turns up the wattage on his glare but he can’t keep it up. He doesn’t get miffed at his staff too often, or for too long. They work too hard, they support him no matter what, and besides – he’s too excited to be angry. “What exactly did he say?”

“I said,” a voice booms from the front door, one that has Colette grinning and Barry’s eyes widening before it speaks another word, “if you give me the last time slot, you’ll probably get a bonus.”

“Len?” Barry spins so quickly, he looks like a smear of red shirt, brown pants, and blue Converse. The moment he sees Len, Barry’s eyes light up – literally. Len can swear he sees a crackle behind them, like bottled lightning bubbling underneath. It has to be the time sickness, Len thinks. His vision’s been kind of shifty the entire walk over. He still can’t manage those jumps without getting a colossal headache. They last a few hours sometimes. That has to explain this. He’s seeing things. “You’re here!”

“Yeah, Red.” Len falls backward a step with an oof when Barry leaps into his arms. The nickname is recent - a nod to Barry’s obsession with the color red. Half of the t-shirts he owns are red … and most of his underwear. “I’m here.”

Barry doesn’t give Len the chance to say another word, fitting his mouth over his boyfriend’s while Len slides a hand underneath Barry’s ass for a gratuitous squeeze. And that’s it – the universe around them disappears. Evaporates completely away. Wrapped up in each other’s arms, lost in their own world, Barry and Len don’t hear the tittering of two employees and a customer watching them with rolled eyes and bitten lips.

“I missed you, big guy,” Barry murmurs into Len’s mouth.

“I missed you, too, Red.” Len’s eyes shift to the side, peering around Barry’s body when a titter turns into a snort. “Uh … do you think we can be alone?”

“What? Oh.” Barry snickers like he genuinely forgot that anyone else was still around. “Hey, Moll?” he calls over his shoulder, but he doesn’t let that stop him from kissing Len’s mouth and chin. “You almost done?”

“Just finished, boss,” she says. “I’m taping up now.”

“Good. When you’re done, I want everybody out.”

“Don’t you want us to stay and help you clean up?” Colette teases. Right. Like she ever cleans.

“No,” Barry says. “Just go.”

“Are you sure?”

Barry snaps his head to the side and raises his voice. “Do you want that bonus or not?”

“I’m going, I’m going.” She rushes past in mere seconds with her coat already on and buttoned to the neck. “Have a nice night you two.”

“Oh, we will.” Len winks, but at Barry, not at her.

Molly’s customer follows, leaving with an uncomfortable nod and a wave for the two men wrapped around one another without a care in the world. Finally Molly, rushing for the door, tossing the sleeves of her jacket over her arms as she goes.

“Bye, Barry. Bye, Len.”

“Bye, Molly,” they both manage to mutter, but not all the words together, and not at the same time. Len may have said bye, and Barry may have added Molly, but no one knows. Len hears Molly pull down the gate, and with the click of a padlock, they’re completely alone.

“So,” Barry says as Len returns his feet to the floor, “you wanna go upstairs? Grab a bite?”

“In a bit.” Len resists (with superhuman willpower) that suggestive whisper of Barry’s. Barry wields it with the most innocuous of phrases, turning them into seductive sentences. “But not yet.”

Barry frowns, but he’s more wary than disappointed. As eager as Len always sounds to talk to him while he’s away, Barry knows this long-distance relationship must be hard on him. It’s hard on Barry. Barry has no intention of giving up, but what if, someday, Len decides it’s too difficult on his end to continue? They may have only been seeing each other for a relatively short time, but time means nothing to them. It feels like they’ve known one another forever … and Barry’s not ready to say goodbye. “Is … is something wrong?”

“No. Not at all.” Len gives Barry’s ass another reassuring squeeze. “I was just going to ask for a favor.”

“Oh. Okay.” Barry sounds slightly more relieved, but also slightly more confused. “What’s the favor?”

“Can I get another tattoo?”

Barry’s lips split into a grin so blissful, it stutters Len’s heartbeat. “Really? You want another one?”

“Yup.” Len loves his dragon more than anything he’s ever owned, even his gun, but he wants something that’s easier for him to see. Something he doesn’t have to get undressed and stand in front of a mirror to look at, especially aboard the Waverider. He wants something that he can gaze at while he’s in bed talking to Barry, feeding his fantasies of his boyfriend before he tries to go to sleep. “I was thinking, maybe, on my arm? Or the back of my hand?”

Barry bites his lips together as if he was hoping Len would say that. “Well, as a matter of fact, there is something I’ve been thinking up for you.”

“Great.” Len lets go of Barry so he can lock the inner front door. “How much?”

“Nu-uh.” Barry grabs Len’s hand and drags him over to his work station. “This one’s on the house. Consider it a gift.”

“Barry …”

“Just … stop being stubborn and let me give you a present,” Barry argues, pushing Len into a chair. “I thought this tattoo up for you. No one will ever have it if I don’t put it on you, and I’m not charging you for it.”

“I could always just figure out a price and slip the money into your register,” Len counters as Barry slips on a pair of purple nitrile gloves and starts getting his dye cups set up.

“Yeah? Well, I could take that money back out of the register and give it to your sister after you leave.”

Len opts for an impressed face instead of arguing further. “You’re a shrewd negotiator, Mr. Allen.”

“I consider that a compliment coming from you, Captain Cold.”

“You should.” Len chuckles, but Barry just stares at him, eyes hopeful. And Len caves, because he can’t deny Barry anything. “Okay, okay, it’s a gift. But just this once.”

Barry smirks triumphantly. “Of course.” He puts a fresh set of needles on his gun. “Far be it for me to keep you from spending money that isn’t yours.” He’s kidding, but his words still carry a bitter tang.

“Hey, if I go through the trouble of stealing it, it belongs to me,” Len jokes, but lightly, and with a fair amount of guilt. Over time, Barry found out about Len’s criminal exploits. Len came clean about his past, told Barry about the majority of it. A few Barry discovered for himself using Google. Some of them were easy to stomach; some of them, a hell of a lot harder. But through it all, Barry chose to judge Len for the man he knows, not the man Len was, even if Barry does take a jab at him from time to time. But Barry only treads ankle deep into the minor infractions. He doesn’t hold the larger, more amoral ones over Len’s head. Len was raised to be a career criminal by the same monster who carved those disgusting, hateful words down Len’s back. It wasn’t Len’s choice. And besides, the man Barry met while giving Lisa her tattoo, the one who travels through time on the Waverider and saves people - he’s not a criminal in Barry’s eyes. He’s a legend. “But that doesn’t matter because I haven’t done that in a while.”

“A long while?” Barry asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes, Barry. A long, long, long while.”

Barry motions for Len’s hand and Len offers him the left one. Barry pulls up a small table. He presses Len’s hand flat on it, then starts cleaning the skin on the back.

“If I recall,” Len continues, “your heart is the last thing I stole.”

Barry’s smile burns slow, like he’s trying to hold it back, but when he can’t, he snickers. “That’s really corny, do you know that?”

Len leans forward, coming forehead to forehead with Barry, breaking through the veil of Barry’s concentration. “Did you like it?”

Barry’s mouth meets Len’s for a quick kiss. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

Satisfied, Len sits back in his chair and out of Barry’s light. Not that Barry needs it. Len’s pretty sure Barry can give him this tattoo in the dark. “So, whaddya have in mind this time?”

“Nu-uh. You don’t get to know what it is until I’m done.”

“That’s kind of an unusual way to do things in a tattoo parlor, ain’t it?”

Barry holds his gun over Len’s hand, preparing to switch it on. “Do you trust me?”

“More than anyone in my life right now.”

“Then let me do my job.” Barry winks. “Gun on.” Barry makes it a point to warn Len before he switches his gun on, just in case. Lord knows what Len’s done or seen out on the Waverider. Barry doesn’t want to take any chances and accidentally trigger unpleasant memories.

Len appreciates it. He doesn’t feel like Barry’s babying him or handling him with kid gloves. Barry is concerned about him. It’s nice to have that in his life from someone other than Lisa. He’s not about to admit that Lisa was right about all of this though. He’d rather lob off his hand again.

Len has considered the very real possibility that Barry may actually love him. Len doesn’t know yet. Barry hasn’t said the actual words, but Len hasn’t either. He just sort of feels like he knows. Barry’s not all that adept at hiding his feelings. He gives Len his all whenever Len’s in town – his time, his attention, a place to stay and food to eat. Len thinks that Barry may have come close once or twice, but that’s been during sex. Len knows better than to look for truth in any confession made while his dick’s in someone else’s body.

But one day, Len’s going to have to find a way to wheedle it out of him, see if he’s right.

Not tonight though. Tonight Len will pretend that they have all the time in the world to stay at Barry’s place and simply be with one another.

“So, how long so you think this is gonna take?” Len asks, watching Barry draw an outline on the back of his hand in silver ink. From the shape of it, it looks like it could be a star. Or a spider web. “Ballpark?”

“Um … about an hour, I think? Maybe less if the shading goes off without a hitch.” Barry grows the image from the outside in, carefully going back over the lines twice to make sure they’re smooth. Len appreciates Barry’s perfectionism, his attention to detail, even if going over those lines on this particular area of skin smarts like the dickens.

Len watches Barry’s face, tongue trapped between his teeth as he susses out the image, letting it emerge beneath his gun without a guide like he does all of his tattoos. It’s a mesmerizing process to behold, how Barry takes a void of blank skin and creates a masterpiece entirely from scratch. But Len misses Barry. He misses touching Barry, kissing Barry, feeling Barry quiver underneath him. Being this close to Barry without having his naked body pressed against Len’s is something Len is having a difficult time waiting for. So since Len’s going to be sitting there for an hour, he figures he’ll distract himself.

And maybe Barry, too, for that matter.

Len leans forward in his chair and rests his right hand on Barry’s knee. Barry doesn’t say anything. He’s used to Len touching him. It’s when Len’s hand starts making its way up Barry’s thigh that Barry’s eyebrows lift.

“Uh, Len …” Barry’s grin climbs up his cheeks “… what are you doing?”

“I was just thinking …” Len’s hand creeps further up Barry’s leg towards his crotch “… how badly could I bother you while you’re working and still get a halfway decent tattoo?”

“I guess that depends on if you want it turning out looking like Hello Kitty or not.”

“Lisa would love that.” Len pops the buttons to Barry’s fly with a single tug, then sneaks his hand past the waist band to find Barry already growing in anticipation of Len’s touch. Thank God Barry’s not a fan of super tight jeans or else this would be unnecessarily difficult.

“Are you really doing this now?” Barry asks. He switches inks, shifting subconsciously in his seat to accommodate the fingers wrapping around his cock.

“Barry, I’ve been away from you for months. Yes, I’m really doing this now.”

“Len,” Barry complains, then moans, “Jesus,” with Len’s first stroke down and up. Len’s hand, warm and dry, finds a rhythm along Barry’s skin that’s steady, easy for Len to maintain with his arm torqued in this awkward position. Barry gasps softly while Len strokes, focused on not moving or twitching too much so as not to screw up Len’s tattoo. But staying how he is, his body stalwart against this erotic assault while his mind and hands work, is torture.

When a small pearl of pre-cum dots the tip of Barry’s cock, Len’s instinct is to swipe it up and lick it off his finger, but the need to keep this rhythm up, to not let go, is so much stronger. “Mmm, maybe we should have gone upstairs first,” Len murmurs as he brings a thumb up and over the head of Barry’s cock to collect it, and then wipes it down Barry’s shaft.

“And why’s that?”

“Because I’m dying to taste you.”

“Fuck …” Barry groans, swallowing heavily. “Th-that is rather unfortunate, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. But if I get you to cum like this, then I can lick you off my hand.”

Barry whines. “Len … you can’t … mmm … you can’t say that when …”

“When …?”

“When I can’t get to you.”

“But you have me, Barry. Absolutely and completely. And the second you’re done with that tattoo, I get my turn, don’t I?”

“Yes …” Barry whispers, barely breathing as Len’s hand picks up speed. Barry spreads his legs wider, and Len pulls in closer.

“Though, I think I could do this all night if you’re going to take your time with that tattoo,” Len teases. “Heat you up and then …” Len stops stroking “… cool you down.”

“Oh God,” Barry mutters, pausing only a millisecond when his eyelids flutter closed. “Don’t do that, Len ... just …”

“But it’s so much fun, Red.” Len strokes fast, then stops short. Barry squirms in his chair, his legs shuddering the second Len’s hand comes to a halt.

Fisting over Barry’s cock, stopping and starting, stopping and starting, has Barry muttering in frustration around helpless mewls. Len brings Barry close to cumming, and Len could just let him, but he’s too fascinated watching Barry work under pressure. Aside from the man’s cock in his hand, throbbing every time Len squeezes, and his fidgeting legs, which probably wouldn’t be obvious to anyone not sitting close up and personal, Len wouldn’t be able to tell that Barry is in any way distracted. For a moment, a moment that Len hates himself for, he imagines Barry cracking a safe or hacking into a database … or aboard the Waverider. Doing what, Len doesn’t know. Barry said he has a background in science. Forensics. That could be useful somehow. But even if Barry doesn’t have a “questionable” specialty the way the rest of them do, his calm under stress, nearly unfaltering, is a talent that Len envies.

Len can be cool as a cucumber when he wants to, but he’s had slip ups. True patience is not a skill that can be taught, regardless of what Lewis Snart believed. Barry is like a man split in two, existing in a place where he can feel and experience fully, and another where he can push that aside.

Len wants to know how far that goes, how much Len has to push to make those personas smack back together.

He wants to know what he has to do to make Barry surrender.

He can’t rely on tormenting Barry’s body to do that for him. He has to get into Barry’s mind.

“Barry,” Len says, slowing his strokes to a gentle massage, “I want you, Barry Allen. So damn much …”

“J-just … g-give me a mo-moment,” Barry begs, scooting towards the edge of his chair to persuade Len to speed up. “I’m almost done …”

“No, Barry. I want you now. I want down on my knees so I can blow you in that chair.”

“I don’t think I’d be able to work on your tattoo that way.” Barry hiccups, and his non-gun hand shakes, but so imperceptibly, Len’s surprised that even he noticed.

“Well, we could take a tiny break then, couldn’t we? So I can have my mouth full of you?”

The sound Barry makes next is high-pitched and strangled, his legs fighting the shudder to simply tap out a beat while his hand moves faster, desperate to get Len’s tattoo done before he cums.

“God, I love having you in my mouth, Barry. You know, I’ve never met a man who tastes the way you do. It’s not something I particularly enjoy, giving head, so I don’t do it. But with you, I can’t help myself. Could you imagine being on the Waverider with me? I’d never get anything done cuz I could never get my fill of you.”

“G-god …” Barry moans, teeth clenched. For Len, Barry’s locked jaw brings to mind the last time he and Barry had sex – Barry in his lap, fucking him with all his limber strength and encompassing heat, mumbling a constant mixture of Len’s name and oh God until, right before he came, all he could say was oh Len, which, of course, Len preferred much better.

“Or, I could let you fuck me, Red. We’ve only done that a few times, but you’re so damn good at it.” Barry sucks his trembling lower lip between his teeth and bites down. Len smiles. Now he’s getting somewhere. “I think that’s exactly what I need after so many months away from you – a nice, slow, relaxing fuck. Whaddya think? Would you do that for me?”

“Yes … oh God, yes …”

Barry’s close, but somehow he’s finding a way to keep himself from tripping over that edge. But Len has plenty of tricks up his sleeve, one that he think might be the key. He stops stroking and lets go. Barry sighs in frustration and relief. Len smirks, because he’s not done with his boyfriend yet. He licks his palm and goes back to stroking before Barry can take a solid breath, and that does it. Barry’s hips jump from that sensation of wet along with Len’s heat. He drops down in his seat, unable to sit up straight anymore with the pressurized pleasure that’s filling his body. Barry’s needles dig into Len’s hand, and even though Len hisses, he barely feels it because the expression on Barry’s face becomes transcendent.

“Jesus,” Barry moans, retaining enough sense to turn off his machine as he starts to buck into Len’s fist, “Christ.”

“There you go, baby,” Len says, watching transfixed as Barry inches closer and closer, his head tilted back with eyes closed, mouth twisted into a smile of ecstasy. “How’s that feel? You been missin’ that?”

“Yes,” Barry gasps, grabbing blindly for a paper towel to cover his cock so he doesn’t spurt cum all over his sterile work station. “Yes. Goddammit … I … that was …” Barry rolls his head to his right and chokes. “Uh oh. Ah …” Barry puts a hand over Len’s to block his view.

“Oh no, you’re not getting out of this that easily.” Len yanks his hand out from underneath Barry’s. “Let me take a look at oh shit!” Len laughs at the string of wobbly lines and wonky coloring that used to be a perfect, shimmering snowflake.

“Wait, wait, wait.” Barry grabs a spray bottle of cleaner and starts re-sterilizing his work space. He hastily shoves his limp cock back in his pants, then snaps on new gloves. He switches out his needles and gets fresh dyes, rushing as if the devil himself were his client. “I can fix it.”

“I know you can.” Len reclines in his chair, leisurely licking Barry’s cum from his hand while Barry works. “I’m not worried one bit.”

Barry flattens Len’s messed up hand on the freshly cleaned work space. He wipes down Len’s tattoo with a wet paper towel to clear off the excess ink and see what he has to work with. He glances momentarily at his boyfriend, whimpers when Len’s tongue wraps around his index finger, then gets back to work.

After that detour, Barry is complete focus … and incredible speed. So much so that Len sits up, his eyes drawn to the way Barry moves.

Len’s been gone a while, but still, what the hell’s happened between then and now? Did Barry fall into a vat of toxic waste or get bitten by a radioactive spider and neglect to tell him?

Barry has this tattooing thing on lock, moving between lines and colors, cleaning his needles and reworking the image. The new picture seems to move across Len’s skin under Barry’s gun, changing, rearranging, transforming, until what had started out as an amazing snowflake is now an exceptional snowflake.

In barely five minutes, Barry shuts off his gun and wipes down Len’s hand, not acknowledging with any conceit the feat he completed in Guinness World Record time.

“What do you think?” Barry asks, pulling off his gloves and tossing them in the trash. He overlooks Len’s pinched brow of confusion, his eyes darting between Len’s unreadable face and the tattoo, waiting impatiently for Len’s seal of approval. “Do you … do you like it?”

Len holds his hand up to the light so he can get a better look. “It’s incredible,” he says, turning his hand and examining the inks, a gradient of colors from white to silver to blue layered in so many hues that they seem to twinkle as he moves. “Absolutely.” But aside from the wonder of Barry’s talent, these awe-inspiring pieces of art that he comes up with in a flash, it’s how he works that has Len dumb-struck … and concerned. This thing that Barry does, this blur that he becomes – it’s not natural.

It’s not human.

Len doesn’t want to put too much weight on it, but every time he sees Barry, this speed of his … it increases.

Len forces a smile more than usual; he doesn’t want Barry to know that he’s worried. “Are you ever gonna tell me how you work that fast?”

“Nu-uh,” Barry says, obviously less worried than Len. “Trade secret.”

Maybe Barry doesn’t notice, Len thinks. Maybe he doesn’t see or feel how much he’s changed. But if that strange vibrating thing is happening to Barry on the outside, Len can’t help but wonder what’s happening to him on the inside. The only way he would ever know would be to take Barry to the Waverider and have Gideon do a full work up on him.

But how badly would it destroy Barry’s life if Rip Hunter knew what Barry could do?

That point’s moot because, without doing some severe damage to the timeline, there will be no hiding this from Rip. Time Masters have a way of finding out everything. If something is happening to Barry, some kind of transformation, then it’s already written into the timeline … and Rip will find out about it eventually.

If that time comes and Rip, or anyone, comes after Barry, will Len be able to protect him?

Will Len be around to protect him?

That may be a convincing argument for leaving the Waverider for good.

“Hey … hey, Len ... Leonard …” Len looks away from his snowflake and into the troubled eyes of his boyfriend. ”Hey. Where did you go just then? You disappeared on me for a bit.”

“Here.” Len doesn’t answer Barry’s question. He can’t. If he’s afraid of what may happen in the future due to natural progression, he’s not about to jumpstart anything with an explanation. “I want you to have this.”

Barry’s seen the ring before. Len wears it on and off, but Barry has never asked him about it. Barry’s thoughts about it border between it being extremely important, and not so important. But as Len wrenches it off his finger and slips it onto Barry’s, Barry can’t help feeling that it’s more important than he gave it credit for.

“Wha---“ Barry gapes at the ring when it’s finally on his finger, “what is this for?”

“I’ve had this ring for a long time,” Len says, curling Barry’s fingers, then holding his fist. “It’s a relic from a less than stellar past. But it means something to me, something important. Something that I’ve needed to be reminded of again and again over the course of my life.”

“And what’s that?”

“That I’m my own person. That no matter what hand the universe deals me, my choices are my own. I want you to remember that you are your own person, Barry Allen. That no matter what, no matter what choice you’re given, your decisions are your own. And you have to do what’s best for you.” Len brings Barry’s fist to his mouth and kisses his knuckles. “The future needs you, Barry Allen.”

Barry stares at Len, his boyfriend’s eyes closed as his lips gently brush Barry’s skin, and Barry feels breathless. Breathless over Len’s sincerity, and at the conviction behind his words … their unexpected urgency. Suddenly, he becomes afraid. “I guess you would know, huh?”

Len shrugs. “Maybe.” His gaze lifts, and he looks in Barry’s eyes. “But I need you, too. And that’s the only future I care about. Yours and mine.”

Barry nods. Something’s going on with his boyfriend. Barry doesn’t know exactly what yet, and he’s sure that Len will tell him in time, but that doesn’t make Barry any less uneasy. Barry presses his lips to Len’s forehead, needing to be closer to the man now more than before.

“Take me upstairs?” Barry whispers. “And make love to me? And let’s … not get out of bed again until you have to leave. We can order in, eat naked, shower often, and forget that everyone else exists for a while. What do you say, big guy?”

“That sounds like a plan,” Len says. “One we should get started on yesterday. Maybe earlier.” Barry stands and takes Len’s right hand, leaving the left with the snowflake tattoo un-taped until they get upstairs. He leads Len through his shop to the staircase at the back. “Should we order a pizza?” Len asks as Barry unbolts the door.

“Duh,” Barry says. “What the hell else is there to eat?”

#Coldflash #Barry Allen #Leonard Snart #Frankie writes