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Anyone else would probably be freezing their ass off right about now, was the persistent mantra running through Len's head. That's not to say he wasn't cold–he was–he just tolerated it better than most of his teammates. He's reminded of the time he was trapped in the bulkhead of the Waverider near death with Sara. The stone walls of his cell suck away all heat, and they've taken away his jacket. As they did then, his thoughts eventually return to Mick. He refused to choose another over his partner; not again. This time he'd make it right. As long as he was here, Mick and the others would be safe.
The hallucinations had started a little while ago. At least, he thinks so. He's got no real way of telling what time it is, only that once a day they bring him water and just barely enough food to keep him alive until the next day. He thinks he's been here close to a week (is 7 days, is 168 hours, is 10080 minutes...). He wants to count the seconds but he can't because he can't focus. He knows he hit his head at some point. Well, he got a hit to the head would be a more accurate phrasing.
There's mold on the walls or something, but it looks like a creeping frost. He traces patterns in it with his fingers. He'd tried to make tally marks to keep track of the passage of time, but that didn't work out so well. The frost spreads to his fingers and toes, and he wonders if they'll freeze and shatter. His cold gun could do that; he won't be able to use it without fingers though. Maybe he'll turn into an ice statue.
Sometimes Len hums to pass the time. Not many people know, but he actually has a pretty good singing voice. The growls of his stomach form the harmony. He likes to pretend that the shadows on the wall are really dancing to his music. Sometimes he pretends they're the shadows of his team members coming to rescue him. Or join him. He's dreamed about it before on one of the rare times he was able to fall asleep. The lights are artificial and kept permanently dim and they're only in the hall outside his cell. One of his guards is big and bulky like Mick, another is lanky like Rip. He misses Mick. Yet a third guard has the same accent as Rip, and wasn't that a trip and a half when he woke up. Thought he was back on the Waverider instead of wherever the fuck he is now. Sometimes he sees faces in the darkness and he tries to talk to them, but they don't respond. Once he thought someone had lit a fire because the light kept flickering, but it was just his eye twitching.
Idly, Len hopes Mick remembers to keep an eye on Lisa whenever he returns to 2016. Moments of clarity like this are becoming fewer and fewer. It's getting harder to stay focused on any kind of plan; even his brain feels sluggish. He wonders why this group wants one of them. He hadn't really put much thought into it when he offered himself as a trade for Mick, but he figures he'll find out eventually.
He realizes his fingers are tapping out a staccato on the stone to match the chattering of his teeth (or is it the other way around?), and he stills them. It's only a few hours later when he starts painting with his own blood. (He writes "Leonard Snart" quite a few times, so he doesn't forget who he is.)
Len wakes to noise. That in and of itself is odd, as his captors seemed to favor isolating him as much as possible. He doesn't even remember dozing off, but he is still curled up in the same corner he's been in for the past few days. The only reason he thinks he's awake is because of the gnawing sense of hunger he feels. He starts to hum. Maybe they're fighting with each other and he'll be able to get away.
He can't feel his toes, so he counts them again to make sure they're still all there. Then he starts counting the stones that make up his cell.
"Snart!"
Ha, that guard sounds like Mick. Great, now he's hearing him too.
"Snart, where are you!? Can you hear us?"
Oh that's right, he's Snart. He'd forgotten again. There's lots of grunting and fighting sounds, and then someone's swearing by his cell. Len ignores them.
There is the smell of melting iron, and then then his cell door slams open. He raises his bound hands to shield his eyes from the bright light that now spills in. It's a guard. At least, he thinks so, because it's the one with the same build as Mick. He'd never actually seen that guard's face before, and he still can't because of the spots dancing before his eyes. But it looks like the guard kicked the door in and shouldn't they have keys?
"Lenny," a voice breathes, and Len looks up at its owner. That's when he sees the face, lit by the light flickering in the background. It's Mick.
No. No, it's not Mick. Too much facial hair, not enough fire. But the guy looks like Mick, so he'll go with it. That's why he's here, after all. Maybe his captors realize he's more likely to trust someone that looks like a teammate, but Len doesn't even trust himself right now. Len knows there's some connection he should be making, but he can barely string two coherent thoughts together anymore, let alone connect one abstract idea to another.
He tries to tell the guard to fuck off, but his mouth is so parched it comes out more like a croak. He almost laughs; frogs can't handle the cold either. It's too bad one of his legs are chained to the wall, but he aims a kick at the approaching guard anyways. He easily avoids it.
The guard holsters his gun and pulls out a knife; Len can't help it–he flinches.
"Shit, Lenny, what did they do to you?" Guard-who-sounds-like-Mick asks. He reaches out with his free hand to touch Len's face, before thinking better of it when Len unconsciously flinches away again. He grunts; "okay. Let's get you outta here."
Len watches detachedly as the guard easily cuts through the bindings around his wrists and hands him the knife before methodically turning to the manacle around his ankle. It takes his name being called a few more times with increasing urgency for him to realize that he'd zoned out staring at the blade. The light had reflected off it nicely.
"Lenny, look at me."
Oh, his leg has been freed. Two large, warm hands turned his head so he was looking into not-Mick's eyes.
"Can you stand on your own?" He asked slowly. Len just stared blankly back. Didn't this guy realize his toes were made of ice?
The not-Mick-guard hoists him to his feet, and the abrupt change in positioning is too much for Len. He vomits up the meager contents of his stomach and passes out in the guy's arms.
Len wakes up to a pounding headache, a familiar snore, and something blowing air into his nose. He's ten seconds away from panicking when he realizes that he recognizes where he is, and, that for the first time in days, he's actually warm.
Gideon says something to him along the lines of "welcome back Mr. Snart," but he's more focused on the giant body of his partner stuffed into the not-so-giant chair at his bedside. He reaches out to touch Mick, lay a hand on his knee or something, when a tug at his arm makes him look down. He's hooked up to an IV line, and it's only his vast experience with hospital visits that keeps him from yanking it out right then and there. He does pull off the nasal cannula, though, and tosses it somewhere.
His movements, or his movements combined with Gideon's talking wake Mick up with a snort. Len can't help it; he smiles when Mick just stares.
"You need a shave," he says, reaching out a hand for Mick to take. He does.
"Yeah, well, you puked on me. I think my looks get a pass for now."
Len laughs, and with that one sound Mick feels like a weight has been lifted off his chest even though Len also winces. "I did, did I? Guess I owe you an apology."
"That's not the only thing you need to apologize for, Snart," Mick grunts; "you're gonna make me go gray before my time. How much do you remember?"
"Good thing you shave your head, too," Len quips, attempting to change the subject, but he quickly realizes that Mick isn't playing. He sighs, "not much. More from the beginning, when it's less fuzzy. How long was I there? How long have I been out?"
"You have been unconscious for the last 42.9 hours, Mr Snart," Gideon answered before Mick could. "You had a subacute subdural hematoma in the parietal lobe, but we were to excise it successfully with minimal cerebral edema."
"And in English—Jesus!" Len interrupted himself as Gideon shone a bright light in his eyes.
"You had a brain bleed but they fixed it," Mick answered at the same time Gideon asked him not to move his head, and could he state his name, date of birth, and location please?
Len answered automatically, ignoring Gideon's request not to move by trying to get his face out of the light. He reached up to feel his head with his free hand and encountered bandages instead of hair on one side. He looked at Mick, shocked.
"You gave me—us a scare Lenny," Mick said, "I wanted to go back for you right away, but we had to locate you and then Captain Dickhead gave us some bullshit about time travel and fixed points. You were there for almost a week."
"6.13 days, to be precise, and Mr. Rory expressed a desire to 'burn everything to the ground' on all of them. He has not left your bedside since he brought you in."
"You can shut up now, Metal Mouth," Mick growled, refusing to meet Len's eyes at Gideon's pronouncement. If Len didn't know his partner so well, he'd think Mick was blushing.
"I have informed Captain Hunter and the others that Mr. Snart has awakened," Gideon continued as if Mick hadn't said anything; "they will be be here soon. I would advise Mr. Snart not to sit up too fast to avoid aggravating his head injury."
"Mick..."
Mick squeezed Len's hand and pressed a kiss to his partner's knuckles. "That doesn't mean I'm not still mad at you, boss. I don't want you doin' stupid stuff like that for my sake."
"I made you a promise, partner," Len said, squeezing back, "you and me against the world. I'm not going to abandon you again."
"...shuddup."
They could hear the footsteps that signaled the team's arrival outside the med bay, so they reluctantly released their hands. Len pasted a smirk on his face and prepared to be ambushed. But he'd kept Mick safe, so he'd deal with it.
"Just so you know, Lenny," Mick said, looking Len in the eyes; "it's—me too, okay? Me too."