"We are approaching Earth-1260, Mr. Snart, as you requested," Gideon says, adding what could be perceived a dig at the end as if to say You did this. I didn't want to. I warned you. I gave you good advice, but you didn't take it. You made this decision. You made this decision because you NEVER LISTEN!

That's what it sounds like she means, but the voice in Len's head saying those things is a very different one entirely.

"Thank you, Gideon," Len growls through teeth clenched uncontrollably during the last hour of travel down one of the most treacherous timestreams the crew of the Waverider has ever discovered. Earth-1260 is considered an outlier in a sea of outliers – a dimension whose position had been erased by the Time Masters in an attempt to isolate it indefinitely from the rest of the universe.

Not to keep other dimensions safe, but for use as an eventual secret prison.

A better deterrent than the vilest penal colony.

An oubliette of no return.

As luck would have it, the crew of the Waverider stumbled upon it entirely by accident while looking for a viable Netflix signal.

Len releases the harness securing him to his seat the second the Waverider exits the timestream. Even with the ship to himself, being locked down in that harness makes him feel trapped.

Vulnerable.

Especially after the night he had that led him on his little day trip.

Len would think swiping the Waverider for a joy ride would be harder than it is.

It probably helps that the Waverider he's in isn't the Waverider.

Well … it is and it isn't.

He got the idea from his sister of all people, one night while she was jabbering on about some Back to the Future fan theory she claims she read on the Internet. That's Lisa speak for Cisco told her, because why the hell would she be watching Back to the Future? Lisa has been seeing Cisco on the sly while Len's been away. Len knows. He also knows that she doesn't think he'd approve. Which he doesn't. But Len can't hold it against her. He left her alone on Earth while he went traipsing through time, trying to be a hero. And he has been a hero in his own way. But the outcome is still the same.

He may have helped save their dimension and beyond, but he failed his sister.

He left her alone.

And not just in another city or another country. In another time. So whatever she does to cure her loneliness, that's her business. As long as she stays alive.

But why did it have to be Cisco Ramon?

Len sighs. In retrospect, he only has himself to blame for that, too.

Anyway …

This Back to the Future theory argues that there isn't only one DeLorean, one Marty McFly, and one Doc Brown, but that due to the circumstances of their traveling through time, there are DeLoreans, McFlys, and Doc Browns scattered around all over Hill Valley. It sounded ridiculous to Len at first – fake pseudo-science mumbo jumbo created for Tumblr likes. But he remembers a time way back when when he thought things like time travel, superheroes, and high tech weapons were the stuff of comic books and nothing more.

Look at his life now.

So he took the chance that there was something to that looney theory and retraced the steps of as many Waverider landings as he could.

Turns out, the theory had some merit. Len found a Waverider, cloaked, parked in the middle of a wooded area a fair distance outside Central City.

He swiped it for his own personal use.

He actually considered contacting Tumblr user Marty-the-Mc-Frenchiest-Fry one of these days to let him know he was right.

Though keeping him in the dark tickles Len's head a bit too much.

"Are you certain you want to do this, Mr. Snart?" Gideon asks as the A.I. pilots the ship into the planet's atmosphere. "You do know that making any contact with the inhabitants of Earth-1260 is strictly prohibited."

"Yes, Gideon. I know. You tell me that every time we come here," Len replies, strapping on his gun. "And yet here we are."

"Someone has to look after you, Mr. Snart, even if what you are doing happens to be reckless, highly unadvisable, and, some might say, downright idiotic."

Len chuckles. Gideon sounds just like Barry Allen.

Sometimes he wonders why that is.

"You know the drill," Len says, synching the device he uses to communicate with the ship with Gideon. "Monitor my vitals while I'm away. Keep an eye out for any lethal drops or spikes. If you notice any, or if I'm not back in two hours, come find me."

"As you wish, Mr. Snart."

Len turns sharply and leaves the bridge. He walks briskly down a corridor, then another, round a corner, down a ramp, and out into the litter-covered streets of Earth-1260, moving on autopilot since his mind is occupied elsewhere. It has been for most of the trip, caught in a place almost as hazardous as this one.

The past.

Another argument. Another fight. Another battle lost because, no matter what, Barry will never take him back.

Len doesn't know why Barry is being so stubborn. This is all his fault to begin with, and not just them breaking up.

But them becoming a couple in the first place.

They got together because Barry insisted there was good in Len, that Len could be rise above his upbringing, that he could be a better man.

And he became one … for a while.

On board the Waverider.

A lifetime away from the man he loved.

Len thought that if he'd changed, he could stay changed.

But life in Central City with the normal, the common, the day-to-day un-extraordinary, which some people find satisfaction in, bored the hell out of Len. And he reverted.

Len crossed one line too many.

He never cheated, but he lied. He took advantage.

He betrayed, which is worse to Barry than cheating. Far worse.

The punch in the stomach is that Barry isn't mad at him. He's disappointed. He claims he loves Len, and though he still sees good in him, Len has used up his second chances as far as Barry is concerned. He told Len to go find the good again, just not in Central City.

Get back on the Waverider.

Get back in touch with the hero he'd become.

And find something, or someone, to fill that void Len keeps patching up with heists and scams and this life he can't seem to let go of.

And that's what Len did.

Well … again, not exactly.

"Here, boy. Here, boy. Where are you boy?" Len whistles for him like he's calling a dog. The condescension isn't necessary. It just makes him feel like a bigger man. "Here, Barry. Come on. I know you're out here somewhere. You're not The Flash here like you are back home. You don't wander too far from your favorite street corner."

Len stops walking for a moment and listens. The streets of this Central City are deserted. Few people live here anymore, and those that do don't come out at night – which seems to last twenty-two hours out of a twenty-four hour day. Broken and boarded store fronts line the sidewalks. Jitters, Big Belly Burger, Central City Museum – out of business, looted and gutted within an inch of their foundations. The two remaining working lamps on this block flicker in odd intervals, casting the shadows of creatures that may or may not be there.

Len rolls his eyes. It's a cheap trick, devised to keep the stalwart few inside. Add a few Jack-O-Lanterns, toss on the fake spider webbing, hang a few dime-store decorations, and this place might make a decent Halloween Town.

This place is dangerous, there's no doubt about that, but it's not the kind of danger that's going to leap out from behind a building and gun him down, so Len has no problem being out in the open. The 'big bads' of this Central City have no reason to come here. There's no one to terrorize, nothing left to destroy or worth stealing. Besides, they don't frighten Len. They rely on scare tactics - fancy incantations and hocus-pocus to keep themselves protected. None of it's real. It's affective against the submissive, but not against Leonard Snart. He bellows for Barry as loudly as he wants. He doesn't care about being heard.

Len has a nuclear-powered freeze weapon that fires beams of absolute zero, and the Waverider on standby.

He's not concerned.

Len gets to Saints and Sinners and stops. The gaping hole that is the entrance to the alley puts him on alert, but only until his eyes get used to the level of darkness that fills it. There's not much down that way – trash cans knocked over, their contents strewn about, picked through for anything edible, the rest left to rot for so long, most of it has turned to soil; broken beer bottles by the mounds; the burnt-out shell of what used to be a Chevy Impala ...

And him.

Red eyes open, glowing with the reflection of dim, sputtering light, and Len sighs with relief and heartbreak.

"There you are," he says softly when he spots Barry staring at him from behind the heaps of trash bags he gathers and drags here, falling to pieces and rotting where they lay. There are body parts there, too – animal and human. The pickings are meager, less than he had last time.

Len doesn't know how much longer this Barry is going to survive.

It broke Len's heart to find him like this, it really did. But Len has to remember – this isn't his Barry. A variation of, but not. Len and this Barry don't have any history together. They don't have a present, either. Len comes there every week, several times even, but Barry never seems to remember him.

It's not as if Barry would have run into Earth-1260 him. On this Earth, Leonard Snart was some huge mob boss out in New York City. He's also dead and buried. Not just that. He's been completely dismembered.

No hope of magically rising from the grave then, Len thinks with a bitter laugh. Good. He doesn't need the competition.

"I have something you need," Len says, rolling up his left sleeve, flashing a glittering gold Rolex – a recent acquisition, representing another argument between him and Barry. "Something you can desperately use."

Barry's eyes lock onto Len's wrist - his arm, the watch, his whole body luring Barry out of the dark. Len watches Barry approach, crawling across the cement on his hands and knees, rail thin with dry, papery skin, his entire body shaking with hunger.

"That's it, Red," Len says sweetly. "Come on, baby. I'll give you what you need."

As Barry comes closer, Len can see that not much about him has changed. He's wearing the same frayed t-shirt and rat-eaten blue jeans that Len found him in. His eyes are not a soft, sea green, but burn a fever red. His hair clings to his skin, cemented there by dirt so thick, it replaces the color in his cheeks. He's as healthy as can be expected for living on the streets, sucking at the marrow of cats and dogs to survive. But a lack of bruises and the ability to crawl means no one's been messing with him, which is one of the reasons why Len doesn't do more to help him. He'd given Barry his parka, a pair of boots and a change of clothes, but by the time he returned, they had disappeared. In their place, Barry was sporting a brand new fat lip and two matching shiners that nearly swelled his eyes completely shut.

After that, Len decided the best way to help Barry was not to help him too much. The road to hell, good intentions, and all that.

Which is one way this Barry and his Barry are the same.

But neither of them are actually his Barry.

That's another way.

Barry slows, sniffing the air, creeping forward the last few feet with fear in his eyes. Len sits on the cement, lowering himself to Barry's level to put him at ease. Barry stops beside him, bent over, his face close to Len's wrist, his breath fogging the face of that Rolex, shining so bright Barry can see his face in it.

With a speed that had surprised Len at first, which made Len wonder if this Barry Allen wasn't, in some way, The Flash, Barry opens his mouth – wide and grotesque, as if about to wail – and bites down. Fangs extend, piercing Len's flesh, driving their way into his veins. Blood shoots down Barry's throat, and with it, Len feels an overwhelming wash of calm, an urge to rest his head on the wall behind him and relax. Surrender.

And he does. It's an indulgence during the little time he has.

Which is why he has Gideon monitoring his vitals – in case he takes things too far.

Len had called Barry like a dog, and now he pets him like a dog, running his fingers through stiff, oily hair, a surge of carnal lust peppering his calm, building as his blood leaves his body.

That's the true danger of Earth-1260 – not the crime bosses that pillage city after city, leaving this hollowed husk behind, but the disease that made it possible. An entire timestream on quarantine, overrun by a pathogen of unknown origin, which a handful of inhabitants exploited because they were the only ones immune.

Len, however, is not. Which means he can't stay long.

When the crew of the Waverider found this Earth, they lingered in its orbit for days trying to develop a cure for this disease, if for no other reason than to give the populace fair footing on which to fight, but Gideon wasn't able to isolate the virus that did this. It mutated constantly, becoming something different and new within milliseconds of itself. It died and resurrected and died again with such mindboggling inconsistency, Gideon sounded exhausted when she briefed them. Gideon theorized that this disease may be caused by what she termed a 'God molecule' – something that appeared virtually out of nowhere (since it left no trail – not even on a sub-atomic level) and created life of its own accord. But its power seems to extend to this dimension alone - fortunately for the crew since not only did they explore every inch of this Earth's Central City, Mick went to Saints and Sinners for a beer. It was shortsighted and stupid, but thank God he did.

While hunting down Mick, Len found Barry, selling his body to some pin-headed minion for a vial of O-neg.

Sitting on the ground with Barry latched to his arm, Len has the virus inside his body. It entered the second Gideon opened the hatch and he breathed the air. Len can feel it searing his sinuses, invading his lungs, spreading to his organs, finding cells and vessels to latch on to like a raiding party on the attack. But the virus won't last long in his system provided he leaves. Something about being outside this Earth's timestream destroys it. He doesn't know why.

Again, Gideon can't nail down a cause.

But it keeps Len's temptation to stay here in this filthy alley for the night, feeding Barry, at bay.

Two hours. That's all he gets.

Len has come across many different versions of Barry Allen on several different Earths. On some, he's a superhero. On others, he's a villain. On a few, he's a regular Joe, holding down a job, either on his own or with a spouse, even kids.

And on some Earths, he's no longer living.

But Len always comes back to this one. This Earth, and this Barry Allen.

Because on those other Earths, hero or not, Barry Allen doesn't need Len.

On this Earth, he's literally the blood in Barry's veins.

Notes: If you guys are interested, I made this Earth-1260 because 1260 is considered a vampire number. 1260 is a vampire number, with 21 and 60 as fangs, since 21 × 60 = 1260.