A/N: I'm not entirely sure where this story came from, but here it is! It's not going to be all happy and funny like I know many Christmas fics are, no, because I like being different and this is Mick and Len that I'm writing about. It's going to be more of a angsty/fluffy thing, because I seem to be incapable of writing just happy stuff.
Anyways, in this story Mick is 26, Len is 23, and Lisa is 16. I find it kind of odd that I don't keep the age difference between Len and Lisa the same, but I wanted it to be different in this story because I didn't want Len to be too old, or Lisa to be too young. So instead of the usual 12 year difference that I see between them, we get a measly 7 year difference...oh no.
I do not own the Rogues or any of these characters.
If Mick had to pick just a single word to use to describe winter, it would be that it sucked. Seriously, it was the stupidest season ever, and he despised almost everything about it. Mick was a fan of flames and heat, not of the snowy cold. He absolutely hated the unforgiving harshness of a winter storm, and he didn't understand how anybody could like it.
As if Mick didn't hate snow enough already, it was even worse to try to drive in it. No, forget about just driving during a snowstorm, try driving on icy country roads more than an hour away from the city, your best friend silently brooding in the front seat while his bratty teenage sister chatted up a storm in the back. That was absolute torture, and was now what Mick envisioned Hell was going to be like when he inevitably winded up there.
The truly sad thing about all of this was that Mick only had himself to blame for this mess. After all, this had all been his idea.
"Are we there yet?" Lisa groaned for the fifth time from her place in the back. Her complaining made her sound much more like a whiny eight year old girl than the young woman twice that age that she really was.
Mick's grip on the steering wheel tightened as he tried not to lose control of his temper. Usually he didn't even bother watching his anger. He let his rage burn like a fire and counted on the fact that Len would stop him before things got out of hand. Right now though, while he was driving on icy roads with two of the only people he actually cared about in the car with him, Mick knew he couldn't afford to lose his temper. Just this once he had to watch himself, because he really didn't want to deal with the consequences if something went wrong.
"Does it look like we're there yet?" Mick growled. He didn't have to look back to know that Lisa was shrugging at him.
"I don't know. Everything out here looks the same to me." Lisa sighed boredly and Mick rolled his eyes. Of course everything out here in the country looked the same to her. Lisa was a city girl through and through. Mick himself had been living in Central City for years now that he had almost forgotten how annoyed he used to get at the attitudes of people who came from the city.
Mick had grown up on a farm and rarely ever even went into the nearby town, let alone a larger city like Central City. To him, Central City might as well have been another planet, and the behaviors of those that lived there did nothing to change his opinion. They all acted so weird.
Mick had gotten used to the strange behaviors that seemed to come with living in the city, but it seemed like him returning to the country was already bringing out some long forgotten farm boy parts of him. Well, it would certainly make these next few weeks interesting. Mick briefly wondered if any of his other old habits would come out during that time.
Lisa, who was still extremely bored but knew better than to push Mick's buttons any further, decided to stop talking. Mick was able to appreciate the silence for all of five minutes before Lisa leaned forward from the back and started fiddling with the radio. Mick really didn't mind all that much. He wasn't normally the type to listen to music, but hey, if it kept Lisa quiet, he was all for it.
The only thing was, Lisa couldn't make up her mind on a station.
Mick kept his mouth shut as Lisa browsed through the stations, even though it was incredibly awkward for her to be doing so from the back, and seriously annoying that she wasn't even picking anything to listen to. Mick honestly believed that she wasn't even interested in listening to music at all, she just wanted some sound to fill the silence.
Finally, nearly five minutes later, Lisa decided on a station. Satisfied with herself Lisa leaned back into her seat and smiled. Mick let out a breath in relief, which he immediately wished he could take back once he realized just what they were listening to right now.
Country music.
Mick groaned, feeling a powerful urge to punch something. Former farm kid or not, Mick absolutely despised country music, and he always had, even as a kid. Len knew this, and according to the smirk on Lisa's face she was well aware of it too.
Mick bore through all of thirty seconds of the song that was playing before he snapped and just turned off the radio before he completely lost it.
"Aw, come on." Lisa whined. "You could have lasted longer than that." Mick scowled and glared at her through the rearview mirror.
"Why don't you look out the window and watch the snow fall?" Mick growled. He cast a sideways glance at Len. "Your brother seems to find it fun."
Lisa rolled her eyes. "My brother would find watching paint dry to be fun." Mick frowned, because that sounded a lot more bitter than the usual teasing that went on between the two of them. Lisa and Len were always getting on each others nerves and complaining about one thing or another, but it was usually in a teasing way that they obviously didn't mean. Lisa's tone suggested that she meant it in a more harmful way.
Which meant that, for whatever reason, Lisa was actually mad at her brother. Mick groaned and cursed the lack of observation skills that he had. How had he not noticed that the siblings were fighting when it was literally right under his nose? Actually, now that Mick knew that they were fighting he realized that some other things made sense as well.
Like Lisa's insistence at annoying him and trying to get his attention while she ignored her brother. Them fighting even explained why Len had been so quiet during this whole drive. Len was usually a talkative person, or at least he was when he felt comfortable around the people he was with, but Len hadn't said a word this whole time. Mick had thought that he had just been moping about something, or had just gotten so sucked into watching it snow that he was oblivious to what was going on around him.
Except that was much more Mick's style (with fire, not snow), and not exactly the type of thing that Len would actually though. Len was much too careful to let himself become oblivious to his surroundings.
That is, unless that was what he was specifically trying to do.
For the last few years Mick had noticed that Len would zone out every once and awhile. It was kinda his coping mechanism or something, a way for him to avoid things when he wanted to. Usually when this happened it was connected to Len's father in one way or another, like it was Len's way to protect himself from his father's physical and verbal abuse. So why was Len doing it now? Was his and Lisa's fight so bad that he honestly felt the need to protect himself like this? From Lisa?
It didn't make any sense.
Mick stopped trying to think about it. He didn't think he would ever understand Len's mind and how it worked. If the psychologists back at juvie and prison couldn't figure Len out, there was absolutely no way that Mick could. Len was a mystery, and he was going to stay that way.
The rest of the drive was in tense silence. Len didn't say a word (duh) and Lisa sat fuming in the back, probably giving the silent treatment a try. Mick focused mostly on the road, though occasionally he would look from one sibling to the other, just waiting for the inevitable blowout. He knew that a confrontation was going to happen, it always did whenever these two fought, but he just didn't know when.
Fortunately their destination wasn't too far away at this point. After not even ten minutes of the silence Mick saw the dirt road path that he remembered he was supposed to turn onto. Driving on dirt in the winter was even more of a pain in the ass than driving on an asphalt street, but Mick was able to struggle his way through.
After what felt like forever Mick pulled in front of the small, solitary house at the end of the road. Turning off the ignition Mick silently praised whatever deity had had a hand in helping them to arrive without getting stuck in the snow or the Snart siblings starting World War III.
"Ugh, finally." Lisa wrapped her coat tightly around herself and hopped out of the vehicle. Mick turned towards Len and saw that he was still staring blankly out the window. He hadn't moved an inch, as if he hadn't even realized that they had stopped. Mick cursed under his breath. Len was even more out of it than he had thought.
"Come on, Leonard." Mick said. He reached out his hand and gently shook Len's shoulder a bit. Len blinked a bit, the focused look coming back into his eyes. Len turned slightly and glared at Mick, who inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. "We're here." Len nodded stiffly, which was probably all the reaction Mick would be getting from him right now.
Mick, who knew that it usually took a few minutes for Len to become fully aware of his surroundings again, got out of the car and went to join Lisa, who had been waiting impatiently on the front step.
"Hurry up," Lisa said shortly. "It's cold."
"You don't have to tell me that." Mick quickly agreed. He bent down, lifted the welcome mat and picked up the key that was regularly kept underneath. Mick used the key to open the front door. Lisa rushed inside with Mick close behind her. Lisa looked curiously at the many pictures that were kept around the house while Mick immediately went to the fireplace. It was warmer inside the house than outside, but it was still freezing. They needed some heat circulating around the house.
It didn't take long for Mick to get a nice, warm fire going. He watched the fire crackle and burn for a bit before until he heard Lisa giggling in the hall. Mick scowled and reluctantly got to his feet. Mick trudged back into the hallway and found Lisa fawning over one of the pictures.
"Mick, this is so cute." Lisa giggled. Mick looked at the photograph and groaned. He should have thought of hiding that stupid thing. It was a picture of his eighteen year old self, with two small children fast asleep and snuggling on his lap. It was a pretty adorable picture, and Mick had been caught completely off guard with it. If he had known that his picture was going to be taken, he never would have agreed to tell that that stupid story to the two brats.
"Well, isn't that just adorable." Mick and Lisa both jumped. Neither of them had even noticed that Len had come into the house, let alone that he had been standing directly behind them looking over their shoulders.
"Alright, that's enough." Mick snatched the picture out of Lisa's hand and put it face down on the table. He scowled at Lis and Len who were both smirking at him.
"It likes like you had good memories from this place." Len commented.
"As far as foster homes go, I got lucky." Mick recognized that much. He hadn't been in the system for very long, less than two years, but he had stayed with this one family, the Stewarts, that whole time...alright, he hadn't exactly stayed with them the entire time, he had been in Juvie for more than half that time. But even then the Stewarts had been his guardians, and even though they didn't have to they still kept an eye on him.
The Stewarts were pretty exceptional as far as foster parents went. They took their jobs as guardians seriously, even when a kid wasn't actually living with them. As far as the Stewarts were concerned, once a kid had been under their care they were their responsibility from that point on.
Even after a kid left their care, whether because they were being sent to another home or because they were leaving the system entirely, the Stewarts still did what they could to keep in contact with them, to make sure they were doing alright. To this day Mick still got the occasional phone calls from Mrs. Stewart, who just wanted to check up on him.
It was a little annoying sometimes, and Mick often felt uncomfortable about it, he wasn't used to somebody actually caring for him like this. It was kinda unnerving for him. Still, it was nice to know that there was somebody out there who actually gave a damn about him, even if he couldn't imagine why.
Mick had never understood the Stewarts, and he was pretty sure that he understood them even less now than he ever had before. It just didn't make any sense. Old foster parents or not, what kind of people let a well-known criminal stay in their house for a few weeks while they're gone on vacation?
Mick didn't understand it, but he wasn't about to complain about it. All that mattered was the Stewarts were letting him, Len and Lisa stay in their house while they were gone for a christmas vacation. The 'why' behind it didn't really matter. Not to Mick.
"So, what exactly is the plan here?" Len asked with a slight tilt of his head. Mick rolled his eyes, though he really shouldn't be surprised about this. Len was the type of person who liked to know exactly what he was doing when. He hated not having a plan, but what he hated even more than that was being kept in the dark of what the plan was.
Mick tried to think of what to say to Len. Truth be told, he didn't really have a plan, exactly. At least, not one with specific steps that Len surely wanted to know about. What he had wasn't even a plan, more like an idea.
Len had told Mick once that he and Lisa had never really got to celebrate Christmas in the traditional way, or at all, when they were kids. This had been completely mind blowing for Mick, who had lived with two families, his own and the Stewarts, both of whom had been really big into Christmas.
Mick himself felt kind of neutral about the holiday, but he didn't think it right or fair that neither Lisa nor Len would get the chance to actually celebrate it. So he had come up with this plan to just celebrate Christmas properly with the two of them this year.
At first he had just planned on doing it at one of their multiple safe-houses, but when Mrs. Stewart had heard about his plan she immediately offered up her own home for him to use. Mick hadn't wanted to accept her offer, but he wasn't sure that he knew how to do full out Christmas in the city, so he had accepted.
Now, here they were, at the Stewarts' house, with just a week and a half until Christmas. Mick thought that the house looked strangely bare, with no decorations up. Usually the Stewarts put up decorations and stuff the day after Thanksgiving, but this year since they had gone out of town they hadn't even bothered.
Well, at least Mick now knew where to start.
"Well, first we gotta make this place look more festive." Mick said. Lisa's face lit up in excitement while Len frowned, not exactly angrily, but he clearly wasn't happy. Mick wasn't sure what his deal was, but he didn't bother thinking too much about it right now. Worrying about Len could wait until after this place actually looked like it was Christmas time.
If Mick was being honest with himself, he wasn't a big fan of putting up decorations and stuff. Sure, some of it was nice and fun, but other stuff was just junk. However, he was still going to put it all up, because the decorations were a vital part of the whole Christmas experience.
If they were going to be celebrating Christmas, they had to do it right.
Mick brought Lisa and Len up into the attic and showed them where they kept the boxes that held the Christmas decorations. Len begrudgingly opened one of the boxes and stared critically at the Santa themed decorations. For some reason this irritated Lisa who said something snarky towards her brother. Len, in a manner that was so unlike him, shoved the box to the side, ignored Lisa's curses that we directed at him and silently returned downstairs empty handed.
Mick groaned and wondered if there was any scotch or booze in the kitchen, because he seriously felt like having a drink right now. Their stay had just begun and Mick could already tell that it was going to be one hell of a Christmas.
...Mick just didn't know whether that was a good thing or not.
A/N: In case you didn't figure it out yourself, this is not the only chapter. There will be a few more with this one. I will update within a few days, until then, keep on being amazing.