A/N: As a note, Leonard Snart has brown eyes, but Wentworth Miller has blue eyes, and the mention of blue eyes here is for that reason. Also, I just think the character of Captain Cold should have blue eyes. Meh…
"Hey," Caitlin chuckles, already buzzed off a strawberry daiquiri that she swears had more daiquiri in it than strawberry, "I thought you said you can't dance."
"Well, you know, I dabbled a bit in high school," Barry says, putting an arm around her waist and sweeping her around in a smooth circle. "We all had those electives we were forced to take in college that we don't talk about."
"Yeah" – Caitlin giggles when Barry spins her out from under his arm and she accidentally lets go, coming to a stop at a nearby table, grabbing hold for balance – "but Felicity says your elective came in the form of a nationally recognized show choir."
"Yeah, well, as of tomorrow, those records will be erased," Barry assures her, pulling out his phone and composing a quick, scolding text to Felicity, reminding her that she's the one who's supposedly better at keeping secrets…and also calling in a small favor.
"I'm sure they will," Caitlin says with a wink that somehow fails at being a wink. "I'm going to go revive Cisco and get another drink. You want?"
"Nah," Barry says, shoving his phone back in his pocket. "Not unless you happen to have another one of those rocket shots you guys developed for me."
"All out," she says regretfully, realizing it's probably a bummer for Barry, always being the designated driver. A man with that much on his plate should be allowed to get wasted way more than he does. But then, Barry wouldn't be Barry if he did. "But I'll remember for next time. Promise."
"I'm holding you to it," he says to her back as she stumbles away towards the bar. Barry checks his watch. Christ, he thinks, scrubbing a hand down his face. It's after midnight. He watches Caitlin join what Barry thought was a passed out Cisco over at the bar, but she taps him on the shoulder and he raises his head, giving her a sloppy smile. God, they both make a messy pair of drunks. Drunk nerds, to be specific. That makes it even worse. Barry laughs to himself and double-checks his Timex. He'll give them another fifteen minutes before he has to pile them both in the van and drive them home.
He takes a step towards the bar to join them when an arm wraps around his waist, pulling him back a foot, and locking him in place.
"What the he-"
"Don't…move…" The voice behind Barry is familiar, a little too familiar, as is the hard object pressing into him, which, for the moment, Barry has no defense against.
"Hello, Scarlet," the voice says, almost predictably enough for Barry to groan if they weren't in a public place with innocent bystanders who could get hurt.
"What are you doing, Snart?" Barry snaps over his shoulder. He feels Len start to move him, assuming he'll take him out back to the alley, and from there…kidnap him, maybe? That seems to be a reoccurring m.o. But they don't actually go anywhere. They sway slowly back and forth, this bizarre action leaving Barry completely baffled. Is Snart using him as a shield? Is the whole bar under attack? Barry peeks out the window at the street outside. There are no cars heading their way, no foot traffic on the sidewalk. An attack doesn't seem likely. "I mean it, Snart. Seriously, what are you doing?"
"It's called dancing," Len says. "You may have heard of it. It's fine on its own, but it's usually more fun with a partner."
"Well, why don't you go find a partner then?" Barry says.
"I have."
Barry stops breathing, but only to keep himself from laughing.
"You've got to be…you can't be serious," Barry says, trying to disengage himself from this ridiculous pretense and prepare for a fight.
"You feel that, Scarlet?" Len asks, bucking something hard against Barry's left buttock. "It you don't dance, I'm going to freeze your ass off…literally."
"Jeez," Barry says, joking to put himself at ease while he considers all the angles. "Is this how you get everyone to dance with you, or just me?"
"For now," Len says, backing off an inch, "just you."
The music coming from the jukebox switches, changes speeds, and Len tries to adjust, but all they're doing is an eighth grade version of the two-step. Barry, still convinced this is a distraction, can't let this continue. If he's going to be captured, or die, he doesn't want it to happen while he's doing this.
"Okay…" Barry remarks at the awkward side-shuffle sway Len is leading him on. "I thought you said we were going to dance."
"I am," Len says with an uncomfortable hitch in his voice.
"Well, I don't know what the heck you're doing, but it sure as hell isn't dancing."
Len sighs into Barry's back. Barry doesn't know why, but the ghost of Len's breath bleeding through his shirt and onto his skin makes him shiver. "Give me an ever lovin' break, twinkle toes. It's…it's been awhile."
Barry chuckles, and Len tightens his grip.
"What's so funny?" Len growls, pressing into Barry's back, making sure he feels that gun shoved up against his ass.
"Oh," Barry says. "Nothing. I'm just trying to picture little Lenny Snart, junior psychopath, at his first high school dance, tripping over his feet."
"You know, I could just freeze you," Len says, attempting a change in direction and stumbling forward with Barry in tow. "Then I wouldn't have to listen to you jabber while I try to get the hang of this."
Barry throws his head back in frustration at being held prisoner by a guy with two left feet…and a gun…his hair unintentionally sweeping across Len's cheek. Len stumbles again.
"Alright, well, if we're going to do this, let's at least…here…" Barry eyes a patch of nearly pitch black space in a crook behind the karaoke stage. He scans the room, assessing the rest of the patrons. It's late in the evening on a Tuesday night…correction, Wednesday morning…and the crowd, if you could call it that, is spotty at best – three or four people, each about seven sheets to the wind, plus Caitlin and Cisco, playing some sort of drinking game with tequila shots that already has Cisco laughing into his arm on the bar, short of breath, and Caitlin leaning halfway off the stool with her eyes squeezed shut, cackling like a Shakespearean witch. In a split second, Barry and Len are off the dance floor and in that patch of zero light, with just a single chair turned over in their wake. This patch of darkness conceals them from the room, and especially, Barry hopes, from any of Len's gang, who might be waiting, with a gun pointed to Barry's head as extra insurance.
But for what? A dance? The last time Barry remembers being threatened by a dance, he was playing Riff in West Side Story.
A performance that, by tomorrow, no one will ever be able to find evidence of.
"Okay," Barry says, "now…" He turns in Len's arms, and Len stiffens, eyes darting left and right as Barry faces him. Barry grabs Len's hands and places them on his hips. "So, since you insist on leading, you get to put your hands there…yippee…and I'll…well, I'll just put my arms over your shoulders." Barry loops his arms over Len's shoulders and Len watches him, almost fascinated.
"And…this is how you like to dance?" Len asks skeptically, looking at Barry through long lashes, his eyes illuminated by the faintest streak of light piercing the dark through the curtains and, Jesus, Barry thinks. Were his eyes always that blue?
"Well, I prefer this to being frozen solid, but only by a small margin, so yeah," Barry says, clearing his throat, his voice not as strong in its sarcasm as it was. "Why? How did you prefer to do it? You know, back in the day?"
"I…I didn't go to any dances," Len confesses quietly. "Things were different…for me. I had my sister to look after, and besides…no one really liked me…like that."
"Oh," Barry says, on the brink of offering some sort of apology, but he knew it would come out weak at best because what do you say to that? And besides, Len would probably interpret it as pity, and that would not go over too well, especially with that gun of his somewhere at the level of Barry's crotch instead of his ass. "Uh…you mean you weren't the big chic magnet back then that you are now?"
Len, staring down at his barely moving feet, gives Barry a sardonic half-chuckle. "I wasn't the big anything magnet back then." Len stops moving, and his eyes pop up, his expression cold and blank. He glares at Barry hard. "You tell anyone I just said that, and I'll…"
"You'll probably freeze off some body part that won't grow back," Barry finishes, rolling his eyes. "But you're forgetting one thing."
"Yeah," Len says. "And what's that, Scarlet?"
Barry smirks. "You have to catch me first."
Len matches Barry's smirk, and kicks it up a notch. "Well, it seems like I've got you right now," he says, squeezing Barry's hips, "doesn't it?"
Barry's smirk fades. It freezes off his face entirely when he notices Len's eyes - his electric blue eyes - flick down to his mouth, and the barest suggestion of a shuddered breath escape his parted lips.
"Barrryyyy!"
Both men jump in each other's arms when the singsong voice of a very drunk Caitlin Snow calls out from somewhere beyond the shadows in the empty bar.
"Oh, Barrryyyy Allleeeennn!" she continues singing, her voice getting louder as it stumbles their way. "I think (hiccup – oh, excuse me) I think I need someone responsible to take me home and (hiccup – oop, that was not good) and get me out of this disaster of a dress. Why I keep buying these things, I'll never…"
Leonard glares at Barry, seeming suddenly offended. No…disgusted.
"I think we're done here," he says, mostly to himself, with a curt nod at Barry. "It sounds like someone out there needs you to help her undress."
"Wha-" Barry says, following after him a few steps as he sulks off, wondering for the life of him what in the heck just happened.
Barry watches Len blow by an oblivious Caitlin, his eyes tracking the man as he storms out of the bar, rounds the doorway, and heads off into the street. As he stomps away, hands locked into fists at his sides, shoulders squared, silently daring anyone to mess with him, Barry notices two things that make his confused head spin.
No one comes out of the shadows to join him – not his sister, not his partner, no other hired gunmen following close behind.
And, for all of his posturing to the contrary, Len doesn't appear to have his gun.