Prompt #6: Who takes photos of the other while they sleep?
Headcanon: The peace of sleep was hard to come by for Len and Sara most of the time, but both believed the other was beautiful when that moment of peace would finally appear. They both feel the need to remember the look on the other's face forever through photos. Both knew how possible it was to die in their line of work and wanted to have memories saved all their lives.
For Sara, it all started with Thea. The combined effort of Gideon, Felicity, Jax, and Cisco created a way to keep up communication between the groups, just in case something came up that needed all of them again. It was made for emergencies and the frequency worked like normal cellphones, each with their own number of sorts.
Of course, for Thea boredom was a definite emergency. Late one night, after a routinely hard mission that nearly went unroutinely bad with Sara getting severely injured, Thea texted her to see what she was doing. Leonard had been back for a few months, thanks to another Earth's hero. He'd apparently been blown there, and it took a long time for him to fully heal. Shortly after he returned, they'd revisited 'me and you' and things had been going great. The mission had been a close call, and Len held onto her, his nose buried against her neck. Sara quietly pulled out her phone to see the text from her longtime friend and, after a beat of hesitance, snapped a picture of them curled against each other. The caption read: "Today's mission was hard on us". Thea quickly texted back how cute the picture was and that she hoped they were ok. Sara just simply let her know they'd talk in the morning.
But after that, Thea kept bugging her for more cute pictures of them. She even got Felicity in on the begging. So, Sara kept taking pictures. She didn't send all of them. She could only take them after Leonard was asleep and some of the pictures showed his scars. But she quickly came to love the past time. The look of peace on his face as he slept was something she treasured; it was a look he so rarely wore. Their days and nights were so often filled with nightmares, so she wanted to preserve these little moments.
Eventually, the pictures included the two children they'd adopted shortly after their wedding. The little boy and girl were abuse victims, much like Len. A late-night vigilante run through Central City had them coming upon the scene of the crime. A small red haired little boy bodily shielding his little sister from the girl's mother. The boy, Nikolas, was a meta-human foster child. Sara knew Len's incident with the Oculus awoke his own meta-gene, so she wasn't surprised when the woman's hand and blood whip was frozen solid. Joe came moments later and picked the woman up, letting the heroine and anti-hero take both kids to S.T.A.R. labs. It didn't take long for them to fall in love with both children, and Team Flash helped with the adoption process. They also went to work helping to train both Nikolas and Chyna, the little girl, with their abilities.
Sara's favorite pictures were the ones where Len was sitting on the couch after a tiring mission, arms wrapped tightly around their little boy with their little girl tucked into his side and her pet shadow kitten in her lap, as he sang softly to them. There was always such a loving gleam in his eyes as he gazed at them and herself. It only got more precious when their surprise twins were born. Sara could see the moment—captured it on film—that Leonard Snart, robber of ATMs, Rouge, Legend, anti-hero, was lost in the unfocused eyes of his daughter and son.
She really had to thank Thea one day for getting the picture taking started. It came to bring her so much joy.
For Leonard, Lisa, as with many things that drove him over the years, was the inspiration.
It started when she took some time off in Gotham City. She was hurting from the loss of her brother and then the loss of Cisco's affection. Barry had a friend there that he asked to watch out for her. They met at the bar he owned, and they became fast friends. When Leonard came back, she started texting him pictures of her, her now boyfriend, and his daughter. Len thought it was hilarious that his little sister was with the adopted son of one of the richest men in Gotham, but she was happy and that was all he wanted. After he and Sara finally got together, he began to return the sentiment. He was good at taking candids of Sara throughout the day without her being aware. They would be shots of her laughing at something Jax or Mick said, her concentrating over research for their next mission, her training. He also took them when she'd fall into a rare peaceful sleep, wanting to preserve the look on her face.
One night, after a mission that nearly cost him her he became more serious with capturing any instance he could. He knew that was the night she began taking pictures of him. He hadn't been able to sleep, seeing the blood covering her as he carried her to the medbay every time he closed his eyes and began to drift. He also knew she was sending some of the photographs back to her friends in Star City. He didn't mind especially since he knew she'd never send one with his scars on display. Besides, he was sending pictures of her and them to Lisa, sometimes Barry, and eventually Mick.
He nearly filled his phone with pictures of them and her at their wedding, but shortly after she wasn't his only inspiration. Nikolas and Chyna quickly became subjects of pure moments captured on film. Many of Nikolas were of him and the boy together as he felt safer with Leonard than Sara. They had the boy's foster mother to thank for that. But that fear didn't last long and soon, pictures were being sent to the Waverider, Barry, Thea and Lisa from both husband and wife of their happy family. Leonard's fascination with Sara as a lone photo subject began once again the moment he found out she was pregnant. It was quite the surprise, but he thought she was even more beautiful. He took secret candids of her once again each day of the pregnancy, enjoying every day of it.
Then the twins came. They were then constant subjects, their little Serenity and Alfons. His favorite picture was shortly after the twins' birth. Sara was propped up in her bed in the Waverider's medbay. Nikolas was curled against one side gently helping his mother hold his baby sister. Chyna was perched as high as her tiny 5-year-old body would allow, trying to peer over her mother's arm at her baby brother. The look of awe and love the three of them held in their eyes was breath taking. Mick had then forced him forward, with the help of Quinten, to sit with his family instead of just admiring them. Part of Leonard wondered if that was when it started for Mick, that need to preserve moments in photographs because it was shortly after that his own pictures were met with picture replies from his oldest friend.
He needed to thank Lisa for being an inspiration just like she always was. He finally found something that brought him real joy.