Archive of Our Own

Old Mister Johnson had troubles of his own, he had a yellow cat which wouldn't leave its home

If he'd known, Mick would've kept right on minding his own damn business.

But he didn't know.

So when he sees the six boys beating on a small new one, who was writhing and yowling like some sort of demented cat, he wades right in. He never liked bullies.

"Rory, what the hell?" one snarls. He holds his ground - there's something pinned under his foot, though Mick can't tell what. "Leave us be."

"No," Mick says, and decks him hard enough to knock him back on his ass.

After that, they all run, which is slightly confusing - six against one (one and a half, if Mick's feeling generous about the shrimp he just broke his much valued neutrality to defend) is pretty good odds, but they don't even try, they just retreat.

Mick's a little put out about it; he'd been anticipating a decent fight, at least.

"You saved me," the kid behind him says.

Oh, jeez.

"Don't take it personally," Mick says to him. The kid's covered in bruises and bleeding like a stuck pig from a cut to the head. "I just wanted to fight. You need the nurse?"

"No," the kid says. "Also, you're lying."

"Well, you're going to the nurse anyway," Mick tells him, since the question had been rhetorical, and also ignoring the kid's too-knowing gaze. "No point dying from a concussion instead of a shiv."

"I ain’t gonna die from something like this! Do you even know how old I am..?"

"Whatever."

Mick doesn't care. Mick scoops the kid up and takes him to the nurse. The kid chatters and complains the whole damn time, but Mick ignores him.

Mick leaves him there with a feeling of relief and goes back to his regular routine of keeping his head down and trying to avoid trouble. He's almost expecting something from the gang he fought, but they seem to have decided to pretend that nothing happened - he even hears one of them swear that he got that shiner trying to climb the wall of the center in some sort of escape attempt.

That would be that, expect the very next day, the kid manages to get out of the nurse's office - Mick wasn't expecting that to happen for a few days, depending on how much of a target the adults decided he was - and comes right up to Mick during the midday break.

"You saved me," he says again. "I will give you payment."

"Don't want your payment," Mick grunts.

The kid scowls. He's got what Mick's ma used to call a fox-face - long and narrow and sneaky, with big old eyes and a nice set of cheekbones. Face like that's made for trouble, and Mick doesn't want trouble. He wants to get out of juvie, back to where he can have his lighter with him all the time.

"Will this do?" the kid asks, and he's holding out a roll of bills.

It's more cash than Mick's ever seen.

"Are you fucking crazy?" Mick demands. "Don't flash that around - you'll get your ass killed, not just beaten."

"You don't want money?"

"No! What's it gonna buy me in here, anyway?"

The kid frowns. "What do you want, then?"

"Go away, kid."

The kid leaves, but the very next day Mick wakes up at dawn - an old habit from the farm that he can't seem to break - and finds the kid's somehow made it into his goddamn bed.

"What the fuck," Mick says. They aren't even assigned to the same wing.

"You saved me," the kid - whose name Mick still doesn't know - says, with a knowing smile, almost a leer. "You should get payment."

"Oh, hell no," Mick says, because maybe he's a murderer like they all said back at home after the fire but at least he ain't a kid-toucher - even if the kid in question is only two years younger than him, thirteen-fourteen is just way too young - and then he shoves the kid right out of the bed.

The kid looks hilariously affronted.

"Go away, kid," Mick tells him. "I don't want your payment."

"Am I not attractive to you?" the kid asks, looking annoyed. "Do you prefer females?"

"First - my sexuality ain't any of your business. Second - don't call them 'females', that's just rude. They're women. Or girls, I guess, at your age. Now get out of here before one of the teachers does inspection and gets both of us – mostly me – in trouble."

The kid stalks off in a huff.

The very next day, he shows up with a real honest-to-god hamburger. "As payment," he suggests.

"No!" Mick exclaims, because damnit if the kid isn't stubborn as a mule. Normally, Mick would literally stab someone for a hamburger, but he doesn't want this kid to get the wrong idea about any more of this payment business.

Not least because he is kinda cute. Still, no.

One of the other kids ends up eating it and he gets sick later, so it's for the best anyway.

The very next day, the kid is back again.

"You don't give up easy, do you?" Mick asks him.

The kid pulls his clenched fist out of his pocket. "As payment?" he says hopefully, and offers his hand to Mick.

It's a lighter.

"You know what I did with one of those?" Mick asks, lips suddenly dry. "People died."

"Take it, then. As payment. You want it."

"I want to get out of here more," Mick says, albeit with difficulty. It’s hard to resist temptation. It's so hard. "I get caught with one of these, I get another few months, maybe more. I get out, I can have all the ones I want."

"You need to take payment," the kid insists.

"I keep telling you," Mick says. "I don't want your payment, and certainly not for something that I'd've done anyway. Take your 'payment' and shove it."

He turns away.

The kid watches him for a few long minutes, looking contemplative.

"Go!" Mick roars.

The kid goes, but reluctantly.

The very next day, he's back.

"No," Mick says the second he sees him.

The kid raises his eyebrows.

"Whatever new payment you have in mind, I don't want it," Mick clarifies.

"Not a payment," the kid says. "A gift. Will you take that?"

Mick can't help a passing moment of curiosity. If that other stuff was payment, what the hell is a gift?

"I'll hear you out," he says warily.

"My name is Leonard Snart," the kid says. "Name me, and I'll stand by your side forever."

"I don't want you," Mick complains. But he's got to admit, Leonard is a terrible name; real old-fashioned. And Snart? Jeez.

"The last suggestion was 'Leo'," the kid muses.

Jesus Christ.

"You ain't a Leo," Mick says. "You're more of a - I don't know. A Len. Lenny. Yeah. That works. Len. S’a decent name."

"That does seem better," the kid agrees.

"No kidding. But I'm serious, Len, I don't think you need to pay me -"

Mick's voice fades away, because the kid - Len - is smiling. It's a very broad smile, filled with sharp teeth, and some belated instinct runs up and down Mick's spine with warning.

"You've named me," Len says happily. "You've accepted my gift."

"Seems more like me gifting you," Mick says, suddenly wary. But it's too late.

"I'll stand by you forever," Len says, and his smile goes even wider, which shouldn't be possible. Mouths don't do that, not normal ones. "Whether you want me to or not."

Mick should've taken the hamburger. Or the lighter.

He'll have plenty of time for regret. But at that moment, all he knows is that he's made a terrible mistake.

He tried and he tried to give the cat away, he gave it to a man goin' far, far away.

Mick wakes up later than usual. It's his first full day back, so to speak, and the chores hadn't been rearranged to include him yet, so his newest foster mom had told him he could sleep in as a special treat, her voice clearly indicating that he ought to be grateful for it - and that he'd be paying back that special treat for the next few months.

So he just lays in bed for a bit, enjoying having a moment entirely to himself.

He didn't much like this foster mom, or this house, but he was happy to be here for at least one reason: he'd be free of that goddamn pest who followed him around everywhere -

"You’re a bit of a slug-a-bed when you're at home, huh? Wouldn't've guessed."

Mick's eyes snap open and he sits straight up. Len - who had at least another month on his juvie stay according to his paperwork, Mick had checked - is perched on the end of his bed.

"Get out!" Mick roars.

Len makes a face at him and hops off the bed. "You're so pissy in the mornings," he says, rolling his eyes and sauntering away. "So annoying."

Mick closes his eyes. He's having a nightmare. That's all.

He wishes he could believe it.

"Michael?" his foster mom says, poking her head into the room, with at least two of the little monsters that called themselves his foster siblings hovering behind her. Hoping he was going to get in trouble, no doubt. "What were you hollering about?"

"Len," Mick says grimly.

"What?"

"A friend -" he uses the term lightly "- of mine from juvie. He's followed me home."

"Don't be absurd, Michael," his foster mom says. "There's nobody here. You were dreaming."

"I wish."

"But since you're awake..."

Mick scowls but gets out of bed to go help with the chores.

Four days later, his foster mom's had enough. "Michael," she snaps. "Stop talking about your friend! He's not here. You've clearly started hallucinating, so I've set you up with a shrink on Monday -"

"I'm not hallucinating!"

"There is no 'Len'!" she exclaims. "There's no such boy here, do you understand me?"

"Now that's just hurtful," Len says from where he's suddenly sitting on the counter right behind her, and she leaps a good foot in the air.

Mick has to hide a smile at that.

Unfortunately, that just sets her off. "Is this some sort of prank?" she yells. "You think if you pretend to be seeing him, I'll let him stay or something? Well, mister, you've got another thing coming. When Joey gets back, you're gonna have your ass tanned halfway -"

"No, he's not," Len says, reaching for a celery stick and snapping one between his teeth. "Or else your precious husband Joey's not getting back from work today."

"What?"

"I belong with Mick, now," Len tells her, and smiles. It's not a nice smile. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You -"

Len hops off the counter. "Nice home you have here, Mrs. Gorren. Awful shame if you lost it."

He wanders out the door, shutting it behind him.

She storms after him and yanks it open, saying, "Now listen here, you -"

Nobody's there.

"What?" she asks, shocked. "How..?"

"Don't worry," Mick says mournfully. "He'll be back tomorrow. He always is."

But the cat came back the very next day, the cat came back, we thought he was a goner, but the cat came back; it just couldn't stay away.

“Maybe you could bother one of them,” Mick suggests, sitting at the edge of the park bench. Len is beside him, as always.

“Why would I?” Len replies. “I have you.”

"I don't even like you," Mick tells him.

Len shrugs. This evidentially bothered him not at all.

"Listen, I don't like hitting kids, but you're getting real close to me just beating your ass to make you go away."

Len smiles.

"...what?"

"If you were going to do that, you'd've done it already."

"I'm waiting for you to grow up s'all. Don't like hitting kids."

"You beat up those boys in juvie."

"Yeah, well. They weren't as shrimpy as you."

"I'm 500 years old," Len says. "You don't need to worry that much."

"...don't say things like that."

Len's smile goes distinctively inhuman.

Mick shudders. "I'm going to kill you one day," he tells Len. It's not even a threat, it's a fact of life. Mick kills everything he touches.

"Probably," Len says cheerfully.

"Are you sure you don't want someone else?" Mick asks. "I could set something up."

Len laughs.

Mick tries to ditch him at the mall, ducking through doors and under counters until he sees Len in the distance, looking confused and slightly annoyed. It doesn't work, though. Len knows where he lives.

Even when Mick got abruptly moved between foster homes, because Mrs. Gorren couldn't take the weirdness anymore and drives four counties over to drop him off.

Len still came back.

Len always comes back.

The man around the corner swore he'd kill the cat on sight, he loaded up his shotgun with nails and dynamite;

The first time Mick thinks he's lost Len for good is on a mob job.

He knows he shouldn't have taken it - it's the goddamn mob, the Families, the parasite on the soul of Central - but like so many before him, he can't resist the offer they dangle before him. Set a few fires and make more money on a single job than ever before? Earn fear from those around you, seeing as you can't get respect? Sign Mick the hell up.

He’s young and stupid, okay? He’s eighteen and on his own for the first time.

He makes dumb decisions.

And, almost inevitably, it goes wrong.

Not the first job, but the second.

"Fuck no, I'm not taking the fall for this!" Mick exclaims. "Cops are minutes away - there's enough time to run."

"But if they don't find who did it, they'll keep looking," Ricky Vargas, local enforcer for the Keystone Dabryinians, says. His voice is steady. The gun he has aimed at Mick is steady, too. "Better for them to already have someone in custody. Then they won't dig too hard and find traces of our presence here."

"I got arson priors from juvie," Mick says through gritted teeth. "I'll go down for a long time - lot longer than any of the others. Send one of them."

"They've been with us longer," Ricky says. "Sorry, but that's the way it is."

"But -"

"We'll take care of you in there," Ricky says. "You'll be respected. And we'll take care of your family out here."

Mick bares his teeth. "Rehearsed that, didn't you?" he says bitterly. "Except for one thing - I don't got no family, and I don't want your protection."

"Then maybe I should shoot you now to keep you from turning on us," Ricky says, and Mick can tell he likes the idea. He's itching to do it. Wants an execution on his record; he knows that until he's a blooded man, he won't move up, but there's been nothing for it recently.

"That seems like a foolish move," Len says from behind Ricky.

Mick and Ricky both jump, since Mick would have sworn Len wasn't there a second ago.

"Who the hell are you?" Rick shouts.

"Lenny, get the hell out of here!" Mick exclaims at the same time.

Ricky's eyes shoot to him. "You brought a buddy to a job?"

"I didn't! And he's not -" the denial fades on Mick's tongue, since buddy or not, Len was still here for him. "Len, go away."

Len arches his eyebrows. "Has that ever worked?"

"Len, I'm serious. This is serious. Just go and -"

"No, stay," Ricky says, his eyes lighting up. "Both of you can take the fall -"

"Don't you dare bring him into this -" Mick snaps, turning to Ricky.

"You're the one who brought him!" Ricky snaps back, turning back to face Mick with the gun. All his boys follow his lead, staring at Mick. Mick hopes Len is smart enough to take the opportunity and run, but he doubts it.

"I'm telling you -"

"Maybe I'll take him with me," Ricky says. "And then I'll shoot him if you don't agree to -"

"No, that won't work," Len says from Ricky's blind spot, all the way on the other side of the warehouse from where he started.

Ricky startles badly this time. As he spins to see who it is, his finger slips on the trigger. Point-blank range.

The shot is loud and echoing.

Mick thinks it'll go on forever.

He always knew he’d be the death of Len. He’s death to everyone he’s ever around. He just hadn’t realized it’d be so soon.

"Shots fired!" a voice shouts from the outside. "Get them!"

"The cops!" one of Ricky's men hisses. "That means they're gonna open fire!"

They all scatter.

Even Mick, to his shame.

He leaves Lenny's body lying there with nothing but promises that he'll come to retrieve it later.

He goes to the crappy little apartment he lives in, now. He sits on the bed and puts his head in his hands. He promises himself he’ll never work another mob job, as long as he lives.

Not even fire helps, that night.

After long enough, exhaustion pulls him to sleep, and he dreams troubled dreams.

Mick opens his eyes the next morning, staring straight at the ceiling.

He doesn’t know what to do.

He guesses he should get up.

But he doesn’t know what to do, waking up alone, alone and without an annoying voice there to ask –

“So, what’s for breakfast?”

Mick sits bolt upright. “Len?!”

Len is perched on the dresser, one of his favorite places, playing with the chess pieces Mick bought for a quarter at a garage sale just so Len would stop taking his pens. “What?”

Mick gapes.

Len looks up after a second, blinking. “What, Mick?”

“You’re – you’re back.”

“Of course,” Len says. “I’m yours. I’ll always be by your side.”

Mick covers his face and groans.

“Just so you know,” he says pleasantly, “now the mob’s gonna come kill us both.”

Len arches his eyebrows. “You mean,” he says, “that they’re gonna try.”

He waited and he waited for the cat to come around, ninety seven pieces of the man is all they found.

It’s not so much that they try so much as they fail miserably.

It’s probably a good thing that Mick swore off of ever working with the Families again, because…wow.

Mick spends a decent amount of time in the library, looking up - and then reading it, a slow and painful eternity, damn his dyslexic eyes – information about whatever the hell it is that Len is. It’s hard to figure out (apparently library searches don’t really respond well to “annoying probably supernatural asshole kids that don’t leave me alone”, even with the aid of a friendly librarian), but he manages it in the end, with the help of said friendly librarian who manages to piece together all the hints Mick’s been able to identify and come up with some answers.

It’s the fox-face that gives him away, in the end, and the distinction between payment, which is worthless, and a gift, which is priceless, at least in theory. And one small extra hint, too: five hundred years, Len told him once, and Mick woke up one day after a particularly bad anxiety attack, where he lit fires and fires and fires and burned himself and cried but nothing made it stop but Len covering him with five warm fur tails and letting him sleep under their protection, and after that the librarian had asked if maybe he thought he was describing a fox.

A fox spirit, anyway.

Kitsune.

That’s their most famous name, anyway; the Japanese call them that and know the most about them, though it turns out they live in all different sort of places, all over the world.

The name seems like it fits, and the more Mick reads or hears, the more it seems like it’s the case. Mick even calls some professors, some museums, that sorta stuff. Total nerd stuff, but it’s worth it to learn what he can about the creature that follows him and protects him and annoys the living daylights out of him.

Kitsune are notorious tricksters - he knew that.

They can live for hundreds of years - knew that too.

It rained in sunlight when they got married - didn't know that, but not all that surprising the way Len scampers around like a demented gerbil when it's raining.

They can take on human form, and take humans as lover – Mick…doesn’t know what to do with that, so he very pointedly just doesn’t think about it.

They have a particular fondness for rice – Mick’d figured that one out by sheer process of elimination, so, yeah, he knew that.

They're fucking monsters when they’re crossed.

Yeah, Mick kinda knew that, too.

Family enforcers find themselves in cars filled with drugs right before the police and media find them, usually sitting right next to their corrupt politician contact of choice, and maybe the police would've let them go but the newspapers never will. Bad luck - except that each and every one of 'em swears that the last they remember is going to sleep in their own beds at home, and their wives or husbands all agree.

Doesn't matter, of course. The prosecutors can see the media fixing up a fire under their tail and with this much evidence, they've got to convict.

Those are the lucky ones.

The less lucky check themselves into mental hospitals, unable to sleep because of a fox at the corner of their eye, stalking 'em all the time, a fox that causes accidents and chaos wherever they go.

The less lucky still wake up in enemy territory, confused and lost and unarmed.

The least lucky get found floating in the river the next day, clawed up as if by a wild animal.

"Why them?" Mick asks, staring at the news. It's a handful - a Don, a lieutenant, a few enforcers, a few goods. Ricky.

"They were behind the attempts to hurt you," Len purrs in his ear. He's curled up on the other side of the couch in one of his untouchable moods, though he looks like he's considering demanding either pats on the head or food sometime soon.

Mick remembers reading somewhere that foxes were cat software running on dog hardware, and that saying taught him more than anything else has about the feeding and care and management of rogue kitsune.

Even ones claiming to be centuries old.

(At least he's not still looking like he's thirteen. Apparently, kitsune age like humans and start over at the century mark, with Len having just started a brand new century two decades ago. He looks just a little younger than Mick.)

"You know they barely even remember that job now, right?" Mick feels the need to point out. "They're too caught up with this war they think they're in."

"They've finally stopped loading up on bullets and guns," Len says, a frisson of excitement in his voice. "They've turned to prayers and witch-workers and sorcerers instead. A challenge."

And that's answer enough for Len, Mick reflects. He loves a goddamn challenge.

"And what about me?" he asks, clicking off the news.

Len blinks at him.

"You doing this for me? 'cause I'd like you to stop."

"It's not really for you," Len says contemplatively. "So much as it is for me, in your name."

Mick had figured as much. There were stories about samurai families that won the favor of the kitsune and were strengthened thereby, their enemies falling before them, but that that method of defense had lost favor considerably when it became clear that they couldn't control the kitsune's defense of their family names - merely direct it, and even not that, sometimes. That's when the kitsune blessing was revealed to be a curse.

Mick sympathizes. A lot.

"I don't like it," he tells Len, who smiles at him, unmoved. "And I'm gonna put a stop to it."

"Really?" Len drawls, that irritating yet painfully familiar Central City slum drawl. Turns out its because Len's always been a city boy, even before he was dragged around by family obligations he doesn't want to talk about, family obligations that do worse than make Len angry and instead make him quiet and hurt and afraid and make Mick have crazy thoughts about going to punch whatever supernatural creature or sorcerer put that expression on Len's face.

God, Mick doesn't even like the brat! He's just gotten used to him, that's all.

Practically a saintly duty, Mick's doing, keeping him all to himself. Keeping him away from other people.

Waking up every morning to his irritating voice and, sometimes, to the fleeting warmth of his body pressed against Mick's.

Making him breakfast as he bitches about something or another; better breakfasts than Mick would ever make himself, and healthier, too, just to see Len's nose wrinkle and his eyes narrow in suspicion.

Hearing him prattle on all day, chatter-chatter-chatter, a collection of all the gossip in the street. He gets it legit, too - no magic for this, no, just him, all wicked charming smiles and conspiratorial airs and suddenly all the women and most of the men want to tell him everything.

Letting that chatter fade into the background, a pleasant wave of noise that Mick finds increasingly difficult to focus without. Len never minds if Mick doesn't listen to the filler, he just likes to talk, and he has ways of making sure Mick's paying attention if he thinks what he's saying is important. It doesn't matter, anyway; most of the time Mick's listening with half an ear because it makes him smile inside.

Listening to all those terrible jokes, because Len's never met a pun he didn't like.

Being defended by him, tooth and nail and all offended that anyone dare think of Mick as just another dumb thug.

Letting him take on the planning of major heists, and watching him learn that he likes it, the human way of stealing, all timing and pre-planning and careful research; that he likes being the boss and not the bound for once; that he likes the challenge it gives him.

Waking up every morning and knowing, every morning, that Len will be there. Without fail. No matter what Mick does, to him or to others; no matter what others try to do.

Yeah.

Mick's practically a martyr for putting up with it all.

"And how, exactly, do you propose to stop me?" Len asks, and he's all sharp teeth and excitement again. "Do you think you can cage me?"

"Nah," Mick says. "I'm just going on vacation."

Len pauses. "Vacation?"

"I was thinking Greece," Mick says. "That far enough away from here that you won't be able to go wreak havoc without missing me waking up?"

And then he leans back and has fun watching Len realize that his own promises are being turned against him.

Len's grumbles and complaints about his fun being cut short make Mick laugh.

Of course, it turns out Len rather enjoys lounging near the A/C unit (on full blast, of course) while Mick enjoys the Grecian sun, so it's really a win-win situation, but what can you do about that?

But the cat came back the very next day, the cat came back, we thought he was a goner, but the cat came back; it just couldn't stay away.

"Get the fuck out of here!" Mick roars.

"You're so touchy," Len grumbles, but even his normal grousing can't touch Mick's rage. Not even the way his eyes are strangely concerned. "It wasn't even -"

"It's not that," Mick spits out. "It's you! You're the poison! You're the one who's to blame!"

Len's eyes go wide. "Mick -"

Mick charges him.

"Mick!"

Mick's not sure if it's surprise or what that does it, but Len doesn't nimbly dodge Mick's flailing arms the way he usually does; Mick grabs him around the waist and brings him down on the floor.

He's so angry.

He's so angry.

He doesn't even remember why he's so angry, just that he came home and Len was there and he's so angry, it hurts he's so angry so he has to hurt someone else just to get it out –

He brings his fists down on Len. His face, his ribs, it doesn't matter.

"You take everything!" he howls. "Scared away every friend I've ever had, ever girl that's ever taken an interest for more than one day! You're always here! You're always back!"

"Mick -" Len rasps through a damaged throat, staring up at him. "Mick -"

"You always come back and they're still dead," Mick cries out.

His family.

He hadn't even realized that was the issue.

Is it the issue?

He doesn't remember.

He doesn’t remember what made him angry.

He doesn’t remember -

"I don't deserve to have someone protecting me. I don't. I killed 'em all. My whole family, up in smoke. They're dead and they're gonna stay dead. They're never coming back. Not like you, you stupid -" Mick keeps hitting him. He doesn’t even mean to, but he can’t seem to stop. "- stupid -" Hitting him. "- selfish -" Is Mick crying? He can't tell. "- don't deserve -"

Len's eyes are soft with understanding.

He puts his hand - when did he get that loose? - on Mick's cheek.

"Sleep," Len says. "Sleep and be well."

Mick wakes up the next day.

Len is there.

He's always there.

Mick –

Mick doesn't mind. Hasn’t minded in years. It's better than being alone.

Hell, fuck the pretense. He likes Len. He likes having Len around. He thinks Len's the prettiest thing he ever damn did see, and he doesn't care about the friends or the girls or nothing, and he has no idea why he flipped out like that.

Not unless he's turning into his dad, that is.

Mick curls up on his side, facing away from Len. He doesn't want to see the bruises he left on him. "You should go," he whispers.

"I always come back to you," Len reminds him.

"You shouldn't. I don't - I hit you."

"We spar regularly."

"That wasn't sparring."

"No," Len says. "That's why I killed him."

Mick frowns. "...him?"

"Oh, yes," Len says. "It was a great and glorious deed. That sort doesn't die for long, unfortunately, but he won't be coming back to Central any time this century. I think he's planning on going to Gotham next."

"Wait. Who's 'him'?" Mick asks, rolling over to look at Len.

Len, who's bruised, yes, bearing Mick's marks the way he always does, the way he never does for anyone else, but who is also sated with pleasure in a way he only gets when he has succeeded at something done in Mick's defense, truly. Fulfilling his raison d'etre, or something like that.

"Len?"

"The shrink," Len says. "The new one. Hugo Strange. He fed you a mix of medication designed to trigger a psychotic break and taunted you with stories of your family, then unleashed you. He wanted to see what would happen, I suspect."

"He -" Mick remembers going to the new shrink's office. He doesn't remember anything after that, just a sickly blank that ends with hurting Len. "I don't -"

"He erased your memory to cover his tracks, of course," Len says. "But he didn't know that you had me, and I can follow any tracks."

"It - wasn't me?"

"Definitely not," Len says cheerfully. "Trust me, when you hit me, you're a lot less uncontrolled. For shame, Mick; why did I teach you all that boxing if you're not going to use it?"

"On - you?"

"Generally!"

"You're weird," Mick decides, not for the first time.

"I don't feel pain the way you do, you know that," Len huffs, then curls up next to him in the bed; the bed they've shared for years.

Years.

Mick had forgotten that, somehow.

What the fuck was Mick going on about? Girls? He shoulda known something was wrong the second that came out of his mouth.

"We should go do a job somewhere exotic," Len says. "Get out of town."

"You got somewhere in mind?"

Len shrugs.

Mick searches his memory.

"Heard of a job coming up soon in Shreveport?" he offers. It’s not what any normal person would consider exotic, but it’s somewhere Len probably hasn’t had any reason to go, and that’s exotic enough for Len.

"Sure," Len agrees, eyes lighting up.

Shreveport is a bad idea, as it happens, but at least Len visits Mick in the hospital every day.

(He takes Mick's pain, every day, and human pain twists his face for the first time in his over-long life, and all Mick thinks is - you know, maybe this ain't so bad.)

(It isn't the first time he's thought that, but it's the first time he's started to believe that maybe it's okay to have it be that way.)

He gave it to a man going up in a balloon, he told him for to take it to the man in the moon;

Mick personally thought it was a dumb idea getting involved in supernatural squabbles, right up until they started doing it and it turned out to be ridiculously fun.

"Why are you even doing thiiiiiiiiiis?" the Flash shouts, running around them, sounding irritable even as he speeds up and his voice starts dragging.

"Fun," Mick says, and blasts the place the Flash is heading towards with the heat gun's flame setting.

Len got it for him, beaming and crazy proud, saying it had all sorts of names, the most frightening of which was "the sun".

Mick thanked him and double-checked that sunrise still happened on schedule, which it did, thankfully.

He's not totally sure about the stars, but some things you just don't ask.

(The books say that kitsune sometimes travel with balls of light, ball lightning, but the heat gun isn't lightning. Though there is one story about tricking the sun goddess or something...)

Either way, it's a great present.

Perfect match to the pretend “cold gun” that Len uses to camouflage his icy ‘ghost flame’ attacks.

(That’d been Mick’s idea.)

The Flash yowls like he's gotten his tail pulled when Mick's flame hits him. "Okay, that's it," he says, zipping forward until he's standing across from Mick with his hands on his hips. "Explain."

"Explain what?" Mick asks, quite seriously. The Flash has been asking a lot of questions – ‘who are you’, and ‘why are you doing this’, and ‘are you nuts’, and ‘what type of gun is that’ and ‘did someone send you’ and –

"How do you always manage to figure where I'm going to be!" the Flash exclaims, which is actually a new one. "I'm definitely running faster than you hu - faster than you can see."

The Flash'd meant to say "you humans", of course, since he was another of those crazy fox-faced kitsune hiding out in human form, but he was quick enough (heh) to catch it before it came out.

He doesn't realize yet that Mick can see his tail. Just the one, terrifyingly enough, but Len assures Mick that the Flash is old enough to play the game.

"Have you looked at my gun?" Mick asks dryly, instead of answering him.

The Flash frowns at him. "I'm not going near you; you'll scorch me."

"Seriously, come take a look," Mick says encouraging. "I'm very proud of it. Temporary truce?"

The Flash gives him a suspicious look, but creeps forward.

Mick holds the gun out. "You can look, but don't touch," he warns. "I'll know if you think about it."

The Flash, who’d clearly been thinking about it, makes a face but nods.

He does examine it at lightning speed.

And then -

"Is this a piece of the sun?!" he yelps.

"A piece," Mick says, mildly horrified by Len as always. "That explains it. I guess."

Only Len would get a pyromaniac a piece of the sun as a third decade anniversary gift.

"How did you get it?" the Flash asks. Demands, really, which - rude. "How did you transmute it into gun form? Even Cisco has trouble with that, and he's a builder Oni!"

Mick files that information away. "It was a gift," he says. "Not the first."

"Not the -"

The Flash's eyes go wide.

Mick reflects that it's a good thing that his job right now is to stall the Flash while Len ransacks the place, because for someone as quick as lightning, the Flash is sure taking his sweet time putting together the pieces.

"You're the human," the Flash says. He sounds - excited?

Also, hey.

"My name's Mick," Mick points out. "Not 'human'. Not even ‘the’ human, which I’m pretty sure ain’t true just ‘cause I really feel like someone would’ve told me if I was the only human left in this city. And ain't you supposed to be pretending you're one too?"

"You can see the tail, can't you?" the Flash asks, all long-suffering barely covering up for cheerful excitement.

"First decade anniversary gift," Mick confirms. Drops in his eyes from some sort of river - he didn't ask, but it'd take Len an awful long time to get, even though he did come back every morning to check in. "I see the tails, the horns, the occasional bowl -"

The guy with the bowl filled with water on his head had been super weird, but apparently he wasn't all that dangerous once you knew about him. All you need to do is bow politely, he bows back, you bow deeper, he bows deeper, and you keep that up until the bowl spills, at which point he's helpless.

Easy enough.

Len had said something about recruiting him into some sort of crew, maybe, since his confusion powers might be useful.

But serious, who wears stripes in such awful colors?

Also - the Top? Really? That's the name he opted to go with?

He should’ve waited for Cisco Ramon to give him a name.

"I can't believe he got you River-water," Barry is marveling. "I can't believe he gave you River-water."

Mick frowns a bit at that. Len had been excited to give it to him, sure, but he was always excited about giving Mick things. Sometimes things Mick didn't want.

Mostly murder Mick didn't want, not gonna lie, but Len was a deadly little beast like that.

"It's just river water, ain't it?" he asks.

The expression on the Flash's face indicates that no, it really wasn't.

"What did he do now," Mick sighs.

The Flash looks almost offended on Len's behalf. Kitsune all think the same, it seems. "It was a great gift, you know."

"The greatest," Mick assures him. "I loved it. His decade gifts are always fantastic."

The Flash looks a little less put out by that.

"Now what's it do?"

"It lets you see the truth," the Flash says.

"So - kitsune and the rest of it?" That's what Mick had figured, but the way the kid was acting, you’d think it was a hell of a lot more impressive than that.

"Well, yes, but not just that. You can see through illusions, even illusions meant to deceive other supernaturals. It's - it's truth. Even people like us don't get access to that stuff all that often - or ever, really...”

"Uh-huh," Mick says skeptically. "Don't work on humans, does it?"

The Flash looks a little embarrassed. "Well, no, humans are complicated. But if you looked long enough, it probably would!"

"Sure thing, kid," Mick says.

"I don't supposed he'd be willing to share how he did it..?"

Mick stares.

"What?"

"You remember that we're having a supervillain fight right now, right?"

The Flash blushes bright red under his scarlet mask. Honestly, the whole fox-themed superhero suit - all red and gold - really did seem a bit obvious...

"We're under truce," the Flash grumbles.

"I'll ask him," Mick relents. "Don't promise he'll say yes or anything."

"Thank you!"

"Can we get back to fighting now?" Mick asks helplessly. Whatever Len’s stealing had better damn well be worth it.

"Sure thing," the Flash beams.

Mick raises his gun, then pauses as a thought trickles forward. "Hey, kid?"

"Yeah?"

"You said 'the human'. Exactly how many people in this city know me as Lenny's human?"

The Flash's pause goes on for too long.

"Tell me," Mick says, resigning himself.

"He's - very proud of you?" the Flash offers.

Mick groans.

The balloon came down about ninety miles away, where he is now, well I dare not say.

"So, I've gotta ask why you keep coming over," Mick says. "I know my cooking's good, but it ain't that good."

"It's delicious, Mick, really," Barry (aka the Flash, aka he who cannot keep a secret if his life depends on it) says, very sincerely. He looks like he means it, too; it's not just that Len's sitting across the table from him with an expression that suggests that he will murder Barry and put his body in the backyard if the answer is anything different.

"Thanks," Mick says, unable to keep from being amused. "Not my point. Why are you here?"

The two kitsune at his kitchen table blink at him, big wide eyes in long narrow faces both.

"You're supposedly superhero and supervillain, right?"

"We are," Len confirms. He was very proud of that. His reaction when Mick had presented him with his own action figure had been fantastic - the first time Mick's ever been able to really surprise him.

Sure, he said something about it being a long time since he had, quote, an "item of worship" and he made a full on alter for it in the corner, but Mick's just - not going to touch on that.

He's pretty sure he saw a similar alter in Barry's apartment that one time they broke in and left him a better quality of bed as a prank.

Kitsune.

They're all weirdos.

"I just wanna know why you're here, then," Mick says. "If you're nemeses and all that."

"Someone needs to teach Barry the basics," Len says.

"Someone really does," Barry agrees. "I'm a kitling next to Len here; it's fun to play the game and fight each other and all, but sometimes, you know, a kitsune needs another kitsune to show him the steps."

Len nods firmly.

Mick makes a mental note to tell Len later that Mick should be consulted before they adopt any...kitlings...in the future. Though it's probably not going to help.

At least he can try to bargain for knowing before Len decides it’s time for them to have kitlings or something. Who even knows how kitsune reproduce?

"The builder and the snow-woman are very nice," Len says, referring to the Oni and Yuki-onna on Team Flash, "but they're not kitsune."

"Cisco and Caitlin," Barry reminds him. "They have names."

"And very nice names, too," Len says indulgently.

Mick rolls his eyes and turns back to his stovetop, where he's been making a two-kitsune sized portion of pancakes, which is to say, a shitload.

"Why doesn't Barry just ask the kitsune back at STAR Labs, then?" he asks over his shoulder. "Wrong type or something?"

He's not really expecting a serious answer.

He's definitely not expecting what he did get, which is a very pointed sort of silence.

"Mick," Len says eventually.

"Yeah?"

"There is no kitsune at STAR Labs."

"Sure there is," Mick says, frowning at the two of them as he turns to deliver another stack of pancakes.

"Len and I are the only kitsune in Central City," Barry says.

Mick frowns some more. "You sure?"

"Why do you ask?" Len asks.

"I saw one," Mick says, bewildered. "The old guy, sitting in the wheelchair."

"Wells?" Barry says, blinking. "I mean, he's my mentor, yes, but he's a kyonshi vampire, not a kitsune."

"He had tails," Mick says. "Black and yellow, to be sure, not red and yellow like you two. I thought tails were a kitsune thing."

"Tails are a kitsune thing," Len says. His eyes are glittering - a new challenge and what may be a trespass on his territory. His blood is up. "But that's no kitsune, no."

"I don't understand," Barry says.

"Mick's got River-blessed eyes," Len says. "He sees through illusions, even ones aimed at us."

"So - Wells is a kitsune?"

"No," Len says. "He's a nogitsune."

Barry looks horrified.

Mick just asks, "What's that? A type of sneeze?"

The moment of seriousness breaks as both kitsune snigger.

"It's an evil kitsune," Barry explains. "Very bad. Especially if he has multiple tails and is older, and possibly more powerful."

"He had seven," Mick says, concerned; that's more than Len and Barry put together. "And - wait. An evil kitsune? There's an evil version? Len murders people all the time!"

"Only when I think they deserve it," Len says.

"That's still murder!"

"Actually," Barry says apologetically, "from the supernatural perspective..."

"You have got to be kidding me!"

But the cat came back the very next day, the cat came back, we thought he was a goner, but the cat came back; it just couldn't stay away.

"I made hot cocoa," Mick says.

Iris West blinks at him owlishly.

"It has liquor in it," Mick adds.

"Oh God, get in here," she says, and all but yanks him into the house. "You're human, right?"

"'The' human, I've been informed," Mick says dryly.

"Good," Iris says. She looks vaguely shell-shocked. Mick can't blame her. "I can't - really deal. With anything non-human. At the moment."

"Totally fair," Mick says, not without sympathy. "Takes a while to get used to, huh?"

"No kidding. I grew up with Barry! Or - at least - I thought I did. And then it turns out that my grandpaw also grew up with him! And possibly even further back!"

"Nah, not that far back. He's only got one tail, means he's under two hundred."

"Tails," Iris mutters, taking a swig out of the thermos Mick offers her. Then she takes a very deep breath and lets it out very slowly. Then, her voice squeaking, she says, "Strong. Very strong."

Doesn't stop her from taking another swig.

"I have my own sill," Mick tells her proudly.

"You're a saint."

"A very efficient and generous sinner."

"Same difference." She shakes her head. "How did you adjust?"

"I didn't have much choice," Mick says. "I was the one who won the gift."

Iris blinks at him. "Not sure I understand."

"A kitsune's protection of a family is a gift," Mick explains. "They show up every day at the family hearth - practically speaking, they visit a family member each morning - and they do...things...that they feel are necessary to protect the family. Unsavory things, sometimes."

Iris nods.

"That 'gift' is something they give to some poor schmuck stupid enough to accept it - for you, probably someone a ways back."

"And for you?"

"My whole family burned in a fire," Mick tells her, and after all these years of therapy he can almost do it without flinching, "and I was the one who got the gift."

"Wait," Iris says, starting to put two and two together. "You said they show up to see the family every morning -"

"Yep."

"And you were the only member of your family."

"Yep."

"You poor man."

"Finally, someone who gets it!"

Iris laughs. "Don't get me wrong, I love Bear, but he can be a bit much. Very intense. And I'm splitting him among me, dad, grandma, and at least three cousins, apparently!"

"It's not that bad," Mick says. "They're pretty loveable."

"Once you get over the whole supernatural fox thing, yeah," Iris agrees, but her forehead is wrinkling. "Though - my mom died, when I was a kid. Shouldn't he have protected her?"

"Not if the family was through your dad, which it is," Mick says. "He says he keeps an eye on your little brother, though."

Iris goes quiet.

"...what?"

"I didn't know I had a little brother," she says, her voice dangerous.

"Does your dad?" Mick asks.

Iris' eyes narrow. "Oh, if this is another thing I was 'better off not knowing about', I am going to murder him!"

"Which him?"

"My dad! He's the one - oooooh, he makes me so angry. He always tells Barry not to tell me things! And then Barry does!"

"Your dad is the current head of household," Mick says. "That apparently counts for something, with kitsune. Might be better when you move out for good."

Iris shakes her head and has some more hot cocoa. In a mug this time, like a civilized drunkard.

"I still can't believe...wait! Snart. He has a sister! Is she a kitsune, too?"

"A minor wind spirit," Mick says. "Snart adopted her way back when and gave her his name. Graceful and cutting a sharp north wind, Lisa is."

"Oh," Iris says.

"It gets easier eventually."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"You do seem pretty calm...how long have you known Len?"

"Over three decades."

Iris groans.

Mick pats her awkwardly on the shoulder. "At least he's not dead, and the nogitsune is?"

"Yeah, in a giant epic supernatural battle royale apparently involving my fiancé's family evil spirit!"

"In fairness, they never realized their inugami was actually a nogitsune. The really did think he was just a dog, not a fox.”

“I’m not even going to unpack that, okay?”

“At least your fiancé is mostly human?" Mick offers, even though he knows it only goes so far. "I'm pretty sure the yokai blood is almost unnoticeable..."

"The only reason he's not dead is because he could use one of his 'back-up' lives, and he has adorable little chipmunk ears in magic-vision."

"Wait, you're dating Chippendale the Tanuki Cop? Really?"

Iris snickers. "I'm using that," she decides. "He's in such deep hot water, he has no idea what's coming his way..."

"At least tanuki are traditionally nice? Along with their, uh, other assets..."

Iris smirks.

"But yeah, he shoulda told ya earlier."

"You bet your ass he should've," Iris confirms. She still looks steamed, but the chocolate and alcohol have helped make her look less haggard and unstable. "I mean, I'm going to forgive them - they're my boys - but...aaaargh. You know what I mean?"

"Surprisingly enough," Mick says, "I understand entirely." He sighs and shakes his head. “It’s even worse when they get into a snit and turn into a fox and sit on your goddamn head till you apologize, ain’t it?”

Silence.

“Tell me,” Iris says, very slowly, “that you’re kidding and that isn’t a real thing.”

Mick opens his mouth, then closes it helplessly.

Iris groans and goes for the thermos again.

He gave it to a man going way out West, told him for to take it to the one he loved the best;

“I’m really enjoying traveling by tsukumogami; I’ve never done it before,” Len says, sounding pleased as punch.

“I wish someone’d told me that we were travelling by tsukumogami ahead of time,” Mick grumbles.

“I wish someone would tell me what a tsukumogami is,” Kendra says with a sigh.

"It's a possessed object," Len says promptly. "The ship is the shell; Gideon is the yokai."

"Oh," Kendra says. "I probably should've known that."

"It's fine, kitling," Len assures her. "You're just a baby."

Mick rolls his eyes behind Len's back, making sure Kendra can see. She grins at him.

Kendra’s clearly getting a bit tired of being called a baby, and Mick can't blame her; it's not her fault that her foster parents raised her from the egg as a human, with her more tengu traits hidden until she was old enough.

Carter - another tengu, and one who immediately tried to position himself as her mentor (and also lover - creepy!) - scowls at Mick. "I'm surprised you know about tsunokogami," he sniffs. He's hated Mick ever since Kendra gravitated towards him as the only other person on board with a proper human-raised mindset. "Human."

"Do you enjoy having a tongue?" Len asks, sounding curious. "Because if not, you could just ask me to remove it for you. You don't need to be rude about it."

Carter wisely shuts his mouth.

"I still can't believe we're doing this," Jax, one of the two hitodami on board, grumbles. He looks human right now - it's only when he joins up with Stein that they turn into their formless ghost-flame shape.

Mick thinks they might be dead spirits, but they could also just be born yokai; what does he know? The library can only help so much.

Sara, on the other hand, he knows is some sort of dead spirit. A dead woman out for vengeance: her face sliced into a giant smile that hides terribly sharp teeth. Mick forgets what she's called, but he’s pretty sure that even before she died, she was a Jorōgumo spider-woman rather than a human, one that got mixed up in some sort of crazy revenge business with a samurai, and the whole dying business didn’t really help matters.

She's still trying to make up her mind as to whether she hates all humans, all men, or just bad men.

Mick, who falls into all of those categories, has been quietly rooting for 'men who hurt women' as a category, because he's usually pretty decent about not doing that. Sara's been moderately receptive, in that she hasn't tried to kill him since the first time when Len showed his teeth.

Actually, this whole trip has really been one fight after another for Len, which may explain why he's been enjoying it so much.

Recruited by a monk spirit (Mick forgets the name, but he has something to do with keeping things in order, possibly in regards to death) with a cursed ship to fly through time and sometimes the boundaries of Earth, the vast majority of the crew are spirits of some variety. The two tengu, the flaming hitodami, Sara's vengeful ghost, Ray's cheerfully possessed but very tiny teacup-armor-spirit, and even Len - it could make a human guy feel outclassed.

With Len at his side, though, Mick's not worried.

Honestly, if there's anything he's worried about, it's meeting another Ōgama, which manifest as giant smoke-breathing toads with spears.

After that last incident, Mick officially hates giant toads.

Maybe Savage is secretly one of those instead of a power-mad spirit bent on exterminating the local tengu clan-leaders and absorbing their power.

A threat like that probably wouldn't have been enough to get the other spirits to care, not really - even Barry had started off by saying something about needing to deserve mastery of a territory by fighting for it - but for the fact that Kendra was a clan-leader by virtue of being the only one of her breed left, and she was under 50 years old; the other yokai were offended by the thought of anyone gaining power by the murder of baby spirits.

Mick will never understand them.

Their guide, Rip, clearly has secret motivations for wanting to stop Savage beyond saving Kendra, but he hasn't exactly been sharing.

He hasn't exactly been happy that Len brought Mick along as his plus-one, either, but he wanted a kitsune with the power and cleverness to steal pieces of the sun, and the sun is Mick's by right of gift, so Rip's just gonna have to learn to suck it up.

Besides, Mick’s starting to suspect he’s something not particularly nice – the amount of lying involved in their recruitment and the very strange way he’s been suggesting they arrange their crew has been suspicious.

“We’re going out for another mission,” Ray says, clanking into the room. He’s what Len laughingly calls a seto taishō, a little soldier pieced together out of chipped teacups and other broken household wares, but he’s a fierce little thing that’s taught himself how to grow and shrink at will. Mick thinks he might actually be a furuutsubo of some sort, armor that incarnates as a yokai at the death of its former master, even though he doesn’t have a quiver. But, again, what does he know? He's just guessing. “This one's gonna be fun, too - Rip thinks Savage may be hiding out behind Gyokuto’s shadow -"

"Ain't that the rabbit-that-lives-in-the-moon?" Mick asks suspiciously. “The one that invented mochi?”

"Technically, she is the moon..." Ray trails off when he notices Len’s expression. "What?"

"We're going into space," Len says flatly. "A place that Mick won't be able to accompany us. Again."

"He is human," Carter says snidely. "We're not going to accommodate our travel plans for his deficiencies." Kendra glares at him, so he quickly adds, "Not when Kendra's life is at risk."

He doesn't seem to understand why she's still glaring.

"And yet I feel as though there are options for missions being passed by, missions where Mick could participate," Len says, very levelly. "Even after I told Rip that Mick could use some time to stretch his legs before he goes haywire. Why, one might even begin to wonder..."

"I'm sure he doesn't mean ill," Ray says quickly.

"He might," Sara says thoughtfully. "He's been remarkably vague about what type of monk-spirit he is, or the organization he hails from."

"We still have a mission," Carter says. "Perhaps this will be the one that means victory. We cannot afford to lose the chance."

Kendra looks like she wants to protest, but bites her lip. She is a baby, in the end, and Carter is an elder of her kind.

"It'll be fine," Mick says, even though he is starting to develop a bit of cabin fever.

Len sniffs. "Very well," he says. "You may all go."

"You?" Ray echoes.

"I'm staying, of course," Len says, and leaps up, shifting forms into a brilliant grey-colored fox-shape that he prefers. Some sort of artic fox, except with his five tails, symbols of his age, on full display. He's in a snit. "With my human and his, how'd you call them, deficiencies."

"Leonard," Sara says, mildly censorious.

"I have made my decision," Len says firmly.

"You don't need to," Mick protests, but secretly he's not planning on protesting too hard. It sucks to sit and wait all alone, with no one but a possessed ship shell to talk to.

"Decision. Made. Now pick me up and take me to the room, I could use some grooming," Len orders.

Mick rolls his eyes and picks him up. "Good luck on your mission," he grunts to Kendra, who smiles back at him, and then he goes to his room.

"You know," he says once they're there. "Your whole shtick is coming back. Hard to do that if you're already here."

Len rolls his fox-eyes (there are more than two) at him, and lolls on his back in a silent demand for belly rubs. "I'm saving it up," he drawls. "Never know when you might need extra juice."

"On this trip?" Mick snorts. "Between Rip's incompetence, Ray's excessive optimism, Sara's homicidal tendencies, Kendra's naïveté -"

"I thought you liked Kendra."

"- Carter's hostility and Jax and Stein's treating this like a pleasure cruise," Mick continues doggedly, ignoring Len. He does like Kendra; that's not the point. "I think you'll have plenty of reasons to use up your juice."

"And yet I only want to use it for you," Len says.

Mick flushes. Len doesn't often say things that imply, well, feelings, preferring to show affection through the usual yokai route of murder and mayhem and gifts.

Mick rather likes it when he does.

"Also, can you get me behind the ear?" Len asks, stretching out until his paws were fully extended. "It itches."

"The romance is dead," Mick decides, but does.

First the train hit the curve, then it jumped the rail, Not a soul was left behind to tell the gruesome tale.

"I'm sorry," Sara says, and she actually sounds sympathetic, too.

Fuck, Mick must really look like a wreck.

Mick pulls the blanket they've given him - the one from his bed, he can tell from the grey fox-hairs on it - and shakes his head mutely.

It all started with that last job, the one with the robber paradise (he’d liked that) and then the pirates. He’d fallen behind, eyeing some of the buildings they’d burned down, and he’d seen a path that looked like a shortcut to catch up.

He should’ve known better, he really should’ve.

But, like a stupid idiot, he decided to give it a shot anyway.

He knew something was weird about that path from the first moment, the twist of nausea, but in the end he's still only human - the way everyone on the ship kept insisting he was - and he was drawn forward despite himself, despite trying to back away, despite trying to stop.

As with all things yokai, going down that path was a bad idea.

Mick doesn't -

Mick doesn't really remember it, the time he spent in that awful time-trap where nothing moved. Probably for the best, really.

He doesn't remember anything that happened, and he doesn't remember how it was like, but he remembers things almost intellectually, like a list of facts that he heard someone recite once.

He remembers that he was afraid. He remembers that he was hurt.

He remembers that they kept Len from coming back to him.

They hadn't really kept Len away, of course; the time that passed in the world was mere hours. It was only longer in Mick's brain.

But it had –

It hadn’t been good.

He’d felt abandoned.

He’d felt hurt.

He’d felt –

Rage.

Mick shivers beneath his blanket, remembering.

He feels a soft touch of wing drape over him and a soft hand wrap gently around his wrist.

Kendra.

"Mick," she said softly.

"He's not gone," Mick says stubbornly, because it can't be true.

It can't be.

Len always comes back. That’s the truth of it, for good or for ill; he always comes back. Even when Mick doesn’t want him to.

Three decades, now; he’s always there.

He always comes back.

He has to come back this time, too.

"Leonard went to war against a full legion of death-spirits," Sara says gently. "He destroyed a full section of the afterlife. For you."

Mick bites his lower lip.

He knows that.

He knows that Len clutched at him, his eyes wild and furious and pained, when Mick was finally let back out of the trap. He knows that he had been very little short of raving mad when he'd gotten out, not even angry, barely even coherent - lashing out at anyone and anything, pure trapped animal trying to get free. He knows that they fought, a dreadful echo to that time long before that his mind was altered against his will - knows, too, that it was that moment repeating horribly that was used against him in the trap.

Knows that it was on purpose.

Kitsune are hard to kill, after all, especially five-tails like Len. They're smart and they're tough and they're tricky, and they steal power the way other, lesser thieves steal wallets. They can summon ghostly fire, cold as space, into their hands at a thought; they can change their shape; they can create false items of any sort from a handful of twigs.

And when they have something - someone - to protect, they're virtually unstoppable.

But the family a kitsune swears itself to has power over it, the trade made and kept in a way only yokai understand, and if the head of the family chooses to put an end to the kitsune, they can.

That's why those punishment-monk-spirits, the Masters, did what they did. They wanted Mick to -

It doesn't matter.

Mick saw Len beneath him, bruised and sad; he felt Len's hand on his cheek, and though he was temporarily immune to Len's spells of sleep - courtesy of the Masters - he remembered.

He remembered Strange and his experiments, and he became confused, and he stopped just long enough for Kendra and Sara and Ray to rush forward and pull him back.

And then Len got to his feet, face blacked with bruises, his eyes alight with rage, and he spat from his mouth a single glowing marble.

The others stepped back when they saw it.

A kitsune's marble is the ultimate source of their power, a very dangerous thing to risk losing, and Len hadn't seen fit to call upon it - well, for as long as Mick's known him. He’s told Mick about it, of course, but Mick’s only ever seen it once, long ago.

Their wedding day, when the sun shined bright and the rain fell from nowhere – a proper kitsune’s wedding.

Where Len wrapped Mick’s fingers around his marble and made his vows, looking Mick straight in the eye, and Mick said his own vows back to him.

The marble of a kitsune is what they make their oaths on, the oaths they mean to keep.

When he stood upon the ship among his yokai crew, staring at the shuddering shivering snivelling wreck that had been made of his human, Len summoned it a second time – this time, not for joy, but for vengeance.

"I swear," Len said, his eyes fixed upon Mick, his knuckles white around his marble, "that this will be paid back tenfold."

And he'd disappeared amid the shouts and cries of the others.

And then –

And then –

Mick shuts his eyes.

"He's not gone," he says again. "He's not."

"We saw the explosion," Ray says, broken crockery creaking as he lingers anxiously, afraid to come near and unwilling to go far. "We saw it. Everyone saw it. The heavens will never be the same again, the landscape of the other-world and after-life altered forever, and in your name. It is a great thing."

"I don't want a great thing," Mick says. "I want Len back."

Ray doesn’t understand, because of course he doesn’t; yokai don’t think of these things the way humans do. To go down in history, to be forever remembered, to have your name emblazoned among the stars and the legends – that’s far greater a prize than to be simply alive.

Humans don’t think that way, though.

Mick doesn’t think that way.

He’d trade a million years of fame for anonymity, if only he could have Len back at his side.

"Even a kitsune nine-tails wouldn't have survived that explosion," Sara says. She is sad, too - they became friends, to their mutual surprise, playing games of card and chance. He'd made her laugh for the first time since she was alive. “The only thing that could have caused that sort of destruction would be the destruction of a kitsune’s marble, and such destruction would end everything they were.”

She never entirely understood why Len loved Mick so, but she’d respected Mick, after a while.

She’d respected both of them.

She was the one who wrapped Rip in spider silk and gashed open his mouth when he tried to move on without acknowledging Mick's absence at the hands of his former compatriots. For yokai, this is not a permanent or fatal alteration the way it is for humans, but the crew have not released him yet for all his honey-sweet words about resisting the calls of his ghostly order, about a new mission, about protecting the timeline and all of humanity.

He is the last of his kind, now.

Perhaps that's what he always wanted to be.

Mick doesn't even care.

He wants Len back.

Len always comes back.

"I'm so sorry, Mick," Kendra says.

Mick closes his eyes and tastes the salt of his tears.

But the cat came back the very next day, the cat came back, we thought he was a goner, but the cat came back; it just couldn't stay away.

Mick opens his eyes and stares at the grey ceiling of the Waverider.

Gideon the tsukumogami does not speak to him; it is before the time of his alarm, or perhaps the others have requested that it be turned off, so that he might sleep in and so recover better.

He doesn’t want to look around.

He doesn’t want to see.

He doesn’t want to risk not seeing, that final confirmation of absence.

He doesn’t –

"You’re a bit of a slug-a-bed when you're travelling, huh?" a familiar voice whispers in his ear. “I knew it.”

Mick smiles.

(They do, eventually, tell the others that Len’s not dead, but only after the sacred Spear thing is firmly in Len’s greedy little hands.)