text || @chronos

[hyperthermic]

Did you people get rid of all the bodies, or was all that bullet damage and laser scoring just a little bit of harmless fun?

And who's the guy with the angry seaweed for a face?

Place seems too interesting for its own good.

Comments

>>> audio

[hyperthermic]

You didn't.

[ He snarls the words, because typing it in all caps just doesn't have the same flavor. ]

Not once you found your little group of heroes.

[hypothermic]

Yeah. I was kinda busy.

While you were picking up the Time Masters' laundry, we were trying to save the world.

No thanks to you, and the rest of their goons getting in our way.

[hyperthermic]

We. Like you were one of them.

But I guess you were. Guess you were happy being Rip Hunter's chess piece.

How's saving the world going for you? You don't think the Time Masters will stop hunting you just because I failed, do you?

[hypothermic]

Please. If all this was a game of chess, I wouldn't be anyone's pawn. Unlike some people.

I look too good in a crown.

They can keep hunting. I'll keep fighting. It's what I do.

What we did, before you went all 'brick in the wall'.

[hyperthermic]

[ There's a loud, crunchy BANG as Chronos punches a small metal side table and it folds a little under the heat of it. ]

They saved me, Snart. I would've died out there, where you left me, if it hadn't been for them.

They remade me. Gave me what you took away.

[hypothermic]

What did I take away that you didn't hand over when you chose the pirates over our partnership. Our plan.

Shouldn't have gone off book, Mick. You've always been crap at improv.

[hyperthermic]

We could've taken the dropship. Gone anywhere, done whatever we wanted. I thought that was the plan.

Or did you know? Did you already know why Hunter brought me on board?

1/2

[hypothermic]

The plan was to steal ourselves a piece of history, or better yet, a place in the history books.

We could've made Butch Cassidy and John Dillinger look like casuals with the stunts we'd pull. Bonnie and Clyde would've had nothing on us.

Instead, you wanted to jack space jalopies and arm wrestle with the same crowd of two-bit thugs we got bored of back home.

2/2

[hypothermic]

And of course I know.

We both heard the same speech a thousand times.

Save time, save Central City, save the world, blah blah blah.

I have selective hearing. I'm not deaf.

[hyperthermic]

So you didn't know. There's that I guess.

He took me on because he wanted you, Snart. He brought me along because he thought he couldn't have one without the other. Called me... what was it. A barbarian with the IQ of meat.

Guess he was wrong though. About needing me to keep you. Bet that made him happy.

[hypothermic]

[Silence, as Len absorbs the information.

He didn't know.]

Nothing makes Rip happy. He's a miserable prick.

Rip was wrong about your IQ, but he was right about one thing. I wouldn't have come without you.

1/2

[hyperthermic]

[ That wasn't the answer he expected. He's not sure what answer he did expect.

Smugness, maybe. A dodge, a sneer. ]

Maybe you should have. Would've kept me from killing you.

2/2

[hyperthermic]

Oh, he apologized to me, though. After you and your friends caged me. Said it was in my nature to do what I did. Should've expected it. Shouldn't have made you put me down.

Didn't say what he would have done instead, but he didn't have to think that through, did he?

[hypothermic]

Like I said, he's a prick

And he doesn't know shit about me, you, or us. Rip lives in his own sad little Doctor Who program.

Don't get it twisted, Mick. I know we're tools to him, and if it means we don't have to pay for gas on our inter-galactic road trip, while he underestimates us and all we're capable of, I'm happy to let him think it.

Since when have we ever cared about what people like him thought about people like us?

Since when did you get so damn sensitive?

[hyperthermic]

[ A long silence. ]

Since it started mattering to you.

[hypothermic]

[A longer silence.]

It doesn't.

You think me choosing the team over the pirates was about what people think? As if.

I didn't want them killing Sara, the kid, or any of the other people who had our backs when shit went down.

You were the one who refused to leave that overgrown Labrador Retriever back in Russia.

[hyperthermic]

[ A low growl. He'd forgotten what he did for Palmer. Chronos thumps the heel of his palm against his forehead.

Leonard is doing what he does, what he always did. Twisting things around until nothing but his way makes sense.

Sara, the kid, Haircut. Another growl, and with more force: ]

How hard did any of them fight you, when you decided to get rid of me? Or was it their idea? Haircut doesn't have it in him, but Sara--maybe she would have done the job right.

1/2

[hypothermic]

You were my partner. My responsibility. I wasn't going to leave the decision, or the job, up to anyone else.

The kid was pissed, but he's too young to have seen Old Yeller.

2/2

[hypothermic]

Y'know, Sara screwed up when you were gone. Went back to her roots as an assassin. Nearly took everyone out in the process.

You don't see her in a box, because she made a choice to come back. To try again.

Pull your head out of your ass, and you could too.

[hyperthermic]

While I was gone. [ A bitter laugh. ] Like I just left.

[ God, he wants to get his hands around Leonard's throat. He wants to squeeze until the man's breath is a whisper. Make him beg for air. Make him beg for death. Either one. ]

You think I'm that pathetic? That I would crawl back to a pack of idiots who didn't even vote against killing me?

[hypothermic]

I didn't give them a vote. I knew what I was going to do.

Finish up the job, and come back for you. What's going on between us is our business.

They wouldn't get it, anyway.

You don't exactly make it easy for people to understand you, Mick.

[hyperthermic]

[ Silence. He's not sure what he feels, at that last statement. It cuts, deeper than it should.

In a low growl: ]

This is pointless.

[hypothermic]

You're telling me.

Give it up, Mick.

Killing won't solve all your problems. It never has.

[hyperthermic]

It'll solve one, and it's the only one I've got to worry about right now.

[hypothermic]

[Why it still hurts, Len doesn't know.

Every time he thinks he's over it, over Mick, reality sucker-punches him in the gut.]

Simple things please simple minds.

...Except, last time I checked, yours wasn't so simple. So we'll see how long that pleasure lasts.