"Barry!" Knock-knock-knock! "Barry! Open, the door!" Knock-knock! "Mmmf! Barry…Barry, please! Hurry!" Knock-knock-knock!

"I'm coming! I'm coming! Hold on one second!" Barry yells, racing downstairs from his room to the front door. He'd been waiting all night to hear from Len, who had been whisked away mysteriously by his father during lunch period, the man storming on to campus as if he had a vendetta to satisfy. Since Len and Barry have a rule about no PDA on school grounds, no letting anyone who doesn't know about their relationship in on the secret, Len's father didn't catch him and Barry doing anything more scandalous than eating lunch with Lisa and Iris. Barry and Len were sitting close together, but that was countered by the fact that Len had Barry in a headlock, and was attempting to unload a small bowl of peaches down the front of Barry's shirt.

Barry didn't exactly look forward to feeling sticky for the rest of the afternoon, but this one time he didn't mind. Running to the locker room to clean up would get him a pass out of the first ten minutes of home ec, the one class Barry hates more than anything. He can appreciate the science behind cooking, the chemistry of combining constituents in the creation of a heterogeneous mixture, and the thermodynamics involved by means of conduction, convection, radiation, excitation, or induction in the transformation of said mixture into an entirely new structural entity, but seeing as they hadn't done anything more challenging than learn how to properly fold an egg in weeks, he'd rather pass. He'd transfer to shop class if he could. That way he could spend his last period of the day with Len.

Well, most of the wrestling team and Len.

Barry had been avoiding those guys at every turn after that stupid virgin roundup party, but it would be worth having to sit in the same (supervised) classroom with them in order to spend an extra 50 minutes of the day with his boyfriend.

But it was too late in the semester for that.

Len hadn't been trying all that hard during their impromptu wrestling match to douse him. He seemed to enjoy having Barry wriggling and complaining in his embrace. But he'd promised Barry that if he did manage to get him messed up, he'd find a way to clean whatever Barry couldn't reach later on when they were alone.

How he'd whispered it in his ear, with the faintest dart of his tongue circling the shell of Barry's ear, left Barry imagining the most sensual ways Len might complete that task.

Barry was more than fine with those terms.

Len didn't succeed in his goal, stopping short the second he heard his father call his name. Lewis's voice yelling, "Len!" hit the air like a stick of dynamite exploding, and stopped all four laughing kids in their tracks, along with a handful of other students who had been watching the tussle between Len and Barry in the far quad.

"Yeah, yeah, I comin'," Len had grumbled, shoving Barry away for show, then adding a menacing sounding, "We'll be continuing this later, Allen," accompanied by the most covert of winks he could muster.

If that was meant to make Barry feel better about him leaving, it didn't do the trick.

Watching Len go bothered Barry. He could tell that Len hadn't been expecting his dad to show up, but the way he took off without question made it seem like Len knew why he was there. Len hunched in on himself the second he fell in step with his father. Barry couldn't shake the feeling that Len didn't want to go, and not because he didn't want to miss his classes. Not even because he would miss hanging out with Barry.

Len didn't want to be alone with his dad, which was a given, but today was somehow different. That along with the apprehensive look on Lisa's face when Len got into his father's car and drove away, coupled with his lack of a text message later on to tell Barry he was alright, had planted an unshakable fear in Barry's mind.

A fear for his boyfriend's safety.

A fear so powerful, it kept Barry from going camping with Joe and Iris for the weekend, just in case.

Barry hadn't gotten a single text from anybody over the past few hours except Iris telling him that she and Joe were at the campsite, having a blast, and too bad he couldn't make it. (Barry had claimed to have a massive stomachache, and an art project due Monday that was worth a third of his semester grade. That was only a partial lie. The project isn't due for another two weeks, but his stomach was so tied up in knots and pummeled by the incessant beating of panicky butterfly wings, he felt like throwing up every time he thought about Len.) Iris also sent along some pictures to prove what a fabulous time they were having, adding that Joe offered to come back home and get Barry after breakfast if he changed his mind. Barry texted that he'd see how he was feeling in the morning and let them know. It was tempting to just say yes. Barry hated missing out, especially since these opportunities for weekends away with Joe haven't come along too often lately. But regardless, he feels he made the right decision. If he had left without hearing a word from Len and anything had happened to him, there would be no way Barry could forgive himself.

Barry lay in bed reading comic books with his phone beside his ear, waiting for a text, or better yet, a call. He tried to relax, take his mind off Lewis's voice bellowing Len's name as if he were calling a disobedient dog; his boyfriend's bowed back as he walked away, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, his shoulders hitched up and folded forward to protect himself, like the wall around a citadel; and the look on Lisa's face, like she simultaneously wanted to race after the car speeding away with her brother in the back seat, and scream out for help with every breath in her lungs.

Barry had organized and stacked his comics into two columns – one for DC, and the other Marvel – with twenty comics in each column. He was completely through the DC column and halfway through the Marvel when he got another text. At this point, he assumed it was from Iris, gloating about how she and her father were telling early morning ghost stories by the fire and eating s'mores in another attempt to persuade him, so he didn't rush to read it. But three more came in in close conjunction, which seemed excessive, even for Iris, and fear stirred up in his stomach again, twisting like a faulty parachute and bringing dormant butterflies back to life.

The texts, received at around one in the morning, were from Lisa Snart. Barry rarely gets texts from Lisa, not ones directed to him specifically. Barry tends to get lumped in with group texts that Lisa sends to Iris, discussing plans for study groups, dinner, or weekend makeovers, and mostly because she forgets that his number is on the list somewhere. But these texts were for him alone. They were all identical, the same one sent four times…and the message was alarming.

Me an Len r a blcok aay. Opn do or. Help!

The message was choppy, a few of the words mangled, but none of that mattered. Lisa and Len were on their way to his house…and they needed help.

"Barry? Mmmf…Barry? Please, open the door!"

"I am, I am, I..." Barry throws open the door, expecting Len and Lisa to rush in, but in a bizarre twist, it actually seems like the world stutters for a second, as if the past few minutes were a record playing on a turntable and someone just pulled the arm off the LP, scratching the surface. The pair standing at the door don't make sense. Barry sees Lisa standing upright with a right lean, but Len is a bundle of human at her side, half struggling to stand, half melting into the ground. "Lisa…what happened…?"

"Are Joe and Iris here?" Lisa asks, nervously peeking around.

"N-no," Barry replies, Lisa's question plucking him from his daze. "They…they went out. I played sick. They shouldn't be home till Sunday."

Lisa exhales in relief. She crouches to hoist Len up higher in an effort to walk him in, but Len slides out of her grip and falls to the floor. Barry lunges for Len, attempting to catch him before he hits the floor. Horror-stricken, Barry is almost afraid to touch his boyfriend, bent over double on his knees, moaning in agony, with a whine at the tail end of each long utterance that sounds like the beginning of the end.

"Len!" Lisa cries. "Oh my God! Len!"

"Let's get him to the bathroom quick!"

Barry takes up Len's left side and leads Lisa, hunkered under Len's right, down the hall to the downstairs bathroom. They get him as far as the door before he crumbles to the tile, and Barry and Lisa can't move him a foot further.

"Oh, Len!" Lisa whimpers, tugging at her brother's shoulders, trying fruitlessly to get him to the toilet, assuming he's going to retch. "Barry! W-what if he ODs?"

"ODs?" Barry's insides do a 180 degree flip, Lisa's question tightening the knots and throwing the butterflies into a frenzy. Barry didn't take Len for a guy who did drugs, not considering his diligent work outs and how he took care of his body. Sure, he had a beer every now and then, but he didn't drink anything stronger than that, and definitely not to the point of drunkenness. But again, that's as far as Barry knows. Even with as long as Barry could consider the two of them friends, he has to admit, he didn't really start knowing Len until recently. "Wh-what did he take?"

Before Lisa can answer, Len roars, spine curling as he presses himself into a tight ball, a sound like nothing Barry has ever heard Len make coming from his mouth. Lisa covers her mouth with her hands and bursts into tears.

"I don't know!" Lisa cries, tears sticky on her cheeks, new ones rushing over the old, her nose dripping down her upper lip. "M-my dad brought them home. Swiped them from some house they robbed today." And with that, the butterflies were knocked stone cold dead. Robbed a house? And Len was there? Len robbed a house with his father? Barry had some suspicions that Lewis Snart was involving his kids in shady dealings, but he didn't know he was turning Len into a criminal. From the things Barry has heard, it wouldn't be beyond the scope of Lewis Snart, but why would Len go along with it? Barry knew about the abuse, but he doesn't understand. It baffles him for all of half a second until Lisa continues. "He…he wanted me to take them. He said he wanted to see what they did. But Len took 'em instead. A few hours went by and nothing. My dad went downstairs to watch TV. I think he checked in on Len a few times, and then after that, he…he gave up and left, but then…I don't know. Len stumbled to my room. Said we needed to get help, that he wanted me to bring him here. We hitched a ride, but halfway over, he started screaming, clawing at his throat like it was burning, and the guy kicked us out of his car. And now…I-I think he's seeing stuff! I don't know, I don't know! I don't know what to do!"

"Well, we…we…we've gotta get him to a doctor!" Barry insists. "We've got to take him to a hospital!" He puts an arm around Len's shoulders when Len stops screaming and starts sobbing. "Come on, Len," he urges. "Let's get you up. I'll call a cab and…"

"No!" Lisa grabs Barry's arm, digging her nails into his bicep hard enough to hurt. "No, you can't! Please! They're gonna take him away! Like last time! I just know it!"

Barry looks up at Lisa, confusion crimping his brow.

"What do you mean like last time? What…"

Barry doesn't finish his question, cut short by a new wave of sobs choking Len one after the other, furiously wringing the breath out of him.

"Y-y-you're smart with all that chemistry and science stuff," Lisa begs. "Can't you come up with something!?"

"I…" The blood drains from Barry's face and pools in his stomach, making him feel hot and cold and on the verge of blacking out all at once. "Not if I don't know what he took! I don't know if I should give him charcoal, or water, or milk! If I choose the wrong thing, then I could…" Barry quits explaining when his boyfriend's body shudders so hard, he thinks Len's arms and legs will come loose at the joints. Len's head snaps up, his eyes shifting wildly left and right as if he's watching something unseen to Barry and Lisa coming for him. He jerks, shimmying backward on his knees. His mouth open, he tries to scream, his body tensing with it till Barry can see every muscle cut his flesh, every bone outlined underneath grey-tinged skin. The hot-cold soup drops from Barry's stomach to his feet. Time speeds, moving too fast, sweeping away seconds, never to return – time that Len doesn't have before things go from terrible to catastrophic.

"Barry!" Lisa wails like her heart is being torn out, her throat burned, her stomach ripped open. "Barry, please!"

Without taking another second to consider his options, options he doesn't really have anyway, Barry shoves two fingers into Len's gaping mouth and down his throat.

Barry walks down the staircase from his bedroom, freshly showered, hair damp, navy thermal Henley clinging to the moisture on his skin. Lisa watches him from the sofa where she's curled beside the arm, a pillow smothered against her chest, a chenille throw across her legs to stop her from shaking.

If she was shaking from the cold, it might work.

"H-how's he doing?"

"I got him cleaned up best I could," Barry says. After Len had emptied the contents of his stomach all over Barry's clothes and the bathroom floor, he couldn't stand on his own two feet, so Barry didn't want to risk giving him a shower. He used pretty much every towel in the house - and every wash cloth, too - to cover the floor and give Len a quick sponge bath. He had to remove Len's clothes, including his underwear, and replace them with old clothes of Joe's since there was no way Len's limbs would fit into anything Barry owned. Barry tried not to gawk, but there was one thing he couldn't help staring at.

The bruises. The old welts. The fading black-and-blues.

Barry had wondered why recently Len wouldn't take off his shirt when they made out, why he opted to be shirts instead of skins on the basketball court, why he had turned down an offer to swim at the indoor community pool to join Barry bowling instead.

What in the hell had Len done to make his father think he deserved this?

What did Len refuse to do?

Sitting on the opposite end of the sofa, Barry looks at Lisa, dressed in a grey, zipper-front sweatshirt with a rose pink tank top underneath, the shoulder of her sweatshirt sliding an inch to reveal relatively unblemished skin, and Barry can't help but wonder…

…how many of the marks on Len's body were originally meant for Lisa? If their father swiped those pills for Lisa to take and Len took them to save her, how many times did he take a beating that wasn't his?

It isn't a question that Barry needs the answer to right now.

"He's in my bed," Barry says, rolling his sleeves down his arms. It took more strength and adrenaline than Barry thought he had in his body to get Len there, but somehow he managed it. He'll probably feel it later on when he lets himself sleep. "He seems to be resting comfortably now that everything's more or less out of him. But we're going to have to keep an eye on him overnight."

"G-good," Lisa says, hopeful. "Th-that's…th-that's good. C-comfortable is good, right?"

"Yes. Comfortable is good." Barry smiles sympathetically. He's holding on to that same thread of hope, that if Len can sleep and give his body time to recover, work what's left of the medicine through his system, then he'll be fine.

Before Barry took his shower, he cleaned the downstairs bathroom. It was a necessary evil. If he left the mess till later, the whole room would reek, and there would be no saving the towels. He'd have to pitch them and buy new. Barry didn't want to admit to doing a thorough examination of his boyfriend's stomach contents, but anything he could find that might point the way to identifying those pills could help Barry anticipate possible side effects or dangerous interactions. Forensics has been a passion of Barry's ever since his mother died, and he was confident in his ability to put what he'd learned into practice. In the course of mopping up the mess, Barry couldn't find any remains of the pills Lisa said that Len took, which meant they'd been digested, but he did find evidence to suggest that Len had attempted to retard their absorption. If Barry was right, Len may have drunk an entire bottle of olive oil, eaten a sleeve of crackers, and ingested a substance that gave off the vague odor of meat tenderizer. If that's the case, they might still have a chance of getting through this without any outside help, but Barry isn't ruling it out.

They'd have to play the waiting game and hope for the best.

Barry prays that he didn't do more harm than good by forcing Len to vomit the way he did, but he panicked. He didn't know what to do. The second Len looked up at him, eyes pleading, black pupils hollow with pain, Barry's rationale left him. He'd acted on impulse to save his boyfriend.

Barry isn't usually the type of person to take risks. He measures eight times and cuts once, but only if he has three extra to spare. With any luck, karma from playing it safe previously will pay off with this one uncalculated risk.

As soon as he can, he's planning on Googling the most commonly prescribed medications with the side effects Len had been presenting…with a secret side trip into the CCPD database using the dummy password he'd developed and his phony IP address to see if there are any reports of a robbery taking place this afternoon.

He doesn't tell Lisa his plans, and maybe that's wrong, playing with another person's fate too much when they don't want the authorities involved, but he doesn't feel that Len and Lisa are seeing the big picture. Someone has to do something to help them, someone with more power and knowledge in this area than Barry. Those marks on Len's body, a father initiating his son into a life of crime, willing to fill his kids up with potentially dangerous drugs just for the hell of it…that can't continue.

Barry can't make it stop, but he knows people who can.

Barry doesn't want to lose Len, but he's willing to jeopardize their relationship by prying if the end result is the abuse stops.

They hear a buzzing Barry can't place, but which Lisa seems to recognize immediately, and she pats her pockets in search of it. She pulls her phone out and unlocks the screen. Barry watches her eyes closely as she reads the number.

Open-mouthed, bug-eyed horror overtakes her face instantaneously.

"It's…it's my dad!" she exclaims, whispering as if he might hear her.

"Let it go to voicemail?" Barry asks, even though he knows that's not the answer.

"I…I can't," she says, fumbling to answer the call. "I-i-if I do, then he might…Hey. Dad. What's up?"

"Lisa…" The same gruff voice that called for Len that afternoon answers, sounding more threatening than before, if that's possible. "Where are you guys? I came back from the bar and you two were gone."

In between his words, Barry hears an urgency, a desperation, layered above the sound of slamming doors and rapid arguing.

"Oh, uh…" Without thinking, Lisa takes Barry's hand, the way she would have taken Len's, Barry thinks. So he holds on tight for her, trying to give her an ounce of the strength Len would have to give. "L-len couldn't sleep. You know, all wired from last night. A-and we remembered that we have this huge assignment due on Monday." She looks at Barry, as if she can't believe she just said that, and he mouths the word science. "A science assignment," she clarifies. "A-and it's worth half our grade." Lewis stays silent on the opposite end of the line, the absence of his reply amplified by the chaos ensuing behind him. Lisa's lower lip wobbles. She's scared that her father doesn't believe her. Her eyes unfocus, picturing what he'll do to them if he doesn't.

"Iris's dad said we could come over and work on it," she adds, disintegrating inside waiting for her father's ruling. "And, you know, s-spend the weekend. You weren't home so we didn't think you'd mind." She squeezes her eyes shut. The whole thing sounds asinine. They walked over to the West House after midnight on a Saturday to work on homework? He's never going to buy that!

Another silence. Barry's arm shakes with Lisa's trembling…and a bit of his own.

"Iris?" Barry hears Lewis grunt. "Who's Iris?"

A tear rolls down Lisa's cheek. She resists the need to sniffle. The West House has always been a safe place for her and Len. Barry doesn't know what the Snart siblings have told their father about the many times they've come over, but it's obviously not a lot, and she's caught between saying not enough and a little too much. "I-Iris West? From school? You've met her." Not true, Barry thinks, but this is no time for total disclosure. After all, the man doesn't seem to understand how homework assignments work, seeing as they're constantly telling him that Len and Lisa are working on assignments together when they aren't even in the same grade. Maybe she can pull this one past him. "You saw me eating lunch with her today when you picked up Len."

More silence, a longer silence. This one paralyzes Barry, as if Lewis Snart were standing right in front of them, eyes boring into them, scrutinizing them, stringing them along since he knows that they're lying.

"Isn't her dad a cop?" Lewis snaps.

"Y-yeah," Lisa answers with a sob in her throat. Barry bites the inside of his cheek till the skin splits between his molars. "Yeah, he is."

Barry watches Lisa fight to keep herself together. She looks so trapped, so helpless, and all Barry wants to do is fix it. Fix it for her and fix it for Len.

"Oh…well," Lewis says with as much disinterest as any man can have with regard to his own children. "Yeah, you guys stay there. That's probably the best place for ya right now. There's some heavy heat over here. Wouldn't want you…or your brother…to get caught up in it."

Lisa goes absolutely still. Barry would have believed that she passed out sitting up. She blinks, so Barry knows she's conscious, but otherwise, she's unmoving.

"O-okay. Thanks, Dad," she says, moving only her mouth, wishing that by keeping still her voice would stop shaking. Len is good at bluffing, playing his cards close to his chest, showing no emotion to anyone when the need arises. But she could never master that. And a professional con man like Lewis Snart could read her like a book.

Lewis doesn't say goodbye to his daughter. He yells an incoherent command and the call disconnects.

"There's trouble," she mutters, not to Barry, but to herself, thinking out loud. "Probably from the job tonight, and he…he was going to make Len the scapegoat. I just…I just know it." Her phone slips from her fingers. It hits the sofa and bounces to the floor. That phone, with its pink furry case she MacGyver-ed so her friends wouldn't know it was an upscale burner phone and not an actual iPhone like she lets on, and its golden Hello Kitty charm dangling off the corner, is the closest thing to a prized possession Lisa owns, but she doesn't even look to see where it's gone.

"Lisa?" Barry scoots closer. Lisa's hand still in his, he turns her to face him. "What happened tonight? What exactly is going on?"

"He…he was gonna kill me, Barry," she says. Barry nods. It's not one hundred percent the answer Barry is looking for, but it's a start. Barry has too many questions, complicated questions, to expect Lisa to answer them all now. "He was gonna kill me because…because he said he was bored. And Len took the fall for me, the way he always does. And my dad was gonna make Len take the fall for him." She looks into Barry's eyes, finally seeing him in front of her. "He…he would have let us die, Barry! Me with a stomach full of pills and Len in a prison cell. H-how do I live with that?"

"I…I don't…know, Lisa. I just don't…" Before he can admit that he has no idea how he would deal if his own father did the same thing to him, if Joe did that to him, Lisa turns into Barry's arms and falls apart.

Barry doesn't have a problem staying at home alone. He's done it dozens of times. The creak of the wood settling, or the tree outside his window occasionally knocking against the glass, doesn't bother him the way it did when he was a little kid and he first moved in to the West House. Over the years, he's come to know all of its noises by heart. They're a comfort to him more than anything else. They speak to him of safety and family and of every good thing he has. But tonight, with the three of them hiding in it, waiting for the unknown - for Len to take a turn for the worse, or for Lewis Snart to show up on the doorstep, looking for his children, ready to break the door down to get to them - the house becomes eerie in its repose.

Lisa finally settled down, and was camped out on a rollout cot in Barry's room. She didn't have to ask for Barry to put her in there. He had no intention of splitting her and Len apart. It seems to be their biggest nightmare on a real life scale, being separated from one another. Besides, better to hide the two of them up in his room with a lock on the door, but also so he doesn't have to explain why Lisa Snart is over at the house and sleeping on the sofa the second Joe and Iris get home.

With the Snart siblings relatively at ease, all things considered, Barry can't seem to sit still. He feels oddly on guard – the sole sentinel of a fortress on lock down, with hardened, dangerous criminals lurking outside. He patrols the house several times, checks the locks on the windows in every room, and then on the front door. He considers rolling Joe's recliner in front of it as a blockade, but that would be even harder to explain than Lisa if Joe and Iris were to come home early…and that's part of Barry's conundrum.

Barry knew that Len's father was abusive. It was difficult to ignore the signs. First and most obvious were the physical – the black eyes, the occasional limps, the swollen lip last year right after the start of school. Len didn't shy away from an explanation. If anyone asked him where he got them, he'd say outright, "My old man's an ass," but Barry assumes most people think he's being facetious. Lewis is a severe-looking, strict and imposing man, but Len, at 6' 1" and 170 pounds, most of it pure muscle, is an absolute powerhouse next to him. No one would ever suspect Len of being afraid of his dad.

But very few people know what's at stake for Len if he sticks up for himself.

After knowing Len for years, Barry is only now learning.

Barry sneaks back into his room after his seventh round. He opens the door slowly, careful not to make a squeak. He sees Lisa first, curled up in the fetal position beneath his spare comforter, the edge of the blanket pulled over her head by hands locked into fists, even in sleep.

Barry can't imagine what life is like for them, day after day coming home to a house that's not a home, knowing how volatile their father can be. Barry has tried, but every time he thinks he's got bad enough nailed down, something worse comes up. Even with everything that's happened to Barry, he's never felt anything but safe - with his parents, as well as with Joe and Iris. There was a time when he was afraid that the thing that killed his mother would come back for him. Seeing as no one believed him, no one was searching for it, so it wasn't in any danger of being caught. But that fear went quickly away, because even though he knew that Joe and Iris had their doubts about Barry's story, if push came to shove and that thing ever returned, they would do everything in their power to protect him.

But Len and Lisa don't have that. Lisa has Len to watch over her, but who does Len have?

For the moment, Len has Barry, and Barry isn't going to let him down.

"Bar…Bar…Barry?" Len whimpers. "Bar-ry? Where…where are…?"

"Shh, I'm here, Len. I'm here." Barry skates across the floor in his socked feet. He slides left, maneuvering around the head of Lisa's cot to get to his bed. "Don't worry. I'm right here."

"Barry…" Len reaches out a hand. It quivers in the air like a dying autumn leaf, attached to home by barely a filament. "It…it hurts. My stomach…it hurts."

Barry takes Len's hand, his fingers closing gently around his cold skin, and slips gingerly into bed with his boyfriend.

"I know it hurts. I know." Barry hugs Len close. He prays that the soreness is from Len throwing up and not from anything more serious. "That's why we need to tell someone, Len. That's why I need you to let me call an ambulance." Barry drags his fingertips over his boyfriend's scalp as Len, exhausted and weak, starts trembling all over. "A doctor, or Joe, or the police…they'll help you, Len. I promise…"

"D-don't," Len begs, his voice timid, like that of the little boy Len was a long time ago. "Don't tell them. Please, Barry? Pl-please…don't…"

"I know you're afraid," Barry says with a hush. "I know that you're afraid they'll take Lisa away, but…"

"N-no." Len claws at Barry's shirt, trying to make him understand, but his hands can't grab hold. "I don't want them to take me away from you, Barry. I…I just got you. After all this time, I got you. They can't take you away from me. Please…don't let them take you away from me."

Barry's throat tightens, but it his heart soars.

Barry loves Len. He's known for a while now that he does, but he thought those feelings had come on too fast. Barry didn't want to rush anything. Len has been so patient with Barry about so many things, and he didn't think that Len had anything near those same feelings for him anyway. He didn't want to ruin what they had by admitting love too soon.

But maybe Len has loved him, too, this whole time?

"I don't understand," Barry says, a vast understatement. "Who? Who's going to take you away?"

"My dad. He's going to get the police to take me away from you."

"Len…" Barry massages lightly along Len's hairline in an attempt to soothe his head. The more Len speaks, the less he makes sense. "I still don't under…"

"I boosted a car," Len goes on. "I was gonna run away – me and Lisa. But my dad found out. He found out we were leaving, and he turned me in to the cops to teach me a lesson. I went to juvie. My first night there, I almost got stabbed, but some kid helped me out. The only reason I'm alive is because of him. I…" Len stops mid-thought and shakes his head so frantically that Barry hears his neck crack. "I-I can't go back, Barry. I'll never see you again if I do. And I just got you, Barry. So don't let them take me away from you! Please, don't!"

Len breaks. He sobs, going limp in Barry's arms, and Barry, stuck for a solution to Len's problem, doesn't know what to do. It had seemed so simple to Barry. Tell Joe. Let the police handle Len's dad.

But that would mean splitting up Len and Lisa.

Len and Lisa don't have any other family. No, wait…Barry thinks he remembers Lisa saying something about a grandfather who took care of them when their dad went "away". But that was quite a while ago, and Barry hasn't heard about him since, so he wouldn't be an option. If he was, wouldn't Len have taken it? Packed up himself and Lisa and gone to wherever their grandfather lived? If they get the police involved, Len and Lisa would probably be shipped off to foster care – Len for less than a year before he aged out, and Lisa for longer. If they managed to get placed with a decent family, they'd still end up separated eventually.

And then there's the two of them, Len and Barry, starting out in this relationship completely unsure, and now…falling in love?

Maybe Joe would be willing to take them in. It wouldn't be for long – just a year or two. It would be a tight fit with the five of them, but they had a basement. They could convert it into a bedroom. They could make it work. Joe made it work for Barry. He could make it work for them.

But it's contingent on whether or not the cops can do anything about their dad. With the stuff he's already pulled, Barry would think they could. He's been in and out of Iron Heights, so he has to be on their radar. There has to be some reason why he's been able to slip by them all these times. Barry doesn't see Lewis Snart often, but he never seems nervous. It doesn't seem like he's hiding.

So how is he getting away with it?

If only Len would let him talk to Joe about it. Maybe there's a roundabout way he can…

"Barry?" Len whimpers at Barry's silence. "Barry…please? Please, don't…"

"I won't." Barry cradles Len's head against his chest as his boyfriend sniffles himself to sleep. "I won't let them take you away, Len. I promise, I won't."