Title from Johnny Cash's "Ghost Riders in the Sky."

As the riders loped on by him he heard one call his name
If you want to save your soul from hell a-riding on our range
Then cowboy change your ways today or with us you will ride
Trying to catch the devil's herd, across these endless skies

It takes Leonard Snart about fifteen seconds to realize he's not dead. Ten to realize he's a ghost. Twenty more to panic, and fifteen to realize he's completely invisible.

Leonard Snart, robber of ATMs and dead thief, is stuck in limbo.

It's taken him less than a minute to realize all of these life-changing (hah) revolutions, because it appears he's materialized onboard the middle of the common room of the Waverider. Everyone's dressed in different clothes than Leonard remembers them being in, so it must not be an immediate thing.

"Yo, Mick." He says, curious to see if his partner will sense his presence like he always could when they were both alive. Mick doesn't move. "Damn." Len says.

"Sara? Jax?" No one is moving, and repeating specific names doesn't seem to be working, so he doesn't bother trying it on the rest. He hopes he's not going to go all vengeful spirit on the crew. They'd had enough of that with Chronos. "I never should have watched Poltergeist with Mick and Sara." He says aloud. He hadn't spent half the time with his face pressed into Mick's shirt. He hadn't.

"Dammit." Leonard says again, dejected. The crew is having a conversation now, half argument and half friendly banter. He wishes he could somehow find a calendar onboard a time machine, find out exactly how long he's been floating around.

"It's only been two months since we started up again." The professor says.

"Oh, thanks." Leonard says.

"There's bound to be some setbacks." Stein continues as if Snart had never spoken, which, technically, he hadn't.

"Some?" Rip repeats, incredulous. "Rory almost burned the Archbishop of Canterbury to a crisp!"

Len laughs, because at least something's normal.

"He was acting all high and mighty." Mick says, not sounding overly concerned with it as he checks his heat gun, a familiar habit Leonard is used to at the end of missions.

"That's because," Rip storms, "he's a saint!"

Mick grins.

Hunter throws up his hands and storms into his office, a mostly ineffective maneuver because of the glass walls. Idiot.

"Take it easy on him, hey?" Sara says. "Poor little guy doesn't really get jokes."

"Once you and Jax stop moving his furniture an inch to the left, sure." Mick says. She grins at him, batting her eyes innocently as if to say she'd done no such thing.

Leonard looks around, doing a headcount. Jax, along with his counterpart, Stein, Mick, of course, Ray, Sara, and Rip. Still two empty chairs, not counting his own, by Len's count. The lovebirds (hah) must have either finally gotten their act together and kissed or been killed and were starting over sometime else.

And damn it, he was sort of rooting for the former. Being around too many heroes had obviously infected him. It was gross.

And what's a thief supposed to do now he's dead?

Snoop, obviously.

He snooped.

Turned out Rip had a secret room he'd never bothered to tell anyone about, which was disconcerting to find out about via walking through a wall. The room was filled with weapons, which was mildly concerning as well, but Leonard wasn't really judging, not when the second thing he'd done was check and see if they had his cold gun. (They did. It was in Mick's room.)

No one else really had anything interesting going on, except for the fact that it turned out Ray had been the one leaving the empty carton of milk in the refrigerator, which, really? Mick should have let him sacrifice himself for that one, honestly.

"Miiiiiicccckkkkk." Leonard says, bored. That's one the movies never tell you, that being a ghost is so boring. He can't even read or anything, unless someone leaves a book open, which they never do because, apparently, no one is literate onboard this ship except for him.

Not fair really, since Jax sometimes reads ship manuals and Mick has always liked chem books (that is, if he manages to avoid setting them on fire long enough to read them). But Leonard's read all those anyways, mostly because they had explicitly told him not to touch their books.

"Mick." He says. "Mick. MickMickMickMickMickMickMiiiiicccckkkkk-"

Leonard, getting a little carried away, falls off (through) the table he was perched on and into his partner. His hand, inexplicably, catches on something.

"The hell?" Leonard mutters to himself, disentangling his hand to look. He looks at Mick's surprised face, then down at the object he'd touched (?).

It was his ring, attached on a chain to his partner's neck. "Aww, didn't know you cared." Leonard says. "You can't see me, right?"

Mick's eyes search the room for a moment, putting his gloved hand on the chain that held the ring. "Anyone there?"

"Yes." Leonard tells him, sighing.

Mick looks around a moment more before shrugging and tucking the ring back beneath his Henley.

"Interesting." Leonard says aloud. Another thing about being a ghost; it was terrible to be unable to talk to anyone. He filled up the silence admirably with his own voice, though, he thought. "I'm going to have to look into that later."

"Hey, did you call me?" Ray pokes his head into the room. "Could have sworn I heard you say something."

"No." Mick grunts, his hand straying to the spot Len now knew held his ring. "Nothing."

That night, Leonard goes into Mick's room. It isn't like there was anything better to do, not unless he wants to watch Stein talk to himself in his sleep, which got boring after a while. Actually, maybe he was talking to Jax, not himself. That would be cool (hah). Leonard would test it later. Wasn't like he didn't have the time.

For now, though, a more important experiment.

"Sorry about the creepiness factor." Leonard says to his sleeping partner. "Just gotta check something."

He carefully walks forward, through the bed until he's in reach of his partner. If he could touch him and if he wasn't dead, that is.

"Here goes nothing." Leonard says, and touches the ring. He feels it. It's weird, since he can't feel the t-shirt Mick's wearing, or the bed, or Mick, but he feels the ring. It's cold beneath his palm, like ice, and damn if that thought doesn't make him smile a bit.

He knows nothing else belonging to him acts like this, since apparently the Legends had elected to keep his room intact (sweet, he guesses. Mostly gross.), so it must only be connected to the ring.

"Mick." He says, keeping contact with the ring. "MICK!"

Mick jolts awake, looking around the room with wide eyes, sitting straight up. "Mick?" Leonard says hopefully, but since Mick doesn't seem overly concerned about his dead partner standing inside his bed like Kitty Pryde, it clearly didn't work.

Still, Leonard looks down at the ring thoughtfully. Mick is still searching the room, his hand straying to the heat gun, kept by his bed mostly only because it wouldn't fit under the pillow. Leonard pokes at the ring again. Nothing happens. Interesting.

"Interesting." He says aloud.

Mick shakes his head like his ears are ringing and lays back down, looking jumpy.

"A close one." Leonard tells him, not one for getting discouraged; that stuff was for heroes when Leonard escaped their clutches yet another time. Though he doubts The Flash ever gets discouraged, since Leonard's shot him like three times now and Barry keeps trusting him, like the idiot all heroes are.

"Good night, Mick." Leonard says softly, taking his hand off the ring.

Mick's eyes survey the room for a moment longer before he takes his hand off the heat gun and closes his eyes again. Snart backs up out of the bed and onto solid ground (as much as you can when you're a ghost).

Len's gonna go see if maybe Jax left the TV playing in his room again.

He'd watched more than half of The Avengers before Jax had woken up and turned it off.

Leonard follows the Legends out on missions a lot, even though he can't actually do anything. At least he doesn't have to worry about changing in the fabrication room, since it seems he's stuck in the clothes he was in when he died. At least his favorite jacket wasn't the worst thing he could have been wearing when he took out the Oculus.

Someone who had royally screwed up one of their jobs once found himself mysteriously freezing to death as his house burned down. Leonard really hopes that poor guy isn't walking around, naked, as a ghost, because some things are really too much even if the guy almost did get them sent back to Iron Heights.

Anyway, Leonard follows them around sometimes, because, as stated before. Really. Boring.

It's because he's following Firestorm, The ATOM, and Mick that Leonard spots the guy sneaking up behind them, with what looks like a phaser from Star Trek. They don't go to the future often, likely because Rip gets tired of them constantly making Star Trek references.

"Uh oh." Leonard says, because they're all still oblivious to Phaser Guy, peering up over the crest of a hill to see if the Time Pirates were finished blowing things up. "Guys?" He says, because he may not be a hero, but he doesn't exactly want other people joining him, "GUYS!"

No one stirs. In desperation, Leonard throws out a hand, hard, and hits Mick in the chest, right where he knows the ring will be. Mick curses and drops, the phaser blast missing him by an inch right as he hits the ground.

Len's hand is cold. The ring is cold. He's cold?

Everything goes dark.

He comes to laying on the floor of the medbay. He hadn't actually known ghosts could be knocked unconscious, but it's good information to have, even if he does have a hell of a headache. He rolls over with a groan, curious to see what brought him here. Mick's laying on the medbay chair, half reclined and looking pissed, but unharmed.

"There doesn't seem to be anything unusual about either the ring or yourself, Mr. Rory." Stein says, not unkindly, passing Len's ring back to Mick.

"I'm tellin' you professor, that thing was ice cold. Burned." Mick says, slinging it back over his neck anyway. Idiot.

"Well, neither myself nor Mr. Jackson have found any anomalies." Stein says. "Perhaps it was just a byproduct of the blaster fire."

Mick looks unconvinced. Good. Reason he was Leonard's partner for so long.

"Sure. Thanks, doc." Mick's softer with his words now, a little, starting to trust the team and trust himself after Chronos.

Len nods to himself.

And all he has to do is keep Mick from dying, too.

Leonard catches Mick playing with the ring, in the cargo bay while tinkering with his heat gun.

"You should play cards with Sara." Leonard tells him companionably, walking through a wall of crates so he can splay his legs out in the corner, and not worry about anyone walking through him.

Mick keeps doing what he's doing. It feels like he's being ignored, which Leonard has never liked.

"Seriously, I bet she's lonely." Leonard wheedles to no one. "Probably sharpening her knives or doing something scary with her batons." It had taken a while for Leonard to figure out what was wrong with Sara, since she didn't talk about her sister much. Now he knows, it's obvious in hindsight. It's actually a wonder Sara hasn't hijacked the Waverider yet.

Mick's looking at the ring again, ignoring the innards of his heat gun and looking considering.

"Fine." Leonard says, "Let's try that thing again."

He walks over to Mick. Puts a hand on the ring. Nothing. Not a jolt, not a feeling, nothing. Leonard can still feel the base outline of the thing, but nothing else.

He supposes he must have drained his ghost battery, or whatever's keeping him here, when he saved Mick. Interesting as usual- just not particularly helpful.

Leonard pulls his hand away, not willing to admit to himself that he might be disappointed.

"Whatever." He tells Mick regardless. "I didn't want to talk to you anyway."

Mick grunts and lets the ring drop back into his shirt. When he starts reassembling the heat gun, it's with just a little too much force.

Leonard idly wonders how long it takes, exactly, for a ghost battery to charge. Not that he's lonely or anything.

Sara enters, waving her baton. "Wanna spar?" She asks Mick. Mick grunts, slamming the final piece of the heat gun into place.

"Yes." Leonard tells him. "Say yes."

"Sure." Mick says. "Nothin' better to do."

Leonard grins.

It's when Mick is showering, later, sweaty and bruised from his fight with Sara (she won), that Leonard tries his ring again. Mick had put it on the counter outside the bathroom. Leonard listens to the running water inside, then reaches for his ring.

It's not the same as before - it seems his ghost battery is still recharging - but Leonard can feel the ring, cold despite the heat curling out in waves from the bathroom. Len feels strangely tired again. Seems he's still recharging, too.

Mick steps out of the shower in sweatpants and an old t-shirt. When he slings the jewelry back around his neck, he pauses and shivers.