Wow first published Flash fic. This has been a long time coming as this ot3 has been banging around in my head for weeks. Sort of a character study/introspective piece inspired by a fic on ao3 where it was mentioned that Eddie must have heard all sorts of stories about Barry while he was in a coma. Hope you guys enjoy~

Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I don't own.

Eddie was in over his head, he knew that from the beginning.

At first neither of them really hit his radar. They were both the kids of another cop (a senior cop at that). There were passing thoughts of their attractiveness but in the same way you think about someone who's already taken as they were so obviously off limits. So he stayed away, he was pleasant with Barry the few times their paths crossed and in all honesty he never really saw Iris as when she visited her first and only destination was Barry's lab.

Then Barry gets struck by lightning and everything changes. It's hard losing one of your own, even though it's inevitable as a cop. It didn't matter how well you knew them, what mattered is that you were all doing the same thing and working towards the same goal. It reminds you of the dangers of the job.

Not only did they lose Chyre, who had been with the department for years, they lost the young and brilliant forensic scientist. He may have just been in a coma and not dead, but not knowing whether he would ever wake up was almost worse than him simply dying.

Eddie did everything he could to help out, especially when he got assigned to be Joe's new partner. He covered for him whenever Barry had his bad days, which was quite frequently up until STAR labs of all places took him in to monitor his ever changing vitals. It was better there, and they realized that Barry wasn't flat lining constantly and something much stranger was happening to Barry, but it still didn't wake Barry up.

It was due to this that he officially met and got to know Iris. She showed up at work one day to take him out for coffee as thanks to him for covering her dad's shifts. She spent most of the outing talking about Barry. He wasn't too upset about it really as he knew that it had to be hard it had to be for her- Joe had been talking about Barry a lot as well. In all honesty, Eddie hadn't really expected them to hit it off as well as they did. Still, there was something between the two of them that led to them agreeing to another coffee date the next week.

Things went well for the couple, though Iris was sure to keep the whole thing a secret from her father (which was increasingly difficult for Eddie considering he worked with the man every day- of course that's also why she insisted on it). It quickly became obvious to Eddie however, that Iris was completely in love with Barry. He wasn't quite sure she knew it herself as the thought never seemed to have occurred to her, but to an outsider it was obvious in her glowing praise and sad smile how she felt about her best friend.

He thought about breaking it off, letting her go so that she could be single when she realized what those feelings truly were, and free for when Barry finally woke up so that she would have a chance to tell him free of conscience. In the end he didn't though. Eddie was falling and falling fast, and though he felt rather selfish about it, he knew that, despite her feelings for Barry, she felt the same for him.

That didn't stop her from talking about Barry. In the end, Eddie really didn't mind. He knew it was her way of coping, and he felt like he was getting to know the missing piece of her life. By the time Barry woke up from the coma he felt like he'd known the man his whole life.

This added another problem, one that was probably the most embarrassing of them all. Eddie had been regaled stories about Barry Allen for months, and now instead of just thinking of him as the missing West, he thought of the man with fondness. That in itself wasn't all that surprising, with the way Iris spoke of Barry like he hung the stars it only makes sense that he would think of him fondly as well. (He steadily ignored the voice that said that most men would be jealous of their girlfriend feeling that strongly for someone else.)

The problem was the fondness had turned into something else. It'd hit him all at once, at some point between all of Joe's and especially Iris's stories, Eddie had fallen halfway in love with the brilliant and nerdy scientist. It was ridiculous; falling in love with someone he had never truly met and had only heard about through stories. For a while he passed it off as an irrational crush (and maybe a little bit of osmosis because even if he wasn't in love with Barry, Iris definitely was- sometimes feelings bleed over, alright?) and he ignored the problem. Especially considering that problem was currently laid up in STAR labs out like a light.

Of course it was around the time that he was finally able to push the feelings aside that Barry woke up. Don't get him wrong, he was ecstatic about the man waking up. He knew what this meant to the members of the West family. Still, how was he supposed to react to this man that he didn't really know but he felt like he did?

Knowing himself so well, he was liable to put his foot in his mouth and thoroughly embarrass himself.

When Barry came back to work, somehow he managed to not let on that not only did he feel like he knew the man but also that might possibly be completely infatuated with him. Unfortunately, as time wore on and he actually got the chance to know Barry outside of stories, he fell harder than before (and there was no denying it this time).

Eddie knew it would probably never go anywhere, he was dating Iris (and completely in love with her as well, funny how these things work out) and honestly Barry was probably straight. He couldn't deny that the feelings were there though.

And at the end of the day, despite knowing that Iris loved him back, when Barry and she lock eyes the room falls away, suddenly there isn't anything but the other. Their smiles light up their faces and the room as well, and Eddie falls just a little more in love with the both of them. But when this happens, Eddie can't help but wonder where he fits in their whole messy and lopsided triangle. He's afraid that one day he won't fit into it at all.

As always, read and review darlings.