December
Eddie volunteers to pick Barry up for Christmas dinner.
He's aware that he was invited to Joe's place mostly out of pity, probably mixed with a lot of persuasion on Iris' part. Eddie's only been in Central City for a few weeks, and he's been assigned to Joe West for maybe half that time, following the unfortunate shooting of Detective Chyre, so Eddie's skeptical about Joe having the sudden urge to bond with his new partner in his own home, during a holiday that's basically all about family. However, in the past week, Eddie took all of Joe's shifts so that he could be in the hospital with Barry, and he suspects that Iris was the one to suggest to her dad that they should invite Eddie as a way of saying thanks. He doesn't think he deserves it, he just did what any decent person would do in the same situation, but Christmas music is blaring from every speaker in the city and he's feeling the single-guy-who-can't-go-home-for-holidays-due-to-his-new-job blues, so he agrees to Joe's half-assed invitation with just a little bit of guilt on the side.
That guilt is partly what prompts him to say that he can pick Barry up on his way to Joe's house – that, and the knowledge of how shitty the past days have been for the poor guy. Struck by lightning in his own workplace, thrown back into the shelves to suffer chemical burns on top of it… Eddie really feels sorry for the guy. He didn't talk to him much before, but Barry seemed all sorts of cheerful and nice, despite not knowing when to shut up in order to not piss off his superiors.
Now, he opens the door when Eddie knocks, and he just looks… rough. He's wearing an old sweatshirt, the hood pulled up over his head, and his hair falls over his forehead in a mess that suggests he just woke up. His eyes are slightly unfocused, and Eddie's seen this guy on a crime scene, how sharp and quick he is to think of any possible solution to the problem, how his mind usually seems to work at the speed of light. This guy in the doorway looks like a completely different person, and Eddie feels a thin sliver of unease coil in his stomach.
"Hey," he says, and Barry deflates, tension draining from his shoulders just a little bit. Not in a good way, though – his expression bypasses 'relaxed' and goes straight for 'weary'.
"Look, whatever it is you're selling, I'm not really interested, okay?"
Eddie blinks.
"I'm here to pick you up, Allen," he offers, slightly at a loss; he doesn't know Barry well enough to be able to discern a prank or a joke, if that's what's going on. But Barry's definitely not laughing – his brow tightens in a confused frown and he looks at Eddie for what feels like an eternity.
Eddie tries not to squirm, to give Barry the space he needs to figure things out. After about a minute it becomes clear that's not happening any time soon, though.
"Joe and Iris invited me to dinner… I told them I could pick you up since I'm driving anyway," he shrugs, trying not to sound a bit defensive about it: he wonders if Joe has forgotten to mention it to Barry, hence the confusion on the guy's face. But that does not explain why Barry doesn't even recognize him – they're not exactly buddies, but they've been introduced and they've worked on two or three cases together.
Which means it must be-
"The lightning," Barry huffs solemnly and steps to the side, obviously to let Eddie inside. "Sorry…"
"Eddie," he fills in the blank, and Barry nods.
"Yeah. Okay. Just give me five minutes, I'll change and we can go."
He disappears in what Eddie thinks must be his bedroom – his apartment's kinda tiny, and Eddie feels a little weird about being invited in when the guy obviously has no idea who Eddie is. The sofa's still warm when Eddie sits down, and there's a rumpled blanket at one end of it; it's not exactly messy in the small living room, but it's just chaotic enough to feel homely.
He's sitting there with his head tilted to the side, squinting at the bookshelf next to the TV, when Barry comes in again.
In the same faded yellow hoodie he was wearing ten minutes ago. Eddie raises an eyebrow, and Barry blinks at him:
"Oh, right… sorry, do you want something to drink?"
"I… think we should get going soon, Joe and Iris will be waiting," Eddie says slowly. It seems that Barry's not doing as great as everyone was assuming yesterday when he was discharged from the hospital, and it's just a little bone-chilling to think that he's stuck in his apartment alone while being unable to remember something from ten minutes ago.
Barry seems to realize this as well, because his expression crumples just a little bit in defeat as he turns to his bedroom again. Eddie follows him this time; he tells Barry about Iris, about the face she made when she asked Eddie about his Christmas plans and he said he was going to stay home and watch reruns of his favorite shows, about how she must've wheedled until Joe relented to ask Eddie to join them. He tells Barry about a case – not like Barry's a civilian who can't know, after all. Barry leaves the bathroom door slightly ajar, and Eddie leans against the wall as he speaks. By the time he's done recounting the evidence that just doesn't add up, Barry emerges, smelling fresh and clean and wearing something a little more christmasy: a lot more, actually. The sweater's got reindeer and snowflakes woven into the fabric and Eddie makes fun of him a little bit. Barry doesn't exactly smile, but he seems amused nonetheless as he wraps a scarf around his neck.
They're at the door when Barry freezes, and he turns to Eddie with wide eyes that are a little too shiny for comfort.
"I… forgot the presents," he whispers, looking around as if he expects them to start jumping out of the shelves. Eddie shrugs:
"That's fine, I'm sure being stuck at the hospital for nine days makes it okay if you didn't buy-"
"I bought them!" Barry huffs, frowning, then repeats it quietly again, probably trying to persuade himself too. "I bought them, in Starling… I remember being on the train, and I wanted to hide them somewhere because Iris was supposed to come over, and I don't know…"
His voice breaks a little and looks like a lost kid for a moment; Eddie's heart breaks at the sight just a little bit, and he thinks, not for the first time, how unfair life can be. But pity's not what Barry needs right now, so Eddie claps a hand on the guy's shoulder and smiles at him:
"We've still got time to look for them, if you don't mind me rooting through your things?"
In the end, they only find the bracelet for Iris; Barry doesn't remember what he even got for Joe. They have to go, though, or they'll be unfashionably, horribly late.
In the car, Eddie pulls the bottle of good scotch he got for Joe out of the bag of presents and hands it to Barry, who looks up at him with wonder, then shakes his head – before he can protest, Eddie shrugs:
"Just give it to him. It's fine."
Barry stares at the bottle for the whole 'Jingle Bells Rock' on the radio; when he finally looks up at Eddie as they stop for a red light, his voice is almost inaudible.
"I didn't get you anything."
"Then you can give me whatever you got for Joe when you find it, how's that sound?" Eddie jokes – Barry seems to consider it, though.
"It could be socks," he says in the end dryly, and the humor in it is so unexpected that Eddie laughs out loud.
"That's okay. A healthy guy can never have too many socks, am I right?"
It takes him about three seconds and Barry's cheeks rapidly staining red to realize how that might've sounded and Eddie groans:
"Not what I meant. Can you forget I said that, please?"
"I think that's not gonna be a problem," Barry sighs, and Eddie shuts up before he says something even worse. Mariah Carey's voice fills the silence, and neither of them moves to change the station.
January
Barry's asleep on his table when Eddie walks into his lab. His computer's running, the blank document on the screen giving his face a slightly eerie glow. He looks almost peaceful, though, worry lines absent from his face when Eddie approaches – but no matter how comfortable Barry looks, his neck is going to kill him once he wakes up and Eddie doesn't have the heart to let that happen.
Also he kinda needs the Bennett analysis to come through a.s.a.p., that case's been dragging more than anyone would've predicted, and… it makes up for a good excuse to come up here and see how Barry's doing. Not that Eddie's been actively looking for excuses, he's an adult man and there's nothing wrong about wanting to see if a colleague who's been struck by freaking lightning is alright… but Eddie's a good cop because he's used to listening to his instincts as well as his brain, and right now, they're both whispering that there's something more in his concern for Barry. He doesn't know what it is yet; it just feels… different. Maybe he just remembers too much, as opposed to Barry's not enough: Eddie now knows how Barry's eyes look when Christmas lights are reflected in them, how his whole face just brightens with amusement for silly movies everyone has seen too many times, how disapproval tightens Barry's mouth a little bit when someone mixes up Star Wars and Star Trek (and how he rolls his eyes when he figures Iris is doing it on purpose to tease him, again).
Barry's back at his lab because he refused a prolonged leave – Eddie wasn't in the Captain's office when he had that particular talk with Barry and Joe, but the glass wall allowed him to see Barry scowling and gesturing wildly. Eddie would bet some choice words and a loud voice were involved, because Joe kept wincing and stealing glances at Singh, who remained steely-eyed and visibly uncomfortable for the five minutes it took Barry to shut up. Eddie knows – he checked his watch out of sheer amusement (and a bit of schadenfreude because Singh had stuck him with annoying paperwork just a day before). Barry walks out of that office and steers straight towards the stairs to his lab, so Eddie assumes the talk went well. For Barry, at least; Joe looks a bit sorry every time he sees Singh for the next two days.
It's the third day now, and glass crunches under Eddie's shoe as he steps to Barry's desk. It looks like sad, wet remains of a test tube when he shifts his foot to look; he glances at Barry's hands, sprawled on the desk, but he can't see any cuts. When his fingers brush Barry's shoulder lightly (the one without the burns), Barry doesn't exactly startle awake, but he's sitting up and blinking at Eddie pretty quickly.
Eddie counts it as a small victory that Barry recognizes him, his mouth curving up in a tiny smile instead of turning down in confusion when he sees Eddie.
"Hey, Allen," he grins, patting Barry's shoulder.
"Eddie… what're you doing here," Barry mumbles in response, rubbing one hand down his face as if he's trying to chase sleep away (Eddie notices it's his left; Barry's right-handed). His hair's all messy again, plastered to his head in the spot that was pressed down against the surface of the table. Eddie wonders how long Barry was asleep.
"I just came to see if you had the Bennett results," Eddie shrugs, and there's the confusion; he can practically hear the gears spinning in Barry's head, spinning and screeching just a little bit. Then, Barry glances at the table and he sighs as he picks up a neon sticky note, handing it to Eddie without a word.
It says Left hand numb. Dropped the test tube (Bennett).
Eddie just blinks at it. That explains the floor, but Barry's not known for being careless with evidence…
"I'm sorry," Barry sighs, shaking his head, and Eddie notices more sticky notes scattered over the table. Some of them are crumpled as if they were meant to be thrown away, probably because they aren't needed anymore; others carry various messages: from 'had lunch at 1pm' and 'Iris – drinks – Saturday' to more detailed ones containing bits and pieces from various cases, streets, places, names, types of samples that need to be analyzed and so on. Eddie frowns a little – it looks like Barry's still struggling with his short-term memory.
"You okay?" he asks, and his concern must show in his voice because Barry gives him a slightly wry smile:
"Peachy. But that... thing you want me to do might take a while."
"Maybe you should-" Eddie starts, but Barry cuts him off with a frown:
"If you say I should take a few days off, I swear I'll do just that and give all your evidence to Moreno."
"-let me help, I was gonna say 'let me help', and please don't do that," Eddie groans. Moreno is fifty-nine, lives with an army of cats and regards the whole world in general and his workplace in particular as filled with incompetent idiots who won't understand basic logic if they're not talked to like five-year-old children. Eddie's pretty sure that even if the cats weren't in play, he'd have a mild allergic reaction to Moreno anyway.
Barry smirks at him a bit, then raises an eyebrow:
"How can you help?"
"Well… this says that your hand's numb, right?" Eddie waves the sticky note around. He knows that people can experience occasional tingling or numbness after being struck by lightning – he'd done a bit of research after Christmas, as far as Google could take him. "So basically what you need is more hands. And since I've got nothing to do while I wait for the results… you can boss me around and I'll be your little helper."
That sounded better in his head – Barry smiles a little nonetheless and after a moment, nods slowly.
"You sure you've got time?" he asks – and Eddie could technically go home since the results aren't available… but he knows what it's like to feel helpless, useless, to be told to 'take it easy' when all he can think of is getting back to normal. He's been there, when he was shot two years ago – had to go through a long and painful process of getting his shoulder back to working order. He nearly drove himself crazy when he was stuck on desk duty or on leave… With Barry, it's probably even worse, because they have no way of knowing what kind of symptoms will resurface and when. So if Eddie can help him keep his job for at least a little while longer, he's willing to sacrifice a few hours of sleep.
"I'm sure," he tells Barry, who nods and grins at him a bit:
"Okay. If you screw up, I can just drop that on the floor too, after all."
There's bitterness behind the joke, Eddie can feel it, but he laughs a bit nonetheless and shrugs his jacket off and pushes his sleeves up. He's got basic lab training, courtesy of high school and college and police training, but he's still thankful for Barry's very detailed instructions as the other man hovers over his shoulder while Eddie drips things into test tubes and then onto glass plates.
It takes them two hours to finish what Barry needs to do; Eddie drives him home afterwards and resists the urge to walk him to the door.
A few days later, he's on a night shift again and he comes up to the lab again; Barry lets him help even if he seems to have no trouble handling things on his own at the moment. Their shoulders brush occasionally, and Eddie wonders when dropping dirt in some liquid into a centrifuge became a relaxing thing to do.
February
It's close to Valentine's Day and Barry falls.
Iris is the one to call Eddie, her voice careful and controlled in a way that betrays helplessness tinged with panic. She asks Eddie not to tell Joe, not to worry him – so Eddie begs off for a coffee run, gets an order from three other people on his way to the door, and drives to the address Iris gave him on the phone.
It's near a cinema; when Eddie arrives, Barry's sitting on the curb with a small smile, but his right leg looks stiff, stretched out in front of him at an angle that's probably not exactly comfortable.
"Sorry," is the first thing Barry says, and Eddie shakes his head:
"It's okay, buddy. So what happened?"
Turns out Barry's whole right side just went numb; he was trying to ignore the tingling that started a few days ago, and now he's having trouble even getting up. He fell when they were walking to the cinema, and Iris just wasn't strong enough to drag him anywhere: Barry's a tall guy, even if he's mostly bone and lean muscle instead of bulk. He's not terribly heavy for Eddie, though, when he winds Barry's arm around his shoulders to get him up and to the car.
"I'll get your car dirty," Barry protests when Eddie opens the front door for him: it was raining in the morning and his jeans are damp from sitting on the curb.
"It's a cop car, it's seen worse," Eddie smiles and minds Barry's head as he helps him get in.
Iris decides it would be best if she explains things to Joe herself; Eddie drops her off at the station and drives Barry home, then helps him up the stairs and to his apartment.
"Is it getting better?"
"Yeah, sure," Barry says, but then he drops his keys and has to lean against the wall while Eddie unlocks the door.
"I can see that," Eddie snorts skeptically as he peels Barry away from the wall and shuffles them both inside.
"Look, you don't have to stay… I'll manage on my own, I'm home, alright?"
Barry's voice is small and tight and Eddie's having none of that.
"What you need is to change out of those jeans and then I'll either make you something to eat or order takeout, based on what I find in your fridge."
"There's water. And juice. And a bottle of ketchup," Barry confesses, and Eddie has suspected as much but he snorts anyway:
"Takeout it is. I feel like pizza tonight, any objections?"
Barry looks at him for a moment, and Eddie knows it's probably because Eddie has just invited himself to stay over at Barry's place for dinner, without even really asking – Barry's probably trying to decide how much of that is pity on Eddie's part.
If Eddie's being honest, there's no pity involved as such. Worry, concern, yes; a misplaced sense of responsibility, even if Barry's not his family or his subordinate. He is, however, Joe's family, and Eddie would like to think that they've reached the point where they can tentatively start thinking of each other in terms of friendship.
"No anchovy," Barry sighs in the end as Eddie helps him sit on his bed. He undoes his jacket and shrugs out of it, but it takes him a while; when he gets himself all tangled up in his sweater, halfway over his head, Eddie steps in with a chuckle. He doesn't exactly plan to ogle Barry, but he can't stop himself from noticing the spiderweb of pink scars on Barry's shoulder – they trail a few inches up his neck, then curve down over his shoulderblade in irregular swirls, halfway down his back. They must be from where the chemicals soaked into Barry's skin before they could clean him up at the hospital; Barry catches him looking, shifts to the side a little, visibly uneasy. Eddie thinks he should say something, but nothing except 'sorry' comes to mind and that doesn't really feel adequate, so Eddie just turns and walks back to the living room to order that pizza.
He gets the cheese-stuffed crust as a silent apology for staring, and Barry doesn't say anything, so the apology seems accepted as silently as it is offered. By the time there's nothing but crumbs in the box, Eddie can see Barry flexing his hand slowly, so the numbness must've subsided. They don't really talk, but strangely, it's fine - Eddie's usually not that great with prolonged silence, but with Barry, it almost feels comfortable. Maybe it's because he's used to being quiet with Barry now, after a few weeks of working with him in the lab. Barry seems a little more pensive now, though… Eddie knocks his knee against Barry's lightly to tear him out of his reverie.
"Hey," Eddie smiles when Barry looks up at him with a small frown. "You'll be fine, alright? You're just gonna get better in time."
Barry's quiet for a stretch, then nods, and his eyes seem to speak more than his words, but Eddie's not so sure what that look's supposed to be, so he has to rely on the spoken message.
"Sorry about today," Barry says, and Eddie chuckles:
"Just iron things out with Joe if you hear him chewing me out tomorrow for not bringing back that coffee I promised him, okay?"
Surprisingly enough, Joe doesn't mention it the next day, or the day after; Iris must've done a good job persuading him it was in Barry's best interest to let Eddie take him home. That's probably how Eddie gets invited for a Valentine's karaoke night with Iris and Barry: Joe most likely doesn't want to be the parental voice hovering over his kids, but they're all aware that Barry can't really predict when he's not going to be completely alright, and having someone around who can take his weight and get him home if necessary could prove useful. Eddie's not sure whose idea it was to invite him – he suspects a mixture of Iris, who was pretty freaked out about not being able to help Barry when he couldn't move so well, and Joe, who's a concerned parent despite his preferred role of a total hardass.
However, Barry doesn't look surprised when Eddie shows up, and it's more of a relief than Eddie's willing to admit. He's had his suspicion about Barry's feelings for Iris, and he doesn't want to be that guy who tags along and ruins someone's date on Valentine's Day. Barry doesn't act like he's bothered by Eddie's presence though, so maybe this outing wasn't meant to be a date – after all, the karaoke bar Iris chooses seems to be full of single people willing to drink and sing away their loneliness for the night. They laugh at people's spectacular failures on the small stage together, and then one of them discovers darts in the corner of the bar; Iris wipes the floor with them and then demands that losers should face public humiliation in the form of a duet.
Barry looks as horrified as Eddie feels at the prospect, but he's always been willing to make a complete fool out of himself in the name of good fun, and he's buzzed enough that he grabs Barry by the elbow and drags him towards the stage.
"I can start so you can laugh first," Eddie yells into Barry's ear over the music, grinning – and that's exactly what he does. Iris the Dart Queen is the one to pick a song for them: not that the choice matters much, because Eddie couldn't carry a tune if his life depended on it. He doesn't mind, since most of the other people who've sang already were no better, so he screeches and wheezes his way through the first few verses of the song, and then smiles at Barry encouragingly when it's the guy's turn to contribute his own kind of howling to the noise.
Barry looks a bit like he's going to throw up, but he steps to the mic anyway and when he opens his mouth, Eddie's grin turns into a surprised gape in a blink of an eye. Barry's voice is a little shaky, a little rough for the first few notes, but beyond that, it's… beautiful. Eddie doesn't really have any other words for it, for him- the bright lights are making his skin look paler than usual, his eyes just a little brighter before he closes them, presumably not to see the audience. Eddie doesn't see them either - he can't tear his eyes away from Barry, his lean form hunched forward slightly, his lips moving, shaping words out of that mesmerizing voice. Goosebumps travel over his skin as if Barry's singing were a physical caress and Eddie completely forgets that he's supposed to be singing too. It would be funny if they were both awful, but now it just feels like he'd be breaking the moment; but Barry looks at him and stops singing until Eddie steps in. Eddie can hear his own voice grating like nails on chalkboard against Barry's pitch-perfect magic, but Barry's grinning, and he looks more relaxed than he has in a few days, so Eddie doesn't really worry about it too much.
When the song ends, there's even applause – though Eddie's not completely sure if it's more because Barry was amazing or because people are glad that Eddie shut up.
"Now kiss!" someone yells from the audience. Eddie's heart misses a beat – why does it do that, he wonders – and Barry's cheeks practically glow red when he pulls Eddie off the stage. When they get back to the table, a waitress brings Barry a fresh drink, says it's on the house, and then, she grins at Eddie.
"Man, if you sing like that in the shower, this guy must really love you to put up with you."
Iris bursts out laughing and Barry's smiling too, maybe more at Eddie's dumbstruck expression than at the words themselves. Eddie just shrugs – somehow, he can't find it in himself to correct her. When he glances at Barry, their eyes meet and linger, and it's almost a physical effort to look away.
Eddie regrets not having volunteered to be the designated driver, because something in him just calls for more looking, more… something, more Barry. He's pleasantly buzzed, but there's a tingling under his skin that doesn't go away, not even after he gets out of the cab and his leg's still warm from where it was pressed against Barry's in the tight space of the car. It feels like he's been electrified, like he's the one who's been struck by lightning tonight, and it feels like the static under his skin is there to stay.
March
Barry texts him to come over; Eddie does. On his way to Barry's place, he wonders about how familiar the route to that tiny apartment has become, how natural it seems that he's heading to Barry's instead of having other birthday plans. They haven't really talked about what might have transpired between them in that karaoke bar, but Eddie doesn't feel like he's holding something back. It feels right, like there's no rush for anything, like all the time in the world is just theirs to take.
Barry gets him a cake, and the thirty-two candles stick out from the icing in various angles because there are just too many of them. Eddie wonders what Barry will do once Eddie's thirty-five, forty, fifty… maybe he'll just have to keep getting bigger and bigger cakes.
Barry also gives him a grin and a longish package messily wrapped in red paper; Eddie laughs as he discovers socks, six wildly colorful pairs with cartoon prints. The fact that Barry has kept their conversation from months ago in his mind through all of his troubled times warms Eddie's heart.
As a way of saying thanks, he looks at Barry and sees his present, his future, his place in this city and in this small apartment, and he leans in for a kiss like it's the most logical thing in the world.
Their mouths meet halfway. It's spectacular.
Eddie thinks that Barry might be his own personal lightning bolt, the strike that has changed his life in ways he never stood a chance against… but he doesn't want to be insensitive by voicing it and linking what has been a traumatic event for Barry to this perfect moment of frozen time and warming touch, so he just keeps kissing the feeling, the depth of it, right into Barry's lips.