Barry spends a sleepy half-hour guarding Iris' bedside.
His forehead is bowed so low that it periodically touches the bed, startling him to wakefulness. Cisco watches the slow bobbing-bird routine unfold from the opposite room, giving them space. Barry takes it personally – incredibly personally, as if he were the one who instigated it – when someone on their team gets hurt. Cisco knows that he won't rest until Iris wakes. For Barry's sake, he hopes she wakes soon.
Barry barely made it back to STAR Labs. First he had to get off the train, phasing through the wall with a monumental effort and tumbling on the grass. The passengers wouldn't have unmasked him – not with Joe around – but they couldn't see their hero stumble when he de-boarded. He had to be strong enough to get himself away from public view before letting down his shoulders. He Flashed back to STAR Labs and collapsed on the cortex floor, shaking with fatigue as he pushed himself upright, assuring in a sandpapery voice, "I'm okay, I'm okay."
Caitlin wasn't so sure, but she didn't press the point. Cisco wants to ask about that – it wasn't like her to skip a "you could have died" remark. It really wasn't like her to forgo even a cursory examination, seemingly satisfied – or sufficiently distracted – with his arrival condition that she didn't bother.
Cisco is bothered. He knows Barry is strong and has proven himself repeatedly over the past two – three, if the coma counts, and the coma will always count in Cisco's mind – years. He also knows that Barry is breakable. Cisco has watched hundreds of bruises fade and dozens of broken bones heal, bore witness to Barry strangling for breath and howling in torment over a variety of inhumane treatments.
It's hard to equate the unsuited speedster in the adjacent room with the indomitable Flash. With a glass wall between them, Cisco can't feel the ever-present flow of lightning under Barry's skin, a burning warmth that signals home. He can't smell the Speed Force on him, a scent caught between indefinably otherworldly and a magnification of Barry's own. Visual input isn't enough; he wants tactile confirmation that Barry is okay.
Finally, after three-quarters of an hour, Iris wakes up. They're all there, and Barry's putting off Speed-warmth like a radiator, a high-frequency resonance that makes Cisco want to curl up around him like a cat. It makes Iris' shoulders relax and the tension visibly lower in the room, an unconscious assurance to everyone that everything is okay. Standing near him, Cisco believes it.
Iris looks even more tired than Barry and after a few minutes they let her be, filing out of the room until only Wally is left at her side. It seems oddly fitting to Cisco, both on an interpersonal level – they're kin – and on a speedster level, The Flash surrendering his seat to Kid Flash.
Joe and Barry linger near the door to have a hushed conversation. After a few long minutes, Barry nods – all but nods off on his feet, still giving off that Speed-heat that he can't afford to – and stumbles forward.
Cisco catches him, not when he falls but when he takes another step closer, pressing him back against the nearest wall and holding him there. Barry doesn't fight him, letting Cisco pin him down. Cisco is strong enough that he could do real damage: he could break bones, maybe even shatter his spine. It's an underlying strength that has the opposite of a fearful effect on Barry – he relaxes. He's a speedster caught in a trap he can't safely escape, but he doesn't perceive it as a trap. He looks right at Cisco and Cisco sees the gold.
Part of him wants to put it out, to banish that Otherness between them. The other part respects the unspoken truce: I won't hurt you; you won't hurt me.
Cindy already proved that being able to Vibe is a powerful response to speedster strength, capable of subduing – if not breaking entirely – the bond between speedsters and their power source. Feeling the concentrated power under his hands, Cisco knows it would only be a matter of letting it sink into Barry's skin to pin The Flash down, too.
That all-powerful creature which quietly terrifies him, conjuring dreams of a speedster shredding his heart every few weeks. He knows Barry wouldn't hurt him. He can't say the same for Flash. Instinct compels him to shut it down before Flash shuts him down, but he can't look at Flash and not see Barry, can't look at Barry and not see his shadow.
Barry brings a hand up and knits it in the back of Cisco's shirt. It's a calm hold, a counterpoint to the hands Cisco has pressed against his chest. They stay like that for too long, dangerously long, and he feels the contradiction of being – kill or keep – in his heartbeat. Pressed against the back of his shoulders. Waiting.
No one else is even around to watch, but he still feels a self-conscious blush arising. Caitlin and Julian left; Joe and Wally are occupied. HR trundled off God-knows-where. It's just them, in this all too public place, the very heart of STAR Labs.
Barry's hand flattens against his back, a quiet challenge. In response, Cisco's glide down his sides, settling over his hips. The energy doesn't change between them. It doesn't say fight or flight – or maybe it says both and Cisco simply refuses to answer it. Either way, they stay like that until Cisco leans up and kisses him.
Barry kisses him back, lingering over it, and it can't be the first time he's thought about it. It may not even be the first time he's done it. A sense of alignment falls into place in Cisco's mental story devoted to this Barry, to this irresistibly compelling version of a former stranger to him, like he finally gets how this Barry is supposed to fit in his life.
"Let's go home," Cisco murmurs, humming a little when Barry snags a quick kiss before nodding once. He lifts Cisco with that effortless Speed-strength that persists, even on empty. Cisco wraps his arms around Barry's neck to stabilize himself before shutting his eyes. Barry takes off.
Barry skates to a halt seconds later, trembling as he sets Cisco down. "Home sweet home," he exhales, toeing off his shoes with languorous slowness. They've already spent a few weeks in painful proximity here, rooming together as Barry left the nest. Cisco thinks the bad memories might overwhelm the good and break this quiet truce between them.
But when Barry flops onto his back on the couch, it just feels like he was meant to be there. He shivers a little, but when Cisco steps closer, he feels the heat coming from him. Shivering helps to circulate blood flow, increasing warmth. Sharing a space with another warmer person does, too.
Barry's eyes are shut but he accommodates Cisco with effortless ease, and Cisco knows they've done this before and quietly envies that other life, where this was simpler. But when he settles against Barry, it's the easiest thing in the world to stay.
Speed-heat sinks into him, the warmest, sweetest blanket nest he's ever known. Resting his head against Barry's shoulder, he closes his own eyes. A hand up near Barry's shoulder, holding him there, becomes two-fold when Barry gently wraps a hand around his elbow, tracing a thumb over it.
He isn't sure who means it more, where I've got you originates, but it doesn't matter. He feels Barry drift off, the thumb on his elbow stilling as his breaths deepen, but he doesn't move. It's therapeutic, cuddling a speedster, in a way that he knows could genuinely cure great ails. To keep it to himself is selfish, and he would never try to prevent Barry from sharing his Speed with others, but to have it freely offered to him and him alone is so sweet it almost aches.
There's a rhythm to Barry and his Speed that Cisco can't divorce, and for once, he doesn't want to, welcoming its great intangible presence for all its comforting warmth. A tension headache he didn't know he'd been holding dissolves; an anxiety to get back to the Labs vanishes.
It's not just warmth, he realizes, but the right frequency, a low, soothing resonance like a purr. It's so soft it barely registers as a snore, isn't audible to anyone but someone capable of processing extremes on the frequency range. It hits Cisco that they will never be able to use Barry's blood as a panacea: without the Speed-warmth and -vibration, it's just particularly robust, but it'll die outside of context. And so, too, will he.
Take the speed from him, and you take Barry, too. There is no line. A human cannot be separated from its own heartbeat, and a speedster cannot be separated from the Speed Force.
He wonders if he'll ever develop the refinement to trigger those same vibrations, to speed up the healing process for Barry when his own Speed is flagging or gone. Or, perhaps, he can do it for others, to soothe, even if he cannot heal.
It occurs to him belatedly that Barry might pick up on his frequency, too. Speed-sensitive as he is, it's hard to conceive that he wouldn't recognize Vibe's power. His utter trust is more acute for it. He knows what he's getting into. And he still dares to let his guard down.
Cisco's thoughts wander, growing muzzier as the Speed-warmth continues to cocoon him, until at last he loses track of time altogether.
His last thought is simple: healing is a process best shared.