Waiting for a Light that Never Comes

by define-serenity

[NIGHTFLASH] "I've done it," he confesses. "Travelled through time."

author's notes: written for Seblaine Week 2016, day 1: time travel. title taken from the titular Linkin Park song. this is Flashpoint in my More Than A Trick 'verse; it could be read as a standalone, but I refer to both More Than A Trick of the Light and One More Drop Into the Blue.

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Waiting for a Light that Never Comes

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I can't stand to hear the sound,

of losing what I never found.

.

He couldn't say what rouses him.

Maybe the rain tapping out a rhythm along the bedroom windows, the traitorous roar of thunder in the distance, a storm lapsing on the outskirts of the city riotously moving closer.

He blinks slowly as shadows play over the ceiling, and draws a hand up his chest – his heart beats its usual steady rhythm, his rampant thoughts had calmed in the wake of warm hands and soft lips, low whisperings in his ear. So why did he wake up?

Turning his head, his eyes catch on Blaine, his unruly curls, the rise and fall of his chest, still fast asleep beside him; dreaming, he hopes, of brighter days. He leans in and pushes a kiss to his boyfriend's shoulder, a momentary goodbye as he slides out of the bed, hoping to track his unease elsewhere.

He throws on a pair of sweats, closes the bedroom door behind him, and wanders over to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Their city. A lot has happened these past few months to strengthen Nightbird's and The Flash's connection to Central City – the new Chief of Police's support and the Mayor's – and both their team as well as their home has benefited from it. They work in tandem with the police now, rather than labeled vigilantes that exact the wrong kind of justice. Their combined efforts were healing the city in the wake of the devastation The Kingpin left behind, and it was a sight to behold.

Behind his eyelids, however, play images of a much darker timeline, a city torn apart by a monster, blood on his hands not his own. A heart broken.

It's November 7th. The coldest night of the year.

That's it then. That's what woke him.

Guilt.

Outside the weather's turned the city dark and gray, lightning cutting bright through the night sky, and not for the first time it's followed by the ghost of a chemical burn over his collarbone. It's long since healed – both times have – but it lives alive beneath the surface of his skin. Awake. Like he is now.

Sitting down on the couch he looks over the darkened loft, the demons in the shadows his own, pushed there by a light he never thought he'd find. Blaine planted pictures all over the place, like his mom did around the apartment - pictures of his dad, his mom and dad, Blaine's mom, and, of course, quite a few of them. Smiling behind the glass.

There's a light and warmth in this apartment he can scarcely believe he sacrificed once, or foolishly assumed he wouldn't lose, and he's been carrying the weight of that decision since the day he made it. No one else bore the traces of it, least of all Blaine, but he's cursed to remember each moment.

His punishment, maybe.

"Bed's getting cold," comes Blaine's voice, thick with sleep.

"You know me." He breathes in deep, scooting forward as Blaine approaches, elbows on his knees, bare feet digging into their massively overpriced rug. "Can't resist a good storm."

Blaine crawls in behind him and winds his arms around his neck, pushing a kiss to his hair.

His eyes fall shut. In the six months since they moved in together he's gotten away with these nightly escapes a handful of times; he never means to wake Blaine up with his tossing and turning, or his unnecessary worrying, but sometimes he inevitably does.

This time, he's not certain he didn't mean to.

"What's wrong?" Blaine asks.

"Something Dottie said at dinner."

He breathes in deep. They'd promised each other no more secrets, no more hiding in the shadows, and that probably included bottling things up that –at this point– didn't even matter anymore. The memories are his and his alone, and yet the weight of them, the stifling lack of air their remembrance causes, isn't something he can bear much longer.

"About me travelling through time."

Dottie had run her mouth after one drink too many after dinner, and started a lively discussion about whether or not it would even be possible – Blaine knew as well as Sam did that if he managed to run faster than the speed of light it would be theoretically possible for him to travel backward or forward in time. It hadn't been anything he didn't know already, or tested, only a few months before.

"What about it?" Blaine asks softly.

Wounds old and new had been cut into their skins, and things got so bad he and Blaine both feared it would all fall apart around them – the city, their relationship, their partnership as The Flash and Nightbird – and it all became too much to handle. They were working day and night, with and without their disguises and people got hurt, people they cared about, and—

"I've done it," he confesses. "Travelled through time."

Blaine's silence speaks volumes about where they're at in their relationship, and how well he reads the telltale signs of his apprehension – this isn't a story he should burden Blaine with, because that's all it'll ever be to him, a story, a figment of another time, another place, one he erased because—

Oh God. He had to.

"I went back and changed things and—"

He picks at the palm of his hand, tears stinging at his peripheral vision. He had to change things, didn't he? There's no way he could've lived with what he'd done, with the consequences, with—

It's a cheapskate excuse that doesn't consider his initial decision to ignore the consequences, to mess with something so far beyond him his punishment now doesn't near fit his initial crime. He was so stupid; he was reckless; everything Blaine constantly worried would get him killed.

Blaine sits down next to him, fingers tangling in his hair. "Hey."

"I'm not proud of what I did." He draws a hand down his face. "If I'd known—"

A chill runs up his spine.

"Sebastian."

"I haven't told you because it doesn't—" He blinks at a tear too heavy to hold back. "It doesn't matter."

"Tell me," Blaine urges. "Sebastian, whatever it is. I'll help you carry it."

He turns his head and looks at Blaine, his best friend, the man he's sharing his life with, and surrenders to it – he can't carry this alone, not anymore. Never in a million years did he think he'd have to confess to this kind of mistake.

How could he have been so thoughtless?

Will Blaine even understand?

The answer seems irrelevant, because he can't move forward with this on his mind, not on his own, and not without Blaine. This is a secret he can't keep anymore.

He stares out in front of him, into the shadows where his darkness lies in wait, and reaches inside.

"Do you remember the night Charles got shot?" he asks, remembering the harsh flash of the hospital lights, the formaldehyde scent and his mother's cries. It'd happened all over again, the heavy tread of boots on the floorboards, shadows cast long into the hallway, his mother clutching his arm as the officers told them what'd passed.

"And you ran after me," he says, "at the hospital?"

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August 8th, 2016

"Sebastian, wait!" Blaine calls, ducking between nurses and orderlies in the ED in pursuit of him.

All he can think about is get out, leave now, breathe, and not the stifling confines of the waiting room or the night air seem to be able to grant him that wish.

He stumbles outside barely standing, his knees about to give out from under him – he should push off, hit the concrete running, but he can't move, can't think, can't see beyond the decade old wound now reopened. How could this have happened? How had they not seen this coming?

After Dottie's hack into the CCPD a lot of high-ranking officials had panicked, afraid their bank accounts were included in the proprietary information only accessible by the police force, and more than a few people in The Kingpin's pockets took it as their sign to leave. The Kingpin, on his part, decided to terrorize the city in search of The Flash, of Nightbird, and any hacker friends they might have.

As the Chief of Police his stepdad had called on all citizens to hold their own, not give into the fear that had steadily started gripping the city, The Kingpin's men everywhere at once, cutting down anyone that stood in their way.

The Kingpin had clearly decided Charles stood in his way too.

Blaine catches up to him, grabbing around his arm to keep him upright. "Where are you going?"

"I can't—" He chokes out, shudders down to the bone, eyes filling to the brim with tears. "Blaine, I can't do this. Not again."

Not this. Not another father. Not at the hands of the same puppeteer.

"Your dad's in surgery," Blaine says. "He can pull through."

"And what about my mom?" he asks, Blaine's words but a distant echo in a life unraveling – he might as well be that twelve-year old boy standing over his father's grave, silent tears rolling down his cheeks, vowing he'd never feel this kind of pain again.

Not again.

Not all over.

He won't.

"Did you see how she—" he cries, his eyes falling shut in the hopes of chasing away the images – his mom crumbling to her knees and him diving after her, driving to the hospital the same way they did that night ten years ago. His world slowing to a stop.

"I should've been there," he says. "I could've stopped this."

What's the point of being the fastest man alive if he can't protect the people he loves? If Blaine's right, and that lightning chose him, if he was given these powers for a reason then why can't he save his family? Blaine? His dad?

"Sebastian," Blaine's voice, somewhere out of reach. Two hands on his face. "You can't change what happened."

His breath catches.

Looking down he meets his boyfriend's eyes, his soulmate's eyes, and swallows hard, thinking He's wrong. He can change things. He's the fastest man alive, a man struck by fate, why wouldn't he be able to fix this? This pain life keeps begging isn't worth it, none of it is, not the fear of losing someone else, not the pain in his mother's eyes, not even the thought that Blaine's been carrying this with him.

No one should have to.

"I don't know what to do, Blaine," he whispers, "She needs my dad. I need—"

He casts down his eyes, the makings of his decision forming in his mind's eye. His broken heart traces back much further than tonight, many years before this when he didn't have superpowers, had never heard the name Wilson Fisk, and he lived a life safely outside of the city.

Yes. That's what he needs.

"Hey," Blaine calls softly. "I love you."

He finds Blaine's eyes again, his vision blurry. He has to be the hero today, like his dad, like his stepdad, he has to stand up for what he believes and not sell out because that happens to be easier – he can be strong and he can be brave, for the people he loves, and doing this will spare them a lot of hurt, won't it?

He can't take this lying down.

"We'll figure this out," Blaine says, his honey eyes shining with a conviction that's been scooped hollow out of him. "Together. Like we always do."

He nods, if only for Blaine's benefit, and lowers his forehead to his. Who ever said he could have it all? He loves Blaine more than words could express, but he's not half the man he deserves; not like this.

"Come inside," Blaine says, scratching softly at the back of his neck. "Your mom needs you."

He licks his lips, breathes out evenly. "Give me a minute."

Blaine kisses his cheek, and lets go, heading back towards the hospital entrance.

"Blaine," he calls.

At the sound of his voice, Blaine turns. Will this be the last time he sees him? What will be left of their relationship after he does this? Will they still meet that fateful day at the coffee shop, see each other in class, or find each other elsewhere?

"I love you too," he says, and he doubts he's ever meant it more. Blaine will be safe, he tells himself, his mom and dad, his stepdad – if he does this right he'll be saving a whole lot of other lives The Kingpin saw extinguished.

Blaine smiles. "I'll be inside."

His chest aches around the razor sharp pain of what he's about to do.

Blaine will be safe.

"... and I'm sorry," he whispers, before he hits the ground running.

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"I am so sorry," he cries now, over everything he did and everything he didn't do, everything he felt so thankful to erase. He made the biggest mistake of his life that night – he should've done then what he ended up doing too late. He should've followed Blaine inside the hospital.

Unlike that night he's afraid to move, and he can't bear to look at Blaine afraid of what he'll find there. There's a version of this conversation where Blaine doesn't forgive him, where they part ways in anger, and it may well be this one.

"I don't understand," Blaine says.

He can scarcely believe it himself, how and why the Speed Force granted him a reprieve, a second chance to undo his mistake. His gratitude has been enough to keep him running, keep him fighting, and to never repeat his missteps.

Maybe it's not even his burden to share.

"We had that talk at the hospital," Blaine says, "and you followed me inside. I remember."

He musses through his hair. "Yeah, I know."

"But if you changed things—" Blaine's hand tangles soothing circles in his hair and for a moment or two he thinks, I don't deserve this, not Blaine's understanding, not his calm. Blaine should be stark raving mad at him. "Sebastian, tell me."

He shakes his head. "I—"

Blaine presses in more tightly. "Tell me what happened."

He closes his eyes and remembers the exact moment his feet hit the ground, how he'd changed into the suit and grabbed files at home. And then he ran, faster than he ever had, placing more distance between him and Blaine, him and his mom, him and his stepdad, towards a past that'd scarred him for far too long.

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January 13th, 2004

His boots skid to a halt in coarse black gravel, lungs burning around something acidic and distasteful, tears stinging his eyes in the cold night air – his breath condenses into whimsical mist as he exhales. Inhales a chill he's memorized with the tips of his fingers.

Looking around he's surrounded by a whole range of wide-open fields, the scent of fresh grass and late winter frost, the freedom of his youth before everything turned dark. The lights of the city shine in the far distance, and he reckons he landed somewhere in between the farm and the Lower East Side; home before, and home after; between his younger self and his mom, and his dad's imminent death.

Not this time though.

He's ready for this. He mapped out tonight's timeline one minute at a time in a not-so-forgotten folder eight years ago (eight years from now), and he spent night after night, day after day, each second of his life after tonight agonizing over what his dad must've gone through, the horror and pain of what's about to befall him – nothing he does tonight will change that. He figures that even if he changes every detail of his life, he'll still remember all of it.

From now on he'll be a thing out of place and out of time, something he'll learn to live with if it means it doesn't have to be that way for the boy asleep in his bed back at the farm, snug in a pair of Ninja Turtles socks. Not until he returns to the timeline, that is.

Electricity sparks in his veins and he flashes towards the city, to the corner of 15th and Park, where his dad left the car before a quiet night drinking with some of his buddies. Any moment now he'll leave them to head home to his wife and son, only to be held at gunpoint once he reaches his car.

His feet burn dark skid marks in the concrete as he stops to a halt, eyes falling to two shadowy figures approaching his dad from behind. One of them draws a gun while the other pushes his dad up against the car and—

"Pick on someone your own size," he says, flashing in behind the gunman, his fear of guns snuffed out by his longing to do this for close to ten years; the man turns with a start, but not before his gun's knocked into the gutter, and he quickly follows, unconscious where he belongs – his friend tries to run but he's far too slow, knocked back by a well placed fist to the face.

How easy. How simple. How achingly difficult all the same.

Then, at long last, he turns to his father, who stands paralyzed against the car – he's the same age as in all the pictures, all the memories, but he'll live beyond this day, he survives. He can live out his days with him and his mom. He's dreamt of this moment for as long as he can remember, finding the strength to save his father, however impossible that had once seemed, and now he's here.

He can leave what happened to him right here. It can't hurt him anymore, if he chooses not to carry it with him.

"It's okay," he says, closing the distance between him and his dad that'd previously spanned over a decade. "I won't hurt you."

His dad inches back, still rattled. "What are you?"

Never had he imagined this though, his dad afraid of his own son, looking at him like a thing and not a person. He reminds himself he's wearing the red suit, a mask that hides his face, and his abilities haven't touched this world yet. He's The Flash right now, not a boy facing his dad.

"I'm someone who cares about you, and your family."

"My family?"

"You have to sell the farm," he urges, however much it pains him. He has plans to do much more tonight but he won't risk anyone in his family losing theirs lives yet – if his dad sells than Fisk has no reason to come after him again.

But his words seem to wake his dad up, rather than convince him to accept defeat. "Over my dead body," he says, and braves a step closer, even though he's still shaking.

"Mr Smythe, please." He takes a step forward. "Why do you think these men were here?"

A flicker of hesitation crosses his dad's eyes as he glances down at the unconscious men at their feet. Does he not see? Does he not realize how this night would've ended if he'd not been here? How his family would've suffered and hurt for years to come? How this moment, right here, would become the center of a young boy's universe and dictate his every action after this?

"I know how much the farm means to you, but they'll come after you again," he says. "They'll come after your family. Your wife, and your son."

Leaving the farm all those years ago pained him beyond belief – in the span of a few weeks he lost his dad, his home, and his freedom of a sorts; the Lower East Side provided nothing but bullies and few opportunities for a lanky boy like him, but he won't have his dad die elsewhere after saving him tonight. His life is more important than any farm.

Resolve melts from his dad's face into something akin apprehension.

"Trust me, I know these people."

Sirens sound in the distance, police, ambulance, headed towards a hit-and-run on the 405 – two dead, one injured. He knows. He memorized everything about this night. Somewhere out there his stepdad Charles is chasing after a suspect in a homicide that took place a few nights before, getting ever closer.

Yes.

He has one more stop to make.

Maybe he can try to stop all of this. Tear down this empire before it has the chance to become one.

"Promise me" –he turns back to his dad, distress buzzing through his veins– "Please, Mr Smythe."

"Okay," his dad breathes, "I promise."

A dead weight drops cold off his shoulders at the sound of those words, as if they liberate his twelve-year-old self from the prison this night had become, the center in a universe that'd become unhinged ten years ago. No longer.

"Thank you," he breathes.

He's free.

He can't believe it.

That boy safely tucked beneath the sheets at the farm will have a family, he'll have a dad to teach him how to shave, how to drive, drop him off at college when the time came. Tonight's the greatest gift he could possibly give that boy.

He wonders if he'll ever feel that way too.

"Go home, Mr Smythe," he says. "Go be with your family."

His dad takes it all in all over again; the suit, the mask, the men unconscious on the ground, and nods. He watches his dad climb into his car, start the engine, and drive off.

That concludes half his business for the night.

He heads for the docks, where his stepdad's about to make his arrest, stalking into the abandoned lot silently. The night sky's littered with stars, the moon big and bright, providing enough light for him to see.

"Freeze, police!" he hears a familiar voice call out, and he chases after it in a flash, tracking his stepdad to the water, where his perp's about to dive in. "Don't do it, kid."

"You should listen to the man."

Both his stepdad and the man about to jump into the bay turn towards him; he's near invincible right now, he could take on the world and he'd defeat it.

He can't help but look at Charles, the much younger man he remembers vaguely, because he never gave him the benefit of the doubt as a young boy. At least he's not cut open in some ER anymore, bleeding, with his mom crying for him outside. Did he do Charles a disservice, taking his mom from him, after everything the man had come to mean to him?

"Who the hell are you?" the man at the edge of the water asks.

He smirks. "I'm in a good mood," he says, and speeds over to him, grabbing the man by the collar and forcing him to his knees. "All yours, detective."

His stepdad blinks a few times, but snaps to, running over to handcuff the man at his feet – he drags the perp back to the police cruiser parked right outside of the lot, locking him inside the car.

Then, Charles grabs for his gun again and points it straight at him.

Which hardly comes as a surprise.

He eases his mask back and raises his arms in surrender, hoping to establish some sort of rapport before he entrusts Charles with his files.

"Detective, I'm not here to hurt you."

"Who are you?"

"My name is Sebastian, but that's not important," he says. "What I'm about to tell you is."

He reaches inside his suit, where he'd stored the CD-ROM for safekeeping, and holds it out. "It's research into a man named Wilson Fisk."

"Fisk." Charles' eyes narrow, gun lowering to the ground. "The real estate guy?"

"He's more than that." He grits his teeth together, the distaste in his mouth now bitter bile. This is where it all started, The Kingpin's early years spent laying the ground work for his criminal enterprise, his first clandestine deals devolving into extortion, fraud, murder.

"He'll become more than that," he says. "This man will lie, and cheat, and kill to get what he wants, and he'll do it right under your noses. A few years from now he will own this city, and the police department."

"Sounds like conjecture to me," Charles says.

It must sound closer to science-fiction, he reckons, but that doesn't make his words any less true – his files include Fisk's early trespasses, not anything that might have a future date on it, and it's already enough to put him away for years.

"Look at the files," he urges. "You have a chance to save this city, Detective. I suggest you take it."

Something in his face must convince Charles he's worth listening to, or worth a chance, at least, because he holsters his gun and takes a step forward, accepting the CD-ROM thoughtfully.

"Why me?"

It's true; he's putting a lot of faith in a man he once claimed he hated when he was fourteen years old, but that man had become a second father to him – he'd shown him kindness and respect, treated his mom right, and proved a pillar of justice in this city the likes not many men had before. Charles was the kind of police officer this city deserved.

"I know the kind of man you are," he says. "The kind that might make Chief of Police one day. Central City needs you."

.

The room falls eerily silent in the wake of his confession, save for the storm raging outside, inside his chest all the same – if it weren't for the rain or thunder Blaine might hear his heart like heavy knocks against his ribcage, echoing louder with every moment that passes by.

He'd done what he did with the best of intentions, but he'd acted on an impulse so deep there was no way it could ever be considered a rational or sound decision – he'd let emotion guide him, cloud his judgment, and he'd almost lost everything.

"Did it work?" Blaine asks.

He buries his face in his hands. It doesn't matter, none of it matters, it never happened, and yet—

He still feels it all like a sharp knife to the heart.

"You're telling me this for a reason, Sebastian," Blaine says. "You can trust me with this."

Tears leak between his fingers, dripping down onto the rug. "None of it happened."

He erased it all, he was allowed to change things, and he should be happy, but there's so much blood on his hands it's stained his skin red – how can he possibly put this on Blaine's shoulders too?

"But it did." Blaine tightens the fingers in his hair, as if to say I'm here, right here with you, and I'm not leaving, and pulls him closer. "It happened for you."

Blaine pushes a kiss to his temple. "Please, just tell me."

He draws in a deep shuddery breath and sniffles, closing his eyes. He'd barely made it back that night, back to the right year, back to a future he changed...

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August 8th, 2016

He arrives back at the hospital running on fumes, the Speed Force steadily leaking from every molecule of his body until there's nothing left, until his body catches up with the timeline and he's powerless; lightning must've never found him that fateful day.

His feet land firmly on the ground the first time in what feels like hours, and he's lighter, loose and agile. He saved his dad's life. He changed his past, his future, and now—

Looking around everything seems about the same, but he hardly changed the course of history; some things are bound to be exactly the way they were.

It's then that he realizes he's wearing The Flash suit, and left his wallet and keys and any other of his belongings in a place that time forgot. Where would he even go, now? He has no money, no ID, and no idea what changes he made – would he find any of his friends? His parents? Blaine?

For a while, he walks around aimlessly, taking in all the sights, the neighborhoods he knows like the back of his hand, careful to stay out anyone's way – if push comes to shove he can claim he's cosplaying some obscure comic book hero, but he'd rather not have to explain a thing.

Nothing much has changed at all; the same trees flank his favorite boulevard, there's still a Starbucks on every corner, and the city buzzes with the same energy as the one he left.

Far less sirens, though. Or maybe that's his imagination.

He stops by his mom's house, Charles' house, but the mailbox reads the wrong last name. He figured it might.

He tries downtown, the flat he shared with Blaine, only to find the names 'Anderson' or 'Smythe' are no longer on any of the buzzers downstairs.

He stares at that buzzer a long time.

What has he done?

As if to provide an ominous soundtrack to the sudden thought, thunder sounds overhead.

Where should he go? Where can he go? He has no clue where Blaine is, or if they even know each other, or where his parents relocated, or if they ever did at all.

A phonebook.

He finds the nearest phone booth and skips inside, leafing through a tattered half shredded phonebook – the 'S' section seems mostly intact.

Smythe, Siobhan

—Sara

—Simon

Too far.

His eyes skip back up the page.

Smythe, Marissa

—Mason & Theresa, 47 North Rd Terrace

Heart skipping a beat he reads over the address five times; his parents moved into the city – his parents are both alive and they're living together. He can hardly believe it.

He rips out the page without thinking and leaves the phone booth, headed down the street without seeing much of anything – all he can think about is seeing his parents, both of them, alive.

All he can think about is home.

47 North Rd Terrace turns out to be a house sat snug between two identical ones, one in a long row of houses painted in different colors to distinguish between them, his parents' painted red, faded with time. It reminds him of the house his mom and Charles lived in.

He ascends the few steps leading up to the front door with a heavy heart. Tonight's been exhausting in every which way, and he could stand to lay down his head knowing he made the right decision. He knew things would change, he rolled those dice consciously, and he hopes to find those efforts meant something.

He rings the doorbell, and waits, the door swinging open moments after.

"Hey, mom."

"Sebastian?" she frowns.

For a second or two he wonders if it's confusion that taints his mom's eyes, if he lives here or has his own apartment in the city, if this new version of him comes home often.

"I thought you went to bed," his mom says, moving aside to let him in.

"Last minute change of plans."

"Rachel?" his mom asks, and takes in his outfit with a great amount of interest, though she doesn't appear all that surprised by him going out.

"Yeah?" he answers cautiously.

He has no clue who Rachel could be.

"That girl's trouble, son."

His heart drops to his stomach as he turns towards the voice, one he heard for the first time in ten years not an hour ago, gritty and calm despite what'd happened, now still here.

"Dad," he breathes, as if he hadn't seen him earlier – only he hadn't, not this version, ten years older than he's ever seen him, so incredibly alive with his family. Right where he belonged.

He falls forward and throws his arms around his dad.

"What's all this?" His dad pats at his back, but doesn't shy away from the hug. "You been drinking?"

He pulls back with tears in his eyes, and shakes his head. "No."

His dad ruffles through his hair, and it makes him giggle like an overexcited schoolboy – it's a carefree and everyday gesture between a father and his son, but he's never had this before; he never accepted it from Charles, but now he can have all that. He can have everything Fisk ever took away from him.

"Why are you ringing the doorbell?" his dad asks, grabbing around his shoulders.

It strikes him then he's still in the suit, and if his dad were any more observant he might recognize it; it'd been dark and it all went by fast, and for his dad it was now years ago. His luck.

"I—left my wallet," he settles on the small lie, even though he really doesn't have it on him.

His parents smile fondly, and exchange a knowing look.

Right. No abilities means an ever tardy and forgetful Sebastian Smythe.

"You should get some sleep, sweetheart," his mom says, "You have work tomorrow."

He'd almost forgotten it's a regular Thursday and he's back to living a regular life – no super speed, no nighttime crime fighting, no reason to break an otherwise comfortable routine. Does he still work for the CCPD?

Right now he'd do nothing rather than settle in the living room with his parents and watch TV, or talk about the weather, be the family they never got to be before, but the mention of sleep sounds so alluring he decides there'll be time for that later. There are no pressing work related emergencies, he's not The Flash anymore, and everything that lived in his nightmares won't be anything but –ironically– a bad dream in the morning.

This will all still be here after a few hours of sleep.

He hugs his mom and his dad, and heads upstairs, where he has to check two doors before he finds his bedroom – he slips inside in time to see another version of himself fade underneath the sheets.

"Sorry," he whispers to the boy who'd lived this life.

Sitting down on the bed, he locates his wallet and house keys on the bedside table. He flips through his cards; driver's license, coupons, movie tickets, nothing out of the ordinary.

An outfit's hooked around the inside of the door – dark slacks, a shirt, and a jacket, along with an entry badge to S.T.A.R labs, right here in Central City.

Wasn't S.T.A.R labs located in Starling City though? Was this the job his mother mentioned?

He gets up and sits down behind his computer, stacks of papers with S.T.A.R labs letterhead all over his desk. Tacked to his wall is a college degree in Organic Chemistry, the same he'd obtained in his previous aborted timeline, though it doesn't mention a minor in Criminology.

It makes sense. He'd pursued a job at the CCPD so he could investigate his dad's case – here, that never happened, so his ambitions must lay elsewhere.

Still. S.T.A.R labs? How did he ever swing that?

Despite his exhaustion, curiosity gets the better of him; he powers up his computer and surfs to the first news site he can think of.

There's a headline about Hunter Clarington, convicted on twenty-three counts of murder and half a dozen aggravated assaults, sent to the Saint Perez Mental Asylum for the Criminally Insane. Clarington? The trust fund rich kid?

It catches his attention because of a name mentioned later in the article.

Chief of Police Charles Thompson.

He huffs a laugh.

The more things change, he muses.

He types Charles' name into the site's search engine, along with Fisk's, a dozen articles immediately showing up in the results.

What he sees puts tears in his eyes.

Real Estate Mogul Unmasked.

Wilson Fisk = Scourge of Central City.

He scans through the articles as fast as he can, but gets the gist right away; Charles followed up on all his research, spent months building a case against Wilson Fisk like a real detective would; gathered evidence, witness statements, confidential informants. He did everything humanly possible, and everything by the book.

Wilson Fisk had sat in jail for ten years for his crimes, and he wouldn't be released any time soon.

He did it.

.

"You did it," Blaine breathes.

His eyes open to a dark apartment, left a little colder now that he's confessed, now that Blaine knows how little it took for him to throw this all away, to snuff out their relationship like it was the flame of a candle pinched between two fingers. Yet he knows it never meant that little, it still doesn't, Blaine's the best thing about his life, and he, he—

Blaine's fingers tighten in his hair. "What changed?"

He breathes in painfully deep, suppressing another wave of tears. Simple fact of the matter is Blaine deserves to hear this, and he'd started this confessional for a reason; the memories are too heavy for him to carry.

"There was a lot less crime, obviously," he says, his throat closing ever so slightly. "No Kingpin, fewer gangs, no corrupt police department."

It'd all been so clean. Maybe the lie had been so obvious he'd missed it.

"S.T.A.R labs had settled near the water."

"Starling City's S.T.A.R labs?"

"With Fisk gone I guess Central City was a better option for them," he says. "I worked there."

"Now you're just trying to make me jealous."

His lips curl around a mournful smile, amused at Blaine's attempt to lighten the mood. Maybe that's what spurned the confession in the first place; his selfish conviction that Blaine would never hold this against him. That he'd solidify things for him.

"Where was I?" Blaine asks the inevitable question.

He looks at Blaine, eyes tracing over his face, his round cheeks and chiseled jaw, at his bumpy nose and long eyelashes, his curvy lips, his thick eyebrows. Lastly, his eyes, honey gold and dancing; that good old trick of the light.

This boy loves him through and through; they've seen each other through the best and the worst their crazy lives have had to offer and Blaine's still here – he'll never do anything to jeopardize their relationship again.

It's November 7th, the coldest night of the year, but in Blaine's eyes he finds the kind of warmth no one should ever be without, not in any timeline, not in any lifetime. Warmth he sacrificed for another possible home, a home he'd never known, one he dreamed about and obsessed over – one he had, for a short while.

"We didn't know each other, did we?" Blaine asks.

His head shakes imperceptibly. "Not yet."

.

August 11th, 2016

Days pass and he's wary of every single one of them; everything around him seems fragile and porous, as if the slightest touch could make this creation crumble, make it shatter into a million broken pieces he'll never be able to put together again.

His parents argue, about bills and spending and his dad's lack of a job, even though he's out every day looking for one – they do this all away from him, but he pays closer attention than perhaps the other boy did, the other Sebastian, and he understands now why he still lives at home. It's to help his parents out without being too obvious about it. It's clear a lot of his paycheck goes to his family.

And why would that bother him?

As far as he can tell, his parents are otherwise happy – they have each other and a beautiful family and they're as close as he imagined they would be.

It puts him all in a trance, a pleasant heady and bewildered trance.

He changed one thing and everything is better – Charles is still Chief of Police but he's not fighting for his life in a hospital bed; his dad's alive and surrounded by people who love him; his mom's not suffering through another potential loss, and he—

He has a good job, doesn't he? He makes good money, as far as he knows, and his Facebook page tells him he has up to 300 friends, about a hundred more than he remembers having. No Santana, though. No Quinn. No Dottie, or Sam.

No Blaine.

A fire burns from his throat down to his stomach, acid reflux reflecting the hole in his heart.

This outcome was a possibility, he knew this going in, and if Blaine's Facebook profile was anything to go by, he's doing okay for himself. He works for Stark Industries same as before, with Sam, and he socializes with Mike and Tina. Blaine seems happy enough, from a distance, and in time he might come to accept that they don't know each other.

There are some unsubstantiated reports of a masked vigilante in a cape on an obscure conspiracy forum, without any pictures, so he can't tell if Nightbird still roamed the skies. It'd be comforting if he were.

At S.T.A.R labs he's known as one of three employees working on F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M, a project brought to life by a certain Professor Martin Stein and funded through his boss, Dr Harrison Wells', work. He meets Rachel Berry, an incredibly peppy and witty research assistant who he apparently goes out with often, and Adam Crawford, a physicist he either has a past with or once envisioned a future with going by his incessant flirting.

It's that same incessant flirting, the thought that this other him whose destiny he altered looked for love all the same that makes him seek out Blaine. Things will never be the same as before, and maybe Blaine's seeing someone else, but he sees no harm in at least trying. He has to live this life no matter what, and it's already lighter, much less of a burden, so imagine what might happen should Blaine become his friend again.

He tracks him down to a local coffee shop about halfway between Stark Industries and S.T.A.R labs; he told everyone he was going on a quick coffee run and no one had thought it curious, all too busy with their work and preparing for the big launch of the particle accelerator to mind him.

Seeing him takes his breath away all over again. It's not his first time, except maybe it is, because he hasn't met this Blaine, hasn't tracked all the intricate ways in which his life's the same or different, what changes he forced on the boy he loves.

Blaine catches him entering the coffee shop.

And for some reason, recognition sets in his eyes.

Blaine comes over, sending his heart rate spiking as if he were a schoolboy with a crush.

Arguably, he kind of is.

"You're Sebastian, right?" Blaine starts with a smile, his eyes narrowing a bit on his face, and it's a perfect echo of the first thing Blaine ever said to him in the timeline he came from. What are the odds? "We took math together?"

"Blaine Anderson." He nods, offering an echo in return. "How could one forget?"

Blaine blushes and faces away shyly. "Oh my God," he whispers.

The more things change, he muses as a smile slips into his features. They graduated only a few months before, so time hasn't yet stolen Blaine's memories of college. He's grateful for that.

Or maybe it was meant to be, maybe they were meant to meet and start talking, to fall in love. Maybe the universe has a plan for them.

"You're cute when you're blushing."

Blaine bites at his lip, a little coy. "You're hardly the first to use that line."

"Oh, it's not a line."

Then, Blaine gasps, catching sight of his work badge. "You work at S.T.A.R labs." Blaine looks up at him wide-eyed and marveling and his eyes, God, his eyes; Blaine's eyes are the kind people fall in love with, eyes that enchant and ensnare, guiding lights through the dark.

"What's he like?" Blaine asks.

He blinks a few times. "Who?"

Blaine's eyes twinkle. "Harrison Wells."

"Oh, he's—" He clears his throat, taken aback when Blaine asks about his boss rather than any projects he might be working on – to be fair, though, Harrison Wells was a personal hero to both of them, an exceptional scientist who never sacrificed scientific progress for big money. "He's brilliant. Motivational."

"That's not how his book describes him."

He laughs. "He can be a bit—arrogant," he says, trying to recall how his biography had described him, "brusque, prickly."

"At times contemptuous," Blaine supplies.

He breathes a smile along with Blaine, and for the first time since he found his footing his surroundings start taking shape; he could touch them and they wouldn't break, wouldn't dissipate in front of his eyes. Blaine makes everything more solid.

"I'm going to be there, at S.T.A.R labs," Blaine says, "when they turn on the particle accelerator."

He can't help another smile. "Maybe I'll see you there."

.

"I was tempted, you know." He pushes his hands together, unable to take his eyes off Blaine. Those eyes seize him still; he imagines that won't change with time, or timelines. "To—"

Blaine smiles, stroking a finger along the shell of his ear. "Fall in love all over again?"

"No guarantee you'd feel the same," he says, "but yeah."

His eyes fall to Blaine's lips as lightning cuts a white-hot streak through the night sky, burning equally hot in his memory.

Blaine pushes a kiss to his cheek, his way of showing it's okay to keep talking, it's okay to share this burden no matter how heavy it becomes – he'll help, he'll see him and them, through this. Darkness encroaches like a silent wave, made up of every lie he'd spun, every lie he'd created, every lie he now found he couldn't live with.

"Everything was different." He breathes in deeply. "My mom and dad. You. The entire city."

Yet the memories of a past life, his life, not the boy's he'd erased, all still lived inside him no matter what he did, no matter how much time passed. The darkness hadn't left him.

"I was a regular guy living a regular life."

"But?" Blaine urges.

He huffs a laugh. How could it have gone any different?

"Lightning found me again."

.

August 21st, 2016

For ten days straight he's the luckiest man on earth.

In the mornings his mom has breakfast waiting for him; waffles, pancakes, or toast, and they eat together as a family, talk about the day ahead, even though his comprises terms neither of his parents understand, and it often leads to the topic of his dad's unemployment. His dad tries, he's out there almost every day, but it seems no matter how well this city now prospers it's hard for a former farmer to find something steady.

But he won't take the blame for that; if it's a choice between a dead father or one who can't find a job, the choice is obvious. Still, he can't say he likes to hear his parents argue, so he pitches in where he can, even going as far as asking around for jobs.

At work it takes him a while to find his bearings, what with all the reading up he has to do on the project. He asks Rachel to explain the whole idea of transmutation as if he were a layman, but soon knows all about reworking atoms on a sub-atomic level, unzipping and rebuilding them into new elements. It's a little different than running fingerprints or unknown substances through a mass spectrometer, but the science S.T.A.R labs has him working on is so far beyond anything he thought he'd work on he's willing to go the extra mile. His obsession with his dad's murder never allowed him to look further than what he wanted, but here he has the potential to grow and learn, to become a better scientist.

Harrison Wells is every bit the man he described to Blaine; smartest man he ever met, but tough as nails too. The particle accelerator located below the lab is the main purpose of this facility, Wells' pride project, dedicated to his late wife Tess – tonight there's a press conference outside to announce the activation of the particle accelerator, before the main event an hour later.

"Sebastian!" Blaine's voice sounds, and it takes him several moments to locate Blaine coming towards him in the crowd gathering outside, beaming from ear to ear. "You made it."

"I work inside the building."

Blaine blushes. It's hard for him to recall the last time he did that before altering the timeline, and he idly wonders if that's because it's been that long, or if the memories are starting to fade. Either way, he should try to do that more often.

If it means having to get to know Blaine all over again, he'll go all out.

"Speaking of," he says, unearthing a temporary access pass from his jacket. "How would you like a private tour?"

Blaine's face falls and lights up all at the same time, eyes shooting up at him and they're like stars, so easy to fall in love with, so tempting to fall into. "Are you allowed to do that?"

"I cleared it with security," he says. "Some of the labs are locked, but there's a few I can show you."

Blaine tilts his head in that coy manner he has. "Are you trying to impress me, Sebastian Smythe?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

"On whether or not it's working."

Blaine laughs with a shake of his head, and follows behind him inside the building, John at security wishing him good luck with a quickly concealed fist bump. He's not sure what he's hoping to accomplish tonight; years ago in his own memory he and Blaine fell into each other with the greatest ease imaginable – maybe he wants to recreate some of that magic.

Outside, a storm rolls in.

"Transmutation?" Blaine asks as he leads them into the lab he shares with Rachel and Adam. "Is that even possible?"

He smirks, and winks. "That's what we're hoping to find out."

"You keep talking like that and I might—"

Blaine stops midsentence, looking away with a small smile painted on his lips.

"Might what?"

Blaine shyness gets the better of him; he shrugs. "I don't know."

"Let me take you out?"

"I'm not usually this forward." Blaine bites at his lip, idling a step closer.

"I am."

Blaine hiccups a laugh. "Well then, why don't you impress me some more, and I might give you my phone number."

The beakers inside the clear glass cases lining the walls rattle and knock together in a short chorus line, shaking in their spots, before they settle again. Storm must be getting closer.

Static electricity traces up his spine. He shudders.

"You're not afraid of a little rain, are you?" Blaine asks.

He might not have his abilities anymore, but the memory of his accident crawls below his skin every time the weather turns bad, every time the rain sets in and the thunder starts. They're safe inside the building, there's nothing that can touch them here, but fear still creeps up on him, like a terrible omen of things to come.

"Sebastian."

Blaine touches a hand to his shoulder, tuned into his distress.

He clears his throat, trying to get a grip. "I'm not a fan of lightning, that's all."

"I think we're pretty safe in here."

He nods and moves along, showing Blaine some of the experiments they set up; so far they'd been able to successfully transmute sand grains, and though Professor Stein had pushed to get the project into stage three without first completing stage two, Dr Wells had urged caution. They were moving slow, but they were definitely getting closer.

"What's stage three?" Blaine asks.

"Melting a concrete wall."

Blaine's eyes widen. "That's—" He blinks. "—amazing."

"Why aren't you working here?"

"What do you mean?"

"Brilliant engineer like you," he says, more than a little flirtatious – it doesn't make his words any less true. "Dr Wells would hire you in a heartbeat."

"Stark Industries gave me a great start." Blaine smiles. "It wouldn't be fair to turn my back on it."

"You're loyal."

"I guess I am."

"I like that in a guy."

"Oh"—Blaine laughs, and chances another step closer—"You do?"

He thinks about kissing Blaine right there and then, and never letting go no matter what the universe might throw at them. He could grow old with him in this world, without the horror of his past, without the darkness. Without fear of ever losing him.

The ground below them starts with a light tremor, fading into a light hum he imagines will accompany all of his days working here from now on.

Blaine looks down at his feet. "What was that?"

"The particle accelerator being activated."

For long moments after Blaine finds his eyes silence settles between them as if they're two people who've enjoyed this kind of comfort before – it's not strange to him, and not remotely unfamiliar, but he wishes he could read Blaine's mind right now. He fell in love with moments like these, Blaine a quieting force in his life he'd never met before, and he's drawn to it now, even if his life's far less hectic.

"The future is here," he says softly.

Blaine snorts.

"Too cheesy?"

A crash sounds somewhere deeper in the building, and they both look up to identify its source – the particle accelerator shouldn't give off more than the light hum beneath them.

"Something's wrong," he says, his safety protocol seminars kicking in. In case of a catastrophic failure the particle accelerator was rigged to blow up, not out, so that the city would be protected from any fallout. They should be safe here, if they stay put.

The entire building rocks around them.

"Sebastian," Blaine breathes, but it isn't a second longer or his instincts kick in – there are people in this building, his friends, his colleagues, Dr Wells – he has to make sure they're okay.

He pushes Blaine inside an adjacent room, closed off by a heavy door. "Blaine, stay here," he says, "You're safe here. It's a Faraday cage."

"What about you?"

"I have to check on Dr Wells," he says, and closes the door.

It's The Flash talking, even though he's no longer that version of himself, but he can't do nothing, he can't stand idle while people may be suffering.

He never thought he'd miss that part of his life.

He meets Dr Wells in one of the long curvy hallways wound around the control center of the facility, three junior engineers in toe.

"Take them, Sebastian," Dr Wells says, leaving him no room to argue as he heads back from where he came – the control center can't be safe, it's too central.

"What about you?" he calls.

"Get them somewhere safe!"

Nobody needs to tell him twice – he'll get the engineers out and pick up any stragglers along the way, and then if he has the time he'll go back for Dr Wells; the man's stubborn, he'll never leave if he thinks anyone's still inside.

He makes it outside with five people when everything turns upside down – the rain hits him first, thick drops soaking into his clothes, and then an explosion sounds. He turns in rhythm with everyone else, watching the big fiery cloud reach up towards the sky, burning an angry orange and red.

Dr Wells.

Blaine.

Static electricity traces over his skin and up the back of his neck and it comes straight at him; lightning, yellow and red, a wave of something not of this world – the heat sears through his chest and reignites an old scar this body never suffered, a blaze set alight in every single one of his molecules.

He's knocked back and hits the ground.

Everything goes dark.

.

His collarbone aches with the most distinctly patterned burn mark flashing back to that day, to another day he'd hoped to erase through his decision. And it wasn't even the most selfish one.

Blaine traces that scar now with his index finger, even though it's invisible, even though it healed. "I told you that lightning chose you."

For the longest time he thought it a freak accident, a way for life to give him a purpose, to make sure no one else suffered at the hands of criminals like Fisk the way he had as a boy. But right then in that new timeline he wasn't that boy, he'd never been hurt, so what reason could the Speed Force have had to revisit him?

What right did he still have to those abilities after using them for his own personal gain?

"Turns out you were right."

"The city was safe?"

"The city. You. Me." He nods. "For the most part."

"What do you mean?"

"I woke up five weeks later," he says – not two, like before. "You were there. My parents were there. And so were my powers."

Just like that, The Flash had returned.

"What did you do?"

He secrets a smile against his fingers, one he shouldn't be allowed; the particle accelerator explosion was the beginning of the end, the stars going out one by one, the light in his life dimming. Darkness conquering all.

"I went to see an old friend."

.

October 8th, 2016

"Hey, Little Bird."

The figure clad in all black at the edge of the rooftop startles with a, "What—?" and turns in the same breath, his eyes luminous in the dark. He has his night vision activated in the goggles built into the suit, so he knows Blaine can see him as clearly as he can see him.

"It's Nightbird," Blaine corrects.

"Sorry." He raises his hands in surrender, traipsing a step back. "Force of habit."

He couldn't resist doing this, getting back in the suit he'd stored in a box in his closet, searching the city for the mysterious Nightbird – there'd been no guarantee Nightbird would be around, with so little crime rocking the city, but there he stands, imposing as ever.

He's missed this more than he thought he had, the burn in his legs, the Speed Force in his veins, the wind whipping at his face – these abilities were a part of him. Maybe that's why they'd been returned.

Nightbird doesn't move an inch. "Who are you?"

"I'm—"

He swallows, tempted to come out with the truth right away – not a day had gone by since he woke up from the coma that he hadn't seen or heard from Blaine; now temporarily unemployed too he took every chance he got to see Blaine, at work, for dinner. The more they talked the closer they got, and that wasn't simply because he'd saved Blaine's life. Something had started between them the moment they met and he meant to explore every inch of that.

He imagines he would in every timeline, in every universe, in every small pocket of time.

But he doesn't want to spook Blaine. There are things he knows that he shouldn't, his very presence here proves that, and he won't chase Blaine away before they've even had the chance to get to know each other.

There's the matter of secrets he's keeping all over again, at the end of the day.

"The Flash." He gestures with his usual flair for the dramatic. "Or I will be, hopefully."

"You're not making any sense."

"No, I suppose not." He laughs. "I just wanted to introduce myself."

"Why?"

Yes, indeed, why? To make the city completely crime-free? It's not such an odd dream to have.

"If you ever need a hand, with the whole crime-fighting thing," he says. "I'm here."

He speeds to the other side of the building, faster than lightning.

"I could come in handy."

.

"You didn't tell him—" Blaine's fingers tap at his back, "me," he corrects, "who you were."

"I didn't want to scare you off."

Blaine demands even more of his personal space, pushing up against him in reassurance; he's still here, he's still listening. He's not going anywhere.

He hasn't even gotten to the worst part of his story.

"Did Nightbird ever call you?"

"Not at first," he says. "There wasn't really that much to do. Not until—"

"Until what?"

The air grows stale and thin, thick with his secrets and lies. He stands, Blaine's hands falling away, their absence leaving cold stains on his skin as he wanders over to the window.

"Like I said."

Lightning cuts through the sky and he sees a vision of another city, one plagued by unseen forces, one unimaginably assaulted night after night once—

"The city was safe," he says, tears knitting into the corners of his eyes again. "For the most part."

How could he have known? How could he have guessed that taking out Wilson Fisk at that point in the timeline would make Central City the perfect place for S.T.A.R labs to build their particle accelerator; that that particle accelerator would experience a fatal flaw and explode, flooding the citizens with dark matter particles.

"The particle accelerator explosion created others like me," he says. "Metahumans."

Shadows play over his face as if to tempt his demons to come out and play, as if to taunt and ridicule and point fingers. He's haunted by the makings of two timelines and it's nowhere near the punishment he's owed.

"Mutants," Blaine provides.

He nods. "And one monster."

.

October 23rd, 2016

The headlines all read the same.

Zoom Strikes Fear Into Heart of City.

Zoom is Back.

Zoom Returns.

It's barely two weeks after he tracks the new pattern of crime back to the explosion and Zoom's everything anyone can talk about. He comes out of nowhere, like the boogeyman every child's nightmare conjures, the monster under the bed or in the closet, the phantom that puts the fear of God into grown men.

He's an unseemly thing by any measure, with his dark suit and scarecrow looks.

Zoom tricks fifteen officers of the CCPD into a trap, and all but one of them is dead by the time he or Nightbird even get there. Their necks snapped.

One survivor to make sure the story gets out.

That survivor dies in his home, with his family, three days later.

Like that, Zoom solidifies himself as the monster no one can catch, a phantasm of lightning and thunder, unrelenting, merciless, impossible to reason with.

"He's a psychopath." Blaine grits through clenched teeth as they watch the story on the news that night, tears in his eyes; Nightbird and The Flash utterly powerless.

He reaches out without thinking and winds his fingers through Blaine's air, in an effort to comfort the way he used to, the way he once did, the way he never has – they don't have this kind of relationship yet.

Blaine leans into the touch anyway.

"The police—" he says.

Blaine looks at him sideways. "The police can't do anything. He's too strong."

It's curious how for all his secrets and all of Blaine's, these versions of them talk more easily, leave it all out for the other to see and say it like it is.

And whatever anger Blaine feels vibrate through his veins courses through his all the same. This is his doing. He's the one who brought S.T.A.R labs here so he's responsible for this horror. For this monster.

How can he possibly fix this?

.

"Sebastian," Blaine's voice strains precipitously through the concrete haze of a prison he created, the space in his consciousness he reserved for this black, for this particular kind of hurt.

None of it happened. He erased it all. Even the Speed Force had to bend to his will a second time because that life wasn't one worth living.

"None of that was your fault."

One of Blaine's hands lands between his shoulder blades, the only solidifying force in the entire multiverse. It's a power solely Blaine's.

"You know that," Blaine says.

He knows that. But it's not what he believes.

"I travelled back in time, Blaine."

He hangs his head, shoulders slumped, buckling underneath the weight of his own injustice. It cuts like a double-edged blade, the before and the after, the right decision, the wrong one. Who knows? Who knows anything in all this?

"I played with forces I didn't—" No. That's not right. "I don't understand. And Zoom, he—"

Zoom existed by the graces of his greed, too big for anyone to oversee; he killed without mercy, without logic, and extinguished every bit of hope Central City still clung to. Everything clean he dirtied, everything fragile he broke, and everything beautiful he turned into a horror show.

"He made Fisk look like a petty criminal."

Blaine falls silent.

.

October 25th, 2016

"Can he be stopped?" Nightbird asks, pacing back and forth on a random rooftop they agreed to meet. The water tower from his past stands no more, taken down by a metahuman able to create earthquakes with the single blow of his fist to the ground.

"I don't know."

"How do you stop a speedster?" Nightbird asks, desperate for answers. "How would someone stop you?"

The only one who ever came close was Fisk, and he was among the escapees from Iron Heights, also hit by a metahuman – it's a threat they can't oversee, one they can't track or predict, and he's not always fast enough to stop them on time. What would he do with them should he catch any anyway? It's not like he can lock them in a regular jail cell.

Zoom himself is too fast, much faster than he's ever been. Much faster than he ever will be.

Then it hits him.

"Cold."

"Cold?"

"Speed and cold are opposites," he says. "Temperature is measured by how quickly the atoms of something are oscillating. The faster they are, the hotter it is, and when they're cold they're slower on an atomic level."

Nightbird falls silent at that, and for a second or two he worries he's given away his identity, that Blaine will recognize his ranting as Sebastian Smythe's, the boy he's distanced himself from for reasons he understood all too well.

"Will that work?"

"I don't know." He throws up his hands. "All this metahuman stuff is kind of new to me."

"You're one of them."

A beat follows.

He's not— Blaine isn't honestly comparing him to one of those things out there terrorizing the city? He got his powers the same way, yes, but never in his life would he give into that kind of lowly greed. No more than he did when he changed time.

When he caused all of this.

Maybe Blaine's right. Maybe he's no better.

"Does that mean you don't trust me?" he asks – he forgot what this was like. He and Blaine had shed so many secrets he no longer had to separate himself from The Flash, no longer two separate entities but one, like Blaine and Nightbird were.

A curse of his own making, he supposes.

"I do trust you," Nightbird says. "For some reason."

He can't tell if he gave himself away earlier, or if it's his charming personality that convinces Blaine.

Some remnant of another time, perhaps.

.

"I knew."

He turns and sits down on the windowsill. "Maybe."

It didn't matter whether or not that Blaine knew who he was, he still—

"Did it work?" Blaine asks. "Your plan?"

.

November 4th, 2016

In the week that follows Zoom amasses disciples, an army of metahumans hell-bent on leveling Central City, tear it down to its foundations, and once they're done with it they'll move on to the next city, and the next, until the world bows at their feet.

Until it bows at Zoom's feet.

Entire city blocks are burning and the fire department can't put the fires out fast enough; he pitches in where he can but even he has trouble catching up. The police department is under siege, and the National Guard has no way into the city since a toxic mist came in over the water the source of which no one can identify.

They're all trapped like rats in a maze, getting picked off one by one.

"Your parents," Nightbird says one night, impatiently waiting for the next catastrophe to befall them, "Are they safe?"

"As safe as they can be."

His parents and some of the neighbors were holed up in S.T.A.R labs, where he'd cleared space unbeknownst to anyone but a few – Dr Wells and his family were there, Rachel and her loved ones and some of the other researchers'. It wasn't ideal, nowhere was safe, but it's the last place Zoom would think to look for survivors.

The word winds fear into his bones. When had they become survivors?

Looking over the city now, a world of his making, he can no longer see the forest for the trees. Everything's upside down, upended by the particle accelerator explosion, being torn to pieces one brick at a time. Should he undo all this while he still can? While he's still standing? While he's still alive to do so?

Should he run back those ten years and watch his dad get killed? Let Fisk wreck this city all over again?

Can he shoulder the burden of this current hell?

"Metahuman sighting on Union Plaza." Nightbird sighs, and releases his wings in the same breath, that same hell resting on his shoulders too; a hell Blaine never asked for, and not one he deserves.

What has he done?

He follows Nightbird after one or two seconds, easily catching up.

The moment he lays eyes on the plaza he can tell this wasn't merely a metahuman sighting; a single figure lingers, no one else in sight.

They were expected.

"Look who we have here," the figure says.

And the moment he recognizes the voice ice sets around his spine.

"Tina?" Nightbird asks, landing softly by his side.

Sweet Tina Cohen-Chang. Clad in black.

What has he done?

"The Flash," Tina says, not acknowledging Blaine's recognition. "And his Nocturnal Avenger."

He shoots a step forward. "Tina, you don't have to do this."

"On the contrary, Scarlet Speedster." Tina grins, and she tries to make it so cute it cements his fear into stone. He molded this hell with his own two hands. "I have very clear instructions on what to do about you two."

Tina bares down and opens her mouth, and starts screaming – but it's more than merely screaming; he gets thrown back from the sheer force of it, a high-pitched frequency popping his eardrums and sending Nightbird tumbling to the ground too.

He covers both hands over his ears, to no avail, watching in horror as the shockwaves pass them and hit one of the apartment buildings overlooking the plaza.

Concrete cracks beneath his feet, shooting out like branches of a tree, shaking the foundations of the building.

It isn't long before the building starts shaking too, giving way to the overwhelming force of Tina's scream.

"I got it!" he shouts, and speeds towards the building – he races up the outer wall and trips inside, checking every floor for people as fast as he can while every room crumbles around him. It might as well be the world itself; each day that's passed since the explosion has gotten precariously shorter, their time running out, and there'll come a time where they can't run anywhere but towards Zoom.

Everything he's touched has lost its shine; his dad's alive but he waits terrified for the next attack; his parents are together but nowhere's safe, and they can't run; his and Blaine's friendship lies prescribed in every timeline but they could meet their end around every corner.

They're just not strong enough to take on every metahuman in the city.

By the time he gets everyone out and returns to the plaza, Nightbird has overpowered Tina, unconscious at his feet.

Nightbird's breathing comes labored. "We can't keep doing this."

No, they can't, their bodies will give out before Zoom ever gets to them.

"The cold gun's almost finished."

.

He stares out in front of him, the storm at his back, demons on his shoulders.

No. It hadn't worked.

Everything he'd done, everything he'd changed was born from that one selfish decision and for what? He charged through time and space like a bullet through a windshield and shattered all of history around him – he walked a broken path with a hollowed out heart.

Because of one heat of the moment decision.

He'd lost everything.

A sob rips through him, and he keens forward onto his knees, hands covering his face as he cries out, the blood returned to his hands dark red. He cries for the entire world that is, and all the world that was. All the worlds that never were.

All alive inside him.

"Sebastian, what happened?"

Blaine falls to his knees next to him.

"Don't do this, don't lock this away." Blaine's hands on his face. "Talk to me."

Half of what you carry, Blaine had once asked; what if that was too much? What if this is the one thing Blaine decides he can't forgive, or forget? They'd made it through hell before, but not this one – this one proved too inescapable, too everywhere.

He chokes around the words, the thought itself still too raw to digest.

It's November 7th, and it's the coldest night of the year.

.

November 7th, 2016

The cold gun is their last resort, one Dr Wells is cautiously optimistic will slow Zoom down. Neither of them have made themselves any delusions: should this work, should the absolute zero white flame of the weapon slow Zoom down enough, he'll have to be stopped.

He'll have to be killed.

"What's that?" he asks when Nightbird arrives to their rendezvous with his own weapon, a hook protruding from the end of it. Something to rappel off of?

"Friend of mine made it," Nightbird answers. "He calls it the B.O.O.T."

He smiles; at least Sam hasn't lost his sense of humor.

"The hook tasers at 90,000 volts. The grapple anchors whoever's hit to the ground."

He hopes that's all it will take; they're both well near the ends of their rope, going on too little sleep and lacking the adrenaline to stay focused for long – they've near given all they can, and Zoom keeps demanding more.

For all they know this could be their last stand, and there are things he hasn't said, things he's refused to say because no matter how hard he tries this world isn't his, and hasn't fit right outside the confines of his parents' house or Blaine's company – he wishes he'd gotten more time to get used to it.

"If this doesn't work—"

"If this doesn't work it won't matter what we do," Nightbird says. "I won't stop fighting."

"I could—" he says, and thinks it through again. He could go back and undo this, stop his past self from ever saving his dad, from giving Charles that information about Fisk, but—

Could he? Could he sacrifice that part of himself?

"No." He swallows hard. "I won't stop fighting either."

Nightbird looks at him, and he thinks he detects a hint of a smile. He and Blaine –this Blaine– don't have what they once had, but somehow they've built a relationship that transcends the masks. Blaine –Nightbird– sees him clear as day, whether he's wearing the cowl or not.

And there's so little to smile about these days.

It isn't hard for them to find Zoom, holed up in some warehouse with all his followers, who each want a piece of them too. Part of him worries it's too easy, that no one in their right mind would willingly walk into that warehouse hoping to come out, but they're left with few other options. Zoom's not a thing that adheres to logic or reason, and sooner rather than later he'll level this city with every survivor still in it.

They have no other choice.

Dr Wells' cold gun proves efficient; it stops four metahumans dead in their tracks before they're able to use their powers. Two others they successfully fight off together, a combination of Blaine's fighting skills and his speed.

They find Zoom in the dead center of the warehouse, on his own, as if he were waiting for them to show up.

"Here we are at last, then." Zoom turns, his voice leaving thunder rumbling inside his chest.

"The Flash." Zoom points one index finger at him, the other at Blaine, "And Nightbird," as if they're the actors in some grand arena, and they're about to put on a spectacle for all to see.

He and Nightbird exchange a brief look, then a short nod, and next thing they're both charging forward.

That is until a ball of fire strikes right in front of their feet, forcing them to jump back several feet to get out of the way.

His boots singe around the edges. "What the hell?" he calls, shivering involuntarily.

A man made entirely of fire appears from the shadows.

These abilities the particle accelerator created are impossible, like his, but everything made a lot more sense when it was just him. When all he had to worry about was his calorie intake.

He blinks and Zoom's on him, grabbing around his throat. "You're mine, speedster," he hisses, and throws him back, leaving him struggling for air on the ground.

Nightbird kneels by his side, helping him to his feet.

"I'm good," he assures. "You think you can handle the burning man?"

"Only one way to find out."

They split ways without giving it a second thought; Nightbird goes after the man on fire, and he faces Zoom, the demon he created.

"You think you're fast enough, Flash?" Zoom asks, and he's gone in the blink of an eye – if this were his timeline he wouldn't know what to do, he might not be fast enough yet, but he's studied the limits of his powers and beyond it – he's on Zoom's trail milliseconds later.

He speeds after Zoom for a few rounds before both of them have to concede that they're evenly matched.

Zoom stops and hits him across the face, catching him off guard. Something cracks behind his ear, and he sees double for countless of seconds.

Somewhere in the haze of those few seconds, he watches Nightbird's cape dwindling down, on fire.

It's enough to make him find his bearings – his eyes focus; Nightbird's still flying. Blaine's still fighting. The burning man has few tricks up his sleeve and Nightbird has plenty of gadgets to slow him down.

He blinks and Zoom's in front of him; he lunges but Zoom's faster, hitting him right below his ribs – he folds in half clutching his side.

"You okay?" Blaine's by his side the next second, handing him the cold gun.

"Yeah." He staggers some steps back, but he's ready to see through their plan. "Was just- keeping him busy."

"What's this?" Zoom stretches open his arms, as if deliberately inviting them to try.

Nightbird fires the B.O.O.T, hitting Zoom in the chest – the speed demon takes a knee as 90,000 volts of electricity incapacitates his nerve endings, and he's quick to react, discharging the cold gun half a second later.

Absolute zero melts Zoom to the floor, envelops his legs, half his torso.

—before a raging flame meets the ice.

The burning man returns.

Only, absolute zero and absolute hot cancel each other out, and there's an explosion that throws everything into chaos; the burning man's thrown out of a window, and he and Nightbird are knocked back by the force of the shockwave; he lands on his back, his spine aching under the force of the impact, and the entire space fills with an acidic smoke he has trouble breathing through.

"Did it work?" he hears Nightbird's voice somewhere in the smoke, "Did we—"

Blaine's voice cuts off.

"Blaine!" he shouts callously. "Where are you?"

He staggers to his feet coughing, waving a hand around to clear the smoke. His head's spinning and every bone in his body aches, but he has to make sure Blaine's okay. He has to make sure they both made it through this.

Smoke clears up ahead.

And what he sees locks him in place where he stands.

Zoom, right behind Blaine, holding up the boy he loves by the strands of his cape.

"Blaine," Zoom's voice rattles, his head tilting; he makes a grab for Nightbird's mask and rips it off.

Blaine's bleeding from his nose and mouth.

And no, no, this can't be it, this can't be the end. He has so much more to say.

But Zoom's not a thing that adheres to logic, knows no compassion, no fear, no—

"Don't do this," a voice not his own asks, soft, broken, while he's pulled closer by an unseen force, a force that will always see him by Blaine's side. "Take me. Kill me."

"Why kill the body, when you can kill the soul?" Zoom's voice rip-roars through the warehouse, and his chest, and his heart – not Blaine, not this, anything but this. His vision blurs with tears.

"Any parting words, Flash?" Zoom asks, lifting Blaine off the ground without breaking a sweat.

"Please—" the single word tumbles from his lips as his breath flits, oxygen from his lungs, blood out of his veins – Zoom's fist punches through Blaine's chest.

"NOOO!" he screams, stuck, paralyzed where he stands.

The lie's torn down, the glass fragile thing he created with the sheer force of his will chipped, now cracking, bursting into splinters.

His world doesn't merely turn upside down; it breaks, shatters, falls to pieces at his feet, collapsing in the form of his soulmate dying.

"Blaine." He runs over and falls to his knees, pulling Blaine into his arms, barely alive.

What has he done?

He tears off his mask.

"It's you," Blaine whispers, and it echoes so far back into their past it might turn back time by the sheer depth of its meaning. "Sebastian."

"I'm sorry," he cries, hand over Blaine's heart. "This is all my fault. I'm so sorry."

How could he have done this? How could he have been so selfish? So thoughtless? Who was he to sacrifice their relationship to this nightmare of a world?

Blaine deserved more than this, more than him, more than anything he could ever hope to give.

"Don't leave me," he begs, bringing their foreheads together. "Blaine, please."

Blaine exhales one final breath, before his light dies out,

the moon,

the stars,

All of it.

His world cloaks itself in darkness.

He thinks of Blaine, his Blaine, in a moment time forgot; his laughter, his smile, his beautiful eyes, and each memory's a splinter opening a new wound. He pulls Blaine closer to his chest, and cries, trying to breathe around the hole punched through his chest, but fails.

He's dying, too, and he's okay with that.

"You thought you could stop me, Flash?" Zoom looms tall over him, adding insult to injury. "Little insects like you?"

He looks up shaking to his core, every molecule in his body vibrating – he thought he'd known hate in his life, he thought he'd seen the darkest parts of him, the parts that Blaine could see too, but there's a black tar filling up his lungs, his veins, his eyes.

He could kill this man, without blinking.

"I'm a demon, Flash," Zoom says. "A ghost. And you can't kill a ghost."

Zoom peels off his mask, revealing a face he knows; he's seen it before, in his timeline and this one.

He shudders. "Hunter."

This is all his doing. It's his fault. He created this purgatory.

"You know you can't stop me." Hunter's eyes darken. "You don't have it in you."

Looking down at Blaine, dead in his arms, he realizes he does – he has it in him, he always has, he's just never given into it. And he won't now.

He can't disrespect the memory of Blaine by killing in his name.

"No," he breathes, arms tightening around Blaine. "I don't."

"Shame, really." Zoom smirks, crouching down in front of him. "I thought those people you've been hiding at S.T.A.R labs had more time."

His wounds bleed blood red onto the floor.

There's no stopping this monster.

Zoom leans in. "Do you think you're fast enough to beat me there?"

It's the final straw, and it breaks absolutely everything whole left inside him. He can't run. He can't move. Everything's been taken. Everything's been destroyed. The man he is. The man he was. Everything.

There's only one thing left for him to do now.

He kisses Blaine's forehead, then stands up.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, before he hits the ground running.

.

That other boy he created, the one who never lost his father, he was the biggest lie of all. He stole a life not his, because another one lived alive beneath he surface of his skin – he had no right. No sound judgment. No proper excuse other than trying to escape the stifling confines of that hospital and break away from the pain. Pain he believed he'd suffered long enough.

But none of that had disappeared.

"The memories lived inside me no matter what I changed, Blaine."

He shakes his head, rests it back against the exposed brick of the wall, cold gripping around his shoulders – a tear runs down his cheek.

"Of losing my dad."

That boy in the bed wearing Ninja Turtle socks didn't sleep soundly that night, he didn't dream of his dad coming home. No, he woke up to heavy knocks on the front door, police lights flashing red and blue behind the lace curtains as he descended the stairs.

"Didn't matter that he was alive, or—"

Lies. All lies.

"But you?" He cries. "Lose you?"

It's a bargain he refused to make; lose the boy life put in his path, a bright supernova, lightning personified, the moon through his dark night sky.

How could he live; how could he endure hell, without his north star?

.

January 13th, 2004

The moment he reaches his destination he drops to his knees, drained and beaten, weak all over. Coarse black gravel digs through his suit, into the broken skin of his knees, lungs moving around the ashes of a burning city. Tears sting his eyes, no longer from the cold night air but an affliction he means to correct, and the mist that condenses in front of his eyes is toxic.

He's surrounded by the wide-open fields of his youth, the scent of fresh grass and late winter frost, a freedom he barely recalls.

The lights of the city shine in the far distance.

He needs one last moment of strength, just one; one more selfish act to undo his original sin.

Struggling to get to his feet he draws in a few shallow breaths, reminding himself why he's doing this, why he has to, why he can't back down now.

He balls his hands into fists.

He needs Blaine.

Without a second thought he speeds towards the city, to the corner of 15th and Park, and catches his past self before he can change a thing.

"Stop." He flings himself between his past self and the scene about to unfold. "You can't do this."

His past self recoils. "What the hell?"

"I'm you." He holds out his hands. "Future you."

"What?"

"I'm the you who's already made this choice," he says, though he's not sure the rights words for this exist in any timeline. He can't explain all of this, not in the short time afforded, not in the space of both their broken hearts – but he can communicate what's important. "I saved our dad and I've lived this future you'll run back to. It's not worth it."

"Get out of my way," his past self grumbles, and tries to pass him.

He grabs around the other Sebastian's arm. "You can't."

"Why not?"

There's a clear break in that voice he recognizes all too well.

"I need my dad, please, I—" his past self begs, and he remembers that distress as clearly as if it happened yesterday, but he can't let him, he won't. Not at the cost of Blaine.

"You need Blaine more."

Maybe it'll be enough to convince this Sebastian; maybe his other self will catch the blood stained on his suit, the red fabric in tatters, the overall distress that's buzzing through his body.

The other Flash trips a step back.

"Trust me," he says. "I've seen where this leads. It won't fix you."

Is that what he meant to do, he wonders, fix himself?

"But I'll have Blaine," his past self says, and he's no sooner spoken or he fades from sight, his initial decision undone through the mere idea of losing Blaine.

A gunshot resounds through the dark of the night.

It feels no different than seeing Blaine killed in front of him, an old hurt renewed, a hurt that's always been there. In the long run he'd rather remember everything with Blaine by his side, then have to face this endless night without Blaine by his side at all.

It's hardly a fair trade.

He waits for the two vultures who cut down his dad to leave, terrified that should he take them out he might yet create hell on earth – tears streak down his face and his heart bleeds out inside his chest, never to be healed.

For the longest time he believed this moment right here the center of his universe, the point around which he lived his life, as Sebastian as much as The Flash. How could he have been so wrong?

He kneels down by his dad's side, hands trembling.

"Who— who are you?" his dad chokes out.

"It's me, dad," he says, tries to tame his tears, failing utterly. "It's Sebastian."

His dad grabs around his neck. "My son."

"I got a chance to come back here, to—"

His eyes fall to his dad's chest, two bullet wounds bleeding profusely – what if he still saves him? What if he races his dad to a hospital? What if all that went wrong merely involved him making sure Fisk went to jail?

Maybe his dad doesn't have to die.

An image of Blaine's lifeless body flashes before his eyes.

He screws his eyes shut. He can't take the risk.

"I want you to know," he says, wrangling the words out between clenched teeth, making his heart a stone, "that mom and I are going to be okay."

"You take care of her," his dad whispers.

He nods. "Dad, we miss you so much. And we love you."

"Love you too, son."

With that, his dad breathes his final breath, and he's fatherless, yet again. He curls over his dad's body and cries; all of this could have been so easily avoided, if he'd listened to Blaine and followed him inside the hospital. If he hadn't been so reckless.

At least his dad wasn't alone. Not this time.

Maybe he never was.

.

Outside the storm roars right above them, thunder and lightning seconds apart and the rain clatters a cacophony of noise. Inside the storm rages on all the same, the circle complete, his story ended – this one doesn't end in hell, it doesn't end in blood, but he still stands to lose everything.

Blaine's lips form around words that don't come out, because the truth's too terrible or the burden too heavy, or it's all too much for him to accept. But he can't say he's regretted that last decision for a single second; he'd be lying to himself and every star in the night sky.

"I ended up exactly where I'd left," he says, forlorn and empty. "Outside of that hospital. August 8th."

Something indecipherable crosses Blaine's eyes.

"You did that for me?"

"I think—" He chances a deeper breath, and it comes easier now, spellbindingly. "I think I did it for me."

No choice had ever been more selfish. He'd traded his dad's life for the rest of the world, and then he traded it again for Blaine's. It wasn't a fair trade by any measure, but he took on what he'd thrown out; his old life, the same burden, with the memories of another one.

He sits up, leaning closer to the boy who now sits in an identical heap next to him on the floor. A little less of a mess. Here to listen, to comfort, to carry it all with him.

"There's no life without you, Blaine." He caresses Blaine's cheek, a few more tears spilling in the wake of a confession that comes easy to him, effortless. "I love you so much."

Blaine's forehead falls to his lips, and he closes his eyes, thanking the Speed Force for this second chance. It all makes such little sense, and an overabundance of sense at the same time; he tempted the wrath of the universe because of his love for a boy.

Blaine throws his arms around him and hugs him closer, hoisting himself into his lap until they're tangled together like two people who never mean to let go of each other. Not ever. Not ever again.

"I love you too," Blaine hushes, his breath hot against his skin.

It wasn't a fair trade by any measure.

Is it a choice he can live with?

When Blaine kisses up his neck without allowing an inch of space between their bodies, and he catches the light in his eyes, a light that's reflected inside him because Blaine's chosen to love him and him alone he thinks—

Yes.

Yes, he can.

.

.

fin

.