A/N: Written for the Snowbarry Spot April Minibang 2021 and the prompts: 'devotion,' 'sacrifice,' and 'freedom'. I've been wanting to write some Savifrost for ages and this finally got me to finish some. Thanks to everyone on the discord server for encouragement.
Also big thanks to define_serenity for making the very cool fanfic cover to go with the story (it's been slightly edited on here to fit ffnet proportions - you can see it in its full glory over on the ao3 version).
This fic gets kinda experimental in format at times - I can't resist timey-wimey implications - but I hope it still makes sense to other people. Also, Frost does make a few puns, which I think by S3!Frost standards would be OOC but I've probably been influenced by the last couple of seasons of Frost development in canon. I figure the fact this Frost is a future version makes it less weird but I'm mainly warning because I figure it might put some people off and so I want to mention it upfront.
More general warnings for graphic descriptions of injury/violence/death and pretty heavy angst, as well as some whump, both injury related and for mental health issues. There's some smut eventually but it's not really explicit and not the main focus of the fic.
Forever Yours
"You're out of order. Barry would never-"
So out of order. Everything lived and relived-
Cisco never finishes the sentence but he doesn't have to. It was as if he'd reached into Barry and cut out his heart. He flees before Cisco can say anything else. Runs away, not yet realizing it's too late. Far too late to change anything, because the meaning has already settled into his bones. It went wrong years ago and is only now catching up to them. That one instance of anger reverberated, long and hard; the shockwave of it affecting far more than Cisco could ever guess.
Everything lived and relived; spliced together and put back wrong. His memories mangled and seen from another perspective. No longer a spectator-
Nobody would tell a God what to do, a God made the order. But she...
She told him the truth, a self-satisfied smile on her face despite being behind bars. Or, more accurately, behind a carbine screen and a meta dampening field. The dampening was designed to extend into the rest of the room - and the corridor far beyond - because those with powers tended to have friends with powers too.
Barry knows these things. Barry knows the blueprints to the prison off-by-heart, knows where to open the panel, how to short-circuit the electronics. He can use what Barry knows – it's what little of that life he has left and everything he knows he'll bend to his new purpose.
He slices through the insulation with one of Julian's scalpels, sparking the right wire, and he hears her moan of appreciation before he's turned around. He catches sight of her flexing her hands with satisfaction as she fills her cell with what starts out as a mist. Less than a minute later, the cell is clouded with fog and she's barely visible – only the brightness of her eyes shining through. There's an almighty thump and the glass shatters dramatically. Killer Frost steps through the wreckage with a devilish grin directed at him. He knows the way a smile twists Caitlin Snow's lips, but Frost's grin twists them just that little bit differently. Enough to prove to him she isn't Caitlin anymore. The last vestige of doubt removed, his friend is gone.
No, Barry's friend is gone. Who stands before him is his ally. His only ally, someone who has lived his destiny. The panicked voice in the back of his mind quietens at this. Everything that had felt abhorrent and against his nature sits better now that he realizes what his nature truly is. Cisco was right. The Barry Allen even he'd assumed was inside him, that he'd clung to for an identity, was already dead. Given up piece by piece with every sacrifice he made for the greater good. But no more.
No more The Flash, not with the 'true' Barry stuck in his metaphorical past and sulking in the time vault. No more The Flash because he, the only person left to claim that mantle, shall renounce the title, just like the name of Barry Allen that has weighed him down for so long. Too long. Neither sits right on his tongue anymore, unable to be spoken of neutrally; every utterance sparks his anger further, hardening him. He has a new legacy to live up to and this time he can't fret over the cost, nothing is too much. No more holding back. This time he has no fear of falling so far behind that noble idea of perfection Barry would beat himself up with. This time, he isn't the hero. And this time, he doesn't believe he ever was one.
Memories mangled and seen from another perspective. No longer a spectator and no longer bound by the same rules. The world shifts and he's playing another part in the same story, wiser this time, waiting patiently for his time to come.
From the moment he'd made that fateful choice to set her free, he finds Frost looks at him with awe, and pride, and something else besides, and she doesn't bother hiding it. They fight their way out of the jail, leaving more than their fair share of carnage and a nice distraction for whatever heroes remain (mainly Julian and Cisco) in how many Rogues they set free. Stepping out into the fresh night air after sowing the seeds of chaos, Frost wastes no time in placing her arms around his neck. And for a moment, as she closes in on him and invades his personal space, he doesn't know what to expect, what it is she's aiming for.
Her white eyes staring up into his own make for a piercing gaze, and she's close enough her cold breath frosts his skin, but he doesn't shy away from it, even though his heart hammers in his chest slightly faster at the proximity. He hasn't let another person this close in years, every tragedy as Barry closing him off further and further until he was a shadow of his former self. But knowing the truth, and that she's on his side, feels freeing and like it opens up something inside him again. Neither of them is intimidated by the other, despite the fact they're two powerful beings capable of doing significant damage if they wanted.
Somewhere in his mind, there is a rebellious thought that says, don't trust anyone, willing him to step back and rethink everything. And yet what wins out is the echo of the old pattern, we protect each other until the end. They're not on the same wavelength as they once were, yet they remain complementary; different now but still fitting together, amplifying each other's potential.
For a long moment, they stand there, not breaking contact in any way but also not making any move toward anything else. Then she raises her eyebrows, lips quirking to show her impatience and makes her wish known. "Time for a speedy exit."
He lifts her up into his arms with ease, the muscle memory of so many other times kicking in, instinct taking over. Once again he's protecting her, even though these days she doesn't really need it. This time, the bite of cold and her long nails where she grips around his neck is new, her touch as sharp as her bright eyes and smirk. The vulnerability of her doing this is not lost on him. She trusts him implicitly, and not because he was Barry – she trusts the man she sees when she looks at him, trusting a destiny he's only now giving himself over to.
He knows, just as clearly, he couldn't betray her, not when she is the one helping him, setting him on his path, healing him in an entirely other way. They both have broken, but they shall be remade; the cracks filled in will be stronger at the breaks, fused with the strange metal of their existence. Giving them an edge over who they used to be.
For Frost, this journey will be fleeting, a blip on her timeline. For him however, he feels so much in every stretched-out moment as he runs them to their new lair. It hits him how personal it is to hold her when he hasn't been held in so long. Not since before everything went to hell. A hell he's responsible for, ultimately. That thought drags the doubts back – a flush of guilt and worry he's bringing this all on himself.
But his anger strikes back as hard and as fast. He's only doing this because he has to. He was marked by the future version of himself as different, and abandoned by another despicable version of himself because of it – both their actions have led to this. Everything he's about to do is because this path simply is his. His past and future have always been intertwined, and finally a clear way forward awaits him. He's only playing into the inevitable because what other game is there except to break out beyond his fate. To be beyond the nature of time, something bigger and better. A God to all extents and purposes. That was Savitar's plan he's inheriting and he'll find a way, he must.
And he wants to. To be more than Barry Allen ever was. Not held back, not confined by that red suit that had slowly been suffocating him. If there's anything he will hide behind it won't be a cowl, no, he has another more impressive suit to come into. That thought - of grand plans, of betterment – is what his mind is set upon when they come to a stop, arriving in a dingy old warehouse at the outskirts of the city. Frost has other plans though.
"Thanks for the ride, Blue," she says as he lowers her to the ground and she sets her hair straight, "But you've got one more stop to go to. 314 North Parkland Avenue."
Barry knows the city streets like the back of his hand, better even, and he can't think of anything relevant on that street except...
"So the first step in our plan for world domination is getting Big Belly Burger?"
"What can I say, fighting works up an appetite. Besides, you should know even a supposed God has to eat." Frost glares at him, which is undermined by a pout appearing at his hesitation to go.
Getting fast food together seems so mundane, too much like something Barry and Caitlin would do. He's about to ask why she can't get it herself, but then he remembers she's been locked up for three years. Denied not just her freedom but the simple comforts of life. Three years where he neglected to visit her. Where he didn't pay her any mind at all, figuring her a lost cause, lost to Savitar. He also remembers a younger version of him visiting her, hoping for answers, and how she wouldn't tell. Not a word except that taunt about how surprised he would be. She was just waiting for him, all that time. Three years since she ate good food, rather than the unpalatable dreck that he knows from his own stint in prison - thanks to DeVoe - tastes like an abysmal excuse for a meal. It's the least he can do to spare the time to indulge this whim for what she's been missing.
Speeding in and out of there he has the literal fast food deposited in front of his partner in crime in the blink of an eye with no further hesitation. Frost tears into the package with a singular enthusiasm, practically in raptures at everything she finds, sampling a bit of each thing greedily as she spreads it out on a nearby worktop. He got the full spread that BBB offers – the kind he'd normally say was no expense spared, but he can't this time because for the first time he didn't bother paying or even leaving a pathetic IOU like Barry would have.
He much more sedately unwraps the first burger out of his own bundle of food and watches with amusement Frost's ecstasy at each mouthful she takes. Perhaps it is closer to their old selves than he would prefer, but he is hungry anyway, and there's something strangely appealing about figuring out a different version of that friendship. One that does stand the test of time, over and over. He decides to allow himself to be this human before he pushes that aside for Godhood. With her, he is somehow straddling the idea of becoming more, a veritable God, and still being a person standing before her – their alliance is a stepping stone in his history to what more he can become.
"That's not your name!" another version of himself screams at him full of rage, his scarred visage looming closer, pushing him back into the shadows; dominating him. The figure shrinks then, face morphing to that of a bitter scruffy Cisco. Cisco's bare metal finger points as he nevertheless keeps his distance, flinging accusations "You're not Barry! The real Barry would never-"
When he awakes, it is as Savitar for the first time. And regardless of the usual nightmares, it's the best night's sleep he's had for some time - had on a stolen mattress of all things. There's no regret there for the crime. What he regrets was trying so long to fit in, desperate to prove himself worthy of their acceptance. He doesn't need it anymore. Frost is the one person he cares to hear the opinion of, but getting up he finds her gone. Fear of abandonment gnaws at him for several hours, along with a rush of anger that he takes out on numerous buildings downtown, tearing up the walls and blowing out their windows, watching the shards of glass falling like an icy sharp rain around him.
All is forgiven the second she returns with a precious gift – an intense white-blue object that glows from within the ornate frozen box containing it. The Philosopher's Stone. That near impossible piece of Speedforce condensed, timeless and undetectable. Seeing that he doesn't feel powerless anymore. He knows this is the start of things. The key to his becoming, brought to him by Frost, all the proof he needs of her ally-ship.
There's the beginning of a grin on his face but he almost drops that when he looks up to see her face somber. She holds the box open, every appearance of being as ready for this as him, but there's an uncommon tenseness to her, a reluctance to give it over shown by how she moves subtly back as he moves towards it.
"Are you sure you're ready?" she asks, voice unwavering, entirely too neutral. She's cold, and often calculated, but she's not dispassionate. It stands out like a sore thumb, her attempt to keep her feelings to herself, and he has no clue why. But in that moment, her making him stop does not register as the warning it is. He barely heeds it in his eagerness, taken over by the rash impulsivity of his speedster nature. He doesn't care why she is wary, he only wants what she is freely offering. No reluctance on his side. Not with her by his side. He reaches out to grasp it and-
He sees himself, he sees himself through his eyes, through the other Savitar's eyes. Through the eyes of every Barry, every Savitar. Every loop, over and over and over - to infinity, a recursive picture that soon blurs into something incomprehensible.
Too much. The feelings layer on top of this wretched guilt-ridden Barry, and himself lost and angry, and an older, more embittered Savitar. And then another loop, another several versions of them, subtly different. And again. Again.
Each change splinters off another timeline jostling for attention. His head feels an unbearable pressure as he tries to comprehend yet more. His mind spirals toward more pain and a special type of madness besets him with each repetition deeper.
And then all he feels is cold. A blissful iciness, a type of nothingness that freezes all thought and wins out among the other sensations. He comes to as he warms from it, lying on the floor, Frost kneeling next to him.
"You need the stone. He said, it would be...hard."
Something about the look on her face, barely concealed worry, and the way she says this makes him think the other him didn't properly convey just how 'hard' it would be.
"I'm fine," he says as he picks himself up. He avoids looking at her as he says it, willing her to accept his lie. Frost says nothing more on the matter and promptly leaves him be – he's not sure if that's for his benefit, allowing him to save face, or hers, to avoid the uncomfortable truth of what he's to do.
A kaleidoscope of moments twist across his vision. He's out of breath, running across the square, not fast enough, never fast enough. And he's roaring in victory, arms heavy with the dead weight of destiny. He judders with the feedback of the hulking suit clunkily unsheathing the talon, feels his lips grin grotesquely as he stabs into flesh. Once, twice, on repeat. He pins The Flash against a wall, satisfied to have the upper hand, all while he is one and the same, screaming at the metal tearing into his shoulder. Again. Desperate.
Always desperate. Desperate to fulfill his mission. Desperate to save Iris. That original feeling bleeding into another goal, to kill her. Somehow love and hate seem hardly any different when both are so raw, magnified a thousand times over. Avenging her flips into avenge himself, create himself, survive , make Barry suffer like he has, because he always did and should . The once distorted picture from the other side seems now just like leveling the playing field.
Frost doesn't tell him what to do, he figures it out on his own. The stone is the first real step to the plan and also the hardest. He hopes.
However hard it's going to be, it's necessary. The stone is what frees him in 2017, which means it needs to be sent to the past, to amass the dedicated followers that eventually include Julian. And if he's going to take it to the past he needs to be able to hold it for several minutes and stay conscious, focused on the task at hand. He doesn't know how, but it has to be possible; after all, he's already done it.
It's only after the fact that he realizes what Frost's hesitation meant, what the look in her eyes was about - she knew this was the start of the madness. As Julian once told the team, he'd been imprisoned long enough to lose his mind several times over. Except now Savitar knows it begins before that. The stone overwhelms him with knowledge of past and future, of all the timelines any Savitar has lived, from every perspective. He only snatches glimpses out of everything the visions span but he knows he succeeds as Savitar, has so many times, but he also knows at what cost.
What it shows him strains the limits of his all too linear brain. He learns to accept its pain, to let it wash over him. He tries to unfocus as much as possible, to see without really seeing. Experiencing it while attempting to drill down his feelings into a single stream of thought, for one brief goal. His determination wins out eventually, but even then it only wins out for so long. A glorious slither of clarity, reaching through to another point in the stone's history.
Over the next few days, he graduates to holding the stone for precious seconds. To grin and bear the agony as he directs the very first ancient followers of his with the scantest of grunted instructions. He watches generation after generation obey him, and his power grows with his confidence, holding on to see what they pledge to him. He witnesses their faith in action, their sacrifices to the cause while he suffers to speak each word proclaimed, ever terse through the pain endured. Throughout it, he is fueled by the knowledge that this is only possible because the stone is in the past – this impossible-seeming task he is training himself to do is proved possible already by his interaction with the stone across time. It's purely a matter of time before he can send it to the past himself and start the cycle.
Despite his successes, it is still maddening. He knows it's necessary, but handling the stone strengthens the connection between him now and him as he was, as he will be, including that of the imprisoned Savitar. However long he holds onto his focus touching the stone, there is always the moment he cannot any longer, where he loses himself again. Falling into an abyss of memories only partly his. The cold tethers him to the present each time Frost comes to his rescue, but those moments aren't the only ones he's struggling with.
His nightmares of old seem so basic compared to the fractured consciousness his dreams now take on. Twin mirrors of memory, Savitar's and Barry's interlaced, flitting between what he knows from one side and the other. There's the emotional whiplash of going from who he once was, so afraid, to the nearly incomprehensible snatches of the other side, smugness melded with a hate distilled by decades and the sense of a mind barely holding on to those. He wakes up to a splitting headache. Which he senses is just the start of the pain he wants to leave behind, not just emotional, and not just caused by the unhealing burns on his face.
Madness is doing the same thing over and expecting a different result. Is he guilty of that? There's a lot Frost doesn't say about the part of this loop she lived, but she does say when they meet and what he promised her that night. The promise of more than they've had, what they deserved that no one else thought they did. Something that required they take it. She only tells him just enough to work with, to be able to recognize the start of the path he will one day live with a version of her woefully unprepared compared to his ally today.
But he begins to understand the plan of Godhood wasn't simply about a promise made to Frost, or a way to leave Barry Allen behind; it was an ambition to stop the suffering, in some way that wasn't giving up and ceasing to exist. A fuck you to the universe that screwed them over. Something to aim for that would be a new direction, not simply continuing the madness of before. Every loop he learned more, if he could bear the knowledge of what came before and the suffering necessary for it.
A familiar sickness settles inside him. The desperation returns. A willingness to die. This has happened before, it will happen again. He's screaming as Harry's experiment pulls his molecules apart. As he watches his father die. As Iris does too. It's too much, followed by a blind fear. Watching a battlefield of expendable copies bloodied and finally motionless. Ill-fated time remnants like him, not even the first they made.
The Flash sees bodies strewn like objects and feels nothing for them. He doesn't care. Until he's the one left, the remnant seen by the other two. The Flash is single-minded and hell-bent on revenge. That he understands, a fire that runs parallel across the three versions of himself, giving it a rare purity of thought in the haze of memories. The Flash watches Savitar sear half his face, marking him. Making him. He screams and Savitar screams too from inside his prison. This will never end. Desperate but alive. An unending assured by him and himself, the synchronous intent that is fast closing the gap between them.
Every time he touches the stone he welcomes a multitude of pain, but he always wakes to the cold and her face staring down at him. Her worry has lessened over the weeks of practice he's kept to. More and more there is that awe instead that he first saw at the jailbreak. He could call it reverence but it is decidedly not like his followers show. It's like she's waiting to see the spark of what she has taught him. Equally thrilled and amused by who he is becoming compared to who he was.
Some stubbornly foolish and naive part of him might wonder if it's love mixed in there too but he quickly discards the notion, because whatever it is or isn't, is meaningless compared to the solidity of their partnership. He once showed Frost the way and now she shows him. He brought Frost back from the tedium of life behind bars, and now she brings him back in a small way each time he loses himself to the stone. There's a balance to them that he daren't upset.
They didn't go there, but the reason Savitar doesn't ask Frost why she stays is different. He really doesn't care what Barry and Caitlin did or didn't choose to do, but if he asks why Frost stuck with him he risks no answer or an answer he should not have. If he needs to know, he trusts she'll tell him.
Meanwhile, he presumes it's for the same reason he came to her - they are all they have left, the one thing past survival to keep fighting for. There was no gentle reassurance passed between them, no saccharine platitude of 'we'll pull through this together' – nothing was like their former selves would do. Instead, they're each other's guide in the darkness. Tracing the well-worn path together. Forever meeting at different points in their journeys.
Everything is lived and relived, but it's hard to know what comes when. Not until it's happening - when the memory hits him just right.
His mastery of the stone is well underway. The chain of events in the past is slowly but surely setting up his inevitable reign. And he has finally delved far enough into Savitar's fractured future memories to uncover the secret of where to get the strange metal to recreate his suit. The one flaw in his plan is that the connection between his other-selves is stronger and it's getting harder to stay focused. To stay present, in the now, in himself, if he even can be considered so distinct anymore. He struggles not to get lost in the many-layered memories that filter through him at times even without touching the stone these days.
Out there, there's a Barry in the past still consumed by his grief. Whose memories crop up intermittently. The feelings are technically nothing new, only what he's lived through before, but they hit him all at once. A sheer panic he can't escape just because he's left that life behind. Suddenly he can't breathe properly and he feels the soul-crushing realization: it's your fault. The words echo in his head. It's your fault. And he knows it is, yes. That's true, he created this as it created him, tragedy on repeat for his necessary existence.
Usually, he can view that fact with the necessary detachment required for his goal, but not when he's lost among another Barry's memories, the echoes of his past haunting him. They feel so real and immediate, even though he moves further and further away from that naïve boy he was each day. Nevertheless, the doubt and guilt of days gone by drag him back into a dark well of emotion. Sometimes he is frozen by those feelings, stopped dead in his tracks, waiting simply for them to pass. Other times there is Frost there by his side, somehow aware of his distress, like now.
Her touch is bold, certain as she reaches for him, and he's no longer facing this alone. The dread pressing down on his chest lessens a little at that. The chill emanating from where her fingers wrap tightly around his arm is uncomfortable as it reaches down to his bones, but that discomfort is welcomed for what it means. His relish of it is uniquely theirs, and that she cares enough to do this for him is evidence of her being unequivocally on his side.
As a speedster, he's never known her cold to be anything other than a threat. Caitlin feared her powers, but Barry never saw it as a true threat because he foolishly believed she'd always be on his side. Now, Savitar understands plenty how much of a threat those powers could be, but Frost chooses him over them all and uses her powers in a whole new way. The cold decelerates his racing thoughts and pulse, pacing them better until Frost's low voice can count out his slow and steady breaths.
Still, Frost only touches him for as long as is necessary, to get him back in the present. A part of him cries out for more, fingers itching to reach for her retreating form, but it is too much like Barry and so he lashes back at the feeling, judged needy and unwelcome.
He still dreams of death, and too many bruises, a copper tang in his mouth as he teeters on the edge of irrelevancy. He dreams of his failures, of him on his knees all but begging the universe for another chance below the bulk of Savitar who was never going to kill him anyway.
But those nightmares start to mix with other moments - with his blood pumping, defiantly still alive, and with the epiphany of who he is. With Frost taking her place at his side, her hand gripping his forearm and him grasping hers in return, the butcher's grip of her cold tying them together as allies.
When he wakes often all he can remember is the sensation of cold, reaching him in his sleep, so vivid in his dreams because he knows it intimately. There is no panic accompanying it, because the cold as he knows it is not incapacitating, instead making things come into focus. Once he went as fast as he could, driven by a dire need, without consideration for what made sense, for how rash he was. He's starting to appreciate the calm reflection the cold provides, a protection from feelings flaring up. Saving the fire inside him for when it's needed, not letting it burn him out like it used to. The cold is something he no longer fears, something here to last – part of the perfect balance he and Frost have found.
Every time he sees through his older self, it is jarring, the contrast of Barry's weakness and desperation against his own victory. That life, seen from another perspective, makes it so much easier to pick apart. He scratches out the name of Alchemy into the glass of the past, cutting across their idyllic reality with his new one. Each husk is a sign of times to come. Scratching across the mirror, he destroys a little more of the reflection that should be there, one made less and less true every time he reaches for the stone.
He comes to hate red. It's surprising it didn't happen sooner considering how much he dreams of blood spilled, of the discarded remnants in their ragged suits. Red is brash, basic, seeming childish to him with hindsight.
The strange metal is smooth, elegant, and capable of creating an impenetrable shell compared to the flimsy fabric he once relied on. He has a rough idea of what he must build but it's not until he has his hands on the material that he can appreciate its complexity. How exquisitely a slither of it shimmers when he applies a current to it, turning the matte dark grey-blue to a brilliant electric blue.
He knows how the suit looked, how it should look, and yet it feels no less momentous when that discovery inspires him to take the color to heart. To work the metal to create cool blue veins across the inner surfaces, shining bright enough to be spied between the platelet gaps, charged up by the Speedforce aura held close to his chest.
He takes on Frost's color scheme not just because he has seen it before, not simply repeating what he must, but because it makes sense to him. One tribute he can make to their partnership that will speak for itself, that he continues to choose Frost every time it comes round. He doesn't know if that will be self-evident when he is standing in front of another Frost, the one lost and searching for meaning, but that Frost is not the one he concerns himself with the reaction of.
For any unspoken hope he had there, her reaction when she enters the room to find the suit complete is...unusual. It takes all her focus but not due to awe or surprise. She circles it wearily, eyes flicking up and down, appraising it.
"It's done?" she asks redundantly, for he's sure she already knows the answer.
"It's done," he confirms, curious if she will finally tell him what next. She stares at the suit a little longer, an odd pause of reflection quite unlike her usual demeanor where she either acts or speaks or leaves him be.
He's not the only one with an outside view these days, though his is spotty, glimpsing small fractions of the overall picture. Most importantly, he sees how much he's changed each time he flashes back to seeing who he was, but Frost sees further, knows all of his journey. Even so, during this process, Frost has simply watched him with interest, giving choice commentary, but she has never told him what to do. He has to tease out the details of the plan he must follow from disjointed memories via the stone and the fractured dreams of things he hasn't lived yet.
Turns out, she was biding her time, waiting for the moment of reckoning. When she glances back at him, her gaze is stark white and unrelenting, but there's a hint of sadness somewhere on her face that the friend he used to be recognizes.
"Now, you go into the Speedforce. That's how you're made."
He doesn't say anything at that, but he thinks about the splintered memories of his other self and the prison he'd be walking into. The near eternity of suffering. The ever-looming threat of madness made real with a swift finality. She must see his reticence, despite his efforts to remain in control of his emotions, willing himself to hear her out. Frost walks up to him, and he sees concern on her face, in the set of her eyes and the way she wears the slight wrinkles around them. The ghost of Caitlin Snow stares back at him from Frost's face; unpleasant and planting doubt in his mind. When she shores herself up close to him, her face is smoothed over once more, with a steely gaze, all business.
"That's how you're made. Not once but twice; marked," she says with a hand reaching out to trace over his scars, "-and wrested, the victor taking the mantle. You are him, he is you. You'll understand completely, soon enough."
Frost doesn't remove her hand. Leaving her fingers tipping his chin up, letting the moment of connection become more. Her touch weighs on him, as does her stare, both unusually warm. There's a hunger to it too.
"Time for me to say goodbye."
Frost kisses him then, not asking permission. Perhaps she knows he won't deny her, perhaps she is purely taking what she wants as she does in other areas of her life. Her kiss is languid, as if she has all the time in the world. Her cool lips aren't as cold as he would have expected - they're just cold enough to make his tingle, the clash of temperature heightening every sensation.
He kisses her back like he might have expected to be kissed, seeking the warmth inside her, to explore her fully now the fragile truce of either friendship or allies is broken. He brings his hands up, one threading through her curls to find the back of her neck, pulling her closer. The other winds around her waist, fingers splaying across the skin at the small of her back once he finds the edge of her top slide up under. Every motion of her lips against his gets his blood pumping more. Lighting up the urge to run, to move, to chase a feeling he isn't sure he should allow himself to catch up to.
A petulant part of him doesn't want to leave this place he's only just found, for a time where he has to carve out his territory once again. There, Frost is a shadow of who he knows. There, he must wait, alone, for her becoming. Who she shall become won't be this to him, not at first, and possibly never. That possibility makes him cling tighter to this moment, to her, not wanting it to end. Another farewell that's anything but once it's over.
He's only held on so well with the stone's influence by channeling himself into a singular goal – do this, get that – pushing forward above all else. Except now he's stumbling at what going forward means, what further sacrifices are necessary. After so long without anyone, the idea of losing what little he has is abhorrent and strikes into the very center of him, exposing his humanity. That panic starts to crowd out any other thought, except a pure want he gives in to, hoping it will drown out the fear. It doesn't work. He gasps, struggling to stay here and now. All that feeling crashes on top of him suddenly. The fire inside him burning up abruptly, sucking the oxygen out, unable to breathe. The flicker of flashbacks fighting for dominance.
He's walking from the dock, framed for murder, no one to say goodbye to, and he's watching his father walk away from the visitation room, I don't want you to come here . He's frowning as his freed father says he needs to go away, away from him . He's crying over his best friend leaving town as a child, and he's seeing Cisco scowl, turning away from him for the last time. He's asking Thawne to 'fix' Flashpoint with a throat so tight at what he has to turn away from. He's there as the light goes out of his mother's eyes, truly to blame this time, and he's there as Iris goes limp in his arms. It's his fault he's alone. He watches her fall beneath him, talon slick with blood. It's done. The beginning of the end, the start of his beginning. He's suddenly numb... And then he's back at S.T.A.R Labs watching Frost flee, Caitlin lost to him. Lost to the blizzard outside, it's so cold...
He blinks through the haze, eyelashes sticking together a little with frost on them. Blinking again, things come into focus more and he's staring at Frost. Who's close enough to breathe her own cool air into him, lips hovering above his. Her arms are also tight around him, unexpectedly holding him up. His teeth chatter and he struggles to draw a full breath until he remembers to shake the cold off, a cold so much more penetrating than he can recall. There's an edge of giddiness he attributes to lack of oxygen and he sucks in several long breaths trying to find some normality. As his mind clears, for a moment, it scares him how lost he must have been in the memories that she'd needed to keep going so dangerously close to freezing him too much just to reach him. But he shakes that off too, because soon it won't matter.
"Where were you this time? Or should I say, when," she asks as she loosens her hold on his body and the familiar yearning to pull her close almost overtakes him in his vulnerable state. The brief flare of emotion makes everything swim a little again, his focus flickering and putting him closer to another trip down memory lane if he's not careful. His hands skitter down her arms lightly, pinpoints of touch that make her shiver, until finally his hands fall to his sides breaking that tenuous contact.
They've never talked about what happens to him. Not here and now. She could easily call him pathetic for this weakness, walk him right into his worst nightmare by affirming what he thinks in those moments that being Barry takes him over for a second time. Like that, he couldn't be further from godhood, yet she didn't find him unworthy of her time. Instead, she is silent and supportive, with her presence and her non-judgmental aid. He can feel what must be teardrops thawing, sliding down his cheek. Does she see past the weakness to his potential she's betting on or is this another example of their enduring bond? Here it is she who renews it, walking by his side in his troubled times. That's what awaits him too, in reverse. Knowing he shall return that favor strengthens his resolve to do what he must. It's still difficult contemplating leaving here, but really he's only leaving one version of her for another who needs him by her side far more.
The pause of his seems to leave room for thought on her side too. He watches her open her mouth as if to speak, ready for her to break the silence, but she doesn't. Frost is hesitant for the first time since he's met this version of her and it's a touch unnerving to see.
"This is the end of the line for you and me," she starts, eyes flicking down, staring resolutely at some point behind his shoulder. He stays still, waiting for more. He wants to reach out but stops himself. Her explanation isn't needed but perhaps this is also part of what she's been waiting for. A moment of closure she needs that he won't deny her, even though some rebellious part of him doesn't want closure at all, doesn't want to meet this end of his he's worked towards. It's a foolish and all too human regret, which he intends to dismiss. But not immediately. Not until they both have whatever this is out of their systems. He'd regret it more to not have her speak her piece, to never know how she feels after everything.
"If you succeed it won't be me who sticks around, diverging timelines and all that." Frost glances up and catches his eye again. Her eyes are open wider than he's used to seeing on her pale face, but it's no doe-eyed look when paired with the firm set of her jaw and the tilt of her head. She accepts this. More than that, she wants this for him.
He feels himself slipping for a second, the stutter of memory back to when they stood in the pipeline together after her – no, Caitlin's – wedding to Ronnie. Contrary to her cautious nature, Caitlin had told him it was best to live for today. Take what life gives you. She'd told him to do what he needed to then too, to save his mom if he could, with no concern for how it would change her life; 100% behind him. Some things clearly don't change.
"Don't look so surprised," Frost continues, interpreting his lack of answer rather differently, as if he's questioning her without words. "I always knew it was a one-way ticket for me. You, it's more complicated. Next time, you go get your forever and that could change. Make good your promise to me and I'll never even know you broke it."
He opens his lips, wanting to say something - anything meaningful - in return, but finds himself speechless. What further promises could he make, what more could he give her? For all his plans and power, this is one thing he can't change. This is where they part. A storm of emotion stirs inside him again. If he isn't careful he's in danger of having another flashback and getting lost in the past again, of squandering what time he has left in the present.
Frost regards him coolly, waiting for what more might come. Watching him failing to say a thing. Ten seconds pass, sliding into twenty soon enough – hardly any time for her but an age for a speedster and she knows it. Eventually, she sets her lips in a hard line, impatience showing.
"Cat's got your tongue, hmm? Rather it were me," she quips followed by a quick quirk of her lips.
Unlike him, Frost is done wasting time, taking the lead. Like she has been really since he broke her out. She closes the distance between them fast, a hand hooking around the back of his neck to pull his mouth to hers. She teases him with a touch of frost to one kiss but not the next, alternating sensations. It's almost enough to make him whine for more, but he truly can't tell which he prefers, her hot or cold – just her, all of her. When she graduates to biting his lip, he moans and lets his restraint go. Pushing them back against the nearest wall, he stops resisting the urge to reach for her, to ask without words for more. Wanting only to feel here, alive and in the moment. To feel what it's like to be wanted again.
Frost lifts her leg to entwine it around his, allowing him closer still, as one of Frost's hands gropes his ass unapologetically, crushing him to her further as he grinds against her core. He starts to vibrate subtly and at that her fingers dig into his back and she moans long and low, her delight coming out throatily and unrestrained. Speeding up though, she tsk tsks at him and he feels the spread of ice coming from her almost painful hold on him.
"Thought you'd learned your lesson, God things come to those who wait."
He pulls back long enough to roll his eyes at her for the pun. She's smirking at him, eyes alight with mirth, and it sets something off inside him, a flutter of feeling overtaking the lust momentarily. He feels himself slipping again, the present becoming hazy, his eyes unseeing somehow. But Frost cottons on to what's happening, she pulls him back by the lapels and opens him up in a different way. With each stroke of her tongue exploring his mouth, he feels better grounded. When he returns the favor she sucks on his tongue and his breath catches, the action striking like lightning through him to his groin. He flushes hotter, heart racing faster than normal for him, and tries impossibly to press himself closer. She stops as abruptly as she'd started that, switching to teasing him with hot kisses followed by icy cool ones as they share breath briefly. He drinks in everything he can about her, about how she moves against him – he takes everything she's willing to give him.
Her fingers reach under his jacket, under his t-shirt, nimbly tracing up his back before her nails scratch down it slowly. He moans as she traces up his back once more, touch tender before her nails dig in harder and he thinks he can feel pinpoints of ice this time. The intensity of the pain makes the softness that comes after so much more heightened. He marvels at how in tune she is with what he likes...until he realizes just because this is the first time he has done this with her, does not mean it's the first time she has done this with him.
That thought unlocks something inside him, like a barrier crumbling within. Revealing yet another secret that's been just out of reach all this time. He feels himself slipping again, expecting that familiar haze to come over him when the present goes out of focus. Except now, he isn't painfully lost in the past – it overlays with the present. He remembers with each touch, another touch, another her doing the same, again and again. Not simply an echo of the action; the sensation of Frost biting his lip, the view of her icy eyes, isn't overshadowed – it's multiplied. There's a sharp clarity to it that stands out, because he knows this, he knows her as she knows him.
Her hands strip him, piece by piece, leaving him naked in front of her. To see the full extent of the scars that trail his neck and split off across his shoulder, unfurling across his chest while also curling around the top of his right arm. Before he sought her out, this scenario would have left him feeling fragile, like he was the deficient version of Barry Allen. The marks on his skin were proof for all to see of how broken he was. But now he doesn't shy away from that, knowing she doesn't shy away from anything, least of all him. Knowing what he does, he can finally see the truth – these scars mark him for greatness, as more than Barry Allen could hope to be. Standing there is like a dare, willing her to see him, see him fully. And she is the only one who has, who ever will.
Her eyes eat him up, taking her sweet time to take all of him in. As the tension builds, he feels the crackle of lightning tingling across his bare skin. He pants out a cool breath, consumed with the thought of her cold touch skimming across that same skin. Lightning and ice battling for dominance, working up a sweat that creates a shiver with her powers and vibrating it off to everyone's enjoyment.
Finally, she steps forward, and bows down. Going to her knees. When she looks up, as she takes him into her mouth, he doesn't see just her intent on his pleasure. He sees her choosing him again and again. Between that thought and the eager attentions of her mouth around his cock it's almost enough to get him off entirely too soon.
Sometimes he forgets how warm Frost is, how human; not purely a meta and not yet a goddess either. Despite his fondness for the cold, that comes directly from his attachment to her, the warmth of another person is enticing. He's missed it. He will miss it, when he leaves.
And he is leaving, despite it, because he remembers the pain that always comes with that attachment too, and some costs he doesn't want to keep paying. But he can be human for one night with her, for one important memory he will make entirely his. This is the start of a promise, to meet the end of hers.
Savitar walks into the Speedforce with no regrets. The moment Frost had been waiting for is come, but his own path is far from done. In many ways, it will never be over.
He expected he would be replacing the older version of himself, something his older self knew would happen one day because he once did so. Because he's well aware he has to suffer, that he must be imprisoned to become everything he needs to be. To see all of what he has done, and will do, unimpeded. Finishing the other Savitar as part of that was necessary too, something he almost envied; giving him an end to his suffering, finally free of pain. But that's not it. They merge. The suffering ongoing. The madness swallowing him whole.
Every word ever spoken to him echoes endlessly. A barrage of memories spinning out and twisting around to loop into another torturous cycle. Nothing has meaning, because everything does. It's too much. The scratching on the glass never stops, etched into his psyche. The pain of the talon in his shoulder throbs over and over, as the moment never ends for him. His face burns so long he feels like he should be long gone, charred down to the bone. But no, his embers refuse to go out, forever fueled and reigniting, a phoenix that cannot die. He screams until his throat should be raw, should give out, but it doesn't. He's trapped in a perpetual nightmare.
And underneath the pain, the rage, the desperation, there is a cool hand forever gripping his. White eyes shining brightly out of the fogginess that surrounds him. He remembers her choosing him, lifting him from this madness. He holds onto that, accepting what will come becauseher day will come. The memory of a calm numbness sustains a nugget of who he is.
Savitar waits, though the time is indeterminable and far from empty. He suffers and he holds on, waiting for the linchpin moment. When the last piece of the stone is thrown to him and it connects. Here he is, Savitar; complete and powerful, just like the stone. Here he is, no longer a spectator. So he acts.
Clawing his way out of the Speedforce, he's one step closer to her and to victory on his terms. But still he has to wait for her day to come. It's simultaneously an age for a speedster and no time at all compared to the prison he endured. Patience he can do. When he sees in his mind's eye the memory that filters through to him - of Barry staring into the blizzard closing on S.T.A.R. Labs, hopeless – he knows what to do and he goes to her.
For Frost, it starts with him in front of her in the forest. Him stripped bare out of his suit this time, the gift of who he is an unparalleled act of vulnerability he shows her.
For him, it ends, in a way, with him in front of her in the forest. Her rebirth is fresh along with the sting of rejection; she stands there in the thin white scrubs Caitlin Snow died in, while the snow whirls around her. Lost, like he had been, but not at the mercy of the elements – no, she was in her element as the blizzard raged around them and they stood in the eye of her storm.
What comes next are the echoes of what she'd told him. He intends to repeat the words, his words as told by her and retold by him so that the cycle shall never end. Forever, I will give you forever, he'd promised once. But this time he does not promise that. Words are easy, delivering on it harder.
"We can be Gods," he says. "We can be stronger - faster, colder – and never fail again, never fall again, from a grace we don't possess. Never fall in love, never be broken by it."
He rises from his knees in front of her and takes his place by her side.
He misses the point in an eternal ignorance - that the love is there already, that it is for the broken pieces of the people they once were. He will continue to believe he cannot fall again now he's come so far. But you can always fall again. Because history is doomed to repeat, and running reliably on time. He could fail, he should fail, again – never quite reaching Godhood, everyone falling into the familiar pattern. You can always fall again, for the right person.
In that moment of truth, the names they go by are unimportant. There is only the feeling. Of recognition. One cannot be lost when the other exists.
There are no fond whispers in the forest, no other words spoken to prompt her absolute devotion. Nothing more is required. Just the conclusion of one arc amplifying another and peaking higher toward the dramatic climax they will build, together. His actions say everything - I found you, I will always find you. The figure-eight they form meeting in the middle, another crossroads moment that shall set one on a path ultimately leading away from the other.