Notes: From Tumblr "gender-luster asked: i am in my blorbo feels and asking for a short, post season 2 ep 11, hurt/comfort, cisco fic, with either harry or hartley (bc i adore everytime you write flashback universe hartley) (either romantic or platonic idc. i just know that cisco deserves a hug after nearly phasing out of the universe)"
Both is good, right? Anyway, here's version 1.0 with Harry Wells.
(If you'd like to request a fic yourself, please head over to my tumblr - kitkatt0430 - and send an ask. I do not accept fic requests that are not sent through tumblr and do not respond to comments here on ffnet.)
Bedtime Stories
"So that was when you let Thawne go?" Cisco let out a heavy sigh. "That would have been a hard choice, even for me to make man. I mean... what if keeping him reset the timeline?"
Barry grimaced and looked away. "I hesitated. I... didn't want to just let him go. Harry yelled at me."
"Yeah and you hesitated for, what, five minutes tops? I know you, Barr. Harry yelling at you just made it easier for you to do what you'd already decided," Cisco said, patting Barry's shoulder. "Go home. Sleep."
"Are you sure? I mean, I know Caitlin's keeping you under observation tonight. I could stay..." Barry trailed off with a yawn.
"There are a zero comfy beds in this place and, honestly, we really need to rectify that," Cisco observed. "I mean, between Harry sleeping here all the time - and I'm not convinced Jay isn't secretly living on the opposite side of the building - and then Caitlin keeping us overnight every time you get hurt or my powers do something weird... we need some of those hybrid mattresses in this place. Maybe some bunk beds? Or, ooooh, I could put a loft bed in my lab over one of the desks."
"I think you've strayed from the point you were trying to make," Barry teased.
"One of us should have a good night's sleep, my dude," Cisco drawled. "Go home. Get some sleep. And don't feel bad that your knee-jerk reaction to hearing imprisoning the guy who murdered your mom was what was hurting me was disbelief. I'm here because you picked me over him."
"So basically get over myself because I'm my own worst critic?" Barry asked dryly.
"In this situation, anyway." Cisco shrugged. "Sometimes you're not critical enough. Like when you don't admit that your tastebuds are faulty for preferring cherry slushies to Coca-Cola slushies."
"That's because my tastebuds are entirely correct and yours are wrong," Barry retorted. And then he pulled Cisco into a hug, which they both clung to for several minutes. "You're really okay?"
"I'm fine," Cisco stressed the words. "Go home Barry," he repeated, give Barry a tiny shove.
"Yeah, yeah. See you in the morning," Barry replied, squeezing Cisco's shoulders one last time before disappearing in a burst of speed and light.
Shortly afterwards, Cisco changed into some comfy sweats and curled up on one of the medical cots.
Similarly dressed, Caitlin settled onto the other sleeping cot. Though she insisted she'd be staying awake. She had her tablet and some journals to read and, to be fair, she lasted nearly a whole hour before nodding off.
But Cisco? He twisted and turned and tried to get comfortable. And once Caitlin fell asleep, he gently laid her tablet aside, pulled the blanket up on her a bit, and then decided she was propped up at a relatively comfortable angle that wouldn't hurt her back or neck. So he just let her snooze there.
The truth was, Cisco felt too wired to sleep.
So he left a note on his bed saying he'd gone to annoy Harry in case Caitlin woke up and then wandered out into the hallway. Down to his lab first where he tinkered a bit and then to the break room where the siren song of fresh coffee was tickling his nose. As he reached for one of the many mugs he kept here, Harry's voice said, "pretty sure Snow would kill you herself if you have any of that."
"Oh, come on. I feel fine," Cisco insisted.
Harry stole the mug anyway, filling it with the caffeine filled goodness and then adding nothing to it except a single packet of sugar. How he could drink it that way, Cisco couldn't even begin to guess.
"There's some tea in the cabinets over there," Harry gestured. "Pretty sure some of that is caffeine free. Snow probably won't commit homicide if you have one of those."
"Caffeine is the whole point," Cisco griped, but he wandered over to the pantry anyway, sorting through the tea stash. Some of it was loose leaf teas that he was pretty sure Hartley had left behind. All of it was old and probably stale and would offend the sensibilities of tea snobs anywhere. Cisco nabbed one of the loose leaf cans that said chamomile on the ingredients label and one of the cups that had a matching strainer. Which was probably something else Hartley'd left behind when he ditched them for Mercury Labs.
He really ought to see if the guy wanted any of it back. But that was a task for future Cisco.
Once Cisco's tea was steeping - and Harry had snatched up the tea container first to personally approve it - he found himself seated at one of the brightly colored tables. He wondered who'd been responsible for decorating the room. It definitely wasn't a match for Eobard Thawne's preferred aesthetics. Though the guy had run around town dressed like an overripe banana, so who knew. Maybe it was.
"So what's got you avoiding sleep?" Harry asked, sipping his coffee.
"Pretty sure this is a pot-kettle situation," Cisco snarked back.
Harry just raised an eyebrow. "Delayed sleep phase disorder. It's why I don't show up before around ten or eleven in the morning unless absolutely necessary." He sipped his coffee again. "I take melatonin back home, which helps. But here? No one gives a shit if I go to sleep at one or two AM and wake up eight hours later. No early morning meetings and no scheduling international calls."
"I'd think the delayed sleep would actually help with being awake to make international business calls," Cisco mused.
"It does. Sometimes," Harry agreed.
Cisco tested his tea. Too hot still, but a good time to take out the strainer and add his sugar. Was he feeling like cream in his tea? Hmm... he'd have to decide that when it was a little cooler.
"So of the two of us, I'm not avoiding sleep right now. But you are. So, Ramon?" Harry prodded again. "What's keeping you from your beauty rest? Missing your hair care routine and can't get you mind to shut off without it?"
Sticking his tongue out at Harry was, absolutely, the mature response to the teasing. "You are just one of many who are jealous of my most excellent and very soft hair." He leaned towards Harry. "Softest hair you will have ever touched. You may pet it and live forever in envy."
Harry snorted in amusement and rolled his eyes. But he did reach over and slide his fingers through Cisco's hair. Which was, perhaps, not Cisco's most well thought out idea since the action made his stomach do pleasant little flips.
Now was not the time to be wallowing in an attraction to a straight man. Presumably straight man, anyway. But Cisco was not going to be asking.
"Very soft. I'll never recover from the envy it has inspired," Harry said in the most inflection-less tone ever.
Cisco laughed. "As it should be, then."
"Don't think I haven't noticed you dodging the question, Ramon."
Sighing softly, Cisco checked his tea again. It was fine with just the sugar. Definitely sweeter and tastier than the coffee Harry was drinking, though if Cisco had gotten to make himself a cup it would have been full of hazelnut creamer goodness.
"My powers," Cisco hesitated. This wasn't exactly easy for him to talk about. "My powers," he tried again, "went out of control today."
"We all noticed," Harry interjected blithely when Cisco didn't continue.
"Yeah. But when have they ever actually been under control? They started working by giving me nightmares of EoWells murdering me in the timeline Barry reset. It was just a day; Barry prevented a tsunami from destroying the city. Never had time to even find out I'd died," Cisco rambled.
"Which is how Barry knew he could reset time again during that team up with the Arrow and his allies when you were all fighting Vandal Savage," Harry filled in slowly.
Cisco nodded. He'd explained some of what happened while Harry had stayed behind at STAR Labs with Caitlin - apparently getting shot by Patty and rescued by Jay, which obviously neither Jay nor Harry had been thrilled to discuss - but hadn't gone into a lot of detail.
Admittedly, Cisco had derailed the conversation a bit after learning Barry's girlfriend had shot Harry. He'd been pissed and ended up bitching to Barry about it since no one had told Barry yet. It wasn't long after that Barry and Patty had broken up and Cisco had wondered if Patty's shoot first and ask questions later attitude had contributed to that. It was the sign of a bad cop to behave like that and a stark reminder that just because he liked working as a consultant at the CCPD sometimes didn't actually make the police there safe people for him to be around.
"I'm sorry," Harry said quietly, interrupting Cisco's spinning thoughts.
"For... what?" Cisco asked, confused. "Did you mess up my organization system in my lab again? I'm telling you Harry, I've got everything in a specific place for a reason and I don't want to have a stress freak out because you lost my tools again."
"I didn't lose them the last time. I knew perfectly well where they were."
"Well I didn't and I needed them and you were asleep," Cisco grumbled. He'd circled his lab in an increasingly agitated frenzy until everything but the missing tools he'd needed had been reordered back to where they belonged. It turned out Harry'd taken them to another room during the night and forgotten to return them before going to bed. Cisco had been tetchy from the wired feeling his anxiety had given him for the rest of the day because of it.
"And I'm sorry about that too," Harry admitted. "But I just... I never really apologized for outing you as a meta to your friends. I was desperate to get Jesse back. I still am. But I shouldn't have manipulated you like that."
Cisco's eyes widened a bit. "Well. Consider yourself forgiven for both things. How about knocking my stuff to the floor like an angry cat when you're frustrated? Do I get the trifecta of apologies or have you met your quota for the month already?"
"I regret saying anything already," Harry grumbled.
Cisco laughed softly. "Well, I'm sorry too. You were an ass when you showed up, but the person I was judging you by wasn't even your real doppelganger. I shouldn't have been treating you like him, but we all were at least a little."
"You were all caused a lot of trauma by someone who looked like me. That you all managed to trust me any at all after that..." Harry's expression turned guilty for a moment. "And you shouldn't. Trust me."
"Harry..."
"Zoom has my daughter, Ramon. It's only a matter of time before he uses that to leverage me against all of you. And I'll let him because I can't..." his voice cracked. "I can't let my daughter die. But I don't want anything bad to happen to you... to any of you. None of you should trust me and I really should leave."
"Hey. Harry." Cisco put a hand on Harry's shoulder without thought and then marveled at the fact that Harry didn't flinch away... and at the fact that Cisco felt calm and safe enough around Harry that his powers didn't spike at the contact either. "We're so close to being able to rescue Jesse. Once we can close the breaches, then maybe I can make these stupid powers of mine actually do what I want for a change and tell me where she is. Barry rescues her, we bring her back here, and close all the breaches. Presto, you and Jesse safe as houses."
"Yeah," Harry muttered hoarsely. "Wouldn't that be nice."
"I'm just sorry it's taking us so long to pull it together."
"Not your fault, Ramon." Harry sighed and rubbed at his face tiredly. "I just... you aren't the only one with nightmares to avoid."
"So not entirely the sleep phase disorder messing with you," Cisco observed, sitting up a bit straighter. "Well, pretty sure mine are going to be of being inundated with too much info from too many vibes all at once and feeling like I'm losing myself in the chaos. How about yours?"
"This isn't a contest," Harry grumbled.
"Nope, it isn't. But a burden shared is a burden lightened, Harry."
Harry drank his coffee. Cisco sipped his tea. And, eventually, Harry broke. "There was an attack at Jesse's school. I had the local news station on and I was calling Jesse to apologize for... it doesn't really matter. I screwed up, she was rightfully upset with me. She'd been ignoring my calls all day, so I didn't think of it when my call went to voicemail again. But then I saw the news and I called again. I just... I needed to know she was okay. But on the..." Harry's hands were shaking. "On the... on the screen there was a phone. In the rubble. It was getting an incoming call. And the... the-the news camera zoomed in and... it was Jesse's phone. It said 'Daddy' on the caller Id..."
"Oh god," Cisco breathed out. Shook his head. That was awful.
"And that's... that's what really happened. In my nightmares, it's not her phone that's laying there in the rubble." Unsaid went that it was probably Jesse herself. And not alive and well, either.
Of course Harry's nightmares were about Jesse.
"And when it's not nightmares about Jesse, it's my nightmares of the war come back with a vengeance." Harry shivered under Cisco's touch, reminding him that his hand was still on Harry's shoulder. "Though what happened to you today could easily be my newest contender. I thought... I thought we were going to lose you. If it had taken much longer to get rid of Thawne..."
Cisco firmly told himself not to read into that. Being important enough to Harry that bad things happening to him was a nightmare scenario for the older man didn't necessarily mean what Cisco wanted it to mean. They were friends now. That's all.
"I'm here now, Harry. Alive and well, if... a bit freaked out by the experience. Safe here with you."
Harry just looked guilty again.
They had to save Jesse soon. Bad enough to be terrified for his daughter's sake. But to be this afraid of what Zoom might make him do to keep Jesse alive? For all that he pretended the opposite, Harry Wells had a big heart. One that cared too much. No wonder he built up prickly walls to protect himself.
"Well, aside from melatonin supplements, have any good ideas on how to beat insomnia?" Cisco asked, finally letting his hand drop away.
"If you weren't already having tea, I'd recommend hot cocoa. Though considering all this place has is Swiss Miss, you're probably better off with the tea."
"Hot cocoa snob."
Harry smirked. "If you knew what the good stuff tasted like, you'd be a snob about it too."
"... maaaybe."
"Comfort music or a familiar audiobook can help too," Harry offered. "White noise generator."
"I bet you used to sing Jesse to sleep," Cisco said before he could think better of it. But Harry just smiled.
"I did. I'd read her all her favorite bed time stories too. And if the first one didn't put her to sleep, she'd beg for just one more story. And then one more after that."
Cisco yawned, despite himself.
"When she was little, her favorite story was an Almond Lane story called The Monster on the Last Page," Harry continued. "One of the muppets from the show - Grover - tries to stop the reader from reaching the end of the book because he's heard there's a terrible monster on the last page. But the reader, of course, gets there anyway and it turns out the monster was Grover all along."
"Sounds like the Sesame Street story The Monster at the End of This Book. Which I think came out in, like, the 70s here. But it's the same thing Grover - who is a Sesame Street muppet, so Almond Lane's gotta be," Cisco yawned again, "probably the same show... but, uh, Grover tries to prevent the reader from reaching the end of the book because there's a scary, unknown monster there. But then he realizes upon reaching the last page that he's the monster after all and there was nothing scary there to worry about the whole time."
"Definitely alternate versions of the same show," Harry agreed. "And the book as well. I think ours came out in the 70s too. I remember getting a brand new copy of the book for my cousin when I was... 10, I think? It was his second or third birthday."
"It's a classic." Cisco yawned a third time.
"Time for you to put your tea in the sink and go to bed, I think," Harry advised.
Cisco shook his head. "I really don't want to sleep right now."
"You may not want to, but you need to." Harry pursed his lips and then looked away for a moment. "How about you stay in my room? I'll read until my usual bed time so you won't be alone. Aloud, if you'd like."
"My own personal audiobook," Cisco couldn't help but smile at the thought. "Do you take requests?"
"Depends on the request." Harry paused, mock thoughtfully. "Also how contrary I'm feeling."
"Good Omens. It's a comfort read and it's funny, so you might even like it. Heaven's most ineffective angel and Hell's most under appreciated demon try to stop the apocalypse in the most inept manner possible, starting with the fact that they don't realize the anti-Christ has been misplaced for just over a decade." Cisco tried very hard not to yawn yet again. He failed.
"It's on your kindle account already, right?"
"I knew it, you hacked my amazon account."
"I guessed your password. If you don't want me reading your books, pick something stronger than TF!RulzForeverz. Get a password manager, Ramon. Your online safety practices are as abysmal as your real world ones," Harry scoffed.
Cisco pouted. And a smile clearly tugged at Harry's lips.
"Come on, Ramon. To bed with you."
A shiver wound through Cisco at that. In another context... but in the current context, Cisco did not want to sleep. But his brain hurt and his eyes hurt and he needed the rest. Harry was right about that. So he let Harry guide him out of the chair and the break room, down the hallway to the out of the way room Harry'd converted to a bedroom. It was utilitarian but there were two beds, one waiting for his missing daughter. Both done with military corners and not a single visible wrinkle in the blankets. More understandable now after Harry's comment about nightmares from war.
It hadn't occurred to Cisco that Harry was a former soldier, but it filled in little pieces of the puzzle that was Harry Wells. A puzzle Cisco was growing more and more determined to see every piece. He'd have to ask questions, later. When they weren't both struggling with the universe's latest round of traumatic experiences.
So Cisco laid down on the spare bed, snuggled safely beneath the covers. Harry dragged over a chair and a tablet and downloaded the book. And then, softly, one hand reaching over to idly smooth Cisco's hair down, Harry began to read.
And despite Cisco's certainty that it would take at least the first fifty pages before he'd fall asleep, he was out before the baby swap in the prologue was completed. But Harry continued to read aloud a while longer, hoping that perhaps the sound of his voice might help ward off any potential nightmares.