Notes: So i'm stealing Allegra and Chester and making them Earth-2 characters to round out Team Quick. But unlike the show writers, I'm acknowledging the lack of chemistry between Allegra and Chester's actors instead of whatever red-string-strangling nonsense has gotten hinted at this last season.

Also, though season 7 established that Cisco and Chester are the same age - both born in 1991 - I'm sticking with the birth year I've been headcanoning for Cisco since season 1, which is 1989. I'll be leaving Chester and Allegra's birth years alone, so as of 2018 (which is when season 4 ended) Cisco would be 29, Chester is 27, and Allegra is 19. We don't have a year for Jesse's birth, but I tend to assume she's a little younger than Wally - for the purposes of this fic she was 19 by the time season 2 came to a close and is thus now 21.

Chapter 3

Okay, so... Cisco might be a little in love with Harry Wells. Just a little. Just enough that he'd left his whole world behind to live in Harry's guest room. But... that didn't have to change anything between them, right?

He was also a lot annoyed with Harry's daughter Jesse, but that was another story entirely. And Cisco was more than happy to let Harry deal with her on that particular front, since Harry was actually reacting relatively well with Ryan finding out about his mishap with the Thinking Cap and dark energy combo. She'd looked pretty contrite after Harry chewed her out for it anyway, so Cisco didn't really see the point of piling on.

Of course, if Jesse did it again...

Afterwards, though, Harry came out of his shell a little bit more and he finally introduced Cisco to the rest of Team Quick.

Allegra Garcia had the ability to manipulate electromagnetic energy and a bit of a criminal history going for her. She'd been fourteen and in juvie when the accelerator had given both her and her cousin similar powers. But Allegra had gotten out a few weeks later and flown under the radar during the Zoom debacle, unlike her cousin who was currently in jail for the part she'd played in Zoom's army of metas. Allegra's powers hadn't started manifesting until about a year ago and the now nineteen-year-old meta was working towards becoming Jesse's back up. There was also something kinda flirty going on with her and Jesse that Harry was studiously ignoring.

Then there was Chester Runk who was the team engineer and comms guy, much like Cisco was for Team Flash. He didn't seem to have powers, but apparently it was more of a case that whatever potential powers he might have were currently dormant. He was very chirpy and cheerful in personality, reminding Cisco heavily of himself before too much loss and grief and betrayal had toned his enthusiasm down somewhat. The sheer bounciness and energy Chester brought with him actually made Cisco feel a little old, for all that Chester was nearly the same age as Cisco. But he meshed well with the rest of the team which was what mattered most. (Poor guy was clearly super intimidated by Harry and had somehow extended that to Cisco too, which was kind of hilarious. Cisco had never intimidated anyone before...)

Dr. Tommy Forrester was the team medic and a non meta. He strikes Cisco as being a little reserved, but has a friendly smile and gives Cisco the impression that he's good at keeping a cool head in a crisis. He'd been vocally pro-meta during Zoom's rein of terror, when offering pro-meta sentiment had been a dangerous thing to do and was likely to get a person in trouble with both Zoom's people as well as the average citizen. But he'd helped a number of metas escape from Central City without garnering unwanted attention on either end of the spectrum, being just visible enough in the aftermath to catch Harry's attention when he was putting together a team for Jesse. Tommy still seemed wary of Harry, but clearly cared a great deal about everyone on Team Quick.

Ryan, of course, was also part of the team. He coordinated getting them whatever supplies they needed, extra brain power when Chester needed someone to consult with or extra hands to build tech, and handled any PR concerns the team might have. He sort of filled the same emotional support niche that Joe fit into as a sort of team dad.

Last but not least was Detective Iris West and her husband, CSI Barry Allen, who were the team's CCPD connections. Iris and Barry weren't exactly part of the team's day to day functioning, but when Jesse needed to coordinate with the police then those two were her go to contacts. They weren't actually there to say when Cisco got introduced to the team, but it was good to hear that they'd come back from hiding out in Atlantis after Zoom was dealt with and were able to go back to their day to day lives afterwards.

No one seems particularly afraid of Cisco, despite his connection to Reverb, but Jesse, Harry, and Ryan's easy acceptance of Cisco likely plays into putting Allegra, Tommy, and Chester at ease. Jesse and Allegra ended up stories with Cisco about how their powers first activated. Which is the first time Cisco's actually heard the story from Jesse's point of view. Harry makes grumbling, concerned father noises in the background as Jesse talks which Cisco has to stop himself from snickering over.

Allegra's powers activated to save her life when her cousin tried to force her back into their old gang. It was also the story of how Jesse and Allegra met, as Jesse had helped Allegra fight off her cousin and then deliver Esperanza to the CCPD's meta-proof jail cells. There was definitely a lot of flirtatious looks going on between Jesse and Allegra during the telling of that story (cue more fatherly grumbling as Harry tried to pretend his daughter wasn't flirting right in front of him).

Then it was Cisco's turn and he told a somewhat... sanitized version of the events surrounding his vibes coming online before switching to the more amusing - in hindsight - story of him and Caitlin coming to save Barry's butt and how experimenting with intra-dimensional breaches for the first time had wiped Cisco out with a massive migraine.

"Snow did check you over afterwards, right?" Harry asked, giving him a narrow look and making Cisco very glad that the words 'mini-stroke' had not passed his lips.

"Yes. Caitlin watched me like a hawk for several days afterwards," Cisco responded, not mentioning that he'd been watching her with equal caution, if for entirely different reasons. They hadn't realized Frost was more than just Caitlin's personality doing a one-eighty when her powers kicked in, but there'd been something vaguely suicidal about her whole quest to rid herself of her powers that night nonetheless. Turned out the one suffering from depression and self-loathing was Frost, not Caitlin, and Cisco still felt awful about the whole thing even though there was no way he could have known.

"But you still get headaches regularly," Harry grumbled.

"Only when I'm stressed. Which I'm not right now." Cisco wondered what was going through Harry's head now. But he shrugged it off. For now.

Harry, however, seemed stressed about something. And Cisco was not going to ask in front of Team Quick. If it was just Jesse and Ryan, he might have, but...

"Dr. Wells, I've been working on some modifications to the gravitational wave emitter and I was hoping that you'd take a look, you know... give me your opinion on it?" Chester looked so earnest as he asked, clearly no idea what hornets nest he'd just poked.

This sort of thing was probably exactly what Harry was stressing over. Obvious answer for the question there.

"Mr. Runk," Harry hesitated a second and then said, "I'm sure if you really need a second opinion, Ryan can give it a look. I only stopped by so that Jesse could introduce Cisco around to the team, but we're kind of busy, so..."

"First vacation I've had in years," Cisco said, standing up and stretching a little. "And I forgot to grab the facial transmogrifier this morning... give me a minute." Cisco opened a breach to the STAR Labs storage on his Earth and darted through, grabbing one of the two versions of the device they had in storage. He was back a moment later, breach closing behind him.

"That is so cool," Chester said, looking wide-eyed at the place the breach had just been.

"I admit, I'm pretty curious about how your powers work," Tommy added.

Cisco just grinned and said, "good vibes and wishful thinking, mostly," and earned a half-amused, half-annoyed sound from Harry in response. "So you guy's will love this little device. HR brought it with him from Earth-19. It's called the facial transmogrifier, but basically it's a limited holographic cloak. It can make you look like anyone. In fact, one of the disguises already programed in this one is..." Cisco turned it to the first setting and flipped it on, slipping the device comfortably around his neck.

"Oh, god, you're giving me nightmares," Jesse grumbled at the same time Allegra said, "woah, you look just like Dr. Wells. But the hair is a little off."

"If it gets a voice sample," Cisco said, grinning and wondering if he should grab something to twirl between his fingers like a drumstick, just to finish off the disguise, "then it mimics that too. Otherwise it goes with your regular voice."

"You sound just like Dr. Wells too, this is so cool!" Chester was bouncing with excitement.

"I think that's enough," Harry said, though his tone had slipped away from stressed back to amused.

Cisco flipped the device back off. "Since my face is a little... infamous and so is Dante's, I figured I'd scan a picture of my other brother Armando since apparently there is no Armando Ramon on this Earth." Which was a sad thing to consider; he'd always gotten along with Armando best. "So I just need to scan a picture of him that doesn't have his girlfriend in it."

"Oooh, what happens if you scan a picture with his girlfriend in it?" Jesse asked, coming to stand by Cisco to peer over his shoulder at his cell phone's pictures. "I didn't know you had another brother."

"He lives in Texas," Harry said absently.

Cisco side-eyed Jesse when she muttered, "of course Dad knew," but finally he landed on a picture that was just Armando on his own, not with Sam or anyone else standing with him.

"More people in the photo means I have to tell it which face to use and, typically, there's less info for the transmogrifier to use." As Cisco spoke, he started scanning the picture. "It fills in any blanks with the appearance of the person wearing it, so it's best to scan the actual person you want to impersonate. No data blanks that way. But since Armando and I look a lot a like, so any blanks that it has to fill in won't seem out of place. I'm hoping, for example, it'll leave my hair alone."

"You are so vain," Jesse teased, backing off with a laugh.

Rolling his eyes, Cisco turned the device back on and activated the new disguise as he put it back around his neck. "How do I look?"

"Well you didn't grow, like, half a foot this time," Allegra said, sounding amused as she grinned at him.

"I can definitely see the brotherly resemblance since I know he's your brother," Tommy said, "but no one's going to look at you and think 'he must be related to Reverb'."

"And your hair is untouched," Harry added. "Jesse's right, though. You are very vain about that hair."

"Because my hair's gorgeous and you know it," Cisco shot back with a grin, feeling a flush crawl up his neck as Harry grinned back. "Alright, I'm all disguised and ready to go and I think I was promised a better tour of the city than my last one." It had been a joke at the time, Harry rolling his eyes and pretending he didn't want to laugh at something Cisco had said. He'd told Cisco he just needed a better tour of Earth-2 in order to appreciate it and next time he ought to do a better job of sticking with his tour guide.

Harry's expression went all startled and fond. "Yes," he agreed, smiling at Cisco. "I do believe you were. Though it'll be weird walking around with you looking like your brother."

"Oh, right. If I just..." Cisco tapped another button on the device and then slipped it under his collar after it flashed brightly at everyone. "Now I look like me to all of you, but anyone else will see Armando."

"I don't suppose you've got a spare I could take apart and replicate?" Chester asked, a bit of a covetous note in his voice.

"Sorry, dude," Cisco replied absently, turning to Harry. "So, tour guide. Where to first?"

"You didn't have to make an excuse for me back there," Harry said as they got into his car.

"I've been going a little stir crazy," Cisco deflected. "And I don't want to go straight back to the house. So take me somewhere interesting, okay?"

But Harry wasn't to be distracted. "I'm going to have to tell them, aren't I?"

'You don't have to tell them anything you don't want to," Cisco retorted. "But... they are going to notice something is different with you eventually."

"I'm just... embarrassed." Harry hesitated to turn on the car. "And I keep thinking this is what I deserve for my arrogance."

He's talking about more than just the Thinking Cap debacle now. Cisco can tell. He's talking about how things were handled with Zoom and the poor treatment of his Earth's metahumans that he initially contributed to and his cover up of the accelerator's malfunction during testing and... and probably other things that Cisco doesn't know about.

"It's what Dr. Forrester will think. And Mr. Runk act's like I'm..." Harry trailed off. "The idea of them knowing what I've done to myself... it's humiliating."

Cisco fiddled with the chain around his neck that held the transmogrifier in place. "So on Earth-19 in the nineties, there was a war fought all over the Earth. They were invaded by a parallel Earth; I'm not all that clear on the specifics but it's why it's they made it illegal to interact with other Earth's without governmental permission. Which is almost exclusively for the Collectors. But, uh... HR fought in it. He told me a little about it. Not a lot, but... it was important him that I knew he wasn't always a fraud. That before the war he really was a brilliant up and coming scientist."

"So what changed?" Harry asked softly, as if he already knew the answer.

"Head injury. HR was kind of evasive but when Cynthia took me to meet Randolf Morgan after... Morgan said he was shot in the head. Fractured his skull and caused significant brain damage. Completely changed his personality and made math and science incredibly difficult for him to deal with." Cisco tapped his fingers along his thighs, thinking for a moment of the piano in the basement lab that he'd yet to give in to the itch to play.

"I never realized..." Harry sighed regretfully. "I just thought he was a cheerful idiot. And now I'm just like him. A grumpy idiot."

Cisco rolled his eyes. "You're not an idiot. And neither was he. You see intelligence as math and science and... it's more than that."

"Emotional intelligence. Like the Council taught me," Harry hedged.

"That's another way intelligence can be expressed, yes. But... HR was good at seeing to the heart of things. When Jesse fought Savitar, she said he was the one who realized she could reach beneath the armor and hurt him. She'd been so blinded by Savitar's rhetoric and what he'd done to Wally that she'd failed to see the obvious. We were all missing it. A true god of speed wouldn't need armor. But HR saw figured out what the rest of us missed.

"And even before that, he was good at coming up with helpful ideas. With taking disparate pieces and putting them together into something new even when the rest of us were too focused on the problem in front of us to take a step back to see the whole thing clearly. He even knew that was one of his strengths but... he didn't value it. He didn't value the person he'd become. He spent nearly two decades pretending to be something he wasn't, trying to recapture what he'd lost and... it wasn't healthy for him. And it ended up being what got him killed. Because he saw a solution to Iris' death that the rest of us didn't... but then we never would have because we valued his life and his contributions to the team... to our family. And he didn't." Cisco let out a shaky breath. "I don't want that for you, Harry. Whatever way your intelligence winds up expressing itself in the future - and you are still intelligent, even with the avenues that intelligence used to take being closed to you...

"Sometimes it seems like you hate yourself so much and I just want you to see the same value in yourself that I see whenever I look at you. That's never going to change, Harry. Everything else can turn upside down and inside out but I'm always going to look at you and care about the person you are."

"I..." Harry cheeks were flushed. "I should focus on driving," he muttered.

Cisco nodded and went quiet. He'd valued HR as a friend, but done a terrible job of making sure HR knew that. But when he said he cared about Harry... he meant something very different.

He loved Harry.

Maybe that changed everything after all.

They wind up wandering through downtown Central City. There's echoes of what the city was like when it was first founded in the old street layout and architecture. Not so different from the downtown Cisco's used to and he wonders if the different universes are caused by timelines that split instead of overwriting. Maybe that means there's some universe out there still where Nora Allen survived and Barry didn't become the Flash until his thirties after all. Maybe that was why Flashpoint happened, because that timeline was lost to another universe entirely.

Whatever the answer is, though, Cisco's grateful for it. Because whatever is responsible for the multiverse is responsible for him being able to have this time with Harry, wandering through curiosity shops looking at antiques and handmade items and thrifted items and eventually ending their wandering at a pizza parlor for a late lunch.

Cisco had teasingly linked arms with Harry for a bit at the start, heat pooling in his stomach when he'd looked up to see that... look on Harry's face. Smiling and leaning towards Cisco like he was as drawn to Cisco as Cisco was to Harry. It was a look Harry'd worn a few times before and it had never failed to make Cisco's insides squirm with some unnamable delight.

Well, thanks to Caitlin, Cisco had a name for it now.

But Harry had shied away moments later in discomfort and Cisco had reluctantly dropped away. Only to smile in delight when Harry's hand sought out his.

They'd spent nearly the entire time they were window shopping that way. Cisco's hand gripped tightly to Harry's.

"There's a farmers market on the weekends not far from the house," Harry said quietly when they were finally headed back to the car. "We could... if you'd like, we could go to that on Saturday."

"I'd like that a lot, Harry."

Cisco convinces Harry to get another brain scan and it's easier to convince him this time. They run through the same procedure as the first time and Harry's neurons are firing a little faster this time. He has a slightly easier time accessing the parts of his brain that are affected by the brain damage. As Cisco - and Ryan - had suspected, Harry's brain is still slowly healing on its own. New connections are forming to take the place of damaged ones.

Harry seems a little more comfortable in his skin afterwards. Metaphorically, anyway. He still complains about his neck being stiff and, unthinkingly, Cisco puts his hands on Harry's shoulders and gently massages the junction where his shoulders and neck meet. Feel's Harry's muscles tense and then, slowly, relax under Cisco's hands.

"Better?" Cisco asked after a few minutes.

"Yeah," Harry replied, voice a little hoarse as he tilted his head to gaze up at Cisco.

Jesse cleared her throat loudly and the moment passed. Cisco stepped back and Harry stood up and they ignored two sets of amused stares from Jesse and Ryan as Cisco opened a breach back to Harry's home. Which was starting to feel, very much, like Cisco's home too.

Settling at the piano, Cisco found himself practicing old finger exercises by memory. And though his fingers trip over themselves at first, soon he's dancing them across the keys. A bit slower than what Hanon books might recommend for the tempo but, considering he's only rarely played the last few years, Cisco is rather pleased by the progress.

"I didn't know you played," Harry said, startling Cisco's fingers into stumbling over themselves in an undignified cacophony on the keys.

"Ah, well... my parents were hoping for two piano prodigies instead of one and an engineer," Cisco confessed. "I can play. And it's like riding a bike. Even if you're out of practice, your fingers never quite forget entirely. I was never going to be as good as Dante, though. He had this... way of expressing himself in the music whereas I tend to be a little overly technical about it. Music was his art."

"And engineering is yours," Harry filled in. "What about Armando?"

"Painting, sculpting... he was the baby of the family and I'm not really sure our parents had expectations for him. He refused to learn to play the piano as a kid and somehow it never became the big deal it would have been with me." Cisco grimaced. "I was really jealous at the time, but he... he said he regretted not knowing how to play after Dante died. He was jealous of me, for being able to sit down at the piano after the funeral and just... start playing again. That I had this connection to Dante he didn't."

"Tess could play. In fact she... some of those notebooks aren't just science. Some are actually full of sheet music. Songs she composed. Jesse learned to play to feel more connected to her, after... after Tess died." Harry hesitated. "I think she'd have liked you a great deal. If you, uh... if you were to play some of her songs, from time to time..." Harry settled on the bench beside Cisco, nearly vibrating with the emotions playing out across his face, "I think I'd like that very much."

Cisco smiled and nodded. "Sure. I need to get back in practice, but if it's really okay... then I suppose I'll be luring you down here with the sound of the piano more often."

He thought, for a moment, that Harry might kiss him. There was that look on his face that put heat in Cisco's belly. The lean in that nearly brought their foreheads together and their mouths close enough that, for a moment, their breath mingled in the air between them. But then Harry lurched back to his feet. "I'm going to make lunch."

Breathless, Cisco nodded. "I'll be up in a minute," he promised dizzily and then spent then next five staring blankly at the empty music stand atop the upright before, very gently, closing the top over the keys and pushing away from the bench to leave.

Harry starts, and shortly after stops, learning to paint. He then tries pottery with more success, playing around with clay he can bake in the oven and making misshapen bowls to drop keys or jewelry or other knick knacks on. Jesse claims a wavy blue and black one for her dresser with glee. He also tries other creative outlets, though Cisco is thoroughly unsurprised to find that Harry has no patience for knitting or crochet and cheerfully steals the yarn when Harry throws it across the room in a fit of irritation.

Caitlin crochets, so she's happy to take it off their hands.

Cisco winds up bringing over his own little craft corner kit from his apartment and taking up his sewing projects again, introducing Harry to the complex world of quilting. Harry starts off sewing little masks and a shirt and doesn't hate the process too much, but concedes its more Cisco's thing than his.

He's trying to find his art. Science had been his creative outlet before and Harry clearly feels he needs a new one. And Cisco hesitates to suggest writing, because that was HR's outlet and while HR would have been thrilled to have Harry follow in his footsteps, Cisco suspects Harry would be less thrilled. Still, it's something to consider and Cisco surreptitiously buys two different writers prompt journals the next time he goes out shopping with Harry and Jesse. Well... he gets Jesse to buy them for him, since Cisco doesn't exactly have any Earth-2 legal tender, and she wishes Cisco luck with helping her dad figure out his sudden need for craftiness.

Jesse does try to convince Harry to make her jewelry though, and he actually does try one of those little bracelet making kits for her. But he gets bored too easily with it, so that's as far as it goes. Jesse wears the slightly lopsided bracelets with pride anyway, though.

He attempts making items out of resin with mixed success, though Cisco enjoys the new red, black, and yellow tray he got out of it, putting the item on display atop the dresser in what has become his room at the Wells residence. There are a few multi colored boxes and tea light holders that get sent over to Team Flash. It's not something Harry wants to do a lot of, but he seems to find it relaxing so he actually gets more supplies for that hobby.

But the quest continues. So one evening, before settling at his sewing machine, Cisco swats Harry on the shoulder and gives him the first of the two prompt journals: 300 Poetry Prompts.

Harry flips through pretty much every page while Cisco cuts and trims and pins fabric together. Right as Cisco's about to start actually sewing things together, he hears the first scratch of pen on paper. And something in Cisco's chest relaxes.

Hours later, Harry's still curled up in his chair writing even as Cisco's eyes ache and he has to admit that the lap blanket he's making in Jesse Quick's color scheme will not have the top piece completed in one night.

Most of the time, Harry seems... relatively calm and accepting of what's happened to him. But even if Cisco hadn't seen hints of his anger and self loathing bubbling beneath the surface, it would have been obvious to Cisco that there was more going on with Harry than the other man was willing to let on.

So he can't say he's too surprised to find Harry awake in the middle of the night. The crumpled up notebook pages are a surprise, but Harry being awake and swearing under his breath at himself at...

Cisco shuffled back to his room for a minute to check the clock there. Three-forty in the morning. Too early by far. He's pretty sure his powers woke up, but what is Harry's excuse?

Shuffling back to living room, Cisco picked up a crumpled sheet of paper. It's a half scribbled out poem about someone's hair. Cisco's hair maybe, thought it's, uh... it's kind of... sexy.

Blushing brightly, Cisco tucked the page away amongst his quilting station and then composed himself before tapping Harry on the shoulder.

"Dude, you need to sleep."

"I'm not tired," Harry insisted.

"It's so early it's only a few hours until sunrise," Cisco informed him, which had Harry glancing around wildly until he found a clock to check on. "What are you even writing about at nearly four in the morning anyway?" He picked up another crumpled piece of paper and Harry snatched it from him.

"N-nothing. It's nothing. Don't... it's not ready, okay? I'm not... ready for you to see any of this." Harry sighed. "It's all crap anyway. I'm not good at this."

"That's what practice is for. Though I liked the poems you showed me in the prompt book," Cisco hedged. "Better than anything I could write."

"It's... cathartic," Harry allowed. "But I can't sleep. Not tonight. I tried and I dreamed I was... losing everything again." His voice shook.

"Then at least come to bed. Keep writing if you want, but just..." Cisco shrugged. "My powers woke me up and that always really unsettles me. So, since you're awake, I'm volunteering you to be my teddy bear."

"Oh, really."

"Yeah. Having someone next to me will let me go back to sleep. So at least one of us won't be a zombie today." Cisco held out his hand to Harry.

Swallowing hard, Harry hesitated and then took Cisco's hand, letting him pull Harry to his feet. The crumpled papers were left where they were, but Harry took his notebook and pen with him as Cisco led the way back into Harry's room.

Harry got into bed on his side and Cisco took the other, snuggling unrepentantly against Harry's side, one arm hooked beneath his pillow even as the other ended up on Harry's stomach. He made a happy humming noise as Harry reached over to pet his hair - though Cisco's sluggish, sleepy brain stuttered over the words in that scribbled out poem.

"With everything I've done wrong," Harry murmured, "what did I do right to deserve you in my life?"

"Woah!"

Cisco woke up to the sound of Jesse's voice and he made a dissatisfied grumbly noise, snuggling into Harry's warmth.

"This isn't what it looks like," Harry insisted, though his arm around Cisco's shoulder tightened.

"Well, I mean, I guess you two aren't naked, so there are worse ways I could have found out-"

"Jesse-"

"-but seriously, dad, it's about time."

"-we're not..."

"The two of you love each other so much."

"What?!"

"The way you two always stare at each other, it's obvious."

"That's not..."

"Also you left the living room littered in love poems about him, dad. It's sweet. I'm really happy for you."

Harry made a strangled noise as the door shut. When he made to get up, Cisco made another disgruntled noise and he stopped.

"Harry," Cisco muttered softly. "Go back to sleep."

There was a shaky, huffed breath. And then Harry pulled Cisco closer and settled. "Yeah, okay."

Of course, Harry doesn't go back to sleep. Cisco doesn't either. Instead they just lay together for long minutes, warm and comfortable. Eventually Harry reaches up and starts running his fingers through Cisco's hair.

"Were those poems really all for me?" Cisco finally asked, voice soft and sleepy.

Harry stilled. "Ramon..." he said, voice hoarse.

"'Cause she's not... wrong. About, uh..." Cisco, reluctantly, sat up. "About how I feel. About you."

That gets him utter silence.

"Harry..." Cisco swallowed hard. "Please say something."

He sat up slowly and cupped Cisco's face gently. "Cisco, I..." he leaned in for a moment, but just before Cisco thought their mouths might meet... he pulled back. "I shouldn't. I'm sorry."

And then Harry was out of the bed and out of the room and Cisco... Cisco let out a shaky breath.

"Well, shit," he muttered softly.

Notes: This chapter wound up shorter than the others, but I like where it stops too much to make it any longer.