Chapter 3
"Did you know Hartley owns the building next to the one where you fell through the basement?" Barry asked, just this side of demanding.
Cisco drank his coffee. "Yup. He bought it after accepting the inheritance from Dr. Wells. Why?"
Barry spluttered a bit over Cisco's nonchalant response. "He asked me to repair some structural issues with it, maybe fix up the unoccupied apartments."
"Probably so he can move the people living there already into the repaired apartments." Cisco gave Barry a long look. "Hartley's trying to figure out what being a good person means. If not for him, then for the other people living there, please give him a hand."
"It's not..."
"If the next words out of your mouth have to do with the legality of them living there in the first place, then I've got a few things to remind you about regarding vigilantism." Cisco smiled sweetly, enjoying the way Barry squirmed uncomfortably. "You help people by saving them. I think maybe Hartley's trying to help people by giving them the space they need to save themselves." Cisco isn't sure he's phrased that very well, but it's basically the truth. Hartley's footing the electrical and water bills for a number of people who otherwise couldn't afford those things because he cares too much. Audra had that much right.
The words may not be quite the ones Cisco wanted, but at least it gets Barry nodding along.
Cisco had not expected to see Audra again. He particularly did not expect to see her in Caitlin's office at STAR Labs.
Hartley's hovering off to the side, clearly panicking. So Cisco drags the other man down the hall, ignoring his protests because if something happens then Hartley will hear it and he's making people nervous.
"What happened?" Cisco asked, once they had enough distance from the room.
"Audra got food poisoning last night. I... she doesn't have health insurance. I called Snow for help."
"She looks like she's doing much better, then. Food poisoning sucks." Cisco rubbed Hartley's shoulder comfortingly. "How's the apartment complex remodel coming along?"
"Allen's been a big help," Hartley said, not bothering to ask how Cisco knows about it. "The structure is safe and the electrical has been fixed in a few places. Between the two of us the carpets been cleaned in nearly all the apartments and we're working on refurbishing all the appliances. He's also repainted all the walls, fixed broken tile..." he trailed off for a moment, then said, "I'm looking into getting Freespace to take it over as official half-way housing. There are a few other places they have but... it'll be better for everyone in the long run if an organization that actually knows what they're doing runs the place. And I'm pretty close to being out of money again, so..."
"Maybe next time you want to make a grand gesture for the people in your life you care about, aim for something slightly less expensive than buying an apartment building," Cisco offered, smiling in amusement when Hartley rolled his eyes. "Are you planning on moving out of there?"
"Yeah. If it becomes halfway housing based on whether someone has low or no income then I won't exactly qualify anymore." Hartley fidgeted uncomfortably.
"If you need a place to crash while looking for a new apartment, my couch is very comfortable," Cisco offered.
"Why are you..."
"We're friends, Hartley," Cisco interrupted firmly. "This is what I do for friends. I help on personal projects and treat them to lunch sometimes and offer my couch up when they need a place to stay. Sometimes I even make my friends smile and laugh when they especially need it."
And, behold, a smile tugged at Hartley's face. "Thank you."
"I'm also brutally honest when necessary." Cisco paused a beat. "You need to get some sleep, you look awful."
Hartley laughed. "Gee thanks." But he lets Cisco send him to a break room to go sleep on a couch anyway.
Cisco heads back to Caitlin's office. "I made him go sleep," he announces and then hands Caitlin a coffee cup, "and I come bearing caffeine."
"This is why you're my favorite," Caitlin declared, wrapping her hands around the styrofoam cup and cooing to her 'precious'.
"Sometimes her relationship with coffee disturbs me," Cisco muttered in an undertone to Audra. "So, you doing okay?"
"Hartley over-reacted." Audra grumbled, sipping on her bottle of Gatorade. "I'm not his sister."
"No. You're not. His sister is still in the clutches of his evil, queerphobic, ablest, classist, asshole parents. You, however, are, what, sixteen? Seventeen?" Definitely seventeen, the girl had a tell. "Seventeen and homeless and alone and Hartley has been there." Cisco steals a bottle of Gatorade for himself. Watches as understanding filters into Audra's eyes.
"I suppose it'd be a stupid question to ask if he had someone looking out for him," she muttered.
"He doesn't like to talk about it. And I try not to guess too much. Seems rude."
STAR Labs first hire after Cathy is Professor Stein. His wife practically foists her husband on them and then surreptitiously asks Barry if he can drop by and fix whatever it is that Stein did to the stairs.
Martin Stein, it seems, is very much not a handyman. Cisco's glad to have him, as is Hartley, and the professor basically gets his pick of projects and labs.
But they still have a lot of labs to fill and while they've started putting out feelers, the people of Central City are a touch gun shy about STAR Labs. Of the few resumes they have received, there are a few that Hartley discarded out of hand, four former STAR Labs employees whose interviews will probably consist more of salary haggling than actual interview questions, a handful of people from out of town looking to move to Central City for one reason or another, and a large number of college students trying to get a leg up on where they'll be working after winter graduation.
Neither Cisco nor Hartley mind hiring out of college, they both remember how eager to please and impressionably loyal they were to Dr. Wells for taking a chance on them so early in their careers. But they also remember thinking they knew a hell of a lot more than they did and having a number of colleagues with actual work experience to temper their enthusiasm with safety guidelines could only be a good thing.
If Cisco's being honest, he could probably still use some tempering himself. Which is why he finds himself blurting out at lunch with Hartley one day "I want to get my doctorate."
"That's the sort of investment we could put STAR Labs funds towards," Hartley agreed. "Probably a little trickier to justify than average since you own STAR Labs, but it's worth figuring out how much we can legally utilize for your continuing education. It'd help if you weren't the only one going for a post grad degree on STAR Labs dime. So if you'd be willing to wait until... next fall? We could probably entice a few people with a masters to hire on if we promised to help pay for their doctorates too..."
Cisco relaxed. "Yeah, I can wait. Need to get everything squared away at STAR Labs so that I can handle the stress of getting my degree and continuing to help run the place anyway, but... I just wanted you to know that'll be coming down the road. It's... I wanted to apply for the CCU post-grad program after the accelerator was successful, but instead everything turned into a mess and it got put on hold. I don't want it to turn into an indefinite on hold, though."
"You're gonna love it the first time someone calls you Dr. Ramon," Hartley told him, a fond smile on his face. "After I finished defending my thesis I think I got a little giddy every time I had a chance to correct someone that it was Dr. Rathaway for, like... months."
"So you think I'll be able to handle it all?" Cisco plucked at his napkin on the table, looking down. He'd been super stressed out the last year of his masters and he'd only been working part time as a paid intern during that time. Returning to school for a PhD while maintaining joint ownership of a lab that was more infamous than anything else was probably a recipe for disaster. But Hartley sounded so sure it made Cisco suddenly anxious. Like... this wasn't an idle dream anymore. It could be real.
Hartley placed his hand over Cisco's, stilling the nervous movement. Cisco looked up despite himself.
"I've made the mistake of underestimating you before, Cisco. Never again. Besides, we can always make Allen pull his weight as part owner of STAR Labs if you need to offload some responsibilities for the duration." Hartley squeezed Cisco's hand gently and then pulled away, leaving Cisco feeling inordinately flustered.
"Thank you."
"Thank you for your time, Dr. Zolomon," Cisco said, politely shaking the man's hand but already thinking 'no, nope, nuh-uh' and other variations there-upon. He's honestly not sure what is throwing up the red flags for him because Hunter Zolomon's resume is really quite good. Forensic scientist turned physicist with plenty of lab experience, but...
Maybe it's something to do with the way he flirted with Hartley. No. Strike that. No maybes about it.
Cisco did not like how he flirted with Hartley. How Hartley'd become uncomfortable but maintained a veneer of politeness, but not once did Zolomon get the memo. In fact he seemed... smug when Hartley began to show signs of not liking the attention. It had been a subtle thing at first and Cisco hadn't been quite sure what he'd been picking up on until right now, as Hartley nodded at Zolomon, but refused to shake his hand too. Hunter's smile widened, just a little.
"I'll show you out," Cisco offered. "See you in the Cortex afterwards?" he added to Hartley. Normally Hartley didn't go there anymore, but they'd been putting off a discussion regarding the pipeline for the last several weeks and the Cortex was still the control center for the accelerator. It'd also put Hartley behind the building's strongest levels of security which might make him feel a little better after the not so great interview.
Hunter looked disappointed. "I was hoping to ask you a few more questions, Hartley," the man said, giving Hartley an intense look.
"I prefer to be called Dr. Rathaway by my colleagues," Hartley responded shortly. "And I'm really quite busy. If you have further questions, you may email them to me and I'll get to them if I can find the time." It went unsaid, but heavily implied, that Hartley would not find the time.
"If you'll come with me," Cisco added, tone cold.
"Perhaps you could answer my questions, then," Zolomon turned to Cisco as he lead the way out the opposite door that Hartley was exiting.
"Ask your questions, but I give you no promises." Cisco's smile was plastered on at this point.
"Are there plans to re-attempt the accelerator experiment? Given the time that passed and the data collected on how it failed, I'm sure that subsequent attempts to power the accelerator would..."
"No," Cisco interrupted. "The accelerator is no longer functional." Cisco had made sure of that, with Barry's help, in the days immediately following the singularity event. "It will never be functional again. While we might repurpose the pipeline eventually, suffice it to say that STAR Labs will never re-attempt that experiment." If it did, it would be over Cisco's dead body.
Zolomon, at least, seemed to realize he'd finally pushed too far and the rest of the walk back to the main entry was silent. Cisco had Hunter leave the visitor's badge on the counter before sending him out the door. When he picked up the badge to go deactivate it, however...
The world was blue. It was like a bad signal on a TV, static filled images washing over Cisco's vision. Hunter talking to Caitlin, who was smiling. Lightning racing past a tree... a speedster, but not Barry; the colors were all wrong. The accelerator... something was wrong with the accelerator...
And then Cisco was stumbling against the counter, the badge clutched in his hand and absolutely certain that the sooner they ripped apart the pipeline to turn into something else, the better.
He made himself go through the process of deactivating the badge even though all he wanted was to run to Caitlin's office to check on her. He could tell her about Zolomon - warn her away from him - later. Cisco needed to calm himself because his powers... what Wells had said about his powers...
He's freaked out. Especially considering he just saw a speedster who wasn't Barry and the last time a speedster-not-Barry was around, that person was evil. And the accelerator... given Zolomon's interest in it, having that in his vision didn't seem like a coincidence.
And despite taking the time to deal with the badge and taking the long route to the elevators and the Cortex... Cisco's still visibly freaked out by the time he walks in to find Hartley and Caitlin arguing.
"Please stop," Cisco says and he hates how unsteady his voice sounds.
Caitlin doesn't hear him, but Hartley does.
"Cisco, what's wrong?" Hartley asks, immediately abandoning the argument to hurry over to Cisco. "Did Zolomon do something?"
"No. He was way too interested in the accelerator for my comfort, but no. He'd have probably tried something with you, but I don't think I was his type," Cisco responded dryly, feeling better at Hartley's touch on his arm.
"The interview didn't go well, I take it?" Caitlin asked, peering at Cisco rather worriedly herself.
"No," Cisco and Hartley chorused.
"He kept flirting with me, didn't seem to realize his advances were unwelcome," Hartley elaborated, having shared an amused look with Cisco.
"Oh he knew," Cisco muttered. "He liked making you uncomfortable. Bad vibes with that one," he added, mind wandering back to his vision. Bad vibes indeed. "I asked Hartley to meet me down here," he said to Caitlin. "I wanted us to discuss the pipeline. We've been putting it off for a while because whatever we do to it is going to be a big undertaking. But it's... it's dangerous as it is now and we need to stop ignoring the problem. So can we just... at least come up with a plan for it?"
Caitlin sighed and nodded. "I don't want to fix it. It... it took Ronnie from me twice. I don't want to give the accelerator a shot at someone else I care about."
Hartley nodded. "Even if we did try to fix it, there's no guarantee we'd catch everything Wells did to sabotage it for his ends. Or that someone else wouldn't come along and screw it up for us. I put so much work into it that I hate the idea of ripping it apart, but better that than risk flooding the city with dark energy again or causing another singularity."
"My thoughts exactly," Cisco concurred. "So that leaves the question of what we want to do with it. The pipeline has a handful of cells left in it." He shrugged when Hartley grimaced, not liking the idea of any of the prison cells remaining. Cisco and Barry had dismantled most of them, but...
There were good reasons to keep those cells. But they were also a temptation for abuse. It was a contentious subject even within Team Flash and Cisco really didn't want to argue with Hartley over it too.
"I was thinking we could turn it into a track of sorts," Hartley said. "I considered using it for power generation, we've got a good setup for it but... I really don't want us sitting on anything that could be conceivably made to explode at this point. Whereas converting into a track for Barry to use it would give him a chance to truly let loose and see how fast he can go while still in a controlled environment.
"While I'm sure the..." Hartley's lips twitched in a combination of amusement and disdain - and Cisco tried not to think about why he knew it was both - and he hesitated a moment before saying, "the cosmic treadmill has been extremely useful for tracking his stats and vitals, at some point Barry's top speed is going to outstrip what that treadmill is capable of reaching... assuming he hasn't surpassed it already."
"I've had to upgrade it twice to keep up with him already," Cisco admitted. He wondered if he could get Hartley to say 'cosmic treadmill' again.
"Having a... speed lab," Caitlin grinned at Cisco, who stuck his tongue out at her for stealing the naming privileges, "would be extremely useful. The treadmill -"
"Cosmic treadmill," Cisco muttered, getting an amused glance from Hartley for the correction.
"- would still have it's uses, but a speed lab would vastly improve the range of tests and training Barry could run." Caitlin looked pleased. "That's a wonderful idea, Hartley." She didn't even sound stilted as she complimented him.
Cisco felt something loosen in his chest. "So, let's pull up the schematics and make a priority list for dismantling the accelerator so it can't ever be run again no matter how someone might try to feed power into it. Then we can design the speed lab to take it's place."
"So if it wasn't anything Zolomon said or did that had you looking like you'd seen a ghost earlier," Hartley spoke up once Caitlin left the room to head home for the day, "then what was it that upset you?" He paused a beat, then added in a rush, "I get it if you'd rather discuss it with someone else. Like Barry..."
"Eh, Barry's finally got a date with Eddie and Iris. I'm not interrupting him for this," Cisco dismissed absently. "And I really, really don't want to talk to Caitlin about it yet because she shows her worry over friends with lab tests."
"Cisco..." Hartley's tone is a touch strangled. "Why would Caitlin want to run tests on you?"
"Because I... because I'm a meta." Cisco's voice shakes more than he expected. "Shit... I think that's the first time I've actually said it out loud. Barry and Caitlin have been letting me just... ignore it, since my powers haven't actually done anything since... since the first time they activated."
Hartley immediately reached out to squeeze Cisco's shoulder. "But your powers activated again today?"
"Yeah." Cisco grabbed for a red vine from his stash, suddenly needing something to mindlessly nom on.
"Is it... are you okay with telling me what your powers are?" Hartley asked gently.
"Visions. Um... the first time it was of a timeline that was over-written by Barry's accidental time travel. He saved the city from being destroyed by an artificial hurricane by stopping it from ever being created in the first place." And illegally incarcerating Mark Mardon in the pipeline, but Cisco's leaving out that part of the story for now. "But that's not the only thing that was undone that day. What actually happened in this timeline was that I went to my brother's birthday party, which I'd been desperately looking for an excuse to skip because Dante's kind of a dick, and afterwards when I went to a bar to unwind, Lisa Snart basically pulled a honey trap on me so her brother could force me to make him a new Cold Gun and a Heat Gun and a Gold Gun - don't ask, it's really pyrite - and give up the Flash's identity. Which... they'd also kidnapped Dante. Because why threaten me when they could threaten my brother? And it worked. They got their guns and Captain Cold knows Barry's identity because of me.
"The worst part was no one else was angry at me for it. Just me. Well... me and my brother, who now hates me even more now for getting his hands iced. He recovered, not that he doesn't complain about his arpeggios every damn time I talk to him now anyway. He's a pianist," Cisco elaborated when Hartley raised an eyebrow at the arpeggio comment. "Anyway, the day that got erased is actually worse. I was murdered that day... and I can remember it."
"Fuck. That's... fuck. Do you... want a hug? I feel like this is the kind of thing that requires a hug." Hartley looked and sounded about as distressed as Cisco felt.
So Cisco hugged him. Hartley was warm and firm and smelled really nice... Cisco couldn't really resist snuggling a little bit into the hug.
"What happened? Did Snart..." Hartley was rocking them back and forth slowly, gently running his fingers through Cisco's hair.
"No, it wasn't Snart. It was Dr. Wells. I skipped my brother's party to investigate why our trap for the Reverse Flash failed. Only to find out it didn't. Dr. Wells used pre-recorded holograms and trickery to make it seem like... like he was in two places at once. Standing in the trap as the Reverse Flash and sitting in his wheelchair as Dr. Wells. And for finding out his real secret he phased his hand into my chest and stopped my heart from beating. Said I was like a son to him and then he killed me..." Cisco could feel the tears on his face now and he just clung to Hartley. He hadn't spoken to anyone about this since the day he'd used the focusing device to tap into the vision outside of his nightmares.
Hartley was murmuring soothing words against Cisco's hair. Well, okay, so he was also muttering threats against Dr. Wells and how that asshole was never coming near Cisco again, but... that was all kind of soothing too.
"Sorry," Cisco muttered, finally pulling away. "I haven't really talked about any of this in months."
"It was traumatic," Hartley responded. "Pretty sure bottled up trauma always ends in tears at some point."
Cisco rubbed at his face. "Yeah, probably. Anyway, I was kind of hoping that'd be the only vision I had because how often do speedster's screw with the timeline? And I probably don't want the answer to that question. But anyway... I guess maybe now I also get visions of potential futures. Because... I'm not really sure what I was seeing, but it hasn't happened yet. Maybe if we can tear apart the accelerator so it's permanently non-operational, whatever it was will never happen at all." He sighed. "I was already anxious to have it pulled apart before that vision, but now..."
"What did you see?"
"Caitlin talking to Zolomon, but I don't think she knew who he was. There a speedster running past a tree, but they weren't Barry. I think the lightning trail was blue, but everything looks blue tinted in my visions, so that's not really... and the accelerator was activated again. Outputting dark energy into the city again. It wasn't the past because you were there trying to shut it down with me."
"Could it have been... I dunno, echoes from the timeline Harrison... Thawne erased when he murdered Barry's mother?"
"Maybe. I hope we don't find out."
"Yeah..."
"I'm pretty beat." Cisco stretched and then reached for his phone, planning on placing an order he could pick up on the way home. "I'm probably gonna fall asleep early tonight."
"Yeah... see you tomorrow..." Hartley hesitated for a moment, then added, "thanks for telling me about your powers. It's... you didn't have to, you know."
"You're my friend. I trust you... and I think I needed to talk about it." Cisco smiled wanly. "See you tomorrow." Then he headed out into the hallway towards his own office to retrieve his wallet and keys.
Had Cisco's hearing been as acute as Hartley's, he might have heard the other man's deep sigh as he muttered to himself, "Hartley, you're in trouble now."
There is something very cathartic about dismantling the particle injector module. Cisco is taking care of that personally, with Hartley's assistance... though Hartley'd probably insist Cisco was the assistant in this scenario.
They'd set Barry on removing the various modules - essentially high tech magnets, in layman's terms - scattered throughout the pipeline meant to accelerate and guide particles from the injector assembly. He'd probably finish well before Cisco and Hartley did, but they wanted to tackle the injector themselves.
With the guide modules gone, no one would be able to speed up a particle enough to cause trouble. With the injector assembly gone, there would be no particles in the line to worry about in the first place. A one-two punch to remove the danger that had been sleeping beneath them.
"So, how'd the date go?" Cisco asked over the comms - they were all wearing comms so that Barry could chat with them while he worked at super speed.
"Date? It wasn't a date." Barry practically squeaked out the words.
"Oh, really? So you just went through your closet a few dozen times before joining them at a fancy restaurant and staying the whole night at their place but it's not a date?" Caitlin chimed in from where she was monitoring the power to the pipeline so no one got fried. "Sounds like a date."
"I didn't go through my closet that many times," Barry objected.
"Which makes it sound like you went through it at least a few times, though," Hartley spoke up, exchanging a grin with Cisco. "Can't blame you, though. Iris seems nice and that Detective Eddie Thawne," Hartley gave a low whistle. "He can slap me in cuffs any day."
Cisco cracked up.
"Okay, fine, so I made sure to dress my best because I like them," Barry grumbled. "And it was a very nice restaurant. And I fell asleep on their couch afterwards watching movies..."
"I sense another 'and' in there," Caitlin pushed when Barry sort of trailed off.
"And I woke up long enough for them to convince me to just sleep in bed with them. 'Cause I was too tired to run back home and the couch wasn't as comfortable as the bed." Barry said it all in a rush, but it was regular human rush and not a speedster rush.
"So you slept with them," Hartley immediately pounced on that tidbit.
"But it wasn't a date," Cisco added, tone clearly conveying his sarcasm.
"No, of course not," Hartley agreed, equally sarcastic.
"I miss the days when you two didn't get along," Barry sighed.
"It's nice, isn't?" Caitlin asked quietly. "Waking up with the one... the ones you love."
"Cait..." Barry came to a stop, just barely visible from where Cisco and Hartley were working on the injector. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Just... you almost lost Eddie once already, Barry. Tell them how you feel. How spending time with them the way you did last night makes you feel. Don't waste time being afraid when it's better spent telling them both how much you love them." She paused a beat. "Well, that got heavy fast. Sorry."
"No, I think I needed to hear that." Barry started working again.
"I had another vision," Cisco blurted out. "I, uh, yesterday. I had another vision."
"Let's break for lunch. And then I'm scanning you," Caitlin declared.
Hartley snorted softly in amusement.
"What did you see?" Just like that Barry was sitting next to Cisco, who startled just a bit at the suddenness.
It was easier to relate the second time and Cisco explains as they head back to join Caitlin in the Cortex. "I'm hoping that pushing forward with decommissioning the accelerator means that whatever I saw will just be... blue tinted nonsense."
"Are you sure you want me around for this discussion?" Hartley asked when they entered to Cortex. "Seems kind of... Team Flash business." He twisted his hands together nervously. "I can always just see you all back in the pipeline after lunch."
Cisco's chest felt all tight at the very idea.
"Actually... I'd like your opinion on Zolomon. If you don't want to have lunch with us, that's fine. I can ask you later, but..." Barry sighed and took off his comms. "I don't mind if you sit in on Flash business. Honestly... having another point of view on what we do might help us make fewer mistakes along the way."
"You've grown on us," Caitlin added dryly, but she was giving Cisco a very significant look. She always was too observant for Cisco's own good.
"So, um... is that offer of staying on your couch still good?" Hartley asked one morning, about a week after they started the arduous task of dismantling the accelerator. "I've got an apartment lined up, but I can't move in until next week. The Freespace hand off on my... the building I'm staying in now is tomorrow afternoon. So I can't really stay there anymore."
"It's good," Cisco responded with a grin. "I like having you around." And maybe he's saying more with that than he intended too because Hartley blushes and licks his lips and Cisco's eyes can't help but flick downwards to follow the motion. Heat pools in Cisco's stomach.
"I'll bring my stuff over tonight, then. Do you mind if I tie up one of our vans with my furniture?" And it had to be deliberate phrasing with Hartley. Our vans. Not STAR Labs' vans.
Cisco's mouth goes utterly dry. He wants to bridge the distance between them with his lips. He's also not ready for the consequences of that action at all. Not yet, anyway. Soon maybe. Cisco sways just a little bit, lightheaded from the inability to rationalize away his desire as something else. He's done enough of that recently. Time to face facts.
Cisco Ramon is attracted to Hartley Rathaway. Very, very attracted.
"Yeah, that's fine," Cisco manages to say in a steady voice. "Do you want help getting it all moved?"
"Everyone else in the building has already offered," Hartley responds, a touch regretfully. "But... dinner afterwards? Maybe?"
"Yeah, sure. Sounds good." It's not a date. But it could tell Cisco whether or not, once Hartley's moved into his new place, a date would be something he could ask for.
There is, perhaps, a certain amount of inevitability in what brings them together. They've always been drawn to one another, unable to resist the pull into one another's orbit. They both have genius level intellects and opposing airs of misunderstood eccentricity and a love of learning for knowledge's sake. And they both have a need to be the smartest person in the room, though of course Hartley's was always the more pronounced of the two.
It made them rivals when all the ways they were too similar clashed. Enemies when they let that rivalry take them too far. Friends once they gave each other a chance to appreciate their differences. And now...
And now they're having dinner together; just some takeaway they had delivered from down the street while marathoning Firefly and enjoying one last night of being temporary roommates before Hartley moves to his new studio apartment. But Cisco is barely paying attention to the show or the food; he keeps staring over at Hartley.
He's not the only one distracted, given the number of times Cisco's caught Hartley staring too.
"Okay, I've completely lost the plot," Hartley finally said, pausing the show. "Look, maybe I'm completely misreading things here, but... I... I would really like to kiss you. May I kiss you?"
"You aren't misreading anything," Cisco answered. "Also yes. Totally yes. Absolutely..." Cisco's rambling is mercifully cut off with Hartley's offered kiss.
"I really, really like you, Cisco. And I'd like to date you, if that's... if that's something you'd be interested in?"
Hartley whined as Cisco kissed him again, nibbling along Hartley's lower lip before pulling away. "I'm interested. Very interested..."
"You're such a dork," Hartley muttered, shutting him up with another kiss. When they're panting and breathless and pressing their foreheads together afterwards, Hartley adds, "I need us to take this slow, okay? I just... I've jumped too fast into my previous relationships and this is... you're too important. I want to get things right with you."
Cisco melts at hearing those words and tightens his grip on the front of Hartley's shirt just a little. "I'm good with slow. Just... we can do more kissing tonight, though, right? A little cuddling too? While we finish up Firefly?"
"Kissing and cuddling sound perfect," Hartley agreed. "And, uh, tomorrow once I'm moved in to my new place... we could maybe plan our first date?"
"It's a plan," Cisco agreed, tilting his head so he could start the kissing back up again.