In a truly shocking twist of events (she said, ironically), I've turned this one-shot into a multichapter! Because what else do I need, other than more WIPs? :D This chapter features a hearty helping of KillerFlashVibe and some unaddressed grief, because Cisco Deserves To Grieve, Dammit.

Enjoy!

Oh, and I almost forgot - changed the fic title! This is a truly rare event, but this was actually the original title of the fic, and I'm quite fond of it. I've switched the titles around, so "Branded" is the name of the first chapter, while "We Carry On" is the name of this piece.

"You've had better days."

Barry smiles tightly. It pulls on the scar. "Flattery won't get you far," he says, undoing his work coat and hanging it up on the rack.

"Oh, I've heard it'll get you everywhere," Axel says sweetly, sitting on the back of Barry's couch, dangling Barry's house keys in his hand. It infuriates Barry on some subconscious level that he'll have to change the locks – again – but he's too tired to care. "What happened, Speedy? Somebody take a knife to that pretty face?"

"What do you want, Axel?" Barry saunters into the kitchen, deliberately putting his back to Axel. He fishes a bottle of Gatorade from the fridge and downs it in one go.

"What I've always wanted, Flash." The keys smack into the back of his shoulders. Barry flinches reflexively, leaving them on the floor as he tosses the empty bottle in the recycling bin. "To be Central City's finest! You're stealing my thunder." He cackles like a jackal, pushing himself off the couch and ambling over, low and prowling. "You're get to be front-page news fifty-two weeks a year. Why don't you spare some change for the petty criminal?" He jabs Barry's side hard. "Come on, Flashy, fight me."

Barry turns to face him, catching his hand as it goes in for a second jab. "You're supposed to be in prison," he reminds, shoving him back fiercely.

"So are you," Axel reminds him. "You're not going to make a good front page cover with that scar," he muses, drawing a hand meaningfully across his own face. "Symmetry is the essence of beauty, Flash. Us crooked creatures don't make for good role models. We scare the kids," he adds, covering his mouth with a hand conspiratorially. "It's nice to know even the gods can be branded."

Barry Flashes forward, shoving him against the counter hard enough to make it rattle. Axel grimaces, but it isn't satisfying. He's shaking with exhaustion; these forty-eight-hour shifts are murder. Letting Axel go, he steps back, prowling off into the living room instead. Axel doesn't follow, musing lightly, "That all you got?"

In response, Barry takes a seat on the chair near the window, almost close enough to taste the rain. "Get out," he says simply. "Don't come back."

Axel turns slowly in place, resting his elbows on the counter and regarding Barry with great amusement. "Is the Flash tired?"

Barry lifts his eyebrows, rests his civilian boots on the footrest in front of him, and says nothing. He'd kick Axel out himself, but Axel isn't a meta, and Iris is with Linda in Coast City having a girl's weekend out; there's no danger. And he is tired. "Get out," he repeats calmly, not breaking the stare. In the growing darkness, there is something predatorial about it, like he just needs the chase instinct to kick in.

"Make me," Axel says, not moving.

Barry narrows his eyes. "I can snap your neck in less time than it takes you to blink," he reminds him.

"But you won't," Axel replies, caustic in his dismissal. "Stop posturing."

It happens in less than a second: Axel is up against the wall, Barry's hand locked around his throat, the entire world frozen around them. The other man's feet don't even touch the ground, the helplessness of his position perfect, his neck so fucking breakable in Barry's hand.

Commit. If you're going to hurt someone, commit.

In less than a second, it's over: the world surges back into real time and before Barry can make himself let go, Axel reaches up and pinches a tiny capsule against his right wrist.

Pain knifes into his hand, a burning, blackout sensation tearing down his arm. He lets go of Axel, staggering back, shaking his hand frantically, trying to put out a fire that isn't there.

Righting himself, Axel cackles again, that same doggish indifference to his own gruesome handiwork. "You are so predictable." Barry turns his spasming right hand over and sees the black tar on it. "Isn't it nifty? It's what they use to make the bad metas stop biting at their handlers. It'll keep burning through your skin until it reaches bone." With a sweet smile, he adds, "Last time I tried it out, the met's skull was still fizzling."

He Flashes, shoving his hand under the sink and a deluge of running water, but Axel laughs and says, "It's hydrophobic. Just let nature run its course, Flashy."

Instead, Barry runs, driving his burning fist into Axel's stomach before crashing through the door, literally splintering the wood with an impact like a cannonball, and he doesn't stop running until he's crashing into STAR Labs. There's no pain in his hand, but he doesn't take any comfort in it. "Guys-we've-got-a-problem," he gasps, breathless and agitated, a burst pipe hissing in his ears.

Thirty-eight seconds later, he exhales deeply, hand encased in blue ice. "Thank you," he tells Caitlin raggedly. Killer Frost arches an eyebrow at him but doesn't respond.

"Dude – what happened?" Cisco asks.

He sighs and sinks into a chair, cradling his hand to his chest. "Trickster. Axel," he clarifies, closing his eyes and breathing shallowly. The cold is excruciating – it's the worst kept secret that he hates Killer Frost's powers – but he doesn't voice a complaint. "He said …" He has to pause a moment, grimacing as he moves his hand, blood aching to attend to the frozen limb. There's a sheen of blue ice curled around his wrist, cutting off all circulation. "Hm, he said – it's used – by handlers." Flexing his fingers involuntarily, an animal twisting against restraint, he adds tightly, "We gotta get it off."

"Take a hammer to it," Killer Frost suggests without heat. "You don't need both hands."

He bares his teeth at the floor, grateful for an instant that his injury gives him an excuse to snarl.

They'll put you down if you ever become useless to them. If you ever give them a reason to doubt that they have total control over you. If you don't wear their suit with its killing power, return to the only place on Earth with cells strong enough to hold you—

"No," Cisco interrupts shortly, putting a steadying hand on his shoulder. "No, we're not cutting off anybody's hands."

(Does he know, does he know yet?)

Looking up, Barry meets Killer Frost's eyes and feels a rage so potent it is almost suffocating. (She hurt him. She hurt him, she hurt him, she hurt him—)

So did you.

He escapes Cisco's hold without a word, rising steadily to his feet. He doesn't know when he'll be able to forget Dante's death, if he'll ever be able to dissociate the wave of guilt and self-loathing from it because every day you get away from that moment is a day more that you'll have to erase if you ever wanna be a hero, don't you wanna be a hero.

Commit.

He stares at the wall, back to both, and only feels uneasy. "I'll go back in time," he says in a low voice, more to himself than anyone.

The room cools several degrees. "Whoa," Cisco says, and his voice is deeper, darker. "Halt."

"What's the point of having superpowers if you can never use them?" Barry demands, refusing to look at him. "It's ten fucking minutes. Nobody's gonna die."

"What if he goes after somebody else, this time?" Cisco demands.

"He doesn't care," Killer Frost submits dryly. "Look at him. He won't even look at you."

"Barry," Cisco says, advancing, and he doesn't turn around. "If you do this—"

"You won't remember." He can Vibe. "Nothing bad's gonna happen," he redirects. Flexing his left hand, he adds, "If we unfreeze it and the stuff doesn't come off, I'm losing a hand." He turns to face them, finally, and knows he must look wild around the edges. "I'm tired of risking life and limb for this," he adds, and hates that his voice cracks a little.

Look at you. You can't even be angry properly.

Cisco levels him with a flat look and holds up both hands. "Barry. Don't run," he warns.

If he pointed a loaded gun at Barry, it couldn't be more threatening. Barry's head throbs; heat surges through his veins. The pain is creeping back into his right hand; they have to freeze it again, make it hurt, unless he – unless he does what he can do, fix it, fix it, fix it.

He aches, suddenly, for a fight, for an opportunity to finally get this fucking thing off his chest, and maybe it's that ugly thought that makes him take a single slow step forward, a deliberate provocation, and he expects the impulse, expects to be shunted back hard, to feel something.

Cisco lowers his hands. Killer Frost sets a hip against the main console, bored.

You can't fight them. Not both of them.

She's not on Cisco's side, Killer Frost doesn't owe allegiance to anyone, he's fast, he could overpower them, but they aren't afraid, why aren't they afraid of you?

Do you want them to be?

It's like a slap in the face. He steps back, gaze drifting down to his left hand. His vibrating hand. He lifts it, and Cisco yelps, "Barry!" But Barry doesn't slice the mangled appendage off. With sudden focus, he scrapes the ice from his hands, the ice and all that toxic black tar, and it is blackout pain as nerves alight but he doesn't make a sound until, abruptly, it's just raw angry red flesh underneath his nails, and then he halts, and a drop of red drips onto the floor.

His throat feels tight, but it isn't pain that holds his tongue.

How many times can you fall apart before they stop picking up the wreckage?

"I'm sorry," he says aloud.

Cisco exhales. Killer Frost says nothing.

Another drop of red joins the black-and-blue ice on the floor. He stares down at it. As a third drop hits the floor, he wonders if this is what Eddie would have seen, had he looked down before he fell, mortally wounded. Frozen, he watches the blood drip – drip – drip – from his hand, until suddenly there is another hand in view, and Cisco wordlessly wraps clean white cloth around it. Barry doesn't look up until Cisco puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezing firmly.

"What's going on?" he asks at last, voice low but not dangerous.

Short-circuited, Barry doesn't even feel the anger, the fatigue or anguish or anything in between. He just says slowly, "Axel said they use that stuff on other metas. To keep them … cooperative. For their handlers." The hand on his shoulder tightens a little before letting go.

"Makes sense," Killer Frost chimes in, and Barry looks over at her but feels nothing. Not the anger, not the grief, not even the terrible hope that maybe somehow, someday they would fix this broken thing between them.

You killed Dante. And in this world, you might as well have killed Caitlin, too.

"Amunet isn't stupid, and shock collars are so overdone," Killer Frost adds, oblivious to his thoughts.

"Cait," Cisco warns in an undertone, letting Barry go and turning to face her.

Killer Frost rolls her eyes. "She's not here," she reminds coolly. "Don't leave a message."

"Caitlin," Cisco says, and there is a darkness there that says he knows, he knows exactly what happens in – two years? Three? Five?

You've broken this family.

"Stop calling me that," Killer Frost says shortly. "Chanting her name three times and clicking your heels isn't going to change a thing."

They were okay before you. They would've been fine without you.

Why did you break this family?

"Caitlin," Cisco says again, stubbornly.

She laughs. Pushing herself off the console, she says without heat, "It's Frost, Reverb. I'm gonna go get a drink." She eyes up Barry, musing, "You looked better in blue." Then she's gone, sauntering out of the room like nothing has changed, and maybe nothing has, and Barry hates how it crushes his shoulders.

"I could really punch something right about now," Cisco says softly.

Barry doesn't think: "I know a place."

. o .

The speedster proof bag doesn't twitch under Cisco's fists, but he doesn't seem to need it to. Hair tied back, shirt damp with exertion, he says aloud in a calm voice, "You do this often?"

Sitting on the floor, legs outstretched and back to the wall, Barry picks at the bloody wrappings on his hand. "Loaded question."

Cisco huffs, throwing another punch. The gloves are thick enough that he doesn't do any damage to his hands. Their hands – it's everything, to a Viber, as much as his feet are essential to his Flashy alter-ego's lifestyle. And just like he needs to run, sometimes Cisco just needs to punch something. "Why didn't you tell me about this place?" he asks instead.

"Didn't seem necessary."

"Right." Cisco throws another, harder punch, grunting with the effort. "Do you ever just feel like you're gonna snap?" Barry blinks, looking up at him. Cisco sweeps the hair off his forehead and looks at Barry, repeating seriously, "Do you?"

Barry weighs the damage truth might cause. Then he says fuck it and admits: "Every day."

Cisco blows out a breath. It almost feels like relief. "Yeah." Throwing another punch, he says between hits, "We gotta – get outta – this town."

Barry tips his head against the wall, closing his eyes. "I wanna run away sometimes, but there's … this fucking leash on me." He reaches up with his bandaged hand to clutch his own shirt. "I can't get away from this place without thinking about what I'm leaving behind. All the bodies piling up in my absence."

"Hate to disappoint you, buddy," Cisco says, exhaling sharply as he stops punching the bag, "but people're gonna die, with or without us around."

Barry lifts both hands to fist his hair. "You don't think I know that?" He hates the bitterness in his own voice.

"Sometimes we –" Cisco throws a punch hard enough the bag actually shakes; Barry can feel the slight sonic boom, aware of the sheer power in those hands. "Sometimes we just gotta say it out loud, or it'll kill us. We can't save everybody." Another punch. "Some people are gonna die." Bang, bang, bang— "No matter what we do."

Barry puts both hands on the bag, halting it. He doesn't know when he stood up. It doesn't matter. "I wish—"

"Don't." Cisco inhales deeply, exhaling just as slowly, and repeats shortly, "Don't. I just stopped—" He doesn't finish the thought, jaw clicking when he shuts it.

Bile rises in Barry's throat. (I just stopped hating you.) "Cisco—"

Cisco throws a punch, and it shakes Barry, too. "Just let it – fucking – heal – over," he says with a vehemence that digs into Barry's soul. He holds onto the bag, and each blow reverberates through his hands, his arms, his shoulders, his teeth. "I don't – wanna – talk – about – it."

"Cisco."

"You didn't have – a brother," he says forcefully, and the next blow shunts him back hard enough that he releases the bag, staggered. Cisco looks around it, looking right at him, and says seriously, "So don't try to understand."

There's something familiar about the phrase, something bitter. It sticks in his chest. He cannot speak.

"I don't have a brother anymore," Cisco says, and there's a bright sheen in his eyes that takes a sledgehammer to Barry's heart and fucking shatters it. "I don't blame you," Cisco adds tiredly, waving a gloved hand dismissively. "I know you didn't drive the car. We all existed before you came here. I don't blame this universe on you.

"But I see those other universes," he goes on, voice tight but steady, stripping off the gloves and throwing them on the floor, "the ones where he's still alive, the ones where we're happy. I dream about them." Leaning a hand on the bag, he admits, "Every night. Every damn night, I see those other worlds, and some are better, and some are worse, and all of them make me wish I'd never helped build that particle accelerator in the goddamned first place."

Barry steps closer, slowly, baby-steps. "Cisco."

"I wish I could say that I didn't know what would happen if you ran back," he continues, rushing towards the falls and not caring that the current is picking up around him. "I wish I lived in that blissful ignorance where I believed that maybe things would be okay. But I know what would happen." He shudders, arching his head a little to one side, like there's a pain there he can't escape. "You'd die. Caitlin would die. Iris would die. Iris – she dies a lot, you know?"

His voice cracks. Barry kind of wants to die when he hears it, but he just steps closer, instead. Arm's reach, now. "All those time remnants you made, trying to save her. Sixty-fucking-times, Barry. And she – she was – she is the love of your life, of course you weren't gonna stop trying, but seeing that, I couldn't – how could I ask you to die again for my brother, when I knew something – someone – would take his place anyway, that this universe is a fucking joke because no matter how much power we have, we're powerless to save the people we really care about?"

His shoulders hitch, then, and Barry encloses him, carefully, deliberately, in a hug. The hitching breaths continue, and Cisco's hands rise slowly to hold onto the back of his shirt, then clutch it, and finally he sobs out loud, "And then – then we lost C-Caitlin, and I couldn't fucking do it anymore, Barry, I couldn't – she never wanted this, and every day I think, goddammit, she didn't want this—"

Barry crushes him against his chest. Still Cisco sobs, his emotions too big for either of them to hold. "I want to hate you," Cisco admits ferociously, a growl in his voice like thunder, but his grip only tightens on Barry's shirt. "I just –" He draws in a shuddering breath, and Barry flattens his good hand against the back of Cisco's shoulders. "I just – I need my friend." Hugging him tightly, no space between them, Cisco repeats softly, "I just need my friend."

In the dark blue light of that small basement room, Barry holds onto him, eyes sliding shut as Cisco sobs against him.

He doesn't need to say it for it to be heard in the nonexistent space between them:

I'm here.

And somehow, in spite of – literally everything, all of the tragedies, all of the pain, they're still alive.

Soon, they'll venture out into the world again. They'll find out that the neighbors will already have called the cops to pick up an unconscious Axel, the broken-in door of Barry and Iris' apartment more than enough evidence to signal his irreputable intentions. They'll make their way back to STAR Labs and analyze the black ice on the floor, preparing a way to counteract it the next time it comes into play – because it's always next time, there is no never again. They'll meet up with Caitlin at Jitters and crash at Cisco's place together because it's so much nicer to be lonely together.

They'll have to face the world again, someday, but holding onto Cisco, his hand still burning, his face still scarred, Barry dares to cling to that tiniest patch of light and think that maybe, just maybe, everything will be okay.

Someday.

When Iris returns a day later, he holds her for almost forty-five minutes, in silence, desperate never to let any of this slip through his fingers again.