Summary: The hardest thing to do is let go.
You're on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the one who'll decide where to go.
-Past (Two Months and Three Weeks After the Tidal Wave)-
The sound of footsteps coming down the hall was almost as distracting as the smell of food that they brought with it. He tapped his phone on the desk and noted the time. Twelve fifteen meant that would be Harrison, bringing lunch. It had been nine days since he'd made his 'miraculous' recovery and Barry almost missed the sound of the wheelchair.
The science behind that recovery had been haphazard, dubious at best and involving a small sample from an otherwise missing metahuman, making it impossible to recreate, but as Harrison had pointed out, timing was everything. The world's focus was still on the tragedy. His accelerator explosion paled in comparison. Harrison Wells was yesterday's news and since he was something of a recluse, he didn't need to worry about other scientists sniffing around too often. Dr. McGee had been one of the few to try, but Harrison had so far managed to evade her scrutiny.
Barry shook his head. No, he needed to focus. He was almost there. He could feel the answer tugging at the corners of his mind.
The toxin was a derivative of bufotenine, but a very specific one. 5-methoxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine. In its pure form it was an extremely potent psychedelic and caused vivid hallucinations. It was found in a wide variety of plants, but the lab results of this particular blend didn't match any known plant species.
"Barry?"
"Hold on."
Oh god, that was pizza. He hadn't pizza in ages. Well, not real pizza. There had been the super cheap cardboard ones that had come in with Redcross and Fema and the frozen store bought ones after that were barely a step above that. This smelled like real pizza, with actual tomatoes and was that sausage?
No. Focus.
Not a plant. It wasn't synthetic, which left… Barry's eyes lit up.
"Barry."
"Not yet."
The door to his lab closed and the lock clicked into place. A moment later, a hand reached up to cup the back of his neck, but he swatted it away, focused on his screen.
He moved back through the search engine, changing the parameters from plant to animal, altered the filter on the DNA, and…
"Yes!" He raised his hands in triumph.
Harrison leaned in, the side of his face brushing against Barry's ear. "California River Toad? I hate to disappoint you, Barry, but with your metabolism, even toad licking isn't going to have very much of an affect on you."
Barry turned his head, raising an eyebrow. "Are you saying you've tried?"
"I was young. I wanted to know if there was anything that could be used against me, so I tested various drugs – psychotropics, sedatives, stimulants – bufotenine, in high enough doses, can cause mild dizziness, but the amount found on a toad won't make a dent."
With an exaggerated roll of his eyes, Barry pushed his chair over to the other table, where the file lay open. "I guess I'll just check toad licking off my list of things to do this weekend."
He looked up in time to see Harrison smiling in amusement and Barry faltered. Just a little, a tiny moment of weakness where he caught himself thinking, 'He looks handsome when he smiles,' but he shook it off and turned back to the folder, noting his findings before closing it.
Harrison had insisted on a standing lunch date until he could trust Barry to eat regular meals on his own. Not that Barry was complaining. Well, he had at first. At first, he'd thrown a fit – broke half the glasses in the kitchen, most of the plate. Then Harrison had broken Barry's wrist in return and really, it was just lunch. Barry was overreacting and Harrison was right. If he kept drowning himself in his work and forgetting to eat, he was going to do or say something he shouldn't.
Besides, it wasn't as bad as he'd thought it would be. After a few weeks back, Barry had managed to run off most of his co-workers. On some days, Harrison was a welcome break to the almost deafening silence in his lab.
Setting the folder aside, he eyed the four white and red boxes on the counter hungrily. "So, pizza?"
"A small Italian restaurant re-opened not far from the house. If I remember correctly, the food was passable."
"Does it have a buffet?"
Harrison's expression blanked and Barry couldn't help laughing – the man could survive on Big Belly Burger for a month, but the very idea of a buffet offended him on an almost moral level. After an amusing minute of silence, Harrison responded with, "No, it does not."
"You know, as a speedster, I'd think you'd appreciate buffets a little more. All you can eat? With our metabolism?"
"Eating is more than simply shoving mass quantities of mediocre food down your throat. Someday soon, Mr. Allen, I'm going to work on refining your palate."
"My palate's just fine, Dr. Wells."
They sat together at the table, the corner and four boxes of pizza between them. Barry did his best to ignore Harrison as he dug in. Ignored the way Harrison watched him eat, a content almost-smile gracing his lips when Barry's eyes roll into his head with a moaned, "So good."
Somewhere between pizza one and two, Barry relaxed enough that his leg swung out a little too far, his knee brushing against Harrison's and he nearly, nearly pulled away, but just managed to stop himself. Harrison rewarded him by pulling his own leg back, content to let Barry have the space, as long as Harrison was the one giving it.
It was a tenuous peace, but it was something.
Of course, Barry had fought it. He'd pulled and pushed and fought and denied and hated himself, but it hadn't gotten him anywhere. No, that wasn't right. It had gotten him somewhere. It had gotten him into Harrison's bed. Every single time. The more he fought it, the harder it was to fight. If he pushed, Harrison pushed back. If he fought, Harrison fought harder. If he pulled away… if he pulled away, Harrison let him and that was almost worse. It was like pulling a rubber band tight and then letting go. Barry found himself right back where he'd started and hating himself for it.
In the first two weeks after moving in, he'd slept in the guest room once. Once. Oh, he'd start in the guest room, but it was too quiet, too cold, too alone. After a few hours of staring at the ceiling, listening to the silence, he'd reluctantly make his way into Harrison's room and Harrison was always awake, waiting and he always welcomed Barry under the covers with a knowing smile.
Then he'd woken up one morning to find his toothbrush in Harrison's master bathroom and he'd lost all semblance of control. He'd agreed to move into Harrison's house, not his bedroom. It didn't matter that he'd only slept in the guest room once. That didn't mean his toothbrush belonged anywhere near Harrison's. It didn't mean anything and how dare Harrison assume it did. How dare he move Barry's toothbrush into the master bathroom like it belonged there. Like Barry belonged there.
In retrospect, he may have overreacted.
He'd had the entire next day alone on the couch to think about it. Harrison had called in for him, he'd been too busy being only half conscious to hear the full conversation, but as far as he could tell, Singh hadn't been suspicious.
In the hours spent alone, before Harrison got home, he'd made up his mind. He wasn't going to fight Harrison anymore. Not that he wasn't angry, not that he didn't want to, but it wasn't getting him anywhere. If anything, it was making it worse. So, he was going to shut up and do what Harrison wanted. He was going to smile and play along until he could clear his head, until he had some kind of grip on himself and his own emotions. Despite his resolution, though, he found it was a lot easier said than done.
Harrison finished his own large pizza and sat back to watch Barry work on his second. "So, are you going to tell me what that was really about?"
"Hm?"
"California River Toads?"
He shoved most of an entire slice in his mouth and grabbed the folder, passing it over for Harrison to look at. It wasn't much. A young woman was in a coma. Her blood samples contained large amounts of a highly concentrated toxin. Of course, that wasn't the interesting thing. He reached over to tap the paper, drawing attention to a line lower down on the page.
Harrison's mouth thinned as he continued to read the line where Jones had penned his findings before passing it off to Barry earlier that morning. "Toxin source… unidentifiable."
Barry swallowed. "Usually, the organic markers can be used to identify it, but they weren't coming up on any of the known databases. So, I separated the most prominent molecular structure out and that particular blend is only found in…"
"The California River Toad."
"Right, and what you have left?"
"Human."
"Meta-human."
With a sigh, Harrison set the folder down. "You can't know that, Barry."
"I can and I do. That concentration of that toxin isn't found in anything in nature and there's no other reason for human organic material to be mixed in like that."
"It could be synthetic."
"It's not synthetic." He closed the lid on the second box, several slices remaining uneaten and ignored Harrison's disapproving frown. "You know I'm right."
Barry couldn't manage to suppress his grin in the face of Harrison's annoyance. Harrison took his glasses off, setting them aside carefully. "Let's assume you're correct…"
"I am. You know I am. Come on, Harrison." Barry knocked his knee against Harrison's under the table. "Say it."
Harrison's sigh was long and suffering. "The bigger question is what you intend to do about it?"
Barry's humor faltered, because he hadn't thought that was a question at all. "Stop them?"
"No risking your life, Barry, and that includes playing hero."
"You can't be serious." Except Harrison's very serious expression said otherwise. "I can't just sit here while people get hurt."
"That's exactly what you'll do. Perhaps you've forgotten, so allow me to remind you. You have a chance to fix this, but you can't do that if you're dead."
The words left Barry feeling suddenly cold, anger bubbling just bellow the surface. He stared at the table, taking deep breathes until his eye stopped twitching with the effort to hold in the urge to shove Harrison away from him.
When he finally looked up, he was smiling again. "Of course, Harrison."
Harrison stared at him, still frowning, but nodded as he stood. "I'll be working late tonight."
[]
He didn't want to be alone, didn't want to think about what alone meant, so he went to S.T.A.R. Labs after work. Harrison was in the pipeline, tools beside him, screwdriver in his mouth. Barry went to the landing above him and laid out, head tipped back over the edge so he could watch Harrison work. They'd been there for hours. Hours and hours. It was almost midnight and all Barry wanted to do was sleep.
"When can we go to bed?" Harrison didn't answer right away and Barry decided to do his best impression of an annoying five-year-old. "Harrisoooon!"
Harrison pulled the screw driver out of his mouth and looked up. "What?!"
"I want to go to bed."
"Then go."
Barry sighed and moved so he head rested fully on the landing. He could leave, but the house was too quiet and he couldn't sleep there. There was the cot in Harrison's office. It wasn't quiet there – S.T.A.R. Labs was always buzzing just under the surface – but it reminded him of… other times. Better times. Well, not better, but kinder, softer.
Staring up at the ceiling, he closed his eyes and let himself drift. Not to sleep, there were too many thoughts running around in his head. Too many emotions piled up on top of each other, all vying for his attention. He opened his eyes again and sat up, swinging his feet over the edge of the landing. "Do we have anything to eat?"
"There are protein bars in my desk."
"Do we have anything that doesn't taste like it came out of a camel's…" the screw driver hit the landing dangerously close to his leg and with enough force to leave a dent as Barry scrambled back and onto his feet. "Fine!"
He stomped off through the open bay door, but stopped just on the other side and slumped back against the wall, letting himself slide down to rest his head on his knees. He didn't even know why he was so tired. He'd slept fine the night before, but it was just… it was exhausting. Holding it in. Pretending. Everything.
A hand landed on his shoulder and he looked up to see Harrison standing over him, not smiling, but no longer angry at being distracted. Resigned. He looked resigned. "Come on, I'll tuck you in."
Barry let himself be led down the hall to the office and the cot. The whole room smelled like them. Not just Harrison, but him too. Or maybe he was just imagining it. Maybe he wanted it to. It was getting hard to think. Everything was fogged over and upside down and he wanted to sleep, but he didn't want to be alone.
There was one way to make Harrison stay.
When Harrison pushed at him, intending to lay him down, Barry held on and pulled Harrison to him, kissing him like he had before. Like it meant something more.
He half expected Harrison to stop him, to pull back and leave. This wasn't Barry angry and violent. This was Barry exhausted and desperate.
When Harrison didn't stop him, when he took control, pushed Barry down onto the makeshift bed and followed him there, Barry couldn't decide if he was relieved at his success or if he hated himself for it.
[]
There had been another attack. Two people this time.
Someone held up a convenience store and the cashier, as well as someone just outside the door were found unconscious minutes later. Barry had to rely on Eddie, who wasn't assigned to the case and didn't have the same pull or connections Joe'd had. He was able to get Barry a grainy picture of the perp leaving, but couldn't get his hands on the actual footage. The techs weren't even sure it could be used for facial recognition.
When the hospital sent over the blood samples, Barry rushed them to satisfy his own curiosity. Same toxin, same genetic markers, except this time one of the victims had died. The cashier had been an older man with high blood pressure. He'd had a seizure on the way to the hospital and gone into cardiac arrest.
The bystander and the original victim weren't any better off. Life support and emergency intervention were keeping them alive, but the odds of them ever waking up were low. Even if they did, the seizures were causing extensive brain damage.
Barry looked at the reports on the latest two victims and he thought… he thought he should be sad. Upset or concerned. He should be a lot of things, but what he was, most of all, was excited. This was a meta-human. It had to be. And if it was a meta-human that was something he could fight, something that wasn't Harrison. It was a chance to do some good, to remind himself of who he was.
He was the Flash and he was… going to have to find a way to keep Harrison from finding out what he was up to. It was like being a teenager all over again, with an overprotective dad breathing down his neck, except this wasn't going to end in a stern lecture if he got caught. He wasn't actually sure what Harrison would do if he found out Barry had snuck out and taken down a meta-human on his own, but then, he wasn't planning on him finding out.
[]
Harrison was working late again. He worked late a lot, which was good, because it meant it would be hours before he wouldn't notice if Barry was missing, if he did at all.
Despite having little evidence and fewer clues, Barry wasn't letting another night go by without trying to stop whoever it was hurting people and as much as he wanted to say it was because he was a hero, the truth was, it gave him purpose for the first time in months.
He wasn't expecting much. The only thing he really had to go on was a fuzzy image of a man, half his face obscured by a hat, but whoever it was had attacked two nights in a row, so there was a good chance he'd do it again. Or maybe that meant he wouldn't need to. It was impossible to tell without more information and he needed his team for that. He needed Cisco's hacking and Caitlin bio-engineering and Joe's detective brain and access to… to everything. Without that, he was just an off-duty CSI standing in the middle of Central City looking for someone who might not even be there.
Still, doing something was better than doing nothing and if the only thing he could do at the moment was patrol the streets looking for anyone or anything suspicious, that's what he was going to do. First thing first, though, he needed to sneak into S.T.A.R. Labs and get one of his suits. He'd have to leave the emblem and its GPS behind, just in case, but it would be a good idea to have something on hand that wasn't going to potentially burst into flames if he needed to use his speed.
He took one last look around the alley he'd ducked into after leaving the precinct. When he was sure no one was watching, he ran to S.T.A.R Labs and stopped just outside, by the entrance they'd always left unlocked so he could get in and out in a hurry. Taking out his phone, Barry considered his words carefully, before tapping out a short message. 'Going home.'
Three agonizing minutes later, Harrison finally messaged back. 'I'm working.'
He grinned and gave Harrison an 'I know.'
Harrison didn't respond. He probably assumed Barry was sulking at the house, which he would have been. If he hadn't had something else to focus on, Barry would have been curled up in the solitude of Harrison's too-quiet house, trying to pretend last night hadn't happened.
Yeah, nothing like selling himself for half a night's sleep to send him into a shame spiral.
No, not selling, giving. There was a difference. No one had offered anything in exchange for something else. Barry had used sex because he'd known it would work, but that wasn't the same. Of course, it also wasn't any better, it was almost…
No, for real, he couldn't do this. He had to focus on the task at hand, the grip of his hand around the duffel bag, the feel of the speedforce inside him as he ran, pushing through doors, hallways, up the stairs, around a corner… and face first into an arm that had suddenly appeared in front of him.
Pain exploded in his face, blinding in its intensity as Barry fell flat on his back. With a groan, he rolled onto his side. Blood poured from his nose onto the floor. Somewhere above him, he could hear Harrison talking.
"I've been thinking about it all day and I can't decide." There was a rustle of fabric and the voice was closer. "Help me out here, Barry. Did you really believe I was stupid enough to fall for your little act, or did you just think you were that good at lying?"
Barry took his hand away from his face long enough to throw a middle finger up and Harrison chuckled once before grabbing Barry by the hair and slamming his face into the floor. Shit, that hurt.
"Cute, but ultimately unproductive. Come on, Barry, I need an answer. Which was it?"
He breathed through the pain and forced his eyes open. He couldn't see out of the right one and the left only gave him a blurry impression of Harrison crouched down beside him, but he did his best to glare. "A little bit of both, really."
Harrison sighed heavily and, after a moment, moved his grip to Barry's arm, pulling him up to his feet before shoving him back down in a chair, harder than necessary. "Tilt your head back."
He did as he was told and a rag was pressed against his face, just under his nose. The blood flow was slowing to a trickle and while his right eye was still getting nothing, the left was clearing up so that he could at least see where Harrison was. Barry swatted at the hands attempting to examine him.
"Barry, hold still, I'm trying to see how much damage there is."
"You clotheslined me at three hundred miles an hour. It's bad."
There was a rush of wind and the rag was replaced with an ice pack. "You were barely going two fifty and if it's any consolation, I think you may have fractured my forearm."
"You fractured your forearm, with my face." He swatted at Harrison's hands again as they made another go at assessing the damage. "You could have just stood next to the suit with the lights dimmed like a normal villain."
Harrison chuckled at the nasally complaint. "It hardly would have had the same affect. Hm, I think you may have shattered your right eye socket as well."
"Again, you shattered my right eye socket."
"Which wouldn't have happened if you hadn't been going against my very explicit instructions not to play hero."
Rather than respond, Barry busied himself examining the floor. A minute later something fell into his lap and Barry's annoyance slipped away at the sight of a large bag of iced animal crackers.
Yes! He hadn't had those since he was a kid. He ripped into the package and sat back, letting the high sugared cookies do their thing.
By the time he was three fourths of the way through the bag, his nose was a dull ache. He still couldn't see out of his right eye, though, which was annoying, but if he really had shattered the socket, it was going to take longer to heal. Hopefully, the animal crackers would get the job done before he had to go to work in the morning.
As he stared down at the bag in his lap, an idea popped into his head and he held the next animal up, examining its shape carefully – elephant, no good. While he dug for what he wanted, Harrison sighed. "What were you thinking?"
"People are dying." Barry frowned at the next animal. Bear. He couldn't have eaten all of them.
"People die all the time, Barry. You can't save them all."
He pulled out a promising cookie and finally! Holding up the pink, roughly gorilla shaped cookie, he danced it in front of his face. "I mock you with my monkey pants. Always wanted to do that."
Harrison's eye actually twitched. "Barry."
"Harrison." He ate the cookie.
They stared off, Barry grinning, Harrison frowning in disapproval. It was Barry who broke the eye contact, swiveling the chair around until the room was spinning. He threw the last few cookies into his mouth all at the same time, then licked his fingers clean, making sure to get his tongue between each one and under his finger nails, noting that Harrison watched him closely, eyes darkening with intent.
It was tempting. More than it should be, but the clock said it was only eight. If he hurried, he still might be able to find the meta. He'd have to leave the suit, but oh well. He'd manage.
Barry stood, stretching his arms out of his head. "So, I guess I'll just head home then."
"I don't think so." In the next instant, he was on the floor, hand cuffed to the leg of the bolted down work table with Harrison kneeling over him. "You can play the whipped puppy all you want, Barry, but you forget, I've been fighting you for longer than you've been alive. I know what defeat looks like in those pretty green eyes of yours and this isn't it. This is you desperately clinging onto who you used to be. This is you still trying to make your friends proud, trying to be the Flash, but your friends, your family, they're dead, Barry, and the only way you're getting them back is if you do exactly what I say."
Barry kicked out, but Harrison easily knocked the foot away.
"That's it. You don't have to pretend to be something your not. I don't need your submission, I just need you. Alive."
Anger flashed hot through him and Barry threw his foot out again, fast enough that it caught Harrison in the sternum and shoved him several feet away. For a second, Harrison's anger matched his own, but he reigned it in quickly, transforming the angry sneer into a smile. "Those cuffs are designed for speedsters. You won't be able to phase through them, don't waste your energy trying. I have work to do."
"Wait, for real?" He couldn't seriously be leaving Barry on the floor of the lab, handcuffed to a table for the night.
Harrison didn't say anything as he walked away, closing and locking the door behind him.
[]
Harrison had taught him phasing during the immediate aftermath of the tidal wave. He'd postulated it as a theory – a safer way for Barry to get in and out of half fallen, unstable structures – then he'd walked Barry through it. If Barry had been thinking more clearly, he might have noticed that Harrison had been a little too knowledgeable about the speedforce. The way he'd described it? Barry should have realized only another speedster could have done that.
For the first half hour after Harrison left, Barry did try phasing. Screw Harrison and his advice, Barry put everything he had into vibrating his hand through the cuffs. It didn't work. They weren't regular, police issued cuffs. They were future tech, made of a different metal, thicker with a blue pad lit up in the middle.
When that failed, he fished around the table for anything useful, but it was all scrap paper and flimsy plastic odds and ends, nothing he could use to pick or pry at them. He twisted around on his back, kicking at them and the table itself, trying to dislodge something, but all that accomplished was bruising his wrist.
Nothing. Hm, he could always try breaking his thumb, but if that didn't work, he wasn't sure he could set it himself again before it healed wrong, Harrison would have to re-break it in the morning and he wasn't quite that desperate yet.
Eventually, he laid out on the floor, looking up at the ceiling. The hum inside the walls of S.T.A.R. Labs must have lulled him to sleep, because when he opened his eyes again, it was to Harrison leaning over him and a box of cinnamon rolls just out of reach.
Bastard. "Those for me?"
"Let's hear the magic word." Harrison used his free hand to pull a protein bar out of his back pocket and no. Not when there was a perfectly good source of calories five feet away.
"Screw you, give me the food."
"Barry…"
"I will blow you. Like, for real. Harrison, give me the damn cinnamon rolls."
Honestly, he didn't think Harrison would do it, but then the cuff was gone and Barry dove the five feet, grabbing the box happily. He still had no idea where Harrison was getting them – probably somewhere out of town, the cheater.
The first rush of sugar in the morning always hit him hard and Barry sighed into it, let it wash all thought out of his head. It was especially good, considering his dinner had consisted of a bag of animal cookies and his body had to use most of that on repairing the damage to his face.
Speaking of. "You have a mirror?"
Harrison pulled Barry's phone out of his pocket. Oo, even better. Barry held it up, front facing camera on and stared at himself in despair. The swelling had gone down, but a circle of green covered his eyes and spread of over the bridge of his nose, fading into yellow across his cheek bones.
There was no way he was hiding that. He poked it and sighed. At least it looked worse than it felt. A little tender, maybe, but not painful. Barry put the phone down and grabbed another roll with a scathing. "You suck."
"Not at the moment. You, on the other hand…"
Damnit, he really needed to be more careful. That was the third time he'd walked into that one. He knew better than that. Still…
Barry moved onto his third roll and he shouldn't be considering it. He really shouldn't, except… except he kind of was. The last time they'd done that Harrison had still been pretending to be paralyzed. It had been gentle and coaxing, the fingers in his hair resting against his head without urgency, words of encouragement and praise in his ears. This time would be different. It would be…
His eyes drifted to the clock and he wiped the icing off his lower lip with his thumb, sucking it off before grinning at Harrison. "Not now. I'm late for work."
[]
Barry couldn't focus. He was distracted. Not by thoughts of Harrison. No. Not thinking about that. That was… No. He was thinking about the meta-human. There hadn't been any more attacks while he'd been handcuffed to Cisco's work station, but the female victim from the other night had died of complications. That was two dead bodies and one still in a coma and the security footage was apparently too obscured to run facial recognition.
He should call Felicity. Felicity could probably find a way to clean it up, make it clearer, and her systems were a lot faster. She could hack facial recognition and get back to him in a matter of hours.
Barry pulled his phone out and stared at his contact information. If he called her, though, he was opening the line of communication again. If he called her, he had to hear her voice and he really, really wanted to hear it. Not just in a message, but really hear her. He missed her. Missed Oliver and even Diggle and it ached, but if he called… if he called it might give Felicity the idea that he was reaching out and he wasn't, even if he kind of was. Why did it have to be so complicated?
A knock on the open door interrupted his thoughts and Eddie's voice cutting through the otherwise silent room. "Barry?"
Barry waved his hand over the top of the screen he was hunched behind. "Here."
"Hey, I was just… Barry, why are you wearing sunglasses?"
Oh, right, that. Barry pulled them off, setting them aside. He'd eaten the godforsaken bar after getting to work, but even with that and three hours, it still looked like someone had taken a highlighter to his face. "Yeah, sorry. Ran into a… door this morning."
Eddie stared at him for several seconds. "A door? Really?"
"No." Barry set the phone down. "Did you need something?"
"I was checking on the status of Detective Carter's file?"
"Done."
It had been done for hours, but he hadn't felt like going downstairs. He'd been waiting for either Jones or the detective in question to pick it up. Instead, Eddie had shown up and not that it wasn't welcome, but now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen anyone in his office other than Harrison, Captain Sign, and Eddie for the last week.
Hm.
Eddie picked up the file and looked down at Barry, hesitantly. "So, about that eye?"
Barry missed Joe. Joe would have just accepted that his injuries were Flash related without asking for details. Or maybe not. Joe was pretty protective. "I went running last night and didn't look where I was going."
"And?"
"And I ran into a lamp post at over two hundred miles an hour. Not my finest moment. I broke my nose and shattered my eye socket."
"Wow, I guess you weren't kidding when you said you heal fast." Eddie tapped the file on his hand a few times and Barry did his best not to sigh, because it was clear there was more he wanted to say. "Do you want to maybe go get lunch?"
That couldn't be good. "Can't. I'm meeting up with Harrison."
"Right." There was something in Eddie's tone, something disapproving, but Barry tried to focus on the paper work on his desk rather than Eddie still shuffling next to him. "What about, I don't know, drinks after work?"
"I'm…" He stopped himself just short of saying he was busy, because actually, that was perfect. With a smile, Barry looked up at Eddie. "You know what? Sure thing."
[]
Harrison wasn't pleased, but then Barry hadn't thought he would be. Apparently, it was perfectly fine for Barry to sulk at home alone or fall asleep, bored on the catwalk of the accelerator, or spend all night running lab work, but heaven forbid he actually go out with someone.
Not that he even wanted to go out, but the point was, Harrison couldn't lock him away until he had a use for him. It didn't work that way. Barry was a person and, more importantly, "I'm the Flash and I'm not just going to sit back and watch people get hurt because he doesn't want me to play hero."
"He who?"
Barry rolled his eyes and took another drink of his soda. "Harrison. Pay attention."
Eddie nodded, then gulped sickly and drank the last of the whiskey in his glass. "Okay, but why?"
"Why what?"
"Why doesn't he want you to…" Eddie made a whooshing motion with his hand that looked more like flying than running.
"Because he doesn't want me to get killed, which would be really sweet if he wasn't doing it for his own selfish purposes."
"What purposes?"
"Not the point. I have been struck by lightening, filled my lungs with poisonous gas, been shot with a sub-zero gun, punched by a highschool bully with the strength of steel, had my powers sucked out of me by an electrified meta-human, had them shocked back into me with twenty thousand kilo-amps of electricity…"
"Jesus Christ, Barry!"
"…been shot in the back with arrows, had my internal organs partially liquefied by deadly soundwaves, and, let's not forget, had the ever loving shit beaten out of me by the Reverse-Flash."
"The who?"
"Again, not the point. I think I can handle one meta-human with the ability to make people, pardon my phrasing, trip balls."
"Well, they… I mean, one's in a coma, and two of them are dead, so…"
"Yeah, but they aren't me."
"I am so confused." Eddie tapped the bar and the bartender came over, refilling his tumbler while he stared down at it, eyebrows drawn together tight.
"I know." Barry patted him on the shoulder and watched Eddie tip the glass back.
He hadn't meant for this to happen. When Eddie had suggested they get drinks after work, Barry had figured one hour, a few beers and he'd piss off Harrison enough to get his attention and never mind that he shouldn't even want Harrison's attention. Then Eddie had started talking about Joe, which led into Iris, and the moment Iris was mentioned, Eddie moved onto whiskey and Barry probably should have stopped him, but he didn't and now Eddie was closing in on too much and the bartender was looking at them funny.
Huh. Maybe he shouldn't have decided to unload in a public bar. And maybe he should have eaten more than a bowl of pretzels for dinner.
Still, it was good to talk to someone, especially when that someone was drunk enough not to have an entirely clear memory of their conversation in the morning. Not that he wasn't being careful about what he said, but just to be able to say 'he doesn't own me' without Harrison there to contradict him was so freeing.
"Barry."
"Hm."
"What did you mean by they aren't you?"
"Oh, right, so, my accelerated metabolism burns through everything super fast, not just calories. Alcohol, pain meds, even those sleep aides the grief counselor prescribed me."
Eddie stared at him silently for a few seconds, before saying, "Barry, man, that… half the time I can't sleep without those."
"Yeah?" Barry reached back and dug into his bag for his bottle. "Here, take mine."
"Barry, you can't just…" Eddie picked up the bottle and held it up, no doubt attempting to tell Barry off for trying to hand out prescription pills, which was illegal and it would be a valid point, except Barry was too busy using the bartender's momentary distraction to reach behind the counter at super speed and refill his pretzel bowl and, oh, there were peanuts.
"Uh, Barry? These aren't sleep aides."
Barry stopped, mouth full of salty peanuts and slurred, "Wha 's it?"
"They're anti… depressants." Oh, they so weren't. Anti something, but that pause was significant. He'd have to look it up later. "Were you even listening to the doctor when he prescribed these?"
"Not really. I just figured it was the same stuff he was giving everyone else. Doesn't matter, anyway. Like I said, I metabolize everything too fast. Caitlin was working on it, but…" But she was dead and Harrison didn't give a rat's ass if Barry was able to get wasted with his friends. Not that he had any left.
Barry swallowed another handful of peanuts and stared at the bowl of pretzels numbly. This was pointless. Going out with Eddie like this, trying to make Harrison, what? Jealous? What good would that do? It wasn't like Barry had any intention of sleeping with Eddie. It was just a petty indulgence on his part, really. He should go home before it got too late.
Taking the glass from Eddie, Barry put an arm under him to help him stand. "Come on, let's get you home."
As they stood, Barry bumped into someone and turned, "Hey, sorry about that, I… oh!"
He stopped just short of blurting out, 'It's you!' because standing there in a long sleeved shirt with gloves on and a flustered frown was the guy from the security footage of the convenience store robbery. Well, probably. The footage had been really blurry and black and white and not the best angle, but still. Pretty sure.
The man kept walked, heading to the back door and Barry turned to the bartender, simultaneously slipping a hand into Eddie's jacket pocket and hoping the detective was too inebriated to notice. "Hey, could you call him an Uber?"
The bartender stared at him silently and it took Barry a second to realize Uber wasn't really a thing in Central at the moment. "Fine, just give him some water and don't let him leave until he's sobered up a little. Eddie, I'll see you Monday."
Eddie made some fumbled protests, but Barry was too busy throwing down enough cash on the bar to more than cover their drinks, as well as a decent tip. Harrison not letting him pay rent may make him feel like a high priced rent boy, but at least it gave him the money to pick up the tab.
By the time he turned around, the back door was already closing. He barely managed not to use the speedforce as he made his way through the dense crowd. It was still early, just after nine, but this was one of only three legally operating bars in the city and it was Friday night.
Outside, the alley was oppressively dark.
A single bulb over the door illuminated the entry way, but everything else was shadowed so heavily it was nearly black. He almost couldn't make out the dumpster across the alley. The door behind him closed with a loud clang as Barry stepped away from it, squinting into the dark, trying to make out shapes.
The bar's exit was at the far end. He didn't think the guy could have made it to the street before Barry got there, but…
"I'm sorry."
The words were so soft that for a moment, Barry thought he'd imagined it. Then a hand wrapped around his forearm. He jumped back with an undignified shriek, pulling his arm away from the loose grip and stumbled back several feet.
He leaned on the wall for support, a hand over his chest to keep his heart from hammering out of his ribcage. "That was not okay! For real! I just about had a… I had a… heart atta… attack. What…?"
Barry swayed, the world spinning around him. His arm was tingling where it had been touched and he felt… not breathless, but kind of? His chest was tight. He leaned more heavily into the wall to keep himself standing as someone stepped out of the shadow.
"Like I said, I'm sorry, but Sarah needs me."
There was a strange ringing in his ears and why couldn't he catch his breath? More importantly, why were the walls melting? Like water colors.
"You should sit down."
"He's right, bro."
Barry's head whipped to the side, looked for the source of the second voice, but there wasn't anyone there. It had sounded like… but it couldn't be.
He blinked a few times to clear his head, only it just made everything worse. A hand touched his shoulder and Barry jerked away, skidding several feet on instinct before tripping over his own feet and landing on his hands and knees, the broken concrete shredding his palms. He turned around just as quickly, trying to face his attacker. If there was an attacker. The ringing was turning into a roar, like the ocean moving inside his head and he couldn't get enough air into his lungs.
"What…" He felt like he was suffocating. "What did you…?"
The guy in front of him knelt down. At least, he thought it was a guy. His voice was a little high and it was too dark to really tell. Also, his face had morphed into something like a toad, so…
A hand reached out to touch him again and Barry smacked his hand away before it could get too close. Or, he tried to. He missed by an embarrassingly wide margin. Not good. Really, really not good.
"Yeah, not good is an understatement. Man, this is epically bad." Barry looked around again, but there still wasn't anyone else in the alley, just him and the toad faced man. The voice sounded like it was coming from his coms, right in his ear, cutting through the roar in his head. Oh, crap. He was hallucinating.
"Hey, calm down. I'm just gonna help you lean back so you won't hit your head, okay? Then I'll go get help."
"He's gonna leave. Barry, you can't let him leave."
"How do I stop him?" Damnit, now he was talking to the hallucination.
"Dude, handcuffs." Oh, right, he'd lifted Eddie's handcuffs on his way out.
"You still there?" A gloved hand tapped at his face and Barry jerked away, nearly falling over in the process. "Stay right here, just don't move."
He needed something to attach the cuff to. Couldn't be himself, he wasn't sure he'd be able to phase out of them again if he needed to, not like this. Toad-face…
"That's a horrible name. What'd I say about you and Caitlin naming things?"
"Shut up shut up shut up!" He spotted an open drain pipe to his right. It was metal, rusted, but also, better than nothing.
Toad-face hesitated and Barry took the opportunity to grab his wrist and slap the cuffs on, then yank the wrist to the side and attached the other end to the open drain pipe, before scrambling back and away. He stopped after a few feet, just out of reach. Toad-face yanked at the cuff unsuccessfully and he'd done it. He'd caught the meta-human.
"Yes, my man!"
Barry slumped back against the wall and smiled. He could do this. He could still be the Flash. You know, once he stopped hearing dead people and he could breathe and the tingling was moving up into his shoulder now, that couldn't be good.
Toad-face stopped pulling at his restraint and turned to glare at Barry. "Give me the key."
Barry shook his head, "Nope."
"You… look, you need a doctor, okay? My skin secretes a toxic chemical…"
"Five-methoxy-N, N-dimethyltryptamine – more specifically, the strain found in the California River Toad." Skin secretion, that meant he must have dosed Barry when he'd touched him coming out the door.
Toad-face blinked back at him, stunned, "Yeah, that's right and if you don't get to a hospital soon, you'll die. So, can I have the key?"
"Can't, I don't have it." His smile dropped. He didn't have the key. That… complicated things. Although, not nearly as much as how he was supposed to get Toad-face…
"Still hate that name."
"Stop it, I'm trying to think."
"My bad, bro."
…from there to S.T.A.R. Labs? Or should he take him back to the pipeline at all? This hadn't exactly gone smoothly. The last thing he needed right now was to hear how many ways Harrison could say 'I told you so.' Not to mention the vague threats to people Barry cared about that might suddenly become not so vague. So, yeah, he should probably…
"Um, Barry?"
"Sh."
…let the police handle this. He could knock him out and drop him off at the station, but without his suit, Barry couldn't stop to talk and he didn't want to risk anyone touching the meta-human and getting hurt.
"No, seriously, Barry, look."
"Not now!"
He'd text Eddie, but he just finished getting him stupid drunk and…
"Barry!"
"What?!"
He looked to the right where the voice in his head had been coming from and it should have been a shock when he saw Cisco kneeling next to him, wearing the same clothes he'd had on the last time Barry had seen him, hair tucked behind his ears and a hand held out, finger pointed at the meta-human cuffed to the drain pipe. It should have, but then Barry looked at the Toad-face and a fully formed hallucination was the least of his concerns.
A few feet away the meta-human had dislocated his thumb. His hand was slick with something wet that probably wasn't water and with a little tugging and twisting, he pulled it free of the cuff with only a slight winch. As Barry watched, he popped it back in effortlessly.
Well… shit.
Toad-face looked over at him warily, "You okay?"
Barry nodded, not sure what he should to. He could try and handcuff him again, maybe tighter this time?
"How are you okay?"
"I'm the… speedster. I'm a speedster." He'd almost said the Flash. He couldn't think with Cisco standing there and his head ringing. At least he could breathe and the tingling had started to fade.
"Speedster? Like the Flash?"
"Yes." Then, because it felt important, "You look like a toad."
Toad-face raised his eyebrows. "Yeah? I've been called worse. So, I heard you and your friend talking in there. You really a cop?"
"CSI."
Toad-face licked his lips nervously, his tongue long and thin, flicking down to nearly touch the ground.
"That's messed up."
Barry could only nod, momentarily at a loss. That had to be part of the hallucination right?
The man shifted slightly and Barry sat up onto the balls of his feet, ready to run if necessary. Instead of running, the meta-human sat down and looked Barry in the eyes. "Okay, look. The thing is, I can't go to jail."
Barry tilted his head to the side. "You've killed people."
"It was an accident?"
"That doesn't make it okay."
"Just… hear me out."
Cisco leaned closer, whispering, "Is he really trying to talk his way out of murder?"
Barry cut Cisco a meaningful glance, because at this point, he was just stalling. He needed to give his body as much time as he could to clear out the toxins and if that meant letting the meta-human talk, then he'd let him talk.
Toad-face took the silence as a go-ahead. "After the particle accelerator exploded and this happened to me, I quit my job at the zoo, I moved to the middle of nowhere and did tech support from home. I didn't want to hurt anyone. I was terrified just going to the grocery store once a week. But then the wave hit and I couldn't get in touch with my cousin Sarah. We weren't close, but she's the only family I have. I tried, but her cell was dead and she wasn't responding to emails and I just… I had to know."
Sarah Tabet had been the first victim, the one still in a coma.
"She wasn't supposed to see me, but she did and she hugged me before I could stop her, I… The hospital says there's no brain activity and they're over booked as it is. They can't keep her on life support against the doctor's advice unless I can pay out of pocket. I'm trying to get her transferred, but it takes time. The convenience store was just to get enough cash to keep her alive until then. No one was supposed to get hurt, but I ran into the woman on the way out and the store owner used the distraction to jump me and…"
It wasn't like Barry couldn't sympathize, because what if it had been him and he couldn't reach Iris? What if it had been her in a coma and he'd needed the money to keep her alive? Would he have done the same thing?
"If I go to jail, I can't pay for her medical expenses. She'll be taken off life support. I can't let that happen."
As much as Barry wanted to help, he couldn't. This wasn't just robbery they were talking about, it was manslaughter. He couldn't let that go.
Barry shook his head, but before he could say anything, the back door of the bar was pushed half open. "Barry, are you back here?"
Eddie?! Barry automatically looked past Toad-face to the door. Almost immediately, a gloved hand touched his face. He was too surprised to move away as the meta-human pressed their mouths together. It wasn't a kiss, per say, but it was… weird. Just the press of lips on Barry's and a tongue brushed along the inside of Barry's mouth almost clinically before he pulled away.
Barry licked his lips, confused. "Why'd you do that?"
Toad-face met Barry's question with the same apologetic frown he'd worn when Barry had first seen him standing just outside the door. "It's more potent in my saliva."
It took a second to register, another for him to realize what it meant, but by then it was too late.
[]
At first, Barry thought he was dreaming, and as far as dreams went, this one sucked. For one thing, he hurt. His muscles were stiff and sore, his head ached, and he was cold. Whatever he was lying on was stiff and uncomfortable. It felt like a table. He forced his stiff fingers to spread out and felt smooth metal. Either he was at S.T.A.R. Labs or he was in the morgue.
Somewhere to his left, he heard Harrison's voice say. "I know you're awake, don't bother pretending otherwise."
Right, S.T.A.R. Labs it was. He almost would have preferred the morgue. At least the mortician wouldn't be pissed at him.
Barry opened his eyes cautiously and stared up at the ceiling of Caitlin's lab. The windows were closed, skylights shuttered. Only a handful of lights were on, set low to keep the room dim. It smelled a little like dust and the faint odor of mold spores because Harrison didn't have the time or inclination to really clean anything that wasn't critical to the actual accelerator itself.
The last thing he remembered was the meta-human kissing him. Well, not kissing him, dosing him by shoving a tongue in Barry's mouth, then… nothing.
He rolled his head to the side slowly. Harrison was sitting in a chair next to the bed, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, a pen tapping against his open palm. Something he only did when he was so angry he needed to do something with his hands to keep from killing someone and at this point, that someone was Barry.
More troubling, though, was Cisco slouched in a chair on the other side of the room, waving a Twizzler. "Someone's in trouble."
Harrison stopped tapping the pen and sighed, drawing Barry's attention back to him. "What were you thinking?"
"Pe…" Barry broke off, swallowing around the raw pain in his throat. He must not have been out for very long. Either that, or Harrison hadn't given him enough IV to facilitate any real healing. "People were dying."
"And that isn't your problem right now. Your problem is your inability to follow simple instructions. What exactly do I have to do to get you to take this seriously, Barry?" Harrison reached over and handed Barry a bottle of water and Barry tried very hard to keep his eyes on Harrison and not look over at Cisco, who had rolled his eyes and was using his hand as a puppet to mock Harrison.
Barry drank the water and then drank some more, until he was sure he wasn't going to laugh. "I know, okay, it didn't go… well, at all, but I'm fine."
"No, Barry, you're not fine. You were dead."
"I what?" There was no way he'd heard that right.
"Dead. You had a seizure, went into shock, and your heart stopped beating." Harrison's hand moved suddenly and Barry flinched, but didn't pull away as it came to rest on Barry's chest. "I felt you being ripped from the speedforce. It took me two minutes to get you back. Do you know what two minutes can feel like to a speedster, Barry? It can feel like an eternity."
Barry swallowed the apology sitting at the back of his throat. He shouldn't have to apologize for being who he was and Harrison was just upset because Barry dying would have dire affects on his plans to get home, but… but he wanted to. He felt guilty for worrying Harrison, even more than he did over what Harrison would have done if he had died and Barry didn't want to think about what that meant.
Harrison's hand was gentle on his chest, but tight with the anger Barry could see in his eyes. Screw it, better safe than sorry and the apology didn't have to really mean anything. Or, at least, Harrison didn't have to know that it did. Barry had barely opened his mouth when Cisco sat up in the chair, pointing a finger at him in warning. "Bro, don't you dare. If anyone should be apologizing, it's him. None of that would have happened if he'd helped you instead of forcing you to go it alone."
Barry glanced over before he could stop himself and Harrison followed his gaze. When he saw nothing, he looked back at Barry, his hand leaving Barry's chest. "What are you looking at?"
He could lie, but there wasn't really a point. "Cisco."
"Cisco? You're hallucinating?" Barry nodded mutely and tried not to flinch when Harrison's hands tightened into fists. Instead of lashing, out, though, he took a deep breath, relaxed and stood up. "Go home. Get some rest."
"What?" His legs were still weak, but Barry managed to get them under him and stumble across the room after Harrison's retreating back. "Harrison, where are you…"
He'd barely touched the older man's shoulder when a hand suddenly latched onto his throat and he found himself pressed into the wall, unable to breath. Harrison's eyes were red, his body blurring as it vibrated. The hand tightened, its vibrations feeling like they were shredding his throat until Barry's vision started to cloud.
Then he was on the floor with Harrison standing over him. "Go home, Barry."
[]
It took him an hour to get back to the house.
He didn't feel like testing Harrison's patience further by doing anything reckless like trying to run home on empty. The only food in S.T.A.R. Labs was Harrison's bars. He could have put in an IV, but that would mean staying at the Labs until he's cycled through enough bags and… no.
Barry had often thought S.T.A.R. Labs felt like a small ghost town. Now, with Cisco there, but not, it was worse. Especially considering he wouldn't. Stop. Talking. And Barry tried not to engage his hallucination, but it was Cisco and, to be fair, he made some good points.
"Bro, seriously, do you ever clean this lab? Are those cookie crumbs?! Were you eating cookies at my work station?"
"You ate candy in here all the time."
"Yeah, candy doesn't leave crumbs and, man, what did you do to my suit?!"
"I thought it was our suit!"
"Not until you learn to treat it with respect."
There was something like a small grocery store near the bus stop and he loaded up on every Oreo they had, six baloney Lunchables, and a half gallon of chocolate milk, all the while trying not to giggle, because Cisco was trailing behind him, mimicking Caitlin as he complained about the lack of healthy food in Barry's selection.
"Really, Barry, when I said ten thousand calories, I didn't mean ten thousand empty calories. You cannot subsist on sugar and dairy alone. You have to maintain a proper dietary balance."
"Thirty six fifty."
"At least get a banana."
"Sh!" Barry swiped his card with a flinch, addressing the cashier apologetically. "Not you. Sorry. Long night."
The guy nodded, a little skeptical, but not really concerned.
The bus ride was worse. Cisco seemed intent on cheering him up, which included singing a wide variety of Weird Al songs and more than once Barry broke into fits of laughter that had other the other bus patrons glancing nervously in his direction.
As soon as they were safely inside Harrison's home, Barry turned to glare at Cisco. "Not cool."
"What?" He trailed behind Barry, following him into the kitchen. "I'm not doing anything you don't want me to do."
"Really? I want you to get me fired? Because that's what'll happen if someone recognizes me and tells Singh they saw me talking to myself."
"Barry, man, you know I love you, but I'm a construct of your imagination. Everything I do is something you, at the very least subconsciously want me to do."
That was… shit. His hallucination was making more sense than he was.
Barry grabbed a glass out of the cabinet with his free hand and went to sit on the sofa, tearing into his bag of Oreos while Cisco walked around the living room, looking at everything. He was ripping open the first Lunchable when Cisco threw himself down on the couch. "You gonna put something on?"
Barry shrugged, "Harrison doesn't have cable. He's not here much, so I think the television's mostly for decoration."
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"You live here. Where's your stuff?"
Barry blinked at Cisco and shoved a two tier stack of crackers, baloney and cheese in his mouth to buy himself some time, but Cisco, or his subconscious, or whatever had already made its point and didn't push the issue. It was right, though, there wasn't really anything of Barry's there. He'd brought over an armful of clothes at the beginning and his toothbrush, but it had stopped there. Everything else was either at work or S.T.A.R. Labs, packed down in boxes or strewn around the office no one used.
There was something comforting about having one foot out the door, even if the rest of him was in Harrison's bed.
The silence, for once, was comfortable and Barry let himself sink into it. He let the food and company wash away his anxiety and guilt. If he closed his eyes, he could almost be in Cisco's apartment, chilling after a mission.
"You should get some sleep."
He hummed at the figment of his imagination and set the last, half empty bag of Oreos down on the coffee table. Normally, he would have stumbled into Harrison's bed, sunk into the sheets, and let himself pretend he wasn't alone. With Cisco there, that felt wrong. So, he curled up against the side of the couch and pulled his jacket up higher on his shoulder.
Sleep was good. He'd deal with everything else later.
[]
He woke hours later to sunlight coming in through the large windows and the smell of eggs and bacon dragging him into consciousness. The smell was coming from a white bag on the coffee table. More ominous was the protein bar next to it, but Barry ignored that as he sat up and opened the bag, moaning happily at the foil wrapped breakfast tacos.
On the other side of the house, he heard the shower turn on. Barry stared at the protein bar, considering whether he should eat it or throw it out and pretend he had. Harrison would know, though. He always did.
"Don't poke the bear."
Nervously, he glanced to his left and, sure enough, Cisco was sitting on the couch beside him, grinning.
Shit. "You're still here?"
"Looks like." Not that it wasn't welcome, but it did create a certain amount of concern. "You really should eat that, though."
With a sigh, Barry forced it down and then went for the burritos, wondering what he should do with the day. He had the next two days off. On call, as always, but that rarely happened. Usually, he'd spend the day following Harrison around, maybe go by the Precinct if he got bored enough. With Cisco there, he wasn't sure either of those were an option. He couldn't go to precinct if he was hallucinating and he wasn't following Harrison around with Cisco there.
"We could go to the movies."
"I'm not taking my hallucination to the movies."
"Come on. You know you want to."
Yeah, maybe he did, but he wasn't going to. The shower cut off and Barry got up to throw away the trash before Harrison could say anything. He'd just finished washing his hands when Harrison came out of the bedroom, shirtless with his dark jeans hanging low on his hips. He looked good. Glasses off, hair damp and rumpled, abdomen slick with water, tight and toned, a faint trail of hair leading down to the buttons and bellow that…
"Good God, man, control yourself!"
Barry blinked out of his daze, his stomach tight with a strange mix of guilt and arousal. Harrison smiled in amusement, but didn't comment. Instead, he picked something up off the counter and held it out for Barry. It was his phone.
"You left this at the lab last night. Eddie was… persistent." The blue light was flashing in the corner. Barry unlocked it and gawked at the thirty missed calls. "I told him you showed up at S.T.A.R. Labs in shock, but that you were stable and sleeping it off. He insisted that I have you call him when you woke up."
It was already ten. He slid between the counter and Harrison, so close he could smell his aftershave and feel his body heat and… no, don't think about it.
As soon as he was a safe distance away and Harrison was busy making his morning coffee in the kitchen, Barry pressed the call back. Cisco hadn't moved from the couch, but he was watching intently, which didn't help.
"Barry, is that you?" Great, Eddie sounded so worried he was just short of desperate.
"Yeah, it's me. Sorry about last night, I…"
"What happened?"
"I, uh…" he glanced at Harrison, but decided against asking. "I don't really remember."
"Let me refresh your memory then. I came outside and you were on the ground convulsing. The suspect ran off and I tried to chase him, but he was gone by the time I hit the street. When I got back, you weren't breathing. I went in to get help and by the time I came back out you were gone."
"Right, um, Harrison says I showed up at S.T.A.R. Labs. I guess I woke up and ran there."
"You guess?"
"I don't know!" He slipped out the door to the patio to give himself the illusion of privacy. "Harrison says I was barely conscious, so I don't remember, but I'm fine now."
"Liar, liar, pants on fire."
He jumped a little, because Cisco had moved from the couch to stand next to him, leaning against the glass wall with raised eyebrows of judgment.
"Shut up."
"What?"
"Not you. Look, I really don't have time for this, can I…"
"We found the meta-human, Barry."
"You did?!" That wasn't good. What if someone had touched him? "Is everyone okay?"
"Not really, because he's dead."
"What do you mean, he's dead?!"
"I mean, someone ripped his heart out. Literally. There's a hole in the man's chest as big as a fist and his rib cage was pulverized from front to back. Do you have idea what could have done that?"
The police hadn't released the security footage yet and there hadn't been a rush on the report Barry was working up, so he hadn't turned it in yet. He'd wanted to give himself time to do be the Flash. The only other person besides him that knew who or what they were looking for was… Harrison. With enough speed, Barry could punch through almost anything, which meant Harrison could too and Harrison had been angry. He'd been mad, but he'd left without so much as raising a hand to Barry.
"I have to go."
"Barry, wait…"
"I'll come by the station later." He hung up and stared down at the phone. Why would Harrison do that?
"You know why."
He refused to look at Cisco, because yeah, he did. This meta-human wasn't a threat to them. At least, not until Barry had gone after him and gotten himself nearly killed. Harrison couldn't have cared less until Barry tried to intervene.
Shoving the phone in his back pocket, he stormed into the house where Harrison was waiting beside the bar and demanded, "Why?"
Harrison finished his sip of coffee, seemingly unconcerned. "You'll have to give me more than that, Barry."
"Why did you kill him? If you were worried I'd go after him again, you could have just dropped him off at the station or put him in the pipeline. You didn't have to kill him!"
"I'll assume you're referring to the meta-human from last night?"
"You know I am."
Harrison set the mug down gently on the counter, giving Barry his full attention. "I wasn't worried you'd go after him. If that had been my concern, I would have simply locked you in the pipeline and been done with it."
"Then why…?"
"I was anger."
"You were angry? You killed him because you were mad at him?"
"I was mad at you, but you were hardly in a position to bare the brunt of that, so I found someone else to take it out on." Before Barry could process that, Harrison moved forward into his space, crowding him against the edge of the counter. "Although I can admit a certain amount of… resentment towards him."
"For what?"
Harrison's hand moved up to cup the side of Barry's face. "For hurting you."
"You hurt me all the time."
"I know." Harrison's hand slid up into his hair and gripped just hard enough to hurt. "I know, but I'm allowed. He's not."
And it was so messed up that Barry's chest ached at that. Not in a painful way like he wanted to push Harrison away, but in a way that made him want to pull the man closer. "You don't own me. I'm not yours. You don't get to say…"
"I do."
His head was yanked to the side by the grip on his hair and damnit, he was getting hard. Stupid Pavlovian response. It had only been a month since this whole messed up thing started and already, parts of him were beginning to associate Harrison's anger with an inevitable downslide into sex, to link pain with the promise of pleasure. That wasn't okay, but then none of this was okay.
Harrison leaned in to put his mouth by Barry's ear. "I've owned you since the moment you were struck by lightening and became the Flash. You are my creation, my way home, mine, and I will kill anyone who threatens that. I will rip the heart out of anyone stupid enough to lay a hand on you."
Barry pulled his head out of Harrison's grip, some of his own hair coming out with it. He intended to shove Harrison away. He intended to punch the possessive sneer off his face, but before he even realized what he was doing he'd already pulled Harrison to him and was kissing him, open mouthed and desperate. Harrison kissed back, his hands moving to grip Barry's ass and pull their hips together. Barry moaned into Harrison's mouth. His own hands dropped and pushed between them for access to the buckle of Harrison's pants.
"Woah!"
Cisco. The arousal pooled low in Barry's stomach turned sick.
"For real? Keep it in your pants, bro!"
With a pained whimper, Barry ducked out from under Harrison and stumbled away. He was so hard it hurt, but he leaned against the edge of the couch and breathed deep until the throbbing ache between his legs settled down.
"Barry?"
He shook his head against the concern the Harrison's voice. That's not what he needed, not what he wanted. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I can't."
"Why?"
"I can't with…" He hesitated, not even really sure why, but Cisco being there felt private. It felt like something Harrison didn't need to know. Except, he did. Hallucinating was never a good thing. If something was wrong with him and Barry didn't tell him, Harrison would get angry again, maybe even angry enough to kill someone else. "I can't with Cisco watching."
"You're still hallucinating?" Harrison hadn't moved closer, which was good, because right at that moment, Barry didn't trust himself. Barry nodded shakily and Harrison did move then, heading toward the bedroom. "Get dressed. We're going to S.T.A.R. Labs to run tests."
[]
Seven hours, six vials of blood, three urine samples, a CAT Scan, a PET, an MRI, and an EEG later, Barry was eating his thirteenth bacon cheese burger, waiting for Harrison to finish going over the results. Cisco had been there the entire time, but he'd been pretty chill now that Barry and Harrison weren't about to rip each other's clothes off.
Harrison sat back in his chair, hands clasped in his lap. "There's no trace of the toxin left in your system."
"Good!" Barry opened his mouth to put the last of his burger in, but caught Harrison's narrowed eyes. "Not good?"
"No, Barry, that's not good."
Barry shrugged and kept going on his burger. Cisco had found a bag of jelly beans and was happily sitting on the desk next to Barry, eating them. It was strange, but he was getting used to it. At the very least, Harrison couldn't kill an imaginary Cisco, so, bonus.
When Barry seemed unconcerned, Harrison continued. "It means the source of your hallucination isn't chemical."
"So, what then? It's all in my head?"
"Precisely."
While Barry thought about that, Cisco glared at Harrison. "Okay, but then why just Cisco? Why not everyone?"
"I'm hardly a licensed psychologist, Barry, however, I would assume that's because Cisco's safe. While you and Caitlin were friends, you weren't close. Joe and your father would no doubt be deeply disappointed in you and you've told me yourself how heavily the guilt of abandoning Iris on that shore weighs on you. Cisco was your best friend, kind hearted and forgiving by nature. As I said, safe."
The imaginary Cisco threw a jelly bean at Harrison's head and Barry couldn't stop the laugh that bubbled up. When Harrison frowned, Barry dropped his head. "Sorry, he, um, he threw a jelly bean at you."
"Tell him it was mango."
"He says it was mango flavored."
Sighing, Harrison stood from his chair. "I trust you realize this is a very serious problem? If the CCPD finds out you're hallucinating, you will lose your job."
"Thank you, Captain Obvious."
Barry chuckled. "I know."
"Barry, if you lose your job, there are certain people who would be very concerned. They would come looking for you, to make sure you were okay and when they found out you weren't, I highly doubt they would leave it alone. Do you understand?"
Barry's mouth went dry at the implication.
"You can continue to live in the past, Barry, and risk the few friends you have left, or you can move forward into the future. A future, I might add, that can change that past. I'll be in the accelerator if you need me."
"Jerk."
Cisco threw another jelly bean, but Barry wasn't paying much attention. He was thinking about what Harrison had said. Not that the future could be changed, because Barry had no intention of changing anything, but about Oliver and Felicity. They'd insist on Barry coming back with them. They'd drag him if they had to and Harrison wouldn't let that happen. He'd stop them by any means necessary.
Barry couldn't let that happen.
His phone buzzed with a text message from Eddie, asking where he was. Considering what Harrison had just said, he shouldn't, but the only other option was staying there and doing nothing.
Right, precinct it was.
[]
Saturday's were busy downtown. Clean up and construction slowed to a stop, but other relief efforts were ramped up over the weekend and most of it centered in and around downtown – clothes, blankets, books, centers for the safe, legal entertainment of the city's youth.
With so many people around, it made using his speed next to impossible. The Flash was presumed dead and he'd rather keep it that way. At least for now. So, he stopped at the edge of a mostly abandoned neighborhood just outside of the city center and walked the rest of the way.
The Precinct building wasn't empty, but it was a close thing. Most of the officers were out on patrol or helping with crowd control. There were a handful of detectives actually in the building and it was easy enough to avoid eye contact with the few he passed on his way up the stairs to his lab. As soon as he was safe inside, door shut against unwanted visitors, he texted Eddie that he was there.
Two minutes later, he door opened and Eddie poked his head in, confused. "I didn't think you were here."
Barry shrugged with a smile and ignored Cisco looking in his microscope on the other side of the room. "I thought I should finish those report so they can close the case."
Eddie looked down the hall before he stepped in and closed the door behind him. "I wanted to talk to you about what you said last night."
"What I said?"
"About Dr. Wells?" Barry held in a curse as he realized Eddie was talking about the conversation they'd had at the bar. Damnit, he'd thought Barry had been too inebriated to really remember that. "Barry, I know it's not really any of my business…"
"You're right it's not.
It just didn't sound… healthy and your eye…"
"I hit a lamp post, Eddie. It happens."
"Barry, are you sure you're okay?" Eddie started to reach out, but stopped just short of touching Barry's shoulder. It wasn't the first time he'd done that in the last few weeks. Just like the way nearly everyone had stopped approaching him about anything.
Barry forced a smile and decided to ignore the obvious implications of that question. "I'm fine. Harrison checked me this morning. No more toxins, I'm all clean. You should go. I have work to do."
Eddie hesitated, but backed down. "Call me tomorrow? And don't stay too late, you can finish the reports up Monday, there's no rush."
"Something's up with him."
He nodded and waited until Eddie had left to let him smile drop. Cisco was right, something was up. Eddie was acting strange and while Barry was well aware that he'd been avoiding people and all social interactions with them, he'd never been the most outgoing person at work before this. He'd always been considered a little weird, but that had never stopped officers from coming up if they needed to check on something.
Now, when something had been sitting on his desk for a little too long, it was Eddie or the Captain who came up to ask about it, not the detective leading the case. Not to mention the other week, after Jones had been by Barry's lab three times in under an hour and Barry was quietly considering how best to get away with a homicide, he'd overheard Captain Singh call Jones into his office and Barry hadn't seen the other CSI for two days after.
Of course, he couldn't just come out and ask. If Eddie and Captain Singh were up to something, they wouldn't just tell him.
"They might." Barry glared at his hallucination. No, this required a more… stealthy approach.
[]
He kept himself busy in his lab until shift change, first by finishing up the reports so they could be turned in first thing Monday, and then by digging through the departments computer and finding out what he could on the meta-human Harrison was killed.
Cody Brandt had been twenty three, no priors. His closest living relatives were his cousin in the hospital and a great-aunt, currently retired and living in Brazil. They hadn't been able to get in touch with her. His parents had died when he was a teenager, but there was no mention of how. He'd graduated from a local high school and gotten a job at the zoo taking care of the reptiles while he went to the community college for animal care.
According to his facebook, he loved for animals, but especially reptiles and amphibians. The night of the accelerator explosion, he'd been cleaning cages at the zoo. After that, his online activity slowed to a crawl, mostly spurred by messages from his cousin Sarah, asking how he was doing about once a month. Then the tidal wave happened and she'd stopped messaging him entirely.
There wasn't much information on her. She'd been nineteen and a freshman in college. She'd had a job at a small boutique, but after the wave, she'd become heavily involved in the volunteer relief efforts. Most, if not all of her friends had been local. Her facebook had gone inactive, but that wasn't unusual. Dealing with the day to day of life after a major disaster made social media feel less important.
She'd had a prepaid cell-phone that had gone inactive, but she'd most likely lost it in the wave and hadn't had the money to get a new one. While Barry'd had the benefit of job security with law enforcement, not everyone was that fortunate.
She probably hadn't even realized her cousin was looking for her and now she was going to die in a hospital alone, because Barry had stuck his nose in it. It wasn't just Cody's death he was responsible for; it was her's as well.
As soon as he was sure Captain Singh was gone and most of the detectives were either too busy closing out their computers, or opening them up to notice, he used his speed to slip through the Captain's office door. It was dark, but there was enough sunlight coming through the half closed windows that he could see without turning on a light.
Personnel files were stored two ways, both digitally on Captain Singh's computer and by hardcopy in a cabinet at the back of the office. While Barry was a decent hacker, he preferred to leave that kind of thing to Felicity when at all possible. Thankfully, he didn't need a key to access the cabinet.
Phasing through the front panel of the top drawer to the filing cabinet, he felt around for the inside of the latch and twisted until it popped open. It was louder than he would have liked, but no one came looking, so he was relatively certain it had gone unnoticed.
It didn't take him long to find his file. Inside were the usual forms, employment intake information, occasional write up – mostly for tardiness – no complaints, which was interesting, but no very helpful. At the very back, though, was his psych evaluation.
His curiosity outweighed his moral dilemma and he flashed through it, his stomach sinking as he did so. Numbly, he read through it again, slower. Cisco had gone uncharacteristically silent and Barry tried not to think about what that meant.
A lot of it was observational notes. Barry avoided eye contact, answered questions evasively, seemed to be in a constant state of movement, from shifting positions on his chair to picking at the beds of his nails to the point they bled. He didn't remember doing that. Other notes depicted inappropriate responses to emotional stimuli, whether it was increased anxiety or dark humor. The Rorschach test had been a complete mess of results, putting Barry's subconscious all over the board.
The end analysis was that he was mentally and emotional unstable. 'Possible psychotic break' was underlines multiple times, however next to it was penned 'no indication of homicidal tendencies.' On the next page, the recommendation for continued employment was contingent on continuing psychiatric care and yearly re-evaluation.
He read through it a third time and then took pictures before returning it to the file and flashing back up to his lab to think. He shouldn't be surprised. Not really. He should have known something was wrong with him, but he hadn't felt different. He'd been emotional, but that was understandable, given the circumstance, wasn't it?
Or was it?
Because when Barry said he was emotional, what he was really saying was that he felt overwhelmed by pain and grief and guilt and to cope with that he was antagonizing a dangerous sociopath who was, at least potentially, responsible for the deaths of thousands and was directly responsible for murdering Barry's mom and two of his closest friends, until that sociopath was more than willing to rip him apart. Worse, when Barry finally succeeded in making Harrison angry, he used it to get sex.
"Barry, man, don't do that to yourself."
Barry covered his ears against Cisco's voice, because Cisco had been one of Harrison's victims. Cisco shouldn't be offering him comfort or trying to make him feel better. Cisco should be yelling at him. He should be condemning Barry for finding comfort in the very person who'd murdered him. He should hate him for it.
"I could never hate you."
"Shut up!"
He wanted to believe that. He wanted to so much it hurt worse than anything Harrison could do him, but that wasn't really Cisco. It was a made up version of him that Barry's psyche was clinging to, because he was desperate for someone to tell him it was okay. It wasn't, though. None of this was okay.
"Barry…"
"Go away!" When silence fell over the room, Barry pulled his feet onto his chair to wrap his arms around his legs.
He wasn't behaving like a sane, rational person and Harrison was right. He was going to do or say something to get the people he cared about killed. He couldn't do that. He couldn't keep going like he was, pretending everything was okay until it blew up in his face – until someone got hurt and next time that someone could be Oliver or Felicity or Eddie. He owed it to Iris to at least keep Eddie safe.
To keep Eddie safe, though, he had to stop pretending. He had to stop living in the past and move forward into the future. Even if that future wasn't the one he'd been planning on. Even if it included Harrison.
"You sure about that?"
Barry looked over, a little surprised Cisco was still there. It would be easier if he wasn't. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure."
"I don't like it."
"I don't have a choice."
"You do. Barry, Oliver's the Arrow. He can hold his own against the Reverse-Flash and you know some part of you has to believe that or I wouldn't be saying it."
Maybe, maybe not. Barry wasn't willing to take that risk. Besides, if he went to Oliver, what if… what if Oliver did go after Harrison? What if he succeeded and somehow killed him and as much as Barry may hate himself for it, the idea of losing Harrison on top of everything else was just as gut wrenching as the idea of losing anyone else. He just… couldn't. Not now.
If he kept an eye on Harrison, though, if he kept him close, maybe he could make sure Harrison didn't hurt anyone else. Barry could take it if it came down to that and despite what Harrison said about losing his temper and killing him, Barry was fairly certain that would never happen. At least, certain enough. He wasn't under any delusion that Harrison loved him, at least not the way most people were capable of love, but he did care, even if for his own reasons.
First thing first. "You need to go."
"I don't want to. Which means, you don't want me to."
"Maybe, but I can't move on with you here."
"Yeah, except I can't exactly get up and walk out the door. I'm in your head. This is all up to you."
Right. Saying it wasn't enough, he needed to do something to convince himself. Luckily, he had a few ideas.
[]
Eobard knew something wasn't right the moment he walked in the door to his home. It wasn't obvious right away, but it felt wrong. Different. It took a few moments to really see differences, in part because they were so very unexpected.
The first thing he noticed was the television, playing a movie or television program he didn't recognize. Underneath it was an open box of DVD's. Barry was on the couch, asleep, an unfamiliar blanket that appeared to be in the theme of Star Wars wrapped around him. On closer inspection, there were a handful of framed pictures set around the room, all of Barry's family and friends.
Without waking Barry, Eobard made his way through the house, noting a small stack of cheap plastic Carebear cups on the counter of his kitchen. His own bedroom appeared untouched, however the closet inside the guest room was filled with shirts that had clearly belonged to Cisco. Several opened boxes containing books and magazines were on the floor.
A quick look confirmed that Barry had brought all of his things from S.T.A.R. Labs.
When he exited the room, Barry was sitting up on the couch and was pausing the television. He stretched, a tired smile on his face as he watched Eobard pour a glass of whiskey. "You're home."
"You brought your things over." Harrison took a sip.
Barry's smile faltered. "I moved in. Cisco's gone."
"You're no longer hallucinating?"
"Nope. No more living in the past."
That was interesting, but at the moment, it appeared to be a positive development. Eobard drank the rest of his whiskey and set the empty glass down, only to have Barry appear next to him, speedforce rippling around him at the short burst.
"I still have a lot left to do. I wasn't sure where to put everything, but that can wait." He grinned wickedly, a look entirely unbecoming of the Barry Allen that Eobard knew. "So, now what? Diner and a movie? I'm not much of a cook, but I can make spaghetti."
"You will do no such thing." Eobard took Barry's hand in his and held it up, pressing one finger into the knuckle and the other to the first joint of Barry's pointer finger until it bent back at a slightly unnatural angle. "In fact, if you ever touch so much as a spatula in this kitchen, I will cut off your left index finger."
Barry chuckled, only to cringe when Eobard increased the pressure, stopping just shy of breaking anything. "Wait, for real? Why? It's not like you ever use it."
"Regardless of whether I use them or not, the cost of my appliances alone are worth more than your annual salary and my insurance doesn't cover reckless teenagers."
"I'm not…"
The bone cracked and Barry fell to his knees, holding his hand to his chest. It took him a few minutes to pant through the pain, but Eobard knelt down and waited patiently until Barry looked up.
"Have I made myself clear?"
Barry grit his teeth and nodded, a familiar glint of lust and anger behind the pain in his eyes. There was no defiance, however, none of the guilt Eobard had come to expect. Definitely an improvement. He'd have to introduce Barry to Gideon, solidify the idea that the past could be changed.
Not now, though. Now, he could think of much better things to do with Barry.
