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Fucking, Dante.

Cisco had ended up thinking that exact phrase many times in his lives, but never, not once, had he ever meant it with so much of his heart.

Fucking. Dante. Cisco grit his teeth and vibed as hard as he could over the two platters of meat between him and his brother. Was it possible to make Dante wet himself at the dinner table if Cisco vibed at the correct frequency? Dante flashed his Captain America teeth and tucked his hands together under his chin.

Too bad, Cisco thought. His vibe powers were completely useless.

“Listen,” Cisco said loudly, to everyone. He half-stood. “Before this gets out of hand…”

The wet sound of weeping came from the end of the table. Cisco’s shoulders collapsed. He rotated on his feet, head down.

“Francisco.” Abuela’s eyes were huge behind thick lenses.

“Oh, Lita, no,” Cisco said. He moved around the table to kneel beside her. She sniffled at him and let him take her papery hand. “The trip I took wasn’t even dangerous. Dante is exaggerating like always. Would I ever leave you for good? No. I always come back! I’m your little bedbug.”

Abuela lifted her heavy glasses and dabbed her eyes.

“You come home so rarely,” she said. Her jowls shook. “I worry. How can I not worry?”

Maybe he’d come home more if Nydia, his mother, could actually look him in the eye.

Let it go, Cisco told himself. Defending himself using the complicated family dynamics would only make his abuelita sad. There was no greater sin.

Speaking of. Cisco’s father cleared his throat. Cisco stood. He put one hand on the back of Abuela’s chair and the other in the pocket of his bright orange jeans. His father, Rene, had pushed his plate away with food still on it, which meant business even if he still had bits of potato stuck to his beard. Cisco thought longingly of the tub of chocolate gelato in his freezer and the new Spider Gwen issue.

“It’s not the trip I worry about,” Rene said. He put one hand on the table. His beard shifted lower when he frowned. “It’s the man you took this trip with. This older man.”

Older man? What---oh, Harry. They thought---no.

Rene looked Cisco directly in the eye and Cisco winced preemptively. A vibration struck the air between them, filled with years of Cisco blowing up things, getting kicked out of school, selling his homework, and later, but not much later, falling in love with the absolute worst person he could. Cisco’s nose tingled taking it all in. He rubbed at his nostril before he could stop himself and Rene’s gaze intensified. His mustache wiggled. Gotcha, it said, so Cisco assumed.

Cisco threw a quick glare at Dante, who actually looked a little contrite.

Too late, pal, Cisco projected. I’ll deal with you later.

“Pai,” Cisco said. “It’s not like Julian. Harry and I are just coworkers.”

“Well,” Dante said and made a dubious face. “That can’t be totally true.”

“Shut up, Dante,” Cisco said to the ceiling.

“Be nice to your brother,” Nydia said automatically. She cut her chicken stiffly. “We’re at the dinner table. I’m thankful that you’re here, but you will show respect.”

Rene put his hand over hers and shook his head. She looked at her plate.

“Of course, Mai,” Cisco said quietly. “I’m sorry. Do you want me to leave?”

“No,” she said. She lifted her napkin and bunched it in her fist. “I’m very happy you are here. I’m also very angry to hear you risked your life. Where would you go that you can’t tell us about it? You could have died and would I have known? It hurts me, Cisco. At least be honest about the man you risked everything for.”

Cisco very carefully did not put his hands over his face and scream.

“I am being honest.” Cisco thrust his hand in his pocket and touched the van keys. Maybe it was time to go. “Dante has it wrong. Pai has it wrong. I work with Harry closely, but that’s all it is.”

“You said the same thing about Julian,” Dante said. “We thought he was a good man.”

“You understand why we’re concerned,” Nydia added.

“I’m not seventeen anymore,” Cisco said. He looked to Abuela for support, but she looked especially small in her summer dress and sweater, thin white hair pulled back so her scalp peeked through.

Cisco looked around. Four sets of liquid brown eyes stared back at him around the table. It was like stepping back in time and the room seemed to shrink. Cisco abruptly felt exhausted.

“Ok. Ok, you got me. Harry and I are dating. It’s not very serious. That’s how I want it. I’m sorry if this disappoints you, but most of what I do disappoints you.”

“We don’t know what you do.” Nydia rose with her plate. “Excuse me.”

“Francisco,” Abuela tutted. She grabbed his wrist gently. “You are too tall up there. How did you grow so tall? Come down so I can kiss your cheek.”

Cisco bent distractedly and offered his cheek. Abuela kissed him shakily, then latched onto his hair to keep him stooped. Into his ear she whispered, “I want to meet your new man.”

Cisco froze, staring at the fly away hairs unraveled from her bun. She patted his cheek and leaned back, tiny smile dimpling her sunken cheeks. Cisco straightened stiffly and felt behind his eyes a vision of twin nuclear bombs reaching their crescendo on the horizon.

“No,” he said. He backed up a step. “Absolutely not.”

Abuela put a hand over her heart, where the cross was, and rolled her eyes heavenward.

“Think of my health. Any moment, the doctor said.” She reached across the table to poke Cisco’s brother. “Didn’t he, Dante?”

“Any moment,” Dante confirmed around a lump of mashed potatoes.

Abuela winked at Dante broadly like Cisco couldn’t see it. When she turned her face back up at Cisco it was the picture of fragility and age. “

Do you want me to die before I see you happy?”

“You know that’s not true.” Cisco cupped her pointy shoulder. “Please don’t say that.”

“It’s my ticker, you know.” She coughed a little. “It hurts, Francisco. My poor heart.”

Cisco gave one last look around the table. The water turned on in the kitchen and his mother started banging pots against the sink.

“Ok,” Cisco said. “Ok, then. I’ll figure it out.”

From the corner of his eye, Cisco saw Abuela grin at Dante with all the glory of her healthy gums.

*

Cisco put the window down on the ride home and let his hair become a tangled nest.

He put his hand out the window and felt the wind whisper stories to his fingertips.

His own story, his origin story --- only his family knew.

The problem wasn’t he or she. It was who.

Julian Werner.

An acquaintance of the family, Julian faded in and out of Cisco’s memories like a mirage. He was always there in the background somewhere, but never substantial until he showed up as the professor to one of Cisco’s first college courses. Cisco didn’t have any photos anymore but he remembered Julian as tall, built like an inverted triangle and white as printer paper where he wasn’t perpetually sunburned. Red hair. He smiled nervously a lot and apologized for everything. Something was always falling out of his back pocket.

Cisco’s pulse had clicked over like a clock restarting when he’d seen Julian for what seemed to him like the first time: rising from behind a desk, broad shoulders flexing under a tight denim dress shirt, not the build Cisco was used to associating with teachers, even teachers of theoretical subjects. He reached across the desk to shake Cisco’s hand and eclipsed Cisco’s boring world like a galactic event.

For a time, Julian was the best thing to ever happen to him.

Thunder dropped overhead. Cisco pulled his hand inside and rolled up the window. He flicked the wipers on just as the clouds got serious about the chance of nighttime showers the widget on his phone had warned.

He was gonna have to con Harry.

*

Cisco entered S.T.A.R. Labs carrying two heavy sacks of Big Belly Burger meals and an extra-large mocha shake. Barry came at him with grabby hands, but Cisco did a dance move he’d first learned watching Michael Jackson’s Thrillerand dodged him. Caitlin held two thumbs up in the air without ever removing her focus from her laptop.

“Why do you love him more than me?” Barry trailed Cisco’s grim march to the workspace he shared with Harry. “Is it his hair? I can do better, buddy, just give me the chance.”

Cisco sighed and stopped. Barry bounced off of him.

“I’m sincerely sorry for this,” Cisco said. “But I really need you to not be here right now.”

Barry’s eyebrows collapsed together. Twin glints of soul-deep sadness shuddered in his eyes. Oh, great. Cisco sighed and looked at the ceiling, gathering the necessary oxygen for a rapid explanation.

“I’m gonna make him be my fake boyfriend so my family doesn’t stop talking to me. They think I have this thing about older men because of one bad situation and it’s a really long story and Dante is an asshole who kind of inferred I nearly ran away with Harry. The End. Now go away so that when Harry kills me dead there are no witnesses. You need him to keep you in check and he can‘t do that if he‘s on trial for murder.”

Barry stared at Cisco without blinking for five seconds, then knocked Cisco’s hair into his face with a gust of flash-fueled air as he ran in the other direction. His laughter echoed down the hall on a delay like the sonic boom following a jet.

Harry didn’t look up when Cisco came in. He was hunched over Cisco’s goggles again, tinkering with a small screwdriver. Cisco frowned a little at that but shook his hair out of his face and squared his shoulders. He dropped the bags onto the table with a flourish and held the drink out. The hand Harry was using to twist the screwdriver stilled. He turned his eyeballs toward Cisco without moving his head.

“Why?” Harry grunted. “What do you want?”

“Consider it a friendship token,” Cisco said. He smiled winningly. “An olive branch, if you will.”

Harry narrowed his eyes and set the screwdriver down. Cisco could work with that. Paper rustled as Harry dug into the bags and rifled through the ridiculous amount of greasy food. His glasses slid down his nose as he plucked out a carton of potato wedges and Cisco’s hand twitched a little at his side. Harry’s glasses always slipped down like that. Sometimes it felt like Harry left them dangling just to drive Cisco crazy. It usually worked.

“Hmm,” Harry said, taking a bite. He twisted the chair around and leaned back into it, squeaking.

Cisco rocked back and forth on his heels. “So,” he said, the shake cup dripping on him.

Harry popped another wedge in his mouth and chewed slowly. He looked Cisco up and down, a casual round trip from head to toe. Cisco inhaled and counted to four, then---

“So here’s the thing,” Cisco said, putting the cup down. “I’m kind of going to need you to pretend date me. I’d pay you but I’m broke.”

Harry’s eyebrows did acrobatics on his forehead. He dropped the bag and stood up. Not a good sign.

Cisco started walking backwards as Harry stalked forwards.

“Listen,” Cisco spat out rapidly. “It’s not my fault. It’s stupid Dante. He convinced my parents that I ran away with you on a dangerous mission that we nearly didn’t come back from because I was in love with you because I maybe dated my professor in college and Dante really misinterprets our banter, ok, this is not my fault my parents want to meet you so you have to come to dinner with me or we’re going to have yet another falling out and I can’t help that they don’t believe me but I need them in my life and please stop or I will throw up on you and I had a strawberry shake and you hate strawberry---“

Harry stopped with Cisco backed against the toolbox. Cisco swallowed, craning his neck to look up at him. Harry stared down at him blankly, the most serene expression Cisco had ever witnessed on a murderer and he’d met more murderers than he was comfortable with. Harry tilted his head and Cisco smiled hopefully. Harry reached out.

Cisco flinched and threw his hands up, flattening them against Harry’s stupidly muscled chest, but Harry reached past him, leaning in so that their cheeks nearly touched. When he pulled back, he lifted a screwdriver between them and wagged it in Cisco’s face. His chest was warm, Cisco noted. His heart beat strong and steady. Maybe a little fast. Oh. Chest touching. Whoops. Cisco dropped his hands. Harry turned around, taking the screwdriver with him.

Cisco straightened his clothes and snuck a peek at Harry’s back. Harry sat down again and spun the chair around so that he could continue working on the goggles. Big Belly Burger sat forgotten by his elbow. Cisco observed for a moment more, then pushed his hand through his hair. It had been a long shot anyway. He didn’t even blame Harry for not going along with it. Who would?

As Cisco turned to leave, Harry spoke up.

“What time?” he asked.

Cisco spun on his heel. His mouth hung open.

Harry half-turned and looked at him with a little smile, a slice of dimple in his cheek.

“For dinner,” Harry clarified, waving his hand. “When is it?”

Cisco crossed his arms over his chest. “Thursday. Um, five-ish. Harry.” Harry lifted his chin, nodding minutely. Cisco squeezed himself. “Are you sure? I didn’t really expect you to agree to it.”

“Well, you brought an olive branch,” Harry said, like that was any kind of answer.

“Ok.” Cisco felt a little toasty under his collar and spots floated by in front of his eyes until he remembered to breathe. Maybe he was hallucinating. “Ok. Now I’m going to go. To the---other area. Bye, Harry.”

He left with his arms stiff at his sides. How did hands work again?

*

Cisco stayed as far away from Harry as he could for the rest of the week, which was harder than you’d think since they worked on top of each other most of the time. Some days the most space he could hope for was making sure their knees didn’t bump under the computer terminal. Saving the city waited for no man’s internal freak out. It also didn’t wait for eight consecutive hours of sleep. Harry gave him a look over his glasses when Cisco set Harry’s coffee down on the counter instead of putting it directly in Harry’s outstretched hand. Cisco made a face at him.

On Thursday morning, Cisco tinkered his way through the mess of tools on Harry’s work table while

Harry peered into a microscope.

“Put that down,” Harry said, not lifting his eyes. “Don’t touch that. Or that. What is it, Ramon?”

“Um, so.” Cisco put his hands in his pockets and swung his hips a little. “Tonight is the dinner.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“You’re still…”

Harry lifted his eyes from the microscope. The lamplight slanted over his face, leaving his irises nearly clear. You could take a swim in those babies and never touch bottom.

“I’m still,” Harry confirmed. “You can pick me up at four-thirty, assuming you want to be on time.”

“I can do that. Pick you up.” Cisco nodded. “At four-thirty.”

Harry frown-winced at him. “This is a time sensitive project, Cisco. If you’d please?”

Cisco left gladly. He wondered if he was a loser in every reality.

When Cisco pulled up to S.T.A.R. Labs at four-thirty-ish, Harry stood up from the bench outside and Cisco stared openly as Harry approached the van. It was the shirt. It was dark blue and buttoned down to show a softer blue shirt underneath, something nearly transparent. He’d paired them with neat khakis that looked brand new and a belt that gleamed in the sun. Cisco almost never saw him wear anything but black. He looked fancy.

“You’re late,” Harry said when he opened the door.

“By like, five minutes,” Cisco muttered. “Why do you smell so good?”

Harry buckled up without answering.

Cisco tried not to breathe during the ride because whatever cologne Harry had put on did funny stuff to his head. To his stomach. He squirmed in the seat uselessly.

“Just keep it simple,” Cisco advised Harry when they were a couple exits away. “My parents aren’t old fashioned. They don’t care that you’re a guy. They just don’t want to see me repeating my mistakes. So we show up, take a turn about the room, eat food, don’t argue with each other, and leave. If you’re respectful, they’ll love you.”

Cisco turned to merge and noticed Harry clenching and unclenching his hands.

“Stop worrying,” Cisco said. He rounded the exit ramp. “After we explain that you’re the good twin of Earth One Harrison Wells, leaving out the Earth One part, they’ll be totally psyched I somehow tricked you into dating me. You are way out of my league, trust me. So chill.”

Harry looked at Cisco and wet his lips a little. He gave Cisco a once over that Cisco nearly missed.

“I like your hair,” Harry said.

Cisco felt his eye twitch. “Um. Thanks.”

“I mean,” Harry said, clearing his throat. He gestured vaguely at the top of Cisco’s head. “It looks nice when you pull it back. Your face is. Nice. Is it hot in here?” Harry leaned forward to fiddle with the buttons and knobs on the console. “Did you break the AC again? I told you to leave it on one setting.”

Cisco boggled at Harry until Harry sat back with a huff and turned to glare out the window as they drove down a street lined with houses that all looked the same.

Harry thought his face was nice?

Cisco felt no desire to poke that hornet nest of a statement.

Five minutes later, Cisco slowed down in front of his family home. The driveway was full so he parked by the curb. Pale yellow Swamp Azalea’s lined the walkway. A variety of metal and wooden windchimes hung from the screed porch, catching the light early summer breeze and tinkling.

Cisco led Harry to the porch steps, then stopped.

“Thanks again,” Cisco said quietly. “This is beyond weird.”

Harry put his hands in his pockets, then took them back out again. He blew a breath and nodded.

“Are you like really really nervous right now? I can vibe you home right now.”

“I haven’t ‘met the parents’ in twenty years, Ramon,” Harry said. He put his hands back in his pockets and fisted them this time. “I’m usually the parent who has to be met. It’s fair to experience minor anxiety.”

Minor. Ha. Harry was visibly pale and sweaty.

“Think of it like roleplaying,” Cisco said slowly. “Did they have Dungeons and Dragons on Earth Two?”

“You mean my Earth One?” Harry did that almost smile of his. “I fail to see how my Arcane Wizard can help us here, Ramon, but if you need to see my stats---“

Cisco frowned. “I always pictured you as more of a Warlock.”

Harry smiled down at him. From this close, Cisco could see the branches of wrinkles around his eyes, like there was a time when he had laughed more. It was difficult to imagine Harry like that. Harry blinked, lashes coming together and parting. The tips were blonde and bleached by sunlight. Cisco shook himself. He made himself slip his arm through Harry’s and Harry stiffened, shoulders going back. He made a cute toy soldier.

“You ready?”

Cisco opened the door.

*

Cisco could hear Dante and Rene in the backyard doing something manly involving power tools. Cisco knew better than to get involved. The television was on in the living room. Cisco caught sight of Abuela’s white head peeking over the top of the recliner.

Cisco lead Harry through a hall lined with photos of him and his brother as children. Harry gazed at the photos as they passed. Cisco was too used to humiliation to be embarrassed by Harry witnessing photographic evidence of a pudgy eleven-year-old Cisco presenting his manure-powered car model or a six-year-old and toothless Cisco wearing goggles a few sizes two big or even him and Dante as butt-naked toddlers running toward the ocean.

Harry tried to pause in front of Cisco’s college graduation. It was a newspaper clipping. The photo had been taken during his speech and Cisco knew himself to look somber in the black and white photo. Not like himself. He’d told his parents he didn’t want them there and they’d listened. Cisco tugged Harry toward the sound of his mother humming.

They found Nydia in the kitchen, sitting on a stool with one of her political thriller novels. She had her long hair braided off to the side and she was wearing the necklace he’d bought her for Mother’s Day four years ago, a heart with his and Dante’s birthstones on the sides. She swung her leg to the tune of her own humming, heel bumping the cabinet door gently on the back swing.

“Mai,” Cisco said.

She looked up, expression open and happy for an instant, and Cisco’s throat clamped up, a lifetime of that fluttering through him all at once, nearly a vibe, but she carefully modified it to something a bit cooler. Cisco managed to avoid flinching.

“Francisco,” she said, standing and coming toward him while looking over his shoulder where Cisco knew Harry was looming like the overgrown nerd he was. She hugged him gently, barely any pressure from her thin arms, but brushed her cheek against his. “I made bacalaitos. And enough tostones to send you home with leftovers."

Cisco brushed a hand down her braid. She pulled back and smiled at him tightly, then spotlighted Harry. Harry stepped around Cisco and held his hand out stiffly. Nydia peered down at it and a familiar light turned on behind her eyes. She’d been very good friends with Julian. Before.

“This is Harrison Wells,” Cisco said quickly. “I call him Harry. Harry, this is my mother, Nydia.”

She reached out and shook Harry’s hand firmly and didn’t let go.

“Late fifties?” she said sweetly. “Or early sixties?”

Harry moved like a stick that just happened to be wearing clothes.

“Fifty-two,” Harry said. “Just turned.”

“Hmm. Harrison then, not Harry.” Nydia let go of his hand and Harry whipped it back to his side. Nydia wandered away, braid slipping off her shoulder to sway behind her back, and she ran a palm over the watermelon sitting on the counter. She slid a knife out of the cutting block and tapped it against the rind. “You know you are not the first older man in Francisco’s life?”

Cisco put a hand over his eyes. He should have brought ibuprofen along.

“So he’s told me,” Harry said flatly.

Cisco heard his mother cut into the watermelon. Harry made a noise in his throat, like the baby of a cousin of a friend of a scream.

“So you also know the other man was his teacher---his mentor. My friend.”

“Mai,” Cisco said.

Nydia sawed into the melon. She blinked sweetly as the muscles in her arm flexed.

“I know that Cisco was younger then,” Harry said roughly. “I know that Cisco is my peer and he’s---exceptional. I know that I value him infinitely more than Werner ever did.”

Cisco swung a look at Harry. He had never mentioned that name to anyone but family.

“I know that if Werner and I ever came face to face, I’d find a way to tear him down without even lifting a finger. I’ve considered doing it anyway. I also know that I’m still here when there is every reason not to be and that is because of your son. I’m not that man.”

Cisco nudged Harry with his elbow. Harry turned to him, laser-eyed.

“Tone it down a little,” Cisco whispered. “We're not that serious, ok?”

His mother cubed the watermelon and arranged the innards on a platter.

“Well, then,” she said, red juice dripping from her hands. She shook them off in the sink. “I think you and I will get along fine. Tell me, Harrison, what do you know about political science?”

Cisco groaned. “Dinner’s ready, right? I’ll get everyone.”

“Er,” Harry said. He grabbed at Cisco’s shirt without looking at him but Cisco swatted him off.

“I’ll be right back.”

He left Harry standing in the middle of the kitchen and went to fetch Dante and Rene. He followed the sound of yelling and cursing out into the sunshine and found Dante standing with his hands on his hips while Rene banged the guts of a lawnmower with a big wrench. Cisco cleared his throat and Rene stood up. He wiped sweat off his brow and squinted through the sun at Cisco.

Cisco opened his mouth.

“Don’t bother,” Dante said. “We gave up an hour ago. Now we’re just making noise so the neighbors will think we’re getting somewhere.”

“Sounds legit,” Cisco said. “Food’s up. Come see my hot boyfriend. We’re gonna hold hands.”

*

Cisco helped his abuelita climb out of the armchair while Harry hovered near by and she checked him out blatantly, her eyes huge behind her thick glasses.

“You have lovely cheekbones,” she commented. When Cisco got her on her feet, she leaned toward Harry. Cisco walked her over so that she could touch Harry’s face while he stayed very still. “Look at that face structure. Were you a model when you were younger?”

“No,” Harry said, turning his eyes to Cisco without moving his head. “I’m a scientist.”

“I would have painted you,” Abuela said. “Of course, you would have been naked and wearing jewelry. Have you ever watched Titanic?”

Cisco chuckled when she plucked a little at Harry’s collar and Harry backed away rapidly. Abuela turned and grinned at Cisco toothlessly, entire face collapsing into wrinkles, and Cisco ducked his head and gave her a wet kiss on her forehead that made her giggle.

“He’s mine, lita,” Cisco said. “Hands to yourself.”

She stuck her thin lips out in a pout. Harry stirred next to him.

Rene didn’t make Harry jump over any more emotional minefields, but he did try to abuse Harry’s ignorance about his blood pressure. He asked Harry to pass the salt, Nydia told Harry not to pass the salt, Harry ended up knocking over the salt and spilling it everywhere, and that was that. They talked about music a lot, as they often did, and politics. Harry kept his comments short and respectful and the tension in Cisco eased by degrees. He could see Nydia warm to Harry as their conversations grew more involved and the rest of the family followed her lead.

Cisco smiled at Harry when Harry said something funny and Harry put his arm down next to Cisco‘s, and he’d rolled his shirt sleeves up so his arm hairs tickled Cisco’s skin. Cisco looked at Harry’s hand. It was covered in small scratches. Raw. One of his fingernails was bruised. The man used his hands.

Cisco held his breath and covered Harry’s hand with his own. Harry stumbled a little over what he was saying, tongue audibly tangling around a simple word, then took a breath and continued without moving his hand an inch. He leaned back and, leaving his hand where it was, laid his ankle over Cisco’s. Cisco’s knee jerked, knocking the table and wobbling the water glasses. Abuela blinked owlishly at him.

After dessert, came spirits.

“I’m okay,” Harry said at first, covering his glass.

Rene stared at him. He wiggled his beard. Harry pulled his hand away slowly and amber liquid sloshed into Harry’s glass until it was near to overflowing.

“I’m driving,” Cisco reminded his father when he tried to do the same to him.

“You could stay the night,” Rene said, caterpillar eyebrows piling up.

Cisco kicked Harry’s foot away again and Harry chuckled. No way was Cisco sleeping all tangled up in that in a twin sized bed. The very thought made Cisco itchy under the collar.

“I need to work in the morning,” Cisco reminded Rene. “Maybe some other time.”

When Harry drank, his usually pasty skin turned cherry red. The stick came out of his ass and he relaxed, draping an arm over Cisco’s chair while he bickered with Cisco and Nydia about the simulation theory rapidly gaining popularity. Cisco felt Harry’s hand fall off the back of the chair and land on Cisco’s shoulder. He didn’t say anything, but his stomach gave a little bump, like he was cresting a roller coaster. Harry wasn’t touchy-feely in any sense of the word.

The hand wandered over the curve of his shoulder, down his arm, then back up. He stopped hearing what Harry said, just saw his chapped lips moving. Harry teased the edge of Cisco’s neck just enough to tickle and Cisco ducked his head against his shoulder. Harry’s hand flopped away.

Harry paused mid-word, a confused line between his eyebrows. Still frowning, he reached up and tugged on Cisco’s neat ponytail very very gently. Butterflies burst out of their net in Cisco’s stomach. Cisco put a hand on Harry’s thigh and Harry went very still.

Good.

“Cisco,” Dante said loudly, like he’d said it several times. “You want to sing for me?”

Cisco found it hard to turn his head in Dante’s direction. When he did, he found Dante smiling at him more openly than he had in a while. What was this magic?

“Sure,” Cisco said, because he didn’t want to ruin it. “You bring the beat, I’ll bring the vocals.”

It was nearly eleven by the time they left. Sometime after Cisco’s throat started to get dry, Rene dragged Harry into his office to bore him to death with his ship in-a-jar collection and from time to time Cisco heard actual laughter booming out of the room and would stare in the direction of the door stupidly. He expected to wake up out of that virtual simulation Harry argued wasn’t possible but it kept not happening.

Cisco sat and talked with Abuela until she fell asleep in her chair, then wandered in to help his mother grade papers like the old days. When that was done, Cisco had to peel Harry off his father’s leather couch where he’d almost fallen into a drunk coma while Rene still talked about some ancient Viking something or other, having graduated from glass to bottle.

“Bring him again,” Rene said. “Your cousin is getting married in two weeks.”

“I should ask Julie first,” Cisco said. “It’s her wedding, after all.”

Rene hand-waved that like he did most things he didn’t find important, such as filing appropriate permits for setting off fireworks or reading the instructions that came with the fireworks.

Harry blinked slowly and leaned his weight on Cisco.

“Sounds fun,” he said, swaying. “You can bring those letters you were talking about.”

Rene lit up like the lawn had after he’d flubbed the fireworks.

“You think it sounds fun to go to a wedding?” Cisco tugged Harry’s arm around his neck and tottered to the door. “It’s definitely time to get you home.”

On the way through the now dark rooms, Cisco felt Harry’s nose brush his temple.

Dante had holed up on the porch with a cigar and the rest of the bottle of wine. Cisco gave him a gentle noogie in passing and Dante smiled up at him around the cigar, wiggling it. Harry followed him leisurely down the sidewalk, hands in his pocket as he gazed at the sky. He wobbled a little and Cisco put a hand out just in case.

Cisco glanced over his shoulder and saw that his parents had joined Dante on the porch. His mom waved at him when she noticed his attention and took a seat on Rene’s knee.

Harry stopped when Cisco nudged him in the side. He looked down at Cisco quietly.

“I’ll be quick,” Cisco promised. “It’ll be nearly painless.”

Harry tilted his head, opening his mouth. Cisco cut him off by sliding a hand up his neck and into his hair. He kissed Harry softly on the mouth, just a peck really, a dry meeting of lips that was over as soon as it started. Harry gasped, mouth parting. He tasted sharp like alcohol. Cisco dropped back down onto his heels and avoided Harry’s eyes. He unlocked the van from Harry’s side and opened the door, gesturing Harry inside. Harry followed orders slowly. That wasn’t new.

He didn’t say a word the entire ride back to S.T.A.R. Labs. Cisco had nearly chewed his thumbnail bloody by the time he parked the van and turned off the engine. Cisco expected Harry to jump out the second the engine turned off and leave behind a cartoon dust cloud, but Harry lingered, rubbing absently up and down his thigh.

“Thanks,” Cisco said to break the silence. “You went above and beyond tonight. It’s good for my family to see me doing normal things like having relationships.”

Harry stared forward. Cisco couldn’t read his expression. “Even with a much older man?”

“What’s twenty years compared to a brain like mine?” Cisco pointed at his head in emphasis.

“An entire person,” Harry said. “That’s just math.”

“Mmm,” Cisco said noncommittally. “Still, thanks. Tonight went better than most visits. I don’t think there was any scathing commentaries actually. That might be a first.”

Harry nodded. He slapped his thigh and climbed out of the van with a shrieking protest from the old seat. Cisco was trying to think of something more to say when Harry stopped and turned with his mouth open. The van dinged to remind them the door was ajar and mosquitoes buzzed in between them, drawn by the dome light. Cisco snatched at them absently, but they evaded him.

“So that’s that?” Harry asked eventually. His voice sounded flat. Subdued. The warmth from the liquor had faded from his body. The stick bug was back.

Cisco draped an arm over the wheel and shrugged.

“They want to see us together again,” Harry pushed. “What will you tell them?”

Cisco peered off in the distance. “You fell for someone else, I guess. A younger woman maybe.” Cisco warmed to the story as he told it. He put a hand over his heart and pitched his voice to really capture the stoic man-pain. He’d learned it all from his abuelita. “I tried to convince you to stay with me but in the end you traded me in for a newer model. Jesus, Harry, it’s a miracle we’re still be able to work together after how you broke my heart. I guess I’m just a sensible guy.”

“So basically I’m going to look like an asshole,” Harry said. He chuckled dryly. “That’s great.”

“Why should I look like the asshole? It’s my family. And what do you care?”

“I don’t like being an asshole,” Harry said.

Cisco raised one eyebrow. Seriously?

Harry slapped the roof decisively. “That’s not going to work. I’ll have to go with you to the wedding.”

Cisco blinked at him. It was late. Maybe he’d misheard? Harry turned his head aside, staring off at something on the street. The light from a streetlamp made his glasses opaque.

“Meet me for breakfast before work tomorrow,” Harry said, still looking away.

Cisco narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“Why? Why does everything have to have a reason with you? Just meet me at Jitters. You eat food, right? Dammit, Ramon.”

The door slammed shut and the light clicked off. Cisco blinked in the dark.

Harry jogged up the hill and stopped under the lamp to unlock the door and enter his passcode. Moths swirled around him in the yellow orb. Harry let himself inside without turning around and Cisco realized he was just sitting there gazing after his colleague. He started the engine and backed the van over the curb as he tore out of the parking lot like the ghost of Eobard Thawne was trying to catch his taillights.

*

Breakfast was low key. Cisco tried to pay for his own food, but Harry squeezed his shoulder and stepped half in front of him to hold out a black card that looked heavy and important. Cisco’s ragged Star Trek wallet practically wept in relief. No need to pay with dust bunnies and failed ambitions today!

Harry had never been much of a morning person and didn’t try. He looked pretty enough and every button was slotted correctly, but he didn’t smile and he didn’t speak. He hunched a lot more. It worked for Cisco who could relate, only maybe wasn’t so good at buttoning before his first coffee. Or zipping or tying. He fucking loved velcro shoes at six in the morning.

They ate breakfast in near silence at one of the tables in the optimum position to catch the morning light. Harry read the paper while Cisco did his obligatory scroll through facebook on his phone. It was nice to have the company without having to entertain Barry’s energy or Caitlin’s preparedness.

They walked to work and arrived together. They parted ways with a brief mutual nod.

Caitlin met him at the door and glanced over his shoulder.

“Was that Harry?”

“No,” Cisco said. He’d only had one cup of coffee. “Who’s Harry?”

He bumped against Caitlin’s shoulder on the way by and she spun to catch her folders, scrabbling kittenishly in the air to hold on by fingernails alone. Barry chose that moment to burst in ahead of a line of red light and the files exploded out of Caitlin’s hands as exuberantly as candy out of a piñata. Papers swirled down around her head like big square snowflakes. She spat out a piece of her own hair.

“What’s up, guys?” Barry said, grinning.

Cisco smiled into the collar of his shirt and booted up his computer. Caitlin sighed and fixed the set of her skirt. She left the papers for them to clean up. Cisco turned pointedly away from Barry doing it.

Six hours later Cisco collated the schematics for a robotic exploratory vehicle that would theoretically be able to vibe with him and collect imagery. He thumbed through the copies and patted around the surface of the desk blindly. He continued patting for roughly thirty seconds before he dug his head out of the plans and blinked at the empty space where his stapler should have been.

He spat the pencil out of his mouth and stood up, putting his hands on his hips.

“Where’s my stapler?” he shouted over Caitlin’s music.

In her glass cubicle, Caitlin lifted her focus from a set of clear vials. She left her magnifying goggles on.

“I didn’t take it,” she shouted back.

“My name is on that stapler,” Cisco mumbled to himself. “It’s the only stapler in this entire complex that doesn’t jam. Who would get between a man and his stapler?”

Cisco searched the computer terminals, shoving books aside and pulling out drawers. He found three varieties of sourpatch candies and the headphones he’d lost last week, but no stapler. He bent sideways and peered under the desk just in case. It would be a good idea to sweep soon but he wasn’t going to be the one to mention it.

“You can use mine,” Caitlin offered, pausing next to him with a jar of something sludgy and pink held stiffly away from her body. “Or I have rainbow paperclips if you’re so inclined.”

Cisco edged around her and plugged his nose at the odor.

“Thanks anyway,” Cisco said, swatting the smell away. “It’s a matter of principle. I do want in on those paperclips at some point, though.”

“Noted,” Caitlin said. She started running when the sludge began smoking.

After they put out the fire, Cisco up-ended a box of office tools and spread it over the desk, rifling through until all the tools were visible. Nothing. He tucked his hair behind his ears. Cisco turned to shout at Caitlin again, but caught a glimpse of Harry’s coffee mug sitting on top of the terminal wall in a ray of sunshine. A sense memory of Harry leaning over him and asking insultingly obvious questions about Cisco’s design shivered through his hindbrain. He could practically feel the hairs on his neck stand up as Harry leaned too close and slurped coffee in Cisco’s ear while pointing out a flaw on the computer screen.

Cisco glared at the mug.

He found Harry in their workroom, on the floor. Harry was laying down with a hoodie bundled up beneath his neck. On his stomach, perched like the cherry on a sundae, sat Cisco’s stapler.

“You evil bastard,” Cisco said, stopping in the doorway.

Harry opened his eyes slowly. Cisco’s stomach flipped.

“How is your day going, Harry?” Harry fanned his fingers over the stapler. “Well, it’s fine, Cisco. It’s very considerate of you to ask.”

Cisco rolled his eyes and stomped over to him. He crouched down to pluck the stapler smartly off Harry’s stomach and replaced it with Harry’s coffee mug. Harry’s abdomen was flat enough for the mug to remain upright, dammit. Cisco ignored the weird urge he had to poke the muscles and feel for give. Damn scientific curiosity. Harry peered at him, a narrow slice of blue under his eyelids.

“You left behind evidence at the scene of the crime,” Cisco said. “The other Wells was a better criminal.”

Harry sat up on his elbows. “It’s not like the stapler has your name on it.”

Cisco held the stapler up with the name-side showing and wagged it in front of Harry’s nose.

Harry smirked and crossed his legs at the ankle. Cisco couldn’t help the brief flicker of his eyes down the lean length of Harry’s body: chest, hips, legs. There was a lot of Harry to look at and Cisco was not entirely immune. When he dragged his gaze away, he found Harry pursing his lips sideways to hide a smirk. Cisco bounced to his feet and spun away, headed for the door.

“Don’t touch my stuff,” Cisco said with as much sternness as he could muster. “

Hit the lights on your way out,” Harry called behind him.

“Have a nice nap, old man.” Cisco slapped the light switch on the way out.

Later that day Cisco found himself considering the length of Harry’s legs while blowing on a cup of microwave noodles to cool it down. The man was stupidly hot. Something about him seemed to extend an invitation to Cisco that he was constantly having to ignore. At what point would the natural aging process kick in and level out the playing field for the rest of the mere humans (and metahumans?)

Cisco considered the unfairness of life while wandering from the breakroom back to the elevators. Maybe it was an Earth Two thing. Cisco didn’t remember his version of Harrison Wells being quite so spicy, but that hadn’t really been Harrison Wells, had it?

*

On Tuesday, Harry moved Cisco’s pen cup from the right to the left so that when Cisco reached out, he knocked over his statue of Supergirl instead of finding the highlighter he needed. Harry watched it happen from only a chair away. Cisco didn’t look at him as he moved the cup back to his right side, but he could feel Harry’s attention like the prodding of a finger.

Harry’s chair squeaked as he swung it back and forth, using the momentum of his braced legs. Cisco knew without looking that the distance between his knees would be obscene. Two hours later, when Cisco came back from the bathroom, the cup was on the left again and the computer Harry favored was dark, his chair conspicuously empty.

Cisco put superglue on the handle of Harry’s favorite screwdriver. He slept like a baby that night.

*

They texted occasionally, even if they were in the same room. Harry always texted in full sentences. Cisco barely included all the letters required for basic internet speak. Cisco got a kick out of watching Harry practically glue his nose to his phone screen while he tried to decipher Cisco’s messages.

Harry: I’m headed to the store. Do you want anything?

Cisco: BM CHTOS.

Harry: What? Did you just have a stroke?

Cisco, sighing: Cheetos, Harry. Bring me Cheetos.

Harry, stabbing buttons: Did it hurt you to spell that out, Ramon? Are your fingers sore now?

Cisco: ISYSF.

Harry: What?

Cisco: (I’ll Show You Sore Fingers)

Harry dropped a bag of store brand cheese curls in his lap. Not exactly what Cisco had wanted, but hey, free food. Cisco opened his mouth to say thank you and Harry held up a hand, looking pained.

“No need to show me sore fingers,” Harry said. “I don’t need to know.”

Cisco texted him later.

Cisco, giggling: U DrtyBrdy.

*

The wedding crept up on Cisco. He hadn’t intended to go in the first place, but he was a flexible guy. He busted out his fanciest shoes and suit. Caitlin helped him with the tie and was there, in Cisco’s living room, when Harry let himself in looking like he’d just walked off the cover of a fucking magazine, all sleek black lines and carefully tousled hair.

Caitlin’s palm was in the perfect position to absorb the concussive burst of Cisco’s heart. Cisco himself might have missed it if she didn’t make a little noise of surprise. Cisco ducked away from her startled-deer eyes and tucked the tie inside his purple vest. Her hand trailed away.

“Heya, Harry,” Cisco said, lifting his head.

Harry’s eyes were hidden behind dark prescription Rey Bans.

“Cis-co,” Harry replied, enunciating the syllables.

“Well,” Caitlin said, picking her purse off the couch and hanging it on her shoulder. “I’m going to head out now. Thanks for the breakfast, Cisco. Maybe we should talk later?”

Cisco waved her away and plucked the van keys out of the bowl on the table. She and Harry nodded at each other as she left. Cisco tossed the keys up into the air and Harry snatched them away and gave them a spin around one finger. He smelled like a magazine, too, damn him.

“I’m driving,” he said. “Let’s grab a coffee first.”

They were the best dressed customers and kept drawing eyes. The attention made Harry grumble. He climbed into the character of Cisco’s boyfriend while they waited and slid a hand up under Cisco’s jacket, a warm band of intimate pressure that didn’t insist, only insinuated.

“Kiss my cheek,” Harry rumbled into his ear.

Cisco jerked his head in Harry’s direction. Harry’s hand flattened on Cisco’s spine and his thumb moved, a careful stroke that stirred up something in Cisco’s body that didn’t belong there.

“They want to stare,” Harry said slowly. “Give them a show.”

Cisco could see himself reflected in Harry’s shades. His mouth was hanging open like it was off its hinges. He snapped it shut and looked around. A woman seated at the table by the window was glaring at them and typing something viciously on her phone. She huffed when Cisco made eye contact and began stabbing the keys more violently. Probably a conservative blogger.

A familiar recklessness rose up in Cisco, the kind that had gotten Cisco kicked out of three elementary schools. He was still half-convinced that given the opportunity he could reach inside another person and scoop the bad out as easily as pulling out handfuls of rotten pumpkin seeds. She looked at him again: a flat mean playground bully stare.

Cisco beamed sunshine at her and before common sense could kick in, he turned. Reaching up with both hands, he grabbed Harry by the back of the head to drag him down into a hard kiss that knocked their front teeth together. Harry responded instantly, and it was a little bit like getting into a high-speed car accident, like slamming through a wall. Cisco would be picking the glass out of his skin for weeks.

Cisco kissed Harry, he did that, that was on him, but Harry balled Cisco’s shirt up in his fist and yanked, pulling Cisco closer and nearly off his feet. Harry opened his mouth, and why not, Cisco slid his tongue inside. Hello there. They kissed for a hot second, sharing toothpastes, and it was no less real than any other kiss Cisco had been part of, and wasn’t that a mind fuck? Harrison Wells had deigned to slip Francisco Ramon the tongue.

Harry pulled and pulled on him, his glasses cutting into Cisco’s nose, Cisco’s shirt coming untucked, and then Harry shuddered and slid the hand on Cisco’s back around to his hip to shove him back a step. Cisco dropped away and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He felt a little like he’d fallen out of a tree and landed on his back.

“Sorry,” Harry grunted. He resettled his glasses.

“No, totally my bad.” Cisco looked over his shoulder. The woman had left. “I kind of hate bigots.”

Harry half-smiled, showing a hint of sharp white teeth. The skin around his mouth looked raw.

“You used to kind of hate me,” Harry said.

“The lesser of two evils,” Cisco said and then there was a God, because they were next in line. He made a mental note to google for a Central City conservative blogger that hated gays and probably kittens, but he imagined the search would be a lengthy one. Harry took his elbow on the way out of the coffee shop and Cisco let his mind wander while Harry routed them back to the van.

Harry stole a sip of Cisco’s drink and made a face, dragging his front teeth over his tongue. Cisco raised his eyebrows, because seriously, who did not like caramel mocha?

*

Blah, blah, blah, do you take this woman, blah, blah, holy matrimony. Blah.

Cisco mostly didn’t fall asleep during the ceremony. They sat with Cisco’s family, all of them squished into one pew like the candy in a pez dispenser. Cisco fit himself all up and down Harry’s side to give his mother room to sit comfortably and Harry took Cisco’s hand mid-way through the vows, just casually laced their fingers together and dropped them on Cisco’s knee. One of his nail beds was black, like he’d hit himself with a hammer again. Cisco scratched his own nail over the bruise.

Nydia caught Cisco’s eye with a smile. She took his free hand in her own. The only jewelry on her hand was her thin silver wedding band. Cisco squirreled away hope tentatively. Harry lifted the hand he had and Cisco looked at him questioningly. He kissed Cisco’s knuckles, eyes twinkling and creased with faint lines and Cisco fake gagged, letting his tongue fall out. Harry smiled and the lines fanning out around his eyes deepened. He looked like the hero from a romantic comedy. Nydia nudged him. Cisco forced himself back to the ceremony.

Blah, blah, blah, you may kiss the bride. Cisco yawned.

They rode with Cisco’s parents to the reception. Nydia rolled the window down first thing, always fighting car sickness. Harry and Cisco sat in the back, the entire seat between them. Cisco stretched his arm out along the back of the seat and flicked Harry’s ear until Harry slapped his hand away and pinched Cisco’s thigh. Cisco twisted Harry’s fingers away. Harry flicked his nose.

“Do I need to turn this car around,” Rene said. “I’ll do it!”

Harry and Cisco froze, two seconds away from pulling each other’s hair out.

Rene grinned at them in the rear view mirror, bushy beard parted over pearly whites. Harry pulled away first, straightening his suit jacket, stick right back up his ass. Suck up.

A few drinks in at the reception, Cisco stripped to the vest and dragged Harry onto the dance floor. Harry scowled at him like Cisco was trying to disrupt his different-but-higher frequency again and dug his heels in, squeaking along the shiny floor.

“You’re the one who wanted to be here,” Cisco reminded him and yanked Harry into the same crowd of people he’d been making a fool of himself in front of for years, give or take a few faces from the groom’s side of the gene pool. Harry scowled harder, but stuck his left foot in, stuck his left foot out, stuck his left foot in, then shook it all about. He rolled his eyes when Cisco clucked and popped his chin forward like a rooster when he did the hokey pokey.

After a few comedic dance routines, the music changed to something slower and a lot more romantic. More than half the people slipped off the dance floor. Cisco mopped the sweat off his face with his tie. Harry ditched his jacket and loomed close like a creeper. Cisco dropped his tie. Harry wrapped a strong arm around his waist and looking deeply into Cisco’s eyes, jerked him close. Cisco laughed in his face.

Harry’s eyes pinched.

“Too Patrick Swayze for you?” Harry asked.

“Maybe not Patrick Swayze enough,” Cisco challenged.

Harry grabbed his hand, spun Cisco in a circle, then yanked him back in.

“I stand corrected,” Cisco said with his nose planted in Harry’s chest. Harry’s chuckle rumbled. Cisco looped his arm around Harry’s shoulder and took Harry’s offered hand. They swayed to the music for a while, lazy figure eights between other pairs. Cisco spotted his parents over Harry’s shoulder: Nydia had Rene locked in a death grip to keep him on the floor, but she spared enough leverage to give Cisco a thumbs up behind her husband’s back. Cisco smiled and ducked his head, incidentally dropping his forehead onto Harry’s collarbone.

“What is it?” Harry asked in a low voice.

Cisco shrugged. He couldn’t describe it. He felt like he was holding onto a bubble, waiting for it to burst.

Harry tugged him all the way against his front and hummed, spinning them aside to avoid the flailing maid of honor as she rode one of the ushers like a cowgirl. It was safe to assume she’d been drinking since that morning. When the coast was clear, Harry pressed his hand flat between Cisco’s shoulders. Cisco wanted to lean forward and back into that hand at the same time and realized numbly that he really liked being held by Harry. He liked it a lot more than he should.

Cisco licked his lips and slowed them to a near stop. Maybe they should go sit down. Maybe he shouldn’t have let Harry do this for him again. Cisco was a soft touch.

“Your lita is watching,” Harry said into his ear, cheek grazing Cisco’s as he spoke.

A string pulled taut in Cisco’s belly at the scratch of Harry’s stubble. He shut his eyes and felt in the vibrations of the song and Harry’s body what would happen if he turned his head. He would find Harry’s mouth waiting, warm and slightly parted. They would kiss for the second time that day. They would come together like magnets clicking into place. Harry would push his hand up Cisco’s spine and deepen the kiss until it was wet. Until it was real. Cisco felt his frequency alter and reach out, heard himself whine a little, spinning out of control. Harry’s breath swept over Cisco’s jaw.

It was the music. Or a trick---

He stepped back all at once and pulled his hand out of Harry’s.

Harry dropped his arms to his sides. The lights strobed wildly off his glasses.

“Sorry,” Harry said. His face was blank. “Do you want some punch?”

“Yes,” Cisco said, nodding rapidly, up and down, up and down. “The blue one, not the orange kind. I prefer my punch blue.”

“Noted,” Harry said dryly. He did a tight circle and left Cisco in the flashing lights.

Cisco swept his sweaty hair out of his face and shook his hands out. He pushed through the dancing couples and recalled, on a cellular level, being thirteen and nervous before his first dance, with a stomach that felt like this. The year might have changed, but Cisco hadn’t. He sat with Abuela and listened to her stories about dancing in the 1940s. She’d only let a boy kiss her if she liked the way he danced and she was not an easy girl to impress. All the boys had tried.

Harry sat Cisco’s plastic cup next to his plate on the table and stood slightly apart with one hand in his pocket, his shoulders broad beneath the crisp white line of his shirt. The dance floor cleared so the bride and groom could take center stage.

Chill out, Cisco told himself. Don’t be a loser.

Consider Julian. That usually worked.

After the reception, Cisco's parents dropped them off at the van and everyone climbed out to hug each other and say goodbye. Harry ended up hugged as well even though it made him look constipated. Nydia patted his cheeks and let Rene tug Harry aside to talk to him about a new bundle of Civil War letters he was bidding on. Nydia and Cisco leaned against the S.T.A.R. Labs van. Nydia hugged herself and stared up like she could peer past the street lights and see the stars. Cisco mirrored her.

“Tonight reminded me of the street dances when you were little,” Nydia said.

Cisco looked at her. The wind tugged strands of hair free from her braid. On some level he’d always felt connected to her. She’d hurt him worse than Julian.

“Do you remember?” Cisco remembered. The music, the bright lights, the laughter. “You were only seven but you would stay up late and sneak out. I got quite a few gray hairs that summer, thanks to you. I’d find you asleep in the tree. We gave up eventually and took you to get it out of your system, but you never grew out of it. We started dancing again thanks to you.” She turned to him and there were tears in her eyes and it was like being stung in the throat by a bee. “The music was in your heart, Francisco, not your hands. I’m so sorry I forgot that.”

Cisco paused just before patting her shoulder. He didn’t quite manage to make contact.

“Mai,” he said. “I’m too old to cry. I pushed you away first. I know it was me.”

“You were so angry,” Nydia whispered. She hugged herself tighter. “It was easier with Dante. I knew what he needed.”

Cisco dropped his hand.

“I don’t need anything,” Cisco said. Not anymore. “I’m okay.”

Nydia looked at him, eyes fluid in the glow from the streetlamp.

“It’s good to see so much of you,” she said quietly. “Don’t go away again, my baby. I don’t think I would survive it again.”

Cisco didn’t know how to promise that. He was only just beginning to understand his powers.

He could not be only their Francisco if Barry needed him to be more.

“I’ll try,” Cisco allowed. “Tonight was pretty cool---I can’t believe Sharon got naked. She never seemed like the back tattoo type. I feel like I know her so much better know.”

“I never understood her affinity for cats,” Nydia admitted, smiling. She nodded toward Harry and Rene where Rene was showing Harry something on a tablet. “He’s a good man,” Nydia said. “I can see it in his eyes. He has a stern mouth---but the eyes don’t lie. He’s too sad, though. It will be hard to make him happy. I’m glad I got a chance to meet him so that I’ll see the way you light up his life. Bring him music, Cisco, it’s your gift. He’s lucky to have you.”

Harry lifted his head like he could feel Cisco staring, but it was unlikely that he could make out Cisco’s eyes in the near dark. What would make a man like Harry happy? He’d had success, prestige, a wife and a daughter, adventure, revenge and redemption. What was left? Harry nodded at something Rene said and clapped Rene on the shoulder, heading back in Cisco’s direction.

Nydia kissed Cisco on the cheek.

“Come swimming with us next weekend,” she said, pinching the same cheek she’d kissed. “We’ll bring the canoes. You can take Harrison on one and tip it over.”

He needed more time with Harry like he needed a punch in the throat.

“Sure, yeah,” Cisco said. “I’m sure Harry would love that.”

Cisco drove back to S.T.A.R. Labs. He took the long way, winding slowly along mostly empty streets. If Harry noticed, he didn’t say. Cisco left the radio off, scared that whatever song he heard would continue weaving the spell. He felt vulnerable.

“How do you feel about canoes?” Cisco asked at an empty intersection.

No car came from any direction. The street light cycled through on the other side and glared red over the van’s windshield. Cisco turned his head. Harry had his hand dangling out the open window. His suit jacket was crumpled in his lap, the tie draped open around his collar, and the first few buttons on his shirt undone. The man from the magazine cover was gone, and the man left behind looked open and available, like the thorns were all tucked away into his own soft places. It was a complete stranger sitting next to Cisco and Cisco liked him.

“Just in general, or…” Harry trailed off.

“No,” Cisco said. “It’s another thing. Like tonight. Just a stupid trip. You can say no.”

Cisco tapped the steering wheel and leaned forward, peering at the light.

“I like your family,” Harry said. “We’re not hurting anyone.”

The light turned green. Cisco dropped Harry off ten minutes later and waited for him to get inside before leaving. Cisco drove home on autopilot. A strange hysteria had overtaken them, that was all. They worked together and sometimes that required suffocating quarters. If you asked Cisco on the right day, he would say they were friends. That meant something. Cisco didn’t have many friends.

Cisco came upon the same intersection as before and eased to a stop. Harry was right. They weren’t hurting anyone. Today had been a fluke. Whatever Cisco felt, it was a result of manufactured mood: the light, the music, the lie they were telling, and the strange magic that had overcome his family to bring them back together. Whenever a string was plucked on a guitar, there was a corresponding note. In this case, that note was Cisco. Simple cause and effect.

So why had he thought of Julian?

Cisco turned on the radio and waited for the light to change.

They could play along for a little while longer. If Harry was still willing, what was the harm?

*

Harry went to the cookouts and swim meets. He showed Cisco up at bowling and turned into a sore loser at mini golf. Cisco had never seen a golf club fly that far before.

Cisco hadn’t been to so many family functions since he was a kid still figuring out he wasn’t normal or average. It became common place for Cisco to turn and find Harry less than an arm’s reach away. It wasn’t so different, really. Except every now and then Harry did something like make a show of grabbing Cisco’s ass and Cisco naturally had to respond by licking the side of Harry’s face. Nothing too obscene, no one wanted to see two hot and bothered nerds at a family outing, but it did bring their faces close together and Harry’s eyes got really blue and wide. It didn’t mean anything.

“It’s just a little weird,” Barry said, slurping his soda. He did that thing with his eyebrows that made them look like they weren’t attached to his forehead. “You and Harry are all up on each other’s business twenty-four seven. Your Abuela knit him socks and he actually wears them. Are you sure you’re not dating? A little bit of nookie in the workplace?”

Cisco groaned. “Can you stop whining about this? The previews are about to start.”

Barry took up Cisco’s arm space and chewed popcorn loudly in his ear. Cisco turned and chucked a kernel at his forehead. It hit him between the eyes.

“Bro, I’m just looking out!” Barry said, like he hadn’t been harassing Cisco for two weeks about what he called The Situation. Cisco rolled his eyes so hard his alternate reality counterparts felt it. “You’ve been fake dating him for two months. I walked into the breakroom yesterday and found you guys making out against the fridge. My eyes are still bleeding.”

“We were not making out!” Cisco screeched. Two teenage girls turned to look at him and Cisco flashed a penitent face and mimed zipping his mouth. He lowered his voice to a hiss. “He took my spoon. I was just---“

“Plastered up against him and trying to climb him like a tree?” Barry offered.

“---fighting the good fight,” Cisco finished. “All the other spoons were filthy.”

“Something was filthy,” Barry said. “It wasn’t the spoons.”

And sure, he could have been the bigger man and washed one of spoons in the sink, and that had occurred to him, but Harry made him see red sometimes and it had felt very important to shove Harry against the fridge and fight for the honor of that spoon, even if it meant pressing up against Harry, feeling every flinching muscle, every sharp place, while Harry held the spoon aloft, and away, and his smile thinned into something just a degree shy of cutting and sure, a hungry little mouth in Cisco’s stomach had opened up wide, pushing Cisco to edge up just a little more, a little to the right----and then Barry showed up and Cisco got his spoon back.

“Sure,” Barry said, dragging out the single word. “That’s the kind of good fight that ends in babies, I’m just saying.”

“Babies,” Cisco said. “I’m regretting bringing you instead of Caitlin, just so you know.”

“No, you’re not.” Barry grinned. “You think I’m adorable and want to name your first child after me.”

It was kind of the truth. Cisco stuck out his tongue.

“No, but seriously,” Barry said, after the movie. They were standing at the urinals staring at an off-white wall. “If it’s not for real, maybe it’s time to ease up a little? I’m not trying to be a dick here. I don’t want to see anyone get hurt, buddy. Harry’s complicated.”

Cisco shook off and zipped up.

“I’m gonna be fine,” Cisco said as he washed his hands. “I know it’s dragging on, but you should see him with my family, dude. He’s like---an emotional buffer. I don’t know why or how, but it’s easier when he’s around. I know it’s not real and I know it’s weird, but I’m not ready to go solo yet.”

Barry met his eyes in the mirror.

“And what does Harry get out of it?”

Cisco frowned and dried his hands off with a paper towel.

“Maybe you should ask him,” Barry said.

Cisco never asked. He did take Barry’s advice and try to check himself a little, rebuild some personal space, orient himself back into his place in the universe as a single man. He didn’t have to sit halfway in Harry’s lap while at the park with his family for one. But then Harry would do something like mess up Cisco’s hair or make an innuendo that was so dry and unassuming that you could never be quite sure it was actually dirty or reprogram Cisco’s ringtone to Evanescence or save the fucking city with his brain and Cisco would forget himself all over again. The problem was that he really liked Harry.

He realized it while watching Harry weld together parts for one of their prototypes. The sparks from the blow torch blazed on Harry’s goggles like miniature fireworks. He hadn’t shaved and his hair looked like he had been running his hands through it all afternoon. Harry shifted the torch and his forearms flexed just so and Cisco’s heart turned just so and it all clicked into place.

Harry started trying to snap his fingers but was foiled by the gloves. “Can you hand me---”

Cisco placed the manual bender in his outstretched hand. Harry looked up, centered in a storm of sparks, and smiled brilliantly and there wasn’t a fight. It was already done.

Cisco really, really liked Harry.

It was Julian all over again.

It slowed him down a little, put a hitch in his step, but Cisco didn’t lose his mind over it. He’d lived with worse. He went to work. He vibed trauma in high definition. He helped Caitlin rebuild her lab when a metahuman got free and spat acid on all her equipment. Harry came around and spun him up a little and Harry went away and Cisco said shitty things about Harry loud enough for Harry to overhear. Things went on like always and Cisco didn’t suffer. It was fine.

“Dinner?” Harry asked him just about every night.

Sometimes Cisco said yes and sometimes Cisco said no. Harry continued to ask.

On one slow weekend morning, Cisco went to S.T.A.R. Labs early to go through some glitched video footage of the docks. Cisco propped his feet on the counter and rocked the chair front to back, not bothered at all by the consistent squeaking of the springs. An hour later Harry stalked in with bedhead game so strong it could only be on purpose.

Cisco pulled the lollipop out of his mouth.

“Heya, Harry.”

Harry scowled at him. He grunted and bent over his computer without a reply.

Cisco shrugged and stuck the sucker back in his mouth, tongue flickering over the smooth surface in search for any imperfection or sharp edge. He rolled through the footage, scanning for unusual activity.

A window opened up on the bottom left of Cisco’s screen when Harry connected his laptop to the network, followed by a progress bar as Harry loaded a program into the mainframe. Cisco didn’t ask. Judging by the size of Harry’s current eye bags, Harry hadn’t gotten any sleep while building it. Cisco minimized the progress bar and maximized his video again.

Harry cleared his throat. Cisco looked away from the screen to find Harry glaring at him with thin lines of annoyance around his mouth. The computer screen reflected on his glasses, two blue hovering squares of light. Yep, Harry definitely hadn’t slept. Cisco returned to his work on the footage and swiped back and forward over three frames to check that a lens flare was actually a lens flare. He knocked the lollipop around his mouth, rattling it against his teeth as he hummed.

“Ramon,” Harry growled. Growled. Like a fricken rabid dog.

Cisco spun the chair and Harry was there, looming over him like something out of a nightmare or a wet dream. Maybe both. Harry crowded into him. His knees nudged Cisco’s and he leaned down. Cisco pushed back against the seat and considered trying to vibe straight across the room but he hadn’t quite figured out how to do that without accidentally ending up in a wall. Harry put one hand on the arm of the chair and leaned in really close, close enough to smell the nutty flavor of creamer he’d used in his coffee. His eyes flickered over Cisco’s face like he was picking apart an equation.

“Um,” Cisco mumbled. “Harry, uh---”

Harry reached out and grasped the white stick connected to Cisco’s lollipop with two fingers. Cisco almost went cross-eyed following the trajectory of Harry’s hand. Harry twisted the stick and spun the candy on Cisco’s tongue. Harry stared him hard in the eye and tugged. The lollipop stayed trapped behind Cisco’s teeth, but his system went into shock like Harry had reached inside his stomach instead. Cisco watched Harry’s pupils dilate, his nostrils flare, and his own brain spun out like a flat tire.

Harry tugged again. This time Cisco let the lollipop out of his mouth with a wet pop. Harry held it up between them, red and shining, and pointed it at Cisco like a sword.

“That’s my lollipop,” Cisco said numbly.

“Not anymore it’s not,” Harry said. “No more lollipops, Cisco. It’s bad for your teeth.”

Cisco blinked.

Harry straightened and eyeballed the lollipop like it was the most offensive and vulgar thing he’d seen in his life. He stepped back from Cisco’s chair and tossed it in the trash under the desk with a dull thump. Cisco looked at the bin and then at Harry. Harry smirked just a tiny bit, a shiver of satisfaction, before he turned away and hunched over his laptop, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Cisco stared at Harry’s profile long after it became weird, then spun the chair again, wincing at the rolling squeaks. Under the desk he pinched his thigh, hoping to redistribute some of the blood flow. He tapped through the next few frames without really seeing them.

“It’s loaded,” Harry said.

“Good.” A hint of cherry flavor still lingered on Cisco’s tongue. “Good. That’s very good. So you’ll be leaving then?”

Harry stuck his hands in his pockets.

“My projects are done for the day,” he said. “You want a hand with this?”

It took two more hours to go through the glitched footage. Harry sat close like always, within touching distance, and made a wry comment here and there about the poor quality of Earth One’s video surveillance. Cisco was all out of snappy come backs. He shifted at one point and got comfortable, legs splayed to keep them from falling asleep, and his knee fell against Harry’s. It was a small point of contact, an inch at the most. Neither of them moved away.

Caitlin wandered past, yawning, and they still didn’t move.

The touch was incidental. Nothing to see here, move along.

Harry offered to buy him lunch. He left to get his wallet and prescription sunglasses and Cisco lingered behind. He spun the chair in a slow circle. Caitlin turned her music on and did her morning yoga poses. Cisco turned his chair away to give her privacy. Barry’s question from the other night bothered him.

What did Harry get out of all of this?

*

Cisco tried. He really did.

He went to a weekend gathering without Harry and made noise about not having to spend every second together and didn’t have to fake how low-key shitty he felt about it. He helped Nydia move the lawn furniture out of the way so the little kids could have a water slide and held the hose for his cousins to run under. They shrieked with laughter whenever he dropped the spray and got them in the back. He ate the soggy potato chips and listened to the bullshit political opinions of his uncles and took his shirt off to soak in the sun.

“Where’s your sexy older man?” Abuela asked him. “I have a book for him.” Cisco shrugged, digging through some pasta salad for chunks of cheese. “Working, I think. I’ll bring him soon.”

Abuela pursed her lips which made them all but vanish inside her wrinkles.

“See that you do,” she said. “He makes you smile, Francisco.”

Cisco drank too many cheap wine coolers and slept in his old bedroom. He woke up in the middle of the night with a pounding headache and a ceiling full of glow-in-the-dark stars. He missed Harry.

By Monday, Cisco was red and peeling and no amount of moisturizer could hide it.

He passed Harry in the hallway without stopping even though Harry slowed and opened his mouth like he had something to say. Barry suited up and Cisco plugged in to the mainframe and The Flash stopped three crimes before Cisco had finished his first cup of coffee. Harry dropped a bottle of aloe off wordlessly and disappeared for the day. Cisco didn’t text him or look for him. He yelled at Barry about ripping the suit and snapped at Caitlin twice for getting in his way and then decided he was an asshole and decided to close up shop.

“Are you okay?” Caitlin asked, trailing him to the elevator.

Cisco prodded at his forehead. “Headache. Sorry for being a dick. I need some sleep.”

She wrung her hands. Caitlin Snow: Actual Cupcake.

“I owe you food soon,” Cisco said. “Something fancy where we both have to dress up and pretend we’re evil billionaires from a James Bond movie. Sound good?”

Her anxious vibrations flattened out. The normal tinkling resumed.

“Only if you wear the top hat this time,” she said seriously.

Cisco gasped and put a hand over his heart. “I would never forget the top hat!”

Over Caitlin’s shoulder, Cisco saw Harry round the corner and his stomach dropped to his toes. He gave her shoulder a squeeze and escaped to the elevator, stabbing the button for the ground floor. The doors closed on Caitlin turning and Harry paused at the door to the Cortex, lifting his coffee mug to take a sip, thought bubbles practically blinking neon above his head. Cisco twined his fingers behind his back, squeezing, squeezing---

Harry texted him.

“Dinner?”

Don’t, Cisco told himself. The doors opened and he stepped out. Don’t even. He walked toward the main doors. Chill out. Take some space. It’s not that hard. Julian, Julian, Julian.

He left the building and walked into a wave of heat and sun that made his already crispy shoulders sizzle under his thin t-shirt. Outside the van, he lifted his phone and looked at the text again. The glare of the sun made it difficult to pick out the reply button. Don’t do it, Cisco. He bit his lip and put the phone back in his pocket. Three minutes into traffic, Cisco felt another message vibrate on his thigh. He didn’t check until he hit a red light.

It was Barry.

“Harry just threw a marker at my head!!!!111!!”

Cisco caught a glimpse of himself in the side mirror grinning ridiculously and flattened his expression into something a little less maniacal. It wasn’t appropriate.

Cisco held out for a week.

On Tuesday, Harry replaced all of Cisco’s tools with pink camo counterparts and bedazzled Cisco’s goggles. Cisco didn’t say a word when he had to vibe to the future looking like an older brother to the Powder Puff Girls. Little did Harry know that Cisco looked fan-fucking-tastic in pink.

The city tried to fall apart mid-week. No one got any sleep working around the clock trying to figure out how an actual fucking T-Rex had popped up in the middle of Central City and more importantly how to send her back where she had come from. Two days in and Cisco passed out between one word and the next. The last thing he remembered was Barry’s exhausted face tilting sideways, sideways, was Barry falling, what---

Cisco woke up in Harry’s room, on Harry’s cot, with Harry’s sheets mummifying him. Harry had left the radio on. Something soft and gilded with violins soothed Cisco’s ears. There was a sense memory somewhere in his body of being carried and settled onto a soft surface, little jerks on his feet as his shoes were untied and slipped off, the vibration of a gruff voice. A hand in his hair. Maybe. Cisco rolled over, stuck his nose in the pillow, inhaled, and hated himself fiercely.

He glared at Harry the next time he saw him. It was better than trying to crawl inside Harry’s t-shirt to make a nest there. Harry’s eyed him speculatively that day and Cisco felt a particular affinity with caged rats, but Harry never got overly weird about it. Things stayed chill.

Harry nailed the candy drawer shut on Friday and hid all the hammers. Cisco shoved his safety goggles on and cut a hole in the drawer with an electric handsaw, chunks of fiberboard shooting out around him. Caitlin eased by wringing her hands and Cisco realized the cartoon villain laughter was happening outside of his head. He took the handsaw to Harry’s favorite chair while he was at it, piled all the pieces in a crate, and threw it in the dumpster outback. It was the happiest he’d been all week.

When he got back from lunch, Cisco plucked a pink sticky note off his computer screen with Harry’s writing scrawled messily across it in black marker.

“Truce?”

Cisco tapped the note against his palm.

After turning down Barry and Iris’s offer to third wheel, Cisco headed straight for his workspace and found Harry streaked in grease up to his elbows and working on something with a lot of open, spinning parts. He was so focused he didn’t notice Cisco come in.

Screw it, Cisco thought. Screw it all.

“Dinner?” Cisco offered.

Harry startled and jerked and his project whirred threateningly. He turned and eyed Cisco, then a simple happy smile settled on his face. He’d smiled like that at Cisco before but Cisco had always been turning away, flinching, shrugging it off. This time, Cisco let himself feel the thrill of it.

“Help me finish this up and you’re on,” Harry said.

Cisco circled the mess of metal and wire that was This.

“I don’t know where to begin,” Cisco said. “Where’s the top and where’s the bottom?”

Harry untangled himself and grabbed Cisco’s bare arm gently, fingers moist with oil. Cisco let himself be tugged in front of Harry and have his hand guided onto an unmoving gear. It was slick under his hand and easy to turn. Behind Cisco, Harry was warm and smelled of clean sweat.

“I’m building the motor.” Harry’s fingers shaped around Cisco’s, smearing the backs of Cisco's with dark streaks. “This is the heart.”

Like Cisco didn’t know more than anyone about building a motor.

Cisco turned and Harry’s distracted face was right there. Even his glasses had grease on them.

“You really are Patrick Swayze,” Cisco said.

Harry snorted and squeezed Cisco’s hand. “As long as I don’t die at the end of this movie.”

*

Falling in love with Harry was the least painful thing Cisco had ever done. Harry didn’t make it hard on Cisco by dating other people. Or even showing interest in other people. He was easy to pin down to spend time with and he paid for the lion’s share of their meals with only a mild grumbling for form’s sake. He instigated most of their flirting and turned red all the way down his neck when Cisco flirted back. The summer flew by in a way it hadn’t since high school. Between fighting crime with Team Flash, developing support machines with Harry, and the weird fake life Harry and Cisco were living with Cisco’s family, Cisco didn’t have room for pining.

And he was never ever lonely.

Harry rented a two-bedroom apartment at the end of July so that when Jesse came to visit, she’d have more than a flimsy cot to sleep on. He coerced Cisco into helping him move furniture up three flights of stairs. It was one of the sacred duties of fake boyfriends everywhere apparently. Barry, who it would have made sense to utilize, picked moving day to focus on his day job. Jerk.

It was almost dark by the time they’d brought the last boxes up.

Harry called out for dinner and set Cisco up on a lawn chair on the balcony with a beer and pizza. There weren’t two chairs so he sat by Cisco’s knees and after a half hour of food and conversation ended up propped against Cisco’s legs, one arm looped over Cisco’s thighs. It was too hot to be so close to another body, but Cisco had suffered worse than a melted Harry cuddling him.

“I’ll move in a minute,” Harry said. Yeah, okay.

Cisco took a sip of his second beer and watched the sun sink behind the buildings. The pink sky threatened another hot day. The streets buzzed with traffic and sound that washed away into white noise before long, broken only occasionally by the scream of a siren. Harry talked less and less, words beginning to slur, until at last his chin dropped onto his chest and he began to snore. Cisco tugged the half empty bottle out of Harry’s hands and set it aside.

Harry’s weight grew heavier on Cisco as he slipped into deeper sleep and Cisco reached out to comb his fingers through the feathery hair sticking up above the pale curve of Harry’s ear. He flattened it but it bounced right back up the second he moved his hand away.

Cisco leaned his head against the chair. Street lamps began buzzing. On the balcony above, a couple shuffled around a grill and each other, chattering inanely about their day. Plates and silverware clinked. Cisco could smell the meat cooking.

There were freckles on the side of Harry’s neck.

He’d wake Harry and go home. He just needed a minute.

So maybe Harry was a rude jerk who could find a reason to cuss out a toaster, but when he slept his glasses went crooked on his face and he looked like a six-year-old who’d had a long day at school. The universe didn’t seem to give two craps about Cisco Ramon’s heart-pain for Earth Two’s Harrison Wells.

It was like being let off the hook. There was no fallout.

*

There was this kid. Twelve at the most. Skinny.

“Not our problem,” Harry argued. “We have our hands full with two Earths and you want to add a third? How many headaches did you have this week? Let’s make a list.”

“Sit it out then,” Cisco said. “Who invited you, anyway? I vibed her. I’m saving her.”

Cisco vibed a pair of eyes first: yellow slits peering out of the dark. The smell of trash. Rain. An alley. The eyes blinked sideways and Cisco spun, vibrated over a stretch of wet pavement, and a man in a long coat stalked right through him, slicker glinting red in the glow of a bar sign. Cisco turned.

The girl sat in a puddle, tail whipping behind her.

The man bent, hat slipping, and his face was a mass of tumors, puss leaking from his ear hole.

She hissed and scrambled back, hurt. Tired of running. Cisco rewound time like a scene from a low budget sci-fi movie and vibed in.

She growled at him, falling back to her haunches. He focused on his hands, made them corporeal. She fought him. He could feel her desperation. Taste it. Her terror ripped its own hole in him. Elbows and nails and old scars. Fresh stinky fear.

“It’s taking too long,” Cisco heard Barry say, a universe away. “Shut it down.”

The girl scratched his face and blood splattered somewhere on Jupiter because he thought pain, thought blood, thought red and saw Jupiter’s Red Spot.

“He’s stronger than he looks,” Harry said. “He wants this. It’s his choice.”

Caitlin. Soft sweet Caitlin. “He looks like he’s being torn apart.”

He locked his arms around her and lifted. She tried to head butt him. He looked into her eyes, the yellow slits flickering back with terror, and she froze, little nose twitching. The man with the tumors showed up behind them.

“I can help you,” Cisco said in two worlds. “Trust me.”

Somehow that worked. Maybe he made it work.

Cisco held on as universes tried to rip them apart, held on as a sonic boom went off inside his head, held on until she clung to his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist. She was stuck. Tied to something. Cisco yanked with all his strength and the tether snapped. They went spinning through time and space and she screamed her head off. Cisco focused and reached for home. The universe threw up doors. Cisco kicked them down. Again and again until his brain felt like a fossil about to crack.

“Ramon!” Harry shouted. “Now!”

Cisco squeezed his eyes shut and jumped one last time.

When he opened them again, he was home and the girl was shaking in his arms. The room spun.

“Can someone---” Cisco said weakly.

Caitlin approached cautiously, palms held up. The girl looked at Caitlin from under a mass of tangled brown hair. Caitlin smiled gently in her trembling way. The girl let go of Cisco one arm at a time and jumped down, landing on all fours before straightening up and throwing her hair out of her eyes. Cisco turned and stumbled and Harry was there somehow, a wall Cisco couldn’t kick down. The room tipped and Harry caught him, taking up Cisco’s entire field of vision with his best grumpy face.

“You almost killed yourself,” Harry muttered, locking his arms under Cisco’s armpits and lifting him. “Is pissing me off a hobby of yours or a serious ambition?”

Cisco sighed and let Harry take his weight for a minute. He felt Harry’s breath warm his ear.

Cisco slept for two days, only getting up to use the bathroom and to eat an entire bag of pretzels. When he woke up for good, he heard noises in his kitchen and stumbled toward it in his crumpled boxers and sweaty tank. Caitlin and Barry were playing a card game at his table. One of Iris’s sweaters draped an empty chair and the toilet flushed, signaling her return. Harry was at Cisco’s stove in a black hoody, elbow moving rhythmically as he stirred something in a sauce pan. The whole room smelled like garlic. Cisco rubbed his eyes and propped himself against the door jamb.

Harry threw a sharp look at Cisco over his shoulder, scowled, then went back to stirring.

“Hey, buddy,” Barry said. “The cat princess says goodbye and thanks.”

Cisco yawned and went to sit beside him.

“How badly are you losing?” Cisco asked Barry, because he knew Caitlin. She always counted cards.

Caitlin scrunched up her nose. That bad, huh?

*

Team Flash celebrated saving royalty with a group movie night. They couldn’t pick a movie that they all wanted to see, so they wrote down the movies playing on shredded portions of a napkin and put them in Harry’s hat. Caitlin covered her eyes and picked. She showed Barry.

Barry threw his fist in the air and spun a circle.

Tarzan, it was.

“The biggest popcorn,” Cisco told Harry. “All the butter. All the salt.”

Harry cocked an eyebrow. “With whose money, Ramon?”

“Ha,” Cisco said. “They don’t pay me for looking this pretty. Sorry, pal.”

Harry gave him a once over and smirked, but he dug his wallet out of his jeans and got in line with Barry. Cisco and Caitlin picked out four seats mid-theater. Cisco sat against the wall after checking for stains with the flashlight on his phone and Caitlin dropped down next to him, smelling like sunshine and well, formaldehyde actually.

“Um,” Cisco said.

Caitlin turned to him, popping her bambi browns at him. “Oh, was your sugar daddy going to sit here?”

Cisco shrank against armrest by the wall and shut up. The other two showed up weighed down by popcorn, nachos, and soda. Harry settled in on the other side of Caitlin with only a brief pause. He passed Cisco a package of Twizzlers across her lap, then handed her the enormous bucket of popcorn. She took a handful and tossed it into her mouth, chewing with her mouth open, then made a hacking noise and cleared her throat delicately.

“Too much salt,” she said, covering her mouth as she continued to chew

“Did you get me a soda?” Cisco asked.

Harry moved to hand him the soda. Caitlin plucked it out of Harry’s hand and shook it to check the ice to drink ration before slurping from the straw. Harry met Cisco’s eyes behind her head.

Team Flash converged on the sidewalk outside the theater after the movie and unanimously decided there should never be a sequel. It was starting to rain lightly.

“Go back in time,” Cisco urged Barry. “Give me those two hours of my life back.”

Barry started dragging his feet against the sidewalk like he was warming up to do just that, but Caitlin caught him by the collar and yanked him to a stop just before he darted off.

“Just kidding,” Barry said. “Probably.”

“Better safe than sorry,” Caitlin said.

Barry saluted them. “I’m off. Have a…” He trailed off when he looked at Cisco and Cisco realized that somehow he’d made an umbrella out of Harry, tucking himself under Harry’s arm and against his side. Harry had hooked his hand around Cisco’s waist. Barry shared a look with Caitlin, who pressed her lips into a careful smile. Cisco felt a twist of uneasiness. He ducked away from Harry and made a show of checking his phone.

“You too, Barry,” she said. Barry vanished between one second and the next, stirring up the edges of Caitlin’s skirt and hair. “See you tomorrow?”

She said this to both Harry and Cisco.

“I could walk you home?” Cisco offered. Harry put a hand on Cisco’s shoulder.

Caitlin started walking away backwards.

“No, no that’s fine.” She jazz-handed at them. “You kids have fun! But not too much fun! Ha. Hahaha.”

And then she pivoted and click-clacked quickly away.

“I should get going,” Cisco said, jerking his thumb in the other direction. “Do you wanna…”

Harry nodded and kept pace with Cisco. The rain made him shiver. Harry muttered a curse and slung his arm back around Cisco’s neck, tugging Cisco in. He smelled like butter and a little bit like Caitlin’s perfume and a lot like the mint gum he was chewing. Cisco tucked his wet hair behind his ear, but as ever it fell in his face again a second later.

“You’re quiet,” Harry said.

“Are you saying you want me to talk? Because I can make that happen.”

Harry twisted his chin down at Cisco. “I’m pleading the fifth, I think.”

“Smart man,” Cisco said.

In the parking garage, Harry suddenly stopped and grabbed Cisco by his biceps. Cisco’s heart started racing. Harry flattened Cisco against the back of the van with his body and peered around him, eyebrows pinched over the frames of his glasses.

“Oh, God,” Cisco groaned. “One night of peace, that’s all I want. How bad is it?”

“What?” Harry asked distractedly, still staring at whatever had spooked him.

“How are we going to die this time?”

Harry dragged his eyes to Cisco’s.

“No, nothing like that, just.” Harry licked his lips. “Your cousin is over there. No, don’t look.”

Cisco frowned. “What’s the big deal?”

Harry pinched Cisco’s chin between his fingers and sealed their mouths together. Cisco squeaked in surprise and grabbed onto Harry’s shoulders. He breathed in and Harry pressed forward harder, knocking Cisco’s head lightly against the van window, and Cisco shut his eyes, squeezing Harry tighter, pulling a little. Cisco kissed back easily, wildly. He gave himself away. He put a hand in Harry’s hair and slid his mouth off Harry’s to kiss his jaw, his neck, and Harry groaned deep in his throat, pinning Cisco’s hips against the double doors and Cisco dropped his forehead against Harry’s collarbone, huffing out a breath. Harry stopped instantly, audibly swallowing.

“Too much?” he rasped.

Cisco shook his head. “Just, uh.” He laughed. “I really hope my cousin didn’t see that actually.”

Harry squeezed Cisco’s shoulder and lifted away from him. Cisco stared at Harry’s shoes.

“Don’t forget Abuela’s birthday,” Harry said, backing off a few steps. “Did you buy her the book I told you to?”

“What is it with you two and these books? No, I did not forget the book.”

“Good.” Harry nodded. “Ok. Goodnight.”

“Do you need a ride?” Cisco called after him.

Harry lifted a hand without turning. Cisco watched him go then leaned to look around the van. The parking lot was lit up pretty well for this side of town. There was a woman in a floral dress walking quickly toward her car in four inch heels that clicked smartly on the damp cement, but he didn’t see his cousin anywhere. Cisco frowned and rounded the van, unlocking the doors.

He kind of thought---and this was probably just a greedy thought, but---he kind of thought Harry wanted another excuse to kiss him. All the touching and pretending and hanging off each other and they hadn’t kissed since the wedding. Maybe… Maybe nothing. Cisco wasn’t going to go there again.

*

They met Dante for Thirsty Thursdays every couple of weeks. Harry liked to rip strangers off at pool while Dante and Cisco did shots (“It’s called Six Pocket, Ramon.”) He bent over the table and the black shirt rode up, showing the knobs of his spine and the elastic of his underwear. He pulled his elbow back, triceps clenching. With a crack, Harry sent two balls spinning into opposite corner pockets. The pimply twenty-something on the other side of the table started sweating. Harry winked at Cisco.

“Geeze, bro,” Dante said. “Maybe put the straw away.”

Cisco pulled the straw out of his mouth. It was a chewed-up mess. He tossed it onto the scuffed bar and drank the mixed drink straight out of the glass.

After the shots came Karaoke.

Dante busted out Sinead O’Conner while Cisco winced by the stage stairs.

“Since you been gone, I can do whatever I waaaaaaant,” Dante sang, swaying with the microphone.

Cisco turned and peered out into the dark bar. People swayed and laughed and oh, there he was. Harry leaned against a pillar with his arms crossed, hair extra-poofy. No black eyes from playing pool shark tonight so far. He lifted his hand in a wave without uncrossing his arms when Cisco caught his eye.

“Nothing compares,” Dante warbled. “Nothing compares to you.”

Cisco rolled his eyes and mimed a noose to hang himself with. Harry shrugged.

When it was his turn, Cisco sauntered up the stage and traded narrowed eyed glares with Dante as they passed each other on the stairs. He pulled the microphone out of its stand and turned his back on the crowd, rolling his head around on his neck and tapping his foot. He heard a few laughs and a whistle and shook his hips, bouncing his ass in reply. He signaled the DJ by snapping his fingers. She put her headphones on and cued up the song.

Cisco tossed his hair and turned. “It’s Britney, bitch!”

He rolled his hips, air thrusting, and Harry covered his face with both hands. When they dropped away, Harry’s face was bright red as he laughed helplessly.

*

It had to end.

Cisco didn’t do very well with endings.

He was more of a beginning and middle kind of guy.

*

Cisco ended up at Harry’s apartment for a couple hours a few nights a week. Harry usually invited him over for a drink or to go over some research he was personally interested in. Cisco liked the kitchen best. It was a big white room with huge windows that Harry left open more often than not. He had a bar instead of a dining room table and Cisco liked to sit on the stool closest to the window to watch the night settle over the city, lights popping on in windows miles away.

It was morning. Harry needed a ride and Cisco was out of real food and he was on that stool when Harry ruined everything.

“Is your neighbor still cooking meth?” Cisco stirred his spoon in the cereal. “I don’t understand why they don’t close the curtains when---“

Harry put a hand on Cisco’s shoulder. Cisco stopped and tried to turn, but Harry pressed down and kept him from moving. Cisco set the spoon down next to the bowl. Harry smoothed down Cisco’s t-shirt, hand warm through the thin cotton. Cisco swallowed. Harry breathed out audibly and brushed Cisco’s hair aside. A moment later Cisco felt the brush of Harry’s mouth over the back of his neck. Cisco’s view of the room glazed over. He focused in on that three-inch patch of skin and felt Harry part his lips damply over the top of his spine.

“Harry,” Cisco said.

“Shh.” Harry kissed him again---the side of his neck. The hand not holding Cisco’s hair out of the way closed around Cisco’s on the counter. “Just be quiet.”

Cisco’s heart throbbed in his throat. He didn’t say a word and he didn’t move. Harry bracketed Cisco warmly on one side and kissed around the side of Cisco’s neck, nosing at the shirt collar to push it aside so that he could kiss Cisco there as well. Cisco tilted his head to give Harry more room. Harry rumbled his approval and dipped his chin, a wash of hot breath, then Harry dug his teeth into the meaty part of Cisco’s shoulder. Cisco jerked, knees knocking together under the counter. Harry lifted off.

Not yet, Cisco thought, and squeezed his thighs together. If this was just another tease, another way of raising the ante in their on-going competition----whatever, sign Cisco up.

Cisco opened his eyes when Harry set his glasses down next to Cisco’s cereal bowl with a click, the period at the end of a strong sentence. The black frames returned Cisco’s stare. Deliberate and provoking.

Cisco pushed on the counter and turned the stool. Harry stepped back.

Without his glasses, in a plain white shirt and blue jeans, Harry looked half-naked already. Washed out by sunlight, he gazed down at Cisco with the faint sternness that never quite left his face, eyes devoured by the darkness of his pupils. He looked caught somewhere between fucking Cisco and lecturing him. Cisco had the urge to say something to break the mood: a joke about the weather or a movie reference, but Harry lifted one finger and pressed it to his lips. Cisco’s teeth clicked shut.

“I don’t want you to talk.” Harry moved his finger from his own mouth to Cisco’s. It touched down lightly, a soft brush that Cisco could have blown away. “What I want is to take you to my room and take your clothes off. No more flirting. The only word I want to hear out of your mouth from now on is yes or no. Do you understand?”

Cisco nodded. And then he shook his head. And nodded again.

“Say yes.” Harry’s tongue flickered over his bottom lip, dark pink and distracting and obviously rigging the vote. “Or say no.”

For a second, Cisco turned his brain back on and rustled around in common sense. He’d been here before, fixated on an inappropriate man. Look how that had turned out. So make a list.He spent more time with Harry than with anyone, they partnered well together, they shared important people, and yes, he would call Harry a very good friend. Harry would drop him after. There was no need to solve a puzzle twice, after all.

He’d be apologetic, distracted---confused.

The teetering mess of Cisco’s heart hung over Harry’s head like a bag of flaming shit.

For a second, Cisco considered saying no. For a second, he took enough breath in to say thanks, but no thanks. Julian ramming boxes into the back of a truck vibrated on the tip of his tongue.You’re just a fucking kid, Cisco.

But then sunlight seemed to warm and swell and the wind trickled in through the window. Harry’s white shirt rippled against his abdomen, catching on the cut of his hip, and Cisco saw, vividly, the angle his thumb and index finger would make framing Harry’s belly button.

He remembered Harry’s hips pinning his against the van.

“Yes,” Cisco said. He wasn’t a kid. He knew the risks. “Whatever you want.”

Harry grinned viciously. Cisco should have been turned off by the juicy-steak smile but his veins lit up instead: domedomedomedome. Harry grabbed a handful of Cisco’s hair and Cisco balanced on his toes and they collided somewhere in the middle. Boom.

They kissed like they were coming back to it after a break. Cisco bit Harry’s top lip and Harry stabbed Cisco’s tongue with his own and Cisco grabbed Harry’s ass because reasons and Harry pushed him against the counter and the cereal bowl clattered over the tiles. Milk and cheerios flooded the bar. Harry pulled back and took Cisco with him by the front of Cisco’s shirt. Harry stooped to steal kisses and walked backwards and did nothing so inelegant as trip over himself or the carpet. Asshole.

The bed swallowed the room. It was piled high with white pillows and pushed against the open window. Street construction drilled past the thin curtains. Science magazines spilled over the nightstand and a half-full glass of water ruined the varnish. Cisco’s mouth slipped sideways off Harry’s cheek. It was nearly unbearable to intrude on Harry’s privacy and see where he slept. Just the sight of the white blankets bunched halfway down the mattress made Cisco twitchy. Harry kissed his nose, his eyebrow, running his hands up and down Cisco’s arms and leaving static electricity in his wake.

“Get your shoes off,” Harry said, damp on Cisco’s earlobe.

Cisco shuddered. He toed them off blindly.

Harry nipped at him. Cisco chinned him aside and pushed his hands up the back of Harry’s shirt. The long muscles flexed under his hands, hard where Cisco was soft. Show off.

Cisco panted into Harry’s open mouth and Harry stopped to rip the shirt over his head, then came back at Cisco with his hair sticking up in all directions, eyes bluer than pool water. Cisco dug his fingers into Harry’s lats and dropped to flat feet so he could kiss across Harry’s chest and discover where the bullet had cracked Harry open and left behind fissures of scar tissue. Harry cupped the back of Cisco’s neck and vibrated under Cisco’s tongue. The ridges tasted like soap.

Cisco nearly tripped over his own shoes when Harry pushed him again. Harry hooked his hand in the front of Cisco’s purple jeans and yanked once, firmly, unsnapping all the buttons at once. Cisco grabbed onto Harry’s arms for balance. Harry snagged the waistband of Cisco’s boxers, tongue peeking between his teeth.

“Batman,” he purred. “Should have known.”

Cisco put his hands on his hips and opened his mouth. Harry shook his head. Cisco shook his head back. Harry swooped in and re-took his mouth, kissing him with a soft humming sound, like it felt really really good and. He wasn’t wrong. Harry tapped the underside of Cisco’s arms and Cisco lifted them so that Harry could drag the shirt over his head. Skin on skin. Good plan, Harry.

It moved really quickly from there. Harry got him naked and seemed to forget about his own pants. Cisco only managed to get those nefarious jeans unbuttoned before Harry got annoyed and crowded Cisco into bed. He strained to hold Cisco down and kiss him everywhere, chest and face flushed with effort as he stung Cisco’s soft belly and thighs with bites.

Cisco fought to feel everything he could. The data was important. He needed to know the precise measurement of Harry shoulder to hip, the texture of the hair on his lower stomach, whether he liked to have his fingers sucked on. Harry didn’t make it easy on him. It really was a fight. He seemed to have a blueprint he was following and when Cisco deviated, Harry barely humored the distraction. He lifted Cisco or turned him or pinned him. Harry’s forearms doubled as restraints. Cisco let out a huff at one point, yanking on Harry’s stupid poof, and Harry scraped his beard over Cisco’s belly, chuckling low in his throat as he dipped lower, lower, and Cisco arched against the bed.

Harry devastated. Cisco experienced an odd thrill of jealousy as Harry held Cisco’s thighs up and apart and went down on him for a long time. He’d always wanted to shut Harry up by sucking his dick and instead Cisco was the one who found himself muted. Harry took him deep, cheeks hollowing, then backed off to bounce Cisco’s balls off his tongue. His eyes taunted up Cisco’s body and Cisco twisted the sheets and tangled Harry’s hair and scratched Harry’s shoulders, his cheeks, whatever part of Harry he could reach. He threw one leg over Harry’s back and trapped him. Not that Harry tried to get away.

“Pinch your nipples,” Harry grunted at him. His cheeks were bright red.

When Cisco did, Harry rewarded him with a lingering lick up the underside of his dick. Cisco moaned and twisted. He dropped his leg flat and Harry pushed it back up. Cisco shook his head and Harry took him deep, too deep, Cisco could feel him swallow. Then he backed off and swirled his tongue.

“You fucking asshole,” Cisco hissed. “Make me come.”

Harry pulled off with a pop. “Not until you’re sitting on my dick.”

Cisco’s eyes rolled back. Harry grabbed the base of his dick sharply and Cisco grunted, so close he could feel the axis of the climax, a spinning world ready to flip. He slapped his palm on the sheet and yanked until it was mattress under his fingers instead. Harry peered up the length of him with shining eyes, his face a wet mess of pre-cum and spit. Cisco wanted to end him.

He poked Harry in the forehead. Harry backed off finally and sat on his heels. His dick was a thick line under his pants. Cisco shackled Harry by the nape and kissed his dirty mouth and got a grip on his dick through the jeans. Harry moaned around Cisco’s tongue and his abs rippled, folding in. Cisco broke the kiss to breathe and watched Harry’s hips flex.

“Squeeze,” Harry gritted. “Tighter, Ramon.”

Cisco backed off and put his foot flat against Harry’s stomach, pushing.

Harry kneed off the bed and unzipped his jeans. He pushed them down and he was naked underneath. Cisco raised his eyebrows. Harry smirked and stroked his dick from base to tip.

Not bad, Harry.

“I want you on your back,” Harry said and lifted his leg, putting his foot on the bed. “You’re going to hold yourself open for me. I want you to come all over yourself.”

Cisco scooted backward as Harry crawled forward. “You sound like you’ve been thinking about it.”

“Why do you think I got a bigger bed?” Harry said. “Now shut up and open your legs.”

Cisco reclined on the fluffy pillows and stuffed his hand under one to bend it in half. His fingers bumped against cold plastic and he pulled the object free. Harry straddled Cisco and took the bottle of lube out of his hands, setting it aside. He closed over Cisco, slotting their naked bodies together ankle to cheek. Cisco arched up, rubbing their dicks together and Harry echoed the motion for a moment, making a soft noise in his throat, before he grunted and lifted his hips, knocking Cisco’s legs open with one knee.

“I’m gonna stuff you so full,” he grunted. “Tell me you want my dick.”

“I,” Cisco started.

“Don’t talk,” Harry snapped. Cisco rolled his eyes at the ceiling.

Harry fingered him open with the lube. Cisco watched Harry watch his own hand then looked down and saw the thin bones in Harry’s wrist move under his skin as he fucked Cisco with three fingers and the sight stabbed his gut. When Harry crawled between his legs at last, Cisco grabbed his own dick and Harry leaned over him, held on to Cisco’s jaw and kissed him, shoving his tongue in Cisco’s mouth at the same time he fucked into Cisco’s body, one greedy thrust at a time until he was all the way in.

“That’s it, baby,” Harry grunted and Cisco gasped a laugh.

“Yeah, baby,” Cisco mocked. “Do me, baby.”

Harry slapped Cisco’s ass cheek, then returned to give it a firm squeeze. He thrust in again and Cisco hissed at the burn, digging fingers in to Harry’s shoulder. Harry kissed him distractedly, then pulled away and leaned up and back, dragging Cisco up onto his thighs and hooking his arm under Cisco’s back. Cisco took a deep breath, because he had a feeling things were about to---

Harry fucked Cisco until lights shattered behind Cisco’s eyes and sweat skidded in a reverse slide up his stomach to his neck. Cisco came all over both of them and Harry smiled like he was proving a point, then spread his legs wide under Cisco’s, arched his back and pounded Cisco until he joined Cisco at the finish line. He fucked in deep when he came, pressed hard on Cisco’s thighs and scowled through it.

Cisco waited until Harry collapsed beside him, breathing hard.

“So can I talk now or---”

Harry threw his arm over his eyes. “Whatever you want, Cisco.”

“You’re so bossy,” Cisco complained, wiggling away from the wet spot.

Harry laughed weakly. Sweat gleamed along his torso. The sun washed over the red marks on his neck where Cisco had scratched him. The dimples in his cheek were as deep as Cisco had ever seen them. The outside world began to filter in. He could hear the jackhammer breaking cement apart on the street below. Harry shifted, dragging his arm down. He blinked at Cisco through a glare of sunlight.

Cisco’s heart made a needy grab. He wanted to reach out again but Harry was so far out of his league that the universe had put him in another reality to make the point clear. Cisco pushed his hair back and sat up. Harry had a S.T.A.R. Labs hoody slung over the mirror above his bureau. Barry was going to be a nightmare about this.

“Crap,” Cisco said and leapt out of bed.

More of the world filtered in now that his dick wasn’t in charge. One of Harry’s neighbors was vacuuming. Traffic hummed a few stories down. And oh yeah, Cisco was in love with the man he’d just let tap his ass and said ass felt like it had gone one on one with tree bark and lost.

Getting dressed was the absolute worst. His pubes were glued down in patches and he couldn’t get his boxers untangled from his jeans and Harry was still naked on the bed, toes wiggling.

“We were supposed to meet Barry and Caitlin thirty minutes ago,” Cisco said. He dragged his boxers and pants in opposite directions, yanking them apart. “Barry might decide to pop in for a little visit to make sure we’re okay. I don’t want to be naked when he does, do you?”

Harry shrugged. He stretched and his abs rippled. Fifty-two? Seriously?

“I’ll text them,” Harry offered. “Let’s get breakfast. You didn’t finish yours.”

Cisco slid his boxers up and hissed when a patch of hair came unstuck.

“Nah,” Cisco said casually. He stepped into his jeans and jumped to fit his ass in.

Harry frowned, the first flicker of discontent. He didn’t like not getting his way. Cisco dragged the shirt over his head and untucked his hair from the cotton, pushing it back from his face. He bent and scavenged the carpet for his shoes and Harry sat up, dimples flattened.

“Let’s get breakfast,” Harry said again, more firmly.

Cisco prickled. He stuffed his foot in one shoe. “Be cool, Harry. I’ll see you later.”

Harry’s mouth twitched. “Do we have a problem here?”

“Who has a problem?” Cisco found the other shoe under the bed. “I don’t have a problem.”

Harry waved at Cisco’s entire body. “You’re not exactly the type to fuck and run. I expected more cartoon heart eyes.”

“You’ve never fucked me before,” Cisco said and straightened. Harry stared at him the same way he did a dry erase board and with about the same level of patience. “I’m fine, Harry. Just worried you’re going to take this wrong way.”

“And what way is that?”

“We’re not really in love, Harry,” Cisco said. “We’re just playing.”

Harry’s head jerked back. Cisco grabbed the nape of his neck and squeezed it hard. After a long silence, Harry flipped the sheet over his lap and looked away, drawing his knee up. He gestured to the door like Cisco didn’t know where it was.

“See you at work, Ramon.”

Cisco let himself out. He took the stairs out of the building, two steps at a time. He sat down on the stoop outside to catch his breath and slapped his chest a couple of times. A woman in a hard hat eyed him from the corner. The summer sun felt like a rash. Harry was all over him. Semen and beard burn and teeth imprints. He’d have to go home and shower.

*

Cisco couldn’t break the news to his parents. Not when he pulled up to their house the next weekend to Nydia digging up dirt along the walkway. She sat back on her heels when Cisco parked the van, lifting a gloved hand to shield her eyes. She smiled when she saw him.

“Harrison’s not with you?” she asked when he kissed her cheek. She was wearing double braids today, knotted and piled high on her head. “Has the honeymoon finally worn off?”

Cisco waved a hand and plopped down next her in the dirt. He poked a worm and it wriggled away.

“Hand me those,” she said, pointing. “No, not those. No. The blue ones. The other blue ones.”

Cisco handed her the boxes of potted flowers.

“Why not yellow?”

“You know my favorite color is blue,” Nydia said, and then, as she had taking to teasing him, she tipped a pair of imaginary glasses low on her nose. “Raaaa-mooon.”

Cisco’s poor heart swayed. He stayed the weekend. Barry texted him (sup?) and Cisco sent back a sad face, but left it at that when Barry asked him what was wrong. No need for dramatics. Rene dragged him yard sale hunting on Saturday, granting him the dubious honor of searching for treasure among stretches of dusty bottles and boxes of yellowed books. When he went home Sunday night, Cisco cleaned out his fridge, tossed out all the old take-out boxes (don’t think about it), slimy vegetables (Harry’s face when he pushed in---), and an old half-used container of sour cream (stop).

He ate his last popsicle at one of his tiny windows and thought about Harry’s balcony.

Thank the Baby Jesus for a break in the heat wave. Caitlin phoned him to come in at about three in the morning and saved Cisco from tossing and turning as he dreaded what the morning would bring. The cooler weather encouraged damaged metahumans to crawl out of the shady cracks of Central City and they waged war against the status quo. It kept Team Flash busy assessing threats and drafting attack plans. Harry remained as polite as he ever was, which is to say, gruff and argumentative and prone to throwing things, and all of them basically lived on top of each other at S.T.A.R. Labs for two weeks.

It broke Harry and Cisco in fast, didn’t give them time to antagonize one another. No one cried. Well, Barry did once, but he was a soft touch. He cried during fabric softener commercials.

Cisco’s pen cup hadn’t been moved to the wrong side of the computer for ages.

Harry nearly ended up flattened by a telekinetically controlled garbage truck during the second week. Cisco didn’t have a single thought in his head when he cornered Harry in their shared work room. Harry fought him for a second, turning out of the kiss, trying to talk, but as Cisco kissed his ear and sucked on the lobe, Harry grew progressively more pliant. Harry moaned when Cisco slid his hand up under Harry’s shirt, shuddering deeply, then started jerking his belt and jeans open himself. Cisco plucked the glasses neatly off the bridge of Harry’s nose and set them aside.

After that bad idea, Harry hitched his pants up and Cisco mopped his face off with the cleanest rag he could find. He couldn’t think of a thing to say. He’d been worried? He wanted to marry Harry and have his babies? What middle ground? Harry snagged an arm around Cisco’s shoulders and leaned down, butting his cheek against Cisco’s.

“Do that again,” Harry breathed in his ear. “And I’m going to start thinking we’re not playing.”

Cisco shrugged him off.

Just as quiet settled in and everyone was about to call it good to go home for a shower, the lights started to flicker. They all looked up at once. The alarms screeched through the big speakers. Red strobe lights started spinning. Caitlin whined and stomped away to find her baseball bat while Barry sighed and shook out his arms and legs, getting ready. Harry pursed his mouth, took his gun out, and glared at nothing. At the center of the room, a crack of blue watery light appeared. Cisco held his breath and thought---Zoom. Somehow it was Zoom—and then the crack widened into a floating puddle and a slim woman with bouncy curls leapt through with a bag strapped to her back.

She rose out of her squat and Cisco melted into his seat.

“Hey, Dad,” Jesse said. Harry lowered his gun.

*

Earth Two called her Jesse Quick. She explained, in detail, how she’d been fighting crime in her own Central City for the past two months after her powers manifested. She’d just discovered Zoom’s breaching methods and thought, hey, time for a visit. Too easy, Cisco thought. She could just pop in and nab Harry if she wanted to. Caitlin wanted to run allllll the tests but Jesse kept slapping Caitlin’s hands away when they started poking her. Cisco made like painted scenery. He said hello and then faded into the background to hunker down like a rock.

“Why do they know your first time?” Barry asked.

Jesse rolled her eyes. “I told them my first name. I’m hiding in plain sight.”

Barry mulled that over. “Huh.”

“As fun as this is,” Harry cut in, throwing an arm around Jesse and smiling thinly at all of them. He had enormous bags under his eyes and a new gray hair or two but there was a spark in his gaze that hadn’t been there for a couple of weeks. Cisco glared at his computer screen and clicked the mouse a couple times. “I’m going to steal my daughter away for a few days. I prefer to yell at her in private and I think we could all use a break from each other.”

Caitlin pouted. “But. Science?”

Barry patted her on the shoulder.

Jesse and Harry passed Cisco as they left. Harry held Jesse’s bag for her. Cisco opened his mouth and shut it. He turned his chair slowly to keep them just out of sight. He caught Harry glancing at him briefly over Jesse’s head and felt his cheeks burn. He let his hair fall forward to shield his face. When their voices faded down the hall, Cisco mimed shooting himself in the head.

Barry leaned over the desk until Cisco came back to life. He popped his gum at Cisco.

“You really need to figure that out,” he said, pointing at the door.

“What?” Cisco also pointed at the door. “That? We’re cool.”

“Ok, Captain Cold, I know cool, and you are not cool. I know we’ve been busy, but don’t think I haven’t noticed. You needed Harry’s help to build that gun and you didn’t ask. You should have asked, Cisco. What if someone had been hurt because it took you two hours longer than it needed to?”

“He was tired,” Cisco argued. “I handled it.”

“I knew it. I so knew it and I said it.” Barry shook his head. “This was a bad idea, Cisco. Someone was bound to get hurt.”

“I’m fine, Barry.”

Barry’s face did a thing. He usually looked at Cisco like Cisco was some perfect combination of sunshine and rainbow sprinkles, but that was not the thing his face did then.

“And what about Harry?”

Cisco shrugged. What about him?

Barry raised his eyebrows and put his hands on his hips.

“I’ll figure it out,” Cisco said finally. “Now stop looking at me like I’m a bug in your teeth, ok? You’re breaking my heart here.”

*

Broken hearts. Cisco knew a thing about that.

Julian Werner was the thing that Cisco knew.

It went down like this: Cisco told his parents everything. He was in love. He was going to spend his life with Julian. They should know. They wanted some time to think about it, but Cisco was so young when it started. Seventeen? Seventeen. Nydia hadn’t been able to finish her dinner before going to bed for the night. Rene sat with Cisco and told him they weren’t mad. Just worried.

Give it a couple days, Rene said. Let your mother sleep on it.

Nydia confronted Julian alone and threatened to tell the university and instead of fighting, Julian held up his hands passively and backed down and down. He backed so far down he left state for a while. Cisco didn’t find out until the day he was leaving and confronted him outside Julian’s apartment complex. It all happened like an early 90s teenage angst movie, minus the awesome soundtrack. Most of the time Cisco wished he’d kept his pride intact: no begging, no crying, no faint distaste in Julian’s eyes.

Would that have made it easier or harder to let go?

Difficult to say.

*

Harry took the week off. Cisco left him alone. The next time Harry walked in, he looked sunburned and relaxed and smelled like salt water. He tensed when he saw Cisco manning the computer terminals, but then shook his head minutely and relaxed all over again.

“Ramon,” he said. He even smiled a little.

Cisco nodded. He watched through a curtain of hair as Harry scrolled through a record of the week’s events on the computer log, then wandered into Caitlin’s work area to bug her about the DNA of the spider family they’d discovered under the mall last weekend. Cisco kept an eye on him all day, but Harry didn’t do anything more innocuous than burn his tongue on his coffee. He definitely didn’t cut a hole in the space time continuum and jump through.

He did swear a little less, which what? And he said please when he asked Cisco to pass him the markers.

Please.

Barry challenged Jesse to a game of a basketball and the team followed. Iris and Wally showed up and shirts started come off. Even Jesse stripped down to her sports bra. Joe brought drinks. Cisco put his shirt back on after an hour and crashed against the warm fence, ass against his heels on the cement. He guzzled part of a bottle of water and dumped the rest over his head. He watched the game and plucked at stray grass.

On the court, Jesse burst past Barry with an explosion of light and ran up the side of the basketball hoop to dunk it, which was definitely cheating. Barry fell to his knees holding the back of his head and Harry hooted and swung his arm in the air. Cisco sneered at his back.

Jesse plopped down next to Cisco a little while later without a drop of sweat on her. Cisco’s fingers seized on his knee. He quickly dropped his hands between his knees and squeezed his legs shut.

“So,” Jesse said, leaning forward on her knees.

Cisco cleared his throat. “Sooooooooo.”

Jesse half-turned, giving him a look. Harry did something fancy with the ball between his legs, scuffed his sneakers on the pavement and cut around Iris who tried to block him. His shorts slipped a little lower on his hips. Cisco pulled his eyes away to find Jesse squinting at him, eyebrows pinched. Vibrations drifted from her to him, filled with notes of disappointment and confusion.

Cisco dropped his head against the fence and it jangled. “We’re about to have a talk, aren’t we?”

“I thought you liked him,” she said, pacing the words. “I mean---I knew there was friction, but I thought you cared about him.”

“Yeah, of course.” Cisco nodded rapidly. “Of course I do.”

“Then,” Jesse said, dragging out the word. She waved at the court where Harry had stopped to mop the sweat out of his eyes with his discarded shirt. He dropped the shirt when Joe spun the ball at him and threw it back with equal force.

“How much did he tell you?”

Jesse scrunched her nose. “Not details or anything. Have you met my dad? He’d cut off his arm first. I know you were pretending to be together and I know that it made him really happy for a while and then it didn’t anymore and he wanted more. You didn’t, I guess? Or you did but not in the right way?” Cisco didn’t confirm or deny. Jesse continued after a pause. “He’s not going to chase you, you know. He’ll respect your wishes and keep his distance. If that’s what you want?”

Clouds ghost-shadowed the court. Caitlin slapped Iris’s hand when Iris landed a free throw. Joe stood off to the side, hands on his hips. He kicked an empty bottle and sent it skittering up the cement. Harry jeered from the other side of the court.

Cisco shook his head. He couldn’t talk about it.

Jesse picked imaginary lint off her leg. “I shouldn’t tell you this.” Cisco looked at her curiously. She had her father’s eyes; it was even more apparent with the sunburn. “He came back for you.”

Cisco shook his head. “No.”

Jesse tipped her mouth to one side. “Don’t tell him I ratted him out.”

Harry had barely talked to Cisco the first week after Cisco vibed him back except to snap at him to move his crap out of the way. She couldn’t be right. Cisco opened his mouth to ask for concrete details when Barry dribbled the ball too fast and popped it.

Game over.

Jesse and Cisco turned at the same time at the explosive plastic fart. Barry stood above the mess with his hand still in the air like he’d frozen in the middle of the Running Man dance.

“Rookie mistake,” Jesse shouted between cupped hands, then climbed to her feet using Cisco’s shoulder as leverage. She left Cisco sitting half in the shade.

Team Flash and associated guests converged on the court to stare at the deflated ball. Joe locked an arm around Barry’s neck and pretended to choke him out. Jesse walked up to Wally and slapped him on the ass and Wally danced back on his toes, two seconds away from either marrying her or running in the other direction screaming. Harry stood apart, shirt dangling off his peeling shoulders, a bottle of water in his hands. His fingers twitched on the bottle like they did when he was thinking over a problem and needed a marker to visualize. Cisco got up and dusted off his backside, then his palms. Harry glanced at him. Cisco left with a nod.

It rained that night. Cisco met Dante for drinks. It was always another drink with Dante. He poured Dante into the passenger seat and Dante giggled like a little boy while Cisco struggled to buckle him in, pushing his hands away from ticklish spots. Cisco drove Dante home through the downpour and the wet road vibrated up at him (he came back for you/he came back for you). The wipers slashed through sheets of water and Cisco glimpsed, for a second, Harry’s face leaning over his, shadowed by edgy streaks of rain. Cisco saw his own hand reach out and lovingly caress unfamiliar wrinkles.

It was a glimpse ahead. A preview he shouldn’t see---didn’t want to see.

He braked to a stop at a crosswalk just in time for a woman with an umbrella to cross. She skipped over two of the larger puddles and Cisco’s heart jumped in chorus.

“You ok, bro?” Dante slurred, then hiccupped.

Cisco trembled with his hands on the steering wheel. No. The answer was no.

He bumped into Harry at the door to Jitters the next morning. The rain had turned into a light drizzle overnight but a moody fog balanced on the street signs. Harry had his hood up. Cisco blocked the entrance and Harry gave him the once over. His eyes landed on the chocolate donut in Cisco’s hand and his mouth slid crooked as he passed judgment. What a jerk.

They ended up rolling around on Cisco’s bed until they fell off the other side and knocked over the Mirror’s Edge collectible figurine, shattering the glass centerpiece. His neighbor banged on the wall and shouted. Cisco banged Harry.

Cisco ate the donut after and held it out of Harry’s reach when Harry tried to seize a bite. He did let Harry lick his fingers though and bopped him on the nose. A shadow of rain snaked down Harry’s cheek and Cisco caught his breath, but it wasn’t what he’d vibed. The face wasn’t quite right. Younger. A little more closed off.

Jesse went home a few days later. She hugged everyone and held onto Wally a little too long if Harry’s shuffling meant anything. Wally coughed when she let him go, rubbing the back of his head. Cisco tried to duck away but she snatched him up anyway, pulling him in tight for some quality nerd love. Harry took his glasses off and cleaned them instead of watching. Cisco patted her back.

“Think about what I said,” she whispered in his ear. “You could do a lot worse than my dad.”

She pulled back and put her hands on his shoulders. Cisco nodded. She slapped his shoulder and turned and Harry caught her up. They rocked back and forth on their feet. Jesse had to stand on her toes to keep her chin hooked over Harry’s shoulder. He said something to her in a gruff monotone and popped a kiss on her cheek, making her laugh as she dropped back on her heels. She knuckled a tear away from her nostril and stepped out of the crowd, pulling a device from her pocket and pointing it at the wall.

The watery blue hole that opened up teased at Cisco’s blood. He looked around to check, but if anyone else noticed the vibrations, they were super chill about it.

Jesse tossed her bag over her shoulder and held up a peace sign. She closed her eyes. Her rib cage expanded. She leapt backwards without looking and howled her heart out.

The breach blinked shut after her. The vibrations flat-lined. Harry lingered where she had left with his arms crossed and Caitlin wandered by to hand him a cup of coffee in his usual mug, which he took without a word. Cisco only half-heard whatever Barry was planning for his anniversary with Iris. He kept one eye on Harry. It seemed ridiculous that he hadn’t followed his daughter home. He wasn’t theirs. They couldn’t keep him.

Could they?

*

Cisco slept on it. A couple times. One of those times he woke up to Harry scooting naked off the bed. He lifted up, cracked his back, then kicked around on the floor, digging his pants out. Cisco squinted at him and lifted onto his elbows to check the clock. He’d either slept through his alarm or, more likely, never set it. Harry untangled his shirt from Cisco’s, rolled it up and shrugged it on. He turned and caught Cisco peeping before Cisco could play possum, and sat on the bed, shaking it. He curled a hand over Cisco’s hip.

“It’s early,” Cisco said.

“Very observant,” Harry said. He leaned down and kissed the side of Cisco’s mouth. His breath was where garlic went to breed and die. “Do you want to go get coffee or do you want to spend the day avoiding me?”

Cisco rolled over and cocooned himself.

“Third option,” Cisco said. He waved his hand imperiously from under a pile of blankets. “You bring me coffee then go away.”

Harry yanked the pillow out from under Cisco’s head. Cisco rolled out of bed and came up fighting.

Cisco took his time. It existed in the background of his life and waited for him to figure it out. Jesse was right. Harry didn’t chase him, but. He managed to be there whenever Cisco turned to him, like he had all the data points and all Cisco needed to do was catch up.

*

“Did you come back for me?”

Harry froze on the bench, hammer held aloft. Cisco felt the vibrations in the room pause along with him and struggled not to hold his breath until he passed out from oxygen deprivation. That would be too easy. Harry’s hand started to shake. Nothing obvious, but he set the wrench down next to his hip, then jerkily wiped the grease off his hand with a dirty rag. He screwed his mouth up tighter than those leather pants he sometimes wore.

Cisco crossed his arms over his chest. “Answer me, Harry.”

Harry snapped blue eyes at him, then stood and chucked the rag across the room. Cisco raised an unimpressed eyebrow. He twitched two fingers and vibed at the markers on the table. They spun and tripped over each other to jump off the side.

See, Harry? Cisco could throw things, too. Big whoop.

Harry stepped toward Cisco at his full height. Maximum effort.

“I don’t owe you anything,” Harry said, then paused. “Ramon.”

“Nope,” Cisco said. He tilted his head back to keep his eyes on Harry’s. “I totally agree with you. We don’t owe each other a damn thing.” Harry’s eyes crackled at him. “I’m not apologizing. I think it’s perfectly rational---“

“Rational,” Harry muttered.

“Rational,” Cisco said louder. “To consider how epically fucked this could end. Have you never seen Buffy? Any of Joss Whedon’s works? No? Well, spoiler alert, sex is the real big bad! It’s only worse if you care.” Harry’s jaw twitched. “But I’m here. Just a boy standing in front of another boy…man. A boy-man. Asking for an answer. Did you come back for me?”

“It’s not that simple. There were other considerations---Jesse needed space, I had---my friends were here, I---”

“Harry.”

“Yes,” Harry said through his teeth. “Alright, yes. I came back for you, Cisco. Happy?”

Cisco uncrossed his arms. “I knew you couldn’t like my family that much. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Harry laughed. “Are you kidding me? I’m more than twenty years your senior, Cisco. I’m a widower and you’re---better off without me. I have no right asking anything from you. Isn’t that why you’ve been---”

Cisco snagged Harry’s collar and kissed him.

Harry backed off with a sigh and fixed his shirt. “God, you’re gonna be a lot of work, aren’t you? I’m getting too old for this, Cisco.”

“I just hedge my bets.” Cisco shrugged. “I think I’ve got your number now, though.”

“And what’s that, huh?”

Cisco hopped up on the table and pulled Harry between his legs. He got oil on his hands and wiped it off on Harry’s jeans.

“You like them short, brown, and mouthy,” Cisco said. He tweaked Harry’s nipple through the shirt. “Lucky for you I am all of those things and more.”

Harry rolled his eyes.

It was that easy. Like feeling the vibrations of all things, Cisco simply had to reach out and---

Harry tucked Cisco’s hair behind his ear and bent down, brushing his nose along Cisco’s.

*

“Mai,” Cisco whined.

Nydia fussed with his tie, tightened the knot and patted his chest. She licked her thumb and Cisco drew the line, ducking away before she could get her spit in his hair. Harry caught him by the sliding glass doors in the kitchen, wrapped his arms around Cisco from behind and spun him around. Cisco snapped out with his teeth and Harry dropped him, raising his hands in surrender.

Cisco snapped his cuffs smartly. “How’s the hair?”

Harry frowned and tapped his index finger against his mouth.

“It needs a little---” He licked his thumb and lunged. Cisco ran.

The 2017 Ramon Family Reunion Photo took two hours to perfect. Phones rang, babies screamed, and farts were chased after by giggles. It only caused one divorce.

Cisco got his copy in the mail three weeks later. He opened the envelope on his favorite bar stool and eased the photograph free. It was black and white to balance the crazy colors and patterns the Ramons favored. Cisco scanned the photo for himself and covered his mouth with one hand when he picked out Harry, then himself, stuck in the far corner with Cisco’s parents and Dante. Harry smiled politely with his hand on Cisco’s shoulder. Cisco mugged his usual chipmunk grin. A cowlick stood out victoriously from the side of his head.

Harry slapped his hands on Cisco’s shoulders and bent over him.

“What a beauty,” he said, reaching for the photo. “Who’s that hottie next to you?”

Cisco bit Harry’s hand.

End.