Work Text:
“You're really sticking around?” Cisco asks him softly. His voice is low and a little sad under the exuberance of celebration in the Cortex. Barry is free, the Thinker is gone, and they all avoided dying again. They've all earned a night off.
The question stings, even though Harry knows he deserves it. None of them fault him for running back to Earth 2 when Jesse called him - even Cisco understands, deep down. But understanding doesn't fire proof skin, and it hasn't stopped Cisco from forming a new scar of Harry burning him again.
“I told you, even if I have to go. I'll come back. And answer your calls this time.”
Cisco looks less unconvinced than he did when Harry stepped back into this earth the last time, which is progress. When Harry had admitted why he came back, who he kept coming back for, there had been a wary undercurrent pulling Cisco's pretty mouth tight. It wasn't the reaction Harry had been hoping for.
But Harry knows he's not alone in his need. He doesn't need to vibe to feel Cisco's heart beating the same as his own. All of their soft, stupid longing is mangled and tight in both of their chests.
Pining, Jesse had called it, but Harry didn't want to go into semantics or romantics with her. Whatever magnetic thing is between them, wherever Harry fits in Cisco's heart, nestled between Cynthia and Barry and Caitlin and the other sore aches, is livable.
Even if Harry never knows Cisco gasping in his hands, he knows Cisco loving him. That's more than he's had in years. He can find solace in Cisco working by his side, smelling like metal and expensive shampoo.
“You'll come back for me,” Cisco says. It's unsteady as a question even though Cisco knows the answer.
Harry doesn't look away. “For all of you. Not for Ralph at all. But everyone.” He takes a sip of whiskey. He doesn't know why it scratches his throat to say a truth he's already said. “Mostly for you.”
It pissed Cisco off, the first time Harry said it. Harry understood. He'd waited until he'd already knocked Cisco's heart around, until Cisco was adoring Cynthia, until they were both tangled wire thin and inescapable in each other. But Harry was tired of pretending he wasn't in love. Cisco deserved to know, at least, how Harry looked at him and saw one of the best things that ever happened.
He's approached Harry like prey since then. Skittish and uncertain. Tonight is the first night Cisco has stood this close to him in weeks. Harry fights the urge to reach out for him.
“Do you wanna get out of here?”
Harry almost chokes on his drink when Cisco asks. Cisco watches him, pond calm and clear and pretty. Harry isn't sure what he's asking.
“Yeah," he says anyway. "You have something in mind?”
Cisco puts the beer he's been nursing all night on the table. “You've never taken me leaf peeping.”
Harry swallows around desperation, hot and tack sharp. His fingers twitch at his sides. He never let himself want like this, not so pitiful and so brazen and so hungry, but Cisco is offering so easily that Harry feels light headed.
“There's this park in Washington I saw on my last Thinker chase. I thought you'd like it.”
Harry has no idea what place Cisco is talking about, but he loves it. It's his favorite place in the world.
“Let me get my coat.”
-
Cisco always passed the leaf peeping. Even Caitlin and Iris had joined Harry when the stress boiled and could only be shoved back down with a tightly rolled joint and spring foliage. But not Cisco. Harry kept asking until Cisco admitted, quiet in the workshop one night, that it made him feel weird. He got really quiet and really hungry and really, really turned on.
Harry hadn't asked after that. He'd kept himself from crossing the line of imagining Cisco in his lab to imagining Cisco in his bed. He'd wanted to stay clear on the less painful side.
Cisco bringing him here has blurred that line beyond comprehension. Harry is sitting with his back against a sky kissing redwood. The majesty of the forest took his breath away, at first, and he hadn't missed the way Cisco had smiled, pleased to himself, at Harry's awe.
But it's Cisco, straddling his lap with joint and lighter in hand, that's squeezing his heartbeat now.
“Here,” Cisco says, soft as all the colors of the woods. He places the joint at Harry's lips and Harry feels hunger as dark as the trees loom inside of him. “You take the green hit.”
Harry does. He keeps his eyes trained on Cisco's mouth, parted and lush like the moss under Harry's fingers, as Cisco lights it for him.
The first drag unfurls in Harry's lungs, slow and familiar. Cisco watches him, silent, then gentles the joint away. Fingers brush Harry's mouth. It makes Harry dizzy but calm in a way Earth 13 weed never has.
Harry exhales and watches the smoke tendril into the clean, overcast air. Grey has offered to show him how to blow smoke rings. Cisco would probably get a kick out of it.
There's something viscerally appealing about Cisco, his soft curls and soft heart and soft mouth, bringing the ember bright to his lips. He closes his eyes when he inhales. Peace settles around him, shoulders slacking like he just realized how tense he was. When he opens his eyes, Harry is struck by what a balm his beauty is. Calm and strong and magnificent, like the forest sprawling around them.
“Hold it for five seconds,” Harry says. His voice sounds far away. “You don't get any more of an effect if you hold it longer than that.”
He expects Cisco to argue, but Cisco just holds up one hand and counts down with his fingers until he exhales. Smoke curls around his hair, settling into his clothes, his skin. Harry has a moment to envy it before Cisco holds the joint out to him again.
This time, Harry holds Cisco's gaze as he leans forward to take it. Cisco slides his lip between his teeth and doesn't look away.
It's small and achingly intimate, Cisco holding the joint while Harry takes it between his lips and drags in another throatful of calm. Harry thinks to late nights surrounded by tech and exhaustion, their muscles and weaknesses and truths brushing. He thinks of how they've learned to think and breathe in sync.
Harry feels the familiar lightness when he releases his breath. His eyes are already a little heavy, his thoughts are already flowing freer of constraint, and his mouth is already fuzzy. That might have more to do with Cisco, solid and warm in his lap, watching him while draped gauzy in the quiet of the forest. He thinks Cisco might flow like water under his hands. He's so, so thirsty.
He watches through hooded eyes as Cisco takes his next drag. His focus is a little blurry - there's a rustle and a lazy circle of birds that land and a berry bush he itches to identify, but it's all periphery. Cisco blooms to fill his vision. Harry can't really think past Cisco's petal mouth or the movement of his throat.
“This is good stuff,” Cisco says, smacking his lips. His lashes have lowered too, fanned pretty over his cheeks. He moves like he's in water, slow but graceful. Harry feels a smile unfurl.
“It was a bribe from Wells the Grey. To invite him leaf peeping more.”
Cisco smiles, light, slow. “It's a good bribe.”
They pass the joint between them, limbs lazy in their movements. Cisco starts biting his lip more. His gaze keeps dropping to Harry's mouth and he takes longer and longer to look away. He shifts on Harry's lap, getting closer, and Harry can feel all of his heat. Harry can feel the buildup of Cisco's lust against his own thigh.
Part of Harry wants to slide his hands over Cisco's legs, put a palm over Cisco's belly, kiss Cisco's neck. Touch Cisco slowly, all over, tendril into him like the smoke, lay himself in Cisco's easy warmth. But Cisco isn't making any moves. Harry doesn't know if he's supposed to.
“These trees are so big,” Cisco breathes after his next hit. “And pretty. I think I understand the appeal of leaf peeping."
Harry nods and stares at Cisco's exposed collar bone. His mouth is dry as bone. As aching. “I like trees.”
Cisco laughs like it's the funniest thing Harry's ever said. It's probably just the hobbit weed Grey smuggled, but Harry grins with him.
“You're a nerd,” Cisco says, soft and fond. He looks around thoughtfully. “I like these trees. They make me feel small, you know? Like no matter what I mess up, it'll never be as big as a tree.” He blinks. “Did that make any sense?”
“No,” Harry says around a smile that hurts his heart. “I know what you mean though. But you don't - you're not. You don't mess things up. You make them better.”
And Harry can't stop himself from touching. He tells himself that if Cisco didn't want Harry to reach for him, then he would've slipped out of Harry's fingers a long time ago. So Harry places one palm on Cisco's side, fingers curling around the dip of his waist, and strokes at Cisco's neck. Cisco's eyes flutter closed. Harry thinks of butterflies and laughs to himself. He is a nerd.
“You make me better,” Harry says softly. “You won't let me get away with anything else.”
Cisco stares at him, thoughtful and still. Harry's heart pounds. His tongue sticks to his mouth but if he dislodges it everything will come tumbling out again. How bright Cisco is to him, how brilliant, how beautiful and in ways that have nothing to do with his night sky curls or smile. How much Harry wants to be near him.
“Do they have shotgunning on Earth 2?”
Harry’s thumb runs a river along Cisco’s jaw. His skin is so warm. “No. I don’t know. We have shotguns.”
“Open your mouth.”
Cisco’s fingers brush over his lips. Harry obeys. It doesn’t occur to him to do anything else other than let his jaw go slack with hunger. Cisco rewards him with a smile that might as well replace the sun.
Then Cisco gets closer, so close their bellies brush when they breathe, and Cisco makes a quiet, choked sound as their hips settle over each other.
“When I breathe out, you breathe in, okay?”
“Okay.”
Cisco’s fingers curl around Harry’s jaw. His hold is loose but Harry couldn’t pull away even if he wanted to. Cisco takes a deep drag, cheeks hollowing, and Harry throbs at the sight. Cisco releases his hit, breathing smoke and need directly into Harry’s open mouth.
It’s the headiest drag Harry’s ever taken in.
When Harry exhales, shaky, Cisco closes the distance between them.
They kiss river lazy. Everything is slow and feather soft. Harry feels disconnected from parts of his body but not his fingers, stroking over Cisco’s spring skin, or his mouth, moving over Cisco’s as if they have all the time in the world. They don’t. Another crisis will spring in the vacuum of The Thinker and Barry’s time in prison. But they have enough time to take this gently.
Harry thinks of asking about Cynthia. He hasn’t seen her in weeks but Cisco hasn’t spoken of her any less. Cisco told her about Harry’s confession, he knows, and Harry never had to deal with an unimpressed bounty hunter breaching over to punch him in the face, so wherever she stands, Harry is safe. His thumb finds its way under Cisco’s shirt, rubbing at tender skin, and Cisco makes a soft noise against him.
He’ll ask later. Maybe it shoulder bother him more, but he trusts Cisco. Whatever place he takes up in Cisco’s life, whether it’s on his own or next to Cynthia, is enough. Cisco’s heart is a strong, sturdy muscle. His affections are far reaching as the horizon settling above the trees. Harry will have what he needs.
Now it’s all he can do to keep up with Cisco’s kiss. He follows hungrily but his cotton mouth has trouble, tripping over itself. Cisco doesn’t seem to mind.
Then Cisco pulls away with a hiss.
Worry seizes Harry. Did he do something wrong, was his touch too greedy, were his fingers digging too deep? He pulls his hands away.
“I forgot I was still holding this,” Cisco says, fingers scrambling to the safe end of the joint. Harry hadn’t even thought to bring a clip. He hadn’t even realized how far down it had burned, how long they’d been kissing. He watches Cisco wet his fingers then twitch out the embers. “Ow.”
Harry laughs when Cisco pouts and finally puts the joint out. Cisco bites the laugh off his lips until they’re both panting against each other.
He isn’t sure how his hands find themselves spread over Cisco’s ribs, just feeling Cisco breathe and want him back. But Cisco’s own hands are petting at his shoulders, sliding over his neck, gripping his biceps.
“Your stupid arms,” Cisco murmurs at one point, grasping him. Harry’s ego flares.
It comes to him, tumbling but sure, the way most high ideas do, that he’d like to feel Cisco in his arms. Under his hands. Under his mouth. He rolls with the urge to roll Cisco on his back.
Cisco hits Harry on the chest, laughing as he does, and he stares up at Harry openly. He strokes Harry’s face. Harry settles one knee on the outside of Cisco’s hip, the other between Cisco’s spread legs. He doesn’t put any pressure on Cisco’s heat. Not yet.
Harry kisses Cisco again. Cisco arches up with eager fingers and wild, happy noises. He feels good under Harry; warm and hard and soft. Harry loses himself in it. He barely registers what’s happening when Cisco flips them.
It knocks the breath out of him. He stares up at Cisco who grins down. There are leaves in his hair.
“Your - ” Harry starts, but there’s too much to say and his mouth feels immovable without Cisco’s tongue. "I - sometimes I have trouble, saying what you need - "
“It’s okay,” Cisco says against his lips. He kisses Harry gentle but deep. “You already said it. You don’t have to again. I know.”
Another kiss, then Cisco pulls away, mouth tugged down. “You know, right? How I feel about you? I can say it, if you need to hear it, I want you to know - ”
Harry rolls until Cisco is gasping underneath him again.
“I know.” Harry doesn’t know if he could take hearing the words out loud. His heart is already wild in his chest. “So no talking about it. Just. Just kissing now.”
Cisco licks his lips. “Just kissing?”
Harry settles both of his knees between Cisco’s own. Cisco spreads to accommodate him, eyes black with want under the sinking sun.
"A little more than kissing," Harry breathes.
Cisco pulls him down. Harry goes.