Work Text:
One sided infatuation is something that Eobard Thawne is intimately familiar with. Desire, even more so.
He wants Barry Allen. He wants to breathe the same air as Barry, he wants to hear every thought, he wants to crawl into Barry's mouth and take up residence just underneath his skin.
Barry laughs at something Cisco says from across the room and Eobard can't help but hear every syllable. His attention is utterly shot, as it always is, by Barry Allen's mere presence.
He wants to destroy him. He wants to make him bleed.
He glances up from his work and catches Barry's gaze. He smiles at his young and untempered nemesis. He makes his mouth go soft and his stolen eyes gentle. He takes control of Barry in what ways he can, sinks his claws in so slowly, so gently, Barry doesn't even notice. He remakes himself, in the shape of a friend, all for Barry Allen.
Strangest of all, Barry returns the smile.
It's been fourteen, nearly fifteen, years since he tried to kill the eleven year old Flash and settled for Nora Allen as a macabre consolation prize. Part of him is thankful for the Flash's intervention, looking at Barry Allen now.
How very different this young man is from the one he will grow into, the one Eobard knows so intimately and has already grown to loathe. How utterly unique this strange version of the Flash is, how completely surreal it is to smile at him and receive a smile in return.
He loves it. He relishes it. He luxuriates in it.
Barry Allen is his creator, the idol he'd modeled himself after, emulated.
Strangely, paradoxically, Barry Allen is his legacy.