Archive of Our Own ^beta

Harry doesn't like water. It's not that he doesn't like the taste or a nice shower after a long day. Harry just doesn't like water contained in vessels that are bigger than his head.

Whenever he sees a rather big container filled with water all his instincts tell him to run. They’ve been doing that since he got out of that POW camp. They’ve never stopped doing that.

Harry had been young when he signed up for the army. Mind you, there were people around- kids, really- that hadn’t even finished school. But the army didn’t mind that. They needed more soldiers, more canon fodder. He was seeing that clearly now. He hadn’t seen that back in the day, when almost everyone signed up.

His moms had cried, begged for him to be careful. Tess had hugged and kissed him tightly and told him to come back to her, to finally marry her. He had smiled and assured them he was going to be fine.

After three months in the front lines and already enough trauma for a life time, his camp was overrun. The enemy took all of those who weren’t killed during the battle as prisoners. Harrison had been hit on the head and only regained his consciousness once he had been put in chains and hung up on a wall like some sick decoration. For almost five months, he had been tortured. The chains marred his wrists, the whips and knives left scars all over his body. He heard the screams of the other soldiers, saw them die one by one. All he felt was pain and all he tasted was blood, or the dirty water that they used to waterboard him with.

When his compatriots overran the POW camp to retrieve the prisoners, Harrison was the only one who survived. They’d dragged some others out of the camp, but they’d all died shortly after the escape.

Harrison had been sent home. Tess had hugged him, tears streaming down her face and she refused let go off his hand, even when his moms had hugged him and told him how glad they were that he was back.

It had been difficult for him, to adjust to his old life. He woke every night, bathed in sweat and tears, gasping for air, but Tess had been at his side to help every time.

They married, built Star Labs and had Jesse. Harrison still woke every night. Tess still hugged him, stroked his back, told him that it was alright when he felt the shame of not being able to control his nightmares, his PTSD, even after all those years. He had tried to hide all of this from Jesse, but he quickly ran out of excuses for why he didn’t want to play in the pool with her. One night, he had just woken up and had buried his face in Tess’s shoulder, when he felt the bed dip and his 7 year old daughter hugged his side, kissed his cheek and told him that she was there now, that he didn’t need to be afraid of the bad ghosts. They all fell asleep afterwards and Harrison didn’t wake up again that night.

The next morning Tess had explained Jesse why her dad woke up every night. She didn’t go into detail, of course, but Jesse still learned that he had been hurt very badly once. Jesse had hugged him and told him no one would hurt him again. Harrison cried at that and hugged her tightly until Jesse started squirming and laughing.

He had healed a lot with his family. It had been perfect.

But of course, there had to be a day that ruined all that.

Tess died. Car accident.

He had picked up Jesse from school. She was sitting on his shoulders and eating chocolate ice cream as they walked through the park. Tess had texted that she would pick them up in a few minutes. She never came.

After fifteen minutes Harry checked his phone. Maybe she was stuck in a meeting, he thought. After thirty minutes he called her. When no one picked up he got nervous.

“What’s wrong, daddy?” Jesse asked as Harry set her down on a bench.

“Mommy should’ve been here an hour ago. I’m just worried.” Jesse nodded understandingly at that.

“I’ll be making a few calls, alright?” Harrison smiled and stroke his daughter’s hair while he called Tess parents. They hadn’t heard from her. He called his mom’s. Negative.

He called the labs, the school. No-one’s seen her. Star Labs told him that his wife had left over and hour ago.

So Harry took Jesse home and called the police.

It was 10 p.m. He had tucked Jesse into her bed.

“Where’s mommy? Why isn’t she home yet?” There were tears on Jesse’s cheek and he gently wiped them away.

“Shh, it’s going to be alright.” Harrison said. But he knew that Jesse knew that something was wrong.

That’s when he got the call. They’d found a car and a body, they’d said.

Harrison brought Jesse to his moms while he drove to the bridge where it happened.

It was Tess’s car. It was Tess’s body. The police officer said he was sorry. But they needed his confirmation that this was indeed his wife.

It went downhill from there. Jesse had cried in his arms the whole night. She was only 8 years old and she had just lost her mother. Harrison cried as well. For her. For Tess. Maybe for himself.

The next night he almost made an orphan out of Jesse. Too much alcohol and his old army gun. He hadn’t been able to pull the trigger because Jesse had called for him only moments before he made his last mistake. After that he had calmed her and sang her to sleep. He threw the alcohol into the trash, locked the gun away, safely, and threw away the keys. He swore to himself that he would keep it together. That he would do anything to make Jesse happy. To protect her. He swore it again, on Tess’s grave.

So he lived on. Brought Jesse to school every day. Picked her up afterwards. Cooked her meals and helped her with her homework. He went on vacation with her and frequently took time off of work for his daughter, working himself to the bone for the company when Jesse didn’t require his time. He didn’t sleep much and not just because of the nightmares. Thanks to his hard work, Star Labs soon became a multi-billion-dollar company.

Life went on like that. Jesse and him got along. They fought sometimes. He was being overprotective. Then he turned on the particle accelerator and created Zoom. Zoom kidnapped Jesse. He worked with and betrayed Team Flash of Earth-1. He got Jesse back. Jesse got super-speed. He fell in love with Cisco Ramon.

Harry sat at the kitchen table, drinking his coffee and worked on his tablet. Cisco strolled into the kitchen and gave him a light kiss on the cheek. Harry smiled softly and looked at his boyfriend.

“I’ve been thinking about having a nice Jacuzzi bath today.” Cisco stated as he took his own coffee and sat at the opposite side off the table.

The both of them were on Earth-2 at the moment, helping Jesse and her team when they needed it but otherwise just vacationing.

“Didn’t you bathe in it yesterday?” Harry asked curiously.

“Uh, yeah. But we don’t have a Jacuzzi at home. We don’t even have a bathtub, only a shower if you’d like to remember that.”

Harry chuckled. “Alright, take your bath. I can still do some work for my company…” He was starting to drift off, typing away on his tablet, when Cisco spoke up again.

“Why don’t you join me?”

Harry looked up. “What?”

“We could have a very nice bath. I would be naked.” Cisco grinned at him and laid his hand onto Harry’s thigh. That actually sounded like a nice idea... except for the part where the Jacuzzi was filled with water.

“I’ll have to pass on that offer.”

Cisco looked a little hurt and withdrew his hand. Harry missed the contact instantly.

“Why? You already declined yesterday. And when I suggested the day before that we could go swimming you said ‘No’ too.”

“I…” Harry started but didn’t know how to finish. Cisco knew about his military past. He had seen all of Harry’s scars, knew about Harry’s daily nightmares. Cisco also wasn’t stupid. He had probably put the pieces together and guessed that Harry had been a POW.

“Harry, what’s wrong?” Cisco’s voice brought him back from his painful memories.

“I just… I don’t want to go swimming or bathing, okay? Can’t you leave it there?” Harry asked and almost flinched at his own harsh tone. He didn’t mean to sound so cold.

“Sorry, that was… not acceptable…” He murmured and looked down.

He felt Cisco’s hand upon his own.

“I know when to pick my battles with you, Harry. I just… I wished you would trust me enough that you’d tell me the truth.” He walked away then, towards the bathroom.

Harry blinked. He trusted Cisco. He trusted Cisco with his life, hell, even with Jesse’s life. Why would he think that he didn’t trust him?

Harry thought about Cisco’s statement. He thought about it for almost two hours straight until he realized what Cisco had meant.

Harry needed to trust that Cisco wouldn’t judge him. That Cisco wouldn’t stop loving him if he told him about his past. His whole past.

But could Harry do that? Shame rose in him when he thought back to those days. Shame, that he wasn’t able to save his fellow soldiers. That he was the only one who survived. That, after all those years, he still hadn’t got over it, that he still had nightmares and was scared of water.

He felt the need to throw something across the room. He threw his empty coffee mug and accidently cut himself when he picked up the shards.

When he had cleaned the kitchen up and started to apply band-aids onto his hands, Cisco came back.

“What happened?” he asked and helped him with the cuts.

“Coffee mug,” was all he said. Cisco nodded.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

After a short moment Harry sighed and Cisco dropped his hands, finished with bandaging his boyfriend.

“But I have to, right?” He murmured softly and hung his head in defeat. Cisco hugged him and kissed his neck slightly.

“I think that talking would help you. But I don’t want to push you into it.”

Harry nodded and nuzzled Cisco’s hair.

“But you’re right. Maybe it will help. And maybe I need such a push sometimes.”

Harry looked at Cisco and kissed him. Then he started talking. He told him about the POW camp and that he was tortured. He didn’t go into detail.

By the time he was finished there were tears welling in both their eyes and Cisco was stroking Harry’s hair softly.

“So, the Jacuzzi and the swimming pool…?” Cisco asked carefully.

“Waterboarding,” Harry murmured, and closed his eyes for a second. “I guess… I just feel ashamed that I haven’t gotten control of it yet. That after all this time I’m still scared and wake up from nightmares.”

“That’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Cisco whispered and pressed his lips to Harry’s forehead.

“So, you don’t think less of me?” Harry choked out.

“Of course not. I love you and I’m so proud of you for telling me all of this.” Harry hugged him then, and pressed his face into his soft hair.

“How about a Star Trek marathon, hm?” Cisco asked after a while. “We can cuddle on the couch and you can see me naked later. In bed.”

Harry snorted at that through his tears.

“Yeah, I’d like that.”