Work Text:
Barry has never had a day like this before. Maybe, he thinks, it’s because he hasn’t gone into overstim with all three of his Doms there—save the first time Ray joined them, which really doesn’t count. Len had been clearly in charge then. Now, with dynamics between the three of them so up in the air and Barry wanting to please all three of them, it’s too much.
“Scarlet, what’s wrong?”
Len’s words draw everyone’s attention. Ray and Leo look over from the magazine they’ve been reading together, as eager for an answer as Len. Barry’s words get stuck in his throat. If it was just the two of them, he wouldn’t even need to speak; he could just drop to his knees and rest his head on Len’s thigh, and Len would start their overstim routine. But that routine doesn’t work with three Doms, they found that out last time, and Barry will leave two of them out if he chooses one to start the routine…
“Barry.” Ray reaches out to him. Before Barry can think about it, he’s on the other side of the room. No, he doesn’t want touch right now. Unless it’s the right kind of touch, it will be too much, and Ray doesn’t know what’s the good kind of touch for overstim when it’s this bad…
“Red!” he shouts, flinging his hands up on either side of his head. “Red, I can’t, I need some time alone. Don’t try to help me!”
Before they can say anything or reach out again, he races up the stairs into the stim room. He sends the coloring and activity books fluttering, and belatedly realizes he’s not going to be able to do that if Len and Leo are working on a puzzle. No more running into the stim room. That’s going to be hard—when he gets overstimulated, the only thing he wants to do is run. It helps put everything back into perspective.
He closes the blinds and turns on the faery lights. Then he surveys his options. Coloring books—no, can’t settle down for that. Crosswords and reading—words, too much focus. Puzzles, absolutely not. He gathers up the ear defenders and his stimmy slime before retreating into the reading corner, putting on his ear defenders, and hunkering under the weighted blanket.
It really is as good as the rumors say—snuggly, like a hug. Barry shifts so it’s around his shoulders, leaving his hands free to play and stim with his slime. He doesn’t even know what touched off the overstim feeling, but he wants to sort it out so that it doesn’t happen again.
The news, he realizes as he stretches his slime. He’s been jumpy since he saw the news about the trial of Amunet Black. Too many memories got tangled up with thinking about her: being drugged in prison and locked in the meta wing; wearing the power-dampening collars on Earth-X, which she wasn’t involved with but got tangled up in feelings about how helpless her captured metahumans must feel; being double-crossed in a way that reminds him of Len, even all these years later. If he’d been left alone to process those feelings, he might have been okay. But then Ray had called him away to help with breakfast and then it all got worse from there.
He hates thinking it’s his Doms’ fault. Even considering telling them that they’re doing something wrong makes his skin crawl. If there’s something wrong, it’s him; it has to be. He can change himself, get better, get more adaptable, get more obedient…but that’s not him.
He stays under the blanket for what feels like an hour, thinking of what to say. The weight around his shoulders—like being hugged without people, as Leo said—keeps panic from building as he scripts. He knows what he needs to say, but he hates the thought of saying it.
Presently, he emerges from the stim room, leaving his ear defenders and the weighted blanket but keeping his stimmy slime. He plays with it on the way down the stairs and stops when he sees Len curled on the sofa. “Where are Leo and Ray?”
Len looks up and his expression falls. “They got called away, Scarlet. I didn’t hear what’s happening, but it sounded urgent.”
Barry squeezes his slime until bits of it leak between his fingers. He doesn’t want to save this talk—if he does, he’ll lose his nerve.
“Come here.” Len scoots over, leaving Barry plenty of room on the sofa. He knows Len’s trying to make it so he doesn’t have to be touched if he doesn’t want to, but he wants to. It’s comforting to cuddle under Len’s arm and feel the same kind of pressure as the weighted blanket, but with warmth and a heartbeat and the softest, sweetest kiss against his temple. Len really does know how to make him melt. “Want to tell me about it so you don’t lose it?”
Barry nods and keeps squishing his slime. He had words for this, but they’re all threatening to vanish now. “Do you remember how we used to do things, when it was just the two of us?”
Len hums thoughtfully. “You mean, with me as the Dom in the bedroom or whenever you willingly knelt by my feet, and as your too-punny partner the rest of the time?”
Barry nods. “I…never asked for the Dom/sub thing we have going to become a constant thing. Somewhere along the line, somebody assumed.”
“And it’s too much,” Len concludes. He squeezes Barry’s shoulders. “Oh, Scarlet. No wonder you’re overwhelmed.”
“I didn’t—I mean, it’s not like I mind the three of you trying to take care of me,” he hurries to explain. “But especially with the three of you having such a rocky dynamic…and I just want to be good for all three of you…and I feel so pulled apart sometimes, trying to be everybody’s good boy, that I feel like I’m turning into blank-canvas Barry instead of, y’know. Me.”
Len starts rubbing his hand firmly up and down Barry’s upper arm. The pressure makes his nerves light up (just right, just right). “What do you need us to change?” he asks, and yeah, that’s Len. Firm goals in mind so he can plan. Barry’s never been good at providing that or going with the plan. That’s what he needs, a return to the time when he could do his own thing.
“I need to know that I can say no or disobey or go off and do my own thing,” he says. “And…this one’s for you, mostly, not them. I need to know that I don’t have to be the glue all the time. That’s part of why it’s taken so long to push back, because I feel like sometimes my submission is the only thing that keeps you with the two of them. I can’t keep that role, it’s tearing me apart.”
Len sighs and starts rocking him slowly side to side. Barry smiles and lets himself be pulled around. This isn’t one of Len’s preferred ways to self-soothe—his are all small, hard to notice, for reasons Barry doesn’t like to think about. He picked this up because of Barry. The ease with which he falls into it now speaks volumes.
“We dropped the ball,” he says slowly. “In communicating our new roles, now that we’re…this. You should never have had to feel like you couldn’t say no or push for space. That was never my intention, and…although I’d have to check with them…I don’t think it was Ray and Leo’s, either.”
Barry shakes his head, hair flopping over his forehead in ticklish counterpoint to the pressure of Len’s arm. “I think they do with me what they’re used to doing at the resistance base—orders to keep everything running smoothly. It just feels different here, because I don’t have the lived context and because we’re…well, in a relationship. I don’t think they’ll stop easily, and I’m not asking them to. I just need to know that I can say no, because…” It feels ridiculous, what he has to say next. In a tiny, alarmingly childlike voice, he adds, “Since we changed things, no one ever told me I could. So it’s felt like I can’t.”
Len makes a soft, wounded sound. “You always could, Scarlet. I’m sorry, I’d have told you that if I’d known you needed to hear it. I thought you knew that was one thing that would never change.”
Barry keeps playing with his stimmy slime. He’s not upset at Len, or he doesn’t think he is; his need for permission is so situation-dependent that Len would have a hard time guessing. The low burn of frustration in his gut is aimed at himself and his contrary brain. They should never have reached this point. They should have talked about all this sooner. (Why can he never tell what his problems are until they overwhelm him?)
“Do you want my help telling them?” Len asks. “Or…no, this is something you should do on your own. For that independence you want, Scarlet.”
Barry nods and burrows closer into Len’s shoulder. “Yeah, I was gonna say the same thing. Until they get back…” He tries to think what would make him feel the most in control. That’s what he needs, after so long of feeling like he’s the last person in control of his day. “Can I kick your ass at Mario Kart?”
Len sits up in the exaggeratedly stiff posture he gets when he plays offended. “Kick my ass, Scarlet? We’ll see about that!”
Three hours of Mario Kart, a quick call for pizza, and a Buzzfeed Unsolved marathon later, Barry is feeling a little more like himself. Len has stood back and let him have control over their activities and their food, for which Barry is immensely grateful. By the time Ray and Leo traipse in the door, he’s ready to have the talk. Then he sees their weary faces.
“Um…okay, I had a script but it can wait until tomorrow. Both of you, sit down and eat something. Then we’re going to go have a bath, all four of us, and the two of you are going to get some much-needed rest. Talking can wait.” He pointedly doesn’t glance at Len as he makes this plan. It’s his turn to be in charge.
“That sounds perfect,” Ray agrees, hurrying immediately to the kitchen for a glass of water.
“Please tell me the stim room works?” Leo asks, perching on the edge of a kitchen chair. His hands shake where they rest on the tabletop. “Because I might end up in there.”
“The weighted blanket is perfect,” Barry promises. Then, looking at the sofa, he asks, “Do you want me to get it and bring it down? I don’t know that it’ll fit four, but it’s big enough for you and Ray to share.”
“Oh yes please,” Leo sighs. He wanders over to the sofa without stopping for food, curls up next to Len, and buries his face in his shoulder. Len stiffens at the unexpected contact and relaxes just as quickly.
“Want to talk about it?” he asks, almost too quietly for Barry to hear.
“Tomorrow,” Leo promises. “It sounds like we all have things to say.”
Barry refuses to dwell on that as he runs up to fetch the weighted blanket. They won’t have anything dangerous to say—heartbreaking, perhaps, but not dangerous to the relationship. They certainly won’t ignore his request. He has no reason to be afraid.
Three minutes later, cozied up under the weighted blanket that can, in fact, fit four, he’s happy to drown his worries in his partners’ quiet presence. He got his alone time, he aired his feelings and was heard, and he knows Len will have his back tomorrow even though the discussion is his to lead. Everything is okay again.