Chapter Text
Here’s the thing: Eddie loves coffee. He wouldn’t be able to make it through the day without coffee. While he can make due with Starbucks if need be (and if he’s that desperate), he finds CC Jitters to be the best. There are only about a hundred Jitters in the country and he’s been to three others, but Central City Jitters is the absolute best.
And, trust him, it’s not onlybecause of the gorgeous barista who always serves coffee with a smile and is quick to confront any rough customer who thinks they can get away with treating her co-workers like they’re less than people. Psht, please, he has better standards than mooning over a woman clearly out of his league.
This is a lie, he as no better standards.
It gets even worse when he walks in one day to see a lanky guy leaning against the counter, talking to her (Her name’s Iris and she loves German Shepherds, she’s fond of raspberry mochas and can’t go anywhere without some sort of music playing. Another reason why he likes this coffee shop, everyone takes a moment to talk to customers). The guy is stretched out, like he’s modeling for some unseen camera, and he’s smiling at her; the drumming of his fingers on the counter top that tells him the guy’s nervous despite looking so assured in his leaned position.
And she’s smiling at him too, eyes bright like he’s the guiding star in her life and him looking at her like she’s hung the moon.
Eddie has to take a moment, some how out of breath. Iris is gorgeous, this is a known fact, and this guy is so attractive he wonders if he really is a model. (Do they model together? That has to be a thing.) Seeing them together though, is breathtaking. It’s like the Seven Wonders of the World, and plus some, all put in one little moment. He kind of wishes he could take a picture, but that’s entirely inappropriate.
But they aren’t together, that much is obvious. There’s a little too much room between them to indicate anything other than an amazingly close friendship. Surprisingly enough, he almost feels disappointed.
“Hi, Eddie!” Iris says, her smile bright as always. She slides over his drink—a large dark roast coffee with room for a little bit of milk and a whole lot of sugar—and her smile seems to get brighter. “I saw you walking in. It’s on the house.” She nudges her friend. He jerks back, flailing a bit and his face turning red, and Eddie’s amused and surprised find out he’d been staring at Eddie with wide eyes.
“Thanks, Iris,” he says. He glances at the guy one more time before wandering over to a table, one ear open to their conversation like the eavesdropper that he his. He can’t help it, it’s hard to take his eyes off two beautiful people and he’s curious of why he hasn’t seen this guy in the entire month he’s been coming to Jitters. If he and Iris are the close friends he thinks they are, he would’ve seen the guy before by now.
They go back to talking, the guy shifting his position so he’s no longer stretched out (a damn shame if there ever is one). They’re close together, but their words travel fairly well since it’s a Sunday morning and the café traffic is pretty slow.
Eddie blinks, his mug halfway to his mouth, when he actually hears some of what they’re saying. They’re…They’re speaking French.
Which, holy shit, just amps up the attractiveness of both of them by, like, a thousand millihelens each. And they already had more than a handful of millihelens on their side anyway.
The fact that they’re speaking another language makes him decide he isn’t going to eavesdrop even though he knows French as well (pays to have an old-fashioned French grandmother). Usually, when people have a second language like that and they speak it in public it’s because they want to keep the subject a secret.
So, he takes a drink of his coffee…then promptly chokes on it when he hears Iris say his name.
He glances over out of the corner of his eye to see the guy shush her frantically, his face turning red. Iris pokes him in the shoulder and grins, but she looks over to him nervously. Eddie pretends he didn’t hear anything, just to see what they’ll do next.
They go back to talking in French; the guy sounds like he’s complaining about a co-worker who flirts way too often and if he weren’t such a dick he’d probably find someone to go out with. Iris reaches out and takes his hand, her thumb brushing over his knuckles. And, wow, maybe Eddie was wrong about them not being together? That’s a very intimate gesture right there.
Then he hears his name again and he zeros in on the words: the guy is talking about Iris’ soulmark and somehow Eddie’s involved in that. He frowns, not really seeing how that’s possible. The first words she ever said to him aren’t anywhere on his body. (‘Ah, House of Leaves. My best friend loves that book.’) And she would’ve said something if his first words were on her somewhere (probably her wrist, she never takes off that leather bracelet it looks like). (‘Do you serve coffee?’)
Eddie closes his book (The Martian this time around) and takes his coffee with him as he wanders over to the couple. “I don’t mean to sound rude,” he says, his heart beating a little fast. “But I do understand French.”
Iris’ eyes widen and the guy turns so red that Eddie’s reminded strongly of a strawberry. He rubs the back of his neck, glancing up at Eddie through his eyelashes with a sheepish expression. “Désolé?”
Eddie’s chest sparks and his jaw drops. His heart goes from pumping fast to feeling like a hummingbird’s and that it’s going to pop out of his chest at any given second. He reaches up and pulls the collar of his shirt down to show the two of them the one word written just under his collarbone.
His soulmate chokes on air. “Holy shit.” He looks over to Iris. “Holy shit, Iris.”
“Okay, okay,” she says, sounding a little hysterical. “That explains so much.”
Eddie can only stare at them in confusion. “Explains what?”
“Saira!” she calls back. “I’m going to lunch now. See you in half an hour.”
“Don’t get lost!”
Iris yanks off her apron and grabs Eddie’s arm. “Come on, we’ve got a lot to talk about.”
He can only let her guide him out of the shop, too confused and dazed to protest (and, besides, she’s leading him to the bistro that has excellent omelets. He’s not usually a breakfast guy, but he could make today an exception.). The guy—whose name he still doesn’t know—is following them, tripping at least twice over his own feet.
“I’m Eddie, by the way,” he calls over his shoulder.
“Barry,” is the reply. “Barry Allen.”
He smiles, teeth and all. “Nice to meet you, Barry.” Guess his assessment of a strawberry was pretty good, especially since it matches so well with his name.
There’s about ten minutes of awkward, but not uncomfortable, silence as they’re seated and their orders are taken. Eddie fiddles with his book and belatedly realises he’s still holding the Jitters coffee mug in his hand.
“Er, I think I might have stolen this?” he points out.
Iris’ eyebrows furrow and her lips quirk in a confused frown before she laughs. “Oh, it’s okay. I can just take it back when we’re done. It’s my fault for dragging you out like that.”
“Speaking of,” Eddie says. “Why?” He glances at Barry who’s bending a straw and twisting it with nervous (and very long) fingers. “You freaked out when you saw my soulmark.”
“That’s because your first words aren’t on me,” Barry says. Eddie feels like he’s been punched in the gut. He waves a hand toward Iris. “I’ve got her first words to me on my shoulder blade.”
Even though it’s still hard to breathe, hard to think (What? Why? How?), he still asks, “What are they?”
Barry chuckles under his breath. “’Red is so overrated,’” he says with a slight mocking tone, like he’s said this a hundred times to tease Iris. She punches him lightly in the shoulder. “Ow, menace.”
She rolls her eyes, grinning. “Ignore him,” she tells Eddie.
Eddie takes a deep breath and put his hands palm down on the table, spreading his fingers and hoping the contact will ground this not-so-good feeling his his chest. “I don’t understand.”
She shrugs. “Neither do we,” she says. “His soulmark are my words. Your soulmark is his words. And my soulmark are your words.”
His stomach swoops. “You mean—?” Oh God, his face starts to burn. That means ‘Do you serve coffee?’ is permanently on Iris. That had definitely not been his greatest moment—he asked a freaking coffee shop if they served coffee!
Iris reaches out and pats his hand twice before leaving it there, her skin warm on his. “It’s okay,” she says with a gentle smile. “I thought it was adorable.”
“She really did,” Barry adds. “She wouldn’t stop gushing about you the minute she saw me.” He smiles at him. “And I don’t blame her.” The tips of his ears redden (it occurs to Eddie that Barry is an easy blusher).
Eddie breathes through his nose and laughs. “You don’t know how long I agonized over that when I got to work. I was so embarrassed.” At least they thought it was cute.
There’s a pause when the waitress drops off their food.
“How is this suppose to work?” Eddie asks after they’ve started on their meals. “I mean, I don’t remember ever hearing about someone having two soulmates.”
“I don’t think that’s what this is exactly,” Iris musses, licking her fork. Eddie has to force himself not to stare so he wrenches his gaze from her to see Barry staring at her too. Their eyes meet and Barry grins...then licks his spoon. Eddie nearly has a heart attack right then and there. “It’s not like I have both your words on my wrist, I just have yours. It goes three ways. This makes it almost seem as if we’re all equal in the relationship almost.” She shrugs again. “I don’t know, I’m just guessing.”
“I could talk to Caitlin about it,” Barry offers. “She did her thesis on soulmarks.”
She points her fork at him. “Yes! You do that.” She checks her watch. “When do you go to work today?”
“One.”
“And you?” Iris asks. “When do you head to work?”
Eddie shakes his head. “I don’t. I work every other Sunday.” He takes a sip of his tea. “Where do you work?” he asks Barry.
“STAR Labs,” he says, his eyes lighting up in obvious excitement. “I’m a theoretical physicist working on the particle accelerator.”
“That explains why I haven’t seen you at Jitters before today,” Eddie muses. He must be so busy over there. “In fact, it’s because of your particle accelerator thing that I managed to get my transfer papers signed.” Barry gives him a confused look so he elaborates. “I’m a detective for the CCPD. I transferred from Keystone two months ago.” With the influx of Central City residents due to the STAR Labs’ accelerator and the low number of employees at the police department and even lower number of students in the academy, the CCPD requested for transfers from other cities. Eddie had already put in his request about three months before and it was signed nearly five minutes after his chief got the memo.
Iris makes a strangled noise in the back of her throat. “You’re ‘Detective Pretty Boy?’”
Barry snorts so hard he knocks his knee against the underside of the table. He covers his face with his hand and tries—and fails—to muffle his laughter.
“I’m what now?” Eddie’s heard that name before floating around the bullpen. It had been said with derision and usually accompanied with a scoff during his early days, but he some how managed to turn it into a fond nickname with only one or two officers still thinking he’s a smug bastard (and those officers are also transfers, more recent ones, so they don’t matter). “How did you hear that?”
“My dad,” she says, “is Joe West.”
“Oohh, you’re Iris West,” he says. He squints at her and she smiles prettily. “Now that I think about it, I’ve seen you around the department. You never stay for long.”
She nods. “Usually just to drop off food for him.”
This makes so much sense. Both Detective West and him work Homicides and Robberies, but there’s enough of both to go around they don’t really cross paths too often. They’ve maybe worked five cases together, and since he’s not Detective West’s partner their desks are definitely not next to each other and he’s always running around looking for lab results and files.
“Anyway,” Barry says, sounding breathless. “Why’d you want to know our schedules?”
“It’s useless now,” she says grumpily. “Since I know you won’t leave STARS until at least midnight. So, tomorrow, we should have dinner together.” She hesitates. “Unless you have work, or you don’t want to, Eddie?”
“No, no,” he assures quickly. “I’d love to go to dinner with the both of you.” He gives them the brightest grin he can. (Iris looks a little thrown and Barry looks dazed, is his smile that good?) “After all, we’re soulmates, right? I know that doesn’t make it an obligation, but I’m actually looking forward to this.”
Barry nods. “It’s a date.” He stands and stretches before digging out enough to cover his bill. “I better head out. Traffic sucks at this time a day and I swear the taxi drivers in this city are out to get me.” He puts a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, suddenly looking nervous. He seems to have this strange talent of going from self-assured to adorably nervous. His hand is warm through Eddie’s shirt and he has to resist the urge to lean into him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Then he’s dashing out of the bistro, his long legs taking him out with only a few steps. Eddie watches him go, enjoying the lean lines of his back his button down shirt accentuates.
Iris laughs. “This is definitely the oddest day I’ve ever encountered.” She pauses, thinking. “Unless you count the day I visited STAR Labs and a baby monkey was on the loose, but that was a year ago.”
Eddie leans in. “Oh, do tell,” he says.
“Well, it was more of a baby gorilla than a monkey…”
Iris ends up taking a forty minute break instead of thirty, and Eddie finds himself not feeling too upset about that.