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In the midst of handling metas, his dad leaving, Harry appearing and Zoom beating him up, it was pretty easy for Barry to get caught up in himself and let the changes in his friends pass him by. Namely, it took him two weeks to notice that Caitlin had changed her hair and even longer to pick up on Cisco’s change in personality.
It’s not like Cisco changed that drastically, but the differences were there and they were unpleasant. His temper got more and more short-fused as Team Flash started to get used to the meta-weirdness and it no-longer became fresh and fun and he almost stopped bringing candy to work. The most worrying was how he now tended to hold off on the humor and take more time to be suspicious, aiming glares at anything or anyone that could be remotely harmful before giving them a cheesy nickname.
After a week of careful observing, Barry started to recognize a lot of the symptoms as ones he expressed around the time he was diagnosed with PTSD, about two months after Thawne killed his mother and his father was carted off to jail with the blame for her murder.
As he watched Cisco make rounds around the lab, checking the circuits and the functioning Barry focused on memory after memory of what could have shaken Cisco so bad. Was it Ronnie dying again? Was it Eddie dying for them? Both? Seeing the anomaly? Was he still having trouble seeing the difference between Thawne and Wells?
Wells. In all this Barry had forgotten that Wells killed Cisco in the timeline Barry’s time-jump erased, the one only Cisco could remember.
Barry watched Cisco go back into what used to be Wells’ office and debated whether he should follow him or not. He didn’t want to corner him or bother him into sharing what was up but he also knew that if he didn’t try Cisco would never come to any of them about his problems. If what happened with Snart kidnapping his brother was any indication Cisco would find a way to blame himself for everything, for Wells, for Ronnie and even Hartley or Barry.
That settled it then, he would definitely corner Cisco.
After Caitlin left, Jay went back to wherever he crashes and Harry disappeared, Barry stuck around as Cisco made a few last checks around the lab. When he entered the training room with the treadmill Barry followed him in, as quietly as possible as to not startle him.
“Hey, buddy.”
Cisco yelped and dropped everything he was holding, staggering back to the corner of the wall, hand on his heart.
“Hey, it’s just me.”
Cisco stared at him, half-freaked out, half-suspicious, still panting. “Didn’t Joe ever teach you how to knock?”
Barry shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and shifted from foot to foot nervously. “I thought knocking would scare you.”
“Knocking would at least warn me that you’re something civilized that isn’t trying to make an attempt on my life.”
“Oh come on, you’d still jump three feet into the air.”
“Gee, I wonder why sudden movements are a problem when I’ve been dealing with you, Reverse-Flash and Zoom these past two years,” Cisco snapped sarcastically, picking up his stuff.
“Sorry?”
Cisco waved him off. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“Are you, really?”
Cisco got real close, waving his hands next to his head. “No, Barry. Do I look like I’m okay?”
“Cisco…”
“I can’t sleep,” he whispered hurriedly, throwing his hand in the direction of Wells’ — Thawne’s secret space. “I can’t sleep because of that, because of him being here! Every time I look at him I just remember his fist going through my chest and — and — ” Cisco ran out of words, breathing in and out loudly, his eyes becoming unfocused as they looked down, tearing up.
He was having a panic attack.
Barry’s brain went in a dozen different directions, offering up suggestions from shaking Cisco to dumping cold water on his head. For once his speed did not catch up with his thinking and he just reached out and pulled Cisco into a hug. Cisco didn’t move away or object, he just slumped against Barry, his eyes pressing into Barry’s shoulder, his breathing still loud.
“Breathe,” Barry said soothingly, holding him tighter.
“I am.”
“I wouldn’t call that breathing, I’d call that panting,” Barry pointed out in an attempt to be funny.
Cisco took in a deep breath and let it out, loosening up in Barry’s arms, reaching his own to circle around Barry’s waist.
Barry swayed them side to side softly, rubbing Cisco’s back in light circles. “Why didn’t say anything before?”
“Did I really have to? You really couldn’t figure that out yourself?”
“I didn’t exactly have time to figure out anything about myself these days. I even sometimes forget that Eddie’s dead until I notice how down Iris is. I still feel like any minute now our Wells is going to roll in on his wheelchair and tell us to quit fucking around.”
Cisco tightened up again, Barry felt him squeezing his eyes shut against his shirt, the first tears to make it past his eyelashes going through the material. “He was never our Wells, he was a murderer who stole his life and face and now we have him back and I know they’re all different people but I just can’t handle it.”
“I know,” Barry said.
Cisco finally looked up at him, his eyes, cheeks and mouth a lot redder than they were earlier. “I have no idea what I’m feeling right now. Is it stress? Is it trauma? Is it exhaustion or is it just straight up fear because I get bits and pieces of all four when I’m down in that room — the room I remember him killing me in — or when I’m in the same room as Harry.”
Barry pushed a few stray strands of hair off Cisco’s face, brushing his knuckles against his cheek. “Want me to beat him up for you? He won’t know what hit him, literally.”
A raspy huff of tired laughter made it out of Cisco as he rubbed at his eyes, sniffling loudly. “Would you really?”
“I would, I’d do anything if it made you feel better.”
Cisco looked at his feet again, blinking tightly, squashing out the tears before they could build up in his eyes. “Thanks, man.”
Barry tilted Cisco’s face up by his chin. “Hey, look at me.”
“I am.”
“No, really look at me.”
His nervous eyes finally looked into Barry’s, he looked like a startled deer, ready to turn and run for its life. When Barry’s hand left his face and reached down for his hand Cisco jumped, like a hiccup just tore its way through his body the second the back of Barry’s brushed near his heart.
“Cisco.”
Cisco shook his head.
“Cisco, I’m not going to hurt you,” Barry said, trying to sound assuring while his own voice cracked.
“I know you won’t, my subconscious doesn’t.” Cisco took Barry’s hand, licking his lower lip before biting one side of it anxiously. “I don’t know what to do to start getting over this, it’s like there’s a kind of therapy geared towards people who died in other timelines.”
“You could start with the regular kind and build your way up to that,” Barry suggested. “It took years for me to stop jumping at flashing lights and going into a full attack when I heard whooshing wind, thinking it was him, thinking of him killing my mom.”
“What did you to start getting rid of all this?” Cisco asked, gesturing to his face. “Because no matter what I do every time I just feel the urge to scream and cry my eyes out.”
“Then do it. It’s okay to cry, we have that reaction for a reason, it’s cathartic, it’s healthy and the more you hold it back the less you’ll heal.”
Cisco worried his lip with his teeth again, nodding. Barry tightened his grip on his hand, running his thumb over a vein on the back of Cisco’s hand. “It’s okay, Cisco.”
When he looked back up at him, Cisco’s dark eyes were brimming with tears that trailed wet tracks down his cheeks but the corners of his lips were wobbling up in an attempt at a smile.
“Feeling better?”
Cisco sniffled loudly and nodded, his smile growing. “A bit yeah.”
Barry leaned in and kissed his forehead. “Good.”
“You know what else could make me feel better?”
“What?” asked Barry, genuinely unsure.
“This,” Cisco said, rolling up on his toes and pulling Barry’s head down for a kiss.
It was messy, wet and awkward, but it made them both laugh which meant they both had to be doing something right.
Cisco pulled Barry closer, resting his ear over his heart. “Hey, Barry?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
“Anytime. You sure you still don’t want me to give Harry some whiplash?”
Cisco laughed, a real joyous loud laugh. “Not now, but definitely, yeah.”