Work Text:
At Star Labs, there was no such thing as “working hours”.
It had been a fairly 9 to 5 place for Dr. Well’s favorites—Cisco, Caitlin, Ronnie—before the particle accelerator explosion. There was a night crew, of course, a skeleton crew of a couple engineers, the janitorial staff, some security, to keep the more delicate or volatile projects running smoothly, but the bulk of the staff was home in time for dinner. Afterwards, the few remaining just kind of kept coming in as normal.
Then Barry Allen woke up from his coma being able to run faster than the speed of sound.
Any kind of schedule they might have was very quickly tossed out the window. They were often there until late in the night, and Cisco often slept there, on a cot he’d set up in one of the many abandoned work rooms. All-nighters were a regular occurrence. Barry’s days off were almost always their own, unless they had side projects that needed work.
That day, everyone should have been there. Cisco strolled into work at 1 p.m., much later than he usually went in. He’d been there until 3 in the morning the night before, and Caitlin had ordered him to go home and not come back a single second before 12. He was happy to oblige.
He walked into the cortex, expecting an audience for his entrance. “Afternoon, every…” he trailed off when he found the room empty. “...one?” He frowned, wondering where they all could have gone, when he spotted the familiar slouched-over figure at the control center.
Harry Wells, apparently asleep.
Cisco crept closer, trying to keep his movements quiet as not to wake him. Harry’s face was slack, deeply asleep. I’ve never seen him napping, Cisco realized. He almost looks...peaceful. Harry had been throwing himself into his work lately—Cisco suspected it had something to do with the fact that Jesse had been back on Earth 2 now for three months. Not that he’d ever admit that he missed the hell out of his daughter. It was nice to see him have a moment of peace, of rest.
Oh well... Cisco thought, reaching out intending to shake Harry awake. “Hey, Harry, time to—”
The second his fingers came into contact with the back of Harry’s shirt, he felt the familiar jolt that came before a vibe. For real? Now?
Everything turned blue, and then he wasn’t in the cortex anymore. The first thing he saw were the weird braille-like bumps of the walls of the time vault. The lights were all on, throwing stark shadows across the bumps, making them look extra sinister. Then he turned his head, and saw them.
Harry, and himself.
That they were standing far too close together was his first impression, vibe-Cisco’s hands on vibe-Harry’s shoulders, Harry leaning in as if he were whispering a secret—but then vibe-Harry lifted a hand and buried it in vibe-Cisco’s hair, pulling it back to reveal—
Holy shit, they were kissing. Harry used the hand in vibe-Cisco’s hair to pull him closer and kiss him deeper, and Cisco could hear a small noise that was almost a whimper, though if it were him or vibe-Cisco who made it, he couldn’t tell—
And as fast as he’d left, he was back, his hand on real-Harry’s shirt, frozen in place. What did I just vibe? he thought to himself, stunned. What the hell was that?
Because, okay, he thought Harry was hot as hell, but they certainly hadn’t been locking lips at all. Was that really them? Had he just vibed the future?
Harry shifted beneath his hand, and Cisco jumped back, startled, heat rising in his cheeks. “Ramon?” Harry asked groggily, glancing back at him. “What are you doing here?”
“I work here,” Cisco reminded him, trying to get a hold of himself. “Where is everyone?”
“Barry had plans with Joe,” Harry told him, sitting up properly. “I thought he texted you.” Harry looked back at him properly. “What’s wrong?”
Cisco crossed his arms in front of himself protectively. “What do you mean? Nothing’s wrong.”
Harry raised an eyebrow. “You look like you just saw a ghost. Did something happen?”
“No,” Cisco told him quickly, then turned on his heel. “I gotta go work. Let me know if anything comes up.”
It took all his willpower to walk out of the cortex instead of run.
---
Harry left him alone for a whole two hours.
Cisco didn’t really have any pressing matters to attend to, so he ended up just fiddling around with some projects. He almost wanted Harry to come interrupt, even as awkward as it would be after that vibe, to give him something to focus on. He didn’t love being here alone.
Just as he was beginning to consider just going home, he heard Harry’s voice behind him. “Have you seen my phone? I had it last night and now it’s disappeared.”
The phone had been one of Cisco’s favorite inventions. It was able to transmit messages across to Earth 2, so Harry had a way of contacting Jesse. It was useful for when she wanted to come visit, as they hadn’t yet figured out a way to open a breach without Cisco’s powers.
“You lost your phone?” Cisco asked him. “You know I can’t just whip up a trans-dimensional smartphone at the snap of my fingers, right?”
Harry rolled his eyes at him. “Which is why you’re gonna help me look. Start in the vault, I’ll search the cortex.”
Cisco huffed and tossed his screwdriver down on his workbench. “Why would it be in the time vault? What were you doing in there?”
“Supplies,” Harry told him unhelpfully. “Just get up and look.” With that, he was gone.
Cisco sighed and made his way to the time vault, pressing his hand against the invisible panel on the wall that would activate the door. He stepped inside, looking around.
“Gideon, lights?” he called out, and the bright lights blinked on. They never really saw the AI anymore, and Cisco had a feeling that she only came out for Dr. Wells and Barry, who avoided the room at all costs. Bad memories. Cisco could relate.
Since they’d turned the room into something of a storage space, it had gotten cluttered. Shelving lined the walls, covered in scientific instruments and ephemera, alongside crates of random crap they needed out of the way. Cisco searched around the crates first, checking behind them and on the floor near them, but no phone. He turned his attention to the overflowing shelves next. Leave it to Harry to lose his phone in the biggest disaster of a room they had.
“Find anything?’ Harry voice startled him, making him jump half a foot in the air and drop the papers in his hands to the ground.
“No, not yet,” Cisco reported quietly. He and Harry were alone. Alone in the time vault. Just like his vibe. His felt his cheeks flush as butterflies stirred in the pit of his stomach.
“You gonna tell me what’s going on with you?” Harry asked as he stepped beside Cisco to help him search. “You’ve been acting squirrelly all day.”
“I’m fine.”
Harry sighed. “Cisco—”
“Drop it,” Cisco ordered, glaring at him. Harry huffed and crossed his arms, turning to stare him down.
“Fine!” Cisco snapped, throwing his hands up. “This morning when I went to wake you, I vibed on you.”
“What?” Harry asked, face instantly going from exasperated to concerned. “What did you vibe? Is Jesse okay?” He reached out to grasp at Cisco’s shoulder, but Cisco shook his head.
“Jesse’s fine,” Cisco reassured him. “Everyone’s fine, it was just—I vibed us.” Harry’s eyebrows rose, imploring him to continue. Cisco’s cheeks were burning. “I vibed us...kissing. In here.”
There was a long, awkward silence in which Harry gaped at him. “...oh,” Harry said quietly. It suddenly occurred to Cisco how close they were standing, how they were in the exact spot from his vibe, how he could reach out and just pull Harry close.
“Look, it doesn’t mean anything,” Cisco said instead. “I don’t know where it came from. I’m not gonna be weird about it, it was just—”
The rest of Cisco’s sentence was cut off by Harry’s mouth coming down on his own. Cisco’s hands landed on Harry’s shoulders as one of Harry’s arms wrapped around his waist and the other pushed into his hair, tilting his face up for better access. Cisco groaned softly and pushed them back until Harry’s back hit the wall behind them.
Harry broke the kiss, grimacing. “Ow. Have I mentioned I hate these walls?” His other hand fell from Cisco’s hair, dropping down to Cisco’s side.
“Sorry,” Cisco told him sheepishly. Neither of them moved, pressed together against the wall, Harry’s hands on Cisco’s waist. “So, uh…”
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” Harry confessed. “I’m...was that okay?”
Cisco smiled brightly.
“Yeah, it was okay.”