Chapter Text
It’s a sunny Tuesday morning in Central City, and Hal is happy to see his husband.
“Good morning, Hal.” Barry greets as Hal walks into their apartment’s kitchen. The sunlight coming through the windows glints off the dark strands of their hair, a soft smile creasing their face.
“Good morning, Barry.” Hal replies, taking a seat across from Barry. “How’s work?
Barry glances at the screen of their open laptop, which is full of a number of graphs, command lines and open text files full of symbols and equations Hal can’t make heads or tails of.
“Great.” Barry smiles. “I managed to get plenty of work done on the lighting engine- I might even manage to get a prototype of dynamic lighting working outside fixed-size nondestructible rendering environments by next Tuesday. Already managed to get certain entity models to render dynamic hair textures that interact with the lighting and environment.”
“Sounds cool.” Hal says. “I have no clue what any of those words mean in that order, but sounds cool.”
Barry chuckles and sips from their usual blueberry pomegranate smoothie. “You don’t have to, Hal. It’s rather technical, anyway.”
“Did you make breakfast?” Hal asks. “I’m hungry.”
“Nope, but we have the ingredients for you to try making something yourself.” Barry sets a thick cookbook down on the table. “I got you a cookbook. Maybe try something simple, to start.”
Hal takes the cookbook, and flips through it, careful not to tear the thin, yellowed pages. Barry watches him, a warm smile on their face.
“Does chicken noodle soup sound good?” Hal asks. “I know you were complaining about being too tired to eat everything last Tuesday, and that should be easy enough to make and reheat well even if you don’t eat it all.”
Barry’s eyes widen in surprise. “…You remembered?”
Hal looks at them, confused. “Of course I do. I’m your husband. It’s my job to figure this stuff out.”
Barry looks at Hal with an unreadable expression. “…Oh, Hal. I love you too.”
“Love you.” Hal smiles back, and walks over to the fridge.
He takes out a can of chicken noodle soup, then grabs a pot from the cabinet, sets the pot on the burner, and pours the soup into the pot.
A minute of waiting later, the soup is done. Hal ladles out two bowls of soup, then carries them over to the kitchen table.
Barry is staring at their laptop again, muttering to themself. “-fuck you mean, invalid file format. It’s the correct format, I checked. Did I forget the period again? Oh, I had the wrong file selected. That explains it. Dang, I’m getting worse…”
“Barry, food’s ready.” Hal calls, setting down one bowl in front of Barry.
Barry looks up at Hal, then down at the bowl of chicken noodle soup. A smile spreads over their face. “Oh my god. It’s… perfect. I can smell it.”
Barry pulls out a spoon, dips it into the broth, then brings it to their lips. They grimace slightly at the taste. “…way too salty.”
“I just followed the instructions in the recipe book.” Hal says, holding out the book. “Sorry.”
“…It’s fine. I should put “better-tasting soup that actually tastes like something other than water from the Dead Sea” on the list anyway. Not your fault.” Barry sighs. “I’m going to go to bed now. Have fun.”
Barry walks out of the kitchen and closes the door behind them.
The world goes white and still.
Barry sets down their headset on their desk, blinking a few fading spots of white from their vision, disconnection static buzzing in their ears and momentarily drowning out the sound of the rain pounding against the shutters on their bedroom window.
They let out a slow breath, their head falling into their hands, tears welling at the corners of their eyes.
“…Oh, Hal.” they whisper into their tear-wettened palms. “I… fuck, I didn’t expect it to happen this early… I’ve barely got anything set up… dangit I really shouldn’t have implemented dynamic continuity of memory first…”
“Barry! Screen time’s up!” Nora shouts from downstairs. “Come down and eat dinner!”
“I heard you, Mom, just give me some time to shut everything down!” Barry calls back, then glances at the mess of stray electronic equipment on their desk, the bright array of indicator lights and monitor screens the only light source in the room. “Sorry, Hal. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
With a handful of keystrokes, they export all of the logs and files generated by this session to a folder for later analysis, shut down the simulation, log off and power down their computer.
The cooling fans spin to a stop, the indicator lights fall blank, and the room is plunged into utter darkness.
Barry exhales slowly as they make their way to the door.
The kitchen is dimly lit by flickering fluorescent lights, yellow-white light reflecting off vinyl sideboards and plastic countertops. The off-white flower-print wallpaper is old and faded, clashing with bright blue floor tiles the color of a robin’s egg.
In the kitchen, Nora busies herself with the last of the dinner preparations, portioning off plates for everyone and putting away the leftovers.
Barry pulls up a chair and takes a seat at the old mahogany dining table, the meticulously polished wood nevertheless stained and scratched from decades of use.
Wally leans forward, both of his arms crossed over the table. His reddish brown hair is messy and unkempt, his cheeks still plump with teenage baby fat, his expression faintly resigned.
“Nice of you to come to dinner on time, Barry.” he says, light and airy. “I thought you’d never show.”
You haven’t come the rest of the week, he doesn’t say. We had to eat dinner without you. I always brought your food up for you, and you always barely touched it.
Barry sighs and rakes a hand through their dark brown hair. Their fingers catch on a mess of tangles. “You know as well as I do that I can’t hear anything people say to me out here while I’m in there. Total perception shift.”
“Barry, you know it’s not really real, right? You’re not going to get them back like this.” Wally looks at Barry, the green of his eyes dull and his expression faintly concerned. “Hal is dead. So is everyone else. It’s just me and you, and maybe Mom.”
Barry’s fists clench, ragged fingernails digging into their palms. “Maybe the originals are. But I remember. We both remember. I can make a new universe from that. And no one except me and you, and maybe Mom, have to know. I’m not going to give up on them like you did.”
Wally is silent for a long moment. “…I haven’t given up. I’ve just re-assessed my priorities.”
“Your priorities include… what? Surviving to tomorrow? And nothing else?” Barry starts, just as Nora chooses that time to walk over with dinner and unintentionally put an end to any argument.
“Here’s your dinner, kids.” Nora chirps. Her long, straight black hair is dull, her smile painfully fake, the concealer under her eyes two shades too light and clashing with the yellow overtones of her skin- but she’s determined to commit to the bit even after everything, and Barry can’t really fault her for that.
Barry bites back the rest of their sentence and accepts their plate of food- a chipped black-and-white ceramic bowl of cream of mushroom soup with corn and spinach, a pile of chopped lettuce, a small plastic dish of creamy poppyseed dressing.
Nora sets down a glass of orange juice and a set of cutlery neatly folded in a paper napkin next to Barry, before moving on to do the same to Wally.
Wally gives Barry one last annoyed glare while Nora’s not looking, then accepts his own food, unfolds his bundle of cutlery and sets his spoon down in his soup.
Nora serves herself last, then pulls a chair up to the table. “So… how have you two been, lately?” she asks.
“Fine.” Wally says, then shovels a handful of lettuce into his mouth and starts slowly chewing so she won’t ask him to elaborate more.
Barry just idly stirs their soup, trying to get a spoonful that doesn’t have any mushroom chunks.
“…Barry, how’s your project doing?” Nora asks. “You’ve been working really hard on it.”
Barry hurriedly shoves a spoonful of soup into their mouth. It’s far, far too hot, and there’s definitely a few chunks of mushroom in there, but they just swallow it quickly and try to ignore the pain in their scalded throat.
“…I implemented continous memory for select mobile-entity instances a few days ago. It’s working better than I thought. I finished a module for the rendering engine that lets me use custom preloaded dynamic hair textures for defined character models that respect the original refractive index and albedo values under multistate lighting, too.” they say eventually. “I’m going to try and work on getting dynamic lighting working outside fixed-size nondestructible rendering environments later.”
(It’s amazing how well overloading people with a bunch of technical-sounding words they don’t understand deters further questions without seeming to be rude. Barry’s gotten it down to a fine science at this point- understandable enough to be parseable and to seem reasonable if their conversation partner turns out to know what they’re talking about, yet still not enough to leave openings for the other person to turn it into an extended conversation.)
Nora nods, and a smile creases her face. “Well, it’s nice to see you’re making progress.”
The rest of the meal passes in silence, except for the occasional clink of cutlery on dishes and the intermittent sound of a bowl of soup being slurped. Wally carefully does not meet Barry’s gaze the whole time, cautious of Nora’s presence.
“I’m gonna go check on the generator.” Wally says as soon as he’s done his meal, not waiting for a response before he gets up and disappears down the steps to the basement.
Barry slurps up the last of their soup, then stacks their dishes again and carries them over to the sink.
“Mom? Can I go outside?” they ask. They know the answer will always be “no”, or at most “as long as you stay inside the greenhouse”, but they can’t help but ask, because maybe, just maybe, some day, it will be “yes, if I come with you”.
“Absolutely not. It’s still raining.” Nora says, a frown on her face, one hand tugging idly at the straps of her blush-pink apron. “Sweetie, you know it’s not safe out there.”
“Wally goes with you. All the time.” Barry reminds her. “I just want to see the sun.”
“That’s Wally’s job. He can handle it. Your job is to stay here, stay safe, and work on your project.” Nora says, with an air of finality. “And besides, it’s raining. There won’t be any suns out there.”
Barry exhales slowly. “Can I go in the basement, then?”
“Well, what do you need from down there?” Nora asks. “I can get it for you.”
“…Nothing.” Barry pleads. “I just want to see what’s down there, because you haven’t let me down there in years.”
Nora huffs, putting her hands on her hips. “Barry, I just don’t want you to get hurt. What if something got in? What if there’s a leak, or a crack?”
“You let Wally outside and into the basement all the time.” Barry says, crossing their arms over their chest. “He doesn’t even have to ask anymore. Remember all the times he comes back looking like a crime scene in progress, and all you do is tell him where you put the first aid kit- not even get up to help? And yet- you still rush to bandage the slightest of my scrapes.”
Nora purses her lips. “That may be the case, but he can handle it. You can’t, and I don’t ever want to see you hurt. You’re my child. You’re too important to me.”
“…As compared to Wally, who is your… “ Barry pauses. “I don’t actually know what he is to you. I mean, he is your grandson on paper, but you clearly don’t treat him that way.”
Nora’s expression darkens like a thundercloud before the storm. “…Barry, you’ve gone too far. Saying I don’t care about my own flesh and blood…”
“Your flesh and blood?” Barry’s fists clench and unclench, hot tears welling up in the corners of their eyes. “In that case, he’s more mine than he is yours, Mom.”
Nora sighs. “Barry…”
“He’s still a kid.” Barry hisses. “I’m not.”
“Barry. I love both of you equally, and this conversation is going nowhere.” Nora says with a pasted-on smile. “Besides, weren’t you going to work on your project?”
“…Fine. You win this one.” Barry concedes, a dark feeling swimming in their gut. “It’s late, anyway.”
With that, they turn and make their way up the stairs.
It’s a sunny Tuesday morning in Central City, and Hal is worried about his husband.
Barry’s hands fist in their hair, their laptop closed and off to the side of the table, their head tucked to their knees, wordless shuddering sobs wracking their form.
Hal awkwardly stands over to the side. He has no idea what to do. Barry’s never done this before.
“…Are you okay, Barry?” he asks.
Barry looks up and stares at Hal with an utterly haunted expression. “…You… I didn’t… that’s not… you weren’t supposed… oh, Hal.”
“…Barry. Are you okay?” Hal frowns. “I’m worried. You’re acting weird.”
Barry’s expression contorts. “…No. No I’m not. Fuck… I… I want to cry, but I really shouldn’t…”
“…Why not?” Hal asks, worried.
Barry takes a deep breath, lets it out. Takes another breath. Lets it out.
“…I can’t. Not here. Not now.” Barry laughs, a dark, half hysterical edge to their voice. “I… I didn’t realize I’d ever need to.”
Hal doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just retracts his hand and stands there. “…I’m here if you want to talk.”
“I know.” Barry exhales. “I know, Hal. I’m just going to go take a nap. See you again later, Hal.”
With that, Barry walks out of the kitchen and closes the door behind them.
“Wait-” Hal calls, and is cut off.
The world goes white and still.
Barry tosses down their headset on their desk, disconnection static buzzing in their ears, spots of white dancing on the backs of their retinas, tears starting to flow as soon as it’s off their head and the neural override keeping their body still and upright and the tears from freely flowing fades.
They still don’t know why their first instinct was to run for their computer and talk to Hal. It’s not like the program running in the simulation is actually Hal, even if the real Hal isn’t around to correct them on the semantics and they’ve gotten in the habit of treating Hal like a person.
(It’s kind of sad that the only one they can get along with is an artificial entity in the guise of their dead spouse quite literally programmed to love them unconditionally.)
More importantly- they did not program Hal to ask if they were okay.
They did program Hal to make conversation spontaneously, and all of the necessary voice files and linguistic parsers are there, so it’s not like it’s completely impossible from a technical standpoint.
But the fact remains that absolutely none of the social scripts they programmed in contain genuine worry for someone having an emotional breakdown, meaning that it was genuine, and oh spark, Hal’s not supposed to be sentient this early in the development process.
“…What have I done?” Barry whispers, running their hands down their face. “What have I done?”
No one answers. The rain continues to pour down, steadily hammering away at the shutters.
Barry curls into a ball in their chair and starts to cry, fingers clutching at the thin tear-soaked cotton of their pajama pants, feeling like they’re going to burst from the tide of emotions overwhelming them.