Barry/Eddie, 2251 words, r-rated

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Would You Lie With Me and Just Forget The World

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Early morning sun dapples across his forehead, small specks of dust dancing in the light creeping through the curtains. He cracks open one eye, then the other, and blinks a few times, inhaling that first breath of air that's a little deeper, reaches the outlines of his lungs and clears his head enough for him to know what day it is. It's any other day, a Tuesday, he quips with himself, as he slowly becomes aware of how his body lies half-draped over another, his legs on the mattress, one arm around a strong waist and the other steadily asleep.

He stays there for a bit, the chest beneath him rising and falling with an even inhale-exhale that almost puts him back to sleep. Almost.

It's astounding how quickly he's gotten used to it, how he's drawn to the warmth of that other body in the bed with him like a moth to flame, night after night, or at least, the nights he spends in this particular bed. His own has proven less conducive to this position.

A strong heartbeat sounds below his right ear, one set of fingers twined in his hair.

It's as mystifying as it is soothing to wake up to.

He's never had this with anyone. Not something this steady, not something he keeps returning to over and over, not something that's started cementing itself stronger between all the building blocks that comprise his life – it's on his mind when he's at work, when he's at S.T.A.R. labs, when he's talking over coffee with Iris, when he watches a game with Joe, when he's out there on the street and no one knows him as Barry, but calls him The Flash instead.

He can't escape it anymore.

Eddie has become a part of his life.

The mischievous glances at work, the accidental hand brushing against his ass, the secret rendezvous in his lab when no one else can see, the coded messages when Joe and Iris are in the room with them; he can talk to Iris about Eddie now, but he has to be careful what he says around Joe, or Cisco, Caitlin and Dr Wells – so far only Iris knows, and while his friends at S.T.A.R. labs would never tell him who he can and can't date, they'd probably all connect the words 'secret identity' and 'task force' in one sermon or other. He won't be able to hide it for much longer though. Eddie's become too pervasive a presence in his life to ignore.

He stretches his legs, his left knee popping and pulls back a little, Eddie's hand and arm coming without question as he lies down in his arms. The sun makes Eddie blond hair appear almost golden, his eyebrows and hint of stubble caught in the same hue – he seems peaceful like this, his charming detective, the job not yet touching the equilibrium between his eyebrows, the stark set of his lips, that hardness that can sink in his eyes from time to time when a case gets too hard.

And it strikes him rather suddenly that he's seen Eddie like this before, at the station, right after he'd saved The Flash from Captain Cold and Heat Wave. His chest had beaten with relief to know Caitlin was safe, but in the midst of that he'd gotten used to maintaining his cover.

"Nice work, Eddie," he'd said, hands at his hips, lips chapped with the memory of the first kiss they'd shared after a quick sparring session, no four days before.

Eddie had looked at him unguarded, and for the first time since he'd met the golden boy detective, humility sank into his features. "It wasn't me," Eddie had said. "It was The Flash."

In that moment right there he's certain he could've told Eddie the truth. He could've pulled him aside with a gentle nudge at the hip, an urgency in his eyes, and Eddie would've followed without question. He could've told him that Barry Allen and The Flash were one and the same person and right then and there it would've been okay; the lie would've been cushioned by the brevity of their affair and the bond already weaving their lives together.

It would've been okay. Because the lie wouldn't have stretched too long between them.

One of these days, weeks and months after that incident, Eddie is going to find out. And when he does his secret identity won't have been a careful omission, a means of protection in case Eddie had ill intentions towards The Flash. No, it's spun into a blatant lie, a mask he wears as Barry Allen as well, and there are moments too sparse where that thought makes him sick to his stomach.

It makes him sick because they're building something real, however unlikely that sounds.

Relationships can't be built on lies. The foundations would never hold.

Eddie has to know. He wants what they have to become real.

He sits up and heaves his body over Eddie's, plants his knees on either side of Eddie's hips, his hands either side of his head, smiling down at his boyfriend as he sleeps. The alarm will go off soon; he should take advantage while he can.

He leans in and sticks a kiss over Eddie's carotid, right below his jaw, littering a few smaller ones down to his clavicle, Eddie's skin warm, smelling faintly of sweat and would-be lovebites. He caresses the tip of his nose up the same path again, the body beneath him stirring.

"Hmm?" Eddie's tone lilts into a question as he wakes, but heedless fingertips find his waist immediately, like one pole of a magnet finding its opposite.

He noses behind Eddie's ear, raking his teeth over skin that's always a little more sensitive, coaxing an almost inaudible gasp out of Eddie – after all these months he's learnt all the noises Eddie makes though, how he can rumble a growl when his teasing goes on a little too long, and Eddie takes control out of sheer frustration; quiet moans and breathless gasps when he has his lips wrapped around his cock, tongue teasing along the slit while gently jerking him off; that hum when Eddie's content to be and stay exactly where he is; or the deep guttural groan when he's come inside him and his brain stews in a post-orgasmic haze.

Right now Eddie hisses when he bites at his earlobe too hard to only be pleasurable, hand moving down to cup around his ass, but he's having none of that. His lips brush along Eddie's jaw, teeth sinking into his chin briefly before he claims his lips in the sweetest kiss.

"Morning," he whispers.

Eddie chuckles and hums, nose wrinkling when he teases a kiss next to his nose, over his eye, down his cheek again. One of Eddie's hands stays on his ass but doesn't try anything, the other at the small of his back. He reaches back for that same hand and pins it down to the mattress, their fingers lacing together – then, finally, he slides one leg between Eddie's, lowering his body to the warm one slowly waking up beneath him.

He sighs his own contentment, revels in having Eddie so close, and if they had the time he might tease Eddie like this endlessly, he'd gradually start rutting against him, one excruciating minute longer than the other until they were both hard, and he'd keep up that same deliberate pace until Eddie growled and shook and grabbed his ass to get more friction. God, he loved teasing this man, he loved knowing exactly how, and he loved how he got away with it every single time.

There's no time for that now, so he merely tempts Eddie's lips apart with his own; their breaths play and mingle while Eddie fluffs up the pillow underneath his head, the angle decisively better for making out. He licks into Eddie's mouth, the kiss slow, like they're both exploring territory they're already intimately familiar with but want to revere it nonetheless.

He can't remember ever feeling this with anyone; he's had girlfriends, one short-lived relationship with a boy in college, but never a relationship. Never anything that had him look forward to not one but all the moments they spend together, never something where he had clothes in another person's apartment, never any sort of connection to a person that necessitated him to know where that person kept his coffee mugs. His lips slide into a smile, so he nips at Eddie's lips, the slip-slide of their lips playful, fun.

"We're going to be late," Eddie mutters, though it's the furthest from being a complaint.

"I'm always late," he hushes, and they fall into a series of open-mouthed heated kisses, going in for one, pulling back, their lips wetted with the hint of tongues.

He'd been in love with Iris for a long time, he knows that, long before he learned the textbook definition of the sentiment it travelled along his veins and neural pathways, it was a truth embedded into his genetic code almost – and those weren't necessarily lies, if not wishful thoughts and dreams he'd set up when that proved unreciprocal.

This thing with Eddie though, that wasn't textbook. It's been messy and difficult and dirty. It's been crazy and fun and secretive. It's been hard, so hard, keeping secrets from him as well as with him, but it's been equally gentle and caring and healing. Some days they're like a storm in a shot glass ready to tear each other apart, but in all of that, in between the mess and destruction, they can become the calm after the storm, holding each other together. Eddie's been doing that for him from the start.

Without Eddie The Flash wouldn't be the hero he is today.

Maybe it's time people knew that; Joe, Dr Wells, Cisco and Caitlin.

And it's time Eddie knew.

On the nightstand, Eddie's phone starts ringing.

He groans and buries his face in Eddie's neck, reality invading their perfect little world once again. He remains silent as Eddie takes the call, Eddie's fingers caressing goosebumps up and down his spine. If Joe knew maybe this wouldn't be so hard, maybe the secrets would weigh a little less and he'd have the courage to tell Eddie the truth.

"Yeah, I'll be there in thirty," Eddie says and ends the call, replacing his cellphone on the nightstand.

Before either of them can say anything, his own phone starts vibrating next to Eddie's.

He reaches over and sits up, Eddie's hands now warm on his thighs. He barely hears what Joe has to say, and he definitely forgets the address of the crime scene as soon as he hears it, too preoccupied watching Eddie watch him, their eyes locked as Eddie wriggles his hips. He slaps a hand down over Eddie's abdomen in an attempt to keep him still.

"You're unbelievable," he scolds the moment the call ends, losing his phone somewhere in the sheets the moment Eddie sits up and nearly forces him on his back. His boyfriend catches him around the waist though. He settles down in Eddie's lap, arms around his neck, when the radio alarm Eddie set last night finally goes off.

They both laugh. They don't have time for this.

"I guess we'll be working together," he says, his desire tempered by the promise of whatever excitement they'll be able to find in the quieter moments at work today. They always find some moments to themselves.

"No need to sound so cheerful about it."

"You're right." His eyebrows knit together, and he climbs off Eddie in a mad tangle of limbs and dark sheets. He snatches his jeans off the floor. "Crime. Awful."

Eddie laughs, shaking his head fondly. "I love you."

And he freezes too visibly.

He sits down on the bed with his back turned to Eddie after the forced and faint huff of a smile, the tension of silence and the unreciprocated phrase knotting in the soft tissue at the base of his neck. It's too soon. There are so many things he wants to tell Eddie before hitting this milemarker, before voicing it himself.

It's there, that love, it's wholly reciprocated, alive on a cellular level.

But no relationship can be built on a rocky foundation.

An arm slips across his torso, a kiss at the nape of his neck before Eddie's chest connects with his back.

"Is that okay?" Eddie asks carefully, words infused with an It's okay. You don't need to say it back. Not yet.

He smiles, fingers curling around Eddie's wrist and nods. "Yeah."

And after Eddie pushes one last kiss to his temple, crawls out of the bed and toes into the bathroom, starts a quick shower, he decides he needs to sit Eddie down. He needs to sit him down and keep him calm and tell the entire story, look him in the eye and explain what exactly the particle accelerator did, tell him about the lightning strike, the panic fused to his bones when he woke up nine months later, only soothed with Eddie's help.

He'll hold Eddie's hands between his and say, "It's me. I'm The Flash. And I love you too."

Soon.

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fin

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