Crap. I had this light, fluffy story all planned out to post today, continuing with my idea of posting once a week-but then I watched last night's episode. Suffice it to say, the episode was totally shocking and it kicked the snot out of me, and I felt ashamed looking at my fluff.

Instead, here's a nice little angst piece I wrote a while ago! All aboard the angst train!

This takes place during episode 1x18, "All Star Team-Up," so spoilers for that episode.

Enjoy!

Barry needs a few minutes on the ground before they can take off, something that Joe understands but objects to—he wants his son to get medical attention immediately, or at least in the time it will take them to drive to STAR Labs. But he understands. Understanding is what he's been trying to do Barry's whole life.

After those few minutes, Joe hangs up the phone and pats Barry's shoulder. "C'mon, Bar," he says, as if Barry was sulking on the bench at a Little League game. "Time to go."

Barry groans as Joe pulls him upright. He leans heavily on Joe's shoulder, and he doesn't object when Joe offers the car.

The beginning of the car ride is very quiet, and Joe begins to suspect that Barry is asleep. He's sprawled out in the backseat, his lanky legs jutting out at odd angles, his mask removed but his arm draped over his eyes. Joe's reminded of the day Barry had his wisdom teeth removed. He'd been brought out to the car in a wheelchair, his cheeks puffy with gauze, and he'd dozed in the backseat the entire ride home. Even at home, his sweatshirt stained pink from failed attempts to navigate strawberry yogurt into his numbed mouth, he hadn't said a word.

That was the thing with Barry—he tended to suffer quietly.

When Joe chances a look back halfway to STAR Labs, part of him fearing the worst, he finds that Barry is now looking up at the ceiling through half-lidded eyes. Amazing how quick the kid could heal, Joe thinks. The bee stings which had swollen up his face are already smaller than he'd remembered them.

"What do you think my dad would do?" Barry asks suddenly. "If I died?"

Joe pauses. He wasn't expecting this. "Go on living. The best way he could."

Barry considers this. "What would you do?"

Joe clears his throat. He's back on the pavement, and it's digging into his knees. Barry doesn't have a pulse. He can't believe he's doing CPR on his own son. He tries to pretend like it's someone else, but he can't keep the panic out of his throat. He's doing everything wrong.

"Ice cream, son?" he'd asked all of those years ago, walking in on a drugged-up Barry watching Star Wars for the second time in a row. The side table was littered with bloody gauze from the new cavities in his gums, and he held ice packs to his bruising jaw.

"No." Pause. "No thank you."

"Does it hurt?"

Barry had nodded miserably. "I already took my medicine. It didn't help."

"Hey, it's alright," Joe had said. "Listen, how about I sit down with you for a bit? This is the one with Darth—uh—"

"Vader," Barry had said.

"Right."

He'd sat on that couch, ached as Barry fidgeted. The ice cream had melted in its bowl, untouched. He hated feeling useless.

"I'd keep on living," he says now, without taking his eyes off of the road. "But I'll be damned if it wouldn't be a worse life." He swallows the thickness in his throat. "Don't you ever scare me like that again, Barry. I can't take it."

"Trust me, I'll probably find a way," Barry says.

"I just keep thinking back to when you were a kid," Joe continues, brushing off Barry's half-joke. "You were so scared, Barry, and so broken, and all I wanted was to do the best I could for you, to be some shadow of the man your father was. And you're so strong now, but then things like this happen—" He turns the wheel slowly, smoothly, so as not to jerk the car too much. "I don't know who I should worry more for, the boy back then or the man now."

"You're not a shadow," Barry whispers. "You're my dad."

"I worry."

"I know. You wouldn't be my dad if you didn't."

Barry's trying to say something, but Joe doesn't want him to keep saying it, because he's afraid he'll break down completely in this car, and then they would never get back to STAR. He's afraid of the fear—and he keeps feeling Barry's grip on his arm as he takes breath again, the way his son clung to him and buried his face in Joe's chest like he did when he was a scared little kid.

After a while, Joe looks back again. He can't tell if Barry has fallen asleep again. He turns up the radio, just a soft murmur, and flips it to Barry's favorite station.

Barry rouses himself just as they pull into the STAR parking lot, and he's lucid as they walk into the building. The bee stings are almost invisible on his face and neck now, but he still leans on Joe for support.

Joe grips him around the waist and on the arm as they limp in, perhaps equally exhausted. He holds tight and doesn't let go until they enter the cortex, until Caitlin and Cisco and Felicity rush forward with their trademark concern to collect their patient, until Barry pulls away and gives Joe a thank you with his eyes.

Only then does Joe let go.

I'm a sucker for the relationship between Barry and Joe, and I did want to attempt a bit of fluff with them. So, kind of a transition point between fluff and angst.

As always, please leave your thoughts below. Thanks for reading!

See you next week-although I honestly don't think I'll be recovered by then.

Penn