Archive of Our Own

When the dial tone ends in voicemail for the second time, Cisco decides that he needs to change his plans. He ends the call with the harsh swipe of his thumb, seconds before his cursing would be recorded permanently in Harry’s voicemail. Cisco decides to dial Jesse’s phone instead.

Fortunately, doesn’t have to wait long for her to answer. “Hey Cisco!” she answers cheerfully, barely halfway through the first ring. In the background, he can hear an alarm that seems to ring all the way to his own dimension, causing him to wince. A rush of wind blasts through the speaker, and then, “What’s up?”

“Are you in your suit right now?” Cisco asks, impressed, because he didn’t connect her phone through the comm in her ear.  Jesse confirms, and Cisco shakes his head and tries to get back on track before he totally grills Jesse on that, mostly because he was planning on doing it the next time he saw her. “I need to talk to your dad. Is he around?”

“Um,” Jesse says, and all the background noise stops, like time on her earth is standing still. “Well, I was just on fire five minutes ago and he was putting it out. I’ll tell him to call you back on his phone.”

“Thanks,” Cisco replies, falling back in his chair. There’s some background static, and Jesse hangs up.

He waits a minute, then five, swiveling at his usual desk chair in the Cortex. Caitlin, in the seat next to him, quietly does her work, humming to herself while he waits in deafening silence for his phone to ring. The day’s been quiet, with Barry in his lab at CCPD, Caitlin catching up on paperwork, and HR stalking back and forth in the adjoining room beside them, split by a glass wall. Cisco is pretty sure he’s talking to his pen, but he doesn’t care enough to confirm with Caitlin.

When his phone is still silent ten minutes later, Cisco decides to start his work himself. He’s a busy guy, you know, with a real job, and things to do, and a retirement plan and all of that. He pauses, and thinks there’s a retirement plan, anyway.

However, the second his fingers swipe across the keyboard, his ringtone cuts through the silence. Cisco grumbles under his breath as he grabs for it. “Nice of you to finally look at your phone.”

“You called,” Harry says, ignoring Cisco’s remark. His voice sounds flat, and Cisco would have thought he was bored, the way he usually sounds on the phone, if it wasn’t for how out of breath he is. Cisco imagines it has something to do with the fire alarms he can still hear on Harry’s end. He imagines Jesse sped off after their call earlier, leaving dear old dad to deal with the cleanup.

“Uh, yeah. Twice. My cousin’s wedding is next week, we’re still on, right? I know I haven’t really seen you this month, so I thought I’d call to remind you since we can’t do dinner on Saturday….” Cisco grabs a pen, taps it against his crossed leg.

Silence. Cisco, in a single beat, suddenly feels prickling nerves all over. He gives his awkward, I’m-filling-up-the-silence-with-laughter laugh. “Harry?”

“Next week?”

“Yep.”

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

Another, longer beat of silence. “Ramon…” Harry starts, voice twisted, before there’s a crash that cuts his audio off for a moment. When the buzzing clears, Cisco is sitting up straight in his chair, and Harry’s words are swift. “Things are happening, Jesse’s on fire. Again. I can’t come, busy here. Really sorry. Bye.”

Cisco looks at the ended call blinking on his phone and groans. He’s got to admit, he’s slightly annoyed with Harry, but what can you do when your boyfriend lives a dimension away? Not to mention the fact that, well, Harry is bad at texting but Cisco’s made some real progress with him. It’s only a matter of time before he cracks into being up-to-date with communication.

“Hm,” Caitlin hums distastefully, and Cisco looks at her, his cheek pressed against cold, smooth desktop. Her mouth twists as she looks down at him, but her eyes are sympathetic. “What happened?” she asks, as if she didn’t hear every word. He knows she’s secretly nosy like that.

“Harry cancelled on my cousin’s wedding,” Cisco sighs-slash-whines.

Caitlin pushes her keyboard away, turning to him. She pats his hand with her own, and offers, “You can take me.” Her smile is sweet, as well as her offer, and normally Cisco would absolutely take her up on it. But this family event is not normal, with higher stakes and more to lose than ever.

“I can’t. Dante is bringing his new girlfriend and I have to, like, meet her.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” she reasons.

“No, except that my parents were unbearable enough while he was single. Now they’re going to be like ‘why aren’t you married, Cisco? ’ and ‘ thank God Dante can give us grandbabies, Cisco ’ and ‘ why are you here alone? Dante’s found someone, Cisco ’ and honestly, I’d rather puke up blood than bother with that.”

“You have puked up blood before,” she casually reminds him. Then, more importantly asks, “Then why are you going?”

Cisco sits up, but his whole body feels like it’s sagging under the weight of his family problems. He’d just glad it’s the only kind of problems he has right now. “Because my cousin Alex is the one that’s getting married, and we were childhood BFFs. She beat up my bullies for me in the third grade and now I’m indebted to her forever.” He shrugs, “Besides, if I don’t show up now, it’ll be like letting Dante win.”

She nods, knowing full well how bad his family can really be. “What are you going to do?” She gives him a mischievous smile, “We could kidnap Harry. You open the breach, I push him through it. Barry can stand guard.”

Caitlin always manages to make him smile, even when things go to shit. “Nah, Harry’s too busy with Jesse’s spontaneously combusting or whatever. I don’t want to bug him when he’s so busy. But Dante and my parents have met him before, so it’s not like I can bring you or Barry as a friend. I just need someone who has Harry’s face, or something,” he says offhandedly, the words escaping of his mouth like the garbage they are.

Her gaze flitters over his shoulder, her smile transforming into a grin, “You know, you could always bring HR?”

Cisco, completely and totally confused by her suggestion, splutters. “He—What? HR? No way.”

She scoots to the front of her seat, suddenly entertained by the idea. “Think about it—they’ve got the same face and you need a date.”

“No way, he’d blow up the wedding or something.”

Snorting, Caitlin replies, “Unlikely. Besides, I’m sure he would love to go to an Earth-1 wedding. It would be great research for his book.”

“No way,” he says again, loud and clear. “HR is not going.”

Caitlin sits back, and Cisco thinks that that’s that, before he hears from behind him, “Where am I not going?”

Cisco jumps, both HR’s voice and sudden closeness a surprise. “ Dios mio ,” he says, turning to HR with hand on his chest, as if it would slow down his terrified heart, “warn a guy.”

He has to admit, after all the crap he’s been through, he doesn’t feel an ounce of weirdness looking at HR. He got over that with the Harry and Thawne comparisons, which Harry never really appreciated, so HR, at this point, felt strangely normal to Cisco. As far as Cisco had seen, they’re pretty much as different as three identical people can be. HR, for example, was really freaking—

Stepping closer, into Cisco’s space, HR rattles his drumsticks against Cisco’s shoulder and laughs, “Where don’t you want me to go? Because let me tell ‘ya, I’ve been everywhere in this city by now.”

— annoying.

Cisco rolls his eyes and rolls his chair a foot away. “Yeah, everywhere except the library, maybe.”

Caitlin nudges his ankle with her foot under the table and gives him a stern look, as if to say, be nice . He shakes his head at her because as-if . She nudges him again, harder, enough for him to pull his legs away because her heels hurt.

HR isn’t fazed by Cisco’s jabs, though. They’re friends now, miraculously, despite the fact that the Wells always manage to screw him over one way or another. Thawne-Wells killed him, HR almost got him killed, and Harry, hah, well. Let’s just say there may have been a workshop table involved with being screwed by that one.

Still, HR pulls up a chair and throws himself over it, straddling it backwards. His arms rest along the back as he leans forward to stare at them, waiting. Cisco wonders how long he’ll be able to sit still, and eyes HR’s bouncing foot. Not long.

Between Caitlin’s knowing gaze, Cisco’s black phone screen, and H.R’s resemblance—even if he was too eager and too thrilled—to Harry, Cisco decides to give in and just ask. The idea of brining HR to his cousin’s wedding, a family gathering which he’d nervously invited Harry to, sounds like a pure disaster. But Cisco’s whole life seems to be one disaster after another, so he goes for it.

“My date cancelled and I need someone to go with me to my cousin’s wedding.” He winces at how sharp that sounds, and asks, nicer, “Do you want to go with me?”

“Me?” HR asks, eyebrows halfway to his hairline. He glances between Caitlin and Cisco suspiciously.

“I have plans that night,” she lies. HR glances at the mannequin with Barry’s suit on it, a reminder of him even when he’s not there. “Barry too,” she quickly adds on. “We’re all pretty busy.”

“Ah,” HR says. He taps at his seat and grins. “Then I would be honored to accompany you the ceremony of your cousin’s committal union.”

Cisco catches Caitlin’s eyes and she shrugs.

“We have a lot of work to do, buddy,” Cisco says to HR, standing up and clapping a hand across his shoulder. He thinks his soul is probably crying.

One week later, with HR on one side of him and a suitcase on the other, Cisco stares at the hotel receptionist with his mouth hanging open. It takes him a sec, but when he recovers, he shakes his head wildly and asks, “Are you sure there’s nothing you can do?”

The receptionist looks at him with a sympathetic smile but shakes her head no. “I’m sorry, sir, there must have been a glitch with the online reservation form. Unfortunately, there’s only one bed available. We can give you a hotel credit for your troubles or refer you to one of our sister branches elsewhere.”

Cisco runs his hands down his face, into his hair. “No, no, I’m here for a wedding. This can’t be happening.”

HR, silent this entire time, places his hand on Cisco’s arm. He weasels his way in front of him, giving the receptionist what he must think is a charming smile. While Cisco isn’t impressed, she apparently is. HR talks quietly for a few moments, enough time for Cisco to take in a deep breath and relax a little.

The whole week leading up to this point had been nothing but stress. One of the trinkets in his lab had a wiring error and melted, Barry got his ass kicked by a meta-human who could turn objects into jello, and his parents were harping on him about getting his suit and his date to the wedding on time. They would never forgive him if he showed up late to dinner.

“Cisco,” HR says suddenly, looking him over. “Maybe you should go sit down.”

“Maybe you should sit down,” he snaps back, but there’s no bite in it. He drove the entire way from Central City in a STAR Labs van and traffic was killer. “Fine, but come get me when you’re done.” They already had Cisco’s information on file.

Eyes glued to a couch not twenty feet away, Cisco grabs his suitcase and rolls it over. The second he falls into the cushions, his eyes are closed, and he dreams of falling asleep in a comfy hotel bed all alone, without HR snoring in his face.

Cisco doesn’t think he dozes off for long, but suddenly HR is in front of him with a triumphant grin and two room-keys in his hand. “Did you fix it?” Cisco asks, unbelieving.

“Yep,” HR says, adjusting his bag over his shoulder with his free hand. “They gave us the penthouse suite.”

“Oh my God, really?” Cisco jumps up, filled with a brief burst of energy. “Same price and everything?” He goes to take the room-key, a thin plastic card, from HR’s hand, but it’s suddenly yanked back. Cisco looks at HR’s deflating smile, and asks, “What?”

“Not the same price,” is all HR says.

“My credit card is on file,” Cisco groans. He snatches the room-keys from HR’s hands and marches to the front desk, ready to beg as long as they haven’t already charged him.

Fortunately, there is a God. Unfortunately, he hates Cisco. The get the room. It only has one bed.

On the elevator ride up, Cisco glares at HR, who finds the metallic railing suddenly very interesting. They get to their room, the bed is tiny. HR takes it all in, says, “You know, Francisco, I don’t mind sharing a bed.”

“No,” Cisco says, throwing his stuff all over the full bed as a claim. He points to the lofty chair in the corner. “You get that or the floor, Mr. Penthouse-suite. Pick one.”

HR picks the floor, but orders enough blankets and pillows from the front desk to supply a small family. Cisco barely hears him do it, falling on top of the covers with his jeans still on. He hears HR on the phone in the background, and feels his face sink into the cool comforter. The air conditioning is set to freezing, and even though he keeps his apartment at a strict seventy-three degrees, a hotel room isn’t the same unless it’s like an ice box.

At six o’clock, Cisco drags himself from the bed and into the shower. It’s quick, for him, and tells HR to get ready at the same time. They’re ready to leave in half an hour, HR in black a suit Cisco thinks Harry would wear if he were here. Cisco thinks about pulling his hair back, but thinks he still has to improve something between now and the actual wedding in two days.

On the way out the door, Cisco notices two Starbucks cups in the trash can, and wonders how HR even managed to find a store already.

Dante waits for them at the door, Cisco’s parents already inside. “It’s seven-twenty,” Dante says.

Cisco shrugs, pushing past him into the restaurant, which he’s so glad he isn’t paying for by the looks of it. It would cost him an entire week’s salary, probably. “It starts at seven-thirty, we’re good.” HR follows closely behind him, maneuvering through the crowded building. Cisco’s family sits in a booth that’s barely big enough to sit six. Cisco looks over at Dante, who squints at HR. So it begins.

In their small corner of a table, Dante introduces Cisco and HR to his new girlfriend, Laura, who has a pretty face and a human soul so Cisco is surprised. She shakes Cisco’s hand, kisses his cheek, and smells like strong perfume. Over her shoulder, he raises his eyebrows at Dante, who gleams.

Behind him, HR clears his throat, and Cisco remembers that he’s there. “Oh, right. Everyone, this is… Harrison.” He doesn’t clarify and doesn’t look at HR’s face. He looks enough like Harry, obviously, even if the way he stood was nothing like him.

HR takes Alba’s, Cisco’s mother’s, hand in both his own, brings it to his lips to give it a kiss. He shakes his dad’s, Hector’s, hand firmly, then Dante’s, and kisses the back of his girlfriend’s, too. It happens so quickly, HR already in motion before Cisco can yank him back without looking rude. Surprisingly, though, his mom looks pleased. “Hello,” he says. Alba smiles. Cisco is startled.

“Shall we sit?” Hector asks.

They make small talk before the bread is delivered with their drinks. How are you? How was the drive? Perfect weather for a wedding weekend, right? Dante, tell us about your new job! Cisco, are you still at that dreadful lab?

Simple talk, really. Nice and easy. Cisco contributes so much through his clenched jaw. HR in his obliviousness, however, offers his opinion on everything. The drive was great, no officers at city borders, hah. The weather is beautiful but could use more wind. A security adviser? What’s that? Dreadful? STAR Labs has the best coffee, I would describe it as delightful.

His parents keep asking HR questions, though, so something must be going right. Cisco is ready to step in at any moment, ready to interject something HR says with the truth. Harry’s truth, that is. And Cisco has to interrupt the second their drinks are delivered, and his mother’s mouth touches the glass of her martini. “Harrison, tell us about how you and Cisco met. You were so quiet the last time we saw you.”

HR’s eyebrow twitches in confusion, and he glances at Cisco, who takes the lead. “Mom, seriously, we’ve been over this. Aren’t you bored of this story already?”

Alba huffs, “Dante and Laura tell me their story every time I ask.”

“Mom,” Dante says, calming to her ears but smug to Cisco’s, “let him relax a little. They just got here. Harrison, tell us about what you do instead.”

“Yes,” Alba agrees, pinching Dante’s arm. “Dante is right. Cisco is so secretive about you, he tells us almost nothing.”

Cisco wants to tell them that it’s for plenty of good reasons, and wouldn’t even know where to start. Would he go with the doppelganger thing? Or remind them of the time Dante got kidnapped for the drama he and Harry deal with? Maybe the Earth-2 part, or maybe it was just Harry’s charming personality. The last time Harry met his family, he was stiff and silent and only talked when spoken to. So, there really wasn’t much to refer to with this meeting, though the only thing in common is Cisco and the person at his side’s face.

“Well, Mrs. Ramon, I’m actually a writer.”

“You also work with me at STAR Labs,” Cisco reminds him, trying to keep at least some consistency between Harry and HR.

“Yes, yes,” HR agrees, “but I’m first and foremost a writer. An artist, if you will.”

Alba takes another large gulp of her drink and orders another. Hector’s water glass remains untouched. Yet they both give the same amount of attention to HR, with Dante glancing between Cisco, HR, and his own locked hands with Laura.

“What do you write about?”

“Oh, all sorts of things.” He smiles at them and taps at his temple. “Whatever the genius sparks, I suppose. Recently, I’ve been working on a novel about interdimensional travel.”

Cisco elbows him, and HR whispers a small ow .

Dante decides to take that moment to make a joke. “Not a scientist, but still your type, huh, Cisco?”

“Shut up, Dante.”

Alba ignores them, “Is any of your work published, Harrison?”

“Oh yes,” HR says enthusiastically. “Where I’m from, I have several books. This new one is just a single thought out of many more to come.”

“I would love to read them. After all, a person’s writing says so much about their soul. Wouldn’t you agree, Cisco?”

“Sure?” Cisco says.

“Laura, Dante says you’ve been dating for almost four months now. Harrison, how long have you and Cisco been together? Is it seven months now? Eight?”

“Together?” HR goes stiff, and Cisco pinches the bridge of his nose. His mother must have broken him.

“Mom, leave him alone,” Cisco says tiredly.

Alba goes to argue, probably, but in that moment their entrees come. Cisco has never been so relieved, but HR, at his side, doesn’t relax.

“Cisco,” he says quietly, leaning over to semi-whisper. “Can I talk to you?” He glances at Cisco’s family. “Alone?”

“Sure,” Cisco agrees, and they excuse themselves from the table.

The second they’re out of the dining room and out into the fresh air outside, HR turns to Cisco and exclaims, “I think your family has the wrong idea!”

“What?”

HR adjusts his jacket, then removes it completely. “What I’m saying, Francisco, is that I think your family thinks we’re dating.  Not that you’re not, you know, wonderful, but they’re gonna be so embarrassed when they realize their mistake. We should set them right.” He laughs, and Cisco turns to look at the stars.

“We can’t do that.”

“Huh?”

“We actually are dating,” Cisco mumbles, and half-hopes HR doesn’t understand any of it. Of course, though, he does.

“Is it not common courtesy on this earth to let the other person know when you’ve started dating?”

Cisco glances at him, then does a double take when his words sink in. “What? No, HR. I mean they just think we’re dating because I told them I was bringing someone, and then that person cancelled, but they’ve already met him before and he just… happens… to have your face.”

“My face?” HR responds stupidly. Then it dawns on him. “Oh. Oh . You and—from Earth-2— really ?”

Cisco wants the ground to open up and swallow him alive. Or, maybe, he can just open a breach to some random universe and never, ever come back. He wouldn’t have to face his problems if he stopped existing in this reality. Problem solved.

HR takes his silence as confirmation, and they stand next to each other without speaking for a moment, then another. Then, cheerfully, HR says, “Francisco, you sure know how to surprise a man. You should have just told me earlier, I make a great fake-partner! Leave this to me, your family won’t know what hit them.” With that, he turns away and strides back into the restaurant, twice as confident as he was when he first entered it.

“Oh God,” Cisco says to the empty air, and follows quickly behind.

They take an Uber back to the hotel, which only costs Cisco a couple bucks. His mom kisses him on the cheek as a goodbye, and glances at HR’s hand, which rests on Cisco’s arm and tugs him to the waiting car. Cisco wonders how he makes it out of there alive and unscathed.

Cisco feels warm from the alcohol he ordered after his talk with HR halfway through, and he settles into the seat and wonders if he should just skip the rest of this trip. Except, if he did, he wouldn’t have a good reason because HR was great.

He’s really weirded out by that fact, actually. The second they returned to the table, HR was a parent-slash-brother charmer, and got his dad to laugh so hard he snorted, which caused the whole table to explode. They were so focused on him, they had little time to turn their attentions, or criticisms, to Cisco. But with HR keeping them busy, they couldn’t turn to praise Dante, either. It was a middle ground with HR as the center of attention and nobody seemed to mind.

One family dinner down, two more to go before they could go back to Central City. A weekend never seemed so long before. Cisco, even when he was a little more than buzzed, could count it down to the second until he would be back home, in his apartment alone, again.

He and HR make it to the third floor where their room is, and Cisco pulls his wallet out and slides their room-key to get in. The mess that they left is there to greet them, and HR falls against the armchair at the side of the room and turns on the TV while Cisco tries to clean up a little. His razor next to the sink, toothbrush in the porcelain cup, towel up to dry, brush back in his bag.

“What’s the family up to tomorrow?”

Cisco answers while hanging his discarded suit in the closet. “Well, my family has breakfast planned at the restaurant downstairs at ten. Then they want to hit the beach, and come back to get ready for the rehearsal dinner at six.”

HR hums in acknowledgement, channel surfing. He mutes the TV but keeps his eyes on it, constantly clicking at the remote. “Why did my much-less handsome doppelganger leave you to the rhinos, Cisco?”

“God, what? Do you mean the sharks?”

“Who would leave you to the sharks?” HR shakes his head, and starts again. “But you said Harry cancelled? How come?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Cisco says. He already dreads every part of this conversation. It’s not too late for the earth to digest him, really. Three stories up and he’d still accept the offer.

“Of course it matters,” HR says, and shifts in his seat to cross his legs and focus solely on Cisco, TV and remote forgotten.

“Really, it’s not a big deal. Stop—looking at me, dude, come on.”

“Francisco—”

“It’s Cisco!”

“You seem upset.”

Cisco rolls his eyes and hides behind the thin wall that separates the sink area from the bed. “I’m upset because I’m tired, and there’s only one bed, and you keep asking questions that don’t matter and my family still somehow likes you more than anyone I’ve ever brought home, which still isn’t a big deal, so just leave it and go to bed, HR.”

The bed squeaks, and HR peaks around the wall and stares at Cisco with a gentle look. It’s honestly weird to see on his face, and he thinks that he may never want to see it again. Or maybe he does. He’ll figure it out later. “Cisco,” HR says, and Cisco sighs.

“Jesse’s a speedster,” Cisco says.

“Yes,” HR agrees.

“So Harry doesn’t have as much free time. Stuff came up. Let’s drop it and go to bed, okay?”

HR raises his hands up in mock-surrender, and moves back to the bed. Cisco grabs his toothbrush, and yells over his shoulder, “You’re still on the floor!”

The next morning, Cisco wakes up to the wonderful surprise of HR air-drying his naked body in front of the very-open window. Cisco is so lucky that they’re on the third floor, but he still has the feeling some grandma got an eyeful of something already.

Shielding his eyes, Cisco says, “HR, put your clothes on.”

HR turns to him, halfway through a stretch, and greets him good communion. Cisco, already behind his hand, turns his gaze to the ceiling, just to be safe. HR finally has the courtesy to grab the complimentary hotel bathrobe. When it’s safe to look again, Cisco is happy to note that a cup of coffee rests on the bedside table next to him. He assumes HR has had his seven cups already.

Cisco isn’t really awake until breakfast is over. On auto-pilot for most of it, he sips at his coffee, nudges at his waffles, and listens in just enough to make sure HR doesn’t freak his parents out. He doesn’t. Half asleep in his own plate of food, Dante is just as out of it as Cisco was. He knew they had to be related somehow.

At the beach, Cisco is happy to lay out in the sun. He may be a nerd, but he was the only one in his group of friends in high school who didn’t burn after ten minutes in the sun. Bless those sweet, Hispanic genes of his. HR’s fine, too, which is surprising, considering the shade of red Harry’s cheeks turn when he spends too long outside. Even with sunscreen.

With his sunglasses on, a drink wedged in the sand, and a new academic journal just released to his tablet, Cisco finally feels relaxed. He isn’t sure if this counts as a vacation, though he’s certainly using his paid leave, but he’s starting to enjoy himself. It isn’t too bad, when left alone, and when HR plays with the nieces and nephews in the water, throwing them out into the ocean only for the kids to swim back and ask to be thrown again. As long as Cisco isn’t dragged into it, he couldn’t feel his arms for a week last time.

When HR decides he’s had enough, he flops on the towel next to Cisco with one of the sodas his tia was offering. With one, comes another, and soon a group of Cisco’s relatives come to sit with them, interrupting Cisco’s peace. Last time Cisco brought someone home—which was with Harry, who was supposed to be the same person—they stuck to themselves and enjoyed a night of quiet conversation while Dante stared at them. With HR, though, he seemed to attract Cisco’s family, like some sort of charismatic magnet.

It gets even worse when HR whips out his harmonica, and starts playing it. He isn’t bad, actually, but it draws the kids from the ocean and they drip freezing water all over Cisco’s sun-kissed skin. He hisses, and pushes Roberto away, who’s ten and way old enough to know better. Behind him, Dante snickers, and Cisco shoots daggers at him.

“Where did you get that?” Cisco asks, when HR finishes and the crowd slightly parts.

“Earth-19.”

“And you brought it?”

“I couldn’t leave it on my earth.” He sounds scandalized at the very idea.

“No, to the wedding .”

HR shrugs “Why not? Your family liked it.” And really, Cisco can’t argue. He squints at him before sliding his shades back on, and lays back on the sand.

Cisco skips lunch with his family and takes HR to Big Belly Burger instead. They perfect their “secret” handshake in line and Cisco gets a milkshake with curly-fries because it’s what God really wants from Cisco’s life.

In the car, HR says, “You smile more at STAR Labs than you do with your family.”

Cisco doesn’t even roll his eyes this time, because HR has said weirder shit, and noticed even smaller details. “My family is complicated.”

“They don’t seem that complicated.”

Cisco gives him a look. “You don’t see it because they like you.”

HR laughs, but it’s small. “They like you too, Cisco.” He stares at Cisco’s face, and frowns. “This isn’t about you, is it? It’s about Harry.”

Cisco shrugs.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Cisco looks at him incredulously. “Okay, do you want the rest of my curly-fries instead?”

Instead of answering, Cisco grabs them with the one hand that isn’t on the steering wheel.

The rehearsal dinner is really something else, mostly because Cisco still isn’t expecting his family to take to HR so well. It kind of sucks, in a way, because HR isn’t Harry, and when this is over Cisco’ll have his actual boyfriend back, who smiles like it hurts to and appears frightening to children. Cisco is pretty sure his family will think Harry was stoned the entire time HR was impersonating him. Whatever.

The dinner starts at six but he and HR get there early this time, much to the surprise of his parents. Cisco recognizes most of his family from his mom’s side, and points out the rest of the family members HR hasn’t already introduced himself to yet. “Those are the Gutierrezes,” Cisco says, pointing to the corner. “Next to them is the Garcias, and then the Santiagos…” He points all the way around the room, stopping at his cousin’s fiance’s family.

Alex was happy to see Cisco at the beach in the morning, but as a bride, she has a constant stream of this and that to complete. She promised to spend more time with him at the rehearsal dinner and at the reception, and he was going to hold her up to that.

Somewhere in the chaos of finding their table, Cisco’s Aunt Ana sits between him and HR. She looks surprised when they all find their seats, and says, “Oh, Cisco, is this your boyfriend?”

“Yes,” he says, automatic by this point.

His tone must have been off, because she says, “Oh, or do you prefer… partner?”

“Boyfriend is fine,” he says tersely, and asks to switch seats with her. She agrees.

“What was that about?” HR says to Cisco quietly, and Cisco tells him to shut up and look at the menu instead.

Before the entrees get to the table, Alex’s father makes a small speech. He gets teary-eyed halfway through, and so does Cisco’s mom, who grabs Cisco’s hand across the table and holds it tightly. This is weird, because they don’t do the mother-son affection thing, but she turns to look at Cisco with a smile and Cisco thinks that he could get used to it.

When the speeches are over, and dinner arrives, everyone splits off into conversations. Cisco’s Tia Ana turns to him when HR is busy discussing literary themes or something with his dad. She points to HR over Cisco’s shoulder, and gives him a sly grin. “He’s very handsome.”

Cisco tries not to wrinkle his nose. Even though he knows they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between HR and Harry. Cisco can, and it’s HR . Harry is super hot and whatever, but HR is just. Nah.

“Thanks, Tia,” Cisco responds.

She glances at HR again, then to Cisco, and whispers, “He’s older, though. Does he have money?” She wiggles her eyebrows at him, and Cisco knows she’s joking. There’s no hint of the disapproval that his mother Alba usually has, although that sliver of discontent has been mostly absent the entire weekend.

“Not a cent,” Cisco assures her.

“Love,” she sighs, and turns to her plate. Cisco would be offended if anyone else in his family asked—i.e. Dante, his parents, literally anyone else —but his aunt had married young and her husband was fifteen years older. It runs in the family, he guesses.

Stuck between two people who were busy with their food and their conversations, Cisco felt a stab of loneliness. His thoughts drifted to Harry, who he invited to this wedding in the first place. Cisco wonders how things would have gone if Harry came… if his family would like him, too, or if they just like HR’s weird personality. Cisco wonders if Harry would put in the same amount of effort that HR does in trying to impress them, though part of him has to wonder if all of this is any effort to HR at all. He schmoozes like no tomorrow like, all the time.

Cisco is pulled from his thoughts and into a conversation when he hears his name. Cisco glances around, and his gaze settles on his dad, who repeats his question. “Cisco, I was just asking Harrison what kind of science the two of you do at those labs of yours. Temporal-spatial figure of analysis, he says?”

Cisco looks at HR, baffled, because it sounds like he put a bunch of scientific-sounding words together and went with it. Cisco did his best to make some shit up. Honestly, the more that came out of his mouth, the less his dad understood and therefore pretended he knew everything about. Cisco and HR fist-bumped under the table, and Cisco shoved a forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth to keep from being asked anything else.

But, really, what’s a rehearsal dinner without everything going to shit?

“Harrison,” Alba calls out, which despite their good streak still worries Cisco. HR looks to Cisco’s mom, eyebrows raised, waiting. She smiles at him, and Cisco knows that smile, and immediately loses his own. “Won’t you please tell me how you and Cisco met? You’ve been so talkative this weekend, and really, a mother just wants to know.”

HR looks at Cisco, and Cisco just shrugs and motions for him to go for it. It would be worse not to tell her now, and since HR is the writer, Cisco hopes he’s got something that makes him look good at least. “Well,” HR began, and Cisco pushes down the urge to stop him before he begins, “the question really isn’t how we met, but how we started dating, of course!”

He grins, and oh, there it is, the familiar urge of Cisco wanting to sink through is chair. If he sends enough channeled vibrations through it, would the atoms disperse, and let Cisco fall to the floor and hide under the table?

Cisco squeezes his lips together in a tight smile, and looks to HR, who continues with his tale quite vividly. Cisco isn’t even really sure where he gets it all, but it includes an explosion, and some chemicals, and scientific jargon that is, again, not right. However, before he gets to any of the “good stuff” HR drops the real bomb of the evening: “But really, he was the biggest surprise after my divorce.”

Wait, divorce?

Divorce?

Cisco’s eyes go wide, as do the rest of his listening family. HR trails off, catching drift of the mood change, and tries to continue the story along but Alba stopped paying attention. Her eyes are on Cisco, drilling holes into his head, probably because he didn’t tell her or anyone else but how was he supposed to know when Harry never got divorced—

“What?” Cisco interrupts the silence. “It’s not like I broke them up. Keep going.”

HR does, but the rest of the dinner is awkward. He and Cisco do not stay for dessert, and Cisco’s mom only kisses him on one cheek rather than two when they leave.

“A divorce?” Cisco asks. “Seriously?” He’s not even mad, or unsurprised, at this point. Instead, he lets HR take the bed, and tries to figure out the pillow situation on the floor.

“Too much?” HR asks, and twirls his infamous pen between his fingers.

“Just a little, dude.”

“Sorry.”

And that was that.

“Wait,” HR says, and okay, so maybe it wasn’t. He shifts on his side and turns to face Cisco—who was on his knees and the carpet really doesn’t feel great in shorts—“I wanted to ask you a question earlier.”

“Shoot,” Cisco says, giving up and flopping on a lumpy fake-mattress. He and HR are practically bros at this point. He’s met more family than Caitlin has and Cisco has learned, and seen, more of him in the past forty-eight hours than he’s ever cared to know.

“You and Harry. What’s the deal with that?”

Cisco snorts, “What do you mean? You know the deal. You’ve been pretending to be the deal.”

HR shakes his head, “I know that part. But there’s more, right? Like trouble in Earth-2 paradise?”

Cisco glares, but HR only waves his arms, as if to prove a point. Cisco sighs. “Yes. No. Not really. We haven’t seen each other in a while, that’s all. It’s been a busy month.”

“With Jesse,” HR fills in, remembering their other conversation.

“Yep.”

“And… you’re fine with that?”

Cisco shrugs, though HR can’t really see it. “It is what it is, man. I’m easy and not high-maintenance.”

HR pauses, probably debating on whether to even talk about that sentence or not. He decides against it, and says instead, “And he’s your boyfriend?”

Cisco winces, and sits up, resting on his elbow. “Man, how come you can remember shit my family says to me but not an ATM pin?”

“It’s too many numbers.”

“It’s four numbers, HR!”

HR just looks at him.

“Ugh, fine. No, but again, yes. He doesn’t like that word. I do. It’s fine. I’m going to bed.”

“All right. Sweet dreams. But a word of advice? Talk to him. Communication is the medicine to all romantic wounds.”

Cisco gets up to turn off the lights. “ Goodnight, HR.”

On the day of the wedding, Cisco wakes up to an empty hotel room. He suspects that HR is out on his morning coffee run, but late morning quickly bleeds into early afternoon, and HR is nowhere to be found. Cisco instead gets a text from Dante, telling him to meet for brunch in the ballroom downstairs.

When he gets there, his immediate family, and the bridal party, have cups of coffee. HR is there at the entrance, offering one to Cisco, who takes it mostly because it’s being shoved in his hands. And who says no to coffee after the night he had? Everyone in the room is in a great mood, due to the occasion and, of course, to the dispersion of either caffeine, mimosas, or both.

“Hey,” Cisco says to HR, “what time did you wake up?”

HR waves the question off. “Who even remembers?”

At the brunch table itself, getting-married-today cousin Alex finally sits next to him. They catch up on everything they can, and asks, partially tuning in to one of HR’s crazy stories, “Where is he from again?”

“Canada,” Cisco says with his mouth full.

She nods, and accepts it, as if to say, duh, right, white people .

After that, it’s game on. The bride and her party separate to go get ready, to squeeze her into her dress and makeup and whatever else. The groom, who spent brunch at a different hotel with his family, will probably get ready in a few hours. Cisco tears HR from a group of cousins in order to hang out with him around the city. They have a few hours to kill before they have to get dressed, and really, he doesn’t want to spend any more money than he has to. Or let HR near another coffee shop until five.

After a walk through downtown and then a park, Cisco figures that really, HR isn’t that bad. Even if he continues to impose relationship advice on Cisco, who really isn’t asking for it. Apparently all Wellses think they know best.

Remember when Cisco said shit hit the fan at the rehearsal dinner? It didn’t. It just conveniently waited until the actual wedding .

It starts like this: Cisco and HR show up at the church on time, freshly showered and shaved. Cisco pulls his hair back for once in his life, and his mother pats his cheek when she sees him, then remarks it’s because I can see it now . Thanks again, Mama.

The ceremony is beautiful and traditional. Cisco cries, and he’s man enough to admit it. Till death do us part always gets to him, he’s a sucker for happy endings. When he looks over at HR, he’s crying too. They are so in tune with their emotions. Harry could learn something from them.

During the cocktail hour, which stands in between the ceremony and the reception, he and HR knock back a couple of drinks. They float around from family member to family member, and have a pretty okay time.

During the reception, there are speeches, there’s food, and then the bar reopens and so does the dancefloor. Everything is good, the night’s almost over, they’ve made it and even Dante is having a good time.

Except, well. Shit. And the fan.

Cisco’s speaking with his parents, Dante, and his girlfriend when he sees it happen out of the corner of his eye. Someone’s hand is on HR’s shoulder, spinning him around, and punches him in the face.

HR goes down like he was knocked out in a movie, but that’s the only cinematic thing about it. The music keeps going, his family keeps dancing, and the bride and groom are still laughing across the room with the groom’s parents.

But in the immediate vicinity, everything stops. His family is staring wide eyed and open mouthed, too alarmed to even react. Everything happened so quickly even Cisco didn’t have time to stop it. His first thought is metahuman , but when he turns to see HR’s attacker, the person standing there shocks him even more than it would have if King Shark himself had been standing there.

Harry . His boyfriend or partner or man-friend or whatever. Who’s busy on Earth-2 and whose doppelganger sits bleeding on the floor.

“Harry,” Cisco says breathlessly, because he hasn’t seen the man in over a month. Then, time sort of catches up with him, and he dazedly says, “What the hell?”

“Cisco,” Harry grits out, and he doesn’t look happy to see him. Cisco’d missed Harry. He’d wanted to do dinner when he got back from the wedding. You know, something quiet, where they could eat Harry’s expensive food and have sex. Instead, he got Harry party-crashing Alex’s wedding, which he was originally invited to and declined , and punching his fake-self in the face.

Like, seriously? Is this even Cisco’s life?

“Cisco?” he hears his mom ask from across the table, but she sounds like she’s a hundred miles away behind the beat of the music and the roar in his ears. Cisco is pissed. Like, seriously pissed.

“Cisco,” Dante says, repeating their mother, “your boyfriend… has a twin?”

Cisco squeezes his eyes shut and tries to think of some logical way to explain this, but then HR stands up, grabbing a napkin off the table to clean his bleeding nose. He stands in the space between Cisco and his family, and Cisco feels free from the gazes of everyone else and grabs Harry’s forearm. “What are you even doing here?” he hisses.

Harry snatches his arm back, “I figured out the problem and came to Earth-1 to see you,” he says lowly. “And when I got here, I found out you went to the wedding with him .” He jerks his head to HR, who was quietly murmuring something to Cisco’s mother.

“Oh my God,” Cisco says, and shakes his head firmly. “We are not doing this here.”

With a napkin presses against his face, HR turns to Cisco and gives an apologetic look. Behind him, Cisco’s mother is breathing heavily, the glass of wine still in her hand. “Cisco,” she says louder this time, “This is just like my telenovelas. Why is Harrison’s twin brother here?”

Looking between his parents, his brother, and HR, the only thing Cisco could utter out is, “It’s complicated.” He then grabs the both of them by their arms and shoves them in front of him, pretty much running out of there. It’s not a cowardly thing to do, Barry does it all the time. Passing by Alex and her fiancé on his way out, he says over his shoulder, “Enjoy your marriage!”

The look she gives him would be priceless if Cisco wasn’t so pissed.

The walk back is completely silent.

There isn’t any yelling, or cursing, and no one makes any moves to punch HR. There’s a tension in the air on the way to the parking garage next to the hotel, as they stand on either side of him. In the elevator, Harry stares straight ahead, chin high. At Cisco’s side, HR taps at his broken nose tenderly with the napkin he stole from the table, which is quickly filling up with red.

When they reach the parking garage, Cisco finally realizes that they didn’t drive here all together. HR and Harry seem to realize it at the same time, too, and HR says, between pinched fingers on his nose, “This is awkward. What are we going to do, guys?”

Pushing aside his frustration, Cisco looks at Harry and shrugs. “We did take two separate cars.” They could do this here, or at Cisco’s hotel, but his family knows which room he’s in and Cisco’s plan is to hightail the fuck out of there.

“I don’t want you to go with him ,” is the only thing Harry says.

“Okay,” Cisco tries to reason, as if this were a perfectly normal situation. “Do we let him drive alone?”

“No,” they both say simultaneously. HR doesn’t even have a driver’s license.

“So who am I going with?” HR asks, and laughs nervously. He gently places a hand on Cisco’s arm, giving him a panicked look, mostly out of self-preservation. “You’re not going to let me go with him alone, are you?”

Harry grabs HR by his shirt and yanks him backwards, making HR let out a small yelp. Cisco jumps forward and pulls him back, but Harry bites out, “Don’t touch him!”

“He’ll touch me if he wants to, Harry,” Cisco defends, and ignores how bad it sounds. Cisco is really glad Barry and Caitlin aren’t here, because he can just imagine the looks on their faces, and how he’d have to scrub his mind of the thought of HR touching him even more.

Harry chooses to ignore Cisco’s words completely. He glares at HR, which makes HR shrink back. “I know what you’re doing. Leave Cisco alone.”

HR puts his hands in the air as if he’s surrendering. “Look, Harry, there’s a misunderstanding here. I don’t know what you think is going on, exactly—“ Harry growls, and HR trips backwards, but continues. “And Francisco is a nice man, wonderful, amazing. But me? With him? No thank you.”

Cisco resists a sigh, and breaks between the pair again. “Gee, thanks. You,” he points at Harry, “I’ll meet at STAR Labs. You,” he points to HR, “are with me. We’re going back to the hotel and checking out, and then we’re headed home. End of story.” Looking back at Harry, Cisco says, “Don’t call me. I don’t want to see you until we get back. Let’s go, HR.”

Without another word, he turns and leaves the parking garage, hiking back to his hotel a couple blocks away. He doesn’t look back, but if he did, he’d see Harry standing alone in an empty parking garage watching Cisco walk away.

The first hour of the drive home is completely silent. Cisco focuses on the road, and HR, disoriented probably, never reaches for the radio. He doesn’t say anything, either, sitting in the quiet and wringing his napkin between his hands. Cisco looks over at him every now and again, his gaze dropping to the blood on his white dress shirt.

Cisco feels guilty. Like, really guilty. Sure, he’s wanted to punch HR before, but he never actually did it. And now, HR is here because Cisco asked him to be, and the thanks he gets in return is a broken nose and a ruined suit.  

When rain starts hitting the windshield, Cisco finally sighs and pulls over into a gas station. HR looks at him, and Cisco answers, “I could use some candy right now. Are you coming?”

They hop out of the car and walk inside together. Cisco holds the door open for him, and nods to the gas station attendant who looks up from her magazine, runs her eyes across HR, and looks back down.

“Get what you want,” Cisco tells him, “I definitely owe you.”

By the time they cash out, there’s three sodas, four bags of chips and a shit-ton of gummy worms and licorice to split between them. Cisco pays with his card and they head back out, shielded from the rain by a ceiling of neon lights. They get back in the car, which still sits at the gas pump. Behind them, some pickup pulls up and flashes its brights through the back window.

Cisco doesn’t start the car and they just sit in their seats, seatbelts unbuckled. HR digs into the licorice, and offers the bag to Cisco, who grabs two to treat himself. “I’m sorry,” Cisco finally says.

“For what?” HR asks, mouth full.

Cisco looks at him like he’s stupid. “For you getting punched in the face. And for tricking you into going on this trip with me. It was a dick move.”

“Yeah,” HR agrees, swallowing. “But I had fun. Don’t worry too much about ole’ Harry and me, I’m sure we’ll make up. I’ll bring him a hot cup of coffee later on tonight.”

“Don’t do that,” Cisco says immediately, “I need to talk to him first.”

“Ah,” HR says, swinging a piece of candy in Cisco’s direction, “makes sense.”

Cisco takes in a deep breath and feels himself calm down. The sound of rain on the roof definitely helped, and he was in no mood to rush home to the crap that’s waiting for him. Out of nowhere, he starts to laugh.

“What?” HR asks.

“I can’t believe my family actually likes you. And that Harry came all the way from Earth-2 to punch you in the face.” He giggles, and lets his head rest against the top of the steering wheel. HR laughs too, but that’s just the kind of guy he is, not hysterical like Cisco.

“Seriously though,” Cisco says from his spot, “I’m sorry Harry attacked you.”

“That’s not your fault,” HR shrugs. “I have one of those faces.”

“I really appreciate you doing this for me.”

“You saved my life,” HR reminds him, throwing an arm behind Cisco’s seat. “Besides, what are friends for?”

“Yeah, you’re right. We are friends, aren’t we.”

“One could even say… best friends?” HR asks hopefully.

Cisco rolls his eyes and sits up, back to the seat. He wants to say don’t push it , but says instead, “You’ll have to fight Barry for that one… and Harry.”

“Okay, just good friends?”

Cisco claps a hand on his arm, “Sure, buddy.” He smiles and starts the car. When he pulls back out onto the highway, his body feels a lot lighter.

When they get back to Central City, Cisco debates just going home and leaving Harry to wait. It’s a tempting idea, but Cisco’s gotta face the music at some point, even if falling into bed at his apartment sounds like heaven right now. Besides, he doesn’t want HR crashing on his (super uncomfortable) couch.

When Cisco pulls into the parking lot of STAR Labs and cuts the gas, HR turns to him. “Are you going to talk to him?” he asks.

“Yep,” Cisco responds.

“Are you going to yell at him?”

“Yep.”

“Really?”

Cisco sighs, “Probably not. I’m not really that mad at Harry, just tired.”

HR nudges him, “Not even to defend my honor?” When Cisco gives him a look , he says, “Just a word of advice—I know, I know, but hear me out. Yell at him, sure, but talk to him too. Sounds like you have a lot more to talk about than him just knocking me right in my best feature.” HR flashes a smile, and then hops out of the car.

He helps with HR’s suitcase, and wheels it inside. The halls feel louder than usual, like every step Cisco takes and every roll of the suitcase is being broadcasted across the building. Cisco thinks Harry is going to be around every corner, and yet he never is. By the time they enter the Cortex, there’s a knot back in Cisco’s chest.

Caitlin and Barry are there, waiting. Judging by the looks on their faces, they know what’s about to go down. Barry, looking a tiny bit guilty, says, “Harry’s been back for a while now. He went straight to your lab…”

Cisco nods, and heads to the elevators. Barry says behind him, “I think I heard something break!”

In the elevator, Cisco cracks his knuckles and decides to follow HR’s advice. The doors ding open, and Cisco tentatively walks inside his own lab as if he could step on a mine any second.

It takes a moment, but Cisco spots Harry. He’s at the desk near the center of the room, tinkering with some kind of tech that’s broken into several pieces. Cisco leans against one of the shelves, crosses his arms, and says, “Hey.”

Harry doesn’t look up, or even acknowledge his existence, really. Typical. Cisco decides to just keep talking. “So, we checked out of the hotel, and then hit the gas station on the way back, in case you were wondering. My mom keeps calling, so I threw my phone in the backseat and still haven’t looked at it. Thanks, by the way.”

He waits for Harry to respond and—nope, still nothing.

“Are you just going to sit there? After what you did?”

Harry slams his screwdriver down on the metal table. He shoots out of his chair and makes sudden, intense eye contact. Cisco can see him very clearly now. His body is tensed up, not unlike it does whenever Jesse runs headfirst into danger. He’s seen Harry freak out, and seen him get emotional, and he doesn’t deal with either very well at all.

“What I did?” he demands. “What about you? Did you think twice about taking him as your date ?” Harry pushes the stool he was sitting on behind him with his foot.

“First of all,” Cisco says in his defense, “HR was only my date because you cancelled on me. Again.”

“Oh,” Harry scoffs, “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that an emergency warranted you replacing me with my idiot doppelganger.”

Cisco pinches the bridge of his nose and tries to hold onto HR’s advice. “Sure, this time it’s an emergency. But they’re always emergencies, Harry, and you always cancel. I haven’t seen you in over a month until you came and punched HR in the face!”

Harry pauses. “It hasn’t been… that long… has it?”

Cisco just looks at him, “Uh, yeah, it has. Which—it’s whatever, I get that the work you’re doing is important—but the one time I went to surprise you, Jesse had her suit half melted off, and we had to step into superhero mode. There’s been no time for us and it’s just…” Cisco shrugs.

“That’s been happening alot lately,” Harry says offhandedly, probably thinking about the handful of times Jesse’s been on fire in the past six weeks. He really needs to work on improving the inflammability of her suit.

“I can probably fix that later,” Cisco says, and waves it off. “That’s not the point.”

“So what is the point, Cisco? I’m not getting it here.”

“God, Harry. The point is that I miss you, okay? I got used to seeing you every day and then, suddenly, it was once or twice a week until all of a sudden it was not at all. And that kind of sucks when you can’t see the guy you’re in love with, you know?”

“Oh,” is what Harry says.

“Yeah,” Cisco replies.

Harry clenches and unclenches his hands, as if he has no idea what to do with them. Slowly, he approaches Cisco, and grips his upper arms when he reaches him, thumbs rubbing against Cisco’s shoulders. The touch feels like a relief. Harry slides his hands up Cisco’s arms, over his shoulders, all the way to cupping his jaw between both hands.

Despite being apart for so long, they melt into each other as if they’d just touched yesterday.  Cisco closes his eyes when Harry lowers his head into a kiss, and breathes him in. Harry presses two more kisses to his lips, then a few up his jaw, and then lets their foreheads rest together.

“I really screwed this one up, huh?” Harry asks quietly.

“Just a little,” Cisco mumbles, and moves into a tighter embrace, with his arms around Harry’s waist and his head on his shoulder.

He can feel Harry swallow. He says, “I missed you, too. I didn’t realize how long it had been since… doesn’t matter, I should have paid attention.” Cisco thinks it’s easier for Harry to say this because, when Cisco is tucked into him, he doesn’t have to look him in the face. “We should… talk if we have any problems. Not ignore it, or wait for it to come up later. Something we both could use some improvement on.”

Cisco snorts, and pulls back. Instead of giving up all contact completely, he settles for gripping Harry’s hands instead. “Okay, so, if we have a problem, we have to say something. Deal?”

“Deal,” Harry repeats. Then twists his mouth like he’s about to say something distasteful. “I’m also sorry for… punching my doppelganger in front of your entire family.”

Cisco shrugs, then grins at the thought of it. “It’s fine. I think they were impressed by it actually. Although… you have to apologize to him.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Fine. But come to Earth-2 with me afterwards.”

“Are you sure?” Cisco asks.

Harry shrugs this time, “Sure. You can avoid your mother completely that way.”

Cisco hits him in the arm, but agrees anyway.

Despite their agreement, the hop to Earth-2 takes three days. Job and retirement plan, remember? Crime never sleeps. But then, it’s smooth sailing, and the breach is easy-peasy for Cisco to open. They jump through together, and Cisco is greeted by the familiar humidity of Earth-2’s summer.

On their way to Harry’s office in STAR Labs—Harry had some blueprints he needed to run by Cisco, and really, that just warmed Cisco’s heart—Harry’s assistant tracked them down and stopped them. “Sir,” she says, out of breath and clutching a tablet to her chest, “I’ve been searching for you for four days! You have a conference in eight minutes .”

“Oh,” Harry says, frowning. “Cancel it.”

“Cancel it?” she repeats.

“While you’re at it, clear my whole day.” He wraps his arm around Cisco’s shoulders. He’s stiff, but makes up for it by saying, “I’ve got a date with my, ah… boyfriend.”

Cisco stares at him, and Harry says, “What?”

“Seriously?” Cisco asks. “All it takes is one punch to HR’s face to get you to start using that word?”

“Shut up,” Harry says fondly.

Cisco hates brunch. Seriously hates it. He thought it was bad at Alex’s wedding, but man, he had no idea how horrible it’d be when he’s the one getting married. At least he knows Harry is just as miserable as he is.  

“So, Harrison,” Alba Ramon says, one breath away from ordering another margarita at ten in the morning, “when did you, um,” she glances back between Cisco and Harry, “well…”

“Just spit it out, Mama. I know you want to ask.”

Alba says quickly, in one breath, “How did you find out your brother had impersonated you at Alex’s wedding to trick Cisco into falling in love with him?”

Cisco rolls his eyes, “It wasn’t that dramatic—”

“I think the woman deserves to know,” Harry says, tormenting him.

“Well then,” Cisco says, “you tell her.”

Harry slips an arm around Cisco’s shoulder, and gives a small, sly grin.