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His phone beeped instead of buzzed.

Joe’s heart rate jumped in conditioned response. He grabbed the phone and swiped the screen. Barely registered the oddness of 'Cisco Ramon' being the name beside the little text bubble.

The words in the bubble were Hey, so what happened with Miss Sherry?

Joe looked around for his jacket as he pushed the button to call the number back. Keys, badge was in his wallet in his pocket, gun was locked in the drawer.

The phone rang five times before the call was answered. Despite the text he just sent Cisco sounded utterly baffled to hear from him. “Joe?”

“What do you mean? Did something happen at Barry's old house? We didn't get a call to go out there.”

“What?” Cisco puffed a breath into the phone a moment later that Joe realized was laughter. “Hey, no, I was just asking, like, what happened? Did you get her number?”

He blinked at that and stopped looking around. “Sherry’s number?”

“Her phone number.” Cisco sounded amused. “Man, are you ever a cop.”

“Her phone number.” Joe dropped into his chair, glancing around to make sure the station was still calm around him as his own urgency died a slow death. “You texted. I don't get texts.”

“Like, ever?”

“Rarely. Texting means emergencies. Even my kids know to call me if they need me.”

“Oh, man. Sorry. Didn't know. I text everybody.” Cisco sounded like he was moving around on his end. “I don’t get calls. Before Barry I never made calls, either. Like you might be the first person I’ve actually talked to on this phone outside of work people and emergencies. But. Mental note made: no texting Joe anymore.”

Joe sighed, his heart rate slowing back to normal as Cisco chattered in his ear.

“So?”

“So...?”

“Sherry, man.”

Joe laughed faintly. “Why do you want Sherry’s number? Do I have to give you a talk?”

Cisco echoed the laugh.

He seemed to be the kind of person who was constantly amused. Joe knew people like that, but many of them seemed to direct their laughter at other people. Cisco was different, from what Joe could tell. His amusement wasn’t aimed at Joe, it was more...expressing general pleasure with a world in which Joe existed to ask apparently stupid questions.

“I'm asking if you got her number. I was not the one she was Mrs. Robinsoning all over. But she was hot, and she seemed like a nice lady. So are you gonna get some of that sinful daiquiri or what?”

She did seem like a nice lady. And it was refreshing being checked out so thoroughly by someone who was open and blatant about doing exactly that. But he shook his head. “No, no. She's part of a case.”

Cisco breathed another faint laugh. “She's like peripherally part of it, at best, and the case is both fifteen years old and unofficial.”

“No," he said again, firm. He reached out and locked the gun drawer that he’d unlocked a minute ago in his text panic, and pale overhead lights glittered off the ring on his finger. “I don't do that.”

There was a pause. Cisco wanted to ask, Joe could hear it in the silence.

Joe didn't want to talk about it. “I'm surprised you even asked. I thought you were ticked off at me.”

“Huh? Oh, about...nah. I mean, yeah, but no. You're wrong about Doctor Wells, that's a given. But now that we've got old-man-Barry blood at the scene obviously there's some funky stuff happening, so I get how the weirdness would make you suspect crazy things.”

Poor kid. The truth would break his heart, Joe suspected. He had no doubt, Barry’s blood or not, that the full truth about Harrison Wells was going to be an ugly thing. His biggest hope through the investigation he was running on the sly was that he could minimize the damage that truth would do to the people around him.

“So you're forgiven, and it was kinda cool being a cop for a little while, feel free to call me anytime you need a sidekick.”

He smiled at that. “Considering I started that day with nothing but hunches and ended it with fifteen-year-old DNA samples and actual in-progress 3D crime scene photos, that's an offer I'm gonna take you up on.”

“Awesome.” Cisco's reply was bright, a little stretched, as if his answering grin was so big it distorted his words. “Great. You've got my number.”

The evidence and Cisco's all-around brilliance wasn’t the only reason why Joe would work with him again. There was something nice, and all-too-rare, about being around someone with that much enthusiasm inside of him. Watching that kid’s excitement droop and his smiles vanish after Joe confessed his suspicion of Wells, that had been the worst part of the last few days.

That weight left his shoulders as he hung up the phone and sat, grinning, at his desk. Until Eddie walked past grousing about there being nothing to smile about, and Singh stuck his head out to shout them to a robbery just three blocks east of the station. And life happened, the way it always seemed to.

He woke up late on his off day to find that the power had gone out overnight and his phone died on its useless charger. When he plugged it in in the car on the way to the store the beep of a half dozen texts registering at once made him pull the car over in alarm.

But the series of bubbles waiting for him made him laugh, and quieted his racing heartbeat.

Hey, I’ve got a question for you when you have a sec.
OH MY GOD I TEXTED YOU I FORGOT
I'M SO SORRY THIS IS NOT AN EMERGENCY NO ONE IS DEAD
I MEAN PEOPLE ARE DEAD THAT'S THE WORLD WE LIVE IN BUT NO ONE IMPORTANT
I mean everyone's important but just none of this is an emergency
I should stop sending these, shouldn’t I?

Joe dialed, setting the brake on the car after he pulled a little closer to the curb.

“Oh my god, are you mad?”

He chuckled. “This must be some kind of important question you’ve got.”

“It is!” Cisco sounded calmer instantly, and as cheerful as ever. “Bootsy Collins.”

Joe blinked. “Is that a question? Or have you been hacking into my google search history or something?”

“Um, rude, I would never. Bootsy’s Funk Unity League Band. They’re playing St. Louis this weekend.”

“Been sold out for three weeks, and no, I can’t get tickets. Police badges don’t work that way.” Not that he hadn’t thought about trying.

“No, I mean, I have tickets. Caitlin gave them to me, because she’s amazing. Early birthday thing. Except she hates funk because she’s also soulless, and Barry mentioned it’s the kind of music you dig, so I thought I’d see if you wanted to road trip.”

It took Joe a minute to process a few different things about that. “You have tickets to see Bootsy three hours’ drive from here, and you’re asking me to go with you?”

“Hey, funk’s an unappreciated genre these days, us fans have to stick together. And you let me play cop for a day, I owe you one.”

He shook his head, smiling uncontrollably. “You realize it was you doing me the favor that day, right?”

“Well, whatever. If it helps we’d be taking your car, because the way mine’s been shaking lately makes me think bussing it would actually be safer.”

It did help. Joe couldn’t quite piece together that grinning young kid being a fan of a 70s legend, or inviting Joe West of all people to go see a show. But if he needed Joe’s car that made it an exchange of favors, which was easier to swallow. Not an equal exchange, because it was Bootsy and Joe was seriously disappointed he couldn’t score a ticket on his own. But if he paid for gas and a couple of meals, too, that would help even things out. A little.

“It’s cool either way, I just figured I’d ask.” Cisco still sounded cheerful, but a little muted, and Joe realized he let the pause go on too long. “I can always see if someone else wants--”

“You give that ticket to anyone else and I will personally see to it that you never again drive a mile without getting ticketed.”

Cisco laughed. “That’s what I’m talking about. Road trip. Call your criminals and tell them to keep it down Saturday, we got places to be.”

“Yeah, you spread the word to your metahumans.”

“Oop, I gotta go, got some results coming back. See you Saturday, I’ll text you details.”

Joe opened his mouth to remind him not to text, but Cisco was already gone. He grinned, tossing the phone on the passenger seat, and as he got back on the road he flipped through the CDs in the changer until he heard the familiar wah-wahs of a George Duke album starting up.

The beep, followed quickly by a second beep, made Joe tense. But that was quick to fade when he saw the name on the screen.

Is three hours a long enough drive to justify full road trip supplies?
DAMN IT.

Joe was still shaking his head when the phone buzzed a moment later. “You know, for a genius you have some real memory problems.”

“I remembered faster this time, at least. You are battling old instincts, my friend.”

“You’re thirteen, how old can your instincts be?”

“Ouch, okay? I’m fifteen, and they assign phones in the nursery at the hospital these days. I’ve been texting as long as I’ve been talking.”

Joe fumbled to turn the phone’s speaker on, and set it on the counter. “Remind me not to make age jokes when it just brings home to me how old I am.”

“With pleasure. So, what do you think?”

“About what?” He leaned into the fridge to pull out a package of andouille and the rest of the peppers he needed to slice up.

“Road trip. Do we qualify?”

“Three hours there, three hours back? I’d say.”

“Right, right, we have to come back. Should we crash there overnight? It’ll be late.”

Joe considered that, unwrapping the sausage. “Overnight trips are tough to plan in my line of work. Let’s see how the criminal world’s looking that night. Plan either way.”

“I can be flexible. Makes for better road trips. Am I on speaker?”

“Yeah, I’m cooking.”

“I love being on speaker. Makes me feel like I’m running a presentation. Oh, or narrating the movie of your life. ‘In a world where metahumans run wild, one man dares to cook himself dinner...’”

“Well.” Joe chuckled. “I’ve had worse background music while I cook, I’ll admit. I’ve had way better, though.”

“Oh, you want me to sing? That’s a dangerous road to go down, man. Wait, you’re cooking. This is important: is there an apron involved? Like one of those seriously frilly deals that’s way too small but someone got it for you as a gag gift years ago and you wear it all the time and it’s hilarious?”

“No apron, sorry.” Joe started on the bell peppers.

“So we’re equally disappointing to each other this evening, good to know.”

“You only say that ‘cause you’re not sampling what I’m cooking.”

“You can make good food without a frilly apron?” Cisco sounded honestly dubious, which just stretched Joe’s grin wider.

“I’ve been feeding two kids most of their lives, can’t be that bad at it.”

“Two very, very skinny kids.”

That was true enough, so Joe didn’t argue. Instead, he surprised himself: “Well, if you’re gonna lay down a challenge like that you may as well come try some.”

There was a pause, a beat. But if Cisco was surprised at the offer it didn’t register in his voice. “I’d ask what you’re making but let’s be honest, no matter what it’ll be better than the winner of the mac-n-cheese-or-ramen debate I’ve been pondering the last twenty minutes. Should I bring anything?”

“Appetite.” Joe smiled. “Maybe some bread, something crusty.”

“Got ya covered. Hey! If I--”

“No.”

A beat. “How’d you know--?”

“I don’t need an apron, I’m a very neat cook, so no I will not wear one if you bring one. Frilly or otherwise.”

“Daaaaang. Gonna have to check you for freaky meta mind-reading skills.” Cisco sounded endlessly pleased, though. “Right, lemme jet. Crusty bread awaits.”

Cheerfully, Joe reached out and swiped the screen to end the call and got back to his peppers.

He got along with people. He always had. He was an amiable man, respectful, and that went pretty far in his line of work. Cops saw the worst of the world every day, and personalities tended to get exaggerated after a while. Joe had seen some tense rookies become tightly-wound, hair-trigger cops, the worst kind to have. He watched people with tempers become intolerant, he saw men and women who were already prone to melancholy become utterly depressed by the work.

He also saw a lot of decent people become terrific officers, and hopefully when people looked at him that’s what they saw too.

It was easy for him not to get disillusioned with the job: he raised the two greatest kids a man could ever hope to raise, and if he ever had doubts about himself he only had to see Iris or Barry to know that his life had made the world better, if only through them.

Still, on the job or off, Joe had always been pretty social, friendly. Open.

So it was strange for him to realize when he let Cisco Ramon into the house that it was the first time anyone walked through the door to visit him in...a really, really long time.

Strange because this was Barry’s friend. This was the kid who made Barry’s fancy suits and monitored his vitals and came up with plans to help him save people. This kid was Barry’s.

But as he walked through the door Cisco’s friendly brown eyes landed on Joe and his grin stretched wide and he didn’t seem remotely curious about whether Barry was even around. He smiled at Joe like Joe was the one and only person he wanted to hang out with, like it would never have occurred to him to think of Joe as Barry’s foster dad first and foremost.

He stretched out a brown paper bag proudly. “Bread. And I don’t know what the hell it is you think you’re cooking in there, but you didn't make nearly enough to fill the bottomless pit that opened up inside me the minute I smelled it.”

Joe took the bag and peered in, sniffing approvingly at the yeasty flour of bread so fresh it was still warm. “Where did you find hot sourdough this time of night?”

“Those of us who do not cook must learn to feed ourselves in other ways,” Cisco answered solemnly, though his grin was back the moment he was done speaking. “I got secrets. I got hookups.”

“Oh, you got hookups.” Joe took the bread into the kitchen. “Come on in, not like you don’t know where everything is already.”

But Cisco was slow to follow, and he took in everything around him like he really hadn’t ever been there before.

He looked the same as always. He was wearing a horrible pair of orange cords that Joe had seen him in before, and a t-shirt with an inexplicable design on it, some science reference or some damn thing Joe wasn’t supposed to understand. His long hair was tied back, which wasn’t normal, but he looked casual and easy-going as ever.

Except he was in Joe’s house to visit Joe, and that was new.

Joe hadn’t thought about it in those terms, since the invitation slipped out so easily and was so easily accepted. But this was...actually really strange. Wasn’t it?

That thought came in the moments between his moving ahead of Cisco and Cisco joining him at the counter, but Cisco’s easy grin and casual interest in the things on the stove made it fade again fast.

“So? What is it and how does something made with human hands smell this good?”

“You speak flattery like someone who’s used to relying on other people’s cooking. It’s just red beans and rice. With some andouille that might actually be of divine origins; I can’t testify to that either way, I get it from a butcher downtown.” He lifted the lid on the pot and inhaled with satisfaction. “That’s the trick, kid: get good enough sausage and the rest is cake.”

“If I ever need to pretend like I know how to cook, that’ll be helpful to remember.”

“You better know how to wash dishes or set tables, at least.”

Cisco saluted, drawing in another deep sniff before heading off behind Joe to rattle around in cabinets. “So you were making up this feast all for yourself?”

“I like to cook on the rare occasions I don’t just grab Big Belly at midnight after a late shift.”

Joe stirred the pot and listened to the footsteps behind him, the clink of dishes. It was a familiar sound, but getting rarer these days. Normally it would be Barry talking about his day, or Iris telling stories about work to make him laugh. But neither of them made it home for meals much anymore. Even Barry since he moved back in still spent most evenings out.

Joe shook away any potential melancholy from those thoughts. His kids were grown, busy, and living the full lives he wanted for them. Nothing to be sad about.

“Normally this would feed me the rest of the week,” he said as he turned to grab a bowl to ladle the hot red beans and rice into. He would’ve just eaten right from the pot, but. Company.

“Yeah, I’m gonna feel kind of guilty when that doesn’t happen.”

By the time Joe got the entree on the table, Cisco had found a platter and sliced an entire loaf of sourdough in perfect, thick-cut pieces. He laid them out in staggered display like a professional. Joe watched him pre-slice some butter to soften it and stared at him with eyebrows raised.

Cisco just grinned, entirely unselfconscious. “I worked back of house for this really, really shitty French restaurant for spending money during college. Can’t cook to save my life but I can make food look totally great after someone else makes it.”

Joe shrugged, amused, and went to the fridge. “Beer or soda?”

“Are you gonna card me if I say beer?”

“Maybe.” Joe pulled out two bottles.

Food dished out, they sat. Joe had a moment, right after his butt touched the chair, of again wondering if there was something about this that should have felt weirder than it did.

But silence didn’t have a chance to fall, and things didn’t have a chance to start feeling sideways.

Cisco dished himself out a flatteringly huge portion of beans and rice, and as soon as the plate was back on the table in front of him he jumped into conversation. “So. I’m not acting like any of this is my business, but I want to ask you something anyway. Feel totally free to tell me to shove it.”

Joe raised his eyebrows, waiting.

The kid stuck a forkful of food in his mouth, and his eyes went round. He instantly held up a hand to stall further conversation.

Joe grinned, pleased, as Cisco shoved a few more bites in about as fast as it was possible to chew and swallow. Joe had a bite of his own meal, and it was tasty as ever but this was a standard dish for him, he wasn’t as impressed with himself as his guest seemed to be.

After a few more mouthfuls, Cisco let out an audible sigh. “I wondered. I asked myself how rude you’d think I was being if I brought a bottle of hot sauce with me. I mean, not because I had doubts but because I always bring hot sauce, even to restaurants. But then I thought: you know, I bet if anyone knows how to actually season a meal it’s Joe.”

“And you were right.” Joe lofted a forkful of rice in toast. “But for the record, I would have understood. I’ve been known to decline invitations to dinner parties because I knew the people cooking don’t understand that there’s more to life than salt and pepper.”

“Hear hear.” Cisco returned the spicy salute and had another bite.

Joe watched him with a smile. His kids were too used to his standard meals to enjoy them so much, and Joe hadn’t cooked for anyone but them in years.

“So?” he said finally, when Cisco paused to have a swallow of beer. “You were gonna ask me something?”

“Right!” Cisco set the bottle down and sighed his contentment. “‘I don’t do that.’”

Joe blinked. “You don’t ask questions?”

“Huh? No. You said that, on the phone yesterday. ‘I don’t do that.’”

Joe knew at once what he was talking about. He just had to figure out how he felt about it.

“Like I said, tell me to mind my own business if you want to.” Cisco studied him, gripping his fork as if subconsciously wanting to dive back into the meal and fighting the urge best he could. “Just. Every time Barry talks about his family, it’s Joe and Iris. Nobody else. I know what happened with his parents, but...”

Joe nodded slowly.

Cisco waited.

“Iris’s mother…”

“Is she dead?” Cisco was nice enough to avert his eyes as he asked, looking at his half-empty plate as if to give Joe a moment for some kind of private reaction.

But Joe didn’t need it. “No.”

“No?” Surprise lifted those dark brown eyes again.

Joe sat back, had a draw from his beer. “We were married almost two years before Iris came along. Married young, fresh out of college. Younger than Iris is now. But we were solid. Jackie’s the one Iris got her creativity from. She was a poet, and a good one.” He hesitated, feeling his story going scattered. He didn’t tell this often enough to have a set path.

“Once Iris was born, something happened. Jackie changed. She handed Iris off to anyone she could, took off longer and longer periods of time. She had never had strong feelings about being a mother, but the whole time she was pregnant she never seemed reluctant. So I didn’t know what was going on. She didn’t talk about it. Didn’t talk about much of anything. Things got tense with me and her. I’d come home from a long shift and find someone I barely knew sitting in our apartment taking care of my two month old baby girl, no idea where Jackie was or when she’d be back.”

Cisco listened, a quiet kind of interest in his face.

“One night when Iris was maybe nine months old I came home and found a party. Absolutely no one there I knew, just some near-stranger Jackie asked to babysit, who called a bunch of her alcoholic friends. I was...they didn’t even know where Iris was when I asked, had to shake someone awake to tell me she was sleeping in the spare room. Alone in the middle of a bed she could have rolled off of, or…”

He let out a breath, feeling tense at the memory of it. He wasn’t prone to fits of anger, but he got downright physical shoving those people out of his house that night.

“Jackie showed up two days later. We had...an argument.” Understatement, but Joe could see on Cisco’s face that that was obvious. “She took off again, and this time she didn’t come back. A few months later I heard from her mom that she was in treatment. They still called it postpartum depression in those days. I think it’s something fancier now. Either way, Jackie got in touch after a few more months. Said she was getting better, she loved me, but she couldn’t be a mother. She was terrified of it.”

Joe hesitated. He didn’t normally go into so much detail. But Cisco listened, his eyes wide and interested, and he was proving to be really easy to talk to.

Still, he didn’t much feel like reliving that particular period of his history at any great length. “We’ve been divorced since that year.”

Cisco’s gaze drifted down to Joe’s hand.

Joe smiled, straightening his fingers and looking at the ring. “This hasn’t represented Jackie for me for a long, long time. This means family. It means my baby comes before everything else. Both my kids.”

“That’s cool,” Cisco said, speaking those casual words with genuine sincerity. “But...I don’t get it.”

“What?”

“What it’s got to do with Sherry of the sinful daiquiris, and ‘I don’t do that’.”

“Well. I suppose it’s...mostly an excuse, really.” Joe thought about it. “At first because of Jackie, then Iris, then for simplicity. And now it’s just...late. Too late.”

“Yeah, that seems incorrect to me, man.”

Joe shrugged. “I never felt like I was missing out on anything, being a single dad. I get all the love I could want. I’ve been on a few dates, here and there, mostly when some well-meaning friend suckered me into meeting their ‘friend’. But it’s a complication I’m fine doing without.”

Cisco studied him, brow furrowed, but he humphed out a breath and smiled after a moment. “If you’re happy.”

“I am.”

It was the truth. There were a lot of quiet nights, but when Joe weighed the loneliness that came from missing his kids with the uncertain complications of trying to invite some stranger into his life, the scales tilted in an obvious way. They had tilted that way even before Barry got superpowers from a lightning bolt and injected a thousand more complications into their lives.

He looked across the table at Cisco, studying him in return. It occurred to him that although he trusted Cisco with a hell of a lot, and he liked him, he didn’t actually know much about him. “So, what about you?”

Caught in mid-chew, Cisco just tilted his head in question.

“I know Wells was married for a while. Caitlin’s got a fiance who’s...a situation. Barry...has…”

“Mmm.”

“Mmm.” They traded meaningful looks. Joe chuckled. “But what about you?”

Cisco, surprisingly, flushed. “Well. I don’t...it’s been…” He hesitated, looking down at his food like it had some kind of answer. “I hit kind of a rocky point a while back, and I haven’t got back on the horse yet.”

“Oh yeah? Why not?”

"It's just not that easy." He looked up after a moment, his smile was back in place. “You ever see one of those videos on like Youtube or Facebook of a baby giraffe taking its first steps?”

Joe blinked.

“You know…” Cisco leaned in, fork forgotten in his hand as he gestured. “They’re these little lumps of wet brown fur and giant eyes, and they try to push up on these long legs that are all knees, and they just flop around for a while. Try to stand, legs splay out in all directions, collapse on their awkward little newborn butts. Like they’re nothing but clumsy impossible bodies and they’re pathetic and ridiculous?”

“I guess? I’m sure I’ve seen something like it.” Joe shook his head, caught by the way Cisco gestured and waved and tried with surprising accuracy to simulate long flailing legs with his fingers.

“That’s my hormones.” Cisco shrugged. “My game is at newborn-giraffe-on-Youtube level.”

Joe laughed. He laughed a lot when Cisco was around, but this one hit him hard. It welled up, strong and loud, from somewhere down deep. It shook his shoulders until he had to set his fork down.

Maybe because it was easy to picture. Maybe because of the twist of wryness in Cisco’s grin as he tried to illustrate the exact kind of flailing his level of game involved.

“But hey,” Cisco’s face flushed a shade darker as Joe’s laughter refused to slow. His grin was so broad it made his eyes squint. “Somewhere out there is someone who finds newborn giraffe videos totally hot, and...wow, okay, I didn’t think that statement through, hang on…”

Joe sank back in his chair, roaring.

Cisco gave up after a moment, laughing along with him.

Joe had to wipe his eyes before he could collect himself. “Speaking as someone…” He hesitated, shaking his head, letting a last few chuckles out. “Man. Speaking as someone who raised the most giraffish boy in the world, I’d say there’s hope for you.”

“What, Barry? Barry’s like 6’2 and - forgive me - totally hot. Not the same thing. He’s a giraffe people want to take home with them. I’m the one they press their noses against the glass at the zoo to laugh at before going on to something more interesting.”

“Hey, you’re...christ, how old are you?”

“Twenty-four.” Cisco’s chin rose proudly. “Almost. Soon. Ish.”

“Oh, Jesus.” More than half Joe’s age, at least. But younger than Joe’s kids. Definitely no more age jokes allowed. “Well, you’re young enough, you’ve got time to work out all the kinks in your game.”

“Maybe, if I live to be a thousand...no, I mean, I know, I’m not really worried about it or anything. Like you said, I don’t feel like I’m missing all that much. The work and Barry take up so much time, anything else would get pushed aside, right? Easier without the complications.”

Joe didn’t quite buy those words: there was wistfulness audible in Cisco’s voice. “Just how bad was that rocky period you mentioned?”

Cisco waved a hand. “I’ve got really great taste in a lot of things. Music, movies, obviously clothes. But I’m bad at people. Sometimes I find really lousy people.”

“Been there. Not since before Jackie, but I remember it well.”

Cisco smiled faintly. “Not great dinner conversation, is it?”

Joe shrugged. Not any worse than detailing what happened to break up his marriage and leave his daughter without a mom around. But Cisco’s smile was strained, so Joe let it rest. Everyone’s ghosts affected them differently.

“Well. So what else do you have going on? You have family around here?”

“Not really. Hey, so, road trip plans. I was thinking we could fast food it, but now I’m thinking you should absolutely cook something for the trip.”

Joe’s eyebrows rose. Didn’t take a cop’s instincts to notice that quick change of subject. Apparently there was more than one thing Cisco considered bad dinner conversation. “My food is not to be gulped down in a moving car, my food needs to be savored.”

Cisco grinned. “Fair enough. Gas station hot dogs it is.”

Joe thought about that, made a face. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Cisco beamed. Joe shook his head with a chuckle and got back to his meal.

Between dinner and a conversation that sequed from Barry and metahumans to George Clinton and Ella Fitzgerald, and a night that led from that conversation to exploring Joe’s record collection to doing dishes side by side, by the time Joe walked Cisco to the door it was obscenely late. Not sunrise or anything (Barry still wasn’t home, but now that he was dating Joe never knew whether to expect him or not), but still late enough that when Joe headed upstairs and noticed the time on his bedside table clock, he felt genuine surprise.

He hadn’t voluntarily seen that side of four in the morning in a long time. The phone woke him up about then every so often, and sometimes shifts kept him out that late, but on his night off, when he had work in the morning? He was a bear: he hibernated, stocked up on all the sleep he could.

So this was new.

He couldn’t bring himself to be bothered, though. Good meal, great talk, and a guest who made him laugh and shared some interests. Hell, by the end of the night Joe had completely lost sight of the fact that Cisco was half his age and a friend of his foster son.

He was gonna be dragging in the morning, but it was worth it. He went to bed feeling...happy, in an unfamiliar kind of way.

He didn’t put much thought into the feeling, though. He was content to just enjoy it.

The next day his phone stayed quiet, at least as far as texts and accompanying temporary high blood pressure went. His phone was never actually quiet, not with two chatty kids and the job. Still, he found himself at his desk scarfing down the skimpy remains of a dinner that should have lasted him a few days and he was half-tempted to call his guest from the night before and make sure he was…

Was what, though? That was the question he couldn’t answer, and the reason he didn’t actually call Cisco’s number. It was an unexpected (but nice) thought that he might have made himself a new friend, but Joe wasn’t a teenager. He didn’t call people for no reason.

He thought about him, though, this smart, grinning, young, young man who made him laugh so hard the night before, who he was apparently road-tripping with this coming weekend because they might well have been the only two fans of seventies funk in Central City.

It made him think, strangely, of an old set of friends Joe used to have, back in high school and college. They had been a fairly eclectic group. Mostly black, mostly liberal but only vaguely political in their thinking at all. But all very different, very wild and vibrant and he’d been right there with them.

Joe left high school thinking he wanted to go into business. A restaurant, maybe, bringing some of his grandmama’s recipes to the bland culinary world of Central City. But he was unsure, and at loose ends. Just like the rest of them, really. His best friend, Cedric, the guy he was closest to all through high school though they grew a little distant in college, didn’t even come close to picking a major until his third year in, and he ended up leaving and moving to California before he could graduate.

When Joe found his calling, as his mama would’ve put it, it shocked him how strongly most of those friends reacted. At least once they realized he wasn’t joking and actually did want to take his college degree and hide it under a cop uniform.

People he never knew to read a newspaper were suddenly coming at him with statistics and arrest rates and fury. Joe, he was told, was trying to side with the enemy. The same people who kept his community down and out. He was a sellout, a traitor.

It was right around the start of the 90s. Rodney King hadn’t happened yet, but it was no secret that cops weren’t a friend to black men. Joe wasn’t unaware of that. He just had more faith in humanity than to think things were that simple. Bad people became cops, but cops weren’t all bad people. And it was the first path he considered for his own life that actually spoke to him. He’d think about opening a restaurant and it seemed silly. He’d think about putting on a gun and a uniform and helping people who needed it, and it felt right.

So he went on ahead and did it. He told his friends that systems could be changed from inside as easily as from outside, and he believed it. But he lost them all, one by one. A few right from the start, others as life and adulthood pulled them away, and the urge to talk to them became less important as new people and new priorities came into his life.

The only one who stuck through it all was Jackie, and it wasn’t but a couple of years until Iris, and divorce, and the last tie he had to those days was broken.

He looked Cedric up on Facebook a couple years ago. He was married, a handful of kids all a few years younger than Joe’s, working in construction, profile full of Bible quotes. Joe didn’t even send him a message. He had no idea what they’d talk about.

He missed some things about that group of friends in school. He missed the community aspect of it. Cops had a community of their own, of course, a stronger one than civilians could ever realize, but it was different.

Joe missed meeting at long tables in loud restaurants, shouting out five different conversations at once, inside jokes and drinks and cornering people on the way to the bar for two minutes of serious conversation before getting back to the fun. Dinner with Cisco, and its endless conversational sidetracks and the laughter and the beer and all of it, it reminded him of those old nights with that group.

Maybe he just missed being young.

One of those conversational directions the night before had let to a lengthy discussion about old jazz standards and the women who best brought them to life. Ella, Billie, Nina, Sarah. Cisco held up his end of things well: the kid knew music, or maybe he was just genius-level about every single thing he had any interest in. But their rankings of the grand old divas of jazz and soul had been a little different from each other, and Joe’s fierce defense of Ella was followed the next morning by the grim discovery that he had lost a few of her songbook albums through the years.

So he left the station that day - on time, which in Central City these days usually just signified calm-before-the-storm - and headed for a record store downtown that Cisco recommended. He didn’t have much hope of finding Ella on vinyl, but he’d happily settle for CDs just to get her voice into his car on the drive home.

He was wrist-deep in a dusty and unorganized pile of records when he heard a familiar voice.

“Oh my god, you actually listened to me when I said things.”

He was already smiling as his gaze found Cisco himself, coming down the CD-crammed aisles from the front door. “One or two things filtered through, yeah.”

Cisco approached him fast. He was grinning but the grin was...strange. Tight. “I’m gonna have to start watching what I say around you if you’re seriously going to pay attention.” He reached Joe and moved around him, putting Joe between him and the door and most of the store.

Joe blinked at that, losing his place in the row of records to turn to him. “What’s up?”

“Nothing. I had a craving for some new tunes.”

“Uh huh.”

Cisco was studying the records with apparently total absorption. “You know I don’t actually own a record player? I mean I’m a music snob, to a point, but I’m also a tech snob, and there are people out there who convert vinyls to mp3s so I don’t have to.”

Joe watched him, heard a thin note in his voice during the stream of words. “So why do you like this place so much? CDs are as outdated as 8-tracks these days.”

“They are a dead medium,” Cisco confirmed. “But places like this are the best for expanding knowledge, you know? I’ve found a few groups I totally love now because one of their CD covers looked interesting. Never would’ve come up on Spotify playlists or iTunes recs or anything. Music’s the one thing I can do this with. Just browse and find something interesting…” He pulled out a record with a grin, flashing the cover at Joe.

The Ethel Merman Disco Album, the album read, complete with random disco lights and Ethel herself caught in the unflattering arm-flap of some dance move that probably shouldn’t have been photographed.

Cisco studied it, his smile going more genuine. “Why do you think the disembodied arm holding the fedora pointed at her was so important it had to stay in the picture?”

Joe laughed, suitably distracted. “You know, I’m almost curious enough to get this. I had no idea this existed.”

“Exactly! And that is the wonder of the record store, even in these modern times.” Cisco grinned over at Joe. But his gaze skittered past Joe towards the front of the store, and his smile tightened back into being artificial.

Joe wasn’t a cop for nothing. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

Cisco’s eyes went back to Ethel instantly.

Joe reached out and plucked the record from his hand, setting it on the row he’d been going through. “Cisco. Is something going on?”

Cisco hesitated, but when he looked over at Joe something in Joe’s expression must have alerted him. “Oh, hey, no, nothing...like, no metas or anything.”

Joe nodded. “But something.”

“Just…” Cisco looked out again, squinting towards the sunlight filtering through the store’s front windows. “It’s nothing.”

Joe faced him, arms folding across his chest.

Cisco grinned weakly. “I thought I saw somebody down the block. Somebody I don’t want to see.”

Joe studied him. Seemed to be the truth, but not nearly the whole truth.

Cisco let out a breath, his shoulders sagging a little. “It wasn’t him. I mean. I know it wasn’t. Just I keep thinking I see him whenever I’m out. It’s weird. Freaking me out a little.”

“Who?”

“Someone I used to know.”

Joe hesitated, glancing towards the front of the store. “You want me to go take a look?”

“No.” Cisco huffed a breath. “Seriously, it’s not him. He’d never put himself at risk just to follow me.”

At risk. Joe searched Cisco’s profile, considering how much about this kid he still didn’t know. He was bad at people, that’s what he said the night before. Sometimes he picked really bad people. Joe should have asked what his idea of bad was, apparently.

“Tell you what. Why don’t we take a walk. It’s nice out, we can double check this guy isn’t around. And if he is around…”

Cisco looked up at that, smiling faintly. “I’ll be with a big tough cop?”

Joe shrugged. “I do fit that description. Maybe not if I bring Ethel Merman’s disco album along, but.”

Cisco smiled, and it grew into a soft laugh. “You should get it anyway.”

“I do like Ethel. My mama loved all those old Broadway types.”

“Oh, your mom, sure. Yeah.” Cisco grabbed the album and held it out. “Just get it. It’s amazing and it’s six bucks, and you’ll be a better man for owning it.”

Joe took it with a grin and added it to the stack of CDs he’d set beside the record boxes. “Come on.”

Outside the store, Cisco took a look around and seemed satisfied. He didn’t seem to tense up much, and as they strolled down the sidewalk he distracted himself by digging through Joe’s bag of other finds.

“It was some kind of ADHD thing,” he said when Joe asked about this great epic love of music. “I was a pretty lousy student until second year of high school, when they tested me up to senior year and AP classes and things that finally didn’t bore the crap out of me. But even when the homework was actually interesting, I wouldn’t do it. I’d sit there in our little apartment and stare at the wall and daydream and listen to the family next door shouting through the walls, and my mind would be a million places at once. Then one day my brother slapped a pair of headphones over my ears and told me if I failed one of my fancy classes and he had to stop bragging to his friends about his genius brother he was gonna cut my hair off in my sleep. Which was a threat I totally took seriously.”

Joe glanced around as they walked, looking behind them surreptitiously when he thought Cisco wouldn’t notice. He wasn’t sure what was going on with Cisco or who it was he was trying to avoid, but there was an instinct telling him to keep his eyes out, and Joe never ignored that instinct.

He listened, though, because after Cisco shut down any talk of his family last night he was interested in whatever little glimpses he could get.

“Anyway, the music actually worked. It was like...having something steady to permanently distract me stopped my brain wandering all that far away, and, boom. Straight As. So music was suddenly important, and since I was doing nothing but studying I needed lots of it. I didn’t take those headphones off until I had my BA.”

Joe glanced over when he paused.

Cisco flushed. “Sorry. I talk. You should know better by now than to ask me things.”

“It’s called a conversation, kid. I’m interested.”

He looked over, smiling and ducking his eyes again quickly. “Oh. Well then.”

Joe nudged his arm. “That means don’t clam up.”

Cisco grinned. “Right, sorry. Hey!” He nodded ahead at a familiar sign. “Come on, coffee. My treat, since you blew the budget on Ethel.”

“Sold.” Joe reached the door first and opened it, holding it as Cisco moved through. He glanced back down the sidewalk the way they’d been coming, but nothing caught his eye.

Until someone stepped into view. Back a ways, but near enough that Joe could make out some details. A man, white, wearing a hoodie that covered his hair. Wearing glasses that glinted under the sun.

Something about him was familiar.

Whoever it was, he seemed to appear out of nowhere, and he stood still for a moment, looking...Joe couldn’t tell, but it sure as hell seemed like the guy was looking right at him.

Standing in plain view. Deliberate. Like he wanted Joe to see him looking.

But he turned on his heel suddenly and headed down the sidewalk fast.

Joe tensed from the urge to go after the guy. He frowned as he moved into the coffee shop. He reached the line and Cisco grinned back at him, which made his focus stutter all at once.

He wanted to ask Cisco about it, about this guy he thought he saw places who worried him enough that he wanted someone with him just to walk down a street.

But by the time they got through the line and to a relatively quiet table, he wasn’t at all sure he’d seen anything worth mentioning. A guy standing on the sidewalk looking in his direction...guy might have been on a bluetooth listening to a phone call or something. Joe could get suspicious - all cops could - and he could project things on people. He knew that well enough to know it was a strong possibility.

He also didn’t particularly want to see Cisco’s grin vanish, or change into that tight, strange smile he’d first greeted Joe with earlier.

So in the end he stayed quiet, letting Cisco distract him until they were both laughing easily and neither were giving a thought to the world outside.

Hey, I’m returning the red beans and rice favor. Skip lunch today.
Okay, for the record? Your name in my phone is Joe DO NOT TEXT HIM RAMON FOR THE LOVE OF JESUS West. And somehow this still just happened.

Two days until their upcoming road trip, Joe read those words with a smile that was beginning to feel familiar. He started to push the button to call Cisco, but hesitated. With a grin, he brought the phone up close and pecked in an answering text: Im starting to not get alarmed when I hear the sound of a text coming in. I dont know if thats good or bad.

And it was true. He still dropped everything and grabbed the phone fast when he heard the beep, but he didn’t get worried. It didn’t help that the week had been disaster-free so far, and not one emergency text had come through since Cisco started his absent-minded texting spree. Though he wasn’t exactly complaining there.

His phone buzzed, and he chuckled. Sitting back at his desk, pushing aside the keyboard and the report he was halfway through (garden variety attempted bank robbery, no superpowers, not even a gun, and he was so relieved to still work crimes like that one), he answered with a growing smile.

“Returning the favor, huh?”

“Remind me next time we hang out to turn the autocorrect on on your phone. There’s no excuse to leave apostrophes out of your contractions. Are we animals?”

“I thought text-speak was all about brevity and saving time.”

“Are we frat boys?”

“I was in a frat,” Joe answered absently. Eddie was approaching, and Joe readied to get pulled out of the conversation until Eddie veered off and dropped at his own desk, sighing the sigh of a man who couldn’t find anything to excuse him away from his own reports. Joe knew it well.

“I’m willing to forgive you that because you make a mean dinner. Also, yes, returning the favor. Assuming you don’t have any allergies or aversions to food from south of the border?”

“Nope. Matter of fact, if we’re both home Sunday nights Barry and I usually grab Taco Cocina for dinner.”

There was stark, dead silence on the other end.

Joe laughed, interpreting easily. “Let me guess. That doesn’t count.”

“Joseph Do-Not-Text-Him-Ramon-for-the-Love-of-Jesus West, there is only so much I can forgive in one conversation.”

“My bad.” Joe grinned, catching Eddie’s glance and shrugging as if helplessly stuck on the phone.

Eddie scowled at him, then sighed at his screen again. It was unfortunate that they both despised paperwork as much as they did, there was no room for negotiations or bribery.

“So?”

He focused on the phone again. “So? No aversions, no allergies. But I can’t promise we won’t be out on a call if you do stop by.”

“My fragile ego will survive the insult. Okay, go fight crime or whatever.”

Joe hung up with a grin. He looked at his half-written report on its dimmed screen and turned to Eddie instead.

Eddie was already watching him. “We could always go re-interview the witness from that coffee shop outside the bank.”

Joe grabbed his jacket. “Read my mind.”

The (completely unnecessary) re-interview didn’t provide a shred of new information, but Joe, despite his relief over the innocent, almost normal crime they were currently assigned to, couldn’t help but feel ambivalent about it actually being solved.

The day before a woman had walked in to Central City Credit Union carrying a note in her hand. The bank employees noticed her acting bizarrely, but before anyone could intercept her she approached the teller. She shoved the note across the counter, tears in her eyes, but said ‘I don’t want to do this’ and took off.

No money, no threats, just a crumpled note politely asking the teller to give her some money, please and thank you.

It was bizarre as crimes went, but none of the tellers felt scared of the woman, and they’d debated even calling the police in. Joe himself? He figured she was someone desperate for money who talked herself into something rash and then talked herself out of it just a few steps farther than she should have gone.

He didn’t want to arrest her. But he did want to find her. He wasn’t sure Singh felt the same way, but he definitely noticed Eddie dragging his feet on ideas about how to track the woman down.

“It’s really all or nothing in this city, it feels like,” Eddie said as they were finally in the car heading back to the station. “Superpowered humans killing whole groups of people, or a bank robbery where nothing gets taken and the victims beg us not to do anything.”

“Didn’t used to be this way,” Joe agreed. Not that it was ever a predictable job, and Joe (and Eddie, he was sure) wasn’t so naive as to think that metas were suddenly the only ones capable of real, horrible violence. “But if anyone’s taking requests I wouldn’t mind a good solid week of nothing.”

“I’ll second that.”

Singh stuck his head out of his office before they reached their desks. “West. Thawne.” He vanished inside again.

They traded looks but headed to Singh’s office. Maybe the week’s lull was already over.

But. No. Joe pushed the door open into the office, and his smile was instant and broad.

Cisco Ramon sat on the stiff black leather couch against the back wall of the captain’s office. Sitting cross-legged with his feet on the couch (Singh allowed his feet on the couch?), with a take-out box on his lap.

Joe understood how Cisco felt when he walked into the house the other night, because he took in one deep breath of whatever it was he was eating (they were eating, Singh had a box on his desk, Singh and Cisco Ramon were eating lunch together?) and he wanted to float his way to the source.

“Hey, guys!” Cisco waved a plastic fork at them. “On the table. Plenty for everyone. I anticipated that Joe’s ability to have lunch might require some extra bribe meals.”

Singh chuckled as he sat behind his desk and got back into some serious eating.

Joe didn’t have to be asked twice. He grabbed a styrofoam container and dropped on the couch beside Cisco. “What is it?”

“Arroz morado con mariscos,” Cisco answered in easy liquid Spanish. “It’s from a Latin fusion place near the lab that I might as well own part of, as much money as I throw down there.” He grinned over at Joe as Joe took in the dark purple of the rice inside the container. “It’s basically Peruvian paella.”

“Sold.” Eddie grabbed the last container and moved to sit in the visitor’s chair across from the desk. “Thanks, Cisco.”

Cisco looked over at Joe with a bright smile. “I didn’t even bring hot sauce, that’s how confident I am in this choice.”

Joe chuckled. “I see it’s unhealthy, given how fast the captain’s is vanishing.”

Singh looked up unapologetically, mouth full and chewing fast.

“We were just talking about that. I mean I’m all for alternative lifestyles, but I draw the line at dieting. Dating a dude who cuts carbs from your diet? Carbs?” Cisco shook his head, gesturing a fork-stabbed shrimp accusingly in Singh’s direction. “Carbs are the single most important food group.”

“I don’t have any room to talk,” Eddie contributed after swallowing a huge bite. “Iris seems to be in penance mode these days. Says she used up too high a calorie allotment working at Jitters so she needs to make up for it now. It’s all healthy salads and baked fish lately.” He scooped up another forkful approvingly. “You’ll have to give me the name of this place, though, she’d love this. She would cheat for this.”

Joe found himself nodding his agreement. She would love it, and at least food was something safe to share Iris stories about. Still, he wasn’t all that eager to continue it. His baby girl didn’t belong in police station chatter, however innocuous in was.

“Well, some of us,” he said with a fairly smug smile, “don’t have to worry about things like that. And we have someone nice enough to bring us Peruvian paella.”

Cisco shot him that lit-from-the-inside grin of his. “I hate to break it to you guys, but there’s really nothing unhealthy about this.”

“Even better,” Eddie said.

Singh frowned at his container, looking genuinely disappointed, but shrugged and kept shoveling it in.

Miraculously things stayed quiet for the twenty minutes it took Joe and Eddie to swallow their meals down. Joe even had enough breathing room to walk Cisco out to his car afterward.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” Cisco turned to Joe as they left the station behind for the bright afternoon sunshine. “I brought you something else.” He pulled out a slim square case. “I figured you for the kind of guy who still has a CD player somewhere in his house.”

Joe wondered if there was an insult in that guess, but since he did have one (two, actually, and another one in his car), he just plucked the case from Cisco’s hand with a raised eyebrow.

Cisco laughed. “Uh huh. Anyway, tell me what you think.”

“Tim Maia.” Joe read the magic marker off the case.

“Brazilian musician, big in the 70s. He was awesome. This is a mix of his funk period, both pre- and post-religious conversion.” Cisco’s smile glowed. “It’s mostly in Portuguese, but you’ll like it anyway.”

Joe chuckled and slid the case into his jacket pocket. “Brazilian funk, Peruvian paella. Where are you actually from?”

“Born right here. Grew up in Bleeker Heights, all shades of brown represented. Guess it stuck with me.”

Joe knew the area. Bleeker Heights was hitting a gentrification phase, reportedly, but before that it had died a pretty hard death, all boarded businesses and homeless outnumbering residents. And before that death, back in the 90s, it was still low-income housing and high crime rates.

He couldn’t help but feel a little surprised that someone like Cisco, someone with such an easy, radiating smile, grew up somewhere even the cops hated having to visit.

Cisco’s smile went crooked, like he was reading Joe’s thoughts. “My folks were from Puerto Rico, though, since I know that’s what you’re actually asking.”

“Hey, you make me curious.” Joe shrugged. “You’re a pretty unique guy.”

Cisco puffed up a little, his smile clear and unshadowed. “Well, your boss likes me. I’m gonna have to start scheduling deliveries, get him some color back in his cheeks. No carbs, Jesus.”

Still grinning on his way back inside, Joe ran into Singh coming out of the major crimes squad room.

“Eddie fill you in on the bank job?”

Singh frowned, but nodded him towards the stairs. “Mr. Ramon leave?”

“Just now, yeah.”

David Singh was a good captain. Always had been. A little short-tempered, but the job involved so much politics that Joe suspected he himself might become something of a tyrant if he had to deal with that six days a week.

He’d been through the ringer to get where he was, and he was too good a man to forget what that ringer was like for the people still going through it. Even Joe, who had been a cop as long as Singh, but had no interest in promotion, at least for now. Detective was as high as Joe could get without being put behind a desk the majority of his days, and he wasn’t ready for that yet.

Still, he knew Singh would listen to him and Eddie about this bank robbery, and their opinions would matter even if the letter of the law prevailed.

Singh got Joe past the stairs down the little side emergency exit, where they could have a relatively private few words. But when he spoke it was nothing at all what Joe was expecting.

“I don’t try to involve myself in the private lives of my detectives, Joe, but we’ve known each other a while now, so I feel like I’m in a place to say something…”

Joe stared at him, but shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”

But Singh seemed to have prepared nothing further. He hesitated, looking outside their little corner as if hoping someone might wander by and distract them. After an awkwardly long pause he drew in a breath and faced Joe again. “He’s a little young, isn’t he?”

Joe blinked.

“He’s a nice guy, don’t get me wrong. Gotta be smart, working at that lab. Hell, he made me laugh in the middle of a work day, that’s not easy. But there’s a whole lot I need to make sure you’ve thought about before he keeps showing up here...bringing you lunch.”

Joe was starting to understand exactly what Singh was going on about, but shock robbed him of a response at first.

Singh sighed. “You surprised me with this one, I’ll say that much. I’ve noticed you never date, but I wouldn’t have guessed...”

“Okay, wait.” Joe wasn’t sure if he wanted to feel a little horrified or laugh and get immediately on the phone to call Cisco and tell him all about this like Joe was a gossipy teenager himself. “I...uh, appreciate you looking out for me, Captain...”

“Look. Seriously. You’ve got me here, and a station full of people who know that I won’t accept the slightest trace of homophobia or--”

“Captain.” Joe smiled despite himself. He actually felt a little flattered. “Cisco actually was just bringing me lunch. He’s a friend. That’s it.”

“Uh huh.” Singh’s expression didn’t change. “Does he know that?”

Joe’s smile faded in curiosity.

Singh’s mouth twitched a little. He clapped Joe on the shoulder. “He...speaks highly of you. If that’s all it is then that’s where I’ll leave it.”

Joe watched him walk away, his amusement making a roller coaster dip up and then down again. He dug his phone out of his pocket, but slid it back in a moment later. It took a surprising amount of restraint not to go jogging after Singh to ask details about exactly what he and Cisco had talked about before Joe and Eddie got there.

He left that private corner after another minute, bemused, with a little uncertain churning feeling in his gut. As he headed back into the squad room to meet up with Eddie, though, he found himself smiling.

“So I was thinking...what are you doing?”

Joe straightened from his packing job, looking back to see Barry standing in the open doorway to his bedroom. “Hey. Didn’t hear you get home.”

Barry eyed him, and moved into the room to peer at the clothes folded beside Joe’s deflated duffel bag. “I was at Eddie’s, actually. I mean, Iris and Eddie’s.  Their place. The apartment that they…”

Joe smiled faintly. “If you’ve spent the evening torturing yourself you don’t have to keep it going now.”

“Right.” Barry returned the smile after a moment, a little wistful but genuine enough. That boy couldn’t hide a feeling from Joe to save his life. “So. I just got in. I know it’s late.”

“Usually is. I’m pretty sure I saw you more often before you moved back.”

“Oh, good, I was hoping for a shot of guilt before bed.” Barry sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the small pile of clothes. “And you didn’t answer me - what are you doing? You going somewhere?”

“I left you a message about it two days ago.”

Barry’s eyes rolled up in his head as he thought about it. “The concert with Cisco? You’re packing a bag for that?”

“It’s in St. Louis. We might come back the next morning if the city stays as quiet as it has been all week.”

“Huh.” Barry blinked at the clothes, but shrugged and turned his focus back to Joe. “I didn’t think he’d actually ask you.”

“Why not? I’m not his uncool foster dad.”

“Yeah, but then doesn’t that make you just a generic old guy?” Barry laughed and ducked away when Joe swatted at him. “Okay, I take it back! Jeez.”

“Damn right you take it back.” Joe went back to his packing. It was just a change of clothes and some pajamas, just in case. His usual emergency-stakeout overnight kit was already in the car with any kind of toiletries he’d need.

Barry sat back, seemingly content to just watch quietly. Which was unusual enough that Joe snuck a few glances over. Ahh, of course. He had The Iris Look on his face.

Joe didn’t envy Barry there. He wondered if it shouldn’t feel more unusual, his adopted son being so head over heels with his daughter. But that had always been a part of who Barry was. Before he first walked into this house to stay, Joe saw that adoration in his eyes towards Iris.

Used to be something he chuckled over. A sign that his strong, smart, vibrant little girl was gonna grow up to break a million hearts. But the years passed, and absolutely nothing about that love-addled gaze changed at all. Barry’s love for Iris was as much a part of who he was as his own name.

Didn’t make the situation any less awkward. And now that Barry’s feelings were out in the open everything had gotten a little...skewed.

He cleared his throat more to get Barry out of his wallowing than from any real need to start a conversation. “So...what do you know about him, anyway?”

Barry’s inward gaze focused on him after a moment. “Huh? Who?”

“Cisco.” That was easiest to ask about, anyway; Joe’s curiosity about Cisco wasn’t particularly strong. And wasn’t getting stronger every day.

Barry blinked, but his face regained some animation as he thought it over. “Inside the lab or outside? Because outside...not much, actually.” He frowned as he said it, like it was an unpleasant discovery. “He grew up around here...I think. He’s got...parents? Or did at some point, that’s a pretty safe guess.”

“Wow.” Joe straightened up and looked down at Barry.

Barry flushed. “He doesn’t talk about stuff like that, it’s not my fault.”

“You ever ask him?”

Barry shrugged, the furrow between his eyebrows answer enough. He stood up after a moment. “Okay, well. That’s a double shot of guilt, so I think I’m good for the night.”

“Glad I could help.” Joe opened his arms reflexively. He squeezed Barry in a hug that started quick but went long when Barry seemed to cling to him a little bit.

He thought about asking about that woman Linda and why Barry was spending his free nights playing third wheel to Iris and Eddie, but in the end he stayed quiet. He hugged Barry tight and let him go with a smile.

“See you in the morning. Sleep tight, Bar.”

Barry made a little face, like ‘sleep tight’ was too corny to let slide. But he smiled and squeezed Joe’s arm before letting him go. “Night, Joe.”

Once he was tucked into bed, Joe found himself staring up at the darkness and listening to the silence, feeling a little pensive. Nervous about the next day, maybe? A possible overnight road trip was a pretty demanding get-together to have with a new friend. But no, Joe wasn’t the type to get overly anxious about things like that, and he knew Cisco wasn’t going to be apprehensive in the slightest.

Cisco. Maybe that was it. Joe hadn’t been alarmed by the beep of a text all day.

He reached for the phone he kept beside his bed at night, checking the screen just in case. No, nothing.

Indecision only lasted a few seconds, then the phone was ringing in his ear and that was that.

“Hey! Ready for tomorrow?”

“All packed. You?”

“Believe it or not, I think I overdid it. I’m gonna have to go through the bag and weed some things out before we go.” Cisco didn’t sound like he had been sleeping, but his usual energy was muted. Still every word seemed to be spoken through a grin.

Joe smiled into the darkness. “I’m shocked.”

“Right? Like half of it’s edible, too. I have no sense of proportions. But if we get stuck in a freak snowstorm and stranded inside the car for a month, we won’t even lose weight.”

Joe chuckled, but spoke before he could let Cisco lull him away from asking. “Hey. I wanted to ask. The other day, at the record store…”

Cisco’s side fell quiet.

“You’ve been okay? No sign of your old...whoever?”

“Ex.” The confession came out unsteadily. “I mean, kind of ex. But whatever, I told you it wasn’t him. It was just…”

“Paranoia? That usually comes from somewhere.”

“He would have said it came from an unjustified sense of self-importance.” The words were light, like it was supposed to be a joke.

Joe didn’t laugh. “He sounds like a hell of a jerk for an ex.”

“He was. A short but grand mistake, in every sense of the word. And I kinda don’t like talking about him, if that’s cool.”

Joe sighed. “Look, Cisco. I’ve been a cop a long time. Instincts come from somewhere. Sometimes that nervous feeling in your gut is your brain picking up clues subconsciously. So. If you think you spot him again somewhere, you give me a call. Promise that much and I’ll drop it.”

“I promise.” Cisco said the words easily enough, soft but clear, like he was holding the phone that much closer. “Thanks, Joe.”

Joe made a sound of acknowledgement, not really content but not pushing the issue. He didn’t like the idea of some mistake haunting Cisco that way. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who dwelled on things, or was nervous or paranoid in general. Which meant that either he had a real reason to be or that this guy had done a number on him.

“You know I almost called you like twenty minutes ago.” Cisco filled the silence, his voice back to being cheerful. “Didn’t know if you slept early or not. I was halfway through typing a text and I actually remembered in time. Calling seemed kind of anticlimactic after that.”

“I told you I was starting not to mind the texts.”

“Nah, you’re a cop. Plus Barry exists, and is Barry, so you need your emergency system intact.” Cisco sounded thoughtful. “Though if I could get my hands on your phone I could always give my texts a separate ringtone, then we’d both be happy.”

“I’d be okay with that.”

Joe listened for a moment to the familiar sounds of Barry padding down the hall on the way to the bathroom, too heavy-footed the way he always was. Joe never could figure that out, skinny as Barry was. He wasn’t exactly a kid with a lot of grace about him, though.

He reached over and turned off the lamp, laying back with the phone against his ear. “Hey, I never said thank you for lunch, did I?”

“I was just returning the favor, remember? No need for thanks. But no, you didn’t, you ingrate.”

Joe chuckled. “Thanks. Of course if you really wanted to return the favor it should have been homemade, but...”

“You got it, I’ll bring a tupperware container of instant ramen for the road tomorrow. All the homemade Ramon cuisine you could want.”

“Yeah, no, let’s just call it square.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Joe laughed quietly, and Cisco echoed it in his ear. He rolled over on his side, settling in with a sigh. Long days, even though nothing horrible was happening in the city at the moment. Sometimes that just made the days seem longer. “So what were you texting me about before you stopped yourself?”

There was a moment’s silence. “I can’t remember. Nothing important. You know me, I probably saw something shiny and wanted to tell someone about it.”

Joe grinned. “I’m honored to be the one you’d trust with something so special.”

“Hey, don’t knock it.” Another pause, and Cisco’s voice sounded quieter suddenly. More hesitant. “I like talking to you, that’s all. Feels like I haven’t made any new friends since the accelerator accident. The world’s been really closed-in ever since then. I mean there’s Barry, but he feels...I dunno, like he’s closed in right along with us.”

“A kid like you, with your personality? I figured you were the kind of guy to have a thousand friends every place you went.”

“Right? I’m pretty rad.”

Joe smiled but didn’t respond. He’d been a cop long enough to know that silence was the best motivator to get someone to talk. Cisco was way too quick to shut up when he himself was the subject of conversation. There was something about that that Joe didn’t like.

Sure enough, it only took a few heartbeats for him to go on. “It was easier when I was younger, I think. It’s just...the job, the lab, everything. We have to keep so many secrets, it’s better to just...not bother.”

Joe blinked. “That doesn’t sound like the same guy I’ve been talking to the last few days.”

“It’s not really how I want to be,” Cisco answered. “It’s hard.”

“So why do it?”

There was a pause. “Doctor Wells says it’s for the best that we keep to ourselves.”

And there it was. Joe sighed, not happy to hear the words he’d suspected coming. He had a few gripes about Harrison Wells - if his theories were correct then ‘gripes’ was an absurd understatement - but one of the biggest was hearing Wells’s views coming out of the mouths of bright young kids who ought to have known better. First Barry, now Cisco.

He kept his answer casual, though. “Then I guess this is your proof that Doctor Wells isn’t always right.”

A longer pause. “You don’t still think...I mean…” Cisco sighed into the phone. “Nah, that’s probably better off staying something we don’t talk about.”

“I think there’s more going on with him than he wants anyone to know.” Joe answered, since just not talking about things wasn’t really his style. “You said Wells didn’t know Barry back when his mom was killed. You were right. But…”

“Time travel.” The answer was quick enough that Cisco must have been thinking about it. “He’s been...since the beginning, so obsessed with Barry. He says Barry’s the best thing he’s ever done. And he’s willing to...to hurt people. To protect Barry.”

Joe frowned into the darkness, hearing the way Cisco’s voice was clogging as he went on. It ached, he knew it would ache, to be a witness as Wells’ secrets started catching up to the people around him. Especially the people Joe cared about.

“Do me a favor,” Cisco said suddenly, voice artificially brighter. “Let’s promise not to talk about this tomorrow. Any of it. At all.”

Joe smiled faintly. Avoiding things wasn’t healthy, he knew, but everyone deserved a good road trip. “You got it.”

He woke up late the next morning: no alarm in his ear, and Barry had been nice enough to head to work quietly.

Days off that actually stayed days off were a luxury, and though Joe had a full day planned this time around he didn’t have to get an early start on it. He was packed and ready. The car needed gas but Cisco told him solemnly that the pre-trip gas and snack stop was sacred and Cisco needed to be part of it, so that had to wait.

He had nothing calling to him. Nothing but the warmth of his bed and the afterimages of some pleasant dreams in his head.

He wasn’t sure what exactly he’d been dreaming about, but he felt good. In a general sense. If he let himself...it wouldn’t take much until he felt good in a very specific sense.

He wasn’t sure they’d been those kind of dreams, but it felt like that kind of morning.

Joe hadn’t had sex regularly since Jackie, but he’d been out there now and then. He explained it to Cisco like he’d been tricked into a few dates that never went anywhere, but that wasn’t precisely true. Sometimes they’d gone somewhere very nice indeed. Just never more than once.

Still, for all his long periods of solitude, Joe was a man. He wasn’t uninterested in sex, he wasn’t unaffected by dreams and thoughts and fantasies.

He’d dismissed the idea of even calling Sherry, but he’d thought about her. She was, though he’d never admit it to anyone, the current star of his occasional fantasies.

Joe had nowhere to be for a few hours. He was alone, he was feeling it, so he sank back into his pillow and let his mind wander where it wanted to.

She really had been beautiful. When he went up to talk to her about giving them some space for the evening so Cisco could complete his mirror project, she’d been warm and cheerful and even more blatant in her interest than she had been when they first arrived.

In his fantasies he just had to push the issue a little more.

This time instead of asking him if he wanted to join her at the movies, she checked him out openly through that full-length mirror she’d been watching herself in when he knocked on her bedroom door, and she told him that if he wanted her out of his hair he could tire her out himself.

And in his fantasies he was free to say yes, to approach her from behind and watch her in the mirror as he pressed in behind her. She hummed her satisfaction as she felt him hard against her ass, and he ran his fingers up her body, her distractingly impressive breasts filling his hands as he bent to kiss her neck.

She arched against him, sighing her pleasure as he ran a hand up her thigh, hiking up that tight black dress until his fingers pressed up into her heat, stroked her until she was moaning and wet, her head dropped against his shoulder, her ass grinding back on his cock.

Joe lay there, stroking himself slowly as he let the now-familiar fantasy start to play out. Typically she would come just like that, shuddering against his fingers, and it would only make her hotter for him. She’d turn and push him back onto the bed, unfasten his pants and climb on top of him, sink down, wet and warm as her body took him in.

But this time his mind played along that track and then wandered away, restless. He put them back up in front of that mirror, and this time she turned in his arms and sank down to her knees, smiling heatedly up at him as she worked to open his pants.

That didn’t take long to lose his focus either. He sighed, hard and unsatisfied with his own fantasies. Maybe for the best, he thought randomly. Since Cisco had been right downstairs and in his fantasies Sherry got pretty loud.

That led to a whole stream of other thoughts. Cisco downstairs hearing her, hearing them. Hey, he’d promised not to judge, right? He was young, he’d probably just get turned on by it.

His mind suddenly went to the other night, to he and Cisco sitting on the floor in Joe’s living room going through his records while they talked. If the records were gone, if it was just them on the floor drinking their beers and talking, and Cisco was turned on and smiling the way Sherry smiled at him…

Fuck, okay, it was just a fantasy. Harmless, meant nothing, and Joe was too far gone to talk himself out of it. He was instantly back in Sherry’s bedroom in front of that mirror, only it was Cisco’s warm, dark eyes looking at him through their reflection. Cisco leaning back against his body, Cisco’s erection filling Joe’s hand, and his voice throaty and loud and groaning as Joe stroked him, fast, the way he was stroking himself.

Joe groaned as his orgasm approached. He tried to switch back, to put Sherry back against him, but Cisco refused to leave. Cisco flushed and aroused and calling Joe’s name, begging for release...fuck.

He pushed up into his hand and gritted his teeth to keep from crying out as his cock pulsed and spurted.

The fantasy fractured and fell away. Joe opened his eyes into the dimness of his own bedroom, panting for air, heart thudding in his chest.

As his breathing slowed to normal and the sweat cooled on his skin, he waited for some kind of surprise or guilt or worry to come over him. Just a fantasy, sure, but fantasies still said something, didn’t they?

But he was still waiting as he jumped into his shower and cleaned up, and after he toweled off and dressed in appropriate roadtrip slash concert clothes, and after he picked up his phone to see a text waiting for him.

See you soon.

It was an unremarkable drive from Central City to St Louis. A lot of highway, flat horizons, trees or fields on either side of them as they zoomed their way through Missouri.

Just as well. It was an overcast, grey day out there, but inside the car it was warm and the music was going and company was good.

Cisco’s Brazilian funk singer warmed them up as they headed out of town and got their supposedly sacred gas-and-snacks, and a couple of huge coffees in anticipation for a late night.

Joe drove, Cisco controlled the radio, and they chatted their way through less interesting songs until Cisco would interrupt with something Joe had to listen to, a ‘wait, this riff here, you hear what he’s doing? I swear George Clinton sampled that somewhere, but I can never remember which song’ or something like that.

Joe let him run the show, content to listen to some new music and not think about anything else too hard.

It was Singh’s fault, he figured, that Joe’s brain had cast Cisco in a role in his fantasies that morning. Singh’s assumption that Cisco was bringing him lunch because they meant something to each other, something more than casual. It was Cisco’s doing, too, because he’d gotten Joe thinking about how long he’d been alone. Or because he was generally just a warm, fascinated, appealing guy and he was spending so much time with Joe lately.

And, Joe conceded, it was his own fault. There wasn’t a single unattractive thing about Cisco Ramon - though if he could’ve spontaneously aged ten more years or so Joe would’ve felt a little less strange about their new friendship - and Joe had never denied himself his rare but lifelong attraction to some men.

Anyway, it wasn’t like it mattered. It was a fantasy. It was subconscious and hormonal and Joe was grown enough to separate fantasy from reality. Just because he kept sneaking glances at Cisco, because he kept taking time to appreciate the excited glow in his eyes, the way he waved his hands as he talked, the absent way he pushed his long hair out of his face...that didn’t mean anything.

It meant Joe was feeling a little lonely lately, and he had a new friend, and those two things were trying to fit together in his head to make his life simple.

Well. No. Not simple. If he was attracted to Cisco Ramon that was the opposite of simple. But it was a moot point anyway, because despite Singh’s little comment at the station there was no indication that Cisco had any interest in a man almost twice his age, and Joe wasn’t about to push the issue.

He felt unsettled, though, he had to admit. Even as Cisco pulled him from his thoughts time and again with comments about the music, or questions about Joe, or random small talk about his own life, Joe’s mind always went back to that morning. Or the night of the dinner, or sitting across from Cisco drinking coffee and talking their way through a stack of CDs and an Ethel Merman record.

Maybe it was time for Joe to actually consider getting out there and meeting someone. His kids were adults now, God help him, and his life was...insane, generally, but as settled as it was going to get. If nothing else this week showed him that there was room in his life for another person.

But then he found himself dismissing that thought as it occurred to him. There was nothing lacking in his life at all. If this week showed he had space for a new friend...well, Cisco was it. He filled that space perfectly. He and Joe had more in common than Joe ever would have guessed, but they were different enough to be interesting to each other. Cisco had the energy to get Joe going, and he already understood the parts of Joe’s life that would be hardest to share with someone new.

Joe’s fantasies didn’t actually matter. They were his body wanting to get off, and his mind tossing out whatever recent images might do the trick. That was it. And they were fine, they did their job. He got off and he got on with his life.

Anything else, anything different, would simply be too complicated to sustain.

The concert was everything Joe was hoping for. He might have been twenty-one years old again, going to dark underground clubs and listening to cover bands playing the fading glory that funk was back then. The crowd was hyped up, packed in and dancing and shouting. The music was amazing, Bootsy still had everything he always had.

By the time the Unity League was on their second encore, Joe was wiped out. He’d been way more active than he might have been on his own, but...it was hard not to be. Cisco knew every song, every guitar riff, and he was the first one out of his seat when the band first came out. He danced, he drank, and when he looked at Joe with bright brown eyes to join him...wasn’t much choice to be made. Joe would’ve dared anyone, funk fan or not, to disappoint Cisco Ramon when he had that look on his face.

When they left the club and headed out into unfamiliar St. Louis streets, Joe checked his phone and saw in relief that Singh hadn’t changed his all-clear. That meant a hotel tonight and drive back tomorrow, and Joe wouldn’t have to worry about falling asleep at the wheel and killing himself and his young friend.

“I just. How do you even. The sheer musicality of that band. Every riff, every improv, every jam. Just.” Cisco didn’t stop buzzing the entire drive to the hotel. He hardly seemed to notice where they were until Joe was parked and they were climbing out.

“Oh! Awesome, we get to crash. I kinda want to go dancing, you think there’s an after-hours spot around here?”

Joe just laughed. “If there is you’re on your own. That last hour did me in.”

“Oh, man, with the Bootzilla encore, freaking legendary.” Cisco followed him into the hotel’s lobby, but veered off to head to the big-screen TV playing off to the side by some kind of stripped-down coffee bar. “I”m gonna see if it made the news!”

Joe chuckled and headed for the counter. He’d made a refundable reservation before the drive, so he gave his name and slid over his ID.

“One room, just for tonight?” The guy behind the counter was probably younger than Cisco, bored with his lot in life though the graveyard shift at a small off-brand hotel probably lent itself to that kind of thing.

Joe went through the routine easily, until the guy shot him a semi-interested look, and glanced behind him towards that TV. “Two queens?”

“That’s what I asked for,” Joe agreed, only just catching the look on the guy’s face before he schooled it into something slightly more professional. His eyebrows flew up. “You better be talking about the beds in the room, pal.”

“Of course, sir.” The guy didn’t bother to trying to sound sincere. “And you’ll be paying? For...the whole night?” His eyes skittered behind Joe again.

“You’re done asking questions.” Joe scowled, glancing back at Cisco to make sure he wasn’t hearing this crap.

Cisco was leaning against the back of a stiff-looking decorative couch, watching the television and drumming hands against the couch. He was standing profile to Joe, mouth moving absently as he watched the news. Singing to himself, Joe would have bet money. Whichever of the songs from the last three hours had stuck in his head.

It made Joe smile. Cisco’s enthusiasm for everything was nice to be around, but this was some next-level stuff, and Joe was really glad he’d made the trip with him.

“Mr. West?”

It took Joe a moment, mostly because he was used to being addressed as Detective, but he dragged his eyes back to the asshole behind the counter.

The guy was full-on smirking by then. “Sign here, please.” His eyes went behind Joe one more time, openly speculative.

Joe wanted to bark out for him to mind his own business, but he knew well enough that shining any kind of spotlight on insinuations like this guy had in his head only made them worse.

Okay, Cisco was young and good-looking. Okay, so he tended towards ridiculous tight pants, and dancing through the concert in the middle of a sweaty crowd of people had his t-shirt clinging to him. But it was Cisco Ramon. Joe looked back at him and saw a genius young man, vibrant and sincere and happy. Whatever it was this guy saw - Joe didn’t want to guess but he could assume - Joe wanted to reach across the counter and fist his shirt and explain exactly who it was he was smirking at.

Instead he signed the form and got the key card in return (the one card, the guy didn’t even ask if they needed two). As he left the smirking jerk behind his good mood was definitely dented.

Cisco looked over as he approached, beaming. Joe wanted to turn back around just at the sight of it, to ask the guy if he seriously thought some hustler would smile at him like that. But he didn’t. He just nodded towards the door.

“We good?” Cisco moved with him out to the car to grab their things. “They didn’t mention the concert that I could see. I mean how does your city host a legend and you just pretend it’s not happening?”

“You said it yourself, it’s an underappreciated genre.” Joe tried to be casual but Cisco looked over at him instantly.

“Whoa. Everything okay? You know I’m totally willing to pay my half of the--”

Joe shot him a look. “What did I say?”

Cisco’s mouth quirked up. “If you see my wallet come out even once during this trip you’ll shoot me,” he parroted dutifully.

“Right.” Joe smiled at that, faint, and shook his head to let the punk behind the counter fade from his thoughts. It was way too good a night to worry about some stranger’s opinion.

They got their bags and headed back inside. Joe glared at the counter, but the guy was back behind his desk watching tv, his interest apparently dried up.

The room was pretty standard for a mid-range hotel. Bathroom right inside the door, a little closet, two beds standing a few feet apart, a big flatscreen on the wall facing them. A small desk and a couple of uncomfortable chairs. Joe dropped his bags on the furthest bed from the door, going to the window and looking down at the city below.

Cisco moved around behind him. “Okay, so no dancing, but I’m seriously starving. You think someone delivers here?”

Joe nodded back to the desk. “Check the drawer, there’s usually a list.”

“Ooh, hotel whiz.” Cisco padded closer, going to the desk.

Joe found himself watching Cisco’s reflection in the window as he dug through the drawer. His hair was hanging, hiding part of his face, but he pushed it back behind his ear absently as he leaned his hip against the desk and flipped through the guest information.

Joe couldn’t help a smile. He really was a good-looking guy, on a superficial level. That was without even adding in the smile that shone from him like it was its own source of light, and those fascinated eyes, that huge brain, the intense enthusiasm Cisco faced the world with. The way he’d listen to a person talk and make that person feel like everything that came out of their mouths was as worthy of study as...Heisenberg, or Schrodinger, those guys Barry used to go on about all the time.

Hell, so what if the jerk downstairs thought they were together, or sneaking around for a night, or whatever? Joe was older, but he wasn’t bad looking himself, and still in pretty good shape. He didn’t dress well enough to be mistaken for some kind of sugar daddy, he didn’t figure.  

Besides, Singh had jumped to thinking that Cisco was something to Joe, too. Maybe they did look like two people who could be easily mistaken for a couple.

How about that.

“Score. Pizza. Some kind of local place, but the menu looks promising. You want in on this?”

“Definitely.” Joe gathered himself and his dangerously wandering thoughts, and turned away from the window.

“Enjoy the view?”

It took him a moment. He drew in breath so fast he almost choked on it. “It’s downtown St. Louis from a fourth floor hotel room, I’m not about to Instagram it or anything.”

Cisco grinned, but his eyes stayed on Joe a moment too long. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Joe approached, holding his hand out for the menu. “Guy working the counter downstairs was kind of rude.”

That grin melted into a scowl. “Oh, really? These people don’t understand my Yelping powers, I will take this place down single-handedly.”

Joe chuckled. He moved to sit on the edge of the bed and study the garish, clashing menu that of course Cisco considered promising. It was hideous. “Stand down, kid, I handle worse every day at work.”

“You’re a cop, Joe. I should let this go because he didn’t pull out a gun on you?”

“You should let it go because I’m thick-skinned enough to handle a little unwarranted insinuation.”

“Insinuation?” There was a beat of silence, before, “Ohhhh.” Cisco’s always-mutable expression shifted back to a smile. “Huh.”

Joe pushed out another chuckle, trying not to be as interested in Cisco’s reaction as he was. He meant to look back at the menu before Cisco’s eyes could catch on his, but he didn’t make it. He returned that smiling gaze with his own crooked, uncertain-feeling grin.

“Wow. I’m gonna go ahead and feel just super flattered by that.”

“Flattered?”

Cisco just smiled. “You own mirrors, don’t you?”

Joe’s face heated up, but he shook his head and hid his gaze in that awful menu. “I’m already buying the pizza, spare me the flattery.”

“What, you want specifics about how hot you are? You want me to go into detail?”

“Jesus, no.”

“This is great. What did he even say? He ask if you were slumming?”

“Stop that.” Joe hesitated, but went ahead and answered anyway, if only because those little throw-away put-downs Cisco tended to direct at himself bothered him more every time he heard them. “You ask me, I’d say he thought I was paying for it.”

“...for me?”

Joe nodded.

“No way, man, come on.”

“Yep.”

“But.” Cisco sputtered for a moment. “I’m wearing a Star Trek shirt,” he protested.

Joe blinked, looking up at him, and a moment later a laugh bubbled out of him. It was true, that shirt that looked so tight and plastered on down in the lobby had a huge faded graphic of a starship on it. “Well, you’re wearing it well,” he said through laughter.

Cisco peered down at himself, baffled, but he was smiling when his eyes came back up. His face was a little flushed, cheeks stained pink under golden brown.

Figured if anyone would get a thrill out of being mistaken for a hustler it would be Cisco Ramon.

Joe shook his head with a smile and held the menu out. “Get whatever you want, just make half pepperoni.”

“Boring.” Cisco approached.

Joe’s eyes moved without permission, taking in his faded t-shirt and tight jeans and...Jesus, he had to get himself together. But a glance back up at Cisco’s face showed the look hadn’t been unnoticed.

Cisco reached him without pausing, though. He slid the menu from Joe’s fingers and looked down at it for a moment before his gaze lifted to Joe’s face. “You know…”

Joe’s face still felt warm. It didn’t help that Cisco was close enough to reach out and touch him if he wanted to. “Let it go, kid.” His voice was unsteady.

Cisco hesitated. His teeth worried at his lip absently, which of course got Joe’s attention and focused his eyes on that full mouth.

It was insane. It was beyond stupid. But then all week Cisco had shown an uncanny ability to make the most unusual things seem perfectly normal. He sat at Joe’s table at ate his cooking, he brought him lunch at work, he talked him to sleep over the phone, and all as if they were perfectly normal things no one would think twice about.

And that’s how it felt, at least when it was happening. Perfectly normal. It wasn’t until later, until Cisco was gone and Joe couldn’t look into those openly affectionate eyes for reassurance, that he wondered. Even then, he didn’t wonder too hard. He had a full on sexual fantasy about the guy and was still waiting for some kind of guilt to hit him over that. But the guilt wasn’t coming.

Still, this...whatever this was, this moment...it was something completely different. This wasn’t a fantasy. And even if they’d been closer in age, even if Cisco wasn’t as wrapped-up in Barry’s life as he was, Joe still didn’t have any interest in the kind of complications that came from looking at someone’s mouth as intensely as he was looking at Cisco’s.

“I’m not actually a kid, Joe.” Cisco spoke suddenly, and Joe watched the words forming on his lips before he realized he was staring and pushed his gaze upward.

Jesus, that wasn’t any better. Cisco’s eyes hid nothing, hadn’t since the first day Joe met him at S.T.A.R. Labs. Joe had trusted him instantly, and still trusted him more than anyone else at that Lab, and he liked him, and it was a jerk in his stomach as he met that nervous but blatantly interested gaze.

Joe liked him.

Joe wanted him. Oh, christ.

It was way too easy to reach out, to curl his hand around Cisco’s waist, to feel the warmth of him under that thin Star Trek t-shirt. Joe’s breathing was less than steady, his thoughts a strange mixture of seeing absolutely nothing wrong with this and issuing a hundred warnings about it.

Cisco moved in closer, pressing between Joe’s legs at the edge of the bed. The menu fell from his hand, which Joe only noticed because that same hand came out and rested tentatively on Joe’s shoulder, as if Cisco expected to be pushed away any second.

But Joe wasn’t pushing him away. Joe had gone years without this heat in his stomach and this nervous excitement in his chest, and he’d forgotten the thrill of the feeling. Worlds away from a fantasy, this pull of attraction, of desire. Joe hadn’t wanted anyone in a long time, and he missed it.

He pulled at Cisco’s hip, urging him closer. “You’re not a kid,” he agreed, and his voice was a strange low rasp he hadn’t heard from himself before.

Cisco was close enough to a kid that later on Joe might think some dark thoughts, but when Cisco leaned in Joe met him halfway. When their mouths met, tentative but warm, Joe was kissing a genius, an attractive young man with great taste in music and a sense of humor that made Joe laugh out loud more than he ever had before. Not a kid.

Cisco breathed against his mouth, a soft sound coming out with the breath. His hand slid from Joe’s shoulder around to the back of his neck. His fingers were warm, steady now, no longer tentative. Joe tilted his head up, catching Cisco’s mouth more at an angle, deeper. His eyes slid shut, his hand traced a trail from Cisco’s narrow hip to his back, feeling the sweat from the concert still damp at his spine.

Cisco’s mouth was warm, full. Welcoming. He kissed like he was a little rusty himself, like he wasn’t even trying to disguise how eager he was. Which, knowing Cisco, was exactly the case. He gave more of himself to everything he did than anyone Joe had ever met. This fascinating combination of self-aware and completely open, afraid of compliments but not scared to let it be known that his entire heart was wrapped up in something.

Joe drew back, but Cisco made a small sound and followed him in, locking their mouths together again. He was impossible to resist, so Joe pressed back into the kiss, breathless and heated, before he drew back more insistently.

“Hey…”

Cisco let him go, breathing heavily, hand curling around the back of Joe’s neck as if to hold him in case he tried to go too far.

But Joe wasn’t leaving, he was just verifying. He looked up at Cisco, searched his face for any indication of problems. And what he got back was velvet brown eyes sparkling with want, and a damp, red mouth parted invitingly.

Joe fought back a groan. He slipped his hand under Cisco’s shirt, tracing up his spine. “Jesus, Cisco. C’mere.”

Cisco let out a breath, face radiating joy that way he always seemed to. He tried to press in impossibly closer, thighs already flush against Joe’s, before he gave up and shifted back.

Joe would have protested the distance but a second later Cisco was climbing right into his lap, pressing Joe’s legs closed to straddle his thighs.

Joe didn’t hold back his groan. His arms slid around him, pulling him in tighter, and Cisco’s mouth found his again eagerly. The encouragement seemed to light even more of a fire under Cisco, and his mouth was greedy, voracious. He kissed Joe like it was something he’d been wanting to do for a while.

Joe made a note to himself to maybe ask about that. But later. Right then he was too busy focused on the feeling of Cisco’s skin warm under his fingers, the bunch and flex of muscles, the restlessness of his kisses. He slid his other hand up and caught his fingers in long, soft hair as he cupped the back of Cisco’s head.

Joe had a sudden thought, and it made him muffle a laugh against Cisco’s mouth.

Cisco drew back almost instantly, a smile playing at his lips. “This is funny to you?” His hands moved between them, sliding up Joe’s chest.

“Just realized...I can’t really stay mad at that asshole downstairs now.”

Cisco laughed. “If that means you’re planning to leave money on the dresser and take off during the night...that’s not gonna work out so well for you.”

Joe shook his head, but his smile was uncontrollable. His fingers smoothed up Cisco’s back absently, and he watched pink spread over Cisco’s cheeks. “This is crazy.”

Cisco’s eyes focused on Joe’s for a moment, but he smiled at whatever he saw. No apprehension in sight. “We live in crazy times.”

That was true. What was this compared to metahumans and time travel? Joe’s eyes drifted down to those full, tempting lips again unconsciously. But he hesitated.

“Joe.” Cisco reached out and nudged at his jaw, tilting his gaze upward again. A smile was still hanging around the corners of his mouth, but he spoke firmly. “I’m not a kid. I have no daddy issues to work out. I’ve thought you were hot since you showed up at the lab marching around with your badge and gun in plain sight making sure we were gonna take care of Barry properly when you moved him.”

Joe chuckled, remembering that first visit to STAR. His impression of Cisco Ramon had been that he was too damned young to be trusted with Barry’s life. But first impressions, no matter what people said, didn’t last forever. And Cisco had saved Barry’s life by now, a few times over.

Cisco relaxed a little at whatever it was he saw so intently in Joe’s expression. Warm fingertips traced up Joe’s jawline, smoothing at the hair of his goatee. “Just. You wore the wedding ring, and you...so I was happy to lust from afar.”

“And I...what?” Joe leaned in. He couldn’t help himself. His lips found a warm patch of skin at Cisco’s throat, and he tasted the roughness of stubble on his skin.

Cisco’s breath caught, then escaped in a gust. “And...guys like you never look at me twice,” he admitted, his head tilting back to give Joe’s mouth more room to move.

Joe hummed a denial that was probably unnecessary, considering Cisco was in his lap. “I can’t stop looking at you lately,” he admitted, humming the words into Cisco’s neck. “I think you’re gorgeous.”

A small sound escaped Cisco, surprise or pleasure, something good at least. His hand stayed curved around the back of Joe’s neck, hair brushing against Joe’s temple. “Well. You’re old. Eyesight gets a little weak…” A breathless laugh escaped him even as Joe nipped at his skin with his teeth.

“You wanna see old?” Joe growled into Cisco’s throat. He slid his hands down his back and to his ass, down to his thighs, and he stood up in one swift move. Well, it would have been swifter fifteen years ago, but screw it. He was on his feet, Cisco in his arms, and he turned around to face the bed.

“Holy shit,” Cisco breathed out, wrapping his arms around Joe’s neck as his thighs squeezed Joe’s hips.

Joe humphed. That was more like it. He put a knee up on the mattress and bent, lowering Cisco onto the bed. He started to straighten, but Cisco didn’t let him go. His grip around Joe’s neck tightened, urging him down.

“Jesus, that was hot,” Cisco breathed against his mouth before kissing him, hard and wild.

Joe groaned and sagged, bracing his hands on the bed on either side of Cisco. He tasted sweet - the sugar from those drinks at the club, mixed with the earthiness of whiskey. They’d ended up sharing drinks when they ordered the same thing and ended up getting their cups mixed up as their focus stayed on stage. But the sugar was sweeter from Cisco’s mouth, and Joe couldn’t resist dipping his tongue in for a deeper taste.

Cisco arched up, still tugging at him as the kiss deepened. He wrapped his legs around Joe, crossing ankles against his ass and pulling him down until Joe was covering him. His head fell back, breathing hard, and he groaned like Joe’s full weight on him was some kind of incredible turn on.

Which was a pretty amazing turn on for Joe. He wrapped a hand around Cisco’s leg, stroking up the back of his thigh through the thick denim of the jeans he suddenly wished he’d been forward enough to strip off before they got to this point.

It hit him with that thought: they were alone in a hotel room, two hundred miles from any problems or interruptions. Cisco was warm and eager and arousing. Joe was just as eager, overheated and starting to get hard, and not regretting a bit of it.

This was going to happen.

He groaned, low and deep, and plunged into Cisco’s mouth again eagerly. It had been years, too many damn years, since he’d even wanted this with someone else, but he was there. Finally.

And his body was more than up for the challenge, it seemed. All the exhaustion from the concert was gone like he’d slept a full night between, and he was thickening in his slacks faster than a man his age probably should have.

He broke away from Cisco’s mouth, panting for air, wanting to taste that warm sweet skin at his neck again. His hips rocked unconsciously, and he had to fist his hand in the sheets by Cisco’s head as he felt the press of Cisco, hard in his jeans.

“Joe. Fuck.” Cisco’s voice was strained, thick with want, and his fingers clenched in Joe’s shirt as he arched his hips up to press into Joe. “Please.”

Joe’s eyes shut, unable to resist that voice and that want. His hips ground down against Cisco’s, his hand sliding up his thigh to his ass, clenching and pulling Cisco up to meet him.

Cisco’s head fell back, his mouth open, breath thick and loud between them. His hands were fisted in Joe’s shirt, and he tugged with sudden insistence. “Off.”

Joe would have chuckled if he hadn’t been so fucking aroused. He pushed up off Cisco enough to grab the hem of his shirt and pull, dropping it to the floor without looking and getting his palm fitted back against Cisco’s ass as fast as he could.

Cisco’s hands were quick, eager strokes all over his skin, up his chest and down his arms and over his shoulders to his back. “Fuck,” he breathed out again, and when Joe met his eyes they were almost black with desire. “You...are so…”

Joe bent and kissed him, tongue swallowing whatever words Cisco was planning to say. He didn’t need to hear it, he felt it. The kid couldn’t hide a damned thing, and if Joe ever had self-esteem issues that heavy black desire in Cisco’s eyes would have wiped it out of his head. He felt hot, felt sexy, felt arousing as all hell, and it was really fucking heady.

“Your turn,” he murmured against Cisco’s mouth, letting go of his ass reluctantly to grip his shirt. “Off.”

Cisco scrambled to obey, jerking his t-shirt up and arching his back up to pull it up over his head. He instantly slid his arms around Joe to tug him back down.

Joe resisted. “Let me look,” he said, voice low and firm.

Cisco hesitated, but shivered against him and lay back against the mattress.

Joe leaned down and kissed him, nipped at his lip before he drew back and took him in. He was trim with youth, smooth and flawless and vaguely soft in the middle from living off sugar and having boundless energy but no interest in gyms. His skin was like his smiles: lit from within. Glowing golden bronze against Joe’s darker whiskey skin.

Fuck, he was in deep.

Joe growled and bent, finding that spot on Cisco’s neck and mouthing wetly. “You are the sexiest…” He shifted downward, enough to seal his mouth over a brown nipple. “...baby giraffe video on Youtube,” he finished against Cisco’s skin.

There was a beat, and Cisco burst into laughter. “Everything I ever wanted to be,” he answered, hands stroking up Joe’s shoulders and down his back absently.

Joe wanted that laughter. He wanted it because he wanted to see it change as he slid his hand down between their bodies and palmed that hardness stretching Cisco’s tight jeans to capacity. And it was as gorgeous as Joe thought it would be, watching his laughter choke off, his grin melt in a moan, and his eyes flutter closed as he pushed up into that touch.

It had been years since Joe had any erection under his fingers that wasn’t his own. And years ago it hadn’t been anything serious. Some fumblings in college before he and Jackie got serious, and a couple of half-drunk rebound mistakes after she left. He didn’t have enough experience to have any kind of technique worked out, but just the pressure from the palm of his hand made Cisco’s mouth fall open, his skin flush and his back arch. So maybe technique wouldn’t be an issue.

“Hang on,” Cisco breathed out suddenly, reaching between them and splaying his hand against Joe’s chest. “Wait. I...I really didn’t think this through…”

Joe stilled instantly, pushing up to look down at him.

Cisco shifted, grimacing. “These jeans are way too tight for this.”

Joe laughed, ducking down and catching his mouth in a kiss. “Let’s take care of that, then.”

“Oh hell yeah.” Cisco arched up enough to grab at the front of his jeans, unzipping and pushing them down quickly, fumbling a little in his haste.

“Hey.” Joe laughed, though it was gratifying to see more proof of how much Cisco wanted him. “Relax, nobody’s going anywhere.”

Cisco’s hands slowed, but the bright-eyed look he sent to Joe was heavy. “I usually wake up right around this point, I’m not risking it.”

Joe wanted to laugh, but the look in Cisco’s eyes stopped him. He leaned in, sliding his hand up Cisco’s cheek, and kissed him again uncontrollably. Cisco’s hands slid around him again, warm touch moving around his sides and to his back, pulling him in close. Joe groaned and reached blindly for Cisco’s forgotten jeans, tugging them down less gently than he should have. When he got them down past his hips he slid his hand up, finding Cisco’s erection easier with just a thin layer of cotton separating them.

Cisco whimpered against his mouth, his kiss going open-mouthed and hungry.

Joe was distracted, though, getting used to the feeling of hard flesh under his fingers again. He stroked over the outline of Cisco’s cock, palmed the head through his...quick glance down revealed boxers. Plain blue, un-geeked-out boxers. Joe was almost surprised by that.

Cisco looped his hands around Joe’s neck suddenly and tugged him down, rolling onto his side to put them side by side on the mattress. His hand slipped between them to Joe’s slacks, and he only bothered to unbutton and unzip halfway before he plunged his hand in.

Joe broke off their kiss and sucked in a breath as warm, calloused fingers caught against his own plain unmarked boxers, and slipped under the elastic of the waistband to find his stirring cock. He hadn’t put much thought into whether Cisco had experience at this, but the fingers that circled him were firm and confident.

“Fuck…” Heat shuddered through him, and he gritted his teeth as Cisco’s grip loosened enough to stroke him slowly. He panted against Cisco’s neck, shocked at how strong and fast the sensations were pulsing through him. “Wait. Let me…”

Cisco stilled his hand but didn’t let him go. “Mm?”

Joe hummed a wordless response, mouthing at Cisco’s neck as he rolled their bodies closer, sliding his knee between Cisco’s legs to lace them tight together. Cisco took the hint fast, freeing his hand to clench his hands around Joe’s ass and hold him in place.

Their boxers were still in the way, but the fabric helped as they slid against each other. Joe’s cock was solid by then, thick and eager pushing into Cisco’s matching erection.

“God. Joe.” Cisco’s voice was thickened with arousal, pitched a little lower than usual, and Joe absorbed that fact the way he absorbed everything else about the man.

There was nothing all that storybook about a guy’s first time in years being this college-style frotting, but Joe felt too damned good to even slow down. Wasn’t like they had a stock of supplies for anything more complicated, and from the sounds Cisco was making he had no complaints either.

He dipped his head in and kissed his way up Cisco’s throat, tasting the salt of sweat building up on his skin. He could feel Cisco’s pulse fast and strong against his lips and tongue. Next time, he promised himself, or sometime soon at least, he would take his time and do this again, focus on every last sensation that made that pulse get faster against his mouth.

Cisco’s breath caught more and more as they moved together. His hands slipped from Joe’s own sweat-slicked skin and gripped again harder, blunt fingernails scraping over him in a way that made Joe arch and hiss and grind down into him. Joe pushed at Cisco’s shoulder, pressing him flat into the mattress again and sliding on top of him without worrying about keeping his weight off.

Cisco’s legs slid up and apart, holding Joe between them, and he pulled and tugged at his body with every thrust, like he was trying to drag Joe deeper into his own skin. Joe dropped his head down, forehead rocking against Cisco’s shoulder as he rolled his hips faster to match the throb of body, the heat rising in him too fast to be slowed.

Cisco laced a hand around his neck, driving up into his body with each push, gasping and cursing and moaning in turn. He was as vocal in bed as he was any other time, apparently, but his eloquence took a hit. Joe wondered what it would take to make him nonverbal.

Another item to add to his mental list for the future.

Cisco let go first. His hand gripped Joe’s neck, his other clenched against Joe’s ass and pulling him in tighter. His head fell back, his mouth opened, his back arched. Joe had to pry his eyes open to watch, but no way he was gonna miss it. And yeah, it was fucking beautiful, that shock of pleasure coming over Cisco’s expressive face. The whine of his voice as he gasped out Joe’s name before even that choked off.

Joe felt a wave of warmth inside. He felt suddenly inexpressibly fond of the man under him, and it just made everything feel that much brighter and sharper. He didn’t slow his own rolling hips, moving against the hot press of Cisco’s welcoming body as he felt the pressure low in his gut that meant he wasn’t going to be far behind.

Cisco was still panting for air, his legs wrapped tight around Joe, when Joe felt the clench of his own orgasm. He buried his face against Cisco’s neck, tensing all over and groaning low and long. It had been too long. Too long, too many years of only ever doing this on his own, and his body knew the difference. His cock pulsed into his boxers once and then again and again and fuck, fuck…

His hips were reluctant to slow, even when his muscles started to complain and the heavy pleasure of lethargy started filling his limbs. Didn’t help that Cisco refused to let him go, still meeting his hips with little grunts of pleasure. But Joe finally managed to draw away, to leave a last open-mouthed kiss against Cisco’s shoulder as he rolled away and dropped on his back, breathing hard.

There was silence for a few breathless moments, but Cisco rolled on his side to face Joe and slid in a little closer. “Can I...do you…?”

Joe chuckled, the sound low and sleepy. “C’mere.” He stretched out an arm and smiled as Cisco slipped happily into place against him. It was already too warm in that bed, even above the covers, but there wasn’t an atom in Joe’s body that wanted to complain about Cisco curling in around him.

And it didn’t stop his brain from shutting down and his eyes from closing after just another minute or two. With Cisco’s head on his chest, and his fingers twined through long dark hair, Joe slept.

There was an ongoing sensation of expectancy where Cisco Ramon was concerned. There had been through this last long week, anyway. This feeling that everything was too easy and too simple, and that just didn’t make sense so it couldn’t possibly last.

He’d felt it even after that first dinner invite, watching Cisco moving around in Joe’s home and waiting for the moment that they both realized how strange it was that he was there. But that moment never came.

It kept on never coming. Even when he woke up in a strange bed, chilled, in damp boxers, and alone. Joe didn’t have time for that clench of worry, the certainty that this was when things had gone too far and the downward plunge was going to begin.

He didn’t have time because it was the door to the room closing that had woken him up in the first place, and when he blinked fuzzy eyes towards the door he saw Cisco coming in from outside, hands full.

Cisco switched on a lamp, shooting a look at the bed instantly, as if to see if the light would wake Joe. He broke out in a smile the moment he saw Joe’s eyes open and on him, and he approached and dropped to sit on the edge of the bed, dumping a couple of bags of stuff with him.

“I cheated. I did open my wallet on this trip. But since you weren’t there to see me do it the letter of our agreement is intact and I feel like I ought to remain un-shot.”

Joe laughed, and it was equal parts amusement and relief that this streak of non-strangeness was going right on full steam.

Cisco was wearing his concert clothes, his hair tied back and sleek, still damp from a shower that Joe was surprised hadn’t woken him up. He held out one of his two bags of goodies. “The pizza place was closed, I had to fast food it.”

The smell from the bag shot right to Joe’s stomach: grease and salt and whatever but it was hot and edible. He reached for it fast, grabbing a wrapped burger and handing the bag back. “I better shower before I get too comfortable.”

“Can I watch?” Cisco grinned. “You don’t have to, it’s really late. Or early, I guess. Though. I was hoping…”

“What?”

He lofted the second brown bag he’d brought in.

Joe reached for it and peered in. He wasn’t too surprised to see a box of condoms and a generic clear bottle he didn’t have to guess too hard about. He dropped the bag on the bed and groaned, though it was hard to ignore his flush.

“I guess you’re about to learn one of the downsides to spending a night with a man almost twice your age.”

Cisco just raised an eyebrow. “We’ll see.” He hesitated, smiling faintly. “I just...if tonight’s a one-shot deal then I don’t wanna waste it.”

Joe wanted to answer instantly, because he already had a mental list of things he wanted to do with Cisco, and it hadn’t occurred to him that this was just some kind of road-trip phenomenon.

But then...he hadn’t thought it through, really. After tonight was home, and life the way he knew it. Iris and Barry, his job, the metas and the craziness. The same life he’d spent the last few years deliberately not complicating with a relationship. Maybe this whole thing didn’t feel weird yet, but he wasn’t going to make any promises based on a lack of strangeness. He needed to think.

His silence, he knew, was conspicuous. He swung his feet to the floor and pushed up, stretching. “Shower,” he decided. The rest could wait for a little while.

Cisco just smiled, small and contained.

Joe padded to the bathroom, unwrapping his burger and downing it in the thirty seconds it took him to turn on the water and blink at himself in the mirror.

He didn’t look too bad. Maybe not quite sharp enough to be some twenty-three year old’s plaything, but not bad all in all. There was grey at his temples, a little through his goatee. The whorls of hair on his chest and at his groin were still solid black, at least. He was fit, able to study himself from all sides in just his boxers without making a face. Broad, solid, but he’d always been that.

He could run down a criminal - provided that criminal wasn’t super-powered - and that’s what mattered. He definitely wasn’t as young as he used to be, but he was strong enough in who he was not to mind too much.

He stripped to get into the shower, and his thoughts went to the way Cisco had looked at him earlier. The way those looks made him feel; sexy and strong, powerful. Desirable. Those feelings - hell, the whole night - were something he wouldn’t mind having in his life.

The whole week, really. (It was only a week, he couldn’t lose sight of that fact.) The meals and the conversations and the texts, the late night calls, the laughing and the music. That was nice, it made him realize just how closed-off his life had become the last few years. Now that Iris and Barry were grown and not around to keep him company, he’d gotten used to silence. But he didn’t like it. He wasn’t made for it.

He liked company and conversation. He liked laughing along with someone. He’d told Cisco over that first dinner that it was just too late to dive back into that kind of life, dating and juggling priorities and everything. But this week proved that he’d been wrong. More than that, it proved he needed that kind of life. He wanted it. It was good for him.

He and Cisco...they were friends first. This thing between them tonight, that was unexpected. Cisco apparently had thought about it before - had dreams about it, so he said - but Joe didn’t have many doubts that if tonight really was a one-time deal that Cisco would still be around, texting and talking music and making him laugh.

Still, there was no denying that from the first moment Joe felt the pull of lust, he responded like a man in need. So he wanted companionship, and he wanted desire.

Question was, was Cisco himself the sort of complication Joe needed? He was young. Undoubtedly, undeniably young. Younger than Iris, younger than Barry, and that kind of thing had a huge impact. He was also knee-deep in the strangest part of Joe’s life, the metas and Barry’s abilities.

Complications all over the place. Dangerous complications.

And not just dangerous because of the metas. Singh himself had warned Joe that dating a man would make his job complicated, and Singh had a decade of proof to back it up. Then there was Iris and Barry and their possible reactions to think about. They had never known Joe to date anyone more than once. They were both warm and kind and open-minded, the way he raised them to be, but sometimes when things got close to home people’s beliefs got...tested. Did he need to test them all that way?

Especially considering that he didn’t have to choose Cisco in order to get companionship. There was Sherry, who had been so openly interested. She was beautiful, and beyond that she was Joe’s age, and a more socially acceptable gender. Maybe he wouldn’t like her as much as he liked Cisco. But maybe he’d end up liking her more.

Maybe the next person to come around would be even better for him. Now that he knew he was in a good place in his life to start looking again, did he really need to contemplate staying with the first person who caught his eye?

So,his options: he could stick with Cisco, and deal with the layers and layers of complications it would involve all to make sure that when he felt that streak of lust in his gut, it was Cisco’s warm brown eyes looking back at him. Or he could go out and find something new, something perfect and easy and uncomplicated. Call Sherry, maybe, or explore a thousand other options. Explore the whole wide-open world.

When he studied it from all sides, it wasn’t a hard choice to make.

By the time he left the bathroom behind, towel wrapped around his waist because his boxers were stiff and clammy and belonged on the floor where he left them, he felt sure of himself. Wouldn’t be the easiest conversations ahead of him, but when Joe West made up his mind about something that was that.

Cisco had turned on the TV while Joe was in the shower. He was under the covers of the bed they’d been sleeping in, leaving the other one undisturbed. His t-shirt was still on, though his jeans were back in a heap on the ground.

He looked over as Joe stood in the doorway. “Fries are cold. And these aren’t quality fries to begin with, so. Eat at your own risk.”

Joe approached. He climbed onto the bed on his knees, and leaned right in to Cisco’s space. He wanted to run his hands through that long hair again, but it was tied back so he settled for slipping his hand around the back of Cisco’s neck.

Cisco’s eyes widened, but he leaned in and met Joe in a slow, easy kiss.

“I thought about what you said,” Joe said against his mouth before kissing him again. He tasted like salt and cheap burgers. “About this being a one-shot deal.”

Cisco drew back, hand sliding up Joe’s arm. He schooled his expression, but there was hope in his eyes bright enough to be a neon sign.

Joe smiled. “I don’t like that idea.”

If hope was neon then happiness was a full-on sunrise as it spread over Cisco’s face. “Oh,” he said through a grin big enough to shape the sound of the word. “Well. Guess I can take the condoms back to the--”

“We’re still gonna need those.”

Cisco laughed, and this time it was him that leaned in, tilting his head up to catch Joe’s mouth in a kiss.

“Hey, you know. The guy downstairs? I asked him where to grab a bite to eat, and he asked if we were a thing, you and me.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “I should file some kind of complaint about that guy.” He tugged out the sheets beside Cisco and slid into bed, pulling the towel out and dropping it on the floor.

Cisco made a show of trying to get a peek. “He wanted to know if you were local.” He stretched out the grease-spotted fast food bag. “Eat, there’s like three more burgers if you don’t want the nasty-ass fries. And you don’t.”

Joe took the bag obediently and dug out another burger. “Local? Why would he…?”

“Pretty sure he was gonna fish for your number next,” Cisco reported with a grin, passing over a pile of napkins. “Your whole grouchy-detective thing must’ve turned his crank.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Joe laughed, though, shaking his head as he started on his food. “I think he was even younger than you are.”

Cisco shot him a look. “Nobody’s younger than me. Nobody at all. I am the youngest person alive. I was born three minutes ago, during this chilly late night--”

“Okay, okay.” Joe chuckled. “I’ll shut up about it.”

“Believe it when I see it, but any effort would be appreciated.”

“What are we watching?”

Cisco glanced over at the tv. “Some kind of crappy low-budget Easter movie or something. Doesn’t matter.”

“No?”

“Nope. We’re only gonna watch until you’re done eating. Then I’m gonna suck you off.”

He almost choked on his burger. He looked over at Cisco.

Cisco smiled innocently. “If you want.”

Christ, that smile. Cisco had a whole arsenal of them, he was constantly smiling, but this one was especially killer. Bright but wicked, innocent but knowing exactly what he was doing to Joe.

Joe had to look away, flushing, feeling his body twitching in interest. “This is gonna kill me, isn’t it?”

Cisco hummed in answer. “It might. You really are very, very, very old.”

Joe growled and folded the wrapper around his half-eaten burger, dropping it back in the bag. “I also know when I’m being manipulated,” he said, his voice gruff as he twisted to face Cisco.

“Well, my manipulations aren’t very subtle.” Cisco was already tugging off his shirt again, flushed and glowing. “And I’m pretty sure I’m not pushing you into something you don’t actually want.”

“No argument there.” Joe’s hands seemed to gravitate to Cisco the moment his shirt was off. He traced his fingers along his shoulders, down his arms, around his sides to his back.

Right choice, he told himself easily. Definitely made the right choice, because as beautiful as Sherry had been she hadn’t made his mouth water like this, or made his hands feel needy without skin under his fingers.

Right choice.

The next hour didn’t kill him. The next hour was slow, agonizingly slow, but Joe was making up for a lot of lost time. He wanted to memorize the feel of Cisco’s body under his hands, the smooth and soft and hard places, the sensitive spots that made him laugh or pant or whimper. He wanted to taste every sound that came out of Cisco’s mouth.

He felt greedy for him, for this kid he’d really only spent the last week getting to know. Was that strange? He wasn’t sure. He’d lost track of how normal people behaved in new relationships. All he knew was that everything he did made Cisco moan and cry out and touch Joe, look at Joe, like Joe was everything he’d been waiting for.

It was easy. Everything was so damned easy with Cisco, and natural, and right. There might come a time when that wouldn’t be the case. But holding on to him, burying his face in heated skin and mouthing the curve of muscle and feeling the callouses of Cisco’s engineer hands on his own body, every sensation was perfect.

It didn’t make Joe mourn for all the years he’d spent alone when he could have felt things like this. It wasn’t so starry-eyed as him thinking that he’d been saving it all up until he met Cisco, but there was still a feeling of satisfaction in it. Like if he was going to deprive himself then at least it led to this.

And frankly he was okay with not having a lot of previous memories to distract him, because the sight of Cisco kneeling between his legs, mouth taking in his cock with excruciating slowness, it deserved a spotlight around it. The feeling of wet heat closing in around him, the hungry sounds that escaped from Cisco’s mouth, the way Cisco’s hands gripped his hips until the burn of fingernails felt like it was leaving permanent marks, the way he jerked himself off frantically as Joe got closer to coming, like it was just too hot to resist the urge...all of that Joe wanted to keep separate from every other damned thing in his brain. He wanted to hang on to it, to let it warm him on cold nights, to see it in his dreams, to let it distract himself at work.

He had absolutely no idea what was waiting for them back in Central City or how this was all going to play out once real life kicked back in. But it was worth it. Christ, Jesus, fuck was it worth it.

“Hey, daddy! How was the concert?”

Getting a phone call from Iris early in the morning wasn’t unexpected at all. They often had to catch up that way now that they didn’t see each other over breakfast or have a chance to leave each other notes whenever they needed to.

Joe felt a little strained when he answered, considering he was still pretty worn out - and pretty damned chipper - from the night before, until her easy, happy tone relaxed him again. He grinned even as he lofted their two bags into the back of the car and shut the trunk. “Baby, I know you won’t appreciate this, but...oh, man.”

“Oh god, you’re not gonna say something unforgivably corny about it being ‘funktastic’ or something, are you?”

Joe laughed. He leaned against the car, content to shut his eyes and feel the sun on his skin as he listened to his baby girl’s voice in his ear. “Wouldn’t dream of it. It was amazing, that’s all. Worth it. I feel like I’m twenty again.”

“Wow, that’s something I’m almost sorry to be missing. You’re coming home in time for dinner, right? I was planning to cook but Eddie found the most unbelievable little Latin fusion place. We ate there last night and I’m hooked. I want it again.”

“Well then by all means, let dad treat the happy couple to a dinner out.”

“Thanks, dad!” She was moving around on her end, no doubt getting ready for a day working. Her schedule was unpredictable now that she was working for the paper. “Drive safe, okay? Tell Cisco I said hi.”

He ignored a little spread of heat up his face. “I will. Don’t work too hard.”

“But then how would I ever take over this city before I’m thirty?”

“Sorry, my bad, work your fingers to the bones.”

“Damn right.” She laughed as she hung up the call, and he stood there for a moment, listening to the echoes of the sound. He didn’t hear it near often enough these days.

“That was either Barry or Iris.”

He opened his eyes to see Cisco standing at the other side of the car, watching him with a grin. “Hey. Ready to go?”

“Yep. I double-checked the room, turned the keys in, we are free men. I didn’t even officially complain about Mr. Nosy from last night. Though I can’t promise there’s not some aggressive Yelping in my future.”

“You do what you gotta do, kid.”

Cisco made a face at the nickname, but slid into the passenger seat as Joe unlocked the car.

As he pulled them out of the parking lot and headed towards the highway, Joe felt his mood getting a little pensive. Home was three hours away. Home and work and family and everything it meant, and Joe West loved his life but something was pressing at his chest a little.

“Iris, then.”

He glanced over at Cisco. “Mm?”

“On the phone. It was Iris.”

He blinked, but tried to smile. “Guess who gets to have Peruvian paella twice in one week?”

“Oh yeah? Hey, remind me before we get home, I’ll tell you some off-menu ordering you should do that’ll totally impress her.”

“Nice.” Joe smiled, but it faded after a moment. “How’d you know it was her?”

“You don’t get tense about Barry. But you do when you talk about her lately.”

“Tense?”

Cisco was quiet for a minute. He fiddled with the iPod he’d been all set to score their drive home through. “Can I ask you something? Not that it’s my business, I know, I’m not acting like I have some kind of right to invade your life just because we…”

“Just ask,” Joe said with a faint smile, pulling them onto I-70 smoothly.

“Why doesn’t she know about Barry?”

Joe wasn’t sure he expected that question, but he didn’t feel much surprise at it. He let out a breath, and kept his answer simple. “I need her separate. I need her safe.”

Cisco didn’t answer. He started scrolling screens on his iPod.

Joe focused on the road, trying not to think of all the holes in even that brief answer. Everything that made Iris unsafe already, every way she was already too close. He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about that with anyone. Even Cisco.

“So I don’t know how much Barry tells you about what goes down at the Lab,” Cisco said after a long pause. Long enough that Joe wasn’t sure at first if he was changing the subject or not. “But I have made one or two mistakes the last few months that could be classified as near-fatal. I mean, I thought they were for the best at the time, but...hindsight. You know.”

“I know.”

“Well, Barry’s rightfully called me out when I do dumb things like that. And it’s funny, but what it always boils down to is that he gets why I did whatever I did, he just can’t get over my doing it in secret and keeping it from everyone. But I mean, hell, I already explained to you the attitude towards secrecy in that place, you can’t blame me for not suddenly being all sharing-is-magic about stuff.”

Joe glanced over at him for a moment before dragging his eyes back to the road. “Everybody--”

“What it always seems to come down to,” Cisco went on quickly, “is that Barry would have been safer if he knew the full truth. And that’s just logic right there. You have to know the variables to formulate any kind of plan, right?”

Not a change of subject, then. Joe sighed. “It’s different with Iris.”

“Yeah?” Cisco answered mildly, sounding nothing but curious.

Joe didn’t need to hear doubt, though, he inserted it in himself. “She’s my baby.”

He could feel Cisco’s eyes on him, but he didn’t turn to look. After a moment a song finally started, soft instrumentals coming through the car speakers.

Joe smiled absently when he recognized the song. One of Ella’s, that he’d told Cisco over red beans and rice that it was one of his all-time favorites.

You go to my head...

“If you asked her about it, what do you think she’d say? If you told her that you had a secret, that it might put her life at risk but it involved Barry and it was dangerous…”

“She would want to know.” Joe frowned, focusing on the car a good hundred feet in front of them. “She’d demand to know.”

“Yep, seems like that kind of person to me.”

Cisco didn’t say anything else, and Joe was glad about that. Not much else to say, really. It was never all that logical, keeping things from her. Especially once she got the blog going. She’d been grabbed by one meta already, and now she was basically employed to be the person who knew The Flash, so the whole city associated her with him. She and The Flash were linked. Nothing he could do to stop it now.

Keeping the truth from her was unfair. But it was also the only thing he could do, as a father. He couldn’t watch out for her now that she lived with Eddie. He couldn’t tell her pretty stories about the heroes and villains of the world now that she was an adult. He was powerless to protect his baby girl, and he had never been that before.

Everything was about Iris. Since she was born, she was his life. The ring he’d always worn, married or divorced, had been a constant reminder of who was first in his life. Barry had come along to join her, but he never supplanted her. Nothing could. She was his baby.

She was an adult. God help him, she was in danger either way. There was nothing he could do but accept it.

Of course that was the hardest thing he could possibly be made to do.

“My brother…”

Joe glanced over, surprised.

Cisco looked straight out the windshield, his profile set. “I’ve got two. Both older. Dante, he’s the golden boy. He’s the one my folks adore. Wanted to be a pianist growing up, but…” He frowned.

Joe had to get his eyes back on the road, but he listened carefully.

“Armando was the oldest. My ma used to say she made all her mistakes with him, had things down for Dante and me. He was pretty rough, I guess. You know the place we lived, its reputation and all. Armando was all up in that kind of stuff. Gangs, drugs, the whole deal. I thought he was the most awesome guy alive when I was a kid. Remember I told you about my brother first putting headphones on me and helping me focus using music? That was Mando.”

“Was the oldest?” Joe repeated after a moment.

“He died when I was sixteen. Not too long after the headphones. Total cliche of a crime-doesn’t-pay sort of death, too, not even worth going into. I’m sure there’s records you could look up if you were really curious.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“You can. Permission granted or whatever. Mostly because the odds of me talking about it again are slim.”

Joe nodded, understanding.

“Anyway, everything changed when he died. Dante had wanted to go to school to study piano. He got into a college, not fancy like Julliard but a good music program. Except then Mando died. And in my family, leaving wasn’t an option anymore. My mom and dad just lost their son. They had to be taken care of. So Dante gave up his dream and college and all of it. He started working. Keeping the bills paid and making things easier on our folks.”

“What about you?” Joe asked carefully, trying to sound casual. He had a feeling this was something it didn’t do to press Cisco about. Not given how fast he was to clam up when things turned to him in most other conversations.

“I graduated high school two years early, got a handful of scholarships to CCU.” Cisco let out a breath, unsteadiness audible. “I left. Got a dorm maybe ten miles from the Heights, but you’d’ve thought I was setting up on the moon the way they reacted. I mean...it didn’t matter, I guess. A block away or another country, the point was I left. Me and my folks...we never really…” He sighed. “We never got along all that well, but now I might as well be invisible.”

Joe frowned, glancing over at him as much as the traffic allowed. “Because you went to college?”

“My parents are traditional, Joe. Family is everything. There’s nothing strange about Dante giving up his dreams to support his parents. Nothing strange about him still living at home. What’s strange is leaving. College and career or not, it’s...unforgivable. I was seventeen, it was a year after Armando was buried, ma was laughing at the dinner table again. My pop wanted me to start a shop, can you imagine it? Because I’m good at ‘tinkering’ with things. He thought I could be a repairman, fix TVs and laptops and whatever. Live at home, be with family. And I could have. That’s the kicker. Wouldn’t have been a great life, but it was livable.”

He cleared his throat of raggedness. “But I left. And I didn’t know that it was unforgivable. I probably should have. I probably would have left anyway. But...look, the point of all this is...something that you think is just a little mistake, you can lose people over it. You can lose your whole family in one move. So. I don’t know.”

Joe reached over and held out a hand.

Cisco took it after a few seconds, and grasped tightly. He pressed the screen of the iPod, and the fading song suddenly started up again from the beginning.

This time when Ella started singing they both sang along.

“You weren’t kidding about that concert making you twenty again,” was all Iris said as they were saying goodbye after dinner.

“What do you mean?”

She drew back from their hug and searched his face, smiling after a moment. “You look happy. Really happy.”

He grinned helplessly. “I feel pretty happy,” he admitted.

But on the way home it didn’t take his grin long to fade. He had one more secret from Iris now, and he wasn’t doing too well with the ones he already had.

There was habit in it, habit going back her entire life. Joe’s job, Iris’s mother, he didn’t want those things to affect her when she was a kid. She knew her dad was a cop, of course, but he did his best to distance ‘cop’ from anything they showed in movies or on TV. Really, there wasn’t much deceit involved in that, until the last year or two. Joe had only fired his gun a couple of times before the last year. Most cops never fired at all.

Still, he’d always exaggerated how dull and routine it all was. He did it to keep fear from her eyes. And from Barry’s, once he moved in. The boy had just lost his parents to violence, the last thing he needed was to live in fear that his new home would be broken up the same way. And the last thing Iris needed was to think she could be next in line to suffer the way Barry was suffering.

Joe kept his real worries and gripes about the job to himself, and he reassured his kids every night that he was always going to come home to them. So in a way he’d been lying to her most of her life. He wasn’t sure anyone would fault him for those early lies, though, and now he was just getting ridiculous about it.

He wasn’t sure why he’d thought he’d have a little time before this new secret started to become an issue. He should have known from her phone call that morning that leaving Cisco out of their talks was going to lead to a lot more obfuscations and outright lying.

Unforgivable, Cisco had warned him earlier. Sometimes things you thought were understandable and right could be unforgivable. Joe couldn’t honestly see Iris holding anything against him to that degree, as long as he wasn’t outright hurting anyone. But there was a lot of gray area between understanding and unforgivable, and she could end up way too close to the wrong side of it.

When he got home from dinner he was pensive. Barry had already turned in for the night, so there was no one to conceal his mood around. That left Joe alone with his feelings again, and that wasn’t something he particularly wanted.

“Hey, how was dinner?” Cisco’s voice was warm in his ear when he answered the phone.

Joe settled into bed and turned off the light, and sighed in answer.

“That good?”

“No, it was. It was good. I mean I still have some growing to do as a person before I’m entirely comfortable spending time with my little girl and her live-in boyfriend, who happens to be my partner. But all things considered…”

“Mm. Yeah, that sounds like it has amazing potential for awkwardness.”

More or less awkwardness than Joe dating a guy younger than Iris? He sighed at that thought, annoyed at himself. He made his choice, damn it. He knew what he was signing up for, and Iris was right: it made him happy.

He just needed to get on with dealing with the possible downsides before they had a chance to overshadow that happiness.

“I didn’t tell her,” he said, shutting his eyes in the darkness and keeping the phone tight against his ear.

“What, about me?” Cisco didn’t sound surprised. “It’s up to you. Just let me know what lead to follow, with Barry and all.”

“I just need some time.”

“Joe. It’s fine.” Joe could hear the smile in Cisco’s voice. Warm and understanding and easy, like he always was.

He sighed, all that understanding making him feel even worse about his hesitation.

“Really, okay? This has been a pretty amazing weekend all around, I have no complaints. You gave me a lot, whatever happens from here.”

“Hey.” Joe frowned. “Me not knowing how to talk to my daughter about a love life I haven’t had in years doesn’t have anything to do with you and me. I’ll admit things would be a little easier if you were…”

“Older? Female? Not Barry’s goofy nerd pal?”

Joe couldn’t argue with any of those, but hearing them just made his frown deepen. “I like you. This weekend was amazing for me too, you know. Deciding to keep seeing you, that’s a choice I made easily, and I’m not second-guessing myself.”

Cisco laughed quietly in his ear. “Then relax, because I’m seriously okay with you needing some time to get a grip on it.”

Joe hummed, but relaxed obediently. He wasn’t sure he bought it entirely - Cisco was too damned quick to write himself off, even just conversationally, and that meant something. But that wasn’t something Joe was going to be able to fix for him. He would just have to do everything he could to help.

He sighed again.

“So. What’re you wearing, hot stuff?”

Joe shook in quiet laughter. “Really?”

“Hey. It’s late, I’m already in bed, and you’re the guy I’m ‘seeing’. Why not?”

Joe smiled, but he couldn’t ignore the little tingles of warmth that went through him.

He shut his eyes and tried to imagine Cisco lying down in the dark just like he was. He hadn’t managed to catch him sleeping when they were at the hotel; Cisco woke up first and didn’t seem like the kind of guy who wallowed under covers.

Joe kept his eyes shut and focused on the feeling of laying there with Cisco curled against him. “I’d rather you were here in person.”

“No argument here. But.”

“But,” Joe agreed. He slipped his hand under the covers and down to his stomach. “I’m not sure ‘what’re you wearing’ is exactly my kind of style, though.”

“No?” Cisco’s voice was already softer, a little more breathy than it had been. “So what’s your style?”

“Guess we’ll find out together.” Joe laughed quietly.

There was a rustle over the phone, and Cisco breathed in his ear quietly. “I was thinking about you before you called.”

“Yeah?”

“I get the feeling that’s gonna be happening a lot,” Cisco confirmed, his voice low. “I used to have these dreams sometimes, little fantasies or whatever, but...oh, man.”

There was a note in his voice that made Joe’s body spark with heat. He slid his palm down his boxers and breathed in at the tease of stimulation. “Yeah,” he said, his voice a rumble. “It was good. It was so good...”

“You know what I can’t stop thinking about?” Cisco asked into the hush of darkness.

“Mm?”

“The way you looked at me when we...those detective eyes of yours, like you don’t miss a thing, but you looked at me like everything you saw was…”

“Beautiful,” Joe completed, since he knew Cisco wouldn’t. “Everything. The way you look, and feel, the way you breathe when I touch you.” He sucked in a breath, boxers tented under his hand.

Cisco let out a shaky breath in his ear. “I’m not new to this, you know, but no one’s ever looked at me like that. I watched you long as I could, but…”

“Mm, me too. Watched until I couldn’t anymore.” Until the pleasure was too much and his focus moved to his own body. Until he was lost in how Cisco felt around him, against him. On top of him, shivering under his hands. Bent between his legs, taking Joe in his mouth inch by inch and moaning like he was the most decadent thing Cisco had ever tasted...

“Christ.” He pushed his boxers down and grasped his cock, stroking slowly as Cisco’s breathing hitched in his ear. He wanted Cisco’s cock in his hand, Cisco’s rough hand around him, but that unsteady breathing in his ear would have to be enough.

And it was. They were done talking, and he was pretty sure their minds were both on the same moments from the night before as he groaned and Cisco’s voice choked in wordless answer. He fisted himself, quicker than usual but timed with Cisco’s panting breath.

Cisco came first, gasping out Joe’s name on a sobbed breath, but it didn’t take Joe long to follow. He drove up into his fist and dropped his head back, phone clenched in his hand as he gritted his teeth and erupted into his boxers.

Then there was nothing but Cisco’s slowing breaths in his ear, and his own heart slowing its pounding in his chest.

He wanted to say something, but nothing felt appropriate. He angled and tugged to strip off his boxers, using the fabric to clean himself off and dropping it to the floor. He rolled on his side, feeling flushed and limp and content.

“Night, Joe,” Cisco murmured in his ear, voice thick and heavy.

Joe echoed the words, but neither of them hung up. He lay there and listened to Cisco breathe as sleep took him over.

He woke up with a dead battery and a smile on his face, and a sudden determination.

Iris’s smile was surprised and pleased when she looked up from her desk and saw him there. “Dad!”

He stretched out the Jitters cup. “All those times you brought me coffee at work, I’ve got some favors to return.”

She took the cup and drew it in close, inhaling. “You’re a lifesaver. I didn’t have time to stop this morning, and the coffee here…”

He looked around the bright, open floor of the newspaper workroom, perching on the edge of her desk. “This is nice. I was expecting something a little less...modern. Aren’t newspapers becoming fossils?”

“We do a pretty huge online business too,” she said proudly, looking around. “Apparently the web edition has doubled in registered readers and almost tripled in daily hits since The Flash started showing up.” She sent him a wide, confident smile. “I’m not saying I single-handedly saved this place before I ever got a job here, but…”

“You’re not not saying it,” he finished easily. He knew his little girl.

“Exactly.” She laughed. “Don’t you have work? Come on, I’ll walk you out.”

She introduced him to a couple of people as they headed out, and he warmed helplessly at the pride in her eyes when she said ‘my dad, Detective Joe West’ each time. That pride right there, that was worth every criminal he put behind bars. It was worth everyone who got away, everything he was too late for, every ounce of frustration and worry and helplessness.

It had always been for her. Everything had been for her since the day she was born. He got bogged down sometimes in the right ways to express his love, weighing lies with safety and secrets with seeing her smile, but the love itself was still the single greatest thing in his life. Always would be.

He wasn’t altogether surprised when they got outside into the damp morning air and she stopped them on the sidewalk and faced him squarely.

“What’s going on?” Her gaze told him he hadn’t been as casual as he’d thought.

This time he didn’t waste time worrying about what to say. “I’ve started seeing someone.”

Surprise made her eyes widen. “What?”

He just shrugged, smiling uncertainly.

“Dad, seriously? Not just a date, actually…”

“Seeing. Relationship. I think. It’s still...it’s new.”

“Oh my God!” She jumped at him, throwing an arm around him and remembering the coffee in her other hand just in time. “Dad, that’s great! Who is she? When can I meet her?”

He hugged her back tightly. “It’s complicated,” he said, trying not to worry too much about how far away from her expectations his reality was going to be.

She drew back at that, studying him. “Complicated.”

“Yeah. New.” He smiled after a moment. “Unexpected. In more ways than you can imagine.”

She studied him all the more intently. “When can I meet them?”

He let out a breath at the revised question, and her answering smile, small though it was, told him that somehow, just like that, she understood at least part of why this was so complex.

“Give me some time to make sure it looks like it’s going to stick.”

“Fair enough.” She reached out and tweaked his tie. “I just want you happy, dad. We don’t talk about it, but you being alone for so long...I’ve hated it. If you’re happy, the details don’t matter. You know that, right?”

“I know.” He smiled, helpless not to. “But I haven’t been alone. Not since the day you were born.”

She rolled her eyes, but her smile was bright and sincere. “Go to work, you sap.”

He dialed Barry from the parking lot of the newspaper. “Tell her.”

Barry’s answering hitch of breath told Joe it was the right call. Barry didn’t even ask what he meant, it was so near the surface for both of them that it wasn’t a question.

It felt huge, too huge, but not as huge as his little girl’s unconditional wish for his happiness. No secrets could withstand that. Joe would keep Cisco to himself for a little while longer, but she deserved more truth than she was being given.

“Tell her,” he said again into Barry’s shocked silence. “But keep her as safe as you can. Promise me.”

“You know I will. Joe…”

Joe smiled faintly at the relief in his voice. Iris was everything to Joe, the single most important part of his life. But Barry, he was such a close second that sometimes it was hard to separate them. “She’s at work. I’ll tell the captain you’re going to be late.”

Barry hung up fast, and Joe didn’t doubt that if he stayed parked there long enough he’d see a rush of lightning approaching. But he didn’t wait. He drove off, and he wondered as he went why if he was so scared about this could he not stop smiling.