Archive of Our Own ^beta

Eobard Thawne didn’t have time to keep drinking water. He was in the middle of perhaps the most important research of his life and his stupid throat refused to stop being dry. He drained the last mouthful of his sixth glass of water in two hours and deeply resented it.

It didn’t help. In fact, his throat now felt raw on top of being dry. He focused his attention on the online copy of a paper on soulmate theory and resolved to ignore how uncomfortable he was. Of course, being a speedster the more he tried to ignore it, the more it loomed large in his mind. He coughed into his hand, hoping it would ease the itching.

It got a little out of hand. Eobard found himself slumped over the keyboard thirty seconds later feeling like he had almost expelled his lungs through his mouth. On top of that, his head began to ache. He stood up and raced to the kitchen for another glass of water.

“Hey, what was that?” Malcolm Merlyn asked, looking up from the stove without any indication of surprise at Eobard’s sudden appearance. Well, living with a speedster rapidly reduced anyone’s ability to be surprised.

“What do you mean?” Eobard asked, jamming the glass against the lever in the door of the freezer. Water slowly spurted out and he found himself running calculations, wondering if it would have been faster to use the tap.

“It sounded like you were coughing up a lung. Are you sick?” Malcolm said, breaking across his thoughts.

“Don’t be dim,” Eobard snapped. “I don’t get sick. My speedster metabolism prevents illness from establishing much of a foothold.” His head ached worse. The glass was finally full, so he began gulping it down. Half-way through, an uncontrollable coughing fit convulsed him, and he spat water all over the floor.

Malcolm instantly came to his side, removing the glass before he could drop it and holding him upright. Eobard leaned against him for a moment, catching his breath.

“You sound sick.” Malcolm put a hand on his forehead, which felt nicely cool. “You’re burning up. Eobard, you’re sick.”

“I thought speedsters couldn’t get sick,” Damien Darhk interjected, laying a bloodied sword on the kitchen table.

Malcolm frowned disapprovingly while he lowered Eobard into a chair. Eobard slumped forward, putting his aching head on the cool surface of the table.

“Not much of a foothold isn’t the same as never getting sick,” Malcolm said, still frowning at Damien. Rolling his eyes, the other man picked his sword back up.

“Eobard needs to rest. You know what that means.”

“I do not,” Eobard protested, lifting his head. “I need to get back to my research. I can’t exactly figure out how to make myself real again from bed.”

Damien and Malcolm exchanged fond smiles, not taking him seriously in the slightest. Malcolm retrieved a rag from the sink to wipe blood off the table.

“Eo, you can’t work like this. We’ll make sure you get some sleep and you can get back to the grind in the morning if you feel better.” Malcolm slung the rag over his shoulder and fixed Eobard with a firm look. “You are going to be taken care of even if you don’t like it.”

“Just let me get this put away,” Damien said, raising the sword. Eobard slumped back over the table. He didn’t usually regret recruiting Malcolm and Damien to help him become real again, but this was going too far. He could still work. Malcolm was just turning into a mother hen because he was an idiot.

Eobard found himself shivering uncontrollably and leaned back in his chair to get away from the chill surface of the table.

Malcolm was stirring something in a pot on the stove.

“You’re lucky I was already making soup,” he commented over his shoulder. “In a couple of hours, you’ll be able to have some. There’s nothing like good, hot soup when you have a cold.”

“I don’t,” Eobard mumbled in reply. His head felt fuzzy and coming up with something clever to say was suddenly too much work.

Malcolm chuckled, but didn’t bother responding. Eobard folded into himself and bitterly considered that he really might be sick. He certainly wasn’t feeling as good as he usually did. How could this have happened? He hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary.

Damien returned, bringing a whiff of rubbing alcohol. Eobard felt another coughing fit coming on and did his best to hold it back.

“Take him up to bed. I’ll come and take over for a while once I finish prepping in here,” Malcolm said to Damien.

“Don’t give me orders, Merlyn,” Damien grumbled in reply. They stared at each other until Eobard finally exploded into coughing again.

“Come on, Eo,” Damien said, picking him up like a child. Eobard scowled at this treatment, but short of using his speed, there wasn’t much he could do to get away.
Damien had been with the League of Assassins and he knew more about grappling than Eobard did. Besides, it was nice to be held, just this once. Being so close was definitely helping him get warmed back up.

Damien carried him up to the room they all shared and set him on the bed. Eobard stubbornly sat on the edge rather than lying down.

“You’re both overreacting,” he said, crossing his arms. “Even if I might, a little bit, be sick, there’s no reason to worry. I’ll be better in a day.” He had to rub his temples as his head throbbed. “Maybe two,” he added reluctantly.

Damien stared down at him icily. Those pale blue eyes were particularly suited for it, Eobard noticed despite himself. “Be that as it may, Malcolm won’t forgive either of us if you don’t sleep it off,” he intoned. “Now, get into your pajamas or I’ll do it for you.”

His tone made it more of a threat than the words had any right to be. Eobard suffered a brief vision of how Damien might violently stuff him into a set of sleepwear and decided obeying was in his best interest. At least he’d already shaken off the Black Flash just before his fourth glass of water.

Just to be petty, Eobard used his speed to change clothes and instantly regretted it. He tumbled off-balance back onto the bed and lay there aching. The pain had spread from his head to every part of his body. Maybe he should just let the Black Flash kill him. Living wasn’t worth feeling like this.

Lying still gave him muscle twitches. Eobard shifted in place, trying to make it stop without moving too much.

“You really don’t have to be this stubborn,” Damien told him, sliding into bed beside him. Eobard rolled his eyes and fitted himself against Damien’s body. That stopped the twitching, but Damien didn’t fully relax until he had wrapped Eobard in blankets like a cocoon. Satisfied, he went still, and Eobard was free to let his tense body go limp.

Eobard had spent years researching everything there was to know about speedsters and the Speed Force, but he had no idea why his kind were plagued with the complete inability to stay still unless they were touching someone else. Maybe that was where he’d gone wrong: becoming a speedster without lining up a person to sleep with him had made him go crazy from sleep deprivation.

Well, he had someone with him now. Damien wasn’t particularly concerned about the well-being of his co-conspirators or he hadn’t been at first. Malcolm, on the other hand, had a serious problem and had dragged Damien into his pit of healthiness. If Malcolm decreed that Eobard needed nursing, Damien would do his part, if only for the contrary amusement of seeing the speedster frustrated.

Eobard hated it, but he loved them at the same time. Funny, the last thing he’d expected from traveling through time was to find the love of his life, but here he was, saddled with two of them. And they were both idiots. He’d lose them if he couldn’t solve the problem of his ancestor erasing his existence.

He was hot now. “Let me out of this thing,” he complained, struggling to at least pull an arm out of his cocoon.

“Can’t do that,” Damien said cheerfully. “If I don’t keep you locked down, you’ll escape. We can’t have that.”

Eobard got his arm free and put it on his face. His hand was hot too, but it felt sort of nice anyway. “I’m going to boil to death, and it’ll be your fault.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. This can’t be the first time you’ve gotten a cold, right?”

Eobard kind of wanted to kill him for the suddenly incredulous sound of his voice.

“I’ve had colds before. Amazingly, we haven’t found the cure for that in the 22nd century.” He was rather proud of his biting level of sarcasm.

“So, you know you won’t boil to death. You’ll just get cold again if I let you out anyway,” Damien pointed out, all reasonably. That was funny.

Eobard stifled a snicker and it turned into a cough. When it was over, he managed to wheeze out a real laugh, just to spite his lungs. Reasonable Damien never failed to amuse him. It was just so out of character for the bloodthirsty maniac to bring up a logical argument.

Damien didn’t question him. Eobard lay still and found himself staring aimlessly at the wall. Cheerful sunlight spilled across it, coupled with gently waving shadows from the tree outside the window. It had been a long time since Eobard had lived in a place with cheerful sunlight and nice trees. His home as Harrison Wells had been beautiful, but it wasn’t warm like this house.

Maybe that had to do with the people he shared it with. Harrison had never had the comforting sound of a heartbeat under his head and the distant clatter of someone in the kitchen. Eobard was kind of glad Malcolm had had an attack of domestic insanity and demanded they move the lair into this farmhouse.

That last lair had been too cold, too.

The Spear of Destiny hadn’t worked out, but Eobard still had hope there was another way. He curled a little closer to Damien, remembering the blood-soaked battlefield and the narrow escape they’d had from the Legends. If he hadn’t gotten them out when the Spear stopped working, he would be dead, Damien would be dead, and Malcolm would be alone in that bleak place Eobard had taken him out of.

They were laying low, for now, staying ahead of the Black Flash, and keeping off the Legend’s radar. Eobard divided his time between researching another way to reverse his non-existence and putting up with the other two’s loving demands that he ate and slept.

A hand on his head broke him out of thought.

“He’s worse. That was faster than I expected,” Malcolm said, his voice pitched low and quiet.

“You have got to stop saying things like that. Of course, he’s fast,” Damien griped.

“Don’t lecture me on word choice, Damien. What I mean is that the fever shouldn’t have gotten this high yet,” Malcolm snapped back. Eobard had his eyes closed, but he could just imagine the grin on his face. Those two enjoyed picking fights to a nearly unholy degree.

“That’s how it works,” he mumbled. “In the unlikely event of an illness, my system still works faster than yours. It goes by quickly.”

“Without in any way diminishing the suffering involved,” Malcolm mused, smoothing Eobard’s hair back from his forehead. It was damp with sweat.

“Speaking of suffering, I hate this,” Damien said. Eobard cracked one eye open and craned his head back to look at him. Damien’s lips were tight, his eyes hard and unhappy. “It was bad enough when Nora got sick as a child. I hate being powerless to stop these things.”

That was his problem. Eobard shoved the cold knot out of his gut. He liked to think he was above the speedster tendency to jump to conclusions and assume the worst, but he’d thought Damien meant he hated Eobard for getting sick.

“I know. Tommy got every childhood illness you can imagine,” Malcolm agreed. “I let Rebecca take care of him most of the time, because she was a nurse and knew what she was doing. I wish I’d done more, now.”

Eobard expended enormous effort to move his hand over Malcolm’s. He couldn’t relate, never having had children or really much connection with other people, but the pain hidden behind Malcolm’s voice tore into him. It was like the pain he’d felt seeing how Cisco and Caitlin hated him.

“Now you have the chance to take care of someone,” Damien said indifferently. Eobard felt a distant shock that he could be so insensitive, but then he noticed how Damien had tensed beneath him. Then it made sense. Damien’s daughter was still alive, and he couldn’t be certain of her safety and well-being. Not being one to address and work through his feelings, Damien wanted out of the situation.

Eobard couldn’t think of a way to put it into words so that Malcolm wouldn’t get angry, but Malcolm chuckled.

“Glad to, Damien,” he said lightly. “Just make sure to stir my soup before you leave the house.”

Eobard heard them kiss briefly, then Malcolm lifted him and took Damien’s place.

“Guess it’s just us now. Should I read you a story?” he said teasingly.

“I’ll kill you,” Eobard mumbled. “Do you want to go back?”

He hadn’t meant to say that. The fuzziness in his brain had let it slip past his self-control. He hated revealing any insecurity, even to the people who had taken it upon themselves to support him.

“Hmm? Go back where? Because I will never say no to a few of the places we’ve been.” Malcolm’s fingers trailed through Eobard’s hair again, but the stiffness in them told him it was a conscious effort rather than an absent motion.

“To your time, to Thea. It seems like you worry about her.”

“Of course, I worry about her, it’s part of being a father.” Malcolm’s smile shone through his voice, though Eobard couldn’t turn his head to see it. “But I know she’s better off without me. I wasn’t much of a father to her, once I knew the truth. I hurt her, badly, and I told myself it was to help her. There’s no coming back from thinking those things. The only way I could patch things up with Thea would be to die for her and that would only half cover the things I’ve done. Besides, I’m helping you. Maybe we don’t have a goal at the moment, but I don’t trust Damien to take proper care of you.”

Eobard didn’t deserve that. He knew he hadn’t done anything to inspire that kind of loyalty from Malcolm, though they worked better together now than before. He was grateful for another coughing fit when it came, keeping him from having to say anything.

Malcolm held him through it. Eobard relaxed and felt himself drifting off. Irritated, he forced his eyes open, even though the light made them ache.

“You could read me the paper I was trying to study,” he offered, only half-hoping Malcolm would agree.

“That would send you right off,” Malcolm said, his laugh vibrating against Eobard’s cheek. “No, I’m not helping you to keep working. This is a time to rest and feel better.”

Eobard pinched his hip. Malcolm only laughed more and planted a kiss on his head.

“But, if you just really want to hear my voice, I can think of something. Once upon a time-”

“I’m not a five-year-old!” Eobard complained.

“I wouldn’t tell this story to a five-year-old,” Malcolm retorted. “Once upon a time, there was a man. Actually, three men, but they weren’t near each other when the story starts...”

Eobard could tell where this was going. Stopping Malcolm was too much work, so he lay still and listened to Malcolm tell their story, complete with violence, name-calling, and how much the three of them had come to mean to each other. Maybe Malcolm did use simple words and the patient, slow voice of a parent with a small child, but that made it easier to listen. Eobard didn’t really feel up to dealing with an adult vocabulary right now.

He opened his eyes, feeling strange. It was dark in the room, like someone had drawn the curtains. He had changed position, but he was still wrapped tightly in the blankets. Someone lay at his back, arm thrown across his hips. A little bit of wiggling showed him it was Damien, sound asleep.

“I fell asleep during that story,” he mused and was alarmed by the hoarse croak that came out of his mouth. He didn’t feel feverish anymore, but his joints ached. It reminded him of when he’d first become a speedster and the pain of his first major crash.

His speedster brain decided to remind him of Barry’s first crash, and he had to snort at the memory of the goofy red outfit Cisco had made for him. Not to mention the headgear…

He couldn’t go back to sleep, though. Something was finally breaking through the unrelenting misery of the last several hours and it was hunger. He knew better than to ignore his body when it told him he needed fuel.

Escaping from Damien to get it, though, was going to be a problem. Waking him up was no good, he’d just go and get it and Eobard wanted to get up. Physical contact or not, he couldn’t stay in one place for hours without getting twitchy and restless.

He had to escape the blanket first. Eobard had one arm free and a little rest had helped clear his head. Moving carefully, he maneuvered himself out of the cocoon without jostling Damien too much. It meant going slow, which seriously grated on him, but waking up a member of the League of Assassins was a dangerous activity even when he could use his speed without hurting himself.

Able to move freely, he slowly slid himself out from under Damien’s arm. It was tense, but he had to admit, there was a juvenile enjoyment in pouring himself off the side of the bed. He crouched on the floor as Damien shifted and mumbled but didn’t wake up. Eobard pressed a feather-light kiss on his forehead and slipped out of the room.

Moving through the house in bare feet and pajamas chilled him, but it wasn’t as bad without the fever. Eobard followed his nose to the kitchen, where he could almost taste the soup on the stove. Malcolm stood in the kitchen, an apron tied neatly over his tight polo shirt and jeans, stirring the pot of soup. Eobard wrapped his arms around Malcolm’s waist.

“I need that soup now,” he whispered, unable to force a croak out of his mouth.

“You’re just in time. Warm up on the couch and I’ll bring you a bowl,” Malcolm replied, reaching over his shoulder to ruffle Eobard’s hair fondly.

He didn’t complain, since the cold tile floor was stinging against his feet. He went to the couch and pulled the throw blanket from the back over his legs to prevent Malcolm from doing it. Eobard was stubborn, but not stupid, and he knew he needed to stay warm.

“Damien must have passed out. He probably needed it,” Malcolm said, coming over with a tray and no apron. Eobard reached out to accept a bowl, but his hands started shaking violently when he moved. That was a bad sign. He’d gone too long between meals again, or it was a result of his body working harder because he was sick.

Malcolm settled the tray on the couch at Eobard’s feet and sat on the coffee table. “Say ahh,” he said with a smirk, holding out a steaming spoon.

Eobard considered flipping over the coffee table and sending Malcolm flying into a wall, but he felt too weak to pull it off. Scowling, he obediently opened his mouth and let Malcolm spoon-feed him.

The soup was hot enough to make his ears start burning, pleasantly chunky with vegetables, but he instantly knew something was wrong.

“What did you put in this?” he asked, pulling a face.

“Chicken. I didn’t know you were going to be sick, so it’s vegetables instead of noodles, but it’s just what you need to feel better,” Malcolm replied.

“I like beef,” Eobard grumbled. “Chicken is pedestrian and bland.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Malcolm agreed indulgently and fed him the rest of the bowl.

It took three bowls before Eobard felt satisfied and Malcolm teased him about it the whole time. He was able to feed himself by the last one, so it wasn’t as humiliating, but he was glad when Malcolm put him back to bed. Eobard couldn’t handle much more of the indignity they were subjecting him to.

He woke up in the morning feeling his normal self, but Malcolm and Damien went back to bed in the afternoon with headaches and sore throats.