#...not even the first half of chapter one lmaaaao

[saintsurvivors]

His ribs hurt.

He’s become so use to the flash, of the feel of something hitting him, bruising and breaking and demolishing, and then the rapid heal, that it’s a shock to wake up in the morning stiff and sore. He lies in bed a little longer, his alarm buzzing in his ear.

He braces his ribs, wrapped and broken and bruised, with his arm. Barry can still feel the backlash of Griffin Gray’s punches, powered with super strength and the other man’s grief and hurt and anger. Thinking of Gray brings a puddle of bile to his throat and he swallows it down, wincing as it grates on his ribs, his bruised trachea and about every hurt he’s ever had.

“Barry!” Joe shouts up the stairs. “You best be getting up!” 

He doesn’t have the energy to shout. Doesn’t have the energy to get up and pull his shirt on. Doesn’t have the energy to do anything. 

But he has to. With a quiet groan, Barry sits up in bed, an arm wrapped around his ribs. There wasn’t a lot to do for broken and bruised ribs, only to be wrapped and dosed up on painkillers - that was an upside that Barry hadn’t thought about - and making sure that he doesn’t get jostled too much on the way to work or at work.

He gets dressed, slow and stiff. It makes him feel like an old man. He’s glad he’s started wearing his cardigans again, they’re easier to pull on than having to pull a sweater over his head. 

“Comin’, Joe,” He says, wavering on the top of the staircase, loafers in hand. He’s blushing red, he can feel it. He hates this, hates it with a passion he’s never felt even before becoming the Flash. 

“Alright, Bar?” Joe asks, holster and badge already on. He’s got that little furrow in his brow that means he’s concerned but trying not to make a big deal out of it.

“I can’t put my shoes on,” Barry mumbles, blushing red. It had been agony trying to pull his trousers up. Having to bend down for an extended period of time to pull his shoes on and then tie them? He almost ended up going head first in a spectacular swan dive when he first tried it.

“Can’t put your-? Oh,” Joe says, and his eyes go soft and concerned. His eyes flicker to the bump of thick bandage he can just make out under Barry’s white collared shirt “Sofa,” Joe points. 

“Thanks, Joe,” Barry says. He’s going even redder. He hates that he apparently can’t fend for himself. Can’t do anything. He feels like a burden in a way he never felt before. 

Not even when Joe first took him in and he had to put up with a screw-up of a kid with PTSD and panic attacks and nightmares and believing in the impossible.

Joe sits on the coffee table, slapping Barry’s knee. 

“Foot up, Bar,” Joe says, and his fingers are quick and effortless as he laces the loafers. 

“I’m definitely getting shoes without laces,” Barry mumbles as he looks up at the ceiling. 

“Might help,” Joe says, and there’s something so mild and inoffensive in his voice that Barry makes a fist with his hands, pulling at his jeans from where they’re grasping the denim. His eyes burn.

Embarrassed for the third time this morning, Barry scrubs a hand down his face and doesn’t dare look at Joe, who knocks Barry’s foot off of his knee, obviously done.

“I’m sorry, Joe,” Barry says miserably, peaking through his fingers at the older man. 

Joe leans forward, looking at Barry with dark, serious eyes.

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about, Barry,” He says, quiet and serious in a way he always is. There’s an added hint of sadness to the serious edge. It makes something in Barry quake. “I’m so proud of you, okay kid?”

“Yeah,” Barry says. He doesn’t know what there’s to be proud of.

“Hey,” Joe taps him gently upside of the head. “Get that look of your face, you’re not a burden and you’re definitely not deadweight, okay?”

Barry ducks his head, smiles. He doesn’t quite know how Joe does it. 

(That’s the thing though. He feels like deadweight and that’s because he is.)

“Now c’mon,” Joe stands, and he helps pull Barry up from the sofa. “We’ve gotta get to work,”

Barry snorts, slapping Joe on the shoulder quickly. His eyes say everything, wide and thankful as he passes Joe. He winces against the pain of his ribs when he stretches too quickly to grab his messenger bag from the banister and Joe shoves a bottle of painkillers in his hand.

It’s going to take some getting used to, Barry thinks. Now that he can use painkillers, he keeps forgetting.

“Make sure you take some,” Joe says warningly, darting his eyes from the medication to Barry’s eyes purposefully. 

@youarentreadingthis @bpdanakins @appalachianapologies