#or he decided to change his desk and then was like 'yep a kleenex box is perfect thanks'

[cat-26]

Etho providing us with new photos of his weird setup

[mosylufanfic]

To Love is Not to Possess (to own or imprison)

Reaction fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiic! Of course I had to write something like this after the cliffhanger in 4x17. Thanks to @hedgiwithapen for coming through the absolute perfect title when I was whining to her on messenger. It’s from the poem of the same name by James Kavanaugh and basically everyone needs to read it at least once.

To Love is Not to Possess (to own or imprison)

Caitlin was rooting around in her hall closet for a fresh box of tissues when her phone went off. She grabbed a tiny purse pack and went to the living room, blowing her nose. Ugh. Spring allergies were hitting with a vengeance, and somebody had given her entire bottle of extra-strength antihistamines to an aging bounty hunter from another dimension.

(Not for the first time, Caitlin reflected that her life was weird.)

She picked up her phone from the charging station to see a text from Cisco. Can I come over?

Sure, she answered, and stepped back.

A split second later, a breach opened up in her tiny foyer and Cisco jumped through. "Hey," he said.

"Hey," she said back, and sneezed mightily.

He scooted backwards. "Spring cold?"

"Hay fever," she said, blowing her nose and wiping her streaming eyes.

"This might make you feel better," he said, and held out a plastic bag marked with the logo of a drugstore. She raised her brow at him and opened it to find a big bottle of antihistamines.

"Oh, Cisco," she said, clutching it to her heart and fluttering her lashes at him. "Just what I always wanted. How did you know?"

"Well, you know." He tapped his temple. "Psychic."

She twisted it open and shook one into her palm. "Thanks," she said, going to the kitchen for a bottle of water. "They're bad this year."

"I can tell."

She came back, swallowing the pill. "So what's up?"

"Why should something be up?" he asked, flopping into his favorite chair in her living room and sprawling back against the cushions, extra-super-casual. "I was just bringing my best pal some allergy meds."

She eyed him. "You could have bought these and left them on my desk tomorrow morning. You didn't have to bring them over tonight."

"Well, like you said." He reached out and grabbed the empty box of Kleenex from the coffee table, tossing it at the trash can. "They're bad this year."

He clearly had something on his mind. She settled onto the couch, curling her legs up under her. "Is it Breacher?"

He gave her a quick glance and looked away.

She'd thought so. "Look, he's definitely very intimidating." She'd thought Cisco was exaggerating about that, until she'd spent the day with a frustrated and angry Breacher in the speed lab. "But Cynthia isn't some teenager that he can confine to the house. She's a grown woman, with breaching powers of her own. Her father can't stop her from seeing you, no matter how upset he is that we couldn't help."

"Yeah," he said sourly. "She could see me if she wanted."

Caitlin bit her lip. "She loves you," she said.

"I know," he said. "And I love her. But it's been a month since I kissed my girlfriend. I've got the worst case of - I mean - it's frustrating, okay?"

She winced in sympathy. "Of course it is. But you know, it's not like you have a nine to five job either. When was the last time any of us got a day off?" God, that was a depressing thought.

"That's kind of the thing," Cisco said slowly.

"Oh? What are you planning?" A vacation, maybe? Of course, they were in the middle of all this DeVoe business, and trying to find the last two bus metas - but when weren't they in the middle of some drama? They really all needed to start carving out personal time. "If you need help telling Barry that you're taking time off - "

"Not exactly." He leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. "Look, Breacher came back after you left for the night."

She looked him over quickly. "Well, you're in one piece, so that’s good. Was he still angry?” Cisco had lied to him, given him useless medicine, and deceived him to make him think it had worked. He’d treated him like a child - or a gullible old man. She hadn’t been one bit surprised that at the old viber’s fury.

"Yeah, no, he’d cooled off." He shook his head, looking baffled. "He’s decided to retire."

"Retire? Really? Breacher?" He'd struck her as more of a workaholic than her mother, and that was quite a bar to clear. She blew her nose, which had started running again.

"Yeah, I know. But I think he already had. He was all in the, like, old-dude retirement community uniform. Socks with sandals and everything."

She blinked a few times. "I . . . I can't picture that."

"Hey, I saw it with these two eyes, and I'm not sure I can picture it."

She leaned over to toss her crumpled, snot-filled tissue into the trash can. That antihistamine could start kicking in whenever it liked. "Well, that'll change things,” she said, digging another tissue out of the purse pack. “Cynthia's going to take over running the agency, I assume?" That could go two ways. With more control over her own schedule, she could see Cisco more often - but being the boss, her time might be even less her own.

"He didn't actually mention that," Cisco said. "But he did say that him retiring meant there was a job opening. And uh." He grinned nervously. "He offered it to me."

Caitlin stared at him.

After a good thirty seconds had ticked by, he tilted his head. "Did you hear me?"

Her stomach twisted around itself.

"Caitlin?"

Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.

"Hello . . . "

"Yes!" she gasped. "Yes. I'm sorry. Yes. I heard you. I - wow. A job. With the collection agency."

"Yeah."

"Wh-what did you say?"

"I didn't know what to say. And then he was like, 'ah, it's a big decision, think it over. Let Cynthia know.' And then he just whistled off to his Earth-47 dragon farm."

"Dragon . . . farm?"

"Long story." He hauled himself out of the chair and started pacing her living room. "But can you believe that? He goes from choking me out as a hello, to offering me a job as his replacement?"

She reached down slowly and picked up the tissues, which had fallen off her lap as she sat frozen. "Maybe it's his way of showing approval," she ventured. "Both of you and the relationship."

"He said something like that," Cisco said, rubbing his hands over his hair. "But I - oh my god, this is huge. And I don't know what to do. Caitlin, I need some help here."

She reared back. "I can't make that kind of decision for you."

"No, I know you can't, but you can help me think it through, right?"

"Of course, always. Look." She got up. "I'm going to get a pad of paper and a pen and we're going to make a list."

"Yay." But he smiled at her, and she returned it before going off to the tiny second bedroom that acted as her home office.

She rifled through her desk drawers, hunting for the pad of paper and one of her good pens. She pulled both out, set them on her desk, and then braced her hands against the smooth wood and breathed carefully.

Cisco needed her to be his friend. To listen to his concerns, to give good, thoughtful advice.

He didn't need her to beg him not to leave Earth-1. He didn't need her to burst into tears at the thought of not seeing him every day. He definitely didn't need her to tell him how much she already missed their movie nights or going out for drinks, which had fizzled to nothing since he'd gotten serious about Cynthia, and Caitlin had stepped back behind the boundaries of that relationship.

Cisco needed her to think about his happiness, not hers. So that's what she would do.

She grabbed the box of Kleenex off her desk, blew her nose, dabbed carefully at her eyes, and took it with her back to the living room, along with the paper and pen. "Okay," she said brightly. "Ready?"

"Yep."

She wrote Taking the job at the top of the paper, then drew a line down the center. “First pro,” she said, pointing the pen at him.

“Cynthia,” he said immediately.

She wrote the name down, concentrating on forming each letter careful and round.

“Like, that would be amazing. I just miss her so much, all the time. But this way, we’d get to work together, we’d go home together - it’s the dream, you know?”

She opened her mouth to say, Actually, it’s very hard to spend so much time with one person, Ronnie and I had the worst fights when we first moved in together, and remember how Barry and Iris went to counseling - but then she shut her mouth again. She didn't trust her own motives for saying that.

“I mean," he went on,  "we’d probably still have to be doing different things a lot. But still. More us-time than we’re getting now.”

“Way more,” she said.

“Yeah. So that’s a biggie.” He paced up her living room, then down it again. “Okay, here’s another one. It would be a hell of an adventure. New places, new people - there’s this great big multiverse out there and it’d be my job to explore it. Dope, right?”

“Super-dope,” she said.

“And, hey, there’s the money thing.”

“It pays well?”

“It can. They get paid by the job, and I’ve seen some of those bounty announcements. Like, you’re talking serious coinage there. Depending on who I bring in, I could be rolling in it."

“Wow.” Barry paid them the same generous salary that Wells had. But Caitlin was well aware that Star Labs was not just expensive, it wasn't bringing any money in, and Barry’s inheritance from Wells would dry up someday. She had investments, but she wasn’t sure Cisco had any outside income besides the occasional consulting fee from CCPD.

“Yep. Always nice.” He leaned over and read her list upside down. “That’s everything for the pro side that I can think of off the top of my head.”

“Some big pros here,” she said.

“Major pros.” His face fell into serious lines. “Major cons too.”

“Let’s lay them out.”

He picked at his thumbnail for a second or two. “I’d have to leave,” he said quietly. “Star Labs, Earth-1, all you guys.”

“I - we’d miss you,” she managed.

“I’d miss you too,” he said. “Although, you know what. Maybe I could convince Cynthia to make Earth-1 her home base. Operate the agency from 19, but come back here every night.”

"That's quite a commute."

“Hey, it’s like stepping from one room to another. And this Earth has coffee.”

Caitlin drew careful diamonds down the line she’d drawn in the center of the paper. “Serious temptation.”

“Oh yeah. So if that works out, I’d basically still be around. We’d hang out all the time, I’d lend a hand if you guys needed it - it’d be like I never left.”

Except for the empty lab, she thought. And Cynthia was so busy all the time, even with Breacher working too. As Cisco had complained, she never seemed to get a day off. Was there any reason to think it would be different with Cisco? “Sure,” she said softly.

He looked at her for a moment, then picked at his thumbnail again. “Next on the list,” he said. "Uh. The job itself."

"That's a con?"

"Well, I wouldn't exactly be teaching preschool, you know? I've heard the stories. They throw down with some serious baddies. The sitch I pulled Josh out of, earlier? Guy was freaky scary. The teeth on him!"

She went cold to her scalp for a moment. "You got him out of it, though."

"By running away," he pointed out. "Not workable when I need to be bringing them in."

"You've thrown down with baddies before."

"With all you guys backing me up. I'd be alone."

"Or with Cynthia."

"Yeah, maybe. But I'd be doing that all the time. Hunting for them, fighting them - I don't know if my skills are up to that."

She set her pen down. "Cisco, look at me, okay?"

He did.

"In the past few years, you've been faced with any number of situations you never could have imagined, and you've risen to each occasion faster and farther than anyone had a right to expect. You're smart, you learn fast, you have amazing powers, and it's my belief that you could do anything you put your mind to. So maybe a steep learning curve would be on the con side here." She tapped the paper. "But you not being able to do the job? I'm not writing that down."

He took that in, then smiled a little. "Okay," he said. "Steep learning curve. Let's put that."

She nodded firmly and wrote it down.

"And thanks."

"I don't hear that kind of talk from you much anymore," she said.

"No, not much," he acknowledged. "But every so often the brain weasels wake up and run around in there and need someone to tell them to shut up."

"Happy to be of service." She looked at the list. "So. Is that everything?"

"One last thing." He perched on the arm of the couch, looking serious. "I don't know if I want to do the job." He held up a hand when she started to say something. "This isn't about whether I can or not. It's whether I'd actually like to spend that many hours of my day doing it. Like I said, I've heard Cynthia's stories, and I've never once gone, 'aw damn, wish that was me.'"

"The adventure," she said. "The paycheck."

"The boredom. The assholes. The beat-downs. The lean times." He grimaced. "The paperwork."

She colored in one of the diamonds she'd drawn and said, "Doing all of that - good and bad - alongside the woman you love."

A long silence, and then he sighed out, "Yeah."

They were both quiet then. She colored in three more diamonds.

He stirred. "So, three pros, three cons. Pretty evenly balanced there."

"In terms of strictly numbers, yes," she said. "But you're going to have to decide for yourself how much weight to put on each thing."

"So it's back to me."

"It never left you."

He twitched his mouth a little and held out his hand. "Can I take that home with me? I'm gonna stick it to the wall and stare at it all night."

"Sure." She ripped the sheet off the pad and held it out to him. "Maybe catch some sleep in there."

He folded it into a tight square and shoved it in his pocket. "Yeah, maybe." He sighed hugely. "I'm gonna get going, okay? Thanks for listening."

"Thanks for coming to me."

"Well, Barry would be pissed that I was even thinking about leaving before we’ve got DeVoe locked up. Iris would give good advice, but she'd probably also tell Barry. And Harry - " He dropped his voice, imitating Harry's gravelly tones. "Nobody gives a shit about your piddling problems, Ramon, I have to think up the cure for cancer by midnight." He grinned at her, his voice returning to its normal register. "You were clearly my best choice."

"Clearly," she said.

He started for the door, and she said, "Taking the long way?"

"I want to grab some dinner from that pizza place on the corner. Hey, have you eaten?"

"Oh, yes, I'm fine." She walked him to the door. "Hey, Cisco?"

He turned, halfway in the hall already. "Hmm?"

"Don't, um." She fiddled with the latch, pushing it in and letting it go. "Don't worry about anybody else, okay?”

He cocked his head slightly, frowning.

“For once, put yourself first. Think about what'll make you happy. And do that."

He took the folded list out of his pocket and flipped it over in his fingers a few times. "Yeah, okay." He tucked the list away. "Thanks. Again."

"You're welcome. Always."

He turned and walked down the hall. She leaned against the jamb, watching him go. He paused in front of the elevators and looked back at her. She smiled brightly and waved, then shut the door and went back to her couch.

After a moment, she picked up the remote and aimed it at her TV. Netflix popped up, and she picked something at random. A peppy theme song blared from the speakers, and she sat and watched the stupid, laugh-tracky show in silence.

Every so often, she wiped away the tears trickling down her face and dripping off her chin.

God, that antihistamine was just taking forever to work.

FINIS