mostlyajerk | Then why are you in a cage?

It wasn't that he was scared or anything, no way, he was just legit a little uneasy. Just a little. No way was he just a wuss who was afraid. He kept telling himself that again and again, almost forgetting to trash talk Hartley. When the other moved in closer, he instinctively moved away, ready to shove him back and pick a fight but as soon as Hartley made contact, something really weird happened.

It was trippy but it was like he wasn't in this world any more, it was like he was somewhere else. Everything had a horrible blue tint and vaguely saw something. Something he didn't know how to describe. All he knew was that the moment he came back from it, he flew to his feet and scrambled the hell away from Hartley.

"What the hell?! What did you just do to me?"

"Nothing." Seemed like a good answer, given it was true. "I'm just trying to calm you down."

Obviously a futile effort. Hartley stayed where he was, only turning to face Cisco. "Look, you're having a panic attack, you need to focus on your breathing and try to calm down. Nothing is happening to you in here. It's actually dreadfully boring, since you don't even provide a magazine. I know this isn't logical, but try to focus on logic anyway. You'll be fine. They'll get you out in the morning."

"No, don't you dare try and play headgames you just did something to me. You're in my head? How? I just -- you just." What? Why was he even playing dumb? Cisco stared at him in horror and then raised his hands to touch his own ears, just in case. After what he saw, he wanted to check. "There was just like blood everywhere and your ears, dude, your ears. And the noise. And oh man, oh dude, what the fuck? What the hell did you do to my head?"

Okay, this was just like the worst headache of his life and on top of that, he was trapped in the smallest place and he couldn't catch his breath. Yep. He was going to pass out. Not faint, too manly too faint but he was definitely starting to see the room spin a little.

"...I told you I got hurt when the explosion happened. What are you doing, having flashbacks to my past?" Hartley let out a sharp laugh and shook his head, definitely staying where he was. He was sure that Cisco was just having a panic attack, but he didn't know what to do about that.

Luckily - or not - this was when Shawna returned, gun in hand and stopping by the door. "Get up, boys. Hands against the wall."

Hartley rolled his eyes, but he did get up. Not worth getting shot over. "Come on, Cisco."

"Oh man, I'm gonna puke." Cisco closed his eyes and forced himself to take several deep breaths, moving the best he could as he got to his feet, still feeling like his ears were ringing. God, that noise. And what the fuck had he even seen? Yes, Hartley said but it was like he was there, like he was watching it. Hartley was on the floor outside, his ears bleeding, just screaming in pain. He reached up and touched his hands again without even thinking. They kind of hurt.

He was so lost in the reminder of his vibes, he barely even took in what was happening until Hartley said his name and it all began to kick in.

Going against the wall as far as from Hartley as possible, he put his head to the wall and sucked in another deep breath. "This is just the worst day of my life. I hope you're both happy."

"Exhilarated." Hartley put his hands against the wall and looked back over his shoulder as the door opened. Not exactly the greatest day for him either and suddenly having some girl with a gun snuggle up to him while holding said gun against his cheek really wasn't helping.

"Are you meta, hun?"

"I'm gay." Hey, it got her to back off.

"Shame." Shawna turned back to Cisco, clearly not bothered by his very obvious panic attack. "Are you going to build me a gun, Cisco?"

"You have a gun. You're literally holding one."

What? She was. He closed his eyes and pressed his head against the wall, pretty much nuzzling it as he tried to clear his head. The door was open, the air was less thin. He took a breath as the panic began to ebb away. He turned his head to the side and gave her a look, clearly not impressed.

"I'm not villain tech support. I'm drawing a line. No more weapons."

"How about build me a weapon or I'll shoot you again and this time it will hurt?"

Hartley looked at Cisco in surprise, wishing there wasn't still a gun to his head but mostly focusing on the stain on his chest. Huh. "Orange juice, really? Must be the acid..." He quickly quieted himself down, because he didn't much feel like becoming villain tech support either.

"You don't really have a choice, Cisco."

"You can't shoot me, my shirt makes me unstoppable. And people laughed when I brought it." And spilt juice on it. But the point was, check it, unshootable. That was pretty cool. Sucked to be Hartley right now but whatever, he just whammied him. "I would step in and valiantly save that dick but he just fucked with my head and have me the worst headache so you know what, he can ask nicely."

Yes, Cisco was picking a tense moment like this to be a petty child. The panic had definitely given away and both metas were kind of fighting each other so that left Cisco a little smugger than he should have been.

What? The gun wasn't on him and he was pretty sure he could make a run for it soon if they were distracted enough.

"Are you for real?" What the hell was wrong with him? Hartley hissed when she literally pistol-whipped him, wondering whether Cisco thought this was a joke. He knew he wasn't very high on Cisco's list of people he cared about, but that was just cold.

However, it did lead to her training her gun on Cisco's head instead, which meant that the focus was off him, so maybe he stood a chance at getting out.

"Tell me what you need to build me the gun."

"Woah! Chill, don't hit him!" Geez, it was a joke. Seriously? Like he was just messing. Apparently not was not the time to just mess. And then the gun was on him and oh yeah, so not the time to play around. Shit. "Erm. I don't know! There's so many different things that I'd need and you really need like paper and a pen to write them down because it's not like three things, there's at least twenty plus components."

And then some, he had no idea what he was even going to make. Laser gun? That was just insane.

"Look, come on. I can't actually build you a laser gun. It won't work for anything useful. It'd just be showy lights."

"You can build a gold gun that's actually useful, but not a laser gun?" Shawna leaned her head against Cisco's shoulder, which would be sweeter if she didn't still have a gun against his cheek. "You must like her a lot more than me. I think you can come up with something. Something glowy and useful."

Right. Cisco was crumbling here. Hartley wondered if he should do something to draw her attention away.

"No, she had a scary older brother and that brother had a weird burnt boyfriend who kicked my ass. It was three against one. Look, come on, it's not that I like her more. I like you both equally." Well, he did and they liked him about the same too. As in they totally didn't. "Come on, please? I don't want to build more guns. I can't! I have to stop making weapons that kill innocent people."

And that was a hard thing to say with a gun in his face. Literally. The barrel was right in his cheek and he could feel it through his jaw. "Can't I make you something else? I can make you a hell sweet costume."

"I can build you something." Hartley had no idea why he spoke up. Maybe because Cisco looked close to breaking and he had more of a chance to keep a cool head. "I used to work above Cisco. If you want quality, you're better of coming to me. I build my own weapons."

Shawna didn't move the gun, but she did turn her head to look at Hartley. "Is that true, Cisco?"

"If you'd rather trust someone that works for the Flash with this, that's your call."

"He didn't work over me and dude, shut up, you never had better quality. My tech is worlds above yours. I cracked those gloves in like half a se--" Wait. What was he doing? Why was he trying to sell himself to her over Hartley? Cisco groaned in annoyance and decided that as much as it burned, and it really did burn, he was going to have to concede.

And cheer this asshole on.

"Hartley is amazing. He can do all kinds of cool tech things." The tone of voice was very underwhelmed but what more did they want? "... His gauntlets are actually pretty cool, I guess."

"Fine. Then come on." She finally let go of Cisco, grabbing Hartley's arm instead. "Let's go."

Hartley let her march him out, not as if he had much of a choice, since he now had a gun pointed at him. She didn't walk out of the cell, she used her powers for that and the door closed. However, then she was suddenly smiling, turning to look at Cisco.

"Remember how you turned the light off in my cell?"

"Wait! Can't I come with? I can help! I'm really good at helping or I can keep you company. Please don't leave me in there." Cisco moved to the glass and tried desperately to somehow knock it down so he could go with them. No, he didn't want to help but he really didn't want to be alone down here in such a small cramped little room.

"We had to turn off the lights. I didn't want to. Look, please? Come on, don't do this."

That was it. He was building a way out that only he knew if he ever got out of here.

"Funny. Because I do want to. Hartley, right? Come on, turn the lights off."

Hartley turned to the panel and looked it over, then glanced over at Cisco, muttering an apology in Spanish. He moved his fingers quickly and Cisco was plunged into darkness. Damn, he'd panicked enough when he had been able to see, this really didn't feel good.

"...are you all right, Cisquito?"

"Go away."

Oh God, this was not good. He couldn't breath, he couldn't see and he was pretty sure he was about to start crying and if he did that in front of Shawna, she was never going to let him live it down so the sooner they left him, the better. He slid down the wall and hugged his knees, just waiting. It had to be at least two am so that was like what? Six or seven more hours before someone came to save him.

Oh man. He was going to die in here.

Edited 2016-06-25 17:01 (UTC)

It was only an hour later that Hartley turned the lights on again and, after a moment's hesitation, also opened the door. He had meant to leave, Shawna frankly hadn't give a damn, but he couldn't quite do it, not knowing that Cisco was down there, losing his shit. "Cisco? Cisquito, come on."

Hartley walked into the cell and reached out to gently shake his shoulder. "You can get out now. She's gone."

"... Hartley?" Cisco didn't know how long he'd been doing here, he was sure he'd blacked out at some point, his head was throbbing like crazy still and he wasn't overly proud of how much he'd cried. So much so that he didn't even want to raise his head to look at the other properly. He didn't know why Hartley was even here coming back for him, he kind of figured the other would have ditched him in here all night.

He raised his hand to his eyes and tried to wipe away the evidence, sniffing a little as he looked up at Hartley "I-I just have allergies. I'm not crying." God, he hated himself so much right now. "Is she really gone?"

"That's fine, Cisco. It's a phobia. That's really outside your control. I have them too." Mostly one, mostly the one Cisco had hit on very firmly, but he thought it better not to mention that. "Yes, she's gone. I built her something non-lethal but useful enough and she took off."

Hartley crouched down by Cisco, well aware that he was acting against his best interests here. If Cisco remembered how to be tough again quickly, he might end up back in this cell by himself again and he definitely wanted to avoid that.

But Cisco looked like a puppy and it was very difficult to take him seriously right now, which might be why he found himself petting his hair instead. "It's over."

"Dude, stop petting my head, I'm not a child." Cisco batted the hand away and sniffed, wiping at his eyes with the front of his shirt and no, he didn't really look that badass right now but he really, really hated being alone in the dark like this, locked away in a small confined space and it had just been a rough hour. He felt like he couldn't breath for a good chunk of it.

Cisco was silent for a few moments as he wiped at his red eyes, trying to regain some sense of composure.

"You should really go." What was he even saying? He was letting him escape? He really had a bad habit of this but -- he came back. And he didn't seem all bad? Whatever. "Just go away before I change my mind."

"...here's your phone." Hartley handed it to Cisco and stood up, arching his eyebrows. Oh, he was still looking so very pathetic. "Come on, you're not looking at all like the tough guy that was getting off on making me follow his orders. Where's that attitude?"

Oh, he was planning on leaving, especially now that he had been told he could, but first he'd at least make sure that Cisco would make it out of this cell or the whole exercise became pointless.

Cisco took his phone and held it tight. As soon as Hartley went, he'd ring Caitlin and go to hers. Whenever they had a bad night, they teamed up and made it better. That was so what he needed right now. He slowly got himself to his feet, his hands shaking a little but he put them in his trouser pockets so it was less obvious. He sniffled and glared down at Hartley's shoes. "I told you I wasn't getting off on it. Stop making it weird and get out of here before I change my mind."

He bit his lower lip and then moved from the cell and just stood outside of it, taking a few shaky deep breaths. "If anyone asks, I totally kicked your ass and you begged for mercy and when I gave it to you, you double-crossed me and ran away."

Then why are you in a cage?

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