And just one mistake Is all it will take is all it will take....

[throwingstuff]

This was not what Harrison had planned. Then again, he'd not realized he was up against an actual supernatural creature until it was too late. He'd thought he'd created a monster with the particle accelerator, but he'd just made an existing monster stronger. Then again, if someone tried to tell him vampires weren't only real, but right in his own back yard before it all happened, he would have mocked them. Mercilessly. The very concept of the undead defied science itself. It just wasn't possible.

Then he discovered just how possible it all was.

He'd made a deal with Zoom to get Jesse back. Trading blood for even the chance at her freedom. He didn't care if he was hurting the people he'd been trying to protect. She took priority above all else. But it was never enough. Not for Zoom. But in the end, it came down to a simple choice: His life for Jesse's. He'd assumed Zoom just intended to kill him. Drain him until there was nothing left. He didn't even hesitate. Anything for Jesse, even if he didn't get to see her again. At least she'd be safe.

But he'd been wrong. He woke up after it was over. Different. Changed. And still, Zoom wouldn't release Jesse. There was one last thing. Always one last thing. It never ended with Zoom. But now, it was the truest end. Bring Barry to Zoom to be turned as well. A command he found incredibly difficult to ignore. It sickened him, but still that drive remained: anything for his Jesse.

Time rolled on, and the team continued like normal. Harrison refused to say why he was more upset than normal. Refused to entertain any suspicions that he was different. No, he wasn't just going out at night, that was just coincidence. They needed to work faster. Find a way to render Zoom not only weaker, but turn him human. Killing him wasn't an option. No, he wasn't stronger, that was just a really weak mug. Stop asking so many questions, Ramon, and get back to work.

With each passing hour, he struggled with one decision. Did he tell Barry the truth, or just take him to Zoom?

Comments

{Wanna hear your beating heart tonight

[thisismadfreaky]

Cisco has been throwing suspicious glances and questions at Harry for what felt like an entire age by now. Something was off. Different. Wrong. And Cisco is not okay with that feeling at all. Especially when he'd juuuust started really letting go of the face-bias. Harry knows how hard it was for him to let go of all that suspicion early on, because of what Thawne had done, how that whole fiasco had ended. Trusting Harry wasn't an easy feat for the engineer, but he'd managed, and somehow along the way he'd ended up entirely in the box of trusted people Cisco kept to one side.

And now he was making him question it all, all over again.

Late nights in the lab aren't uncommon, but quiet ones are. And they're the ones Cisco revels in because it's so rare their lives are anything like calm at all anymore. He also knows that any minute now, Harry should be emerging from whatever hole he shoved himself in during the day now. The evidence had been stacking, and Cisco was going to prove his assumption right tonight, one way or another.

[quickgenius]

Jesse knows what happened. Even if she DIDN’T know her dad well enough to recognize it, Zoom had bragged about it. Bragged about what he’d done to her dad. And why her dad had done it. This was her fault. He hadn’t turned her, of course; used his fangs, his claws to hurt her, torture her, yes. But he hadn’t turned her. He wanted her DAD to do that. Wanted to give her dad the chance to hurt her.

Because Zoom knew how much it would hurt him.

But she’s safe now. The nightmares keep her awake at night, but that’s okay. She’s gone without sleep before. She can keep a vampire’s hours. And she knows her dad. Knows what he’s doing. Or what he’s refusing to do. He’s not feeding. She can tell. He’s too pale, more irritable and mussed than usual. So she finds him, closing the door carefully behind her.

“You can’t keep doing this.”

She is her father’s daughter, after all. Getting directly to the heart of the matter.

[scarletstreak]

Barry couldn't imagine being in Harry's situation, worried sick over Jesse, desperate to do anything that he could to get her back safe. So, yeah, he'd been giving him some leeway for snapping at people, some. But after the fourth or fifth time Harry had snapped at Cisco for, frankly, being too observant, Barry decided it was time for a more active approach.

They all forgot it sometimes, but Barry had been a CSI for years before becoming the Flash, and he'd been doing his own share of observing. Something was different, he wasn't sure what it was, but Harry just wasn't the same as he'd been before. He never went outside during the day, or even in the evening before the sun was well over the horizon, he never came into the Cortex even on cloudy days, and Barry was sure that hadn't been a really weak mug. Harry had gotten bad news and had squeezed it until it shattered.

He didn't stay put, he set an alarm for 5 am and sped back to STAR Labs barely 15 minutes before the sun was due to rise again, and right on cue, he appeared in the doorway of the Cortex as Harry rose to leave it. "Morning Harry."