i wrote this while re-reading @aquaexplicit‘s witch vibe fic, so y’all can blame them. idk if this is going to end up in a fic, but it actually captures how I imagine the power balance in reverb and mr ramon’s interactions would be from the latter’s point of view, so I’m posting it.
"You see now? He's perfect." Reverb sighed the words out, his breath tickling across his doppleganger's cheek. It smelled of peppermint; Cisco's secret stash, that he kept for upset stomachs. Someone was going to be in trouble when he found out, especially if--and in a flash of blue so brief he could almost have missed it, Francisco knew it would--the theft was discovered the next time Cisco had a sour stomach.
Francisco Ramon smiled faintly, his cheeks pressing against the black frame of his glasses. "You're in love." The fingers in his hair tightened painfully, Reverb's angry snarl nearly lost under his own hiss. The other man's fingers tug, pulling the young billionaire's back in a taut line, a vain attempt to lessen the pressure on his scalp.
Francisco's eyes rolled up in his head, his eyes sharp as though his other self weren't a dark blur at the edge of his vision. "Make me, Paco." The hand in his hair shakes with fury, and for an instant made bright with fear, he thinks that invoking the loathed middle name will be the final straw on Reverb's laughable benevolence. His jaw set; he will not die weeping.
The blast never came; Reverb shoved his head forward, hard enough to bounce Francisco's chin off his chest. Brat. Francisco sighed, reached up to adjust his tie as he willed his heart to stop pounding. Reverb was intimidated by him, and it didn't take a genius to figure out why. It turned his stomach to use the classism that had and still fought him at every turn against another version of himself, but without it he had nothing to leverage over Reverb. The man was too powerful and unbalanced not to have someone holding his reins, and his own abilities, insomuch as he had them, were still too new.
He smoothed his hair back into a tight bun, all the while leveling a flat look of disapproval at his doppelganger. 'See how childish you've been,' that look said, and it was a bitter relief to see his other self shift under the weight of it.