#rayobard

oooOOOOh nOOOooOOOOO yes

i go with rayobard but apparently reverseatom is also used

98. “Read my fucking lips.”

under a cut because i am a demon

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22. “You can’t keep doing this, you know.”

[For some context: this is a fic set in an AU that @kendrasaunders and I created where part of Eobard’s contribution to Doomworld was making Ray his husband, so they’re together in this already and Ray doesn’t remember his past self!]

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They meet sometimes in his dreams. Not that Eobard dreams often, because he doesn’t sleep much, if at all, his brain constantly awake and putting things together, racing with thoughts of progress, concepts, and Ray. 

This is a rare occasion where he stretches out in bed next to Ray in the world he has made for them both and decides sleep would do him some good. He won’t remember his dream when he wakes, he never does, so this won’t bother him when he’s finished with it, but now–

Ray-not-Ray, the Ray that the Speed Force borrows as its face and voice, sits next to him on a mahogany bench overlooking his old college campus. He had come to him there and driven him away in a beautiful red car after Ray had finished, whisking him off to a life of luxury and peace in the house, the life that Eobard had carefully honed for him–them–

For Ray. All of this, for Ray.

“You can’t keep doing this, you know,” the Speed Force sighs, which is the first sign he’s been talking out loud to himself. Bad habits.

“Doing what?” Eobard says, flashing them a winning smile. “Sleeping? I hardly ever sleep.”

“You are playing with the timeline,” the Speed Force reminds him. “This will have consequences beyond what you think you see, Eobard.”

“I don’t care,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “I have what I want.”

“Your life back?” 

He reaches out, cups Ray’s face. “Of a sort, yes.”

“You’re touching this body,” they remark. “It feels…interesting.”

“Doesn’t it? I do love to touch him. He love to moisturize, it helps. I buy him the best ones, you know. I buy him the best of everything, and I give him all my love and all my attention and all my everything–”

“And you do not think this will have consequences?”

“If it does, I will deal with them,” he replies. “I can see it in my head, you know. Hold a lot of things in there at once, everything branching out like a spider’s web, carefully connected until I cut a few threads here and there, decide how I want this to go.”

“You are clever,” they agree. “Too clever by half. Which is why I chose you.”

“And yet you regret?” Eobard says. “I didn’t think you could feel regret. Not abstract and distant enough for you.”

The comment slides off them as they look over the dreamscape. “He was happy here, wasn’t he?”

“No he wasn’t,” Eobard snaps. “He was being abused and manipulated by that Loring girl, surrounded by people who weren’t as good as him, who didn’t know him, who didn’t love him–”

“Like you.”

“Yes, like me,” Eobard says. “Are you trying to make me feel guilty over that? Good luck. I have no regrets. None. I gave him everything he could ever want.”

“For your sake,” the Speed Force says. 

They sit in silence for a little while longer.

“The spear is dangerous, Eobard,” they warn. “You are clever and cunning, prince with the swift warning, but you cannot outsmart magic.”

“I don’t have to,” he says. “With the spear I can control it.”

“Hamartia,” the Speed Force remarks, Eobard narrowing his eyes.

“Don’t get coy. I know damn well what I’m doing. I only lost last time because of a cheap suicide. And if you think Ray would kill himself to get away from me–”

“No,” they sigh. “But what will you do when you lose, Eobard? Take the spear again, change the past again? How many times will you repeat your mistakes to get what you want?”

“As many times as it takes,” he says, “as long as it means I keep Ray.”

“You cannot keep him every time.”

“Then we will both die trying.”

“You do seem to be good at overcoming that,” they agree. “My fault. Perhaps all of this is my fault. But I cannot undo it.”

“You could take my speed, and you won’t.”

“What good would it do?”

“Well,” Eobard sighs, “glad you see it my way, then.”

“The more you use time to your own end, the more you create opportunities for your downfall,” they warn him. “And now you have something you can’t bear to lose, Eobard Thawne. Do keep it in mind.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but it’s a yawn, and he’s awake and blinking in his bed, Ray leaning over him with his hair falling into his eyes, boyish and floppy, just on the verge of needing a trim, and he smiles, bright and cleansing as the sunlight coming in through the window, lighting him up with a soft glow.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” he says, reaching out to stroke his fingers through Eobard’s hair, his ring cool against Eobard’s flushed forehead, “you want breakfast? I’d love to cook something for you in bed.”

“Not in bed,” he says. “I’m coming to the kitchen. I need to keep you where I can see you.”

“Of course–uh, why?” Ray blinks. “Everything okay?”

Eobard rubs his temples and sighs. “I don’t remember. But if not, it’s going to be.”