That random alterhuman

thingy w my best friend

Archivist nmk cause i lowkey only have two characters in this au and i dont know what to do about them

Seperate panels below the cut

Yeah this is the psychological torture room where you are forced to sit on a chair and not do anything but listen for hours... it is the meeting room where they discuss missions and reports yeah

This one is the physical torture room where you will end up shaking on the floor unable to even stand up... training room tends to do that

This one is the butcher's room, no one dares to go in it... because it is Horror's refrigerated room where he stores meat and other fresh food so he's the only one going in there

This room is where all the fights happen, where they tear each other up, where the violence is at its peak... gaming room, they play fighting games

This room is the most important, where Nightmare himself stores whole worlds that were locked up in cases long ago... it is the library

If you go into this room you will get trapped and you won't be able to escape until whoever trapped you in it decides to let you go... it is the bedroom and it is rude to interrupt cuddle time

Which includes crop tops.

First time Barry sees his boyfriend wearing a crop top (probably sleeveless) on a 90 degree day, Barry.exe stops working.

But then he has romantic feelings for the people he dates, just not sexual ones, in college and it starts to dawn on him that maybe. it's, uh. Not. Exaggerated. He's just... different.

He thinks first maybe he's bi-romantic and heterosexual. except nope, he's no more sexually attracted to his girlfriend than his previous boyfriend. And it takes a long while because finding out about asexuality in college in 2007-2011 is like finding a needle in a haystack that might not have information on what the needle actually is.

But he gets there. Determines he's demi or at least gray ace in some way and it's frustrating because his latest significant other breaks up with him over it. Like, 'yay I know what I am' but also 'fucking dammit, i have been broken up with over something that wasn't a problem until I had the words to explain it'. Barry... not having a good time of it. Even when people aren't going 'uh, but demi ain't special it's normal to not want to date someone you don't know. Or have sex with strangers' and Barry having to take a deep breath and decide if it's worth correcting the ignorance or not.

Fast forward and he's dating Cisco now and Cisco knows Barry's demi and cool with it. What matters isn't whether Barry's sexually attracted to him, but whether Barry's comfy and happy with where their relationship is at.

And whatever switch flips in his brain to turn on sexual attraction to person flips and Barry... is just... freaking out a little. Is this what it's like for allos all the time???? He's so distracted all of a sudden. He can't get enough of Cisco, wants to be kissing and touching and *more* all the time. Everything keeps reminding his brain of this sexy thing Cisco does or that sexy thing Cisco does and Cisco being the voice in his ear when he's trying to do Flash stuff is *not* helping.

He of course explains this to Cisco and he's maybe complaining a bit because do you know how hard it is to concentrate on my job when all my brain can think about is kissing my boyfriend? And Cisco is just kind of laughing and assuring Barry that does calm down when a relationship settles after a while and that yeah it's normal it just seems *excessive* to someone who hasn't felt brand new sexual attraction to someone in a decade.

Barry - How long is a while?

Cisco - ... um... a few weeks to a few months?

Barry - *flopping onto the bed dramatically* Months???? How do allos live like this, getting crushes on random people all the time???

Whoops.

Now Barry has to find a fake date to bring to trivia night.

He relates his woes to Cisco and Caitlin and while Caitlin is mocking him, Cisco is just like 'I'll be the fake boyfriend'.

Barry - Really??? Iris knows I'm bi so this actually works out great. Thanks, I owe you. Caitlin - *after Barry speeds off* wow, going on a fake date. With the guy you have a crush on. How could this possibly go wrong? Cisco - I love you but shut up.

So fake date time and!!! Barry and Cisco are just on each other's wavelength all night with the trivia and the flirting and everything. Eddie has completely relaxed because clearly Barry's in love and not with Iris. Iris is so glad Barry's got a cute nerd after all. And Barry's like... 'I know this is supposed to be a fake date, but it feels real date-ish?'

Ignore everything with the cold gun that's supposed to happen in that episode. Instead we've got increasing fake dating shenanigans where they're both making paper thin excuses for why they should be going on fake dates to sell the relationship - dates that Eddie and Iris are at best vaguely aware are happening - until finally one of them cracks and admits that they wanna be real-dating.