elrhiarhodan

Title: Time Cannot Be Won
For: MMOM - Thirty (One) Dirty Words – Day 6 (Prompt: Soul)
Author:

elrhiarhodan
Fandom: The Flash
Rating: NC-17
Characters: Barry Allen, Harrison Wells | Eobard Thawne
Pairing: Barry Allen/Harrison Wells | Eobard Thawne
Spoilers/Episode References: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: NONE
Word Count: ~3100
Summary: Part Five of Deadmarked. No matter how hard Barry tries, he can't get in to see Harrison Wells. And Eobard Thawne is using everything in his power to find his soulmate. But the stars finally do align a few days before Christmas and happiness is within their grasp.

Author's Notes: Written for Day 6 of the 2017 Edition of Merry Month of Masturbation, for the prompt "Soul". As with all of the Deadmarked stories, this is written for

kyele, from a not-so-innocent request for angst EoBarry soulmate fic.

Title from The Moody Blue song "Peak Hour", from the album Days of Future Past.

__________________

"Can I please see Harrison Wells?"

The security guard looks at Barry and shakes his head. "No one gets to see Doctor Wells without an appointment. Do you have an appointment?"

Barry tries not to sigh, tries not to grimace, tries not to express any emotion but calm, assertive confidence. "No, but I have information that he'll want to know."

"What's the "information'?" The guard makes finger quotes around the last word.

"That is for Doctor Wells, not for you." Barry pretends he's Joe West or better, Captain Singh, and the guard is a witness in Interview. It doesn't work.

"Kid - "

"I'm not a kid."

The security guard ignores him. "Kid, you've been here every day this week. Your picture is on the desk here - " The guy picks up and shows Barry a poorly printed photo of his face from earlier this week. "How many times does someone have to tell you that you will not be allowed to see Doctor Wells - the CEO and Chief Scientist of S.T.A.R. Labs, I must remind you - without an appointment? I've got instructions from my boss that you are not allowed on premises unless you have a verified appointment, and if you keep coming back without one, you'll be arrested."

Barry smiles, actually relishing this. "First of all, the lobby of S.T.A.R. Labs is a public space, as designated by the Central City Planning Commission when they granted the variances to Doctor Wells to build the structure. Unless I am creating a nuisance, you can't remove me. And second of all," Barry pulls out his laminate and flips it open, "I work for the cops. You try and trump up some charge that I'm disturbing the peace, we'll be going over this in a courtroom about a year from now when I sue your ass off for false arrest."

The guard blinks.

Barry tries for a smoother approach. "Look, I know you're just doing your job. Your boss is doing her job, but you can't throw me out."

The guard throws him a bone. "Doctor Wells doesn't come through the lobby, ever, so hanging around and trying to catch him will be pointless."

Barry had been afraid of that. "How about this, can you give him something?"

"Really?" The guard looks at Barry like he's more than a little nuts.

"Just my card." Barry pulls one out from behind the CCPD, and write something on the back of it. "Please - just make sure that Doctor Wells gets this."

The guard read it. "Bartholomew H. Allen, Criminalist, Central City Police Department, Main Precinct. Jeez, 'Bartholomew' - your parents really must have loved you." The sarcasm was thick enough to cut.

Barry's heard variations on that before and ignores it.

The guard flips the card over and reads "Three ex two open parentheses nine ex why close parentheses four a. What the hell does that mean?"

"That is for Doctor Wells, not for you."

"Kid - and yeah, I know, you're not a kid - I'll take this to my boss and it'll be up to her to pass it onto Doctor Wells. All I can do is try."

Barry nods. "I understand, and I'm sorry if I'm putting you in a bad position. But it's very important."

"I'm sure it is." But despite the show of sympathy, the guard gave Barry the stinkeye. "Don't you have a job to go to?"

Of course Barry does and he leaves S.T.A.R. Labs with great reluctance. He's at his wit's end. He'd tried cold-calling Harrison Wells' office to get an appointment, but had been a Hail Mary destined to fail. He'd asked everyone he knows if they could get him into see Harrison Wells - even begging Iris to get Linda Park to set up an interview, but she'd said she was done with the science beat. So Barry's only recourse is to hang around S.T.A.R. Labs in hope he can get into see Doctor Wells.

His plan is failing miserably.

Every time his cell phone - the CCPD-issued one - rings, Barry's jumps. But of course, Harrison Wells is never on the other end of the connection. So Barry goes back to S.T.A.R. Labs the next day, and the day after, and the day after that, each time leaving his card with the equation on the back, pleading with whichever security guard is on duty to get it to Harrison Wells.

Getting ever more desperate, he doesn't just haunt S.T.A.R. Labs, he takes a picture of the equation - the soul mark - and sends it by express mail to Harrison Wells at S.T.A.R. Labs, begging the man to contact him, but he never does.

Barry's days are filled with despair, and his nights with ever more sexual dreams about the man he thinks of as his soulmate. He can't bear it and takes down the poster that Iris had given him. He puts it and the biography - still unfinished - in the back of his closet. But that doesn't stop the dreams, which are getting more and more erotic. Barry doesn't know if he's somehow tapped into Wells' psyche or if they are just the fevered result of a soul mate denied, but he wishes they'd stop.

Barry wakes up every morning, drenched in semen, his fist rubbing his cock raw, his fingers in his ass, and he's exhausted and heartbroken.

He wishes his mark had never come to life, he wishes it had never started to resolve, because there's really no greater hell than being denied your soulmate.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

It's the day before Christmas eve and Eobard is wrapping up the last administrative meetings of the year.

"Ms. Larvan, please wait." Eobard dismisses the rest of the attendees at the meeting, but asks the head of his security department to remain.

Larvan stands at if she's on parade rest, as prickly as always, and Eobard wonders why he just doesn't fire her. "Sir?"

Eobard waits for her to relax, she doesn't. "I would like to know the progress on the identification project I asked you to handle."

An expression that Eobard thinks is fairly close to annoyance crosses Larvan's face, which sets his back up. He pays her way too well for her to be annoyed about a special project. "Is there a problem, Ms. Larvan?"

"Ah, yes, Doctor Wells. I'm afraid there is."

"Excuse me?"

"The cameras on the south entrance malfunctioned on the night of the launch. The data is corrupted."

"And how long have you known about this?"

"Since Monday afternoon."

"Which Monday?"

"The Monday after the launch, sir."

"That was twelve days ago." Eobard's tone is quiet when he asks, "And why is it that you haven't said anything to me?"

Larvan's sweating. Good. "I've had my team try to reconstruct the corrupted data, but they aren't really experts in this stuff, so it's slow going - trying to capture individual frames."

Eobard wants to strangle the woman. "This is the premier scientific facility in the country and one of the most successful products it has produced in the last five years are the security and facial recognition systems. You're telling me that our own product didn't work and you didn't think the bring in the team that developed it for help?"

"Sir, I really didn't think this was a high priority project. Not with the data from the Particle Accelerator - "

Eobard cuts her off. "Which has nothing to do with the security software division."

Larvan nods, "You're right, sir. I'll bring it to them right away."

"What about the data from the north entrance?"

Larvan sweats harder. "Since we've had trouble with the south entrance data, I've had the team working full time on that. We haven't started on the north entrance video."

"And I suppose you haven't looked at the crowd video either?"

"It's a few days before Christmas, Doctor Wells. Half of my techs are on vacation."

"You have a lot of excuses, Larvan." Eobard is so very close to firing her.

"Not excuses, explanations. I'll cancel everyone's leave and have them work full time on the data."

"No, Larvan, you won't. You turn all of the data over to the security products team. They will do your job."

"Sir, I must protest!"

"Protest all you want, Larvan. I gave you a project, I expected it done without argument, without excuse, but you've given me nothing but arguments and excuses. Your team is not at fault, you are."

Larvan nods. "Is there anything else, sir?"

Eobard's about to dismiss her, but then asks, out of the blue, "Has there been any unusual visitors at S.T.A.R. Labs? Anyone asking to see me?"

Larvan blinks. "Doctor Wells, how did you know that?"

"There have been?" Eobard reaches for a chair to steady himself.

"Yes, someone guy has been here every day demanding to see you. The security guards keep telling him that he can't see you without an appointment, but he shows up everyday, around noon, like clockwork. I'd have him barred, but he actually knows that the S.T.A.R. Labs lobby is undedicated public space."

Eobard gathers the threads of control. "Do you know this man's name?"

"Bartholomew Allen, according to the business cards he's left every day. Signs the visitor log as 'Barry Allen'. He's a criminalist with the CCPD."

"Barry Allen - that name seems familiar."

"You may have read it in the action report from the launch event. The mugging. He'd tried to catch the mugger."

"Right, yes." Eobard's heart is racing. After so many centuries, he's so close. "Has Mr. Allen left a message?"

Larvan makes a face. "Like I said, he's left his business card every day, with a bunch of numbers on the back of it. I think he's a stalker, sir. He'd sent an express mail package last week - it had a photograph of a tattoo with those numbers and photocopy of a bunch of German stuff. Creepy and gross if you ask me."

In this case, Eobard can't fault Larvan or her security procedures. No one gets in to see him without an appointment, and mail - even send by courier or express delivery - still has to clear through his administrative staff. A picture of a body part certainly wouldn't make his desk.

"I need to see that, and the cards that Mr. Allen has left for me."

Thankfully, Larvan doesn't question him about this. "I'll have them sent right up."

Eobard dismisses her. He doesn't understand why he hadn't thought to ask about visitors before this moment, but then, does it matter? His soulmate is here, he's been looking for him. That's the only thing that counts. Back in his office, Eobard accesses the camera feeds from the last few days - the security station in the lobby, at noon.

And there he is. He's younger than Eobard, but for some reason, that doesn't surprise him. Normally soulmates are generally the same age - give or take a few years, but there's nothing normal about Eobard or his soul mark. He has to wonder if Barry Allen's soul mark is just as divergent.

Eobard watches the video of each of Barry Allen's attempts to see him. He watches Barry approach, watches him beg and plead, and on at least two occasions, try to bribe the guard with baked goods. It doesn't work, and it shouldn't.

His senior admin knocks and Eobard gestures for him to come in. Henry's carrying an envelope. "Doctor Wells, I didn't know you'd want to see this - I was only following protocol."

Eobard understands. "It's fine, Henry." He takes the envelope and dismisses his assistant, asking him to shut the door as he leaves.

Hands shaking, Eobard empties the envelope - a pile of identical business cards makes a mess over his desk. He picks one up and turns it over. The handwriting is clean and neat, without any extraneous flourish.

3x2(9yz)4A

It's the same algebraic formula that had appeared on his arm the night of the launch.

In the twenty-fifth century, it's rare for soulmates to have matching marks. The mark on one soulmate is supposed to be something important to the other soulmate. Identical soul marks are supposed to be rarer than deadmarks.

But what surprises Eobard is how his soulmate knew who he was.

Eobard looks at the papers that Barry Allen had sent. There's the photograph of a man's arm, and for those that aren't familiar with soul marks, it would easily be mistaken for a tattoo. A very strange on at that. It's the same equation, but there's emerging from a ball of black lines, like a knotted ball of string.

It hits him like a fist in the face. He'd often thought of time as a knotted ball of string, weaving in and out of itself, but with a tug on the right line, the knots unravel.

Clipped to the picture is a page from an essay he'd written soon after he'd made this time his permanent home. It was a ridiculously self-indulgent piece of philosophizing, one that should have earned the derision of scientists and philosophers worldwide, except that it had been published in a very obscure journal, one with a circulation in the low four figures, which had folded about a year after it had published his essay. How Barry Allen got a copy of it is a mystery.

He reads the paragraph that had been circled and realizes that this is probably the only printed reference to the speed equation he'd once toyed with. The formula is meaningless without the references, a set of nonsense that can never be resolved. And yet, somehow, it's become the lifeline between Eobard Thawne and Barry Allen.

Eobard's momentarily distracted by an IM from Henry - it's six o'clock and he's leaving. Henry includes good wishes for a happy Christmas and New Year, which is a subtle reminder that Henry will be out of the office for the holiday week - like most of the S.T.A.R. Labs staff. 
Eobard had planned to come in, continue the hunt for his soul mate, but now - now he has everything he's worked for right at his hand. He replies to Henry in kind. He'll be leaving S.T.A.R. Labs for the night - and hopefully the next few days as he gets to know his soulmate.

He pockets one of Barry Allen's cards and gathers up the pages that Barry had sent, for the first time noticing the small lines of handwritten text on the back of the photograph.

"I know this is strange, you probably think I'm crazy - and perhaps I am - but I need to see you. Please, please. We need to talk.

Barry"

In all the years, across all the centuries, Eobard Thawne has never let himself break down. Even when he'd hopped from decade to decade, running across continents, searching for, but never finding his soulmate, he'd never felt like this. Maybe because the pain isn't his - but his soulmate's, who's been denied, turned away, ignored, for no other reason than Harrison Wells is an arrogant big shot who's surrounded by too many layers of people dedicated to keeping the world away from him.

Eobard doesn't bother with a car and driver. He doesn't care that there's a light snowfall and he's wearing expensive, handmade leather shoes that certainly aren't intended for anything more stressful that a walk from office to boardroom. He doesn't care that he hasn't run anywhere outside of a carefully concealed speed lab in nearly fifteen years.

Eobard runs because his soulmate needs him.

He's out of S.T.A.R. Labs and in front of the CCPD in a matter of seconds - the trip too brief for his clothing and shoes to catch fire. There are holiday decorations in the lobby and it looks like a Christmas party is either starting or ending.

Eobard has no clue if Barry Allen's here tonight, or at home. Or with family and friends. He just felt himself drawn here.

The desk sergeant is occupied with a handful of cookies and a cup of eggnog and doesn't notice Eobard until he clears his throat. "What can I do you for? If you need to report a crime, that's going to be a problem. Everyone's off duty."

Eobard doubts that. "No, I'm here to see Barry Allen." As the sergeant doesn't seem to recognize him, Eobard takes a deep breath and tells one of the most important lies of his life. Or maybe it's really not a lie. "Barry and I are old friends and I thought I'd stop by and wish him a happy holiday."

The cop doesn't even bother to ask him to sign in. "Allen's in his lab, third floor. He could use some cheering up."

Eobard wastes precious seconds to ask, "Oh? Why do you say that?"

"He's been moping around for the last few weeks, it's like someone killed his puppy."

That's my fault. All my fault. But all Eobard says is, "I think he'll be happy to see me."

The cop's distracted by a bunch of carolers and Eobard heads upstairs. It's quieter on the second floor, and dead silent on the third. He follows the signage to the forensics lab and pauses at the door.

Eobard has been waiting for this moment for centuries. He's rewritten the laws of physics and travelled across time to find his soulmate.

But there's one thing he's never considered, what if his soulmate finds him wanting?

It's a risk he'll have to take.

Eobard pushes open the door. The man he recognizes from the security footage is sitting at a lab table, his head buries in his hands.

"Barry Allen?"

Barry looks up, his face tearstained, pain and grief etched deep. Then he blinks and wonderment replaces the pain, joy replaces the grief. "Harrison Wells?"

Eobard nods. That's going to be an awkward conversation, but one they won't have to have for a while. "I'm sorry I didn't come sooner." He holds out his hand.

Barry reaches for him. "I've been trying to see you."

"I know - and unfortunately I am surrounded by people with the best of intentions. They are supposed to keep the riff-raff out. They are not supposed to keep me from my soulmate." Eobard can barely believe he can finally say those words, my soulmate.

"But you're here now, and that's all that counts."

Eobard smiles and pulls Barry close. "I will never leave you, Barry. Not until you tell me to go."

Barry rests his forehead against Eobard's, something that Eobard finds utterly delightful. "Good, because I am never going to let you go."

FIN