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Everything and nothing suffocated him, his breaths coming out in short, sharp gasps that felt like sandpaper against his throat. Bright blue, vivacious eyes shot open as his aching body lurched forward. Coughs wracked his frame, and hands were moving across his body, frantically searching his tattered clothing before his conscious brain could catch up with what he was doing.
What was he doing?
His hands decreased in their movement as racing thoughts slowed, and he took the time to look around. Shattered wooden crates, oil slicked floors, and dismal windows surrounded the disorientated man, with nothing giving away where he was.
Or who he was.
Anxiety slammed into his chest when the thought shot through his mind. Why didn’t he know who he was? Instead of letting the panic rise, the man willed his hands to move into the pockets of the suit trousers (was he a bourgeois man?) but there was nothing in them. No wallet, no keys, nothing. Dropping his head, the nameless man concentrated on controlling his breathing by drawing deep breaths in and letting them out. It wasn’t until he felt the height of fear subside that the man noticed the dark, brown patch that stained the otherwise crisp white shirt.
A bullet hole.
His eyebrows furrowed together, and the man tugged the wrinkled fabric from the waistband of his trousers, then slid a warm hand up underneath to feel across the skin. There had been no searing pain, no agony bloomed in his chest. In fact, the skin underneath his shirt was smooth and unmarred.So, why was he wearing the shirt of a clearly dead man?Confused, the nameless man pulled himself to his feet and he looked around, taking in the broken glass and cracked floor that he had missed the first time. Evidently, something had occurred in the warehouse: these weren’t the remnants of a decrepit warehouse left to rot. Something had happened, be it a fight or an explosion, but the man had no clue what part he played in it all. Large splinters of wood were spread around the building mirroring an explosion, and cold, harsh air blew in from the door hanging from a hinge far across the otherwise desolate space, and was that fire raging blue?. Moonlight streamed in through the smash window high above the man, along with the bustling noise that came along with living in a city.
City.
The word flooded the man’s head as a scene played out, the worried shouts and cries of people who seemed so familiar filled his ears loud and unwavering.Central City. Darkness. Two people who could run at the speed of light. His brain provided a name for the first. Barry Allen. A name he knew quite well, it seemed, though he couldn’t place why. The second name, however, took some correcting. Harv—Harrison Wells— Eobard. The nameless man wasn’t sure why, but the knowledge of the Man In Yellow’s (and his brain auto capitalised it) name sent shivers down his spine, and cause an ache beneath the flowered stain on the starch white shirt. Punch after punch was landed on Barry Allen until the cowl was knocked off the Red (Scarlet, his brain corrected) Speedster’s costume. He was a monster, a monster that had murdered Barry’s mother, and was about to murder the young man, too. Joe and Cisco— Friends of his? Of Barry’s? —watched in horror as Eobard’s hand tightened around Barry’s throat, pulling the life from him. Threats slipped through the deep, distorted voice.The nameless man felt helpless as he watched. What could he do against a man as powerful as the Man in Yellow? What could he do against Eobard Thawne? Thawne. There was something about the name that clung to him like barnacles on a ship. Thawne. That was… That was his name, wasn’t it? He was related. They were related. They shared the same blood. He could keep everyone safe. He could keep Iris safe. And, oh, how that named burned a whole in his heart more painful than lead. Fumbling, his heart pounded, hands scrambled to clutch to gun at his hip. He slid the cold iron out of its holster and stared at it. His grip tightened as he came to terms with what he was about to do. It was a tragedy, really, but he gave himself no chance to dwell on what had been and what could be as the barrel of the gun was turned to his chest. It fired as he drew a breath in. A cataclysmic shot silenced the indiscernible chaos of the labs— He wasn’t sure why he was there to begin with. But he knew it had worked. The Man in Yellow fell into a spasm, so blurred that he was indistinguishable.
"Eddie! What did you do?!”
Eddie. Eddie Thawne. That was his name.
The man – Joe – ran over the moment his eyes locked on to the crumpling body of the blond who was supposed to be his Son-in-Law. He was strong, Eddie noticed, as he was gently lowered to the floor rather than smacking it violently. “What did you do?!’
Eddie didn’t respond, eyes glazed and unmoving from the doorway.
White hot pain blossomed in his chest, and Eddie did his best to hold on for as long as he could. To say goodbye to Iris. After everything, it was the least that she deserved.
“What did you do?!” Joe was angry. Eddie wasn’t surprised. He’d been a common recipient of Joe’s dislike, of Joe’s disapproval. More to add to Eddie’s insecurities. Not that they’d be of any prevalence where he was going.
“No such thing as a conscience,” Eddie ground out between clenched teeth when Joe jostled him into staying awake.
He registered Barry’s distant voice asking, “What’s happening?”
“E-Eddie’s his ancestor,” Cisco replied. The blond man was grateful for the young engineer explaining Eddie’s thought process. He didn’t think he had the strength to do so if he hadn’t. “If Eddie dies, he’ll never be born and…” Cisco looked to Eobard. “He’s being erased from existence!”
“No! No! Eddie!” Iris’ voice sounded like an angel’s in the hell Eddie was putting her through. “Stay with me, okay?” She demanded, holding Eddie’s head in her hands. “Stay.”
Tears rolled down Iris’ face as she saw Eddie drifting in and out of consciousness, clearly losing the fight. Looking back, he felt that he had not been entirely sure he wanted to stay, either.
“He was wrong, it turns out,” Eddie struggled to expel. “I’m a hero after all.”
“You are, Eddie. You are my hero.”
“That’s all I ever wanted to be: your hero.”
And just like that, he knew his name. Eddie Thawne. But it didn’t feel right on his tongue. He knew the woman he had once loved was named Iris. He had friends named Barry and Joe and Cisco. These were all names to go with faces that haunted his weakening thoughts, but in the end that was all they were. Named faces. Eddie couldn’t remember what they meant to him, couldn’t remember what it felt like to love the teary-eyed woman that had mourned his death, begged for him to stay, couldn’t remember anything other than the excruciating dread that he was about to die by his own hand.
Maybe he was in some sort of afterlife.
His parents had always taught him that after death, there was no pain. No fear. No doubt. So, why did he feel so guilty about these people? Why did it sit in his stomach like a stone?It felt nauseating, Eddie found, to not remember why he had died. Granted, it didn’t bother many people, but how many of those people had come back from the dead? To him, the utter compassion and the closeness, the connection to the people in his mind, was gone. He didn’t remember why they meant so much to him, so much that it willed him to take his own life to save them.His mind was preoccupied with worry-filled thoughts and questions that he didn’t feel his feet guide him down the hallway of the warehouse until a furious, yet indeterminable muffled noise could be heard seeping through the walls. With each step that Eddie took, it got louder.The cracked concrete floor was no stranger to miscellaneous substances; from the ash of a cigarette to the oil from a piece of machinery that Eddie wasn’t sure had been used within the previous ten years, this floor had seen it all.The noise was close, leaving Eddie able to decipher that it was actually the cacophony of two men not necessarily arguing, but they weren’t in full agreement about… whatever had brought them to the edge of town."What th' bloody hell we doin' here?" A gruff, yet familiar voice, spoke. Whoever it was, they sounded like they vehemently disagreed with whoever they were with. “You know just as well as anyone that warehouses like these are a goldmine for machine parts that our allies can use in abundance.” Another familiar voice responded; dry humour laced their tones.“Look at you, Snart,” The first voice spoke, the gruffness of his voice now laced with a tinge of amusement. “Going soft for a bunch of misfits.”Snart. Leonard Snart, also known as Captain Cold. He was here? And why did his brain feel like that was important information to save? Eddie was quick to remember the time he’d watched the Flash take them both down – he’d helped, partly; giving the Flash cover as he fired bullets at the two supervillains as their guns lit up the darkened street they had been in. Then, that meant that the other man who was talking had to be Mick Rory… or Heatwave, as Central City had dubbed the villain.At least it meant that Eddie was still in Central City, right? That there was still something for him, here? That maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t been left all alone. It was nothing more than wishful thinking, Eddie knew, but he sensed that in his current predicament, that was all that he had.Heavy footfalls rounded the corner and Eddie’s guesses were made fact. Two pairs of shoes – one pair caked in dust and grime, the other practical, well-kept snow boots – filled his vision from where he had been staring at the floor, head tilted as he focused on what he could hear, and what he could remember. The blond then tilted his head up, clueless eyes falling on the icy blue ones belonging to Leonard Snart.“What do we have here?” Len was rarely surprised, and this was not one of those instances. In fact, he was just rather startled by the blood-soaked man wearing suit trousers and shirt in the middle of, well, not the most glamorous of places.“Hi.” Eddie found himself saying, and the two supervillains found themselves stopping short in their tracks. Nothing else was said, not until Mick pointed to the gold badge on Eddie’s belt. Len squinted his eyes in scrutiny. With the gaping wound in the man’s chest, from what he could see, this cop was not around to make arrests. Nor should he be, full stop. No bullet proof vest would have saved him against a shot like that. So, just what was he doing there?“Central City Police sent their wounded to come collect us, did they?” Len asked with a slight sneer, but the man before him didn’t seem offended, nor did he seem to understand what the hell was going on. When the blond man asked, “We’re in… Central City?”, Len knew something was up. The blond man swayed on his feet and seemed to clutch at his head in pain, rather than at the gaping hole in his chest. Len was beyond clueless. There was nothing else said; Eddie’s brain had overloaded itself with the onslaught of hazy memories, and names and faces and places that seemed to be slipping from his mind as quickly as it had supplied them, that Eddie’s eyes slipped closed. He was out cold before he hit the ground.Captain Cold looked to his partner and gestured to the unconscious man on the floor. Mick’s shoulders dropped. He grunted and let out an “Ah, Hell.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Lisa Snart was a sensible woman. A smart woman. She felt, however, that her brother (on occasion) needed someone to call in now and again, to make sure that he had survived the month without being shipped off to Iron Heights.She had expected to arrive to find a sporadic number of Rogues sat in the safe house’s living space, beer in hand and some shoddy film Axel had stolen from the DVD store. What she didn’t expect was the stranger passed out on the couch, empty holster and golden CCPD badge on the table. This stranger was a cop. That only made things more confusing. And interesting, she added as an afterthought. Fragile and in poorly-sewn-together pieces, the blanket that was draped over him could barely be called that.“Lenny?” Lisa’s confusion floated around the space.“Yes, dearest sister of mine?” Len’s monotonic, yet sarcastic, voice responded. He appeared in the living room doorframe, arms folded, and parka coat gone.“Jerk.” A glare was sent her brother’s way, though the narrowing of her eyes would only work on anyone who wasn’t Len or Mick. “Why is there a homeless cop on your couch?”Len wasn’t entirely sure himself. He and Mick had lugged the unconscious detective from the warehouse, mildly concerned for the gaping hole in his shirt (because they were criminals, not murderers – except when it was warranted), only to find out once they arrived at the safe house that their impromptu guest was not bleeding to death, nor suffering from lead to the heart.Which only made the man all the more intriguing.“So he owes me a favour.” Len decided on, which was ultimately not a bad thing. A favour from one of CPPD’s detectives? That was just a blessing waiting to happen. He let his head drop to the side in thought. “The blanket was Axel’s touch, for some stupid reason.”“Oi!” Trickster II cut in as he happened to wander by (read: he sprinted as soon as he’d heard his name). “Shock can be a real killer, you know!” Lisa’s and Len’s faces gave nothing away. “Besides. Hartley’s rats chewed through it; it was gonna get thrown out anyway.”“Hey!” Hartley’s indignant shout from above made those below remember just how superior the young man’s hearing was. “The only reason Rathaniel chewed through that musty old thing was because you set fire to his last one!”“When will you let that go?!” Axel’s response from the kitchen was heard. “Seriously – that thing was horrifically ugly!”“Bite me, Axel!”“Control your children, Lenny.” Lisa laughed. “Or you might need to put them in time out.” Leonard’s disagreeing grunt widened Lisa’s smile. She returned her gaze to the stranger momentarily. “Well, at least we know you’ve kept your bedside manner from when we were kids.”Mick’s outraged laugh cut through the siblings’ conversation as the pyromaniac took a seat in the dusty, battered armchair stolen from one of the Rogues’ earlier heists of the year.“Bedside manner? Your brother here dropped that man at least three times! I’m not entirely sure all of them were accidental.”“Shut up,” Leonard muttered. He, too, spared another glance to the passed-out man on the sofa. Mick noticed, and asked, “Something a problem?”There was something familiar about the blond man, something that Len couldn’t place at that moment, but he knew he would. Eventually.“No… Do you recognise him?”Mick shook his head. “Should I?”A drawn-out groan halted Mick and the Snart siblings’ conversation and made sure their attention was directed fully to the ‘impromptu guest’ waking up on the couch.Suddenly, he shot up, once again not knowing where he was. He looked around the room, eyes gazing over the beat-up couches and armchairs, old statues and paintings, static TV and three people he wasn’t entirely certain he could name.
… Wait, what?
Hadn’t he been in a warehouse before? Where was he now? He took the time to carefully look over the three people who stared at him with an intensity akin to the bullies he’d suffered in high school (and why was that a memory his brain had decided to keep?), and it seemed to click.The larger of the two men, covered in dust and ash and oil, was none other than Mick Rory. Central City called him Heatwave. He didn’t look so happy to have Eddie in his space. The blond man was suddenly acutely aware of the click of Zippo lighter being twirled around in the course hands of the pyromaniac.“Heat…wave?” Eddie tested the name on his tongue. An eyebrow was raised, unimpressed, but raised, silently telling Eddie that he was correct.That left Leonard Snart. Captain Cold? Too many names. Eddie’s head hurt. He was cleaner than his partner. Thick snow boots adorned his feet in homage to his alter ego, and he tried to look intimidating, and he probably was, but Eddie’s mind was still foggy that he didn’t feel anything other than perplexity.“Uh. Captain Cold?” Eddie croaked out, his throat dry. He avoided Leonard’s incredulous stare to turn his gaze to the brunette woman stood next to the two men. “I don’t think I… Do I know you?”“Lisa,” She provided helpfully. “Though your Saint, Flash, has a wonderful friend who called me Golden Glider.”Eddie nodded slowly. “Right. He’s the, um, the speedy… person, right?”Mick let out a howl of laughter. “Oh, he’d love that! Speedy Person? You trying to tell me one of CCPD’s own doesn’t know who Flash is?”Eddie let out a nervous, polite laugh. “I’m still not 100% sure who I am, to be honest.” He took in the nominally cleaner setting, but there was still a warehouse vibe to his new location. “Or where I am. Or why I’m here.”“You’re not sure of a lot.” Len said. “I assume that means you don’t know about the gaping bullet hole in your shirt?”“It was there when I woke up— in that factory. It’s weird… I’m wearing the shirt, so the blood must be mine, but—but there’s nothing underneath.”“No recollection of what happened?” Len pressed, and the three Rogues could see the blond man struggle to find anything that would reveal anything.Eddie let out a breath as his eyebrows furrowed. “There was… Ba-The Flash. He…” The poor, disoriented man floundered. “I know it was me.” Eddie licked his lips in discomfort. “All I remember now is that I shot… myself.” He said absentmindedly. The memory that had overwhelmed him in the warehouse was nothing but a blur that Eddie couldn’t pick anything out. There was the phantom weight of the sidearm in his hand, and his stomach sat heavy with the weight of foreboding of what he had been about to do.Then a sudden realisation hit Eddie and he panicked. “How the hell am I still alive? Look at my shirt! There’s no way I survived that!” He tugged at the fabric, stiff with dried blood and gun powder stippling. Sliding a hand inside, he felt the perfect skin. “There’s nothing there, so I didn’t die, but how…? I…” His breathing was erratic, uncontrollable, and Eddie didn’t know he was having a panic attack until Captain Cold was in front of him; hands were a comforting presence on his shoulders. Len exaggerated his breathing until Eddie’s mirrored his own, and the blond men fell silent, hands twisting in the orange blanket draped on his lap. “I’m sorry.”Len squeezed the younger man’s shoulders then stood. “Don’t have time to be done for murder,” Len joked. “We’ve got plans to fulfil.”Eddie nodded absentmindedly, casting another look around the room. “Is, uh, is there a reason I’m in your living room?”“Mick and I carried you here; after your little debacle in that factory, Detective.” Len stepped back and gave the man some space, coyly going to fiddle with the dial on his Cold Gun that rested on the tabletop.“Oh,” Eddie said dryly. “Why?”“So you owe me a favour,” Len finally turned his gaze to Eddie, who shifted uncomfortably under the harsh glint in Len’s eyes. “Seeing as we won’t get anything out of you, maybe we can get it out of CCPD.”“What are you suggesting?” Mick leaned forward, intrigued. Lisa regarded her brother with a look only he could decipher. A smug smirk crossed the ice villain’s face, and Eddie was unsettled, well aware that whatever plan that had quickly formed in Leonard’s mind was a result of Eddie’s apparent Detective status. Len didn’t respond to Mick’s question, his amusement centred on the young man on the couch.“Detective, how do you feel playing the hostage?” Eddie blinked. Hostage? It took a few moments to dawn on him, but Eddie’s critical thinking skills were apparently still intact because he deduced some sort of idea of what Captain Cold had in mind. The golden badge and empty gun holster on the table implied that Eddie was a detective, and a CCPD one at that. Not that he particularly knew much else. If it was somehow revealed that the three villains before him had ‘captured’ one of CCPD, surely they’d negotiate. What for, Eddie had no clue.Realistically speaking, Eddie didn’t have much of a choice. Where would he go if he said no? Eddie tried to grasp at the lost memory from the warehouse, but all that filled his mind was the gunshot and searing pain. His knee bounced as he closed his eyes, willing his brain to pick out something, anything other than the horror of dying, something that would tell Eddie who he truly was, not just what trinkets and identifications told him. Yellow and red distorted his recollection, distant voices that were just noise. Reaching for something that wasn’t quite there, only to be slammed back to the floor under the power of lead, and everything else disappearing. His hands heated under the force of his grip. Eddie knew, in his heart, that he had no other option, but it didn’t prevent his hands from trembling, nor the surprised whistles of breath that escaped the people before him. Eddie opened his eyes, confused, but prepared to agree to Leonard’s plan, only to be greeted with roaring blue. Fire, a deep, cobalt fire, engulfed both of his fists, and Eddie’s eyes widened.Amazement was his initial reaction, then it was followed by… Oh my god, my hands are on fire. The fire is blue. My hands are on fire and the fire is blue.He then jumped to his feet, shaking his hands wildly until the fire quelled and shrunk, gone almost as quickly as it had appeared. Pulling his hands closer, Eddie found there was no burns, no ash marks. Much like his chest, there was no physical aftermath to prove that it had ever happened, but the three curious looks of his saviours told him that it, indeed, had.“What the—” Eddie’s wide eyes pleaded for any of them to help him, to tell him just what on earth was going on. Instead, the pensive look was back on Len’s face.“You said you don’t remember anything?” He asked.“Who the hell cares!” Eddie yelled, still shaken from what had just happened. “My hands were fucking on fire and the fire was blue!” Len narrowed his eyes, but Eddie held his ground. “They were on fire!” He took a breath. “I’ve told you: I don’t know anything! And now my hands are on fire, and you want me to be a hostage!”“Calm down.” Len snapped. “And listen to me. If you have no one waiting for you, that you’re aware of, why don’t you stay here and we can offer you help.”Eddie let out a shuddering breath. “And what do you get in return? You gonna go out searching to make sure I’m not some missing person?”“Be snarky all you want, Detective,” Len all but snarled, “but from where I’m standing, you’ve got two options: either you stay with us and sort yourself out, or you lose yourself in a world you no longer know.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Eddie gritted his teeth. He knew that Len was right – this world was no longer his home. He knew that he would need someone to guide him through it, at least while he sorted through his memories, trying to find something that would stick. It wasn’t a surprise to the collective, then, that Eddie conceded eventually. “Fine.” The blond man felt the explosion of anger dissipate the same way it flared, and Eddie’s stomach was suddenly filled with sheepish guilt. He softly apologised. “That was rude of me. I’m sorry.”Len seemed to accept the apology with a laugh held back. He then turned to Mick and said, “Looks like we’ll have to grab something to eat. Don’t think we have enough for an extra person.” Mick rolled his eyes as he rose from the chair to stalk out of the room.“Don’t wish for anything fancy, Detective,” Mick called over his shoulder. “I can’t be bothered to get much more than microwave meals tonight.” Eddie wasn’t sure how he should respond, so he didn’t. Instead, he awkwardly perched himself back on the couch and waited in silence as a door somewhere in the distance opened and closed, signalling that the pyromaniac had left the building.Len had watched the Detective during the time Mick had been gone. It wasn’t outright, just an occasional side eye when he thought that the blond man had been silent for too long – Eddie’s eyes were transfixed on the palms of his hands, but Len wasn’t going to blame him. Waking up with no memories to find you had superpowers couldn’t be something easy to comprehend. Len knew, however, the danger of being lost in your own mess of a head for too long.“Hey. Detective.” Len called, finishing his nonchalant chatter with Lisa. The man in question blinked his attention away from his hands and tucked them underneath his thighs.“Eddie.” He corrected absentmindedly, before his brain finally restarted and caught up with itself. “My name’s Eddie.” He paused. “I’m pretty sure it is, anyway.” Len nodded but carried on regardless, a sly smile on his face.“So, Detective,” He said, blatantly ignoring the correction again, “you’re sure you’ve got no recollection about your little magic trick?” Eddie glanced down and pulled his hands out to flex his fingers. Nothing happened. Eddie shrugged. Len decided that, maybe, it wasn’t something they should pursue that night. Instead, Len seated himself where Mick had earlier as Lisa made her departure with a smile.“What do you remember, then?” Len prodded. “There’s something. You remember your name, and Mick and I have clearly left a mark in your subconscious – a fan, perhaps?” Eddie picked at threads again, making no move to retort Len’s jibe.“There was something—when I woke up in that warehouse. The—The Flash—” He still didn’t seem confident in the use of the alter ego names. “—was fighting. Another speed person?” Eddie’s eyebrows crinkled. “That part’s incomprehensible to me. But shooting myself wasn’t. I don’t know why I was with The Flash to begin with. All I know is that I hurt people who cared about me very deeply, and I’m not sure I’ll ever know why that makes me feel so guilty.”Len hummed. “If you are willing to stay around, the Rogues have found themselves in the good graces of a couple doctors. I know a few you could talk to, if you wanted.”Eddie looked up with a wry smile. “I have vague inclinations that you’re supposed to be cold and callous.” The smirk was back.“When I need to be.”。Mick’s return came half an hour later to reveal that his departing remark had ended in a lie – Chinese takeaway boxes and cartons in his hands were evidently not the mediocre-cuisine microwave meals. Eddie quickly found that the two men had become regular, favourite customers some of Central City’s takeout spots; if the businesses were getting money off of the pair and their crew, alongside no hassle customers, then the restaurant owners saw no need in exposing the villains.The blond man accepted what was given to him gratefully, and sat at the table awkwardly as more members of the Rogues emerged from their rooms with a desire to steal what they could from the mass amounts of food Mick had brought back. As a man in glasses (he introduced himself to Eddie as Hartley) and a chaotic ensemble that was Axel Walker sauntered to the cobbled together table and took their places at it, Eddie wanted to make himself as small as possible. He felt out of place with this group of people, regardless of the fact that he had known them less than 24 hours. He was slow to eat his own food: his hands still trembled with the knowledge of what they’d done, and Eddie was doing his best not to throw up. There was no discussion of anything over the meal, although Hartley and Axel exchanged muttered argumentatives, and the man in glasses wasn’t hesitant to elbow the dark-haired man next to him any time Axel tried to snatch something from his plate. Len seemed close to embracing Lisa’s prior snipe of ‘babysitter’, as his grip tightened around his cutlery as he held back anything that could be construed as parental chiding.When the food was gone, Hartley and Axel were the first to disappear from the table, Mick not too far behind; the subtle tilt of his head, Len was quick to interpret, was a signalled command of follow that soon left Eddie surrounded by the discarded plastic containers. With nothing to do, Eddie took his moment of isolation to push away the constant whirring of his mind, and meticulously gathered together the items he could dispose of. Eddie bumbled his way through the safehouse, unsure of what door led to what room, but managed to safely work himself into the Rogues’ makeshift kitchen. It seemed, Eddie observed, that despite apparent differences between them, the Rogues had managed to make themselves a safe haven out of the left-to-rot real estate.Peering out into the inky darkness outside the window, where no streetlamps burned their bright lights, nor did intermittent cars fly by; it was calm and quiet, and Eddie felt thousands of miles away from the city (which he could have been, for all he knew, waking up on their couch). He dumped what he could in the tiny recycling bin and then let his eyes wander, attempting to adjust to the void that engulfed the area, and for the first time since he awoke on the warehouse floor, the blond man felt a sense of ease that uncoiled the guilty curled tightly in his abdomen ever so slightly.Leaning back against a countertop, Eddie crossed his arms and let his mind conjure whatever it pleased – he was too tired to reach desperately for any form of a new memory, and he was too antsy to replay the same blurred fight, the same echoing gunshot, again and again. To combat this, his brain began to imagine what his life could have been. Eddie smiled at the thought of it all, so engrossed in his daydream that he didn’t hear the other person enter the room.“You don’t have to earn your keep.” It wasn’t Len or Mick, or even Lisa returning, that stood in the doorway. Axel had a goofy grin on his face as he shattered the reverie Eddie had designed, noisily stomping through the kitchen to grab himself a beer and something else. “They seem gruff, but—” Axel looked around dramatically before lowering his voice to a stage whisper. “—they can be softies, too. Though,” He said, voice returned to normal levels, “I’m sure Len’ll be glad that there’s someone around to do chores.” Eddie smiled again at Axel’s idle chat, and occasionally interjected with his own comment or noises that showed that young man he was listening. The fact that Eddie took everything he said in stride just seemed to brighten Axel with each sentence.“Why is Len keeping a detective around, anyway?” Axel asked finally, though it was muffled by the rice pudding pot he was digging into. The Detective in question shrugged, eyes fixated back outside. Axel didn’t seem particularly bothered by the response, or lack thereof, and continued to plough through his dessert before he pulled the spoon out of his mouth with a pop. “There’s a spare room near mine you can crash in.” Axel threw his spoon into the sink from where he stood, the sound of metal on metal ricocheted around the tiny space. Eddie flinched at the 10,000-decibel sound before pushing himself into the standing position so he could follow Axel through the Rogues’ hideout.The room that Axel had spoken about was maybe the size of two university dorms crammed together, with a however old bed frame and mattress covered by fresher, newer sheets, and a small cupboard rested in the corner of the room. Eddie glanced around, but considering his other option had been sleeping on the streets of Central City, he was grateful that he had even been taken in. Eddie thanked Axel and the two of them continued a light conversation until the second Trickster decided that he missed Hartley and wanted to annoy the man, so bid his farewell to the Rogues’ newest arrival, and practically skipped out the room in search of said man. That left Eddie stood awkwardly in the space the same way he had when he’d first arrived at his university, his mind proffered the familiarity of feeling of uncertainty, that he wasn’t sure he should be there, wondering if he would ever belong anywhere in the world. That had been answered, Eddie believed, but that answer was long lost.“It’s a bed.” The amused comment came from behind the blond man, and he turned slowly to find Len in the doorway. “You remember what a bed is?”Eddie snorted at Len’s mockery. He sat slowly on the aforementioned item, still battling the internal anxiety and guilt that hadn’t left him since he awoke, and was revamped by Axel’s innocuous question. “I do, funnily enough.” The pair fell quiet, and Eddie thought Len had gone until he looked up again to see Len watching him with an indecipherable gaze. The Detective bit his lower lip nervously, then tried to formulate his question without coming across as rude. “Why am I here, really?” Eddie couldn’t hold the icy stare as he spoke. “Why offer to keep me around?” He felt his nails dig into his palms. “And don’t say a favour. You offered me medical help mere hours after asking if I’d ‘play the hostage’, and now I’m staying in your spare room like some sort of burden. What possible use could I have for you when all I can remember are blurred faces and indeterminable failures?”For a moment, Eddie received no response but the heat in his hands and the sparks of blue he could hear crackle. In that instance, the blond thought Len had left him alone, and Eddie focused on the uncontrollable tremors in his hands as he prayed that they would just stop.Sudden movement had Eddie blinking, and soon he realised that Len was stood in front of him, looking more open in that instance than he had the first time Eddie wanted his reasoning, flocked by Lisa and Mick.“Losing something valuable can be all-consuming when you obsess over getting it back.” That was all Len had to offer. Eddie tilted his head.“Speaking from experience?”Len curved his mouth and shrugged his shoulders. “I may be cold, but I’m not a monster.”After that, Eddie was left alone for the rest of the night.