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As relieved as he is that Barry's awake, Kazu's also uncertain about seeing him. It'd be the first visit in person since their time in the pit, since he was so injured before the speedster didn't show up for their calendar night. And right now he's well aware that he's a mess in an entirely different way.

It'd be shitty of him to let on when he offered to listen to Barry's problems, though. Especially after how long it took them to get to a place where his friend admits his own needs. At the slightest hint that Kazu's struggling, Barry would probably take that as an opportunity to fall back into old habits. So when he gets the message asking him to come by, he does without any disclaimers. Hopefully he can manage to seem normal.

Since he can't phase through doors, he rings the bell. Like a boring human. Open up, Barry!

Barry opens up in a flash, greeting him with a warm smile and a tight hug before he even ushers him inside.

"Hey. It's good to see you again." He pulls back after a moment, sheepishly, and lets him in. "You want something to eat, or drink?"

As usual, Barry is a bit of a whirlwind. Kazu barely has time to hug him back at all before he's pulling away and offering refreshments, which earns him a small grin and a head shake.

"I'm alright for now, thank you." He walks inside and pauses in the foyer to take off his jacket and boots -- and yes he knows they don't care, but he does -- and then glances around the loft expectantly. Sara doesn't seem to be home, but just in case he asks, "Do you want to talk in your room?"

Barry nods, gesturing for him to follow once he's discarded his things. They really don't care about that, and Sara probably wouldn't even care if they were having a heart-to-heart on the couch, but he nods, preferring a little privacy right now. He hasn't even talked to her about all of this yet.

"Yeah, come on," he says, gesturing for him to follow. His room is pretty simply decorated, though he does have a bookcase and a red blanket on his bed that matches his Flash suit, which is hanging up in his closet, along with his STAR Labs sweater and probably too many cardigans. His desk is a mess of notes and drawings, and there's a picture of himself and Iris from home.

He plops down on the bed, patting on a spot next to him. "Comfier than a cave, huh?" All of that feels like a distant memory for him, even though he knows it wasn't for Kazu.

The papers on the desk get a curious glance as Kazu passes, but he doesn't linger to see what any of it is. Just sits down beside Barry with a grimace.

"Pretty much anything would be," he agrees, a bit crankily. They don't need to talk about the pit, do they? He'd rather not, at least, and it was even longer ago for Barry whose problems are the ones they're supposed to be discussing. Focus, Barry!

Kazu tucks one leg up on the mattress, sitting sideways because both of them facing the wall rather than each other would be weird. And nudges his friend along the conversational path, away from the pit and towards what he remembers from home.

"So you didn't die this time?"

Barry chuckles a little at Kazu's crankiness, and nods in agreement. Then he's quiet for a moment, glancing at the picture on his desk. "I didn't, but Iris did. Not permanently, but for long enough to wreck me. She was sick for a long time, with this mysterious time sickness we didn't know how to fight. The forces of the universe didn't know how to fight it. Then she disappeared for awhile. When the negative forces brought her back, they put her right in the path of my lightning attack, and she was hit."

He takes a deep breath, and tries to focus. He realizes a lot of this might not be making sense, so he attempts to clarify. "It was all a plot to bring back my nemesis. The man who killed my mother. He was their avatar, and I nearly killed him after Iris died in my arms. I don't kill people, Kazu, I always try to find another way. But I was hellbent on it, and we nearly destroyed the city trying to kill each other."

There's a lot in there Kazu doesn't have context for. The different forces, what killing Iris specifically has to do with resurrecting Barry's mother's murderer, what avatar even means... but none of that is the point. The narrative is simple despite all the detail he doesn't understand:

Someone tortured and killed Barry's wife in front of him to bring back his mother's murderer.

That's easy enough to understand.

"If anything was going to push you to that point, I'm not surprised that was it," Kazu says evenly, without judgment. "Why didn't you?"

Barry gives him a grateful look for not judging him, because he sure as heck judges himself. "She came back. Somehow she'd been absorbed into Damien's time stone and that's a whole other level of weirdness from my universe that I'm not sure I understand, but he showed her the way back. I still wanted to kill Eobard, but she talked me down, reminded me that that's not me. That I should care more about the people of the city than seeking revenge, even for her."

He smiles fondly at that particular memory. "So I stopped fighting. I just...sat down, and meditated. The positive forces used their energy to protect me, and Eobard overpowered himself out of existence. I don't know if he's dead or just...existing in wherever the negative forces are, but he's gone for now, and the city is safe. I reset the timeline, and the balance of the universe."

That'd be hypocritical. Kazu is a soldier, not a superhero. He's never killed for revenge, but he's killed plenty of people. This guy obviously needed to go and his death would doubtlessly have protected others, so Kazu would've killed him regardless of his own satisfaction. Even if his wife had popped back into existence already.

But Iris was right -- that's not Barry.

Then the story goes off the deep end like everything from his friend's world does, and Kazu gives a long suffering sigh.

"I understood maybe a quarter of that story, but for once I agree with your wife. Did you just want to tell someone or discuss some part of it? Because I have questions I'm holding until the end."

The part about agreeing with his wife just makes him laugh, in a pleased way. If that’s the one thing they agree about, he’ll take it. “Just wanted to tell you what happened. I’ve barely had a chance to process it all myself. I was able to reconnect with Iris a little bit, at least, and then I woke up here. Story of my life, really.”

"Horrible things happening so quickly you have no chance to process them in between? That does seem to be a trend. So is a lack of proper consideration and support."

He's a little worried that Iris' talking Barry down was done scoldingly by his friend's choice of words, but will keep that concern to himself for the time being. It's not like he was there, and after this particular trauma Kazu isn't going to be a complete asshole questioning it. Barry knows by now that he doesn't think much of their relationship, right?

...well, maybe he doesn't. He's Barry. But it wouldn't be very nice of Kazu to start criticizing Iris now, especially when she finally did something he approves of.

"I'm glad you're starting to talk about these things here, at least. Is there anything I can do besides listen?"

"It basically is. I sure don't miss the STAR Labs alarm going off every five minutes. Sometimes I'm multitasking three crimes at once. But if it makes you feel better, Cecile's been picking up on my emotions with her telepathy more often than not lately and approaching me about it. She's Joe's partner, and basically the team mom." By approaching he definitely means calling him out. He appreciates her directness, though. And Kazu's.

But then he shakes his head, reaching for one of his hands to squeeze gently. "Even just this is more than enough, really."

"I'd probably like her," Kazu agrees mildly, leaving it unsaid how unimpressed he's been by how pretty much everyone else Barry's told him about from home treats him. Maybe he'd like Cisco too, but there's no way to tell for sure.

He's about to change the topic slightly when Barry reaches out and takes his hand, and suddenly he doesn't remember what he was going to say. The breath he'd drawn goes unused as he closes his mouth, brow furrowing slightly.

More than enough, he says. This is the bare minimum, in Kazu's opinion. All he's done is listen when a friend said he needed to talk, and once again Barry's standards are almost upsetting. He had to dig a hole to set this bar. After a moment Kazu turns his hand to better squeeze back, shaking his own head as well.

"Sometimes I really don't know what to do with you, Barry."

"You probably would," Barry replies, before Kazu squeezes his hand back, and his heart melts even more, if possible. He just gives him a warm smile back, brushing his thumb against his hand that he's still holding.

"Exactly what you're already doing is good," he says earnestly. Even though Kazu probably didn't mean that literally, it's true.

"That is not what I meant," Kazu confirms with a long suffering sort of fondness. His gaze drifts to their hands and he can't help thinking about how strange it is that there are so many people now who will touch him like this. With nothing but affection, and as (almost) always Barry is gentle and sweet.

And there was nothing for Kazu to be infuriated about in today's storytime, for once. Not at Barry himself, anyway. He looks back up at his friend with a small, shy smile.

"What if I wanted to do better than good?"

Barry blushes, his thumb pausing mid-stroke. "Um. I'd like that? I think. Depending on what better than good means. But probably." Help him. He's ducking his head in embarrassment.

"Only probably?" This is why everyone things it's so fun to tease him, isn't it? Being the less shy person for a change, even if only by comparison, is kind of surreal. "I wouldn't want to guess wrong, maybe I should just quit while I'm ahead..."

Barry laughs, shaking his head. More at himself than Kazu. "Considering where my standards are for most things, I'm sure you'd be fine. Really. I just don't expect any special treatment, you know?" He doesn't know how to ask for it, either. Better than good shouldn't be a perplexing concept, but it is.

...wait, is Barry seriously not taking the hint? Because it's less of a hint at this point and more a flashing neon sign over his head, but Kazu also remembers when he shared that it was nearly a year before Val took pity on him and Barry replied with how long it had taken him to say anything to Iris.

Okay, one more nudge and then he's calling it and pulling a Val.

"Yes, I know that very well, Barry. What would you consider special treatment?"

Barry just stares at him for a moment, a deer-in-the-headlights kind of look. "Um. Well, romantic things? Like taking someone on dates, or doing something extra-nice for them, or showing physical affection..."

He's sort of getting there?

Kazu's eyes narrow, that deer in the headlights look Barry's giving him making him a worry he's misread something. And then he needs a moment to be sure that what the other man says isn't actually implying that something has to be romantic to be special. This is probably Barry's attempt at flirting?

It's the blind leading the blind around here, seriously. For a very long time now. It's no wonder this has taken them so long.

"We will have to examine this further if you actually consider anything beyond the bare minimum of respecting you as a person to be romance... but I'm going to hope you're answering that way for me, specifically, right now." His expression softens as he leans forward to close some of the distance between them, his free hand molding to the curve of Barry's neck. "In which case, close enough."

And then he does tug Barry in the rest of the way, tipping his head to press their lips together sweetly.

Anything he's going to say to that flies out of his head when Kazu tugs him in for a kiss, which he's returning happily. He brings a hand up to cup his cheek softly as he deepens it, wanting to leave no uncertainty that he really likes this.

He may not have been intending to flirt there but he's definitely not complaining about where that went.

With how skittish they both are of making the first move it's a miracle this didn't take longer. The only reason Kazu was able to without an explicit invitation is that he already knew Barry wanted this -- he's the one who hadn't been ready to risk it.

Maybe loss shouldn't be the thing that shoves him out of his comfort zone, but somehow he doubts Barry of all people will hold it against him. And it is a nice kiss, nice enough that Kazu finds himself wondering what he was so worried about in the first place. He'd worked himself up with what ifs, what if it didn't feel right and he had to figure out how to let Barry down gently? But it's... good. There's that little shiver down his spine as Barry's tongue strokes his, making him press in closer. There's a definite spark, despite Kazu's fear that there wouldn't be.

The relief is almost as much of a rush as what the kiss is doing to him, honestly. Kazu hums softly before pulling back to breathe.

"Hmm. Worth the wait."

Barry feels a similar shiver down his spine as he responds (not a literal shiver yet, at least), letting the kiss linger as long as he can before they both need some air. When Kazu says it was worth the wait, he smiles, pleased.

"Really? I mean good. I'm glad," he says, also relieved. He'd expected disappointment just because even with Iris it took a few tries to get things right between them, but this is a pleasant surprise. "Worth the wait enough for another one?"

He can actually flirt a little bit, once he's confident that the feelings are mutual.

Inbox - Duplicity

action; knock knock

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