that stupid, vintage helmet that really serves no purpose than to be some sort of bow to hermes, some nostalgic shrug to his father and world war one ( they'd talked about it, once, in a time before eobard existed, a place when barry allen wasn't anything more than an idol, when it was just eobard and his powers and his accidental intrusion on jay's life ) -- eobard sees it, he freezes, and a second is all it takes to capture him, all it takes for barry to come out on top, once again. free seconds are few and far between, anyway, and the second he sees jay emerge from the speed force he's already lost, even before there are handcuffs around his wrists ( specially designed, cisco says ) and barry's voice saying this is for my father, in his ear. but he hardly hears it, hardly notices anything other than the speedster veteran before him, the one who started it all -- jay garrick, the last remaining string of fate who kept eobard tied down to his last human impluses. the only one to take his line of thought off kill kill win destroy barry allen and push it into the sunny sides of early years, in the infancies of technology and the particle accelerator not even an idea yet -- into jay's hand in his own, kisses on his cheek like pleads for forever.
it only lasts a second, and then it's gone. a second in the past, a simpler time, and then he's back into the present -- still the past, technically, but the timeline must've shifted now if he's caught. barry allen's voice in his ear and cisco's handcuffs at his wrists and jay standing before him like some sort of homage to the gods, some herculean being in godly glory, and eobard's first reaction is run. ( he can't, he can't. ) when was the last time you saw me, jay jay? he wonders to say, when his face was his own and he was less the person he is now -- when he was young, when he was foolish, when he was so blindly in love with jay that it felt like having his skin ripped off to go back into his proper time after years of recharge, back to his own present when he learned to hate barry allen, where he ran back in time but to jay's future, and side stepped the love of his life altogether. hate before love, is the result here. he could've gone to jay, easily, could've ran and kept running until he collided head first into jay's arms. he chose instead to murder barry allen ( he didn't even get that, he got his fucking mother instead ), and that's the choice he always made, that he will always make. barry's death ahead of their potential life together. death to life. revenge to love.
there are sneering words and heartbroken faces, but eobard stays blissfully silent, save for a smirk graced on his lips as if to say this is all going according to plan. it's not, of course, it's an obnoxious bump in the road that has to be fixed to assure the timeline -- but he knows the pipeline more intimately than the rest of them, and he has his escape. timing is everything, and he waits his patient way, sits silently on the floor in his prized yellow suit -- not barry allen at all, but his antithesis, his reverse, the better version of him.
he's not the only one who gets time in his wait, though, and just as he plans his escape jay presumably also plans to visit him -- why, eobard thinks when he sees him enter the pipeline, why? was there some reason to rub in what could've been? some reason for this confrontation? maybe eobard feels shame in what he's become, in that he can't be the man who jay thought he was -- he will, instead, always be the man who runs away from him, the man who sees the helmet and takes off running, because what more can jay do to him? what else is there to say? i loved you once, in a time before, a time that potentially was only moments before in jay's eyes, a time that was eons, ages ago to eobard. he's old, now. older than his looks would suggest, on this face that isn't the face jay remembers, he's older than he was when he knew jay and he still feels a lifetime away -- even though this impenetrable glass is all that separates them, he's still unreachable, untouchable, unless he opens the gate...
maybe he can use him, then. has he ever been able to? has he ever had reason to? eobard frowns at the thought, because jay is untouchable in more ways that one, and he doesn't deserve this nasty, ugly side of eobard.
unfortunately, it's all that he has left. )
You came, ( he smiles, fake and foreign, sitting crosslegged on the floor, eyes far away and certainly not here -- somewhere in a time where things weren't complicated between them, when there was no them at all, because there certainly isn't now. does he still love him? ) what a surprise, Jay Garrick.
( no. he doesn't.
( but do you ever really stop loving something you once called home? ) )
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that stupid, vintage helmet that really serves no purpose than to be some sort of bow to hermes, some nostalgic shrug to his father and world war one ( they'd talked about it, once, in a time before eobard existed, a place when barry allen wasn't anything more than an idol, when it was just eobard and his powers and his accidental intrusion on jay's life ) -- eobard sees it, he freezes, and a second is all it takes to capture him, all it takes for barry to come out on top, once again. free seconds are few and far between, anyway, and the second he sees jay emerge from the speed force he's already lost, even before there are handcuffs around his wrists ( specially designed, cisco says ) and barry's voice saying this is for my father, in his ear. but he hardly hears it, hardly notices anything other than the speedster veteran before him, the one who started it all -- jay garrick, the last remaining string of fate who kept eobard tied down to his last human impluses. the only one to take his line of thought off kill kill win destroy barry allen and push it into the sunny sides of early years, in the infancies of technology and the particle accelerator not even an idea yet -- into jay's hand in his own, kisses on his cheek like pleads for forever.
it only lasts a second, and then it's gone. a second in the past, a simpler time, and then he's back into the present -- still the past, technically, but the timeline must've shifted now if he's caught. barry allen's voice in his ear and cisco's handcuffs at his wrists and jay standing before him like some sort of homage to the gods, some herculean being in godly glory, and eobard's first reaction is run. ( he can't, he can't. ) when was the last time you saw me, jay jay? he wonders to say, when his face was his own and he was less the person he is now -- when he was young, when he was foolish, when he was so blindly in love with jay that it felt like having his skin ripped off to go back into his proper time after years of recharge, back to his own present when he learned to hate barry allen, where he ran back in time but to jay's future, and side stepped the love of his life altogether. hate before love, is the result here. he could've gone to jay, easily, could've ran and kept running until he collided head first into jay's arms. he chose instead to murder barry allen ( he didn't even get that, he got his fucking mother instead ), and that's the choice he always made, that he will always make. barry's death ahead of their potential life together. death to life. revenge to love.
there are sneering words and heartbroken faces, but eobard stays blissfully silent, save for a smirk graced on his lips as if to say this is all going according to plan. it's not, of course, it's an obnoxious bump in the road that has to be fixed to assure the timeline -- but he knows the pipeline more intimately than the rest of them, and he has his escape. timing is everything, and he waits his patient way, sits silently on the floor in his prized yellow suit -- not barry allen at all, but his antithesis, his reverse, the better version of him.
he's not the only one who gets time in his wait, though, and just as he plans his escape jay presumably also plans to visit him -- why, eobard thinks when he sees him enter the pipeline, why? was there some reason to rub in what could've been? some reason for this confrontation? maybe eobard feels shame in what he's become, in that he can't be the man who jay thought he was -- he will, instead, always be the man who runs away from him, the man who sees the helmet and takes off running, because what more can jay do to him? what else is there to say? i loved you once, in a time before, a time that potentially was only moments before in jay's eyes, a time that was eons, ages ago to eobard. he's old, now. older than his looks would suggest, on this face that isn't the face jay remembers, he's older than he was when he knew jay and he still feels a lifetime away -- even though this impenetrable glass is all that separates them, he's still unreachable, untouchable, unless he opens the gate...
maybe he can use him, then. has he ever been able to? has he ever had reason to? eobard frowns at the thought, because jay is untouchable in more ways that one, and he doesn't deserve this nasty, ugly side of eobard.
unfortunately, it's all that he has left. )
You came, ( he smiles, fake and foreign, sitting crosslegged on the floor, eyes far away and certainly not here -- somewhere in a time where things weren't complicated between them, when there was no them at all, because there certainly isn't now. does he still love him? ) what a surprise, Jay Garrick.
( no. he doesn't.
( but do you ever really stop loving something you once called home? ) )