InsaneJournal

Hartley knew that he shouldn't be going to Eobard's apartment. Not alone. Not without telling anyone. It was stupid. So incredibly stupid. And he was a genius, he should know. But there was a part of him, a part that was scarred by the events preceding the explosion of the particle accelerator and still raw from yet another rejection by his parents back home, that wanted to know once and for all if anything between him and Harrison - Eobard - had been real. Needed to know really.

Nothing had happened between them. Not really. Harrison - it was easier to think of him in those terms when considering their past - had his concerns about professionalism and his dead wife. He told Hartley he was protecting him. Making sure nobody could ever question how much he deserved to work at Star Labs. And he did deserve it. Harrison had always told him how gifted he was. How brilliant. How far above his peers he stood. It had felt good, that kind of affirmation. It had made him feel special, wanted, even if nothing physical ever came to pass.

So nothing had happened between them. But there had been an understanding. A sort of intellectual affair comprised entirely of glances and words and a connection that Hartley had been so sure was real. Right up until Harrison turned his back on him, simultaneously breaking his heart and destroying him professionally. Until he'd fired him for valid concerns, concerns that had proven to be well-founded, and hid it behind rumors of how Hartley had crossed professional boundaries because of his feelings, feelings the good doctor couldn't return. It had hurt. It had devastated him. And after the explosion that had taken his hearing and left him in constant pain, he had been left completely broken.

And now Harrison - Eobard now - was back. And insisting that the feelings had been real. That it was only his plan that had gotten in the way of him. That things could have been and could be different. And Hartley wanted so badly to believe that. He knew that was foolish. He knew he shouldn't trust a word the man said. But he had spent so long just wanting to be good enough that the chance to reframe what had happened, to make it about how life and machinations had gotten in the way of something good rather than how he had been found wanting by a man he had loved, was too much to hope for. And if it was a lie, at least he would know once and for all.

He stood at Eobard's door for a long moment, trying to contain the nervousness that was twisting his insides in knots, and finally knocked.