Hartley gave a bitter laugh, managing to look surprisingly derisive for someone who had clearly had a complete emotional breakdown very recently. He wasn't stupid. He knew that Cisco wouldn't hurt him. Not physically, in any case. He didn't have it in him. He wasn't cruel.
"No," he said. "Cisco isn't violent. It isn't that. I-" He wanted to say that he didn't know why he had panicked the way he had, but that would be a lie and he couldn't do that right now. That was the whole problem. "He can't lie right now. And I don't want him to tell me he doesn't love me."
He looked down at the floor, his hands shaking again. God, he really didn't want to have another breakdown in front of Eobard of all people. "I mean...why would he?" His voice was quiet and wounded. "My parents didn't. You didn't. Nobody ever does. I thought...god...I loved you. I loved you...so much. I still love you, as much as I hate myself for it. And you were so...horrified by that...or disgusted...or something...that you lost control and killed me. How impossible to love do you have to be for someone to kill you because you told them you loved them?"