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That's like, an American thing, right?

[Eddie had mentioned it in that context, and Taako kind of got the impression that it meant he was always overshadowed.]

Yes, for sure! Terrible at lying, great at luring ;) Should it be something kinda chill?

yeah, it's a big holiday, there are parades and people get the day off to barbecue things and have picnics and set off fireworks.

[ Also there are sports but sports suck so Cisco's just going to leave that out, because he can. ]

i don't really know what sort of party he would usually have, but chill sounds good to me.

you know... we could do a bbq? there's plenty of big parks here we could set up in, and it would be familiar. a little slice of home.
i can handle the invitations and the music and finding us a place to do it, you think you can manage the food?

All I took from that was fireworks and I'm fucking down.

[He loves fireworks, mostly because he thinks Lup would love them.]

Can I manage the food? Do you know who you're talking to? The food is gonna blow your mind.

sweet, thought so.
okay, you're on food and drinks and maybe fireworks duty too? (please don't set anything on fire)

also idk if you know but you gotta make a cake, cakes are an indispensable birthday thing in our world
iris told me once that red velvet was always eddie's favorite so maybe that's an option?

Don't stress, pumpkin, setting shit on fire is Lup's thing.

Cakes are a birthday thing everywhere, I got this. [Except, well, he makes a face at his phone.] I can't believe I'm taking secondhand advice from the ex fiancée

cool cool.

it's not weird unless we make it weird?
okay yeah maybe you're right and it is a little.

[ Prrrrobably should just leave it and avoid mentioning Iris, but Cisco really likes her and in his heart he can be a bit of a meddler. ]

not that it's any of my business but i don't think there's any need be jealous.

[ Or threatened, but Cisco figured that jealous would probably go over better. ]

[His default reaction is to say that he doesn't do jealous, which is mostly true, because it's not really jealously that drives his weird feelings around Iris, it's just that whole... thing. The fact that the guy he's seeing used to be engaged.]

Hey, totally fucking unrelated question but like how long were they together?

[That's not unrelated AT ALL.]

[ Oh yeah, so unrelated. Cisco has no problem with filling Taako in, though, because he can see how this sort of thing might be less awkward to talk about with him than directly with Eddie, especially if Taako is feeling a little prickly. Which it seems like he is. ]

a year and a half, give or take a little bit of on again off again.
they weren't engaged for most of that, though. actually i think it was, like... only for a day or two.
or actually maybe it was a couple weeks? i don't actually know if he proposed to her before he got kidnapped or after.

I dunno if that's better or worse, for real.

Not that I'm jealous or whatever, it's just kinda weird, you know? I've never been a rebound before ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Making a joke out of it is gr8.]

i get you. but can i be real for a minute here?

speaking as someone who's definitely been a rebound guy before, take it from me: you two've already been an item long enough that you've aged out of the rebound zone.
and even if you hadn't, i don't think eddie's the kind of guy who even does rebounds.

now i love iris, don't get me wrong
but if you want my take on it, her and eddie, that was never gonna last.
she got together with him while barry was in a coma, and maybe if he'd never come out of it things would've been different, but as soon as he woke up that relationship had an expiration date.
like, he'd never say it cuz he's way too nice, but eddie tried a lot harder than she did to make it work.

[ Cisco feels a little bad saying all this when Iris is dimensions away and can't defend herself, but as far as he's concerned, it's just the truth. Didn't make her a bad person, just... someone who'd made some mistakes, and ended up hurting someone because she was afraid to make a clean break. It didn't make her grief for him any less real. ]

[This is filling in a few gaps in what he knows, about the whole drama, and it... sucks, really, because he can't imagine loving someone who was in love with someone else. (Even just straight up loving someone, romantic styles, isn't easy to picture). It also leaves him feeling a little guilty, because they haven't really talked about what they want out of this thing they've got going on, and sometimes he worries they're not on the same page.

Feelings are hard, and Taako's reply takes a while, because he's not sure what to say.]

That kinda explains some shit, I guess.

So like, are her and Barry a thing now? You're from the future compared to Eddie, yeah?

[ Cisco is pretty sure, when Taako's reply doesn't come for a while, that he'd crossed a line and Taako had just stopped the conversation, which would've been fine, it happens. He's surprised when his phone vibrates a few minutes later. ]

the whole thing got way complicated.
like, WAY.
iris's dad said no when eddie asked for his blessing which had to hurt a lot
and there was a whole situation with a newspaper from the future with an article by iris and her last name was west-allen so like obviously she and barry are gonna get married at some point, and i'm pretty sure eddie saw it.
plus everything with eobard.

just by a few months, yeah. they're not together yet, but they're gonna be. my friend caitlin was here from a few years in the future and she said iris and barry are engaged by then.

Hey, quick question.

What the fuck is up with Earth?

you're trying to tell me messy relationships are an earth-specific phenomenon?
not buying it.

and i'm pretty sure the whole eddie-iris-barry debacle is pretty complicated by any universe's standards

100 years with 7 of us and we managed to not get this weird, and things were pretty fucked up near the end.

That's what I mean though, like, time travel and coma bullshit could only happen on Earth, I swear.

[ Okay... maybe Taako does have a point. Now that Cisco's been out of it for a month or two, looking back on his life in Central City, some stuff had been pretty messed up. And not just Barry's relationship drama. Other things that were much closer to home, too. ]

100 years and no drama is pretty damn impressive if you ask me.

you're gonna flip when you find out i've only told you maybe 10% of the bullshit
like, iris's dad joe was eddie's partner at work, and also he raised barry after barry's dad got sent to prison.
and my friend caitlin got married and widowed on the same day. which was also the same day eddie proposed or maybe reproposed, and also died.
not a great day.

but see, that's my whole point
like the word 'rebound' just doesn't even start to apply when the shit's this bananas.

There was drama, don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure I nearly killed Magnus at one point but it wasn't like, weird relationship drama.

[Aside from Barry and Lup, the rest of them were pretty chill with each other.]

Cisco, sweetheart, are you fucking with me? Cause I'm super into it if you are, that's a great gag, but this is ridiculous.

well, we didn't ALL have weird relationship drama. i had literally none. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ benefits of being single.

i promise i'm not fucking with you. i would tell you if i was, trust me. i can draw you a chart if you want.

and just to make it even more ridiculous (because to be honest this is kinda funny now), barry got everybody to agree to lie so iris wouldn't find out he was the flash. even eddie.
have you ever seen eddie try to lie? it's not pretty.

I feel it, my dude. I'm super glad I never messed around with relationships.

[Although he is... now, but that's different.]

Why the fuck did he try to get you all to lie about that?

Wait, I've read comic books, don't answer that.

Eddie is a fucking terrible liar. Worse than me.

[Although despite that, and what he's already said about being terrible at lying, what he means is that he's terrible at keeping secrets. Lying is easier.]

barry thought it would keep her safer if she didn't know.
i mean he wasn't 100% off base. if the wrong people found out you knew who the flash was under the mask, bad stuff happened.
but she put the pieces together eventually and was pretty pissed. can't really blame her.

[ Which is really just to confirm that what Taako had read in those comic books is probably pretty close to the truth. ]

he is.
always kinda liked that about him tho.

[ Honesty has always been a quality Cisco liked, but after years of Dr. Wells with his effortless manipulation and unceasing deceit? Yeah, Cisco is inclined to like bad liars. Including Taako. ]

i guess i never really stopped to think about how complicated it all is...

It's charming in its own way.

[Eddie's whole earnestness thing is... sure, charming, but it's also something that Taako finds so baffling.]

A lotta shit doesn't seem weird when you're living it. Like, look at me.

[He's a wizard elf who spent 100 years on a spaceship doing some weird groundhog day shit.

That's weird.]

Edited 2017-06-28 04:53 (UTC)

yeah. just a matter of perspective i guess.
some of it's gotta just be culture shock i mean didn't you say the last guy you dated before eddie tried to kill you or something?
bc to me that's way way way weirder.

and i really gotta emphasize tho that the vast majority of complicated romantic situations on earth involve 0% time travel and comas and superpowers.

He's the grim reaper, that's his job!

Are you telling me that all those romcoms I've been watching aren't a typical Earth experience?

[He's messing with Cisco.]

like.................. with a scythe?

okay but which ones have you been watching?
i need to know how horrified i should be by this statement.

With a scythe and a skeleton body and a super creepy black cloak (it's not that creepy, but I pretend to make him feel cool).

[Poor Kravitz.]

Listen, I won't be judged for the shit I watch when I'm two thirds of the way through a bottle of wine and eating icing straight out of the bowl.

Edited 2017-06-29 23:43 (UTC)

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