Chapter Text
Everyone knew the story of the Allen twins.
Or at least, they thought they did.
It changed depending on who told it.
In police reports, it was simple: Henry Allen stabbed his wife in the living room after putting one of his sons to bed. The other twin had been at a sleepover. There was no motive. No warning signs that anyone agreed on. Just violence, sudden and final, followed by a man who kept insisting he hadn’t done it until the day he died.
Case closed. At least on paper.
But Barry Allen never agreed with the paper.
Barry said it wasn’t his father.
He said a man in yellow lightning had been in the house.
He said the man showed himself to Barry - this… creature, this man, standing in the hallway like something out of a nightmare - before grabbing his mother and moving too fast for anything to make sense. Barry said the world had turned into static and motion, and when it stopped, his mother was dead, and his father was holding the knife.
No one knew what to do with that version.
So they called it trauma. They called it delusional.
But above all else, they called him crazy.
Barry was eleven. They didn’t expect consistency. They expected him to break under questioning, and when he didn’t, they called it worse things under their breath.
The other twin didn’t say any of that.
Sebastian didn’t see it.
Sebastian wasn’t home that night. He was at a friend’s house for a sleepover.
And because he wasn’t there, the world made a decision for him.
The courts separated them. Not as punishment—at least not officially—but as “stability.” As “healing.” As if removing one twin from the other would smooth out the damage like it had never happened.
Barry went to Joe West.
Sebastian went into the system.
Joe didn’t hesitate. He had watched both boys grow up in and out of each other’s homes, had known them like they were his own. When Barry needed somewhere safe, Joe’s door opened like it had been waiting for him.
Joe tried with everything in him to gain custody of Sebastian, but the courts persisted. Sebastian was to go into the system.
Vivienne and Jean Smythe adopted him two months later.
They were, on paper, perfect.
Money. Space. Stability. Two parents who had tried for years to have a child and finally decided that waiting for biology was less important than becoming a family.
They chose Sebastian deliberately. Older children meant less uncertainty, less “mess,” as Vivienne once called it when she thought he couldn’t hear.
Sebastian learned quickly that being chosen didn’t mean being understood.
Barry and Sebastian were allowed to see each other twice a year, on birthdays and Christmas.
That was the agreement.
At first, they thought it was temporary, just until things settled down with the media.
Then time kept happening anyway.
And the visits became routine, with only one unspoken rule.
They didn’t talk about that night.
Not after the first time.
Not after Barry said the wrong thing and Sebastian argued over it for the rest of the visit, until Joe quietly ended it early because “this wasn’t helping anyone.”
After that, it was decided..
Don’t bring it up.
Don’t ask questions that don’t have safe answers.
Don’t turn a visit into an interrogation of memory.
So they didn’t.
They just… existed around each other.
And it worked.
Five years later, they had a rhythm.
Twice a year. Careful smiles. Careful updates. Careful versions of themselves that didn’t bleed into anything permanent.
Sebastian had moved overseas for Vivienne’s work for a while, which made the visits harder, so they became phone calls instead. Shorter. Easier to control. Easier to hang up on if things got too real.
Barry would tell Sebastian about school, and Sebastian would tell Barry about nothing that mattered.
And neither of them would say: I miss you, because that would make the time between visits harder. things.
When Sebastian moved back to the United States, he didn’t tell Barry right away.
It wasn’t intentional cruelty.
At least, not entirely.
It was something closer to uncertainty.
Because Sebastian Smythe was good at control, and Barry Allen was not something that fit neatly into any version of control Sebastian understood.
After settling into Westerville, Ohio, a small town just an hour away from Central City, Sebastian was sent to Dalton Academy for Boys.
A new environment.
A clean slate.
A place where people knew his name before they knew his history.
And after he was able to get all moved into his parent’s new home, he made a rash decision.
He drove to Central City.
—
The knock at the door came when Barry was seriously considering the possibility that he might just live on Joe’s couch forever.
He was face-down in a pillow that had stopped being comfortable about an hour ago. The TV had been looping the same infomercial long enough that Barry was beginning to resent the concept of kitchen knives.
Becky Cooper had dumped him three days ago.
Not just dumped.
Humiliated him in a way that still didn’t feel fully real.
Four months of dating, four months of thinking maybe something in his life was finally stable, and it turned out she’d only asked him out because Tony Woodward had dared her to.
The worst part wasn’t even the breakup.
It was how easily it had all turned into a joke for everyone else.
Barry groaned into the pillow again.
The knock came again.
Louder.
Reluctant, he pushed himself up and dragged himself to the door. Joe was at work. Iris was out, which meant whoever was on the other side either wanted him, or they were about to aggressively sell him something .
He glanced through the peephole and froze.
Sebastian?
His brother grinned from the porch.
Barry yanked the door open. "Sebastian! What are you doing here?" Barry asked. "Not that I don't want to see you, I mean I do, but I didn't expect to see you for another four months and-"
Sebastian wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close.
Barry stiffened automatically. They hadn't hugged much since the adoption. Not after the lawyers. Not after the court hearings. Not after they stopped being brothers who shared a bedroom and became brothers who saw each other twice a year.
It took some time, but Barry eventually was able to relax. “Barry, you’re fine, I know what you mean. I just moved out to Westerville, and I had some free time, so I decided to come see how my little brother is doing, that's all," Sebastian said, cutting Barry off. He looked at Barry up and down, “
"Which is not so good, apparently," he mumbled.
Barry rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I’m aware," he said, with subtle hints of annoyance lacing his voice.
Sebastian put his hands on Barry’s shoulders, as if preparing to turn him around. "Okay. You smell terrible, and you look even worse. You are going to take a shower, get some new clothes on, and explain to me what's going on." He demanded.
Barry groaned. "Barry..." Sebastian growled. "Fine." Barry grumbled before turning away.
—
Ten minutes later, Barry came back downstairs, looking like a much cleaner version of the man that first greeted Sebastian.
Sebastian nodded once, like that solved a problem.
“Better.”
“Thanks,” Barry said dryly, dropping onto the couch beside him. “So, there was this girl….”
Sebastian raised an eyebrow.
Barry told him everything. Half embarrassed. Half furious. Half still trying to make it sound like it didn’t matter, and Sebastian just listened without interrupting,
When Barry finished, there was a pause.
Then Sebastian sighed.
“Four months,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“And she did that for homework?”
Barry nodded.
Sebastian stared at him.
“…That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Barry laughed despite himself.
“Yeah, well.”
Sebastian stood.
“Come on.”
Barry frowned. “Where?”
“Let’s go get food. Take your mind off things a little bit,” Sebastian said, reaching his hand out.
“I’m wallowing.”
“And now you’re not.”
Barry hesitated, then took Sebastian’s hand anyway.
It felt familiar in a way that hurt more than it should have.
“Fine,” Barry said. “But you’re paying.”
Sebastian scoffed.
“I absolutely did not agree to that.”
Barry shrugged as they walked out.
“You made me shower. That’s emotional labor. Pay up.”
Sebastian muttered something under his breath, but he didn’t let go of his hand.
And for the first time in a while, Barry didn’t feel like everything was about to collapse.
Not yet.