Archive of Our Own ^beta

It makes him feel like a horrible person, wanting to skip his brother's funeral. He feels like maybe it would be justified if it was something like him not wanting to face the fact that Dante was dead, something like him not wanting to bury him because then he’s really gone, and maybe that’s some part of it, but really, he just doesn’t want to see his parents. Because he knows how this goes. He knows that they’ll pull a strained smile when they see him in a suit and not a dress, he knows they’ll carefully avoid and tiptoe around gendered terms for the first part of the day, but eventually they’ll lose the sense to show him common decency, and then the questions start. 

“Are you still on the medicine? Don’t you know it’s dangerous? You could become infertile!” 

“Do you regret the surgery? Are you going to get more? You don’t need them! You’re fine as you are.”

It hurts more because it’s genuine, it’s coated in the sickly sweet false ideology of “protecting our innocent daughter,” the idea that it’s protecting him to tell him that living as himself is a mistake. Because he knows his parents love him. They just don’t understand that their version of love is suffocating , they don’t love him , they love the idea of their daughter. He hasn’t talked to them since they told him Dante died. He doesn’t want to know how they feel now that their perfect son is gone and all they have left is the failure of a daughter who inexplicably rejected their love and won’t answer their calls. 

Maybe he should have sucked it up and talked to them. They did lose a son, after all. But he lost his brother. Dante was… complicated. He remembered his brother trying to teach him the piano when they were kids. He laughed whenever Cisco would mess up and a horrible discordant noise would play from the piano, but he’d just move his fingers to the correct position and tell him to try again. He also remembered when they were finally celebrating an achievement Cisco made, getting accepted into MIT a year early, and he finally felt like maybe his parents would look at him with the same pride they looked at Dante with, until Dante stole the show by announcing that he was performing at some famous theater Cisco couldn’t remember the name of. He found out a week before. He had saved telling his parents for Cisco’s party. Cisco didn’t end up finding out if his parents would look at him with pride for his accomplishments. After he came out, he knew he never would. 

There were times that Cisco thought he really did hate Dante. But there were also times where he couldn’t imagine ever feeling mad at him. Most of the time it just blended into a slurry in his stomach that made him feel sick even before the thought of his brother was tainted by his brain supplying the lovely sound of a screeching car and a horrible, horrible thud. Dante was complicated. But Dante always called him Cisco.

He looks horrible right now. He makes sure his ponytail is even in the mirror, and he sees how much darker the bags under his eyes are, the way his skin looks sickly and unwashed despite the fact that he took a shower earlier that day. His mouth is fixed in a permanent downturn and he looks hollow . He has a patchy 5 o’clock shadow. He can’t imagine his parents have great things to say about that. 

When he gets to the graveyard, he almost keels over when he sees his family all crowded around a hole in the earth. He feels himself tremble , and for a second he wishes Barry was there. He didn’t necessarily get permission for a plus one, but he doesn’t think his family would bring up much of an issue with it. There’s not many sins he can commit worse than being himself. Than not being Dante. But he’s pissed at Barry right now. And, okay, he’s not stupid . He knows that Barry really shouldn’t mess with the timeline. But he never got to make amends with his brother and if Barry can go back in time and say goodbye to his mother then why can’t he? Why can’t he at least get closure , instead of having to live in this horrendous purgatory of wondering if he and Dante could have ever made up. Could have ever gotten close. If Dante would have said sorry. And thinking that, he realizes that maybe there’s something to be said about deflecting the anger he feels like he can’t feel for his dead brother onto his best friend who’s been like a brother to him, but the funeral starts in 5 minutes and he needs to stop himself from feeling like he’s going to collapse enough to get to his family. 

The funeral is a blur. He doesn’t remember anything anyone says. He gives his own short eulogy, an anecdote about them getting milkshakes together after school after Dante got his driver's license. It’s one of the only good memories he has of him that doesn’t involve him saying something that would either make his family grimace or start a fight. He sits down and feels numb. He stares at the hole in the ground. He feels he should untangle his thoughts and analyze every single feeling and fleeting notion in his head, but he doesn’t have the energy to do much more than keep himself from collapsing on the wet grass and lying there until they put up his gravestone a year later and then some. The only thing that sticks out to him is lining up to shovel dirt on top of his casket, the shovel both feeling too light and too heavy in his hands. He doesn’t want to turn the shovel over, he doesn’t want to let the dirt fall. It feels too much like he’s saying goodbye.

The dirt had barely made a sound when it hit the casket. He wished it sounded like it felt. 

He doesn’t want to go back to his parents house after the funeral. But if he leaves now, it’ll be worse the next time he sees them. And he knows he’ll have to. He hopes that maybe people will avoid talking to him and let him mourn in peace, but that’s wishful thinking. 

He hears a name he only ever hears directed towards him in this house, and his shoulders hike a mile up his neck. He turns to see his mother and father, and they look… older. He doesn’t know if that’s just because of the distance between them or if Dante’s death had aged them. If he had to guess, he’d say it’s both. 

They don’t say anything to him, but his mom opens her arms, and Cisco feels himself fall into her. He hasn’t hugged his parents in years, affection wasn’t exactly doled out to him when he was a child, and while his mom would always greet him with a short squeeze, he can’t remember the last time she ever truly held him. His dad puts his hand on his back, gently rubbing in small circles, and Cisco feels himself choke. For just a bit, he lets himself fall into the fantasy that he had a normal relationship with his parents, lets himself feel like they're united, like he’s their son and not their disappointment, like they’ll mourn together and celebrate Dante’s life and everything will be okay. 

His mom pulls back from him. His dads hand leaves his back. Cisco Ramon is, once again, alone.

“So…” His mom starts, as if small talk is appropriate right now. But what else can you do? “You’re still working at STAR Labs?” 

“Yep!” He almost physically cringes at how fake and peppy his voice sounds. Even if he wasn’t spending his days acting as the Guy in the Chair, and occasionally doing a bit of hero-ing himself, rather than working as an engineer, he still wouldn’t want to talk about it. Even before the particle accelerator exploded, his parents were somehow disappointed by his work at one of the leading scientific facilities in America. After the accelerator exploded? He didn’t even need to hear the words. He knows that their disdain for his work only grew. He sees the blank look on their faces, masking the fact that they don’t even care enough to learn what he does. At least he doesn’t have to make up a fake project. They stand there awkwardly for a moment.

“You should… go talk to your aunts and uncles. They haven’t heard from you,” His mother suggests, trying and failing to politely end the conversation. Cisco would rather join Dante in his grave, and oh look, he’s reached the point of coping where he’s making jokes! That’s fun.

“I, uh, actually should probably head out. I… have important work to do and…” He can’t come up with a good lie. He hopes they just assume that he’s mourning in his own way. He knows they won't. 

“You have to stay. This isn’t something you can avoid, like our phone calls,” His dad says, voice dipping, trying to keep their conversation hidden. 

“Dad, please…” Cisco whines and he feels like a teenager, but he’s also exhausted and really doesn’t want all these emotions bubbling just under the surface of his skin to break free. He just wants to go home. He just wants to be alone. He just wants his brother, and he doesn’t know if he means Dante or Barry, but it feels like a moot point.

“No,” His dad says his name, but not his name, the name of the daughter they didn’t understand even before he transitioned. “You’re going to stay. Or are you really that jealous of your brother that you won’t even stay after his funeral ?”

“Don’t call me that!” Cisco snaps, loud and angry, much drier than he expected. He feels his breath pick up, chest heaving, a chest free of binds but feeling more crushed than ever. “I’m not your daughter. I’m your son. I’m your only son, now. And I’m sorry that you got stuck with the disappointment , but either call me Francisco or you won’t have any sons.” He forcefully pulls his jacket off the hanger it was on, and storms away before they have a chance to respond.

He stops at the piano by the door, just for one second. He places a finger on the key he kept missing that one night that Dante had tried to teach him, and plays it. He lets the sound ring out around him as he blocks out the voices yelling behind him. The words fall from his lips before he can even process them.

“ Lo siento, hermano .”