I Need Someone to Save Me

Chapter 3

3rd person from now

"Barry... are you okay?"

"I'm great Ollie! How are you?" Barry said with fake enthusiasm. He decided that maybe playing dumb could help with the situation.

"I'm fine Barry as I've already said. What I meant—"

"Actually Oliver, if I'm being honest here you never actually said how you are. You sorta just gave a vague, 'everything's fine'. But Ollie, I want to know, how are you really?" Interrupting Oliver? Maybe not the best decision Barry's ever made, but if it keeps the conversation off of himself and how he's doing... the scarlet speedster is all for it.

Oliver seems taken aback. Like he wasn't expecting Barry to talk about anything other than myself. Oliver finally stutters out a response. "Ahh y-yea, I'm good, e-everything's good Bear..." He takes a moment to take a breath and recollect his thoughts. The archer decides to approach the situation from a different angle. "How's central and the team since the singularity?"

The younger man visibly tensed, tried to play it off, but Oliver noticed. "Yea the city's good, the team's good..." Barry trailed off, deciding not to mention how he'd been doing.

Barry was being difficult and Oliver wanted a straight answer from his friend. "Barry, how're you really?" Said man was about to answer his friend when the older man continued to talk. "And before you say you're fine and doing fine... Barry, I've been where you are now, struggling with the consequences of choosing this life. I can see, that you're blaming yourself. God, Barry! When was the last time you even ate you look even thinner than you did last month!"

Barry stood there opening and closing his mouth, thinking of something to say when the last sentence hit him... when was the last time he ate? He didn't even realise he hadn't been eating, in fact he couldn't remember a single thing he put in his mouth since last week.
Oliver watched as his best friend stood there taking in what he had just said. After 5 minutes of silence from the speedster, Oliver decided to remind the other man of his presence. "Hey bear, how you doing there?" Barry's eyes drifted to Oliver's face and struggled to pull his features into focus.

With Barry finally making eye contact with Oliver that's when he snapped. He broke down sobbing. Oliver caught Barry as he dropped to the ground and then he heard what Barry was mumbling against his shirt... "What do you want me to say Ollie? That I'm struggling? Struggling to cope with the guilt of what happened to the city I was supposed to protect? The guilt of being the son of a murderer? That I cut myself every night to feel something other than guilt? That the cuts have started leaving scars? That I've been struggling since my mum died? That I got better with becoming a hero and then failed the city! That by failing city, I'm worse than my father? That no one, not one member of my team has even noticed I'm struggling? That not even my family notice that my smiles are fake, and have been for a while? So again I ask Ollie... what do you want me to say?"

By this point, Oliver's body was shaking from the sobs racking Barry's body. Oliver hadn't realised that things had gotten this bad... how could things get this bad in such little time? They were just talking on the phone the other day. Sure the joy in Barry's voice sounded a bit fake, but Oliver dismissed it and decided to talk to Barry in person.
But looking down and the younger man trembling and clutching him like a lifeline, the only thought in Oliver's mind was 'how has his friends and family not notice how broken their speedster is?'

-

After what felt like forever, but was really only 30 mins, Barry's sobs had regressed to crying, to whimpers and finally, to quiet little snores. Oliver looked down at the now sleeping Barry. Deciding he should probably let the teams know that they won't be back to see them for a while, Oliver pulled out his phone.

To Dig
Barry and I decided to go catch up, won't be back for a while, so don't wait for us to come back.

From Dig
Ok

Oliver put his phone back in his pocket, and looked back down to Barry's tear-streaked face. He wondered wondered what Barry had meant when he said that the cuts were leaving scars. His accelerated healing shouldn't leave any scars.
Struggling Oliver managed to shift their position on the ground so that he had access to Barry's arms but Barry's face was still buried in the crook of his neck. Oliver slowly rolled Barry's sleeves back to reveal the mess that was Barry's arms.
Both arms were covered from elbow to wrist in thin pink scars intertwining themselves with the old white scars. Oliver held in a gasp, but he wasn't able to hold back the tears that begun to stream from his eyes.

"Oh Bear... what have you done to yourself?"