Bravery Requires Fear

10. Barry

A/N: see end of chapter for notes on triggers

______________________________________________

" So how come when I let myself in I found the two of you in bed together? Is there something you're not telling me?"

Grayson had them sat infront of him on her couch like little kids in trouble and was staring them down, alternating between Barry and Elaine.

He locked his fingers together and chose to look at Elaine for this portion of his lecture, " I am your cousin and legally your doctor, if you've chosen to become sexually active again I'd liked to have known on the off chance that you would have any recurring phantom pains,"

Her face turned scarlet and she folded her arms defensively around her chest. Barry's lecture was about to be started but she couldn't fucking handle it. It was six in the evening, she'd been late for work and was now sitting on her couch knee-to-knee with the man who she just happened to push herself to lay down next to last night, being lectured. To top it off, he'd touched very sensitive topics that even she didn't like to cross in front of Barry Allen, world renowned worry wort.

Her voice was seething and she was most definitely pissed off, " First of all, I never chose to become sexually active in the first place,"

Elaine held up a finger and ignored the way her green-haired cousin flinched, leaning closer so she could make eye contact with him, " Second of all, if me and Barry were to be sleeping together, which we're not," she threw a furtive glance at Barry and went on at his little nod, " It would be none of your fucking business. You should know well enough yourself how dealing with me can be,"

She widened her eyes for false effect and had to hold back from spitting at him, fuming at the way he was sitting back looking pleased, stupid fucking prick of a cousin, he was probably just happy she was talking to him.

Elaine let some of that self doubt drip onto her face and searched his eyes for a moment, choosing only after she saw nothing to lean back on the couch and cross her arms. " Third, although it's not your fucking business, nobody in their right mind would want to have sex with me," Elaine gestured to Barry with her hand, " Let alone him."

" What do you mean by that?"

Elaine whipped her head around and looked at Barry, eyebrows furrowed and said to him in a mocking tone, " What do you mean by that?" She opened her mouth in a big 'o' and made to look shocked, as he did, and then fell backwards into the couch with her arms spread wide.

" This!" Her cousin and roommate shared concerned looks but moved to pay attention when she bolted back up and furiously began tearing her sweater off, tank top laying still underneath. He would've laughed, Barry would've, if their conversation wasn't so serious. When she yanked it off Elaine had to shove away at her hair and fight with it so she could see for a moment. Barry gasped, and so did Grayson, at the state of her arms when she finally came to.

This was bad, really fucking bad.

There were bandages wrapped around her elbows from her last fight, when she was thrown into a wall and busted them up, but other than that her arms were open wide for all to see.

Honestly it wasn't as bad as it had been before, Grayson conceded, it was just the definite sign that her mind had been fucked lately.

There were little splotches of bruising all over her arms, many of the bruises had little wounds peppered inside of them, and the worst of the bruising seemed to be coming from a big yellow patch down by her left forearm, where two gigantic stitch patches were. You could hardly see her tattoos through all the bruising overtop of them.