The last of Hartley's rats, Hamelin, finally joins his brothers in investigating their new visitor, and they all seem calm and curious and not at all agitated by Cisco's presence. Cisco's so glad they don't seem to think he's a threat, partially because he's always believed animals can sense the good (and bad) in people and he's glad he seems to pass muster there, but mostly because he wants to feel welcome here, by Hartley and his pets.

He's even more glad that he can help Hartley with his pets already, even if that's only in pulling the medical and experimentation records for the two rats Hartley took from STAR Labs. "Caitlin would never let that happen," he says when Hartley mentions euthanasia. "Not unless the animals were suffering. I wouldn't either," he adds quickly, because while it had been Caitlin's decision to take the rats to rescue, Cisco would have done the same thing, if it had been left up to him. That or he'd have taken them home himself.

Talking about the flute, Cisco still has a very strong desire to try to convince Hartley to skip any tests he might want to do on animals and just test the flute on him. Some part of him thinks that his powers could protect him, though he really has no idea why he thinks that way. There's no science to what he can do, at least none that he can use to determine what the scope of his powers are. He knows he can manipulate matter and energy, and, because of Reverb, that there are ways he can do it that he hasn't even figured out yet, but he doesn't know what part of him makes that possible. But he feels that if he can project himself into other dimensions, can see things that are going to happen before they do, that some part of him can harness sound and vibration with enough skill and precision to destroy another person's nervous system that he should be able to withstand whatever Hartley's flute could do to him.

But he's not sure how to say all of that to Hartley, not when all Hartley wants to do is keep him – keep anyone – from being hurt. "Harry's... Well, Harry," Cisco replies, and he can't say he trusts Harry because there's a part of him that doesn't at all. Maybe it's Harry's antagonistic personality or the fact that he has Dr. Wells' face, but even as much as he's helped them, Cisco's not sure he won't turn on them eventually. "Maybe we'll just talk to Caitlin about it for now."

There's more to say as far as this conversation goes, but every word Cisco might have used falls out of his brain when Hartley reaches up to touch his face. He holds his breath as their gazes meet, and Cisco gets caught in Hartley's eyes (god, those beautiful, blue eyes). His heart is already thundering in his chest when Hartley closes the distance between them and their lips touch, a gentle brush of soft skin. Even just that first bare contact makes Cisco's world spin on its axis, and Cisco lifts a hand to the back of Hartley's neck, holding softly as he moves to deepen the kiss, making it just a little harder, Cisco's mouth moving to catch Hartley's lower lip between his own.

[ooc: I hope so too! Both Cisco and Carlos have so much to offer this show and I'm always rooting for more character development with the great "side" characters on these shows. I'm failing at weekend so far (it's 3AM), but I hope I can get more on track before Monday. Work is always getting in the way of RP fun. I hope your weekend is going well! Thank you for being so awesome and patient!]