...Introducing my Flinx OC, Bartholomew Wallace West, also known as Barry. For more information you can check out his Tumblr, Barrymeinblack. This will just be a collection of drabbles and snippets from his head.

Wally tries. He really tries, but it's too late.

When the house is nearly empty on weekends, Jai spending the night with one of his friends and Irey all dressed up and blushing, having left hours earlier for a dance that he was sure he'd hear all about later, it's too late.

It's too late when he tries to talk to Barry, certainly more his mother's son than Wally's, and maybe he'd been avoiding the squared shoulders and the wayward glances for too long. Maybe he'd been avoiding the way his son really did resemble himself.

Maybe he hadn't realized just how much his goofy, eighteen-year-old son had in common with himself, because he'd been too busy with his younger siblings.

But it was too late, and Wally realized this when he finally really saw his son one night, hand in his letter man pocket, chevrons proudly proclaimed on one shoulder and swinging his lanyard in his other hand, eyes half-closed. It was nearly three in the morning, and he'd been expecting Irey home over an hour ago.

"What'cha doing up so late, Bear?"

He tried to ignore the square of his shoulders, he tried to ignore the way his son's jaw set and the way he simply adverted his gaze.

"Nothin'," he murmured, and the sound of faint metal clinking took over the air around them, his lanyard stilling against his hip. "Gonna go get some ice cream with Dami. The usual."

"At three in the morning?"

He tried to overlook the way Barry's knuckles turned white, and maybe that was his greatest fault, overlooking things, but he couldn't overlook or disregard the way his lip curled and his teeth bared, defensive, hostile.

"Jesus Christ, dad. Just leave me be. Don't you got some sidekicks to be worrying about?"

"What's gotten into you?"

The air stilled, silent in the dark house. An info commercial blared on the television in front of Wally, bleaching his face in colors and hues and mottling the colors in his eyes, but no amount of mottling could rid the disgust in his son's eyes.

And it's too late to take back those words, Wally realizes, as soon as the lanyard tightens in his son's hand and his mouth opens and words began to tumble from his mouth, angry and loud and with far more vigor and emotion than he'd ever heard from his son.

For a moment, he might have considered it ironic, bittersweet almost. After all, he was his father's son in that aspect, in the way he threaded his words, passionate and hot-headed.

"I'm so fucking tired of being on the back burner and you thinking it's okay because I'm not fast."

His words were acidic, booming and startling.

"I'm sick of you and Irey and Jai and you thinking that it's okay to mentor them and not me. Christ, did you not realize that I'd like to be a sidekick too? That maybe, you know, I'm your son too and I loved you just as much as those brats did, even though we didn't have a lot in common?"

"I never said you couldn't be -"

"You never fucking asked!" His face was red, and Wally tried not to notice the streaks on his son's face. "Holy shit, dad, was it that hard to realize that you've got a third child and maybe it's a little narrow minded to not even offer? It was like you didn't even think I could step up and handle it. You don't even know how strong I am. I know, I know, I can't keep up and I'm not fast, but neither is mom and you put up with her. You slow down for her. Why couldn't you slow down for once for me?"

His chest was heaving, teeth bared, and Wally realized Barry had yanked his hat off of his head in anger; there was an abrupt sound of anguish, his hat flying across the room, and the way it landed on the floor was the direct inverse of the expression on his face.

And suddenly his strong teenage son crumpled and the hatred dissipated, dissolving into sniffles and loud sobs and something his dad didn't want to identify, didn't want to realize.

"Christ, dad. It… it wasn't that hard. I'm not that hard to keep up with."

And for a moment, Wally is still, unmoving, silent, allowing the television screen to mottle his expression and twist his face and he didn't mind, staring at his pink-faced son and trying to realize where he went wrong.

"Barry -"

"S'too late, dad," Barry said softly, his words broken and his lanyard still clasp in his fist, and with a shuddering sigh he walked to the front foor. "S'too late."

Wally never realized someone like him, faster than a blink and the speed of light, could ever be late for anything, but he had been.