Once again, I'm not condoning underage drinking with this story. Parties in real life are usually pretty lame in comparison to what's in this story. Please drink responsibly.

Harvard

Detective Eddie Thawne was currently outside, knocking on his door. Barry couldn't believe his bad luck. Eddie, of all people!

That explained why he hadn't left yet. He knew whose house this was, and he was probably more determined than any other random officer would have been to find out what was going on inside.

"What do we do?" Michael asked worriedly, "They don't seem like they're going to leave."

Barry sighed and rubbed his eyes. There was only one thing he could think to do.

"I'll go talk to them," he said determinedly.

"What?!" Justin asked, "Are you nuts?! You just said not to let them in!"

"I won't let them in," Barry assured everyone, who were all staring at him, "I'll step outside and talk to them, get them to leave."

"How?!" the girl from before, Jessica, asked him.

"I'm pretty good at talking my way out of things," Barry said vaguely, "Trust me. I'll get them to leave us alone. Everything will be fine."

Barry moved towards the door then, and no one stopped him. It was hard to argue with someone who seemed so confident. They didn't know how Barry was going to simply talk his way out of this, but they decided to trust him, and no one stopped him from slipping out the front door.

Eddie's eyes widened when Barry opened the front door and quickly stepped outside, shutting the door tightly behind him.

"Barry," he said in surprise, "What's going on?"

"Shh!" Barry said, grabbing Eddie's arm and pulling him away from the front door just in case anyone was listening.

He pulled the young detective down the front steps until they were both standing on the sidewalk in front of the house, next to Eddie's cop car, safely away from prying ears. Out of the corner of his eye, Barry could see a bunch of kids watching from the front window. He wished they wouldn't. Eddie had no doubt seen them in the window, and now he would definitely be wondering why Barry's house was full of teenagers.

"I thought a bunch of kids had broken into your house or something," Eddie said seriously, "Why are you even home? I thought you'd be at that sensitivity training seminar with Joe this weekend."

"Plans changed," Barry answered shortly, "Why are you here, Eddie? Why aren't you at the seminar?"

"I already took care of my annual seminar for this year," Eddie said, crossing his arms, "I got stuck on the night shift tonight, and I'm here answering a call about a noise complaint. Care to tell me why you have a house full of drunk teenagers, Barry?"

"Who says they're drunk?" Barry said lightly.

Eddie sighed.

"I highly doubt you guys are drinking apple juice in there," he challenged.

He gave Barry a disbelieving look, putting his hands out in a questioning gesture.

"What the hell, Barry?" he asked incredulously, "What are you doing partying with a bunch of high schoolers?"

Barry sighed and ran a hand over his face.

"Eddie, I don't have time to explain the whole thing to you right now," he groaned, "If you want details, ask the captain. He'll explain it to you if he wants to. It's not my place to give details about it without consulting the captain first."

"The captain knows about this?!" Eddie asked in disbelief, "He's condoning this?!"

Barry nodded.

"Yes," he said simply, "Long story short, I need you to trust me and let it go. Don't bust the party."

Eddie goggled at Barry.

"You want me to just ignore this?" he asked incredulously, "Just let it go?"

"Please, Eddie," Barry said earnestly, "I need you to trust me. You know me. You know I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't have good reason to."

Eddie sighed and ran a hand over his face.

"You're lucky I'm with Iris, Barry," he said seriously, "Because if I wasn't, I don't think I could let this slide, even for you."

"So you'll drop it?" Barry asked him seriously.

Eddie nodded hesitantly, glancing back at the house again.

"For now," he said seriously, "I expect a damn good explanation later, though."

Barry smiled at him.

"Thanks, Eddie," he said gratefully, "I really appreciate it."

Eddie sighed and nodded.

Barry was struck by a sudden thought then.

"Hang on," he said seriously, "If you're on night duty, then where is Iris? I thought she was spending the night at your place tonight."

Eddie's eyes widened and he suddenly smacked himself on the forehead.

"Oh my God," he groaned, "I forgot about that. I'm going to have to call her asap. She's probably sitting at my apartment waiting for me. She's going to be so pissed."

Barry laughed lightly.

"Good luck dealing with that," he chuckled, "Iris's wrath is a force to be reckoned with."

Eddie pulled out his phone and started walking back to his cruiser, an anxious look on his face. He paused before opening the car door, though, glancing up at the house and then Barry one last time.

"I expect an explanation," he said seriously again.

Barry nodded, and then Eddie reluctantly got back into his vehicle, starting the engine up again and pulling away. Barry let out a breath of relief. He turned around then and looked back at the window. Everyone was still watching him nervously through it. Barry smiled at them and gave them a thumbs up. Their faces all broke out into grins.

When he reentered the house, they all swarmed him, slapping him on the back and shouting words of impressed praise.

"What the hell did you say to him?!"

"He didn't even breathalyze you!"

"I can't believe you didn't get an underage just now!"

Barry just laughed, and shook his head at them.

"I told you I was good at talking my way out of things," he laughed.

"Dude, you never cease to impress me," Michael laughed, shaking his head.

"So what do you say?" Forrest said quietly then, stepping up to him, "Ready for some vertigo now?"

"Oh…um…"

Barry shifted uncomfortably where he stood as everybody else went back to their fun, the music starting up again.

"Actually," he said, his eyes landing on the table in the corner of the room, "I was thinking of joining in a couple games of beer pong first. I never play very good after doing V."

Forrest laughed.

"Alright," he said, accepting the excuse, to Barry's immense relief, "I'm up for a game!"

"Same," Justin said, then leading the way to the game table.

They weren't playing beer pong, though, at least not any version of beer pong Barry had ever seen before, not that he had ever played it much. Just a couple games throughout college.

"What game is this?" Barry asked, watching the group of teenagers play as they waited to join in the next round.

"Harvard," Forrest said, shrugging, "At least that's what we call it here. It has different names in different places."

Barry watched the game carefully, trying to get a feel for how it worked. It looked like it was a mixture of beer pong and flip cup. As soon as a player's ball made it into a cup, a round of flip cup would start. If the team that got the ball in the cup won, the cup was removed. If the other team won, they got to keep their cup. It was a game Barry had never seen before, but he had to say, it actually looked sort of fun.

"Alright, we got next game!" Forrest called as the last game came to an end.

Barry was a little nervous as he stepped up to the table. He wasn't sure if he'd be any good at this. His Flash powers wouldn't help that much. Sure, he could easily defend his cups using his speed, seeing as the ball was moving in slow motion for him, but you were only allowed to block the ball if the person bounced it, which most people didn't do. As for the flip cup part of it, Barry had no clue if he'd be good at it. The drinking part of it would be easy for him—he could slam back his cup in a second—but the actual flipping part would take some skill.

Singh hadn't told him he couldn't drink. He just said Barry couldn't get drunk. It went unspoken between them, but Barry figured he and Singh both knew he wouldn't be able to go the whole night without drinking without also raising questions. He would have to drink at least a little so that he would blend in. As for getting drunk, that was something Barry didn't even have to worry about. Really, he could drink as much as he wanted.

There were ten players total, five on each team. Most of them were guys playing, but there were two girls also playing with them, one of them being their friend, Natalie, who ate lunch with them every day and who was also in glee club. Barry didn't know the other girl who was playing, though. He, Forrest, Justin, Michael, and Natalie were all on one team, and a bunch of other kids Barry didn't know were on the other.

"Wait!" Forrest said before the game started, "House rules first!"

The others all laughed.

"Troll rule?" Justin asked with a smirk.

Forrest nodded and rolled his eyes.

"Of course," he said, "It isn't a game without the troll rule."

Barry didn't say anything because he didn't want to sound stupid, but he had absolutely no idea what "troll rule" meant.

They mentioned several other rules Barry had never heard of before. All throughout college, Barry had never played a game of beer pong or any other table game where so many additional rules were added on. He just hoped he wouldn't accidentally break one of them out of ignorance.

Barry picked up on most of it once they started playing, though. Really, the game wasn't as complicated as he thought it would be, and he learned it fairly quickly. He wasn't that bad even, once he got the hang of it.

Halfway through the game, Barry found out what the "Headhunter Rule" was. His opponent across from him threw an airball that didn't touch any cups or the table. Rather than letting the ball bounce away, Barry snatched it out of the air easily, before it could even touch the floor. He was confused when all of his teammates started screaming at him, and at first he thought he had broken a rule.

He hadn't, though. Apparently, the Headhunter Rule meant that if you catch an airball before it hits the floor, you get to chuck it at your opponent's head, and if you succeed in hitting them, you get to have a cup taken away. Upon figuring this out, Barry speedily whipped the ball at the guy across from him—Derick?—and the ball struck him square in the forehead before he even knew what happened. It was just a little ping pong ball, but it was enough to leave a slight red mark in the center of the kid's forehead.

Barry's team roared with laughter and applause as a cup was taken away as a result. After knowing that rule, Barry ended up catching three more air balls throughout the game, his speed and bittersweet sobriety making it extremely easy for him, and by the end of the game, everyone on his team was calling him "the headhunter."

Barry thought the rules they had all created were both ridiculous and hilarious at the same time. Apparently, if two people on the same team throw two air balls in a row, they had to kiss. Barry was just glad he managed not to throw any air balls throughout the game.

He found out what the troll rule was at the end of the game. One kid on the other team apparently had gone the entire game without even hitting a cup, making him the "troll." It basically meant that he had to crawl under the table and stay there for the entire next game. Barry didn't see the point in the rule, but he had to admit, it was kind of funny, especially since the troll's job was to grab people's legs and try to get them to mess up throughout the following game.

As ridiculous as he saw all of this, Barry had to hand it to them; these kids really had found ways to make things more interesting. He had never played a game of beer pong or flip cup quite like this.

By the time they were done playing Harvard and Barry walked around to check on the rest of the party, he realized just how crazy things were starting to get. He had been to parties before, but never one like this. This was the closest thing to a party that you saw in a movie or on TV as it got, minus the giant pool and overly-ostentatious borderline mansion of a house. Kids in one corner of the room were doing body shots off of each other, people were dancing up on top of the furniture, and in the corner where the keg was, people were doing keg stands.

"Time for a keg stand, I think," Michael said, nudging Barry when he saw where he was looking.

"I'm not doing that," Barry laughed as he watched one guy climb over the keg, two other guys holding up his legs as he drank upside down from the keg while everyone counted and cheered.

"You have to, though," Justin said seriously, "You're the party host. The host always has to do a keg stand."

"Is that another rule?" Barry laughed.

"No," Forrest said, "It's East Central tradition. It's more than a rule. It's law."

Barry chuckled and shook his head.

"I'm good," he said, "I've had plenty to drink already."

"Seriously?" Michael said, "The only time I saw you drink tonight was just now when we were playing Harvard. Overall, you've probably only had like two or three beers total."

"Isn't that plenty?" Barry asked, shaking his head.

The other three all looked at each other.

"You're joking, right?" Forrest asked him.

Justin laughed and placed his hands on Barry's shoulders, pushing him towards the keg.

"Come on," he laughed, "You're doing this whether you want to or not."

Iris was pissed. She was beyond pissed. Eddie had seriously forgotten she was supposed to be spending the night at his place tonight?! Seriously?!

On the phone, he had told her that she could spend the night there anyways, but he wouldn't be home until after six AM. Iris was not going to be some needy, lonely girlfriend hanging out by herself at her boyfriend's apartment all night. She would just go back to her own house then, maybe watch a movie with Barry or something.

Although, it was almost one AM now, and Barry was probably in bed by now. Or maybe not. Eddie mentioned he had had some sort of awkward run-in with Barry that evening, but he didn't say what it was about. Iris was too upset with Eddie to press for details at the time. She ended up hanging up on him before he could say more on the subject. She could always just ask Barry about it when she got home. That is, if he was still awake.

As soon as Iris pulled up to her house, she knew right away that Barry was definitely still awake. She could hear the music coming from the house practically from down the street, and judging by all the cars lined up on the street outside the house, Barry had more than a few people over. Then it struck her.

Barry was having a party!

More than that, Barry was having a party, and he hadn't even told her about it! Now she had more than one person to be mad at tonight.

Iris stormed up the front steps to the house and opened the front door. She was shocked when she entered. This was more than just a little party. It was insane! Their house was packed with teenagers. Some of them were passed out on the couch and the floor already, and some of them were making out with each other. A lot of them were dancing and spilling beer everywhere, while "Turn Down for What" was blaring noisily throughout the whole house.

The house was going to be trashed. Barry was so dead. Where was Barry even? She walked through the house, but she didn't see him anywhere. Most of the people at the party were all rounded up near one corner of the room where one guy was doing a keg stand. Iris pushed her way through the crowd, looking for Barry.

Oh. My. God.

Barry Allen was doing a keg stand! He was upside down over the keg, two other guys holding his legs while he drank from the nozzle. Everyone was cheering him on and shouting out as they counted his stand.

"142!"

"143!"

"144!"

Iris couldn't believe her eyes. After goggling at the scene in front of her for a moment, Iris laughed hysterically and quickly whipped out her phone, taking a video of it. No one would ever believe that she had seen Barry do this unless she had video evidence to prove it.

"152!" everyone shouted in disbelief.

At that, Barry finally signaled he was done, and the people holding his legs up eased him down so that he was standing again. Everyone cheered so loud Iris almost had to cover her ears.

Iris started walking up to where Barry was standing and grinning, but someone else was talking to him.

"Dude!" the kid yelled, "You just annihilated the school record!"

"What was the record?" Barry asked, wiping his mouth and laughing.

"91," the kid answered incredulously, "And that was from two years ago. Plus the guy who did it projectile vomited everywhere afterward. After that eating contest the other day and now this, it's official. You have the strongest stomach I've ever seen!"

"Grant," another kid laughed, "You're going to go down as a headhunting, keg standing legend."

Barry laughed, and Iris couldn't help but be surprised. She hadn't heard that laugh come from Barry in a while. These kids were bringing out a whole other side of him.

"Hey, Grant," Iris said, finally going up to Barry and tapping him on the shoulder.

Barry was still laughing lightly as he turned around to look at her. The smile slid from his face so fast when he saw her, it was almost comical.

"I-Iris," he said in shock.

"So, you decided to throw a party and didn't invite me?" she asked in a mock-hurt voice.

"Well…um…" Barry stuttered, clearly flustered to suddenly see her there.

Iris laughed and smacked him on the arm.

"Relax, Bar—Grant," she quickly corrected herself, "I doubt you wanted your older sister crashing your high school party."

Barry laughed lightly at that.

"You're not going to tell your dad, are you?" he asked nervously.

"Of course not," Iris said, "but I won't need to. He's going to find out, one way or another."

Barry laughed.

"Probably," he said, looking around at the destroyed house, "I'm still going to try to hide it, though."

Iris just shook her head at him.

"Well, don't think I'm helping you clean up in the morning," she said seriously, "This one's on you."

Barry laughed and nodded.

"Yeah, I figured," he said, "Sorry about all this. I'm sure you were hoping to go to bed once you got home."

He suddenly got a nervous look on his face then.

"Um, Iris," he said slowly, "About your room…"

Iris raised her eyebrows at him. What had happened to her room?

"What about it?" she asked seriously.

Barry rubbed the back of his head, not looking her in the eye.

"You might not want to go in there right now," he said awkwardly.

"Why?" she asked seriously, "What happened?"

"There…um…may be a couple of…teenagers-hooking-up-in-your-bed," he said, rushing through the last part.

Iris stared at him for a moment as she processed what he had said.

"Seriously?!" she nearly yelled.

"I'm sorry!" he said quickly, "I would have stopped them if I had known, but it's…well, it's kind of too late now."

"Ugh," she groaned, running a hand over her face, "You owe me so big for this, Barry."

"Grant," he whispered urgently.

Iris gasped and covered her mouth. She looked around, but nobody seemed to be paying attention to them.

"Sorry," she said quietly, giving him an apologetic look.

Barry laughed.

"It's okay," he said, "Just be more careful."

"Dude!" some random guy said suddenly, coming up to them, "Just so you know, someone just overflowed the upstairs bathroom."

The guy stumbled away almost as quickly as he had come, and Barry and Iris looked at each other.

"I'm officially dead," Barry said in a defeated voice.

Iris smiled and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"What kind of flowers do you want at the funeral?"

The night seemed to pass in a blur after that. Barry couldn't feel the effect of alcohol, but everything still seemed to happen in a blur of music, crazy dancing, and drinking. Iris didn't stay very long. She had been looking for a quieter night in, and she eventually decided to leave the party and go back to Eddie's alone. She probably would have stayed if the circumstances were different, but she didn't want to intrude on Barry's party, and she didn't exactly want to party with a bunch of teenagers, something Barry didn't really blame her for. They were in their mid-twenties after all.

Barry always wanted spend time with Iris, but he wasn't exactly disappointed with her decision to leave. It was hard to be Grant around her and to focus on everything else when she was around.

"Dude, your sister is so hot," Forrest said after Iris left an hour later.

Barry did his best not to groan at that, feeling especially weird about the fact that he agreed wholeheartedly.

"Now that she's gone," Forrest continued in a whisper, "How 'bout that V?"

Barry shifted awkwardly where he stood. He looked down at his watch.

"It's almost two," he said slowly, "Do you think it's still worth it?"

Justin laughed.

"It's two already?!' he said incredulously, "How'd it get to be so late?!"

Barry felt like it might as well be morning at this point. He felt like this night would never end. He actually was having a bit of fun, but at the same time, he was anxious for the party to be over so he didn't have to worry about a bunch of teenagers trashing his house anymore.

Thankfully, the other guys decided to save the vertigo for a different time then. It had gotten to be too late for them to do it now, and Barry felt extremely grateful for at least one stroke of luck.

Barry stared at the house around him after he had finished kicking out the last few stragglers who had passed out and spent the night. The house was in ruins.

Barry was completely exhausted. He didn't think he'd ever had more fun, while also being incredibly stressed out, in his life. At least the party had thankfully passed without anyone getting hurt, and Barry had made sure nobody was drinking and driving when they left. He had to call cabs for several people, but he was confident everyone got home safely in the end.

Now all he had to worry about was the house.

Joe didn't say what time he'd be home in the morning, but he had implied that he'd be coming straight home after checking out of his hotel and that he'd be home pretty early, which didn't give Barry much time. Barry had to watch where he stepped as he walked through the living room. There were chips all over the floor as if someone had spilt the entire bowl that he had set out at the beginning of the night.

The spilt chips were the least of Barry's concerns, though. He was more preoccupied with how he'd get the smell of spilt beer out of the carpet and the couch cushions. That, and how he was going to explain to Joe how his favorite vase had been broken.

The first thing Barry did was open all the windows to air out the house. It was still cold outside, and the house was going to be freezing, but it was better than having it smell. Barry sighed then as he looked at the mess. He didn't even know where to start. At least he had his powers to get him through it, but it was still going to be a pain in the ass.

Barry was afraid to even look upstairs, but he swallowed back the lump of anxiety in his throat and forced himself to flash up the steps. He started with Joe's bedroom. Barry gagged and covered his mouth and nose as soon as he opened the door. The room reeked of weed. Barry immediately started thinking of a million excuses to explain it, each one stupider than the last. The best he could come up with was that a skunk had gotten into the house…and only sprayed Joe's room.

As ridiculous as the excuse was, Barry almost would have considered using it, if Joe weren't a cop. He would no doubt recognize the smell of marijuana immediately. Barry opened the window in a desperate attempt to air out the room, but it was hopeless. He sprayed nearly an entire can of air freshener in the room, but the underlying smell of weed was still detectable. Barry sighed and then moved onto the bathroom.

That room didn't smell much better. It reeked of a sour mix of booze and acidic stomach secretions. Barry found the source of the offensive odor fairly quickly when he saw the vomit on the floor next to the toilet. Someone had clearly missed the toilet bowl. That was probably the worst thing Barry had to clean up.

Barry felt guilty as he stripped Iris's sheets off her bed for her, wrinkling his nose as he held the sheets away from him, touching only the corners. After throwing them in the wash, Barry moved onto the rest of the messy house.

"Alright," he muttered to himself, "Time to really get to work."

Using his speed, Barry grabbed a large garbage bag and flashed around the house, picking up all the empty cups and bottles laying around, as well as any other garbage he came across. He put the garbage in their neighbor's trash bins so Joe wouldn't see it.

He moved in a blur throughout the house, straightening photo frames, and cleaning up all the broken glass. He vacuumed and even shampooed the entire carpet. After sweeping the kitchen floor, Barry cleared off the counter, wiping it down carefully so that no evidence was left behind. He felt like he was trying to clean up a crime scene or something, and the irony of that wasn't lost on the CSI.

When he was finished, Barry stopped and caught his breath, leaning up against the counter. Feeling pretty good about his work, Barry smiled to himself as he wiped one last speck he had missed off the counter. The smile slid from his face, however, when he suddenly heard a loud, slow clapping from behind him. Barry closed his eyes in anguish for a moment before slowly turning around.

"Heeeey, Joe," he said slowly.

Joe was standing in the front doorway, his overnight bag on the floor where he had set it when he walked in to find Barry flashing around the house, speed-cleaning.

"Something you want to tell me about, Barry?"

Disclaimer: Parts of this chapter were inspired by Smallville.