Central City

10 Hours until Enlightenment

After Cisco and Caitlin had officially come to, they had helped Wally move Hunter's body into the Medbay, leaving Joe, Iris and Cecile alone to deal with Barry.

Oliver had arrived around 2 hours ago, he had sprinted through the building and into the speed-lab, where Joe was trying to coax Barry into the Cortex but he didn't move, or even respond in this case. It was like the night his father had been murdered, he had gone into shock and didn't come out of it for awhile.

John had also arrived with Oliver, staying in the Cortex with Blaine and Kurt as they tried to grasp what they had just witnessed. As much as they wanted to go and comfort Barry, they just couldn't move themselves. The sound of his neck being snapped was still ringing in Blaine's mind.

When they finally managed to get through to Barry and drag him into the Cortex, the mood was tense, and sad. This was just the worst thing ever, even more so for Barry, Kurt and Blaine. They had known him since High School, regardless of any bad blood, he had still been involved in their lives even as just acquaintances.

Joe sat Barry down in Cisco's chair, keeping a hand on his shoulder as the speedster put his head in his hands. Caitlin, Harry and Cisco came back from the Med-Bay seconds later, putting up the pipeline footage so they could keep an eye on Jessie.

"I'm gonna go get Kara," Cisco began, his voice quiet, "he's better off on their Earth than our own"

No-one bothered to fight with him on that so when he opened a breach and stepped through it, no-one stopped him from doing so. Not even Harry, who was against any idea Cisco even had-including the ones that got shot down before he had even voiced them aloud.

Iris crouched down in front of her boyfriend, bending her head so it was pressed against his hair, her eyes closed as she felt his body tremble in her embrace. She had her arms circled around his back, rubbing soft, comforting circles with her thumb.

"I'll go with Kara to Earth-38 when Kara goes back" Oliver announced to the room, making Barry slowly lift his head up from his hands and reveal his bloodshot eyes as he faced his mentor, "I want to interrogate this son of a bitch"

Iris looked at Barry, wiping his tears away for him as he looked back at the ground, not bothering to hide his crying anymore. Joe patted Barry's shoulder as his phone rang, making him groan. Cecile looked at Joe with a knowing look, taking his place beside Barry as he answered his phone.

Cisco, Kara, J'onn, Winn and Alex came out of a breach moments later, Kara storming towards the pipeline and towards Jessie. Winn walked towards Barry, as did J'onn and patted the man on the back, Winn giving him a hug from his left side as they followed Kara to the pipeline and to Jessie's cell. Alex remained though, instead, she walked into the Med-Bay and towards Hunter's corpse, not a single tear in her eye as she looked at his body.

Barry stood up seconds later, wiping his face in one swift motion before turning to both Blaine and Kurt, seeing their tear-stained faces. They nodded at him and within seconds he had changed into his normal clothes, and then a moment later he had grabbed them both and sped them to their hotel room. He stayed in the rook with them as they collapsed onto their bed, drained of any energy they once had. Blaine stood up a moment later though, and wrapped his arms around Barry, hugging the speedster tightly as he began softly crying once more. It was supposed to be a good day, this wasn't supposed to happen.

Kurt walked towards his bag on the far side of their room, opening it and pulling out a bottle of vodka. Blaine pulled away from Barry seconds later, rubbing his hand up and down on the taller man's arms before turning towards his husband, his eyes going wide as Kurt approached them both, the bottle of vodka in his hand. He handed the bottle to Barry, who took it hesitantly.

"You look like you could use a drink" Kurt said, not going into detail as to why he had bought it in the first place. It didn't matter though, as Barry had thanked them both and left the building a second later, still holding onto the bottle of vodka Kurt had given him.

He was sitting in his bedroom at Joe's house, halfway through the bottle when Caitlin called him. He sighed softly and answered it, putting it on loudspeaker. He could hear Caitlin and Cisco typing away on their keyboards through the microphone.

"We found out who Jessie's employer is" Caitlin told him, her voice soft, "Do you want to come to S.T.A.R Labs?"

Barry shook his head no, before realising that she couldn't see that so he replied no, trying to hide the hiccup in his voice as he spoke.

"His name is Clifford DeVoe," Caitlin began, "He is a history teacher. He has a wife called Marlieze"

Barry nodded again, gulping down the remaining half of the vodka bottle. It seemed that the amount he had consumed had managed to make a dent against his rapid metabolism as he could see everything in a slight blurry haze. Ending the call on Caitlin, he sent a text to Kurt.

nks fr t voda. I can't been able to get drunk. Iy works well

He turned his phone off and slowly climbed to his feet, the empty glass bottle in his hand as he stumbled to the staircase, beginning to descend down them. He had to stop a couple of times though, only because he thought he'd end up falling down them but when he made it down to the bottom, he stumbled into the kitchen and threw the bottle into the trash, satisfied when he heard the glass smash. He walked towards the fridge, smiling as he saw another bottle of vodka in there. He thought that with Joe and Cecile now moving in with each other that they'd not have as many alcoholic drinks around, especially with Cecile's daughter Joanie. Regardless, he grabbed the bottle and walked into the living room, deciding the stairs would be too much effort to walk up. Barry sat himself down on one of the couches and put his feet up on the coffee table, opening the bottle and putting it against his lips, letting the drink burn his throat as it entered his stomach.

The last time he had used alcohol as a form of release was back in High School. It was the day after the whole slushie scandal and he found himself sitting in the gay bar, Scandals. He had drunk a lot, and ended up drunk dialing Thad who had to fish him out of the bar, and to this day, none of the other Warblers or even Hunter had heard of him doing that. So, Barry drank the alcohol until he was unaware of his surroundings and unaware of the outside world.

When Joe, Cecile, Iris and Wally returned to the West home 30 minutes later, they did not expect to find the man sprawled out on their couch, an empty bottle of vodka beside him and two empty bottles of beer beside him on the coffee table. Iris sighed softly as she approached her boyfriend on the couch, who seemed asleep, and nudged him softly, making his eyes shoot open. Iris didn't even need to be a doctor to note that his pupils were dilated and acting sluggishly. Wally grabbed the empty bottles and walked towards the trash can in the kitchen whilst Cecile and Joe remained in the doorway, looking at each other with concerned looks.

"Babe?" Iris asked him, her left hand on his cheek, stroking it softly to help him focus on her.

"Mmmm," He smiled dopely at her, his grin lopsided as he did so, "wuv yu"

His lopsided grin felt like a kick in the gut, Iris noted as tears filled her eyes as she looked at him. She knew he couldn't get drunk, so he must've drank a lot for him to be this far gone. Cecile approached the pair seconds later, sitting to Barry's right as Iris moved to grab his hands and haul the drunk man to his feet. Cecile supported his right side until Wally gently moved her out of the way and helped her sister get him up the stairs and into his bedroom so he could sleep. Joe was on the phone by the time they came back downstairs. He was talking to Caitlin.

"We don't know how much he's got in his system, Cait," Joe told her, stepping outside and onto the porch, closing the door behind him.

"I thought he couldn't get drunk?" Wally asked both Iris and Cecile, confused and concerned for his older brother's mental health and well-being.

"He can't," Iris confirmed, crossing her arms over her chest.

"But how come he is then?" Wally questioned them both once more. Cecile just looked back and forth between the pair, uncomfortable in the situation. Sure, it was one thing to find her boyfriend's son on the couch, intoxicated out of his mind but it was another thing for him to theoretically not be able to become drunk in the first place. It made zero sense.

"I don't know, Wally" Iris grumbled out, moving to sit on the couch where Barry had been just minutes before. Iris was quite amazed though, amazed at how he managed to get himself drunk instead of getting alcohol poisoning from the amount in his system but then again, his metabolism was probably dealing with it for him. Either that or karma would get him for it in the morning.

Unknown Location

The same time

Clifford and Marliese were all standing in the main room of this warehouse, a single light on in the middle of the room giving it this ominous feel.

"In 10 hours the enlightenment will be complete" He told his wife, smiling as she walked towards him to give him a quick peck on the cheek.

"Shall we rule the world?" She asked him, lacing her arm through his.

"We shall"

Short chapter ik, pls don't murder me :(