Notes: You might have noticed that the summary changed, because I realised it didn't actually reflect the main conflict of the story and I finally had the time to write a new one. Guh I swear I have such a hard time with summaries…
Again, thank you for the reviews! I'm glad to hear you're enjoying this fluff. Kudos to Raquel for noticing that the person ahead of Barry with the funny name was Eobard Thawne, and much thanks to Gabriel for the track info (apparently there's no such thing as an elimination round in track, so I changed that in the previous chap. Thanks for that!). To address Boba's question, my update schedule is 7-10 days, but it's been erratic because finals and tbh I was tremendously blocked in writing this chap. I'll post upcoming update scheds on my author's page instead, or you can send me an ask on tumblr (eccacia..tumblr..com). Also thanks to the other guest reviewers whom I can't PM—Lina, MoustachedCat, requim17, Jade, Kenedy, and the ones named Guest—I really appreciate your taking time to R&R, and I'm glad you enjoying this.
To the Guest who had difficulty understanding the text messages: may I know what parts you found difficult to understand? Is it the shortcuts used, or is it hard to follow the texts and who's texting? I would appreciate feedback so I can improve on it in future chaps.
A quick disclaimer—I stopped following Arrow after the first half of the first season, so my depiction of Oliver and Felicity is mostly based on the Flash crossover episodes. And since in this AU Oliver doesn't have the whole dark past on the island thing and he's with Felicity, he might seem a bit OOC, but I hope it's not too off-base.
Well, that was a long AN. Anyway, enjoy. T for innuendo and language, as always, and Felicity's plotting…
Caitlin slipped away right after the track meet. Or, at least, right after Cisco left her to make a beeline for Lisa, and right before she could witness Barry Allen's interview with the sports writers of the school paper and of Central Times. She reasoned that she didn't have any more reason to stay, anyway.
But she spent the next few hours going about the things she had to do with a vague restlessness buzzing inside her chest. Felicity's text was cause for some mild alarm, but Caitlin was certain that that wasn't the cause of her anxiety. After having a microwave dinner alone, Caitlin had gone online and had spent an hour or so clicking random links and browsing articles and listicles, but she didn't even read half of the scientific news articles she clicked, whereas she scrolled through all those drivel-filled listicles that claimed to be able to tell her the "Ten Symptoms of Restlessness and Ten (Guaranteed!) Solutions to It". When she realised that aimlessly browsing internet garbage only exacerbated her anxious frenzy, she paused and finally attempted to reflect on why she was feeling this way.
It turned out to be a very simple reason. This was the same anxiety she felt when she was waiting for an event to come about, and one that she hoped would have a favourable outcome, such as waiting for the results to her SATs. She was anxious because she was waiting for a certain event—namely (and she only admitted this to herself with much reluctance) Barry Allen's acknowledgement of her presence at the meet via Facebook message—and the favourable outcome was that he would display gratitude at her having been there. He'd been so insistent for her to go, had made sure to greet her while she was there, had known how uncharacteristic it was for her to even consider being there, that she'd somehow believed… Well, what had she believed? That she was entitled to his gratitude? But why would she be entitled to his gratitude?
Was it because she somehow felt that she deserved special attention from him? But she didn't have reason to expect special attention from him—as she had established the day before, she didn't even expect herself to give special attention to him, because she didn't like him romantically. It seemed that her expectations were based on the mere impression that he wanted her in particular to be there. But then, it was probably usual for him to urge a lot of people to go to his meet, and he didn't thank them all personally, did he? (She certainly didn't think that he would, for example, personally send Cisco a message thanking him for going.) A mass 'thank you' to the crowd would have sufficed.
So, if 1) she didn't like him romantically and 2) there was no reason to believe that her presence in particular at the meet was special, why was she 1) anxiously expecting a message and 2) feeling disappointed that there was still no communication with him? Why was she adhering to so unsubstantiated a belief?
Madness. It was utter madness. It was preposterous and irrational, but how could the disappointment feel so real?
In an attempt to gain control of the situation, Caitlin once again chalked her feelings up to her previously made conclusion about Barry Allen: it was her mere unfamiliarity with him that caused her to feel a strong sense of disappointment at not having communicated with him. Unfamiliarity led to intrigue and curiosity, and this lack of communication frustrated the fulfilment of her curiosity. What would abate her disappointment, then, if not personal communication, was a thorough and covert investigation of Barry Allen through the resources available to her (i.e., his social media pages). Once she knew all there was to know about him, she would cease to be interested in him.
As with any other normal human being Caitlin was not impervious to the flaws of her own reasoning, and that night she had no Felicity to keep her in check. Thus believing her own logic justified, Caitlin began stalking—investigating—Barry Allen's Facebook page. As it was an investigation she decided that her search must be systematic, so she began looking through his albums, which was grouped both chronologically and thematically. She browsed photos of his high school meets, his outings and road trips, his parties with his friends, and the handful of inter-class science quiz bees that he'd joined.
The second and third times she returned to his page—early the next morning and after lunch, respectively, because he hadn't messaged her and she needed to do something to distract herself from the disappointment—she paid more attention to the comments section, and was vaguely puzzled at how Barry Allen seemed fluent at both jock register and nerd register. For instance, in the pictures he had with his track teammates, he said things like "bro that party fred's was THE SHIT!1!1! everyone was sooooo wasted" while in pictures with the quiz bee nerds he said things like "good thing we got through that fast and FERROUS round!". The diverse company he kept indicated that he was a social butterfly—although Caitlin felt that a more accurate term for him would be social chameleon, what with the way he even blended and adjusted to the implicit habits and mannerisms of each group.
Not that Caitlin wasn't aware of that already, but while he was far too charismatic to be a 'nerd', he didn't exactly seem like a 'jock', either. But looking through his albums, she realised that he could seem very jock-y if he was with the right crowd. She didn't know what to do with this insight, though, because she couldn't exactly dig deep on social media—breadth of information didn't necessarily translate to depth—and even after looking through his most recent albums she found herself still wondering who, exactly, was Barry Allen. How much of him was his charming public facade? What was his private face like? Didhe even have one? She could probably uncover some of that if she'd look through the posts on his mother's death, but she still felt ethically bound not to do so…
Damn it, her "investigation" only served to pique her interest in him rather than extinguish it. Why do her perfectly well-reasoned, detach-self-from-Barry-Allen plans keep backfiring on her?
On Thursday night, Caitlin and Felicity convened on top of Felicity's bed. Dread was pooling in Caitlin's stomach, because the smugness that Felicity was emanating was as thick as the heat in the room.
Felicity's smugness was never a good sign.
"Guess I'm still in the lead," she preened.
Caitlin sulked. "I shouldn't have given you three points for sewing."
"Your loss," Felicity sang. She took possession of her laptop from Caitlin after she'd entered the points on the Microsoft Excel file where they consolidated all their dares, deadlines, and scores. Caitlin had awarded the points with much reluctance—she'd spent nearly an hour inspecting Felicity's stitches and was mighty convinced that she'd somehow hired someone else to do it, because they were actually… decent. Despite the fact that Felicity was a fast learner, Caitlin was not about to believe that she could learn in five days a skill that she'd consistently failed to grasp for an entire semester.
But she had sworn on Oliver's inheritance, which seemed to be an more constant reality than his eight-pack abs, so Caitlin supposed that Felicity had indeed accomplished the impossible. Great.
"Hm, did you notice this is the first time we've actually raised the stakes?" Felicity said, perusing the meticulously organised items. Caitlin wondered how the simple dares they had started with that summer—like deliberately misspelling their customer's names on their orders, or calling their boss "bruh"—morphed into the ultra-competitive monster missions that they sent each other on now. They really did have no lives. "We got three points each now. I feel cheated. You never did that with the Oliver dares…"
"Well, Felicity, you weren't exactly unwilling—"
"Well, Caitlin," she said, flashing her a creepy, Cheshire-cat grin, "you might want to be nice to me, because your fate is now in my hands. It's payback time."
"Ugh, fine. God."
"This time, there'll be no crazy excursions to dark places or messages to decode. I'm keeping it simple."
Caitlin broke into cold sweat. For some reason, that sounded very ominous. "O…kay, go on."
Felicity smiled. It was a smile of pure evil.
"You," she said, "are going to touch Barry Allen's ass."
Caitlin choked. "WHAT!"
Felicity reiterated calmly, "The official Excel entry will read: For five whole seconds, you shall caress Barry Allen's magnificent glutes before my very eyes—"
"NO. BLEEDING. WAY."
"If you think about it from a scientific perspective, all you have to do is place your hand on a piece of cloth covering one group of muscles… Although it is a very sexualised group of muscles…"
"FELICITY, YOU ARE INSANE. I FORFEIT."
"Did I just hear forfeit?" Felicity's smile did not waver. "Well now, what's the rule for forfeiting again? Oh yeah, french Cisco within the next hour. I wonder who came up with that rule… Oh, right, it was you."
Caitlin groaned. She had imposed that rule back when she was having a field day with Felicity and Oliver, and she framed it that way precisely so that forfeiting would be impossible. There was just something about going through the most sordid phases of puberty together that rendered the mere thought of romantic involvement with each other seem downright incestuous.
Caitlin thought she was a genius for coming up with it, but now it was coming to bite her back in the ass.
Well, that was an unfortunate choice of words, because it conjured an image of her biting Barry Allen's ass, which was extremely disturbing and definitely unhelpful at the moment—
Felicity cleared her throat. "Of course, as the benevolent deity of dare-giving, I'm open to negotiation. The five-second limit could be lowered to three seconds."
Caitlin stared at her. "Would the nature of body part be open to negotiation? I mean, touching someone's nose to touching someone's posterior isn't a very logical progression—"
"No."
"No as in, no, indeed it's not a logical progression, or no as in, no the body part is not open to negotiation?"
"No as in, ass is mandatory. Unless it's the lips, and you have to touch his with yours."
"…I was never this evil to you."
"Well, too bad. You had your chance."
Caitlin frantically tried to think of another way out. "Well, would the nature of the touch be open to negotiation?"
"Hm, I guess I don't really mind if you pat or stroke or squeeze"—Caitlin choked—"or whatever, as long as your hand is there for a length of time and is within my line of sight."
"How about hover?"
"Hover?"
"Yes, my hand will just hover above his… posterior."
"Um, hello, what part of 'touch' don't you understand?"
"It's almost a touch," she protested. "See, when I hover my hand over your sternum you'd receive a sensation of psychic tingling because you're anticipating my touch—"
"Stop that! Jesus, stop hovering above my boob!" Scandalised, Felicity swatted Caitlin's hand away, but Caitlin smirked and used her other hand. "Fine, fine, I'll accept hovering, just stop! God, you're creepy."
"Hey, says the person who wants me to practically assault someone I hardly know!"
"Oh, please. If you're worried about his consent then maybe you should ask permission from him beforehand."
"Maybe I will. But if he doesn't consent the dare won't push through."
Felicity smirked. "Fine."
"Fine?"
"Fine."
"Fine."
"Well, what are you waiting for?"
Caitlin gave her laptop a reluctant look. Of course the problem with her condition was that there seemed to be no conceivable way to ask Barry Allen if he would consent to have his posterior touched—hovered over, whatever—without making a complete fool of herself in the process.
"You're not going to ask him because you know he'll be fine with it. I bet he'd even encourage you to do it."
There was that, too.
"God, I hate you so much."
"You'll thank me one day, Cait. You'll thank me one day."
Now, Caitlin could get irrationally competitive when it came to these mission-dares, but she was not about to sacrifice her dignity and hand-ginity for a measly three points.
So she came up with a game plan. She was going to pretend like she was performing the dare to avoid forfeiture, but she was also going to consistently fail to fulfil it. The required time limit was ten seconds and the required hand-to-posterior distance was one inch, but she would hold her hand as far away from Barry Allen's posterior as possible, and she was only going to hold it up for three seconds max. In that way, Felicity couldn't accuse her of forfeiture or of not trying at all.
Only, there were three little factors that complicated her game plan of pretending to fake-touch Barry Allen's posterior. Those three little factors came in the form of Oliver Queen, Cisco Ramon, and Jefferson Jackson.
Caitlin had really conceived of going through with her plan with Oliver present, since that was inevitable. She'd assumed they would be going to a public place, anyway, so it would be easy to be discreet about hovering. Besides, Felicity would have already no doubt filled Oliver on the details, and she supposed that he'd at least have the decency to not call attention to her attempts.
But then Oliver just had to tell to Felicity that Friday morning—with much mumbling and shame—that he didn't actually enjoy going to theatres, especially the nearby ones that all the Central Uni students frequented, because they reeked of sweat ("The movies here always smell sour, like the gym in the afternoon") and were unhygienic ("I know someone who gave my friend a blowjob there," he'd insisted. "There might be cum on those seats and carpets"). Caitlin didn't mind that it reeked of sweat because she'd never even noticed it—neither did Felicity, but her friend had explained that Oliver had a very sensitive nose, what with his eucalyptus-scented apartment and lavender-water-laundered sheets—but Caitlin perfectly understood his point on dubious bodily fluids on the seats and carpets.
Now she'd hoped this meant that movie night was cancelled. But instead Oliver had graciously offered his apartment, which boasted a 90-inch flat-screen TV and surround-sound speaker system. The private setting gave her a distinct disadvantage when it came to hiding her attempts from Oliver, although she supposed it was better than going to a public place where there were people that might recognise them. But then, of course, the universe was conspiring to make sure she made an utter fool of herself, and so decided that Cisco and Jax should overhear Felicity inform her of the change of plans during lunch that Friday.
"Did you just say 90-inch flat-screen TV and Dolby Atmos surround-sound speakers?" Cisco had said slowly, pausing with his Big Belly Burger in mid-air.
"At THE Oliver Queen's man cave?" Jax added, voice modulated in the same reverent hush as Cisco's.
Felicity feigned nonchalance. "Yeah, it's where we'll be having our double-date."
"It's not a double date, it's a movie night," Caitlin protested feebly.
"Double date? Who's Caitlin's date?" Cisco said, confused.
"You date?" Jax said to Caitlin. "I thought you were a plant or something."
"You mean asexual? Yes, I am."
"No, she's not. She's got a thing for Bar—"
"I DO NOT."
"Do you think Barry can set me up with Lisa—"
"Dude, I keep telling you she's out of your league."
Cisco was not swayed. "Do we need to have dates to be invited? I mean, I don't think Lisa'll mind if Jax and I go as dates—"
"—oh yeah, good idea, but in a completely no-homo bro-mantic way, you know—"
"—will that get us an invite to the man-cave? It's not like we're not bros with Oliver—"
"—yeah, he's totally a Broliver—"
"—an Olibruh—"
"—we're such bros, we're attached to the liver—"
"—dude, that's kind of gross—"
"—okay, okay, but you get my point."
They flashed such identical idiotic grins that Felicity wavered. "Well, I'm not sure if Oliver will be okay with extra people, since he doesn't even invite people to his apartment in the first place…"
Cisco clasped his hands together, and Jax followed suit by bowing his head to the table. "Please, O Felicity crusher-of-men—"
"—Felicity the destroyer-of-balls—"
"—Felicity the hulk-smasher—"
"—Felicity the mannihilator—"
"Fine, fine, I'll ask Oliver," she grumbled. "God, it's a good thing I love you idiots."
"BOOYAH!"
"BOOM BABY!"
Jax added, munching on his fries, "Yeah, we love ourselves too."
"Hard not to," Cisco shrugged. "We're pretty awesome. The room will explode from our awesomeness."
"And from those Dolby Atmos surround sound speakers."
"And that sweet 90-inch flat-screen TV."
"We'll just ogle Oliver Queen's tech while you guys make out in some corner."
Cisco nodded vigorously. "Yeah, we'll be totally inconspicuous."
"We'll be totally invisible."
"Like a stealth ship."
"Like Naruto."
Felicity wrinkled her brow. "What's a Naruto?"
"WHAT! FELICITY, FOR SHAME! DISHONOR ON YOUR FAMILY!"
"He's a ninja," Caitlin supplied. "Of anime origin, I think."
"Naruto's a pretty noisy ninja, though."
"Yeah, 'cause we can't promise we won't be noisy…"
Caitlin sighed. It wasn't even Saturday yet and she could already feel a massive headache coming on.
(10:02) hey
(10:02) you going to olivers tonight? :)
(10:05) Who's this?
(10:05) Please identify yourself
(10:05) guess who :p
(10:06) … How were you able to obtain this number
(10:06) you havent guessed
(10:06) You already gave yourself away
(10:06) was it the emoticon
(10:06) am i the only friend you have who uses emoticons /:)
(10:07) The only friend who 1) uses emoticons, 2) is invited to Oliver's, and 3) whose number is not registered under a name on my phone
(10:07) …
(10:07) you really talk funny you know
(10:07) I talk the same in person and on text and chat
(10:07) How is that supposed to be funny
(10:08) never mind
(10:08) are you going to olivers?
(10:08) How did you get my number
(10:09) from him :-j
(10:09) turns out that new girl he cant stop talking about
(10:09) is your crazy dare giving, matchmaking roommate?
(10:10) Yes, unfortunately
(10:10) For you, myself, and especially Oliver
(10:10) yeah?
(10:10) whats she gonna make you do this time? :o
(10:11) I can't tell you
(10:11) so it involves me? :p
(10:11) …Well, a part of you
(10:11) is it a physical part of me? :p
(10:11) In a manner of speaking
(10:12) how physical?
(10:12) ;)
(10:12) I would really rather not tell you
(10:12) why not? dont i have a right to know
(10:12) informed consent and all that
(10:13) which isnt to say that i wont consent if you dont tell me
(10:13) but being informed would be nice
(10:13) I think it would make me more uncomfortable than it would make you
(10:13) In any case I don't plan on fully executing it
(10:14) so… youre not gonna do it anyway? so ill never actually know?
(10:14) are you just gonna leave me hanging
(10:14) Congratulations on winning the meet
(10:14) youre actually leaving me hanging
(10:14) by not answering whether or not youll leave me hanging
(10:14) It was a new record for you, wasn't it?
(10:14) im still meta-hanging here
(10:14) What is it with you and meta-ing
(10:15) just watched inception last week
(10:15) i know, im a loser
(10:15) What was your opinion of it
(10:15) nuh uh
(10:15) i aint falling for that
(10:15) good diversion tactic but not good enough /:)
(10:16) tell me what the dare isssss
(10:16) You looked very aesthetically pleasing in your track attire
(10:19) …?!
(10:20) god almighty
(10:20) did i just read that
(10:20) from you
(10:20) from YOU
(10:20) jesus
(10:20) i almost spilled my drink
(10:20) christ
(10:21) You've invoked God's name more frequently in the past minute than some people have in their lives
(10:21) can we return to how you found me aesthetically pleasing
(10:21) That was a diversion tactic
(10:21) Which is proving to be most effective
(10:22) i like that diversion tactic
(10:22) can we pursue that diversion tactic
(10:24) caitlin
(10:25) caitlin
(10:26) caitlin
(10:29) oh btw
(10:29) the next meet is on mon
(10:29) will you come?
(10:30) caitlin
(10:30) caitlin
(10:30) caitlin
(10:31) ignoring me as a diversion tactic for your diversion tactic huh
(10:31) very meta-sneaky /:)
(10:31) dont think i wont bring this up later
By the time six o'clock rolled around, Caitlin was nervously picking at the strings of her sweater while waiting for Cisco and Jax outside the boys' dorms. Felicity had gone on ahead to Oliver's to "cook dinner" (which Caitlin told Oliver to dissuade her from doing at all costs to prevent fires, so they'd all be meeting at the shopping district nearby for dinner before heading back to Oliver's), and Barry was coming from a convention that he was emceeing for. Which left her no choice but to walk to the meet-up place with Cisco and Jax.
It wasn't that she found their company taxing or anything. It was just, well, they weren't exactly… shining examples of subtlety. Cisco was Cisco and he hadn't changed much from when Caitlin first knew him back in middle school—he was a kid at heart and was oblivious to undertones most of the time, but when he did pick up on something, he'd get so excited on being in on the "secret" that he wouldn't be able to hide his excitement, even if he never meant to give anyone away.
Jax, on the other hand, wasn't subtle either, but he was much more intentional than Cisco. Caitlin had only met him back in her first year of college when he and Cisco became roommates, and got to talk to him at length when she subbed for Cisco in tutoring him for his core science and math subjects. Jax had been part of the football team and was hailed a football prodigy when he was first recruited, but his career was cut short when he sustained a serious knee injury early on in the season. He tried to make a comeback, but he never lasted as long as he did in his pre-injury stage. Eventually that injury cost him his friends and his scholarship. Caitlin remembered Jax confiding to her once in first year—after another lengthy apology for having a difficult time with word problems—that he'd considered committing suicide after that, and had Cisco not tutored the hell out of him until he was able to pull his grades to the minimum required for an academic scholarship, he might have actually gone through with it. (He hadn't spoken of football in so long, Caitlin mused, that she'd nearly forgotten that he was once an athlete.) His more serious moments were rarer nowadays, though—now his pre-injury self was resurfacing (and maybe Cisco's exuberance was rubbing off on him, too) and he was ready to laugh and poke fun at anything. Caitlin was sure that if he caught sight of her hovering hand, she would never hear the end of it…
"Hola, Catalina!" Cisco hollered, practically bouncing out of the dorms. "How do I look?"
Caitlin appraised his Star Wars shirt, the checked polo he wore over it, and his usual pair of dark jeans and nondescript rubber shoes. "Um… Like you always do?"
"What! Doesn't my outfit exude 'just chilling with all them cool kids'? No?"
"I suppose it's very… laid back."
"Mother of—Cait, are you seriously wearing that to a date?"
Caitlin glanced at Jax, who came up behind Cisco in a suave getup of black pants and a forest-green v-neck pullover, and glanced down on her sweater and jeans. "We're going to Oliver's apartment, so I didn't see the need to dress up. And it's not a date. It's a movie night with friends."
"Lis warned me you'd say something like that," Jax mumbled. "Look, we better get you into something presentable."
"I'm not an object to be decorated and flaunted," Caitlin said hotly. "Besides, I don't like Barry Allen romantically, so there's no need to impress him."
It was at that precise moment that Cisco chose to have insight into the emotional undertones of the conversation. He and Jax exchanged looks, and Cisco's eyes widened. "Cait, you're really into Barry, aren't you?"
"Bleeding—why does everyone keep saying that?"
"The denial is strong in this one."
Jax nodded sagely. "She even dressed down because she's too concerned about the 'non-romantic-ness' of the date."
"What's that called in psychology?"
"I don't know man, but this smells pretty defense-mechanismy."
"I'm right here, thank you very much."
"Jax is right, Cait," Cisco said. "If this is your first date with Barry—or like your first date ever—you might want to dress up a bit."
Caitlin huffed. "Fine. Make me."
She really shouldn't have threatened them, because they made good on her challenge and practically dragged her back to the girls' dorms. The people milling about were beginning to give them queer looks, so Caitlin finally grudgingly obliged them to give her a "makeover". She grumbled her way back to her room, where she duly Skype-d her clothing to Jax and Cisco, and Jax—who grew up with his mother and who'd dated girls with killer fashion sense—gave a running commentary on her clothing, while Cisco couldn't stop gushing about her new STAR Labs sweater. In any case, by the time she finally unearthed a pair of black skinny jeans and a white scoop-neck blouse that Jax approved of, Caitlin felt like an utter failure of a woman and was seriously questioning societal norms of femininity and womanhood.
"Well," she said sullenly, emerging from the dorms in an outfit that she didn't even remember possessing, "how do I look?"
Cisco and Jax fell silent when they saw her.
And then, "Wow, Cait, since when did you have boobs?—OW! Sorry, I swear I only meant it in a scientific way…"
"One more thing," Jax said. He tugged the elastic band out of her hair, ignoring her protests. "You look better with your hair down. Trust me, this way Barry won't be able to keep his eyes off you."
Notes: I know you guys were expecting the date, I swear I didn't mean to move it to the next chap but… This chapter refused to be written without a meddling Cisco and Jax (I've tried but I got stuck every time). Hope you enjoyed it anyway. As for those wondering when Barry and Cait will get to talk seriously, it WILL happen, I assure you. It's only their first week of meeting so I'm trying pace the development of their relationship according to that timeline. Please review? I'll pop up again in a week or so with an update. Merry Christmas everyone!