Notes: When I first planned this fic, I was aiming for it to be short and sweet at 10 chapters, but it looks like it's going to be longer than that. I'm now estimating it to reach 17-20 chapters, but we'll see. Thanks so much again for your patience and your reviews! And, I PASSED MY BOARDS! WHEE! And also, advanced happy birthday to flashport90! Hope you'll have a not-so-stressful one!
Disclaimer: I based the experiment off what we did in class, adapted from Perry et al.'s (2007) Essential Laboratory Exercises for General Biology.
caitlin_snow93: Greetings, birthgiver
caitlin_snow93: I have a question
caitlin_snow93: That I feel I'll regret asking
caitlin_snow93: But then I've done a lot of regrettable things in the past 36 hours
worm_whisperer58: Greetings , daughter cell ! OF COURSE ! You can ALWAYS ask me ANYTHING !
worm_whisperer58: I will do my BEST to DISPENSE motherly advice ! ;-) ;-) ;-)
caitlin_snow93: Let's say that a hypothetical girl, under peer duress, is asked to seduce a boy
caitlin_snow93: Or get him to like her
caitlin_snow93: Or get him to admit liking her
caitlin_snow93: How should the hypothetical girl go about this
worm_whisperer58: WHAT !
worm_whisperer58: SEDUCTION ? !
worm_whisperer58: Is that STILL a THING ? !
worm_whisperer58: Aren't YOUNG ONES more DIRECT these days ? !
worm_whisperer58: Is it that BARNEY FELLOW ? !
caitlin_snow93: Barry
caitlin_snow93: WHAT
worm_whisperer58: GOTCHA ! ;-) ;-) ;-) No need for SEDUCTION ! PSH !
worm_whisperer58: Just ask him if he would like to " MAKE OUT " with you ! ;-) ;-) ;-)
caitlin_snow93: …
caitlin_snow93: As a mother maybe you should be a tad bit more disapproving
worm_whisperer58: Oh PLEASE , darling , I KNOW what I'm doing !
worm_whisperer58: And I KNOW you ! TBH , you CANNOT seduce ANYTHING to save your life !
worm_whisperer58: Unfortunately , it's one skill you DID NOT inherit from me :-( :-( :-(
caitlin_snow93: …
caitlin_snow93: …?
caitlin_snow93: …?!
worm_whisperer58: Speaking of , we have a NEW BATCH of INTERNS coming in ! A handful are VERY EASY on the EYES , if you get my MEANING ! ;-) ;-) ;-)
caitlin_snow93: MOTHER
caitlin_snow93: Oh my god STOP
caitlin_snow93: I swear I'll disown you
caitlin_snow93: You'll be sued for like… pedophilia or something
worm_whisperer58: LAMAO , I KID !
caitlin_snow93: I feel like I'm scarred for life
worm_whisperer58: NOT pedophilia , BTW ! The term is COUGAR ! POLITICAL CORRECTNESS , darling ! :-l (That's a DISAPPROVING ego ion )
worm_whisperer58: Emo icon
caitlin_snow93: Emoticon?
worm_whisperer58: But seriously , darling , just BE YOURSELF ! :-) :-) :-)
worm_whisperer58: OR be a more TALKATIVE version of yourself ! Be more OPEN ! Be CURIOUS !
worm_whisperer58: You know your father was NOT charming but he used to ASK me A LOT of QUESTIONS to get to know me ! He kept LISTS !
worm_whisperer58: It made him SEEM genuinely interested…
caitlin_snow93: Hell no
caitlin_snow93: I'm not taking tips from Dad
worm_whisperer58: That WAS a long time ago
worm_whisperer58: He was a PLEASANT person then, believe it or not…
worm_whisperer58: But just don't be so CLOSED OFF , OK , darling ? :-) :-) :-)
caitlin_snow93: Well
caitlin_snow93: I don't know
caitlin_snow93: I guess I'll try…
worm_whisperer58: GOOD ! Now go and MAKE ME PROUD ! ;-) ;-) ;-)
Come Monday morning, Caitlin was convinced that "crush" was too mild a word for what she was going through. At least the word "crush", no matter how silly it sounded, also connoted the quick and violent use of force to destroy something—presumably the action performed by the object of affection to one's heart—and while Caitlin was not a violent person, she would rather have her heart pulverised in one go than to have it slowly eroded away. Having her heart crushed would be a mercy compared to this drawn-out agony.
She should probably file a petition to Merriam-Webster regarding that semantic gap. Dear Sir or Madame: Good day! In order to remedy the appalling lack of synonyms for the word crush 4 (n.), I have taken the liberty to provide you with suggestions. Kindly see the attached file for a comprehensive list of medieval torture instruments.
God. It was hopeless. She was hopeless.
Caitlin stared listlessly at her pre-lab notes. She'd given up reviewing altogether when she realised that she'd been rereading the title over and over again, and right now, her concentration was completely shot because she couldn't stop imagining how it would be like to work with Barry Allen for the entire four hours of the class. Her hands were already turning cold at the thought of it: how a possible slip of the tongue or a wayward blush could betray what she really felt about him… And not only to him, but to everyone else. She was so keenly aware of her own emotions that she was half-convinced that others could see them so blatantly displayed, too.
She risked a quick glance at Hartley. When he'd come in he'd given her his usual snarky greeting, but in her distracted state she must've only given him a simple "good morning", because he regarded her for a moment with a mild surprise. And then, a slow, smug smirk spread across his face. Hartley was terribly perceptive—part of his meanness was due to his ability to turn observations into insults—and Caitlin had a nagging feeling that he knew, even if he hadn't been around last week.
But then, right now, he was being all quiet and docile, so maybe she was just paranoid…
This is torture, she thought sullenly. She wondered if there would ever be an end to it.
The shrill ringing of the first bell abruptly jarred her from her thoughts. A few seconds later, Dr. Wells walked in, and in classic Pavlovian reaction, Caitlin straightened in her seat. All the muted conversations around her tapered into a reverential silence.
She spared a nervous glance at the door, aware that her lab partner still hadn't arrived.
"Good morning," Dr. Wells said. He slid the attendance sheet on the surface of his table and gave the class a cursory look. "Mr. Rathaway, how nice of you to finally join us." Hartley grunted behind her. "Ms. Snow, will Mr. Allen be coming in?"
She glanced at the door again. "I believe so…"
Dr. Wells nodded and ticked everyone else off on his list. "Alright, while we wait for Mr. Allen, I have an announcement to make," he continued. "A few of you have e-mailed me asking whether or not we were going to have a quiz today. I think I've neglected to mention that I don't give objective quizzes."
There was a chorus of cheers from the class. Caitlin, however, frowned, because she was supposed to make up for her B-minus in lab performance last week by acing the quizzes. That, and she rather enjoyed objective quizzes. They were all very neat and predictable, and very much unlike, say, having a crush on someone.
And no, she was not sulking about it.
"Not so fast," Dr. Wells interjected. "Now, in place of weekly objective quizzes, I'll be holding check-up oral exams every three experiments."
Caitlin nearly choked. Orals for lab?! Is he insane?!
She was about to raise her protests when none other than Barry Allen himself waltzed into the room in all his windswept, tight-shirted glory, and her voice just died in her throat. There was a flutter in her chest and a fuzziness in her mind that muted all other sound and blurred all other objects around him, and she became transfixed on how he looked in the glow of early the morning sun—how his messy hair turned a nearly honey-brown hue, how his eyes turned into a more vibrant shade of green—and how he rubbed the nape of his neck while apologising to Dr. Wells for being late.
Caitlin decided that his his messy brown hair and his sheepishness were things that were fast making their way up her mental "Most Endearing Qualities in Human Beings" list (a list that was, so far, exclusively occupied by only one human being).
She couldn't believe herself. Here was an announcement that could further damage her chances at an A—she'd never been good at oral exams—and yet that harrowing thought was eclipsed by his mere presence. She didn't care what Felicity said—she was convinced that she was under some evil spell… That, or her hormones were unleashing hell to make up for their lack of stage time back when she was a teenager. Bleeding hormones. It wasn't enough that they made her bleed every month, they now also made her giddy over ridiculous things like the arrangement and pigmentation of the keratinised proteins on Barry Allen's head.
"Hey, what's everyone freaking out about?" he said, giving her a crooked smile and sliding into the seat in front of her. He smelled nice, as usual, and his irises were a more vivid green up close, and Caitlin was still trying to remember how to use her vocal cords, because all she could think about was the ten different ways she could describe his eyes, about three-fourths of which consisted of words she'd never even used before. Like chartreuse, for example. She didn't even know how she knew the word chartreuse, and it was far too fancy to use in conversation, but it was a splendid word to describe the exact shade of Barry Allen's eyes in the 8 o'clock sunlight…
He suddenly lowered his head to peer at her, and she didn't even flinch, not even when he brought his face close to hers. She observed that there was a light smattering of freckles across his nose, and she mentally added that to the "Most Endearing Qualities in Human Beings" list—
"Hey, are you okay? You look a little dazed."
Now that jolted her from her trance.
Caitlin abruptly straightened in her seat, face heating. "Sorry, it's just"—she swallowed and made a vague gesture with her hand to stall—"Dr. Wells's announcement just surprised me," she managed to say. "He's giving us orals instead of quizzes."
He raised a brow and flashed her a sly grin. "You're going to have to give me a little more context than that."
Well, now. This part of him was definitely not going to make it on the "Most Endearing Qualities in Human Beings" list. She had to make a separate list for this. Or maybe she should just stop making lists about human beings that actually revolved exclusively around Barry Allen, period. "You're going to have to be a little more PG than that," she returned. "Maybe if you weren't so late, you would've had sufficient context to understand everyone's alarm."
"Hey, three minutes is hardly late."
"Five. You were late for five minutes."
"Ah, my apologies. But I'm really flattered that you kept track of how long I was gone." His smile turned mischievous. "I don't need sufficient context to that to know you've missed me."
"I appreciate punctuality in my lab partners," she said stiffly. She angled her body even further away from him so that she would hardly be able to glimpse him, not even from her peripheral vision.
"Aw, lighten up. You're giving me a harder time than Dr. Wells did." He paused and lowered his voice as Dr. Wells answered Bette's question, and Caitlin vaguely realised that she hadn't quite been listening to what was happening in class. "Not that I meant that as an innuendo—"
"I would also appreciate complete silence right about now so I can hear what we need to do to ace the exam."
He snorted. "Oh, come on. You'd ace it in your sleep, Caitlin." He nudged her, and the patch of skin he'd touched remained warm even after he drew back. "You practically have the whole manual memorised."
She was so flustered that she didn't know how to respond, but thankfully, she didn't have to figure that out, because he finally shifted his attention to Dr. Wells. Much to her surprise, though, he raised his hand to clarify something that was apparently mentioned earlier—and she felt a little put out that he was able to concentrate on Dr. Wells while talking to her, as, in the meantime, she could hardly focus on anything else but him.
She chose not to dwell on that, though. She'd dwelt on Barry Allen-related matters for far too long already, so she did her best to tune in to Dr. Wells's instructions instead.
After Dr. Wells had explained his rationale for giving oral exams ("I'm not training you to be lab technicians, I'm training you to be innovators, and oral exams will be a better gage of your critical thinking skills than objective quizzes"), he proceeded with a short lecture on macromolecules before instructing them to pair up and gather the reagents needed for the experiment. The entire thing passed without incident—Barry had dutifully listened to the lecture and taken down notes, and she'd only realised that Hartley was around when he'd asked a question. A normal question, at that, not the ones he usually asked to one-up professors.
Just when Caitlin considered that maybe Hartley really was trying to turn over a new leaf this term, he sidled up to her when Barry Allen had gone to the front to collect the reagents and said silkily, "Gaping is unbecoming, you know."
She narrowed her eyes halfway through putting on her lab coat, and he smirked, tilting his head towards Barry Allen's direction. Before Caitlin could fully grasp the implications of what he'd just said, he added in a lazy drawl, "Just like that shirt you're wearing. Jesus, where do you get your clothes? Goodwill?"
Her glare hardened. "Why, thank you for the fashion advice, Hartley. Perhaps we can discuss where to get my next outfit while painting our nails and giggling over boys."
"I never knew giggling over boys was on our agenda," he replied, his tone as snide as hers. "But since it is, maybe we should talk about your new lab partner. Athlete, isn't he?"
He spat the word 'athlete' like it was an insult. "He isn't stupid, if that's what you're implying," she said. "I'd even go so far as to say that I prefer working with him than with you."
"Oh, and that's supposed to hurt my feelings," he scoffed. "I'm not really sure who deserves more pity—you or him. Of course, you'll have to pick up on his slack, and working with imbeciles is by far the worst torture… But then again, you're going to make him feel like shit for not being able to do anything right." He hummed. "I wonder how long he's going to last."
"I wonder how long you're going to last, with Dr. Wells keeping his eye on you," she retorted. "He's got you scared, hasn't he?"
"Please. Professors don't scare me." Caitlin observed that he risked a quick glance at Dr. Wells, who was assisting Eliza with the first reagent. If it wasn't fear, she reckoned that it was the closest thing to respect that she'd ever seen in him.
"Ah, look. Here comes the newbie."
Sure enough, Barry Allen was making his way towards them, intently keeping watch over the test tube rack that he was holding. Despite his efforts, though, the test tubes rattled as he walked, and Caitlin couldn't help but wince a little. Hartley caught her movement and smirked.
"Well, if it isn't Barry Allen," he drawled. "The athlete with at least half a brain. I thought your kind was mythical."
Barry looked up, surprised at having been addressed. He glanced at Caitlin, and she quickly mouthed 'Hartley'. His confusion turned into a dark look. "You must be Hartley. I've heard a lot of things about you."
"Awful things, I'm sure, most of which are probably true," Hartley said dismissively. "Well, I've already wasted too much of my time here, so I'm off. And Frosty"—his eyes flicked very briefly to Barry Allen, and a sneer made its way to his face—"you really should stop staring."
Caitlin felt like the floor had disappeared beneath her. When he'd first commented about her gaping, she couldn't have been sure what he was referring to, but now there was no doubt about it. Had she really been so obvious? How could Hartley have noticed, not even an hour into the class?
She felt a little faint. He was going to tell everyone, she was sure. He was going to blackmail her and Barry Allen was going to know and since he was too nice to let her down quickly and brutally, she'd probably get a roundabout rejection that she would never really know for sure was a rejection—
"What an asshole," Barry Allen muttered. "How did you put up with him?"
Caitlin blinked.
Barry Allen had slipped on his lab coat, and he was now checking the temperature of the water in the beaker on the hot plate. He didn't seem to have picked up on the implications of Hartley's last comment, or else she was certain that he'd have been unbearable about it already.
She licked her lips and found her voice. "We talked as little as possible during experiments," she said. "He isn't as snarky once we start working."
"So if he isn't working, he's pretty much a terrible person?"
She shrugged. "It's the only way he knows how to get along with people."
"If you could call that getting along," he said, shooting one last dirty look in Hartley's direction. And then, he grinned at her. "Aren't you glad you're with me instead?"
Caitlin cleared her throat and pretended to be busy with the Benedict's reagent. "I suppose your company is more tolerable."
"Hey, I resent that," he said. "My company is fantastic."
"Really, now. I wonder who's going to testify to that."
"Well, there's me."
"The nature of a testimony necessitates someone other than yourself."
"Well, there's also you." He grinned, even when she shot him a disbelieving look. "Hey, come on. Am I not fun? Does your funness quotient not jump from 0 to 100 just by being in basking in my mere presence?"
"My baseline fun-ness quotient is not 0. And there is no such word as funness."
"Sure there is. Funness, noun. Definition: An exceedingly handsome male named Bartholomew Allen."
"Bartholomew Allen hardly sounds like a fun name. It sounds like a stuffy noble in tights from the Middle Ages."
"Imagining me in tights, are you?" He grinned. "You and your fetishes, Caitlin."
She spluttered. "What—I'll let you know that—that I have no desire whatsoever to indulge in such… things."
"What would you desire to indulge in, then?" he teased, and her bleeding traitor of a mind just had to conjure up an image of Barry Allen in his track suit, muscles rippling under the skintight fabric, an image that effectively sent a fierce blush crawling up her neck, "Maybe some dark, sumptuous—"
"—we really should get back to working—"
"—sinful, orgasmic—"
"—look, the other pairs are already starting—"
"—chocolate cake?"
Barry gave her an innocent smile.
She didn't know whether she should slap him or kiss him.
Wait, what?
Caitlin felt her airways constricting, and she shut her eyes for a brief moment in an attempt to compose herself. She was going insane, she was sure of it, because the normal Caitlin Snow would be repulsed at kissing. The normal Caitlin Snow wouldn't even consider it kissing—it was swapping saliva, it was inhaling each other's bad breaths, it was—
"Hey, hey, are you okay? You look pale."
She opened her eyes. "I'm fine," she said shortly.
"Are you sure? You went from like, normal flesh to really white in under a second," he insisted.
She fidgeted under his gaze. His concern was both disconcerting and touching, and it was making her flustered. "It's—it's the oral exams next week," she said lamely, rehashing her earlier excuse. He looked unconvinced, so she added, "I saw Eliza working, and I remembered my last orals was with her. We got a good grade, but well, orals aren't exactly my forte."
"Oh," he said. "Well, fear not, m'lady, because it's mine. Talking with a time limit is something I'm getting used to." He gave her a meaningful look. "We shall slay those orals together."
She was still a little disconcerted, but couldn't help the small smile that played on her lips. He seemed to have seen it before she could catch herself, because his face split into a silly grin.
"Still in a Shakespearean mood, Sir Allen?" she said, surprising even herself with how easily she allowed the playful quip.
He did a little mock-bow. "I find I'd gladly play Shakespeare's fool to see you smile, m'lady."
There was a warm fluttering in her chest again.
This really was getting ridiculous.
She bit her lip hard and started arranging the test tubes according to her hypothesis of the results for the Benedict's Test. She cleared her throat twice and avoided his gaze. "Okay, I'm done setting up. So… Shall we start?"
"Have you ever acted in a play before?"
Barry looked up from his notebook, puzzled. "What? Why do you ask?"
Caitlin bit her lip. After nearly humiliating herself again in front of Barry Allen for the second time that day, she'd decided it was best to redeem herself by initiating a normal conversation with him. She'd decided to take her mother's advice to be more open and just ask questions, but she really had no idea how to do that—that had been Barry Allen's job for the better part of their acquaintanceship—and, after discarding a couple of clearly inappropriate opening questions, she'd settled on something very loosely related to their conversation before they'd started working. She felt rather self-conscious now, not knowing how to defend her topic of choice.
"Just trying to make small talk," she mumbled, preparing the reagent for Fehling's Test. "Of course, you shouldn't feel obliged to pursue the topic if it doesn't interest you—"
He laughed. "Relax, Caitlin. You asking me something that's not related to the experiment is a little unexpected, that's all." He grinned. "I did act back in high school. Just to try it out, you know."
The tension left her shoulders, and to feign nonchalance she cross-checked her notes with the results he'd recorded down. "Any Shakespearean roles?"
"No, unfortunately. The only role I ever played in the entirety of my one-year acting career was a grumpy grape."
"A grumpy grape?"
"Yeah," he said, sheepish. "We staged it for kindergarteners, and we adapted a few parts from this show called VeggieTales. Don't ask. It was just really popular back then. So I auditioned for Larry Cucumber, but then for some reason they gave me Tom Grape instead… Hey, don't laugh!"
Caitlin couldn't help it—she was wracked with paroxysms of silent laughter. This confident, popular Barry Allen, playing the role of a grape for a kindergartener's play?
"Oh, that's not all. I was a singing grumpy grape. I'm not kidding, I had to put on this huge green Styrofoam ball, and I had to sing and dance while wearing it. It was a real struggle. I had to practice it so many times I still know the lines." He then put on an exaggerated cranky expression, and in a phlegmy, old-man's voice, began singing, "'We are the grapes of wrath, we'll never take a bath! It's our style to seldom smile and never laugh…'"
Caitlin clapped a hand over her mouth to contain her laughter. It was so utterly ridiculous, but somehow not unimaginable—she could see him doing it for the delight of five-year-olds, and she really, really shouldn't be as endeared at the thought than she currently was, because her "Most Endearing Qualities in Human Beings" was growing at such alarming pace she couldn't even remember it all anymore.
"There…" she gasped, trying to catch her breath, "there has to be photographic evidence of that."
"My mom took a video, but I'm taking it with me to my grave," he said solemnly. "Or, should I say, to my grapeyard."
She snorted, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes to dispel the sheen of unshed tears—had she really laughed so hard?—and, when she opened them again, she found him looking at her with a small smile, one that was distinctly different from his usual grin.
She drew back self-consciously. "Is there something on my face?"
He quickly looked away. "No—no, your face is fine. It's more than fine, really." He coughed. "I mean. It's just. I haven't seen you laugh like that. It's… it's, you know… Nice. It's really nice."
There was that strange fluttering in her chest again. Bleeding hell, if she thought that overthinking her crush on him was pure agony, this was even more painful. She felt like she would explode from sheer giddiness, and it scared her.
She began rearranging his set-up again according to her hypothesis of the results, and for once, there was an uncomfortable silence between them. She could feel his eyes on her, and it took her awhile to notice that the slight rattling of the test tubes she was holding was due to her trembling hands.
Caitlin didn't exactly attempt conversation again after that, and Barry Allen seemed more subdued by the time the fourth part of the experiment rolled around.
After a few more quiet moments, he spoke up. "Hey, is there something wrong with my set-up?"
Caitlin blinked, caught completely off-guard by the question. "What…?"
"You've kind of been redoing everything that I've done," he said, gesturing at how she'd just rearranged the test tubes. "You re-rinse all the materials I've rinsed, and you double-check all the results I've written down." He looked a little uncomfortable. "Look, if I'm doing something wrong—"
"No," she said quickly. "There's nothing wrong with your work. It's just second nature to me to double-check everything. I honestly can't help it. Just now I've just been rearranging them according to—"
"The results," he supplied. "I figured that out after the Benedict's Test. You put all possible carbohydrates together, and then proteins, and then lipids. And then within each macromolecule group, you arrange them from most likely to least likely to produce positive results."
"Precisely," she said, a little impressed. "And since Barfoed's Test is for monosaccharides, I grouped the orange juice, soda, and milk together."
He looked hesitant. "Why milk, though?"
"Milk contains lactose, which is made up of the monosaccharides glucose and galactose. I'm just curious to see if it's possible that there are traces of glucose or galactose, or if either of them are used instead of lactose," she explained. "Of course, it's all speculation at this point."
When she glanced up again at him, he was double-checking his notes, and seemed like he wanted to say something. But, instead, he closed his notebook and shrugged. "Okay. If you say so."
Caitlin gave him a dubious look and nodded, but she couldn't bring herself to begin the experiment. Something in his tone didn't sit right with her—it was the same tone that her blockmates, other than Hartley, used on her when they had an opinion but deferred to hers. And, it was the same tone Barry Allen had adopted when she'd asked him about his favourite dead scientist.
In the case of the former, she usually didn't mind when other people deferred to her opinion. Lab experiments had to be finished within the period, and contrary to what the word 'experiment' connoted, they didn't actually get to experiment with the process or redo a botched try, so Caitlin always did her research beforehand to make sure there were as little mistakes as possible in the actual conduct. Everyone else just trusted her research and her method of performing the experiment.
But in this case, it didn't sit well with her that Barry Allen would defer to her so easily. She remembered Jax's words about her being intimidating, and Hartley's words to her just this morning about making her lab partners feel like shit—excepting Hartley himself—and she felt guilt stirring in her gut.
She took a deep breath.
"You don't have to agree with me all the time," she said tentatively, watching his expression. "I heard you just shifted into a science course, so you're probably just starting to take the bulk of the core science subjects, but you shouldn't feel… less qualified than other science majors for it."
She shifted in her seat at his look of surprise. He ran a hand through his hair and let it settle on the back of his neck before shoving it in his pocket. "So you heard I shifted," he said, smiling slightly. "Have you been spying on me, Caitlin?"
"No," she spluttered. "I just—I just happened on that piece of very common knowledge—"
"—while spying on me?"
"—while I was at your meet," she finished. "Your life isn't enticing enough to be spied on."
"Oh, really now," he said, grinning. "And what would make it enticing for you?"
She fidgeted with the test tubes. "Milk," she said, "is a rather enticing topic."
His grin melted into amusement, and he stared at her for what seemed like a fraction of a second longer than was normal—not that Caitlin ever timed anyone staring to be able to obtain the average staring time, it was simply a feeling—before opening his notebook again and glancing at his notes.
"Well, it's just that lactose is chemically bonded glucose and galactose," he began. He glanced up at her, as if for affirmation, and she nodded for him to go on. "And it's not like lactose is synthesised in the laboratory, so I think it's unlikely that there'd be trace amounts of glucose and galactose."
"Unless it's Lactaid milk," she argued. "Glucose is one of the substitutes for lactose in lactose-free milk."
He scoffed. "Come on, what's the probability that Dr. Wells would use Lactaid milk for an experiment? I don't think the grocery near here sells it, and I'm there every Sunday."
"Well, maybe he got it from another grocery," Caitlin said. "Maybe he's lactose-intolerant and keeps a few cartons of Lactaid milk around."
"We should just ask Dr. Wells if he's lactose-intolerant, then."
Caitlin bristled. "Never mind, that's besides the point. I'm just saying that I prefer to take all possibilities into account, even the most improbable ones."
Barry looked thoughtful for a moment, before he leaned on his elbows and grinned. "I know, let's make a deal. If I'm right and there aren't any monosaccharides in milk, you have to go my meet this Thursday."
She raised a brow. It really was unlikely that it was Lactaid milk, but Caitlin couldn't resist a challenge. "And if I'm right?"
He wagged his eyebrows. "You get to have your way with me."
She gave him a withering look. "If I'm right, your talking time limit is reduced to seven minutes."
"Aw, really?" he pouted. "Well, I can always talk faster, anyway. So, do we have a deal?"
"Fine."
They shook on it, and they bickered for awhile on who would perform the experiment, but Barry was a lot quicker and his limbs were longer, so he reached the dropper before she could. His expression turned serious as he mixed the reagent in with the milk, and they both waited with bated breath for the prescribed one minute to allow the reaction to take place.
"Get ready to admit defeat, Caitlin," he teased, when his watch beeped to indicate that time was up.
"Not likely, Barry," she shot back.
He swirled the liquid in the test tube and glanced at the bottom to check for a red precipitate. When the liquid remained a milky blue—indicating the absence of a reaction, and therefore the absence of monosaccharides—Barry let out a loud "YES!" and pumped his fist in the air, much to the confusion of the rest of the class, and much to her own embarrassment.
But she couldn't help smiling with him, either.
She didn't bother double-checking the results after that.
After class, Barry had quickly gathered his things—lunch with his new block, he said—but not before reminding Caitlin at least three times to attend his meet that Thursday. When she assured him that she would show up, he gave her a beatific smile and took off.
She wanted to privately overthink the events that transpired that morning, but apparently that was too much to ask for, because once she exited the lab, Hartley fell in step with her. What was up with him?
"So," he said, hands shoved into his pockets, "I was gone for one lab session, and suddenly you get yourself a boyfriend?"
"You're gone for one lab session, and suddenly you're interested in my life?" she said snidely. "Shove off, Hartley."
He shrugged, undeterred. "I wasn't even aware that you had a life. I'm sticking around to witness it while it lasts."
"There's nothing to witness. We're just lab partners."
"Oh, please. Spare me the denial." He rolled his eyes. "There's a betting pool, you know. Around 90% are betting that you'd turn him down."
Caitlin was a little taken aback at that. She, turn Barry Allen down? "What—who's the 10%?"
"Myself, of course. And it looks like I'll be collecting my winnings at the end of the month. Anyone with eyes can see that you're disgustingly smitten with him, God knows why."
"Well, 90% of the block doesn't seem to think so." She tried to hide how pleased she was that so far, everyone else seemed to think that she was more aloof than she really was. Hartley was a different matter altogether, though, and she didn't think she was ever going to convince him otherwise. "And since when did you join block betting pools?"
"I was bored," he said. "And no one wanted to bet against the odds. They all think he's flirting with you and you're rebuffing him spectacularly like the ice queen you are. I decided to bet on you liking him, just because I enjoy beating the odds… Haven't you been to the foyer lately?"
The foyer was the place in the science complex where her blockmates hung out. Occasionally, other science majors dropped by, which was how Cisco knew her blockmates.
"Not really," she hedged. In fact, she hadn't been there at all, since she'd been a little preoccupied with her Barry Allen predicament.
"Busy going out on dates?"
"Hardly." She glared at him. "You know, Hartley, this isn't any of your business."
"Actually, it literally is, since I've invested $5 in you and I'm looking to gain $50 more." He adjusted the strap of his bag. "I'm intrigued, though. How does it feel like to be afflicted by such a banal, plebeian emotion?"
"I'm not afflicted by anything," Caitlin snapped, yanking the door before her more forcefully than she should have, "except, oh, I don't know, your presence…"
She paused at the exit when she heard someone calling her name, and both she and Hartley turned around to see Cisco jogging up to them, struggling with his bulky backpack and a plastic bag full of rolled-up A1 graphing paper. He was beaming so widely that, even without knowing why, Caitlin found herself smiling, as well.
"Guess WHAT!" he said, while still a few meters away from her, "Professor Stein wants me to display blueprints of my cryonic gun in the Science and Tech Exhibit this Friday! I mean, it's not yet done and I'm not even sure if I'll finish it on time—Hartley?" Cisco's exuberance quickly dissipated into hostility. "What're you doing with him?"
"My sentiment, exactly," Caitlin said, and the same time that Hartley sneered, "A cryonic gun?" He moved to take one of the A1 rolls, but Cisco jerked it out of his reach with an indignant "Hey!".
Hartley contented himself with glaring at them from afar. "What're you using as a basis, a toy gun? You won't even know how to calculate the ballistic coefficient of ice—"
"Shut up," Cisco said tersely. "I've done all the calculations and I'm sure that it's theoretically possible to make one."
"Keyword being theoretically," Hartley scoffed, and then he began to build a case on why realistically speaking, it wasn't possible to make a cryonic gun. Hartley had always been unpleasant, but he wasn't as intolerable as he was when he'd happen on one of Cisco's pet projects.
Caitlin watched as Cisco's expression became more and more defensive, and, finally unable to take Cisco's increasing reticence, she told Hartley, "You're not even going to be in the exhibit, so shove off."
Cisco hastily added, "Yeah, no professor's going to endorse you because none of them like you."
Hartley flinched. Caitlin seemed to have caught—was that hurt?—in his expression, but he composed himself quickly. "Well, at least I don't kiss their asses," he retorted, before turning away. "This is pointless. I'm leaving."
"Yeah, finally!" Cisco called out. "Go be evil somewhere else!"
Caitlin watched Hartley's retreating figure, noting, with increasing disbelief, the miserable slump of his shoulders. She gave Cisco's distraught features a long, measured look, and as her friend discreetly checked one of his designs while muttering something about ballistic coefficients, a rather strange thought made its way to her mind.
Could it be possible that what she'd always taken as excessive hostility on Hartley's part towards Cisco was actually barely disguised longing?
The thought disconcerted her first of all because she would have never guessed it, as Hartley having feelings for someone other than himself was a difficult enough concept to wrap one's mind around—let alone have romantic feelings for Cisco, whom he'd tormented since meeting him two years ago.
But the thought also disconcerted her because she now had an inkling on how Hartley was easily able to tell that she liked Barry Allen: He'd made a parallel between his hostility to Cisco and her sarcasm to Barry, and somehow concluded that they were both—to use Freudian terminology—reaction formations. She herself was only able to pick up on this because (and this made her very uncomfortable) she could recognise some of herself in Hartley.
And the fact that he, and no one else from her block, had picked up on her true feelings could only mean that by all appearances, she really looked like she was constantly rebuffing him—and if every other outsider thought that, she had to wonder if Barry himself also thought that. And she also had to wonder why she didn't want him to think that.
She groaned. She'd started this day intent on hiding her feelings—not that she'd been too successful at it, but still—and now, halfway through the day, she was suddenly considering that maybe she shouldn't hide them so well…
She just didn't understand herself anymore.
She sighed and motioned to Cisco that they should probably get going. She helped him with a few of the A1 rolls that threatened to spill from the straining plastic bag, and as she did, she vaguely wondered if Jax was free. Maybe she should take up his offer on those "seduction" lessons…