Reciprocal Altruism || Snowbarry College AU

Practice Makes Bestest III

"That's what I'm saying. We should practice! We need to plan our romanticness so we're the perf— bestest couple. But also, I need to be romantic towards Iris too, so we need to work on how we impress her."

Barry was so immersed in his planning and excitement, he didn't notice that Caitlin was walking slower behind him kicking a tiny pebble along the path. He stopped and turned to look at her. "You want to come over to my place to practice?"

"Huh?" Caitlin looked up at him as her pebble flew off off-course and headed towards the grass.

"I know it's against the rules," Barry started, "but you've already been over to my place once and I'm sure you don't want us to practice being a couple in public. We can just think of this as a tutoring moment, but instead of bio-mechanics, it's all about love. After all, I am your unofficially official life-coach/tutor/therapist. This will just be the life coach part."

"What makes you think that you would be the one teaching me to flirt and be a good significant other?" Caitlin asked. "Out of the two of us, I'm the one who's actually been in a committed long-term relationship." Sure it was with Ronnie, and sure it ended up being a complete disaster, but it still happened!

"I've dated before," Barry protested.

"Right, and you definitely didn't date them for Iris." At Barry's silence she said, "It must have sucked to date the Barry Allen. I mean, you had this reputation of being the hottest boy on campus. The most athletic and most intelligent and then when they finally got to date you, it's just a pining love-sick sap who doesn't really care about them and is just using them to impress another girl." She grinned and playfully nudged him, trying to make it look like a joke. "At least you're honest with me."

Her words were scathing, but she hoped her tone mellowed out her accusations.

"Linda was part of Iris's group," Barry said in an attempt to defend himself. "Iris forced me to go out with her. It wasn't like I manipulated her into dating me and- and I wasn't just using her to get Iris to like me—"

"No, that's just me, right?" Caitlin cut in. Her smile seemed harder and harder to hold.

"Linda and I had some pretty good times together," Barry continued, not really reading into Caitlin's little snipe.

"Then why did the two of you break up?" she asked.

Barry tossed his head back and scrunched his eyes together in thought. "I don't know. We went on a couple of dates that Iris had helped set up for us, but after the first one, it all seemed pretty boring and it all just felt the same. Like our study sessions—"

"Our study sessions are boring?" Caitlin cut in, pursing her lips. Not like she cared. Study sessions were for learning. Not for having fun. She did not care.

"No! The opposite, in fact!" Barry corrected, and Caitlin released a huff of breath in relief (again, not that she cared or anything). "I feel like every time we meet up, it's fun and we have something new to talk about. Like solipsism or the newest Doctor Who episode or anything. After the first date with Linda, it was like we ran out of things to talk about and we just didn't have anything in common."

"Hmm," was Caitlin's one-note response.

"Plus, she was just like Iris; it was creepy."

"She acted like Iris? To impress you?"

"Well, no. It's just that her and Iris's personalities are pretty similar, so it was kinda weird."

"So you dated someone who was like Iris?"

"Yes."

"And you didn't like it."

"...yes?" This time, Barry had a hesitant tone in his voice, like he knew where Caitlin was headed and he didn't want her to reach it.

And then she reached it. "So what makes you think that when you actually date Iris it would be any different?"

"Cause it will be different!" Barry protested.

"You're impossible, Barry."

Not having a good enough argument or response, Barry decided to change the subject back to what they were initially talking about in the first place. "So my house so we can tutor each other on the act of being a good fignificant fother?"

Caitlin scrunched her nose up at the end of his sentence thinking Barry just had a unique lisp she never realized. "Fine," Caitlin agreed. They would be breaking Rule 13, but screw it, they had broken so many rules so far they might as well just burn the book. No... no, she couldn't do that. But just this rule... and just this once. Even though that was what she had said the last time she ended up in Barry's dorm... Shaking her head, Caitlin tried to banish any conflicting thoughts from her head as the two of them trekked on.