━━━━━━━★☾★☾★☾━━━━━━━
EVELYN STUFFED HER HANDS DEEPER INSIDE THE POCKETS OF HER COAT. The cold night air had finally caught up with her the moment she found the karaoke bar Barry had invited her to. He told her he was there investigating a new meta they called peek-a-boo. She was so close to turning down his offer since she's been feeling down lately, but she could tell by his tone of voice that he needed this more than ever.
"Evelyn!" Barry called out to her the moment he spotted her. She found him waving his hands around by the bar.
"Hey, you okay?" Evelyn asked Barry when she noticed how gloomy he was. She took a seat beside him, and he let out a sigh.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Barry lied straight through his teeth, but Evelyn knew better. "Nothing I can't handle." He added with a smile, and she didn't push him to tell her what was really going on. Although he didn't have too, she knew what the problem was. She knew it revolved around Iris and her relationship with Eddie. It bothered him now more than ever since they took the next step in their relationship by moving in together.
"Uh, Caitlin said she was coming, but I don't know where she is." Barry told her slowly while he searched the crowd.
"How about..." Evelyn trailed off tired of feeling down. "We get some drinks?" She asked him while wiggling her eyebrows. Barry laughed loudly but soon enough agreed. After a brief moment at the bar, they took their drinks and found a table. Together they sat watching a man sing very energetically.
Evelyn's sight drifted toward the side of the stage where the doors were. A smile etched its way on her lips as she spotted Caitlin dressed in a sparkly black dress. Her hair was styled similar to Evelyn's where it was straight but curled at the end. Evelyn elbowed Barry's side.
"Hey." Caitlin said nervously as she met them by the table.
"Hey, Caitlin." Evelyn beamed while Barry just stared at her. His mouth was ajar.
"What?" Caitlin then said a little panicked. Her confidence was slowly crashing down the longer Barry didn't say a thing. She had started to feel ridiculous.
"What? Nothing. You look really nice." Barry told her honestly, and Caitlin smiled proudly.
"You look beautiful." Evelyn gushed.
"I don't always dress like a high school principal." Caitlin joked as she took a seat beside Barry.
"So, this is where Shawna Baez and Clay Parker used to hang out?" Barry said.
"It is according to the files. I thought we could kill two birds with one stone. Look for them and get ourselves back out there." Caitlin said optimistically. Evelyn chocked on her drink. If she would've known that the night was gonna turn into the pressure of trying to have a love life, she would've passed on Barry's offer.
"I keep making the same mistakes." Barry sighed suddenly. "Every time Iris falls I race to pick her up thinking that one of these times things are gonna change, but things are never gonna change. I am just destined to be just a friend."
"At least you're not pining for someone who bursts into flames, and wants nothing to do with you." Caitlin said with a sad smile.
"What's wrong with us?" Barry said with a laugh. "I mean, we're in our twenties. We should be having fun. We should meet people, go on lots of dates." Barry smacked Evelyn's arm who currently chugged down a glass due to the stress of their choice of conversation topics.
"Well, here's to liquid courage." Caitlin said as she held up her glass. Evelyn held up her new glass that Barry was trying to figure out where she had got it from. Little did he knew, it was his.
"Hear! Hear!" Evelyn said. Barry watched wide eyed as his two friends downed their glasses.
"Uh, that's very fast." Barry said worriedly as he leaned forward staring at the two women mildly impressed, but moreover nervous that they're up for more than what they may be able to handle. "Drank all of it."
Caitlin does nothing to ease his poor mind. "Excuse me?" Caitlin called over the blonde waitress. "I would like to start a tab."
"Make that two!" Evelyn said while giving the lady a thumbs up.
"Okay." Barry sighed. He knew his was in for a night.
━━━━━━━★☾★☾★☾━━━━━━━
"Excuse me, could I get some water?" Barry asked the bartender from their new spot at the bar. Evelyn and Caitlin made it their new home after three drinks. He was desperate to clean out his friends systems. Evelyn sat on the stool beside him playing with her hair. She found the way it would fall perfectly into place right after she untwisted the strand from her fingers far more interesting than it really was.
"Yo? Excuse me? For real?" Barry said annoyed with the man who was ignoring his presence.
"Mr. Barry Allen!" Caitlin's voice boomed from the mic at the front of the bar. Barry turned around to find her on stage. The lights shined down on her making her stand out from the many. Barry was stunned. He had only turned around for a second, and she had managed to slip passed him and toward the stage.
"Oh, that's you!" Evelyn said excitedly as she pointed at him.
"Come on down! Or up? Come up here with me! Oh, come show em' what you got! Come on!" Caitlin said, and he shook his head. He in no way wanted to go up there. He also couldn't leave a drunk Evelyn at the bar. Who knew what she'd do. After all, once he tried to get some water for them, Caitlin snuck away and decided she wanted to do karaoke.
"Go on, Barry!" Evelyn said as she went to push his shoulder but missed completely. She stumbled forward, and Barry had to gently push her back on the stool. "It could be like high school musical." She suddenly gripped his forearm. "You could find your soulmate." Her voiced gushed in a slight whisper
"Yeah, sure. Whatever you say." Barry mumbled. His cheeks flushed when Caitlin thought it was a good idea to have the whole bar chant his name. But it ended up working in her favor because soon enough Barry was at her side.
"Ooh look at him go! He's so fast! Shhh!" Caitlin said.
"He got there in a flash." Evelyn told the bartender as she giggled. The man gave her an awkward smile before he shrugged her off completely and walked away to deal with another customer.
"Oh my god, I love this song." Evelyn whispered to herself as the beat to 'Summer Nights' from Grease played.
"Summer lovin', had me a blast! Summer lovin', happened so fast!" Caitlin sung off key due to her drunken state, but Evelyn still cheered for her friend. Barry tried his best to contain his laughter, but the duo continued strong.
The pair were met with a clapping Evelyn as they got off the stage. Barry laughed to himself the minute she went back to sipping her drink. "You're fast and you can sing. What can't you do?" Caitlin said as she picked up a drink from the counter.
"Stop you from drinking apparently." Barry said with a lopsided smile as he sat down.
"I'm not even sure that one was mine." Caitlin said. She abruptly stood up straight with a serious facial expression. "I have to go to the bathroom." She announced to the group.
"Okay." Barry said nervously, and Caitlin disappeared to the bathroom.
"I think I'm gonna go?" Evelyn told Barry. Although, it came out as a question rather than a statement.
"Uh, Okay lets wait for Caitlin to get back and I'll take you." Barry said as he took his wallet out to pay for the drinks.
"No, I- it's okaaaayyy." She dragged as she slowly stood to her feet to avoid falling over. Barry quickly rose and got ready to catch her just incase. "I'll take a cab."
"No, absolutely not." Barry replied strongly. "I'm not gonna let you take a cab home by yourself especially in your state." Evelyn opened her mouth to protest, but wasn't gonna back down. "I'll take you home as soon as Caitlin's done."
"I'll be fine." Evelyn insisted, and before Barry could counter Caitlin stumbled out of the bathroom nearly falling into a nearby couple. Barry quickly rushed to her side to help get her to the bar, and Evelyn took this as her opportunity to bolt.
━━━━━━━★☾★☾★☾━━━━━━━
After a few minutes of knocking on the door, (well more like banging because to her in this state they were the same thing), she had begun to wonder why she even came here in the first place. The longer she thought about it, the eager she was to get out of there. She hurriedly searched her bag for her phone to call another cab, but unlike Barry she wasn't fast enough.
"Evelyn?" Leonard answered the door. He was confused to find Evelyn on the other end of it especially at two in the morning.
"Oh my god, Leo! Fancy meeting you here!" Evelyn beamed, and Leonard could smell the alcohol on her breath from a mile away.
Leonard sighed. His eyes fluttered shut briefly. "How much did you have to drink?"
"A little bit." She said as she showed him with the end of her pointer finger and her thumb. He gave her a look and she rolled her eyes with a smile. "Okay, a lot. But it was a lot of fun."
"I bet." Leonard said with a smirk as he leaned against the doorframe.
"Get Mick. He can vouch for me on how much fun drinking is. If you don't believe me that is." Leonard tried to tell her that he believed her, when she cut him off Excitedly. "Hey! Blue and black are your colors dude. You look so hot in those colors, but especially black. But I think everybody looks good in black, so I don't know if that counts."
Leonard chuckled to himself. She was gonna being feeling this in the morning. "Okay, lets go." He told her as he gently grabbed a hold of her hand and brought her inside with him. There was no way he was gonna let her go home alone in that state. He knew of all the scum that lurked the streets of Central City at this hour.
"Hey! Where are you taking me?" She asked him suspiciously as he closed and locked the front door.
"To sit down because when all the drinks catch up with you, and they will, you'll need at least a couch to cushion your fall." Leonard told her with a smirk. He found this all too amusing.
"Awe Leo, you're such a gentleman." She said as he pulled her down on the couch with him.
"Yeah, something I didn't learn from my dad." He said as he watched her try and get comfortable on the couch. She took off her heels and threw them across the room for no reason at all.
"Yeah, you didn't get your good looks from him either." She said with a giggle, and Leonard fought to withhold his laughter.
"I'll be right back." Leonard told her. He thought it would be best for her to drink some water. He was halfway off the couch when Evelyn's hand latched onto his arm. He peered over at her from over his shoulder to see her nervous face. "You okay?"
"Don't go." She breathed. Her eyes were watery. He sat back down and studied her with worried eyes. He was confused as to what just happened in the last five seconds.
"Hey, what's wrong?" He whispered as she began to cry silently.
"Why did you leave?" She asked him out of the blue, and he was clueless as to what she was talking about. "Why did you leave me behind?"
"You know how I felt about being abandoned. I never expected you of all people to abandoned me. I thought you were different." She sobbed into her hands. Leonard connected the dots and soon realized that she was talking about the night of the jewelry store heist from years ago. The night their partnership ended the moment he left her to take the fall for the crime they committed.
She looked up at him with glassy eyes. Tears flowed down her cheeks. "Maybe things between us could've been different." She slowly put a hand on his chest. His eyes trailed down to her hand before meeting hers again. "What did I do?"
"You did nothing. It was all me." He mumbled. His sight fell to her lips, but he pushed away the thought that always crossed his mind whenever she was around—whenever he thought of her. His hand caressed her cheeks before wiping away her tears. "You should get some sleep."
She nodded her head hesitantly. "Will you stay with me for a little while? Just till I fall asleep?" She asked him timidly. "I don't really feel like being alone right now."
And Leonard didn't say a word. He simply pulled her into his chest. A few moments later, she was out cold leaving him alone with his guilt for company.
A/N:
I felt like this was trash ugh.
Bye.