Reciprocal Altruism || Snowbarry College AU

Practice Makes Bestest II

Luckily, she didn't have to wait long at all.

"Guess what?" Barry asked her, his grin stretching widely.

She put a finger on her chin and squinted. "You have an identical twin you never knew about?"

"No."

"A clone?"

"No."

"An evil clone?"

"Caitlin!" Barry protested, growing impatient at her wild theories.

"Alright, alright." Caitlin laughed. "I give up. What is it?"

"Iris asked me out on a date!"

"She did what?" He had to be pulling her leg. It was way too soon!

"Well," Barry scrunched up his nose and admitted, albeit reluctantly, "She asked me... we... uh, us," Barry gestured to himself and Caitlin, "out on a double date. With Eddie as, uh, as her date and you as mine... but still! It's something, right? A double date is still a date!"

"Oh," Caitlin said, and then she realized that her reaction wasn't up to par and tried to put a smile on her face. "That's great, Barry," she forced out. She closed her book and cleared her throat. "I mean," Caitlin lightly punched Barry's shoulder, "Congrats, champ. We're finally getting somewhere with this whole fake dating thing. Thank goodness."

Barry didn't seem to notice her subpar acting and agreed whole-heartedly. "I know! This is the perfect opportunity to show off that I am, in fact, the perfect boyfriend. We have to go all out and be the most perfect couple ever and have the world's most perfect double-date."

"If you say the word 'perfect' one more time, I'm going to throw my book at you." She closed her book and waved it in the air to prove her point.

"Okay, fine. I'll stop." Barry paused for a second before his excitement took over again and he blurted out, "But we have to practice for this so we can actually be the per— uh, bestest couple ever."

Caitlin raised an eyebrow. "Bestest?"

"You want me to say it?" Barry threatened. "Cause I'll say it... peerrrrrrfee—"

Caitlin used her hand to cover up Barry's mouth and stop him from speaking. "Don't say 'perfect', but bestest isn't even a word!" She sighed. "You know what? I'll let it go cause you're nervous about the double date, but we'll be fine, Barry. We'll just be our normal happy-go-lucky selves and have a good time."

"Mmph," Barry responded, his mouth still covered by Caitlin's hand.

"Anyway, I think that if we just— Oh my God! Did you really just lick me?" Caitlin screeched. She pulled her hand away from Barry's mouth and began rubbing the saliva covered hand on the licker's shirt. "What the hell, Barry!"

Barry had a grin on his face as he watched her freak-out. "You covered my mouth, what was I supposed to do?"

"Not lick me!"

Barry shrugged, moving on from the topic completely. "Anyway, if we're going to impress tonight, we have to practice. We can't just wing it and bomb."

Caitlin looked up from rubbing her hand on Barry's clothing. "Wait a minute. Did you say tonight? As in this night? As in a couple of hours?"

Slowly and dramatically, Barry placed his hands on either side of her shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. He shook her lightly, back and forth, and nodded a conformation. "Yes. Tonight. This night. A couple of hours. Which is why we need to practice."

"But why so soon?"

"Well, according to Iris, it's better to have it on a Friday night so we wouldn't have any classes to worry about and it's right after a major test so we wouldn't have a pop quiz or a lot of homework to stress over. It's the perfect time for studious people like us to have fun," he explained and then sighed. "Wow, she knows me so well."

She reluctantly agreed, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at Barry's dreamy, love-sick expression. "Okay, I guess you're right. But I wish we knew about this sooner so we could have had time to learn to act like a better, or as you would call it, bestest fake couple."

The two of them stood up from the bench and began walking on the path towards their respective homes.