neighbors | barry allen//the flash

twenty three | monopoly

Barry had spent hours cleaning his apartment, which really said a lot, because he could clean, well, do anything, really fast. But he kept going over things, dusting his bookshelf again for the eighth time, wiping his bathroom mirror again and again, triple and quadruple checking under his bed and the couch to make sure he didn't have any two month old pizza boxes sitting around smelling up the room. Everything had to look perfect.

Suddenly, Barry stopped, and a wave of laughter hit him. He was being absolutely ridiculous. Clara had seen his apartment before. What if she noticed it was unusually clean? Would she think he was trying to impress her? Did he want her to notice he was trying to impress her? Maybe he should mess a few things up and make it seem a little more casual. Barry froze as he heard a knock at the door. Without another thought, he messed up the perfectly folded blanket on his couch and opened the door to find Cisco and Caitlin.

"Hey guys!" Barry greeted his friends.

"I brought chips!" Cisco declared, holding up a bag full of a variety of bags of chips.

"I have a fruit tray," Caitlin announced, and was about to say something else but Cisco interrupted.

"Of course the doctor brought fruit," Cisco rolled his eyes but was wearing a goofy grin.

"I also brought buffalo chicken dip," Caitlin defended herself.

"And that is why you are my favorite doctor," Cisco quickly grabbed the bag from Caitlin's hand that obviously had the crockpot of delicious dip. Caitlin sighed, but smiled as she set her fruit tray on the counter and took the lid off. Cisco was already digging out from his stash to pair with Caitlin's dip.

"Your place looks..." Caitlin paused, for a second, trying to find the right word. She finally settled on saying "Neat."

"Yeah, well," Barry shrugged.

"That's because-" Cisco tried to talk as Barry started closing his apartment door, but they were both interrupted by a yelp from outside. Barry quickly opened the door to discover Clara standing in the doorway rubbing her nose.

"I... I just closed the door in your face," Barry stuttered.

"If you didn't want me to come, you could have told me," Clara laughed. "But I brought more chocolate chip cookies."

"I want her here!" Cisco chimed in. Clara beamed.

"Clara, are you okay?" Barry blurted and he could feel the heat rising in his cheeks. "I'm so sorry, I don't know what I was thinking, I just didn't see you and I started closing the-"

"Its fine, Barry," Clara gave Barry a reassuring grin. "I probably should have announced my presence instead of trying to just slip in."

"Can I have a cookie?" Cisco called from the couch in the small living area.

"Yeah!" Clara raised her voice in reply.

"Sorry, come on in, have a seat," Barry gestured to the chair and couch circled around a coffee table with boxes of games. Cisco was already lounging on the couch, and Caitlin had sat down in an old, velvety grey reclining chair that had been pulled out of the corner to be closer to the games.

"Thanks," Clara bit her lip as she made her way over and sat on the empty side of the couch. She pulled the Tupperware container of cookies from the bag she was carrying and held it out to Cisco. "Here ya go," She beamed.

"Yes!" Cisco fist pumped in victory before grabbing a handful of the cookies.

"I didn't bring that many because I just made some for Barry and I was kinda running low on sugar," Clara frowned, quickly realizing Cisco might devour the entire container in a few minutes.