Warning: Awkward scene in sex ed class

The Day from Hell

Barry rushed through the high school, nearly tripping several times as he maneuvered his way through the twisting hallways, heading for the chemistry wing. When he made it to his destination, he closed the door with a snap and spun around.

"Who are all the students you know who take Vertigo?" he demanded, breathing heavily.

Detective Abbot looked up from his papers, an irritated expression on his face.

"What?"

"Who are all the students you know who take Vertigo?" Barry repeated frantically.

"I already told you," Abbot huffed, "Forrest Jacobson, Justin Baker, Michael Walters, Travis Evans, Natalie Fischer, Harvey Olsen, Tracy Novak—"

"And she's friends with Santana Lopez, right?" Barry pressed.

Abbot nodded.

"Another known vertigo user," he confirmed.

Barry huffed out a heavy breath.

"You really are an idiot, aren't you?" he fumed.

Detective Abbot raised his eyebrows.

"Excuse me?"

"No," Barry gritted, "I don't think I will excuse you. Kids have been dying because you've been missing what's been right in front of you this entire time."

"What are you talking about?" Abbot demanded impatiently.

"You've been here for over a year," Barry fumed, "And you seriously never noticed that every kid in this school who takes vertigo is either in glee or has friends who are in glee?"

Detective Abbot's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"I don't exactly keep up with petty student affairs," he huffed, rolling his eyes.

"That's your job!" Barry nearly shouted, "What the hell are you even doing here if you don't even pay attention to student relations?!"

The older detective crossed his arms.

"We're not looking for users, Allen," Abbot said, "We're looking for suppliers, for the people who are distributing—"

"And we find the suppliers through the users!" Barry persisted, throwing his hands in the air, "The students, they're our focus. But I guess keeping up with 'petty student relations' is beneath a man of your stature. If you had just gotten over your own arrogance and done your job, you could have solved this case a long time ago!"

"And who are you to tell me how to do my job?" Abbot gritted indignantly, "I've been a detective for fourteen years, Allen. What the hell do you know about operating undercover? You're just a nerdy lab rat with a young face. That's the only reason you're even here: your face. I don't know who you think you are, telling me how to—"

"Noah Piers is dead," Barry gritted, his hands curling into fists.

Abbot blinked at him.

"What?"

"He was found dead in his room this morning," Barry choked, "Vertigo overdose."

Barry turned away from him then, bracing a hand on the whiteboard as he took a deep breath to calm himself.

"I didn't even know he was using," Abbot said in shock.

Barry sucked in another deep breath and shook his head, still facing the whiteboard.

"Neither did I," he said quietly, the anger sapping out of him, "Noah wasn't on my radar. I had no clue."

He turned around then, looking at Abbot with tears in his eyes.

"But I think I know where he got it."

Abbot's eyebrows furrowed at him.

"Glee?"

Barry nodded darkly.

"It's all connected," he said, grabbing a marker.

He started writing on the whiteboard.

"Noah was in glee," he said, frantically writing down names, "Todd Swenson, the kid who overdosed over winter break, was the lead soloist for the club. Forrest Jacobson and Michael Walters are friends with Justin Baker and Natalie Grey, who both are in glee. Harvey Olsen is dating Tiffany Yanish, who's in the club. She doesn't use, but he does and could be getting it from her. Santana Lopez and her friends—"

"Okay, I get it," Abbot said, waving his hand impatiently.

"It all ties back to glee," Barry insisted, tapping the board, "That's where this stuff is coming from."

"Allen, half the school is taking it at this point," Abbot pointed out, "Just because a lot of them happen to be in glee, it doesn't mean—"

"I'm not saying it's only the glee kids," Barry said impatiently, "I'm just saying it's a lot of coincidences. Vertigo may have spread throughout the school by now, but glee club is where it started."

Abbot furrowed his eyebrows, frowning at the board.

"I don't know about this," he said skeptically, "Are you sure you're not just seeing what you want to see? Connecting dots that aren't really related?"

"When did vertigo first appear in this school?" Barry persisted, setting down his marker.

"Last March," Abbot answered without hesitation, "At least, somewhere around that time."

"And it originated in Starling?" Barry pressed, already knowing the answer.

Abbot nodded impatiently.

"And East Central High's glee club competed in a tournament with Starling last February," Barry said, "One month before vertigo started making an appearance in this school."

"Allen…"

"That's how it spread," Barry continued, "That's how it got from Starling to here. The glee competition."

Abbot let out a heavy sigh and rubbed his eyes.

"Okay, so let's say for a moment that you're right about this."

"I am," Barry insisted.

"Okay…" Abbot said slowly, "So now what? If we know it started in glee, how does that help us? What are we supposed to do with this information? This stuff is circulating the entire school now. There could be multiple dealers handing it out."

"But they're getting it from one supplier," Barry insisted, "Maybe two at most. We're not just looking for who's dealing it. We're looking for who's supplying it to the dealers. The primary source, that's what we're looking for here. The root of the weed."

"It'd be easier to do if we could find a dealer," Abbot pointed out, "We need to infiltrate that glee club, figure out who's spreading it and work our way up from there."

"I'm already doing it," Barry told him.

"You're in glee?" Abbot asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I am," Barry nodded, "Being in student clubs is part of my assignment."

Abbot shook his head and let out a small laugh.

"Wow," he said, "And I thought faculty meetings and grading papers was bad. Thank God I was assigned as a teacher and not a student."

Barry managed a small laugh.

"The curse of having a young face," he joked, shaking his head.

He let out a heavy sigh then, becoming serious again.

"I'll dig further into it," he assured the detective, "I've been focusing on all the wrong things when I should have been focusing on glee of all things. I'll give this my full attention now."

Abbot nodded seriously.

"Okay," he said, "Be sure to keep me updated."

"I will," Barry nodded, heading towards the door.

He paused with his hand on the handle, though, taking a deep breath before turning around to face the older man.

"And I'm sorry," he said quietly, "For blaming you for Noah's death. I only just found out about it, and I guess I was a little upset and looking for someone to blame. I shouldn't have pinned it all on you. That wasn't warranted."

Abbot nodded and to his surprise, gave him a small smile.

"It's okay, Allen," he assured him, "We're going to get to the bottom of this. No more kids are going to die on our watch."

Barry's lips twitched slightly, the smile not quite reaching his eyes.

"I'm going to make sure of it," he said firmly.

With that, he exited the classroom. As he made his way down the hallway, Barry couldn't help but think to himself that maybe he and Abbot weren't so different after all. They both cared a great deal about this case, about preventing any more kids from dying. Sure, Abbot was a dick.

But he was a dick with morals.

Barry was having a bad day. A really, really bad day.

Surprisingly, it didn't start with his first hour class, taught by his previously least-favorite teacher, Mr. Agnew. Chemistry was fine. Uneventful. Even kind of boring, considering how rudimentary the material was to him. The only thing that annoyed him that class was his lab partner, Brian, who came to class almost every day with new questions to ask him about his life as the Flash.

Do your parents know what you do? How do you keep it a secret?

Where did you get your suit? Did you make it yourself?

Is it true you know the Arrow? Are you guys friends? Do you hang out?

When on earth do you sleep?! How do you get your homework done?

Although annoying, Barry had grown used to Brian's questions. He had come to expect them, so his chemistry class wasn't much different than usual.

No, it was his second class that started out his worst day at East Central High.

"No one wants to volunteer?" Mr. Colback, the sex ed teacher, asked desperately, "It's for extra credit?"

Barry looked down at his desk, like all the other students in the room, trying to make himself look as small as possible while not making eye contact with the teacher.

"Mr. West," Mr. Colback said, causing Barry to cringe and close his eyes in anguish, "How about you? Your dad said you'd be willing to help out if I needed someone."

Barry looked up at the teacher with wide eyes, his hands curling into fists under the desk. He was going to murder Joe.

"I'm good," he tried to say, "I'd rather just observe."

"Nonsense," Mr. Colback said pleasantly, "Come on up here. Be a good sport!"

Barry shuddered internally as he let out a heavy sigh, shakily rising from his seat to slink to the front of the room. His eyes landed on the basket of condoms sitting on the table in front of him, right next to an unnecessarily large banana. Barry let out a heavy sigh. He just needed to tear off the bandaid, get this over with as quick as possible so he could return to the sanctuary of his desk.

This whole demonstration was so unnecessary. Barry couldn't help but roll his eyes as he grabbed one of the square packets from the basket and tore it open. Seriously, wasn't this all kind of self-explanatory? Who doesn't know how to put a condom on?

A few of his classmates snickered when Barry picked up the banana. He couldn't help but roll his eyes at their immaturity. Without looking anyone in the eye, Barry slid the condom onto the banana as fast as he could.

"There," he said flatly, setting the banana down.

Mr. Colback stopped him before he could return to his seat, though.

"Hang on, Mr. West," he said cheerfully, "Would you mind explaining it to the rest of the class?"

Barry sucked in an impatient breath through his nose, not hiding his irritation with the teacher, who was suddenly incapable of teaching his own class and was now relying on him to do it.

"Make sure the rolled up part is on the outside, and leave a little space at the end," Barry clipped before returning to his seat.

Mr. Colback nodded and smiled at him in appreciation.

"Well done, Mr. West," he praised.

Barry just shook his head in irritation. The rest of the class was still giggling. Barry was almost sure he had seen a few people taking pictures of his little presentation. Forrest was laughing particularly hard. Barry was so not looking forward to all the shit he was going to get for this.

His third class wasn't much better. Barry went to glee class with high hopes of figuring out who the dealer was. As it turned out, that was a lot easier said than done. He tried to mentally catalogue all the students in the class that he knew took vertigo, but he quickly realized that was over half the class! Seriously, how had he not realized that sooner?!

Glee was a lot more somber than usual, considering they had lost one of their members. Everyone seemed to be thrown off by the death of Noah Piers. The whole school was talking about it, but the members of glee club were particularly shaken by the unexpected loss. None of them really liked Noah all that much, but his absence in the class weighed heavily on all of them.

It wasn't exactly fun to sing and work out dance routines when half the class was crying.

Spanish class was a complete disaster! Barry had forgotten all about his Spanish homework, which was still sitting on the cortex desk at STAR Labs, where he had been studying with Cisco. His phone call from Singh had caused him to completely forget about it. He could have raced to STAR Labs to get it, but it wasn't even finished, and Barry didn't have time to run there and complete the homework in time for class.

Not only did he receive an incomplete for the assignment—the first one in his life—but he had also left his Spanish dictionary there and couldn't speed-read it to prepare for class. He ended up making a total idiot of himself by not knowing any of the answers when he was called on. Hell, he didn't even understand the questions.

As predicted, lunch was brutal to sit through. Forrest had, of course, told everyone of Barry's little presentation in sex ed class. They all laughed as Forrest passed around his phone, sporting a picture of a red-faced Barry holding a banana in one hand, a condom in the other. Barry may have used a little more force than necessary when he punched Forrest in the arm in retaliation, before standing up from the lunch table.

"Where are you going?" Justin asked, choking back his laughter.

"Just need to talk to Beck—Ms. Cooper about my English paper," he said in irritation.

"You sure do spend a lot of time with Ms. Cooper," Michael smirked, raising an eyebrow.

"Not really," Barry said, awkwardly wringing his hands, "I just need to ask her a question about my paper."

"Yeah, but you leave lunch early at least once a week to…'ask her questions,'" Forrest said, a mischievous grin spreading on his face, "You tapping that, Grant?"

"W-what?" Barry sputtered, his eyes going wide, "N-no. Of course not!"

"It's okay," Justin laughed, "We're not going to tell anyone. Seriously, good for you man! Ms. Cooper is smokin'!"

"I am not sleeping with Ms. Cooper," Barry said angrily, "She's my teacher!"

"Is that why you guys eye fuck each other in class every day?" Michael laughed, "Seriously, dude. You guys aren't very settle about it."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Barry said firmly, "There's nothing between me and Ms. Cooper."

"Then why are you asking her about a paper that isn't even due until the end of the semester?" Michael smirked, "We haven't even finished reading the book yet. How can you possibly be working on your paper already?"

"I like to work ahead," Barry said stiffly.

The others all laughed and shook their heads.

"Whatever you say, man," Forrest chuckled, "Have fun 'talking' with your cougar."

Barry shook his head in frustration, his hands balling into fists as he stormed away from the lunch table. He really liked his friends, but sometimes they could be real assholes.

It didn't help that he had his English class right after lunch. All throughout the class, Michael kept smirking at him, even though Barry continued to insist that there wasn't anything going on between him and Becky. As it happened, the class discussion they were having didn't help matters.

"Can anyone tell me the reason behind Charlie's anxiety surrounding his date with Alice?" Becky asked the class.

Of course it was Michael who raised his hand.

"Because she used to be his teacher," he answered, sending Barry a knowing look.

Barry shook his head and glared at Michael.

"That's partly it," Becky agreed, "A part of him still sees her as Ms. Kinnian, an authority figure in his life. However, the problem between them is much more complicated than that. It has more to do with Charlie than it does Ms. Kinnian…"

As Becky went on explaining the internal struggles of the protagonist in Flowers for Algernon, Barry was sure to keep his head down, taking careful notes in his notebook to avoid looking at her. It seemed like every time he glanced up, however, Becky was looking at him. Every time, he would quickly drop his head again, determined not to make eye contact. Now he knew what Michael had been talking about at lunch. They did tend to look at each other a lot. For the sake of Becky's career, they really needed to be more careful.

It wasn't like there was anything going on between them anyways. Sure, they flirted sometimes, and Barry was strangely happy to have Becky back in his life again, but only as a friend. He was still hopelessly in love with Iris, and there was too much bad history between him and Becky for them to ever become romantically involved again. Barry was content to just be friends with her, and he had made that quite clear. He was here to solve a case, not to flirt with his English teacher.

Anatomy and Physiology wasn't particularly horrible, compared to his other classes. They had been doing dissections all week. Many in the class didn't find the lab particularly appealing, especially since they were dissecting cats. When asked, Mr. Kurin informed the class that the cats had come from the humane society after not being adopted. While this didn't sit well with most people, Barry was just thankful to be dissecting a cat and not doing an autopsy on a murder victim. These kids had no idea just how gruesome dissections in the real world could be.

Granted, today he was a little more disturbed by the dissection lab when he discovered that the cat he had been dissecting had been pregnant. He hid this information from his clueless lab partner. She was squeamish enough, as it was. Barry had taken pity on her and done all the labs on his own so she wouldn't have to get her hands dirty. She was a cat lover, so it was the least he could do, the same as how it was the least he could do to not tell her that their cat was pregnant. Needless to say, dissecting a dead cat full of baby kittens was just the cherry on top of his shitty day.

By the time he made it to gym class, Barry was more than a little weary. He was just ready for this horrible day to be over with. They were in the middle of their swimming unit in gym class, which Barry had officially determined to be his least favorite unit. He wasn't exactly fond of swimming. It wasn't like he was bad at it or anything. He just never really cared for it, mostly because his first true experience with swimming was Joe pushing him into the deep end to teach him how to swim. To Joe's credit, it had worked. He knew how to swim just fine now. But that experience had ridden him of any fondness he had ever had for swimming, if not even slightly traumatized him.

The swimming part of the swim unit was that bad, though. Barry didn't enjoy it, but he didn't have a problem with it either. In fact, he was easily the fastest swimmer, and since his body was capable of exchanging excessive amounts of oxygen when he ran, Barry's lung capacity was practically inhuman. He could stay under the water for excessive amounts of time. As his gym teacher put it, he was practically a fish in the water. Barry still didn't care for it, though. Land was his element and where he was most comfortable. He only liked water when he was running across it, and he hoped to God he would never come up against a villain who took the fight to the water.

While he didn't enjoy swimming, that wasn't the reason Barry considered this his least favorite gym unit. No, it was the girls in the class. It was the way they giggled amongst themselves as they eyed him up in his swimming trunks. The way they whispered to each other and stared at him like he was their own personal eye candy. Barry would blush and do his best to ignore them, but it was particularly hard to do when they swam close to him, sometimes even brushing against him! Every time, Barry would recoil in a panic. They were all around sixteen. He was almost ten years older than them! That kind of thing could get him arrested if he wasn't careful.

Barry felt like he was going to be sick as he showered off in the locker room after class. Obviously, they were in a school, and everything stayed completely innocent. Still, though, there was nothing innocent about the way those girls had been goggling at him, particularly one Jackie Dombrowski, who seemed to have developed quite the infatuation with him. Barry didn't understand it. He had never even talked to the girl. He had barely said more than two words to any of them.

He didn't understand why all these high school girls found him so interesting. That certainly hadn't been the case when he was in high school, and as an adult he didn't exactly have women crawling all over him. What was with these girls?! There were plenty of other guys at this school they could bother and goggle at. Why on earth were they so interested in him?!

Barry let out a heavy sigh as he turned the water off to the shower. He had taken longer than usual, having gotten distracted by his thoughts. All the other guys had left the showers and were dressed by now. Barry moved to do the same, but he froze when he reached around the curtain for his towel, his hand sliding along an empty wall.

It wasn't hanging on the hook.

Barry pulled back the curtain and looked around, thinking it must have fallen onto the floor, where it was now sure to be soaked. There was nothing there, though.

His towel was gone!

"Um…hey guys?" Barry called, his voice echoing around the locker room, "Has anyone seen my towel?"

There was no answer. Barry was pretty sure he heard the faint echo of snickering from the other side of the locker room, though. He looked around in a panic and realized his swim trunks were gone, too. Someone had taken them.

"Guys!" Barry shouted furiously, "This isn't funny! Bring me my damn towel!"

He was so not in the mood for this shit, not after the horrible day he had had.

Forrest and Justin suddenly appeared then, standing outside of the shower, stifling back their laughter.

"You mean this towel?" Forrest jeered, holding up the towel he had taken.

"Ha. Ha," Barry said flatly, his head still poking out from behind the curtain, "Very funny, but I have a psych exam to get to before the bell rings, so cut it out and give it back now."

"Hmm," Forrest smirked, twirling the towel in his hands, "I don't know about that. I seem recall waking up with a bunch of dicks on my face last month. I think payback is in order."

Barry goggled at him.

"Are you serious?!" he sputtered, "I was high when I did that!"

"High or not," Forrest snickered, "I had to scrub my face for two hours after that. I think this evens the score."

"Forrest," Barry growled, "I know you're just pulling a prank right now, but this isn't funny. I have to get to class!"

"Go on then," Forrest said, choking back laughter, "You don't want to be late."

"Give me my towel, Forrest," Barry gritted.

Forrest looked down at the towel in his hands and then back up at Barry, a smirk on his face. The little shit.

"Nah," he said, "I think I'll keep it. It's much more fun to watch you go to psychology class naked. I wonder what Mrs. Stewart will say."

With that, Forrest and Justin walked away, laughing manically.

"Guys? Guys!" Barry shouted, "Come on! This really isn't funny!"

Barry's mouth dropped open in shock with he heard the locker room door open and close, the sound of the other boys' laughter disappearing. They weren't actually serious?! They couldn't be serious! What the hell kind of joke was this?! This was one of the worst pranks Barry had ever had pulled on him, and that was saying something, considering his past high school experiences. This was the kind of shit Tony Woodward would pull on him in the locker room.

It wasn't the same, though. This wasn't bullying. It wasn't done out of cruelty, like with Tony. It was done out of friendship. It was a prank between friends. While Barry was happy to be close enough with these guys that they could pull pranks on each other, he didn't find it particularly funny at the moment.

"Hello?" Barry called from the shower, closing his eyes in frustration, "Is anyone else in here?"

No reply. The locker room was empty now. Barry cursed when the bell sounded. He had only four minutes to get to class, and he was bare naked and dripping wet in the shower. He poked his head out the curtain again. There was no one around.

Fuck it.

Barry left the shower, shivering as he walked naked through the boy's locker room. For a moment, he registered the fact that he was a grown adult man, naked on school property, but he was in a locker room and there weren't any minors around, so pedophile charges were the least of his worries at the moment.

No, Barry was more concerned with the fact that his gym locker had been emptied of all his clothes. Even his shoes were gone.

"Assholes," Barry groaned.

He was sure Forrest and Justin were probably having a good laugh about the whole thing, but Barry found none of this funny. What the hell was he supposed to do now? Just wait in here until someone could come and help him? He was going to miss his entire class then, and the last thing Barry needed was to deal with truancy issues. Some prank.

Barry stood there for several minutes, thinking and ignoring the sound of the school bell that signaled he was late. He would think of something. He was the Flash. He could handle any situation, especially a dumb high school prank like this. Barry thought over all his options before coming to a conclusion. Really, there was only one thing left to do.

He ran.

Still bare-ass naked, Barry ran out of the boys' locker room and high-tailed it the hell out of the school, moving at super speed. He didn't slow down, determined to run fast enough so that no one would see the Flash running naked through Central City. The last thing he needed was for people to start calling him the Flash-er.

Barry gritted his teeth as his ran barefoot through the city. Within a few blocks, his feet were bleeding from running on gravel and concrete. On the bright side, at least he was dry now. Barry would have run home, but Joe's house was on the other side of the city. His apartment building—which he hadn't been to in weeks—was just as far. Instead, Barry ran to STAR Labs, which was a lot closer.

Without hesitation, Barry flashed into the cortex and dressed himself at superspeed, pulling on a STAR Labs T-shirt and sweatpants.

"Hey," Cisco said, blinking at him in surprise, "What are you doing here? Doesn't school end at—?"

"No time to explain," Barry clipped, "I need your shoes."

"You need my…?"

"Your shoes!" Barry said impatiently, "Take them off!"

Cisco furrowed his eyebrows in confusion as he started to pull off his shoes. As he was taking them off, he noticed the bloody footprints Barry had tracked through the cortex.

"What the hell happened, dude?!"

"A dumb high school prank," Barry said, rolling his eyes, "I had to run here for clothes, and it didn't do any favors for my feet. I need shoes so I can get back to the school, and I can't exactly wear my Flash boots."

Cisco tossed him his shoes and stared in confusion as Barry flashed them on.

"Why the hell were you naked?!" Cisco asked in astonishment.

"No time to explain," Barry said hurriedly, "Sorry about the blood. I'll buy you a new pair."

"Hang on, man," Cisco said quickly, "Maybe you should have Caitlin take a look at your—"

Barry flashed out of the cortex.

"—feet," Cisco sighed, "Well, that was weird."

Barry made it back to the school in record time, his feet aching horribly in Cisco's too-small shoes, which were now smoking and singed around the edges from the run. By the time Barry made it to class, he was only a few minutes late. Thankfully, Mrs. Stewart didn't scold him for it. She never really scolded him for being late like other teachers did. For some reason, the woman seemed to have a soft spot for him. His psychology teacher always spoke to him in an almost too-gentle voice, as if he were made of glass. Barry had no idea why that was, though.

As Barry sat down in his desk, trying to catch his breath, he realized just how terribly his feet were aching. The wounds on the soles of his feet were throbbing from all the running he had done, and the small shoes he was wearing didn't do anything to help with the pain. He hardly paid attention to a single word that was said in class. He just wanted this day to be over.

It wasn't over though. He still had track practice.

Barry winced with each step he took as he walked out onto the track field. Practice was going to be miserable with his feet in the condition they were in. As Barry walked out onto the field, Michael grinned at him.

"Heard you had an interesting afternoon," Michael laughed lightly as Barry joined him on the field.

Barry didn't laugh.

"Interesting isn't the word I'd use to describe it," he muttered.

Michael let out a light laugh.

"Forrest goes a little too far with his pranks sometimes," he chuckled, shaking his head, "If I had been there I would have stopped it."

"Would you?" Barry asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow, "Because Justin didn't. He just went along with it."

"Yeah," Michael sighed, "That's just Justin for you, though. He always goes along with whatever Forrest wants to do, whether that's vertigo or pulling a dumb prank."

Barry furrowed his eyebrows.

"Vertigo?" he asked, momentarily distracted from his anger, "What do you mean? Like, Justin doesn't want to take it?"

Michael looked away uncomfortably.

"I mean," he said slowly, "It's not like he says no to it. Most of the time he's down for a little vertigo sesh, but every once in a while, he's not really up for it. Forrest tends to have a way of talking him into it, though."

"He pressures him," Barry concluded, a sour taste on his tongue.

"I don't know," Michael shrugged, "I guess you could say that. Forrest and Justin have been best friends since they were kids, and…don't tell Justin I said this, but he tends to kind of…idolize Forrest. He looks up to him and he's always sort of been in his shadow. Forrest is always the one calling the shots."

Barry looked down in thought, running over Michael's words in his head. He looked up again, giving Michael a serious look.

"Do you feel that way, too?"

Michael laughed loudly and shook his head.

"Nah," he said, "If Forrest tries to pressure me into anything stupid, I just tell him to fuck off. I keep telling Justin he needs to start doing the same, but it's hard for him. They've been bros since they were kids. I moved here in the eighth grade and became friends with them later on. I'm close with them and all, but not as close as they are with each other. Justin will do everything Forrest tells him to do, and Forrest is very aware of it."

"He takes advantage," Barry said quietly.

"Forrest is a good friend," Michael said quickly, "He just doesn't think sometimes. He always takes things a little too far, and he really enjoys messing with people. He manipulates people. It used to be to get whatever he wanted, but now I think he sort of just does it because he can. It's all just fun and games to him. He doesn't mean anything by it."

Barry nodded slowly, deep in thought.

He had seen it before. Forrest did tend to manipulate people for his own advantage or amusement. Hell, he had even manipulated Barry. He had talked him into hosting an underage party he had never had any intention of throwing. He had backed him into a corner and convinced him to buy alcohol for them, saying that if the party didn't happen, there would be no vertigo, all the while promising Barry he would introduce him to the dealer, which he still had yet to do. Forrest knew Barry wanted to meet their dealer, and he used that to get whatever he wanted from Barry.

Now that Barry thought about it, he was starting to see just how manipulative Forrest could be.

He hadn't seen it before. Forrest was his friend, after all. He was likeable. Charismatic. He was good-looking, smart, and quite charming when he wanted to be. He was a perfect student and could pretty much get any girl he wanted. Everyone liked Forrest Jacobson.

And he took full advantage of that.