Chapter Text
Hal loves high school. Well, not the academic part, but the everything else- the extra-curricular, the social aspect, the respect and adulation for being a basketball ace. When he jumps for that three points- it’s like he’s flying. When he looks over the crowds and winks indiscriminately at the various cheerleaders and female fans, he soars. At the after parties, where he charms the crowd and drinks until he forgets that he had to come home to people who can see through his shit, he glides, coasts and skates on admiration and adulation and, if he’s lucky, make-outs and blowjobs. When he gets home, he crashes and burns, but right now that’s not important. What’s important is his brand new chemistry lab partner, a Barry Allen, and his incredible ability to actually answer the questions on their joint worksheet.
“Woah. Are you for real, my guy? You know all this shit?”
Barry, eyes trained onto the worksheet and steadily answering it with nary a pause, just nods his head in answer. Hal raises an eyebrow, puts an elbow on the table and props his head on the fist. He has a grin on his face, watching his lab partner work away through the second page with a look bordering on bored. So people like this actually exist- people who actually come to high school to study. He only ever hung around people who treated school as a gateway to more important social events, and treated academics as the least of their concern. After all, you’re only young once, right? But people like Barry probably thought about their futures and worried about GPAs and SATs and all the important abbreviations, saw high school as just a stepping stone towards a better future in some college where they meet with other like-minded individuals and go on to change the world. Meanwhile, the Hals of the world reach their peak in high school- burn bright at the peak of their teens and then burnout and become whatever it is that people who peak in high school become. His parents, probably. Marry young, pop out kids, stay in the same dead end job in your hometown forever and reminisce about your glory years as the school jock rather than spend time with your own kids. Hal physically shakes his head to dislodge the thoughts souring his mood. He refocuses his attention on his lab partner to change his flow of thought.
Barry probably didn’t know it, but looking serious while biting his lower lip with his collar all askew made him look real cute. The thought made Hal smile again. He reaches out and tugs at the crooked collar, and Barry barely flicks his eyes towards Hal.
“Just fixin’ it, that’s all.”
The boy just hummed an assent, and for some reason that made Hal feel warm inside. He continues to watch his lab partner flip through the two page worksheet, ballpen making tiny checkmarks beside each numbered question, checking for mistakes. Satisfied, Barry finally looks up and puts down the pen, turns to Hal and hands him the papers, as if Hal would actually check his work. This makes Hal smirk, take the worksheets and pretend to look over the answers.
“Wow, you sure do know your stuff huh?”
Barry just shrugs, then turns back to his pens- the guy actually has a pencil case filled with different colored pens and markers, Hal notes- and starts to tidy up his side of their table.
“Sweet.” Hal continues their one way conversation. “Lemme just hand this over to the teach.”
They, or that is, Barry, had finished answering so fast that the rest of the class were still working through page one, and the teacher checked their, sorry Barry’s, work right in front of Hal. He almost goggled with each red check mark, Barry had answered all questions perfectly. The teacher hands the worksheet back, looking impressed, and said, “well, I guess the two of you can leave class early.”
Walking back to their table, Hal makes a punching motion up the air and mouths, “perfect!” at Barry, who only looked back with mild disinterest. Hal hands him the worksheet and sits down to gather his stuff. “Teach says we can leave early. Barry, my guy, where have you been all my life?” Hal says jovially, and he was stuffing his bag distractedly that he almost missed the quiet answer of,
“Hiding from you.”
It made Hal pause, but by the time he turned to his right Barry was already up and walking out of the lab. Hal’s loud “hey!” earned him disapproving looks from both his teacher and classmates, and he sheepishly ducks his head and says sorry over and over as he walks out the room, determined to catch up to Barry.
When he gets out he turns right and left and could not see hide nor hair of his lab partner.
“What?” He could only ask himself. The guy was fast. Hal couldn’t ask him what he meant by that quiet statement. Had he offended Barry? Sure he was a bit of a slouch when it came to chemistry, but he tried to pull his weight when asked to. It’s just that Barry barely asked him to, aside from asking for him to hand over some stuff. Hal wracked his brain if he had accidentally bullied the guy. Hal was no bully, but they say some things you think ain’t anything may be something to someone else. He scratched at the back of his head and suppressed the urge to sigh. He looked around again to check if Barry happened to pop up in the minute he took to standing alone in the hallway, and still saw no one. Well, maybe he can ask the next time they had class together.