Reciprocal Altruism || Snowbarry College AU

The Evolution of Grandma Kisses I

Evolve: To develop gradually, especially from a simple to a more complex form.

***

"I woke up and it was white! Completely white!" Caitlin ranted to Barry as the two of them walked to their usual study spot.

"It's the stress." Barry shook his head, "You're stressing yourself out too much, Cait. Gray hairs are proven—"

"White hairs," Caitlin corrected. "I refuse to call them gray."

"Fine, your frosted tips—"

"I hate you," Caitlin muttered in the background.

"—are because the acute stress you're facing with classes and life hyper-activates your sympathetic nervous system—"

"Which in turn depletes stem cells and causes gray hair. Yes, I know, I took General Bio too."

"White hair," Barry corrected with a smirk.

Caitlin sighed as they finally reached their seats. She plopped down on the bench and ran her hand through her hair as she inspected the ends closely. "All my hair is gonna be white by the time I'm 30!" she whined.

"Some people look really good with white hair!" Barry comforted as he took off his jacket and placed it on the seat beside him. "Sometimes it makes people look sexy."

"You think I would look sexy with white hair?" Caitlin raised her eyebrow.

Barry shrugged as he began taking out his notebooks and his phone. "I suppose it's all in the attitude. You have to own the look. Embrace it." Barry quickly scrolled through his text messages and then froze as a realization dawned on him. Sheepishly, he turned to face Caitlin. "Speaking of sexy..." he trailed off.

Caitlin glanced at him with the special look of exasperation that she saved just for him. "What did you do?"

Barry squinted his face to try and make himself look innocent. "I, uh, may haveinvitedIristojoinuswhilewestudy, sorry!"

Caitlin didn't think she heard him properly. "What was that?"

"I may have invited Iris to join us while we study... sorry," he repeated slowly this time.

Caitlin didn't say a word. She just stared at him with her doe eyes of disappointment.

At that look, Barry fell apart. "I'm sorry, Cait! It kinda just happened!"

"It. Kinda. Just. Happened?" Caitlin said slowly, her voice dangerously low. She was halfway tempted to kick the boy for being so blindly in love. Study time was study time! Her time to get her part of the altruistic deal. She agreed to be his fake girlfriend for all other times. Study time was the only time she had to herself! And Barry had to go and share that with Iris.

"Look," Barry tried to explain, "Iris is struggling just as much as you are in the class, if not more! We were just talking and-and-and somehow she may have accidently invited herself to our tutoring session!"

"Accidently invited herself?" Caitlin screeched. "Barry! This is the one time—the one time—I get to benefit off of our supposed reciprocal altruistic deal. You had no right to bring Iris into this part of our agreement. I am not about to waste hours of my time dealing with you pining away and half-attempting to flirt with her while I am trying to study for an exam that is less than a week away! Less than a week!"

"Caitlin, I get it! I know I am going back on my word, but I swear we are going to use this time to study. We all have the exam in three days, okay? We're not going to waste time. We are going to study, I promise." Barry looked at her with deep, promising eyes. He truly did look sorry. At least he understood why this time was so important to her.

Letting out a breath of acceptance, Caitlin shook her head. "Fine. But no goofing off. None."

"Of course." Barry nodded his head firmly in complete agreement.

Caitlin turned to the chapter in her notes where they had left off. Nonchalantly flipping her hair off her shoulders she asked, "So when is Compass getting here anyway?"

Barry's eyes perked up at the mention of their code-name for Iris. "She'll be here in about five minutes or so. She told me she's running a bit late."

"Running late?" Caitlin mocked, "It's like the two of you were meant to be together."

Barry knew Caitlin was just joking with him, but he couldn't help the light blush that spread to his face. He tried to hide his face in his backpack as he searched for the flashcards he made.

"Why is she taking this course anyway?" Caitlin suddenly asked, "Isn't she a journalism major?"

Barry looked up from his school supplies. "She is. But she also wants to minor in STEM cause she wants to be a reporter with a focus on science and innovation."

"Wow." Caitlin was impressed. "That's actually really cool. Very ambitious."

"Ever since we were kids, she's always known what she wanted to do with her life. She knew what career she wanted, what house, what car, how many kids..." Barry sighed, "Me, on the other hand, I didn't even know what I wanted for dinner." Caitlin chuckled at that. "It took me a while to even figure out what my major was. It took my mom dying and my dad being sent to prison for me to figure out I wanted to work in the criminal justice system..." Barry trailed off, "All I've ever known for sure is I've always just wanted to be with her."

Caitlin didn't really know what to say in response to that. "You will, Barry. If that's what you want and if that's all you've known, then soon she'll realize it too." She wondered if she sounded as stiff as she felt.

While they waited for the third member, Caitlin and Barry began going over biology terms that would show up on the next exam. Even thinking about the words on the exam gave Caitlin anxiety. But somehow, perhaps it was the way Barry read the words, Caitlin was able to rattle off the definitions to every vocab word that was sent her way. Plus, the look of pride Barry gave her after she got each term right gave her just the right amount of encouragement to keep going.

By the time Iris joined, Barry and Caitlin had gotten through about a quarter of their flashcards. She took a seat next to Barry and across from Caitlin.