Charles Dickens Ordered a Martini

 

Harrison Wells wasn’t typically the type of person to go to bars. One couldn’t normally picture him in one. However, with his younger friends and employees insisting, he’d gone along with Caitlin, Ronnie, Cisco, and Hartley’s insistence.

 

He was rather regretting it now.

 

“Come on!” Caitlin cheered on Hartley, who sang loudly and out of tune into the mic. She’d not been better, but obviously the two of them hadn’t cared except to just keep going. Cisco was excessively hitting on the poor woman next to them, using pickup lines that made Harrison cringe.

 

“Why did I come again?”

 

“For the company?”

 

The unfamiliar female voice caused Harrison to blink in surprise and look to his side for the speaker. She was a pretty young woman and her hazel eyes were twinkling brightly at him.

 

“Barry Allen,” she held her hand out.

 

He took it and shook it as well. “I’m Harrison Wells.”

 

He wasn’t sure if she knew who he was. He understood he was well-known, but that was mostly in the scientific community. He might be just a little more known to the common folk in general, but he was sure that he was still not as well known to be a household name.

 

“I know,” she surprised him. “I’ve read your biography and quite a lot of your works. ‘The Charles Dickens’ of the decade, right?”

 

“You’re a fan?” He was surprised, especially by how young she looked.

 

“Yeah, I guess you can say that,” her cheeks tinted red. “I didn’t think I’d see you in here though.”

 

Harrison coughed slightly. “Er, yes…I might have come here with a few of my colleagues.”

 

She smiled suddenly and he felt his breath hitch in his throat. He shifted uncomfortably. Barry looked young enough to be his daughter. He shouldn’t act this way. But…

 

He tentatively smiled back.

 

“So what do you do for a living?”

 

He asked the question and drew her into a conversation. And as they kept going on, he felt young again and also too nervous to be doing this. Considering the last time he remotely did anything like this, flirted in any way, had been a long time ago with Tess and he didn’t want to think about her.

 

However, his nervousness caused him to drink more than he would have normally, especially at a bar (which he wouldn’t have been in one in the first place, if it hadn’t been for the others). He could feel his faculties function slower than usual, and he started making more embarrassing comments as time passed.

 

“That blouse is pretty,” he slurred slightly, kind of blinking a lot. “Red…red looks good on you.”

 

She looked at him in amusement, strangely looking not the least bit drunk, though he was sure that she’d been drinking as much as he had while they had been talking.

 

“Thank you,” she replied, laughter in her voice. “I do like red. I actually wear it quite a bit,” for some reason, she had a secretive smile about that on her face. Harrison shook his head slightly. It was probably the alcohol addling his head and his thoughts, along with his vision overall.

 

“You should,” Harrison smiled goofily though.

 

She started laughing, smiling brightly at him. He liked her smiles.

 

“You know, I didn’t think I’d ever meet you,” she mused aloud. “And even if I did, I didn’t think I could have ever pictured you like this.”

 

“I can be a fun guy,” he wagged his eyebrows. Though if he was sober and could honestly admit to himself that he hadn’t been the fun, kind man he used to be these days, he knew he would take that statement back. He wasn’t the fun guy anymore –well, not outside of himself and his close colleagues, like the ones that he was currently with in that bar. He hadn’t opened himself up like this in a long time.

 

“Those your friends up there, hogging the karaoke mic?” Barry asked him, gesturing to Caitlin and Ronnie doing a duet of Love’s an Open Door.

 

“Love’s an open door!” the couple sang out of tune, and Hartley booed while Cisco catcalled.

 

“No,” Harrison deadpanned. “I don’t know those hooligans at all. I have no idea who they are.”

 

“We finish each other’s –”

 

“Sandwiches!”

 

“That’s what I was going to say!”

 

Harrison groaned and buried his face into his hands. Barry chuckled beside him, patting his arm in comfort.

 

“To be honest, I don’t mind this song,” she tried to cheer him up. “I’ve gotten quite sick of Let It Go.”

 

Harrison tried not to look too miserable at her. “I could try to get over it if they weren’t so horrible at singing. They can’t sing when they’re not drunk. Now they can probably kill off an army with their voices.”

 

“None of them can sing?” Barry asked in amusement.

 

Harrison cringed. “Cisco and Hartley are just as bad.”

 

“We should do a duet together,” Barry brought up suddenly, the idea popping into her head.

 

“What?” he asked startled.

 

She grinned mischievously at him. “Let’s sing a duet.”

 

“I-I can’t sing,” he stammered.

 

“Doesn’t matter!” she laughed. “Look at them! They don’t care. They’re just having fun. So come on, Mr. Fun Guy.”

 

“I’m not drunk enough for this,” he groaned and gestured the bartender over so he could order another drink and get further drunk.

 

Ten minutes later, somehow Harrison found himself on the stage with Barry, with his four young employed friends looking up at him in surprise. He waved cheerily, completely drunk but almost enjoying their shock.

 

“What are we singing?” he asked her as she input a song. He choked on his laugh as he saw the title on the screen. “You were working as a waitress at a cocktail bar, when I met you~ I picked you out and shook you up and turn you around; turned you into someone new~”

 

If Caitlin and Hartley were cheering, he was steadfastly ignoring them. And if Cisco was recording this, he was going to remember it and hunt down the young man the next day and destroy the evidence. And Ronnie…if he was helping Cisco, he was going to go down with him.

 

“I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, that much is true~”

 

Harrison looked at Barry in surprise this time, because he hadn’t expected she could sing. Sure, he was a fair singer and could sing well enough, but she was more than good and he was caught off guard and feeling a little inadequate. He almost just stared dazed at her the entire time she sung her part, and almost missed the cue to sing the chorus with her.

 

“Don’t you want me, baby? Don’t you want me, oh!”

 

Oh dear Lord, he was a goner at this point.

 

~*~*~

 

He’d stupidly not gotten her number before he’d left with his group. The next day, they’d heckled him about the sudden performance, after his reticence to join them first to the bar and then to go up singing, and of the girl he was with.

 

He knew where she worked, after she’d informed him she was a CSI employee over at the CCPD, but he felt too nervous to go ask for her there. He had no other way to contact her again, which led to his current situation.

 

Harrison had, once again, found himself occupying a bar (the same one really) in the hopes that he would run into her again. Of course, this time he was alone, which strangely felt even more awkward than had he gone there with Caitlin, Ronnie, Hartley, and Cisco.

 

“Fancy seeing you here again, Dr. Wells,” a familiar voice greeted him, and he turned in his seat with a wide smile.

 

“Harrison,” he corrected her. “And I was actually hoping to run into you, Barry.”

 

Barry looked surprised to hear that, but gave him a small smile.

 

“Did you really? I’m…really glad,” she told him sincerely.

 

So was he.

 

And they sat together, drinking up while having one of the best conversations Harrison remembered having. Even if she strangely seemed sober the entire time, Harrison was just content to be able to sit and talk to her, just like he had last time. Though this time, he avoided the whole karaoke thing, thank goodness.

 

“You have pretty eyes,” Harrison murmured, squinting slightly through his glasses and leaning in closer to observe her hazel eyes. Though he was still nervous around her, his overdrinking was more to do with the fact he hadn’t been keeping track and was too busy enjoying himself with her.

 

“Thank you,” she beamed at him. “I think you have the sharpest, brightest shade of blue for eyes myself.”

 

Flattered and caught off guard, Harrison straightened up and ignored the slight flush his cheeks took on.

 

“Thank you,” he returned to her, smiling nervously.

 

Just then, a phone went off and the both of them checked their phones.

 

“It’s me,” they both amusingly said at the same time. They blinked before giving each other sheepish looks and grins.

 

After answering their phones, Harrison talked to Hartley, who was asking where he was and if he could come in then, as they were looking at schematics of the city and they had finally tracked down one of the metahumans, the one who could manipulate the weather.

 

Harrison grimaced and glanced at his companion, not wanting to cut his time with her so short. Although, judging by her own grimace, she was going to have to cut her time with him too.

 

“Work,” she told him regretfully. “I guess I’ll see you around, ‘Charles Dickens,’” she winked at him, smiling slightly.

 

“Yeah, bye,” he inwardly sighed. But before she could leave, he called out to her. “Can I have your number?”

 

She stopped in her tracks, stumbling slightly. She looked at him uncertainly. “You want my number?”

 

He grimaced, wondering if he’d been too forward or if he read all of the signals from her wrong. He suddenly felt very stupid right then, and she probably thought he was an old idiot.

 

“Yes, if that’s alright,” his mouth felt dry and he was waiting for the rejection to come.

 

All of his worries went away though, when she smiled eagerly and her eyes lit up. He could feel his heart thumping loud and fast in his chest, and hope bubbled up in him.

 

“Of course!” She got a napkin and scribbled her number on it and handed it to him. “Here. I hope to hear from you sometime! Bye.”

 

She gave him one last bright smile before she left and Harrison couldn’t help his relieved and happy look he gained as sat there practically in bliss. One more drink to celebrate then, before it was off to work himself.

 

“A martini, please,” he told the bartender with a pleased tone.

 

The bartender had a wicked grin on his face. “Sure thing, Mr. Dickens. Olive or twist?”

 

Harrison twitched, instantly getting the joke. There were times he really hated that the Times had called him that.

 

But then he remembered his first meeting with Barry and how she recalled that fact about him, and he couldn’t help a goofy smile getting on his face again.

 

“Twist, good sir.”

 

There were times, he supposed, where he really, really didn’t mind the Times had proclaimed him the Charles Dickens of the century.