Summary: Text from: Felicity Smoak
"Isn't this you? twitter.com/definitelyNickDuval/sta…
Barry's brow furrowed at the question and he tapped on his screen. The link opened up to a twitter account owned by one Nick Duval. "LRT Help us find our Warbler brother! Last seen in a coffee shop, probably. #tbt #findsmythe" Was the caption above a picture of himself smirking, a beaming Nick, and a laughing Jeff all in their Dalton school uniforms.
"Shit." Barry said with utmost eloquence.
Chapters: 9
Words: 24933
Status: Ongoing
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35103736/chapters/87446041
Chapter 1: Prologue
Central City, Missouri
It had only been about a month since Barry woke up from his coma. Nine months dead to the world while it continued forward and suddenly waking up one day would have been daunting for most. Thankfully, Barry was adopted into Oliver's extended group of friends and family, as well as the STAR Labs team (Cisco and Caitlin), who were getting him caught up. The last time he had felt like he belonged to this kind of a close-knit family, he had been in an a cappella group in highschool.
Captain Singh had been particularly (read: suspiciously) nice to Barry in his transition back to work. He still refused to give Barry his full-time position back, seeing as Barry needed time for physical therapy and what-not. Though, Barry, with his newfound powers, didn't actually need all the free time. He probably should keep up appearances still, anyway.
Another thing Barry was endlessly grateful for was that Wells had been paying rent for his apartment while he was out of commission. He didn't have to deal with being physically displaced while dealing with being time displaced. It was the little things like that.
Joe West · 16:30
"Hey, Bear. Come over to dinner tonight. I got some mail sent to me that has your name on it.
" Actually, get Cisco to come too. He told me he'd bring over his mom's flan recipe
Barry laughed, and pressed the call button next to Joe's name, speaking when Joe picked up. "Hey, do you just want to make it a movie night? Cisco can't resist those."
"Hmm, sounds good. I already have a roast on and I made too much for just myself. Iris had a last-minute dinner date with a coworker."
"And she forgot to tell you? For shame," Barry tsked.
"Oh, don't act all high and mighty just yet. You know you're just as bad at letting people know plans ahead of time."
"Come on, Joe, let me have it just this once," Barry teased back, "I need something to lord over her head. I am the superior sibling."
Barry set his phone on speaker and prompted Joe to tell him about his day while he shot off a text to Cisco.
"Hey man, guys' night at Joe's? Bring the flan
"👀 if i bring the flan and give him the recipe will he give me Ester's pound cake recipe?
"no promises, that's something you should take up with him
" so worth it. on my way dude, i'm picking the movies.
"Ha! Got him. He'll be over by six-thirty," Barry crowed in the lull of the conversation.
"With the flan?"
"Well, I am a miracle worker," Barry quipped, "He happened to make a couple batches today- his mom needed help. Cooking for catering, you know. I'm gonna let you go, I'll see you in a couple hours."
Joe made a victorious noise and ended the call.
Barry shook his head amused, and set off to straighten things up for the day.
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"I'm in the kitchen," Joe's voice called, after Barry shut the door behind himself. He toed off his shoes, draped his jacket over the stand near the door, and stretched his arms up above his head. It was always nice to be back in Joe's house to visit.
"Need any help?" Barry asked, having tapped into his speed, and was now sitting on one of the bar stools, overlooking the kitchen.
To Joe's credit, he didn't startle when Barry seemingly appeared out of nowhere.
"I'm just fixing up some snacks. Dinner'll be done in about thirty minutes, sides are warming on the stove," Joe let him know. "And the pound cake that you hinted Cisco might take as a bribe is in the oven."
Barry grinned, the family-like comradery Cisco and Joe had was something that made him endlessly happy. Joe and Iris had gotten pretty close to Caitlin and Cisco over the months they had Barry at STAR Labs in his coma. Cisco told him once that he felt like Joe was a cool uncle of his.
"Here." Joe set the envelope in front of him, letting him have a quick cursory glance at the addresses.
Sébastien Smythe
Shady Willow Drive, 55443
"I forgot we set up your address for my 'alter ego,'" Barry joked.
"You can always pick one identity over the other. I'm sure your social worker can make it happen," Joe pointed out, giving Barry a shrug as he stirred his pot.
"Nah. I can probably use the second identity these days, just in case," Barry reasoned. Before, he had needed it to keep him safe after what happened with his mother. With Joe being a cop and his godfather being a highly sought after lawyer- and later, state attorney- it wasn't hard to set Barry up in a Witness Protection Program.
After Barry had graduated highschool at eighteen, he had the option to leave permanite isolation from his life as Barry Allen, and he took it. That didn't mean his paperwork, life, and identity as Sebastian Smythe just disappeared, it was just a bit stagnant. It was the perfect opportunity for a fresh start from what he had been turning into. Barry wore the mask of Sebastian--devil-may-care attitude, no one can bother me and fuck you if you try--for so long and was so committed to it, determined not to be hurt by his peers again that the mask began to meld with his face underneath.
Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Barry flipped the envelope over and read over the brightly lettered, 'Ensemble, la France!' adorning the other side.
"Ah," he let out, "I guess it's voting season already."
"So, you gonna vote?" Joe asked, curious.
Barry sighed, and pulled the different campaign candidates out of the envelope to look them over. "Maybe with some more research. I know I'm still a French citizen, but I haven't lived there since I was sixteen, and even then I wasn't all that involved in politics. I literally have no idea what's going on."
"Looks like you have some reading to do then," Joe suggested, still moving around the kitchen.
"Joy, more civic duties." Barry groused. As if his day job and his volunteer work weren't civic engagement in their own rights, "I only just barely survived America's election season." Joe snorted at the comment, and set the stove fire to low, and made his way over to his foster son.
Joe settled into the stool next to him and pulled out one of the flyers. "This one just looks plain evil," he joked, squinting at the French blurbs over the page.
"Well," Barry allowed, "he says he wants to be present to construct, protect, and transform."
"Straight up looks like a supervillain." Joe repeated.
Barry laughed, "My French may be a little rusty, but I don't see a world domination protocol in the fine print, promise. Maybe he was just constipated and the smile reflects his inner turmoil."
"He's working with the Decepticons." Cisco's voice came from over Barry's shoulder, making both Joe and Barry jump. "He wants to kill Captain Planet."
Barry sputtered indignantly. "Scared the shit out of me."
Joe shook his head and blew out a breath. "Now you know how the rest of us feel." Cisco laughed in response.
"Hola my dudes. We were gonna do movie night? You left your front door unlocked, so I kinda let myself in," Cisco explained. Joe turned, and Cisco shoved a glass container into his hands. "The requested flan. I do eventually need this container back. It's the only one I have that's oven safe."
Joe just made a happy noise and slid into the kitchen to put the flan in the fridge.
"Okay," Cisco set the backpack he was carrying on the counter next to Barry. "I brought my 'so horrible that they are good' movie list. Kung Pao, John Dies at the End, The Room, etcetera. Which one do you want to melt your brain first?"
Barry hummed and called Joe over to look through the bag of movies for the night.
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Los Angeles, California
"Thad! Man, it's so good to see you." Jeff Sterling jumped up from the cafe table he was sitting with his present bandmates, Nick Duval, Mike Chang, and Sunshine Corazon. David Thompson had taken the day to visit his older sister's kids while they were in town, or he would have been there with them, being part of their a cappella band.
Earlier in the year, they had debuted in LA as Mystery Wings, and all relocated to be closer to each other. They had been making music and covers together sporadically since they graduated highschool on YouTube when they had the time, and had a large following. They only recently decided to take a leap of faith and sign on with a record label in California.
Thad Harwood smiled brightly at the shaggy blond haired man. "You know I had to drop by to see my favourite Warblers," he joked, hugging both Nick and Jeff. At Mike and Sunshine's amused glances, Thad added, "And honorary Warblers, of course, come 'ere you guys." He rounded the table and gathered the two into a hug.
"You just missed Wes, he had to duck out for a corporate meeting," Mike chimed in.
"Eh, that's alright. I'm grabbing dinner with him tomorrow," Thad replied.
Jeff sat back down and slid a cup of coffee they had ordered Thad, and scooped up his own, taking a large gulp.
"But, congratulations on the successful album release!" Thad gushed, sliding into the empty seat they left him, taking his coffee in hand.
"Baby's first," Sunshine joked, taking a huge bite out of her blueberry muffin. Nick passed Jeff a couple of sugar packets after Jeff made an aghast face at the bitterness of his own cold brew. Having been engaged to the man for the past three years and dating long before that, Nick was well aware of Jeff's sweet tooth.
"We're really excited we've gotten this far. Honestly, all the support we've had online has been amazing. I don't think we would have considered this as a real career move if it weren't for our supporters," Nick explained, Sunshine nodding her head in agreement next to him. She had had her own solo career as a pop singer for a while, travelling internationally, but she missed singing with others. Of course, Vocal Adrenaline wasn't the most welcoming glee club (neither was New Directions but that was mostly just Rachel), but playing around with songs and covers with some of the Warbler alumni over the years made her feel included in their family.
"Nah, man, 'grats to you for making it through the Major League Lacrosse tryouts." Mike shot back. While he had pursued his passions in life instead of whatever hairbrained profession his parents tried cooking up for him, and declining a football scholarship, he still kept up to date in sports other than dance. Right out of highschool he had auditioned for a popular televised dance contest in a fit of rebellion, and he made it through (thankfully his father had been supportive instead of mad… eventually). He had been one of the final contestants of that season, and hadn't been short of jobs since.
Thad grinned back, cheeks dimpling. "It really is a dream come true. I get to play under coaches I've admired since I played lax at Dalton. It's humbling." Thad had chosen to pursue being a pro-athlete, and had worked his way up from highschool teams, to college teams until he graduated, and now to professional teams.
"And David isn't even here for you to rub it in his face, huh," Nick joked. Jeff sniggered beside him. It was well known throughout the Warblers, even those who weren't also on Dalton's Lacrosse team, that Thad and David were very competitive with each other on who played which position.
"Yeah, but neither is Sebastian, ol' fearless lax captain of ours," Thad bantered back before pausing. "Hey, actually, have you all heard from him recently? Because I haven't."
"I… no, actually," Nick paused, looking thoughtful. "I don't even remember him mentioning what college he was going to. I know we all kind of assumed he'd be going to a law school in New York to become a lawyer like his father, but…"
"He kind of dropped off the face of the earth online, too. I told him to keep in touch, but maybe he was too busy? I know for a fact he was double majoring for something. He complained about how much of a course load he would need to complete because he was dead-set on graduating early. He was part of that dual-credit program, so he basically graduated with an associates degree with that," Thad regaled. He knew he was basically Sebastian's best friend at Dalton, and they were roommates for two years.
Sunshine had whipped out her phone during the conversation and was typing furiously on it. "All of his social media accounts have been basically inactive since 2007," she informed them.
"So, basically when he graduated and moved out of state then," Jeff groused.
"It looks like we have a mystery on our hands, gang," Nick crowed, imitating Fred Jones.
"Please don't," Mike groaned at Nick's cartoon impression.
"Nick, check your phone," Sunshine said, just as Nick's phone dinged. "I sent you a couple of pictures from your Facebook albums. You should post them to Twitter or something. With as many followers you have, someone is bound to see him around."
Jeff snatched Nick's phone and cooed at the photos Sunshine had found. "Aww, look at these! We were so young, so cute, so pure."
"I forgot I even had these on there," Nick laughed, leaning into Jeff to look at his phone screen. Sunshine's knack for internet stalking both amazed and astounded him.
"No, but that's a good idea though. Post it on Twitter, I'll share it," Thad goaded. "I really want to find him and give him a piece of my mind. And a hug. I miss that asshole. Man, I've been kinda bitter about it for a while, though, you know? 'Cause I thought we were best friends, and he just. Poof." He sighed, and slouched in his seat, "But I know he was going through a really tough time with some family stuff. You know, the Smythes are actually his godparents. So he was trying to figure out what would happen when he turned eighteen. He was feeling really guilty about living with them, didn't want to feel like he was a free-loader and all that. I told him to talk to them, but I guess he never did. I still talk to the Smythes, too, and they haven't heard from him either."
"Oh, Thad, I'm sorry," Nick said, softly, laying a hand on Thad's forearm. "I'm just sad he didn't think he could come to us with his problems."
"I know he felt really bad about the slushie thing, and then when we all thought he was working with Hunter but really he had been working against him the entire time. He got alienated, and he distanced himself at the same time. Probably thought we didn't want to hear from him afterwards," Jeff reasoned. "Which couldn't have been farther from the truth. But he really retreated into himself, looking back. I'm mad I didn't see it sooner."
"Me too," Thad sighed dramatically. "But you know what? We're going to find this asshole, cause he's our asshole, goddamn it."
"Okay, how do I start this without making it seem out of the blue," Nick hummed.
"David's in," Sunshine piped up. Jeff looked down at his own phone to see that she had been liveblogging the entire conversation to David in their text group chat.
Hey Nickey (you're so fine) @definitelyNickDuval · 7s
here with @thadsbad @fakestirling @weastwes in #LAKoffee but it feels like we're missing a few people for this to be a full Warbler party
"Alright, how does this look?" Nick flourished his newly posted tweet to the table.
"Perfect," Sunshine approved. "And now we sow the seeds." Personally, she didn't have a Twitter, but she logged into their band name twitter from time to time to keep up with things, and she knew her stuff.
Nick scrolled through the new comments he was getting, and laughed when Thad straight out asked where Sebastian was. Thad smirked at him from the other side of the table, phone in hand.
"Not the most subtle transition, but I'll take it." He tapped on one of the pictures with himself, Jeff, and Sebastian in it from highschool that Sunshine had sent him, and typed up another tweet.
Hey Nickey (you're so fine) @definitelyNickDuval · 4s
LRT Help us find our Warbler brother! Last seen in a coffee shop, probably. #tbt #findsmythe pic.twitter.com/…
"And now, we wait."