Kara's been reading for the past three hours and she can feel the fatigue in her eyes. She settles her novel down and just when she is about to put down her glasses on the table, Barry enters their apartment and slams the door behind him, causing her to yelp and send her glasses flying in the air. Luckily, Oliver is already making his way towards Kara and is able to flawlessly catch her spectacles without missing a step.

"Thanks, Ollie," she says gratefully as she hastily puts her glasses back on her face as her way of ensuring they don't break.

He nods then faces Barry. "Barry, how many times are we—"

"I'm screwed!" Barry interrupts without realizing. He tosses his messenger bag on the coach before frantically pacing about in the living room, combing through his hair with his fingers almost aggressively, eyes wild and mouth chattering.

This catches Kara's and Oliver's attention. They share a worried look as they watch the brunet practically pace himself into a rut, seemingly mumbling to himself incoherently.

"— rightfully, utterly, royally screwed. I mean, I deserve it, right? Serves me right for lying to them for weeks— no! Jesus, months! And now, they're gonna look down on me; they're gonna think I'm pathetic! What the hell am I saying? Of course I am! I'm almost thirty and I'm still just an assistant CSI! Oh god I really am pathetic—"

At this point, he is effectively cut off from his ramblings when a pair of hands squeeze his shoulders. He spins on his heels and finds Kara, gazing up at him with wide eyes full of concern.

"What happened?" She asks.

Clearly, she's spent far too much time with Oliver to have developed a sense of being direct, which she never was a year ago when they all met and became roommates.

"Umm," Barry stutters in response. He can't say it. No, scratch that; he doesn't want to say it! It's so stupid and petty and he really doesn't want to—

"Barry," Oliver says, arms crossed over his chest with a look that tells him he's waiting.

Oh god...

"I lied."

That takes the other two aback, enough that it makes Kara drop her hands to her sides that makes him cringe at his incredibly blunt confession.

"I mean, it wasn't anything huge really. Okay, well, it kind of is..."

"Just— tell us, please," Oliver says.

"All right. I lied, but it wasn't like it was premeditated or anything!" He waves his arms around animatedly in explanation. "I wasn't thinking at all! It's just my parents have been pestering me about me not dating anyone, why that is, and they keep setting me up with Iris even though she's basically like my sister! And she's engaged! Like it wasn't really that big of a deal at first, but Mom was near to tears about how she's getting older and still without a grandkid and I got defensive and I just... kind of blurted out that I was already dating."

Kara's eyes widen at the revelation and Oliver's own ones just close at the ridiculousness of the predicament Barry's put himself in.

But Barry's not done explaining.

"—And that was back in November! I've sort of kept up this lie that I've been dating this amazing person except I'm the biggest idiot in the world 'cause apparently I can't keep track of my imaginary significant other 'cause I keep interchanging his and her pronouns, which obviously confused them and when they confronted me about it, I panicked and said I'm dating two people and now they want to meet my completely fictional boyfriend and girlfriend and— oh my god, Ollie, stop laughing! This is serious!"

Kara whips around and sends Oliver a warning glare to make him shut up.

So instead, Oliver smirks. "Oh come on, this is funny. But you're right, this is serious." He nods as he proclaims, "I'm in."

Barry stumbles, even though he's just standing, and he manages to choke on air.

"What?"

Kara faces Barry and shrugs agreeably. "I mean, it is easier to just get Oliver and me as your fake boyfriend and girlfriend. We already live together, plus your friends and parents don't really know us and we have a year's worth of pictures for proof!

He's already shaking his head, already thinking about the awkward hand holding and the obligated flirting. "But—"

"Barry!" Oliver surges forward and shakes the brunet by the shoulders. "We're in!"

Oliver then proceeds to wrap his arms around Barry and lands a kiss on his cheek.

Kara giggles at Barry's sudden redness and his poor attempt to untangle himself from the larger man.

"What are you doing?" Barry demands, panicky.

Oliver rolls his eyes. "If we're going to make this work, we're gonna need practice."

Kara steps forward and adds herself to the group hug. "Yeah. We can't just meet your parents without being convincing enough." She stands on her toes and kisses Oliver fully on the mouth. Oliver obliges completely.

When they pull back, they find Barry somehow even redder.

"Okay, yeah."

AN: Flustered Barry is best Barry. Also, it's been like twenty fics, why am I still so hopelessly in love with this stupid ship?

Thank you for reading. Feel free to leave a review; they mean a lot and help me so much.