You've gotta know when to hold 'em..

[chosenbylightning]

Barry Allen's life hadn't exactly been on track since his mother's murder. After pleading with the police, social workers and anyone else who would listen to him for more than five minutes that his father was innocent, he realized it was a lost cause. Nobody believed him, and they sure as hell didn't believe his father.

So Henry went to prison and Barry went into the foster system.

He'd been out hustling cards the say the particle accelerator exploded, a bolt of lightning sending him into a coma for nearly a damn year.

Once he recovered, Barry fled Central City, fled the group of scientists that wanted to study him like some kind of lab rat. His speed took him to Starling and to Verdant, the best club in the city, owned by the Queen family.

Barry was damn good with cards, even before the lightning, he could make a decent living at Verdant and the job meant he wouldn't have to dodge the cops. It's boring work, but it keeps him in a decent apartment and plenty of beer.

He also keeps his eyes to himself which isn't easy considering the new manager is ridiculously attractive.

Comments

[queenleftbehind]

Thea almost automatically reached out to touch the hand but pulled back at the last minute. It almost looked like she'd be able to put her hand through his when he did that and she wasn't sure she wanted to know what that felt like. She imagined it'd be like what movies said ghosts felt like: cold.

"I know a little something about losing a parent," she reminded him gently. Spoiled and rich she might have been, but her life wasn't free of its share of tragedy. Probably better that she didn't remind him of the other part of her parentage or let him in on the hidden part. The part she didn't admit to polite society because polite society thought him dead.

"Look, let's start again. All I thought when I noticed that stacks of chips were going missing was that you were conning me. And that I could use that talent against other people who tried to do that at my table." Her lips twisted into a wry grin. "I thought that talent was up here." She tapped her temple.

"I didn't guess about the..." She wiggled her fingers. "But can you really blame me for wanting to kill two birds with one stone? Stop losing money from your antics and stop losing money from other people doing what I thought was the same thing." Surely there weren't two people who could do...whatever he was doing.

[chosenbylightning]

Barry pulls his hand back when Thea's hand moves towards his and the vibrations stop. That sort of touching is dangerous as hell and while they didn't get off on the right foot, the last thing he wants to do is hurt her (or anyone) with his speed.

A shrug. "It's both," he defends. "I've been running cards since I got out of juvie."

A decent job. No more gaming the tables. "So, what, you'd want me to be a pit boss? Watch the tables?"

[queenleftbehind]

"You know more about what to look for than I do." Not quite true. She'd caught on that there was something about him that was off, after all, but there was catching one person once on mostly luck and knowing the ins and outs of the system and being able to sense general trends and what to watch out for. She didn't want to have to be stuck behind a monitor or even out on the floor. She had the rest of the club to run, after all, and it wouldn't look good if she spent all her time at the tables.

Especially since she was reasonably sure that Ollie hadn't caught on to what was going on in his back rooms.

The corner of her mouth lifted. "You sound like you got into as much trouble as I did." And her mother had always paid to get her out of it, just like she had when Ollie had gotten into trouble back in the day.