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Team Flash were all in the Cortex. Barry and Cisco were looking over data at the main console; Caitlin, Iris, and Allegra were catching up; and even Joe and Cecile were talking about Jenna’s latest habit of downright refusing to go to bed. It was surprisingly … normal for the Team.
Then there was Nash, who was tinkering with his gauntlet on an unused part of a desk. He was seemingly muttering to himself as he worked. The Team had long learned to not question his habit of "talking to himself" since the revelation that all the other multiversal dopplegangers of Harrison Wells lived inside his mind.
To Nash, the room was much more lively than a handful of quiet conversations. Harry and Sherloque were having a very distracting discussion right next to Nash with HR listening in while drumming a beat on his legs.
“... So you see, Harry, that's how I solved the case of "The Giant Rat of Sumatra", as Watsune called it.” Sherloque finished his long and admittedly interesting tale. Watsune, like Earth-1’s Watson, used to chronologize Sherloque’s cases on Earth-221 then later throughout the multiverse -- until he slept with Sherloque’s fourth wife.
“So you took a bunch of cocaine? That's how you worked it out?” Harry deadpanned.
“Exactly!” Sherloque cried before leaning closer to Harry and speaking in a conspiratorial whisper. “And it’s good I did work it out, no? Cocaine is very expensive, especially when you have five alimonies to pay.”
Harry hummed in agreement. “That it is… The cocaine, I mean. I wouldn’t know about alimonies.”
Nash raised an eyebrow at that but kept out of the discussion for his own sanity. HR thankfully asked the question playing on his mind for him though. “Wait, how would you know about cocaine, Harry?”
Harry gave a half-shrug before explaining. “I was in my twenties and wanted to see the limits of my intelligence. Naturally that led me to seeing how I’d react to performance enhancing drugs. Cocaine was the easiest to come by.”
“So, what happened?” Sherloque asked, his curiosity piqued. Even HR had stilled as he listened.
“Well…” Harry sighed, “While I was under the influence I was convinced I’d cracked the secrets of the universe with the work I was doing. When I came down though, I realized I’d written a bunch of gibberish on a whiteboard.”
Nash snorted at that, gaining a raised eyebrow from Cisco who sat nearby. The group of Wellses next to him ignored him.
“You probably took too much; with the right dose it would have worked as you wanted,” Sherloque commented.
“Bit late for that really, seeing as we’re all…” HR trailed off, gesturing vaguely between the three of them, then to Nash. The trio fell silent at that.
Harry looked contemplatively at Nash, who continued to tinker. “I wonder -- if Nash was to partake, would we all feel the effects or just him…”
“That is a good question actually,” HR agreed.
“Well, we have a theory. We need to test it,” Sherloque also agreed, a grin spreading across his face.
“No,” Nash muttered, knowing where this was heading.
“But it's for science,” Harry protested.
“ No, ” Nash repeated more firmly.
“Even Sherlock –”
“ Loque! ” Sherloque interrupted, but HR paid him no mind. “Even Sherlock says we should test it.”
“HR, why are you even agreeing?” Harry asked.
“It sounds fun,” HR replied, clacking his drum sticks.
“You want to try cocaine because ‘it sounds fun’?” Harry raised an eyebrow at that, not that HR’s reason was much better than his own.
“Yeah, why not? There must be a reason why it's so popular.” HR grinned, and Harry facepalmed.
Sherloque, ignoring the tangent, continued to pester Nash. “Nash, I’d tell you the correct dosage, it’d be a scientific –” Sherloque was cut off by Nash standing up and glaring at the three of them.
"Harry! Sherloque! HR! I AM NOT DOING COCAINE FOR YOU!" Nash yelled, paying no mind to the rest of Team Flash who fell silent and stared at the adventurer wide-eyed as he started yelling out of nowhere.
“I’m sorry, what?” questioned Cisco. Nash turned his back on the Wellses to look at Cisco.
“They want me to take cocaine out of scientific curiosity about whether they’d also feel the effects,” Nash explained wearily.
“You are aware cocaine is illegal, right?” pointed out Joe from across the room.
Nash scoffed. “Of course I am, it was illegal on most Earths.”
“And dangerous?” Allegra added.
“Yes! Again, not my idea,” Nash defended as he ran a hand through his hair, his gauntlet now forgotten.
“It is an interesting experiment, to see how linked they are to your body,” Caitlin thought aloud as she walked over to the main console.
“Don’t encourage them!” Nash protested in exasperation, catching Harry and Sherloque grinning in the corner of his eye. “Oi! Stop grinning. I’m not doing it,” he said sharply.
“Why cocaine, though?” Barry asked the question everyone was thinking as they watched the chaos unfold.
Nash pinched his nose. He could feel a headache coming on. “Because, Allen, Sherloque was telling Harry and HR about some case he solved while high on cocaine, then Harry shared the time he tried cocaine. It spiraled from there.”
“Harry’s tried cocaine‽” came the voices of several people in the room. “Why did he never tell me?” Cisco asked in a mock wounded voice.
“He wanted to see the limits of his brain in his 20’s – but that's not the point! It doesn't matter why. I’m not doing cocaine, and that's final,” Nash said firmly.
“ Of course he did, ” mumbled Cisco, completely unsurprised by the reasoning after knowing Harry for so long. Actually, after a week of knowing Harry, Cisco wouldn’t be too shocked.
“You’re no fun,” teased HR with a pout.
“ There’s a point. If your ridiculous plan does work, which one of you is going to deal with a coked-out HR? Because I’m certainly not,” Nash asked, smirking as a sudden look of dread came across the faces of Harry, Sherloque, and everyone in the room who’d met the hyperactive Wells.
“That would be pure chaos,” Cisco commented with a shudder.
“Him drunk was bad enough,” agreed Joe with a grimace.
“He wasn't that bad,” Barry said.
“ He didn't throw up on your rug,” Joe countered. Cecile gave him a sympathetic pat on the arm.
“You make a good point,” conceded Harry. Sherloque nodded in agreement.
“Betrayal!” HR dramatically gasped and held a hand over his chest.
“Vous ne faites que prouver son point de vue, HR,” Sherloque muttered in French. HR, not understanding what the frenchman had said but getting the point, huffed and turned his attention back to his drumsticks.
Nash watched as the three Wellses bickered amongst themselves, questioning every decision that led him to this moment.
“I, for one, am all for this cocaine idea!” came the smooth voice of yet another Wells.
“Oh, come on! Not you too, Lothario!” cried Nash. A few members of Team Flash started laughing amongst themselves as they watched the half of the chaos they could see, all completely unsurprised the socialite was for this idea. The Wellses on the other hand grinned at someone else being on their side.
“What can I say? I miss the White Lady,” shrugged Lothario.
“You’re a walking stereotype,” deadpanned Harry.
Lothario shrugged. “So? Maybe it’s a stereotype, because my lifestyle is so enjoyable.” He winked and clicked his tongue.
“So –” Harry groaned in exasperation, and that's when Nash knew the conversation was yet again spiraling. When Herr Wells turned up Nash finally felt his patience snap, and before anyone could speak:
“You know what?” Nash threw up his arms in exasperation as he looked between the Wellses. “There’s a perfectly good bar downstairs. That can be your little experiment,” Nash announced as he stormed out of the Cortex, leaving behind him a room full of very confused and amused people to go and get incredibly wasted.
As it turns out the experiment was a success, and yes, they all ended up drunk.
And they all felt the massive hangover.