A warehouse called George - Saturday

[badassprodigy]

Barry didn’t so much wake up to find a monkey this morning so much as turn around and her sitting on his console.

“Where the fuck did you come from?”

“It’s one of those weekends, dear boy,” the monkey replied in a proper British accent. “And I am your daemon.”

Barry glared at the monkey. “Right and you’re not-“

“I am not a ploy by a giant telepathic gorilla to get you back to Ramaat.”

Barry just stared at the monkey. “You know what? I’m just going to get back to work.”

“And I would be happy to assist,” the monkey replied, as she went to the console and began looking on eBay for ancient computer systems.

Barry blinked and shrugged. “Okay.”

And there was a brief pause before he said “Hey, could I-“

“No, Barry. I’m not giving you tissue samples.”

Barry sighed and went back to work.

Comments

[badassprodigy]

A small capuchin monkey wearing spectacles appeared at the door. “Ah, yes,” she said adjusting her glasses with her tail. “The young lady he has become so smitten with. Greetings and do come in. Would you and your-“

She gave Summer’s daemon a dubious look “-friend like some tea?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, just let them in already!” Barry shouted from his workstation.

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Awwww!"

That was definitely a simultanious gush of appreciation from both Summer and Tinkles when the word smitten was dropped. But very quickly after that, Tinkles wasn't going to be waiting through all of that when she could just fly over the monkey through the door on a trail of rainbow and sparkles.

"Hi, Barry! I'm Tinkles!" She did a little loop in the air with a giggle. "It's very nice to meet you!"

"Tea sounds good," Summer, meanwhile, said to the monkey, apologetically, "thanks."

[badassprodigy]

Barry’s eyes bugged out a bit at the sight of a tiny unicorn ballerina with rainbows and sparkles flying everywhere. “Oh, fuck me,” he said looking at Tinkles. “Jesus. Even your daemon is extra.”

“He means that as a compliment,” the monkey informed Summer with a polite titter of laughter. “Please do come in and I shall have tea ready in just a few minutes.”

“Hey, Tinkles? Could I get a-“

“No, Barry! No tissue samples.”

And now Barry was just pouting.

[somethingwithturquoise]

Excuse you, if it wasn't extra, it had no business being Summer's anything.

"Actually?" Summer ventured. "It's not a tissue sample, but I was sort of wondering if you, like, totally have something here that could maybe scan my brain for alien brain parasites? It's kind of important."

"Sum-merrrrrr!" Tinkles' giggle took on a slightly frustrated edge. "I'm not an alien brain parasite, I promise!"

"Uh-huh," said Summer doubtfully, "sounds exactly what an alien brain parasite would say."

Tinkles giggled again, shaking her head. "Summer has trust issues," she trilled by way of overly cheerful explanation to Barry, "because alien memory parasites once used my image to lure her into a false sense of security so they could eat her brain!"

"I had no problem blowing off your head back then, Tinkles," Summer reminded her sweetly, "and I'll have no problem doing it agaaaain."

"But you won't haaave to~!" sang Tinkles, swirling around her in a flurry of sparkles.

"But I wiiill~~" Summer sang back.

"You won't haaaave to!" countered Tinkles brightly.

"I better fucking ~noo~ott." Sweet enough to give everyone here diabetes, truly.

[badassprodigy]

Barry smiled and reached for one of his med scanners. “I think those were actually the Nightmares from the other week,” he said holding up the scanner and doing a quick scan of Summer’s head and body. “Nope. No parasites. No gremlin venom. So I guess no one is getting shot in the head. Which is kind of fucked up but I’m just rolling with it this weekend.”

“He’s showing remarkable mental flexibility,” the monkey said pushing a cart with a tea tray on it towards the area everyone was sitting. “I dare say if this had been during middle school I’d probably be dissected by now. Oh and please allow me to introduce myself. I am Minerva.”

She said that with a little bow.

“Wait. You have a fucking name?” Barry asked.

“Of Course I do,” she said hopping up on the cart and pouring tea. “This would be silly if I did not.”

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Toooold you!" Tinkles giggled triumphantly, with a little extra spin around Summer before went to go float over by Minerva and the tea with clear excitement. A tea party, after all, was still a party, and Tinkles loved all parties!

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," said Summer, who at that point was just sort of grinning softly at Barry and his complete lack of hesitation or question. "My bad for not wanting the island to be overrun with brain eating alien memory parasites, right? Thanks, Barry."

It honestly was a huge weight off of her mind, and she relaxed a little.

"And it's nice to meet you, Minerva," she added, "and all in one piece."

[badassprodigy]

“The pleasure is mine,” she said sincerely. “Please sit and have some tea while I find the appropriate music. I believe Barry has recently downloaded the complete library of the singer known as Madonna.”

Clearly Minerva has some part of Barry’s humor.

“Fuck you, Minerva!” Yes, his ears had turned red.

“Beg your pardon. Perhaps some Bollywood musicals?”

“Fuck. You.”

Time for a change in conversation! “Hey, Tinkles! Have you ever chased a monkey before?” Barry asked.

[somethingwithturquoise]

The red in Barry's ears helped mitigate some of the red across Summer's cheeks as she couldn't help smirking a little at that, and then quirked an eyebrow over at Barry at the other suggestion.

"Bollywood?" she was able to get in before Tinkles burst in with an excited giggle.

"Have I ever!" she gushed. "You know it's a good party when there's a monkey chase! But maybe Summer and I can provide the music, we can sing the Friendship Song!"

"We don't need to sing the Friendship Song," said Summer, who was wholly expecting to now be asked about the Friendship Song and was working on how to then get out of the Friendship Song.

[badassprodigy]

“Friendship song?”

The monkey and the human’s reaction was in total unison.

“Oh we have to fucking hear that,” Barry said. Especially if they can avoid the topic of Bollywood.

[somethingwithturquoise]

"I'll get it started!" Tinkles chirped, because of course she would, but don't let that think that Summer was going to just forget about Bollywood.

"Summer and Tinkles," she started, launching up so she could fly around on her sparkly rainbow while she sang.

"Friends with each other.
Living in Never Past Bedtime Land.

No kitchen sink-les.
No little brother.
Going to raves and waving our hands!"

And by then, she had swung back around to give Summer a little nudge on her shoulder.

"And then there's the rap break! Summer, take the rap break!"

"I am not doing the rap break," said Summer, who thought it was bad enough that she was definitely unconsciously nodding her head along to the beat a little because that thing was a bop, dammit.

[badassprodigy]

“That. Is. Fucking. Adorable,” Barry said trying to not burst out laughing for Tinkles’ sake.

“I do think it’s missing something without the rap break,” Minerva said, also looking ver amused. “Where is Never past bedtime land?”

[somethingwithturquoise]

"I'll do the rap brea, too!" squealed Tinkles happily, because Minerva was right. It really did lose something without the rap break, although whether or not it would actually be gained by a floating magical ballerina unicorn lamb trying to mean-mug it while being the most adorable thing to ever be shat out of a rainbow was...questionable.

But you had to admire her determination.

"Summer and Tinkles,
friends to the end.
Group text the whole crew,
my mother--friends!
Ketchup to the salt,
salt to the fry.
"T" to the "Inkle"
with a Capital I!"

She finished it off with a very hardcore "Wheeee!" And a somersault in the air, leaving Summer having no idea if she was leaning toward wanting to crawl into a hole and die or being insanely proud of Tinkles right now.

So she was going to stick with answering Minerva's question. "I thought Never Past Bedtime Land was all just a fragment of the mass delusion implanted in our heads by the memory parasites," she said, then shrugged, "but apparently not?"

"It's a manifestation of all your frustrations with your overbearing parents and their refusal to just accept you as you are because they desperately need to justify their own failures in life through your presumed successes, Summer!" sang Tinkles with another cheerful loop in the air.

Which was...

"Yeah. Okay," said Summer, who was just going to blink a few times. "Wow."

[badassprodigy]

Ok. That was insightful.

And for a second Barry was flashing back to conversations with a snowman who was basically a subconscious reflection of-

He immediately looked over to Minerva who was about to say something until Barry reached over and pinched her lips shut. “So..”

This was probably the worst conversation segue ever but Barry assumed the whole statement Tinkles just said was not something Summer would not want dive into at the moment.

“Did you know that I turn into a dog anytime I see a Bollywood movie on this island?”

[somethingwithturquoise]

Yeaahhhh, so that was a risk run when your soul decided to show up in the form of a hyper-spastic but surprisingly astute ballerina unicorn lamb, apparently.

Summer's eyes were wide on Minerva for a moment with an almost crippling nagging desire to find out what exactly was stopped just then, before she blinked again, and those eyes went to Barry.

"I...did not know that," Summer admitted, "no..."

Well, there went the Bollywood thing, which she had already started looking forward to trying to uncover, and also was pretty sure was not as interesting as what Minerva would have said, buuuuut....

...there was still some potential there...

And, although she figured it was a risky question because the odd were pretty heavy in it not having an actual answer, but hoo boy if it did, she asked, "Why?"

[badassprodigy]

Minerva swatted Barry’s hand away and scowled. “That was uncalled for,” she scolded. “As for the Bollywood transformation that is truly a mystery.”

“And a fucking pain in my ass,” Barry admitted. “Just one of the many fuck you’d the island has given me.”

“Much of which you brought on yourself, young man,” Minerva said adjusting her glasses. “Much like your idea to create a vaccine for gremlin bites.”

Barry groaned in response. “Yeah. Thank you. I remember.”

[somethingwithturquoise]

At least, on the whole, Bollywood movies did seem generally easy to avoid more often than not.

Summer's eyes were still wide, but for an entirely different reason now.

"So what happened with the gremlin vaccine?"

Yeah, hi. Very few reservations about asking after details on this side right now.

And if Summer hadn't, Tinkles definitely would have, but since Summer had, Tinkles was just adding a bright, cheery, and eager, "Was it, like, aa complete and total disaster?"

[badassprodigy]

“That’s pretty fucking accurate,” Barry said with a sigh. “I was trying to figure out a way to inoculate people so gremlin bites wouldn’t make us hallucinate. I got injected accidentally and there were... side effects.”

“Severe side effects,” Minerva said from the console where she was being sneaky while Barry was talking. “I believe we still have security video from that incident.”

“Don’t you fucking-“

Too late. It was already playing.

Barry sighed. Well, he had seen Summer as Madonna the day before. Might as well get a dose of his own medicine.

So to speak.

[somethingwithturquoise]

[[ one million years later.... ]]

"Oh, no, you don't hav--"

Summer's own objection overlapped with Barry's, but then there was video already playing and Tinkles was shoving a bowl of popcorn at her, and that was enough to make her realize there was probably no stopping it, and also, "Where did you even get this, Tinkles?"

Which was just met with an indulging sort of giggle, because, duh, Summer, she was magical, but also they were going to miss it! And honestly, once it got going, it was kind of hard to not pay attention to it.

And then it was done, and Summer's head tilted, and her mouth was open as if she was about to say something, then she stopped, paused, shut her mouth.

Tinkles giggled. "Summer wants to say that that's why you don't test things on yourself."

There was a gasp of betrayal, a flush of red. "Tinkles!" Then, almost as if for damage control: "I mean, that could have been, like, way worse."

Could have. Watching high school Barry spaz out and then get basically hog-tied with a girl's hair and then sat on was definitely not what she was expecting to get out of today, but she was also not complaining about it, either.

[badassprodigy]

“I did not fucking inject myself with an experimental vaccine ,” Barry said locking down the console. “There was a gremlin that broke out of the cage stabbed me in the ass with the test vaccine.”

“Which we also have footage of,” Minerva offered but upon getting a glare from Barry added. “Which we don’t need to show as we’ve seen enough embarrassing footage today. I will point out that this was actually a turning point for Barry. He was quite the curmudgeon before this. Things for him would have been very different if he had cured himself. He learned to trust other people and be vul-“

“Shut up Minerva or we’re going to have a herd of teal deer in here.”