A Warehouse Called George - Friday Morning

[badassprodigy]

It wasn't often that Barry actually fell asleep on his own. When he woke up this morning he was face down on his work area and his face leaning against a circuit board which had left imprints across forehead.

Blinking hard, he tried to shake off the hazy feeling of sleep and get back to the work in front of him...

Only to realize he didn't know what he needed to do. For the first time since he was very very young, he couldn't instantly understand the components in front of him and how they needed to be assembled for the project he was working on for-

For...

Jesse! Right. It was for Jesse.

Barry blinked a few times now realizing that something was very different. Now longer was his mind racing from thought to thought. Instead of endlessly calculating probabilities and possibilities and considering some of his many experiments... he was just there.

"What the fuck is happening?"

Of course he could still swear like crazy but for once his brain wasn't spinning him up like it usually was.

In fact he couldn't instantly recall anything that had happened for the last week. Or month. Or year.

"Oh."

He sat there looking around the room and almost grinned.

"So. This is what it feels like."

Comments

[somethingwithturquoise]

Summer had been meaning to check in on Barry all week, really, and not just because she really couldn't justify putting it off after her conversation with Jesse on Wednesday, although she felt she could justify putting it off until at least after the dance, but also today just seemed like a good day for it because today it seemed like it was just brooms, who the hell was going to get that worked up over fucking brooms? And if the answer to that was Barry. Barry was going to get that worked up over fucking brooms, then that really just solidified the point, didn't it?

So with that in mind (and more than a little bit of guilt over not having done this sooner), Summer headed over to the warehouse after her class, and she tried to listen for any particularly poetic and...inspired strings of curses on the other side of the door before she knocked and called out.

"Barry? It's Summer! Cool to come in?"

[badassprodigy]

Oh! Hey. Summer was here. Barry reached over to the console to type in the access code to turn off security...

Only to realize he didn't remember the 64 character password he had set last night. Oh. Wow.

"Hey Rube? Turn off the security for the warehouse and open the doors, will you?"

As the door opened Barry went over and tripped over a broom. "Where the fuck did that come from?" he said frowning. He then shrugged and gave Summer a grin. "Uhhh... So. Is something fucking weird going on?" he asked. "Because something fucking weird is going on and I-"

You what Barry?

"I can't understand it."

[somethingwithturquoise]

Summer's eyes made a wide pass around for the signs of chaos and distress she'd expected, random equipment beeping and churning away in the impossible grasp for explanation, before then found Barry's face and quite possibly the last expression she would have expected to have seen there that morning.

Which mean those wide eyes were now narrowing slightly in suspicion.

"And you," she observed, "seems to be taking it...incredibly well..."

[badassprodigy]

“Yeah. I know. Fucking weird, right?”

He looked around the room with all the equipment and... okay. A lot of brooms. Weird. He shook his head.

“It’s like...” he frowned, searching for the words. “You know how it is when you are in a really loud room? And you have to struggle to keep up and maintain concentration? Well now it feels like it got completely quiet. And it’s like this weight is just gone. I mean usually right now I’d be thinking about a theory or something. Or calculating what your reactions are or how to fix up the goggles for Annie but... it’s just quiet.l

He actually just stood there for a moment and just chuckled. “It’s... kind of nice. Without the noise.”

[somethingwithturquoise]

And while a response like that ended up softening Summer's suspicions significantly, there was still an incredibly unsettling undercurrent in all of this that she just couldn't quite shake.

"Did something happen this morning?" she asked. "Or last night? I mean, other than the usual whacky Fandom holiday shenanigans?"

[badassprodigy]

"Uhhh..."

Barry pondered that for a moment. "I fell asleep? That's weird for me and-"

He tried to focus before his phone made a weird blip type of noise forcing him to take a look at it.

"And for some fucking reason I have contact information for Kanye West and Taylor Swift on my phone."

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Wait."

That was definitely going to get Summer's attention.

"Seriously?"

She moved in closer for a better look, her hand practically poised for the event of just relieving Barry of his phone to see firsthand what would happen if she sent off a hyd to Ye.

"Is Beyoncé in there, too? Are we about to get hit with some weird ass Illuminati shit?"

That could be fun!

[badassprodigy]

Barry scrolled a bit and nodded in amusement. "Yep. Beyoncé too. Huh. I don't remember ever having her in there," he said before handing over the phone to Summer without a second thought.

[somethingwithturquoise]

And just like that, there seemed to be a sudden new energy in the air, a crackling of potent, untapped danger and potential, which only grew stronger the more Summer scrolled.

"I am totally transfering these all to my phone," she stated.

"For...research," she added, blinking up innocently from the two phones in her hand all of a sudden when just a second ago, there was definitely just one. "Purposes. Obviously. I mean, if this is a whole thing, we definitely need to be prepared, right?"

[badassprodigy]

"Um. Okay," Barry said with a shrug. "I certainly don't see a problem with that."

Well in other circumstances he might have had concerns but he would have wanted to see how this turned out even if he had been on full mental burn.

"Honestly though I don't know what kind of conversation I would have with any of them. And if the conversation went South, we'd probably be the topic of a Taylor Swift song."

[somethingwithturquoise]

Meanwhile, Summer almost couldn't stop thinking of conversations she might have. So many questions that might finally unlocked! She grinned a little as she worked.

"Honestly," she said, "I'd probably instigate a downhill conversation just to wind up in a T. Swift song."

There was a bit more tapping and transferring with a faint grin plastered on her face a moment longer before she glanced back over, with the smile now tinged with a little concern.

"But," she ventured, "other than the...um, quiet, I guess, do you feel okay? Anything else different?"

[badassprodigy]

"I'm... hungry?"

He shook his head. "I'm at a complete loss of what to do. I'm a little afraid. But honestly, I feel like I just got off a crazy roller coaster."

He took a deep breath. "I feel like I have clarity but no focus. I don't know. It's so weird."

[somethingwithturquoise]

Summer's expression melted entirely into sympathy with that, as she handed Barry back his phone.

"Quiet can be a lot to handle when you're not used to it," she said, since she didn't have a million jobs (or just the three) for nothing. "But at least the hungry party's easy to solve. And maybe the not knowing what to do part, too. Since you're not fixated on trying to triangulate the meaning of life from randomly appearing brooms or anything at the moment, we could maybe go check out the carnival? Definitely something to do."

[badassprodigy]

"Oh shit! Right. The carnival!" Barry said shaking his head. "I forgot-"

There was a pause there. A significant pause as a weird look of wonder and worry crossed his face.

"Well. That's a first."

He gave Summer and uneasy smile. "I forgot I'm having pies thrown at me today," Barry said offering his hand to her. "Want to come along? Eat fried food?"

And not analyze the amount of nutritional data while he ate it? That'll be a first too.

[somethingwithturquoise]

Summer had been watching those expressions on Barry's face with careful curiosity, offering a soft smile back when he held out his hand and she took it.

"I'd love to," she said.

And then that smile shifted to a distinct grin.

"Think we'll get caught if we made out in the Tunnel of Love or at the top of the ferris wheel?"

[badassprodigy]

Barry's ears turned a nice tint of red at the suggestion. Some things were not related to his big brain.

"Oh. Probably," Barry laughed as he gave her hand a little squeeze. "Which honestly at this point is probably something the island would do to us just to mess with us."

He then gave Summer a sly grin.

"You think we'd get in trouble for sending inappropriate pictures to celebrity phones?"

[somethingwithturquoise]

Okay, so, that was totally a test, and Summer felt at least some relief that his response to it more or less tracked.

"I think that depends," she grinned easily back, "on the celebrity. But we've got time to figure it out."

[badassprodigy]

"All right. For now we'll keep the contact list to ourselves and for our own amusement. Later on we'll send a list of celebrities we don't like to Jeremy. He'll want to send pictures of his junk," he said with a smirk and nodded his head to the door. "C'mon. There's fried food and places to get... uh.. stuck."

Yep. Ears were definitely red there.