Silver Springs, MD. - Friday morning

[badassprodigy]

As usual, Barry didn’t sleep on Christmas Eve. The day had been spent celebrating and watching Jeremy get his ass kicked in many video games by Summer and Roxie. No matter his age Jeremy was still a spaz at video games and always lost. Which always led to a smashing of controllers and mocking by his friends.

After everyone fell asleep, Barry spent most of the evening reflecting on the last six months and how much his life had changed since coming back to Fandom.

And wrapping gifts for friends and the gifts to replace the ones he had given Summer while he was Santa Barry.

Once he was done he started prepping food for breakfast and gift giving in the morning.

[For the girl. NFB]

Comments

[somethingwithturquoise]

And considering that Summer had maybe touched a video game controller about a half a dozen times in her life, that certainly said a lot about Jeremy's prowess. Or maybe more about Summer's own uncanny abilities, but, either way, she'd actually been up for a while before she emerged from the spare bedroom in search of life elsewhere in the apartment. It just took her a while to mitigate and wade through the deluge of messages and notes she had via text and her socials...and that wasn't even taking into account the hour or so she probably had before guilt-trip laden texts from her family started rolling in...

But emerge she eventually did, and she grinned faintly when she finally located Barry in the kitchen, and needed to just kind of have a moment before she said, "Hey."

[badassprodigy]

“Good morning,” Barry said smiling and kicking off the one cup coffee maker. “And merry Christmas. Sleep okay?”

He leaned over to give her a morning hug and kiss. “Hopefully Jeremy’s tears of losing didn’t keep you up all night.”

[somethingwithturquoise]

"I slept fine," Summer reported, deciding that morning kisses on Christmas were very nice and she'll go ahead and have a little more of that now, please and thank you. "Did you sleep at all?"

Yeah, she was pretty sure she already knew the answer to that one.

[badassprodigy]

“Maybe twenty minutes?” Barry said with a small shrug. “If that. There were a couple of experiments that were still running back at my lab. And then I had to fix Jeremy’s controller and upgrade his system so it could work with the new Xbox and Play Station. And there were gifts to wrap.”

He paused a moment to study Summer’s face. “You doing all right being away from home? I know your family is probably pissed at me for stealing you away for the holiday.”

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Oh, believe me," Summer scoffed lightly, rolling her eyes, and she would definitely be gravitating toward that coffee now, "this is great. And there's no stealing involved. My disdain for being forced into family holidays is well documented, and besides..." She shrugged, as she started looking for some sugar, "...I made a deal with my mom, so we're all good."

[badassprodigy]

“Oh yeah?” Barry asked “Did it involve a massive guilt trip and passive aggressive methodology? Because that’s what my parents did. God. I love them but they can be a royal pain at times.”

[somethingwithturquoise]

"No more than usual," Summer said wryly. "But she was willing to cool it on Christmas if I just agreed to come home more often in general." Her shoulder hitched in another shrug as she grinned at Barry over the coffee mug. "Prett good bargain so far."

[badassprodigy]

“Doesn’t sound too bad. Hopefully your grandfather has gotten over us finding his shitter on another planet,” Barry mused. “And on that pleasant thought what do you want first? Waffles or presents?”

[somethingwithturquoise]

"I feel like that's a better question for you," said Summer with a slightly reproachful look, "because you already got me presents..."

Not that she wouldn't gleefully accept more, or even really be surprised if he had gotten her more, but it definitely didn't help mitigate the feeling that the gifts she'd gotten for him were woefully inadequate.

There was, however, a more important question, anyway:

"Also: are pancakes an option?"

LOOK, IT WAS JUST A WHOLE THING, OKAY?

[badassprodigy]

“Yeah, it’s one of those waffle slash pancake mixes. I just know if Jeremy doesn’t get his chocolate chip waffles on Christmas Day he considers it a breach of Christmas protocol,” Barry said with an eye roll. “And if you think I wouldn’t have something for you to open on Christmas you obviously forgot how much I over think things.”

Unless it comes to booty call texts.

“Let’s do presents first and we can eat when our hosts wake up.”

[somethingwithturquoise]

Summer had to grin at that, since her presents were going to show that she very clearly did not forget.

"I can totally do waffles if that's protocol," she said. "I'd hate to be the one to fuck up with holiday tradition. But yeah." She wouldn't have been able to keep the warm grin off her face even if she tried. "We can do presents. I'll have to go get mine from my luggage, though, so...I'll be right back."

A quick kiss on the cheek then to go back to the guest room to root underneath her clothes for where the small wrapped gifts were waiting. A chance to check the one to make sure it actually did travel well, because she wasn't sure, and a chance to just sort of regret the other ones because she was pretty sure they were just lame, especially ompared to whatever probably amazing other thing Barry had got for her, ugh.

"Do I get the full Santa treatment with this one, too?" she asked, once she got back.

[badassprodigy]

“Only if you wrapped a fucking gremlin as one of your presents,” Barry laughed. “Unless you’d prefer Santa Claus over me.”

Barry pulled out three boxes. Two were small and turquoise with white ribbon and the other was just a box in red wrapping paper. However red box actually had a tag for Pancakes.

“Who first?”

[somethingwithturquoise]

When Barry pulled out multiple boxes, when there had already been multiple boxes, Summer managed to pull off another reproachful look, though it didn't last long before the pleased, eager grin took it over. It was obviously way too much, but who was she to, like, totally get in the way of his generosity, or whatever?

"You," she decided firmly. "Because I have so been slacking and you haven't gotten anything yet. Here." She handed over what was easily the largest of the three, maybe half the size of a bread box. How she managed to actually hide it in her suitcase was anyone's guess "Start with this one, but be careful with it."

And opening it, he would see why, because inside was a little microcosm of a terrarium with brightly colored and subtly alien flora inside.

"It's from Venzenulon 9," she was quick to explain. "I felt your workstation could use a little pop of decor."

One that, in the rare event that Barry actually bothered noticing it in the middle of working on something, had a good chance of reminding him of her and that first date, but, you know, whatever.

"Or, alternately, you could just use it to get samples to figure out what properties allow it to withstand such dramatic shifts in temperature; I'm sure you could eventually use that somehow."

And that take seemed much more likely, anyway.

[badassprodigy]

Barry immediately recognized some of the fauna in the terrarium and blinked a little as a reaction. “Where we went on our first date,” he said looking touched. He leaned over to give Summer a kiss. “Thank you. I love it.”

He looked over at his gifts trying to decide something before shrugging and handing over the box for Pancakes. Inside was a metal. Ox that somehow looked and felt like cardboard with a hint of a catnip smell. “This is really for Pancakes. And if she scratches the right spot it’ll give her a measured amount of cat treats each day.”

Which she’ll probably ignore for a real cardboard box.

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Awwww," gushed Summer, melting over it a little as she gave a grateful look over to Barry. "I can't wait to come home one day and find this all the way on the other side of the room from where I left it, completely turned over on its side from her failed attempts to figure out how to bypass the measured amount system!"

RIP, automatic feeder not at all inspired by actual events, noooo.

And after Summer just took a moment to appreciate the fact that Barry had even thought to get something for her cat (although this was not at all a surprise, either, considering, but something she was determined not to take for granted, even if she was wondering if Pancakes would see it less as a gift and more like some sort of convoluted torture device), she picked out the next one, a rectangular boxed shaped present, and handed it over.

"This one next," she directed, and upon opening it, Barry would find a nice smooth wooden box that housed inside it a very sleek folding straight razor, which might seem like a pretty odd gift for someone who probably couldn't grow a beard to save his life (scientific enhancements notwithstanding), unless you noticed that the word OCCAM was neatly and clearly etched onto the blade itself.

Summer bit her lip against her grin and the urge to explain this one, because if her attempts to take an extremely nerdy deep dive with that one and> somehow manage to throw a little backhanded shade with it at the same time had been successful, she doubted she'd have to.

Well. She thought it was hilarious, anyway.

[badassprodigy]

There was a moment of confusion as Barry looked at the gift because, yes, his facial hair was more splotchy when grown in than anything.

As soon as he saw the engraving however he died laughing. “You are hilarious,” he declared and punctuated that with a quick kiss. “I may have to make a special display case for this so I can have it my face whenever I’m doing research. Especially with the weird island shit is going down.”

His next gift looked like Tiffany and Co. earrings but upon closer inspection, they actually read “Turtle and Canary” with instructions to “please return to Fandom island”.

[somethingwithturquoise]

"That was pretty much the idea," Summer said, grinningna bit stupidly with the relief that came from the gift having exactly the sort of response she had hoped for, taking her time to comment while opening up her next one. "That, or just the fact that sometimes? The simplest solution is seriously just to cut a bitch."

And then her attention was completely on the contents of the box she was opening with her own laugh as she read the inscription.

"Okay," she said, "these are just adorable."

And of course they were going into her ears immediately, with a small turn of her head one way and then then other to model them off a little before asking, "How do they look?"

Of course she barely gave him time to answer before braving the front facing camera on her phone to see for herself.

[badassprodigy]

“They look great,” Barry said laughing at Summer’s reaction. “I had a feeling you’d like them.”

He then handed over the other turquoise box with white ribbon. “Now this one goes with the gremlin bit version of me gave to you at the party.”

Inside the box was another charm to go with the charm bracelet. It was a silver tree decorated with small diamond chips. “I figure our first Christmas together deserved a place on your wrist.”

[somethingwithturquoise]

"I feel like a Santa hat might have been a little more fitting," Summer pointed out with a smirk, because, yeah, never letting him live that one down, like, ever. She was, however, making up for it with a kiss, too. "But this is really good, too."

She actually super loved it, even if she was sort of wondering if, at this rate, that bracelet was going to get to be a real hazard from the wieght of all those charms...

Not a complaint, though!

"Okay," she said, because if she let herself, she would probably just glow about it all morning. "Last one."

And she handed over what was definitely the classic clearly-a-DVD-and-a-T-shirt wrapping job, the T-shirt being one that Summer could not just ignore once she saw it, and the DVD was very obviously some cheap bootleg, completely with a poor quality print-out for the cover, of what appeared to be an absolutely terrible monstrosity called The Ball Fondlers Holiday Special.

Which Summer was way too excited about.

"I have no idea what kind of plans you had for tonight," she said, "but watching that has got to be on there, that was not easy to track down and it looks like it is such a flaming pile of garbage that people have actively tried to eradicate its whole existence from the entire multiverse."

[badassprodigy]

Barry of course loved the T-Shirt. Enough that he stripped off his current shirt and immediately put it on because that thing was fucking awesome.

But the DVD.... that he was truly astonished about "I heard about this," he said in a hushed voice. "Holy shit. And I tried to find it in about fifty different dimensional repositories but every one had actively banned it. I heard if you watch it more than once it can cause actual fuckingbrain damage."

His fingers lightly traced over the cover like he was a blind man trying to read braille for the first time and suddenly discovered he could read again.

"Jesus..."

He looked up at Summer with a look of gratitude.

"I love it."

[somethingwithturquoise]

Sorry, Summer had missed at least the first part of what Barry had said because she was definitely still deep in wistful appreiation for the unexpected flash of shirtlessness she'd just been gifted in that moment, but she managed to move her eyes from his chest to his face just in time to catch that grateful look, and immediately felt like her chest was going to just straight up explode.

(Which it thankfully did not, because that would have really put a damper on this whole blissfully normal Christmas they were having here).

"I love you," she gushed out, eyes wide and marveling for a moment before she threw her arms around his neck to pull herself in to kiss him with her own very enthusiastic expression of gratitude.

[badassprodigy]

Not quite expecting that kind of reaction, Barry fumbled for a moment but managed not to drop the very valuable DVD on the floor before pulling Summer in, his arms around her waist. "I love you too," he murmured back once he finally pulled away from the kiss. "You have no idea how great the last several months have been for me."

He grinned.

"And I can't wait to see what happens next."

[somethingwithturquoise]

The fact that Barry could have been legitimately surprised by this reaction was just precious. There had been shirtlessness. It was.like flashing a piece of meat to a mob of starving wolves and being surprised when they attacked...

"I think I might have some idea," Summer grinned back, because it wasn't like this greatness was entirely one sided over here.

And she leaned in a little more, because, sorry, Barry, she was locked in now without any intention of letting go any time soon, especially not now that she'd decided.what happened next was kissing, and plenty of it.