badassprodigy | A warehouse called George

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A warehouse called George - Wednesday Evening

Aristotle once said that no great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness. For Barry, this is occasionally true. Most of the time he's just plain out mad.

But since Monday, Barry made the mistake of binge watching all fifteen seasons of Paranormal. As a result he is now humming the songs "Single Man Tear" and "Carry on my Wayward Sons" while attempting to build a 1:8 replica of the Chevrolet 67 impala out of Legos.

He's currently having a bit of trouble trying to find a way to get Lego version of a green plastic army man stuck in the rear ashtray and it's vexing him greatly.

[I have no one to blame for this. Open.]

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It was pretty late by the time Barry's phone pinged with a text from Summer. She'd stuck around the bar a little bit more after talking to Lucifer, but still left a little early, knowing there was no way she would be able to sleep without doing something, so she was planning to head right on over to Georgia, but there had been...an unexpected...hitch in the plan.

So she texted Lucifer with an update before texting Barry.

Hey, r u up?

You could tell she was distracted because it didn't even register what she'd sent until two seconds later, which was why she very, very quickly followed it up with:

omg but for real! I need your help.

Which probably wouldn't help things for Summer's brain, but for Barry's brain, it was probably fine. But just incase, she figured it wouldn't hurt to clarify further:

the portal gun's not working 😞😞😞

Luckily enough for Barry, he had missed the very first ping as the 1x2 bluish grey plate he had used about five steps ago should have been a 1x2 light grey plate and had been cursing up a storm when he heard the second ping on his phone came in.

He had already been trying to think of something witty to text back when the text about the portal gun came in. Abandoning any thought of trying to be funny, he sent a smiley face text back.

If you're not tired from the fucking bazillion jobs you do, why don't you bring the gun over and I'll run diagnostics on it? I wouldn't mind the company."

It was kind of really, really stupid how that last line made Summer smile and feel like the little pool of warmth spreading in her chest melted away her frustration and concern about something being wrong with the gun (and okay, okay, maybe about Lucifer and Octavia, too, but, you know, sorry, definitely more worried about the gun right now, they'd been stuck for over a week, they were fiiiiiine).

its a gazillion now??? Fuck r u trying to kill me?

That just needed to be said.

and ok. Be right over.

And sure enough, not long after that, she was knocking on the warehouse door. She knew she probably shouldn't, at this point, but she still felt a little weird just letting herself in, like she'd just accidentally set someone off when she did or something.

Barry smirked at the message and headed to the door as soon as she knocked. Sliding it open he just smiled and leaned in for a quick kiss hello.

"This is a pleasant surprise," he said welcoming her in. "Even if it is for a troubleshooting session. What's happening with the gun?"

"It would be a lot more pleasant if I wasn't trying to actually use the fucking thing to help someone out," Summer said, though that greeting definitely took a lot of the annoyance and spit out of it as she kissed him back. "And that's the problem, nothing is happening. I put in the coordinates, set the range, everything I usually do, but then when I got to actually use it..."

She pointed the gun at the closest empty space, pulled the trigger, and all that happened was a pathetic little noise coming from the gun instead of the usual glowing pink portal....plasma or light or whatever it was.

Summer shrugged her shoulders and handed it over for Barry to inspect closer.

"I mean, at least it's not just exploding all over the place or blowing things up, right?"

"Huh. Yeah. That shouldn't fucking happen," Barry said frowning slightly as he gave the gun a quick physical inspection. "The power source won't die for at least several years yet."

Finding nothing wrong on the physical side and checking the trigger mechanism, he shrugged and took it over to his work area and placed it on the table, pulling out various bits of equipment and plugging it into the gun's data ports.

"My guess is that there's a faulty transponder conduit or one of the circuits had its fucking polarity reversed. Shouldn't take long to diagnose."

He looked over his shoulder to give Summer a grin. "Recovered from our trip to Japan?"

Summer's attention had definitely started drifting a little bit once Barry started diving into the technicalities, mostly just out of curiousity to spot what he might have been working on before she showed up, and her eyes had just found the Lego car before the question dragged her back and she returned his grin.

"It already feels like it was a million years ago," she said. "No wasting time on recovery when you literally have a gazillion jobs."

Although it did just sort of occur to her that she actually did pretty much have Sunday before leaping into the succession of three of her jobs all in a row, and how she still probably had a pretty long night ahead of her once Barry got the problem with the gun figured out. Then she might get Thursday before she was no doubt dragged into helping Seivarden with her party, and...yeah. Yeah. Definitely back to business as usual.

She quirked up her chin at him.

"How 'bout you?"

"Well the break was nice but I was ready to get the jump back into things as soon as we got home," Barry replied as he turned around and saw Summer eyeing the Lego project. "As well as find something to do for once that wasn't research or science based."

His workstation dinged and Barry turned his head to look at the results. "Yep. Faulty transponder conduit," he said, and immediately began to disassemble the casing. "Shouldn't take more than a half hour or so including testing to fix."

"That's not bad at all!" Summer remarked, feeling a rush of excitement over just how easy that was, but, really, even though Barry had used Rick's prototype for it, he did make it, of course he'd be able to fix it. She then wondered if she should try to, like, fit in a nap or something while he took care of it, but, yeah, right, like she'd really be to settle enough for that. Well. Maybe if she just had Barry start to explain to her exactly what fixing a faulty transponder conduit would entail...

"So what were you working on before this?" she asked, instead, because a half hour was barely enough for a good nap and falling asleep while your boyfriend geeked out was not a great look, anyway.

Barry smirked and rolled his eyes in preparation of being called a dork. Because this was ever so dorky.

"Ever see the show Paranormal? Two brothers and an angel rolling around in a 67 Chevy Impala? Binge watched the entire 15 seasons since we got back on Sunday. And for some reason I thought I'd make the car in Legos," he admitted. "Hey. I can't be 100% science all the time, right?"

"No," Summer allowed, "but you can be 100% nerd all the time, apparently."

See? She called you a nerd, Barry. Not a dork! Talk about subverting expectations!

"Fifteen seasons, though? God, how many hours even is that?"

All while she was busting her butt at her gazillion jobs, too...

"Well I did watch them at a higher than normal speed. So... About five days worth," Barry said looking somewhat embarrassed. "Huh. Is that a sign I should get out more?"

Yes, Barry. It is definitely a sign.

"Maybe a little," said Summer, who was mostly relieved he came around to that conclusion all on his own rather than her having to mention it, "yeah. Although I think you can get a little bit of a pass coming off a long week of arduous and demanding chaperoning in a foreign country..."

"It wasn't that arduous," Barry said with a smirk. "There were plenty of perks. Like learning that you talk in your sleep."

She didn't. But Barry thought that was a good way to tease her as he turned his back to her and started the repair on the gun.

"I do not," Summer insisted, although she was definitely planning on setting her phone to record the next time she slept...whenever that would be, because who even knew how this whole thing was going to go down? For all she knew, she'd wind up accidentally getting portal-slammed into Hell or something. "Maybe you're just actually so sleep-deprived that you're just hearing my voice in your head."

She was grinning at him, though, as she snagged a hair to pull over so she could watch him and what he was doing.

"But okay. So let's say I was." Her brow quirked challengingly. "What was I saying, huh?"

“Well you were telling someone named Tammy how hot your boyfriend Barry was even though he was a giant nerd. Then another night you had an argument with your Dad about how nobody wants a honey flavored Jell-O shot. Then there was a disturbing dream about Little Bo Peep and your love of mutton,” Barry joked. “And I know I wasn’t hearing voices. Going insane is fucking scary for me and you have no idea how many safety protocols I have in place for that.”

By now he had the gun almost disassembled and the power source was now disconnected so Barry could start taking care of the broken part. “Looks like the power source I’m using doesn’t get along well with the conduit,” he said giving it a quick evaluation. Only a minor hiccup. The next one I put in will have some alterations so that doesn’t happen again. I’ll make sure it goes through a full diagnostic and testing before you take off to where it is you are going to.”

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A warehouse called George - Wednesday Evening

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