The Continuing Adventures of Barry Ween

Barry should know by now that if he ever falls asleep on a Friday night, bad shit is going to happen.

However WeeTiny Barry was oblivious to all of that as he woke up cursing up a storm (Yes. Even more than usual) and went straight to work on his brand new teleportation device.

Which he promptly screwed up and then had to spend the next 20 minutes to keep it from exploding.

"SHIT! FUCK! GOD DAMN MOTHERFUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! SUCK MY-"

Anyone even remotely near the warehouse district would no doubt be able to hear Barry's loud and increasingly loud swearing coming from his lab.

Sometime after his drone visited town hall, Barry was glued to his monitors attempting to glean any other kind of information he could about whatever was causing the weirdness in Fandom.

It didn't help that there was a mistletoe vine shouting at him.

"You're a emotionally deviant misfit who can't fit in with regular society!"

Barry rolled his eyes and continued to work. "Yeah, that's not exactly new information you shitbag," he retorted as he adjust some of his equipment.

"You overcompensate by giving people way to much and trusting anyone you can connect to emotionally!"

"It's called being nice you fucking mistake for a holiday decoration!" Barry snapped back.

"You don't even know what 'u Up' means!"

... Barry turned and looked at the vine. "It means 'are you awake'?"

There was cackling laughter followed by more insults... as well as an explanation.

Barry just sat there as he was continued to be insulted by the vine. He wasn't even paying attention anymore.

"Well... fuck."

"Exactly! Maybe if you could relate to people on a social level you would-"

Barry slowly out a small aerosol can and sprayed the vine which immediately caused it to wilt and fall to the ground. He then pulled out his phone to review a recent text coversation.

And then smacked his head with his hand. "FUCK!"

There was a ton of swearing going on in the warehouse today. Of course there was always swearing when Barry was involved but in this particular case, Barry was swearing more than usual.

And yes. It was because of the tiny pumpkins that kept falling out of cabinets whenever he opened them and finding tiny pumpkins in all his drawers.

"I JUST WANT TO FIND MY FUCKING THERMAL PRE HEATER WITHOUT A FUCKING PUMPKIN SHOWING UP!"

Anyone walking into the warehouse would find Barry surrounded by circuit boards from a bygone era of computing that really no decent computer nerd would even think of using. Still, Barry was cobbling together some hybrid system that would eventually make his life easier. And possibly someone else's.

There was also a bunch of tiny smashed pumpkins against one of the walls of the warehouse.

[Open!]

The walk home from Caritas last night was very nice. Summer had spent the first part of the evening in the warehouse poking around at various experiments and projects asking questions. Which had led to chatting and then at one point Barry realized he was just talking to himself as Summer had fallen asleep on the couch.

Making sure she had a nice comfy blanket on her to keep her warm, Barry then went to work.

Barry had been up all night as usual, working on yet another project which was somewhat derailed when he noticed other abnormalities that had been popping up. And it appeared to have gremlin involvement.

Which of course was just fantastic news.

"Rube, do another round of analysis on the spandex carbon fiber polymer taking into account bio-electric charges as well as obfuscation of the visual light spectrum," he said quietly to his AI so as not to wake the girl who had fallen asleep. "And then forward all the gremlin analysis to the mayor's office via fax.

Jesse would be thrilled to have another 100 fax pages to read.

[Open. Summer modded with permission]

After the welcome picnic, Barry had helped Roxie and Jeremy gather their things and haul them back to the warehouse.

Which had been redecorated in his absence.

"What. The. Ever. Loving. Fuck?"

The one constant thing in Barry’s life is ideas. They are always there and always poking at him to move forward and advance.

Today that means there’s a twelve foot long carrot sitting in the middle of the warehouse.

It’s best not to ask about the thought process that got him there.

[Open]

After work, Barry had spent most of his time cleaning up the warehouse and establishing a portal back to his world. The portal actually only took a minute and the cleaning was actually pretty needless but nevertheless, Barry was in high gear in preparation for tonight.

Not that he was nervous or anything.

Nope. Not at all. Not one bit.

[For that one.]

It had been almost a week since Barry had attempted to call Roxie. Which had resulted in unpleasantness.

( So he made sure Sara wasn't around for this phone call. )

[Establishy. NFI as I'm going to be busy doing other nerdy stuff tonight]

Barry had gone to a party. In a toga that had... stuff on it. And he had two alcoholic drinks.

That was the most human contact he had in years. Unless you counted the Ramaat and the Tolan.

Barry did not count the Ramaat or the Tolan.

He made it back to the warehouse still feeling the effects of the gimlets. Slumping back in front of his consoles he let out a sigh of relief. There. Social interaction. Total win.

( But still... he felt the need to reach out to a friend. )

Barry hung up feeling... at ease. Ignoring the horrible homemade toga, Barry did what he usually did this late at night.

He went to work. There were prototypes to build. Theories to pursue. New technology to create.

Hopefully tomorrow he'd get his underwear back.

[Establishy]

Ezra Pound once said that "a man of genius has a right to any mode of expression."

Possibly true. But Ezra hasn't spent a week with Barry Ween when his current mode of expression is being a miserable dick.

Except for some brief appearances at classes this week, Barry had spent the majority of his time in his warehouse and avoiding the public at large. At this point it felt better to dwell in the world of scientific experiments than talking with people. Even calls from back home were met with snippy-ness and more curse words than usual. Enough that it made his friends at home ask what was going on which usually led to Barry quickly ending the call in a terse manner.

Suffice to say: Entering into the warehouse to talk to Barry may be a dangerous situation.

[Open]