fandomtownies | J, GOB [Monday afternoon]

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J, GOB [Monday afternoon]

If you were to put together a list of all the things that Rapunzel had not experienced in her tower, it would probably be longer than her hair, honestly.

But today, she had discovered one of the most important things that had been absent from her life up to this point: doughnuts.

It had taken her a good long while to pick something out, once she'd wandered into the bakery with Pascal on her shoulder and her sketchpad under her arm. And then, of course, she'd had to unstick her hair from the doorway, and then, once the staff was good and annoyed with her, she'd taken her time to pore over everything in the case until she finally picked out a brightly-sprinkled little circular cake.

"A doughnut, Pascal, look!" And now that she was seated at her table, she was trying to be good and sketch it quickly so she'd remember this wonderful treat before she actually ate any -- but then she cheated, because she wanted to make sure her drawing also effectively communicated how it tasted, and now she was at war with herself, sneaking little tastes as she carefully scribbled in an approximation of sprinkles. (They were the best part. Her life had really been so empty before she'd discovered sprinkles.)

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"Hey Rapunzel," Barry said with a wave as he headed to the counter to pick up a bagel. "How's it going?"

"Hi Barry!" Rapunzel waved at him eagerly, eyes wide. "Did you know that there are these little...cakey things called doughnuts and that they come with sprinkles sometimes? Because they're my new favorite thing. I might have to move in here."

Not really. Calm down, panicked JGOB staff.

"Yeah, they're pretty fucking good," Barry said with a grin. "Though you might not like living here when the baker comes in at 4:00 am to start cooking these things up. And if you like doughnuts you're going to have to try a cinnamon bun."

"They look huge," she said doubtfully, glancing over at the cinnamon buns in the case. "I mean, delicious and huge but I'd probably have to take a nap afterwards."

Like that was a bad thing.

"I only had one class today," Barry said picking up his bagel and cream cheese. "If I took naps I'd totally do that. Are you sketching your doughnut?"

"Well, yeah," Rapunzel said, like it was the most normal thing ever. "How else am I gonna remember all the new stuff I run into?"

There was totally a sketch of Barry in her book somewhere, too, labeled with his name.

"Well you could get a phone or a tablet," Barry said taking out his phone and snapping a picture of his bagel and showing it to Rapunzel. "Though you tend to lose the artistic qualities that way. Come to think of it this picture looks like shit."

"Oh, I don't know, I'd probably break something like that," Rapunzel said, looking fretfully -- but interestedly -- at his phone. "That's amazing, though. I'd at least be able to draw them later, from the picture."

Though people would probably take less kindly to a phone in their face than a girl cutely asking if she could draw them.

Please. Like anyone could resist a Disney princess.

Well except for the Disney villains.

"Oh, there are cases available that pretty much make them fucking indestructible," Barry noted. "But if you do get one and start taking pictures of yourself I'll tease you to no end. You should check out the computer center they have at school sometime. They have systems there that are just for making digital artwork."

"Art? On the computer?" Rapunzel frowned, and on her shoulder, Pascal made a disapproving little whirring noise. "But that's -- cheating, isn't it?"

~~Said the digitally-rendered Disney princess.~~

Barry gave Pascal a brief 'WTF? Chameleon?' before answering.

"I'm not saying it's better than the tried and true pencil or paint method except-"

Barry paused. "I don't know. These days people put a filter on a digital image and call it photography. Maybe it is cheating."

"I'm sure that this...digital artwork is very nice," Rapunzel said carefully. "But...I don't know. There's something really relaxing about drawing and painting, for me. Plus it helps me remember things here! There's so, so much I've never seen, and way more people than I've ever seen before."

You know. More than two.

"Really? How big is Corona exactly because this is a pretty small village?" Barry asked.

"Uh." Well, that was a new question to tackle, since Rapunzel had no idea what the population of her home kingdom was like. "It's pretty big! I just...um. I didn't get out much," she said, playing with a bit of her hair nervously. "I mostly...stayed in. Not a huge fan of crowds, what with the hair and all!"

Right? Because of the people stepping on it. That made sense.

"You stayed inside because of your hair?" Barry asked. "I guess it would attract a lot of attention. How often did you get out?"

Rapunzel looked from him to her sketchbook for a moment, and then sighed. "Um...well, you're looking at it, my whole outside experience," she said quietly, shrugging. "I kind of...never left, before I did."

That wasn't weird, was it? Except how she knew it was.

"That's just fucking strange."

See. Not weird at all!

"So the only time you've been outside your own house was when you came to Fandom? Didn't you have friends who came to visit? Family? Jehovah witnesses?"

"Um...no," she said carefully, trying not to look as self-conscious as she felt. "Not really! I had my mother for company, and that was enough. We lived kind of in the middle of nowhere." And they didn't really have a door.

"Is that like a kind of doughnut that you've got there? It doesn't have sprinkles!" Nice deflection, there, Rapunzel.

"It's a bagel," Barry explained. "They're mostly not as sweet and shit as a doughnut. You usually eat them with cream cheese or butter."

He then gave Rapunzel a sympathetic look. "Am I making you uncomfortable? If so just tell me to fuck off and I'll leave you alone."

"Barry! I could never tell you to do that." Rapunzel's eyes were enormous because really.

"Okay, maybe not literally but if you don't want to talk about home you don't have to tell me," Barry said looking amused.

"I'm just not used to talking about home," Rapunzel admitted, her shoulders slumping a little. "Where are you from, anyway? Here? Like, this country?"

"Pretty much like this place. It's a little town in a state called Pennsylvania^*," Barry replied. "The techonology level is a little higher than this place but not necessarily as advanced as some of the aliens or future students who live here."

He shrugged. "I actually spent most of my life pretending to be a normal kid except for one or two close friends. It's been a lot easier for me here not having to pretend anymore. It's a relief really."

^*Or as near as the mun can tell from the comic.]

"Yeah?" Rapunzel tilted her head at that. "Why'd you have to pretend, though? You seem pretty normal to me, even if you curse a lot."

Her standards may have been different from others', though.

"Well I'm pretty smart and I have really pushed the technology banner back home a lot. Like a fucking huge amount," Barry said with a shrug. "Even back when I was an 8 month old I knew that kind of intelligence would lead to fucking tests, working for the government, developing weapon systems. You know. Forcing me to fuck with things I don't want to fucking do for the purpose of making things so much fucking worse."

Barry groaned. "Fucking government. So I kept my family in the dark and kept what I did a secret. Almost got caught once or twice but now that I'm here I don't need to worry about that shit any more."

Rapunzel had to navigate the language there a bit (goodness), but the big thing she took away there was, "Wow, you're -- you're like really, really smart? Like, at eight months old? At eight months old, I was -- well, I was special, but I don't remember it."

"Yeah, well I'm a freak of nature," Barry said frowning a bit. "And I'm guessing the special thing about you was your hair? Unless you did a song and dance number as an infant."

"You're in good company. We can start a club for freaks of nature," Rapunzel said with a small smile. "My hair -- yeah. My hair's special. Kind of has been since I was a baby. That's part of why it's so long." Way to not really answer that question very well, Rapunzel. "But anyway, you feel...safer, here? The government won't come after you, you think?"

That was intriguing.

"Not unless they figure out where Fandom is," Barry said with a shrug. "And since they usually can't find their fucking ass with both hands it's a pretty sure bet they won't. They did find out about me once before but kidnapped my best friend by mistake."

His face clouded a bit at the memory.

"They haven't bothered me since then."

Then again Barry wiped their computer systems and their memories of Barry even existing. That would hinder any investigation.

"Fuckers."

"You fought back?" Rapunzel said softly, watching him. "Was -- your friend. Was he okay?"

Kidnapping was right up there with men with pointy teeth, in terms of things that frightened her, still.

Barry smirked. "Jeremy? Yeah. He was fine. He spent most of the time playing video games until the ass-hat agents caught on he wasn't who they thought he was. I was complete wreck until Jeremy called me a pussy. Oh, and if you think I'm bad with my language you really need to meet Jeremy."

"I'm not sure I do," Rapunzel hedged. "I'm still getting used to your profanity."

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J, GOB [Monday afternoon]

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