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The Magic Box, Wednesday

Elsa didn't have anything particularly pressing to take care of, from the look of things, when she opened the Magic Box today. In fact, just to keep busy, she was cleaning up around the place, smiling at the tiny pumpkins that were sitting here and there among the merchandise. She'd even found a couple and stacked them, drawing a smiling face on the top one in black ink.

It took her a few hours before she realized that her pumpkin creation looked rather a lot like a little orange snowman. And then she spent the rest of her shift on the other side of the store. Over here. Alphabetizing books.

[Open, OCD-free!]

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Taking a break from working on the sub, Barry headed over to the magic box because...

Well he had a reason. Not that he needed one to visit anyway.

"Hey," he said cheerfully walking into the store with one hand behind his back. "I see we're still celebrating Halloween?"

Elsa glanced up from her very important alphabetizing to give Barry a warm smile.

"We seem to be," she agreed, nodding. "You know, I'm not even certain what started all of it? Not much of this is even especially magical. But it's been fun so far. How are you today?"

"I'm feeling pretty fucking-"

Beep

The noise was quick and not that loud but it came out of Barry's mouth and he continued on like he didn't notice if he had said anything.

"-good. I was working on a project for Eleanor when I realized I hadn't properly thanked you for taking care of me when I was a dog. So... uh. Well I made you something."

At which point he pulled out a small metal flower (http://cdn.instructables.com/FHS/QHL1/GXUZINBI/FHSQHL1GXUZINBI.LARGE.jpg) which he had apparently made out of scrap metal.

At first, Elsa was slightly taken aback at the sound. But when Barry didn't seem to notice, she chalked it up to her own imagination. Perhaps his phone had made the sound, instead?

The flower brushed that uncertainty from her mind entirely, and her expression lit up in a bright smile that was largely unfitting for a princess. But really, see how much Elsa cared about that.

"Barry, it's lovely," she breathed, hesitating only a moment before reaching to take it, to get a better work at the craftsmanship. "And I won't ever have to watch it wilt! Thank you."

Barry blushed a little from the attention. It was the first time he made anything... well even remotely artistic to give as a gift to someone so his anxiety level was now finally decreasing a bit.

"Good, I'm glad you like it," Barry said with a sigh of relief. "I thought about regular flowers but I remembered you never fed me any dog food while I was covered in fur so I thought you deserved something better than that."

Other than Barry appearing naked in front of Elsa and Kathy of course.

"Well, I'm hardly going to feed you something that I wouldn't be comfortable being fed myself in that position," Elsa pointed out, tracing the details of the petals with her fingertips. "I should hope you wouldn't feed me some sort of dehydrated pellet if I wound up turning into a bear again and you were the person charged with taking care of me."

She couldn't discern any actual ingredients in dog food, so really, she didn't trust it.

"Makes sense," Barry agreed. "And I'd like to return the favor someday if I could. I'd make sure you'd get romps in the park and all the fucking-"

Meep

"-fish you could eat. Wouldn't give you an seals though. That'd just feel wrong."

"I... can't really speak one way or another about the seals. I imagine they'd be too much for a tiny bear to handle," Elsa replied, sounding a little dubious, then. She turned the flower over in her hands a couple more times before finally just out and asking, "Is your phone trying to get your attention?"

The beeping and meeping were just a tiny bit distracting, was the thing.

Barry gave Elsa a baffled look before pulling his phone out of his pocket and checking it. "It was on. I didn't hear it though. Weird," he said and then shrugged. "Probably nothing. Anyway. I promise I'll keep you away from any seals and just stick to the fish. Or maybe bacon."

Because who doesn't like bacon?

"Bacon," Elsa echoed, brushing off the uncertainty over the noise for a second time. "I certainly wouldn't mind being fed bacon while I'm a small bear, I'll admit. Do you suppose it's good for baby polar bears?"

"Well since polar bears mostly eat seals and fish, I don't think a little bacon will hurt," Barry mused. "I just nobody would really refuse bacon unless they're a fucking-

DONG

Okay. That definitely came from Barry's mouth this time. He continued on like nothing happened.

"-vegetarian."

"A... what?"

Yeah, Elsa was wondering if she was losing her mind now or not. Maybe Barry was just messing with her? She didn't even know.

"... Vegetarian?" Barry offered looking confused. "You have heard of people who don't eat meat right? Because-"

Suddenly Barry's hands snapped to his hips and for five seconds his feet did a routine like something out of Michael Flatley's Riverdance. Barry's expression clearly showed that this time he knew what was going on.

"WHAT THE FUCK-"

BLOOOOOOOOOOOP

"-WAS THAT?"

"... Dancing," Elsa offered, taking a half-step backwards and staring at Barry, wide-eyed. "And, um, you made a sound."

Again. It was good to know she wasn't losing her mind, there.

"Barry... why are you dancing?"

"I don't know."

Well, Barry had ideas but the first one that came into his head wasn't a good one.

"Shit"

Blarg

"Rapunzel and Eleanor said something earlier about noises but I thought.... Fuck."

*foghorn sound*

Suddenly Barry's hands flew back on their own accord and started to massage his own bottom.

"That's not good. That's not good at all."

Yep. Barry was afraid and his face showed it.

Oh. Oh. Elsa knew fear when she saw it. That, right there? That was fear.

She reacted in an instant, making her way back across the shop to grab a chair, wheeling it back toward Barry.

"Sit," she instructed, "and I'll make you some tea. Panicking won't help. Slow, deep breaths." A beat. "Try to avoid swearing. The noises seem to happen whenever you do."

"Stop swearing? DO YOU EVEN KNOW ME?!"

Barry then realized he was freaking out and sat down as ordered. He took deep breaths.

"Okay. Logical explanation. There's a logical explanation for this!"

There wasn't. Nor was there a reason why his hand shot out and tried to grab Elsa's butt on its own.

"SHIT!"

Cuckoo!

"SORRY!"

Edited 2014-08-21 01:45 (UTC)

Fear of touch be damned, Elsa's hand was reaching down to give Barry's hand a firm swat for that one. Sorry, Barry. Your hand had been asking for it, and Elsa wasn't even going to try to hide the scandalized look on her face.

"Barry!" And now Elsa was staying a few steps back, just to be sure that didn't happen again. "When did this start? Just today? Radio had said something about you being strange yesterday as well, didn't it?"

She'd kind of figured that it was normal Barry strangeness. He wasn't exactly normal, and the squirrels seemed to have it out for him from time to time.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Barry shouted and quickly sat on his hands. "I really didn't mean that! Really! And I don't know when this started! Rapunzel and Eleanor mentioned something about noises but I didn't really believe them. I don't know if I'm even making them. There's a logical explanation."

He was going crazy. Barry always feared the day this would happen. He thought it would be another ten years or so.

Nope. Wasn't going to think about that.

"Something logical."

Just then Barry's hand yanked itself from beneath his butt and jammed his index finger up his nose.

"Ow! Fuck!"

BING!

Elsa... took another step backwards, just to be on the safe side. And then busied herself with plugging in the electric kettle that she kept behind the counter. Something to do, something productive.

"Deep breaths," she reminded him. "Stay calm. Panic isn't going to help anything. Think back, Barry. What's happened over the course of the past few days that could possibly have an ill effect on your behavior?"

Elsa had a few guesses already.

Barry took a breath and nodded. "Okay. Right. The Fuc-"

He grimaced and held back the word.

"Vaccine. Or the gremlin bite. Maybe a combination of both."

Which was making him insane.

"Okay. Okay. I can fix this."

Well, the fact that gremlin bites made people crazy wasn't exactly news.

The vaccine, on the other hand, was an unknown entity. That was going to make this interesting, wasn't it?

"I have faith that you can," Elsa replied, busying her hands with readying a pair of mugs for the tea. "But don't hesitate to ask for help if you need it, okay? If your body is really getting up and doing things of its own accord, things could get messy, fast."

Messier? Perhaps?

"I just need to figure it out," Barry reasoned and trying to calm... well himself. "Blood tests. Counter-serum. Might even work itself out on its own."

He gave Elsa a grateful look.

"Thank you. I usually know what's happening. Always. This is new for me."

Elsa offered Barry a little, reassuring smile, and then unplugged the kettle and poured the hot water into the mugs.

"Not everybody can understand everything," she noted, calmly. "Even people who know practically everything. But it'll be fine. We'll figure something out, okay?"

She briefly wondered if he'd end up wearing the tea, somehow. She... wasn't going to say as much as she brought the mug over to him, though.

Barry eyed the mug of tea warily. He took the cup gingerly and took a sip of tea.

And another deep breath.

"Thank you. I'm not the one usually panicking when shhhhhtuff happens," Barry said catching himself. "And I'm sorry for grabbing your... grabbing you."

"Apology accepted," Elsa replied, nodding. She wasn't going to say that it was fine, because it obviously wasn't, but she did recognize that he most likely wasn't the one in control at the time. "I'd panic too, if that was happening to me. But it's not. I can be the cooler head, here."

Pun not intended.

Barry let out a small chuckle as he took another sip of tea. "Okay. Thank you. I may need that eventually."

He put down the cup of tea and stood up. "I'm pretty sure I can get this taken care of with-"

Barry's hands went to his hips, his stance altered into a heroic pose and his chin tilted up before he uttered...

"SCIENCE!"

He then winced and went back to his normal posture.

"This is going to fuuuudging suck."

Elsa gave a wince in sympathy over the top of her own mug.

"At least it was a rather dashing pose?"

She was trying, here.

Barry cracked a grin. "Really? You thought it was dashing?"

He have had a moment until his hands shot up and grabbed his pecs and squeezed them three times.

Barry frowned. "I probably should start figuring out what's wrong here before it gets weird."

...

"Weirder."

"Probably," Elsa agreed, blinking. "You're losing dashing points by the minute."

At least it was his own chest he was grabbing.

Barry took his hands and stuck them in his pockets.

"I'm going to go before they go into the negative," he said heading towards the exit. "I'll let you know how it goes."

"Keep me informed," Elsa replied. "And remember, you don't have to do this on your own, okay? Even if you just want somebody to keep you company, or cheer you on..."

Preferably from just beyond grabbing distance.

"You're not alone."

Barry gave her a small grin. "I know. I'll be fine," he promised and headed out the door.

Once he was outside he posed again and yelled "SCIENCE" though.

Hopefully Elsa didn't hear that part.

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The Magic Box, Wednesday

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