fandomtownies | Turtle & Canary; Monday [09/28].

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Turtle & Canary; Monday [09/28].

Summer was not hiding, thank you very much. She was just spending a little (okay, a lot) more time in the aisles doing her inventory and orders for the week than usual this week so that if anyone did want to talk to her, they'd have to work for it a bit more by actually finding her first, and everyone else could just do their business with Apu at the counter. Yesterday had been a little rough ~~and handwavey!~~ and required a lot of rum for the squirrels (although, really, could any more damage be done there?) and herself, but it was done, it was over, it was...hopefully something she would not ever have to worry about again except in the ripples of aftermath that she was not looking forward to, and so now she just wanted to hone in and focus on something familiar and boring that might actually allow her to pretend for a few seconds that her life was just normal, and, you know, not batshit crazy with creepazoid exes dredging up some less than stellar moments from your wild teenage apocalypse days...

Whatever. She should have figured things were going a little too well for her lately, anyway. But at least for today, she could have a little bit of time that was just boring, normal, weekly orders, a mild regular hangover and a massive emotional one, and could attempt to just shut everything else out with some music and her headphones, although, in retrospect, Halsey might not have been the best choice.

Today's Squishy Flavors
Blue Raspberry
Pizza Oatmeal
Red

Turtle & Canary is open!

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After a very rough morning, Eleanor stomped into T&C with what appeared to be a handsized clump of hair missing from the side of her head.

She glared at Apu. "Where's the hair extensions. Cheapest ones you got."

Barry had been coming into T&C for other reasons but the girl with the missing hair caught his attention first. "What the fuck happened to you?" he asked.

Eleanor glared at the man. Why did he get to swear and she didn't? She was VIOLATED!

"Someone ripped out my forking hair extensions," Eleanor growled. "What's it to you?"

Barry did his best not to laugh. "Tell you what, kid. You help me out? And I'll help you regrow your fucking hair. How does that sound?"

Eleanor eyed the man suspiciously. "What do I have to do?"

"Show up to my class and agree to be subject to a class experiment."

Because that's completely normal.

Yeah. Really normal.

"This experiment doesn't involve me dressing up like Little Bo Peep, does it?"

"I'm just going to miniaturize my students and inject them into your body for an anatomy lesson," Barry explained, because that was totally normal and safe

"... Yeah, okay. Whatever," she said wandering out of the store and heading back to school.

Hey, it wasn't the weirdest thing a guy had ever asked of her.

And once Eleanor had wandered off, Barry went through the store trying to find Summer.

And restock on Oreos. Jeremy had found Barry's hidden stash over the weekend.

"Summer?" he called out. "Are you here?"

And even though Summer was trying to focus on her clipboard and her music, she did hear that, partially because she'd been equal part hoping for and dreading it.

She definitely needed a moment before she said anything, though, turning off her music, pulling down her headphones.

"Yeah," she called back. "Aisle ~~handwavey~~, by the bathmats and artisan lightbulbs!"

...this store was ridiculous.

"There's such a thing as artisan light bulbs?"

Barry made his way through the aisles before he finally found her. He kept a little distance when he caught sight of her, feeling a little wary. He'd heard bits and pieces from radio and-

Well, he forced a grin when he saw her. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

Summer's attempt to offer a smile back was middling at best, and her eyes dropped away quickly after, clipboard held her her chest now almost like a shield, and she shrugged.

"Okay, I guess."

But her eyes lifted again with an eyebrow as she tentatively asked, "You?"

"I'm fine," he said approaching her slowly as if trying not to scare off a teal deer. "But then again, I'm not the one who had a shitty weekend."

He held out his hand to her. "Think you can take a break?"

Summer regarded that hand for a moment like she half-expected it to bite her, before she sighed and reached out to take it. Squeezed it a little, because she understood that she was probably coming off a liiiittle confusing right now.

"I mean," she said, "I probably should ."

Barry felt a tad more relieved when she took his hand. "Can I buy you a Squishy?" He joked. "Maybe a drink? Get you blotto drunk?"

He gave her hand a friendly squeeze. "Or we could talk. Or just ignore everything and pretend everything's find. Denial doesn't usually work for me but-"

He sighed. "Honestly, I don't know what to do here. But if you want to talk about it, I'm here to listen."

"Well, I don't know, either!" Summer admitted, the clipboard in her hand flying in the air a little as she lifted it in a frustrated gesture which would have included both hands if she wasn't sort of clinging to his hand like an anchor.

It would be different if he wasn't just being so fucking nice about it, too. If he'd been angry or mad or stormed in here demanding answers, calling her names, making a huge deal out of it...that she could handle. That she could deal with...

She didn't know what to do with nice...

"This is new to me, too! I mean, when you super-ghost a guy in a technologically defunct, ass-backwards wasteland of a dimension, you kind of expect him to stay there!"

Ah. So levity it was. Or like just ripping that band-aid off now...

Barry was keeping an eye on that clipboard. It was likely to do some damage at this rate. "Except your grandfather decided to fuck around and send him to fucking Fandom?" he guessed. "Or at least that's what I guessing from your texts."

His smiled kind of faltered a bit. "You know, you're not the only one to have an ex show up at Fandom. Last time my friends showed up here they brought along... well she was never technically my girlfriend but she came here and made my weekend a shitstorm. She insulted the girl I was dating. She showed up at the warehouse and tore me a new one that still hurts when I think about it today. I don't think it was on the same level that you went through. But everyone has a past and it always shows up at the worst fucking moments. I'm not sure what I can do to help? But I just want to let you know that I'm still here and I don't plan on going fucking anywhere."

Most of that seemed to do a pretty good job of placating Summer, up until the the very last part, which just seemed to earn Barry a withering, desperate sort of look.

Because the bigger issue here wasn't so much him leaving, as it was her. Honestly, she was a little surprised herself that she was still there, that she hadn't just straight up skipped down and hopped a few dimensions already. That sort of thing was kind of what she did.

And she still didn't know what else to say, except one exasperated thing that, at the very least, she felt he could at least appreciate at the most fundamental level.

"Fuuuuuck, Barry..."

"What?"

Yeah Barry wasn't sure what the hell was going on here.

"What? What'd I say?" he said starting to look panicked. "I thought- I don't know. Jesus, I'm so fucking bad at this."

He dropped his head and his foot started tapping a mile a minute.

"Look. I don't know what to say or do here. I'm just trying to let you know that I... care. A lot. About you. And if you want to talk about it? Great! I'll listen. Or if you want I'll tear through five different dimensions and put that guy's head on a pike. Or-"

He grimaced.

"Okay. Yeah, I really don't want to do that. I just want to make sure you feel okay."

"Oh, god," said Summer, quickly, as soon as she had the chance, setting that poor clipboard down on the shelf where it was now out of harming way and also she now had that hand free to reach for his other hand, "Barry, no. Noooo. Yoi have been, like, great through this. Like, soooo great. Almost too great, but that's not on you, that's totally on me, because I do not know what the hell to do with that."

Barry's brain is good for many things. Human genome? No problem. Figuring out science beyond the normal limits of the human brain? He's your guy.

But trying to figure out what Summer was saying was way over his head.

"You don't know... how to deal with me... being great," he said slowly and his eyes bouncing back and forth trying to grasp the thought process.

He pondered that. He really did.

"So... I should be more of a dick?" he ventured. "Because that usually doesn't work out well from my experience."

"I mean," said Summer, eyeing him now with a faint, uncertain smile, "don't feel obligated to, or anything. In my experience, though, most people would probably be a dick a oit all this, and they'd be pretty right to be. But...I think...in this case, I'm pretty glad you're not most people, Barry."

Even if it was low-key kind of freaking her out, because that's what happened when you pretty much hadn't had a decent, normal function relationship in pretty much...well...ever.

"Okay."

Barry was getting a grip on this. Or at least he thought he was.

"This thing that happened this weekend? It's not your fault," Barry said quietly. "It's just fucking life. And you know what? Life fucking sucks most of the time. But if you're lucky-"

He gave Summer's hands a little squeeze and he giver her a genuine smile.

"-You get some people who will weather it with you. Like Me. Or Sievarden. Or Rey. We all have shit that's going to come at us sooner or later. I know we haven't been dating long but I'd like to see what happens next and get through... whatever this is."

Which was all very nice of him to say, especially the last part, and Summer did give him a smile and a squeeze back, buuuuut...

"Okay, but," she said, "let's be real about this, too, Barry. I'm not exactly blameless, it's not like this just happened, I did sort of marry a guy and then totally ditched him, like, a month later, just so we're clear."

Because it was important that he got that, and it felt like he wasn't really getting that...

"Okay," Barry said slowly nodding as he took that in and processed it. "Good to know."

He paused for a minute, trying to think this through. And how to say it.

"You should also know that I've done some really fucked up things too. I mean, I didn't get married but I've been a real dick to a lot of people. Shit that I still freak out about when I look back at what I've done. But I don't believe that the shit I've done in the past doesn't necessarily define who I am now. Right? Because you may have made mistakes but I can see past that. Because you're also someone trying to get a friend back home and are willing to piss off a lunatic to do it. You're also someone who will go off and help a friend against a fucking galactic empire."

He cracked a grin. "Plus you are a stone cold fox. Right? That totally counts as well."

Okay, so that last part was pretty much categorically untrue, because they lived on an island overridden with gorgeous people that put her squarely in the 'average at best' range, but she was not going to complain.

She was just going to grin a little smugly as she said, "I did just have a dude desperately fling himself through time and space just for another chance to get at it."

And that was verifiable fact.

Still, it was mostly the other stuff that did it, because, sometimes, when the shitty stuff got dredged up, it was a little too easy for her to forget that she was actually kinda one of the Good Summers, at the end of the day.

So the smirk softened quite a bit when she looked at him after that.

"...thanks."

“You’re welcome,” he said, smiling back. “And I would love to stay longer but I have to go miniaturize a bunch of students and inject them into that weirdo that was just here earlier for class.”

Summer was a little sad to hear that, especially since it now felt things were good and it's be nice to ride that a little, but, at the same time, yeah, this was an awful lot to squeeze in before a first period class and all...

But it was hard not to grin, especially since it did feel like things were....okay again.

"Ooooh, you're doing the body lesson today?"

Barry grinned. “Yep. And I expect it to be fucking awkward for everyone. I’m betting lots will be heading to the essay table today.”

He leaned to give her a quick kiss. “I’ll come by Caritas later this week. Okay?”

"Okay," said Summer, the quick kiss leaving her nothing short of beaming. "Let me know if anyone throws up."

She might be tempted to go look up Barry's roster and see if Api wanted to make any bets on who might once he left.

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Turtle & Canary; Monday [09/28].

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