entrancelogs | crowded streets are cleared away, one by one

Entry tags:

crowded streets are cleared away, one by one

Who: Anders (

circlejerked) and Barry Allen (

accelerate).
Where: Tea room to start. (Pity party at the bar TBD.)
When: Aug. 9th.
Rating: PG for now?
Summary: Thanks to the depowering, a mage loses his magic and a speedster loses his speed. Being normal sucks, man. It just sucks.
The Story:

Oh, come on. Why aren't you working?

_{[For a hot second, Anders had been overjoyed when the brainwashing of the last few days' had broken. A sure sign the event's power was starting to wan, he'd thought. The words "thank the Maker, it's over!" might have been used. Wrong. He should've known the worst was yet to come.]}

Work. Come on, work. Pretty please? I know you want to work, so just do it. Please? For me?

_{[Who is Anders begging with such heartfelt wheedling? It's more of a what. Sitting in front of him on one of the tea room's tables is a glass of water. More specifically, he's trying to coax his mana, which he's been trying to do for the past hour.

Freeze the water. It's a simple manipulation of the elements, a trick any child with magical aptitude could do. Freeze the water. Face scrunched in concentration, Anders leans in, close enough to see his distorted reflection in the glass.

He taps it with a finger. The water sloshes, mocking him.]}

Augh!

_{[Throwing himself back in his chair, he puts his arm over his eyes with a groan of absolute frustration. The empty, unresponsive core of mana somewhere deep in his being hadn't scared him... for maybe the first fifteen minutes. Now it's starting to. Now he's starting to wonder if he's going to be stuck with this hollowed out feeling forever.]}

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[ barry crashes into the tea room. ]

[ barry allen, the mutant, had almost been a dancer on his feet. able to balance himself on the tips of his toes, rock on the balls of his shoes, keep his heels pressed firmly against the ground, the mutant flash could easily soar from one end of the island to the other, run circles around its circumference to generate enough wind to secure genosha in a safe flash-made funnel. ]

[ the meta-human flash was still getting his bearings with his abilities, even a year into the show of wearing red and being commended for his great efforts to save his city. but only twice has he ever felt this weak. once, when wells had leeched him of his speed, and again when zoom had taken all of it. ]

[ barry allen of both universes refuses to give up. though those mutant memories are now merely a fictional story he's more than well-aware of, he refrains from allowing himself to simply succumb to how slow he is. unable to reach forth and grab the speed force, he catapults himself into doing so. ]

[ and literally, too. ]

[ running through the halls at breakneck speed, he's been slowing down greatly over the last few hours. he can feel it, how the sparks of electricity buzzing inside of him began to slowly dissipate, how they dropped from curling warmly around his bones and seemed to have disappeared into the void. ]

[ when he crashes into the tea room, he's a mess of limbs and hair and converse shoes that don't smell of smoke. for the last hour, he's been trying his best to work his body up into tapping into the speed force once more, and he's finding himself so cold without it. a few hours ago, barry had his speed, able to phase through walls, jump over large clusters of trees, set his own shoes alight — now, there's nothing. ]

[ flopping over onto his back, he rests his hands against his chest and sighs. tipping his gaze backward, he realises he's looking up at anders — and he's not wearing a ridiculous cat costume this time. he's managed to trip and fall before anders, right by his toes, slightly sheltered by the table he's thrown himself away from in his own fit of annoyance. shifting his head, barry's gaze moves from anders' face to his shoes. ] Hey, nice shoes.

_{[There's a crash. Is the world ending? Is the mansion collapsing around him? Good. Let it be quick. He desperately needs to be put out of his misery now that he's just spent an hour talking to himself and is halfway to Tranquil, blocked from the Fade. Blocked from magic. The very thought!

Here lies Anders. He died as he lived: in disgrace.

With great pains does Anders lift his arm from his eyes to look to see what the source of the racket is. If the world is ending, it's ending at the hands of a gangly-limbed fellow who's found a home on the ground by his feet. He doesn't have the will to live left to sit up from his chair, but he does drop his arm.]}

Thanks. They're Fereldan-made.

_{[A long pause wherein he continues to look down at Barry looking up at him.]}

Was there a banana peel on the floor that I missed...?

Did you eat a banana and leave the peel on the floor?

[ the placement of his feet is often instinctual. barry can't remember the last time he looked down at the road or the side of a building to watch whether or not he's about to land in a ditch. it doesn't seem likely he would've tripped, but given how off-balance he's been over the last few hours, it wouldn't surprise him. if only he could tilt his head in the direction where he came, he'd be able to discern whether or not anders is being funny or being literal. ]

[ after a moment, he pulls himself up. arms first, he throws them before himself to begin the ascension to a seated position, and then he pulls himself, gangly limbs and converse shoes, up to stand on the floor. ]

[ and he swipes at a cupcake and takes a bite out of it. twisting his body, he looks at the door and finds there's no banana peel in sight. ]

Maybe it was a cupcake wrapper.

_{[In a petulant flair for the dramatic, Anders answers by letting his head drop against the back of the chair, slouched down like the saddest mage there ever was.]}

I don't have an appetite. And unfortunately, if you bumped your head, I can't help you right now. I'm all magicked out.

_{[These are dark days, stranger. Dark days. He glances at Barry without turning his head, unable to help smiling sparingly at the cupcake massacre.]}

Maybe it was. You have to be careful with those cupcake wrappers. You can have my water if you need to wash it down--I'm done with it.

_{[What good is water if it won't turn to ice at his command? Hydration is the least of his worries.]}

What about tea?

[ this is barry allen, after all. he's established himself as a yearner for tea, and so he sticks to it. no one can say he isn't committed, even though he rubs his head before brushing his fingers together. he eats that cupcake, but doesn't quite swallow it whole as he would've once before. it's odd, not having a voracious appetite. he almost feels ... full. ]

[ and his head actually hurts; that ache in the back of his skull lingers for too long. ]

Do you feel … [ he presses his lips together and lets out a breath. ] It's like I woke up this morning and I wasn't myself. Maybe I'm turning into Alice like your cat ...

What about tea? _{[He huffs a dry laugh.]} Do I look like a magical closet?

_{[He looks the part of a mage in his robes, but since he can't even claim that at the moment the tried and true joke of "I'm a mage, not a miracle worker" no longer applies.

What finally gets him straightening up in his seat with a squint isn't the question, but the mention of his cat's Summerween costume. Had they crossed paths during that event? Anders looks closer, but he doesn't recognize the other man's face--and surely he'd remember a guy swan diving into tea rooms.]}

Did you see my cat during the trick or treating? Sorry, I don't recall us meeting. But better late than never.

[ this is why barry sucks at the secret alter ego schtick. he always forgets the flash needs to be separate from barry allen, and barry allen from the flash. it'd been so much easier to do so with iris — the stakes were higher, and he was keeping a promise to joe, even though he felt so conflicted about it. ]

[ anders' comment brings him to attention, and he almost flushes in embarrassment as he tries to speedily clean up this potential mess. ]

Oh! No … No. Just, uh. I saw them? And then my friend — [ he drops his arm and lifts his shoulder in a suggestion of this being an easier and more welcomed and plausible explanation. ] My friend saw you, and he told me how cool your cats were … when … he met you.

_{[Hmmmmm.

If Barry's going for suspicious, he's spot on with that rambling response. The squint becomes more pronounced and attentive from the idle curiosity of a moment ago.]}

Your... friend?

_[Hmmmmm.]

Yeah!

[ he tries to pretend he's talking about cisco or caitlin or iris — no, he can't pretend he's talking about iris. if he was, hearts would appear around him and his eyes would change shape, and his own would be beating out of his chest. ]

My friend, the Flash. He knows a few people from home here, because he's from my city. He didn't … [ barry's eyes narrow, as one would when they believe their mutual friend has been suspiciously evasive, and said mutual friend is not themselves. ] tell you where he was from?

_{[You can't kid a kidder, Barry. Anders' bullshit meter is in the red and continues to light up like a Geiger counter with every pause and eager exclamation, proving once again that if he were ever going to undertake charity work, his gift to the world should be teaching others better subterfuge.

The Anders School of Talking Your Way Out of the Shit You just Stepped In... or something. The title could use some work. Maybe an acronym or two.]}

Your friend who wears a mask and uses an alias to hide his secret identity? _{[He rests his chin on the back of the seat with lazy, catlike judgement. The one who acts squirrelly and Anders has never actually seen with a friend?]} That friend? I'm not sure I see why it matters where he's from if I don't know you or where you're from.

_{[Fortunately for this guy, Anders isn't feeling like himself, either, and he'll do Barry a solid by not pouncing on his stumble. He can sense the evasion at work, but he's not in the mood to put in the work to unravel it. People from other worlds do strange things with stranger reasons for doing them, this isn't news.]}

I'm Barry. Barry Allen. [ from central city? it's not like anders even knows where that is, given how his world isn't even on google maps. although he has a good impression of anders — great sense of humour, fun to talk to, easy to kid around with regardless of whether or not he's wearing a red suit or converse shoes — he's not betting all his money on anders remembering him. ]

[ it's nothing personal. barry makes it a point to remember everyone and everything as best as he can. forensic scientist training at its best and worst, and sometimes it helps when being the flash to remember a face or voice or scent. ]

[ his face scrunches up. ] BAMF? [ and he doesn't say the letters, a bee aye em eff, but bamf itself. ]

_{[Central City wouldn't have rung any bells, but the name combined with the cupcake combined with the acronym rings several, and loudly. His eyebrows lift, threatening to settle somewhere near his hairline.]}

My text friend, Barry Allen? Oh wait, I forgot. My text bff.

_{[This is his pen pal in the flesh? He'd been imagining his acronym mentor as more... more...

Actually, no, a skinny young man tripping into rooms with a quick one-liner on hand is exactly how he'd been imagining Barry Allen. With an empty cupcake wrapper in hand, he really couldn't cut a better picture if he tried.]}

Wow, you're real. I thought you might be some kind of intangible being with a personality too big for life, like a spirit haunting the network or something.

[ with a smile, he shrugs his shoulders. ] Sorry to completely ruin that really cool image of me. [ his brows pull together as he looks at anders, impressed — and now a little disappointed he had to run into the room with anders, his texting pupil, inside. ]

But that's me. Your texting BFF. [ he brightens when he says that. ] Sorry I'm not a ghost haunting the network. I don't know if I'd want to be one, considering the whole rules of Wonderland not really being a fan of Casper.

_{[He looks Barry up and down, and then up and down again. Things are starting to make more sense now that the fast-talking network whiz is here in the flesh.]}

That's all right. For my part, I don't know that I'd want to be known as the guy who befriends spirits lingering in the physical world. All the better that you're alive and well.

_{[Apparently it earns you a bad reputation when paired with acts of war on Free March cities. Who knew?]}

This really is a small world. Do you know any acronyms for "life is a grey, barren wasteland with no joy left in it?"

_{[Anders has a flair for dressing melodrama up in a casual, everyday tones like he's commenting on the mildness of the weather.]}

Um.

[ barry actually considers it. there's no acronym for those particular words, but the kids these days have outgrown "emo" for another choice of words. there's one he says over and over when he finds himself afraid, as barry allen and the flash. ]

[ is anders being rhetorical? he doesn't even think about that. ]

Hashtag yolo? [ and the way he says it: yo-low. ]

[ and barry, without much of an invite, collapses into the seat beside him. is it a surprise he even reaches forward to grab a pastry, picks it apart, falls back against the back of his chair, and mulls over whether or not there's another word or phrase that's better than #yolo? ]

Does that capture what it's like waking up without your power at your fingertips?

_{[Just call him Captain Emo. He'll be here all day.]}

Something's wrong with me, too. I don't have my magic anymore. _{[With another soul-weary sigh, he slumps into a more comfortable sitting position to face Barry.]} A temporary effect of the event, I hope. I'm not sure I'm ready to turn into a seven-year-old girl.

_{[He props his elbow on the armrest and goes back to resting his cheek in his hand. The subject of how Barry relates to the Flash and how the Flash relates to his cats can wait for another day--preferably a day when he doesn't already feel like his twelve-year-old, ordinary self.

The irony of ironies is how long he'd prayed not to have magic, and now here he is, feeling like half a person now that it's gone.]}

Nice to put a face to the text. I wish it were under better circumstances.

More magic-friendly circumstances?

[ barry sighs, and he lets himself slump. if anders isn't going to pry too deeply into the flash and barry allen, he can at least let himself relax. it's tiring, too, being so worked up and on the defence. he finds he lacks the energy to keep that charismatic bubbliness up. ]

[ he picks up a cupcake and tears off the wrapper, but lets the cupcake itself drop onto a plate as he tears the thin paper in his hands into uneven strips. he's almost pouting. ] Does this usually happen? You have an event with powers, you end up losing them after?

_{[He finger guns at Barry with thumb and forefinger. Exactly so.]}

I'd settle for unfriendly magic as long as there was magic.

_{[The rest of his thought goes unfinished, but his meaning is heavy in the air. The trade-off for the return of his real memories is that his well of mana has dried up. It's an impossible sensation to describe, like having a limb severed without the pain.]}

I can't say I've experienced anything quite like this before. Names taken away and replaced with titles, emotions shut off, memories altered... but nothing this extreme. _{[He looks over, mollified somewhat that he's not alone in feeling out of sorts.]} What's your excuse? Did Wonderland take your sense of coordination?

[ if both wells and zoom hadn't chosen to steal his speed, he knows he'd be freaking out right about now. he'd be unsettled, bouncing off the walls, afraid of what this means for his future as the flash and barry allen. but he's experienced a betrayal he's easily forgiven, and opting to hand over his speed for the sake of ensuring wally west's life. he knows what it's like to go from being the flash to barry allen again, and he's already grieved and accepted it. ]

[ wonderland taking it away seems like it's trying to teach him a lesson he's already been taught and succeeded in passing the examinations for. but he hasn't made it a point to tie both barry and the flash together for the residents who are in similar situations to him, whether it be falling down the rabbit hole or losing their powers upon this very day. ]

[ barry looks at anders, then down at the plates before him. ] Uh … [ this is a part of the contingency plan he needs to create for future depowering moments. ] Yeah. I'm not usually this clumsy? [ he shrugs his shoulders and sighs in defeat. ] Guess I am today. It really sucks.

_{[He chuckles lightly in his throat. Though it's not with his usual energy, his amusement is no less genuine.]}

It must have stolen your ability to lie, too.

_{[Anders has heard more convincing answers in his day and he's not above continuing to tease someone for all the telltale signs of subterfuge. Oh, how times change. Most of his childhood had been dedicated to sitting across from Irving's desk, dodging topics and distracting from the truth just like this; now here he sits in Irving's shoes.]}

Your day is going as well as mine, by the sounds of it.

[ barry doesn't even sit up and try and defend himself. if he can blame the aftereffects of this event on his piss poor attempts to keep his lies in line and his own expressions controlled, he'll take advantage of it. he's never been particularly great at lying, but he has given leonardo dicaprio a run for his oscar when he needs to. ]

[ he shrugs his shoulders pathetically and sighs. ] What are you going to do now? I was planning on eating myself to death but I don't have the appetite anymore.

The cupcake wrappers might do you in before the cupcakes do.

_{[Just saying.]}

I'm moping and feeling sorry for myself, that's what I'm doing. You showed up at the perfect time to join in if you like.

Do we get jackets? I think we may need to get them delivered here. I don't really want to move. [ uncharacteristic of barry allen, always on the move. his text messages to anders may imply he's talkative, but it's his textual way of constantly moving. his brain never quite stops, unless someone zaps the speed force right out of him. ]

[ he leans back in his chair, throwing his head over the rest of it to stare at the ceiling, and sighs pathetically. ] I can't even enjoy these cupcakes. Is this as bad as it gets in Wonderland? It takes the joy out of cupcakes?

_{[Anders groans. Ugh, no. Please no more uniforms. No more mutants, no more humans, no more islands, no more anything that reminds him of the last event. He wants a redo on the last week.]}

I hope not. If I never see another gaudy uniform, it'll be too soon. _{[A pause.]} No offense to your friend.

_{[Exemptions can be made. The Flash and the Avengers are allowed to keep their gaudy uniforms as long as they promise not to share their memories with the Wonderland population anymore. Have mercy, you guys.]}

Hm. Incarceration cupcakes can't live up to the taste of ones when you're not dancing at the end of someone else's puppet strings. Maybe that's the problem.

[ no one's had a glimpse of the flash's world yet. there's large, telepathic talking gorillas, and half-man, half-sharks running around the city. the genosha event seems more like a walk in the park than anything else. ]

[ it's on the tip of his tongue — the very tip — for him to ask what's wrong with the flash's suit, but he's simply not quick enough. it bursts and dies, and barry slumps, as though he's run a marathon in the span of two seconds, into his chair as he gives up on questioning anders' opinion on his suit, and possibly leading him to be suspicious once again. ]

[ being slow does have its advantages, but barry still dislikes it. ]

[ he sighs, and almost slumps so he can slide right off the chair and become a puddle on the floor. ] We shouldn't sulk. Sulking's for the weak. [ says the sulker sulking while he says he's too good to sulk. ]

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