entrancelogs | ( OPEN ) I'M TOO HOT (HOT DAMN)

Entry tags:

( OPEN ) I'M TOO HOT (HOT DAMN)

Who: Barry Allen and YOU!
Where: Grounds and kitchens, primarily.
When: 15/07 - 18/07 — Genderswap catch-all and post-event!
Rating: PG.
Summary: Barry Allen is the fastest woman alive. And a hopeless one at that.
The Story:

GROUNDS

Barry runs.

As a golden streak throughout Wonderland, she climbs up trees, hops over the tops of the canopy, skids along the water of the beach, and trips over sand effortlessly. She moves almost as though she's the wind itself, an electrical charge of Zeus readying a lightning strike to descend upon his own kingdom.

But the flawlessness stops there.

Perhaps if she donned her suit, it'd be easier to control the movements of her body. But without the comms pieces in her ears and her team easily monitoring her vitals, she runs on a whim dressed in jeans and a dark red tank top with a leather jacket.

Barry may run easily up the side of the mansion and phase through the walls and even almost fly, but she still sucks at landing.

When she skids to a halt, feet digging into the grass and with her Converse shoes (not the ones Idris had given her) on fire, she creates neat ditches in the ground. This propels her to lose her balance, her body not quite bracing itself properly for the wind she's pulled with her, and topples over the lip of the fountain, headfirst into the water

She rises with her thick, dark hair over her face, looking more like a wet Cousin It and sea urchin than woman. Fingers trying to peel her hair away so she can see, it begins to knot, and Barry, as always, looks like a mess.

But at least she's a sorry looking Lochness Monster cosplayer who can laugh at herself.

KITCHEN

With a pile of food — and many plates, mind you — set out on the kitchen table, Barry's almost having a feast for a party. But it's all for her.

And it isn't enough.

She has a mean craving for some cake, but without a plate to spare for her own tea party, she needs to open one of the cupboards to find one just for a slice of cake she has yet to find.

Petite and agile on her feet, her long hair whips over her shoulder, into her face, and brushes against her back with every quick turn of her head. Barry Allen has long, dark hair, thick and almost soft if not for the tangles it often gets itself into when she runs.

And she's very, very short.

Pushing herself onto the countertop, Barry tries to get her knees into the proper place to hold herself steady before attempting to stand. It's a little difficult, given how the cupboards jut out and almost reach as far as the countertop itself. But she's nothing if not persistent and even creative in her approach, trying to extend her leg so she can stand on a counter that hadn't been there the previous day.

If anything, she's trying to walk on air.

An awkward mess of limbs being thrown this way and that, she grabs hold of the cupboard handle. With her weight accidentally pulling against it, she opens the door, and almost falls right off the countertop.

OR A SCENARIO OF YOUR OWN CREATION

Literally the only wish I have is for it to be ridiculous.

( replies will come from

spright! i will match your format, so please don't feel pressured to prose if you'd rather action spam! and the flash will not be available for this event unless you can think of a really dumbass scenario for it. please feel free to butcher these scenarios to your liking, or even toss another one at me. the dumber the scenario, the better. ♥ )

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Adam eats at all times of the day, he tends to burn through food pretty quickly which is a blessing and a curse - curse in that he's hungry nearly all the time and a blessing in that he has lots of opportunity to taste new things, along with the things he loves.

He's on his way for a snack now, strolling right into the kitchen and watching a woman nearly slip right off the counter.

"Whoa--"

It may appear like a catastrophe in the making, but Barry has it all under control. She may look as though she's about to slip, but she doesn't. Those quick reflexes have her swinging one of her feet toward the countertop to gain purchase, and her hands grip the cupboard door.

By some miracle, Barry doesn't fall. Perhaps it's the Speed Force, cradling her so its speedster doesn't tumble unceremoniously to the ground and hit her head. Or maybe she's gotten better at climbing to such great heights.

Determined as ever to reach that plate she so desperately needs, Barry's not going to give up. Even if it means falling flat on her face in front of a stranger. The cupboard door may be wide open, but she can't find what she needs. She's opened the wrong one.

Poking her tongue out, she looks over her shoulder, locating the owner of that voice. And she smiles, wide, remaining unperturbed to how the sight of her being unbalanced may look to an outsider. "Hey. Want something from here?"

He's Very Concerned she's going to fall and break her skull.

"Uh--no, I don't think so. Are you alright? Do you need help--?"

Fortunately for Barry, there's a good chance if she slipped and fell and broke her skull, she'd heal. But it isn't something you divulge to a stranger. It is something you ask your friend who knows everything there is about genes, though.

She only smiles, appearing as though she hadn't almost slipped to the floor. Remaining unaffected, Barry merely looks at him, brows raised, smile in place, entire aura warm.

"Just in picking a plate," she says. Looking back to the cupboard, her brows furrow together in annoyance. "Who puts them in the high cupboards? Someone needs to tell the Queen this isn't the courtroom!"

It's also not something Adam wants to see, not really.

"Yeah, that's--a really bad idea. Are you sure you don't need help?"

"I'm okay!"

Peppy, bright, loud — That's how Barry is in this very moment. She may be in a rather precarious position, but there's nothing a little quick reflex can't save her from. A broken bone here is merely a mended one within several hours.

Barry leans closer toward the open cupboard, pulling herself up a little just so she can see the inside a little better. For now, she doesn't care that she may fall backward. She's gotten her body in a proper position to keep her upright and the tallest person in the kitchen, even if it means she may have trouble climbing her way down.

There's a stack of plates in the back with a nice little decoration on them. She's going to grab one shortly, opting to eye them first.

"Want a plate? The real nice ones are up here."

Well. He can't say no to that, not while he's up there and within reach. If she's confident enough to be up there, he might as well have her get him a plate.

"Sure, thanks."

Getting down, he's very confused as to how that'll happen...but. He'll stick around to offer a hand, if need be.

"What're you eating?"

Barry's head's almost inside of the cupboard as she peers inside. If she's to get her new friend anything, it's the best damn plate Wonderland's kitchen has to offer.

Precariously balanced on the edge of the counter, she seems unfazed. Though Barry's fallen a lot, often from the running track of the cosmic treadmill when she gets too cocky, she always manages to pull herself up.

This is easy. It's nothing to worry about.

She exclaims, rather loudly so it'll echo back to Adam from the cupboard her head's still currently in: "Cake!" Her voice grows a touch quieter. "Maybe chocolate again. Or ice-cream! Do you like ice-cream cake?"

Barry cooking up mischief in the kitchen is nothing new.

Despite the fact Idris West has stumbled on such a sight a thousand times—this is not an exaggeration—he is no less fond of it. Idris doesn't alert Barry of his presence right away, choosing to observe by the doorway instead. He leans against its wooden frame, arms folded loosely across his chest. It wasn't that long ago Idris was witness to one of Barry's nightmares; he'd be lying if he said he was any less worried.

But this? This is good.

Now. Idris is not the fastest anything. He's got a damn good aim, and he's even better with a pen in hand, but he also lacks Barry's reflexes. Still, he gives it his best shot. Idris will take quick, long strides toward her, wrapping an arm around her waist to break the fall.

"Whoa! You okay there?"

Edited (shhh i hate my grammar) 2016-07-20 03:30 (UTC)

She may be the fastest woman alive, capable of saying kittens from trees, boys from wells, and pulling ten people out of a burning building within a minute, but Barry sometimes needs to be rescued.

Heart thumping wildly and quicker than it normally does in her chest, her hands release the knob of the cupboard door. It sits wide open now, but Barry's facing Idris — or would be, if she wasn't slightly higher than him.

It's a small victory. Childishly, Barry wants to throw her hands up and declare herself king of the world finally. But she stops herself. She can do it a little later.

She laughs, "I am now." Her hands are on his shoulders, one having been in his hair, and keeps them there, fingers digging into the bone for purchase. Even though she's completely fine now, saved from possibly falling hard on the ground of the kitchen floor, Barry doesn't move. She's content where she is. "Thanks for being so quick."

A lesson Barry's never learned: Despite how long her limbs happen to be for such a short person, they're still not as long as she believes them to be. Sometimes, Barry thinks she stands at 6'2" instead of 5'5". It's an illusion Idris constantly breaks whenever he stands next to her.

She'll undoubtedly feel the way he grows still against her.

Idris lacks Barry's awareness, and that's stayed true for most their lives. It's almost a cosmic joke: his job is to uncover truths, and he tends to miss what's right in front of him despite the glaring neon signs. He's always the last to catch up, and it's strange, to be the one waiting at the finish line for a change. He's vowed, if only to himself, that he will give Barry what she needs.

Under no uncertain terms, he wants to respect whatever that is, and it means several things.

It means he tries not to think about how her hipbone fits perfectly beneath his warm palm. It means he doesn't let himself linger once his eyes flicker up to meet hers. It means he doesn't overthink the way his knuckles drag down the side of her arm as he takes a step back, so that she may regain footing. He smiles instead, all kindness and warmth, with just the right amount of mischief to go along with them.

"Someone has to pick up the slack when you slip, Bar."

In this case, quite literally. He remains in place, but he'll reach over Barry's head for a plate in the cupboard. He does so with relative easy, and holds it out for her with the arch of his brow. "This what you're looking for?"

For only a few very brief moments, Barry's taller than Idris. Looking down at him, she relishes the moment — and thinks to point it out, but those words stick to her throat instead, and she opts to say nothing at all.

Maybe it can be something she says in hindsight to make him laugh. Remember that time when I was taller than you? That was a great time. It doesn't feel like it has a place within their bubble right now. If anything, it's for popping it, and maybe Idris achieves that when he steps away.

But Barry takes a very small step back when Idris seems to lean closer to her — and reaches up and over her head to grab a plate she'd been searching for. Offered to her, she eyes it as though she's particular about her plates, and takes it from him and likes that she can focus on it instead of him.

"Looks like a plate," she says. It's simply a plate she wants — and the one Idris gives her is exactly what she'd been looking for. (Granted, if he gave her a bowl, or even just a napkin, she'd call it a day and state it's what she'd been looking for all along.) Lifting her head up, she stands on the tips of her toes, feeling as though she needs to somehow be as tall as Idris within this moment. "I was going to have cake. Want some?"

Idris would say it doesn't count, if said tallness is aided by the countertop and his efforts.

He wouldn't protest it too much, mind you. Idris doesn't fight too hard unless the cause is serious. If he's fighting for Barry, on the other hand, all the gloves come off. A fierceness takes over him, almost like second nature; he knows no other way of being.

Finely tuned to Barry and her movements, Idris steps back when she does. What matters is she has her plate. His hip jutted slightly to the side, he leans against the counter and eyes her with ever present amusement. There was a time when Idris would give her a run for her money, where food was concerned. He was a growing boy, and he liked eating everything in sight.

Those days are far away from them. "What kind of cake?"

"Hopefully an edible one," she answers smartly. With a smug grin, she spins on her heel, and moves, human-paced quickly, toward the table.

All of her food remains where it is, laid out like she's attending a banquet. But Barry wonders if that muffin in the right hand corner of the table had been there when she'd left, or if Wonderland thought she deserved a treat.

Had that plate of brownies always been in the centre?

Barry pulls out a chair in the middle of the table, and takes a seat. She begins to pull her food toward her, preoccupied with it instead of Idris standing nearby. If she doesn't think of Idris, her thoughts won't linger on that moment on the porch. They won't try and comb through the moment by the cupboards, either. She's a forensic scientist. She's meant to analyse the small stuff. She's not supposed to sweat over it.

Cutting a big slice for herself, she pulls it onto her plate using her finger and her knife, and exclaims, "It's chocolate!"

Like the brownies Idris loves so much.

"Sit, Idris," Barry looks over toward him. With a grin that only widens and could possibly be thought of as evil, she cocks her head toward her mountain of food. "Sit. You know you want to!"

Chocolate. His very own kryptonite.

And he does want to sit, is the thing.

This reminds him of their first day in Wonderland, long before they discovered Thawne was joining them for the ride. It was one of the best days they'd had in years, filled with laughter and hover boards and enough food to feed an army. In retrospect, Barry's joy was a little forced, considering what happened to Nora, but it means something to Idris that she tried. It wasn't just about distracting herself, then.

It was about having fun with each other, in ways they likely hadn't since Barry's coma.

Idris has longed for those days without fully realizing it. It's a big part of why he joins Barry at the table, sitting as she enthusiastically asked him to. He hands Barry a napkin and a fork in the process. He doesn't think to do these things, they just come to him naturally.

"Don't you ever wonder where this stuff comes from?"

It has to come from somewhere.

Barry's always been a finger eater. Thinking of her knife and fork last, fingers first, she's always tucked in with her long fingers instead of the proper cutlery.

Right now isn't an exception to that, either.

Despite being slow on his feet, Idris is quick. Barry's standing up a little from her seat, a little too short to properly lean across half the span of the table to grab a piece of cake off the large plate it sits on. She's trying to figure out how she's going to grab a good portion of that cake using only her fingers to dig it from its body until Idris saves the day. Looking to him, she takes the knife and fork almost sheepishly.

"Cook," she says easily. Finding a cake server sitting right next to the cake she's been eyeing, she goes to work with cutting herself a large slice and sliding the silver underneath her food. With her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth, she's quick — normal quick — to guide it over the food sitting in between her and her desired cake and to her plate.

She doesn't sit. Leaning forward again, she cuts the same size piece for Idris using the server. It's a horrible job, but Barry's never been one to complain about uneven cake slices. Idris never has, either.

"Or the footman. We're on the Duchess' side of the mirror, right? Maybe her people are working behind the scenes … Somewhere. I've tried looking for that secret place, but I haven't found it yet."

When Barry sits down again, two plates holding two thick slices of cake in front of her, she gives Idris the neater one — the first she'd cut, with the patience the Flash isn't known for having.

Anders was right, y'know.

Wonderland really is lethal for one's hips, not that Idris concerns himself with it all too much. Besides, he swims a lot lately, in an effort to burn off excess energy. He isn't the only one growing restless in-between these so called 'events.' He isn't the only one unused to being so ... contained to one space. The second floor's pool has seen a lot of him, is what the narration is saying.

The sight of uneven cake slices makes him smile, warm and deep, a dimple threatening to appear on his left cheek.

"So my sources keep telling me." And yes, he considers the Wonderland residents he's spoken to as his sources. How much he trusts their word varies in degrees, but he can spot an embellisher a mile away. "The Duchess and the Queen lock heads every now and then, usually because of some magical artifact or something. Looks like we all get caught in the crossfire."

He chews thoughtfully, having dug into his slice of cake. "The mansion changes on a whim," he points out. He's noticed it. Sudden staircases. Longer hallways. Shelves switching places. "Maybe their rooms only appear when they want them to."

And where they want them to.

Barry digs into her cake with a fork like her life depends on it. Her gaze never wavers as she looks at Idris, listening to him as she eats. It's almost like she's watching a television programme, unable to control her appetite as her eyes remain glued to the storyline unfolding before her.

For all the investigating she's done, it's been more akin to surveying the land, getting a good grasp of where the trees are, where the invisible walls happen to be, and seeing where she ends up when she hits them.

The pool. It's more often than not the damn pool she ends up floundering in.

She's always thought Idris was made for asking the questions and studying facial expressions. While Barry knows she's good at combing through evidence to find a clue, she's more skilled in learning the layout of the land while Idris uncovers the mechanics of how the mansion and its residents work. In a way, she thinks they make a good team. It's almost like working with Joe, except Barry never feels inclined to kiss him when they're banging their heads together to solve a little mystery.

"Let me guess," she begins with a mouth full of cake. Swallowing, she gesture with her fork toward him. "There's no set schedule for when they lock heads. Just happens at random, whenever they like. Maybe no warning?"

As soon as she voices her observation, she stabs the fork right into her cake slice and breaks away a chunk that's perhaps larger than her.

Idris is every bit his father's son.

Joe always encourages him to become the best version of himself, whatever that ends up looking like, and it turns out that it looks a lot like Joe West. Inquisitive, caring, thoughtful, and strong—without coming across as needlessly tough. Idris knows, just like Joe does, that it's important to feel. It's important to ask the tough questions. And most of all, it's important to be there for your family.

Both the family you're born into, and the family you make along the way. Barry is the former, but she is so deeply woven into the very fabric of who he is, that he can't recall a time when it was different. So many things can change, and some of them stay the same.

This moment between them, right here, is one of the unchanging ones.

Definitely, definitely not looking at her mouth as she eats, though. Mostly.

"Sometimes there's a warning. It just tends to be cryptic. Remember the mice?" Yes, he is asking about talking mice with a straight face. "Every time someone or something native to Wonderland shows up on the network, some kind of event follows."

Tilting her head back, it does nothing to make the cake piece smaller or her mouth wider, but she does it, anyway. It's not necessarily the nicest view — Barry's a messy eater, always shoving things into her mouth, speaking with it full as she can't quite wait a moment to chew and swallow. Everything has a sense of urgency to it, and she supposes that's why she's the Flash.

It's funny, in its own way. She's tardy in attendance, despite trying to leave early, but she's always a second ahead when it comes to eating or speaking.

"I noticed that," she says with her mouth full. She's bitten off a good chunk of the cake, righting her head as she holds her fork in hand. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she's surveying the table before her for something else to eat to wash it down. "I hope the Mad Hatter shows up and the event's a croquet game."

She takes a large bite of her cake and reaches forward to grab some fruit within arm's reach. "Who do you really want to talk to?"

Idris wipes the corner of his mouth with his thumb. A drop of chocolate sticks to the pad of it, so he brings it to his lips and sucks at it lightly. He's not necessarily a messy or a neat eater, but he is a slow one. Idris likes to enjoy and savor whatever it is that he's having, along with the company and conversation that comes with it.

"You're never gonna give up on that, are you?"

His eyes lift to regard her with that telltale warmth. She's beautiful, and it's harder not to notice these days. At some point he's going to have to set up a croquet game for his damn self, lest Barry grow hopeless when the Mad Hatter doesn't come a'knocking.

It doesn't take long for him to come up with an answer. "Alice."

A beat. "Only if I could really talk to her, though. No riddles and no long-winded non-answers. I want to know what really happened to her."

Barry shrugs her shoulders, popping a grape into her mouth. "Maybe she went home, like Dorothy." Clicking her heels and being wrapped up in yet another whirlwind of a dream. Oz is another place on Barry's list of alternate worlds she'd love to go visit now that Wonderland has proven they exist.

She reaches forward to grab an apple and take a large and noisy bite out of it. She doesn't realise she's eating fast. There's no sparks of kinetic energy as she does so; where she'd move at a human pace of stuffing her face, it's now been ramped up to be even quicker than what would be considered normal.

After she swallows, she looks to Idris with an arched brow. Trying to pull together her memory of the book, she looks at him as though she's trying to solve a puzzle — or figure out where it's best to track down Alice so she can bring her to him. "But didn't she say some riddles, too?"

Alissa hears the splash as she's on her way back from practicing out in the woods. She's rather a mess herself, sweat matting her hair and itching under her armour, the sword and shield on her back just adding to the stifling weight. A dip doesn't sound like a terrible idea, though she's pretty sure the other woman didn't jump into the fountain on purpose. Not with the way she rises from the depths like some kind of river monster. But she's in pretty good spirits about it all the same.

"You should be glad it's not icy in there. It was the last time I took a dip. Not fun." With a grin she wanders over to offer a hand out, idly looking the stranger over. There's a lingering smell of smoke in the air but if the other woman was the source then it's definitely not a problem now. And it doesn't make much sense for her to have just caught fire while out in the gardens, unless someone has started throwing fireballs around. In which case it's a good thing there's a fountain right in front of them to hide in.

Edited 2016-07-21 01:22 (UTC)

Barry hates the cold. It reminds her of Captain Cold, and the gun that can easily incapacitate her and literally put a stop to her runs. It's always been a monster for her, anyway. Unable to escape it even under the covers of blankets, the summer is a much better friend than the winter has ever been.

Pushing her thick hair over her face, Barry looks more of a mess than she had before. Her hair's bound to knot and tangle, and she'll look even worse of a river monster when it dries, but she cares very little. Her friends have gone out of their way to not only provide her with a suit that keeps her warm and safe from the effects of her super speed, but have also presented her with various solutions for taming her thick hair.

Right now, she's forgotten all of those solutions. Folded over the top of her head, Barry's face is visible, and she has little trouble seeing Alissa's extended hand now. Even though she knows she can easily pull and possibly flop out of the fountain herself, she takes it. Taking someone up on their offer to help her out of the fountain is a much easier of a pill to swallow than allowing Idris to help her grieve for her dad.

"You should try ice-skating next time," she says in good humour. "What made you want to swim in the fountain, anyway? The ocean's out there. And then there's the pool!"

— The pool the Flash had dropped Hook off at to prevent the fight between the captain and Alissa from progressing into a war no book would come out unscathed from. Water appears to be a tether for both Alissa and the Flash — and subsequently Barry.

Much as she tries, Alissa can't help but snicker at the picture the other woman makes. Maybe that was what led to her impromptu swim - she was blinded by her own hair. In which case it's a wonder they haven't run into each other before, say when she falls down the stairs in the mansion for the same reason. Not that Alissa has never had a similar problem herself but after the first accident involving a helm, sword training, a lot of bruises and a few missing hunks of hair by the end, let's say she'd gotten pretty good at making sure that didn't happen again.

Hauling the other woman out of the fountain with ease, Alissa keeps a hold of her until she's sure she won't fall right back in and shakes her head. "I didn't want to go swimming. Someone made me fall in. In winter."

A dastardly attack by someone she'd thought she could trust. That had not been in any way justified by the fact she'd ambushed them with snowballs. "Why did you decide to go swimming here if there's so many better options?" There's no one to have pushed the other woman in so unless the earlier guess about her hair was right - or she really was the source of the burnt smell - she has even less excuse than Alissa did for her dip.

If only Barry could tell Alissa the truth would it all make sense as to how she ended up here, in the fountain, with the dumbest excuses, the smell of something burning lingering near her, and her laughter. But she can't. It's safer for everyone involved that many people in the mansion don't know who she is.

So, she comes up with lamer excuses, ones that paint her to be clumsy and wild, perhaps spontaneous and an adventure seeker. Or simply strange. Barry's always settled for being someone not many people quite get.

"Thanks," she says, brushing her hands through her hair and meeting knots. She doesn't spend much time trying to detangle them. Peering over her shoulder at the fountain, she tries to think of a reason, and simply settles for the likeliest response. "It's something different. You haven't had the full Wonderland experience if you don't fall into the fountain, right?"

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( OPEN ) I'M TOO HOT (HOT DAMN)

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