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pitter-pattering-ink · 4 years

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Stardust

She has many names. She is the Goddess of Galaxies, the Painter of Light, the Ruler of an abyss nobody with wits would explore. Sometimes, they change. Usually, they hold the same meaning.

But mostly, she’s the Mother of Stars. They are her children and she cares for them as such, keeping them bright when the sky turns dark.

She is the Mother of Stars, and she would do anything for her children.

- It’s not sudden, but it isn’t exactly slow either. It’s like falling asleep on a quick ride to the store and waking up ten minutes later when the groceries need taken inside. It’s blanking out before coming back. Losing memories but knowing there really wasn’t anything to loose anyway.

She opens her eyes- did she close them?- and everything is insanely bright. Wincing at the light she instantly closes them again, but then it’s insanely dark, and wait, has she ever blinked before? Her eyes instantly fly open again. She can only see when she squints, so she does just that, looking at the ground. To her surprise, there’s a woman sitting beside her… feet?

The woman looks at her expectantly. After a moment of eye contact she raises an eyebrow and holds out a cup. A few beats go by.

“W-what?” The goddess stutters, swallowing. Her throat is so dry. When was the last time she spoke?

The woman with hair short and gray looks mildly concerned. “I asked you if you had some spare change,” she says, gesturing to the sign next to her. Her eyes flicker over the words quickly.

‘Homeless and elderly. Please give what you can.’

Oh. So she’s human. That’s one question answered.

“Spare change…” Curiously, she reaches down into her pockets, because apparently she’s wearing clothes now too. In her hand appears a couple crisp dollar bills. Dropping them into the cup, it must be an awful lot too, because the woman’s eyes light up as she looks up in disbelief. Mind whirling, the goddess rushes to say something before the woman can ask questions. “I need somewhere to stay,” she explains. “I… don’t know this place well. Could you point me somewhere?”

The woman smiles and points down the street to the right. “Go right down there,” she instructs, “and when you reach the end of the sidewalk you turn right. There’s a hotel right down that road. You don’t have to have a reservation either.”

She does her best to give a grateful smile. “Thank you.” The woman shrugs.

“Anytime,” she says. “God bless.”

The goddess(?) pauses for a moment. “Maybe not,” she confirms, slowly. She nods to the woman with a sure look on her face. “But you have mine, at least.”

The woman looks confused, but in an hour it will rain, and not a drop will dare to dampen her clothes. Flowers will speed their growth where she sits and within a week roses will bloom between the cracks and crevices of sidewalk. People will look at her, and they will smile. People will laugh with her, and the clinking of coins against her cup will become background noise.

The Mother of Stars is not to be confused with Persephone or Aphrodite. She would never dare to claim control over the things they have made their own. But she is their cousin and they are all connected in a beautiful sort of way. War will not break out over the use of something as kind as a blessing.

She ends up booking the hotel for a week. The receptionist looks at her curiously when she pays with cash, but there’s an ID for someone who is apparently her in her pocket, so there aren’t many issues. She sleeps for the first time in- well, ever. It’s almost comforting, how dark it is behind her eyelids. It feels like home.

She doesn’t dream. She doesn’t think she wants to, either.

The next day it pours like no tomorrow. Buckets of rain splatter around, nobody leaving their houses. She uses this to her advantage.

Stepping out of the hotel doors, she’s immediately drenched head to toe. The rain doesn’t let up and she finds herself walking through a thin layer of water that splashes with every step she takes. She isn’t sure where she’s going exactly, but she doesn’t stop.

“Rain,” she grunts through clacking teeth, “why am I here?”

The rain gets louder, and finally, the splashing against her shoulders begins to sound more like words. ‘You are here for something new,’ it whispers, nearly silent. ‘Something great.’

“And what exactly is that?” She snips. The rain pauses it’s splashing.

‘They told us not to tell you. It said things like these are best left learned than not.’ It continues to pelt down, cold and unforgiving. The human with the soul of a goddess nearly screams.

“Things like what?!” She yells, halting. Evenly, she asks, “Who exactly told you not to tell me?”

‘The ocean,’ the rain says. ‘The universe told it and it told us. We are merely one in the same, you know.’

She breathes in through her nose. “Yes, of course I know. Why couldn’t the universe just tell me this itself? We aren’t exactly strangers.”

The rain does not respond. To her horror, it leaves, light bleeding through the clouds. ‘Sorry. We should not say anything more.’ “Rain!” She cries. “Don’t you dare leave me like this!”

The sky clears and the drops stop falling. Like magic, the flooded water that was up to her toes begins to clear through the street drains.

“Fine,” she spits. “Have it your way.”

She spends most of her time walking. It helps her think straight.

She is surprised, however, by how many people she finds sitting on the ground, blankets put down for comfort. There are so many.

Whenever she passes one by her pockets grow heavy with coins. They clang against their cups to make such an ugly sound, but the people behind it give her smiles so big it’s as if she has sounded church bells.

“I have nowhere else to use it,” she assures them. “Keep it. Please.”

Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t. She learns to walk the balance between “I can’t take this” and “Thank you” very, very quickly.

The old yet young goddess stands at the beach’s shore and looks out along the horizon. Seagulls fly overhead in a ten-foot halo- she’s here she’s here she’s here- but don’t dare land. Daylight settles on her shoulders yet she feels nothing but cold. “Ocean,” she starts, soft. “Can you hear me?”

The ocean does not say anything directly. But the seagulls quiet, one by one leaving the circle and flying in a new direction. They caw as they go- speak speak speak- and at the notion she takes a deep breath in. “Ocean, I come with the request for you to take me back to the sky. I am afraid something horrible has happened and I grow wary of every passing moment in which my stars are left with nobody to care for them. As your ruler I kindly demand you help return me to my rightful place among the galaxies I have painted and the stars I have nurtured. It is what needs to be done.”

Waves shift around her feet. Finally, the ocean speaks. ‘Tell me. Are you aware of what the universe has said? What the universe wants for you?’

She hesitates for a moment. “I…” clearing her throat, she tries her best to stay calm and collected. “Yes, I suppose I do.”

‘Then you know,’ the ocean says, smooth, ‘That we will be helping with no such matters. Apologies, Mother, but we are not ones to go against the rules of the universe. Let alone for someone like yourself- no offense, but you hold no power over us, child.’

Her hands turn to fists at her sides and she breathes in, shaky but deep through her nose. The waves lap at her feet curiously. When she finally opens her eyes the sun is setting and sand is biting at her ankles in angry gusts of wind.

“I am the Goddess of Galaxies,” she says, stern. Her eyes burn as hair flairs wildly around her head. “I am the Caretaker of Stars, the Painter of Skies, the Ruler of the Abyss nothing living dares to explore. And I demand you heed my orders!”

The ocean bubbles, waves growing bigger. In mere moments the water is up to her knees and she can’t see her own feet. She stands her ground. Eventually, the bubbles turn to giggles. “Silly thing,” the ocean laughs, “what a thought. Order around the ocean, you say? We are not one of yours, child. We are something else entirely. In our waves you will not find stars, within our reefs there is nothing quite like those galaxies of yours. We are our own, and we will not be ordered around by something that holds no respect for such things.”

“What’s an ocean to a galaxy?” She cries. “What is a cave to a hole, what is an abyss to yet another? I don’t understand why you won’t just listen to me! I am-”

“I would watch your tone with us.” The ocean cut off. Something shifts in the sand beneath her feet and jabs at the barely-calloused skin. She tries to bite her lip but a yelp escapes anyway, legs tensing. Blood that should not be her’s turns the water darker than before- a less-than-kind warning. “We may be water, that is true. But we are also sand, and our glass is not as comfortable.

The goddess breathes deep, closing her eyes again. She doesn’t open them this time. “I don’t know what to do,” she admits. “I’m… I’m scared, ocean.”

The ocean sighs, pulling back it’s tide till the water is only up to her ankles. ‘You have a purpose here, do you not?’ When she nods, it hums. ‘Figure that out first. I would imagine it’s your first step to getting home, correct?’

The goddess breathes through a choked-up throat. “Right,” she murmurs, trying to catch her breath. “Okay.”

She learns their stories. They talk so much when given the chance- she’s sure they aren’t often.

There’s a woman who was recently evicted because she had nothing to pay with. A man who couldn’t afford his dog’s bills. A teenager who was kicked out because they were not accepted as who they are. A couple who’s been recently disowned. They are all people with families or pets or only themself and they are all against the world. She gives them all she can. She gives them coins, she gives them food, she gives them advice- she even gives them hugs. But yet they ask for more.

“What’re you up to?” asks a woman with a crooked smile.

“What’s your name?”

“Where are you from?”

“Who are you?”

She doesn’t know, she doesn’t know, she doesn’t know.

A man has his daughter curled to his chest while he thanks her for her donation. The daughter asks what her favorite animal is and instant she says she likes dogs, the way the dog a block away wagged it’s tail when she gave it a treat still fresh in her mind. The man looks at her like she has two heads.

“She speaks Korean. Her mother always spoke it and it’s all she speaks in now.” He tilts his head and squints his eyes. “Who are you?”

She isn’t sure what to say, except to drop some coins against his blanket and speed-walk back to the hotel. She does dream that night. It isn’t pleasant. It’s questions without answers and accusations and ‘Who are you, who are you, who are you’ till she wakes up in a cold sweat, breathing shaky.

From across the room she looks at herself in the mirror. Her hair is curly and wild around her head, skin lighter than usual. “Who am I?” She asks. The mirror doesn’t respond.

When the moon is full and the sky is dark, she asks, “Who am I?”

The lightning bugs land one by one on her fingers, glowing bright enough that she would have otherwise mistaken them for stars. ‘You are the Mother of Stars,’ they buzz. ‘You are the creator of galaxies, the painter of all that is light, the ruler of an abyss nobody has yet to explore.’

The woman once goddess now person chuckles bitterly. “Am I?” she questions. “What is a mother when all her children have long since been buried? A creator after their work has been lost throughout history? An explorer when their land has been taken over by those much stronger?” With anger mixing with adrenaline, she runs a hand through her hair. “What is a goddess when given a form so dreadfully human?”

The lightning bugs dim, but she doesn’t care. “So I ask you again. Who am I?”

The moon sets as the run rises. The lightning bugs leave.

There’s a woman crying on the street corner. Multiple trash bags filled to the brim surround her and something about her seems off. When the goddess wearing a human’s skin approaches her offering a tissue, everything spills over without her having to ask.

“I couldn’t stay with him anymore,” she sobs, nearly choking on her own tears. “He wasn’t a good man. But- but the homeless shelter won’t take me. There aren’t enough rooms. So I just… I don’t know what to do anymore.” Her blood turns cold. Grass yellows beneath her feet. “They won’t take you why?”

The woman ends up leading her to the shelter. A man comes out with a bitter smile and a shrug. He gives them both a bottle of water, handing another tissue to the woman while avoiding Mother’s gaze.

“We just don’t have enough room,” he says, much too casual for her tastes. “There’s nothing we can do.”

“Then make more room.”

“We can’t just make more room!”

“Why not?” She knows why, though. Because her pockets have turned heavy and there’s the telltale sign of paper scraping against paper ringing in her ears. Before he can answer she reaches in and pulls the stack out, handing it to him a bit too roughly to seem kind. He doesn’t seem to notice.

“Is that enough?” The man’s eyes snap up from the wad in his hands. His mouth is slightly open and his eyes seem glazed over.

Stumbling over his words, he says, “I… yes, it’s definitely a great start at the very least.” Surprised giggles tumble out of his mouth as he runs a hand through his hair. “I…” He looks at her then, eyes filled with questions and excitement. “Who are you?”

A beat passes. She breathes through her nose, before smiling and holding out a hand. He takes it quickly.

“I go by Mother.”

Eventually, she speaks to the universe itself. She sits on a hill with grass as soft as silk and hugs her knees to her chest. Neither speak for a long, long time.

To the surprise of all those who watch, the Mother of Stars begins to cry. The wind howls around her as she wipes away tears. “Did I do something wrong?” she asks, scared and alone. “Have I…. have I failed, universe?” And the universe cries. “No,” it whispers. “You have done wonderfully. This is no punishment, Mother. There is simply more for you to do now.” The wind helps her to her feet and the grass grows taller to hold her hand. “Your purpose is more vast than you know. Your stars have flourished and continue to shine. Now it is time to help what has since grown.”

The young yet old goddess sniffs, smiling. “I will never be able to understand your riddles,” she mutters. The universe laughs.

“I am sure you will understand in due time. Maybe it is simply the human in you.”

Suddenly, stars begin to shoot across the sky, bright and quick. They speak in unison, over and over. ‘Mother, we miss you. Mother, we hear you. Mother, we watch you. Mother, we love you.’. From her hilltop she watches as lights turn on and windows open. Children point and adults smile. It is not often that the universe cries.

“My children,” she breathes, raising a hand to the sky. If she focuses long enough she can feel them thread through her fingers. “My children.”

She leaves the hotel. The staff say they’re sad to see her go, but don’t seem all too bothered after they find tips of large sums scattered around her room. They name it, “The Room of Luck” in her honor. She finds it funny.

Construction begins quickly. With a bit of luck and a few blessings, the new homeless shelter is up and running within a month. It’s brand new and feels like a home. The woman cries when she shows her her bed. Familiar faces fill the halls and she wishes the best to those who never arrive. She hopes they’re okay.

“You’re no longer in a hurry to return,” the universe muses one night. “Why?”

The half-goddess shrugs. “This is important, is it not?” She asks, sure. She grows more hesitant after a moment. “They… the stars will be okay, will they not?” The universe smiles. “We are patient,” it says, simply.

A boy named Adam lives at the shelter and tells her about the stars every time they meet. He’s determined to stump her on his trivia. One day, he says, “We’re all made of stardust. Did you know what?”

She freezes for a moment. “What?”

He grins. “Stardust! All humans, we’re made of stardust.” He leans over the dinner table and gets right in her face. “Did I get you?”

It takes a few beats. But soon, she’s smiling, slow and sweet. Her eyes are misty. “Yeah,” she says, soft. “Of course you are.” She laughs a bit and ruffles his hair. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner.”

She has many names. She is the woman who founded the homeless shelter downtown, the girl with skin as dark as night who grants blessings to those who she likes. She’s the witch and she’s the angel and she’s something else entirely, they say.

But mostly, she’s the Mother of Stars. They are her children and she cares for them as such, keeping them bright when the sky turns dark.

She is the Mother of Stars. “And you,” she says, grinning, “are made of stardust.”

#prose #short story #writblr #stars #goddesses #this was posted on reedsy for a prompt! check them out :D #this was fun to write. i like making people ~angry~

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raging-violets · 7 years

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Never A Dull Moment // KillerFlareFlashVibe

Characters: Barry Allen, Caitlin Snow, Cisco Ramon, Cadence Nash (aka KillerFlareFlashVibe)

Summary – On a slow day at STAR Labs, Team Flash blow off some steam by playing an old kid’s game.

Words: 2998

Also found here on FFN (x)

“I’m so bored,” Cisco murmured, resting his chin in his hands. His face, illuminated by the computer screen in front of him stayed frozen for a second. Exactly a second. Then he sat back and looked around. “Did I say that?”

“Yes, Cisco, you did.” Caitlin’s voice was tight, shoulders tense, fingers tightly gripping the pen in between her fingers. “Just like you have every minute for the last twenty minutes. We get it, you’re bored!”

Barry lifted his chin, pushing back the hood of his hoodie with a push under the brim of his forward-facing baseball cap. “Yeah, and you’re not making it any easier for the rest of us, man,” Barry added. His legs were fully extended, feet resting on the edge of the desk, legs crossed at the ankle.

“We all get that nothing’s happening,” Cadence added. She sat on Caitlin’s other side, mimicking Cisco’s stance, chin resting in her hands, elbows sitting atop the desk. “We all have eyes. We don’t need powers for you to realize that we can’t see anything happening.”

“Well excuse me,” Cisco said. He crossed his arms, sticking his hands into his armpits. “It’s just that there’s always something that’s going on. And the one day Harry puts us on meta watch and we all don’t have anything else to do, there’s nothing going on. Now, I don’t know about you, but this meta stuff actually keeps my day going. If I had a rea office job, I don’t know what I’d do with myself.”

Cadence gave him a look. “I have an office job and you don’t hear me complaining.”

“You get to mess with dead people all day, that’s cool.”

“Ha! And have Captain Singh breathe down my neck all day? Have the threat of going to court to testify every day? Constantly wondering if the body is really dead and isn’t going to pop up like a Jack-in-the-Box to scare me half to death?”

Barry pointed at her. “She’s got a point.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Cisco pushed himself backwards and started to spin himself around. He made it only a few times around before having to stop, pressing his hands to the sides of his face to steady himself. “Ugh, now I feel sick.”

“Cisco, would you please stay still?” Caitlin snapped. “I can hardly think with you doing that.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Cisco defended himself.

“You’re annoying me.”

“That’s your fault, you get annoyed at every little thing.” Cisco reached up and started to flick at the ends of her hair. Barry smiled to himself, trying not to burst out laughing. Cadence was already there, giggling quietly to herself. Caitlin’s fingers tightened around her pen, fingertips all the way to her knuckles turning white. “You can’t get mad. I’m not touching you. Not touching you, can’t get mad. Not touching you, can’t get mad!”

“Cisco!” Caitlin lifted her hand and smacked Cisco’s hand away. She glared so fiercely he froze. “Do you have to act like such a baby?”

That animated him again. “I’m not a baby,” he replied. That set the two off into a little bicker-fest. Barry reached up and lowered the brim of his hat lower over his eyes, pressing his lips together. Cadence leaned back out of the way when they started to slap each other with their hands.

Finally, she placed her hands on the desk and propelled herself backwards. “Okay, Bickersons! Cool it!” She walked between Cisco and Caitlin, grabbing their shoulders to force them apart. “I already have to deal with a ten-year-old kid, I don’t need to deal with two more babies. So, we’re all bored, we need something to do.”

Barry lifted the brim of his hat once more and looked at her with an amused smile. “And you’re the one that’s going to decide for us.”

Cadence shrugged. “Of course, I’m the fun one.”

At that, Cisco whipped his head around. “I beg your pardon.”

“Compared to you three, your lives would be very dull if I weren’t around.”

“It’d be a lot quieter, that’s for sure,” Cisco mumbled. He cried out in pain when Caitlin and Cadence both whacked him on the back of the head. He brought up his hands and rubbed the lump that formed as Barry tilted his head back and laughed.

“What’d you have in mind, Cade?” Barry finally asked.

“Figures you’d take her side,” Cisco mumbled.

“I’m just trying to figure out what we can do to pass the time! I’m tired of listening to you two fight. And we all know it’d only take a minute tops for me to check the city for anything going on,” Barry pointed out. He sat up, draping his hands between his knees. “So, if there’s anything else to do anything I’m all ears.”

“Thank you, Tholly.” Cadence smiled smugly at Cisco. Then she tapped her finger against her chin, starting to pace back and forth. “Let’s see, Monopoly is only reserved for West Family Game Night. We can’t play Poker anymore after Cisco lost his rent money.”

“You cheated,” Cisco declared.

“I merely watched your face to figure out what move to make, it’s not my fault you wear your heart on your sleeve,” Cadence defended herself, not breaking stride. She continued to pace, making large circles as she went. “We can’t play Hide and Seek since Brady managed to scare nearly everyone half to death when we couldn’t find him.”

“You have to admit, he’s gotten much better with his blending powers,” Barry reminded her.

“Yes, it’s so much fun trying to find him when he’s standing directly in front of your face,” Caitlin muttered.

“You’re just mad that he scared you so badly your hair nearly turned white,” Cisco said. He shook his head. “Loudest I’ve ever heard you scream, too.” This time Cisco received a pinch on his arm. He squealed, leaning away.

Cadence snapped her fingers. “I got it, we can play the lava game.”

“The what?” Caitlin asked.

“You never played the lava game when you were a kid?” Cisco asked.

“I don’t have any brothers and sisters and I was usually with my mom visiting my dad in the hospital,” Caitlin explained. Oh yeah, right. Out of all of them, with Barry right behind, she was the one with the least of a childhood. But how could anyone not know the lava game? It was a childhood staple.

“You pretend that the floor is lava and you have to traverse from one side of a room to another without touching the ground,” Barry explained. “Iris and I used to play it all the time. Until we broke the coffee table and Joe yelled at us.”

“Joe had to deal with you two long enough, I would’ve yelled if you broke the tine of a fork,” Cisco said. He reached out and gently smacked Barry on the arm, making him laugh.

“Yeah, but the rules have changed a little,” Cadence said. She started to speak with her hands, rapidly and wildly gesticulating as she did so. “Now you have to surprise the other person with it. If you say ‘the floor is lava’ the other person only has five seconds to get onto something that’d keep you off the ground.”

“What happens if they don’t do it?” Caitlin asked.

“Then they lose,” Cadence said simply.

“Or, we could make it interesting.” Cisco stood up, rubbing his hands together gleefully. “I can see the competition in you, Miss. Nash and I’m going to make sure it’s a competition you’ll get. And the only way we can do that, of course, is with monetary gain.”

“How much were you thinking?” Barry asked.

“Not so much, I still need to pay my rent. But how about fifty bucks each?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“But you can’t use your powers.”

At that, Barry and Cadence both paused while Cisco and Caitlin smiled impishly. It would certainly be much harder for them. They went through their entire day using their powers at the slightest inconvenience. It’d be such a shame if they couldn’t use it to make sure they won the game. A shame for them anyway. He and Caitlin would have a lot fun watching them figure out how to play.

“Fine,” Cadence said. She pulled her wallet out of the pocket of her jean shorts and flipped through it. Retrieving a $50 bill, she dropped it to the counter. Barry pulled out his own wallet and did the same. Cisco was the next one and Caitlin waited a few moments, crossing her arms, thinking about it. At least, until all eyes turned her way.

“We’re supposed to be watching for any metahumans,” Caitlin said.

“Knowing our luck, nothing’s going to happen,” Cisco said. “Besides, we have all day. Just as long as our asses are back here before Harry gets back.”

“Yeah, cone on, Caitlin,” Barry agreed. “It’ll be fine.”

Caitlin sucked in a deep breath through her nose. Finally, she went to retrieve her purse, making Barry, Cadence, and Cisco all high-five.

The game started out before any of them realized it. They went right back to watching for any metahumans to come up. They’d waited for a half hour, all doing their own things. Caitlin was engrossed in a book she hadn’t had much time to finish, Cisco was twiddling with a prototype for a new invention he was working on, their Earth’s version of a metahuman detection watch, Cadence looked up sports scores on her phone, and Barry watched the news on the large TV screen across the Cortex.

Cadence was the first to get up, stretching her arms over her head. “I’m going to get something to eat. Does anyone want anything while I’m up?”

“Pizza Pockets,” came the unanimous replies.

“You guys are going to get fat off eating those things all the time,” Cadence remarked. She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Am I going to have an avalanche of them fall out on me again?”

“Probably not,” Barry said. “I ate some more of them yesterday.”

“Barry, you only bought one box! The others were mine and Cisco’s!” Barry protested.

Barry smiled smugly at her. “Yeah, until I went and bought some more.”

“That explains why no store had them!” Cisco slapped his hands onto the side of his desk. “I thought it was a conspiracy trying to get me to stop eating them.” He glared at Caitlin when she said ‘you didn’t need cosmic intervention for that’ and said, “But to know all along it was my best friend who was cleaning me out.”

“And the refrigerator,” Caitlin added.

“Okay,” Cadence said. “I’ll get you all pizza pockets.”

“And, Cade, by the way,” Barry called towards her. The smile that came to his face mimicked that of a Cheshire Cat. “The floor is lava.”

For a moment, Cadence stared at him in confusion. Then her eyes widened and her gaze darted around the Cortex. There wasn’t much that wasn’t the floor for her to jump on. She eyed her office chair but stopped when Cisco reached out and pulled the chair away from her. All the while, Barry continued to count. “5…4…3…”

“Chairs don’t count?” She asked, voice lighting into a high-pitched shriek.

“Nope.” Cisco popped the ‘p’ on his word, smiling smugly.

“2…” Barry said.

With a low curse, Cadence sprinted across the floor of the Cortex and into the medical bay, flinging herself atop the bed with a wild leap from the doorframe. She landed haphazardly on the bed, scrambling back up to see if she got there in time.

“Almost didn’t make it,” Barry called in a sing-song voice.

“But I made it,” Cadence sang back, punching the air and wiggling in a little dance.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get you,” Caitlin called.

“Can you get our pizza pockets now?” Cisco asked.

Caitlin was the next one who nearly fell for it. It was about an hour later and he was still trying to figure out how the meta-human watch worked. How were any of them supposed to know that the parts of the watch were different from theirs? As it was, he needed to get it back to Harry before he figured out he’d ‘borrowed’ the watch. And that he might’ve, accidentally destroyed it while trying to make one of his own. So that’s why they were in Harry’s office, which was really Cisco’s before the Earth-2 newcomer had taken it over, looking for any sort of blueprint to figure things out.

“We really shouldn’t be in here,” Caitlin said from the doorway.

“Oh please, your boyfriend isn’t going to find out,” Cisco shot back.

Caitlin scoffed. “That’s totally uncalled for. Just because Dr. Wells was my mentor— “

“Cait, we all know you had a thing for Dr. Wells,” Barry broke in. “It’s fine if you can’t admit it.” He leaned over Cisco’s desk, looking through a bunch of papers. Cisco and Cadence stood behind him, the two searching through some others random odds and ends strewn about. Caitlin continued to stand in the doorway.

“By the way, the floor is lava,” Cisco called. “5…”

“Cisco!”

“4…”

“This isn’t funny.”

“3…you agreed to it. 2…”

Caitlin stomped her foot on the ground like a little child, searching around the room. Finally, she pushed aside a space on the desk and quickly perched herself atop it, her feet dangling towards the ground. The tips of her toes—having had kicked off her heels—barely missed brushing against the floor. “I hate you,” she finally said.

“Join the club,” Cadence remarked. “Because that’s where we’re all going to be once Harry finds out we were in here.”

“I can’t find anything anyway,” Barry agreed.

“Bet you hate that you can’t use your powers now, huh, buddy?” Cisco teased.

“For real?”

“For real, for real,” Cadence replied, making Caitlin laugh.

Cisco slapped his hands to his sides. “But he’s right, I’m not seeing anything.” He looked over the mess they all created. Then he turned to Caitlin and rubbed his chin. “Do you think he’d be much more forgiving if we said that Caitlin was a gift for him?” He ducked out of the way before a screwdriver that Caitlin threw could impale him in the forehead.

Barry and Cisco were harder to get. They were always very close to something that would keep them up off the ground. Barry even showing his arm strength by grasping a low hanging pole that ran across the ceiling of the storage room. And Cisco had even made use of the Flash mannequin to leap atop of it like a spider when he was almost called out. But Caitlin and Cadence continued to try, coming up short each time. At one point, Cisco flung himself across the girls’ laps as they sat in their chairs and Barry had climbed atop of Cisco to stay up.

The girls started to become more difficult as well. Due to their smaller size, they could squeeze into tighter spaces, like a shelf that held medical textbooks and the tiniest space in the storage closet. Nothing within STAR Labs had been off-limits for their careening into it, knocking things over in their haste to climb up or over it. At one point, Cadence had even found herself wedged into the washing machine, nearly having to melt it to get back out.

And yet, none of them managed to get caught.

By the time the game ended, there were bruises all over their arms and legs—Barry’s healing up very quickly—badges of honor from their efforts to get away. In the end, they ultimately decided on a tie to keep from having to go through much more of it.

“Ow,” Cisco rubbed his shin, which had a nasty rug burn from landing on the Cosmic Treadmill, turning it on. “I can’t believe we decided to play this game.”

“You went along with it,” Barry pointed out.

“I was forced into it.” Caitlin glanced towards the computer screen that was flashing. “And look, we’re missing something.” Her body tensed, immediately falling back into the seriousness of the situation they had grown so accustomed to over the years.

“Let’s go,” Barry said to Cadence, jostling her arm as he did so.

Cadence winced, grabbing her arm. “Ow,” she murmured. “Well, the good news about this one is, with my powers, we can still play The Floor is Lava with them.”

“Yeah, and the loser goes to the Iron Heights,” Barry agreed before the two raced out of the Cortex.

#the flash #barry allen #caitlin snow #cisco ramon #oc: cadence nash #killer frost #vibe #flare #killerflareflashvibe #friendship #our writing #the flash fanfiction

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