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( BACKDATED TO DEC. 1 )

[ it's evident barry's at the bar — or a bar, given how his phone's sort of sitting on the top of a tipped over bowl that had held peanuts — with a few empty bottles around him. his efforts to get drunk have proven fruitless, but barry allen is determined. ]

So, uh … [ barry looks a little tired, hair a slight mess, but he's not slurring his words. he wishes he was. ] What are you supposed to do when someone leaves? Does time kind of stop? Do rabbit holes appear out of nowhere for people to fall upwards out of?

[ it wasn't really covered in the pamphlet how you're supposed to react when someone just up and disappears. barry's never been good at that. he's tried running and he's almost going to catch a cold with how wet he always is. (his clothes are a little damp from running so fast and him winding up spluttering in the pool.) ]

Iris — Iris West, she went home. [ without him, but that's implied by how his tone drops and then picks up quickly, almost like barry doesn't need to take a breath. ] Can someone bring me a brownie? I kind of ate all the ones I brought with me and all I've got is peanuts. [ he flicks a shell a little too fast, a very brief flash of gold sparking. ] And maybe a broom. I kind of made a mess. Sorry ...

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[ Caitlin doesn't make any attempt to hide how concerned she is right now. She'd been worried about him ever since they landed in Wonderland and since Thawne disappeared. But losing Iris, that's a huge blow and while he may not be able to do a lot, he could likely find trouble to get into here. ]

I'm on my way up now. Any particular kind of brownies you'd like?

[ Considering that she isn't baking them. The closets are very handy right now. ]

[ When it rains, it pours. Par for the course with Wonderland. There seemed to be a pattern this place liked to stick to when it came to sending people home. ]

Natasha's gone too. I'd like to say it gets easier with time, but that'd be a massive lie. For what it's worth, sorry to hear about Iris. I can def hook you up with brownies from the coffee shop - both alcoholic and non-alcoholic varieties. Or, if you'd rather have a full on cake or cupcakes that're available in both boozy and non-boozy flavors, I can do a Guiness chocolate cake with Irish Cream frosting. [ Booze may or may not be a go-to when it comes to coping with some of the curveballs this place likes to chuck. She definitely can't judge. ]

Anything peaking your interest?

[Ah.]

[So it's going around, is it.]

[He doesn't know who Iris was, but he doesn't really need to. Someone important. Family, friend, lover. It's the same either way.]

you don't really do anything.

you just. hope they're happy back home, i guess. hope they're okay.

[He doesn't do hope, but he knows Barry does. A guy that upbeat? It probably comes naturally to him.]

Someone's been hitting the bottles.

_{[Ah, they grow up so fast. One trip to the bar during a de-powered event and the next thing you know they're surrounded by empties, looking like the most miserable drunk (or the most sober-person-wishing-he-were-drunk kind of drunk) there ever was.

Anders remembers Iris. Friendly. Warm smile. A big brownie fan. For that reason, he doesn't tease Barry too hard about the trail of destruction he's left in the bar, or that glimpse of what looks like golden static shock, he just angles his head, offering a sympathetic look.]}

Sorry to hear Iris has left us.

[clementine has noticed she hasn't seen iris around, and they usually check up on each other every day. she was warm and kind and strong and good. she was her friend. someone who looked out for her, someone who helped her make something of the bare room she'd had before, because she didn't know how to- she didn't know how to make a room.

she's used to loss. usually, people die. this is different, but it still hurts, and for once, there's not an onslaught of walkers to deal with or some psycho with a crowbar. there's just the hurt. and the anger because she'll miss her, and she's gone, and that's that.

she grabs paint out of her closet, starts to paint over a section of it with red paint in ugly splotches. the ceiling remains its beautiful night sky but she takes out a little paintbrush after that, writes Iris on the wall and then- and then starts to write other names (mom, dad, doug, mark, duck, katja, ben, lee, omid, christa, carlos...) there are a lot of names, and she's in the middle of writing them when she sends an audio message back to barry.]

You're sure she's gone? I thought maybe she'd come back but her stuff's gone.

[ Oh. Oh, this isn't good. He thinks about Chief Hopper when he sees the bottles, and remembers Will Byers talking about his dad and his mom and describing a scene in the living room like this one time at a sleepover. He doubts it's anything that serious, but it's still enough to make him worry. ]

You okay?

[ It sucks his friend is gone, but Dustin is focusing on the immediate problem. ]

Aww, Iris is gone?

Well, fuck.

[Shaun wasn't close to her, really, but they knew each other through Georgia, and they'd had a pretty awesomely epic paintball adventure together, so he is definitely going to miss her.

Obviously not like Barry will.]

I don't know, man. I'm still pretty new around here. I guess you just kind of... keep going? And maybe they come back?

[He says like he wouldn't go completely off the rails if George vanished.]

[ it's all too easy for barry to tell caitlin not to worry, but doing so means he has to mean it. as oblivious as he sometimes is to himself and those around him, he knows better than to tell her he doesn't need any brownies right after asking for them. ]

[ he doesn't want her to worry. he's doing a poor job of convincing her she doesn't have to. ]

[ pushing caitlin away isn't the answer. so, he follows the intention behind his post (which is to gain some sort of clarity and company, despite not quite outright asking for it properly), and encourages her rather than deters her. ]

I could use some chocolate fudge with some Snow. A lot of snow. Maybe just snow and that's it.

[ barry opens his mouth and closes it. there's a whole world out there of brownies he doesn't know about, and he wonders if it's because iris stopped blogging about brownies when he'd been struck into a coma. he'd missed a lot; him being out of commission had also made iris miss (and realise she had been missing) a lot, too. ]

[ his brow arches. this is a whole other world, one he'd want to tuck into with iris on hand. ] There's alcoholic brownies? For real?

[ it sure seems like it. barry's tempted to flash around and leave sans with a brownie, but he doesn't know if skeletons may have reactions to it. there's so much he doesn't know about sans, and knowing that people can come and go without so much as a goodbye reminds him of that glaring fact. ]

[ it only makes him even more determined to learn and remember. ]

Sorry about your brother, dude. I was really hoping to meet him. [ and sans may find not a word barry gives him isn't genuine. ] Do you like brownies?

[ he's been trying to make anders proud by hitting the bar, but barry knows it's useless. being powered up and his normal self means the buzz lingers for less than a hot second before it goes. he's never quite dealt with any sort of loss with alcohol, though. he runs from it. ]

[ he's tried that, and wonderland won't let him go anywhere save the pool. ]

[ his brow arches slightly at anders' words. it doesn't mean anders knows iris (she's all barry had ever really talked about non-stop during the hogwarts event), but barry's a csi, it's his job to comb through the evidence before him. he has a gut feeling about this one. ] You knew Iris?

[ if clementine doesn't wish to use video, barry's not going to make her feel uncomfortable by using it himself. besides, he likes to hide. why else does he vibrate his vocal cords as the flash? ]

[ voice a little gentle and defeated, ] She's been gone for a few days. I've looked for her everywhere. [ there's a slight soft emphasis on the last word; the flash has combed through wonderland ten times over, speeding over the water, falling into the pool, phasing through walls. it hadn't mattered her room was bare when he'd gone to see her the morning of. denial's a river that runs deep, and sometimes barry thinks he's been swimming in it for the past eleven years. ]

[ barry had known iris was gone without needing to search high and low for her. a part of him was missing; that emptiness he had confessed he'd been feeling to her on the porch has come back to hit him square in the face. ]

I'm sorry.

[ it's the one question barry's hated since he was eleven years old. "are you okay?" he's never known how to answer it. despite being the one to often ask it to victims of crimes who appear distraught, he's never learned what the proper response should be. honestly? a lie? a wish for what they're about to say to be true? barry knows he isn't okay; he's about to go home and do something that he can't guarantee will work, but that anger and grief locked inside of him keeps informing him it will, it absolutely has to. ]

[ this is the first time ever since he decided to be selfish and save mom that he's wondered what else he'll lose. ]

[ not wanting dustin to worry, he smiles just a little. ] I think I will be.

[ except barry doesn't know. ]

I'm just eating my feelings. Or they're eating me, I'm not too sure.

Probably. [ he nods, but it's evident he doesn't quite believe it. ] I was here and I came back? [ he lifts his shoulders then. he doesn't quite know the answer to it. will iris come back? will he be here, waiting for her, when she does? iris had said she'd always wait for him to come home, but barry's now finding he's in that position, except wonderland isn't home at all. ]

[ he's never been good at dealing with loss, and he does his best not to show it. it's a concept he's never tried to learn himself, instead choosing to run far and fast away from it. ]

[ rather than focus on that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach, he chooses to try and see something else instead. ]

You knew Iris?

[ Caitlin's expecting him to push away. Or at least to deflect her. It's what she would do, what she has done in the past. It's always with the best intentions, wanting to avoid being a burden or inflicting sadness on the people you care about. She had prepared for a fight.

So when it doesn't come, an odd mix of relief and worry washes over her. ]

Well, getting Snow is a given. Always. But I can bring some chocolate fudge brownies, too. Maybe something extra.

[ all barry really wants is to hear iris' voice and her laugh just one last time. without her presence in wonderland to ground him, he doesn't know which way is up — which is ironic, he supposes, since alice had been in the same predicament in her story. she'd handled it with more grace than he is. ]

[ he doesn't tell caitlin that, though. it's not fair of him to do so, and it's beyond her control of who comes and goes. perhaps there's a science behind it, but barry learned a long time ago that there was hardly any science to life itself. ]

[ he'd had everything he wanted in wonderland — iris, caitlin, cisco, wells, jesse — and even though mom and dad had been missing, it hadn't felt incomplete. now, he feels as though wonderland itself is trying to teach him a lesson he refuses to sit still and learn. ]

Sprinkles? [ his face scrunches up a little, shoulder lifting as well. ] I know they belong on donuts, but we're allowed to bend the rules in Wonderland, right? It's for science, anyway.

Sprinkles. I think I can do sprinkles. Today is a day for throwing out the rules.

[ That isn't quite what she meant by extra, but telling him would ruin the surprise. Maybe he wouldn't even't guess what she had in mind. Better to let him think that the "big guns" would just be more sugar—colorful sugar, sure—on top of sugar. ]

I'll be up in a few minutes, okay?

[she doesn't want barry to see her wrecking the room iris helped her so beautifully to put back together. doesn't want anyone to see the names she's writing up on the wall. and there are more to write, but she's stopped because her hand started to shake, because she was starting to make a big mess, and she wants-

most of it is like iris made for her, based on what clementine would love, but- but these ugly splotches of people who have died, who have been lost, who are gone.]

I looked too. [her voice is small. it's nice to talk about it with someone who cares, who knew her far better than clem ever would, who loved her too. not that she ever told her that.] I looked all over.

I just hoped I was wrong. [she lets out a low breath.]

[ caitlin snow: rule breaker. barry doesn't know if he likes the look on her, but for now, he thinks it suits her. he's always needed her to ground him in the now, in the restrictions of life and the things he's capable of doing. sometimes he feels too invincible, and without her and iris reminding him that invincibility isn't a weapon but a distraction, he knows where he'd have ended up long ago. ]

I'll save you a drink.

[ one that she can enjoy, at least. he says it with a smile, not quite as beaming as usual, but caitlin deserves a little bit of a upward curve than a downward. besides, it's harder to frown in the wake of her presence than it is to smile. ] I'll surprise you with the umbrella colour. You have to like it!

I'm sorry.

[ he winces at that, fearful of sounding like a broken record even though he's just begun to play. ]

[ as much as losing iris hurts him, barry's never coped with loss well at all. if he can focus on anything else, he does. when mom had died and dad had been taken away, he'd focused on being as strong as any pillar, so if any davids tried to throw a stone at him, he wouldn't be the goliath that fell. but that had been all wrong and messed up, and joe had shown him that there was more weakness in that than there ever would be in breaking just a little. ]

Iris is going to be fine. She's going to go back inside and hang out with her dad and brother for the rest night. [ he thinks to clarify: ] Back home. That's where she was before she came here.

it's fine.

[Stupid thing to say, since it's incredibly obvious that it's not fine, and of course it wouldn't be fine. It's just automatic. Dodge, avoid, even if it's the most cursory attempt.]

depends. how unhealthy are they?

Well, a little. Through my sister. She was going to be part of our newsie team.

And she was my epic paintball partner for that last event. She seems really cool. I'm guessing you guys are pretty close?

It's not your fault. You don't have to keep apologizing, and she- You two were y'know... you two.

[it has to be harder for him, but if he ever goes home, he'll at least get to see her again. it's that reminder most people do want to go home. iris would want to go back for her family. barry would want to go back to see iris too.

it's good to hear it even if she's still angry to have lost her at all.]

It's good to know she'll be fine, but- It's still hard, right? To be here without her. It's shitty.

[she's not really looking for comfort. it's hard for her to accept it in general. she has to be really close to anyone to let them in enough to see when it hurts, when she hurts, but she is looking- hoping to talk about iris with someone else who hurts over her loss. that's- that helps.

and maybe it'll help him too. she won't ask if he's okay, and she won't act like she can make this better. she can't.]

Brownies or brownies?

[If he actualy bothers looking, Barry might notice that Leonard appears to be on the move. To where, that's the question.]

[ cue a furrow to his brow and the longest repetition, layered in obvious uncertainty, of: ] Brow ... nies?

[ is it clear what barry wants? he may have been accidentally asking for the emphasised brownies. ]

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