her own finite time | extended review
Okay, so I’ve promoted the fic at least twice and reviewed it a couple places too, but I just got to expand a little bit on one point of this fic that felt just so special to me.
“And even while she’s watching the blood creep up his neck and into his cheeks, he’s squirming a little closer, clumsily, like he’s never touched her before, like the night of their third date when they’d both known they were absolutely going to have sex but neither of them had quite said it yet. Barry had kept just carefully inching closer to her like he was asking permission for something.”
-excerpt (1) from @gnimaerd‘s her own finite time
Another ‘if you’ve been following my blog for a while…’ point of interest. For myself personally, I struggled with when exactly Barry and Iris had sex for the first time. The show didn’t exactly throw up any red flags. By the time 3x09 came around, we were more or less forced to accept it had happened then or sometime between 3x03 and then. Obvs.
I couldn’t wrap my head around it happening by 3x04. Obvs they jump each other all the time now, but just like a week max since they’d been dating and they’re already sleeping with each other? That just felt ridiculously fast for me. Which is why my personal headcanon is their first time sex being after the crossovers but before the Christmas episode. Conveniently for me, I also assume there’s a big time jump between those episodes. And I’m satisfied with this conclusion. Truly.
So, reading this fic, it prob should’ve irked me - the implication that they had sex on their third date. It’s annoyed me in fics before, and so when I read that line I prepared myself to push past it b/c I knew the fic was going to be good. It already was so good thus far.
But the most amazing thing happened. I wasn’t annoyed. I wasn’t all ‘that’s too fast’ or ‘that’s not canon’ or ‘that’s not what I think!’ It just…worked in this fic. I believe it. It felt like that could be how it was. I don’t know how to explain it. It was just written so well that I believed it.
Outside of this fic, my headcanon remains unchanged, but inside it? I not only buy it, I embrace it. And that is something I haven’t been able to do with any other fic addressing this topic that’s been written all season.
“She had hardly known what to do with him back then - months that now feel like years ago - except to tell him yes, to pull him closer, to shift and tumble against him whatever way felt good until they had grasped what was physical, chemical, between them. To figure out how they worked in this new, strange, perfect way.”
-excerpt (2) from @gnimaerd‘s her own finite time
And this passage! I love how it talks about Barry awkwardness, and also kind of both of theirs when they had just started dating. It shows that even though they didn’t wait all that long to start getting physical, they weren’t super smooth right off the bat (regardless of Barry’s suaveness during their 3x04 make out). I really love that. It’s a perfect balance of eager and unprepared.
