You Monster - Chapter 9
Yaaaay internet! This chapter is dedicated to @i-am-avacado who wanted more Barry in this fic. I’ll just say be careful what you wish for ;) ;) ;)
“I just want you to think about this before you do anything rash.” Dan paced the length of his office, unable to sit still.
“I have thought about it,” Barry said. He sat in one of the plush chairs on the other side of Dan’s desk, seemingly much calmer. Between Barry and where Dan paced, sat a slip of paper on Dan’s otherwise entirely clean desk. A request form. A test subject request form with Barry’s signature already scrawled across the ‘participant signature’ line. All that was left was the signature of approval from Grump Laboratories’ CEO, Dan Avidan.
“Barry—“
“I know it’s hard for you, Dan. I know you don’t wanna do it. It’s hard for me, too.” Barry took a deep, shaky breath. “But I’m actually doing something about it instead of pretending nothing is wrong.”
Dan’s pacing fell still. He felt like Barry had physically punched him. The unapologetic tone, the firmness in Barry’s expression. It made Dan feel like garbage. But fuck, Barry was right. “I just—I don’t wanna lose you, too, Bear. You’re all I’ve got left.”
A bit of harshness fell out of Barry’s expression, but he still held his ground. “I’m tired of watching all these people go into the chambers like nothing’s wrong. Ross—“ Barry practically choked on the name. It’d only been a couple days now since Barry had seen the tape of what had happened. He decided to take a different, less painful approach. “I’m gonna go in there, finish the tests, and shut down BRIAN.”
Hands slammed down on the desk, leaving Barry startled. Dan’s entire body shook, angry tears brimming in his eyes, jaw locked in a grimace. “You’ll die! You’ll get fucking ripped to shreds like everyone else, Barry.”
Shaking off the surprise from Dan’s outburst, Barry stood himself up. “Then at least I’ll have tried something!” His own emotions jolted, leaving the two in a vicious standoff. “At least I won’t be a coward, like you.”
The entire facade Dan was holding up threatened to crumble as his lip quivered. But he grabbed a pen from his desk and violently scrawled his name across the form, almost ripping the paper in two in the process. “Then go! If you want to commit suicide, then fucking do it and see if I care!”
Barry snatched the paper off the table and stormed out of Dan’s office, leaving the other man to merely collapse into his chair. He laid his head in his arms on the desk, hiding his face completely, and he sobbed loudly and shamelessly.
“When we find Holly,” Ross was saying, his pre-programmed joviality shining through, “do you think we’ll find anyone else? Any other test subjects?”
“I don’t know, Ross,” Dan said. His voice was thick, his mind running through every single test subject form he’d ever signed. He didn’t want to think about what might happen if he found them. Despite the robotic filter, Ross already sounded too much like himself for Dan. He didn’t know if he could handle anyone else.
“Barry’s gonna lose his mind if we bring her back. If all three of us made it back together.”
Dan took a sharp breath, but said nothing else.
Above them, a massive industrial light flashed on, engulfing the pair in a single spotlight. “Ah, there you two are,” BRIAN mused. “This is not a part of the tests, but we can work with that.”