Never A Dull Moment
By: Riley
Summary – On a slow day at STAR Labs, Team Flash blow off some steam by playing an old kid's game. KillerFlareFlashVibe.
"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 END
A/N: For those who were hoping it'd just be a KillerFlashVibe like Laughter is the Best Medicine was, I do have some more one-shots with only those three in mind that I'm working on. As for the lava game one-shots, I still have to do one for Big Time Rush and McFly (for those that read in those fandoms, too). And I've got a Caitlin/Cadence friendship one-shot coming as well.
Cheers,
-Riles
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