A/N: A late entry for Snowbarry Week 2022 day 1 "bloggers / youtubers / social media".
Warnings for excessive drinking mentioned at the start as part of the setup for the fic premise and also mentions later of some misogynistic comments Caitlin has on her video. Not betaread since I wrote it on a tight deadline to get it done for not too long after the week officially ended, hoping it's still okay.
There's a bit of pining, a bit of angst but also overall fluffy I'd say.
a reaction that can't be contained
"Why didn't you stop me?" Caitlin asks with her voice rising in inflection as she starts to panic about what she just witnessed.
She'd only watched the first two minutes of the video, squinting at the brightness of the screen as she did, still far too hungover. She couldn't bear to watch any more, overwhelmed with a mix of nausea and embarrassment, emotions that are now starting to switch to anger. Cisco isn't squinting in the daylight, it barely looks like there's any sign of their night of debauchery fueled by the wedding's free bar. She may have drunk too much to know what was good for her, but Cisco should have known better considering he clearly hadn't been too drunk to more than passably edit it together and post it for her last night.
"Hey, you wanted teach more people about science, and the only way do that was a bigger audience for your blog. Drunk science did the trick, you hit the mother-lode. That baby went viral overnight. A sweet 1 million views and 2000 comments. Just...maybe don't read the comments."
"1 million people saw me drunk?!" Caitlin half-shrieks before she puts her head in her hands, letting out a sigh at the bliss of darkness when she closes her eyes. Her head shoots back up as she has a sudden thought, instantly regretting the movement. "What if someone from work sees it? How will anyone take me seriously? What if I get fired for bringing the company into disrepute?"
"Woah, woah, slow down," Cisco says, coming round to sit next to her, his hand on her shoulder an another attempt to ground her and stop her spiralling mentally. "If anything, people already think you're too serious so this could actually help your reputation."
Caitlin groans in frustration as she covers her face again. She just wants to go back to bed, sleep the hangover off, but now there's this whole mess to deal with. It isn't even as simple as there being a video online of her drunk. No, it's much worse than that because what it is, according to Cisco, is a video of her progressively more and more drunk and explaining every stage of drunkeness in minute detail using herself as a gleeful example.
"Don't worry, I'm pretty sure Harrison has a sense humor underneath all that grumpiness. And even if he didn't, Tess would talk him round to seeing the funny side of it. You're not gonna get fired."
Caitlin does read the comments. A couple of weeks later, once the initial fuss and her sense of shame has died down. Most of the comments don't require any response, though she likes the ones where people thank her, and hearts those that add extra information for others or ask follow-up questions she does her best to answer. Another subset of comments are the ones Cisco already warned her about; those about her appearance, innuendo and chat-up lines, wanting to meet her in person. Then there's those questioning if she knows what she's talking about, suggesting she's simply a pretty face to read the script even though nothing about that video was remotely scripted. She hates that the focus is on her with that type of comment, not just because of the grossness of them and their assumptions, but the fact they are missing the point entirely, that it's meant to be all about the science. Everyone online knows her now as the drunk scientist explaining drunk science and little else, despite all the work she's put into her blog to make science more accessible.
There's one comment near the end that's rather different though. She almost dismisses it offhand, tired from trawling through so many, taking it for a chat-up attempt at first since it starts with 'Great video! Would you maybe want to get together sometime,' but then she rereads it more carefully and it catches her attention. It's an invitation to collaborate with another channel if she wants to, complimenting her not just on this video but on several of her previous more obscure entries on her linked blog that were barely read thanks to not being in an easily digestible video format. He's certainly done his homework and it has her curious what kind of person wants to do a video with her after the recent debacle.
She clicks through on the username to check out 'Your friendly neighborhood CSI' and finds herself staring at a grid of thumbnails for a guy about her age who's definitely easy on the eyes himself. His About mentions he's studying to become a CSI and a lot of his videos are debunking bad protocol or implausible science used in crime dramas. He also has a playlist for 'World of Weird' that she's less sure what to make of at first. Which seems to be him discussing the real world possibilities behind myths and urban legends, explanations for various cryptids and supernatural creatures, as well as odd natural phenomena that often gets mistaken for the supernatural. Those videos go back a lot further than his CSI themed ones, to when he was a floppy haired teen with much more questionable fashion sense but equal amounts of enthusiasm. What every video has in common is the infectious passion he has, the way his eyes light up when he talks about the thing in question. He's been doing this a long time, he's pretty good at it by now, and she can see plenty of other collab videos in another playlist for them. For some reason he wants to work with her. She has no clue what they could make a video about together, but the more she thinks it over in the days after, she decides she wants to figure that out.
As she sits across from Barry Allen, Caitlin bites her lip, worrying it between her teeth. They've already redone the intro three times and she keeps coming off as too stiff, too formal - it's the same problem all her non-drunk videos had ended up with in the past and probably the reason not enough people had stuck with her old videos. She's trying but she's nervous and out of her element here in his fancier setup. Not that she's nervous about being at his - Cisco's only a call away and has Barry's address too since she takes her safety seriously and there's no way she would meet a stranger from online without taking precautions. Half the reason she's nervous is because Barry is so genuinely nice, naturally so warm and friendly. He's trying so much to put her at ease and she keeps stuffing it up anyhow.
"Don't worry about the intro," he says with a gentle smile, "We'll keep rolling and we can come back to it at the end. Or I can edit something together later."
Once they start talking about the science, Caitlin begins to relax. Being in her element with the facts distracts her from the rest of her nervousness, though there's still an undercurrent of apprehension resting in her stomach as she worries she's blushing a little under Barry's earnest gaze at times. Their discussion quickly gets away from them with the easy back and forth they eventually develop over their shared interests, going off-topic a number of times, and it's many hours later that they call it a day. Caitlin forgets all about the bungled intro they meant to redo, until she sees the edited video draft Barry sends her a week later. He'd taken some of the spare footage from later in the day and had done a quick voice-over with on-screen factoids about her and her blog that makes her seem much more impressive and professional at this than she is.
The reaction to the video is pretty positive. Caitlin expects that to be that though. A fun experience, a new connection made, and a little more exposure that she's good with so long as people learn something from the video. When Barry calls her up a couple of weeks later and suggests they do another she's surprised.
"I was thinking...we could do something about medical conditions that influenced vampire lore. You know, for Halloween."
"Barry, Halloween isn't for another month and a half."
"Exactly, we need time to research and plan and then film and edit."
She's reminded once again how new she is to this compared to him and cringes a little at how green she must seem, grateful he can't see her reaction over the phone. However, the thought of spending more time with him, having that good excuse to, causes butterflies in her stomach and she rushes to agree with the plan.
"Okay, sure, we can do that. We can start as soon as you want."
"Great, good," he says quickly, sounding a bit breathless as he does, "I'll send you a link to a document we can both edit." She swears she can hear a grin somehow in his tone.
Over the next week or two, they each add in notes and references. Commenting on each other's sections of research with a mix of questions, occasional corrections and, increasingly, chatter; things only tangentially related, about what they've been doing day to day that still comes first before this side-job they have. She's happy when Barry adds her on messenger one day and after that, their conversations change from the previous emails and the document comments to being more day-to-day on IM instead. The month and a half flies by in a flurry of activity that takes up a good chunk of her free time, but she really doesn't mind given the outcome, not to mention the perks of the process spending time with him. The video is an even bigger hit than their last and this time it's Caitlin who immediately starts mulling over what their next collab together could be.
"Have you read the comments lately?" Cisco asks as he sits down opposite her at lunch.
"I thought your standing advice was not to."
"But we both know you can't resist, not when their might be budding scientists to encourage."
"Not in the last couple of days, but since you must have then why don't you just tell me."
"Barry's fans are asking for you to do another video together."
"So? We already plan to, we just haven't figured out what yet."
"They want you to do one in your viral video style, a case study of the science of love complete with real life example."
Her brows knit in confusion. "I don't think that would work with Barry's channel. How would that even invol-"
Oh. Oh. She can't help the blush that rebelliously stains her cheeks for Cisco to see plain as day. Her face is hot with an excited understanding of the implication that Barry likes her too.
"Yeah, that's what I thought," Cisco says with a chuckle before digging into his food finally. The time it takes him to wolf down a few forkfuls is a welcome reprieve given her self-consciousness. Of course, she'd known she was fond of Barry, but he'd always been nice to her, nothing had really changed from the first meeting to now, except the frequency of their interactions. If he'd been flirting then she'd completely missed it. But an implication is all it is, speculation by his fans. She doesn't feel confident enough to base any actions on such flimsy evidence as the reading of their interactions by people who don't even know them.
"Are you okay, Cait? You seem flushed. You're not coming down with something, are you?" Barry asks, his concerned eyes scrutinizing her face. He looks like he might be about to bring his hand up to check her forehead temperature so she steps back out of his reach. Her cheeks are probably too red with the near permanent blush she now has around him.
"No, no. I just tried something different with my make-up today. New blusher."
It feels like he might be considering telling her it's a bit much, but Barry doesn't say anything else about it except to say they can color correct the footage in editing if she wants any changes later on.
They try to get down to filming but something isn't right this time. Gone is the effortless rapport they'd built up. Caitlin feels herself reverting back to her stiff, formal demeanour, her answers stunted as she overthinks every word out of her mouth. Finally, Barry asks in a quiet voice, "Did I do something wrong?"
"No! No. I'm just having an off day," Caitlin says, wishing she were a better liar.
Barry gets up at that and turns off the camera for a break, head hanging heavy as he turns back to her. Her anxiety turns up a notch as she notices he's avoiding looking at her.
"You saw those comments, didn't you." It isn't really a question with the way he says it and her heart sinks at how downtrodden he looks. It feels like he's been waiting secretly with trepidation for this to crop up and is disheartened to have been proved right by how she's acting.
"The comments don't matter. Really. You can't control what your fans post."
He looks up from under a furrowed brow. "If it doesn't matter, then why are we...why are you being weird around me? I don't care what they think. I care what you think."
As Barry stares at her tensely, making no effort to hide the hurt he feels, she realizes this moment is make or break for them. Whatever the reality of his feelings is, whether he likes her back or not, they can't go forward in this friendship, this relationship, without her answering him truthfully here and now.
"I wanted them to be right," she admits. Forcing herself to say it loud and proud, impossible for him not hear, even though she wants to shrink away from him and hide.
"What?" he asks, almost under his breath, low and indecipherable as to how exactly he's going to take this. Caitlin feels like she's in limbo as she looks at him, caught between the heaven and hell of knowing how he feels.
"They thought you liked me, had a crush on me or something, and... I wanted that to be true."
When she glances up, Barry is grinning widely with bright eyes that look a touch teary. He always has a nice smile and the ability to light up a room with his warmth, but this is something else. And that warmth is shining down on her and her alone, making her heart skip a beat.
"I do," he says breathily, right before he closes the distance between them. He catches her in an tight but awkwardly angled enthusiastic hug as he leans down to her still seated. When he lets go, she holds onto his arms to steady herself as she gets up and finds she's suddenly standing so incredibly close to him. Looking into his expressive eyes and feeling her breaths slowing to match the rhythm of his, she can't help but feel the pull to kiss him. So she does, no overthinking it for once, leaning up to meet his lips and wrapping her arms around him.
They don't finish that video on schedule, they're too wrapped up in each other in the weeks after their big moment of the mutual crush confessions. A small part of the comments section on both their channels angsts over the lack of collab, wondering sadly if they've fallen out. They make a Christmas themed video together which revives that crowd inadvertently, spurring on the shipping speculation. It's a little bizarre seeing the fervent analysis of their every glance exchanged on film, even if the conclusion is not wrong.
Caitlin isn't sure what they should do about the interest in them, it's certainly not going away and she's not sure she wants to hide their new relationship forever. She wants to tell the world about how amazing Barry is and how lucky she is, but it isn't like she wants to do an announcement video either, that would take away from the science.
"I think we should do a livestream," Barry says one evening at her place, "As part of a charity fundraising event." And then he gets a devious look. "On Valentine's."
"You know what they'll make of that," Caitlin says carefully, a bit baffled by the idea, the deliberate spectacle it would invite.
"Yep, but maybe that's what's needed. No announcement but as good as if we're just ourselves on camera and everyone sees it. We can use our powers for good, Cait. They'll be insanely curious and we might raise a lot of money that way, for science."
"Well, if it's for science," Caitlin says, rolling her eyes good naturedly before she wraps her arms around his neck and presses a kiss to his lips.
They end up livestreaming Barry cooking dinner for them, and Caitlin baking a dessert - scientific explanations of it all as they do - on what is pretty much a date except for the oddity of an audience. Which is exactly what the fans assume as they watch, stirring up plenty of interest on the internet for the two science bloggers who ended up together. They smash their initial fundraising goal fairly early in the evening and that's when Barry breaks out the surprise karaoke machine. Caitlin's had enough wine by that point she doesn't immediately shoot him down. The fans latch onto that possibility, despite Caitlin protesting her terrible voice, so Caitlin promises she'll consider it if they can double the fundraising amount.
The fans don't disappoint. By the end of the evening they sing a few songs, one from Grease since it's vaguely familiar to her and a pop cover she knows from Glee once the fundraising hits another new target. Caitlin promises only one more song if they hit yet another ambitious target.
And then Barry gets his laptop out and plugs it in, bringing up a specially prepared video apparently for their finale. As the first notes wash over her and the lyrics appear on screen, she recognizes it as "The Science Love Song". It's just about the corniest choice, which is entirely fitting coming from him, and entirely perfect for them as pair too. She can't even be mad at how she'll surely mangle the tune yet again, because she's too full of love as she sings her lines at him, for the whole world to see and hear.
End A/N: I had an outline point for this that didn't end up making it into the fic in the end, because it didn't fit with the POV as Caitlin and I couldn't find a place to shoehorn it in as a conversation they had either. Basically that I envisioned the reason Barry was interested in working with her after seeing her viral video (and why he started falling for Caitlin a little as well when he saw it) was because he thought she was very sweet in it, with her getting even more enthusiastic about the science as she got more drunk/less inhibited and the video went on - he found her enthusiasm for science in it as infectious as Caitlin thought he was in *his* videos, making them a good match.