Chapter Text
"Wait! Did you hear that?!" Kevin stops abruptly, looking all around, narrow-eyed and suspicious.
"What?" Barry asks, not paying attention, busy looking at fabric swatches.
"That noise..."
"What noise? I don't hear anything. Do you think these two go together?" Barry points at a couple of swatches.
"That scraping sound! You don't hear that?!"
"Um...I guess...?" Barry shrugs, still looking at swatches. "It's just didn't think there was anything weird or unusual about it. Not to me anyway. What's all up your skirt about it, Kev?"
"It's unnatural."
Barry turns and just stares at Kevin, not saying anything.
"What?" Kevin says, defensively.
"You're a ghost telling the ghost of one of your 24 alternate identities that a scraping sound in an abandoned, haunted insane asylum in unnatural."
Kevin has the good grace to look embarrassed, but he sticks to his guns. "Ok, I see your point, but I'm telling you: something about that sound ain't right!"
Barry eyes him sympathetically, "Are you sure that maybe you're not spending too much time here? Gettin' a little stir-crazy? Maybe we need to go visit the Zoo for a couple of days. Ya know, take a little weekend getaway...? Visiting with the animals always seems to relax everyone."
"I. am. not. losing. my. shit." Kevin, to Barry's surprise, looks and sounds very angry. "I am telling you that there is something about that sound that is NOT RIGHT. I am sorry if you lack the ability to discern that, but that is your problem--not mine. See ya, dawg!"
And with that, Kevin dissipates, leaving a shocked, hurt, and somewhat shamed Barry.
Barry's shame only deepens when, later, Dennis and Hedwig come into the room, and Dennis's scowl deepens and Hedwig shivers, saying, "What's that weird noise? I don't like it. It makes me feel bad, etcetera."
"Um...what noise are you hearing, Hedwig?"
Hedwig looks at Barry like he's stupid. "You can't hear that, Mr. Barry?!" He looks to Mr. Dennis for support. "Mr. Barry can't hear that noise, Mr. Dennis!"
For once, Dennis doesn't throw Barry under the bus, though it's less about being nice and more about not wanting referee a Hedwig/Barry argument (been there/done that--not doin' it again).
"Hedwig, Barry didn't say that he couldn't hear it, he just wanted to know what you're hearing. Ya know, like to compare notes? Right, Barry...?"
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Barry quickly replies, "Right! Kevin has been hearing something weird. It made him upset and and I wanted to know if what you're hearing was like what he's been hearing."
"Oh." Looking, slightly mollified, Hedwig says, "I dunno. It's a scraping, scratching noise. It's weird. It doesn't belong here. I don't like it, etcetera."
Looking worriedly at Dennis, Barry lets out a long sigh and runs his hands through his hair. "Well, that's pretty much what Kevin said."
"What did he say, exactly?" Dennis asked.
"He said that there was a scraping noise and that something about it was 'unnatural', that it 'ain't right', and that 'something about the sound is NOT RIGHT!'" Barry uses finger quotes.
"What did he say was 'unnatural' about it?" Dennis also uses finger quotes.
"He didn't specify. He was just really weirded out." Shame-faced Barry confesses, "Then, I made it worse by suggesting that maybe he was a little stir-crazy and that we should do a weekend getaway to the Zoo to de-stress. He flipped out on me and flounced. He was really mad."
"You hurt Mr. Kevin!?" Ooh, the judgment in Hedwig's voice. Barry cringes. It is a special kind of hell, being shamed by a nine-year-old. Ouch.
But if the look in Dennis's eyes is anything to go by, Barry's about to be shamed by two massive fists, which also looks like it will be a special kind of hell. Double-ouch.
Just Barry's about to die (again), Kevin pops back in from wherever he'd flounced off to earlier. He's still mad, possibly even madder, but now his anger has shifted from Barry to another target.
"Those motherfuckers! I knew there was something unnatural about that fucking scraping noise! I fucking knew it!" He darts a glance at Barry (so maybe he's still a little mad at Barry).
Dennis looks alarmed, Hedwig looks alarmed and excited, and Barry doesn't how to feel, though at this point he's reasonably sure that whatever he chooses will be wrong.
"Uh, Kevin? What's goin' on?" Dennis asks.
"Call a meeting!" Kevin says. "Get everyone here. We got situation on our hands."
"What's happenin', Mr. Kevin?"
"Those Ghost Adventures fuckers are back."