The Flash - a reaction that can't be contained (Snowbarry)

a reaction that can't be contained

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.

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a reaction that can't be contained

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"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."

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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.