Commentary, take one.

[mandolin]

Okay, as requested, commentary of sorts for "Two of a Kind," the Flash TV series fanfic I did back in '98. This is just for the first part, because I got a couple requests. :)

"New Blood" commentary will also come later; I'm taking a page from honorh and just doing initial pieces for now. ;)


Disclaimer: "The Flash"--the TV series, not the comic book--was developed by Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo, and DC Comics owns the comic characters. I don't have a clue who currently has rights to the show, but it's NOT MINE! Again, this is based on the short-lived 1990-91 TV series that aired on CBS, and has nothing to do with the comics.

Ah, my typically long-winded disclaimer. There's a reason I eventually summed up with "No permission, no profit, no lawyers."

In fact, if what I've heard is right, this directly contradicts what really happened in the DC comic timeline. But since the CBS series used characters from different eras at the same time and messed with continuity royally, I'm assuming that the show's timeline would diverge just as badly. This is my prediction of the future, based only on the television show. I know it's way off from the comic, so don't flame me over that.

Oh, was this EVER off from the comic - the 90's series revolved around Barry Allen, who'd been dead in the comics since 1985, and Tina McGee was actually one of Wally West's love interests later on. I suspect the series made these changes because a) Barry's origin fit the show better and didn't require a teen Flash and lots of backstory, and b) they figured having Iris West, a reporter, as the love interest would have too many echoes of Lois Lane. Whatever. It's the show's fault.

This fanfic was spawned from a Flash marathon the Sci-Fi channel ran the week I was recovering from having my wisdom teeth pulled. Consequently, it wouldn't get out of my head and let me get back to my major fanfics until I wrote it. Of all things, it's a "what if" future fanfic, but hey, it's written and leaving me alone again now. However, if you haven't seen the show, you'll probably be totally lost here.

Figures. "What if" future fanfics usually drive me bonkers, but after a post-surgery marathon of the series, the idea latched on and would not let go til I wrote it.

My thanks to Ken Sewell for his page dedicated to the show--not to mention his episode summaries, which kept my continuity reasonably correct regarding eps I haven't seen. Some language, although not as bad as "Night Shift" in that respect.

Said page is now gone, although it was a very good resource for the show at the time. Despite the research, it turned out later that I still screwed some things up. I still actually have five episodes of the series on tape.

Two of a Kind
by Amanda Ohlin

The title was all Vanessa Williams' fault. I was listening to some of my old CDs, and the song popped up. It had nothing to do with the story or any of its themes, but I went, "Hey, that'll work!" and used it.

May 20, 2010

Twenty years after the show premiered was a reasonable amount of time for Barry and Tina to actually get into a serious relationship and have a kid. I added a few years just because of how the show - had it continued - would have dragged their relationship out. And of course Barry would have named his son after his brother.

"Come on, Jay!" Warren Garfield bellowed. "Put some muscle into it!"

The teenager standing on the pitcher's mound rolled his eyes. As usual, his coach's only solution was yelling at one of his players. Jay Allen fingered the baseball in his hand, trying to figure out how to deal with the guy batting. It was the last inning, and there was one out. Two more, and no lucky hits, and they'd win the game by one point.

Nah. No pressure.

The baseball scenario was the second idea I had; I briefly considered that Jay might run track, but decided that was way too cliched. Besides, I watched "Rookie of the Year" again while recuperating, which cinched it for me.

He wound up, deciding to try a curveball on the loser. Unfortunately, this loser could hit a curveball. Jay swore as the bat made contact with the ball, sending it flying high into the air over his head.

Oops. You know, it might have made sense if I acknowledged the catcher actually SIGNALING for a curveball...

It landed smack in the mitt of the right fielder, who nearly had to climb the fence to catch it. With a whoop, Marc Mendez held up the ball for all to see. Jay let out a sigh of relief; Marc always had to be the center of attention, but he was damned good at bailing his best friend out. "Out!" the umpire yelled.

Blatant Parallel #1: Jay's best friend is Julio's son. I couldn't help it. Marc popped up immediately and wouldn't go away.

One more to go. Jay tried a curve again, and was relieved when the guy swung and missed. "Strike one!"

He intended his second pitch to be high and fast, but the minute the ball left his hand, he knew it was all wrong. The batter was expecting a speed pitch instead of the slow lob, and swung early. "Strike two!"

Irritated, Jay caught the ball as it was thrown back, trying to figure out what to do. On top of everything, he wasn't feeling that great; he tended to get occasional spikes of adrenaline from time to time, something that his dad said had to do with metabolism, but today it had been ten times worse than usual. He'd been having spikes of adrenaline and downswings where he wanted to pass out all day. Now, he was so wired that it would take tranquilizers to calm him down.

The metabolism bit had to be thrown in given how much of a big deal they made of it on the show. I figure that even if Barry and Tina had kept quiet about Barry's abilities, some of his "metabolic problem" would have had to be explained.

The heat wasn't helping. Jay wiped his brow, cursing the weather. Eighty-two degrees, and it wasn't even Memorial Day yet.

"Allen!" Garfield's shout jolted him from his thoughts. "Sometime this century!"

Anger flared at that point, only fueling the adrenaline rush. Jay gritted his teeth, holding back the temptation to pitch the ball right at his coach's head. Why he'd ever been hired as Central's baseball coach was beyond Jay, and he was starting to discover that his dad's stories about the retired police captain's temper were true. He found it hard to believe that Garfield had become crabbier over the years.

I don't know why I had Lt. Garfield coaching high school baseball. I just found the idea amusing.

He suddenly didn't care how the game turned out. All he wanted to do was nail that ball over the plate. Jay wound up and pitched the ball as fast and as hard as he could.

Something snapped into high gear at that moment, as his arm moved so fast that even Jay couldn't see it move. Nor could he see the ball as it flew over the plate and into the catcher's mitt. What he did see was that less than a second after the ball left his hand, something hit the catcher's mitt so hard that the guy flew backwards, crashing into the wire mesh fence.

He still had the sense to hang onto the ball, and as the catcher held it up for all to see, the ump finally shouted, "Strike three! You're out!"

Garfield gaped. "I'll be damned," he muttered to himself before the implications hit him. The game was over. Central High had finally beat Eastern, 6-5. He let out a yell of triumph and immediately went to find Eastern's coach and gloat.

Ah, yes, this is probably why I cast him in this role; I could see him openly gloating at a win like this.

Jay remained on the mound, staring at home plate in shock. It was only when he found himself surrounded by the rest of his team did he snap out of it long enough to trade high-fives with Marc. But amidst the cheering and shoving, he wondered: what, exactly, had just happened?

* * *

"I don't believe it," Marc said for the third time. "This is not happening. Coach actually agreed to pay for pizza?"

Jay glanced around the restaurant, smiling. The Pizza Hut on the edge of town didn't get a lot of business on a Wednesday night, so they'd been able to seat the entire team with room to spare. Even the team assistants were there. "You're complaining? Besides, you saw him on the field chewing out Eastern's coach. The old man practically did a happy dance right in front of everybody."

Again, something else I pictured but couldn't write; it came out better coming from the players after the fact.

Jenny Bellows, a freshman who was only there because she was the team statistician, spoke up from her seat next to Jay. "I heard him arguing with Mrs. G. She said if he even tried to bring us to her restaurant, he'd be sleeping on the couch tonight."

Yes. Jenny is related to good old Officer Bellows. That was intentional.

Marc looked over to where Garfield was arguing with his wife, Mavis, and shrugged. "Could be. Anyway, you think anyone here'd go for health food? I sure as hell wouldn't."

I belatedly remembered the bit about Mavis' restaurant and added a nod to it here. I can't imagine expecting a bunch of high school kids to celebrate a win at a health food place.

Jenny shrugged and nudged Jay. "You eat anything today?"

"Hmm?" Jay asked through a mouthful of cheese pizza.

"You know what I mean," she continued. "What is that, your tenth piece?"

Jay finished off his slice before speaking. "Twelfth, I think."

"Twelve pieces?" Marc stared at his friend as they both snagged slices from the nearest tray. "That's a pizza and a half!"

"So what? I'm hungry." Jay glanced down to where the Garfields had ended their argument and were back to being disgustingly cute again. "I'm not paying, anyway."

And the metabolism from hell starts to appear. I actually made an even bigger deal of it in an earlier draft, but trimmed the food incidents down because it was kind of distracting.

"Good point," Jenny conceded, taking a sip of her Coke. "You probably need it after you had to pitch for Zaleski the whole time. That loser faked sick today because he didn't want to lose to Eastern again."

Tim Kline, a senior who played second base, grabbed himself a piece as Jay inhaled his thirteenth slice. "Hey, I'm glad Zaleski chickened out," he said. "Eastern would've probably kicked our asses again if he'd been pitching." He punched Jay in the shoulder with a rare show of respect. "I didn't even see that last pitch. You drink a whole bottle of Surge before the game or what?"

Actually, I picked Tim's last name at random and realized after the fact he could be related to Joe Kline, Richard Belzer's smarmy character. They could be, but I don't think he'd admit it. :)

"Yeah," Jenny added. "That was one hell of a throw to knock Jimmy back like that. Wish I could've clocked it."

"Yeah, well, I don't think I could do it again," Jay said. "Something kind of snapped then, but I don't know what."

Tim grinned. "Lemme guess. You pictured Garfield's head in Jimmy's mitt."

Jay shrugged. "Sort of."

"Forget the details," Marc said. "We beat Eastern."

Jay had eaten the equivalent of four whole pizzas by the time the bill was handed to Garfield. "Uh-oh," Tim muttered. "Something's gonna blow."

Not wanting to be in the line of fire, Jay scooted out of his seat and started edging towards the men's room. Fast hands or no, if Garfield pinned this one on him, he was a dead man.

On the way, he collided with a girl his age standing by the jukebox, pounding on it in frustration. "Oops. Sorry." He would have moved on, but it registered that he had bumped into a really pretty redhead.

"That's okay," she said absently, pounding on the side of the machine again. "This thing's not working." She leaned over the jukebox. "Wonder if something's not plugged in back here." As she tried to get a better look, her little black purse slid off her shoulder and back behind the jukebox. "Oh, great. That was smart."

"I've got it," Jay volunteered, dropping to his hands and knees partially to escape Garfield's line of sight and partially for the goddess beside him.

He snaked an arm back through the tangle of wires behind the jukebox, navigating towards the purse that was resting in a small nest of tangled cords. Jay snatched it up and had almost gotten his arm completely free of the wires when his wrist hit a frayed wire.

The current sizzled through him, and for a second it felt like the electricity was coursing through his entire body. But it was only for a second as Jay let out a howl, jerking back as quickly as he could.

Contrived way to give Jay an electric shock? Yes. Any more contrived than Barry getting hit by lightning in the lab when chemicals hit him? No. I figured that even if his abilities were genetic, it made sense that some kind of shock would only serve to jump-start them a bit more. And it got Jay out of trouble.

Still clutching the purse, his entire body jerked back, the burst of speed sending him flying backwards into the wall. The impact seemed to smash his insides together, and Jay slumped against the wall for several moments, staring into space and gasping for air.

I really don't like the way this passage is worded. I suppose it's because I realized after the fact that Jay would be more likely to freeze than jerk back when getting an electric shock - but maybe that was the speed kicking in.

He finally looked up to see that a crowd of familiar faces was gathering around him, the most prominent of those being the redheaded girl, her green eyes clouded with worry. "Are you all right? Can you hear me?"

Jay shrugged. "I got your purse."

Yes, we've nearly been electrocuted, our metabolic system's in hyperdrive, we've nearly put a dent in the wall, but all we focus on is getting the cute redhead's purse. I'd write that partially off as shock, but hey, he takes after his dad.

"I didn't want you to kill yourself over it!" she cried as Garfield shoved his way through the crowd to kneel beside Jay.

He looked fairly concerned, evidently having forgotten about the bill. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Four," Jay answered correctly, pulling himself up. His coach and the girl helped him wobble to his feet.

"Mavis," Garfield shouted. "Call an ambulance!"

Jay shook off their hands. "No, no, I'm fine," he insisted, adding more loudly, "I'm fine, okay? I don't need to go to the hospital."

His coach did not look convinced, but Mavis turned away from the phone, coming over to them. "Do you have a ride home, Jay?"

"My dad was going to pick us up," Marc offered, stepping forward. "But he's not going to be here for two more hours."

Julio was originally going to appear to pick them up and bail Jay out in time, but that didn't really seem to work so well.

Garfield looked at Jay thoughtfully. "Get your stuff. I'll take you home."

"But, Coach--"

"No buts. Unless you want to go to the hospital." He turned to his wife and counted out the pizza money from his wallet. "Mavis, hon, I'll be back in maybe half an hour. You sure you can handle these hooligans?"

She smirked as she took the money from him and gave him a peck on the cheek. "If I can handle you, I can handle them."

Jay sighed and went to grab his gear before following Garfield out the door.

This scene was modified a couple of times. The beginning was pretty much unchanged - Jay inhaling four pizzas - but I toyed with a couple ways he could have gotten zapped. This scenario was the least complicated, and led to a rather interesting conversation in the car.

* * *

"Figures," Garfield said suddenly.

Startled by the break in the silence, Jay stared at his coach. They had gone several blocks without speaking. "What?"

"Nothing," Garfield sighed. "You and your dad, you're two of a kind. Stubborn as hell."

Yep, let's parrot the title. It's also the biggest understatement in this story.

"Coach, I said I'm fine."

"Lousy liars, too," the old man continued, never letting his gaze stray from the road. "Your dad got hit by lightning and the son of a bitch came in to work the next day. Course, then he'd run off and do stuff like leave a crime scene on a hunch all the time. Must be in the genes."

As I was writing this, it occurred to me that somewhere along the line, Garfield might have figured it out. Maybe. Considering his dislike for the Flash, it would have to have happened a good long while after Barry's accident.

Jay didn't quite know how to reply to that, so he didn't as they pulled up in front of his apartment building. He remembered his father mentioning something about an accident, but hit by lightning? Of course, Garfield could just be exaggerating. So preoccupied with his worries was Jay that he didn't protest when Garfield insisted on coming up with him.

As Jay unlocked the door, he was mildly surprised and dismayed to discover that his father was already there. Barry Allen didn't notice his entrance at first; he was too preoccupied with the tug-of-war he was having with their golden retriever. Earl Junior, whose name had come from Barry's imagination (or lack thereof, as Jay's mother liked to say), had a mouthful of one of Barry's T-shirts. Despite the fact that Barry was literally pulling the dog across the linoleum, Junior refused to let go.

I hadn't even seen the time-travel episode "Fast Forward" when I wrote this; the fact that there was an Earl Junior in the possible future Barry visited amused the hell out of me when I did see it later on. I love the tug-of-war bit.

When Jay shut the door, his father looked up at the sound and immediately let go of the shirt upon seeing the two of them standing there. Junior skidded back several inches and landed on his haunches. "Jay? How'd your game go?"

Okay, the way Junior "wins" the tug-of-war may be excessively cute, but I like it.

"6 to 5, we kicked their asses." Normally, Jay would have elaborated, but he was exhausted. "What are you doing home?"

Barry shrugged. "Turns out there's nothing I can do." Garfield let out a snort at that. "I'm serious," Barry added as he shook hands briefly with the retired police captain. "The Feds got in on the investigation, and they're driving Captain Chase crazy getting into everything."

I know Garfield was a lieutenant when the series started. I assumed he moved up in the ranks before finally retiring. This also provided me with an excuse to have Barry at home during most of the story.

"Chase is already insane," Garfield said sourly. After his retirement, he hadn't been thrilled about his replacement. "Allen, I need to talk to you for a minute."

Jay rolled his eyes. Oh, Lord. Once the coach spilled the beans to his father, he'd get absolutely no peace. For once, he was glad his mother wasn't going to be back until late the next evening; if she heard about this, she'd never leave him alone. And he was too tired to deal with any of it. "Look," he said finally. "I feel like sh--uh, crap, so I'm just gonna crash, okay?"

Without waiting for an answer, he shouldered his gym bag and tromped off to his room before either of them could intercept him. He sagged with relief once he was in the comfort of his own room, an escape from the weirdness of the afternoon. It was messy as usual, except for his desk in the corner, which he tried to keep cleared off. On the bulletin board above it was tacked a myriad of newspaper clippings.

One or two of them had to do with his friends and family--his mother's research, his cousin Shawn catching a serial killer and getting promoted to detective. There was even an article about the medal his dad had been given a few years back. It was an odd thing for a forensic scientist to get, but Barry had been in the wrong place at the right time.

Of the hundred and six people locked in City Hall with a bomb, he had been the only one with any clue how to disarm it since the bomb squad couldn't even communicate with those trapped in the building. The politicians, businessmen, and reporters had no clue, but Barry had managed to keep it from blowing them sky-high--by figuring out how to neutralize the chemicals used.

Don't know if Barry would have gotten a medal for this, but I figured it was worth mentioning he'd probably had a chance to be a hero out of costume at least once.

Most of the clippings were about the Flash, though. Over the past five years, sightings of the Flash had become less and less frequent, but Jay had collected clippings for longer than that. His dad had helped him by cutting out anything he found pertaining to the Flash; Barry seemed to find it funny, for whatever reason.

Gee, I wonder why. Jay was originally going to NOT like the Flash for whatever reason, just to make the revelation about his father mess even more with his head. But I honestly didn't think that was convincing, and decided going in the opposite direction would work better. Come on, if you idolize a superhero, what do you do when you discover he's really... your dad? Yeah, that'd still throw him for a loop.

Right now, Jay was too tired to ask why. He tossed the bag in the corner and kicked his shoes off, leaving his door wide open. As he flopped down on his bed, he could see the living room and the front foyer past the upper landing. The last thing he saw was his coach and Barry talking quietly, and his father getting more and more agitated as Garfield spoke.

At this point, I decided that Garfield HAD to have an inkling by now.

Then a warm darkness engulfed his senses, and he fell asleep.

Comments

[kevenn.livejournal.com]

I barely remember this show, but I liked this! :D

[butterflykiki.livejournal.com]

I loved this show for a while, so the DVD commentary is *much* appreciated. I especially like the nods and changes both to comics canon; sometimes people ignore it, and I think that it's a shame when they do. I adore the use of Garfield as snarky device - I did like the character, but it's amusing and moves the story along as he gloats. The angle on Jay's hero-worship was always a cool one within the story; many guys *do* idolize their dads, but don't admit it. Having this kind of change happen would make them grow closer, something I liked.
And the coincidence with Earl jr. makes me giggle.