#this could be the set up for the flarrie requests im gonna write actually!!

[nicknellie]

It’s nearly two in the morning and I just spent an hour writing a Flarrie idea that’s been rattling around my head for weeks, so here you go. It’s essentially both Flynn and Carrie having no idea how romance works. Enjoy.

Smiley Faces and Love Hearts

The notes were really starting to get on Carrie’s nerves. Every time she opened her locker a scrappy piece of paper would flutter to the ground, ripped around the edges and so heavily doodled on that the lines on it were hardly visible. And every time she would sigh and pick it up, read through it, roll her eyes, and throw it in the bin. She wouldn’t have minded the notes if they had been a little nicer. As it was, each and every one of the notes so far had been an insult.

That morning’s note was no different. Carrie was already having a bad day - she had quite literally woken up on the wrong side of bed and ended up stubbing her toe (which was still throbbing almost an hour later), then she had spilled coffee down her favourite top and hadn’t had time to change, so she’d improvised and pulled a jumper on without really looking at it. When she was already halfway to school she had realised that she had forgotten to bring all of the music she’d spent the weekend working on for the Dirty Candi rehearsal that afternoon and sworn loudly in frustration; that had earned her a stern talking-to from an old lady who happened to be passing and thought Carrie had aimed the swear at her. Because of that she had ended up late for school.

And then came the note.

It fell out of her locker the moment she opened it and began drifting to the ground. She snatched it midair and smoothed out its creases. Carrie knew that reading the note would only make her feel worse, but she couldn’t help it. Her curiosity got the better of her and she read the single word scrawled messily amongst doodles of flowers and love hearts.

Demon.

Should’ve guessed it would be something like that, she thought bitterly, scowling as she scrunched the note up again and flung it into the nearby bin. All the other notes had been equally nasty things, many of them worse, but all had been surrounded by those infuriatingly happy doodles - smiley faces, hearts with arrows stuck through them, beautiful swirly patterns that took up half the paper. It was almost as if the person sending the notes was happy to insult Carrie, like they thought it was a game.

Carrie knew who was sending the notes, of course. There was only one person who had the gall to say that sort of thing to her face, and sending the little notes was only a step away. It had to be Flynn - she was the only one who ever felt able to talk back to Carrie in any way.

That was the worst part because that very thing was probably why Carrie liked Flynn so much. So many people were intimidated by her because of who her dad was and her status, and a lot of people only wanted to talk to her so that they could say they were friends with the Carrie Wilson. It made things quite lonely sometimes - she knew she always had Nick and Dirty Candi by her side, that they were true friends, but knowing that other people weren’t interested in her for the right reasons always stung. That was what made Flynn so different, so charming; she wasn’t intimidated by Carrie, she was willing to put up a fight, and she didn’t want to hang around her just to say that she did. For the most part, Flynn treated her like she treated everyone else, a normal human being.

Except for the notes. The notes, admittedly, were a downside. The worst part wasn’t that Flynn was sending these little notes, it was that Carrie couldn’t work out why. They hadn’t been friends for about a year now and had mostly stayed out of one another’s way, so she had no idea why Flynn was suddenly popping notes in her locker. She wondered if it was to get her attention - but why could Flynn possibly want that?

On a normal day, the note calling her a demon wouldn’t have been too much of a bother. Read it, ignore it, chuck it away and be done with it. But that day, after everything bad that had happened that morning, it really hurt. Carrie didn’t often cry, least of all at school where people would see her doing it, but she found herself blinking back tears that stung at her eyes, forcing herself not to let them fall.

“Hey Carrie,” came an unhelpfully chipper voice from behind her. Flynn’s voice. Because of course she chose today of all days to come and talk to Carrie. “I was just wondering if you happened to find anything in your lo— Hey, are you okay?”

Carrie rolled her eyes. She’d never been a subtle crier. If she was guessing correctly, her face was currently bright pink, her eyes glittering with tears like the sea, and she had been sniffling far too loudly for a minute straight. She wiped roughly at her eyes, trying to dispel the tears.

“Go away,” she told Flynn. “Whatever you’re here to say, I don’t care.”

Flynn looked utterly stumped, like she had no idea what to do. This was probably the opposite of what she had been prepared for - she had most likely expected to find Carrie, annoy her for a little while, unsubtly bring up the subject of the notes, and dip out again. She wouldn’t have been prepared for Carrie to be in tears.

“Do you... do you wanna talk about it?” Flynn ventured. Carrie had never heard anyone sound so uncomfortable. She shot Flynn a glare like a knife and Flynn shrugged as if to say ‘yeah, that’s fair’.

“I don’t have time for you,” Carrie spat, being nasty because right then it felt good in a bitter way. It felt right to take her anger out on Flynn. “If you’ve got something to say then spit it out and let me get on with my day.”

“Carrie...” Flynn said quietly. She might have been imagining it, but Carrie was sure she heard something resembling concern in Flynn’s tone. But it was gone as soon as it had come because a moment later Flynn had composed herself and said, “Your sweater is inside-out,” before walking down the hall, back the way she’d come.

Carrie muttered a swear under her breath and stalked off in the opposite direction.

*

It was the strangest thing. For about a week after that day, the notes stopped. Carrie wondered if Flynn had finally taken the hint that she wasn’t going to rise to whatever game Flynn thought she was playing. Perhaps she had finally seen it was annoying and it wasn’t a good way to get Carrie’s attention (if that was what she wanted - Carrie still had no clue why she might have). She thought that was the end of it, that they could go back to ignoring each other.

Until exactly one week after the incident, a note fluttered out of Carrie’s locker.

She frowned and picked it up. This one was already a little different to the others - the first notes had all been scrunched into untidy balls, but this one was neatly folded. Carrie cast a quick glance around the corridor, seeing if Flynn happened to be nearby. Presumably it was still her sending the notes. But there was no sign of Flynn in amongst the crowd of other students, so Carrie opened the note and read it. Then she read it again. And again. And again. And each time she read it she became more and more confused.

Smile! Today’s going to be a good day.

It didn’t make any sense. It made less sense than the unnecessary insults. Was Flynn mocking her? Had she planned something for later that would make Carrie’s day considerably less good? Was this some new form of insult that Carrie was unfamiliar with? She doubted the last idea, she was practically the queen of insults. And she couldn’t work out for the life of her how this was supposed to be mean.

And yet the idea that it was sincere was even stranger.

Still, she pocketed the note and tried to push it to the back of her mind. She tried not to let her mind linger on how weird it was that Flynn’s demeanour had so suddenly changed from cruel to encouraging. She tried to ignore the butterflies it awoke in her stomach. She simply tried to forget that Flynn had suddenly started being nice. But over the next few weeks, the nice notes kept coming and Carrie kept getting more confused.

Sending positive vibes :)

Your DC gig last night was great!

Good luck for your English exam later, you’ll kill it.

Your outfit looks amazing today!

None of it made any sense. Especially the last note - Flynn wouldn’t have even seen her outfit when she wrote the note. Carrie kept each of the kind notes because they gave her a warm and fuzzy feeling in her heart that she didn’t want to admit to, but she still was utterly clueless about what it meant.

It went on for weeks. Carrie’s birthday came around, and in her locker that morning she found a birthday card. It was filled with smiley faces and birthday best wishes and for once, unlike all the other notes, Flynn had signed it. She and Flynn hadn’t been friends properly for a year, and the idea that Flynn still remembered when her birthday was sent her mind into overdrive.

After a month or so, Carrie finally got the nerve to approach Flynn after school one day and get to the bottom of it all. It had remained a mystery for too long.

“Flynn,” she called, seeing Flynn a little way across Los Feliz’s car park, walking side by side with Julie. Both of them turned to look when Carrie shouted and she felt herself blush a little. “Wait up.”

Both girls stopped walking and let Carrie catch up with them. Julie had a smirk on her face, looking like she knew far too much. It didn’t sit well with Carrie. Flynn on the other hand looked far too casual and collected to actually be calm at all. She was smiling in that over-the-top, fake way she had been when she and Julie randomly came over to Carrie’s house that one time, seemingly just to spill water everywhere and show Carrie and Nick pictures of raccoons.

“I want to talk to you,” Carrie said, forgetting formalities and not beating around the bush.

“Okay,” Flynn replied with a shrug, “what’s up?”

“Just you,” Carrie said awkwardly. She cast a glance at Julie, half-apologetic, but Julie didn’t seem to mind.

“It’s cool,” she said dismissively. “I’ve got to get to rehearsal with the guys anyway. I’ll see you later, Flynn.”

Carrie waited for Julie to have walked far enough away so that she wouldn’t hear what they were talking about. Flynn looked awkward, shuffling about from side to side, fiddling with the strap of her bag. Carrie suddenly didn’t know what she wanted to say.

“Right,” she said, trying to sound organised and matter-of-fact, but coming across as a little bit frantic just with that one word. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a handful of the nice notes Flynn had left her, and shoved them into Flynn’s hand. “Those.”

Flynn raised an eyebrow. “What about them?”

“You’ve been leaving notes in my locker,” she began. Suddenly she felt unsure of herself despite knowing that it had to be Flynn. It was too late to back out now, so she powered through. “They started out as insults and then you stopped for a week and then they became... nice. And kind. Those are the kind ones. And you gave me a birthday card.”

“Yeah,” Flynn said, like it should have been obvious. “What’s your point?”

Carrie threw up her hands exasperatedly. “I don’t get it! Why are you doing it? What’s going on?”

Flynn had the audacity to look amused. Her little smirk, adorable as it was, just made Carrie angrier.

“I thought you’d figure it out with the first notes,” Flynn said thoughtfully. “Julie said you wouldn’t. I guess she was right. But she also said you’d get it with the nice ones, so she was wrong there at least.”

“Get what?” Carrie demanded.

“Look,” Flynn said, “I’m sorry for the mean notes. They were just a bit of fun that I didn’t think through properly. I shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t realise it would upset you.”

It took Carrie far too long to realise what Flynn was talking about. She meant the day she’d found Carrie crying, and she thought it was just because of the notes.

Carrie felt her face flush and she crossed her arms over her chest. She mumbled, “It wasn’t just that. I wasn’t bothered by them that much. There was other stuff too.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not going to tell you,” she snapped defensively. Flynn looked taken aback as if she had expected Carrie to spill everything right then and there. But after a moment or two, she seemed to regain her composure.

“That’s fine. But still, I am sorry. After you got upset I thought for a bit and decided I’d - you know - try and cheer you up. So Julie suggested I try writing you some nicer stuff. Did it work?”

Carrie rolled her eyes, but still thought back over the past few weeks. She didn’t remember the last time she’d felt so... giddy. She had been excited to wake up and go to school, eager to see what message was left in her locker. And her mood had remained high throughout each day because whenever she stuck her hand in her pocket she felt that little scrap of paper with words of encouragement scribbled onto it, telling her how strong she was. And every time she thought of Flynn tucking those notes into her locker, her heart did a giddy little flip and butterflies danced in her stomach.

So yes. The notes had helped.

Suddenly the whole thing felt awkward. Carrie realised in that moment that she had come to get a crush on Flynn throughout all of this. It made her heart slam and she could hardly look Flynn in the eye. And in her momentary panic she said, “Whatever. Just stop leaving the notes. Leave me alone completely.”

And she turned on her heel and left, leaving a stunned Flynn behind her.

*

Carrie had never regretted anything so quickly. As soon as she arrived home, she headed upstairs to her room and tried her hardest to think of some way to undo what she had said. She didn’t want the notes to stop, she didn’t want Flynn to leave her alone. Quite the opposite. But she had said it, and now she needed it to change.

The next day, Carrie arrived at school much earlier than usual. There were only one or two other students in the hallways, talking in low bored voices or cramming in some last minute studying. None of them paid her any mind as she walked straight past them, past her own locker, and stopped outside Flynn’s. She pulled a note out of her pocket - one she had written herself - and pushed it through the locker door, hearing it drop down on the other side. She took a deep breath, smiled, and then began to wait.

She watched from a safe distance twenty minutes later when Flynn approached her locker. She looked a little downcast and dreary; Carrie prayed she didn’t have too much to do with that. But her look of gloom was soon replaced with confusion when she opened her locker and found the little folded bit of paper inside.

Flynn looked around the hallway and Carrie ducked behind a door. She was only hiding because she didn’t want Flynn to see her and decide, for whatever reason, not to read the note. When she was sure that Flynn would have turned back around, she peeked out again and watched Flynn’s mouth move as she read the words on the note.

Sorry for yesterday and thank you for everything. I really like you, Flynn. —C

She watched Flynn read the note over and over again, watched the little smile grow on her face until there was an all out grin. Carrie thanked the heavens that she had guessed right, that Flynn did feel the same way. That was why she had been doing all this - from the very start, it had been because she wanted Carrie’s attention. It was because she liked her the same way Carrie now realised she liked Flynn. Carrie thought that the fact it had worked was somewhat of a miracle.

Flynn turned Carrie’s note over to the blank side, whipped a pen out, and wrote something down. Carrie took her opportunity - she headed over to Flynn as she began to fold up the note, and she pinched it right out of her fingers triumphantly, feigning confidence to drown the unsteady beating of her nervous heart.

“Is this for me?” she asked sweetly, holding the note between two fingers for Flynn to see.

“I was gonna put it in your locker,” Flynn said.

“This is quicker,” Carrie replied dismissively.

Flynn smiled brightly as Carrie opened the note. She read it once, twice, three times, and felt her heart quicken with each word.

Go on a date with me?

Carrie looked to Flynn again, unable to hold back her smile any longer. She beamed at her and was glad to see the gesture returned. It was a beautiful sight - Flynn had a smile like the sun, in that Carrie was sure her world would revolve around it for a long time to come.

“Does this weekend work for you?”