I have no idea what brought this on tbh
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
*
Wally wakes up to his phone jumping to life beside his pillow. He fumbles in the dark, groping until his fingers finally make contact and squints down at the screen, half-asleep mind trying to make sense of the too-bright words and numbers. Spends so long staring, in fact, the the buzzing stops right as he finally manages to make out who’s calling.
Oops.
He lowers the brightness of his screen, debating if he should call back. A few seconds after, and his phone starts buzzing again, which, well, answers that question.
“Roy,” he sighs into the mouthpiece after pressing accept call. “What the hell do you want? You know it’s two in the morning, right?”
“Wally!” Roy says cheerily, sounding inordinately pleased that he’d picked up. Which is… fair, considering he doesn’t always when it’s Roy calling. Because sometimes he’s got a test to study for, or he’s got homework to do, and Roy can be…
Well, he’s a melodramatic asshole with more issues than he has braincells. Gets Wally’s blood boiling with the way he’s always making fun of him, calling him kid even though he’s only two years older - and every time Wally’s right about to blow his gasket, Roy segues shamelessly into words that leave him red and blushing for days. Snuffs out all of his anger and leaves him with this gnawing hunger that makes him want to just-
Distracting. Roy can be distracting, okay?
“You’re awake!” He’s saying now, and Wally sighs, loud. He would’ve pinched his nose, too, except that would require extricating his arm from within its blanket cocoon, and that sounds like far too arduous of a task right now.
It’s a matter of pride. He’s not going to let Roy fucking Harper ruin his comfort, even if he is letting him wake him at the asscrack of dawn.
“Yeah, because you woke me up, asshole,” Wally hisses quietly into the line, mindful of waking his parents. “Now what do you want? You know I have better things to do than babysit you, right?”
It’s nothing that’s different from their usual jabs. Dick had commented on it before, how half the time it doesn’t even seem like he and Roy like each other, and Wally couldn’t think of a way to explain how it’s not like that, it’s just… it’s different with them. A kind of mutual understanding that they won’t treat each other with kid gloves, because sometimes you’re not in the mood to be nice.
Except this time, Roy is quiet for a long moment, and then he says, “Yeah, sorry. I guess I should stop bugging you and let you sleep.”
His tone sounds soft. Wistful, almost, like Wally had just whispered endearments at him instead of basically telling him to fuck off. And it could be him trying to invoke pity, except Roy’s never tried that kind of manipulative bullshit in the admittedly short time that Wally’s known him. Or it could be that Roy is calling because he actually does want to talk instead of just wanting to heckle him this time.
“Whatever, dude.” Wally shifts into a more comfortable position, resigned that this might possibly turn into a long call. “I’m awake now, and I don’t think I can fall back asleep again, anyway.”
“That’s a damn lie,” Roy says, still sounding inordinately fond. “You sleep like the fucking dead.”
“No, that’s Dick,” Wally points out, stifling a yawn.
“Only when he’s been drinking.” Roy’s voice shifts lower to something more playful. “Have you been drinking, Walls? You know you shouldn’t do that. You’re a growing boy.”
“Have you?” Wally shoots back, rolling his eyes even though Roy can’t see it.
“Of course,” Roy answers easily. “Come on, you still have to ask? It’s like you don’t even know me.”
“Yeah,” Wally answers, stifling a yawn. “It’s not like you ever call me when you’re sober.”
Silence greets his proclamation for so long that he’s starting to doze off again when Roy finally says, “I call you plenty when I’m sober.” A pause. “… right?”
“Dude,” Wally mumbles, prying his eyes open and blinking up at the ceiling. “Did you spend that long trying to remember?”
“Well, excuse me,” Roy snarks back. “It’s sort of hard using my brain right now.”
“I assumed that was the default for you,” Wally says, smiling at Roy’s annoyed grumbling.
“You’re such an asshole,” he sighs. “Why do I even like you?”
And Roy doesn’t mean anything by that, he’s sure, but his heart skips a beat anyway. “Don’t know,” he answers, keeping his tone light. “You sort of have shit standards.”
“Tell me about it,” Roy says with another melodramatic sigh.
“I have,” Wally points out. Multiple times, in fact. He’s made no secret of what he thinks about Roy’s usual choice of partners.
“Aww, baby,” Roy coos, brushing him off as always. “Don’t be jealous. You know you’re still the prettiest one in my harem.”
Wally snorts. “That’s Donna,” he points out.
“The prettiest boy, then.”
He smothers his grin. “That’s Dick,” he says, wondering if he’ll ever stop getting butterflies at how easily boy slips out of Roy’s mouth.
“Well, fine,” Roy says, sounding put-out. “You’re ugly then. Happy?”
“Why are we talking about me, anyway?” Wally asks. “Weren’t we talking about you?”
“Were we?” Roy asks, sounding genuinely confused. “I don’t remember.”
“Of course you don’t,” Wally mumbles, staring at the dark sky behind his blinds. He wonders if it’s starting to lighten already, or if that’s just his imagination. “What do you remember?”
And he’d meant it about their conversation, but Roy hums and says, “Don’t know what they gave me. S’good tho.” His voice drops to something sleepy and soft. “’S good.”
Something twists in the pit of Wally’s stomach. They all know Roy - all know what Roy is like, and it’s not anything surprising, to find that he’s taken something stronger than just booze, but. It just. It still makes his skin crawl, hearing him in this half-asleep daze, not knowing who he’s with, or what he’s taken, and he’s too far away for Wally to reach. Sometimes, he wishes he could traverse the whole globe in a heartbeat just so he could slap him for being such a - a - God, Roy bristles at any type of pity, any indication someone might give that they’re worried about him, but it’s hard keeping it contained when he’s so worrying.
“You shouldn’t just take whatever they give you,” he says anyway, and Roy huffs out a laugh.
“You don’t even know who they are.”
“Will you tell me if I ask?” Wally says archedly, and Roy’s silence is as good as an answer.
He closes his eyes, listening to the sound of Roy’s slow breathing on the other side of the line. “You still with them?” he asks, instead of what the hell are you thinking?
“Yeah,” Roy answers after a few long heartbeats.
Wally counts the stars bursting behind his eyes. He’s so, so tired right now, the seconds dragging on in long slow ticks, and the world feels muted somewhat. Muted and fake, like this is some sort of transient hour that exists outside of time, and maybe that’s what prompts him to ask, “Then why are you calling me?”
It’s only after he says it that Wally realizes how it sounds. And fuck, he didn’t mean it like - but it’s out there already, and he can’t take it back now.
But Roy barely seems to think before he says, “Maybe I just wanted to hear your voice, hm? Maybe I just missed you.”
Stop, Wally almost wants to say, but the word seems to get stuck somewhere in the back of his throat. And God, but he hates how easy it is for Roy to just say it, just come out and say this shit like it isn’t - like he isn’t –
Why him. Why him? Literally anyone else would’ve been a better option.
Wally can’t help but wish Roy had never called him tonight.
“Yeah, whatever,” is what he settles on saying, his traitorous heart pounding in his chest in double-time. And he has to keep telling himself no, has to keep reminding himself why it won’t work because Roy’s too far away and Wally’s not like him, he’s not like any of them, and the fact that they’re even talking to him at all is a damn fluke. Fuck, look at him, thinking of Roy and Donna and Dick as them instead of their own separate people. He can’t even pick which one of them to fixate on.
Maybe this is why Garth can’t seem to stand him.
“What, you don’t believe me?” Roy continues blithely, unaware of the crisis that Wally is currently having. “Do I gotta dance a jig or something to prove it to you?”
“You’re such an asshole,” Wally says, instead of stop telling me things that you don’t mean. Stop getting my hopes up. Because Roy doesn’t mean it, is the thing. Doesn’t mean it like that. He knows that it’s just his personality. Knows that if it seems like there’s anything more authentic there, it’s just him and his stupid romantic heart reading too much into things.
Roy already has a boyfriend, for one. Or, well, he pretty much does, anyway. It’s clear that both he and Garth both have their own separate things against commitment and putting a label on things, but. Come on.
“Takes one to know one, huh?” Roy teases, still sounding so fond, and Wally grumbles into his pillow.
“You’re the one who woke me up at two in the morning.”
“Yeah, well.” Roy pauses. Wally can hear the sound of something shifting on his side of the line. “Never said I wasn’t.”
It’s quiet, for a bit. Wally dozes, listening to the soft swish of wind, the clinking of glass, the soft, melodic lilt of Roy’s cursing as he drops whatever he was holding.
He so, so desperately wants to ask if everything is okay.
“Hey,” Roy asks him suddenly. “What’s the time right now?”
“You have a phone,” Wally mumbles, not quite managing to stifle his yawn this time. “Check for yourself.”
“My hands are busy. Come on. Check for me.”
“No.”
“Please?”
Wally scowls on principle, and then he laboriously peels his phone away from his ear, squinting at the time. “S'three a.m.”
“What’s that for me?”
“Fuck you.”
“Take me to dinner first.”
“No one else has to take you to dinner,” Wally complains. “Why do I have to?”
Roy barks out a laugh at that, and Wally grins in spite of himself, proud that he seemed to have startled the noise out of him. “Maybe I want to try out this whole ‘standards’ thing you guys are always harping on about. I gotta say, I’m not very impressed right now.”
“You should ask Garth to take you out to dinner,” Wally says, pausing to give another muffled yawn. “Bet… he’ll make it good for you.”
“Wally,” Roy says, sounding far too composed and lucid for how much he must’ve drank, not to mention whatever else is in his system right now. Maybe he’s immune to alcohol; he certainly drinks enough for it to be possible. “Garth ran off to be a dolphin the moment he turned eighteen. You think he has the first clue on how to date?”
“Yeah, well,” Wally mumbles, “he seems to be doing good so far. Besides,” he adds before Roy can tack on his usual spiel on how they’re not dating, which, yeah right, “like you’re any better.”
Roy makes an offended noise. “Of course I know how to date.”
“One night stands don’t count, Roy.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m not talking about those.”
“Wait, really?” Wally blinks awake, almost sitting up before remembering Roy’s not actually here with him and flopping back down on his bed.
“Of course.” Roy sounds affronted. “Do you really think I’ve never dated?”
“I didn’t think you knew what dating was,” Wally admits.
There’s a long silence. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Yeah, dumbass.” He rolls his eyes. “Of course I’m joking. But seriously, I thought you weren’t interested with the whole, you know.” He frowns, tired brain fumbling for the right words. “The whole… you. Thing.”
“The whole you thing,” Roy (justifiably) mocks. “Oh, that’s descriptive.”
“Shut up,” Wally sighs, blushing. “It’s three in the morning, okay? Whose fault is it, again, that I’m even up?”
“Hey.” Roy’s voice hits different this time, dipping into a warm sincerity that's… wrong. That sounds wrong, because it almost seems a little unsure, and Roy is all easy confidence and swagger, he’s not – he shouldn’t be unsure of anything. “You don’t have to, you know? I mean, if you’re busy – and you probably are, right, I mean geez, I bet you’ve got better things to do than, uh. Babysit me.”
A low stab of guilt goes through him at Roy parroting back his own words. And he probably doesn’t even remember that it was Wally who first said it, but. Shit. If anything, that makes Wally feel worse. “It’s fine, Roy,” he starts.
Roy makes a strange sound that he eventually recognizes as a choked laugh. “No,” he says. “No, Wally, it’s really not. Jesus, what the hell am I – you know you should’ve told me to fuck off by now, right?”
“Roy—”
“I mean, you’ve been just listening to me talk for, what, an hour? Don’t you have school tomorrow? God, I should just let you sleep. Yeah. You know you’re too nice, right? You shouldn’t – I shouldn't—”
“Roy,” Wally snaps. “Shut up.”
The line falls quiet. Wally listens to Roy’s ragged breathing, the quick pulls of his breath before he mumbles sorry.
It irritates him, for some reason. Or maybe that’s just the late hour that’s getting to him. “Look,” Wally sighs. “Do you want me here or not?”
“Yeah,” Roy admits quietly. “Yeah, Wally, of course I do. Why do you think I called you?”
“Because nobody else would pick up,” Wally says, mouth jumping ahead of his brain again.
“Nah.” Roy murmurs. “You’re the first one I called.”
In the same soft voice, Wally says, “I bet that’s what you tell everyone.”
“Wally,” Roy says with a crackling sigh. “Why is it so hard for you to believe that you’re someone’s first choice?”
The words are making him – making him feel some type of way. Wally chews his lip, sinking further into the blankets even though his body feels like it’s too hot right now. “Don’t use that tone on me,” he says, and through some miracle of will manages to keep his voice sounding even and unimpressed. “I’m not one of your groupies.”
“Groupies, huh?” Roy says with a low laugh that sends more curls of heat unfurling in his belly. “I guess I’ll have to try harder to impress you.”
He doesn’t mean it, Wally reminds himself, pressing his thighs together and then kicking off a corner of his blanket, pretending that’s the reason for the hot flush racing over his skin. “I don’t know, Roy. It might be a bit too late for that.”
“Come on,” Roy wheedles. “Admit it. You think I’m a total smokeshow.”
“That’s irrelevant,” Wally says, which may as well be a yes, and Roy’s smug silence tells him that he knows it, too. “Anyway, being hot isn’t that impressive.”
“So you do think I’m hot.”
“Roy.”
“Maybe I should take you on a date,” Roy muses, and Wally almost drops his phone.
“What?” he asks, voice cracking, and Roy chuckles, warm and fond.
“A date, Wally,” he says, sounding far more confident now that he’s back in the familiar territory of throwing Wally off with each step. “You do know what those are, right?”
“Of course I know what-” Wally scowls. “You can’t just do that.”
“Do what?”
“You can’t just – you have to actually like the person you’re taking out, first.”
“I do like you, Wally,” Roy says, so plain, so easy, and Wally resists the urge to chuck his phone at the wall. That’s not what he means, and Roy knows it, and he’s so frustrating. He’s so…
“Fine,” he grits out.
A short silence. “Really?” Roy asks, sounding surprised.
“Yeah, Roy,” he snaps. “Fine. Take me out.”
Roy laughs. “Come on, don’t sound so glum.” For once his tone isn’t dripping all full of suggestion when he says. “I’ll make it good for you.”
“Right,” Wally says, abruptly too tired to be angry. “Sure. Okay.”
“Okay?” Roy coaxes, sounding so soft and careful, and Wally… hates him, a little. Hates himself more, because why is he so stupid, why can he never think –
Why him. Why him?
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? You’re the hot mess here.”
“Keep calling me hot, and I might start getting ideas.”
Personally, Wally thinks they’re already long past that, but what does he know, huh. If anything, this conversation proves that the answer is jack shit. “You already said you’d take me out on a date,” he says through another yawn, as if to prove to himself that he really is the master of digging holes that his future self will have to claw his way out of. “No taking it back now.”
“I did, huh,” Roy muses, and at least he doesn’t sound regretful. Not that it matters, considering he won’t remember any of this conversation when he sobers up, but… at least he isn’t regretting it now, in this moment.
It’s a sad consolation, if you can even call it that. There's… not much you can call it at all, really, except.
Except nothing. It’s nothing.
Wally blinks at the darkness outside his window, wondering if Roy is looking at the same sky right now.
“What do you prefer, flowers?” Roy is saying, and his voice sounds like it’s getting thicker, too. “Candles? Yeah, bet you’d go gaga for that shit. J'st wanna be wooed, huh?”
“What are you, twelve?” Wally asks, wishing he’d just shut up. Because the more he goes on about it, the more he wants, and hell, he should’ve just tried dissuading Roy from this whole train of thought in the first place. Not that dissuading ever works well with him. Brings on the opposite, in fact, which is the only reason Wally is humouring him right now and not telling him to go to hell. And shit – maybe it’s just nice, okay? Maybe it’s just nice pretending that he can have it, have an iota of what he craves for.
And god, it’s fucking pathetic that he’ll take it, and he knows, okay? He knows.
Roy makes a sleepy murmur, no doubt the start of another smart-alecky reply, but it seems like he’s finally starting to drift off. “Hey, Roy,” Wally says, and he’s quiet for so long this time that Wally’s starting to think he might’ve passed out on him.
“What?” He finally asks, and Wally chews on his lip, staring up at the ceiling.
“You’re going to be okay, right?” he asks, and it’s always a gamble with Roy because you never knows how he’s going to take your concern.
Roy is quiet for another long while, and then he lets out another soft hum. And he sounds exhausted, tired down to the bone, but he says, “Yeah, baby. Yeah, I’m great.”
“Liar,” Wally says, and it comes out too fond. Too transparent. But – god, but it feels like Roy is burning a hole in his chest right now, reaching right in and tugging at all his worries.
“Nah.” Roy chuckles. “Got all the riches in the world, remember? Don’t worry about me.”
Roy doesn’t seem to get that it’s not something he can just turn on and off. “Sure,” Wally says anyway, because it’s what he wants to hear.
“Thanks, Wally,” Roy says quieter, and Wally… doesn’t quite know how to respond to that.
“Whatever,” he says, and hopes that Roy will take it for what it is – as an anytime and not I don’t care, because fuck, he does.
He cares so much that it makes him hurt, sometimes. But at least that part’s not anything new.
Roy’s slow breathing stays on the line, eventually growing heavy with sleep. Wally counts each heavy exhale ticking down like a metronome, every slow beat a reassurance that Roy is still alive, still here, until eventually he falls asleep, too.
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