---- From chapter 49 ----
W: Let's play a game called "I beat you first"
D: sus, but ok
W: I saw you first
D: I talked to you first
W: I was attracted to you first
D: I confessed first
W: I asked you out first
D: I kissed you first
W: I asked you to move in with me first
D: I took you on vacation first
W: I proposed first
D: What do you mean? No you didn't
D: oh
D: OH
Dick lifted his gaze from his screen, still reeling, his own shocked realization unchanging on the phone in his hands. He realized that the weight of Wally sitting beside him had disappeared, and he was alone on the couch.
His eyes searched the space where Wally had been spread out on the cushions only seconds before. His whole body felt heavy and slow as if he was moving through honey. His heart was pounding in his chest and he could feel it in his fingertips.
He turned, and his eyes finally- finally- landed on Wally, looking bashful and touched by nervousness as he kneeled on the floor, a small black box open in his hands.
They hadn't finished moving into their new apartment yet, only pushed the couch into the middle of the room and leaned the television against the wall where it was supposed to be mounted. The only thing lighting the room was the last dying rays of the setting sun.
Dick engrained it all into his head; the exact angle of the shadows sloping into the room against the white, featureless walls, the sleek, warm tone of the auburn wooden floors, the reds and oranges of the sunset. The sinking of his body into the square, black leather couch. The hole in his left sock, the ache in his legs and arms being bent in the same position for so long.
The way the last flickers of sunlight glint off the ring Wally is offering to him.
But, most importantly, he wants to remember Wally. Everything about him. The tussle of his hair, from when Dick threaded his fingers through it and used the soft orange strands to keep his balance as he sat on Wally's shoulders, trying to hang a clock above the kitchen doorway. His cheeks and their gorgeous red flush, high on his cheekbones and the tips of his ears. It's the kind of blush you only see on TV, perfect and pretty, without all the lightheadedness and heat of reality.
He's wearing plaid pyjama pants and a red Flash t-shirt that he's had since they were both young teens, and he hasn't stopped looking at Dick. All these years, and he's never stopped looking.
He's seen Dick at his best, and his worst, which are sometimes the same thing, when his fame makes him overzealous. He's seen Dick lose fights when the world sees him win them, seen him burn an omelet while the world watches him work in the kitchen of a five-star restaurant. Wally has seen all the behind-the-scenes moments and he's never once turned away.
Dick drops his phone when he realizes that the sunset long ago, and all this time the beautiful colours he's been seeing out of the corners of his eyes has been Wally.
The phone clatters loudly against the wood floors and Dick doesn't even spare a thought to it. The stars could literally start raining from the sky outside their floor to ceiling windows and Dick still wouldn't be able to think about anything but Wally.
Dick watches Wally breathe, the rise and fall of his chest, the inhale-exhale of the same oxygen Dick himself is breathing, and then he parts his lips- lips Dick knows so intimately well- to say words Dick has said himself thousands and thousands of times, each time telling himself they don't count, it's just a script, it doesn't mean anything.
"If that thy bent of love be honourable, Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow?" Wally says. He says it wrong, clumsily, with the tilt of a question at the end. He's never said it before; it's Dick's line.
"I'm supposed to be Juliet," Dick tries to say, tries to laugh. He isn't crying yet but his voice cracks and breaks, and he thinks he might.
"I thought I'd try to- to switch it up," Wally sounds just as breathless, just as tight and brittle, like one wrong word and he'll snap in half, right down the middle.
"You're not pretty enough to be her," Dick whispers, unable to summon volume to his voice. He breaks off in a laugh that sounds more like a sob and falls off the couch into Wally's warms, the ring box trapped between their chests.
Even kneeling, Wally is still taller than the nineteen-year-old. Wally collapses around him, the stress that has been beating stiffness into his shoulders unravelling and it's absence leaves space for Dick to slot neatly against the older.
Wally slides the ring past Dick's knuckle and onto his finger, and Dick silently vows never to take it off again
They stay wrapped up in each other for most of the night, trading inhales and exhales, so close that even the air feels guilty for trying to get between them. They kiss a few times, and eventually collapse back against the couch, leaning heavily on it and each other. At some point, Wally bites and sucks a dark mark into the pale skin of Dick's neck, and Dick's chest arches and lifts with deep gasps.
Wally falls asleep with his lips still against Dick's heated skin, an endless gentle kiss, and Dick cards his fingers through Wally's hair absentmindedly, half-asleep and yet so, so awake.
He looks down at Wally's soft, freckled face, the slight slope of his nose and the soft curve of his lips. His hair looks almost brown in the night light. Dick should be shivering, the windows are all still cracked open from when they were hot and sweaty from carrying boxes up the stairs all afternoon, but Wally's steady presence radiates heat.
He tips his head back against the couch, focusing on the empty space on the ceiling where there will one day be a fan, focusing on the weight of the ring now in its rightful place on his hand. He uses the grip he has in Wally's hair to pull the other closer. His eyes close, and just before he surrenders to sleep, as if Wally might hear him he whispers, "You are a perfect Romeo, though."
----
Not Robin ✓
@Dickie-Grayson
Guess who's engaged!
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↳ actual coffee slug ✓
@Tim-Timmery
no- ohno- no- i have not gotten enough sleep to be able to process feeling the level of emotion im feeling- ohno-
↳ alcoholism is hereditary ✓ @RoyBoyHarper
Congratulations! Tell Walls I will be collecting the loan I gave him so he could afford that ring, and if he doesn't have my money I'll feed him to piranhas! So happy for you guys!
↳ God ✓
@BabsGo(r)d(on)
that's gay.
(Leviticus 18:22)
↳ Legally dead ✓
@Jason-Toddster
Dibs on planning the bachelor party.
↳ CEO of Wayne Enterprises ✓
@Offical-Bruce-Wayne
@Dick-Grayson Call me.
YOU ARE READING
Text Me Back // Book One
Fanfiction(W- Wally West. D- Dick Grayson. R- Roy Harper.) D: Want to know how I remember how to spell 'Assume'? W: Okay..... D: Don't assume or you'll make an ass out of u and me ---- W: I am entirely convinced your last words will either be 'whoops' or 'sh...
