This one is dedicated to my beautiful valentine who requested it. I love you, blondie.
The song is "Take Your Sweet Time" by Jesse McCartney.
Take your sweet, sweet time. I will be here when you change your mind.
With a world that zooms past quick enough to blow your hair back from your eyes, patience is near as rare as finding an albino animal unprotected out in the wilderness, which makes it a beautiful sight when observed. That would be why, on the heat of this Tuesday afternoon, the rooftop to the Wayne Manor was a glorious sight to behold glistening beneath the lazy sun's rays that embraced the shingles rather than struck them like most else in the world.
Reclining back into the gentle tilt of the Manor's top rested a nineteen year old with his arms folded behind his head to serve as a pillow and his ankles crossed to keep from gracefully descending and becoming a pancake out on the lawn below. Black hair tumbling messily out onto his arms and full navy eyes staring up and counting the clouds above, the world couldn't touch the teen with a twenty foot pole.
His full lips weren't pulled up into a regular smile, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing considering the distance his mind was from the shell nestled as close to the sky as this bird would ever get. With wings clipped and talons dulled, flying was far from the question, but there was no intention of escaping for the moment as each cloud rolled by, each one resembling a different image that brought a nostalgic tint to the relaxed face.
Escaping wasn't his concern. He was waiting.
That was all he seemed to be doing these days, a clock always under his watch and a sense of hope always lining that last part of each breath he took and every smile he managed. Even on his worst days, the days the world clawed at him from the inside in its best attempt to shatter him out like his parents, that last little thread of hope kept him as stable as he was now. Though that stability would often come into concern, there was never anything to worry about.
Dick Grayson wasn't going to go anywhere—not without Wally.
It couldn't have been two months past their fights, since those anger-driven hands had shoved him back and left him on a sour and tear-filled note. Those two months were a driving point. At first, the world seemed to have turned its shoulder and it did nothing but cast doubts and blame towards the acrobat until he felt like curling into a ball and just sobbing until there was nothing left but a puddle where his body had once lain.
But then, he came to realize the world had turned its shoulder. That was what helped him back to his feet with a casual brush to his jeans and an optimistic grin. Since when had he ever relied on the world? He was a hero, after all. It was the world that always relied on him, be it for protection or that little bit of optimism he could sometimes cast out on a day with bright enough shine.
Today especially, the sun didn't ever quite seem to stop its shine, which was good for the world in the sense that the hero had his phone resting beside him on the rooftop, occasionally glancing to the smiling faces of himself and Wally on the screen in the hope that he'd get a text. A call. A voicemail. For all he cared today though, he could be left in the dark for another few years, because he knew even then that his feelings for his redhead would never change.
He loved Wally, there was no denying that, but there also wasn't any explaining that. There weren't enough words in the human language to sculpt even a mild understanding of the feelings to grip his stomach whenever he was around his best friend of all those years of which he'd never trade in a single second. The tears, the yelling, the violence and the pain… it was worth every bit of suffering, because it was an experience, and he could share it.
This man… he wasn't just a best friend. He was more than just a brother. This bond between them, it was stronger than a small family tie. This hope and irresistible drive that pushed him on day by day, that wasn't something a family would strike in him. This was something Wally drove in him, something he shared with no other soul on this planet and one he never intended to.
That love was a special kind, one that you only feel once in your life, and he had no intention of losing it over something as stupid as impatience or rashness. He would wait until the days run out if it meant one more day with his speedster, one last laugh.
-F.J. III