(A/N) 12/22/16: Okay, I think now's about time for an Official Author's Note on this thing. I wrote this story about half a year before I realized I was bisexual, which required quite a bit of deducing of my own, and about half a year after I took, and am still taking, an extended hiatus from this story. That's right folks, you're looking at an official Dry Well fic right here.

Why haven't I taken up this story again, as many people have asked me? A number of reasons; I think this story takes one too many jabs at queer people, an umbrella that I am now a part of, has lots of OOC moments and poor character portrayal, makes gay men seem predatory and lecherous regarding Straight Men, a trope that honestly needs to die, and mainly because I had only ever intended to write the first chapter, which in its own was supposed to spin-off into an extended BatFlash story. As you can see, it didn't happen. My inspiration for the story petered off around the third chapter, and the only thing that kept me going when I was initially writing it was the reviews people kept giving me.

Why won't I delete this story, as many people have also asked me? Lots of reasons for that too. It reminds me of how shitty my writing style used to be, complex, confusing sentences with lots of commas and extended clauses that make me cringe and realize how far I've come from that. Mostly. Also, because this damn story makes me laugh, for all the inappropriate, gay fetishizing, queerbaiting stereotypes and tropes I've noticed are so prevalent in the media these days. But mostly, because it's a reminder for the kind of person I used to be and the values I used to have. Life ain't so funny when you're on the other side of the fence, huh? Or, as my sexuality swings, perhaps 'on the fence' would be more apt phrasing.

Well, whatever your reasons for reading this story, know that it may not be updated anytime soon, if ever. But at least it sure is a hell of a ride to read. Enjoy.


There had been a change, silent, subtle, yet profound. Bruce noticed it in the way Wally acted, the way his gait had somehow matured, from that light, springy step, to one more musing, thoughtful, not quite plodding and yet not quite altruistic, and the way his smiles, still bright, still cheerful, were almost wondering, knowledgeable.

What did he know? What was he hiding? What had happened?

Bruce had his theories about it; he always did, his need to be in the know about everything, especially when it concerned his teammates, was overwhelming. Infatuation with a new person, probably a girl on the tower, would have been the most plausible answer, but Bruce (and everyone else on the Watchtower) knew for a fact that Wally had met all and every single girl as soon as they had been added to the roster and made it a point to ask them on a date.

And he had just left them all as quickly. There was no chance it was a woman from the tower; this was Bruce's last thought before he exited the hallway from which he had found himself walking down and then twitched in surprise; there had been the oddest sensation as if something had graced his hand.

When he turned, he saw no one but the swell of people rushing from the newest, convenient emergency that blared over the speakers and conveyed through the booming, melancholy tones of J'onn, and nothing over the sea of bobbing heads save curls of exotically colored hair, spontaneous masks, and a greeting from Wally as he descended down the steps and then disappeared around the corner with a pop and burst of air as the sound barrier was broken.

After the mission and the day progressed (and Wally's mood seemed to be rubbing off on the watchtower and making Bruce increasingly suspicious) he continued to think. A woman from work, then? Although Wally had a different persona than the one he donned with the mask, Bruce marked him as the type that wouldn't vary in personality when it came to secret identities; and that meant that Wally couldn't be marked to commitment in his other, more scientific-oriented job either.

It most definitely wasn't a promotion; those frayed threads on Wally's sleeve weren't exactly disappearing or at the very least patched up, and besides, he wouldn't even notice or care to use money to get them fixed. Bruce found himself returning to the idea of infatuation more and more with each theory that presented itself.

He thought on this as he gave the diagnostic to J'onn and something brushed his shoulder, but he brushed it off when J'onn later informed him of the air coolant malfunctioning; when he turned, he saw the man he had been formulating his theories about speaking to Mr. Terrific about how the Red Sox were doing this season, and brushed the thought away.

After making a brief call to Alfred and telling him he wouldn't have to fix dinner tonight at home and to just make something for Dick and Barbara when they came over, he descended down the tube to the nearest mess hall and found himself sitting at a table with, at the very least, tolerable company.

"Does Wally have a girlfriend?" Diana asked as the two of them sat at a table a few steps away from the exit, as people filtered in to have a much-deserved dinner, to chat with friends or just to star-gaze out the great plexiglass window after a long day at fighting the good fight.

So his mood hadn't escaped the great Amazon Princess either. She wasn't stupid.

She waited for his answer, sampling the delicacies of congealed, previously freeze-dried Thanagarian soup with the poise befitting of a princess, and Bruce found himself roused from his thoughts upon musing upon the intricate emotions and conundrum that was his fellow teammate.

He looked to her, dark eyes meeting with flawless blue ones, and their gazes met as she lowered her fork, plump red lips ever-so-slightly pursed as she regarded him.

"Something on your mind?" She asked, her expression calm and reserved as she inclined her head to her soup, considering upon his welfare, as her eyes did not move away from him.

"He doesn't seem like the kind to commit." Bruce admitted, ignoring her previous question, and Diana nodded upon the truth of his statement, looking out to the great vastness of space and then back to him.

"But he's never this happy unless it's a new girl." Diana said, and the urge to smile fought its way onto Bruce's face.

It almost made it. Almost.

"I don't really think it's much of our concern," Bruce said with the hypocrisy of a perfect liar, as he straightened his posture against the unyielding plastic of the chair, and Diana's brow narrowed on those chiseled, perfect features as she frowned at him, the slightest disturbance on that faultless face of hers making it become more enhanced.

"We've all known each other for ages, Bruce. I think we're allowed to share a few things about ourselves."

"I beg to differ." He replied.

"Maybe if you stepped down from that perch you put yourself in." Diana suggested with the subtlest hint of teasing and solemnity in her voice.

The door to the mess hall slid open automatically with a hiss of metal and air, and the two of them turned, and the two of them turned to look at the man who had captured their conversation stride in, humming a song he had heard on the radio.

"Hi, Diana. Hi, Bats." Wally grinned as he passed by them, and Bruce tensed, unconsciously, unwittingly, as he strode by. He barely caught it: a tactile disturbance that consumed his cheek with unexpected warmth by a movement too quick to be caught by the human eye or to be perceived by the human brain until long after it had passed.

As Diana smiled at Wally in greeting and he continued to the line of people with trays waiting for food, Bruce blinked, mildly perturbed, and turned to Diana, brow furrowing.

"Did you feel that?" putting a hand to his cheek, sensitive gloved fingers running a rudimentary scan over his cheek, as confusion, an idea unfamiliar to him, percolated in his brain.

"What was what?" she asked, those bright blue eyes meeting upon him with concern as they drifted down to settle on the hand that practically cupped his cheek.

"Something…something touched my cheek. I don't know what it was. Almost as if—"

He paused for a second, hand lowering as the well-oiled gears of his mind began to turn, and the world's greatest detective did some great deducting.

"Almost as if what?" Diana asked politely, concern growing with a gradual steady increase as she set a cautious, wary look on him.

Almost as if someone kissed me.

"Nothing." Bruce said, realizing how simple everything was with all the clues laid at your feet.

A man, obviously infatuated, and apparently not attracted to any of them women at either of his work jobs, could probably be assumed to either be practicing abstinence or experimenting with his sexuality.

And knowing Wally…

Additionally, a man with such a status as Wally's, and the abilities of a speedster to boot, but the sudden idea to act mature, to create an act, a façade to direct attention or blame him or from possible abuses of speedster-related powers.

And, for Bruce, unexpected tactile disturbances, in three different events, where Wally was suspiciously, coincidentally in the vicinity of those three events.

"Bruce." Diana called him from the realm of his thoughts, while his hand, balled up in a fist underneath the shadow of the table on his leg, relaxed and the fingers splayed out, able to return to comfort for the moment.

Ignoring her for the moment Bruce turned away to look at the line, where Wally was chatting, smiling, and apparently oblivious to Bruce's deductions.

Oh, that man knew what he was doing. Clever bastard. Bruce would have commended him if he wasn't on the receiving end of it.

"Bruce?" Diana repeated, as he observed the line for a moment longer, and then as he turned back to the fine reflection of himself in the polished sheen of the table.

"Nothing," Bruce said as he turned back and thought of how future events were going to come to a head later in the most interesting of ways, "Nothing at all."

He needed a stiff drink.