This is my continuation of the three oneshots I did - Afterglow(Roy/Kaldur), Late in a the Evening(Wally/Dick), and Longing For Lullabies(Conner/Tim). I would like it if you read those but it's not needed. Just because I did those in a specific writing pattern and these will just be snippets... It's complicated. Whatever. Enjoy. Most of them will be Wally/Dick but I'll probably slip in some others.

Rated M will be for language and possible sexual situations (SEXUAL SITUATIONS!).

This will be the longest and possibly only Author's Note and Disclaimer of the story.

Do not own.


3AM

3 AM, soon the day will break

Your voice so close

Your lips are so far away

And our words they

Fly around across the ocean and

Disappearing somewhere over New Foundland

"Oh I love you"

- Kleerup, 3AM


When they laugh -

- it's after a hard mission. One where Dick has come home, bloodied and broken. Where he can't breathe properly without blood coming up. Where his shoulder is hunched over and he can't see straight. On a night where Wally has been at an all nighter studying because, dammit, school is important. We don't all have the ability to overanalyze - yes, Dick, over! - any situation to turn out fifty different ways. I'm gonna have to go to school for longer than a year to have a job, Di -

Where Dick is sitting on the balcony of Wally's apartment, laughing at his inability to pick the locks on the window because his picks have already been used on the handcuffs from earlier and he can't seem to find the strength to stand up again.

Where it's three in the morning and Wally doesn't usually come home after such a long study session but for everything that he holds dear he can't help but be pretty damn happy and terrified at the same time. Because he hears the scratching and the soft murmurs. The Wally Wally Wally and sorry sorry sorry and Bruce Bruce Bruce. The soft sounds of slurred words in a language that he's slowly learning and can't help his trembling fingers as he shakes dangerously close to relative time as he tries to call Alfred.

Where Wally resorts to pinching Dick's inner thigh to keep him up, even if he knows there will be thirty bruises there because of it. Where his eyes start to glaze over when there was still five minutes till Alfred and Batman show up.

Where Dick has started to laugh at Wally's half-assed jokes, knowing that if he laughs or chortles or suffers through a bloody cackle, that he'll be able to stay up for just one more second. Where Wally's own laughter is forced and hurting and dead. Where the sound of a breaking door can only mean Batman (Bruce, god - I'm - I am so - god, if I had just come back earlier) and Alfred (what do you say to Alfred?) and that has to mean there's still enough time.

Where seven hours later he'll be next to Dick's bed at Wayne Manor, watching how his chest falls and rises in a shuddering pattern. Where he'll be waiting for the blue eyes to open and shine and apologize but know that this could happen again in a year or a month or a week or tomorrow. But it'll have be ok. Because when those eyes do open, when he can kiss his boyfriend and his boyfriend will kiss back, they'll have to be fine - with this life they've chosen.

But right now he can only laugh at the lame punch line that he just whispered to Dick, watching as his chest fluttered and croaked. Trying hard to think Dick Dick Dick so he can just stay visible long enough for Alfred to call Barry, to make sure he doesn't slip into a time that'll allow him to think of other things - things he can't handle. He can handle it when all he can think of is what's the moths life motto? To always look on the bright side.

And how Dick had laughed at such a lame joke.

To always look on the bright side.

When they laugh.


Well then, ending on an angsty note.

Eva