"I just don't even know if it's worth pursuing at this point, you know?"
Hal sighes, head resting against the back of Barry's couch as he sprawles, submitting himself to Barry-the-Psychologist.
"We were getting along so well, and then I got a little showboat-y and suddenly everything is awful." Hal frowns at the memory, and crosses his arms over his chest.
He chances a glance at Barry, who looks sympathetic as always, but looking at Barry makes him think about Barry-and-Iris, who are perfect, which makes him feel worse about Hal-and-Carol, who are a wreck, and basically the ceiling is just a better place to look.
"It's been…" Well, Barry knows what it's been. It's been how it always ends up - constant yelling and screaming and hurtful things on both sides that never really go away. It's exhausting, but there's something broken in Hal that makes him keep trying, that makes him want to prove to Carol and himself that they can work, that he can work.
It's a relationship that he always comes back to flinching, because he always ends up in pain, but it's still a relationship that he always comes back to.
"I just feel like…"
"Uncle Barry?"
Hal picks up his head, plastering a smile over his face as Wally's small face peers at them from the railing of the stairs.
Wally's eyes are big and vulnerable, and his little hands fist around the bars of the railing.
"Uncle Barry, there's a big storm."
"A big storm?" Barry echoed, smiling as he shifted to his feet. "Well, that's okay, the flowers are just thirsty."
Wally bites his lip as Barry walks over to him, and he leans over for Barry to pull him into a hug.
"It's loud. And scary."
"It won't hurt you," Barry assured. "And it'll make Auntie Iris's garden grow big and strong."
Wally pulled a face.
"But Auntie Iris grows 'let-us' in her garden, and it's yucky."
"I know bud, but we don't tell Iris that, remember?"
Wally nodded, and Barry patted his back and grinned, holding up a homemade Flash doll that he must've grabbed from Wally's room at super-speed.
"Now, you just keep this little guy with you, alright? So you can be brave?"
Wally fingered the toy, and a smile turned his lips. "It's just a toy you know. It can't make me safe."
"But it can make you brave." Barry smiled, kneeling by Wally. "It's okay to get your brave from other people, sometimes."
Wally nodded, smiling, and turned around to go back to bed, with no small amount of backwards glances.
Barry stayed there, for a second, before turning back to Hal with an apologetic smile on his face.
"You know," he murmured, "it might not be a bad idea for you to get some brave and try to take a break from Carol for a while."
Hal grimaced. Part of him wanted to, but the bigger part of him couldn't stand what it would mean if he let everything go. A small and childlike part of him, still stinging from spiteful curses from his mother and hateful vitriol from his brothers couldn't bear to choose to walk away.
He closed his eyes to get away from Barry's penetrating gaze, and felt his face twist between facade and honesty.
"You'd be okay, Hal."
But he needs her. Needs someone to accept him and tell him that he isn't a mistake. That who he is as a person is worth something.
Thankfully, he doesn't need Carol to keep him grounded, because if he relied on her for that he would've ducked out on this spinning marble ages ago, along with everyone on it.
Barry settles in beside him, his hand a comforting and consistent weight on Hal's arm, despite the slight flutter in his fingertips that now seems to constantly accompany him.
"It's okay, Hal. You deserve better than her, you know?"
Barry plows through Hal's kneejerk reaction that this was an awful thing to say; Carol is beautiful and smart and accomplished and puts up with Hal (usually...periodically), and asking for more feels wrong in a visceral way that goes right back to Hal's childhood.
"You deserve someone who loves you for being amazing, and who helps support you when you mess up. You aren't supposed to tear people down in relationships, Hal."
Hal's eyes are trapped in Barry's now, and he squirms like a bug frying under a microscope.
"You're my best friend, Hal. My best friend deserves better."
Hal nods jerkily, and makes a mental note to cut himself off from Carol (again) and maybe try to figure something new out by flying over the city and thinking until he distracts himself with anything else.
Barry smiles at him, eyes crinkling and forcing Hal to mirror with a more genuine smile.
"Fantastic. You know if you ever need a place to crash, our doors are always open."
Hal nods again, because sometimes he gets lonely and goes back to Carol's house because that makes it better but Barry's house makes it better too and they usually have hot chocolate and play Tetris because Barry is old and that's the only kind of video game he has.
Barry always wins, since he can move faster than the game, but he tries to avoid using his speed, and Hal will beat him one day.
Hal smiles, and takes strength and bravery from Barry to cut himself off from Carol, and allows Barry's love to keep his head above the water.
Sometimes it feels like Barry is the only thing buoying him up above the quicksand of the rest of his life, and if he were to lose that one thing he would have nothing left to keep him standing in the quagmire tangle of relationships he calls his life. But he will always have Barry, so Hal lets himself settle more firmly onto Barry's foundation, because if there is only one thing he can always count on in his life, then that thing is Barry.