Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The argument had started over dinner.

Specifically, a dinner that Hal had forgotten about.

Carol Ferris hadn’t forgotten. She had spent an hour getting herself ready and putting on a form-fitting midi dress that she kept for special occasions. She had also spent four minutes considering whether or not to remind Hal of their night, which she ultimately decided not to. Reminding Hal of a promise he had made would just undermine the promise altogether.

Carol had sat at the restaurant for twenty-two minutes, her eyebrows furrowed in frustration. She had already asked the waiter to refill her water two times and had said her date was coming. Carol tapped her foot impatiently, her heels making an infuriating click as she put her phone to her ear. He’d answered on the fourth ring, already off fighting crime with the League. He explained his situation simply, like he didn’t need any justification.

By the time Hal had texted her back again, her message simply said:

I’m at my apartment. I can’t believe you bailed on me.

Hal looked at the message and thought of ways to consolidate her without her exploding at him. Hal was already on his way to Carol’s apartment, or rather, her penthouse. He checked in with the front desk, who gave him a sympathetic look, most likely for what was going to happen next.

Once he rode the elevator to an almost way-too-high numbered floor, he saw Carol’s place. He walked up to her door and took a long, deep breath, already mentally preparing for whatever lame excuse he had.

In the apartment was Carol, angry, for one, in casual clothes. Half-eaten takeout was left on the counter, and her pink dress was left on a hanger.

"You," Carol started when she saw Hal walk through the door, her tone accusatory. "Hal Jordan, I am sick of you! I really tried to give you the benefit of the doubt, but you bail on me and you say it’s ’League duties'? I get that’s important, but what about me? Can you ever commit to anything? Then when you aren’t busy fighting, you come scrambling to me again. You know how much of a jackass move that is?" Carol bit out, her tone acrimonious.

”Carol I-“

”Don’t start with that bullshit. Must I mention you’re always running away to some mission, space, or whatever shit you pull off! You only ever want me when you need something from me.”

Hal Jordan responded in the only way he knew how to console others: “Baby, Carol, you have to understand my situation.” He drawled, and he stepped closer to her, eventually sitting down on the couch next to her.

He leaned in closer, resting his hands on her waist. He leaned in close to her ear, warm breath tickling her ear. “Can’t we forget about this?” he whispered in her ear suggestively, his hands trailing under her shirt. “We can try that thing you wanted to—"

Carol shoved his shoulders, standing up firmly. “No, Hal. Can’t you see? You dedicate your whole entire life to being a Green Lantern, so your actual relationships suffer because of it, and what? You try to console me with sex? You’re ridiculous. I’m done with you.” She jabbed a finger towards his face, her eyes red and tears streaming down her face. Her eyeliner was streaked across her cheeks as she clenched her hands into a tense ball. 

“Get out," she finally gritted out, after what felt like an eternity of tense silence.

”What?”

”I said get out.” She pointed to the door before turning away, holding her face in her hands.

”Carol…” Hal tried one last time, but looking at the state she was in currently, she was in no mood to listen to him.

Hal left Carol’s apartment with a bitter taste on his tongue.

The elevator ride down felt too slow. Every passing floor made his jaw tighten harder, his fingers curling and uncurling at his sides. By the time the doors slid open into the lobby, Hal was already reaching for his ring.

Green light burst around him in a sharp flash, bright enough to make the receptionist flinch.

Then he was gone.

The night air hit him hard as he tore upward into the sky, Coast City shrinking beneath him into streaks of gold and white. Wind rushed against his face violently enough that it should have grounded him. Usually it did. Flying had always fixed things, or at least dulled them enough to make them manageable. Up here there was no awkward silence, no tear-streaked mascara, and no look on Carol’s face when she told him to leave.

Just speed. Altitude. Empty sky.

Hal pushed faster.

Clouds split apart around him in ragged wisps as green light trailed behind his body. The ring hummed against his skin, familiar and warm, but uneven somehow. The energy pulsed inconsistently across his knuckles.

Hal ignored it; he probably wasn’t high enough, he told himself.

He flew higher instead.

Below him, the city blurred into lights. Tiny veins of headlights crawled through the streets while the ocean reflected fractured moonlight in silver ribbons. Coast City looked peaceful from this high up. Small enough that maybe all the damage he caused inside it could disappear if he stopped looking directly at it.

“Yeah,” Hal muttered bitterly to himself, “great job, Jordan.”

The words vanished into the wind.

His chest still felt too tight.

Without thinking, Hal threw out his hand. Green light exploded outward instantly, forming a fighter jet around him. Sleek. Sharp-edged. Perfect down to the smallest detail.

For exactly three seconds before it started to flicker violently.

One wing distorted first, bending inward like softened metal before dissolving into sparks. The cockpit glitched next, pieces phasing transparently before collapsing completely. Hal cursed under his breath as the entire thing disintegrated around him in a shower of green fragments.

The ring beeped irritably.

Hal stared at it. “You serious right now? Don’t fail on me now.”

The ring gave another faint pulse against his skin.

Hal clenched his jaw hard enough for pain to bloom at the hinge. He thrust his hand outward again, harder this time. A massive artillery cannon materialized beside him, glowing bright enough to paint the clouds neon green. Its surface crackled with energy.

Then the barrel sputtered. The construct bent strangely at the center before breaking apart entirely, unraveling into ribbons of unstable light.

Hal watched the remnants scatter through the air around him.

For a moment he simply floated there, shoulders rising and falling unevenly.

Then he laughed once; it was a quick, sharp, and humorless laugh.

“Oh, that’s pathetic.”

Another construct appeared instantly after that. Then another. Then another.

A wall of fighter planes screamed across the sky before blinking out one after another like dying stars. Giant mechanical hands formed around him only to lose definition halfway through creation. A baseball bat splintered apart before he could even swing it.

Each failure made something ugly twist tighter beneath his ribs.

The ring flickered again.

Hal’s breathing turned shallow.

Green energy burst outward wildly this time, less controlled now. A massive battleship formed above the clouds, towering and intricate and impossibly detailed. Cannons lined the deck. Emerald light reflected across polished surfaces. For one brief second it held together beautifully.

Then the entire center collapsed inward.

The ship shattered; thousands of glowing fragments rained around him like broken glass.

Hal stared upward at the dissolving light, his chest heaving.

Carol’s voice kept replaying in his head.

You only ever want me when you need something from me.

Hal shut his eyes tightly, shaking his head. “No,” he muttered. “No, that’s not…”

The sentence died unfinished.

A vibration suddenly buzzed against his suit, the familiar ringtone filling the silence. It was that stupid, annoying ringtone he chose specifically for this one person.

Hal ignored it.

A second later it buzzed again.

Then again.

Hal exhaled sharply through his nose before finally pulling his phone free. The screen glowed softly against his palm.

Barry.

Three missed calls already sat on the screen.

Another incoming call flashed immediately after.

Hal stared at the name for a long moment while the ringing echoed faintly through the quiet sky around him. Then he declined the call and the screen went dark again, leaving Hal staring at himself in his own reflection. He was disheveled, for one, with guilt lacing his eyes.

For a few seconds the only sound was the wind and his own shallow, sharp breaths.

Hal shoved his phone back into place and flew faster.

Hal had ended up in a bar. This wasn’t his intention, but he wasn’t complaining.

The place sat tucked between two older buildings near the docks, dimly lit with flickering neon signs that buzzed softly against the windows. Hal had been there enough times that the bartender barely glanced up when he walked in. A glass had already been sliding across the counter before Hal even sat down.

Now, three drinks later, the edges of everything had softened pleasantly.

Music thumped low through the walls. Someone laughed too loudly from the pool tables in the back. The scent of whiskey and cigarette smoke clung thickly to the air. Hal leaned heavily against the counter, rolling the half-empty glass between his palms while staring at absolutely nothing.

His phone vibrated again against his jacket. Hal rolled his eyes and ignored it.

The bartender refilled his drink without asking. “Rough night?” he asked casually.

Hal barked out a laugh. “You got no idea.” He downed half the glass immediately after. The alcohol burned his throat, but he paid little mind to it.

The alcohol settled warm in his chest, loosening the tension that had been wound tight beneath his skin since leaving Carol’s apartment. Not enough to erase it completely, but enough to dull the sharpest edges.

Enough to breathe.

His phone buzzed again.

Hal groaned quietly before fishing it out. Barry’s name glowed brightly across the screen. Suddenly, he was hesitant to decline it. He huffed before shoving the phone face down against the counter.

“Persistent little thing,” the bartender muttered. “Your girlfriend or something?”

Hal snorted tiredly. “No. Sure is persistent though.”

Across the city, Barry Allen stood in the middle of his apartment with Hal’s last declined call still sitting heavily in his chest.

Hal never declined him.

Ignored messages, maybe. Forgot to answer, definitely. But outright declining the call felt wrong in a way Barry couldn’t explain. Barry knew something was up with Hal; exactly what? He didn’t know.

Barry already knew where Hal would go.

Dockside bar. The one with the terrible jukebox and the bartender who secretly watered down drinks for metahumans. 

Barry stared at his phone for another second. And in the next second, he was already moving.

The city blurred around him in streaks of gold and lightning. Wind tore past his face while thoughts crashed violently against each other inside his head.

Hal was drunk. Upset. Angry. Barry knew exactly how these nights usually went. He would drag Hal home, make sure he drank water, listen to him ramble about Carol until three in the morning, then pretend none of it affected him afterward.

Simple.

Manageable.

Normal.

Barry slowed outside the bar, chest tight for reasons that had nothing to do with the run. The moment he stepped inside, he spotted Hal immediately.

Hal sat hunched over the counter with his sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. His cheeks were slightly flushed already, curls messier than usual, expression loose in that unmistakable way that meant he was drunk enough for the edges of himself to start unraveling.

Hal was tempting like this. Flushed, guard down, his brown hair covering his beautiful eyes.

Instead, he walked over. He couldn’t leave him, not like this.

Hal looked up at the sound of footsteps and blinked slowly before a crooked grin spread across his face. “There you are.”

Something warm twisted painfully in Barry’s chest. “You declined my calls,” Barry pointed out carefully as he slid into the stool beside him. A light frown crossing his face.

Hal waved a dismissive hand. “Wanted to brood dramatically first.”

“You’re terrible at brooding dramatically.”

“That’s because people keep interrupting me.”

Barry huffed out a quiet laugh before motioning for a drink himself.

That was mistake number one.

Hal noticed immediately. “Oho,” Hal drawled, leaning closer. “Allen’s drinking with me tonight?”

“One drink.” Barry said firmly, yet deep down he knew he was lying. But for now, he was telling the truth.

“Sure.”

The bartender placed Barry’s drink down. Hal watched him take the first sip with narrowed, amused eyes.

“You know,” Hal started lazily, “you’re kinda hard to get rid of.”

“Someone has to keep you from making terrible decisions.”

Hal tilted his head slightly, studying him in a way that suddenly felt too focused for someone this drunk. “What if I like terrible decisions?”

Barry looked away first. “Then you’re an idiot.”

Mistake number two.

Because Hal got quieter after that. He inched closer to where Barry could feel his hair stand up on his forearm.

His shoulder pressed against Barry’s side while he talked. His knee bumped Barry’s beneath the counter and stayed there. Every touch lingered slightly too long, casual enough to deny but impossible not to notice.

Barry noticed all of them.

Every single one.

Hal reached over suddenly to tug lightly at Barry’s sleeve. “You disappeared after patrol yesterday," Hal pouted. Pouted.

“I had work.”

“You always have work.”

Barry swallowed hard against the strange weight in his throat. “Some of us need actual jobs, Hal. I think you of all people would know this.”

Hal hummed absently like he barely heard him. His hand stayed wrapped loosely around Barry’s wrist. After a few seconds of silence, he finally processed what Barry had said, "Hey…what's that supposed to mean, huh?”

Barry looked down at Hal’s hand, then back at Hal again.

Hal was already watching him.

It wasn't like the usual smirk he gave during mission briefings or the cocky smile he flashed; it was intentional. Barry felt his face burn red.

There was something open in his expression tonight. Something unguarded and strangely exhausted beneath the alcohol haze.

His brown eyes were smooth and deeply captivating, dangerous for anyone staring at them for too long. Unfortunately for Barry, he’d been staring into his eyes for who knows how long. He was sucked in and couldn’t get out.

Barry gulped down another drink quickly, making it a point to try not to look in the direction of the man beside him.

Mistake number three.

The alcohol wasn’t enough to make him reckless, but it softened things around the edges. He lowered the walls he spent years building carefully around every thought involving Hal Jordan.

And Hal kept leaning closer.

“Let me guess, Carol?” Barry asked quietly.

Hal laughed once, humorlessly. “Something like that.” His gaze finally averted, and Barry felt a weight lift off his chest. Hal swirled the alcohol around in his glass.

For a second he looked genuinely miserable. Not in the expected dramatic, self-pitying way Hal usually did, just tired in a way Barry rarely got to see.

Then Hal’s expression shifted into a softer one. He looked down somberly at his free hand that was holding the glass. From this perspective, Barry could see Hal's long lashes, the shadows fanning across sharp cheekbones. This was unfair.

His thumb brushed absently across Barry’s wrist.

“You always show up for me.”

Barry’s chest tightened painfully, or more like his chest was screaming at Barry to open up. But he couldn’t now, not when he was grieving. “Hal—”

"No, seriously,” Hal interrupted quietly. “I call, you’re there. Every time. Hey, this time I didn’t even call, and you came.”

“That’s what friends do.” The second the words left Barry’s mouth, he regretted them. "Friends" was a term, a term that described them, yes, but it was a term that never sat right with him. 

Because something flickered across Hal’s face. “Then…you must be the best friend ever, Barry.” Hal leaned in closer until Barry could feel the warmth radiating from him.

Barry’s pulse stumbled. "Yeah. Best friends.”

Every instinct in his body screamed that at him. Hal was drunk and hurting, and Barry was far too emotionally involved to be sitting here pretending this was normal.

He needed to leave. He spent so long avoiding what he felt for Hal. Now, things were rough with Carol, and Hal was touching and looking at him like Barry meant something more than just being friends. 

Barry tried, really, to keep himself suppressed; he wanted to say he was helping Hal out of compassion, but deep down he knew it was because being needed by Hal felt good, good in a way he could get addicted. His heart fluttered with hope, and instead of leaving, he ordered another drink.

Hal grinned immediately like he’d won something. “There he is.”

“You are not a good influence.”

“Says the guy voluntarily sitting beside me.”

Hal laughed again after that, brighter now, looser. His hand slid from Barry’s wrist to his shoulder while he talked, grounding himself there casually like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Barry stopped hearing half the conversation. Hal's drunk rambling dissolved into the bar's background noise.

All he could focus on was:
Hal leaning against him.
Hal smiling at him.
Hal touching him like he needed the contact.

Months of restraint began cracking quietly beneath Barry’s ribs. He tried to not think about the way Hal instinctively sought him out whenever things fell apart. Tried not to think about how close they were sitting. Tried not to think about the warmth of Hal’s hand burning straight through his shirt. Tried to say it was the alcohol lowering his inhibitions.

If Hal were using him for comfort, Barry wouldn’t complain. He never did.

Then Hal turned toward him fully.

Too close. Everything in Barry’s brain signaled to get out, but his heart lurched to get closer and closer to Hal. Close enough till their heartbeats were indiscernible from the other, close enough to where he didn’t know where Hal’s breath ended and his began.

“Hey,” Hal muttered.

Barry looked at him carefully. “What?”

Hal stared at him for a long moment like he was trying to focus through the alcohol.

Softly, almost to a volume that was inaudible, “Don’t leave yet.”

Something inside Barry caved all at once. Because Hal sounded sincere. Not flirty or playful like he usually was, just honest.

Instead of pulling away, he stayed exactly where he was while Hal’s fingers tightened slightly against his shoulder. "I won't.

The bar had started to empty around them.

At some point the music changed into something softer, lower, the heavy bass from earlier fading into old rock songs muffled by bad speakers and too much noise. Neon light spilled red across the counter, catching against the curve of Hal’s grin as he leaned heavily into Barry’s space like gravity itself had shifted.

The thought to leave repeated itself over and over in the back of his mind, weaker every time.

Hal’s hand still rested on his shoulder.

“You’re staring,” Hal murmured lazily. He looked beautiful, beautiful in a way that Barry couldn’t articulate. The red light cut soft angles across Hal’s face, his eyes stained ruby, making them look dangerously sultry.

Barry blinked. “You’re drunk.”

“Not blind.” Hal’s thumb dragged absentmindedly against the fabric of Barry’s shirt, slow enough to make Barry’s pulse trip unevenly beneath his ribs. There was nothing overtly seductive about it. That was the problem. Hal touched people easily sometimes. 

Except this didn’t feel careless. Not with the way Hal was looking at him or how close he’d gotten.

Barry swallowed hard and looked away toward his drink instead. Melted ice floated near the surface of the amber liquid, half dissolved. He’d stopped paying attention to how much he drank somewhere around the moment Hal leaned against him and never moved away.

“You gonna keep avoiding eye contact with me all night?” Hal asked quietly.

“I’m trying to make good decisions.”

Hal laughed softly at that. Tired around the edges. “I’m not a good decision?”

Barry finally looked back at him. Hal would’ve been the best decision Barry had ever made in his life.

Hal was looking at him with the soft expression from earlier, this time with a more provocative undertone.

For a second, Barry could almost pretend this meant something different.

Hal shifted closer again. His knee pressed firmly between Barry’s beneath the counter.

Barry inhaled sharply before he could stop himself.

Hal noticed immediately. A slow smile spread across his face, smaller this time. Less teasing. More curious.

Barry’s chest tightened painfully. “Hal,” he started carefully, “you’re drunk.” He repeated.

“Yeah. You are too.”

“You had a bad night.”

“Definitely.”

Barry exhaled slowly through his nose, forcing himself to stay steady despite the warmth curling low in his stomach from both the alcohol and proximity. “This isn’t a good idea.”

Hal tilted his head slightly. “Which part?”

The question settled heavily between them.

Barry didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

Hal was already moving again, leaning close enough for Barry to feel warm breath against the corner of his mouth. The smell of whiskey clung faintly to him beneath something sharper and cleaner that was just distinctly Hal.

Barry’s entire body went rigid. He blinked dumbly, staring right into the eyes he was supposed to be avoiding this entire night.

Hal watched him carefully through half-lidded eyes.

Then, in a quieter voice, “You ever get tired of pretending?”

Barry’s heart stuttered.

For one horrible second he thought Hal knew. Every buried feeling. Every lingering glance Barry trained himself not to hold too long. Every moment spent wanting things he had absolutely no right to want.

But Hal just looked tired. His eyes didn’t have the usual sparkle they did, and his eye bags were darker.

Barry’s voice came out rougher than intended. “Pretending what?”

Hal looked down briefly at Barry’s mouth before meeting his eyes again.

“That you don’t want things.”

Barry stared at him in silence. He knew Hal was talking about Carol. Hal probably wanted to be close with Carol in the way that Barry wanted to be close with Hal. Maybe he could accept this for one night; Hal needed the help, didn't he?

Meanwhile, Hal looked almost restless beneath his own skin now, fingers tightening slightly against Barry’s shoulder. There was hunger in it. Impulse. The kind born from wanting distraction badly enough to chase it without thinking too hard about consequences.

Barry recognized it immediately.

He was fully aware of the consequences, but God, he wanted to be selfish. For one damn time in his life, maybe he could get what he wanted. Rather, it was more like what he wanted was a fingertip away, and he'd be stupid not to take the chance.

Barry knew Hal was hurting. Knew this was tangled up in Carol and alcohol and emotional wreckage; neither of them was sober enough to navigate properly. So, maybe Barry was the bad guy, taking advantage of a clearly drunk and hurting man, but he was too, wasn't he? Didn't he deserve something too?

As Barry was stuck introspecting about the morality of this entire situation, Hal slid his hand onto Barry's neck.

Hal’s hand was warm against Barry’s neck, and suddenly Barry couldn't think of anything besides that warm, steady hand. All of his previous rationality was thrown out the window by one hand.

His thumb rested beneath Barry’s jaw while the noise of the bar blurred into something distant and shapeless around them. Barry could still hear glasses clinking somewhere behind him and could still hear laughter spilling from the pool tables, but it all sounded underwater now. Muted beneath the violent pulse hammering through his chest.

Hal looked at him lazily through heavy eyes, alcohol softening the sharpness of his expression. His curls had fallen further into his face at some point during the night. Barry had the sudden, unbearable urge to brush them back.

Instead, he stayed perfectly still.

“Barry,” Hal murmured quietly, testing the name against his tongue like it meant something softer tonight.

Barry’s breath caught hard in his throat.

Hal touched people all the time. Clapped shoulders, leaned too close, and crowded into personal space, like the concept barely applied to him. Barry had spent ages learning how to survive that without reading into it.

But this felt different. Or maybe Barry just wanted it to feel different badly enough that he stopped being able to tell.

Hal’s fingers tightened slightly beneath his jaw. “You keep thinking too hard.”

Barry let out a strained laugh. “One of us has to.”

“Why?”

Barry stared at him.

Because if Barry stopped thinking, this would happen. If Barry stopped thinking, he’d finally lean into every reckless impulse that was trapped under patience and friendship. He’d stop pretending Hal’s smile didn’t wreck him. Stop pretending every late-night phone call didn’t feel dangerously intimate. Stop pretending he hadn’t built entire emotional walls around feelings that only grew sharper every time Hal looked at him like this.

And Hal was looking at him like this now.

Close enough that Barry could see every detail. The faint flush spread across his cheeks from the alcohol. The slight smudge near the corner of his mouth where whiskey had lingered. The exhaustion sitting beneath the surface of his expression, heavy and aching and hidden beneath that easy grin Hal wore like armor. Barry wondered suddenly how many people ever got to see him like this.

Hal’s gaze dropped again, slow and deliberate this time. His eyes landed on Barry’s mouth.

Heat curled violently low in Barry’s stomach.

“Hal,” Barry tried again, quieter now.

Hal hummed softly. “Yes?”

”Please…this isn’t a good idea.” His heart screamed it was the best idea.

Hal smiled faintly after that, something pleased and unfocused flickering briefly across his face. The alcohol had sanded down all his sharper edges tonight. Barry could see it in the way he leaned closer without hesitation, in the way his fingers slid upward slightly into Barry’s hair at the base of his neck.

There was desire in it, yes. Yet it was shallow, immediate.

Hal wanted warmth tonight. Distraction. Something solid enough to drown out Carol’s voice was still echoing through his skull. Barry was here, beautiful and devoted and looking at him with that same impossible softness Hal had never fully understood. It wasn't like Carol. Hal loved her, he really did, but she hardly looked at him with the amount of warmth Barry looked at him on a daily basis.

Barry looked at him like he hung the stars. Hal noticed that even when drunk. Especially drunk. Because when he was sober he only looked at Carol.

“You know,” Hal murmured, lips barely inches away now, “you’re really pretty when you’re worried about me. Or like...a lot of the time.”

Barry shut his eyes briefly.

That was unfair.

The worst part was Hal probably didn’t even realize how unfair it was. He sounded almost absentminded when he said things like that, like affection spilled out of him naturally once enough alcohol dissolved the barriers in his brain. Meanwhile, Barry felt every word like a wound.

“You don’t mean half the things you say when you’re drunk,” Barry whispered, trying to convince himself more than he was trying to say the truth.

Hal’s expression shifted slightly at that. Then his hand slid fully into Barry’s hair.

“Maybe I mean more than you think.”

Barry wished he did.

His hand found Hal’s wrist instinctively, fingers curling there like grounding himself against something unstable. Hal’s skin burned warm beneath his touch. Barry could feel his pulse beating steadily beneath it.

Hal leaned forward again until their foreheads nearly brushed.

Barry could smell whiskey on his breath. Could feel the warmth radiating off him. Could feel himself losing every coherent thought he had left.

And still, some pathetic part of him searched for sincerity inside all of this. Dug desperately beneath the alcohol and flirtation and loneliness for something real.

Because Barry loved him. So even now, Barry wanted this to matter. Even if he was most likely being used as a tool to forget the night.

Hal’s thumb brushed slowly along the edge of Barry’s jaw before slowly brushing lower. Though Hal was drunk, the touch was feather-light, like he was afraid of hurting Barry. 

Barry inhaled sharply.

“There you go again,” Hal murmured softly.

“What?”

“That look.”

Barry’s voice barely worked anymore. “What look?”

“Like you want me to ruin your life a little.”

The words should’ve sounded cocky. Teasing. Typical Hal.

Instead, they came out rough around the edges.

Honest enough to hurt.

Barry stared at him helplessly for one, long second. He knew it was true. Even if Hal was joking, if it meant having Hal's attention on him, yeah, he was willing for him to ruin his life. Barry hated having these feelings. What would Carol feel? How would Hal feel after sleeping it off for one night? He hated the lengths he'd go for his best friend.

Then, Hal grabbed Barry's collar and smashed his lips into a kiss.

Hal kissed like he did everything else. All impulse and momentum and heat. His hand tightened in Barry’s hair immediately, pulling him closer while whiskey-slick breath mixed between them. The taste of alcohol lingered sharply against Barry’s mouth beneath something distinctly Hal, warm and dizzying enough to make Barry’s head spin harder than the drinks had.

Barry made a soft sound against his mouth before he could stop himself.

Hal reacted instantly to it. His other hand slid down Barry’s chest slowly, fingers curling against the fabric of his shirt like he wanted something tactile to hold onto. Something real.

His hand moved to Hal’s waist almost desperately, pulling him closer until their bodies pressed together against the edge of the bar stool. This was what Barry wanted. The desperate, suffocating need to be close to Hal. Close to where he'd be consumed by him.

Hal kissed him harder the second Barry responded. Hal kissed like he was trying not to think anymore. Barry kissed him like he’d been starving for years.

Hal’s mouth moved against his with lazy confidence, entirely wrapped up in sensation and warmth and the intoxicating relief of not feeling empty for five fucking minutes.

Barry, meanwhile, felt every tiny detail with devastating clarity. Hal’s fingers in his hair. The roughness of his breathing. The way he leaned into Barry’s touch instinctively, like he trusted him completely even now. He deepened the kiss without thinking. His tongue slipped into Hal's mouth with little resistance.

Hal made a low sound against his mouth, amused, surprised even, and kissed back with equal fervor.

Hal pulled back barely an inch, breathing unevenly now, pupils blown wide beneath the dim red neon lights.

For a second they just stared at each other.

Hal looked wrecked in the most beautiful way Barry had ever seen. Then Hal grinned slowly, flushed and loose and devastatingly handsome. "Didn't know you were such a good kisser, Allen. Iris used to teach you that?" He teased, his voice breathless and a slightly higher pitch than it was usually. “We should get outta here,” he murmured.

Barry’s brain struggled desperately to catch up. “Hal…”

“My place,” Hal continued quietly, thumb brushing once across Barry’s cheekbone. “Unless you wanna keep making out in front of the bartender.”

Barry glanced briefly toward the counter.

The bartender looked profoundly uninterested.

When Barry looked back, Hal was already watching him carefully again.

None of what his brain was telling him was stopping him.

Because Hal’s hand was still tangled in his hair. Because his mouth still tasted like whiskey. Because Barry had spent months wanting this badly enough to hollow himself out with it. And because when Hal looked at him tonight, Barry could almost pretend he was being chosen.

Almost was enough.

Barry knew it was almost. He had enough functioning brain cells left to hold onto that distinction, to keep it visible even as everything else dissolved. Almost. Not chosen. Almost. But Hal’s thumb was still brushing across his cheekbone, and his mouth still carried the ghost of whiskey, and Barry’s pulse was running so hard he could feel it in his teeth, and almost, tonight, was more than he’d ever had before.

He slid off the barstool, his knees wobbling slightly.

Hal’s expression shifted into something warm and satisfied and a little stunned, like he hadn’t entirely believed Barry would actually move, like some part of him had been braced for refusal. It softened something in his face that Hal would never let anyone catch him wearing sober.

Barry saw it anyway.

He filed it away the way he filed everything involving Hal Jordan, carefully, in the dark, behind a door he tried not to open too often.

Hal paid for the drinks without making anything of it, dropped a twenty on the counter, and his hand found Barry’s elbow on the way out the door.

The night air hit them both at once.

Hal tilted his head back briefly, eyes closing against the cold, and Barry watched him breathe, watched the alcohol-loose line of his throat, and watched the way his exhale clouded white against the dark.

“My place is closer,” Hal observed to the sky. Not a question. He’d clearly already done the math.

“Yeah,” Barry answered.

Hal looked back down at him with that grin still in place, the real one, not the performed version. “Then let’s not waste time, Bar.”

Barry turned and started walking.

Hal fell into step beside him without being asked, close enough that their arms brushed every few steps. Close enough that Barry could feel the warmth coming off him in the cold air.

Hal talked about nothing on the way, some half-remembered thing about a mission in Sector 2814 that had gone sideways in a specifically embarrassing way, and his voice was loose and unhurried, and Barry caught maybe sixty percent of it because the other forty percent of his attention was entirely consumed by the fact that Hal’s knuckles kept brushing his hand and neither of them was pretending it was accidental anymore.

Once they had made it to the building, they walked towards the elevator.

Hal leaned against the elevator wall and looked at him across the small space, head slightly tilted, eyes dark and unhurried, and the grin had gone quieter now, something more focused underneath it.

Barry looked at the elevator doors.

Hal pushed off the wall and crossed the three feet between them before the doors had finished closing. His hands found Barry’s jaw first. Both of them. Steady, for someone who’d had that much to drink, deliberate in a way that went right through Barry’s chest. He tipped his face up just slightly and kissed him, and this one was nothing like the bar. No impulse and momentum. No grab.

Barry’s hands found his waist and held on.

Hal kissed him like he had somewhere to be and had decided this was it. His thumbs traced along Barry’s jaw. His mouth moved with the confident ease of a man who had never in his life doubted whether he was wanted.

Barry kissed him back with months of carefully maintained restraint dissolving all at once, and if that restraint had left a watermark on every kiss, Hal would have felt it. The slight shake in Barry’s hands where they gripped his waist. The sound he made low in his throat that he absolutely could not prevent and stopped trying to.

Hal pulled back just far enough to look at him.

His eyes were very dark. His breathing had changed. His thumbs were still against Barry’s jaw.

“You keep thinking," Hal murmured. "How about we forget about tonight and think of each other?"

Hal's apartment was just about what Barry would’ve expected out of Hal.

Messy. Things sprawled everywhere. A leather couch and a coffee table with a scratch across one corner and a bookshelf that held mostly flight manuals and two novels someone had clearly given him and he'd never opened. Coast City spread out through the floor-to-ceiling window like a reward, golden and restless.

Barry stood in the middle of it and felt Hal's hand at the small of his back, light and deliberate.

Even now, even drunk and loose-limbed and still smelling like the bar, Hal Jordan moved like he owned whatever space he occupied. 

He turned Barry around by the shoulder, and Barry let him without protest.

The city light came in through the window and cut long across the floor, and Hal stood in it with his jacket half off and his hair still a disaster from the bar and his eyes dark and warm in that specific way they got when he'd stopped performing completely.

Barry's chest ached.

He was so tired of his chest aching.

Hal looked at him for a long moment, head tilted slightly. His hand was still on Barry’s shoulder, rubbing gentle circles like he knew Barry’s inner turmoil.

Then his expression shifted into something that wasn't the grin. It was softer than the grin, more honest.

"I never noticed how blue your eyes are," Hal said quietly.

"Haha…that’s my eye color alright.” Barry chuckled nervously. Hal was staring straight into his eyes, and his chest squeezed.

"They’re so pretty." Hal murmured reverently, putting up a hand to cup his cheek.

Barry went still.

Hal stepped closer; his other hand came up to Barry's jaw, warm and unhurried, tilting his face up, and he kissed him. Slowly, deeply.

This kiss was different from the bar. The bar had been impulse. Both of Hal’s hands were framing Barry's face like he was something worth holding, and Barry's brain went offline so completely and so immediately that it took him a full two seconds to kiss back.

When he did, Hal made a soft sound of approval low in his throat.

Barry's hands found his shirt, and he wasn't patient about it.

He had been patient about everything involving Hal Jordan, and he was done, and Hal laughed against his mouth at the sudden shift, surprised and then immediately not surprised, the laugh dissolving into a sharper exhale as Barry walked him backward toward the couch, and Hal went easily, still grinning against his lips.

"You’re assertive," Hal breathed.

Barry pressed him down into the leather.

The city light spilled across them both.

Hal looked up at him with dilated pupils and that expression, the open one, the one Barry had been noting. He kissed Hal's jaw. His throat. The hinge of his jaw, where the tension always lived and which was, right now, entirely absent.

Hal's head dropped back onto the couch cushion. His hands slid into Barry's hair, gripping slightly, which released a groan from Barry.

"You've been thinking about this," Hal said to the ceiling, rough at the edges, less certain than his usual register.

Barry pressed his mouth to the side of his neck and felt his pulse jump beneath his lips. "Longer than I'm going to tell you." He wouldn’t remember this anyway.

Hal laughed. A surprised one.

Barry pulled back to look at him, and Hal looked back with that open, undefended face, flushed from the alcohol and something else now, something warmer. Before leaning in again.

Hal Jordan had a talent for living inside moments.

It was both his greatest asset and his most reliable flaw. He didn't plan. Carol had called it avoidance. His therapist, briefly, years ago, had called it dissociation. Hal called it living and declined to examine it further.

Right now, the moment was Barry Allen.

Barry was exactly what Hal needed in the moment.

Not the drinking. Not the bar, not the way the whiskey had softened everything down to something bearable. Not even the wanting, which had been simple and immediate and easy to follow.

This.

Barry's hands were careful in a way that Hal hadn't anticipated, which was strange, because Barry was careful about everything, meticulous to a fault. Hal had known that about him for years. He just hadn't understood, until right now, what that carefulness felt like when it was pointed at him specifically.

It felt like being held without being gripped.

Barry's palm pressed warm and steady between his shoulder blades, not demanding anything, not directing him anywhere, just there. 

Hal had been touched a lot of ways in his life. He hadn't been touched like he was worth understanding. His jaw went loose with the touch, not from the alcohol, or not only from that. 

Hal didn't do soft landings. He did speed and altitude and the clean, sharp relief of impact absorbed through velocity. He was not a man who settled. He arrived, and then he left, and leaving was always as fast as possible. It was the easy part.

It was different from anything Hal had let himself have before, and the difference sat in his chest with a warmth that he couldn't attribute entirely to the bourbon, and he chose, very deliberately, not to examine it right now. He pushed it off, somewhere deep enough to where he wouldn't have to think about it until morning.

He didn't pull away. That was the part he couldn't quite account for. He didn't pull away, and more than that, he didn't want to, and that was new information, sitting quiet and specific at the base of his skull.

Hal exhaled hard, holding Barry closer to him. Barry's mouth moved against his collarbone, and Hal's fingers tightened in his hair.

"Hey," Hal managed, his hands still remaining firm on Barry's cheeks.

Barry lifted his head. His eyes were dark, and his breathing was uneven, and he looked at Hal with the same look Hal had been noticing all evening, the one he'd been half-reading all night, the one that was apparently this. Apparently all of this. "What?"

"Let me look at you." Hal looked at him for a second.

Barry held his gaze. Then he did something that split Hal's chest open quietly and without warning: he smiled.

"You’re looking at me," Barry answered.

The jacket ended up on the floor somewhere between the couch and the hallway.

Barry's shirt followed.

Hal watched Barry's hands work. The deliberateness of it hit different than the alcohol and the heat and the skin contact that was progressively making coherent thought difficult. Barry did things like he meant them. He didn't drift through moments the way Hal drifted. 

Hal pulled him back up by the back of his neck and kissed him messily and impatiently, and Barry made a sound against his mouth that Hal felt in his spine.

Hal wasn't entirely sure of what happened in the middle of trying to rush to the bedroom. Hushed whispers, a kiss against his collarbone. Barry had set him onto the mattress with care, which was different from what he was previously acting like. For a moment, everything stood still. Barry looked at Hal, and Hal looked at Barry.

Through Barry's eyes, he had never been more captivated by a sight. Hal, propped up on his elbows, was staring directly at him with tousled hair and perfectly pink, parted lips.

Hal looked up at him.

Barry looked back.

His hair was a disaster. He had a mark on his jaw from the barstool. He was looking at Hal with the enormous, devastating fullness of everything he'd apparently been carrying around, and Hal felt it land on him. It was a strange feeling coming from Barry, or he just didn't know how to describe it. It wasn't anything he had encountered before.

"You okay?" Barry asked. Quiet.

"Yeah," Hal answered and meant it more than he usually meant things.

Barry nodded once. Then his hands came to Hal's shoulders and pressed him back slowly, and Hal went, and the city went on outside the window, and all the noise of the night got smaller and smaller.

Hal bit his lip, his jeans suddenly feeling increasingly tighter. "Barry, touch me, please." He groaned as he looked up at Barry with pleading eyes.

When Hal looked at him like that and pleaded with him in that tone, of course he couldn't resist. With shaky hands, from nervousness or excitement, he couldn't tell and fumbled with Hal's jeans. Once he unbuttoned them, Hal lifted his hips up so that Barry could pull them off.

"Fuck..." Hal whispered. "Barry, you're like, really sexy sometimes. I don't know how I haven't noticed."

"I haven't even done anything yet—"

"Just touch me, please. I'm so hard that it hurts." Hal wrapped his arms around Barry's neck.

Barry gave a shaky nod, hooking one finger through the waistband of Hal's boxers before pulling it down.

Hal’s back arched up from the sheets, his breath catching sharply enough to scrape his throat. The cold of the air hit his bare skin, making everything stand out brighter and more painful and more desperate. He wanted to say something clever. He wanted to make a joke about how maybe he should’ve seen this coming, but his brain wasn’t stringing anything together besides Barry, Barry, Barry.

The first touch was tentative. Barry’s hand wrapped around him, careful at first, like there was some kind of hidden off-switch. Hal squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the urge to just give in immediately, to melt into the mattress in a way he’d never let himself do in front of anyone else.

Barry’s hand was warm, patient, and attentive. Barry was a bit awkward at first, hands fumbling as if they didn't know where to hold, but once Barry got used to it, Hal's breathing got shallow quickly.

He was so goddamn responsive. Each gentle twist or squeeze made Hal buck his hips up, the curve of his mouth gone slack with need. If Hal were embarrassed about how quick he was getting desperate, he didn’t show it. He just looked at Barry through half-lidded eyes and bared his teeth in a grin that was almost a challenge.

Hal’s hands went from Barry’s shoulders to his hair and back again, like he couldn’t decide if he needed to be grounded or wanted to just float away. 

“C’mon, Allen,” Hal groaned, “don’t be gentle. I don’t need gentle.”

But Barry needed it. He needed to touch Hal like this wasn’t just another accident. He wanted to be slow despite being the fastest man alive if it meant being able to hold Hal for longer.

Barry rubbed the tip of Hal's cock in slow, deliberate circles, thumb dragging through the slick bead of precum there and spreading it down the length in one smooth stroke. Hal's hips jerked upward again, a low, broken sound tearing from his throat as his fingers tightened in Barry's hair hard enough to sting.

The city lights outside painted gold across Hal's stomach, highlighting every twitch of muscle, the way his cock throbbed hot and heavy in Barry's grip. Barry kept the pace measured anyway, savoring the weight of it, the heat, the way Hal's breath hitched and stuttered like he couldn't quite catch it. He wanted to remember every detail. The flush crawling down Hal's chest, the way his eyes fluttered half-shut but never quite closed, still locked on Barry like he was the only thing anchoring him here.

“Fuck, Barry,” Hal gasped, voice rough and strained. His thighs tensed on either side of Barry's hips, trying to urge him faster, but Barry held steady, twisting his wrist on the upstroke and pressing his thumb just beneath the head on the way down. Hal's head tipped back against the pillows, exposing the long line of his throat, and Barry leaned in to mouth at the pulse point there, tasting salt and whiskey and the faint trace of green energy that always clung to Hal's skin.

Every sound Hal made went straight through him, coiling low and tight in his gut until his own cock ached against the confines of his jeans. Still he didn't rush. He stroked Hal with focused patience, mapping every reaction—the way Hal's cock twitched when Barry tightened his grip, the sharp inhale when he ran a nail lightly along the underside, the way Hal's free hand scrabbled at the sheets like he was trying not to fly apart.

Hal's breathing turned ragged, short gasps punched out between curses and Barry's name. His hips rolled up to meet every stroke now, chasing friction with that same instinctive drive he brought to everything else. Barry felt it building in the tremor running through Hal's body, the way his thighs started to shake, the desperate press of his hand at the back of Barry's neck pulling him closer.

“Close,” Hal warned, voice cracking on the word, and Barry didn't stop. He kept the rhythm even, steady, thumb sweeping over the head again and again until Hal's back arched hard off the bed.

Barry, out of excitement, or just the heat of the moment, his hand started vibrating. Hal let out a sharp gasp, his fingers digging into Barry’s shoulders, leaving red crescent-shaped marks along hardened muscle.

”Fuck- Barry- you didn’t tell me you could do that!” Hal whined out.

Hal's whole body seized, his eyes flying wide, back arched like a live wire had shot through him. The vibration pulsed in perfect rhythm with Barry’s touch, amplified by the friction and warmth of his palm.

"Shit—shit—!" Hal choked out, voice cracking into something high and desperate. His hips bucked up uncontrollably now, chasing his relief. “Barry- fuck babe…keep doing that…” Hal’s hand went to cup Barry’s jaw, “This is so hot…fuck…so this is why you don’t have a vibrator in your drawer?”

Barry hadn’t even realized it was happening until he felt Hal tremble beneath him like an overloaded engine about to blow. The vibrations weren’t overly intense, they were a constant buzz from Barry’s hand where they touched skin, but Hal could feel everything amplified.

”When did you look through my drawer? And why would I have that?” Barry huffed out a small laugh. His heart clenched at the word babe. It was probably heat of the moment, his brain mush, but it made Barry feel special. 

”You don’t?” Hal tried to smirk, but it dissolved into high-pitched whines.

Hal panted below him now completely undone, but trying to gain semblance of himself: lips parted in silent gasps between whimpers of "Barry," fingers clawing at his hair and shoulders as if grounding himself. Every nerve seemed lit on fire; every brush of skin sent sparks skittering under flesh thanks to that unrelenting hum vibrating through each stroke downward.

And then, without warning, the tension snapped clean down the middle.

The orgasm hit with a choked groan, Hal spilling hot over Barry's fingers in thick pulses that left him trembling and spent, chest heaving. Barry worked him through it gently, easing the pressure as Hal's cock softened in his hand, until the only sounds left were their mingled breathing and the distant hum of the city beyond the window. Hal's eyes cracked open, hazy and dark, and he reached for Barry with unsteady fingers, tugging him down into a messy, grateful kiss that tasted like everything Barry had ever wanted and never let himself take.

Barry kept the kiss slow, savoring the way Hal melted into it with a soft, spent sigh, his body still trembling faintly from the aftershocks. Hal’s hands wandered aimlessly over Barry’s shoulders, pulling him closer without urgency now, and Barry shifted his weight carefully between Hal’s spread thighs, never breaking contact. His fingers traced down Hal’s side, over the warm plane of his hip, dipping lower with deliberate patience until they brushed between the cleft of Hal’s ass.

“Do you have lube?” Barry murmured into Hal’s ear.

”You don’t have any? I think…check my jacket pocket.” Hal weakly pointed his hand in the direction of his jacket, which was haphazardly thrown somewhere in the room.

Reluctantly, Barry separated himself from Hal, suddenly feeling a bit colder, and bent down to dig around in Hal’s jacket. He pulled out random things, a quarter, folded up receipts, then finally a travel sized lube.

”Why do you even have this?” Barry stood up, looking at Hal, who was now propped up on his elbows and looking at him. 

“Y’know, just in case I get a bar fuck. Which I did.” Hal snorted and flopped back down onto the bed, his brown hair splaying against the pillows.

Barry crawled onto the bed and assumed his previous position of being between Hal’s legs. Hal opened his legs wider, inviting Barry.

Barry’s breath hitched; he had seen Hal all throughout tonight and had admired him thoughtfully, but he still couldn’t help but just sit and fully look at Hal. Everything he had wanted up to his moment eager and waiting. Were they drunk? Yes. Would Hal remember this in the morning? Probably not. Would Barry be angry? No.

Barry squeezed a generous amount of lube onto his fingers, the gel was cool on his fingers. He didn’t realize how far he had gotten until he looked back down at Hal. “Are you ready?” he asked, his voice had a slight tremble to it.

”Of course I am.” Hal responded effortlessly, opening his legs wider, “Show me what you got.”

Hal twitched at the first light press against his entrance, but he didn’t pull away, only arched slightly, inviting more.

Barry circled the rim with the pad of his finger, slick from the mess already on his hand, pressing just enough to feel the tight give of muscle without pushing in yet. “You good?” he murmured against Hal’s lips, voice low and steady, checking even as his own cock throbbed insistently against his jeans.

Hal nodded, eyes half-lidded and hazy, a lazy grin tugging at his mouth as he whispered, “Yeah, Allen… keep going.” Barry eased one finger inside slowly, knuckle by knuckle, feeling the heat clench around him, the way Hal’s breath caught and his hips rolled down to take it deeper. He moved gently, crooking just right to find that spot that made Hal’s thighs tense and a broken moan spill out, adding a second finger only when Hal pushed back against him, stretching him open with the same focused care Barry brought to everything that mattered.

The city lights painted soft gold over them as Barry worked him open, scissoring carefully, thumb brushing soothing circles over Hal’s hip while his mouth found the pulse at Hal’s throat.

Hal’s hands tangled in his hair again, not pulling, just holding, grounding himself in the steady rhythm that built heat low in his gut once more. Barry stayed close, breathing in the mix of sweat and whiskey and that sharp scent that was always Hal, feeling every flutter and gasp.

Barry took his time, wanting to savor this moment. The way Hal responded to him made something deep in Barry’s chest tighten: the quiet whimpers, the involuntary clench around his fingers when he brushed that sweet spot just right.

He added a third finger with slow pressure, curling them slightly as Hal exhaled sharply through his nose. A bead of sweat trailed down Hal’s temple, nervous? Excited? Drunk on sensation? Barry couldn’t tell, but it didn’t matter.

What mattered was how open Hal looked beneath him. Legs wide and loose on either side of Barry's hips; lips parted around soft sounds no one else ever got to hear; eyes dark and glassy with trust so pure it stole Barry's breath.

“You feel good?” he murmured again.

Hal nodded fast, a little too fast, and bit down hard on his lower lip before forcing words out: “Yeah…yeah…don’t stop.”

So Barry didn't. He scissored gently again for another moment or two before finally withdrawing all fingers carefully, wiping them absently against a pillowcase while reaching for the waistband of his jeans next.

Barry unbuckled his jeans with quiet urgency, the metallic click of the belt echoing softly in the room. The denim slid down his hips easily, he hadn’t dressed up tonight, just loose denim jeans and a hoodie for the cold.

He kicked them off completely, toes curling against cool hardwood as he peeled off his socks too. His cock strained visibly against his boxer briefs, hard and heavy from everything that had happened so far: watching Hal come apart under him, tasting Hal’s skin like it was something sacred.

For a second Barry just kneeled there between Hal’s legs, the city lights casting long shadows across their bodies.

Hal watched him back without saying anything. Just looked at Barry, the curve of muscle beneath fabric now being revealed piece by piece, and bit down on that same lip again like he was trying not to say something stupidly sentimental out loud while drunk and post-orgasmic haze still clinging tight around them both

Then slowly, Barry hooked two fingers into the waistband of his boxers and pushed them down.

Barry's cock sprang free, thick and flushed dark with need, the head already slick with precum that caught the city lights in a faint gleam.

Hal's gaze dropped immediately, his breath hitching audibly as he took in the sight of Barry fully exposed between his spread thighs. "God, look at you," Hal muttered, voice hoarse and appreciative, reaching out with one unsteady hand to wrap around the base. His fingers barely met, and Barry groaned at the contact, hips twitching forward instinctively.

Hal stroked him once, slow and exploratory, thumb swiping over the head to spread the wetness, and Barry had to brace a hand on the mattress beside Hal's head to keep from collapsing forward.

"Hal- fuck, if you keep doing that-" Barry warned, but Hal just grinned lazily, drunk and open and beautiful, guiding Barry's cock lower until the blunt head nudged against his slick, loosened hole. "Then do something about it, Allen."

Barry didn't need more encouragement; he quickly grabbed the lube and generously lathered it onto his dick. He pressed in steadily, one smooth thrust that buried him halfway before pausing to let Hal adjust, the tight clench of muscle around him stealing his breath.

Hal's back arched, a broken moan spilling from his lips as he wrapped his legs around Barry's waist, heels digging into the small of his back to pull him deeper. "All the way," Hal gasped, "don't—don't hold back now."

Hal didn’t like to do things halfway. He liked to do things rough until it exhausted him, which Barry learned quickly.

Barry sank in to the hilt with a shuddering exhale, forehead dropping to rest against Hal's as their bodies locked together. The heat was overwhelming, the way Hal's body yielded and gripped him perfectly. Barry started moving in long, deliberate strokes, grinding deep on every thrust until Hal was panting beneath him, fingers clawing at Barry's shoulders and back.

"Barry- yes, just like that—harder," Hal urged, his voice breaking on a whine when Barry angled to hit that spot inside him again and again.

Their mouths found each other messily, tongues sliding and teeth catching, the kiss tasting like whiskey and salt and everything Barry had denied himself for ages. Pleasure built fast and sharp in Barry's gut.

Barry gave it, fucking into him with steady, powerful rolls of his hips, one hand braced on Hal's thigh to hold him open while the other stroked over his cock again, already half-hard again and leaking between them.

Barry’s rhythm grew relentless, hips snapping forward in a blur that only the fastest man alive could manage, each thrust punctuated by the wet slap of skin and Hal’s broken moans vibrating against his mouth. He kept one hand wrapped around Hal’s cock, stroking in time with his movements, thumb circling the slick head with every push inside.

Hal’s legs tightened around him, heels digging into Barry’s back to urge him deeper, and the vibration from Barry hummed steadily through his thrusts now, sending jolts of pleasure ricocheting through Hal’s body until he was writhing, gasping, nails carving red lines down Barry’s spine.

“Barry—fuck, yes, right there—don’t you dare stop,” Hal panted, voice hoarse and wrecked, head thrown back against the pillows as sweat-slick curls clung to his forehead.

Barry leaned in to mouth at the exposed column of his throat, tasting salt and the faint metallic tang of lingering adrenaline, his own release coiling tight and hot in his gut. The city lights painted shifting patterns across Hal’s chest with every movement, highlighting the flex of muscle, the way his cock twitched and leaked steadily between them. Barry angled his hips just so, grinding against that perfect spot inside Hal on every stroke, and felt the answering clench around him like a vice.

Hal came again with a sharp cry, spilling hot over Barry’s fist in messy pulses that left him trembling and boneless, eyes glassy and fixed on Barry like he was the only thing in the world.

Barry followed seconds later, burying himself deep with a shuddering groan as heat flooded through him, hips stuttering through the aftershocks while Hal’s arms pulled him down into a clumsy, breathless kiss. "You're perfect," Barry whispered, his tone sounding too raw.

Hal let out a groan, biting his lip. "Tell me more. Fuck."

Hal looked at Barry with a desperate look, and of course, Barry had to follow through.

"You did amazing, Hal." Barry tried, locking his gaze onto Hal's to see his reaction.

Hal was looking up at him with glassy eyes, the kind that made Barry’s chest twist with something raw and unspoken. A slow, lazy smile tugged at Hal’s mouth, his fingers tracing idle patterns over Barry’s sweat-dampened back. “Keep talkin’ like that and I might start believin’ you,” he murmured, voice thick and slurred around the edges, still riding the aftershocks.

Barry swallowed hard, pressing a kiss to the corner of Hal’s jaw, tasting salt and the faint bite of whiskey lingering there. He didn’t pull out yet, content to stay buried in the tight heat of him, feeling every subtle shift and flutter as Hal’s body settled. The city lights painted Hal’s skin in fractured gold, highlighting the flush still riding high on his chest, the way his cock lay soft and spent against his stomach.

Barry shifted just enough to ease the pressure, one hand stroking soothingly down Hal’s thigh. “You were perfect,” he said again, quieter this time, meaning every syllable even if Hal wouldn’t remember it come morning.

Hal hummed low in his throat, eyes slipping half-shut, but his grip on Barry’s shoulder didn’t loosen. There was a vulnerability there that alcohol had stripped bare, something Barry knew he had no right to hold onto. Still, he let himself linger, breathing in the mingled scents of sweat and sex and that clean, electric sharpness that was always Hal. His own body hummed with the remnants of release, but the ache in his chest was louder, the knowledge that this was borrowed time pressing in around the edges.

Eventually Hal tugged him down into another kiss, slower now, all languid warmth and the soft drag of lips. “Stay,” he whispered against Barry’s mouth, the word barely there, and Barry nodded because he always did. He eased out carefully, wiping them both down with a corner of the sheet before pulling Hal close against his chest.

Hal’s breath evened out quickly, lashes fluttering against Barry’s skin, but Barry stayed awake a while longer, staring at the ceiling as the weight of what they’d done settled heavy and sweet in his bones. The night stretched on outside, Coast City glittering indifferently below, and Barry let himself pretend—just for now—that this closeness could last beyond the haze.

Their bodies stayed locked together in the dim glow from the window, hearts hammering in tandem, the taste of whiskey and salt still lingering between them. Barry's fingers carded gently through Hal's hair, softer now, almost reverent, and for one moment Barry let himself imagine this could last beyond the night, beyond the alcohol and the ache Carol had left behind.

Barry woke up first. His eyes opened into the gray early morning, and for exactly two seconds he didn’t know where he was.

Then he felt the weight against his back, and he knew.

Hal was pressed against him from behind, one arm thrown heavy across Barry’s waist, face tucked somewhere against the back of Barry’s neck. His breathing was slow and even. He smelled like stale whiskey and cheap cologne, and his arm was warm and limp across Barry’s ribs, pinning him loosely in place.

Barry went still, savoring the moment. He closed his eyes. The scent of Hal was almost overwhelming. It was obnoxious, but Barry couldn’t get enough just because of the sole fact it was Hal’s scent, and he was right there next to him.

He ran through the previous night. The bar. The barstool. Hal’s knee pressing against his beneath the counter. Every drink, every look, every deliberate inch of space that had closed between them over the course of an evening until there was no space left.

His mouth still tasted like whiskey.

Barry’s head throbbed dully from the alcohol, which was the only thing about the morning that felt proportionate, because his headache was small and manageable and everything else he was feeling was enormous and entirely the opposite.

He stared at the bedroom wall.

Hal’s arm shifted slightly in sleep, fingers curling loosely against Barry’s shirt, and Barry felt it go straight through him the way everything about Hal went straight through him. Always had. He’d spent a considerable amount of time trying to manage it, trying to let Hal go through one side and out the other. Last night had made it damn near impossible. 

Nothing this morning felt under control, and Barry didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing.

Hal’s breathing stayed slow and even.

Barry lay in the gray early light and did the mental math, which he was very good at and which he didn’t want to believe, and the math was simple and the answer was the same as it had always been:

Hal didn’t remember.

Or rather, he didn’t want to. Barry knew from the moment he saw Hal, he wanted to drink the night away. Get wasted and completely forget about everything that had happened that night. Not the way Barry had pressed his face into the side of Hal’s neck afterward, or the thing Barry had thought looking at him, that enormous stupid thing that he had no right to keep thinking.

Hal had been very drunk. He had planned to get that drunk. Hal had needed something solid to hold onto when the thing he’d been holding onto told him to leave. Barry had been there, and he was soft and so caring, which ultimately made him easy to go towards for comfort.

Hal’s arm shifted again, unconsciously pressing Barry closer, and Barry let out a slow breath through his nose and stared at the wall and let himself enjoy the moment, even if it was just for a while. The warmth of Hal. The steady weight against his back. The thought of Hal Jordan trusting him enough to sleep pressed against his back like it was the most natural thing, because it probably was, because Hal probably trusted Barry more than he realized and less than Barry deserved, and that was the entire summary of their friendship.

Barry’s head throbbed in persistent pulses. He thought about getting up. Making coffee. Giving Hal space to wake up in a room that wasn’t directly full of Barry, which would give them both a moment to breathe.

He didn’t move. He wasn’t ready yet. He didn’t want to let go of this moment.

So he stayed in the gray light of the morning with Hal’s arm around him and his headache, and he let himself have the moment because he was going to be fine about this. He was absolutely going to be fine. He had been fine about every other moment of being too close to Hal Jordan.

He would be fine.

He gave himself until Hal woke up to let go.

Hal woke up the way he always woke up from bad nights. All at once, and then immediately wishing he hadn’t.

The headache hit first. It hit hard and fast, and it had hit before he had even opened his eyes and gained awareness of his surroundings. Everything else came in one by one.

His head throbbed, and his mouth had an unsavory taste that was akin to a distillery. Not to mention the light was too bright even through closed eyelids, which meant morning, which meant time had passed, which meant he was somewhere that wasn’t Carol’s apartment because Carol’s apartment was not on the roster of places he was allowed to be anymore.

He processed that part slowly. Slowly because he didn't want to believe it.

Something warm was pressed against him. Against his front, which meant his arm was around something, which meant—

Hal opened his eyes tentatively. The bright, morning light did nothing to soothe the headache. He blinked against the light, slow and careful. His arm was over someone, loosely. He could feel breathing. His nose was somewhere near the back of a neck, and there was blond hair doing something in his immediate eyeline.

The smell of someone’s shampoo.

Hal’s brain, operating at roughly forty percent capacity, assembled the pieces one by one with a sleepy and hungover, addled brain.

Then it came to a realization.

Barry.

The waist was a bit familiar; he had wrapped his arm around Barry a few times. The smell was familiar; sometimes he'd be close to Barry. Of course the hair was familiar, the neck, not so much. 

The name registered, and then pieces of the night registered, and then everything else arrived in a pile that Hal’s headache was completely unequipped to sort through.

Barry’s back was warm against him.

Hal didn’t move. He lay there for a moment and held still and looked at the blond hair and tried to assemble the previous evening with the fragments that he could remember without straining his brain too far, which were the bar, a lot of drinks, Barry’s shoulder against his, and something about the city light through a window.

His chest did something he didn’t have a name for. Confusion? Maybe. Disgust? Not for Barry. Love? Ridiculous.

He stared at the back of Barry’s head.

Barry, who was apparently awake. Hal could tell by the rhythm of his breathing, the stillness of someone who had been lying in bed but not sleeping, probably for a while, being quiet and managed about it, because that was what Barry did. He managed things. He was excellent at processing and handling and making things easier for other people at the expense of ever just saying what was happening for him.

Hal knew that about Barry. He had always known that about Barry. It had always annoyed Hal. How could you ever care for yourself when you kept worrying about others? Hal thought. Barry was altruistic, a virtue but a downfall in itself. Hal had remembered telling Barry to knock it off and to worry about his own being. Of course, Barry didn't listen. He apologized, rubbing his neck sheepishly, but didn't do anything about it.

He lay still for another moment and felt the headache do its work and felt the warmth of Barry against him. He raised his hand slightly and looked at his ring.

It was quiet. It was always quiet when he needed it not to be.

Hal stared at it anyway, long enough that he could almost convince himself he'd felt something, a pulse, a signal, the familiar hum of an incoming frequency from Oa. Maybe his ring needed a desperate recharge, but he knew that wasn't the case. Maybe someone needed help on patrolling

He was a Lantern long enough to know the difference between a real signal and wanting one badly enough that his skin invented it.

Hal sat up anyway, a bit too fast, which he regretted as his headache sprung up again.

Barry felt him move, but he didn't react. He lay still and kept his breathing even and let Hal sit up; maybe he could pretend that he was still sleeping. Let Hal go. That thought left a pang through his heart. He was good at letting things happen. He had practiced the art of being fine with whatever Hal wanted for so long that it stopped being a skill and became more like routine.

“Morning,” Hal rasped out, his voice rough. He cleared his throat.

Barry rolled over and looked up at him, time to wake up.

Hal was sitting on the edge of the bed with both hands pressed against his eyes, elbows on his knees. It was clear that Hal had a hangover, a rough one, and needed time to settle it. His hair was a disaster. He was missing his shirt, which was somewhere on the apartment floor. He looked, underneath the hangover, like the same person Barry had been watching across a hundred debriefs and a hundred late-night takeout runs and a specific pocket dimension six hours long with only chips and an argument about who had the better suit design.

Barry’s chest did the thing it always did.

He was so tired of his chest doing that.

“Good morning,” Barry greeted back.

Hal lowered his hands and looked at him. His eyes were bloodshot and hazy, not focusing on one specific detail. Barry wanted desperately to be that detail.

“My head,” Hal started, rubbing his temple.

“Top left cabinet in the kitchen,” Barry answered, already ready to help Hal before addressing his own headache. “Ibuprofen. There’s water on the nightstand.”

Hal looked at the nightstand, where the glass of water was. He hadn’t noticed it. Barry had put it there at some point in the night, which he did not comment on.

Hal picked it up and drank half of it without saying anything.

Barry sat up slowly, his own headache protesting the movement with a dull insistence that he didn't want to handle currently. Hal was right there in pain, after all. He pushed his hair back with one hand and looked at nothing in particular while Hal worked through his water glass.

The city outside had gone from pale gray to a flat, overcast white. Coast City didn’t care about mornings. It ran regardless.

“The Oa frequency,” Hal said. He said it to the middle distance, not to Barry specifically. He was looking at his ring.

Barry followed Hal's gaze and soon was looking at the ring too.

The ring was quiet. It had been quiet all morning. Barry had been awake long enough to know that.

“Yeah?” Barry replied. His heart knew that it was an excuse, but he didn't want to say anything.

“I think there’s something coming through. Mission thing.” Hal tapped the ring on his finger once, the gesture he used when he was thinking or lying. Maybe both this time. “Tomar-Re was flagging a sector issue last week; it might’ve escalated.”

“Okay,” Barry said.

Hal looked at him briefly.

Barry looked back.

Neither of them said anything for a moment that lasted longer than it should have.

Then Hal’s expression moved into something that was practicing being casual, the version of easy he put on over things that were not easy. “Last night got kind of…” He gestured vaguely at the general space of the room.

“Yeah,” Barry looked down at his feet, kicking nothing in particular.

“We were pretty drunk.”

“Yeah.”

“You doing alright?” Hal asked, and it came out almost like he meant something beyond the hangover, and Barry’s chest tightened in a way he did not let onto his face.

“Fine,” Barry answered. “I’m fine. Are you—”

“I’m good.” Hal was already standing up, already looking around for his shirt. He found his jeans first and stepped into them with the efficiency of a man who’d had a lot of practice with these types of mornings. “I’ll catch you later this week, debrief or something.”

“Sure.” It hurt. More than it should've. Barry, his best friend, was being treated like another fling. Flings wouldn't do all this for you, thought Barry selfishly. He hated thinking like that.

His shirt was near the door. He found it, pulled it on, and said nothing.

Barry watched him from the bed without saying anything, because there was nothing to say that would make any of this better, and he knew that it wasn’t Hal’s fault; it wasn’t anyone’s fault. This was just the way things had to go.

Hal stopped at the door. He had his jacket over one arm, the one with the ring hand, and he looked back at Barry with an expression that was doing a significant amount of work. An eased expression still was on Hal's face, but underneath that, there was something else. Something that didn’t know what it was yet. Something that might need a week or a month or a better morning to figure out.

Barry smiled at him. It was a small, disingenuous smile, but it was enough to fly under the radar.

“Get some water before you fly,” Barry said. “You’re dehydrated.”

Hal looked at him for one moment longer. “Yeah,” he said, quieter now. “Thanks, Barry.”

Then he was gone.

Barry stayed on the bed.

He sat with his legs over the side and his elbows on his knees and his head hanging slightly forward, and he stayed like that for a long time without moving, listening to the apartment settle around him, the sounds of the city filtering through the window glass.

The water glass was still on the nightstand. Hal had left it half full.

Barry looked at it.

He thought about Hal’s arm over his waist in sleep. He thought about the way Hal had said his name in the bar, with the weight behind it, like it meant something softer. He thought about the expression on Hal’s face at the door just now, the one that didn’t know how to process things yet. Barry gave him some leeway. He was drunk. He probably wasn't in the state to process things. He knew it was a lame excuse. He still chose that hope over reality.

Hal had been gentle with him at the door. That was the thing Barry kept coming back to, the thought of being wanted by Hal. It was almost addicting.

He loved him. That was the fact. No sugar coating it. He loved Hal in a way that he hated himself for it. Barry had always tried to ignore it, but it got so large he couldn't manage it anymore. He hated it because it had hurt others. Specifically, Iris, who had noticed something was wrong. They were supposed to have something together, something permanent, but Barry was stuck chasing a mirage of hope.

He sat on the edge of a bed in Hal’s apartment with a hangover and a chest full of feelings that had nowhere to go, and he didn’t regret it, which was either a testament to how much he loved him or a comprehensive indictment of Barry Allen’s self-preservation instinct.

Probably both.

Iris had noticed before Barry had admitted it to himself.

She'd looked at him across a dinner table six months before things fell apart between them and said, quietly and without accusation, "You look at him differently than you look at anything else."  She didn't say Hal's name. She hadn't needed to. Barry had sat there with his fork frozen above his plate. He then spent the next three weeks trying to fix it, trying to look at Iris correctly, and trying to redistribute his attention in a way that returned the status quo.

It hadn't worked.

Not because Iris wasn't worth it. She was. She was brilliant and warm, and she laughed with her whole face, and she had loved Barry in a way he had never deserved and had tried hard to earn. That was the thing he couldn't make peace with, not even now, not even at a remove. He had tried. He had wanted it to be enough. He had woken up every day for the better part of a year and chosen her, consciously, and it had still not been the same as choosing her freely, and she had eventually felt the difference even when Barry couldn't see it from the inside.

She'd been the one to end it.

Not angrily. Not with accusations. She'd sat across from him in her apartment with her hands folded in her lap, and she'd looked at him with the expression of someone who had already done their grieving privately and arrived at clarity, and she'd said, "I don't think this will work out, Barry," she said, her voice cracking. Barry did that to her, and he didn't know what to do with that. "I know you've been trying, but your heart isn't in it. You don't have to force yourself to love me. I'm not mad."

Barry had not argued.

He hadn't been able to.

He looked at the water glass on Hal's nightstand.

The thing that made it worse was that Hal didn't know. Hal had no idea. Hal looked at Barry with the warmth and ease and casual affection he showed to the people he trusted, and none of it had ever been a performance. Hal genuinely cared about him. Barry knew that. The caring was real, but it was also not the same thing as what Barry felt, and the gap between those two things was where everything he felt happened, every feeling, every moment, every late night where Barry had looked at his phone after a call from Hal and immediately went to help.

He had hurt Iris for a gap.

Barry was not a man who let himself off easily.

He sat on the edge of the bed, trying to grasp the truth of things. He owed himself that much, at least.

He stood up with a deep sigh. He found his jacket on the chair by the window and put it on, and his reflection caught briefly in the dark of the window glass, hair a disaster, still wearing the same clothes from last night, which was its own kind of information about the evening.

He looked tired. He had been tired for a long time, he realized. Not the tiredness that came from insufficient sleep. The other kind. The kind that affected your entire being, a deep-set tiredness from suppression.

He picked up the water glass and took it to the kitchen and rinsed it out in the sink, running the tap cold, watching the last of the water drain, and stared at the sink. He set the glass on the drying rack with quivering hands and dried his hands on the dish towel hanging from the oven handle, which was neatly folded, and said something about whoever had put it there, probably the same person who had prepared for Hal's hangover.

Barry looked at the dish towel for a moment.

He thought about the last time they'd talked properly, which had been three months after the breakup at a coffee shop midway between their apartments. She'd been generous about her anger. Barry deserved it. She was always generous. Barry had sat across from her and thought, not for the first time, that he didn't deserve her generosity.

He let himself out of Hal's apartment quietly, pulling the door until the latch caught, soft enough not to disturb anything.

The hallway smelled like industrial carpet and someone's coffee from two doors down. Barry stood in it for a moment with his hands in his jacket pockets.

The elevator doors opened when he pressed the button.

The lobby was empty except for a man behind the front desk who didn't look up from his phone, which Barry was grateful for. His eyes were bloodshot, but not from drinking. He didn't want to cry, but everything that happened wanted him to. He walked through the glass doors and out into the gray Coast City morning; usually, Coast City was as bright as Northern California could be. But the weather seemed to match how Barry was feeling currently.

Barry decided to walk for a bit, allowing things to settle in instead of running back to Central City like he would any other day. Walking allowed his brain, which went insanely fast, to slow down.

He wasn’t angry at Hal for leaving or for what happened the previous night. He understood why; it was a lot, wasn't it? Breaking up with who you thought would be the love of your life then proceeding to sleep with your best friend a few hours later. It was a lot to handle. Or so Barry wanted to believe.

What happened was how things were supposed to go.

Barry was starting to become tired of how the way things were.