Chapter 4

Wally

The drive back feels longer than it should. This time it's not the lingering fear of seeing my parents again that pulls at my insides, it's the unsettling silent treatment I'm getting from Connor. We'd picked up the pizza in an awkward silence, neither of us knowing what to say to one another in the aftermath of my coming out. Maybe he doesn't know what to say. Maybe he just doesn't want to talk about it. I'm sure he can sense that I do but I'm not even sure where to begin myself.

The yellow glow of the street lights flash by us one by one and I feel the rush of the evening air's chill. I shiver and my bare arms breakout in goose bumps. His back is warm against my body but his spine is straight and his muscles tense.

Justice Mountain rises steadily in the distance at our approach. What will happen when we get there? Will there be stony silences? Will he walk away to his quarters having done his duty bringing me back? Do I return to mine knowing all that waits for me is a near barren room and a head full of last night's memories? I don't need any more salt for my wounds. I suddenly wish I'd taken M'Gann's offer to stay an extra day or two.

My stomach squeals with protests of hunger. Pain has sustained me this long.. Another night without food wouldn't matter, would it? But my burning curiosity won't let this muzzled silence go on much longer. I have to know what he's thinking. Feeling? That, above all else, is what I have to know before I can even start thinking of food.

"Conner," I say, straining my voice against the wind. The speed we're traveling at dulls the pitch of my words and I can barely hear myself. "I know you can hear me." He doesn't move. "Just listen, okay? I don't know what's going through your head right now but, Connor, please don't freeze me out. I'm not asking you to be anything but yourself, my… my friend." I realise it's what I need the most right now. "I need my friend."

His head dips down a little and I can feel him sigh as his stomach presses out against my arms, breathing slowly in then slowly out. He heard me.

The wind beats hard at our faces but I'm still close enough to catch the clean earthy scent that's carried away from his skin. It reminds me that I'm still covered in dry sweat from my run in the gym earlier. I need to shower as soon as we get back.

The super cycle comes to a stop in the hanger and I climb off before he does. He still doesn't look directly at me as he unpacks. An image of my mother's turned head, refusing to see me at the dinner table, flashes through my mind.

"Conner?" I almost whisper in his direction but the tightness in my throat makes it come out pathetic. He grabs the pizza boxes with his back turned, stops, turns, looking at me briefly with his lips pressed thinly together. He hands over the pizza boxes. The cardboard is hot against my palms, it almost burns as hot as my cheeks.

"Yeah?" He pauses for a moment then reaches for the duffle bags when I don't reply straight away.

Any idea of what I could say evades me. "N-Nothing..."

He makes a start for the hall that leads off to the guest rooms with the straps of a bag in each hand. His pace slows to a stop, his shoulders sag and he lets out a tired sigh. Dropping the bags at his feet he reaches to pinch the bridge of his nose screwing his eyes tightly shut. Even like this he is painfully beautiful.

"Look, just ignore me for a while, I'm...processing." He hesitates, perhaps giving himself permission, before he looks me in the eye. "Sorry."

"Well," I begin slowly. "You did want to know..."

He nods to himself. "I did. I know. It's just… I would never have guessed. I mean every time there's a girl nearby, the looks, the flirting, it's..."

"Not obvious?" I suggest. "Trust me, It's exhausting trying to be normal."

It's ironic. Not long ago I'd gone out of my way to recreate my uncle's super speed lab accident. Making me the teen super I am today.

His eyebrows furrow in thought as he pockets his hands. The boyish posture makes me smile. I try to keep it from showing but fail.

"And liking guys isn't 'normal'?"

My smile disappears quickly. A part of me wonders if he is asking for confirmation or if he is challenging my idea of normal.

Suddenly the floor of the hanger has my undivided attention. I was not expecting that from him. I don't know what to say.

"So do I get to see the real Wally, now that I know?" He asks. His face is composed but thoughtful when I finally raise my head and force myself to meet his eyes.

"I'm just the same guy you've always known." I swallow hard, shifting my weight from one foot to the other.

He reaches for the bags again with a faint smile at the corner of his mouth. He shakes his head. "No, no I don't think you are."

I raise an eyebrow. "So… who am I then?"

"Oh you're still Wally. There's more to you now," His smile widens. "but not less." He leaves me standing there holding the pizza and I wonder about the hint of amusement that might have been imagined in his voice.

"Hurry up and shower, I don't want you to start stinking when we're eating." He calls over his shoulder. "Sweat only smells good for so long."

And as soon as the words register my heart bursts into a rapid beat. I can't decide if he's flirting with me.

A few deep breaths don't do much to bring me back to my body so I start to walk feeling lighter on my feet than I did a moment ago.

Shower, I should probably shower. I walk to my room with an open pizza box, already half empty by the time I reach for the tap to turn on the shower.

-x-

I rub at my damp hair roughly with a soft towel still thinking of sweat and the different intonations it can have. I'm still stuck thinking how easily he can get into my head with the smallest of things and stay there.

With a towel round my waist I make for the duffle bags Connor had dumped on my bed. My feet, still wet from the shower, slide beneath my weight on the tiles. The thought of wiping up the footprints of water crosses my mind but only briefly. Even with a full stomach I can still feel the weakness of hunger that had leached into my every muscle. Now sis not the time to care about safety hazards.

I pick out a pair of board shorts. They feel like mine in my hands but the room doesn't give me that same sense of familiar comfort. I'm just going to have to get used to this place. I wonder if it will ever feel like home.

I sit down on the bed letting out a deep sigh. Something sharp pokes me in the hip. It juts out from inside my bag. Curious, I route around inside and pull at a corner of polished wood.

My mouth is dry as I try to swallow. A soon as my fingers find the wood I already know what it is without needing to see it. It's the picture of my parents standing either side of me, each with a hand on my back looking happy as only a perfect family can be. The raw feelings of guilt, shame and rejection wash over me. I wipe at my eyes with the back of my hand, sniffing. No, they don't deserve any more of my tears. Connor's words echo through my mind. "And liking guys isn't 'Normal'?" I grab at another pair of shorts before shoving the picture deep inside my bag covering it up. I can't bear to look at those two faces any longer.

Click. Click. Click. The sound of claws on tile comes before a furry snout pushes through the slight crack in the door.

"Wolf. Come here, boy." I'm glad to see him. I pretend, for a moment, he's come to see how I am. He pads into the room pausing to sniff the air. "I still think Krypto suits you. You're after some pizza, aren't you?" I pull a slice from the box as he comes to sit by the side of the bed. He takes the slice from my hand and drops it at his feet. He slowly tears off small pieces bit by bit until it's all gone. Had he been any other canine the pizza would have been gone in seconds.

He looks up again expecting, patiently waiting.

"Sorry, boy. You had my last piece and this box is Connors'"

He rests his head in my lap and I begin to stroke his muzzle while my mind wanders again for the thousandth time to Connor. How many hours at school did I lose filling page after page with Connor's name?

"What should I do boy. Should I tell him?"

His ears fold back neatly as I stroke his wide head. He wines looking up with his eyes as if to say. 'I don't know what to tell you.'

"Hey, I wondered where you'd got to." Connors voice quickly brings me back to my surroundings. He sees the pizza boxes and fixes Wolf with a look. He folds his arms lightly, leaning casually on the door frame. "Should have known. Not bothering you is he?"

I can feel the weight of his eyes on me and I remember that I'm wearing nothing but a towel. My face and neck feel impossibly hot.

"No… uh he's been good. H-how long have you been standing there?"

"Just got here... I came to give you this." He walks over, barefoot, hands me a brand new toothbrush and leans down to put a hand on the space next to me on the bed. "Can I?"

"Uh, sure, yeah." I feel stupid for hesitating. He just wants to sit. On my bed. Next to me. And I'm half naked. With a dog in my lap. I just know that my body is going to humiliate me if I so much as think of how close he is.

"It's a spare. I forgot to pick yours up at your parents place. I was a little distracted." He smiles a hopeful apology.

"Oh uh, thanks." Looking at the toothbrush in my hand I'm reminded of the taste of bile that lingered after the first few bites of pizza. I was too hungry to let it bother me.

"So… Wolf didn't exactly give you an answer." He leans forward on the edge of the bed resting his elbows on his knees.

My heart felt like it had stopped beating. "You were listening?"

"For signs of Wolf, I couldn't find him anywhere. That's when I heard you talking. Sorry. I'm not keeping tabs on you I swear."

"No, I believe you." I say glancing at his naked feet. Big mistake. It's all the naked skin my body needs to see to start expressing itself. A familiar ache builds beneath my towel. I can feel my face burning even hotter , fear routing me to the spot. Don't move. Don't breathe. Don't think about it. This cannot be happening in front of him!

"So, maybe I can help where fuzz ball over here can't?" He asks.

To my horror Wolf lifts his head from my lap and swiftly trots over to the door looking annoyed with Connor before disappearing down the hall way. The swelling beneath the towel grows and grows despite my willing it away.

"I'm going to pay for that later." Connor laughs grimly at the door. "Aren't I?"

His attention is back on me now. All of me? No I'm just imagining it.

"So who is this guy, what do you want to tell him? Is it you know, Him?" He asks, implying correctly about the boy I had fallen for.

I shake my head quickly. "I was just thinking out loud. Are we still going to watch movies or-"

"In just a towel? Sure. You might want to put something on though." He jokes. "You never know when the league will show up." The embarrassing thoughts must be clear to see across my face. Connor's grin quickly turns to feigned indifference. "I'd be cool with that though." He shrugs. "You know what I'm like."

Yes I do. Whenever there was an opportunity to free himself from the confines a T-shirt Connor took it. Unashamedly. And those times that I happened to be around it was always an agonising struggle to resist staring directly at the lean cords of muscle that stretched and tightened as he moved.

"I-uh-I…" I stammer trying to find a reply. My mouth had given me away, soon to be followed by an unmistakable erection. And then my life would be over.

A light hearted laugh escapes him and he turns to hide a barely subdued smile as though to save me from the embarrassment of it's kind mocking.

Feeling the colour of my cheeks deepen I quickly dive back into the open bag with my hands. I search and fail to find any t-shirts. I keeping digging frantically.

"Connor," I say pushing aside underwear and socks. "There aren't any t-shirts in this bag. Did you just pack underwear, shorts and flip flops?"

Still focused on searching I hear him speak as he leans in. "Tried the other bag yet?" I could still hear the amused smile in his voice. I will not look at him. Instead I fumble with the zip of the other bag only to find it refusing to budge. Stuck.

"Damnit, I think the zips bust." I thumped my fist down over it in annoyance.

"Here, have mine it's clean."

And before I know it a screwed up ball of black and red hits me in the face. Still warm, I realise as it falls to my lap revealing Connor, nearly as naked as I am save for his jeans. I don't dare move the shirt knowing full well that my arousal is too far gone not to be seen now.

"Well I guess," I say trying to save face the way that cocky 'ladies' man' Wally would. " uh… Th-thanks. I better…you know. Get dressed."

"In your own time." He shrugs the strong muscles in his shoulders. "I'll go set up the dvd. But first-"

He leans over me, reaching, stretching. Slowly? No it just feels slow. Impossibly slow as his hand finds the pizza box. He stands back, the pizza box now open in one hand a slice of pizza in the other. "I'm taking this just in case it doesn't survive the trip to the sofa." His eyes teased as he takes a big bite. "I gotta eat too you know."

A nervous laugh squeaks from somewhere. Me, I realise. If he wasn't flirting this time then I should admit to being completely clueless and never speak to another member of the same sex again.

Connor pauses at the doorway. He turns swallowing his mouthful.

"What's his name?" He asks.

"Who?"

"The boy... the one who is worth all of this mess you're in."

"Why do you want to know?"

"Well you know," He hesitates. "In case he hurts you."

"What? So you can hurt him back?" He just shrugs pretending to be indifferent to the question. "Why would you want to do that?"

"Well, just look at the situation he's got you into, is he really worth it?"

I pick through my bag again as I'm thinking, finding the photo's from last summer with Dick at the beach.

"He is," I say a little too quietly. "and I did this to myself." My voice growing more determined "It's nobody's fault but my own."

"So why aren't you with him now? Why are you here?"

"I haven't told him, he doesn't know how I feel about him."

"That's…that's quite a gamble, coming out just for him and he doesn't even know? You really like him that much, don't you?"

"Yeah"

"I'd be really pissed off if he doesn't appreciate what you did because of him."

"No, Connor, I didn't come out to my parents for him. I did it for myself. I wanted someone to be there for me if things went bad. You know, if I told him and he exploded."

Connor took another bite and chewed slowly.

He gestured at me with the half eaten slice. "You've got me for that now. Tell this guy how you feel. Whatever happens-" He tapped his chest with the pizza in his hand "I'll be here." His grin reflected mine.

He shrugged his left then right shoulder looking at them in turn. "Shoulders for crying on and super hearing for listening if you want to talk it out."

"Don't do that." I said shaking my head at his awful pretend manly attitude. "The whole macho bromance thing doesn't suit you."

He smiled anyway. "Whatever, you know what I mean."

"You're a good friend."

"Sure." He nods a few times to himself, biting his lip as the grin fades. "Yeah, um… gonna go get the dvd ready."

He closes the door behind him and I'm relieved when I look down to see his t-shirt in my lap. It had done a good job of keeping me from embarrassing myself. I press the shirt to my face breathing him in. I pull on the shirt with a smile and wonder what he will say when he sees me wearing it. Did he expect me to wear it or was it just a friendly invite to show up shirtless? A sort of my-house-is-your-house gesture? I toss the socks aside and decide to go barefoot. At least if he is why shouldn't I too?