Chapter Text
Wally
There would be no point in saying the Poison Apple was busy that night. The Apple was busy every night, weeknights included, although the weekends had an exceptional bustle to them that couldn’t be denied. Gotham’s crazed nightlife crowd ensured there was a constant supply of the kind of crowd the club made its profits off of, and that its floor staff’s pockets would be lined with heavy tips by the end of their shifts. If there was one thing Wally could appreciate about working the bar at the Poison Apple, it was the tips. The check itself was good and all, but the tips were something else entirely. A chunk of change like that could easily make or break his rent payment for a month. Or his car insurance. Or something else of that nature.
“What are you wearing?” He asked Dick as he reached the bar with a drink order.
The copper-skinned server cocked his head to one side and grinned as he shifted some already prepared drinks onto the tray he’d brought. He was decorated all over with phosphorescent paint, and he glowed under the blacklights like he was made up of stars and constellations. He was scantily clad in a cropped white boy tank top brandishing the word boypussy , and a neon yellow skirt.
“Don’t act like you don’t love it!” He teased over the music, twisting his hips back and forth, causing his skirt to swish around him. Wally caught sight of the edge of the tiny black shorts Dick wore underneath, but still, something about the movement of the skirt itself brewed heat in his stomach.
“Why?” Wally asked, although he knew the only reason he was even bothered was because the sight made him want to hike the skirt up Dick’s rear and bend him over the bar.
“My tips are better when my ass is out?” He said it like it should’ve been obvious, and maybe it should’ve been.
There was a pole dancer every handful of yards in the club. People came to the Poison Apple to look at sexy things. Dick often remarked that that was why Wally himself made out like a bandit on tips behind the bar. He should’ve always expected his best friend to play up the sex appeal by now, especially given that Dick was utterly gorgeous. But it still caught Wally off guard just how well it worked on him .
“Someone’s gonna try to grab your ass in that!” Wally hazarded, giving Dick a weary look. They both knew it wouldn’t be Dick’s fault if someone did, but that didn’t make Wally any less frustrated at the notion.
“It better be you!” Dick responded casually, lifting his tray full of drinks and sliding it onto one hand as he turned back into the crowd.
Wally’s heart was pounding as he watched Dick go, but he couldn’t help the way his eyes followed the swell of Dick’s thighs into the curve of his ass. The server’s words rattled around the inside of Wally’s skull for a few moments before he could remember where he was. He was 99% certain that “it better be you” had to have been a joke, but there was a cruel little part of him that desperately wanted that to have been an invitation from Dick to grab his ass. The idea of feeling the toned muscle of Dick’s body give way beneath his fingertips was torturous. He wanted to spend an entire day massaging the tension out of that body.
Snap out of it. He was supposed to be working. His hands sought a shaker as his eyes worked over the ticket Dick had just rung in right in front of him. Start making drinks. You can fantasize later.
********
Dick
Wally hadn’t actually been wrong about Dick getting his ass grabbed, unfortunately. Much to Dick’s dismay, it hadn’t been Wally himself doing the grabbing. Dick whirled and smacked the hand away. It had helped itself to a handful while he was trying to grab plates of food to run.
“What the fuck ?” Dick hissed, slapping Roy across the face, rushed with indignation. He smelled like a cigarette, and there was a little tang of something boozy that hung around him as well.
“You had to know someone was gonna try to cop a feel,” He hummed with a shrug. “You should be glad it was someone who’s touched before.”
Dick’s face felt hot.
“Roy, you fucking -”
“Roy!” Jason was shouting from behind him inside the kitchen all of a sudden. “Your break is over, get your ass in the kitchen!”
“Gotta go,” Roy said plainly, slinking away as rage bubbled up under Dick’s skin.
“I need food runners!” Jason shouted.
Dick had to blink red spots from his vision before he could address the situation. Roy might’ve been Dick’s ex from years back, but he hadn’t actually been working at the Apple for that long. Dick’s brother, Jason, was the head chef, as well as Roy’s longtime friend, and he had brought Roy on as a line cook a little over a year prior, wreaking havoc on Dick’s work and social life in the process. That much had been tolerable, but putting hands on him without permission had been a mistake. Dick had been at the Apple for the better part of 6 years now, and there were unspoken rules that weren’t to be trifled with. The kitchen was the only part of the Poison Apple’s staff that was predominantly cis and male, and there weren’t often issues between them and everyone else, but it did happen.
When he’d leveled his head enough, Dick turned around to face the window into the kitchen, but instead of picking up any of the plates from under the lamps, he balled his hand into a fist and slammed it against the metal counter four times. The roar of conversation in the kitchen totally died. It mainly only worked because Jason had frozen and looked up at him, and the rest of his staff had followed form.
“Control your line cook, Jay!” Dick spat, fury burning hot behind his eyes. “The next time one of your staff tries to ‘cop a feel’ of me or another front of house staff without permission, I will have them all out on their asses! Do not think I won’t send Ivy and Harley after your ass for this, because I will!”
Dick grabbed three plates, spun on his heels and left the kitchen, but was caught on his way out. Barbara stole the plates from his arms as tears sprang to his eyes, and Donna hauled him off toward the staff exit.
“Take a 15,” She told him. “Breathe outside air, or smoke a cigarette or something, you need to cool off for a minute.”
“I’m fine!” Dick insisted, wiping at his tears with his knuckles and shaking his head. “I’m fine, it’s fine.”
“What even happened?” Donna asked as she dragged him outside.
Once he hit the much cooler air, he realized he actually was desperate for a cigarette-- not that he had one on him, and he knew Donna wasn’t a smoker. He sighed and began to take the steps down from the staff exit two at a time, with a grip on both handrails.
“Roy grabbed my ass,” He admitted with a shuddering sigh.
“He what ?”
Dick nearly tripped and fell down the rest of the stairs when he heard Wally’s voice from the area below. He found the redheaded bartender at the base of the staircase, leaning against the building with a cigarette in hand, and a now very aggravated expression on his face.
“Don’t say I told you so,” Dick remarked, and Wally blinked at him for a moment, stunned.
“Why would I say that? That’s not the point,” He said, getting unforgettably close as Dick stepped down from the stairs, his jaw tight. “He touched you? He put his hands on you?”
“Alright, I already yelled at the whole fucking kitchen staff about it, so don’t you go defending my virtue or anything,” Dick said quietly, tears poking at his eyes again as he slid his hands into the pockets of Wally’s jeans and retrieved his lighter. “Just give me a cigarette, would you?”
Donna left the two of them to their cigarettes, and once he’d passed Dick a fresh one to light, Wally had also peeled his jacket off and draped it over the server’s bare shoulders.
Dick emitted a little scoff and assured the bartender, “I’m fine, you know.”
“Shut up,” Wally muttered, avoiding his friend’s gaze in favor of inspecting the damp alley that surrounded the staff exit on this side of the Poison Apple. He was making an attempt to hide how angry he was, but Dick could see through it. Dick sighed and turned his body toward the redhead, leaning his shoulder against the wall.
“I slapped him, Wally. I threatened to sick Ivy and Harley on Jason and the entire kitchen staff over it, alright? I handled it,” He explained in a quiet voice.
Wally turned his head to meet Dick’s gaze and admitted, “I fucking hate Roy. He’s a prick, I hate that he gets to work here.”
Dick scoffed.
“You hate that he gets to work in a place where the servers wear neon and people do coke in the bathrooms?”
He watched Wally try to maintain his pissed off expression and fail to suppress a laugh. He didn’t need blacklights to glow when he heard that laugh.
“Can you table your ‘cheeky little shit’ schtick for like half a second? I know you love this job,” Wally insisted. “I still can’t believe Jason got him a fucking job here.”
Dick sighed, watching the way Wally’s jaw tensed as he leaned his head back against the wall behind him and brought his cigarette to his lips. Roy actually wasn’t the only ex of Dick’s who worked at the Apple, but his relationships with Kory and Zatanna had taken place during their time as coworkers, and had ended amicably. He had no problems getting along with either of the dancers, not when their relationships ended, and not now. His relationship with Barbara was something unique, in a league of its own, ancient and complicated, and it had ended in her becoming one of his best friends in the world. His relationship with Roy predated the Apple. The two had known each other since they were teenagers, and their on-and-off relationship had spanned part of their early twenties. To say it had ended badly would’ve been an understatement. Really, it had started badly, and only grown worse from there. And Wally had been there for all of it. He was well aware that Roy’s getting a job at the Apple felt like an attack on a safe place for Dick.
“Jason and him have history, too, you know,” Dick reminded him. “It’s kind of hard to extract our shit from their shit. And he’s not--”
“Don’t give me the ‘he’s not all bad’ speech again, he just fucking groped you.” Wally grumbled.
“All I’m saying is that it’s complicated,” Dick emphasized, inching closer. Wally rolled his eyes, anger clearly still coloring his mood, as well as the conversation.
The idea of Wally heading back from a smoke break so pissed didn’t sit right with him, but the only distraction that would come to mind felt a little destructive. It was not out of Dick’s normal range of behaviors to tease the redhead with flirty jokes, especially at work, but he often found himself at this crossroads-- teetering on the edge of doing something more than just teasing. He usually managed to talk himself down, but he was still buzzing with adrenaline after his encounter with Roy.
He impulsively set his chin on Wally’s shoulder as the cigarette came away from the bartender’s lips, and plucked it from his hand.
“Hey!” Wally protested as the smoke rushed from his lips.
Dick stuck the cigarette-- which was almost down to the filter now-- back between Wally’s lips and instructed, “Hold that.”
He passed his own cigarette into his right hand, and used the hand closer to the wall to chase Wally’s arm down to the wrist.
“W-What are you doing?” Wally stammered around his cigarette as Dick guided his fingers to the skin of a bare thigh.
“Distracting you,” Dick responded innocently, batting his lashes as he dragged the bartender’s hand around to his backside, and pushed it up under the fabric of his skirt and shorts. “Well, really I’m distracting us both.”
That much was definitely true. He could hardly think about Roy when Wally had a handful of him, and he would rather have it that way. At least he knew he could trust Wally, and he much preferred having a little more control during encounters like this.
Wally pulled the cigarette butt from his lips, flicking it away as he began, “Dick--”
The named had no plans on letting him speak.
“Wally…” He mimicked breathily, pushing the hand beneath his own to squeeze. Wally’s composure melted under Dick’s gaze, and he caved. Dick’s hand fell away, and Wally did all the work himself.
“I… I have to go back in there,” Wally complained, his hand worshiping Dick’s ass with careful attention.
“So do I,” Dick teased, raising his eyebrows. Wally’s chest was flush with his own now, his lips a breath away.
“Better get your fill now.”
Wally scoffed, his face giving the impression that he felt this must be nonsense.
“You can’t just… Why am I touching your ass?” He asked with a small laugh, dumbfounded.
“That’s a stupid question,” Dick mumbled, setting his head forward on Wally’s shoulder and wrapping an arm around his neck to bring his cigarette to his lips. “Can’t you just enjoy how it feels?”
He had to hope he was playing it cool, because his heart was pounding against the inside of his ribcage. He felt a little dizzy, like he was standing on air with a cloud swirling around his head. Wally did seem to be enjoying how it felt. He was careful not to get too handsy, but he grew more comfortable with the fact he was feeling up his best friend’s butt by the second.
“God, you have such a nice ass,” Wally breathed against Dick’s ear like he’d been dying to say it, pulling every hair on the server’s body to stand on its end. Heat was churning at his core when he heard the phone alarm that prompted Wally to pull back and reach into his back pocket. Dick’s legs were practically shaking. He wasn’t sure how Wally had managed to make such a power move with that one sentence, or if he had even meant to, but he had.
“I gotta get back in there. Throw my jacket in my locker, hmm?”
“Mmhmm,” Dick agreed as Wally swept past him and back up the stairs. When he heard the door shut, he dropped his back against the wall, pressing the heel of his palm into the middle of his ribs. The cigarette fell from his hand. He felt sick. Not only had Wally slid from flustered to cool and casual in mere moments, but he himself was falling to pieces as soon as Wally was out of sight. Roy grabbing his ass was the furthest thing from his mind now. He could only think about whether or not he should try to end up at Wally’s apartment after work. He felt wound up, like he’d just been hooked up to a car battery. It took him a long moment to realize he’d turned his head and buried his nose into the collar of Wally’s jacket, which still hung on his shoulders.
“Whoa, why are you so red?” Cassie asked when Dick came sweeping into the staff room, beelining for Wally’s locker first. It was mostly empty, except for Cassie herself, and Kon a few lockers down from her.
“I just let Wally touch my ass,” He admitted all too shakily, panic crawling over him like bugs over an abandoned picnic as he opened Wally’s locker and tucked the jacket inside.
“You what?” Kon asked loudly, his head poking out from behind his locker door.
“So not what I expected you to say!” Cassie exclaimed as she popped up from her seat on one of the benches.
“In my defense, I also just slapped my ex and yelled at my brother in front of his whole staff so I think I’m a little fried,” Dick added, sliding down to his own locker and opening it to pull out his water bottle. He let his butt hit the floor and sat there with his back against the locker beside his, breathing a little heavily.
“Damn, you yelled at Jason in front of the whole kitchen?” Kon asked.
“It was Roy’s fault for being a piece of shit, that’s why I slapped him,” Dick huffed. He felt like he was trapped on a high and couldn’t come down, his anxiety centers firing at 100%.
“You dated Roy?” Cassie asked as she connected the statements.
“It was a really long time ago,” He shrugged off.
“Can we dial back to the ass touching thing?” Kon asked. “You and Wally have always been pretty handsy friends. I thought you guys were fucking the first time I saw you go for his keys without asking.”
“We’re handsy for a purpose, cause we trust each other. He’s never touched me like this, just for the fuck of it,” Dick explained, shaking his head.
“Did he just like… go for your ass and you let him? Or…?” Cassie asked, tumbling her hands through the air in a confused gesture.
“I was upset cause of the Roy thing, and he was pissed off about it, but I didn’t want him to come back in from his break mad so I was trying to distract him, and I’m always teasing him with stupid flirty shit like that, and I did something stupid and impulsive and I put his hand on my ass and I told him to stop worrying and just enjoy how it felt,” He went through it all in one breath, like that would make the situation any better. “Only he really did just enjoy how it felt, and it was really hot and now I feel like I’m melting.”
“This feels like a Donna problem,” Cassie hypothesized.
“Donna or Barbara,” Kon proposed. Thankfully, as they began to theorize about who would be easier to find (the logical answer was neither) Donna slipped into the staff room, chugging water from a plastic bar cup, which she then crushed and dropped into the trash can next to the door.
“Oh thank god! The princess over here is going to pieces,” Kon proclaimed, not necessarily bullying, but definitely poking fun.
Donna looked confused, until she spotted her fellow server on the floor by his locker. Cassie and Kon were both dancers, and although all the front of house staff often ran together, the two were among the younger staff, as opposed to veterans like Dick and Donna. Donna had been a friend of Dick’s since well before their time at the club, and she was used to his antics.
She threw her hands up when she saw him and asked, “What now?”
“Wally touched his ass,” Kon answered for him. Dick didn’t add anything, but pointed at Kon to emphasize his statement.
Donna raised her eyebrows at him before turning to look at the dancers and asking, “Can you two find somewhere else to be?”
Kon pouted at the question, but Cassie grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him from the staff room.
Donna plopped down on the bench in front of Dick and huffed, “What’s with your ass tonight?”
Dick couldn’t help but laugh. He felt his face going hot again and covered it with both hands as he confessed, “The Wally thing was me, I did that one.”
“Of course you did, you’re a whore,” She laughed, pinching his elbow to try to bring him back to reality.
“Shut up! I feel like I’m burning alive,” He complained, swatting her hand away and resting a palm against his forehead. “He told me I have a nice ass.”
“You do,” She praised.
“Thank you, I do a lot of squats,” He agreed, wiping at the tears of amusement under his eyes.
“You should’ve told him that,” Donna teased, grabbing Dick’s wrists and hauling him up from the floor.
“I probably would’ve seemed a lot more cool and collected if I had,” He considered, allowing her to fan air across his face.
“Pull it together. The kitchen’s closing down in twenty minutes,” She reminded him. “Take a shot of something strong, wrap up the tables Babs is babysitting for you and get ready to push some shots in the dance crowd.”
Drew drew in a sharp breath and nodded.
“Got it,” He said, rolling his head around one full circle in each direction, and making an attempt to shake off his jitters.
“And by the way, if you’re drunk at the end of the night, the only apartment you’ll be headed to is the one we live in,” She warned. Dick pouted when he digested that.
“If you’re gonna make the reckless ass call to sleep with another one of your friends on my watch, you’re gonna have to be sober when you do it,” She insisted, flicking his forehead.
“Ow!” He hissed, jabbing her in the ribs.
She slapped his hand away, but laughed as she asked, “Alright, ready?”
He gave an exasperated little sigh and said, “Ready.”
At some point in the following hours, Dick had decided he would just take shots with the other servers who were working the crowd, so he wouldn’t actually have to decide if he wanted to go home with Wally. Donna had a point about his sleeping with friends, especially those on staff at the Apple. Getting drunk had seemed like a better plan than getting caught by Wally on their way out and potentially letting himself fall deeper down that rabbit hole. At least until he was actually walking out of the club arm in arm with Donna and saw Wally up ahead, smoke wafting up around his figure, and he suddenly became positive it had been a mistake.
He wriggled his arm free of Donna’s and padded off ahead of her to catch up to the redheaded bartender, ignoring Donna calling after him, “Remember what I told you!”
When he reached Wally, he held out a hand, made a pinching motion and demanded, “Gimme.”
Wally only laughed as he passed Dick the practically fresh cigarette and went fishing for the pack again in his jacket pocket. In flat shoes now, Dick was back to his proper place at a few inches shorter than Wally, and he admittedly felt better looking slightly up at his friend. Wally had always been a little taller and a little broader than he was, and a lot faster. He supposed that speed was what made him such a good bartender.
Wally caught Dick’s eyes hanging on him, and sent him a concerned look as they reached his car.
“God, you’re totally wasted, huh?” He asked.
Dick felt his cheeks go hot, but he still feigned indignation.
“I take offense to that question,” He scoffed. “I’ll have you know I made excellent tips tonight.”
“I’m sure you did,” Wally agreed with a small grin. “I know how much easier it is to do that with liquor in your system once the kitchen is closed.”
Dick took a drag of his cigarette as he leaned back against Wally’s car.
“Yeah, it definitely is.”
“I also know it means you’re not leaving with me,” Wally admitted sadly.
A hefty sigh rushed from Dick and he conceded, “Yeah. Donna’s my conscience so I’m in roommate jail.”
Wally released an involuntary little laugh, and Dick didn’t resist when he moved in a little closer.
“But for what it’s worth, I wasn’t drunk before. Like, no alcohol at all.”
Wally smiled, and assured him, “I know.”
Dick sighed, and laid his head on Wally’s shoulder. Without the chunky heels he’d chosen to attract tips for the night, the illusion of him sharing Wally’s height had vanished, but he was still tall enough to rest his head near the taller man’s neck.
“I wish I’d stayed sober,” He mumbled. “And out of roommate jail.”
Wally’s laugh washed over Dick like the warmth of the sun, and he pressed himself closer against his best friend’s body.
“Maybe next time,” Wally suggested, although he wrapped a casual arm around Dick’s back and held him there, his nose and lips testing the skin of the server’s neck. Dick released a little hum of approval, but they only got to share each other’s space for a brief moment.
“Alright, don’t get too handsy. He’s hammered.”
Donna’s voice deflated Dick’s ego.
“You ruin everything!” He complained, burying his face deeper against Wally’s body. The bartender chuckled, his fingers running up to the back of Dick’s neck.
“I warned you that if you weren’t sober, you weren’t leaving here with anyone but me, remember?” She reminded him, digging his arm out from where he’d hidden it against Wally, and preparing to drag him away.
“You’re no fun,” He whined.
“It’s for the best, anyway,” Wally whispered, running a quick hand through Dick’s hair, sending tingles down his spine. “I’d rather take you home sober.”
The sigh that slipped from Dick’s lips was an obvious tell, but he had to hope that it was hidden behind the huff of indignation he released when Donna pried him off of Wally.
“Okay, bye I guess!” He exclaimed flippantly as the two were separated, crossing his arms over his chest as Donna dragged him, intentionally stumbling over his feet to make her life more difficult.
“Jesus Christ, come on!” She complained, although she couldn’t help laughing as she added, “Bye Wally!”
“Bye Donna,” The bartender bid, still chuckling as he watched them go. “Bye Dick.”
Dick gave an intentionally effeminate little wave as he let Donna pull him off toward her car.
“You alive in here?” The answer seemed debatable when Donna popped her head in to check on Dick a few hours later.
“You’re the worst and I hate you,” He grumbled from his place curled up under the comforter.
“Oh, no you don’t,” She disagreed, padding across the floor and gently plopping down on the edge of his bed.
“Pretty sure I do,” He insisted. She pulled back the part of the comforter that covered his face, and her expression alone was enough to call him a drama queen when he saw it. From his own perspective, his dramatics felt warranted.
“You’re not actually pissed, are you?” She asked, her tone weary. Dick groaned and covered his face with both hands.
“Not at you, no,” He grumbled. “I had the perfect opportunity in front of me and I was scared so I sabotaged it, I hate myself.”
She scoffed.
“You have perfect opportunities to jump Wally’s bones all the time.”
“This was different, I don’t know how to explain it!” He maintained. “It was so… seamless. It could’ve been so perfect, and I totally fumbled it.”
Now that his adrenaline had worn off, and a lot of the alcohol had left his system, he couldn’t help looking back on the night in terror. How could Dick have gotten so breathtakingly close not once, but twice, and never even kissed him? What would Wally have done if he had? Would he actually have taken Dick home and fucked him if he’d been sober? Did he think they’d just taken their teasing another step further? Did he expect there to be no strings attached? Dick had told him to stop worrying and just enjoy how it felt. Or did he want or even expect there to be more to it?
“I can feel you spiraling,” Donna told him, getting up and circling the bed to crawl under the comforter with him. “Do you really like Wally?”
He nodded, because it felt easier to simply say yes than to admit that he had always wondered, on some level, if Wally West was the love of his life. She sighed, resting her head next to his on the pillow.
“You want my two cents?” She asked. He nodded again.
She may have interfered in his affairs earlier, but Donna had never had anything less than his best interests at heart. Not once since they’d met when they were 9 and 10 years old.
“You’re your own worst enemy, Dick,” She told him, reaching out and ruffling his hair with her fingers. “When you want to be with someone, you forget how to trust yourself. You go against your gut at every turn, and you sabotage yourself because you don’t think you deserve to be happy.”
Dick blinked back at her, a little stunned.
“Damn, maybe I don’t want your two cents,” He mumbled, scooting closer and tucking his head into her shoulder. She laughed as she wrapped her arms around him, combing her fingers through his curls.
“I’ve known you forever, Dick. I know you deserve to be happy,” She said softly. “But you’ve gotta stop fighting against it.”