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It’s a cloudy Friday evening, and Barry and Hal are crowded beside the small silver buffet in the grand hall of Wayne Manor, experiencing their first ever gala.
Officially — meaning if anyone asks, though no one has — they’re guests of Ollie and Dinah’s, though in actuality they’ve seen very little of the couple all night. They’re really here because they were curious what it’d be like, and Bruce had been in a good enough mood to agree when Barry requested invites. He had warned them, in that dry, dead-serious tone he sometimes puts on when he’s trying to make a joke, that they should back out while they still can, that it’d be incredibly boring.
It is. Oh, it one-hundred percent is. Neither of them tend to dream of watching pretty, dolled-up socialites sip champagne and pretend to care how each other’s lives are going, or of declining drinks every fifteen or so minutes because Hal is eight months sober and Barry’s metabolism is too fast the feel the effects of anything from this planet anyway, or witnessing Bruce flirt his way into making Clark, playing the interviewer, forget any questions he wanted to ask… Well, okay, the third one has provided enough entertainment to giggle about while they pick at the best charcuterie board Barry has ever tasted.
“Do you think they’re already fucking?” Hal asks, sliding his arm around Barry’s waist, eyes on Clark, who is stumbling over words just out of earshot and trying to act calm about Bruce’s hand placed low on his hip.
“No,” Barry decides, using the unusually long toothpick he’s been fiddling with for the past few minutes to pick up a cube of cheese he doesn’t know the name for and poke it between Hal’s lips. “But I bet that changes tonight. It’s about time.”
Hal eats the cheese with a little hum and a nod of approval. “It was about time two years ago.”
This is true, but Clark shoots them a split-second glare so Barry just laughs in reply, throwing away the toothpick to prevent himself from chewing on the wooden tip in front of all these people and nodding towards the chamber band, who are starting to return to their seats after breaking for dinner. “Look, they’re setting back up.”
“Gonna dance with me this time?” Hal asks, and as if on cue a piece starts, something slow and legato, and people start to dance, just a few small groups and couples. Ollie has Dinah pulled to his chest, with the exception of her head, which is cautiously tilted back, most likely in an attempt to preserve her makeup. She’s wearing this beautiful floor-length black dress that Hal has been eyeing half the night, with a slit up one side to show off her matching heels and bare legs.
Hal had thought about wearing a dress tonight. Not exactly considered it; she isn’t ready for that, and as she’s told Barry, might never be. It was just a little fantasy, a quiet what if she mused over while curled up to Barry’s side, scrolling through lists of dresses that match his suit with no plan to buy one. (Somewhere in the distance, her bank account cheered.)
Barry nods, turning a little to take Hal’s hand in his and lead him away from the buffet and closer to the small ensemble, closer to the music. They’ve danced together a few times now, though nowhere as formal as here, and Hal prefers Barry to lead, to hold him close and sway, although they definitely look a little clumsy compared to the other guests. Barry doesn’t mind. Past the smooth melody and murmurs of business talk filling the room, all he feels is love.
It started as this small thing that burrowed itself in his chest years ago, long before he and Hal became what they are now. A little pang every time Hal touched him or smiled at him or flirted, because she’s always flirted. In those days, he knew somewhere in the back of his mind that it was love, but he didn’t know it like he knows it now; he’s never known love like Hal’s. It’s in everything. Early mornings where he wakes up to kisses in his hair, tangled in Hal’s arms, greeted with Morning, Bear, because the lingering Air-Force in her ensures she always wakes up first; playing footsies under the table at too-long League meetings with traded smiles, almost always getting called out to pay attention; hasty makeout sessions when one or both of them (admittedly, it’s usually Barry) are going to be late but they just can’t get their hands off each other.
Love fills the space in Hal’s absence, too, in the weeks and months he’s off-world. How can Barry be truly alone when all of Hal’s laundry is mixed in with his own, when their bathroom mirror is filled with sticky-note messages, GET MORE BREAD!! and Sorry to disappear so early! Lantern shit, I should be back tonight, I love you and can you ask Ollie if we can keep his air fryer he can afford another one, when if Barry gets out of the city to the spot he and Hal discovered together he can stare up at the sky and count the constellations Hal taught him to recognize?
“Baby,” Hal whispers, and love is here, too, a neverending current flowing through their veins, buzzing everywhere they touch. “I’m losing you.”
Distantly, Barry realizes the song is ending, and he brings his hand to Hal’s face in time with the slow decrescendo to kiss her, the hundredth time this evening, each as special as the last. “We should,” Hal mumbles, holding Barry’s waist and tilting his head to kiss him again, “we should consummate our first ever gala.”
Barry laughs against his lips, probably a little too loud for the occasion, but he doesn’t pay any mind to it, to anything other than Hal. “Okay,” he says, grinning softly and tugging Hal a little closer, chest against chest. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”
They hardly get the front door of their apartment closed behind them before Barry has Hal pressed against the wall, kissing her hard, hands finding her hips.
“Wait, wait,” Hal says, giggling into Barry’s mouth, “let’s have one more dance.”
Barry laughs, bumping his forehead against Hal’s. Their apartment is way too small and too crowded for that to be a good idea, but Hal is holding his waist and peppering kisses all around his mouth, and Barry has never been able to deny him anything. “Okay. One more.”
Hal tugs him to their bedroom, pushing her phone into Barry’s hands and telling him to find a song. He’s not entirely sure what to search for, but he manages to find something that looks promising, and when he glances back up to tell Hal, she’s shrugging her button-up off her shoulders, jacket already discarded on the unofficial laundry-chair. Barry means to ask what she’s doing, but his mind goes blank at how pretty she is, so casually undressing, and despite having seen it a million times by now, Barry doesn’t think he’ll ever tire of it, her tanned, strong chest, littered with scars not unlike his own. His view is quickly obstructed by a construct; oh, she’s making a dress for herself, long and similar to the one Dinah wore tonight, though with more chest coverage. Barry glances up to meet her eyes, and she gives him the sweetest grin, kicking off her shoes and fumbling to tug her pants off too before tossing them onto the aforementioned laundry-chair and waving for Barry to come closer.
Barry presses play on the song, setting the phone down on their bed and stepping towards Hal to pull him close, hands on his waist. This song is quicker and airier than what they had danced to at the gala, and Barry can’t keep a smile off his face as he twirls Hal one, two, three times, because it makes him giggle every time, and Barry would do anything to make him smile. This is love, he thinks, promptly bumping into the side of the bed, their bedroom, like the rest of their place, far too small for dancing. He pushes Hal a little so he falls back onto the bed, dress hanging off the edge like a waterfall, then climbs onto his lap, hands firm on his waist, and leans down to kiss him, cherishing every little laugh Hal breathes into his mouth.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says, tilting his head for another kiss. “We should get you a dress like this for real.” A kiss to her jaw this time, and Hal brings her hands up to touch Barry’s lower back through his suit. “Looks so good on you, so pretty, my baby. My Hal.”
Hal makes this quiet breathy sound and Barry kisses his lips again, one hand sliding between the back of his head and the comforter, the other holding his waist tight like he’s trying to keep him in place. He’s slipping his tongue between Hal’s lips when the song ends, and they’re interrupted by an advertisement far louder than the music ever was, and they erupt into laughter, drowning out the ad, drowning out everything except each other. Everything except what matters. Eventually Barry sits up, all his weight on Hal’s thighs because he knows he can support it, not that he weighs much in the first place, with his fast metabolism, his runner’s body. Still grinning a little, he fumbles to grab the phone and turn it off, setting it on the bedside table to be forgotten and looking back down to meet Hal’s eyes as he asks, “Where were we?”
“Here,” Hal says, sitting up so Barry’s more properly sitting in her lap, kissing at his cheek and his jaw and his neck as she slips off his jacket, letting it fall to the ground before starting to work at the buttons on his shirt, undoing them blindly, all the while mouthing and sucking at his skin like he’s something sweet, like he’s fruit, an orange she’s trying to drain of juice.
When Hal has stripped him of the top half of his suit, he takes the time to run his fingers over the scars on his torso, scattered zigzags of texture. Barry used to hate this in secret, Hal’s focus on his scars, but over time he came to understand that it, too, is love, like every other touch Hal presses to his skin, akin to something like reverence. He knows now that Hal is addicted to every little piece of him much like Barry is to Hal, so though sometimes it gets a little too flustering when Hal insists on leaving kisses all over the scarred skin, it doesn’t ache like it used to. When his patience starts to wane, he stands, hastily ridding himself of the rest of his clothes. Hal gets the memo, dissolving the dress construct, but Barry doesn’t give him time to take his gray boxers off too before climbing back onto his lap, grinding against the cotton, already unfairly wet.
Hal kisses him again, hands settling on his hips, and he can feel her getting hard against him, and he loves her, he loves her, he loves her. She’s making these delicious little sounds from her throat, the only ones that vaguely resemble words sounding like half-formed Barrys. Barry wants to dance with her for the rest of his life, wants to never let go. He slides a hand under the waistband of her boxers to grab at her ass, drinking in every little sound she makes; she’s loud because she knows he likes it, she confessed once, face pressed to his neck, because before him she always tried to hold back, to sound put-together, like a man, before Barry came along and coaxed every little whine and moan out of her, coaxed herself out of her hiding spot behind the wall of cheesy jokes and overconfidence she clung to most of her life.
Impatient, Hal starts to grind back against him, and Barry laughs, kissing the corner of his mouth and asking, the type of unfiltered thing he’d always hesitate to say before Hal, “Do you want me to fuck you, or–”
“Ride me,” Hal interrupts, punctuating her sentence with a lazy upward thrust of her hips that hits Barry’s small, sensitive cock just right. “Please, baby, I’ve been thinking about being inside you all night.”
“Anything,” Barry says, kissing him one more time for good measure. “Get me ready?”
Hal lifts him up by his hips, setting him down in the middle of the bed like he weighs nothing. She moves a pillow under his ass to raise him a little before positioning herself between his thighs, making eye contact as she presses her tongue flat against his cock, wanting to watch him squirm. She loves doing this, could — does, occasionally, when they have the opportunity — eat him out for hours while he busies himself with work, making him cum over and over again before ever fucking him. Hal’s so obsessed with his body he can’t believe it sometimes, and she eats him out like she kisses, needy and overwhelming and all his. She presses her palm to his lower thigh when he shuts his eyes, gaze unrelenting when he opens them again, watching her suck on one finger before slipping it into him in sync with wrapping her lips around his cock and the sensation has Barry whining and bucking into her touch.
“Can’t believe you’re all mine,” Hal mumbles, barely giving him time to adjust to the stretch of the first finger before pressing another in beside it. Hal’s fingers are shorter than Barry’s, but they’re thicker too, and in any case, Barry will always prefer Hal’s touch to his own for the sheer reason of being in love with him. Hal curls his fingers and licks at his cock, and Barry’s hand finds its way to Hal’s hair, not pulling, just holding him there, soft brown strands between his fingers making it all feel more real. Hal pulls his fingers out and then shifts to make it three at once, tongue persisting on his cock, back and forth and back and forth and a little suction, too, and Barry knows he won’t last long, not that he often does when Hal is involved.
“Hal,” Barry mumbles, keeping his eyes fixed on her head even when he wants to close them, because he knows she wants him to watch. She sucks at his cock hard, curling her fingers just right, and Barry’s gone, heat pooling in his core, a mess of Hal, baby, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Hal doesn’t pull back until it’s overwhelming, and when he does he leans over Barry to kiss him, wet and messy and needy. Eating Barry out always gets him worked up, and a few times it’s even made him cum untouched, which is one of the hottest things in the world, in Barry’s opinion. “I love you,” Hal mumbles into his mouth, one hand grabbing at Barry’s waist, the other holding himself up. “My love.”
“I love you too,” Barry says, laughing into Hal’s mouth, pushing her back a little to meet her eyes. “So much. It’s my turn. Lay down, baby. Let me take care of you.”
Hal kisses him one more time before moving off of him, laying down like he was told. Barry tugs his boxers off and tosses them aside, and he means to get started right away, but he gets distracted by Hal’s… everything. He’s so beautiful, flushed in the face but unembarrassed, grinning at Barry like he’s the most important thing in the world, his cock red and wet and waiting. Barry rushes just a little to grab their lube and pull a condom on him, giving his hard cock a few gentle strokes before sitting up to straddle his hips, making eye contact as he carefully lowers himself.
Hal opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but Barry speaks before she can, sinking down to settle himself on her cock and get used to the stretch as he says, words he could say over and over and never get tired of them, “You’re so pretty, Hal. My– my pretty girlfriend. God, I love you.”
“Love you too,” Hal says with a half-formed whine, bringing a hand up to touch Barry’s calf, trying to stop himself from thrusting up into him, by Barry’s guess. “Love you so much, Bear, you feel so good.”
Barry lifts his hips, starting to properly ride her, his breathing shaky with each drag of her cock inside him, so hot and so much and so right. He thinks about the gala, about how good it felt to dance with her like that in front of so many strangers, playing the part of the upper-class lifestyle expected of the other guests but entirely real in their affection. Hal lets out this breathy, shaky moan, and Barry adores her, wants to make her feel like this for the rest of their lives, loved and cherished and all his.
“Wanna kiss you,” Hal says, so Barry helps maneuver him so he’s sitting up, Barry’s weight on his lap. Hal’s lips are hot against his, tongue darting out to lick into his mouth, to brush against his own. It’s always so good when he gets like this, so needy, fumbling to grab at Barry’s lower back and run his tongue along his teeth, which never quite set right because he didn’t wear his retainer enough as a kid, but Hal doesn’t mind, Hal never minds, just kisses him hard like he’s the most beautiful thing in the world, panting a little into his mouth, lifting him with his thumbs firm on Barry’s hipbones as if to remind him, Hey, you’re supposed to be riding me.
Barry takes the hint, letting his thighs do the work of fucking himself on Hal’s cock, his mind entirely focused on kissing her, on making her feel good, on her, in general, as it usually is. Whether he wants it or not, Hal always takes up most of his thoughts, especially when they’re apart, working separately or busy with life or worst of all, when Hal is off-world. But it’s worth it all. Every minute apart from her is worth it for this, for her shaky breaths in his mouth, for the warm flush that runs all through her body, for the whine in her voice as she says, “Bear, baby,” bringing her hand to Barry’s cock to rub it with her index, “please, please.”
“What do you need?” Barry asks, breath hitching at the contact, whole body thrumming with love.
“More,” Hal mumbles, sliding his free hand up to hold Barry’s waist and pulling his head back a little to meet his eyes. “I don’t know. I’m close. Just– more.”
Barry smiles a little — Hal rarely lasts very long after she’s gotten him off. He thinks he’d be much the same way in her position, but his almost non-existent refractory period makes things a little different. “Okay, okay,” he says, clenching around her and shutting his eyes to focus on the feeling, not far off himself with the way she’s touching his cock, a little distracted but well-meaning. More, she said, and the first time he fucked her fast she called it cheating — after cumming so hard she couldn’t think, that is — but he knows that’s what she needs now, and he’s more than willing to give it to her. Anything she needs.
“Fuck,” Hal whines when he speeds up, and then, “Fuck, please, please.”
Barry presses his forehead to Hal’s, their noses bumping a little in consequence, and no sooner than Hal is gripping his waist tight and crying out a string of swear words and Bear, baby does he feel himself hitting his peak, cumming for the second time around Hal’s cock. He tilts his head to kiss him, open-mouthed and uncoordinated, all heavy breaths and spit and I love you, I love you, I love you.
He can feel Hal going soft inside him, but doesn’t pull off quite yet, instead bringing a hand to her face to hold her still and kiss her properly, smiling when she laughs into his mouth. “Good?”
“Good,” Hal says, pulling back to meet his gaze, flushed and spent and beautiful. “I think maybe– maybe I’ll ask Dinah where she got that dress.”