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“I just think he's doing too much.”
The barista is pretty, because Kyle’s life is nothing if not a sitcom that delights in making him the punchline, and Connor's been smiling at him for all three minutes they've been waiting for their drinks. He's got straight teeth and perfect hair and looks like he moisturizes twice a day, naturally chatting with Connor as if they're long-lost childhood buddies. If Connor's life was a sitcom it'd be called something like ‘let's all watch this incredible and beautiful man have meet-cutes with other beautiful and probably incredible men.’
There's a woman ordering right this very second and still as soon as the transaction is over, the two of them pick the conversation back up.
Kyle seethes.
“That is something you would think,” Wally agrees. Kyle hates Wally for a lot of reasons, but one of them is how he can make it sound like he's on Kyle's side when he very much is not. “You want to bone him.”
“No I don't,” Kyle lies. His voice cracks halfway through, which is just fantastic. Wally hoots with laughter when Connor looks back curiously, his forearms crossed loosely. His muscles visibly shift under the fabric of his shirt, and Kyle looks away. “Besides, he doesn't want to.”
“But you wish he did.” Wally waggles his brows in Connor’s direction—Kyle is going to kill him.
“No I don't,” he repeats, and this time it isn't really a lie. “It's whatever. You sound like a douche.”
Wally stares at him a moment, blinking rapidly, and then his eyes widen comically, jaw almost hitting the freaking floor with how far it drops. “Jesus, Rayner. You're in love with him?”
“In love with who?”
Holy shit, Kyle is going to jail. He is really and truly going to twist this idiot's thick neck if Connor overheard anything more. Wally clears his throat, his voice pained.
“Oh, you know,” he starts, about half an octave higher than usual. Kyle can find it in him to be grateful that Wally’s at least attempting to fabricate a convincing lie, even though he's sure it'll be stupid. “That blonde guy from the Hunger Games. He has a thing for blondes,” he adds meaningfully, just as Kyle is considering maybe not wringing his neck. See if he'll ever be magnanimous again.
Connor tilts his head, brushing back a strand of his own very blonde hair. “I didn't know that. You never tell me these things, Kyle,” he says reproachfully, handing them their drinks. Wally downs half of his black coffee in one go, disdainfully side-eyeing Kyle's perfectly normal triple-shot cappuccino with sugar and cocoa. Wally's a performative little bitch so Kyle ignores him.
“Because it's not true, Wally just says shit. I mean—” the three of them find a little booth by the window, Wally pushing ahead of Kyle so he can slide into the seat opposite Connor, leaving Kyle to slip in next to the archer. When their thighs press together, Connor doesn't move away. “—it's not not true. I do like blondes, just, you know, as much as I like anybody. I don't like just anybody, though, obviously there's—”
“Buddy,” Wally interjects. “For your sake, I beg you to quit while you're marginally ahead.”
Right, well, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Whatever. Kyle sips his cappuccino, his eyes resolutely trained on the chipped table. Connor makes a little humming noise, nudging his shoulder against Kyle's, oblivious to the way his heart jumps in response.
“I don't know about that, anyway. You like plenty of people, Kyle. Nothing to be ashamed about,” he adds teasingly when Wally roars with laughter. Assholes, the both of them. Kyle sinks into his seat with a groan as the two of them start listing all his exes off, and unfortunately it does take a minute, but it's not Kyle's fault that everyone he meets is both unfairly pretty and willing to humor him for longer than they reasonably should.
The thing is that Kyle wouldn't mind all this talk about his ex-girlfriends if Connor sounded even the slightest bit green about it. He doesn't, though. He's just sitting there with that broad grin on his face, poking fun at him with Wally like he's not the focal point of Kyle's thoughts day and night. If this were the other way around, if Kyle had to sit here and laugh about Connor's exes, he's not sure he could've stomached it.
“Think of all the aliens we don't even know about,” Wally is saying when Kyle tunes back in. He's not wrong in the slightest, but Kyle will set himself on fire before giving them more ammo. He forcibly turns the conversation over to the episode of Battlestar Galactica they left off on, and the other two must take pity on him because they take the bait without missing a beat. Wally’s already seen it, which means Kyle and Connor can watch on their own time being bums while he's off being a dad or whatever.
“Don't you get bored of the space stuff?” Connor asks. He props his chin up on his hand, swirling his cup absentmindedly. It's some weird foamy green thing, because Connor hates coffee and yet insists they come here anyway. “I mean, it's probably ridiculous to you.”
“Yeah, but—it's fun. I like seeing what they thought space would be like, back then. Before. Besides, it’s not like you get pissy every time you see a bow and arrow on screen.”
“I like Katniss,” Connor agrees, and Wally rolls his eyes.
“Everyone likes Katniss.”
Wally has to leave early, on account of being a PTA dad who’s been charged with cookie duty. He claps Connor on the shoulder, ruffles Kyle’s hair just to be a dick, and jogs out the door before Kyle can throw his empty cup at him. Just as he's about to disappear around the corner, Wally turns back to meet Kyle’s eyes, winking totally unsubtly, and then it's just him and Connor.
For about thirty seconds.
“I don’t usually do this, but—” starts the girl that pops up out of nowhere. She's blushing to the roots of her hair, and when Kyle looks behind her, he sees a gaggle of her friends cheering her on silently. It’d be cute, if she were interested in literally anyone else. “—could I get your number?”
Connor blinks up at her. He sends Kyle a sideways glance, which is both validating and deeply, deeply embarrassing. Kyle’s sure he's got the nastiest look on his face right now, as if he's about to challenge this poor girl to a duel. He just—he can't help it. Connor is his best friend. They're partners in every sense of the word—almost every sense—and every time Kyle looks at him he wants the whole world to know it, that the other half of his heart and soul belongs squarely in the hands of one Connor Hawke.
When Connor looks back at the girl, his smile is both polite and earnest, because Connor is too good to be anything else.
“I'm sorry,” he tells her. “I'm not looking to date anyone at the moment.”
To her credit, the girl takes the rejection with grace, though the dejected slump of her shoulders becomes more evident when she reaches her friends. Kyle feels for her, he really does, because that was kind of a rejection-by-proxy for him, too. Not looking to date anyone at the moment. God. Kyle doesn't really know why he's so disappointed. As if Connor would ever have been looking to date him in the first place.
“Are you okay, Kyle?”
“Yes,” he lies. He is not okay. Kyle wants to crawl under the table and never come out. Surreptitiously, he texts Wally I AM GOINF TO KILLMUSELF!!!!!! as Connor starts telling him about how Oliver got himself tangled up in his own grapple line last week.
Connor twists a strand of hair absently around his finger as he talks, his gaze skittering away every few seconds, never quite settling on Kyle for long. He probably thinks he's being real subtle with this, trying to cheer Kyle up with Oliver Queen Epic Fails, and the thought makes something warm and unbearable swell in Kyle’s chest. He laughs, a helpless, choked sound, and ducks his head quickly, pretending it’s just the story that got him.
The dimpled smile Connor gives him in return is—Kyle’s a little out of breath. It’s ridiculous, honestly, the way he can knock the air from Kyle's lungs like a punch to the sternum. He can't look away—he should, because there's nothing between them and he doesn't want to be weird, but just for a moment, Kyle lets himself be greedy. Connor's hair shines, curling around his temple where he's forgotten to push flyaways behind his ear. The slope of his nose, the sturdiness of his jaw—Kyle could spend years trying to capture his likeness and never get it quite so perfect.
“Kyle?”
Connor’s brows are drawn, creased with concern, and it takes Kyle a heartbeat too long to realize that they’re only inches apart. Close enough that Connor’s breath stirs the air between them, close enough that Kyle can see the different shades of brown to his irises.
His pulse stumbles unevenly and he has to curl his fingers into his palms beneath the table just to keep from closing the distance. It’s unfair, Kyle thinks wildly, that anyone should have eyes like that.
“Yeah,” he manages finally, his tongue unsticking from the roof of his mouth. “Yeah, what's up?”
“You're distracted,” Connor murmurs. “What is it?”
Kyle’s throat works. He can feel the word you rising, perched on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows it back down and smiles, instead. “It’s nothing, Con, I’m alright.”
Connor studies him for a long moment, searching his face the way he always does, but then he leans back a fraction, giving Kyle the space he hadn’t asked for. “Okay,” he says at last. Connor's not an easy man to read, except for that Kyle knows him as well as he knows his own reflection in the mirror. He can tell that Connor's upset—he thinks Kyle doesn't want to tell him the truth, maybe doesn't even trust him with it, and Kyle feels guilt crawling up his throat like bile.
“I'm sorry for zoning out,” he tries, almost pleading. It's useless, though, because Connor has already made up his mind and forgiven Kyle for it. He takes a sip of his drink to mask the faint slump of his shoulders. Kyle pretends not to notice, but his skin itches with it.
It's awkward between them for about ten seconds before Kyle can't stand it anymore. The sight of Connor sitting there with that faintly wounded look, as if he thinks he’s done something wrong, is too much to bear. Kyle stands, hauling Connor up with him, and tugs him out the door with a hand around his wrist. Connor blinks at him, startled, but doesn’t resist.
Kyle refuses to be the kind of shitty friend that can't put his feelings to the side and just be a friend. The last thing Connor should ever feel is that Kyle can't talk to him about things.
“Let's head back to mine,” he insists. “We can watch our show, just the two of us.”
Connor is staring at where Kyle's fingers are wrapped around him. “Isn't it usually?” He says finally, and Kyle could cry with relief at the amusement in his voice instead of that awful, awful hurt. He beams, pulling Connor into the alleyway off to their left, and wraps an arm around his waist. Instinctively, Connor's own arms lace around his neck. His breath puffs hot and warm against Kyle's cheek.
“Ready, Arrow?”
“You know you don't have to carry me like this when you fly me places. You could just levitate me like you do everyone else.”
“Aw, but where's the fun in that?”
Connor's eyes crinkle as he smiles, and after a moment of hesitation, rests his head against Kyle's shoulder. Kyle takes a breath, praying to every god above that Connor can't feel the racing of his heart, and takes off.
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