Chapter Text
Barry power walks out to the balcony, list firmly in hand. The boards chill his feet as he paces up and down the confined space. “So your side is meeting at the venue at 10, and then Iris is meeting me here so we can go over together.” His footsteps clunk along the wood in time with his words, even as both feel a little jittery. “There’s buffer time built in because I’m sure I’m going to forget something, and then—“
“Whoa, Bar,” Hal says. He pushes himself up from his comfortable sprawl across the balcony’s lounge chair, the low light from their room catching on the easy curve of his smile. “You’ve checked and rechecked. We’ve got a whole group of designated helpers. Your suit isn’t going to get any less pressed, and your cufflinks aren’t going to get any less spotless from another round with the anxiety checklist.”
Barry stops pacing. Without the movement to distract him, his racing heart is that much more blatant and jarring against the peaceful night. He lets out a long breath. “Actually, they can. I misplaced the cufflinks between round four and five, and had to pull out the iron after dropping the suit re-checking it.”
“All the more reason to slow down.”
To one side is the organized chaos of their room — the hanging pair of garment bags, the carefully arranged bits and bobs covering the dresser, the open suitcase on the bed — and to the other, the relative calm of the balcony. Did he pack the white socks? Or black? He grips the railing before he can head back inside to check, the wood grain rough and grounding against his palm. “I just want everyone to have a good time.”
Hal snorts. “Does that include you? Because I don’t see that on that list of yours.”
“How could I not enjoy my own wedding?”
Because that’s what tomorrow is. Their wedding. Barry’s stomach does another little flip from acknowledging it. Not that he hasn’t known in the year since the proposal, through the tastings and suit fittings squeezed in between work, and League missions, and Hal getting called away to mediate conflicts around Betelgeuse. But even as the planning accelerated, the wedding simply felt like something they might do some day, until the past week when suddenly it was just now .
Hal pushes himself up fully. That sense of ease is gone, and Barry misses it. “Is it me? Do you think I don’t want to do this?”
Barry stuffs his list in his pocket and speeds to sit by Hal. The chair is barely wide enough for the two of them, so Barry perches on the edge, hip warm where it presses against Hal’s. “Like you’ve said about a hundred times since, you wouldn’t have accepted my proposal if you didn’t. And you certainly wouldn’t have accepted it twice.”
Hal rakes a hand through his hair. It’s near black in the moonlight, except for the white patches at his temples. He’d long since stopped plucking the white hairs. Whether the bigger factor was Hal’s legendary stubbornness caving to his body’s unyielding reality or simply accepting Barry’s subtle hints that Barry liked it remains a mystery. “Exactly. And since I’m having a wedding, you better not mess it up by tiring out the groom the night before.”
“Because that’s your job.”
Hal laughs, that free, snorting thing that untangles more of the knots around Barry’s throat. “One I take very seriously. So come here.”
Hal scooches over so the two of them can both fit in the chair, if barely. Barry ends up halfway on top of Hal, though mostly through Hal’s design.
Barry slumps against him and lets Hal’s warm, solid presence leech some of the nervous energy from his body. Hal smells summery, like the bed and breakfast’s shampoo, with the astringent bite of Hal’s aftershave that’s clung to Hal’s jacket since Barry met him. It unlocks some emotional sluice gate in Barry’s chest, a trigger allowing him to relax, and, for a time, simply exist.
The night stretches out before them, the lights extending maybe 50 feet before the fields meld into a single, solid darkness. The stars shine with a clarity and brilliance foreign to Central City. On nights this clear, with layers upon layers of stars, it feels like he can see across the entire universe, and see Hal, wherever his Lantern business has taken him. But Hal’s here, breathing deep, even breaths in time with Barry’s own. A breeze picks up, carrying the earthy damp of summer to them from the fields. Hal shifts under Barry as if Barry were a blanket, his Californian sensitivities still strong despite his years living with Barry.
It feels almost rude to speak into the white noise of insects and rustling corn, so Barry keeps his voice low as he says, “I forget how many stars you can see from Earth. Between nights in the lab and everything going on in Central, it can be hard to find time to stop to look up.”
“It’s easy to ignore when commuting between sectors,” Hal agrees. “Then there’s a moment of quiet on some moon, and suddenly, it’s all you can see.”
Maybe that’s it. He’s spent so long with marriage being a passing thought to be immediately brushed aside that, now that it’s finally happening, he hasn’t taken the needed moment to sit and wonder at this thing they’re doing. There are people who prepare their whole lives for this. Maybe Barry would have been one of them, if he hadn’t decided early in their relationship that being with Hal was more important.
“It does make the cufflinks seem a little less urgent, in the grand scheme of things,” Barrys says, smiling at the huff of Hal’s breath against his ear. “How are you? Now that you don’t have to worry about me vibrating through the floor?”
“Pretty comfortable. As much as I like you in me, I was never a big fan of that full body experience.” Hal laughs and squirms as Barry elbows him in the stomach. “I’m good. Better than I ever thought I could be leading up to something like this. Nerves are normal, right? Even for people who’re desperate for it, and didn’t just start warming up to the idea when the right hot blond came along. But I know I’m here because I want to be, and because you helped me get here. What more could I ask for?”
Barry winds their fingers together and runs a thumb up the warm contours of the Green Lantern ring. “That’s good. Because I really want to give you that ring. So your arms don’t get lopsided.”
Hal’s head drops back against the chair. “That was terrible . Is it too late to call the whole thing all off?”
Barry beams at their entwined hands. “You knew what you were getting into.”
Hal huffs, and lays his cheek against Barry’s head.
Barry tightens his arms around Hal. By this time tomorrow, they’ll be married, the result of a year’s worth of planning and calls and late nights all passed in the blink of an eye. “I’m excited too.”
“I know. I could see it, even buried until those ten layers of anxiety.”
“I’m glad. Since I’m not as good at saying sweet things as you are. How are you going to top that for your vows?”
“Oh, those were my vows.” Hal’s arm holds Barry still through what must be the panic on his face, only slightly calmed by the shaking of Hal’s laughter. “I’ll figure something else out. Seriously! Or are you going to make me distract you?” He runs a hand up Barry’s back, grinning at Barry’s full-body shudder.
Barry laughs now too, his body long ago having learned the response to that tone of voice. He shifts further up Hal’s body until they’re nose to nose. “I’ve got a pretty big day tomorrow. You think you can distract me from all that?”
Hal’s breath is hot on Barry’s face, but mostly Barry’s taken by the delighted crinkle of Hal’s nose, as out of place yet wonderfully Hal as when they first met. “So little faith in your fiancé. Can’t have that going into our wedding.”