Work Text:
Harvey Dent did not love Bruce Wayne.
Yes. That was it.
Harvey Dent just loved the thrill. The way all the blood rushed to his head, adrenaline glazing his eyes over like the worst kind of drug. The enticingly dizzying idea that this was wrong. Not something people like them did. Not boys with clean records and futures as blindingly bright as their smiles. Not boys who commanded rooms effortlessly, turning hearts between their fingers like quarters. Not boys that shone like the sun, skin bronze and sculpted like some idol.
If Harvey was the sun, Bruce was the moon. He remembers thinking that the first time he found himself tangled in those perfectly starched, stark white sheets.
It would not be the last.
There, Bruce seemed to almost glow under the pale moonlight; a soft kind of glow, from within. A deity, skin like pearls. Endymion and Selene. They had laughed at the myth. Thought it was foolish to ever trust a God, even in the name of love.
Harvey thought he got it now.
He was young. Yes, that must be it. Young and passionate and spirited and hot-blooded and full hearted and head over heels. Stupid and immature; only looking to kill time. Soon enough, he'd move on and forget the whole mess. Maybe even look back and laugh at the mistakes of his youth. It was a given. He'd settle down with a beautiful woman; her hair would be that deep raven black, and her nose sharp and sloped, and her neck slender and delicate, and-
...and would she whisper his name as sweetly he did? Would she have eyes as deep as the summer sky? Would her tears prick at their corners and stab his heart and glimmer like dying stars?
...
...
Harvey Dent just loved the control. Surely that had to be it. He loved to take and take and to never be taken from. Like any self-respecting man with a spine. A man who took what he wanted without fear of hurdles or consequences. Yes...that’s what he was. A real man.
His father would be proud, he thinks.
...
Middle school, it must’ve been. Almost dinner, and the sun had just begun to set. But the sky was still so bright, clinging onto the last few beams of hope. Summers always seemed brighter when he was younger. Especially at the peak of it, when the air was thick and warm and sticky. Like blood that had just begun to dry.
...
What Harvey loved was the warmth of a hand on his cheek. Yes, that was definitely it. He loved the warmth. Not the sting. The arms that held him firm, in the present, in safety. Not the ones that trapped him like a vice, confining him to the past. Warm breath ghosting over the back of his neck, hairs standing erect. Not the stink of alcohol burning his nostrils, choking his throat. Lips whispering sweet nothings, not hurling insults.
What he really loved were those unfairly blue eyes that peered right into his sick, twisted, ugly heart and stayed.
Harvey Dent did not love Bruce Wayne. Or so he wished.