The Perks of Being a Wall-Man (4/4)
Title: The Perks of Being a Wall-Man
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 17000 (9000 in this part)
Summary: The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Young Justice style! Wally stands on the fringes of life and offers a unique perspective.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Notes: DONE. This was so much fun to write, but was also very difficult. It was exciting to write from someone else's style because I think it helped me realize my own style a little better. It was a great exercise and I recommend it to everyone: rewrite a book with your own characters just to get the feel of another writer's work. Maybe it's not helpful to everyone, but it was great for me. Also, if anyone enjoyed this story (and I really hope you did) please do yourself a favor and READ THE BOOK. Seriously, this is one of the most amazing books I have ever read in my whole life. I've read it countless times and every time I read it, I get something new from it. A new philosophy, a new understanding, a new perspective. It's done so much for me in terms of understanding people and situations a little better. Also, there is SO MUCH MORE in the book than in this fic. So much more about the main character's family and more about his well-being and so much more developed than this AU. There are links of it online if you don't want to buy it. And don't just watch the movie version. I'm sure the movie will be good (at least, it better be), but there is a certain magic in the book that I don't think can ever be replicated. Anyway, thank you all for reading. :)
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
PART FOUR A
I walk around the school hallways and look at the people. I look at the teachers and wonder why they're here. If they like their jobs. Or us. And I wonder how smart they were when they were fifteen. Not in a mean way. In a curious way. It's like looking at all the students and wondering who's had their hearts broken that day, and how they are able to cope with having three quizzes and a book report on top of that. Or wondering who did the heart breaking. And wondering why. Especially since I know that if they went to another school, the person who had their heart broken would have had their heart broken by somebody else, so why does it have to be so personal?
Wally can't spend time with his friends. He can't run either. It's hard to run when you're high.
So he goes to the mall and wonders why anyone goes there at all.
It's during one of his trips to the mall when he sees Megan. Megan who used to date Conner.
She's standing with a group of boys, one with green hair and an arm around her shoulders. She's cut her hair, Wally notices in an offhand way.
When she notices him, she grows pale. Like she's a new person and doesn't want these boys to know who she was a year ago. Or maybe she doesn't want to be reminded herself.
He walks over and the whole group goes quiet. He doesn't notice them at all, only looking at her with her pale face and short hair and wide eyes.
"Do you ever miss him?"
It's not mean or accusatory. He just wants to know if anyone else remembers Conner.
Wally stares at her blank expression for a long time and even high as he is, he understands that this isn't fair for him to ask her in a group like this. But her face doesn't fade and the expression doesn't change and he realizes that even if Conner were still around, it doesn't mean Megan would still be with him. Not because she's a bad person, but because it was middle school and love doesn't always last and friends aren't always friends. And people grow. And people change. And life doesn't stop for anybody.
"Sorry for bothering you, Megan. It's just been a bad day today."
He walks away from her blank expression and can hear someone, he thinks it might be the boy with green hair, say "God, that kid is such a fucking freak."
Megan doesn't correct him and Wally doesn't blame her.
Kaldur does not talk much. Mostly he is silent, calm as Wally smokes and non-judgmental as they never talk about their other friends.
So the day he mentions Tim's father caught Tim and Dick, his angered voice surprises Wally as much as the news.
Incidentally, Tim's father didn't know Tim's feelings because when he saw him, he started beating him. Not a slap or a whip of his belt, but hits on his face, shoulder, stomach. A real kind of beating.
And every time Dick yelled, "Stop!" or "You're hurting him!" and every time Dick tried to pull Tim's father off of Tim, Tim just yelled, "Get out!"
Finally, he did.
It's been a week and no one has seen Tim. Dick has tried calling, but when Tim's dad answered, he just hung up.
Even though the air is gray with all of Wally's mistakes and uncertainties, he calls Dick to ask how he is.
Dick is quiet for a long time. Quiet like he never is and that scares Wally for a moment before Dick finally sighs.
"I didn't call you because I didn't want to hear sympathy from my best pal."
"Dude, that's what a best pal is for."
Wally hangs up soon after that. Smoke fills the room.
Wally runs and thinks about his friends. He imagines conversations with them. In his mind, he tells Dick he's his best friend. He asks Artemis about Roy. He tells Zatanna he's sorry and could she please show him that card trick again because he really does think it's clever.
He stops thinking because it hurts too much, but he keeps running because it hurts too much to stop.
Iris has a new boyfriend. His name is Jay and he shakes Wally's hand when they meet.
He looks at his sister and sees a happiness and ease in her eyes that he hasn't seen since before John. It's then that he knows everything is going to be okay with her.
A moment later, she's sighing very agitatedly and telling him she wants to be alone with Jay.
Wally knows it's not fair to ruin her time just because he misses everyone, so he says good night and goes to his room.
He sits alone and wishes he wasn't.
It's strange how things can change back as suddenly as they changed originally. When one thing happens and suddenly, things are back to normal.
Tim comes back on a Monday and it's like he was never really gone. Just back from a weekend off.
But he looks different. No longer walking with a bounce in his step. No longer looking at people in the hallway. But instead, he walks like everyone else: with his eyes on the floor and his shoulders hunched like the gargoyles in Wally's history textbook.
Wally can see Dick talk quiet and tense to Tim at his locker. And when Dick got upset, Tim shut his locker and walked away. It wasn't strange that Tim walked away. It was strange that Dick talked to him in public in the first place.
Later that day, Wally goes outside to run on his free period and sees Dick alone. From where he is, he's too far away to really see him, but close enough to know that this is Dick's alone time.
Dick's crying. Hard crying.
Anytime Wally sees Dick after that, it's like he's not really there. Like he's somewhere else. Like he wants to be someplace else and isn't sure how to get there.
That scares Wally because he's never known Dick to not get wherever he needs to go.
On Thursday, something really terrible happens.
Dick always gets where he needs to be. Or else, he tries to. At least, this is the reason Wally thinks of as he watches Dick cross the lunchroom to where Tim's sitting with the rest of the football team.
Tim ignores him and Dick gets upset like he did at the locker. But then the upset turns to anger and Dick walks away, tired of being ignored.
But then Tim calls out just loud enough for a few tables to hear.
"Faggot!"
And even though Tim's football buddies laugh, the rest of the cafeteria goes stone still as Dick turns around.
He storms up to Brad's table, moving so swiftly it's like he has wings.
"What did you call me?"
God, he was mad. Wally has never seen Dick like that before.
Tim was quiet and for a moment Wally wonders if he's going to keep quiet. But his football buddies egg him on and Cameron sits beside him, shoving at his shoulder enough to make Tim stand up and stare directly at Dick.
When he says it again, it's softer and meaner than the last time.
"I called you a faggot."
When Dick throws the first punch, no one is laughing. No one makes a noise. And it's an eerie sort of silence before the room explodes with noise.
They fight hard. No clean punches, no pause between hits, nothing like the movies. They just wrestled and hit and whoever was the most aggressive or the most angry got in the most hits. All in all, it's pretty even. They both have a lot to be angry about.
It's pretty fair until Cameron and some of the other football players join in the fight and then it's five against Dick.
And even though things aren't clear yet and even though Wally hasn't talked to his friends for weeks save for that one conversation with Dick and even though Wally ran right by Dick when he was crying, Wally joins the fight. He can't watch them hurt Dick.
The fight ends quickly. Everyone in the room seems surprised and Wally thinks maybe no one knows he can fight except for Bart who taught him. But in the end, Tim and two of his friends are just staring at him. One of the football players is holding his knee where Wally bashed a metal cafeteria chair into it and Cameron is clutching his face where Wally swiped at his eyes.
Wally can see tears in Dick's blue eyes as he helps him up and knows that he's messed up pretty bad even if he's not really crying yet. Then with his arm still around Dick's shoulder, Wally turns to Tim and talks quietly enough so that only Tim can hear him.
"If you ever do this again, I'll tell everyone. And if that doesn't work, I'll blind you."
He points to Cameron, still gripping at his face, and he knows Tim can hear him and that he means it. These are the first words he's ever really said to Tim, but even if he never talks to him again, this is the most important thing he can say to him.
The security guards take them all out of the cafeteria and straight to the nurse.
In the end, Dick is suspended for a week for starting the fight. The football players, except for Tim, get three days for ganging up on Dick. Tim gets a month's detention without suspension for self-defense. And Wally gets a month's detention for joining a fight, but doesn't get suspended since he was helping defend a friend.
The first day of detention, Tim comes to sit next to Wally.
And as mad as Wally is, as much as his blood is racing with adrenaline and anger, he's struck by how sad Tim looks. How very very sad he is. Wally thinks it's finally hit him what happened after he stopped feeling numb from the fight.
"Wally?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks. Thanks for stopping them."
"You're welcome."
At first Wally is confused, but then he thinks he wouldn't want his friends beating up Artemis even if he wasn't allowed to like her anymore.
Artemis is waiting for him when detention is over. Wally is numb as he sees her leaning against the brick wall like a bad idea. He can't believe she's really there, smiling at him. And then she turns her head and her smile disappears leaving a cold, cold look as she stares at Tim.
"Tell him I'm sorry," he says.
She replies, "Tell him yourself.
Tim looks away and walks away and goes away.
Artemis doesn't even give him a glancing look, just slides the glare off her face as she looks at Wally appraisingly.
"So, you're some sort of ninja?"
He thinks he nods.
She drives him home in her truck and she talks the whole time. He's missed her voice.
She tells him she was really angry for doing what he did to Zatanna. Zatanna is a really old friend of hers and she even reminds him that Zatanna was there for her when she went through that tough time with her dad. Wally wishes she hadn't reminded him.
So when Wally kissed her instead of Zatanna, it hurt their friendship for a while because Zatanna had really like Wally. Which surprises Wally because how could she like him if she never really talked to him? If she only wanted to expose him to great things.
"Wally, you're an idiot."
"Yeah. I know. Honest."
They are silent a long time, and she takes the turns as sharp as he remembers them as they drive down the winding roads to his house.
"So, we can be friends now?"
"Of course."
She drops him off and even thanks him for giving her and Zatanna the space they needed to let their friendship recover. Then she tells him that he should do what she told Tim. When he tells her that he already tried to apologize to Zatanna, she simply tells him that she knows he already tried. Try again.
She drives away and Wally makes a promise at that moment to never mess up like he did before. And he's never going to.
He calls Zatanna that night. He says he was sorry and then asked if there was anything she wanted to say to him. And it almost makes him smile, how natural it is for him to ask a simple question and receive a long response in return. He listens, really listens this time and apologizes again when she's done.
And with that, things are back to normal except that they are just friends.
And while he's being open and honest, Wally thinks that the biggest reason for everything being okay is that Zatanna is dating someone new. One of Roy's friends from college. His name is Billy Batson and he's opinionated and fun and tells her she's magical. They have debates and, according to what she says to Karen, he doesn't need her permission to talk.
Wally figures he can either laugh or get mad. So he laughs and shrugs off how strange everyone is.
This is also the moment Wally decides to stop smoking as much. He can run for fun again and the cigarettes and pot are only holding him back.
It's like the world is in color again.
But Dick's sadness is more gray than Wally wants, even with his returned status as "friend." Dick isn't usually unhappy.
"You ever think, Wally, that our group is the same as any other group like the football team? And the only real difference between us is what we wear and why we wear it?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, I think it's all bullshit."
And he means it. And it's hard for Wally to see him mean it so much.
Wally spends most of his time with Dick. And when they are together, he listens. Not like he listened with Zatanna, but listens and nods and it's somehow different how badly Dick needs to talk.
Dick calls him early on a Saturday morning and even though Wally tells him he has science homework he's been neglecting to do, Dick just tells him to get traught and get dressed because he's coming to pick him up.
It sounds like an adventure.
Dick hasn't slept all night apparently and is wide awake on cigarettes, coffee, and energy pills. He's single-mindedly watching the road as he drives fast down the pavement. The music pours out of the radio and when the second song plays, Wally asks if it's the one he made him for Secret Santa.
"I've been listening to it all night."
His smile is sick and glazy and numb. So he turns up the volume and drives faster. And when he finally speaks, he talks a mile a minute.
"I feel good. You know what I mean? Really good. Like I'm free or something. Like I don't have to pretend anymore. I'm going away to college, right? It'll be different there. You know what I mean? I've been thinking all night about what kind of posters I want to put up in my dorm room. And if I'll have an exposed brick wall. I've always wanted an exposed brick wall. I think it would be pretty asterous. Know what I mean? Things'll be different there. They have to be."
He finally stops to take a breath, not even looking at Wally until Wally can find the chance to answer.
"They will be," he responds.
Dick looks wildly at him like he forgot he had spoken everything to Wally in the first place.
"You really think so?
"Sure.
"Thanks, Wally."
They drive everywhere. They see a movie. They eat pizza. And whenever Dick got tired, he took another energy pill.
And with an afternoon sky turning into dusk, Dick shows Wally all the places he and Tim would meet. He doesn't say much. Just stares.
They drive back to Wally's house and the mix tape plays a bunch of winter songs in a row.
Dick turns to Wally.
"Thanks, Wally."
Wally thinks Dick is talking about today, so he simply says, "Sure."
"No. I mean in the cafeteria."
Wally just nods and says, "sure" again, but it's a little quieter and means something a little more.
After that, it's quiet again. They pull up into Wally's driveway and sit in the car for a long moment. They hug because even though they don't hug much, Wally can see Dick needs it and Dick can see that Wally needs to help him. They hug and just when Wally thinks it's time to let go, Dick holds him tighter and pulls away only enough to move his face to Wally's.
And he kisses Wally. A real kiss. Then, he pulls away slowly.
"I'm sorry."
"No. That's okay."
"Really. I'm sorry."
"No, really. It was okay."
So Dick thanks him again, hugs him again, kisses him again. And Wally lets him.
They kiss in the car for a long time, but they don't do anything but kiss. And then they don't do anything but sit quietly as Dick pulls away and the glazy look in his eyes fades away. He's not lost or numb or sleepy from staying up so long. Instead, he talks about Tim.
And again, Wally lets him. Because that's what a best pal is for.
It's hard to see a friend hurt this much. Especially when you can't o anything except "be there." I want to make him stop hurting, but I can't. So, I just follow him around whenever he wants to show me his world.
Every night after that is much of the same. Dick drinks and Wally sips and Wally can't always breathe.
Dick always says he feels free and that the night is his destiny. But then he's just sad. Sometimes he talks about Tim, sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he doesn't drink at all because he's running out of things to keep himself numb.
One night, he sees Tim out with some guy. And it's not just two buddies. Patrick doesn't say anything and Tim's too busy with what he's doing to even notice.
They drive in silence except for the crash as Dick throws the wine bottle out the window.
Wally is dropped off at his house and it's the first night that Dick doesn't kiss him. He just thanks Wally for being his friend and drives off.
The school year is ending. The seniors, like Artemis and Dick and Iris, all talk about prom and graduation and making plans.
Barry is sentimental at the end of his first year teaching and Wally thinks it's strange to think about teachers are being people.
The year is ending and it's the first time in a while that he's consciously thought about how he hasn't thought about Conner in a long time. It doesn't feel like he's left Conner behind or moved on without him. He's just moved on.
Dick has stopped drinking since that night he saw Tim. He just wants to go to college.
The Monday after the night he and Dick saw Tim, Wally sees Tim in detention. He looks like he always looks.
Wally thinks everyone moves on in their own way.
Artemis has gotten into Gotham Academy. The school of her choice. She's happy and excited in a way that makes her cute in a way that she says she hates. But Wally thinks she secretly loves this burst of energy in her life. Her mother is apparently all tears and smiles with the thought of her daughter's success.
Wally is just as happy, but selfishly wishing it wasn't time for her to go yet. Especially since she's leaving in the summer for an early training program.
He has to stop doing this.
The last gym class of the year is basically an excuse for a free period. No one really runs on the track, opting to just walk idly and chat with friends.
But Wally runs. He runs like he has nearly every day, like he knows he will over the summer and next year and the next year after that and probably until his knees hurt too much to keep running.
The only reason he stops running before it's time to change in the locker is because Barry has pulled him aside and invited him to lunch with him and his girlfriend.
Wally says of course and tries to remember the last time he felt so much like an adult.
It's a beautiful sunset. It's the end of the last day of school.
Artemis and Dick and Wally walk towards that sunset, coming to the base of a hill and talking about things that are important for that moment.
Wally sees the sunset and runs towards it. Behind him, he can hear Dick's light footsteps and Artemis's steady pace as they immediately follow him.
He imagines what they all look like, silhouetted by the sun they're running after.
And everything is as good as it could be.
Wally remembers the last day of school in elementary school. How he and Conner sat on the bus with the rest of the students singing a song everyone loved because it had a swear.
No more pencils,
no more books.
No more teachers' dirty looks.
When the teacher rings the bell,
drop your books
and run like hell.
When they finished, they would look at the bus driver for a tense second. Then they'd laugh because they had power in numbers and there would be no retribution.
Wally knows now that the bus driver didn't care that they were swearing. He just wanted to go home after work. But it didn't matter. It was the last day of school.
That night they go to a party at Roy's apartment. Since Roy and Billy were already in college and knew how important graduation is, they bought champagne to celebrate.
Wally watches as everyone dances. And talks. And celebrates. He watches Zatanna kissing Billy and looking happy. And Artemis kissing Roy and looking happy. And Karen kissing Mal and looking happy. And he watches Dick and Babs not even care that they weren't kissing anybody because they were just too excited talking about their futures.
So Wally sits with a bottle of champagne and watches his friends, alone and yet still a part of things.