fic: Come Morning Light
Title: "Come Morning Light"
Rating/Warnings: T, hints of things of a sexual nature and baby hints of torture.
Word Count: 2241
Character(s): Wally West, Artemis Crock
Pairing(s): Wally West/Artemis Crock
Summary: You and I'll be safe and sound.
Disclaimer: I don't own the lyrics that I borrowed from Taylor Swift or the characters that I used for this fic.
Author's Notes: Lol this much Wally/Artemis angst was hard for me to write. But I did it, since it's what they wanted for the exchange, so yeah. (:
Even when he was gone, his presence lingered. Artemis hadn't realized what a large space he took up in her life, the way that he had drilled himself into her at some time when she hadn't realized it and made a home there. It was only when he was gone that she realized that he had even been there at all.
She was wearing one of his t-shirts. It had stopped smelling like him a while ago, but just the familiarity of it, the way that it had once touched his skin comforted her. The apartment was quiet, other than the quiet murmurer of TV the only sound in the room. It reminded Artemis of home, back when it was just her and her mom or her and her dad, only without the presence of another person.
Even though Wally had been gone for three months, his things were still scattered all over the table even though she'd told him a hundred, thousand, million times to pick them up. His dirty clothes were still laying in front of the washer and dryer, waiting for him to wash them, even though it was looking more and more unlikely that he never would.
Artemis knew that she should have picked all of his stuff up by know, have been done with it, but she can't. There was a part of her, a part that sat on a bed hugging a teddy bear and missing her sister and mother more than anything in the world, that hoped that if maybe his things are still waiting he would come home to them.
To her.
But it didn't really matter anymore. Three long, long months of searching for him, of missing him, of tears and pain. That was how long she had kept her post. She remembered reading the Odyssey and wondered when, exactly, she had permanently taken up the role of Penelope.
But at least Penelope had a happy ending; she wasn't sure if she would. The only reason that there hadn't been any memorial services in his honor was because Artemis kept digging her heels into the sand.
No, not yet.
There was a part of her that just hoped, hoped, that he was coming back after all.
But she shook all of this off, just like she had shaken everything else. It didn't do any good to keep rehashing the same thoughts over and over. It didn't help her keep from going insane.
In an inane effort to do something she got herself up and went over to the kitchen, and tried to make tea. Just as everything had gotten ready, there was a banging on the door.
She couldn't help but notice that the knocking seemed louder than someone just coming for a visit. It sounded like someone that had news, someone that need to get in, someone other than the occasional sympathetic friend that came by to tell her how sorry they were.
So Artemis opened in the door, and standing in front of her was Wally.
Her heart stopped beating for a moment, before it started roaring in her ears. He was home. He was home and in front of her and oh God Wally is home. She hardly noticed that he was dirty, that there was grease in his hair and fading bruises on his face, just then.
"Wally?" she whispered, afraid to shatter the illusion. But if this was an illusion, he would have been smiling. He would have had something to say. He would have been clean, in his bright uniform, and there would have been a glimmer in his eye.
The somber man in front of her told her that this wasn't an illusion. This was real.
And she didn't even care that he hardly looked like himself. Artemis knew that he was Wally, and for her, in that moment, that was enough.
"Artemis," he said, his voice hoarse. "Can I come in?"
"Of course you can, it's your home too," she continued to whisper, trying to hold back the tears. She didn't want to cry. Her first rule when it came to Wally West, back when she was fifteen, was that he would never make her cry. She'd broken that rule over the past three months and before in their relationship, but she wasn't about to cry when he was the one that needed to cry.
He walked over to the couch, and then looked at it like he barely knew what it was, before sitting on it. She swallowed the lump that suddenly appeared in her throat.
The kettle started screaming just then, and she was grateful for the distraction. She didn't like Wally looking around their worn, much loved apartment like he hardly knew what it was. But he was still here, and that she was grateful for.
She was afraid to touch him, though. There was an air around him, like a wounded animal almost. One false move and she might hurt him more, and Artemis refused to do that. So instead she fixed him a cup of tea while he stared blankly at the TV.
"Here you go," she said, handing him a cup.
He looked up at her, and her heart twinged for him for a second. "Thank you." He paused, glancing down at his tea, and things just felt so incredibly awkward.
Awkward had never been a thing between them. Their relationship had been, at the very least, sometimes heartbreaking and frustrating and amazing, but the two of them were never awkward. They'd always felt a connection, and that had been the thing that kept them from being awkward. By the time they had gotten together they'd known each other better than any other person did; they didn't have anything to be awkward about.
"Can I take a shower? And maybe get some clothes. It's been a while," he said, looking down at himself and cringing.
It was that, that little facial expression, that let her know that her Wally was there somewhere. She could breathe again.
"Of course. The shower's first door to your right. It connects to our room."
She sat through the next several moments in agony, though the sounds of the shower (and it was a long, long shower) helped her know that she was not alone. That he was real. He took a long time, for him anyway, until he finally emerged.
He smiled at her, but the smile wasn't like his usual. It was small and almost broken, but it was a start.
"Do you want to go to sleep?" she asked. "I'm sure you're tired." She knew she was. Seeing him again, after missing him for so long, was exhausting. All she wanted was for him to be breathing beside her.
In the morning, they could start over. Then she would ask him where he'd been for so long, what had happened, who had taken him.
"That sounds nice."
She grabbed his hand as they walked to the bedroom, unable to let him go now that she had him. He jumped, but didn't jerk away, and for that she was grateful. She didn't know what she would have done if he had pulled away from her.
Artemis pulled him down onto their bed with her, and just looked at him. Outside there were sirens going off, but they didn't call to her today. Today she just wanted to stay right here next to the man that she had been missing for the past three months.
"Can I?" Wally started, sounding nervous, almost sheepish. The sound made her heart flip over, because she hadn't heard that since she was sixteen years old. "Can I touch you?" he asked.
"Of course," she replied, and that was all the invitation that Wally needed.
He cupped the back of her head with his hand, hesitated for a moment, looking at her as though he expected her to object, before bringing their mouths together.
This was the same as before. Their bodies reacted the way they always did, quickly and sharply. She put her hands underneath his new, clean shirt, tasted the toothpaste on his mouth. There were new scars on his back, but she didn't want to stop long enough to ask him where these had come from.
She tried to deepen the kiss, grabbed the back of his neck because God, she had missed this, missed him, but he was having none of it. Wally was going slow, as though he was trying to make this last. Artemis could understand that, she thought.
Without speaking, he put her hands on his shoulders as though he didn't like her touching his new scars. And then his hands made their way down her body, underneath his shirt, and she shivered. They were rough, and he was going slowly and goosebumps appeared.
He stopped just at her hip bones, and she wanted more, more than this. She wanted him, and wanted him now. Artemis removed her shirt, and then his, and then they were a tangle of mouths and skin andwant atop their bed.
.x.
It didn't feel like any time at all had passed before Artemis woke up, an empty expanse of bed beside her. Heart pounding, Artemis sat up and pulled the sheet to her chest. She didn't want to be alone again. Not again, never again.
She had just gotten Wally back, because she did, she remembered he came back and made love to her and was real, so she pulled back on the shirt that she had been wearing and went to look for him.
He was in the living room, which made Artemis' knees weak she was so relieved. She was afraid that he had been captured again, snatched away from her just when she had gotten him back, that everything had just been a dream after all. But he was still there.
The TV was on, which let her see the outline of his back, different colors flashing along his skin to the tandem of everchanging commercials. The TV was on, but he wasn't watching it, the sound off.
"Wally?" Her voice seemed to shatter that had settled over their apartment. "Wally?"
She rushed over to him, only to find his head in his hands. "Wally? What's wrong?" Artemis tried to pry his hands away from his face, but they weren't budging. He wasn't moving them, as though he was a statue and forever frozen that way. "Wally!"
He let her pull his hand away then, and she saw that his face was wet and his eyes were shiny with tears. "Oh Wally," she breathed. "What did they do to you?" She wasn't sure that she wanted to know the answer to that question.
"They tried to take it all away," he told her, and then he started to sob, pulling his hand away from hers and back to his eyes. But she wouldn't let him, not this time. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and at first he tried to pull away, but eventually he gave in, his arms enveloping her.
His body shook with sobs that sounded more animal than human, sounds of the deepest pain, something far deeper than Artemis had ever felt before. Eventually she found that the tears weren't all his, they were hers too.
Because you cut one, you cut both, they were that intertwined now. After years of knowing each other, this was when Artemis knew that she'd do anything for Wally and that he'd do anything for her; they were equal in that way.
And she was angry, so angry that someone would do this to Wally. She wasn't exactly sure what they did, but the very idea of it made her whole body tense, her hands turn into fists. She wanted them gone, thrown in jail and the key locked away.
But instead of focusing on her anger right now, she needed to focus on Wally, so she stroked his hair and waited for him to stop crying against her neck.
"They tried to take everything away," Wally said eventually, wiping his nose and looking away as though he was ashamed. "They took everything else from me. But they couldn't take away the fact that I loved you."
Artemis almost teared up again, but she bit her lip instead. "They could never take that away from you," she said softly, and she squeezed his hand.
"That's why they let me go, you know," he continued, focusing on her hand. "Because they couldn't take that away from me, so the experiment failed. I forgot everything but you. Thank you, for that."
She didn't even do anything, but the light in his eyes kept her from saying that. Instead she nodded, pressing her lips together to keep the tears at bay. "They could never take away the fact that I love you. Always," she told him. And they held onto each other like nothing could tear them apart.
When morning came they'd talk about this. She would take Wally to the Watchtower, get him checked out, see if they could get whatever was taken from him back.
But then the only thing that they wanted was their arms around each other, and that would be enough.