Work Text:
Sometimes Barry wonders if it’s too easy. He is used to having to run, used to having to work hard. As the Flash, as a forensic scientist, even with Iris, who he loved more than anything, he’d had to fight for it. Putting in effort, giving his all, it’s just how he’s build, it’s in his nature. Always been, he supposes. And Hal is so different, like day and night. Like a clockwork and a free-fall. It’s like they couldn’t look more differently at life sometimes. Yet, he supposes it’s what draws him to Hal, pulls him in. More than their shared double lives, more than the adventures they’ve had. What always keeps him falling, stumbling back into the green lantern, is how easy it is just to be around him. No plans, no fears, as Hal would put it.
And isn’t it strange how that is what keeps him enticed. After all, if Barry tries it for himself, ‘no plans, no fears’, he wouldn’t really say it relaxes him. No, in fact, he’s usually worrying again before he’s made the count to ten. And he can count to ten very, very fast. But Hal is just Hal. And he has a talent for going with the flow, for heading into everything headfirst. He has that easy confidence that Barry can’t help but admire. He always has a smile and often a cocky smirk and both of them do things to Barry he never thought he could feel. Hal breathes ‘it’s okay’s, it’ll be fine's into the air. And Barry follows. Just like that.
It’s easy to fight with Hal at his side. Because Barry trusts Hal with his back, and his life. Even though the Green Lantern can be reckless, tends to rush in without thinking and often gets them into more trouble than he gets them out of, Barry just knows he can count on Hal. Always. And Hal knows he can count on Barry. It’s as simple as that. Easy.
It’s even more easy to hang out with Hal. Barry’s never been the type to have lots of friend outside of work, or to go to parties. Yet Hal manages to get him along to anything and everything. And when they do stay in, it’s as simple as breathing, really. He knows Hal will never ask him to be anything he isn’t, and Barry wouldn’t change Hal for the world. They know, don’t even need to put it into words. It’s that simple. Easy.
It’s also rather embarrassingly easy to take things further, to spend the night with Hal, or the day, or well, anytime really. Barry just can’t not be charmed by the pilot. Hal is undeniably attractive, handsome, stunning even, with warm, brown eyes and his slightly too cocky smiles and ever somewhat messy hair. Even more than that, Hal knows how to look at Barry just so that he forgets to breathe. Just so that Hal stops breathing as well. And then they irrefutably end up on the bed, or on the couch, or the kitchen table, or that one time in the watch tower’s monitor room, which Barry desperately tries to forget ever happened (the terrifying glare Batman gives them each time Barry and Hal end up on monitoring duty together nowadays is making that rather difficult.)
Nonetheless, Hal still manages to seduce Barry almost anywhere. Because Hal has always been daring, has a need for the reckless, so how could Barry refuse him when he wants to play a little risky. Well, that and it is just so easy for Barry to tell what he means to Hal when Hal looks at him like that, when he takes his breath away, so much so that he doubts there is anything he wouldn’t do for Hal to continue looking at him.
And then, it’s too easy to spend another night with the old, often terribly bad action movies Hal picks. It’s too easy to laugh. It’s too easy to pick him up for dinner. It’s too easy to save the day, and too easy to make the city unsafe. It’s too easy to forget the league is still watching. Too easy to forget he had three reports to finish. Too easy to forget he’d intended to make things up to Iris, once. Too easy to forget their villains are dangerous. Too easy to forget they’re still at the scene, or still six lightyears out into space. It’s too easy to come back and too easy to stay. Too easy to be so very happy. Around Hal, everything comes easily. And sometimes…
Sometimes, it’s too easy to forget that Hal will be terrified of anything less than easy. Too easy to forget what they aren’t. Too easy to forget that little line Barry knows he can’t cross. Just one line, just three words. Those three words have always been easy to Barry, it’s one of the rare things, actually, that come easy to him. It’s in his nature, just as much as working hard is. He has always given his all easily, he knows. He has always readily given himself. But he is also aware, with painful clarity, that those three words are anything but easy to Hal.
So, Barry will make sure to never voice them. To never, not even accidentally, let them slip. After all, what is one line? When everything else is so bright, so easy, so breath-taking and reassuring, why should three little words really matter? No, if Hal needs him to, then surely Barry can keep quiet. When everything else about loving Hal is so easy, what are three words?
And only when they sleep next to each other, and Barry is absolutely sure, completely certain, that Hal is fast asleep, he might let himself be the daring one. Just slightly, breaking the rules just a little. Until he’s whispering impossibly soft ‘I love you’s into the air.
Because it is so easy to love Hal, far too easy. So very easy it sometimes is not easy at all.