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fandomweekly2016-02-08 02:11 pm
iluvroadrunner6) wrote in fandomweekly2016-02-08 02:11 pm
Entry tags:
[#002] what i’ll say is just what i’m hoping for (the flash)
Theme Prompt: #002 – Practice Makes Perfect
Title: what i’ll say is just what i’m hoping for
Fandom: The Flash (DCTV)
Rating/Warnings: PG
Bonus: Yes!
Word Count: 923
Summary: He’s too late. He always too late. Even when he’s the fastest man alive, his timing is never right.
“Iris, I love you.”
They’re four simple words. Words that should be incredibly easy to say and yet equally terrifying all at the same time. It’s the reason why Barry had been staring at himself in the mirror for the past hour, speaking the words over and over again until they feel right.
(They’ll never feel right. They’re not supposed to feel right, he reasons, until he knows Iris is going to say them back, but that doesn’t matter right now. Right now, it’s just hearing the sound of it, the way they roll off his tongue, because he can do this. He can. He needs to be able to tell the truth.)
He adjusts his suit jacket one last time, before the sharp knock and Barry, get a move on comes from the hallway. He exhales slowly, staring at himself in the mirror before repeating it one last time, just so he can hear the words carefully.
“I can do this. I can totally do this.”
He doesn’t.
He spends his junior prom watching Iris dance with Dan Hendlemen, captain of the track team, and winds up sitting at a table and chatting with Becky Cooper who asks him out a few days later. He reasons maybe it’s best that he doesn’t tell her in high school. They have time. They have the rest of their lives. It doesn’t need to be right now, after all.
He probably just needs more practice.
* * * * *
He comes home from college for Christmas break on the heels of a rough cold snap with determination in his step. He’s been psyching himself up on the train ride home, repeating the words over and over again in his head.
Iris, I love you.
It’s Christmas. She’s single (as far as he knows), he’s single (hopelessly so), the timing really couldn’t be better. He knows he can do it this time, because he’s had the chance to get out in the world, to stand on his own two feet. He’s met people he never would have been able to meet otherwise, and none of them are Iris. No matter how pretty, no matter how smart, no matter how driven. At the end of the day, he knows that space that’s been made for someone important, someone who means more to you than anything else has already been filled, and he won’t waste his time not letting her know that truth.
He steps in the front door of the West house, clumsily dragging his suitcase behind him after getting a ride back from a mutual friend, and he announces, into the ether of the house. “I’m home!”
“Achoo!”
The very familiar sneeze snaps through the silence and everything in him cringes. It’s a very familiar sneeze born of growing up under the same roof and mutually infecting each other during cold season, and it is certainly not the romantic reunion he was going for.
“Barry,” the raspy greeting comes from the girl resting on the couch, bundled in blankets and cheeks flushed. “You’re back!”
“You’re sick.” The statement is made with sympathy at least, making his way closer with a frown. “What happened?”
“Caught a post-finals cold from my roommate,” she says, making a face as he makes his way closer. “Don’t, I don’t want to get you sick too.”
“Well, luckily for you, I have caught your cold germs so many times, I’m practically impervious by now,” he teases and she wrinkles her nose some more.
“Gross, Barry.”
“I know,” he laughs, immediately putting to the side everything he wanted to tell her. It can wait. Taking care of his friend now is more important. “How about I make you some soup, and you find some ridiculous movie on Netflix, and we just hang out until Joe gets home?”
She smiles at him, and it’s like the sun comes out, despite the cold he knows is looming in his future. “Sounds perfect.”
He’ll just tell her next time. Next time will be better.
* * * * *
There are a million different next times, and each time he puts it aside.
It’s not the right time. There are more important things to worry about. What if I’m wrong. The words sit and fester in his chest every time, because they suddenly don’t feel like things he has the right to say. Iris’ happiness always comes first, and when he wakes up after a nine month coma, ready to stop putting things aside because she almost never knew how he really felt, there’s already someone else standing in his place, ready to fill in the gaps that he left behind.
He’s too late. He always too late. Even when he’s the fastest man alive, his timing is never right.
But then the man in the yellow suit returns, and Barry starts spinning, caught up in the implications of everything that he’s waited too long for, and Iris is moving in with Eddie. It’s a sudden realization that there’s never going to be the right time, that every time is always going to be wrong, because Iris is never going to choose him.
And she shouldn’t choose him. Eddie makes her happy. It only takes a moment after seeing her, however, for the dam to burst on all the emotions running through him, and he spits out the only one that has ever made sense.
“Iris, I love you.”
He can already feel her slipping through his fingers with the casual way she returns it.
Title: what i’ll say is just what i’m hoping for
Fandom: The Flash (DCTV)
Rating/Warnings: PG
Bonus: Yes!
Word Count: 923
Summary: He’s too late. He always too late. Even when he’s the fastest man alive, his timing is never right.
“Iris, I love you.”
They’re four simple words. Words that should be incredibly easy to say and yet equally terrifying all at the same time. It’s the reason why Barry had been staring at himself in the mirror for the past hour, speaking the words over and over again until they feel right.
(They’ll never feel right. They’re not supposed to feel right, he reasons, until he knows Iris is going to say them back, but that doesn’t matter right now. Right now, it’s just hearing the sound of it, the way they roll off his tongue, because he can do this. He can. He needs to be able to tell the truth.)
He adjusts his suit jacket one last time, before the sharp knock and Barry, get a move on comes from the hallway. He exhales slowly, staring at himself in the mirror before repeating it one last time, just so he can hear the words carefully.
“I can do this. I can totally do this.”
He doesn’t.
He spends his junior prom watching Iris dance with Dan Hendlemen, captain of the track team, and winds up sitting at a table and chatting with Becky Cooper who asks him out a few days later. He reasons maybe it’s best that he doesn’t tell her in high school. They have time. They have the rest of their lives. It doesn’t need to be right now, after all.
He probably just needs more practice.
He comes home from college for Christmas break on the heels of a rough cold snap with determination in his step. He’s been psyching himself up on the train ride home, repeating the words over and over again in his head.
Iris, I love you.
It’s Christmas. She’s single (as far as he knows), he’s single (hopelessly so), the timing really couldn’t be better. He knows he can do it this time, because he’s had the chance to get out in the world, to stand on his own two feet. He’s met people he never would have been able to meet otherwise, and none of them are Iris. No matter how pretty, no matter how smart, no matter how driven. At the end of the day, he knows that space that’s been made for someone important, someone who means more to you than anything else has already been filled, and he won’t waste his time not letting her know that truth.
He steps in the front door of the West house, clumsily dragging his suitcase behind him after getting a ride back from a mutual friend, and he announces, into the ether of the house. “I’m home!”
“Achoo!”
The very familiar sneeze snaps through the silence and everything in him cringes. It’s a very familiar sneeze born of growing up under the same roof and mutually infecting each other during cold season, and it is certainly not the romantic reunion he was going for.
“Barry,” the raspy greeting comes from the girl resting on the couch, bundled in blankets and cheeks flushed. “You’re back!”
“You’re sick.” The statement is made with sympathy at least, making his way closer with a frown. “What happened?”
“Caught a post-finals cold from my roommate,” she says, making a face as he makes his way closer. “Don’t, I don’t want to get you sick too.”
“Well, luckily for you, I have caught your cold germs so many times, I’m practically impervious by now,” he teases and she wrinkles her nose some more.
“Gross, Barry.”
“I know,” he laughs, immediately putting to the side everything he wanted to tell her. It can wait. Taking care of his friend now is more important. “How about I make you some soup, and you find some ridiculous movie on Netflix, and we just hang out until Joe gets home?”
She smiles at him, and it’s like the sun comes out, despite the cold he knows is looming in his future. “Sounds perfect.”
He’ll just tell her next time. Next time will be better.
There are a million different next times, and each time he puts it aside.
It’s not the right time. There are more important things to worry about. What if I’m wrong. The words sit and fester in his chest every time, because they suddenly don’t feel like things he has the right to say. Iris’ happiness always comes first, and when he wakes up after a nine month coma, ready to stop putting things aside because she almost never knew how he really felt, there’s already someone else standing in his place, ready to fill in the gaps that he left behind.
He’s too late. He always too late. Even when he’s the fastest man alive, his timing is never right.
But then the man in the yellow suit returns, and Barry starts spinning, caught up in the implications of everything that he’s waited too long for, and Iris is moving in with Eddie. It’s a sudden realization that there’s never going to be the right time, that every time is always going to be wrong, because Iris is never going to choose him.
And she shouldn’t choose him. Eddie makes her happy. It only takes a moment after seeing her, however, for the dam to burst on all the emotions running through him, and he spits out the only one that has ever made sense.
“Iris, I love you.”
He can already feel her slipping through his fingers with the casual way she returns it.
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