---- From chapter 39 ----

W: This is your fault
D: How was I supposed to know the internet would make a conspiracy about you??
W: I'm literally in the background of half your social media footprint, they think I'm some kind of ghost or something man
D: My favourite theory is that I'm secretly under suspicion of extortion, and you're the secret agent they put on my case
W: I like the one where you killed me and now it's my ghost haunting you, only being able to manifest in pictures

----

For All Your Gayson Needs @DickGayFanNews

The mysterious redhead has made yet another appearance in a Gayson video, adding fuel to various conspiracy theories (see bottom left). What do you think; Villain? FBI? A ghost?

[IMAGE]

3052 Retweets 6449 Likes

Show replies

↳ Redhead plz tell us who u are @LmaoGay

Lmao, as if the FBI could catch up with Dick "Danger" Gayson. He HAS to be a young villain after our Dickie. #TeamRedhead=Villain

↳ It's Not Gay When It's In A Threeway @ISeeBreadPeople

With eyes like that? No way, he's totally the ghost of someone Dick killed. #TheEvidenceIsThere #TeamRedhead=Ghost #DickGaysonIsAMurderer

↳ IcyThot
@CallMeDaddy

I'll only say it once; ILLUMINATI! #TeamRedhead=SecretSociety

----

Not Robin ✓
@Dickie- Grayson

Lads, is that the best you can do? #RedheadConspiracy

173.231 Retweets 301.762 Likes

----

*InsertFandomJoke* @DickGraysonFanlmao

HE FOUND OUT ABOUT THE #RedheadConspiracy ABORT MISSION! ABORT!

467 Retweets 639 Likes

Show replies

↳ Dark Shadow
@UrMomGay

HE PRACTICALLY CHALLENGED US! HE'S MOCKING US! #RedheadConspiracy

----

GET HIM ON THE GODDAMN PHONE @BlueBird

SOMEONE CALL @Tim-Timmery, OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR, THE #ConspiracyGod

1069 Retweets 784 Likes

Show replies

↳ actual coffee slug ✓
@ Tim-Timmery

alright, I haven't slept in 37 hours and Dickie broke my favourite coffee mug yesterday. revenge is best at any temperature.

[IMAGE]

168.420 Retweets 297.562 Likes

----

For All Your Gayson Needs @DickGayFanNews

@Timmy-Drake (aka the #ConspiracyGod) just leaked a screenshot taken from last month's Dizzle and Rizzle Liveshizzle in which the blurry outline of a redheaded figure can be seen in the reflection of Dick's Chopard Sunglasses. #RedheadConspiracy #Redhead=Friend?

[IMAGE]

7089 Retweets 4387 Likes

Show replies

↳ JayTim ftw
@ActualDisaster

Lmao, everyone remembers the (admittedly stupid) #DickieIsBatman theory right? #Redhead=Batgirl #Cracktheory #THEHAIRMATCHES

↳ Lemme Smash
@Shark-ira

@ActualDisaster lol, imagine tho #RoyBoyHarper=Robin

----

T H O T
@SpaceJam

Speaking of #THEHAIRMATCHES @RoyBoyHarper has red hair too... #Redhead=Clone?

235 Retweets 457 Likes

Show replies

↳ ThErEs A BeE?
@TonySnarks

@SpaceJam So does @BabsGo(r)d(on)... #Redhead=GenderswapClone? #THEHAIRMATCHES #DickieRedheadKink

----

Teen Genius
@LiamCane

Okay, this is gonna sound ridiculous but there's this guy at my high school named Wally West who looks EXACTLY like the #MysteriousRedhead and I swear to god @Dick-Grayson was AT our school last year.

3 Retweets 2 Likes

----

Cookie is Shookie
@CookieThife

Confess, coward.

∞ Retweets ∞ Likes

----

Dick paused, his thumb still pressing against the unrelenting glass of his screen, waiting for him to swipe up and continue scrolling, the tweet on his screen staring back at him. His fingers had started to ache from being curled around his phone so tightly for hours, but the alternative was dropping his phone on his face, so he had been ignoring it determinedly. He let his arms fall to his sides, the glow of his phone now shooting upwards to devour some of the darkness in the room rather than reflect in his eyes. He held back a sigh.

He looked out his large bedroom window at the distant empty streets of the city, seeing the silhouettes of buildings rise and fall like a monitored heartbeat, dipped in caramel yellow streetlights. Slowly, he pulled himself up, his back cracking as he sat up for the first time in hours, and took a deep breath. Jason had been smoking in this room again, and the scent clung to the walls and laced the air with the smell of toxins.

His chest was heavy. It had been all day, a slowly simmering ache that kept getting hotter and hotter until it was burning at his insides and turning him melancholic.

He knew why, and the familiar claws of the monster called anxiety cut through his insides and painted his teeth with poison, leaving him feeling sour and cold.

He swung his legs out of bed, still wearing his clothes from the day, and curled his toes against the wooden floor. He sat there for a moment, feeling a tangle of emotions that never stayed long enough for him to properly name, and folded his arms, hunching over and watching the way the light from his screen played cat and mouse with the shadows. The light glinted off his still half-full coffee mug from that afternoon, but it was probably cold and papery by now.

Eventually, he dragged himself to his feet, abandoning his phone screen-up in his bedsheets and ghosting across the room easily.

He could feel the pull of the bags under his eyes and could picture them getting darker by the second, but when he closed his eyes the room around him felt echoey and entrapping, so he kept them open and let his mind keep him awake.

He longed to see Wally. Words he would say pooled on his tongue and their sweet taste tempted him, no matter how bitter the aftertaste would be. He mumbled them to the dark around him, leaning against the window and watching as the moonless, starless sky remained unshifting on the other side of the glass, but it wasn't the same as actually saying them to Wally as the words wanted.

He was lonely and bored. He'd exhausted his twitter feed of anything substantial enough to distract him, and he didn't want to sleep tonight. Timmy would be awake, as always, but he was probably working, and he wasn't the person Dick wanted to see.

Carpe Noctem rang in his head like a mantra until his gaze was drifting back across his room and he was left to fight the urge to call Wally out of bed and to the patch of grass under his balcony again. It was four am, Wally was probably tired.

His fingers twitched and curled against his palms as he resisted the urge to crack his knuckles and the black paint staining the walls beckoned him into oblivion. Still, his chest fluttered with the wings of the butterflies he kept trapped there when his dimmed phone light suddenly cut through the darkness with new vigour, a muffled note accompanying it in its hunting of the shadows.

A tired smile lifted his expression, wiping away any form of his sombre exhaustion, and that single note lifted the symphony playing in his head. Wally had texted first.

He crossed the room quickly, embarrassingly joyful as he plucked his phone from its prison of sateen sheets.

W: This is your fault

Wally's text was mildly accusatory, and without context, but Dick barely had to consider his twitter feed from that night before he was biting his bottom lip to hold back a stupid grin.

D: How was I supposed to know the internet would make a conspiracy about you??

He should have known, expected it, actually. He was an influencer, and Wally did have a talent for drawing people in and allowing them to orbit them like the earth orbits the sun. It was only natural people would pick up on his shadow in photos.

If he was being honest, which painfully only ever on nights like this that lasted forever plus eternity, it was killing a part of him to keep Wally hidden behind cameras and masks. He wanted to stand on rooftops with the whole world watching and scream his feelings.

And really, he didn't have an excuse not to anymore. He knew how he felt, so what was stopping him from falling from the sky and into Wally's arms?

Fear, the shadows of his room hissed at him, followed by, COWARD.

His phone went off in his hands again, and he looked down into the blinding light to read the words displayed there.

W: I'm literally in the background of half your social media footprint, they think I'm some kind of ghost or something man

He did smile this time, various subreddits and twitter hashtags jumping out in his memory. He'd made his own theories, under different accounts and names, just to add to the chaos.

D: My favourite theory is that I'm secretly under suspicion of extortion, and you're the secret agent they put on my case

There was a pause, the words 'W is typing' running across the bottom of his screen as he waited, and in that time he managed to type 'come over' and delete it three times before Wally's message appeared.

W: I like the one where you killed me and now it's my ghost haunting you, only being able to manifest in pictures

Dick's chest rose and fell as he did his best to stifle a laugh. Wally didn't know how right he was. He was haunting Dick; every lingering touch and half-lidded look ghosted across his skin like a night breeze and left him wondering if the evening air had driven him crazy.

He was about to type again, a joke about Dick being the eventual cause of Wally's death or an idea of how to next fuck with the public Dick had not yet decided when a soft ting radiated around the room from his window. The smile he had been fighting shyly broke free, hanging itself across his face, and he cast himself into darkness by shutting his phone off and tucking it into his back pocket.

He wasted no time crossing the room, throwing open the window- really it was a door, but it was floor to ceiling and two wide, so they called it a window- and stepping into the night. 

He leaned over the railing of the balcony with practiced ease, propping his arm on the cold metal so he could lean against it, tucking his chin into his palm as he stared down at Wally's shaded figure.

"What light through yonder window breaks?" Wally called softly, quiet enough not to disturb but loud enough that the wind would lift it to Dick's ears.

"Wherefore art thou Romeo?" Dick returned, the only warning he gave before, in what had become common practice, he deviated from the script and threw his body over the railing easily, only having a short few seconds to feel the rush of falling before he landed safely in Wally's arms.

"Hey," Wally greeted casually. His grip on Dick loosened for a second, giving Dick the chance to remove himself from the position of being held bridal-style by Wally, but when Dick showed no sign of moving, he tightened his hold again as to not drop the soon-to-be seventeen-year-old.

"Bonjour," Dick mumbled, distracted by the press of Wally's fingers against his shoulder, and the intensity of which his vivid green eyes watched him, the same way they had for the last three years.

The last memorial time they had been in this position, Wally had been the one to make a fool of himself which meant that this time it was Dick's turn. With the same touch of grace he did everything with, Dick caught Wally's lips mid-word- he hadn't even realized the other had been talking- and revelled in the feel of the others smile against his lips.

It wasn't the first time they'd kissed, and it definitely wouldn't be the last, but it was the first time Dick rested his hands around Wally's neck and parted his lips for Wally's tongue to disappear inside his mouth as if they needed a part of the other to breathe.

They broke the kiss reluctantly when they ran out of things to say, and instead, Dick allowed words to fill the silence.

"Your place or mine?" he asked, tucking his head against Wally's shoulder so that the older couldn't see his blush.

Wally seemed to ponder it, for a second, trying to recall which of them last had possession of the book, before deciding that it was between King Lear and the sheet music for Chopin's Etude Op. 10 No. 5 on Dick's bookshelf and escorting Dick back to his room.

----

actual coffee slug ✓
@Tim-Timmery

caught Dickie and the #MysteriousRedhead reenacting the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet again tonight. this is what you get for distracting me from my work, bastard #DickieRedheadKink (side note: I don't understand their infatuation with it, @Jason-Toddster and I agree that Jekyll and Hyde is better.)

[IMAGE]

76178.420 Retweets 21497.562 Likes