BLOOD IN THE WATER

wilson.

grant’s not sure what feelings that name brings him, but it’s nothing good. all his relatives are strange in one sense or another, and he’s not sure that he needs another one. his family is a mess, and this one looks like enough of a mess that she could almost be part of it. he stays in his stance, eyes still narrowed.

‘what is this? are you some - what, long lost relative? what are you hiding from? what the fuck?’ grant sighs. it’s not unreasonable, he still has clothes from his last ex hidden somewhere from when she stormed out and never came back, rose could take some, if she stayed. she’d have to pay rent, though.

ew .

he smiles a little at grant’s indignant answer , shaking his head a little before he replies , [ i know . ] making sure grant’s watching , hart signs again , [ you’re doing good . ] he’s not perfect or fluent , but the progress they make is worth praising , especially since it helps push grant to continue .

‘oh,’ grant says. ‘right.’ he doesn’t quite know what to say to that. he knows that the rogues are family, and that he is a part of it, now. it really feels like being a part of something - something bigger, something that MEANS something to him on a level that he’s not used to. this is his new family, even if the one that he left behind is still there. grant thinks that he will always be a wilson - there’s something about the name you can’t escape, no matter how hard you try. but he can be a rogue, too, and the fact of it almost surprises him.

‘joey’s . . . ‘ grant doesn’t quite know how to describe him. he needs to say something that will make sense to hartley. ‘he’s . . . nice.’ overly, in grant’s opinion. nothing wrong with throwing a few punches. it’s hard to really explain joey to hart, since grant himself hasn’t seen him in so long, and the only thing he really knows is that they’re different.

           soft sentence starters         

grant leans against the wall of his apartment, a whole body of wine in his hand. it’s cheap wine, cheap as everything else - below his means, after all the money he’s saved up all these years. he eyes joey out of the corners of his, slightly dizzily. it feels almost fuzzy in this moment, the city lights streaming in through the windows from the darkness outside, and for a few seconds grant feels that he’s not in reality, and is instead in some detective story, figuring out the next case.

he sits back a little , a breath shuddering just slightly as it leaves him , thumb brushing against his septum piercing . “ the way he got up in your face reminded me a little too much of my own dear old dad , ” he admits , “ and i reacted badly because of it . and that’s on me . ” this isn’t something he’s explained to grant , in all his time here , not wanting to bring up things the kid clearly wasn’t ready to talk about , but it looks like the time is now .

len rolls his sleeves up past his elbows , revealing at least a dozen cigarette burns that still stand out on his skin , and many more scars that have lessened with time and age , still faintly overlapping . they’re marks he’s seen on grant , too , ones he knows the pain of intimately . “ i may not know everything he put you through , but i know enough . so i don’t give a damn who he is in costume - if you don’t want to go back to that man , you will never have to . ”

grant’s eyes flicks over the scars. he has the same ones on his arms, little puckered bits of skin, and he remembers the sharp pain all too well. len is offering to protect him from deathstroke, from his father, but for the first time len isn’t the most dangerous person in grant’s life. could he protect him? if he had to? against . . . deathstroke? he’d barely been provoked or interested. slade doesn’t want him back. maybe that’s the worst part. grant’s head is still light, hands still shaking, and it feels like it’s too much to take in.

‘s’fine,’ grant mumbles vaguely. he’s met him before. slade wasn’t going to do anything in front of everyone - right? he couldn’t have? if len’s dad was like slade, it would make sense that he hates him. it’s . . . strange, to have someone get angry at slade for grabbing at him. joey would beg grant not to fight back, and ma would roll her eyes at the whole thing. len seems to care. it’s a strange feeling. for so long it was just grant.

‘he doesn’t want me back, anyways,’ grant says, eyes cast anywhere else. this burns. maybe he thought that slade would come back, try to drag him back, but instead he leaves him with a bad taste in his mouth and shaking hands and a view of his back. he runs a hand through his hair, a relaxing motion, so he does it again, and again. what he really wants to do is put his head in his shaking hands and stay there for a long, long time. everyone can see him right here, sat on the grass, so he does his best to stumble to his feet.