going feral blood in my mouth thinking about small dick being there for small lewis and the probably literal bruises on his back

I want to recommend two fanarts (done by two wonderful hbo war fanartists whomst I adore) that tackles Exactly This anon

one is by @onefineginger and you can find it over here; the other is by @hanisaway and you can find it over here!!

and uh. there's a fic series about an AU where they meet as kids (though older kids, and not canon era) called Lancaster County, that I think is a Winnix Classique(TM) and should be read. Immediately.

and I've written something about this before, but I have it in my head that every time Dick finds something out about Lew's childhood, he becomes a thousand times more protective of him, or at least doubles his effort to be extra loving. I bet a lot of his late night musings consist of wondering about what life would have been like, had they found each other earlier. It would have been impossible, they occupied very different worlds, during a time when class divide would've been vast and fraught (they're Depression Era boys after all), but Dick isn't above thoughts of whimsy, and I bet he thinks about all his boyhood games and little boltholes and haunts and how he would've loved to show Lew all these things and places, if only to take his mind off his crazy home life. He sometimes tells Lew about this, and Lew would laugh and I suppose Dick would think he's humoring him, but I very much think that Lew would've wanted a friend like Dick, too. It sure would've made a lot of things a whole lot easier.