Green Lantern Corps. General. 025. Strangers.
Title: Blank
Fandom: Green Lantern Corps
Characters: Kyle Rayner, Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, various JLA
Prompt: Strangers
Word Count: 7,721
Rating: NC-17
Summary: What if things had gone just a little differently for the Hal Jordan of the past, brought into the here-and-now?
Author's Notes: References Green Lantern v.3 101-6. Thanks to Dolphina and Celes for beta work. Any remaining errors are mine alone.
Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, swept far into the future, overshot his own time so very slightly on his return trip. The error brought him into direct contact with his predecessor and the reason he had received a ring at all - Hal Jordan, the man who had gone insane upon the destruction of his hometown and tried to restart the universe. In the end, Hal Jordan gave his life to reignite Earth’s sun - an event that stands in his future and in Kyle Rayner’s past. In the here-and-now, Hal has been caught in Kyle’s temporal slipstream. In the face of Coast City’s absence, Kyle has been forced to explain the events surrounding Hal’s death and those that led up to it, hoping against hope that Hal will not snap again.
“Do you know what that damn statue really is? Do you?! It’s a gravestone!” With no more than a thought, Hal shattered the statue of himself and raced for the skies, fists clenched in rage. Kyle ducked automatically to avoid the falling shards, absently manifesting a simple disk to ward them off.
Do I go after him?
No, Kyle decided. Although the destruction of Coast City had unhinged Hal once, he had to trust that this Hal - younger, more naive, still with that shiny new-penny brightness in his eyes - would remain sane in the face of his eventual fate. Only someone who had been through what Hal had could ever really understand it, and only Hal had walked that particular road. Hal was better off without Kyle’s interference. He was the hero Kyle looked up to, after all.
Not interfering didn’t mean not watching, though, and after a few moments, Kyle followed Hal’s energy signature. Keeping low enough to the ground to avoid detection was easy, and Hal was apparently too distracted by his inner turmoil to look around. Kyle wasn’t so busy watching Hal that he didn’t see the train racing towards the school bus stalled on the tracks. Hal hadn’t noticed it, yet, and Kyle took the chance to position himself directly behind the train and try to pull it to a halt. A construct snaking to the front of the train carried his voice to the drivers as he shouted at them to hit the brakes.
The train screeched to a halt barely an inch short of the bright yellow bus, but there were five children already outside on the grass. One of them, a blonde, was covering her ears with her hands and moaning about noise as an older woman stood protectively between them and Hal.
“…know who you are,” she was saying as Kyle approached. “Don’t come any closer.”
“Ma’am,” Hal began, but as the woman caught sight of Kyle relief flooded her face and Hal turned around. “It’s you,” he said softly.
“Look, I’m grateful to you for trying to help,” the woman said. “But please, please, just leave us alone, Parallax.” The shudder that ran through Hal’s body was unmistakable, even if his face was utterly expressionless. Kyle landed lightly behind him and touched his shoulder. Hal didn’t move, but he was rigid and trembling.
“Let’s go, Hal.” Soothing was not normally a voice that Kyle had much practice in, but he was trying to project it with everything he had. “Come on.”
With one perfectly smooth motion, Hal turned and stared straight into Kyle’s eyes. A chill Kyle couldn’t explain swept over him, raising goosebumps on his skin and leaving him shaken. The tension slid out of Hal’s body, and Kyle all but snatched his hand back. It required every ounce of willpower he had not to back away from Hal, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Hal’s face. He was vividly reminded of a trip he’d taken to the zoo with his mother at the age of three - he’d gone too close to the bars of the tiger cage, wanting to touch the pretty pretty kitty. His mother had yanked him backwards, but not before he’d seen the tiger’s eyes and known with an absolute certainty that it was going to eat him. He’d had nightmares for weeks. Now, he was looking at that tiger again, and there were no bars between him and it.
Without warning, Hal smiled, shockingly bright, and Kyle flinched. “You’re right, Kyle,” Hal said, smile turning wistful and vanishing altogether. His voice was oh, so smooth and warm, shaded with regret and sadness. “Let’s go.”
Halfway between the remains of Coast City and New York, Hal spoke again. “Is there somewhere we can go? I… I don’t want to be alone, but I don’t really want anyone else around, either.”
Having intended to bring Hal to Guy’s bar - either seeing the legacy of Lanterns on Earth that Hal had left would help him through this shock or the other two would be able to help Kyle contain Hal - Kyle now hesitated. There wasn’t really anywhere he could bring Hal to be alone outside of his own apartment, unless he wanted to drop Hal at a hotel. Against his better judgment, Kyle nodded. “I’ll take you home,” he said. Maybe a gesture of trust would help. “You can stay with me tonight, if you like.”
“Thanks,” Hal said, and he sounded as if he really meant it. Some of the apprehension eased, and Kyle was able to offer Hal a genuine smile. Maybe he wasn’t putting Jenny in danger, simply by bringing Hal around.
The apartment was empty when they arrived - Jenny had left Kyle a note pinned to the fridge saying that she was visiting her father for the weekend and would be back in a few days. Kyle suppressed a paranoid urge to check the fridge and make sure she wasn’t in it, taking the note down and putting it in his pocket instead.
“What’s that?” Hal asked, face open.
Kyle shook his head. “Nothing.” He smiled, but although Hal looked perfectly guileless, Kyle still had the feeling that Hal knew exactly what was on the note and had filed the information away for later use. “Beer?”
“No, thank you.” Hal lifted his hand and frowned at his ring. It flared green, very faintly, and Hal was suddenly dressed in neatly pressed brown pants and an equally neatly pressed off-white shirt. It set off his hair and eyes, and Kyle had a sudden itch for a paintbrush to capture the way the midday sun hit Hal’s face just so, almost like a halo. “Are you going to wear that mask all night?” Hal asked, just the faintest hint of amusement in his voice, and Kyle’s mental image vanished.
“Uh, no, sorry.” Kyle dissolved his mask and his uniform with a thought, letting his jeans and paint-splattered t-shirt rematerialize.
“You’re an artist,” Hal said, surprised, and then he smiled. “Actually, given your constructs, it makes sense.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Kyle brushed at the now-dry paint, oddly self-conscious in the face of Hal’s immaculate grooming. He hadn’t quite expected it, given how hot-headed Hal had been during the fight against Sinestro and later.
“Will you show me?”
Kyle hadn’t known Hal could be shy, and it was that slight blush that led him to nod hesitantly. His work - the assignments he took, the ones that put a roof over his head - he set aside, bringing out a painting he’d nearly finished. Although he was most comfortable drawing portraits, this time he’d done an almost impressionistic riot of color. Hal stared at it for a moment before breaking into a delighted smile. “I see the tiger,” he said.
“The what?” Kyle looked at the painting again, which he’d vaguely meant to render as a sunset on crashing waves.
“There,” Hal said, fingers tracing carefully over the mostly-dry canvas, and Kyle could see it. It was his memory, the tiger behind bars, eyes staring out at him from beneath the water. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Kyle started to say, but the words died in his throat as Hal gently placed a paint-sticky finger on Kyle’s lips.
“Like you,” Hal said, and Kyle swallowed. Hal’s finger whispered down to the corner of his mouth and then traced his bottom lip. His skin was cool under the paint, but his body was warm, and when had he stepped forward? Without knowing how it had happened, Kyle felt Hal’s other hand hard against the small of his back, pressing them together.
“Hal-“ he began, and tasted paint as Hal slid the finger inside his mouth to caress his tongue. Enough was enough. Kyle wrenched himself backwards, but somehow Hal’s foot was behind him, and he tripped. Moving more quickly than Kyle would have thought possible, Hal grabbed him and twisted underneath to take the brunt of the fall.
“Are you all right?” Hal asked after a moment, sounding perfectly normal and not like he’d gotten the wind knocked out of him as Kyle knew he had.
“Fine,” Kyle answered, trying to disentangle himself. “I… are you all right?”
A hard grip on his wrist prevented him from pulling away, and Kyle found himself on top of Hal, faces bare inches apart.
“Don’t leave me,” Hal said, sounding just the tiniest bit broken, and when he leaned up to kiss Kyle, Kyle didn’t pull away. Hal’s tongue skimmed his mouth, and Kyle parted his lips before thinking about it, but this was Hal Jordan, and no matter what his tongue was doing, Kyle was not going to fuck his hero on his kitchen floor.
“Not here,” he managed to say. Hal stood up, pulling Kyle with him, and unceremoniously all but dragged him into the bedroom and threw him onto the bed. Kyle barely had time to bounce once before Hal was on top of him, hot and hard and heavy.
“Is this how you like it?” Hal said, voice grating in Kyle’s ear and hands pinning Kyle’s shoulders down roughly enough to hurt. “Like this?” He bit down on the tender skin under Kyle’s jaw, sucking and licking, pain flickering underneath the heat and pleasure. Kyle wanted it, wanted Hal’s hands on his skin, and he struggled to move, to get rid of his shirt, but Hal just held him down. One knee was forcing his legs apart, just barely rubbing against his cock as Hal worked at that one spot on his neck until Kyle was seeing white.
“Please… please, Hal…”
“Tell me how much you want it,” Hal whispered, and Kyle felt something tear his shirt to shreds, something glowing green at the bottom of his vision, but he could only look at Hal. The once-caged tiger shone out of Hal’s eyes, free and furious, as Hal slowly reached downwards.
When it was over, Hal simply looked at him, posture lazy and satisfied. His eyes hadn’t changed, and Kyle resisted the urge to ring his uniform on. If this was what Hal needed to feel connected, to remind himself that there was more to him than the end of his life and his actions as Parallax, Kyle wasn’t going to stand in his way. He couldn’t stop himself from pulling the sheet up to his chin, though, under Hal’s gaze.
“What are you thinking about?” Kyle asked before he could stop himself. Hal smiled, reaching out to brush a sweat-damp strand of hair out of Kyle’s eyes, but he didn’t answer right away.
“The Corps,” he said after a moment. “I was thinking about the Corps.”
“Oh, no. We’re late.” Kyle dashed towards the bathroom, only now remembering why he’d brought Hal to New York in the first place. Hal followed him, blithely nude.
“Late for what?”
“It’s a thing,” Kyle explained from inside the shower. “A Lantern thing, with Guy and John - do you even know them yet?”
“Guy and John,” Hal said, thoughtful. “No, I don’t think so. They’re Lanterns?”
“Used to be,” Kyle corrected, trying to climb out of the shower and catching one foot in the shower curtains. Hal caught him before he hit the floor, steadying him until he found his balance. “Thanks,” Kyle said absently, leaving the shower for Hal.
They had barely touched the ground outside Guy’s bar when Kyle heard a guttural boom. The sound tugged at his memory, but he couldn’t remember where he’d heard it before. Hal looked just as confused; no help there. Kyle had one hand on the door, intending to tell Guy and John that there as a possible situation, but before he could so much as pull, something grabbed him from behind and threw him into the side of the building.
“Ow,” he said, but apparently his assailant had just been pushing him out of the way to get at Hal. Once the stars in his vision cleared, Kyle could see Hal in uniform, fighting Darkseid’s son Kalibak. Guy was in the middle of it, too, while John stood protectively in front of Kyle.
“You okay?” John asked as Kyle stood, not taking his eyes off the battle.
“Uh huh,” Kyle answered, ringing his costume and mask on. “You? And where’s Alan?”
“I’m not the one that got backhanded into a wall,” John pointed out. “Alan had to leave early today. Something came up. Is that Hal?” he said, sounding almost as if it were an afterthought.
“It is.”
“We’re going to need an explanation.”
“Later.” Kyle launched himself at Kalibak; this was technically his fight, if the threats and imprecations peppering the air were any indication. Kalibak was trying to regain the honor he’d lost partly at Kyle’s hands. His first construct shattered against Kalibak’s thick hide, but it made the monster turn around and look at him. A mad grin lit Kalibak’s face, and he charged forward only to be yanked straight upwards by one of Hal’s constructs.
“Clear the nearest gas station of civilians,” Hal’s voice said through Kyle’s ring, and Kyle relayed the information to Guy. There weren’t too many people to clear out, of either the station itself or the surrounding area, but Kyle wasn’t expecting what Hal did next. He dropped Kalibak from sixty feet up straight into the center of the station and lit him on fire.
The resulting explosion would have reached farther than the area that Kyle and Guy had managed to clear in such a short time, if Kyle hadn’t been able to throw a construct over it, turning the heat and force back inwards. The reverberations as the explosion clashed with itself only made it more difficult to hold the shield in place, not to mention holding the ground underneath the station steady as the entire holding tank caught fire. Kyle went down on one knee, concentrating as hard as he could. Hal landed behind him, too close, and placed both hands on Kyle’s shoulders. “Focus,” he whispered, but one of those hands slid across the bruise he’d left on Kyle’s neck, and the twinge of remembered pain/pleasure disrupted Kyle’s concentration just enough to let the edge of the explosion escape.
Flames licked at the gas station itself and its surroundings, and in its center, the rubble shifted. Kalibak crawled out, blackened and charred. With shaking fingers, he pressed a button and a booming noise sounded. A tube swirling through empty space appeared and he staggered into it, falling even as he stepped across the threshold. The tube vanished, taking Kalibak with it, but Kyle had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“Is… is he dead?” No matter that the person in question wasn’t human, had done horrible things, had probably killed more sentient beings than Kyle could count, the taking of a life was something inherently abhorrent.
“I don’t know,” Hal said, and something in his voice made Kyle twist around to look up at his face. Hal was staring at the flames, orange light reflected in his eyes. Perhaps sensing Kyle’s eyes on him, he turned. “Are you all right?” he asked solicitously, pulling Kyle to his feet.
“Yeah, fine,” Kyle said, but he couldn’t stop the wince of pain as Hal’s fingers brushed against the back of his head.
“You should get that looked at,” Hal said, fingers tracing lightly over the swelling and making Kyle shiver.
“It’s fine,” Kyle said, more forcefully than he’d intended, as John and Guy approached.
“It’s not fine,” Hal said, fingers tightening. Kyle gasped at the sudden shock, clenching his fists and barely able to stop himself from flinching. It hadn’t hurt quite so badly a moment ago, but now it felt as though there were nails driving into the back of his skull.
“It is,” he said, pulling away from Hal. The pain did not abate as Hal’s hands fell away, and Kyle swallowed the incipient nausea.
“What’s going on, Kyle?” That was Guy, voice unnaturally loud. “That’s Hal Jordan.”
“It…” Kyle swallowed heavily as nausea swelled in his throat, and he had to close his eyes against the sparkles in his vision.
“Are you all right?” John sounded concerned. Kyle felt an arm across his shoulders and he lost it, stomach heaving as he threw up into something and a comforting hand soothingly rubbed his back. It seemed to last forever, but it was finally over and he was leaning against someone as voices rang in his ears.
“I’m fine,” he said as soon as he thought he had his voice under control, and pushed away from whoever it was.
“You sure?” It had been Guy, which nearly surprised Kyle into another physical loss of balance. Guy being polite (sort of) and worried was the last thing Kyle would have expected. “You got hit into that wall pretty hard.”
“Yeah, yeah, fine.” The sparkles were fading, and the ringing in his ears, and the nausea. “Thanks,” he added.
“Tell you what,” Guy said casually. “Let’s take this inside.” The smoke was keeping people away at the moment, but a crowd of curious onlookers would no doubt start to gather, and no one wanted to discuss what Hal was doing alive with an audience.
Inside Guy’s bar the damage was relatively light - Kyle’s precipitous meeting with the outer wall had knocked a few things off the shelves, but otherwise, everything was in order. Guy steered Kyle into their regular booth, placing himself between Kyle and Hal. Kyle let him do it, head still hurting badly enough that he wasn’t really up to arguing about much of anything.
“Explain,” Guy said, and with a warning look at Hal, Kyle did. He explained how he’d been bounced a thousand years into the future and maybe ten or twelve into the past, and how Hal had inadvertently been dragged along for the ride into the present, and how he’d told Hal everything.
“So is… are you staying?” John asked. He had a look that said he was considering something, weighing the possible alternatives.
“I don’t know,” Hal said. “If there’s a place for me in this time, or if I even can stay…”
“You,” Kyle started, but when Hal turned to look at him, the headache that had steadily faded as he’d spoken flared and he lost his train of thought.
“Kyle?” Hal’s voice sounded as if it was filtered through water, and Kyle was suddenly irritated. He’d been hit on the head plenty of times and it had never affected him like this. “That’s it,” Hal said, and even with the wavery overtones that Kyle was sure were just in his ears, Hal sounded decisive. “You’re going to a hospital.”
“I am not,” Kyle said.
“I’ll take him, Jordan.” Guy slid out of the booth, making room for Kyle to follow. “Before he pukes all over my bar and I gotta clean it up.”
“Wouldn’t,” Kyle muttered through clenched teeth, but his stomach was beginning to feel twitchy again, and he moved as carefully as he could.
“Whatever.”
Somewhere between the extraordinarily long wait in the emergency room - throughout which Guy was as patient as Kyle had ever seen him - and the actual physical examination, all of Kyle’s symptoms had vanished. He’d tried to convince Guy that just leaving would be fine. Unfortunately for Kyle’s peace of mind, Guy was not only patient but concerned. It would have taken the weirdest thing of the day prize on any other day, but time travel topped a nurturing Guy Gardner. Barely.
The examination itself went exactly as Kyle had predicted - penlights shone in his eyes, a string of questions, various and sundry other actions which made no sense to Kyle. The doctor’s final pronouncement was that Kyle had been bruised but probably wasn’t suffering lasting damage, and should be woken every hour just in case. Guy’s immediate reaction was to ask whether Kyle wanted to stay with him or whether he should stay at Kyle’s, since Jenny was out of town.
“Let Hal do it,” Kyle said. “How did you know Jen isn’t home?”
“Alan,” Guy said succinctly.
“Good memory for detail,” Kyle muttered. “Look, Guy, thank you, but I’ll be fine.”
“Right,” Guy said, after a long moment of staring at Kyle. “Take care, kid.”
Kyle just barely stopped himself from asking Guy if he needed a lift home before lifting himself into the air. Using the ring felt perfectly normal, and Kyle spared a moment for irritation. His apartment was empty when he got there, but another note had been taped to the refrigerator. This time, Hal had thanked him for his hospitality. He’d also written that there were a few places he’d like to go, but that he’d be back, and he apologized for troubling Kyle. It was an extraordinarily polite note, more so than Kyle would have expected. A glance at his watch told him that it wasn’t particularly late, yet, but instead of turning to his workstation, he changed into sweats and curled up on the couch with a book.
Sunlight and the smell of coffee woke Kyle. He sat up, disoriented before the familiar outlines of his living room coalesced and he realized that he must have fallen asleep on the couch. A blanket slid down his shoulders, and he recognized it as the one spare in the apartment.
“I was starting to get worried,” came an unfamiliar voice, and a cup of coffee floated within easy reach on a glowing green tray.
“Hal,” Kyle said, blinking before he took the coffee. It was pale with milk and smelled like sugar. Kyle frowned at it for a moment before asking why Hal knew how he liked his coffee. The moment the words left his mouth, he wanted them back.
Hal simply smiled, apparently not even noticing the automatic suspicion that Kyle wished he could recall. “I asked downstairs,” he said.
“Ah,” Kyle said. That made sense. “…worried?” he asked after the first sip of coffee had restored connectivity to his brain.
“Aren’t you supposed to stay awake with a concussion?” Some trick of the light, some imagined innuendo in Hal’s voice, something about the perfectly innocuous statement brought to mind vivid memories of the previous afternoon, and Kyle buried his face in his coffee cup before Hal could notice that he was blushing.
“There are some other people you should meet,” he said after his cheeks had cooled.
“More Lanterns?” Hal asked.
“The Justice League,” Kyle said. “I should tell them you’re here.” Hal didn’t answer, or move, and after a moment Kyle looked up to make sure he was still there. Hal was staring at him, and for a split second, the expression on his face made Kyle’s skin crawl. Then, so quickly that Kyle wasn’t sure he’d seen anything at all, Hal’s expression shifted to a self-conscious half-smile.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” he said. “I… I’d like to get my bearings first. I mean, I shouldn’t even be here, right?”
“Well…” If anyone had a right to know that Kyle had accidentally pulled a man who was both one of Earth’s greatest heroes and one of its worst villains into the here and now, it was the Justice League. Kyle opened his mouth to say so, but Hal looked like a puppy expecting to be kicked. “They’ll notice if you start flying around,” he temporized.
“That’s easy to solve.” Hal smiled and slipped his ring off. “Here.” He reached out and tugged Kyle’s hand, dropping the ring into it and gently closing Kyle’s fingers around it. “You keep it, until we know what’s going on.”
“I… I guess,” Kyle said, hesitating. More than likely, either John or Guy would tell someone about Hal at some point, but it was his responsibility to let the rest of the League know what was going on. “I have to tell them soon, though.”
“I understand,” Hal said, and once again an inexplicable shiver ran through Kyle.
Several hours later, that shiver was in the back of his mind as he flew back down to Earth. He’d rationalized that whether or not he told J’onn about Hal, someone else would, and it wasn’t really his responsibility, but it was. He’d brought Hal forward, albeit accidentally, and he’d told Hal about his future. If it wasn’t his responsibility, then whose was it?
As Kyle had thought, though, J’onn had already known. He’d wanted Hal to meet the League, though, and had frowned at being told that Hal just wanted some time. “I understand,” he’d said, in that deep voice, layers and layers of subtext that Kyle couldn’t even begin to read.
There was more cause to worry when Kyle arrived back at his apartment to find a message from Jen - something had come up and she’d gotten a temporary job up in Gotham - and a note from Hal saying that he was headed to Star City. Kyle checked his pocket to make sure the ring was still there, but it was right where he’d left it. He meant to check up on Hal - or at least check in with Connor - but a last-minute work assignment from his agent and a brief bout of insanity in Brooklyn courtesy of a mad scientist’s experiment gone wrong left Kyle with very little time to think.
The third day since he’d told J’onn about Hal saw Kyle dropping off the package at his agent’s approximately thirty seconds before deadline and taking the quickest route back to his apartment. All he really wanted was some sleep; the chemical spill had been more difficult to clean up than he’d expected and taken longer. He was a little surprised he’d managed to meet the deadline at all. Climbing into his window was harder to accomplish unnoticed during broad daylight, but it didn’t occur to him to simply walk through the front door until he was already inside.
A brief shower didn’t do much to wake him up, but at least the smell of smoke was off his skin. Kyle was standing in the doorway, comfortable t-shirt and loose jeans - wonderfully clean and smelling only of laundry detergent - warm against his skin and feet blissfully bare against the carpet, considering whether or not he wanted the coffee he’d been thinking about when a silhouette he didn’t notice at all crossed through the living room.
“Morning,” said a familiar voice, and Kyle nearly jumped through the ceiling.
“Hal,” he said. “I - when did you get back?”
Hal shrugged. “Just now.” Kyle’s tired brain stuck on minor details - the cloth of Hal’s blue shirt shifting over his skin as his shoulder’s moved, the open collar sliding slightly downwards, the glittering dust motes drifting around his hair in the sunshine.
“Uh huh,” Kyle said, not having heard the answer to his question.
“What is it?” Hal asked, turning briefly to look behind himself. “Is there something wrong?”
“Uh, no. No.” Kyle scrubbed his hands through his hair. “Long couple of days, that’s all.”
“I’ll make you some coffee,” Hal offered, and headed for the kitchen without waiting for an answer.
“Thanks,” Kyle called after him. Hal had cleaned up, too, although how he’d done it during the brief time Kyle had been in the shower he had no idea. There had been coffee cups and crumpled papers all over, but now the apartment was cleaner than it had been in weeks. Kyle rubbed his eyes and flicked on the news; anything to distract his brain from wandering down irrelevant side paths. The lead story caught his attention, though, and most of the tiredness temporarily melted.
“…once again, an unidentified aircraft has crashed on the east slope of Mt. Rainier. Witnesses report seeing a green flash during the explosion, although no cause has been determined. There have been reports of casualties; two - no, three have been reported dead at the scene. Their identities are unknown. Rumors of a nuclear weapon on board the plane are currently considered unfounded, as no trace of one has been found. This is…”
“Here.” Hal was smiling as he handed the mug to Kyle, but the tension in his hands belied the easy expression.
“Thanks,” Kyle said, not in any kind of mood to ask Hal what had him on edge; the man could deal with it. It was good coffee, though, and he smiled at it.
“Want to tell me about the long couple of days?” Hal asked.
Kyle stretched, setting the now empty mug down in the kitchen. “Just long,” he said. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Kyle, I’m a member of the Green Lantern Corps. I know exactly what passes for ordinary, and sometimes it just isn’t.” Hal came up behind him, sliding his hands around Kyle’s waist. “It can be rough.”
“No, it’s fine,” Kyle tried to say, but Hal had started kissing the side of his neck, so lightly that Kyle wasn’t sure he was being touched at first, and he lost the thread of what he’d been trying to say. Instinctively, he turned around. Hal caught his mouth in a bruising kiss, hard and almost angry, his hands tightening around Kyle’s hips. Kyle pressed forward, jeans now confining and rubbing uncomfortably across his cock. The insistent pressure of Hal’s erection wasn’t helping, either, and Kyle all but moaned into Hal’s mouth.
“Sssh,” Hal said, pulling back slightly. Kyle followed automatically, but Hal slid his hands roughly upwards, pulling Kyle’s shirt over his head. Cloth ripped, but the shirt was gone. The cool buttons and soft cloth of Hal’s shirt rubbed against Kyle’s skin as Hal cupped his face with both hands and kissed him again. The tiger shone out of his eyes, his hands gripping so tightly it almost hurt, and one of them slid around to the back of Kyle’s head. Hal pulled back and sucked hard at the base of Kyle’s jaw. Pain sparked, sending a jolt of heat straight downwards, and Kyle moaned again, pressing his aching erection against Hal’s. Without thinking about it, Kyle grabbed Hal by the shoulders and pressed him against the nearest wall. Hal bounced off what turned out to be the refrigerator, and the door swung open. A brief flash of red caught Kyle’s eyes and he flinched away. Hal stared at him, eyes flat and unreadable, and then grabbed his wrist.
“Hal-!” Kyle started to protest. Nails digging into his wrist, Hal dragged him down the hall and into the bedroom, and threw him onto the bed. “What the hell are -“ Kyle’s second protest was cut off by another bruising kiss, Hal’s hands busy at the button of his jeans. Hal pulled them off, breaking the kiss, and the relief from the pressure was almost enough to send Kyle over the edge. Hal knelt there for a moment, just staring down at him. “Hal?” Kyle said, and started to sit up. Hal shook his head, minutely, and took Kyle’s cock into his mouth. Wet heat surrounding him, Kyle bucked his hips helplessly upward, hands reaching down to fist in Hal’s hair. Hal’s tongue licked the tip of his cock before swirling down to the base, and Kyle was almost lost again, but Hal slid off. He produced lube from somewhere, and eased a finger inside Kyle, except that both of his hands were on Kyle’s hips, holding them down as he licked his way up and down Kyle’s cock. Kyle struggled to push upwards with each fleeting touch, the little waves of pleasure building into sweet pain, but Hal wouldn’t let him move.
The sound of a zipper made him open his eyes - when had they closed? - and Hal was straddling him now, still fully dressed. Slowly at first, and then suddenly quick and hard, Hal slammed inside him. Kyle screamed, and Hal shifted just enough to hit that spot, hand surprisingly gentle around Kyle’s cock. His hand matched his cock, stroke for stroke, sliding up and down, and Kyle came so hard he saw spots.
It hurt when Hal pulled out, quicker than Kyle had expected, and he choked off the surprised cry that rose in his throat. Hal was staring down at him again, face still unreadable except for the tiger caged in his eyes. “Come here,” he said, and held out a hand. It hurt to stand, much less walk, but Hal half-carried him into the shower and then left him there. The pain eased under the spray of hot water, and by the time Kyle put his jeans back on - the shirt was a lost cause - and made his way into the living room again, it was mostly gone.
Hal was in the kitchen. “Do you like blueberry pancakes?” he asked.
“Yes?” Kyle answered, nonplussed at the apparent randomness.
“It’s the only thing I can reliably cook,” Hal said, as if he hadn’t thrown Kyle down and fucked him harder than he’d ever been fucked not fifteen minutes ago.
“Okay,” Kyle said, blinking. If Hal wanted to make blueberry pancakes, he wasn’t going to argue.
“Here,” Hal said, rummaging through the refrigerator and coming out with a tall glass of red liquid. Kyle almost flinched again, but Hal didn’t seem to notice this time. “Vitamins,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“What is it?” Kyle asked, taking the glass.
“Vegetable juice,” Hal said, somewhat impatiently. “For the vitamins.”
“Uh huh.” Kyle tasted it. It was, bar none, the worst-tasting juice he’d ever had, but Hal was looking at him expectantly, so he smiled, suppressed the gag reflex, and drained the glass. “It’s great,” he said.
“Right.” Hal made shooing motions. “Go wait on the couch.”
“I can help,” Kyle offered.
“No, I don’t think so.” Hal crossed his arms. “I’ve seen you try to cook. Go wait on the couch.”
“Fine.” Kyle yawned, the earlier exhaustion returning full force. “You sound like Connor.” He found himself nodding off when he sat down, but his attempt to stand up somehow ended up completely wrong.
“Oh, Kyle.” A blanket settled over his shoulders, deliciously warm, and then the sounds from the kitchen resumed. They were starting to slide into the distance when it started to get very weird; Kyle could have sworn he heard the window open, and then it was as if he was trapped. He couldn’t move or open his eyes, but every sound was as clear as day, echoing as if from the bottom of a well. What did Hal do to me?
“Hal.” It was Connor’s voice, surprised, distrustful. “Is Kyle here? I need to talk to him.”
“Ssh,” Hal said, voice lowered and soothing. “He’s not feeling well.”
“It’ll only take a moment,” Connor said. The suspicion hadn’t eased; if anything, it had increased.
Footsteps rustled, and then Kyle felt Hal’s hand on his shoulder. “Kyle?” He couldn’t move, couldn’t answer beyond a sleepy sigh. “Out like a light,” Hal said, and there was something like satisfaction in his voice. The tiger was free.
“Kyle?” It was Connor this time, and the touch of his hand on Kyle’s face gave Kyle enough impetus to open his eyes. He couldn’t focus properly, though, and his eyelids felt as though they were made of lead. “Hey, you awake?”
“Connor, help me,” Kyle tried to say, but Connor tumbled away into silence.
Hal was gone again when Kyle woke, sun in his eyes. He wasn’t sure whether Hal had even been there or if it had been a particularly vivid dream; the apartment showed no sign of anyone else having entered it. It was cleaner than he remembered it, but that wasn’t proof one way or the other, since he didn’t remember going to sleep either. The vague memory of Connor drifted into his mind, and he frowned again before deciding it must have been a dream. Checking the power level on his ring told him that it needed charging, and he took care of it before checking to make sure that Hal’s ring was still where he’d left it. The action gave him an odd sense of déjà vu, but he shrugged it off.
Had Kyle realized that both Connor and Hal had been in his apartment, it might have helped head off the resulting events. He had that thought several times afterwards, although he wasn’t sure later how he would have made the mental leap from “Hal was in my apartment” to the end of the train of events. He couldn’t help blaming himself, at least at first.
It had started with an unexpected arrival on the moon; aliens coming to Earth wasn’t precisely uncommon, although their intentions were widely varied. Aliens taking care to land on the moon, on the other hand, was out of the ordinary. Said alien attempting to level the Watchtower without prior warning was even more unusual. In a freak coincidence, Kyle had been outside the Watchtower at the precise moment that the alien had launched his initial attack, and had been able to deflect it.
A shimmer of stars out of place surrounded the alien like a fog. Kyle launched himself at its center, sending a call through the ring to the Watchtower. A constructed shell surrounded him, simple and sleek. The alien batted him aside without any apparent effort, and as Kyle bounced across the surface of the moon, the fog cleared.
“Hal?” Kyle said, vision swimming for a moment. “Hal?”
“Sorry, Kyle,” Hal said, and a huge green boxing glove swung towards him. Kyle dodged, the glove just barely missing him. He would have heard the air whistle around it, if there had been any. “It’s easier this way,” Hal continued, and the glove returned. Kyle dodged it again; it was easier the second time around.
“What’s easier?” Kyle asked, more out of an attempt to distract Hal than to really get an answer. There was a shadow around Hal that looked so familiar, broad star-dazzling cape and horns jutting upwards to pierce the sky.
“To just make it all stop,” Hal said, so softly that Kyle wouldn’t have heard it if not for the rings transmitting every sound.
“Make it stop? Make what stop?” he asked. Constructing a holding tank, he slammed it closed around Hal as quickly as he could create it, but Hal shattered it with a gesture, and the pieces slammed back into Kyle before he could unmake them. He reached out with a rope instead, binding Hal’s hands together and dragging him forward. Hal let him get close enough to touch before shredding the ropes and grabbing Kyle by the throat.
“Lantern!” He wasn’t sure whose voice it was through the panic of not being able to breathe, but Hal’s grip loosened suddenly. Kyle had no chance to regain his bearings before Hal’s obnoxious glove sent him careening away from the moon’s surface. The wild flight through space ripped away his sense of orientation, and by the time he got it back, the moon was a distant speck. Kyle pushed the lingering dizziness away and sped back towards the fight.
The sight that greeted him was nothing he could have anticipated. Hal stood tall, feet planted firmly on the ground, shadowy fog billowing around him and glittering so slowly with displaced starbursts. Superman stood facing him, heat vision lancing towards Hal only to glance off the seemingly intangible fog, while J’onn stood to Superman’s left, Martian vision having precisely the same result. Wonder Woman was behind Hal, lasso bouncing off the fog and leaving sparks in its wake.
Nothing on the moon so much as twitched, except for the stars around Hal, twinkling in infinitesimally slow motion. Kyle landed, wobbling as he hit the ground, and ducking around the motionless coils of Wonder Woman’s lasso to come up beside Hal.
“Um,” he said. “Superman? Wonder Woman? Uh, J’onn?” He didn’t expect any answers, nor did he get any. “Uh, Hal?” That didn’t work, either.
“I’m not Hal anymore,” came Hal’s voice from somewhere behind Kyle.
“Parallax,” Kyle said. “So this is your doing.”
“No,” Parallax said. “I assume you refer to my past self’s actions,” he added after a moment, and then explained. “I’ve encased them all in a small bubble of time.”
“Then what -“ Kyle gestured. “What’s going on?” A sudden wave of energy pulsed through him, and Kyle stumbled. Parallax caught him, unexpectedly gentle, and gestured to Hal. The stars were moving again, at nearly normal speeds.
“He’s nearly broken free,” Parallax explained. “If he succeeds in destroying the Earth, it will set off a chain reaction of paradox that may well rip the universe apart.”
“Isn’t that what you were trying to do?” Kyle snapped. The energy drain hadn’t stopped; he could feel it going to Hal, and he couldn’t block it.
“I’m trying to fix it,” Parallax said softly. “That’s all.”
“Right. Sorry.” Kyle rubbed his eyes, letting his mask vanish. “What’s he doing to me?”
Parallax smiled, but there was no humor in it. “You assume I have all the answers.”
“Well, you do,” Kyle countered.
“He’s forged a connection between the two of you,” Parallax said after a moment. “I don’t know how. It must be broken and he must be returned, or nothing can be saved.” He cocked his head to the side. “He’s about to break free,” he said, and scooped Kyle up.
“Put me down!” Kyle said indignantly, but another energy wave rippled through him. He swore softly. “You both have to go back,” he added, fairly sure he was right. “Or everything will change.” If Parallax didn’t return to sacrifice himself, the sun would go out, and if Hal didn’t return to become Parallax, it amounted to the same thing.
“I see,” Parallax said after a moment, and Kyle could tell that he was deliberately not asking questions. “Here he comes.” He landed lightly, setting Kyle down. “At the signal, break the connection.”
“I don’t know how,” Kyle started, but the crackling burst of Hal’s assault drowned out his voice. Kyle threw himself to one side, lashing out with a woman wielding a bullwhip. Hal cut her in half, but it bought Parallax enough time to hold Hal still.
“NOW!” Parallax shouted.
A third wave of energy peaked, and Kyle desperately clamped down on it. He couldn’t stop it, couldn’t keep it inside, so he did the only thing he could; he sent it towards Parallax and prayed he wasn’t making an irrevocable mistake.
White light poured out of Kyle, incandescent. Parallax and Hal were dark shadows against it, a third shadow pulling away from Hal and fleeing. For a brief second, Kyle knew what it was, knew that it had the power to destroy and that it was his creation, but then it was gone. Parallax took the light and Kyle knew exactly what he was doing; Hal’s memory had to be erased, and Parallax’s as well, so that events could proceed as they already had. The two of them faded and the light flared.
Kyle blinked, and found himself staring up at the Watchtower ceiling. “I don’t remember coming in here,” he said, just to see if his voice worked. It did.
“You were unconscious at the time,” Wally said from somewhere off to his right. Kyle sat up and looked over. Wally was leaning in the doorway, eating an apple.
“I got knocked into the future,” Kyle said. “And then…”
“Yeah, I know,” Wally told him. “That was days ago. You came back. With Hal Jordan.”
“I did not,” Kyle said. He remembered no such thing.
“You did.” Wally finished the apple and tossed the core. “He tried to blow up the Watchtower.”
Kyle stared at him for a moment. “You’re pulling my leg.”
“Seriously? You don’t remember?” Wally looked concerned now, and for a split second his hands were all over Kyle, apparently checking for damage that had somehow been missed. “You look fine.”
Kyle shook his head. “I remember the Legion, and the time platform. And that’s it.”
“Hey, Bats!”
Kyle winced at the shout that was far louder than it had to be, and spent the next several hours explaining that he had no idea what had happened. He was subjected to various tests, up to and including J’onn probing his subconscious for irregularities, but nothing came up. According to Wally, Kyle had shown up with Hal from the past, told the League, and lost track of Hal. Hal had then proceeded to come out of nowhere and try to destroy the Watchtower (and presumably the Earth afterwards). He’d been facing down Superman, J’onn, and Wonder Woman when he’d suddenly vanished. A brief search had turned up nothing but Kyle.
“I got nothing,” Kyle said. “I don’t remember anything. At all.”
“That is the truth,” J’onn confirmed.
With no information available, the incident was filed away under Things To Be Forgotten. Kyle couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d missed something important, something besides the obvious, but no amount of effort could reclaim a memory that simply wasn’t there. He suppressed the misgivings; he’d deal with the consequences when they occurred. He knew they were coming, and all he could do was wait.
FINIS
Nalanzu's Little Damn Table
Fandom: Green Lantern Corps
Characters: Kyle Rayner, Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, various JLA
Prompt: Strangers
Word Count: 7,721
Rating: NC-17
Summary: What if things had gone just a little differently for the Hal Jordan of the past, brought into the here-and-now?
Author's Notes: References Green Lantern v.3 101-6. Thanks to Dolphina and Celes for beta work. Any remaining errors are mine alone.
Green Lantern Kyle Rayner, swept far into the future, overshot his own time so very slightly on his return trip. The error brought him into direct contact with his predecessor and the reason he had received a ring at all - Hal Jordan, the man who had gone insane upon the destruction of his hometown and tried to restart the universe. In the end, Hal Jordan gave his life to reignite Earth’s sun - an event that stands in his future and in Kyle Rayner’s past. In the here-and-now, Hal has been caught in Kyle’s temporal slipstream. In the face of Coast City’s absence, Kyle has been forced to explain the events surrounding Hal’s death and those that led up to it, hoping against hope that Hal will not snap again.
“Do you know what that damn statue really is? Do you?! It’s a gravestone!” With no more than a thought, Hal shattered the statue of himself and raced for the skies, fists clenched in rage. Kyle ducked automatically to avoid the falling shards, absently manifesting a simple disk to ward them off.
Do I go after him?
No, Kyle decided. Although the destruction of Coast City had unhinged Hal once, he had to trust that this Hal - younger, more naive, still with that shiny new-penny brightness in his eyes - would remain sane in the face of his eventual fate. Only someone who had been through what Hal had could ever really understand it, and only Hal had walked that particular road. Hal was better off without Kyle’s interference. He was the hero Kyle looked up to, after all.
Not interfering didn’t mean not watching, though, and after a few moments, Kyle followed Hal’s energy signature. Keeping low enough to the ground to avoid detection was easy, and Hal was apparently too distracted by his inner turmoil to look around. Kyle wasn’t so busy watching Hal that he didn’t see the train racing towards the school bus stalled on the tracks. Hal hadn’t noticed it, yet, and Kyle took the chance to position himself directly behind the train and try to pull it to a halt. A construct snaking to the front of the train carried his voice to the drivers as he shouted at them to hit the brakes.
The train screeched to a halt barely an inch short of the bright yellow bus, but there were five children already outside on the grass. One of them, a blonde, was covering her ears with her hands and moaning about noise as an older woman stood protectively between them and Hal.
“…know who you are,” she was saying as Kyle approached. “Don’t come any closer.”
“Ma’am,” Hal began, but as the woman caught sight of Kyle relief flooded her face and Hal turned around. “It’s you,” he said softly.
“Look, I’m grateful to you for trying to help,” the woman said. “But please, please, just leave us alone, Parallax.” The shudder that ran through Hal’s body was unmistakable, even if his face was utterly expressionless. Kyle landed lightly behind him and touched his shoulder. Hal didn’t move, but he was rigid and trembling.
“Let’s go, Hal.” Soothing was not normally a voice that Kyle had much practice in, but he was trying to project it with everything he had. “Come on.”
With one perfectly smooth motion, Hal turned and stared straight into Kyle’s eyes. A chill Kyle couldn’t explain swept over him, raising goosebumps on his skin and leaving him shaken. The tension slid out of Hal’s body, and Kyle all but snatched his hand back. It required every ounce of willpower he had not to back away from Hal, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Hal’s face. He was vividly reminded of a trip he’d taken to the zoo with his mother at the age of three - he’d gone too close to the bars of the tiger cage, wanting to touch the pretty pretty kitty. His mother had yanked him backwards, but not before he’d seen the tiger’s eyes and known with an absolute certainty that it was going to eat him. He’d had nightmares for weeks. Now, he was looking at that tiger again, and there were no bars between him and it.
Without warning, Hal smiled, shockingly bright, and Kyle flinched. “You’re right, Kyle,” Hal said, smile turning wistful and vanishing altogether. His voice was oh, so smooth and warm, shaded with regret and sadness. “Let’s go.”
Halfway between the remains of Coast City and New York, Hal spoke again. “Is there somewhere we can go? I… I don’t want to be alone, but I don’t really want anyone else around, either.”
Having intended to bring Hal to Guy’s bar - either seeing the legacy of Lanterns on Earth that Hal had left would help him through this shock or the other two would be able to help Kyle contain Hal - Kyle now hesitated. There wasn’t really anywhere he could bring Hal to be alone outside of his own apartment, unless he wanted to drop Hal at a hotel. Against his better judgment, Kyle nodded. “I’ll take you home,” he said. Maybe a gesture of trust would help. “You can stay with me tonight, if you like.”
“Thanks,” Hal said, and he sounded as if he really meant it. Some of the apprehension eased, and Kyle was able to offer Hal a genuine smile. Maybe he wasn’t putting Jenny in danger, simply by bringing Hal around.
The apartment was empty when they arrived - Jenny had left Kyle a note pinned to the fridge saying that she was visiting her father for the weekend and would be back in a few days. Kyle suppressed a paranoid urge to check the fridge and make sure she wasn’t in it, taking the note down and putting it in his pocket instead.
“What’s that?” Hal asked, face open.
Kyle shook his head. “Nothing.” He smiled, but although Hal looked perfectly guileless, Kyle still had the feeling that Hal knew exactly what was on the note and had filed the information away for later use. “Beer?”
“No, thank you.” Hal lifted his hand and frowned at his ring. It flared green, very faintly, and Hal was suddenly dressed in neatly pressed brown pants and an equally neatly pressed off-white shirt. It set off his hair and eyes, and Kyle had a sudden itch for a paintbrush to capture the way the midday sun hit Hal’s face just so, almost like a halo. “Are you going to wear that mask all night?” Hal asked, just the faintest hint of amusement in his voice, and Kyle’s mental image vanished.
“Uh, no, sorry.” Kyle dissolved his mask and his uniform with a thought, letting his jeans and paint-splattered t-shirt rematerialize.
“You’re an artist,” Hal said, surprised, and then he smiled. “Actually, given your constructs, it makes sense.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Kyle brushed at the now-dry paint, oddly self-conscious in the face of Hal’s immaculate grooming. He hadn’t quite expected it, given how hot-headed Hal had been during the fight against Sinestro and later.
“Will you show me?”
Kyle hadn’t known Hal could be shy, and it was that slight blush that led him to nod hesitantly. His work - the assignments he took, the ones that put a roof over his head - he set aside, bringing out a painting he’d nearly finished. Although he was most comfortable drawing portraits, this time he’d done an almost impressionistic riot of color. Hal stared at it for a moment before breaking into a delighted smile. “I see the tiger,” he said.
“The what?” Kyle looked at the painting again, which he’d vaguely meant to render as a sunset on crashing waves.
“There,” Hal said, fingers tracing carefully over the mostly-dry canvas, and Kyle could see it. It was his memory, the tiger behind bars, eyes staring out at him from beneath the water. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Kyle started to say, but the words died in his throat as Hal gently placed a paint-sticky finger on Kyle’s lips.
“Like you,” Hal said, and Kyle swallowed. Hal’s finger whispered down to the corner of his mouth and then traced his bottom lip. His skin was cool under the paint, but his body was warm, and when had he stepped forward? Without knowing how it had happened, Kyle felt Hal’s other hand hard against the small of his back, pressing them together.
“Hal-“ he began, and tasted paint as Hal slid the finger inside his mouth to caress his tongue. Enough was enough. Kyle wrenched himself backwards, but somehow Hal’s foot was behind him, and he tripped. Moving more quickly than Kyle would have thought possible, Hal grabbed him and twisted underneath to take the brunt of the fall.
“Are you all right?” Hal asked after a moment, sounding perfectly normal and not like he’d gotten the wind knocked out of him as Kyle knew he had.
“Fine,” Kyle answered, trying to disentangle himself. “I… are you all right?”
A hard grip on his wrist prevented him from pulling away, and Kyle found himself on top of Hal, faces bare inches apart.
“Don’t leave me,” Hal said, sounding just the tiniest bit broken, and when he leaned up to kiss Kyle, Kyle didn’t pull away. Hal’s tongue skimmed his mouth, and Kyle parted his lips before thinking about it, but this was Hal Jordan, and no matter what his tongue was doing, Kyle was not going to fuck his hero on his kitchen floor.
“Not here,” he managed to say. Hal stood up, pulling Kyle with him, and unceremoniously all but dragged him into the bedroom and threw him onto the bed. Kyle barely had time to bounce once before Hal was on top of him, hot and hard and heavy.
“Is this how you like it?” Hal said, voice grating in Kyle’s ear and hands pinning Kyle’s shoulders down roughly enough to hurt. “Like this?” He bit down on the tender skin under Kyle’s jaw, sucking and licking, pain flickering underneath the heat and pleasure. Kyle wanted it, wanted Hal’s hands on his skin, and he struggled to move, to get rid of his shirt, but Hal just held him down. One knee was forcing his legs apart, just barely rubbing against his cock as Hal worked at that one spot on his neck until Kyle was seeing white.
“Please… please, Hal…”
“Tell me how much you want it,” Hal whispered, and Kyle felt something tear his shirt to shreds, something glowing green at the bottom of his vision, but he could only look at Hal. The once-caged tiger shone out of Hal’s eyes, free and furious, as Hal slowly reached downwards.
When it was over, Hal simply looked at him, posture lazy and satisfied. His eyes hadn’t changed, and Kyle resisted the urge to ring his uniform on. If this was what Hal needed to feel connected, to remind himself that there was more to him than the end of his life and his actions as Parallax, Kyle wasn’t going to stand in his way. He couldn’t stop himself from pulling the sheet up to his chin, though, under Hal’s gaze.
“What are you thinking about?” Kyle asked before he could stop himself. Hal smiled, reaching out to brush a sweat-damp strand of hair out of Kyle’s eyes, but he didn’t answer right away.
“The Corps,” he said after a moment. “I was thinking about the Corps.”
“Oh, no. We’re late.” Kyle dashed towards the bathroom, only now remembering why he’d brought Hal to New York in the first place. Hal followed him, blithely nude.
“Late for what?”
“It’s a thing,” Kyle explained from inside the shower. “A Lantern thing, with Guy and John - do you even know them yet?”
“Guy and John,” Hal said, thoughtful. “No, I don’t think so. They’re Lanterns?”
“Used to be,” Kyle corrected, trying to climb out of the shower and catching one foot in the shower curtains. Hal caught him before he hit the floor, steadying him until he found his balance. “Thanks,” Kyle said absently, leaving the shower for Hal.
They had barely touched the ground outside Guy’s bar when Kyle heard a guttural boom. The sound tugged at his memory, but he couldn’t remember where he’d heard it before. Hal looked just as confused; no help there. Kyle had one hand on the door, intending to tell Guy and John that there as a possible situation, but before he could so much as pull, something grabbed him from behind and threw him into the side of the building.
“Ow,” he said, but apparently his assailant had just been pushing him out of the way to get at Hal. Once the stars in his vision cleared, Kyle could see Hal in uniform, fighting Darkseid’s son Kalibak. Guy was in the middle of it, too, while John stood protectively in front of Kyle.
“You okay?” John asked as Kyle stood, not taking his eyes off the battle.
“Uh huh,” Kyle answered, ringing his costume and mask on. “You? And where’s Alan?”
“I’m not the one that got backhanded into a wall,” John pointed out. “Alan had to leave early today. Something came up. Is that Hal?” he said, sounding almost as if it were an afterthought.
“It is.”
“We’re going to need an explanation.”
“Later.” Kyle launched himself at Kalibak; this was technically his fight, if the threats and imprecations peppering the air were any indication. Kalibak was trying to regain the honor he’d lost partly at Kyle’s hands. His first construct shattered against Kalibak’s thick hide, but it made the monster turn around and look at him. A mad grin lit Kalibak’s face, and he charged forward only to be yanked straight upwards by one of Hal’s constructs.
“Clear the nearest gas station of civilians,” Hal’s voice said through Kyle’s ring, and Kyle relayed the information to Guy. There weren’t too many people to clear out, of either the station itself or the surrounding area, but Kyle wasn’t expecting what Hal did next. He dropped Kalibak from sixty feet up straight into the center of the station and lit him on fire.
The resulting explosion would have reached farther than the area that Kyle and Guy had managed to clear in such a short time, if Kyle hadn’t been able to throw a construct over it, turning the heat and force back inwards. The reverberations as the explosion clashed with itself only made it more difficult to hold the shield in place, not to mention holding the ground underneath the station steady as the entire holding tank caught fire. Kyle went down on one knee, concentrating as hard as he could. Hal landed behind him, too close, and placed both hands on Kyle’s shoulders. “Focus,” he whispered, but one of those hands slid across the bruise he’d left on Kyle’s neck, and the twinge of remembered pain/pleasure disrupted Kyle’s concentration just enough to let the edge of the explosion escape.
Flames licked at the gas station itself and its surroundings, and in its center, the rubble shifted. Kalibak crawled out, blackened and charred. With shaking fingers, he pressed a button and a booming noise sounded. A tube swirling through empty space appeared and he staggered into it, falling even as he stepped across the threshold. The tube vanished, taking Kalibak with it, but Kyle had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“Is… is he dead?” No matter that the person in question wasn’t human, had done horrible things, had probably killed more sentient beings than Kyle could count, the taking of a life was something inherently abhorrent.
“I don’t know,” Hal said, and something in his voice made Kyle twist around to look up at his face. Hal was staring at the flames, orange light reflected in his eyes. Perhaps sensing Kyle’s eyes on him, he turned. “Are you all right?” he asked solicitously, pulling Kyle to his feet.
“Yeah, fine,” Kyle said, but he couldn’t stop the wince of pain as Hal’s fingers brushed against the back of his head.
“You should get that looked at,” Hal said, fingers tracing lightly over the swelling and making Kyle shiver.
“It’s fine,” Kyle said, more forcefully than he’d intended, as John and Guy approached.
“It’s not fine,” Hal said, fingers tightening. Kyle gasped at the sudden shock, clenching his fists and barely able to stop himself from flinching. It hadn’t hurt quite so badly a moment ago, but now it felt as though there were nails driving into the back of his skull.
“It is,” he said, pulling away from Hal. The pain did not abate as Hal’s hands fell away, and Kyle swallowed the incipient nausea.
“What’s going on, Kyle?” That was Guy, voice unnaturally loud. “That’s Hal Jordan.”
“It…” Kyle swallowed heavily as nausea swelled in his throat, and he had to close his eyes against the sparkles in his vision.
“Are you all right?” John sounded concerned. Kyle felt an arm across his shoulders and he lost it, stomach heaving as he threw up into something and a comforting hand soothingly rubbed his back. It seemed to last forever, but it was finally over and he was leaning against someone as voices rang in his ears.
“I’m fine,” he said as soon as he thought he had his voice under control, and pushed away from whoever it was.
“You sure?” It had been Guy, which nearly surprised Kyle into another physical loss of balance. Guy being polite (sort of) and worried was the last thing Kyle would have expected. “You got hit into that wall pretty hard.”
“Yeah, yeah, fine.” The sparkles were fading, and the ringing in his ears, and the nausea. “Thanks,” he added.
“Tell you what,” Guy said casually. “Let’s take this inside.” The smoke was keeping people away at the moment, but a crowd of curious onlookers would no doubt start to gather, and no one wanted to discuss what Hal was doing alive with an audience.
Inside Guy’s bar the damage was relatively light - Kyle’s precipitous meeting with the outer wall had knocked a few things off the shelves, but otherwise, everything was in order. Guy steered Kyle into their regular booth, placing himself between Kyle and Hal. Kyle let him do it, head still hurting badly enough that he wasn’t really up to arguing about much of anything.
“Explain,” Guy said, and with a warning look at Hal, Kyle did. He explained how he’d been bounced a thousand years into the future and maybe ten or twelve into the past, and how Hal had inadvertently been dragged along for the ride into the present, and how he’d told Hal everything.
“So is… are you staying?” John asked. He had a look that said he was considering something, weighing the possible alternatives.
“I don’t know,” Hal said. “If there’s a place for me in this time, or if I even can stay…”
“You,” Kyle started, but when Hal turned to look at him, the headache that had steadily faded as he’d spoken flared and he lost his train of thought.
“Kyle?” Hal’s voice sounded as if it was filtered through water, and Kyle was suddenly irritated. He’d been hit on the head plenty of times and it had never affected him like this. “That’s it,” Hal said, and even with the wavery overtones that Kyle was sure were just in his ears, Hal sounded decisive. “You’re going to a hospital.”
“I am not,” Kyle said.
“I’ll take him, Jordan.” Guy slid out of the booth, making room for Kyle to follow. “Before he pukes all over my bar and I gotta clean it up.”
“Wouldn’t,” Kyle muttered through clenched teeth, but his stomach was beginning to feel twitchy again, and he moved as carefully as he could.
“Whatever.”
Somewhere between the extraordinarily long wait in the emergency room - throughout which Guy was as patient as Kyle had ever seen him - and the actual physical examination, all of Kyle’s symptoms had vanished. He’d tried to convince Guy that just leaving would be fine. Unfortunately for Kyle’s peace of mind, Guy was not only patient but concerned. It would have taken the weirdest thing of the day prize on any other day, but time travel topped a nurturing Guy Gardner. Barely.
The examination itself went exactly as Kyle had predicted - penlights shone in his eyes, a string of questions, various and sundry other actions which made no sense to Kyle. The doctor’s final pronouncement was that Kyle had been bruised but probably wasn’t suffering lasting damage, and should be woken every hour just in case. Guy’s immediate reaction was to ask whether Kyle wanted to stay with him or whether he should stay at Kyle’s, since Jenny was out of town.
“Let Hal do it,” Kyle said. “How did you know Jen isn’t home?”
“Alan,” Guy said succinctly.
“Good memory for detail,” Kyle muttered. “Look, Guy, thank you, but I’ll be fine.”
“Right,” Guy said, after a long moment of staring at Kyle. “Take care, kid.”
Kyle just barely stopped himself from asking Guy if he needed a lift home before lifting himself into the air. Using the ring felt perfectly normal, and Kyle spared a moment for irritation. His apartment was empty when he got there, but another note had been taped to the refrigerator. This time, Hal had thanked him for his hospitality. He’d also written that there were a few places he’d like to go, but that he’d be back, and he apologized for troubling Kyle. It was an extraordinarily polite note, more so than Kyle would have expected. A glance at his watch told him that it wasn’t particularly late, yet, but instead of turning to his workstation, he changed into sweats and curled up on the couch with a book.
Sunlight and the smell of coffee woke Kyle. He sat up, disoriented before the familiar outlines of his living room coalesced and he realized that he must have fallen asleep on the couch. A blanket slid down his shoulders, and he recognized it as the one spare in the apartment.
“I was starting to get worried,” came an unfamiliar voice, and a cup of coffee floated within easy reach on a glowing green tray.
“Hal,” Kyle said, blinking before he took the coffee. It was pale with milk and smelled like sugar. Kyle frowned at it for a moment before asking why Hal knew how he liked his coffee. The moment the words left his mouth, he wanted them back.
Hal simply smiled, apparently not even noticing the automatic suspicion that Kyle wished he could recall. “I asked downstairs,” he said.
“Ah,” Kyle said. That made sense. “…worried?” he asked after the first sip of coffee had restored connectivity to his brain.
“Aren’t you supposed to stay awake with a concussion?” Some trick of the light, some imagined innuendo in Hal’s voice, something about the perfectly innocuous statement brought to mind vivid memories of the previous afternoon, and Kyle buried his face in his coffee cup before Hal could notice that he was blushing.
“There are some other people you should meet,” he said after his cheeks had cooled.
“More Lanterns?” Hal asked.
“The Justice League,” Kyle said. “I should tell them you’re here.” Hal didn’t answer, or move, and after a moment Kyle looked up to make sure he was still there. Hal was staring at him, and for a split second, the expression on his face made Kyle’s skin crawl. Then, so quickly that Kyle wasn’t sure he’d seen anything at all, Hal’s expression shifted to a self-conscious half-smile.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” he said. “I… I’d like to get my bearings first. I mean, I shouldn’t even be here, right?”
“Well…” If anyone had a right to know that Kyle had accidentally pulled a man who was both one of Earth’s greatest heroes and one of its worst villains into the here and now, it was the Justice League. Kyle opened his mouth to say so, but Hal looked like a puppy expecting to be kicked. “They’ll notice if you start flying around,” he temporized.
“That’s easy to solve.” Hal smiled and slipped his ring off. “Here.” He reached out and tugged Kyle’s hand, dropping the ring into it and gently closing Kyle’s fingers around it. “You keep it, until we know what’s going on.”
“I… I guess,” Kyle said, hesitating. More than likely, either John or Guy would tell someone about Hal at some point, but it was his responsibility to let the rest of the League know what was going on. “I have to tell them soon, though.”
“I understand,” Hal said, and once again an inexplicable shiver ran through Kyle.
Several hours later, that shiver was in the back of his mind as he flew back down to Earth. He’d rationalized that whether or not he told J’onn about Hal, someone else would, and it wasn’t really his responsibility, but it was. He’d brought Hal forward, albeit accidentally, and he’d told Hal about his future. If it wasn’t his responsibility, then whose was it?
As Kyle had thought, though, J’onn had already known. He’d wanted Hal to meet the League, though, and had frowned at being told that Hal just wanted some time. “I understand,” he’d said, in that deep voice, layers and layers of subtext that Kyle couldn’t even begin to read.
There was more cause to worry when Kyle arrived back at his apartment to find a message from Jen - something had come up and she’d gotten a temporary job up in Gotham - and a note from Hal saying that he was headed to Star City. Kyle checked his pocket to make sure the ring was still there, but it was right where he’d left it. He meant to check up on Hal - or at least check in with Connor - but a last-minute work assignment from his agent and a brief bout of insanity in Brooklyn courtesy of a mad scientist’s experiment gone wrong left Kyle with very little time to think.
The third day since he’d told J’onn about Hal saw Kyle dropping off the package at his agent’s approximately thirty seconds before deadline and taking the quickest route back to his apartment. All he really wanted was some sleep; the chemical spill had been more difficult to clean up than he’d expected and taken longer. He was a little surprised he’d managed to meet the deadline at all. Climbing into his window was harder to accomplish unnoticed during broad daylight, but it didn’t occur to him to simply walk through the front door until he was already inside.
A brief shower didn’t do much to wake him up, but at least the smell of smoke was off his skin. Kyle was standing in the doorway, comfortable t-shirt and loose jeans - wonderfully clean and smelling only of laundry detergent - warm against his skin and feet blissfully bare against the carpet, considering whether or not he wanted the coffee he’d been thinking about when a silhouette he didn’t notice at all crossed through the living room.
“Morning,” said a familiar voice, and Kyle nearly jumped through the ceiling.
“Hal,” he said. “I - when did you get back?”
Hal shrugged. “Just now.” Kyle’s tired brain stuck on minor details - the cloth of Hal’s blue shirt shifting over his skin as his shoulder’s moved, the open collar sliding slightly downwards, the glittering dust motes drifting around his hair in the sunshine.
“Uh huh,” Kyle said, not having heard the answer to his question.
“What is it?” Hal asked, turning briefly to look behind himself. “Is there something wrong?”
“Uh, no. No.” Kyle scrubbed his hands through his hair. “Long couple of days, that’s all.”
“I’ll make you some coffee,” Hal offered, and headed for the kitchen without waiting for an answer.
“Thanks,” Kyle called after him. Hal had cleaned up, too, although how he’d done it during the brief time Kyle had been in the shower he had no idea. There had been coffee cups and crumpled papers all over, but now the apartment was cleaner than it had been in weeks. Kyle rubbed his eyes and flicked on the news; anything to distract his brain from wandering down irrelevant side paths. The lead story caught his attention, though, and most of the tiredness temporarily melted.
“…once again, an unidentified aircraft has crashed on the east slope of Mt. Rainier. Witnesses report seeing a green flash during the explosion, although no cause has been determined. There have been reports of casualties; two - no, three have been reported dead at the scene. Their identities are unknown. Rumors of a nuclear weapon on board the plane are currently considered unfounded, as no trace of one has been found. This is…”
“Here.” Hal was smiling as he handed the mug to Kyle, but the tension in his hands belied the easy expression.
“Thanks,” Kyle said, not in any kind of mood to ask Hal what had him on edge; the man could deal with it. It was good coffee, though, and he smiled at it.
“Want to tell me about the long couple of days?” Hal asked.
Kyle stretched, setting the now empty mug down in the kitchen. “Just long,” he said. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Kyle, I’m a member of the Green Lantern Corps. I know exactly what passes for ordinary, and sometimes it just isn’t.” Hal came up behind him, sliding his hands around Kyle’s waist. “It can be rough.”
“No, it’s fine,” Kyle tried to say, but Hal had started kissing the side of his neck, so lightly that Kyle wasn’t sure he was being touched at first, and he lost the thread of what he’d been trying to say. Instinctively, he turned around. Hal caught his mouth in a bruising kiss, hard and almost angry, his hands tightening around Kyle’s hips. Kyle pressed forward, jeans now confining and rubbing uncomfortably across his cock. The insistent pressure of Hal’s erection wasn’t helping, either, and Kyle all but moaned into Hal’s mouth.
“Sssh,” Hal said, pulling back slightly. Kyle followed automatically, but Hal slid his hands roughly upwards, pulling Kyle’s shirt over his head. Cloth ripped, but the shirt was gone. The cool buttons and soft cloth of Hal’s shirt rubbed against Kyle’s skin as Hal cupped his face with both hands and kissed him again. The tiger shone out of his eyes, his hands gripping so tightly it almost hurt, and one of them slid around to the back of Kyle’s head. Hal pulled back and sucked hard at the base of Kyle’s jaw. Pain sparked, sending a jolt of heat straight downwards, and Kyle moaned again, pressing his aching erection against Hal’s. Without thinking about it, Kyle grabbed Hal by the shoulders and pressed him against the nearest wall. Hal bounced off what turned out to be the refrigerator, and the door swung open. A brief flash of red caught Kyle’s eyes and he flinched away. Hal stared at him, eyes flat and unreadable, and then grabbed his wrist.
“Hal-!” Kyle started to protest. Nails digging into his wrist, Hal dragged him down the hall and into the bedroom, and threw him onto the bed. “What the hell are -“ Kyle’s second protest was cut off by another bruising kiss, Hal’s hands busy at the button of his jeans. Hal pulled them off, breaking the kiss, and the relief from the pressure was almost enough to send Kyle over the edge. Hal knelt there for a moment, just staring down at him. “Hal?” Kyle said, and started to sit up. Hal shook his head, minutely, and took Kyle’s cock into his mouth. Wet heat surrounding him, Kyle bucked his hips helplessly upward, hands reaching down to fist in Hal’s hair. Hal’s tongue licked the tip of his cock before swirling down to the base, and Kyle was almost lost again, but Hal slid off. He produced lube from somewhere, and eased a finger inside Kyle, except that both of his hands were on Kyle’s hips, holding them down as he licked his way up and down Kyle’s cock. Kyle struggled to push upwards with each fleeting touch, the little waves of pleasure building into sweet pain, but Hal wouldn’t let him move.
The sound of a zipper made him open his eyes - when had they closed? - and Hal was straddling him now, still fully dressed. Slowly at first, and then suddenly quick and hard, Hal slammed inside him. Kyle screamed, and Hal shifted just enough to hit that spot, hand surprisingly gentle around Kyle’s cock. His hand matched his cock, stroke for stroke, sliding up and down, and Kyle came so hard he saw spots.
It hurt when Hal pulled out, quicker than Kyle had expected, and he choked off the surprised cry that rose in his throat. Hal was staring down at him again, face still unreadable except for the tiger caged in his eyes. “Come here,” he said, and held out a hand. It hurt to stand, much less walk, but Hal half-carried him into the shower and then left him there. The pain eased under the spray of hot water, and by the time Kyle put his jeans back on - the shirt was a lost cause - and made his way into the living room again, it was mostly gone.
Hal was in the kitchen. “Do you like blueberry pancakes?” he asked.
“Yes?” Kyle answered, nonplussed at the apparent randomness.
“It’s the only thing I can reliably cook,” Hal said, as if he hadn’t thrown Kyle down and fucked him harder than he’d ever been fucked not fifteen minutes ago.
“Okay,” Kyle said, blinking. If Hal wanted to make blueberry pancakes, he wasn’t going to argue.
“Here,” Hal said, rummaging through the refrigerator and coming out with a tall glass of red liquid. Kyle almost flinched again, but Hal didn’t seem to notice this time. “Vitamins,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“What is it?” Kyle asked, taking the glass.
“Vegetable juice,” Hal said, somewhat impatiently. “For the vitamins.”
“Uh huh.” Kyle tasted it. It was, bar none, the worst-tasting juice he’d ever had, but Hal was looking at him expectantly, so he smiled, suppressed the gag reflex, and drained the glass. “It’s great,” he said.
“Right.” Hal made shooing motions. “Go wait on the couch.”
“I can help,” Kyle offered.
“No, I don’t think so.” Hal crossed his arms. “I’ve seen you try to cook. Go wait on the couch.”
“Fine.” Kyle yawned, the earlier exhaustion returning full force. “You sound like Connor.” He found himself nodding off when he sat down, but his attempt to stand up somehow ended up completely wrong.
“Oh, Kyle.” A blanket settled over his shoulders, deliciously warm, and then the sounds from the kitchen resumed. They were starting to slide into the distance when it started to get very weird; Kyle could have sworn he heard the window open, and then it was as if he was trapped. He couldn’t move or open his eyes, but every sound was as clear as day, echoing as if from the bottom of a well. What did Hal do to me?
“Hal.” It was Connor’s voice, surprised, distrustful. “Is Kyle here? I need to talk to him.”
“Ssh,” Hal said, voice lowered and soothing. “He’s not feeling well.”
“It’ll only take a moment,” Connor said. The suspicion hadn’t eased; if anything, it had increased.
Footsteps rustled, and then Kyle felt Hal’s hand on his shoulder. “Kyle?” He couldn’t move, couldn’t answer beyond a sleepy sigh. “Out like a light,” Hal said, and there was something like satisfaction in his voice. The tiger was free.
“Kyle?” It was Connor this time, and the touch of his hand on Kyle’s face gave Kyle enough impetus to open his eyes. He couldn’t focus properly, though, and his eyelids felt as though they were made of lead. “Hey, you awake?”
“Connor, help me,” Kyle tried to say, but Connor tumbled away into silence.
Hal was gone again when Kyle woke, sun in his eyes. He wasn’t sure whether Hal had even been there or if it had been a particularly vivid dream; the apartment showed no sign of anyone else having entered it. It was cleaner than he remembered it, but that wasn’t proof one way or the other, since he didn’t remember going to sleep either. The vague memory of Connor drifted into his mind, and he frowned again before deciding it must have been a dream. Checking the power level on his ring told him that it needed charging, and he took care of it before checking to make sure that Hal’s ring was still where he’d left it. The action gave him an odd sense of déjà vu, but he shrugged it off.
Had Kyle realized that both Connor and Hal had been in his apartment, it might have helped head off the resulting events. He had that thought several times afterwards, although he wasn’t sure later how he would have made the mental leap from “Hal was in my apartment” to the end of the train of events. He couldn’t help blaming himself, at least at first.
It had started with an unexpected arrival on the moon; aliens coming to Earth wasn’t precisely uncommon, although their intentions were widely varied. Aliens taking care to land on the moon, on the other hand, was out of the ordinary. Said alien attempting to level the Watchtower without prior warning was even more unusual. In a freak coincidence, Kyle had been outside the Watchtower at the precise moment that the alien had launched his initial attack, and had been able to deflect it.
A shimmer of stars out of place surrounded the alien like a fog. Kyle launched himself at its center, sending a call through the ring to the Watchtower. A constructed shell surrounded him, simple and sleek. The alien batted him aside without any apparent effort, and as Kyle bounced across the surface of the moon, the fog cleared.
“Hal?” Kyle said, vision swimming for a moment. “Hal?”
“Sorry, Kyle,” Hal said, and a huge green boxing glove swung towards him. Kyle dodged, the glove just barely missing him. He would have heard the air whistle around it, if there had been any. “It’s easier this way,” Hal continued, and the glove returned. Kyle dodged it again; it was easier the second time around.
“What’s easier?” Kyle asked, more out of an attempt to distract Hal than to really get an answer. There was a shadow around Hal that looked so familiar, broad star-dazzling cape and horns jutting upwards to pierce the sky.
“To just make it all stop,” Hal said, so softly that Kyle wouldn’t have heard it if not for the rings transmitting every sound.
“Make it stop? Make what stop?” he asked. Constructing a holding tank, he slammed it closed around Hal as quickly as he could create it, but Hal shattered it with a gesture, and the pieces slammed back into Kyle before he could unmake them. He reached out with a rope instead, binding Hal’s hands together and dragging him forward. Hal let him get close enough to touch before shredding the ropes and grabbing Kyle by the throat.
“Lantern!” He wasn’t sure whose voice it was through the panic of not being able to breathe, but Hal’s grip loosened suddenly. Kyle had no chance to regain his bearings before Hal’s obnoxious glove sent him careening away from the moon’s surface. The wild flight through space ripped away his sense of orientation, and by the time he got it back, the moon was a distant speck. Kyle pushed the lingering dizziness away and sped back towards the fight.
The sight that greeted him was nothing he could have anticipated. Hal stood tall, feet planted firmly on the ground, shadowy fog billowing around him and glittering so slowly with displaced starbursts. Superman stood facing him, heat vision lancing towards Hal only to glance off the seemingly intangible fog, while J’onn stood to Superman’s left, Martian vision having precisely the same result. Wonder Woman was behind Hal, lasso bouncing off the fog and leaving sparks in its wake.
Nothing on the moon so much as twitched, except for the stars around Hal, twinkling in infinitesimally slow motion. Kyle landed, wobbling as he hit the ground, and ducking around the motionless coils of Wonder Woman’s lasso to come up beside Hal.
“Um,” he said. “Superman? Wonder Woman? Uh, J’onn?” He didn’t expect any answers, nor did he get any. “Uh, Hal?” That didn’t work, either.
“I’m not Hal anymore,” came Hal’s voice from somewhere behind Kyle.
“Parallax,” Kyle said. “So this is your doing.”
“No,” Parallax said. “I assume you refer to my past self’s actions,” he added after a moment, and then explained. “I’ve encased them all in a small bubble of time.”
“Then what -“ Kyle gestured. “What’s going on?” A sudden wave of energy pulsed through him, and Kyle stumbled. Parallax caught him, unexpectedly gentle, and gestured to Hal. The stars were moving again, at nearly normal speeds.
“He’s nearly broken free,” Parallax explained. “If he succeeds in destroying the Earth, it will set off a chain reaction of paradox that may well rip the universe apart.”
“Isn’t that what you were trying to do?” Kyle snapped. The energy drain hadn’t stopped; he could feel it going to Hal, and he couldn’t block it.
“I’m trying to fix it,” Parallax said softly. “That’s all.”
“Right. Sorry.” Kyle rubbed his eyes, letting his mask vanish. “What’s he doing to me?”
Parallax smiled, but there was no humor in it. “You assume I have all the answers.”
“Well, you do,” Kyle countered.
“He’s forged a connection between the two of you,” Parallax said after a moment. “I don’t know how. It must be broken and he must be returned, or nothing can be saved.” He cocked his head to the side. “He’s about to break free,” he said, and scooped Kyle up.
“Put me down!” Kyle said indignantly, but another energy wave rippled through him. He swore softly. “You both have to go back,” he added, fairly sure he was right. “Or everything will change.” If Parallax didn’t return to sacrifice himself, the sun would go out, and if Hal didn’t return to become Parallax, it amounted to the same thing.
“I see,” Parallax said after a moment, and Kyle could tell that he was deliberately not asking questions. “Here he comes.” He landed lightly, setting Kyle down. “At the signal, break the connection.”
“I don’t know how,” Kyle started, but the crackling burst of Hal’s assault drowned out his voice. Kyle threw himself to one side, lashing out with a woman wielding a bullwhip. Hal cut her in half, but it bought Parallax enough time to hold Hal still.
“NOW!” Parallax shouted.
A third wave of energy peaked, and Kyle desperately clamped down on it. He couldn’t stop it, couldn’t keep it inside, so he did the only thing he could; he sent it towards Parallax and prayed he wasn’t making an irrevocable mistake.
White light poured out of Kyle, incandescent. Parallax and Hal were dark shadows against it, a third shadow pulling away from Hal and fleeing. For a brief second, Kyle knew what it was, knew that it had the power to destroy and that it was his creation, but then it was gone. Parallax took the light and Kyle knew exactly what he was doing; Hal’s memory had to be erased, and Parallax’s as well, so that events could proceed as they already had. The two of them faded and the light flared.
Kyle blinked, and found himself staring up at the Watchtower ceiling. “I don’t remember coming in here,” he said, just to see if his voice worked. It did.
“You were unconscious at the time,” Wally said from somewhere off to his right. Kyle sat up and looked over. Wally was leaning in the doorway, eating an apple.
“I got knocked into the future,” Kyle said. “And then…”
“Yeah, I know,” Wally told him. “That was days ago. You came back. With Hal Jordan.”
“I did not,” Kyle said. He remembered no such thing.
“You did.” Wally finished the apple and tossed the core. “He tried to blow up the Watchtower.”
Kyle stared at him for a moment. “You’re pulling my leg.”
“Seriously? You don’t remember?” Wally looked concerned now, and for a split second his hands were all over Kyle, apparently checking for damage that had somehow been missed. “You look fine.”
Kyle shook his head. “I remember the Legion, and the time platform. And that’s it.”
“Hey, Bats!”
Kyle winced at the shout that was far louder than it had to be, and spent the next several hours explaining that he had no idea what had happened. He was subjected to various tests, up to and including J’onn probing his subconscious for irregularities, but nothing came up. According to Wally, Kyle had shown up with Hal from the past, told the League, and lost track of Hal. Hal had then proceeded to come out of nowhere and try to destroy the Watchtower (and presumably the Earth afterwards). He’d been facing down Superman, J’onn, and Wonder Woman when he’d suddenly vanished. A brief search had turned up nothing but Kyle.
“I got nothing,” Kyle said. “I don’t remember anything. At all.”
“That is the truth,” J’onn confirmed.
With no information available, the incident was filed away under Things To Be Forgotten. Kyle couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d missed something important, something besides the obvious, but no amount of effort could reclaim a memory that simply wasn’t there. He suppressed the misgivings; he’d deal with the consequences when they occurred. He knew they were coming, and all he could do was wait.
FINIS
Nalanzu's Little Damn Table