Thanksgiving. I can jump on bandwagons, dammit.
Title: Not In The Plan
Fandom: Green Lantern Corps
Characters: Guy Gardner, Kyle Rayner
Prompt: 093 - Thanksgiving
Word Count: 1660
Rating: PG
Summary: Thanksgiving in space involves giant lizards. That was not part of the plan.
His first thanksgiving, after the ring, hadn’t been a day he wanted to remember. It hadn’t been a day Kyle particularly wanted to forget, either, it had just sort of passed before he’d noticed anything happening. Only a phone call from home asking what he’d been doing reminded him of the holiday at all.
Each successive year had been the same, always something in the way, something that distracted him from the holiday, but he’d still managed to call home after that first year. Even when he eventually, he’d left Earth behind altogether, and its holidays had become all but meaningless, he still found a way to talk to his mother, the only family he really had left. Then she’d been killed, and it had been his fault, and holidays really were pointless after that.
Still, there were moments he found to reflect on the things he had to be thankful for, and even when he cursed the Guardians, the Manhunters, and Hal Jordan for the roles they’d played in his ending up with the ring, he had to admit that he wouldn’t have given it up for the world.
This year, maybe… he’d thought, after surviving Sinestro and the Spider Guild and Guy and permanently moving to Oa, but his last-minute possible plans had been derailed by a sudden mission, and Guy had seemed too preoccupied by something for Kyle to want to interrupt.
Once Guy had left home, he’d never looked back. No, that wasn’t quite true. He was too much the dutiful son at first, and he couldn’t abandon his family. Thanksgiving was the one day of the year that he’d always set aside to spend at home, and every year it was full of cold glares and awkward silences.
The first year, his father had started in with the comments and the little barbed insults, as if he thought Guy wouldn’t understand. He’d walked out the door without a word; later he’d told his mother that he refused to go home only to be insulted. After that, his father simply never spoke to him at all.
Ending up with the ring and then in the Phantom Zone and later in the coma had changed everything; obviously he wouldn’t be participating in any family events then, and even after waking up, he’d felt no desire to exhibit filial piety.
No, Guy Gardner didn’t pay any attention to any holiday except Halloween.
This year, though, this year was supposed to have been just a little different. He’d actually made plans to host Thanksgiving at the bar, teach the Corps and its members from so many disparate cultures about this tradition of giving thanks, or at least expressing it. He had planned to surprise Kyle with it; not for any mushy reasons or anything, but just because a guy had to remember home once in a while, and now seemed like a good time. Then, of course, the Guardians had sent the both of them off to find some obscure plant and ruined all of his careful plots.
“You know what day today is, right?” Kyle asked. He was on top of Guy, leaning around the half-height stone wall that was their only cover from what looked to Guy like nothing so much as a dragon. It was well over fifty feet long, sported six limbs with massive claws tipping each of its toes, and its whipping tail was spiked. None of this was particularly problematic.
“I don’t care what day it is.” He’d taken a bite to the chest from the dragon’s massive mouth, and only luck and a quick construct had saved him from being crushed. As if zillions of pounds per square inch of jaw strength wasn’t enough, the creature’s bite had to be poisoned as well. It made Guy wonder what else lived on this miserable ice ball.
“It’s Thanksgiving,” Kyle told him. “Look, just past midnight.” He held up a glowing green clock. “Happy Turkey Day.”
“Ha,” Guy grumbled. He couldn’t move, or at least he couldn’t coordinate his movements, and his head was fuzzy enough that any construct he tried to make went utterly wacky. “I don’t think I share the sentiment.” At least he could still speak.
“Three-syllable words? You really aren’t feeling well.” Kyle sent another blast towards the dragon, but the damn thing was fast enough to avoid it. “Look, I can come back for Natu’s plant.”
“Fuck that. We came here for the fucking thing and we are damn well going home with it.” There was apparently some kind of flowering vine that lived under the ice and had regenerative properties in a majority of the sentient species across the galaxy. What Natu had not told them was that the plant survived by growing in manure - and the dragon hadn’t been far away. “Fucking lizard,” Guy muttered.
“Stay here.” Kyle was about to charge at the damn thing and that never ended well. If it weren’t for a necrotic plague afflicting star systems in at least two sectors, Guy would have told him that they were going home. Too many lives were at stake to give up now, though, and getting the plant meant that they needed a plan. Guy managed to grab Kyle’s wrist.
“I’ll distract it. Then you go.” Having manipulated his recalcitrant body enough to restrain Kyle, he now managed to get it into an upright position. The more he moved, the easier it got, and the ring was counteracting the poison. Give it a few moments and he would be as good as new.
Kyle hesitated. “Are you sure?”
“Always,” Guy said, and launched himself straight upwards. At least, he meant to go straight up, but the world spun around him and he went with it. The dragon missed him, though, and he dodged and looped enough to draw it away from the too-precious patch of weeds. He saw Kyle dart in out of the corner of his eye, pulling thread after thread of the plant out of the ground, and spared a bit of his concentration to smash the dragon with a construct.
His lack of focus nearly cost him his life; the dragon evaded his clumsy fist with ease and snaked out its neck. He jumped aside, nearly flying straight into its barbed tail. Only dropping like a stone saved him from getting skewered again, and he bounced off the earth with only a little help from the ring. Kyle caught him mid-bounce and dragged him out of the atmosphere.
“Got it?” Guy asked.
Kyle patted a construct messenger bag hugging his other hip. “And then some.”
Soranik all but yanked the bag out of Kyle’s hands when they reached Oa - if it hadn’t been directly in the line of flight between the ice ball and the plague planets, they wouldn’t have stopped there at all - and Guy got far less viewable scenery to stitch him up. He slept through part of his recovery, and was woken by Kyle dropping a kiss on his forehead.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
“Uh,” Kyle said. He was a rotten liar.
“Spit it out.” Guy stood up. He was stiffer than he’d been in a good long while, and it hurt like hell to move, but the poison was gone.
“I’m - we’re immune to the plague, so I’m taking the antidote,” Kyle said. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Since when do Honor Guard Lanterns play courier?”
“Uh, since we’re really really fast,” Kyle said lamely. At Guy’s dubious look, he gave in. “All right, all right, there have been reports of Sinestro Corps activity between here and there, and there’s apparently the possibility that they might try to intercept the courier. Okay?”
“You just got yourself some backup.” Guy overrode all of Kyle’s protests by the simple expedient of asking his ring for the destination of the plague vaccine and starting towards it.
“Okay, okay!” Kyle flew after him, vaccine safe in a construct that resembled a too-close-fitting backpack. “Any sign of trouble, though, and I stay between you and it.”
“Yes, mother.” He rolled his eyes, secure in the knowledge that Kyle couldn’t see it from way up in front of him.
“I saw that,” Kyle called back without turning around.
“No, you didn’t.” There was no way.
“You rolled your eyes.” Kyle sounded far too sure of himself. Guy hadn’t seen a mirror, but perhaps he’d missed Kyle ringing one.
“You’re just guessing,” he said, testing the waters.
“And I was right,” Kyle said.
“Ha, you admitted it first. I win.” Guy moved above Kyle, taking the defensive position without thinking about it.
“Fine.” Kyle sounded more amused than anything else. The trip progressed remarkably uneventfully, given how twitchy Kyle had been about trying not to tell Guy that he was going somewhere, and the vaccine made it into the hands of the people who could distribute it most effectively without incident. Given how quickly the Green Lantern ring could travel, though, they ended up staying far longer than they had thought, providing logistical support over a network spanning eleven planets in eight star systems.
“You sure that wasn’t contagious?” Guy said as they finally left the plague behind. The crisis was far from over, but there was nothing more that the two of them could provide that couldn’t be done by the residents of the planets themselves, and Salakk had recalled them upon hearing their report.
“Just think if something like that got loose on Earth,” Kyle said. “I mean…”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t us this time. Maybe there’s something to Thanksgiving in space.”
“Sorry,” Kyle said. “You missed it. Thanksgiving was over twelve minutes ago.”
“There’s more than one time zone -“ Guy started.
“In Hawaii,” Kyle said.
“Better late than never,” Guy told him, and slung an arm around Kyle’s waist. “I got a lot to be thankful for this year.” Perhaps he could salvage something out of the day after all.
FINIS
Fandom: Green Lantern Corps
Characters: Guy Gardner, Kyle Rayner
Prompt: 093 - Thanksgiving
Word Count: 1660
Rating: PG
Summary: Thanksgiving in space involves giant lizards. That was not part of the plan.
His first thanksgiving, after the ring, hadn’t been a day he wanted to remember. It hadn’t been a day Kyle particularly wanted to forget, either, it had just sort of passed before he’d noticed anything happening. Only a phone call from home asking what he’d been doing reminded him of the holiday at all.
Each successive year had been the same, always something in the way, something that distracted him from the holiday, but he’d still managed to call home after that first year. Even when he eventually, he’d left Earth behind altogether, and its holidays had become all but meaningless, he still found a way to talk to his mother, the only family he really had left. Then she’d been killed, and it had been his fault, and holidays really were pointless after that.
Still, there were moments he found to reflect on the things he had to be thankful for, and even when he cursed the Guardians, the Manhunters, and Hal Jordan for the roles they’d played in his ending up with the ring, he had to admit that he wouldn’t have given it up for the world.
This year, maybe… he’d thought, after surviving Sinestro and the Spider Guild and Guy and permanently moving to Oa, but his last-minute possible plans had been derailed by a sudden mission, and Guy had seemed too preoccupied by something for Kyle to want to interrupt.
Once Guy had left home, he’d never looked back. No, that wasn’t quite true. He was too much the dutiful son at first, and he couldn’t abandon his family. Thanksgiving was the one day of the year that he’d always set aside to spend at home, and every year it was full of cold glares and awkward silences.
The first year, his father had started in with the comments and the little barbed insults, as if he thought Guy wouldn’t understand. He’d walked out the door without a word; later he’d told his mother that he refused to go home only to be insulted. After that, his father simply never spoke to him at all.
Ending up with the ring and then in the Phantom Zone and later in the coma had changed everything; obviously he wouldn’t be participating in any family events then, and even after waking up, he’d felt no desire to exhibit filial piety.
No, Guy Gardner didn’t pay any attention to any holiday except Halloween.
This year, though, this year was supposed to have been just a little different. He’d actually made plans to host Thanksgiving at the bar, teach the Corps and its members from so many disparate cultures about this tradition of giving thanks, or at least expressing it. He had planned to surprise Kyle with it; not for any mushy reasons or anything, but just because a guy had to remember home once in a while, and now seemed like a good time. Then, of course, the Guardians had sent the both of them off to find some obscure plant and ruined all of his careful plots.
“You know what day today is, right?” Kyle asked. He was on top of Guy, leaning around the half-height stone wall that was their only cover from what looked to Guy like nothing so much as a dragon. It was well over fifty feet long, sported six limbs with massive claws tipping each of its toes, and its whipping tail was spiked. None of this was particularly problematic.
“I don’t care what day it is.” He’d taken a bite to the chest from the dragon’s massive mouth, and only luck and a quick construct had saved him from being crushed. As if zillions of pounds per square inch of jaw strength wasn’t enough, the creature’s bite had to be poisoned as well. It made Guy wonder what else lived on this miserable ice ball.
“It’s Thanksgiving,” Kyle told him. “Look, just past midnight.” He held up a glowing green clock. “Happy Turkey Day.”
“Ha,” Guy grumbled. He couldn’t move, or at least he couldn’t coordinate his movements, and his head was fuzzy enough that any construct he tried to make went utterly wacky. “I don’t think I share the sentiment.” At least he could still speak.
“Three-syllable words? You really aren’t feeling well.” Kyle sent another blast towards the dragon, but the damn thing was fast enough to avoid it. “Look, I can come back for Natu’s plant.”
“Fuck that. We came here for the fucking thing and we are damn well going home with it.” There was apparently some kind of flowering vine that lived under the ice and had regenerative properties in a majority of the sentient species across the galaxy. What Natu had not told them was that the plant survived by growing in manure - and the dragon hadn’t been far away. “Fucking lizard,” Guy muttered.
“Stay here.” Kyle was about to charge at the damn thing and that never ended well. If it weren’t for a necrotic plague afflicting star systems in at least two sectors, Guy would have told him that they were going home. Too many lives were at stake to give up now, though, and getting the plant meant that they needed a plan. Guy managed to grab Kyle’s wrist.
“I’ll distract it. Then you go.” Having manipulated his recalcitrant body enough to restrain Kyle, he now managed to get it into an upright position. The more he moved, the easier it got, and the ring was counteracting the poison. Give it a few moments and he would be as good as new.
Kyle hesitated. “Are you sure?”
“Always,” Guy said, and launched himself straight upwards. At least, he meant to go straight up, but the world spun around him and he went with it. The dragon missed him, though, and he dodged and looped enough to draw it away from the too-precious patch of weeds. He saw Kyle dart in out of the corner of his eye, pulling thread after thread of the plant out of the ground, and spared a bit of his concentration to smash the dragon with a construct.
His lack of focus nearly cost him his life; the dragon evaded his clumsy fist with ease and snaked out its neck. He jumped aside, nearly flying straight into its barbed tail. Only dropping like a stone saved him from getting skewered again, and he bounced off the earth with only a little help from the ring. Kyle caught him mid-bounce and dragged him out of the atmosphere.
“Got it?” Guy asked.
Kyle patted a construct messenger bag hugging his other hip. “And then some.”
Soranik all but yanked the bag out of Kyle’s hands when they reached Oa - if it hadn’t been directly in the line of flight between the ice ball and the plague planets, they wouldn’t have stopped there at all - and Guy got far less viewable scenery to stitch him up. He slept through part of his recovery, and was woken by Kyle dropping a kiss on his forehead.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
“Uh,” Kyle said. He was a rotten liar.
“Spit it out.” Guy stood up. He was stiffer than he’d been in a good long while, and it hurt like hell to move, but the poison was gone.
“I’m - we’re immune to the plague, so I’m taking the antidote,” Kyle said. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Since when do Honor Guard Lanterns play courier?”
“Uh, since we’re really really fast,” Kyle said lamely. At Guy’s dubious look, he gave in. “All right, all right, there have been reports of Sinestro Corps activity between here and there, and there’s apparently the possibility that they might try to intercept the courier. Okay?”
“You just got yourself some backup.” Guy overrode all of Kyle’s protests by the simple expedient of asking his ring for the destination of the plague vaccine and starting towards it.
“Okay, okay!” Kyle flew after him, vaccine safe in a construct that resembled a too-close-fitting backpack. “Any sign of trouble, though, and I stay between you and it.”
“Yes, mother.” He rolled his eyes, secure in the knowledge that Kyle couldn’t see it from way up in front of him.
“I saw that,” Kyle called back without turning around.
“No, you didn’t.” There was no way.
“You rolled your eyes.” Kyle sounded far too sure of himself. Guy hadn’t seen a mirror, but perhaps he’d missed Kyle ringing one.
“You’re just guessing,” he said, testing the waters.
“And I was right,” Kyle said.
“Ha, you admitted it first. I win.” Guy moved above Kyle, taking the defensive position without thinking about it.
“Fine.” Kyle sounded more amused than anything else. The trip progressed remarkably uneventfully, given how twitchy Kyle had been about trying not to tell Guy that he was going somewhere, and the vaccine made it into the hands of the people who could distribute it most effectively without incident. Given how quickly the Green Lantern ring could travel, though, they ended up staying far longer than they had thought, providing logistical support over a network spanning eleven planets in eight star systems.
“You sure that wasn’t contagious?” Guy said as they finally left the plague behind. The crisis was far from over, but there was nothing more that the two of them could provide that couldn’t be done by the residents of the planets themselves, and Salakk had recalled them upon hearing their report.
“Just think if something like that got loose on Earth,” Kyle said. “I mean…”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t us this time. Maybe there’s something to Thanksgiving in space.”
“Sorry,” Kyle said. “You missed it. Thanksgiving was over twelve minutes ago.”
“There’s more than one time zone -“ Guy started.
“In Hawaii,” Kyle said.
“Better late than never,” Guy told him, and slung an arm around Kyle’s waist. “I got a lot to be thankful for this year.” Perhaps he could salvage something out of the day after all.
FINIS