Big Damn List is doing a lot of finishing stuff. Maybe.
Title: Shadows of Yesterday
Fandom: Green Lantern Corps
Characters: Kyle Rayner, Guy Gardner, Alex Dewitt, Terry Berg, Hal Jordan, Major Force
Prompt: 086 - CHOICES
Word Count: 2550
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Kyle tries to pull himself together in the aftermath of Sinestro’s underhanded assault on Oa.
Author's Notes: Third in the Prodigal Son AU, following Death and Yellow.
“Left.” There was a mulish tone to Hal’s voice, as if they hadn’t already discussed where they were going and the best way to get there.
“The map says -“ Kyle repeated, pointing to the little screen with its blinking arrow.
“I don’t care what the map says.” Definitely stubborn, Hal was. There were times that it was endearing, but now was not one of them.
“But -“ Kyle started.
“There! That was it! That was our turn!” He was all but leaning out the window and pointing.
“Our turn is in half a mile and it’s on the right!” Left would only get them farther away from where they wanted to go, Kyle was sure of it. Google maps said so, and besides, he wasn’t unfamiliar with the area.
“Look, I know where I’m going!” Hal insisted, slumping back against the passenger seat and sulking. He would probably object to the word “sulk,” but it fit.
“The GPS knows where I’m going and it says -“ Kyle said, taking his eyes off the road long enough to point out the route outlined on the map in glowing red lights.
“You can take that GPS and - Look out!“
Kyle jerked his eyes back to the road just in time to see a Mack truck skidding on an unseasonable patch of ice, straight into their lane. “Shit!” He spun the wheel, but the car’s tires locked and it spun towards the truck. He frantically pumped the brakes, but it was too late, they were going to-
“Okay, just like that.” Bright lights flashed, and Kyle flinched instinctively. The headlights were - there were no headlights.
“You okay?” Terry was looking at him with a puzzled expression, lowering the camera. “Kyle?”
He hadn’t seen Terry in years, but the boy didn’t look any older than he had when Kyle had hired him as an assistant, back in New York. No, wait. That’s not right. Where had that thought come from? Kyle rubbed his eyes. “Sorry, what?”
“You know, we don’t have to do this right now,” Terry said, and Kyle remembered the project. Terry’s elective that semester was art, the current lesson was photography, and Terry was documenting his extracurricular activities. Which, of course, included Kyle - they were both in the practical ethics course that met after seventh period ended, three days a week.
“It’s fine,” he said. The oddness was fading by the second, and then he wondered why he’d felt odd at all. It might have been the lack of sleep. He’d been working on something. Hadn’t he?
“Okay, you do me.” Terry held out the camera. Kyle hesitated at its weight in his hand. “Oh, it’s okay as long as I develop the film and besides, I took the rest of them,” he said, misinterpreting the pause.
“Right,” Kyle said, smiling hastily. Terry posed at the edge of a desk and Kyle snapped the shot. The film advanced, and the sound was suddenly both nostalgic and perfectly natural. “This isn’t digital.”
“Why would it be digital?” Terry gave him a quizzical look and reclaimed his equipment, giving it a hasty once-over. “Man, you really need to get more sleep. Or something. You’re all weird today.”
“Uh, right.”
“I’ll tell Mr. Gardner if you want to leave.” That sounded completely wrong, for some reason.
“Guy Gardner?” Kyle said hesitantly. He didn’t work for Guy Gardner. For that matter, he wasn’t sure what he was doing in the building at all, but at the same time he knew that he and Terry were both taking a class for extra credit after school. Terry reached for his forehead and Kyle fended him off. “What are you doing? Leggo.”
“Stand still.” Terry clamped a hand down on his face. “Yes, Guy Gardner. You hit your head on something when I wasn’t looking? You don’t feel sick.”
Kyle pulled free, rubbing his temple. An odd pain had spiked behind his eyes. “No.”
“Whatever. Hey, grab the notes on Jordan?”
That made no sense either, because he had no idea what Terry was talking about. He opened his mouth to say so, but the words that actually came out were “We’re not supposed to be looking at actual case notes.”
“Oh, come on. It’s Hal Jordan. The most talented test pilot on the West coast, and he’s in jail for a DUI. Which he ran away from. Don’t you want details?”
“Isn’t that a violation of … something?” There was a reason why that didn’t sound right. Hal Jordan was… he was… Hal Jordan w-Kyle didn’t know what he was trying to remember. “Ow.”
“You do look like hell.” Terry packed his camera neatly in its little case and dragged him out of the classroom. “That? Is a chair. And you will sit in it.”
There had been a truck, Kyle was sure of it.
“Uh, no truck,” Terry said. “This is a hallway. No motor vehicles allowed.”
The sense of wrongness peaked, vertigo sweeping through him in a wave. He clenched his teeth, staring fixedly at the floor, and was barely aware of Terry edging away. The dizziness faded, prickles racing across his skin in shivers of cold. The pain behind his eyes faded, too, and suddenly he had no idea what he was doing in the hallway. He looked up. “Terry?”
“Ye-e-es?” Terry said, giving him a look that doubted his sanity.
“Did we miss the class?”
“Sorry, boys.” The voice was familiar, as it well should be. Kyle scrambled to his feet. “Something’s come up. We’ll make it up either tomorrow or next Tuesday.”
“No problem, Mr. Gardner,” Terry said.
“That okay with you, Kyle?” The man’s clothes should be green? Where had that thought come from? There was nothing wrong with the beige slacks and blue shirt the instructor was wearing.
“Yeah, uh, fine,” he said.
“See you tomorrow, then.” Mr. Gardner gave them a little half-wave before sauntering down the hall, his bright red hair marking him just as distinctly as his broad shoulders. Kyle glanced back at Terry, and just as he’d thought, his friend had been staring a little too. Terry gave him a shrug and a sheepish grin. There was no harm in looking, after all, although Kyle wouldn’t want to be caught doing even that much.
“See you tomorrow,” Kyle echoed, speaking to Terry.
“Yeah, yeah. You okay to get home?”
“Fine.” It wasn’t a long walk, and the weather was more than pleasant. Kyle shoved his hands in his pockets, and looked up at the bright blue sky.
“Look out!”
Kyle whirled around just in time to see a truck barreling towards him. He started to jump aside, but he didn’t have enough time. It was going to-
“Nice going,” Alex said.
“Sorry,” Kyle apologized. He started picking up the pieces of broken glass, but an edge sharper than he’d thought sliced into his thumb and he yanked his hand back. “Ow!”
Laughter bubbled up, and Alex pressed a slim hand to her lips to suppress it. “I’m -“
“I’d laugh too,” Kyle said around his thumb, blood taste thick and metallic on his tongue. There were bandaids below the sink for precisely this reason, and he extracted one from the box. “Except, ow.”
A green broom and dustpan scooped up the glass fragments and spilled liquid, depositing one in the trash and the other down the sink.
“Handy,” Kyle said, finally getting the cut sealed properly. “World’s greatest household implement.”
“Shush, you,” Alex said with a smile, and Kyle had a sudden vivid mental image of her body twisted up in his refrigerator.
“You died,” he said without thinking.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The broom and dustpan vanished. “Mongul didn’t have enough time to do much before Superman showed up.”
“No, it was -“
“Kyle, we talked about this.” He was half-sure they’d done no such thing. “I have to do this.”
“It isn’t right,” he muttered, but he didn’t know why. “It’s…”
“Kyle!” Alex sighed. “If there’s something I can do, I’m going to do it. This isn’t a toy. It’s not a game.”
“I know that,” he said automatically. But it isn’t yours, something in him moaned.
“Do you?” she said. “I’m not sure about that.” She cocked her head as if listening to something, and green light flowed from the ring over her body, transmuting her normal clothing into a green and black costume complete with mask. “I’ll see you later.”
“Be careful out there.”
“Careful is my middle name.” She waved, exiting gracefully through the window.
“Lies,” he called after her. “I know what your middle name is!”
Following her exploits on the news or watching her actually fight was out of the question - it was far too nerve-wracking to watch his girlfriend fight monsters and supervillains and who knew what else. Kyle knew that it was irrational to think that his not seeing her made any difference, as if what he didn’t see couldn’t really happen, but he couldn’t break the superstitious habit. Besides, he actually had free time and a blank piece of paper, both of which would be ideally situated at the local park.
Disorientation washed over him as he opened the sketchbook, though, and the image of Alex’s corpse flashed before his eyes again. There’s a surprise in the refrigerator, the note had said. That was ridiculous - she was alive and well and there was a shadow falling over his sketchpad.
“Kyle Rayner?” said a voice.
“Yes?” he said, looking up. A brief impression of dark reddish-purple skin and impossibly broad shoulders was all he had time for before the light went out.
“Do I know you?” he asked, an interminable time and yet a bare fraction of a second later.
“It’s me,” came a voice that tickled the edge of his memory. It shimmered, somehow, full of deep sadness.
“Who?” he asked. His eyes wouldn’t cooperate, and gravity was strangely tilted. He strained to focus, but there was only a shifting pattern of shadows.
The voice spoke again, but it was fractured beyond understanding. He twisted around, tugging at the web constraining him. There was something there, something pulling at his wrists and at his ankles, but try as he might, he couldn’t get free.
“Let go.” Hands, there were hands holding him down, slowly and inexorably stretching his joints past bearing. “Let go!”
He heard voices again, saw the sounds sparking against each other and brightening into a crescendo of light. The hands on his arms tightened again and something stabbed under his skin. Sound and light spun away into an oscillating thread until it spread out and settled, barely pulsing against his skin.
He could move his fingers, turn his head - and that was all. Bindings held his wrists, ankles, even his torso, as if he were too dangerous to be let loose. A low chuckle escaped; he didn’t need to move his body to wreak havoc. His ring would do just as well whether or not he could see to direct it. It wasn’t on his finger, but that didn’t matter much. Summon it, and it would come. Except, it didn’t.
“Screw this.” He still couldn’t focus his vision properly - either that, or it was just too dark to see - but he could feel the buckles against his skin. He didn’t have the leverage to undo them, though, not quite. With the ring blocked, he’d have to bide his time until he could escape and find it. Any number of people on a very long list had reason to want him incapacitated, but the list of those able to hold him there was much shorter. He should be able to figure out who was holding him given a little time and information.
“Kyle?”
It was a familiar voice, and it was clear enough now to be understood. It belonged to Hal Jordan.
“Hal,” he said, the only word that made it through his surprise. It had become bright enough to see at some point, and he twisted around until he could see Hal clearly. The other man wasn’t wearing his costume or his mask. Well, he’d addressed Kyle by name. A lack of costume wasn’t unexpected. “You escaped?”
“Uh,” Hal said, no doubt at Kyle’s statement of the obvious.
“How?” he asked, and then shook his head. “Never mind. You wouldn’t happen to have my ring, would you?”
A slow headshake answered his question even before Hal spoke. “No, I… I don’t have a ring.” Something about his tone made Kyle look closely at the other man’s hands. Hal wasn’t wearing his ring either.
“Do you know where they put them? Or who they are?” He tugged experimentally at the straps, but they were too tight. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll get out of here.”
“I…” Hal stared at him for a long moment, face unreadable, and then left. Kyle stared disbelievingly as the door closed behind Hal.
Rage swept over him, obliterating every trace of rational thought. Hal had abandoned him, left him to the mercy of who knew what. Something tore and he was free, free enough to rip off the restraints and hurl himself towards the door. The impact jarred sound into place, and he could hear someone screaming, only dimly aware that it was his own voice. Green light flickered, and the little glass window shattered under his fist.
“Hold still, dammit.”
Something tugged at his left hand, and Kyle looked down to see Guy pulling a fragment of glass out of his skin. It melted as soon as it cleared his skin, but the cut remained. It wasn’t bleeding freely any more, but it hurt.
“Four, Kyle. There something you want to tell me?”
The shadows were fading, and Kyle remembered where he was. “Mogo.”
“Yeah, Mogo. This was your idea, remember?” Guy stepped back, crossing his arms over his chest.
“It was?” He wasn’t sure what had been his idea, but he was starting to get a sinking feeling that it hadn’t been one of his better ones.
“Damn right. And in playing your little what-if game, not only did you go some damn weird places, but you got hit by trucks twice, dismembered once, and what the hell was that last one, even?”
“I’m not sure.” Ion twisted inside him, and Kyle shivered. The energy didn’t match, didn’t feel quite right. It hadn’t been quiet under his skin since the virus from Sinestro and his allies had nearly turned him into the equivalent of a horror-movie zombie.
“Yeah, well, I think your demons are done coming out to play.” Guy gave him a measuring look. “You ready to go back to Oa?”
“I have to be.” Don’t I? Whether or not Ion was comfortable in his skin was irrelevant, and so was this side trip. Kyle had had a week to wrestle his fears and his doubts, and the things he’d seen on Mogo weren’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. He’d already taken far too much time in self-indulgence, and none of it mattered. “I have work to do.”
A broken tool was no use to anyone. He couldn’t break. He wouldn’t. As he leapt toward Oa, Ion shuddered inside him.
FINIS
Nalanzu's Little Damn Table
Fandom: Green Lantern Corps
Characters: Kyle Rayner, Guy Gardner, Alex Dewitt, Terry Berg, Hal Jordan, Major Force
Prompt: 086 - CHOICES
Word Count: 2550
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Kyle tries to pull himself together in the aftermath of Sinestro’s underhanded assault on Oa.
Author's Notes: Third in the Prodigal Son AU, following Death and Yellow.
“Left.” There was a mulish tone to Hal’s voice, as if they hadn’t already discussed where they were going and the best way to get there.
“The map says -“ Kyle repeated, pointing to the little screen with its blinking arrow.
“I don’t care what the map says.” Definitely stubborn, Hal was. There were times that it was endearing, but now was not one of them.
“But -“ Kyle started.
“There! That was it! That was our turn!” He was all but leaning out the window and pointing.
“Our turn is in half a mile and it’s on the right!” Left would only get them farther away from where they wanted to go, Kyle was sure of it. Google maps said so, and besides, he wasn’t unfamiliar with the area.
“Look, I know where I’m going!” Hal insisted, slumping back against the passenger seat and sulking. He would probably object to the word “sulk,” but it fit.
“The GPS knows where I’m going and it says -“ Kyle said, taking his eyes off the road long enough to point out the route outlined on the map in glowing red lights.
“You can take that GPS and - Look out!“
Kyle jerked his eyes back to the road just in time to see a Mack truck skidding on an unseasonable patch of ice, straight into their lane. “Shit!” He spun the wheel, but the car’s tires locked and it spun towards the truck. He frantically pumped the brakes, but it was too late, they were going to-
“Okay, just like that.” Bright lights flashed, and Kyle flinched instinctively. The headlights were - there were no headlights.
“You okay?” Terry was looking at him with a puzzled expression, lowering the camera. “Kyle?”
He hadn’t seen Terry in years, but the boy didn’t look any older than he had when Kyle had hired him as an assistant, back in New York. No, wait. That’s not right. Where had that thought come from? Kyle rubbed his eyes. “Sorry, what?”
“You know, we don’t have to do this right now,” Terry said, and Kyle remembered the project. Terry’s elective that semester was art, the current lesson was photography, and Terry was documenting his extracurricular activities. Which, of course, included Kyle - they were both in the practical ethics course that met after seventh period ended, three days a week.
“It’s fine,” he said. The oddness was fading by the second, and then he wondered why he’d felt odd at all. It might have been the lack of sleep. He’d been working on something. Hadn’t he?
“Okay, you do me.” Terry held out the camera. Kyle hesitated at its weight in his hand. “Oh, it’s okay as long as I develop the film and besides, I took the rest of them,” he said, misinterpreting the pause.
“Right,” Kyle said, smiling hastily. Terry posed at the edge of a desk and Kyle snapped the shot. The film advanced, and the sound was suddenly both nostalgic and perfectly natural. “This isn’t digital.”
“Why would it be digital?” Terry gave him a quizzical look and reclaimed his equipment, giving it a hasty once-over. “Man, you really need to get more sleep. Or something. You’re all weird today.”
“Uh, right.”
“I’ll tell Mr. Gardner if you want to leave.” That sounded completely wrong, for some reason.
“Guy Gardner?” Kyle said hesitantly. He didn’t work for Guy Gardner. For that matter, he wasn’t sure what he was doing in the building at all, but at the same time he knew that he and Terry were both taking a class for extra credit after school. Terry reached for his forehead and Kyle fended him off. “What are you doing? Leggo.”
“Stand still.” Terry clamped a hand down on his face. “Yes, Guy Gardner. You hit your head on something when I wasn’t looking? You don’t feel sick.”
Kyle pulled free, rubbing his temple. An odd pain had spiked behind his eyes. “No.”
“Whatever. Hey, grab the notes on Jordan?”
That made no sense either, because he had no idea what Terry was talking about. He opened his mouth to say so, but the words that actually came out were “We’re not supposed to be looking at actual case notes.”
“Oh, come on. It’s Hal Jordan. The most talented test pilot on the West coast, and he’s in jail for a DUI. Which he ran away from. Don’t you want details?”
“Isn’t that a violation of … something?” There was a reason why that didn’t sound right. Hal Jordan was… he was… Hal Jordan w-Kyle didn’t know what he was trying to remember. “Ow.”
“You do look like hell.” Terry packed his camera neatly in its little case and dragged him out of the classroom. “That? Is a chair. And you will sit in it.”
There had been a truck, Kyle was sure of it.
“Uh, no truck,” Terry said. “This is a hallway. No motor vehicles allowed.”
The sense of wrongness peaked, vertigo sweeping through him in a wave. He clenched his teeth, staring fixedly at the floor, and was barely aware of Terry edging away. The dizziness faded, prickles racing across his skin in shivers of cold. The pain behind his eyes faded, too, and suddenly he had no idea what he was doing in the hallway. He looked up. “Terry?”
“Ye-e-es?” Terry said, giving him a look that doubted his sanity.
“Did we miss the class?”
“Sorry, boys.” The voice was familiar, as it well should be. Kyle scrambled to his feet. “Something’s come up. We’ll make it up either tomorrow or next Tuesday.”
“No problem, Mr. Gardner,” Terry said.
“That okay with you, Kyle?” The man’s clothes should be green? Where had that thought come from? There was nothing wrong with the beige slacks and blue shirt the instructor was wearing.
“Yeah, uh, fine,” he said.
“See you tomorrow, then.” Mr. Gardner gave them a little half-wave before sauntering down the hall, his bright red hair marking him just as distinctly as his broad shoulders. Kyle glanced back at Terry, and just as he’d thought, his friend had been staring a little too. Terry gave him a shrug and a sheepish grin. There was no harm in looking, after all, although Kyle wouldn’t want to be caught doing even that much.
“See you tomorrow,” Kyle echoed, speaking to Terry.
“Yeah, yeah. You okay to get home?”
“Fine.” It wasn’t a long walk, and the weather was more than pleasant. Kyle shoved his hands in his pockets, and looked up at the bright blue sky.
“Look out!”
Kyle whirled around just in time to see a truck barreling towards him. He started to jump aside, but he didn’t have enough time. It was going to-
“Nice going,” Alex said.
“Sorry,” Kyle apologized. He started picking up the pieces of broken glass, but an edge sharper than he’d thought sliced into his thumb and he yanked his hand back. “Ow!”
Laughter bubbled up, and Alex pressed a slim hand to her lips to suppress it. “I’m -“
“I’d laugh too,” Kyle said around his thumb, blood taste thick and metallic on his tongue. There were bandaids below the sink for precisely this reason, and he extracted one from the box. “Except, ow.”
A green broom and dustpan scooped up the glass fragments and spilled liquid, depositing one in the trash and the other down the sink.
“Handy,” Kyle said, finally getting the cut sealed properly. “World’s greatest household implement.”
“Shush, you,” Alex said with a smile, and Kyle had a sudden vivid mental image of her body twisted up in his refrigerator.
“You died,” he said without thinking.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The broom and dustpan vanished. “Mongul didn’t have enough time to do much before Superman showed up.”
“No, it was -“
“Kyle, we talked about this.” He was half-sure they’d done no such thing. “I have to do this.”
“It isn’t right,” he muttered, but he didn’t know why. “It’s…”
“Kyle!” Alex sighed. “If there’s something I can do, I’m going to do it. This isn’t a toy. It’s not a game.”
“I know that,” he said automatically. But it isn’t yours, something in him moaned.
“Do you?” she said. “I’m not sure about that.” She cocked her head as if listening to something, and green light flowed from the ring over her body, transmuting her normal clothing into a green and black costume complete with mask. “I’ll see you later.”
“Be careful out there.”
“Careful is my middle name.” She waved, exiting gracefully through the window.
“Lies,” he called after her. “I know what your middle name is!”
Following her exploits on the news or watching her actually fight was out of the question - it was far too nerve-wracking to watch his girlfriend fight monsters and supervillains and who knew what else. Kyle knew that it was irrational to think that his not seeing her made any difference, as if what he didn’t see couldn’t really happen, but he couldn’t break the superstitious habit. Besides, he actually had free time and a blank piece of paper, both of which would be ideally situated at the local park.
Disorientation washed over him as he opened the sketchbook, though, and the image of Alex’s corpse flashed before his eyes again. There’s a surprise in the refrigerator, the note had said. That was ridiculous - she was alive and well and there was a shadow falling over his sketchpad.
“Kyle Rayner?” said a voice.
“Yes?” he said, looking up. A brief impression of dark reddish-purple skin and impossibly broad shoulders was all he had time for before the light went out.
“Do I know you?” he asked, an interminable time and yet a bare fraction of a second later.
“It’s me,” came a voice that tickled the edge of his memory. It shimmered, somehow, full of deep sadness.
“Who?” he asked. His eyes wouldn’t cooperate, and gravity was strangely tilted. He strained to focus, but there was only a shifting pattern of shadows.
The voice spoke again, but it was fractured beyond understanding. He twisted around, tugging at the web constraining him. There was something there, something pulling at his wrists and at his ankles, but try as he might, he couldn’t get free.
“Let go.” Hands, there were hands holding him down, slowly and inexorably stretching his joints past bearing. “Let go!”
He heard voices again, saw the sounds sparking against each other and brightening into a crescendo of light. The hands on his arms tightened again and something stabbed under his skin. Sound and light spun away into an oscillating thread until it spread out and settled, barely pulsing against his skin.
He could move his fingers, turn his head - and that was all. Bindings held his wrists, ankles, even his torso, as if he were too dangerous to be let loose. A low chuckle escaped; he didn’t need to move his body to wreak havoc. His ring would do just as well whether or not he could see to direct it. It wasn’t on his finger, but that didn’t matter much. Summon it, and it would come. Except, it didn’t.
“Screw this.” He still couldn’t focus his vision properly - either that, or it was just too dark to see - but he could feel the buckles against his skin. He didn’t have the leverage to undo them, though, not quite. With the ring blocked, he’d have to bide his time until he could escape and find it. Any number of people on a very long list had reason to want him incapacitated, but the list of those able to hold him there was much shorter. He should be able to figure out who was holding him given a little time and information.
“Kyle?”
It was a familiar voice, and it was clear enough now to be understood. It belonged to Hal Jordan.
“Hal,” he said, the only word that made it through his surprise. It had become bright enough to see at some point, and he twisted around until he could see Hal clearly. The other man wasn’t wearing his costume or his mask. Well, he’d addressed Kyle by name. A lack of costume wasn’t unexpected. “You escaped?”
“Uh,” Hal said, no doubt at Kyle’s statement of the obvious.
“How?” he asked, and then shook his head. “Never mind. You wouldn’t happen to have my ring, would you?”
A slow headshake answered his question even before Hal spoke. “No, I… I don’t have a ring.” Something about his tone made Kyle look closely at the other man’s hands. Hal wasn’t wearing his ring either.
“Do you know where they put them? Or who they are?” He tugged experimentally at the straps, but they were too tight. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll get out of here.”
“I…” Hal stared at him for a long moment, face unreadable, and then left. Kyle stared disbelievingly as the door closed behind Hal.
Rage swept over him, obliterating every trace of rational thought. Hal had abandoned him, left him to the mercy of who knew what. Something tore and he was free, free enough to rip off the restraints and hurl himself towards the door. The impact jarred sound into place, and he could hear someone screaming, only dimly aware that it was his own voice. Green light flickered, and the little glass window shattered under his fist.
“Hold still, dammit.”
Something tugged at his left hand, and Kyle looked down to see Guy pulling a fragment of glass out of his skin. It melted as soon as it cleared his skin, but the cut remained. It wasn’t bleeding freely any more, but it hurt.
“Four, Kyle. There something you want to tell me?”
The shadows were fading, and Kyle remembered where he was. “Mogo.”
“Yeah, Mogo. This was your idea, remember?” Guy stepped back, crossing his arms over his chest.
“It was?” He wasn’t sure what had been his idea, but he was starting to get a sinking feeling that it hadn’t been one of his better ones.
“Damn right. And in playing your little what-if game, not only did you go some damn weird places, but you got hit by trucks twice, dismembered once, and what the hell was that last one, even?”
“I’m not sure.” Ion twisted inside him, and Kyle shivered. The energy didn’t match, didn’t feel quite right. It hadn’t been quiet under his skin since the virus from Sinestro and his allies had nearly turned him into the equivalent of a horror-movie zombie.
“Yeah, well, I think your demons are done coming out to play.” Guy gave him a measuring look. “You ready to go back to Oa?”
“I have to be.” Don’t I? Whether or not Ion was comfortable in his skin was irrelevant, and so was this side trip. Kyle had had a week to wrestle his fears and his doubts, and the things he’d seen on Mogo weren’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. He’d already taken far too much time in self-indulgence, and none of it mattered. “I have work to do.”
A broken tool was no use to anyone. He couldn’t break. He wouldn’t. As he leapt toward Oa, Ion shuddered inside him.
FINIS
Nalanzu's Little Damn Table