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Hal was never one for strict labels- whether it was with his relationships, his job, or with anything else in his life, he usually just shrugged, slapped whatever felt right onto it, and called it a day.
Now, he would never admit that his carelessness caused a few too many cooking mishaps, or misunderstandings with whoever he thought he was in an official relationship with. He could forget those mishaps, forget anything really, if he flew again.
It’s been years, really, since he actually flew a plane by himself. Every trip since he became a lantern had been for him to show his friends how flying really was. Not the easy, simple flying the rings let them do every day. Real flying. The feeling of your body lagging behind for a moment, and being hurled into the air by the aircraft, the sickening smell of the fuel burning. It was something almost indescribable, the way it made Hal feel. It almost got rid of his constant stress- from something Hal could never figure out.
His relationship with Carol was fine at the moment, there were no urgent meetings or anything that he knew of, but he felt anxious all day. Almost like his shirt was too tight, or his sock had slipped off the heel of his foot. Uncomfortable and disgusting.
His mind had wandered back to the planes. Flying would be a really good distraction right now, he thought. Even with all the Green Lantern and Justice League mess, a good fly would help.
A quick drive and a $50 slipped to the guard later, (god, it’s gotten expensive) he was in his fly suit and buckling in. The guard had said something, though, that stuck in the back of his mind.
”Ever since you got back with Carol, you almost walk like a girl.”.
It was a joke, a jab, a rib meant to make Hal feel a little bad about how he walked. Not meant to make him spiral back to when the corps didn’t entirely understand what human pronouns were, and he had been called she for a week before the shock of the ring had fallen and it clicked that he was being misgendered by aliens.
He didn’t correct them for a month. Not until it got to the point the aliens called him she to other human heroes.
The plane lurched forward, and Hal thought he had moved on from his strange language escape. At least that’s what he called it. He was always taught to be respectful to his elders, no matter how much he didn’t want to be, and he had no idea how old the Corps were, so he didn’t risk it.
The tip of the plane left the ground, while Hal thought about himself. His hands were stuck at the controls while he thought about everything he had been doing his whole life. Hal has always been a little feminine, in non-traditional ways. The way he prioritizes his hair and skin- which Hal chalked up to the air around him messing with it. He paid close attention to how his friends and colleagues would talk to him, how they would sometimes speak down on his feminine traits, like they were bad.
The tail of his plane lifted upwards, and the pit in his stomach had hit the ground. He was pretty girly, huh? Of course Hal was a guy though, no mistake about it.
Hal’s plane began to make the usual lap around the sky, the same one he had done for Carol and Kyle. He… kinda liked it when the corps had used her for him. Even if Hal had felt like an imposter because of it, it made his constant tightness loosen a bit, as if the invisible wrap of anxiety around his body had let go for the price of being called a girl.
The wind blew around the plane, going faster anf faster until Hal was at a speed she- he liked. God, Hal was messing up in his own internal dialogue. As if Hal thought of herself as a girl.
Fuck, maybe Hal wasn’t messing up. The plane took a sharp left turn as Hal grappled with his thoughts, the plane moving as violently as he was upset.
Everytime he tried to let himself think about the idea of him being even slightly feminine in a serious way, she felt that tight grip of anxiety slip away as if that’s all it had wanted, all this time. He had been alive so long with his gut feeling of anxiety, the tightness of her body, and it was slipping with such a simple change. A word change was enough for Hal to feel infinitely better than he ever had, and she hated it.
So simple, so fucking simple! And she realized it this late.
The plane’s landing gear let out, and Hal quickly turned to the controls again. She could deal with this after she landed.
Of course, her stupid looseness with labels would bite her in the ass.