Chapter Text
Then
He throws up twice on the way over to Guy’s apartment. Once when he has to duck into an alleyway halfway there, when he realises that he can still feel come leaking out of him, seeping into his boxers. A second time outside Guy’s apartment building, just from how badly he doesn’t want to do this. He retches for a while until nothing more comes up, and then forces himself upright. His head aches, and there’s a burning, tearing pain between his legs. There’s still gravel in his knees.
He doesn’t have any right to be upset. He’s the one that did this to himself, and now he’s got to own up to it. He can’t avoid it – can’t delude himself into thinking that a lie will work long-term, even if he could convince himself that was fair. Carol won’t cover for him, not for something like this, not when she’s already unhappy with him. And Sin… Sin will use it against him at the earliest opportunity. He can’t let them get blind-sided again. Can’t let them be hurt like that. He drags himself slowly up the stairs and takes a deep breath as he stares at the door to the apartment. Time to face the music.
Guy looks up and smiles as he walks in. It widens to a grin as he looks Hal up and down and he turns to shout into the kitchen.
“Hey Johnny, great news! Christmas came early.”
Something about that makes him want to throw up again. No reason it should, it’s a fair reaction. There’s an objectively fantastic pair of tits currently straining at his shirt, and his jeans feel tighter across his ass than usual. Guy waggles his eyebrows at him and he tries to smile back, but he’s not sure what his face is doing, or if he’s reacting at all. Everything feels out-of-sync.
“What do you – oh wow.” John grins and gives Hal the same slow once-over. “Hi, baby.”
Kyle chuckles from somewhere on his left. His vision seems to be blurring a little, and he can feel his breath getting shorter. One of them says something he can’t hear over the rush of blood in his ears.
All of a sudden there’s a hand on his waist and someone’s lips on his neck and he can move again, shoving them away and stepping back until he hits the wall.
“Don’t!”
The voices all get really loud for a minute, before slowly calming down again. He doesn’t know what they’re saying, can barely hear over the pounding in his head, and what little he can hear is unintelligible.
Slowly, so slowly, he manages to get a hold of himself. When he brings his eyes back into focus, all three of his partners are staring at him, varying degrees of panic on their faces.
“Sorry.” He gets out. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault, baby. I’m sorry I... I misread. Do we need to suit up?” John’s tone is business-like, but he keeps almost-reaching for Hal, like he wants to hold him for reassurance and knows it’d be the wrong move.
He shakes his head. This one’s beyond a ring’s power to fix.
“I fucked Sinestro.” He blurts out, hands clenched at his sides, itching with the urge to drag the door open and run.
There’s a beat of silence, and then Guy snorts. “Old news, babe.”
“No, I… Today. I fucked him earlier today.”
All three of them stare at him. He’s still breathing too fast, but he’s starting to calm down. The worst is over, just gotta get through the next five minutes. Then it’ll – it’ll be over. It’ll all be over and he can… He can…
“...what.” Kyle’s voice has gone threadbare, like he’s forgotten how to work his own vocal chords.
“I… I didn’t… I’m sorry.”
“Jordo, what the fuck.” Even Guy’s voice is barely a whisper. That’s how you know you’ve gone beyond regular fuck-ups, he thinks, semi-hysterical. Even Gardner’s stopped shouting.
“I’m so sorry.”
John mostly seems confused. “You mean – you mean he forced you?”
He shakes his head. He didn’t – if anything Hal’s the one who…
“I don’t understand.” Kyle starts forward and Hal cringes back. “You’re saying you just decided to go cheat on us with your scumbag rapist ex? Out of nowhere. That’s what you’re saying?”
That’s… that’s essentially what happened. Everything else is just excuses, they don’t change what happened. What he did.
He nods, swallowing against another wave of nausea.
“Hal, you’re hyperventilating. Something’s clearly wrong.”
Fucking obviously something’s wrong, John, he cheated on them. He scrabbles for the door, not wanting to stay now that he’s told them.
“I’m sorry.”
“Hal!”
*****
Now
Kyle drops out of hyperspace just short of his destination, running through what he wants to say in his head. It’s been three months, now, so he’s had time to think. Time to plan out what he wants to say and how to say it, hopefully without Hal immediately busting through the nearest wall cartoon-style in order to get away. He’s probably going to have to be a manipulative asshole just to get the conversation going, but if that’s what it takes, then that’s what it takes.
He finds Hal on the outer edge of the planet’s asteroid belt, guiding some smaller trading vessels in to land. He doesn’t interrupt, and doesn’t try to hide. Hal would see him anyway, and he’s not here to sneak up on him. He takes the opportunity instead to actually look at him: notes the weight loss, the deepened lines around his mouth, and the way his shoulders seem to fold in on themselves when he’s not paying attention. Physically, he still looks different to how he usually does, and the changes are more obvious in glowing green than they were hidden under a baggy jacket and jeans. For once, it’s not the default hard-light uniform, either – he’s changed it slightly to look more… feminine, is probably the word. It accentuates his wider hips and the swell of his breasts, and his hair’s a little longer than usual. He looks good. Really good, in a way Kyle is going to have to mostly ignore for the subsequent conversation, if he wants to actually get anywhere.
Hal clocks him immediately, but waits until the ships have landed to flit over to him. He stops a few feet away from Kyle, carefully distant. Nothing on his face but professional curiosity. Even his tone is tailor-made to be calm and business-like.
“Trouble?”
Hal can’t possibly think he’s that easy to fool.
“No, nothing GL-related.” Kyle smiles and closes the space between them, hooking a couple of fingers into Hal’s hand and squeezing. “Just wanted to see you.”
Hal glances down at their hands and frowns at him. “What are you doing?”
“Holding my partner’s hand. That okay?”
The professional veneer cracks a little. “I’m not… We’re not – Kyle what are you doing?”
“Dunno what you’re talking about. I like the uniform, by the way.”
A flush creeps over Hal’s cheekbones, and he seems to shrink. “That’s… thanks. It’s temporary.”
Kyle nods, adds a mark to the mental tally of “shit that needs discussing”, and decides not to kiss Hal like he wants to. It doesn’t seem like it would be taken the right way.
He strokes his thumb over Hal’s hand, watches micro-expressions chase each other across his face and waits for Hal to decide what he wants to do next.
Eventually the older man sighs and pulls his hand out of Kyle’s, floating back a foot or so. Putting some distance between them.
“What’s actually going on, Kyle?”
“Told you – I wanted to see my partner.”
“Then why are you here?”
Kyle frowns, overacting confusion. The more he’s a little shit, the more Hal will get out of his own head. Hopefully.
“Well, Salaak said you were here. He gets real judgy about handing out mission information for personal reasons, have you noticed that?”
“What are you – we broke up!”
Kyle lets that hang in the air for a moment.
“No we didn’t.”
Hal scoffs. “Pretty sure we did.”
“Pretty sure I’d remember that.” He counters.
Hal stares at him, looking genuinely confused, and Kyle feel his heart sink. This might be a little harder than he’d thought.
He sighs. “We didn’t break up. A lot happened, and we’ve gotta talk about it, and we’re probably all going to hate every second of that, but no-one broke up with anyone. So. If you’ve been out here acting like you’re single, that is actually going to be a problem.”
“I haven’t.”
“Okay then. Are you almost done here? I tried to time it so I’d get here when you were done, but I sort of skim-read the briefing, so might have called that one wrong.”
“I’m done, yeah. Just need to check in with the council here and then with Salaak. He said he had something else for me when I was done here.”
Kyle nods. “Can it wait? Or can someone else do it? I really think we need to talk.”
“I don’t think there’s anything to talk about. I cheated, and then left.” His mouth twists and he turns to look away. “I don’t need a sit-down discussion of every way I fucked up. I already know we’re done. Can we just let it be?”
“No.”
“Kyle-”
“No. If you want to break up with us, then you’re going to at least tell us, to our faces. You owe us that much, don’t you think?”
Yikes, little heavy on the guilt trip there, Rayner. Can’t argue with the results, though – Hal deflates like a balloon and starts several sentences, before he nods.
“Give me a few minutes to finish up here, then.” He sends Kyle a location on the planet below. “That’s the house they let me use – I’ll meet you there.”
Without another word, he flies off towards what looks like the capital city. Kyle watches him go, before shaking himself a little and dropping down into the atmosphere. Rayner 1 – Jordan 0. Round two, here we come.
The house is nice, if small. Nothing of Hal’s, of course – none of them really carry personal effects on the job. He sits at a floating table and waits, wondering if Hal will decide to disappear again.
It takes longer than a few minutes, long enough that he’s already resigned himself to having to chase Hal across a few galaxies, but he does turn up, looking a little flustered.
“Sorry – grateful locals wanted me to stay. And also they gave me the house.”
“To keep?”
“Apparently.” Hal looks around, critically. “Could be a nice base. The food here is good.”
And it’s a few hundred sectors from home, Kyle thinks.
“Helluva commute.”
Hal shrugs. “Can’t have everything.”
Jesus. Okay, he’s starting to see why Guy starts so many fistfights with Hal.
“It’d be nice to have you a little closer than this.”
Hal laughs bitterly. “Well, after this promised conversation, I don’t see it mattering all that much.”
“Can you stop assuming the worst, for like, five minutes?”
“Kyle, look. I cheated on you. With Sinestro. What the fuck more is there to say?”
“Well, I think the why might be kinda crucial here.”
“It’s not. I fucked up, like we all knew was eventually going to happen, so now we’re breaking up. There. I saved us all some time.”
“Nope. You and I are going to go home and talk about what happened with John and Guy. And then we’re probably going to cuddle.”
“That’s not…” Hal frowns again. “What do you mean, talk about what happened? I told you what happened.”
“You told us that you decided of your own free will to go cheat on us with Sinestro. Carol’s version is a little different.”
“Carol wasn’t there.”
Kyle raises his eyebrows. “So you didn’t go see her?”
“No, I did, but.” Hal looks confused. “She wasn’t there for… for the other bit.”
“Okay, then that’s at least one thing you didn’t tell us.”
Hal nods, staring at his hands. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Sorry.”
“That’s – I’m not – shit. I don’t need you to apologise, Hal. I don’t think you’ve done anything you need to apologise for. We just need to know what happened.”
“And if I don’t want to have that conversation?”
Kyle flounders a little, not sure what to say. Then… they’re breaking up for real? Then they’ll all just have to ignore the screaming elephant in the room? He doesn’t know the answer, and he definitely doesn’t want Hal to have an excuse to avoid them.
He obviously takes too long to think it through. Hal beats him to the punch, smiling at him sadly. Like you’d smile at a memory. “It’s fine, sweetheart. I get it. You don’t have to… We can go talk to the others. Let’s do this properly.”
Well. Kyle’s not sure what Hal supposedly gets, but if it gets him to come home, then he’s not really going to complain. Hal doesn’t say anything more as they leave and fly back to Earth, just follows in Kyle’s wake. He doesn’t look like he’s paying much attention to anything. Kyle’s glad he’s the one steering.
They land on the roof and Kyle gets rid of his uniform, waiting a beat for Hal to get rid of his before he realises he’s not going to, has no intention of letting his guard down that much. The mask vanishes but the rest of the suit stays, a faintly defiant look on Hal’s face.
Guy wolf-whistles obnoxiously as they walk in, eyes raking over Hal’s altered suit. “Hot damn, babe.”
Kyle winces and belatedly gestures at Guy to knock it off. It’s not that he doesn’t sympathise with the sentiment, but Hal’s clearly not comfortable with them commenting. Hal looks like he’s shrinking in on himself, barely looking up at any of them as he shoulders past John and goes to sit on the couch.
“Can we please just get this over with. Salaak has an assignment waiting for me.”
John meets Kyle’s eyes and raises a mildly judgemental eyebrow. Kyle shrugs. His job was to get Hal back here, and here he is. Tag, John, you’re it.
John clearly gets enough of that from his expression, rolling his shoulders and going to sit opposite from Hal, who glances up at him briefly before going back to staring at the floor. Guy and Kyle go to sit as well, neither choosing to sit next to Hal. Don’t want to crowd him. Can’t sit next to John, either, or it’ll seem like they’re ganging up on Hal. Choices, choices, all of them probably wrong.
John eventually gives up on trying to catch Hal’s eye. “You doing okay, Hal?”
“I’m fine. Busy. Kyle said you wanted to talk.”
John exhales, slowly. “Yeah. We’ve been told a couple of different things, about what happened three months ago. So we’d like to hear your side.”
Hal looks up at that, dark eyes fixed on John, weighing him up. “Am I talking to John right now, or to Corps Leader Stewart?”
John shrugs. “Whichever one’s easier for you.”
Kyle meets Guy’s eyes and the other man shrugs – that wasn’t discussed. They were trying to get Hal to talk to them, not to give them a debrief. It seems it might be the right call, though – trust John to get it right when it counts – as Hal’s shoulders straighten, and he nods.
“Yes, sir.”
*****
Then
He doesn’t want to go through this again. He’s run it through in his head at least a hundred times a day since he left, trying to figure out if he could have changed it. It’s all he can see whenever he sleeps, not that he gets much shut-eye these days, and when he’s awake there’s a thousand reminders a minute of quite how badly he fucked up. So running through it again for John doesn’t seem particularly useful, but if it’s what he and Guy and Kyle need, then who is he to deny them some closure.
It was a fairly simple mission – just a quick find-and-retrieve in sector 1417. The only reason it hadn’t gone to a rookie was its proximity to Korugar. That was also the reason he’d not told any of his partners when he accepted the job: he’d figured it wasn’t worth worrying them. (Stupid, stupid, stupid.)
He first noticed the change on the way back. Or not a change, exactly. He doesn’t really have a word for what happened. It was like every single one of his senses quadrupled in intensity, all at once; overwhelming for a minute, but only a minute. He’d been thinking about coming home, about some plans he had with Ollie, and then all of a sudden all he could think was how much he loved Guy, and John, and Kyle, and Carol, and Sinestro, and Ollie, and Barry, and Dinah, and his high-school girlfriend, and his college boyfriend, and a whole bunch of other people he’d not thought about in years. The thoughts of Carol had been strongest, like he was watching a highlight reel of their time together, like he could smell her perfume somehow, feel her hand on his face. Like he hadn’t realised until that moment how much he’d missed her.
(He keeps his eyes straight ahead as he says this, not wanting to have to look his (ex?) partners in the face and tell them how much he misses an ex. A different ex. God, he’s a fucking mess.)
There had been a voice in his head which at the time he’d thought was hers, but in hindsight… Well.
So he’d been flying towards home, trying to get back to Carol, feeling a fizzy champagne first-date excitement in his chest that he and Carol had long since outgrown, and then he’d looked left when a meteor had moved through his field of vision, and he’d seen Korugar in the distance. And he’d thought of Sin, and how much he missed him, and how much he still loved him, and he’d changed course before he really knew what he was doing. He kept seeing Carol in front of him, in his mind, like she was calling him home somehow, but Korugar was right there. Sin was right there, he just had to find him. And he’d touched down on Korugar, and almost immediately taken a construct fist to the face.
Sin seemed angry that he was there at all, that he’d dared come back. And Hal had just smiled at him like an asshole and said: “Missed me, did you?”
He doesn’t really blame Sinestro for the beating he took immediately after that: it was well-deserved. He’d been slower than usual, his constructs not as slick, his concentration shaky. Not firing on all cylinders.
He’d ended up in a crater that hadn’t been there until he’d hit the ground, bruised and bloodied and straining against Sin’s boot on his neck. He’d still been smiling.
“A poor showing. You’re usually moderately competent.” Sin had sneered down at him. “Why are you here, Jordan?”
“I wanted to see you.” That had felt true, at the time. He’d been so desperate.
“That’s a rather stark change from last time we saw each other.”
He’d not responded to that, hadn’t really known how to explain why he’d changed his mind. Couldn’t remember not wanting to be with Sin, not loving him, despite the tinny voice screeching at him that this wasn’t right he wasn’t meant to do this get up get up get up find CAROL.
“So this is a fairly inept spying mission, I take it?”
He’d shrugged, knowing it wasn’t but also not sure what it was. He was here for Sinestro, but more than that…
Sin had gotten bored of waiting for him to find an acceptable response fairly quickly. The boot had lifted and a vial dropped onto his chest – the same weird shimmery liquid he remembered from last time he’d been on Korugar, with Sinestro smirking down at him. He remembers looking at it and hearing Sin’s voice in his head, all smug cat-like satisfaction, telling him you could bear me a child.
He hadn’t even hesitated.
He’d downed the vial without thinking, just knowing it would make Sinestro happy, would please him. He wanted so much to please him. He’d not even really noticed his body changing, had been fully focussed on the growing warmth in Sinestro’s eyes.
He’d… He was…
*****
Now
Guy looks over at John as Hal trails off, trying to check in on how he’s doing with this. He himself is hovering somewhere around “about to burst a blood vessel”, and John’s fist has been clenched since Hal first mentioned Sinestro.
Hal actually seems to look at John for the first time, and his face twists.
“I don’t want… Please don’t make me tell you this bit.”
John nods, curtly, the fist at his side clenching and unclenching rhythmically.
“You don’t have to – I’m not making you…” He doesn’t seem to know where to go with that sentence.
Guy clears his throat. “Take a break, Johnny.”
He nods again and walks out, back stiff and fists still clenched. Guy gestures at Kyle, who scurries out after him. The door clicks shut behind them and Guy turns his attention to Hal, who mostly looks confused.
“I thought you knew what happened. I told you what… Kyle said Carol told you.”
Guy finds many things about Jordan concerning, but near the top of the list is the faintly blank tone he uses when he’s disassociating. He’s also not a fan of how Hal doesn’t think his word is good enough here. That they’d ever believe Carol over him, if that situation arose.
“It’s… We know. It’s just…” He sighs and gives up, not knowing where to even start. There’s a conversation that needs to happen, but it seems like it’s probably for after. “You doing alright, Jordo?”
“Sure.” The blank tone’s back again.
“Need anything?”
“A bullet to the head would be swell right about now.”
Guy flinches. “That’s not funny.”
“Who’s laughing?” He looks at Guy, the same cool measuring stare from before. “This doesn’t feel like it’s helping anyone.”
He’s not wrong. Listening to Hal tell them all of this in the measured, almost bored tone of someone completing a mandatory debrief is horrible. But they need to know what actually happened, and Hal’s the only one who knows. It sounds like it is exactly what they all thought it was. What Carol had told them and what they’d all assumed. But Hal’s been so very clear that he sees it as him cheating, and he can’t be that wilfully blind, surely. Surely.
“I can… I can write it down. If that’s easier. For you.”
Guy stares at him. “Why would…”
“For the debrief. I can write it, it’s not fair to make one of you do it.”
Hal really can’t think they’re doing this because they want a fucking debrief. He can’t… Like they’re going to log a neat little report with Salaak for the rest of the corps to read, when Hal knows he deleted the report last time this… last time. Like that’s a reasonable thing for people who supposedly love him to make him do. Like it would be fair to make Hal write an official report about his own rape.
Guy just about makes it to the toilet before he hurls. Go him.
When he’s done retching, he becomes aware that Hal’s followed him and is standing in the doorway, wringing his hands in a very uncharacteristic display of anxiety.
“Are you – I can get John and Kyle?”
“Nah, s’good.” He rinses his mouth out and turns to look at Hal. God, this is a mess. “How are you feel – nope, wrong question. Gimme a minute.”
He stares at the floor and massages his temples for a moment. Come on, Gardner, think of something.
Hal’s not moved when he looks back up and sighs.
“Come on, we don’t need to be having this conversation in the bathroom.”
He follows Hal back into the living room and sits next to him on the couch, this time. Hal’s a tactile person. He doesn’t shift to lean against Guy like he usually would, but he lets him interlace their fingers, as they wait for John and Kyle to come back.
“Look, we’re… even if we break up. Which I’m not saying we are, cause I don’t… But even if we did. You and me, we’d still be friends, right?”
Hal looks surprised. “Sure? If that’s what you want.”
“Okay. You get how, even if all we are is friends, me making you relive all of this just for the sake of a fucking debrief would be fucked-up, right?”
“If you say so.” Hal shrugs. “What are we doing this for, then?”
Fuck it. Fuck. It. Sorry Johnny, we’re going off book. “Because you got roofied, and… and raped. And somehow in your head that means you cheated. We were trying to get you to realise that it wasn’t your fault.”
“Oh.” Hal considers that for a moment. Guy knows better than to take it as agreement. “That’s why Kyle thinks we’re still together.”
“We are still together, dipshit. Unless you don’t want to be, we’re all still in this.”
“So I have to… You want me to be the one to do it?”
Guy groans. “You’re being difficult on purpose, now. No-one wants to break up.”
“Because you think it wasn’t my fault.”
“It wasn’t your fault, babe.”
Hal hunches in on himself. “It really was.”
“How could it possibly have-” He cuts himself off as John and Kyle come back in. John looks a little calmer, which is to say a few inches further away from apocalyptic world-ending fury. Guy stays where he is, shakes a head at Kyle’s enquiring face when he doesn’t move to his previous seat. He tries to draw encouragement from the fact that Hal hasn’t pulled his hand away, hasn’t closed off completely.
John smiles, tightly. “You okay to keep going?”
Guy speaks over Hal’s automatic yessir. “The debrief shit isn’t helping. He doesn’t have to tell us anything he doesn’t want to.”
“No, of course he – oh.” John’s eyes snap to Hal. “I thought it might help. But Guy’s right.” Damn right he is.
Hal shakes his head. “It’s fine. You’ve all got the wrong idea. I appreciate the show of faith, and all, but it’s misplaced.”
Kyle sits forward, forehead scrunching. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Guy said you thought this wasn’t my fault, and that’s why you’re all being… nice. Makes what you said earlier make more sense, too. But it is my fault, so. If we’re not doing an actual debrief, then we don’t have to draw this out.”
“We’re not doing a debrief. Nothing you tell us is going to leave this room if you don’t want it to. But you are going to have to explain why you think this is your fault, because I don’t fucking understand, Hal.” John rakes a hand down his face. “I don’t get it. Explain it to me like I’m five, or something, because I truly do not understand how you’re adding this up in your head.”
*****
Then
Okay. No dodging that bullet then, good to know. He takes as deep a breath as he can, and exhales slowly.
They don’t want any details on exactly what happened next, and he doesn’t want to talk about it. He’d love not to think about it at all, would take a terrifyingly blank crater where the memory should be, rather than knowing that he was the one to reach for Sinestro. He’d been the one to initiate, the one who drew Sin down to kiss him. Who’d pulled his own clothes off and pushed Sin down and sank down onto his cock, far too fast. It had hurt, he thinks, or at least it had hurt afterwards, a dull ache between his legs that had lasted for days. He doesn’t remember noticing at the time, too lost in the feeling of Sin inside him and the hands on his hips and the teeth marking his shoulders and his neck and his tits. Of feeling loved and desired and happy. There’s still the outline of a bite mark on his collar bone that hasn’t fully faded yet. He’s hoping it doesn’t scar. He could do without the reminder.
He realises that he’s been quiet for too long when Kyle shifts in his peripheral vision. He’s staring at the floor again.
He sighs and forces the words out. “We had sex. It… I was the one who… It wasn’t Sin’s fault.”
Kyle scoffs. “Hal-”
“No. I’m not having this conversation. He didn’t do anything wrong.” He tries to smirk. “Makes a change, right?”
“I think maybe he should have asked a few questions.” John rumbles, frowning.
Yeah, maybe. He shrugs. Not like Hal had given him much chance to interrogate him, he’d just ridden him right there in the middle of the Korugarian desert. Out in the open and everything. He’d collapsed next to Sin when they’d both finished, fucking giggling. Giddy with how happy he was, how sated, how in love.
And then Sin had turned to look at him, and the smile he’d been wearing had frozen and slid off his face. Hal hadn’t known why, had reached for him again and been backhanded across the face. By the time he looked up again, Sinestro had redressed and was sneering down at him.
“You’re not Hal Jordan.”
“Of course I am, what are you-”
“Your eyes are purple, imbecile. It’s a good imitation, I admit, but not quite good enough. No wonder you fought so badly.”
“Sin, it’s me, I swear!”
Sinestro had snarled in his face at that. “Leave, now.”
And then he’d been alone again, naked in the crater they’d created during the fight. He’d become aware of the gravel in his knees, the ache between his legs. The slow slide of come down his thighs. He’d staggered upright and pulled his clothes back on, too confused to do anything but what he’d been told.
And a tinny, scratchy voice in his head had pointed out that if he’d just gone to see Carol in the first place, none of this would have happened. That had stopped him in his tracks for a moment: Sin said his eyes were purple. Sapphire shit – Carol would know what to do. Carol could help.
He doesn’t remember getting back to Earth – knows that must have taken time, but it’s all a weird blur, like everything in him was straining to get back to her, see her, touch her. There’d been a weird sense of victory, like he was finally doing what he was meant to do, and nothing else mattered at all.
It had been just after dawn when he’s arrived at Carol’s apartment. Touched down on the balcony as she dragged the door open and told him to get inside before someone saw. Not her usual self, but close. Obviously trying to “be normal”.
He’d been so happy to see her. His Carol, all put-together for a day at the office, looking exactly the same as she always had. He’d gotten an arm around her waist before even thinking about it, and pressed a kiss to her lips, and she’d responded, briefly.
And then she’d slapped him so hard he thinks she loosened a tooth.
In hindsight, it was almost an under-reaction, really. But at the time he’d been so confused, so hurt that she hadn’t wanted him that it had taken a moment before he could pay enough attention to listen to her. In his defence, she’s shouted at him a lot over the years, and this round was hitting a lot of the same highlights: how could he do this to her, he can’t just waltz back in after all this time and expect her to still be available, how dare he just kiss her, he’s dating someone else, he’s an arrogant piece of shit, he’s… got purple eyes.
Carol had stopped short at that point, breathing a little harder, staring at him. Taken a scan with her ring, frowned at the readout for a moment, and then looked back up. He’d taken a step back involuntarily, not used to that much rage on Carol’s face and not sure what had prompted the escalation.
“What are you doing?”
Hal smiles, and it felt like his mouth is moving without his permission. “I’m here for you, Carol.”
“You’re not Hal.”
“Of course I am.”
“No, you’re not.” She sneers. “How pathetic do you think I am, that I wouldn’t know.”
“I’m – you’re not -” He’s cut off by what feels like every single one of his cells splitting and trying to get as far away from each other as possible. His knees scream at him as they hit the floor, gravel still embedded in the skin, and the ache between his legs intensifies all of a sudden, a burning pain every time he moved. There’s a weird taste of smoke burning at the back of his mouth and a ringing in his ears as he stares unseeing at Carol, trying to make some sort of sense of what just happened. She’s shouting at someone. Not him, he doesn’t think. Someone else, maybe, but they’re the only ones here. Aren’t they?
He turns, then, to see the coiled writhing purple mass of the Predator looming over Carol and staggers to his feet automatically, forcing himself to tune back in to the conversation. To try and understand what’s happening, despite how much he wants to run and run and run (fucking coward).
All he can really make out is Carol saying something’s worthless, and her demanding that Predator leave. And eventually it does, gone in a flash of purple light, and Carol turned to him, looking furious and exhausted and heartbroken.
“What the fuck, Hal.”
He doesn’t say anything. Didn’t know what to say, hadn’t put together what had happened yet.
“Are you alright?”
He shrugs, and his shoulders ache with the movement. His ears are still ringing and his vision blurred. “What… what-?”
She sighs. “Predator’s psychotic and decided to “give you back to me”, whether I wanted you or not.”
He nods, hesitantly, still trying to think it through, to make it make sense.
She rolls her eyes. “It dialled up a bunch of old repressed feelings, Hal. Don’t worry about it, I’m not getting any ideas. You can go back to your little boyfriends. I’m sure they’ll enjoy the tits.”
The… tits. Which he has. And the cunt which he also has, which is currently leaking come into his boxers. Because he fucked Sinestro.
Hal bolts for the bathroom to throw up. Carol doesn’t follow. When he re-emerges, she’s grabbed her bag and is waiting by the door.
“I have to go to work. Predator should leave you alone.” She gestures him out and locks up after them, frowning at him when she turns around and he’s still there.
He manages to unstick his throat enough to ask: “You think it dialled up feelings I already had?”
“It doesn’t create feelings, just uses what’s already there.” She shrugs, feigning indifference. “I guess you still have some feelings for me. It doesn’t matter. I told you, I’m not getting any ideas.”
That makes a horrifying amount of sense, he realises as he stands like a statue watching her drive off. Parallax never created feelings. It stands to reason Predator doesn’t, either.
Which would be fine, if all he’d done was kiss Carol.
*****
Now
Hal looks up at him as he finishes, eyes hard and cold and shoulders set. He’s not let go of Guy’s hand.
“So, there you go. Now you know.”
John glances at Guy, to see if that makes any more sense to him. Guy shrugs. Kyle’s staring at his hands, looking pensive. Neither of them look like enlightenment has suddenly dawned on them and it all makes perfect sense.
So he asks. “Sure, we know. That lines up with what Carol told us. But I still don’t see how this is your fault. You got possessed by the Predator, and it made you… do that.”
Hal stares at him. “The Predator dialled up feelings I already had, and I acted on them because apparently I can’t keep my fucking legs closed.”
“Hal…”
“Nothing forced me to do anything. The Predator didn’t even want me to – I fucked Sinestro because I still…” He trails off, then heaves a sigh and starts again. “Look. I cheated. It doesn’t matter why I cheated. I did. I’m sorry.”
“Would you do it again?” Kyle asks.
Hal shakes his head. “No, of course I wouldn’t -!”
Kyle nods. “Cause you didn’t want to.”
“I did, though! I remember…”
“You were drugged, and confused, and someone took advantage of that. If someone drugged me in a bar, and then a completely different person decided to fuck me while I was so loopy I didn’t know what was going on, you’d beat the shit out of both of them, right?”
“That’s not the same thing. It wouldn’t have worked if I didn’t… If I wasn’t…” He trails off yet again, looking frustrated.
Ah. Okay, seen in that light, he can sort of see why Hal’s upset with himself. Still doesn’t make it his fault, but John can see where he’s coming from. It’s going to be a nightmare to convince Hal that he’s not really to blame, and there’s no way they’re going to get there today.
He takes a deep breath. “Okay, for now I think we’re going to have to accept that we see this differently. We’re not getting anywhere right now. But I think I speak for all of us when I say we don’t blame you for anything you’ve told us.”
Guy and Kyle both nod, but Hal’s not looking at them. He’s staring at John uncomprehendingly, not saying a word.
He forces himself to break the increasingly awkward silence. “So, as long as you still want to be with us, we’re not breaking up.”
Hal stares down at the floor some more, and then finally says, in a dull, flat tone that doesn’t really sound like him at all: “I don’t want to break up, I just don’t understand. I cheated on you, and then left. And even if you… if you think it wasn’t my fault somehow, I know how you all feel about me running away.”
John shrugs, not really knowing how to fix this but wanting to try. “You wanted space. That seems fair enough, given what happened. I wish you’d talked to us first, but I get it.”
“So we’re just… fine.” Hal laughs, disbelievingly. “I fuck someone else and kiss a different person, while still having feelings for both, and then run away like a fucking coward, and none of that bothers any of you at all?”
“You got possessed, roofied, and raped, and then needed some time to yourself.” He counters, discomfort making him blunter than he wants to be. “A lot of that bothers me. But none of it’s your fault, Hal. Okay?”
Hal swipes a hand over his face and huffs. “Sure, yeah. Okay.”
Not a single one of them believes him.