Fic: And Now, by Accident, a Couple [Or, Oa's Been Quiet, and Guy and Kyle Act Like Dudes] [1/1]
Title: And Now, by Accident, a Couple [Or, Oa's Been Quiet, and Guy and Kyle Act Like Dudes]
Author: Perpetual Motion
Fandom: Green Lantern Corps [DC Comics]
Character/Pairing: Guy/Kyle
Claim: Guy/Kyle
Prompt: Oa
Word Count: 3486
Rating: R [mostly language, some semi-vague sex]
Summary: Life on Oa is usually of the exploding variety, but it's got to be quiet occasionally. And in those occasions, you can almost miss some things.
Dis: Lies and bullshit, as always.
Author's Notes: Post-"Sinestro Corps War", but not in any particular bit of canon since. I reference a blog during this story. The blog can be found here. I'm also working with the theory that Guy and Kyle can get internet on Oa. Call it comic book science. Also, this story has not been proofread. Holler if you find a mistake.
And Now, by Accident, a Couple [Or, Oa's Been Quiet, and Guy and Kyle Act Like Dudes]
By Perpetual Motion
When Tora breaks up with him, Guy finds himself too much in agreement to be angry. It’s not that they don’t love one another, and it’s not that Tora is suddenly fantasizing throwing appliances at his head; it’s that Tora is on Earth, and Guy is on Oa, and that’s how it’s going to be for too long to keep trying the long-distance thing.
It doesn’t help that every time Guy shows up to visit someone dies or goes nuts or the entire fucking universe decides to become a murderous rainbow of complete gibbering psychos who want to blow off his ass because his ring is cooler.
Or because they’re gibbering psychos. But Guy’s pretty sure it’s the ring.
Tora kisses him on the cheek and says nice things, and Guy smiles and tells her she’s the best woman he knows. And he does it in Norwegian so that she smiles as he flies away.
*
A week later, Kyle doodles particularly stylish broken hearts on a placemat at the bar and tells Guy he and Soranik have called it quits.
“Least she’s not dead,” Guy says without thinking. Before he can wince and explain it’s just backlash from Tora, Kyle laughs and throws his placemat at Guy’s head.
“You are such a dick. Get me a free beer.”
Guy snorts. “Get your own damned beer.”
*
Things get quiet around the universe. Kyle hypothesizes that it’s because the last two years have been completely insane. Guy hypothesizes it’s because they’ve killed all the gibbering psychos.
“That’s not entirely true,” Kyle replies. “We did let a few of them spend the rest of their miserable lives in the sciencells.”
“Chumps,” Guy snorts. He wipes down the counter for the third time and looks around the half-empty bar. “We need something to do around here.”
“The cleaning, bartending, and bookkeeping aren’t enough for you?”
“Something that’ll bring in money,” Guy clarifies. He leans against the bar and grins. “Something juvenile. People will always pay money to act like children.”
“Some people live the dream,” Kyle snarks. He sticks out his tongue when Guy pulls a face.
*
Guy comes up with a kids’ game night. Ten dollar cover, all drinks served in sippy cups, and he and Kyle spend a night teaching the Lanterns who show up all about how Earth kids skinned their knees.
“No tracking!” Kyle yells as Guy finishes explaining hide and seek. “Rings can only be used for checking dark places! You have to touch the bar and yell “safe”. If you’re touching the bar and you get tagged, but you haven’t yelled “safe”, it counts as a tag, all right?”
“I’ll count first,” Guy says, “and you all hide. No hiding in the citadel or the battery, and you have to stay in 200 square meters! Got it?”
Everyone nods and yells, and when Guy closes his eyes to start counting, Kyle waves at them until they scatter. He double-checks to make sure Guy isn’t peeking, and then he very quietly sneaks behind the bar.
“You are so lame,” Guy tells him one hundred and five seconds later. It’d taken him five seconds to walk over and check behind the bar. “What kind of an idiot hides right next to base?”
Kyle slaps his hand on the counter and stands up. “Safe.”
“Hell,” Guy mutters. He flicks the back of Kyle’s hand. “Fine. You’re not it, but I’m deputizing you to help me find the others.” He constructs a six-sided star and makes it stick to Kyle’s chest.
“All right,” Kyle agrees. He has to dodge the cowboy hat construct Guy tries to put on his head and alters his shirt to read, “I’m With Stupid”, with an arrow that moves when Guy tries to switch sides.
*
There’s a minor tsunami on the edge of Sector 1976. Guy and Kyle join with the Lanterns there to help relocate people and set up temporary housing and hospitals. A little girl thanks Kyle by throwing herself around his legs and begging him not to leave.
“You should have stayed,” Guy tells him as they fly back to Oa. “I bet you’d make a great dad to her dollies.”
*
“Movie night,” Kyle says one day when he and Guy are grabbing dinner in the mess. “Five bucks a ticket, and we’ll work our way through our DVD collections.”
Guy considers it as he sips his drink. “Nice. What’s your DVD count?”
“A hundred and something, I think. I’ve got all that arty stuff people like to watch to make them feel smart.”
“And I’ve got all the good ones,” Guy replies. “Between the two of us, we’ve probably got three hundred movies. That’ll keep us busy for awhile.”
“Yeah,” Kyle says with a nod. “John’s headed this way for some meeting; I’ll see if he can haul the equipment.”
They set it up on what Oa considers Tuesdays, and they make it a double feature to start. They’re immediately cornered by half the Lanterns who show up, and they end up having to rig the projector so it will play the non-Earth version of DVDs. Some of them look exactly like DVDs, but some are square, and the Lantern from Sector 49 just hands them a jar of light pink goo. It takes a serious amount of questionable rigging to get everything to play.
“Son of a bitch!” Kyle yelps one afternoon when he gets a shock that zings all the way to his elbow. “That was not the right wire.”
“Gotta be the yellow then,” Guy tells him, and reaches for the pliers.
“Looks like we’re asking for something to catch fire,” Guy says hours later as they drink beers and nurse their minor burns and scrapes. Soranik’s refused to give them any medical attention for what she labels, “general and specific idiocy."
Kyle digs out his camera and snaps a picture of the thing, and then he sends it to a website devoted to people who create incredibly dangerous answers to simple fix-it problems.
*
There’s a rash of intergalactic burglaries in a cluster of planets in Section 4. Guy, Kyle, and the local lanterns spend two weeks tracking down leads and sleeping in tents. On the third night, Guy gives up his comfortable but small construct to sleep in the multi-room mess that is Kyle’s construct. It has beds and nightstands and a ridiculously comfortable couch. Guy is only the tiniest bit jealous that Kyle’s easy creativity means that the headboards have carefully carved whorls, and that Kyle’s ring doesn’t burn out from the sheer effort of the place.
“Harry Potter know you stole his tent?” he asks crankily one night after the leads led to nothing.
Kyle blinks, then grins, and spends the rest of the trip calling Guy “Weasley” in the best sneer he has.
*
They get 127 comments when the picture of their fire-hazard DVD player goes up on the website, and Kyle responds to all the flames with links to grammar websites and pictures of kittens. One guy keeps responding, and Kyle spends a few hours giggling like mad and writing thoughtful, rational responses just to watch the guy twitch.
The lowest common denominator is reached when the guy calls Kyle a “nazi jew faggot”.
“Tell him you can’t understand him with that Hitler speech blaring in the background and that cock in his mouth,” Guy says, leaning over Kyle’s shoulder to read. “Oh, and his whiny, overbearing mother who won’t stop bitching because the price of fruit went up two cents.”
The response is a flurry of capslock anger, calling Kyle and his whole family racists. The commenter threatens to sue. Guy responds with a picture of the commenter’s avatar with a crudely drawn penis in its mouth.
“That’s a veiny wang,” Kyle says around his laughter.
“Self-portrait,” Guy replies, and they laugh harder.
*
The universe is so quiet that Guy and Kyle end up with regular days off. “I’m scared,” Kyle says, only half-joking, as he and Guy play basketball. “We might get used to this.”
“Give it a month. Something will go to hell.” Guy dribbles around Kyle and makes the lay-up. “10-4,” he tells Kyle. “You should probably stop sucking soon.”
*
A month later there’s a small scuffle on Mogo. Settlers have made a home in the deeper parts of Mogo’s woods, and their first response to a group of Lanterns landing for some downtime is to shoot them with arrows. Kilowog takes three to the chest before anyone realizes they’re being attacked. Kyle gets Kilowog bandaged and sent directly to Oa while Guy barks orders, fans out the rest of the Lanterns, and gets the settlers rounded up.
“Mogo’s a Lantern,” Kyle explains to the settlers. “We’re all Lanterns. We’re not going to hurt you.”
“Didn’t even give us a chance to say hello,” Guy mutters as he crosses his arms and looms. “You don’t make friends when you fire first, assholes.”
“We are truly sorry,” the lead settler says. She presses the backs of her hands to her cheeks and drops to her knees. Guy and Kyle recognize it as an act of apology. “We will leave, if you wish.”
“Mogo?” Kyle asks before Guy can gleefully boot them out.
“If they promise not to shoot any other Lanterns, I will let them stay,” Mogo says.
Later, as they fly back to Oa to make the report, Kyle adjusts his trajectory so he can bump Guy’s shoulder. “Not your fault,” he says quietly.
Guy stares straight ahead and rubs at his eyes.
*
A raucous night at the bar ends up in a bar fight when a rookie Lantern takes offense to some trick in a card game. Guy and Kyle jump in to break it up, and Kyle gets punched in the eye. Afterwards, when Salaak tries to come down on them, Guy snarls at him to get out and checks the swelling under Kyle’s ice pack.
“She got you good,” he says.
“Quit smirking,” Kyle grumbles.
“Make me,” Guy retorts. He nearly falls over Kyle kisses him.
“You said to make you,” Kyle explains, but his voice is slightly shaky.
Guy wipes a hand over his mouth and blinks a few times. He reaches behind the bar for a bottle of whiskey and two shot glasses. He pours the shots and hands one of the glasses to Kyle. “Bottoms up,” he says. He downs his shot so Kyle can’t see the grimace at his word choice.
“Getting me drunk?” Kyle asks as he watches Guy refill the glasses.
“Getting me drunk,” Guy replies. He hands Kyle his refill. “So play along or walk out.”
Kyle slams his drink.
*
They have matching splitting headaches the next morning. Kyle checks his eye in the mirror, grabs the aspirin from his medicine cabinet, and takes the spike of pain behind his eyes so he can shake the aspirin bottle two inches from Guy’s ear. “Wakey, wakey,” he says chirpily.
“Fuck you,” Guy mumbles into the pillow, a six-foot tall hand flipping Kyle the bird getting the sentiment across.
Kyle slaps the aspirin bottle down on the bedside table and grins when Guy winces. “You know where the water is. I’m going to go drown my hangover in eggs and bacon.”
“Hey,” Guy calls out, slowly turning over to stare at Kyle blearily. He doesn’t say anything else for a few seconds, merely moves his lips like he’s forgotten how speech works.
“Hey,” Kyle replies when Guy just looks confused. “It’s okay.”
“Okay,” Guy says, but it’s another few seconds before he drops back onto the pillow.
*
“Rookies get stupider every cycle,” Kilowog grouses to Guy later in the day. He’s healed up well; the rookie Lantern from last night is currently cowering in the corner, obviously having gotten a dose of Kilowog at his most disapproving. “You know we actually had a Lantern retire?” He asks Guy. “Said he was feeling too old for the job.”
Guy rubs between his eyes and reminds himself not to shake his head. “Well, it had to happen sometime, right? Someone’s got to live to tell the tales, and it can’t just be the Lollipop Guild.” Guy sighs heavily when Kilowog looks confused. “Wizard of Oz. We showed it a couple weeks ago. Short dudes? Kinda orange?”
“I thought that was the other one.”
“That was Willy Wonka,” Guy corrects. He waves a hand. “Whatever. The point is, someone was eventually not going to die on the job.”
“Yeah,” Kilowog shakes his head. “Anyone told you how bad you look today?”
“Found the bottom of a bottle of whiskey.”
“On purpose?”
Guy thinks about last night. The kiss. The whiskey. The sex. He thinks about that morning, waking up to Kyle being kind of a bastard and how he was honestly smiling on the inside the whole time. “Not sure,” he says to Kilowog after a moment. “It was kind of a curve ball.”
“Huh,” Kilowog replies. He shrugs away the entire conversation. “Explain the little men again,” he says, and Guy patiently lays out the differences between the factory and Oz.
*
“So,” Kyle says a week later as they close down the bar, “do you need whiskey for a second round?”
Guy seriously considers the question for about ten seconds. “I don’t think so.” He’s barely finished his sentence when Kyle kisses him, presses him against the bar, and gets a hand into his pants. “But if it’ll help you-” Guy starts and cuts off to moan.
After he’s come, he looks Kyle up and down, drops to his knees, and gives Kyle the sloppiest blowjob he knows how to give.
“Hell,” Kyle mumbles afterwards, slumping against Guy who’s slumping against the bar. “I honestly didn’t figure-”
“You know better than that,” Guy retorts. He means to sound angry, but it comes out more amused. “I’ve got all kinds of facets.”
“Is that what we’re calling it now?”
*
Salaak gives Guy shore leave with only a minimum amount of bitchery. Before Guy can fully comprehend how badly the universe will end because of it, Kyle ring-calls him and tell him that the bar’s freezer has rattled it’s last breath, and they’re fucked if they want to be able to serve food that night.
Guy spends half his shore leave running from planet to planet to get new food, and then he makes a trip to Earth to get a new freezer. He takes the old one with him, towing it behind him in a lasso, and argues the sales guy down twenty percent on a replacement when he proves that the original freezer was still under warranty, and he could just flat-out demand a new one for free.
“But I want to buy a new one,” Guy says in the friendliest tone he can find, “because that’s how business works, right?”
The salesguy stammers and agrees and asks where Guy would like the freezer sent. Guy gives the address of his hotel and leaves to grab lunch with Tora.
“You seem happy,” she tells him as they eat burgers and split an order of fries. “You seem relaxed.”
“Really?” Guy looks down at himself. “Maybe it was all the yelling.”
“Something’s made you content,” Tora says with a nod. “It suits you.”
Guy narrows his eyes and watches Tora take a drink of water. “You’ve met some guy,” he states. “Some handsome, smart guy you want me to like.” He laughs when she blushes. “Busted!”
“I wasn’t sure how to tell you,” but once she says it, she spends ten minutes explaining to Guy how she met some man named Liam at the library, and how he enjoys books and movies, and he seems comfortable with her being a superhero.
“Good for you,” Guy says when she stammers to a stop. He squeezes her hand and waits for some sort of anger to settle in. There’s none there. No disappointment either. “Huh,” he says, and shakes his head when Tora raises her eyebrows. “Nothing.”
*
“I think I’ve matured,” Guy tells Kyle when they’re bumming around Guy’s apartment, the new freezer installed and running at the bar.
“Have not,” Kyle replies without looking up from his sketchpad.
“Have too,” Guy says, and sticks out his tongue when Kyle glances up.
*
Guy spends the rest of his shore leave on Oa. He sleeps late, helps Kilowog torment the new Lanterns, and spends a lot of time at the bar insisting that Kyle serve him food and drinks. “I’m a customer,” he says when Kyle scowls.
“You’re a pain in the ass,” Kyle snaps. But then he rolls his eyes and shakes his head and brings Guy fresh fries.
“Thank you,” Guy says magnanimously and starts to eat them one at a time. Kyle leans against the counter and sketches. It’s between rushes, and it’s just them for the moment. Guy considers dumping his fries into a to-go box and heading back to his place. There’s a book he’s been reading, and he’s got nothing but time to finish it up.
“Tilt your head up,” Kyle says into the quiet.
Guy does it automatically. “Wait. Why?”
“The angle was weird.”
Guy snaps his head down and gives Kyle a look. “Are you drawing me?”
“Well, I was,” Kyle says. He pushes the sketchpad over to Guy. “You can see it. It’s just for practice.”
The sketch is rough but definitely Guy. He’s fairly certain his jaw isn’t quite that square, and he thinks Kyle took pity on his ears. “Not bad,” Guy says with a shrug. He flips back a few pages without thinking and finds another sketch more neatly drawn. It’s Guy sitting on his couch, his feet on the coffee table. Two pages before that it’s Guy leaning back in a chair in the mess, hands behind his head with his chest looking very broad under the T-shirt he’d been wearing. Guy recognizes the T-shirt. He’d worn it three days ago. The sketch of him on the couch was from the night he came back with the freezer.
“They’re not all you,” Kyle says suddenly. His shoulders are pulled up tight near his ears.
Guy flips through the pad. “You’re right. It’s just most of them.” He flips it back to the newest sketch and stares at his own profile. “You wanna have sex?”
Kyle blinks. “What?”
“You wanna have sex?” Guy repeats, looking up from the sketchpad.
“I’m working,”
“Tonight. My place, if you want.”
“Sure,” Kyle says slowly. “After I close up.”
*
It’s slower this time. There’s still urgency and panting and Guy nearly comes when Kyle sucks on his neck, but when it’s over there’s no icebreaker. No quick joke. Guy stares up at the ceiling and listens to Kyle breathe next to him. “Tora thinks I’m content,” he says after a few minutes.
“Hmmm?” Kyle hums into Guy’s shoulder. He shifts and lifts his head onto his hand. “What about Tora?”
Guy looks at Kyle and shakes his head. “Nothing. Nothing about Tora.” He pulls Kyle in and kisses him, arches up when Kyle slides a hand down his side. “You want to keep doing this?” he asks when he pulls away.
“Just this?” Kyle asks.
Guy shrugs. “This. Dating. Whatever.”
Kyle laughs and flops back onto the pillows. “You’re such a romantic.” He slides towards Guy and looks at his profile for a minute. “You should probably know I’m a cuddler.”
Guy reaches out and reels in Kyle. “Well, there’s one embarrassing secret that isn’t anymore.”
*
Gibbering psychos out to murder Lanterns show up on Oa three weeks later. Guy and Kyle are lazing around on Kyle’s couch watching a movie when the klaxons go off. They fly outside to take it in, and Guy considers for just a moment that maybe it’s him. Maybe the universe doesn’t want him dating anyone. Every time he starts, crazy shit goes down.
Guy punches one of the gibbering psychos between the eyes, and his mind clears perfectly.
Hours later, sweaty, slightly bruised, and with a split lip, Guy floats above the relief effort as Soranik barks orders to the medics and starts making a mental list of what’s going to need fixed. Kyle flies up to him and reaches out. When Guy takes his hand, Kyle pulls him in and kisses him.
“Really happy you’re not dead,” Kyle says when the kiss ends.
“You too,” Guy replies, and doesn’t let go when Kyle tries to fly away. He smiles at Kyle and feels fresh blood start to well on his lip. “Fucking psychos,” he says mostly to himself. “Why are there always psychos?”
“It’s what we do.” Kyle shrugs. “Someone has to stop them.”
“Suppose so,” Guy agrees. He waits another ten seconds before letting go of Kyle’s hand.
My Table
Author: Perpetual Motion
Fandom: Green Lantern Corps [DC Comics]
Character/Pairing: Guy/Kyle
Claim: Guy/Kyle
Prompt: Oa
Word Count: 3486
Rating: R [mostly language, some semi-vague sex]
Summary: Life on Oa is usually of the exploding variety, but it's got to be quiet occasionally. And in those occasions, you can almost miss some things.
Dis: Lies and bullshit, as always.
Author's Notes: Post-"Sinestro Corps War", but not in any particular bit of canon since. I reference a blog during this story. The blog can be found here. I'm also working with the theory that Guy and Kyle can get internet on Oa. Call it comic book science. Also, this story has not been proofread. Holler if you find a mistake.
And Now, by Accident, a Couple [Or, Oa's Been Quiet, and Guy and Kyle Act Like Dudes]
By Perpetual Motion
When Tora breaks up with him, Guy finds himself too much in agreement to be angry. It’s not that they don’t love one another, and it’s not that Tora is suddenly fantasizing throwing appliances at his head; it’s that Tora is on Earth, and Guy is on Oa, and that’s how it’s going to be for too long to keep trying the long-distance thing.
It doesn’t help that every time Guy shows up to visit someone dies or goes nuts or the entire fucking universe decides to become a murderous rainbow of complete gibbering psychos who want to blow off his ass because his ring is cooler.
Or because they’re gibbering psychos. But Guy’s pretty sure it’s the ring.
Tora kisses him on the cheek and says nice things, and Guy smiles and tells her she’s the best woman he knows. And he does it in Norwegian so that she smiles as he flies away.
*
A week later, Kyle doodles particularly stylish broken hearts on a placemat at the bar and tells Guy he and Soranik have called it quits.
“Least she’s not dead,” Guy says without thinking. Before he can wince and explain it’s just backlash from Tora, Kyle laughs and throws his placemat at Guy’s head.
“You are such a dick. Get me a free beer.”
Guy snorts. “Get your own damned beer.”
*
Things get quiet around the universe. Kyle hypothesizes that it’s because the last two years have been completely insane. Guy hypothesizes it’s because they’ve killed all the gibbering psychos.
“That’s not entirely true,” Kyle replies. “We did let a few of them spend the rest of their miserable lives in the sciencells.”
“Chumps,” Guy snorts. He wipes down the counter for the third time and looks around the half-empty bar. “We need something to do around here.”
“The cleaning, bartending, and bookkeeping aren’t enough for you?”
“Something that’ll bring in money,” Guy clarifies. He leans against the bar and grins. “Something juvenile. People will always pay money to act like children.”
“Some people live the dream,” Kyle snarks. He sticks out his tongue when Guy pulls a face.
*
Guy comes up with a kids’ game night. Ten dollar cover, all drinks served in sippy cups, and he and Kyle spend a night teaching the Lanterns who show up all about how Earth kids skinned their knees.
“No tracking!” Kyle yells as Guy finishes explaining hide and seek. “Rings can only be used for checking dark places! You have to touch the bar and yell “safe”. If you’re touching the bar and you get tagged, but you haven’t yelled “safe”, it counts as a tag, all right?”
“I’ll count first,” Guy says, “and you all hide. No hiding in the citadel or the battery, and you have to stay in 200 square meters! Got it?”
Everyone nods and yells, and when Guy closes his eyes to start counting, Kyle waves at them until they scatter. He double-checks to make sure Guy isn’t peeking, and then he very quietly sneaks behind the bar.
“You are so lame,” Guy tells him one hundred and five seconds later. It’d taken him five seconds to walk over and check behind the bar. “What kind of an idiot hides right next to base?”
Kyle slaps his hand on the counter and stands up. “Safe.”
“Hell,” Guy mutters. He flicks the back of Kyle’s hand. “Fine. You’re not it, but I’m deputizing you to help me find the others.” He constructs a six-sided star and makes it stick to Kyle’s chest.
“All right,” Kyle agrees. He has to dodge the cowboy hat construct Guy tries to put on his head and alters his shirt to read, “I’m With Stupid”, with an arrow that moves when Guy tries to switch sides.
*
There’s a minor tsunami on the edge of Sector 1976. Guy and Kyle join with the Lanterns there to help relocate people and set up temporary housing and hospitals. A little girl thanks Kyle by throwing herself around his legs and begging him not to leave.
“You should have stayed,” Guy tells him as they fly back to Oa. “I bet you’d make a great dad to her dollies.”
*
“Movie night,” Kyle says one day when he and Guy are grabbing dinner in the mess. “Five bucks a ticket, and we’ll work our way through our DVD collections.”
Guy considers it as he sips his drink. “Nice. What’s your DVD count?”
“A hundred and something, I think. I’ve got all that arty stuff people like to watch to make them feel smart.”
“And I’ve got all the good ones,” Guy replies. “Between the two of us, we’ve probably got three hundred movies. That’ll keep us busy for awhile.”
“Yeah,” Kyle says with a nod. “John’s headed this way for some meeting; I’ll see if he can haul the equipment.”
They set it up on what Oa considers Tuesdays, and they make it a double feature to start. They’re immediately cornered by half the Lanterns who show up, and they end up having to rig the projector so it will play the non-Earth version of DVDs. Some of them look exactly like DVDs, but some are square, and the Lantern from Sector 49 just hands them a jar of light pink goo. It takes a serious amount of questionable rigging to get everything to play.
“Son of a bitch!” Kyle yelps one afternoon when he gets a shock that zings all the way to his elbow. “That was not the right wire.”
“Gotta be the yellow then,” Guy tells him, and reaches for the pliers.
“Looks like we’re asking for something to catch fire,” Guy says hours later as they drink beers and nurse their minor burns and scrapes. Soranik’s refused to give them any medical attention for what she labels, “general and specific idiocy."
Kyle digs out his camera and snaps a picture of the thing, and then he sends it to a website devoted to people who create incredibly dangerous answers to simple fix-it problems.
*
There’s a rash of intergalactic burglaries in a cluster of planets in Section 4. Guy, Kyle, and the local lanterns spend two weeks tracking down leads and sleeping in tents. On the third night, Guy gives up his comfortable but small construct to sleep in the multi-room mess that is Kyle’s construct. It has beds and nightstands and a ridiculously comfortable couch. Guy is only the tiniest bit jealous that Kyle’s easy creativity means that the headboards have carefully carved whorls, and that Kyle’s ring doesn’t burn out from the sheer effort of the place.
“Harry Potter know you stole his tent?” he asks crankily one night after the leads led to nothing.
Kyle blinks, then grins, and spends the rest of the trip calling Guy “Weasley” in the best sneer he has.
*
They get 127 comments when the picture of their fire-hazard DVD player goes up on the website, and Kyle responds to all the flames with links to grammar websites and pictures of kittens. One guy keeps responding, and Kyle spends a few hours giggling like mad and writing thoughtful, rational responses just to watch the guy twitch.
The lowest common denominator is reached when the guy calls Kyle a “nazi jew faggot”.
“Tell him you can’t understand him with that Hitler speech blaring in the background and that cock in his mouth,” Guy says, leaning over Kyle’s shoulder to read. “Oh, and his whiny, overbearing mother who won’t stop bitching because the price of fruit went up two cents.”
The response is a flurry of capslock anger, calling Kyle and his whole family racists. The commenter threatens to sue. Guy responds with a picture of the commenter’s avatar with a crudely drawn penis in its mouth.
“That’s a veiny wang,” Kyle says around his laughter.
“Self-portrait,” Guy replies, and they laugh harder.
*
The universe is so quiet that Guy and Kyle end up with regular days off. “I’m scared,” Kyle says, only half-joking, as he and Guy play basketball. “We might get used to this.”
“Give it a month. Something will go to hell.” Guy dribbles around Kyle and makes the lay-up. “10-4,” he tells Kyle. “You should probably stop sucking soon.”
*
A month later there’s a small scuffle on Mogo. Settlers have made a home in the deeper parts of Mogo’s woods, and their first response to a group of Lanterns landing for some downtime is to shoot them with arrows. Kilowog takes three to the chest before anyone realizes they’re being attacked. Kyle gets Kilowog bandaged and sent directly to Oa while Guy barks orders, fans out the rest of the Lanterns, and gets the settlers rounded up.
“Mogo’s a Lantern,” Kyle explains to the settlers. “We’re all Lanterns. We’re not going to hurt you.”
“Didn’t even give us a chance to say hello,” Guy mutters as he crosses his arms and looms. “You don’t make friends when you fire first, assholes.”
“We are truly sorry,” the lead settler says. She presses the backs of her hands to her cheeks and drops to her knees. Guy and Kyle recognize it as an act of apology. “We will leave, if you wish.”
“Mogo?” Kyle asks before Guy can gleefully boot them out.
“If they promise not to shoot any other Lanterns, I will let them stay,” Mogo says.
Later, as they fly back to Oa to make the report, Kyle adjusts his trajectory so he can bump Guy’s shoulder. “Not your fault,” he says quietly.
Guy stares straight ahead and rubs at his eyes.
*
A raucous night at the bar ends up in a bar fight when a rookie Lantern takes offense to some trick in a card game. Guy and Kyle jump in to break it up, and Kyle gets punched in the eye. Afterwards, when Salaak tries to come down on them, Guy snarls at him to get out and checks the swelling under Kyle’s ice pack.
“She got you good,” he says.
“Quit smirking,” Kyle grumbles.
“Make me,” Guy retorts. He nearly falls over Kyle kisses him.
“You said to make you,” Kyle explains, but his voice is slightly shaky.
Guy wipes a hand over his mouth and blinks a few times. He reaches behind the bar for a bottle of whiskey and two shot glasses. He pours the shots and hands one of the glasses to Kyle. “Bottoms up,” he says. He downs his shot so Kyle can’t see the grimace at his word choice.
“Getting me drunk?” Kyle asks as he watches Guy refill the glasses.
“Getting me drunk,” Guy replies. He hands Kyle his refill. “So play along or walk out.”
Kyle slams his drink.
*
They have matching splitting headaches the next morning. Kyle checks his eye in the mirror, grabs the aspirin from his medicine cabinet, and takes the spike of pain behind his eyes so he can shake the aspirin bottle two inches from Guy’s ear. “Wakey, wakey,” he says chirpily.
“Fuck you,” Guy mumbles into the pillow, a six-foot tall hand flipping Kyle the bird getting the sentiment across.
Kyle slaps the aspirin bottle down on the bedside table and grins when Guy winces. “You know where the water is. I’m going to go drown my hangover in eggs and bacon.”
“Hey,” Guy calls out, slowly turning over to stare at Kyle blearily. He doesn’t say anything else for a few seconds, merely moves his lips like he’s forgotten how speech works.
“Hey,” Kyle replies when Guy just looks confused. “It’s okay.”
“Okay,” Guy says, but it’s another few seconds before he drops back onto the pillow.
*
“Rookies get stupider every cycle,” Kilowog grouses to Guy later in the day. He’s healed up well; the rookie Lantern from last night is currently cowering in the corner, obviously having gotten a dose of Kilowog at his most disapproving. “You know we actually had a Lantern retire?” He asks Guy. “Said he was feeling too old for the job.”
Guy rubs between his eyes and reminds himself not to shake his head. “Well, it had to happen sometime, right? Someone’s got to live to tell the tales, and it can’t just be the Lollipop Guild.” Guy sighs heavily when Kilowog looks confused. “Wizard of Oz. We showed it a couple weeks ago. Short dudes? Kinda orange?”
“I thought that was the other one.”
“That was Willy Wonka,” Guy corrects. He waves a hand. “Whatever. The point is, someone was eventually not going to die on the job.”
“Yeah,” Kilowog shakes his head. “Anyone told you how bad you look today?”
“Found the bottom of a bottle of whiskey.”
“On purpose?”
Guy thinks about last night. The kiss. The whiskey. The sex. He thinks about that morning, waking up to Kyle being kind of a bastard and how he was honestly smiling on the inside the whole time. “Not sure,” he says to Kilowog after a moment. “It was kind of a curve ball.”
“Huh,” Kilowog replies. He shrugs away the entire conversation. “Explain the little men again,” he says, and Guy patiently lays out the differences between the factory and Oz.
*
“So,” Kyle says a week later as they close down the bar, “do you need whiskey for a second round?”
Guy seriously considers the question for about ten seconds. “I don’t think so.” He’s barely finished his sentence when Kyle kisses him, presses him against the bar, and gets a hand into his pants. “But if it’ll help you-” Guy starts and cuts off to moan.
After he’s come, he looks Kyle up and down, drops to his knees, and gives Kyle the sloppiest blowjob he knows how to give.
“Hell,” Kyle mumbles afterwards, slumping against Guy who’s slumping against the bar. “I honestly didn’t figure-”
“You know better than that,” Guy retorts. He means to sound angry, but it comes out more amused. “I’ve got all kinds of facets.”
“Is that what we’re calling it now?”
*
Salaak gives Guy shore leave with only a minimum amount of bitchery. Before Guy can fully comprehend how badly the universe will end because of it, Kyle ring-calls him and tell him that the bar’s freezer has rattled it’s last breath, and they’re fucked if they want to be able to serve food that night.
Guy spends half his shore leave running from planet to planet to get new food, and then he makes a trip to Earth to get a new freezer. He takes the old one with him, towing it behind him in a lasso, and argues the sales guy down twenty percent on a replacement when he proves that the original freezer was still under warranty, and he could just flat-out demand a new one for free.
“But I want to buy a new one,” Guy says in the friendliest tone he can find, “because that’s how business works, right?”
The salesguy stammers and agrees and asks where Guy would like the freezer sent. Guy gives the address of his hotel and leaves to grab lunch with Tora.
“You seem happy,” she tells him as they eat burgers and split an order of fries. “You seem relaxed.”
“Really?” Guy looks down at himself. “Maybe it was all the yelling.”
“Something’s made you content,” Tora says with a nod. “It suits you.”
Guy narrows his eyes and watches Tora take a drink of water. “You’ve met some guy,” he states. “Some handsome, smart guy you want me to like.” He laughs when she blushes. “Busted!”
“I wasn’t sure how to tell you,” but once she says it, she spends ten minutes explaining to Guy how she met some man named Liam at the library, and how he enjoys books and movies, and he seems comfortable with her being a superhero.
“Good for you,” Guy says when she stammers to a stop. He squeezes her hand and waits for some sort of anger to settle in. There’s none there. No disappointment either. “Huh,” he says, and shakes his head when Tora raises her eyebrows. “Nothing.”
*
“I think I’ve matured,” Guy tells Kyle when they’re bumming around Guy’s apartment, the new freezer installed and running at the bar.
“Have not,” Kyle replies without looking up from his sketchpad.
“Have too,” Guy says, and sticks out his tongue when Kyle glances up.
*
Guy spends the rest of his shore leave on Oa. He sleeps late, helps Kilowog torment the new Lanterns, and spends a lot of time at the bar insisting that Kyle serve him food and drinks. “I’m a customer,” he says when Kyle scowls.
“You’re a pain in the ass,” Kyle snaps. But then he rolls his eyes and shakes his head and brings Guy fresh fries.
“Thank you,” Guy says magnanimously and starts to eat them one at a time. Kyle leans against the counter and sketches. It’s between rushes, and it’s just them for the moment. Guy considers dumping his fries into a to-go box and heading back to his place. There’s a book he’s been reading, and he’s got nothing but time to finish it up.
“Tilt your head up,” Kyle says into the quiet.
Guy does it automatically. “Wait. Why?”
“The angle was weird.”
Guy snaps his head down and gives Kyle a look. “Are you drawing me?”
“Well, I was,” Kyle says. He pushes the sketchpad over to Guy. “You can see it. It’s just for practice.”
The sketch is rough but definitely Guy. He’s fairly certain his jaw isn’t quite that square, and he thinks Kyle took pity on his ears. “Not bad,” Guy says with a shrug. He flips back a few pages without thinking and finds another sketch more neatly drawn. It’s Guy sitting on his couch, his feet on the coffee table. Two pages before that it’s Guy leaning back in a chair in the mess, hands behind his head with his chest looking very broad under the T-shirt he’d been wearing. Guy recognizes the T-shirt. He’d worn it three days ago. The sketch of him on the couch was from the night he came back with the freezer.
“They’re not all you,” Kyle says suddenly. His shoulders are pulled up tight near his ears.
Guy flips through the pad. “You’re right. It’s just most of them.” He flips it back to the newest sketch and stares at his own profile. “You wanna have sex?”
Kyle blinks. “What?”
“You wanna have sex?” Guy repeats, looking up from the sketchpad.
“I’m working,”
“Tonight. My place, if you want.”
“Sure,” Kyle says slowly. “After I close up.”
*
It’s slower this time. There’s still urgency and panting and Guy nearly comes when Kyle sucks on his neck, but when it’s over there’s no icebreaker. No quick joke. Guy stares up at the ceiling and listens to Kyle breathe next to him. “Tora thinks I’m content,” he says after a few minutes.
“Hmmm?” Kyle hums into Guy’s shoulder. He shifts and lifts his head onto his hand. “What about Tora?”
Guy looks at Kyle and shakes his head. “Nothing. Nothing about Tora.” He pulls Kyle in and kisses him, arches up when Kyle slides a hand down his side. “You want to keep doing this?” he asks when he pulls away.
“Just this?” Kyle asks.
Guy shrugs. “This. Dating. Whatever.”
Kyle laughs and flops back onto the pillows. “You’re such a romantic.” He slides towards Guy and looks at his profile for a minute. “You should probably know I’m a cuddler.”
Guy reaches out and reels in Kyle. “Well, there’s one embarrassing secret that isn’t anymore.”
*
Gibbering psychos out to murder Lanterns show up on Oa three weeks later. Guy and Kyle are lazing around on Kyle’s couch watching a movie when the klaxons go off. They fly outside to take it in, and Guy considers for just a moment that maybe it’s him. Maybe the universe doesn’t want him dating anyone. Every time he starts, crazy shit goes down.
Guy punches one of the gibbering psychos between the eyes, and his mind clears perfectly.
Hours later, sweaty, slightly bruised, and with a split lip, Guy floats above the relief effort as Soranik barks orders to the medics and starts making a mental list of what’s going to need fixed. Kyle flies up to him and reaches out. When Guy takes his hand, Kyle pulls him in and kisses him.
“Really happy you’re not dead,” Kyle says when the kiss ends.
“You too,” Guy replies, and doesn’t let go when Kyle tries to fly away. He smiles at Kyle and feels fresh blood start to well on his lip. “Fucking psychos,” he says mostly to himself. “Why are there always psychos?”
“It’s what we do.” Kyle shrugs. “Someone has to stop them.”
“Suppose so,” Guy agrees. He waits another ten seconds before letting go of Kyle’s hand.
My Table