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thejusticelounge2013-06-25 12:01 pm
bossymarmalade) wrote in thejusticelounge2013-06-25 12:01 pm
Entry tags:
new digs
[Ring Txt] Guy is everything okay? — Kyle
Guy was shuffling around in the little kitchenette of his mom’s old trailer, trying to remove the clog in the propane line. She hadn’t used the thing in years, not since his father had died, and he wasn’t really sure why she had kept it all this time. He’d flown it from Baltimore to Barstow easily enough, and it wasn’t much, but it met all his needs. He smiled to himself when his ring alerted him again to another transmission from Kyle. He was a good friend, there was no question about it.
[Ring Txt] Well, okay as they can be, amigo. You wanna come down and see for yourself?
[Ring Txt] Sure thing! On my way.
Kyle used Guy’s ring to bead in on, eventually landing by…a trailer?
“This is so cool!” Kyle exclaimed, as Guy emerged from the doorway. Kyle threw up his arms, turning on his heel as he looked at Guy’s set up so far. He grinned. “Pretty swank, vato, I love it.”
Yes, okay, he was being cheery - because first off, he genuinely meant it, he loved trailers; and second off, it was always better to start of in good spirits, before eventually talking about what exactly happened between Guy and the League.
After all - everyone was alive and well, right? Of course right. And so everything else could be figured out in time. Kyle held out his arm, clasping Guy’s.
“How you doing, man.”
Guy’s day got brighter the moment Kyle touched down. “I’m doin’ good!” Guy gripped Kyle’s arm warmly, “Good to see you!”
He stretched his arms out to his sides, gesturing to the open desert to one side of the trailer park, and the town of Barstow on the far side of the train tracks that bordered the trailer park in the opposite direction. The area was at least clutter-free and his neighbours seemed quiet - mostly mobile homes with retirees. ”It’s not bad, right? Fresh air, no monitor duty, no constantly bein’ picked for repair duty…”
He invited Kyle inside the small living space and offered him a beer as he opened the miniature fridge and pulled out two bottles. The trailer was reasonably tidy; it had to be, since Guy didn’t own much, and didn’t need to replace much thanks to his GL ring. He folded down the dining table against the wall and lounged on the padded bench, gesturing for Kyle to take the bench opposite. ”So. I guess ya got some questions, huh?” He took a swig of his beer while he waited.
It was a positive sign that Guy was so boisterous, although knowing Guy it could just be an act, out of some sense of duty and need to shield Kyle from the truth. Always noble, our Guy, Kyle thought fondly to himself.
Settling in easily, Kyle cheered him and took a swig as well. “I guess I do. First off - congrats on getting out of the Watchtower and finding yourself a great little home. Really - I think mobile homes are great.” Kyle loved finding out all the different places Lanterns chose to live. Hal lived in a big rig once (Kyle considered that technically homeless, but whatever) and on a house on an asteroid in the middle of…somewhere. And in this trailer, Guy seemed comfortable enough. ’Seemed’ being the operative word.
“Second - I’m guessing you’re not gonna tell me the whole truth, so just give me what you got planned to let me know,” Kyle leveled him with an almost Kate Spencer-like stare, accompanied with a crooked smile. ”Just know that whatever the reason, I’m cool with it. This was your choice, bud. I’ll support your decisions, no matter what.”
“An’ this is why I keep ya around as my amigo primo, Kyle,” he grinned. “Thanks, bro. For the congrats an’ the support. There’s really not much to it…the rumours ya heard are probably way more interestin’. I wouldn’t mind hearin’ some, they’ll be entertainin’. Anyways, Clark got up in my face about tellin’ the League to stand down…but the straw that broke the camel’s back was he said I was takin’ Godfrey’s side…”
“You remember a year ago, when I was all worried about bein’ in the League or not? I know you an’ me resolved a lot from that time…but the one thing that I said back then that’s survived til now is the tendency for the League to fall into a hive mind kinda thinkin’. At least…that’s how it seems on this whole Godfrey issue.” He turned his head an stared out at the arid land around them, and the hills in the distance. He knew Kyle’s place was among them, which made all this all the more difficult.
“I mean, think about it; is the League against havin’ any kind of government fundin’ or oversight - even international oversight - all because Godfrey slags the League’s reputation and he’s in favour of it, so we automatically have to oppose it? Or did the League actually vote against oversight? Clark insists he’s as answerable to me as I am to him, but I don’t recall him ever askin’ me if I thought the League should decide everythin’ about protectin’ Earth, simply because we have the power to protect it. Hell, Kyle, even the Corps, filled with members carryin’ the most powerful weapon in the universe…even we have the Guardians. The League? They don’t answer to anyone, not even themselves.”
Guy drained his bottle and ringed a hand on a snaking beam to fetch two more, and opened a second one. ”But that’s my opinion. Clark implied I wasas bad asGodfrey, just because I agree on one of his points. Hell, I’ve known a few cross-dressers in my time, but that didn’t make ‘em as bad as J. Edgar Hoover!” He gave a mild shrug, “Anyway, I’m entitled to my opinion, an’ it looks like as long as it don’t line up with everybody else’s an’ I drink the League Kool-Aid… well, I can do more good somewhere else, I guess. Clark said Godfrey was tryin’ to break up the League an’ I was sidin’ with him against the League…so I guess it was a self-fulfillin’ prophecy? Because here I am, broken away from the League.”
He gave Kyle a long look. This really was the most uncomfortable part. “Listen to me, Kyle…I’ll tell you anything ya wanna know, any question ya wanna ask. I want ya to trust me.”
Kyle watched him closely for a moment before speaking up. He knew he wasn’t a detective like the Bats, but years of GL service by himself, as well as -well - basic abilities of observation in his loved ones had made him aware of when something was not quite…right.
It wasn’t that he thought Guy was lying; it was more that his attitude towards this whole ‘I quit the League’ thing was not how Guy would react to something as momentous as this. Regardless of how it went down (and frankly, how it went down seemed a little weird and un-Guy like too) Guy would be upset, disappointed, depressed, morose. He’d be internalized (but yet vocally) unhappy abut it, information dragged out of him as he fought to keep his upsetness all within himself. Basically, Guy would be miserable. This wasn’t a miserable Guy. And no amount of amnesia or anything else made Kyle second-guess his own instinct. 2006!Guy was the Guy he knew back on Oa, after all. And 2012!Guy was changed. And now 2013!Guy was a mixture of the two, and Kyle was pretty confident he knew them all.
So.
Guy was doing…something. But this was where Kyle’s detection skills kind of stopped. He didn’t understand what Guy was doing, or why. And he didn’t really care to know, because honestly - it seemed like Guy knew what he was doing with all this. Kyle said he trusted him, and he did. And so Kyle was willing to play.
“I do trust you,” Kyle said, adding mentally that he didn’t totally believe Guy, but he trusted him, implicitly. He looked a bit worried, feeling like Guy was trying to get him to ask a specific sort of question or something, but Kyle didn’t know what. He didn’t know what to ask. “I…I’m sorry that you had to quit. It’s too bad it had to go down like this,” he said carefully. ”But I totally get why you did.”
In a way, Kyle honestly did. Not that he felt that the way to discuss this whole government registration accountability blah blah issue in the League was by quitting it (and nor did he agree that anything about the League was hivemind; in fact, Guy was always the peacekeeper in the Committee Meetings, while Kyle himself dissented time and time again, as did many others - Kate, Queen, Wally, Zee; hell even Clark did on occasion. But Kyle wasn’t interested in debate), but…whatever this was, it was clear that right now Guy was sticking to his guns.
“I’m surprised it happened so suddenly, but if this is your choice, then that’s all there is to it. Honestly, after Parallax, my loyalty’s waned as well. No…before that. I think it’s felt that way for me since Hal and I returned with Ion. I was tempted to quit then, myself. If only so I didn’t have to abide by League rules.” Kyle was silent for a moment to let that sink in. Since they were League rules Guy willingly adhered to. ”So as long as you’re okay, then…” He looked worried again. “Was…am I supposed to be asking you something? Can you give me a hint, maybe?”
Kyle looked around the desert area, his ring immediately doing a scan. but no - no equivalent of the FBI in scanner or robot format. And a quick scan of Guy himself showed nothing untoward about him physiologically, so Kyle relaxed, but still looked inquiring.
“Christ, you look so worried, man,” Guy shook his head with a smile. ”Honestly? I thought you’d be a hell of a lot more pissed at me than this. But you’re bein’ nothin’ but supportive… I means a lot to me…” He looked down at his bottle, “Has… anyone up there asked after me? Asked ya where I was or anythin’? Just curious.”
Guy tried not to look too disappointed when Kyle shook his head slowly, adding that it hadn’t been very long at all and news was still spreading among the superheroes. He pushed his bruised ego aside and turned his attention back to his best friend. “Ya don’t have to ask anythin’ specific,” he shrugged, “I was just expectin’ ya to ask ‘why here in the middle of nowhere?’ or what my plans are for respondin’ to emergencies now that I don’t have someone assignin’ me patrol routes or missions.”
He smirked and held up his ring, “Makes a dandy police scanner, on a planetary scale. Ain’t like I don’t know the frequencies the League uses, an’ if they change ‘em then they ain’t hard to find again since I know where the Watchtower’s located. As for why here…it’s cheap. An’ it ain’t that far from LA, if I’m still here when the new bar is built. That’s months away, though.”
He took another long swig. “But, I’ll admit, it’s a little too quiet. Once I get some dough in, maybe I’ll move where there’s more action. Maybe join another team or somethin’. Maybe Checkmate’s hirin’, I dunno…” he trailed off.
Living alone, and off the Watchtower, was a bigger adjustment than he’d bargained for when he first decided to do this. He’d been used to it long ago, but it had been ages since he’d been completely solo. He loathed to admit it, but it finally surfaced, and he confessed it to his partner. “I expect it’ll be a little lonely for a while, y’know, ‘til I get used to it.”
He tapped his fingers on the windowsill absently and nodded, “Yeah, you an’ Hal returnin’ with Ion. I’m sorry for my part in that, but the way I see it, me an’ John had more business to stick our noses in than they did. I think Ollie an’ the rest of the League shoulda done more shuttin’ up an’ listenin’ to what you guys were sayin’ at the time. Ion was never a threat, an’ wasn’t part of the problem on any front. In fact…if ya hadn’t been hostin’ Ion, I couldn’t have gotten back in time to warn Hal, or helped John, or hosted Ion myself so I could teleport the Corps here in time. So…the League can stick it,” he chuckled, and stretched his legs out.
“Ol’ Ion’s what turned the tide an’ saved the day, amigo, don’t you let anyone say otherwise. But…I think it’s good ya stay with the League, man. You’re good for ‘em. You can be GLs and Leaguers at the same time, an’ maybe you guys can keep ‘em honest, because they’ll listen to you on account of yer politics ain’t so different from theirs.”
Kyle listened to Guy as he talked through things, taking occasional swigs from his beer as he watched his friend. He was still listening, still paying attention, and he was also watching Guy. His motions, his face. Everything about it was still slightly off; like Guy putting on a show, for Kyle’s benefit. It occurred to Kyle that Guy might not get that Kyle knew something was up, might not see that Kyle had accompliced himself in this without quite understanding it, all because he trusted his best friend.
Kyle tilted his head curiously, nodding in chummy acceptance of Guy’s odd strategies for patrolling. Hm. Had Guy never not been on a League type thing, so he didn’t know how to be a solo Lantern, cut off from League assignments? In the beginning of Kyle’s GL career, he’d worked solo, sans Titans or League or Guardians or anything, and so his stint in the League was all about getting used to teamwork. Maybe for Guy it was the other way around - he was used to teamwork, and now he was trying to work out how to be solo…ish.
“And we’ll also still be doing Corps business too,” Kyle gently pointed out to Guy. “Around the sector and on Earth.” Kyle wondered if Guy also thought that League took precedent over Corps for Kyle. It never did, but Guy seemed pretty insistent on this whole hivemind League thing, and that Kyle had to remain a part of it. Well okay then. Kyle still played along.
He was about to point out that Guy’s politics weren’t much different either, and that no one on the League were of the same politics at all; but he stopped himself. This was all still part of…whatever it was Guy had planned, he reminded himself. Now Kyle really hoped Guy actually did have some greater plan, and Kyle wasn’t just fictionalizing all of this in order to comprehend it.
But no. It couldn’t be. Kyle knew his friend too well to have doubts. When Guy brought up loneliness, this seemed to make more sense; and Kyle nodded sympathetically.
“All right,” he said about Guy pressing this whole ‘you can still stay in the League and also be a Lantern’ thing, and he pat Guy’s arm reassuringly. “Aww bro. Quitting the League doesn’t mean quitting your friends, unless you want it to, I know no one else does,” Kyle said, smiling. ”It’s gonna be okay. I believe in you. There are lots of trailer parks in LA, anyway, if you wanted to move lock, stock and barrel. And once you start getting busy again, it’ll seem less weird, I promise. I think it’s great you stuck to your guns about all of this. Good for you.”
“Of course we’ll be doin’ Corps business. But, y’know, the sector’s been quiet since the SC invasion. An’ they wouldn’t let us help with Mogo…” It was a sore point with all of them, but Guy knew Kyle was especially close to the sentient planet. “Anyway, we’ll be back in their good graces soon. I figured doin’ Corps missions went without sayin’.”
He was glad he’d made it clear to Kyle that he didn’t have to quit anything out of a show of solidarity. The previous year, when he’d considered quitting, he’d tried to turn Kyle against the League in an effort to get him to see his point of view, and it had started more than one heated discussion. It was important to Guy that Kyle knew he didn’t feel that way now, so Kyle wouldn’t feel placed in that awkward position again.
“Eh, I don’t see a need to quit my friends, it ain’t like that. I’m just… I ain’t expectin’ anythin’, one way or the other, if that makes sense? What happens, happens, sabes?” He nodded at what Kyle was saying about things eventually feeling less weird. ”Yeah, you hit the nail on the head, that’s what I need, all right! To keep busy! That, I can do. I need to.”
“Oh, hey, speaking of keepin’ occupied… I got somethin’ for ya!” He got up and went to a half-empty cardboard box containing some books, their old toaster oven Casa Verde, and other odds and ends. After he rummaged through it and found what he was looking for, he returned with two large books. “I found two of your old sketchbooks in the debris in LA. I’ve been meanin’ to give these to ya for a few weeks now, but it kept slippin’ my mind.” He held the books out to him with a pleased grin.
“Oh! That reminds me. I went to Oa the other day, demanding they let us rebuild the Central Battery. Since Mogo’s been restored, the Guardians and Sodam’s been putting Oa back together, but. I insisted that ‘he who broke it, bought it’…” Kyle grinned. “They didn’t get it. But whatever. Salaak agreed with this guy.” Kyle thumbed his chest. ”So yeah - if you’re doing something else, then I’ll go by myself, but of course it’d be awesome if you could come, we can rebuild it together.”
Kyle nodded, truly believing in (without consciously knowing it) the concept of ‘que sera sera’ for various circumstances, particularly with relationships and friends. ”Sounds like a plan, man.”
He looked curiously over at the box that Guy was rummaging through and grinned when he saw the mug and the toaster. Salvaged stuff from Warriors, it looked like. He sat up a bit when Guy brought over the sketchbooks.
“Ayyyy dios, you found a couple of these suckers? No way…” Kyle thumbed through the pages, not really concerned about what was in them, but glad to have them back. ”Awesome man…and. I’m sorry that I didn’t go help you. I didn’t know you were going down to the site to clean, and…and well. I get why you had to do it all so quickly and stuff.” It was a business and it was in LA. Unlike the house in Coast City, it couldn’t lie fallow for days, Guy was right to do clean up immediately, regardless of whether Kyle was in the right mindset to join him. “So thanks…thank you.”
“Sure, I’d love to give ya a hand with the Central Battery. It sounds like a plan! Give me a heads-up when ya wanna go, amigo, an’ I’m there!” he gave Kyle a thumbs-up. It wasn’t a mission, exactly, but getting away from Earth even for a short while would be good in the aftermath of leaving the League. It would be good to do something purely GLC for a change, that didn’t involve Parallax or memory loss.
He handed over the sketchbooks, and was really satisfied with Kyle’s reaction. Good. It was a really good sign to see Kyle showing a range of emotion, and making constructive plans for the future. Guy had no doubt that Kyle’s psychological recovery would still take time, but bless him, the kid seemed to be improving. He would be okay.
“Hey, you’re welcome, and I didn’t want to cut you out of that…but like ya said, it couldn’t wait, an’ you’d been real upset the day before, naturally, so I really didn’t mind. An’ y’know somethin’ buddy?” He came around and slipped an arm around Kyle’s shoulders reassuringly, “Lookin’ back at it, I really think it was what I needed too. It was real cathartic, an’ I wasn’t really in all that great a headspace at the time… I didn’t know it then, but I do now, an’ I think it was really best for the both of us, me cleanin’ up on my own. It’s all good.”
With that, he clinked his beer bottle to Kyle’s.
Guy was shuffling around in the little kitchenette of his mom’s old trailer, trying to remove the clog in the propane line. She hadn’t used the thing in years, not since his father had died, and he wasn’t really sure why she had kept it all this time. He’d flown it from Baltimore to Barstow easily enough, and it wasn’t much, but it met all his needs. He smiled to himself when his ring alerted him again to another transmission from Kyle. He was a good friend, there was no question about it.
[Ring Txt] Well, okay as they can be, amigo. You wanna come down and see for yourself?
[Ring Txt] Sure thing! On my way.
Kyle used Guy’s ring to bead in on, eventually landing by…a trailer?
“This is so cool!” Kyle exclaimed, as Guy emerged from the doorway. Kyle threw up his arms, turning on his heel as he looked at Guy’s set up so far. He grinned. “Pretty swank, vato, I love it.”
Yes, okay, he was being cheery - because first off, he genuinely meant it, he loved trailers; and second off, it was always better to start of in good spirits, before eventually talking about what exactly happened between Guy and the League.
After all - everyone was alive and well, right? Of course right. And so everything else could be figured out in time. Kyle held out his arm, clasping Guy’s.
“How you doing, man.”
Guy’s day got brighter the moment Kyle touched down. “I’m doin’ good!” Guy gripped Kyle’s arm warmly, “Good to see you!”
He stretched his arms out to his sides, gesturing to the open desert to one side of the trailer park, and the town of Barstow on the far side of the train tracks that bordered the trailer park in the opposite direction. The area was at least clutter-free and his neighbours seemed quiet - mostly mobile homes with retirees. ”It’s not bad, right? Fresh air, no monitor duty, no constantly bein’ picked for repair duty…”
He invited Kyle inside the small living space and offered him a beer as he opened the miniature fridge and pulled out two bottles. The trailer was reasonably tidy; it had to be, since Guy didn’t own much, and didn’t need to replace much thanks to his GL ring. He folded down the dining table against the wall and lounged on the padded bench, gesturing for Kyle to take the bench opposite. ”So. I guess ya got some questions, huh?” He took a swig of his beer while he waited.
It was a positive sign that Guy was so boisterous, although knowing Guy it could just be an act, out of some sense of duty and need to shield Kyle from the truth. Always noble, our Guy, Kyle thought fondly to himself.
Settling in easily, Kyle cheered him and took a swig as well. “I guess I do. First off - congrats on getting out of the Watchtower and finding yourself a great little home. Really - I think mobile homes are great.” Kyle loved finding out all the different places Lanterns chose to live. Hal lived in a big rig once (Kyle considered that technically homeless, but whatever) and on a house on an asteroid in the middle of…somewhere. And in this trailer, Guy seemed comfortable enough. ’Seemed’ being the operative word.
“Second - I’m guessing you’re not gonna tell me the whole truth, so just give me what you got planned to let me know,” Kyle leveled him with an almost Kate Spencer-like stare, accompanied with a crooked smile. ”Just know that whatever the reason, I’m cool with it. This was your choice, bud. I’ll support your decisions, no matter what.”
“An’ this is why I keep ya around as my amigo primo, Kyle,” he grinned. “Thanks, bro. For the congrats an’ the support. There’s really not much to it…the rumours ya heard are probably way more interestin’. I wouldn’t mind hearin’ some, they’ll be entertainin’. Anyways, Clark got up in my face about tellin’ the League to stand down…but the straw that broke the camel’s back was he said I was takin’ Godfrey’s side…”
“You remember a year ago, when I was all worried about bein’ in the League or not? I know you an’ me resolved a lot from that time…but the one thing that I said back then that’s survived til now is the tendency for the League to fall into a hive mind kinda thinkin’. At least…that’s how it seems on this whole Godfrey issue.” He turned his head an stared out at the arid land around them, and the hills in the distance. He knew Kyle’s place was among them, which made all this all the more difficult.
“I mean, think about it; is the League against havin’ any kind of government fundin’ or oversight - even international oversight - all because Godfrey slags the League’s reputation and he’s in favour of it, so we automatically have to oppose it? Or did the League actually vote against oversight? Clark insists he’s as answerable to me as I am to him, but I don’t recall him ever askin’ me if I thought the League should decide everythin’ about protectin’ Earth, simply because we have the power to protect it. Hell, Kyle, even the Corps, filled with members carryin’ the most powerful weapon in the universe…even we have the Guardians. The League? They don’t answer to anyone, not even themselves.”
Guy drained his bottle and ringed a hand on a snaking beam to fetch two more, and opened a second one. ”But that’s my opinion. Clark implied I wasas bad asGodfrey, just because I agree on one of his points. Hell, I’ve known a few cross-dressers in my time, but that didn’t make ‘em as bad as J. Edgar Hoover!” He gave a mild shrug, “Anyway, I’m entitled to my opinion, an’ it looks like as long as it don’t line up with everybody else’s an’ I drink the League Kool-Aid… well, I can do more good somewhere else, I guess. Clark said Godfrey was tryin’ to break up the League an’ I was sidin’ with him against the League…so I guess it was a self-fulfillin’ prophecy? Because here I am, broken away from the League.”
He gave Kyle a long look. This really was the most uncomfortable part. “Listen to me, Kyle…I’ll tell you anything ya wanna know, any question ya wanna ask. I want ya to trust me.”
Kyle watched him closely for a moment before speaking up. He knew he wasn’t a detective like the Bats, but years of GL service by himself, as well as -well - basic abilities of observation in his loved ones had made him aware of when something was not quite…right.
It wasn’t that he thought Guy was lying; it was more that his attitude towards this whole ‘I quit the League’ thing was not how Guy would react to something as momentous as this. Regardless of how it went down (and frankly, how it went down seemed a little weird and un-Guy like too) Guy would be upset, disappointed, depressed, morose. He’d be internalized (but yet vocally) unhappy abut it, information dragged out of him as he fought to keep his upsetness all within himself. Basically, Guy would be miserable. This wasn’t a miserable Guy. And no amount of amnesia or anything else made Kyle second-guess his own instinct. 2006!Guy was the Guy he knew back on Oa, after all. And 2012!Guy was changed. And now 2013!Guy was a mixture of the two, and Kyle was pretty confident he knew them all.
So.
Guy was doing…something. But this was where Kyle’s detection skills kind of stopped. He didn’t understand what Guy was doing, or why. And he didn’t really care to know, because honestly - it seemed like Guy knew what he was doing with all this. Kyle said he trusted him, and he did. And so Kyle was willing to play.
“I do trust you,” Kyle said, adding mentally that he didn’t totally believe Guy, but he trusted him, implicitly. He looked a bit worried, feeling like Guy was trying to get him to ask a specific sort of question or something, but Kyle didn’t know what. He didn’t know what to ask. “I…I’m sorry that you had to quit. It’s too bad it had to go down like this,” he said carefully. ”But I totally get why you did.”
In a way, Kyle honestly did. Not that he felt that the way to discuss this whole government registration accountability blah blah issue in the League was by quitting it (and nor did he agree that anything about the League was hivemind; in fact, Guy was always the peacekeeper in the Committee Meetings, while Kyle himself dissented time and time again, as did many others - Kate, Queen, Wally, Zee; hell even Clark did on occasion. But Kyle wasn’t interested in debate), but…whatever this was, it was clear that right now Guy was sticking to his guns.
“I’m surprised it happened so suddenly, but if this is your choice, then that’s all there is to it. Honestly, after Parallax, my loyalty’s waned as well. No…before that. I think it’s felt that way for me since Hal and I returned with Ion. I was tempted to quit then, myself. If only so I didn’t have to abide by League rules.” Kyle was silent for a moment to let that sink in. Since they were League rules Guy willingly adhered to. ”So as long as you’re okay, then…” He looked worried again. “Was…am I supposed to be asking you something? Can you give me a hint, maybe?”
Kyle looked around the desert area, his ring immediately doing a scan. but no - no equivalent of the FBI in scanner or robot format. And a quick scan of Guy himself showed nothing untoward about him physiologically, so Kyle relaxed, but still looked inquiring.
“Christ, you look so worried, man,” Guy shook his head with a smile. ”Honestly? I thought you’d be a hell of a lot more pissed at me than this. But you’re bein’ nothin’ but supportive… I means a lot to me…” He looked down at his bottle, “Has… anyone up there asked after me? Asked ya where I was or anythin’? Just curious.”
Guy tried not to look too disappointed when Kyle shook his head slowly, adding that it hadn’t been very long at all and news was still spreading among the superheroes. He pushed his bruised ego aside and turned his attention back to his best friend. “Ya don’t have to ask anythin’ specific,” he shrugged, “I was just expectin’ ya to ask ‘why here in the middle of nowhere?’ or what my plans are for respondin’ to emergencies now that I don’t have someone assignin’ me patrol routes or missions.”
He smirked and held up his ring, “Makes a dandy police scanner, on a planetary scale. Ain’t like I don’t know the frequencies the League uses, an’ if they change ‘em then they ain’t hard to find again since I know where the Watchtower’s located. As for why here…it’s cheap. An’ it ain’t that far from LA, if I’m still here when the new bar is built. That’s months away, though.”
He took another long swig. “But, I’ll admit, it’s a little too quiet. Once I get some dough in, maybe I’ll move where there’s more action. Maybe join another team or somethin’. Maybe Checkmate’s hirin’, I dunno…” he trailed off.
Living alone, and off the Watchtower, was a bigger adjustment than he’d bargained for when he first decided to do this. He’d been used to it long ago, but it had been ages since he’d been completely solo. He loathed to admit it, but it finally surfaced, and he confessed it to his partner. “I expect it’ll be a little lonely for a while, y’know, ‘til I get used to it.”
He tapped his fingers on the windowsill absently and nodded, “Yeah, you an’ Hal returnin’ with Ion. I’m sorry for my part in that, but the way I see it, me an’ John had more business to stick our noses in than they did. I think Ollie an’ the rest of the League shoulda done more shuttin’ up an’ listenin’ to what you guys were sayin’ at the time. Ion was never a threat, an’ wasn’t part of the problem on any front. In fact…if ya hadn’t been hostin’ Ion, I couldn’t have gotten back in time to warn Hal, or helped John, or hosted Ion myself so I could teleport the Corps here in time. So…the League can stick it,” he chuckled, and stretched his legs out.
“Ol’ Ion’s what turned the tide an’ saved the day, amigo, don’t you let anyone say otherwise. But…I think it’s good ya stay with the League, man. You’re good for ‘em. You can be GLs and Leaguers at the same time, an’ maybe you guys can keep ‘em honest, because they’ll listen to you on account of yer politics ain’t so different from theirs.”
Kyle listened to Guy as he talked through things, taking occasional swigs from his beer as he watched his friend. He was still listening, still paying attention, and he was also watching Guy. His motions, his face. Everything about it was still slightly off; like Guy putting on a show, for Kyle’s benefit. It occurred to Kyle that Guy might not get that Kyle knew something was up, might not see that Kyle had accompliced himself in this without quite understanding it, all because he trusted his best friend.
Kyle tilted his head curiously, nodding in chummy acceptance of Guy’s odd strategies for patrolling. Hm. Had Guy never not been on a League type thing, so he didn’t know how to be a solo Lantern, cut off from League assignments? In the beginning of Kyle’s GL career, he’d worked solo, sans Titans or League or Guardians or anything, and so his stint in the League was all about getting used to teamwork. Maybe for Guy it was the other way around - he was used to teamwork, and now he was trying to work out how to be solo…ish.
“And we’ll also still be doing Corps business too,” Kyle gently pointed out to Guy. “Around the sector and on Earth.” Kyle wondered if Guy also thought that League took precedent over Corps for Kyle. It never did, but Guy seemed pretty insistent on this whole hivemind League thing, and that Kyle had to remain a part of it. Well okay then. Kyle still played along.
He was about to point out that Guy’s politics weren’t much different either, and that no one on the League were of the same politics at all; but he stopped himself. This was all still part of…whatever it was Guy had planned, he reminded himself. Now Kyle really hoped Guy actually did have some greater plan, and Kyle wasn’t just fictionalizing all of this in order to comprehend it.
But no. It couldn’t be. Kyle knew his friend too well to have doubts. When Guy brought up loneliness, this seemed to make more sense; and Kyle nodded sympathetically.
“All right,” he said about Guy pressing this whole ‘you can still stay in the League and also be a Lantern’ thing, and he pat Guy’s arm reassuringly. “Aww bro. Quitting the League doesn’t mean quitting your friends, unless you want it to, I know no one else does,” Kyle said, smiling. ”It’s gonna be okay. I believe in you. There are lots of trailer parks in LA, anyway, if you wanted to move lock, stock and barrel. And once you start getting busy again, it’ll seem less weird, I promise. I think it’s great you stuck to your guns about all of this. Good for you.”
“Of course we’ll be doin’ Corps business. But, y’know, the sector’s been quiet since the SC invasion. An’ they wouldn’t let us help with Mogo…” It was a sore point with all of them, but Guy knew Kyle was especially close to the sentient planet. “Anyway, we’ll be back in their good graces soon. I figured doin’ Corps missions went without sayin’.”
He was glad he’d made it clear to Kyle that he didn’t have to quit anything out of a show of solidarity. The previous year, when he’d considered quitting, he’d tried to turn Kyle against the League in an effort to get him to see his point of view, and it had started more than one heated discussion. It was important to Guy that Kyle knew he didn’t feel that way now, so Kyle wouldn’t feel placed in that awkward position again.
“Eh, I don’t see a need to quit my friends, it ain’t like that. I’m just… I ain’t expectin’ anythin’, one way or the other, if that makes sense? What happens, happens, sabes?” He nodded at what Kyle was saying about things eventually feeling less weird. ”Yeah, you hit the nail on the head, that’s what I need, all right! To keep busy! That, I can do. I need to.”
“Oh, hey, speaking of keepin’ occupied… I got somethin’ for ya!” He got up and went to a half-empty cardboard box containing some books, their old toaster oven Casa Verde, and other odds and ends. After he rummaged through it and found what he was looking for, he returned with two large books. “I found two of your old sketchbooks in the debris in LA. I’ve been meanin’ to give these to ya for a few weeks now, but it kept slippin’ my mind.” He held the books out to him with a pleased grin.
“Oh! That reminds me. I went to Oa the other day, demanding they let us rebuild the Central Battery. Since Mogo’s been restored, the Guardians and Sodam’s been putting Oa back together, but. I insisted that ‘he who broke it, bought it’…” Kyle grinned. “They didn’t get it. But whatever. Salaak agreed with this guy.” Kyle thumbed his chest. ”So yeah - if you’re doing something else, then I’ll go by myself, but of course it’d be awesome if you could come, we can rebuild it together.”
Kyle nodded, truly believing in (without consciously knowing it) the concept of ‘que sera sera’ for various circumstances, particularly with relationships and friends. ”Sounds like a plan, man.”
He looked curiously over at the box that Guy was rummaging through and grinned when he saw the mug and the toaster. Salvaged stuff from Warriors, it looked like. He sat up a bit when Guy brought over the sketchbooks.
“Ayyyy dios, you found a couple of these suckers? No way…” Kyle thumbed through the pages, not really concerned about what was in them, but glad to have them back. ”Awesome man…and. I’m sorry that I didn’t go help you. I didn’t know you were going down to the site to clean, and…and well. I get why you had to do it all so quickly and stuff.” It was a business and it was in LA. Unlike the house in Coast City, it couldn’t lie fallow for days, Guy was right to do clean up immediately, regardless of whether Kyle was in the right mindset to join him. “So thanks…thank you.”
“Sure, I’d love to give ya a hand with the Central Battery. It sounds like a plan! Give me a heads-up when ya wanna go, amigo, an’ I’m there!” he gave Kyle a thumbs-up. It wasn’t a mission, exactly, but getting away from Earth even for a short while would be good in the aftermath of leaving the League. It would be good to do something purely GLC for a change, that didn’t involve Parallax or memory loss.
He handed over the sketchbooks, and was really satisfied with Kyle’s reaction. Good. It was a really good sign to see Kyle showing a range of emotion, and making constructive plans for the future. Guy had no doubt that Kyle’s psychological recovery would still take time, but bless him, the kid seemed to be improving. He would be okay.
“Hey, you’re welcome, and I didn’t want to cut you out of that…but like ya said, it couldn’t wait, an’ you’d been real upset the day before, naturally, so I really didn’t mind. An’ y’know somethin’ buddy?” He came around and slipped an arm around Kyle’s shoulders reassuringly, “Lookin’ back at it, I really think it was what I needed too. It was real cathartic, an’ I wasn’t really in all that great a headspace at the time… I didn’t know it then, but I do now, an’ I think it was really best for the both of us, me cleanin’ up on my own. It’s all good.”
With that, he clinked his beer bottle to Kyle’s.