what do we call this

[bossymarmalade]

After a somewhat light inspection, Zee’s tokens for Kyle are passed along to him, a bundle of somehow still warm chocolate chip cookies, his sketchbook and gathered art supplies.

"Hey, maybe in a few years, all this…talking to you about celebrity gossip and watching you paint imaginary jacks in a cell… it’ll seem routine…" she tried to laugh taking a seat where he could see her, looking up at him with a crooked smile that only spread to the undamaged side of her face. The green bruise stretching along the side of her face still holding her emotions away.

"For the record, I’d probably quit scrabble before the game is even over and pout for the rest of the night. I’m that kind of sore loser, Kyle." she shook out her trashy entertainment magazine to the table of contents she’d grabbed from the recycling, it might’ve been several months old but it’d still be worth a laugh or two. Probably.

Zee was able to sit outside his cell; it wasn’t high security in terms of mega-hardcore-lockdown, not anything like a prison, really. But still there was a separation between him and Zee, a thin unbreakable bullet-proof sheet of plastic that they could comfortably talk through. No touching! quoth Arrested Development.

Maybe he should have asked for the tight security on the cell, given that Hoodie already appeared and guaranteed they could break out if needed. But Kyle didn’t bother. If his own willpower couldn’t keep himself locked in his cell, then…then he might as well stop calling himself a Green Lantern. At this point it was a matter of proving himself to himself.

So Zee came and Kyle magically got warm cookies and art supplies - watercolor Moleskein (partially used), watercolour kit and his pencil box - and she sat close to him. They couldn’t touch each other. Given the way the sickly green bruise mottled one side of Zee’s face, Kyle reconciled it was for the better. She didn’t fix it. In a dark, selfish way, Kyle was glad. Seeing her bruise bolstered his resolve against the thing residing inside him.



He ate a cookie. Zee rustled through her magazines, flipping to the back and reading the horoscopes out loud. First Taurus, then Cancer, in that order. Kyle had stopped teasing her about this whole horoscope dealy - because in the end he just liked the way she sounded when she read them to him. He liked that she read them, to him.

"I’m good at losing. There’s an art to that too, y’know. People sympathize with the losers and wanna make it up to them, so." Kyle grinned slightly over his cookie. "We could make that work, too."

Zee didn’t grin back. Or at least she tried; but there was a compensating wince at the end of it, that tilted her red mouth sideways on her face. Kyle looked away for a moment; but a few seconds later he looked back, unable to have Zee so close and not have some sort connection to her.

"Or we could just play a co-operative game? Like uhmmm…Farmville?"

"Alright and for you….Cancer…’This is the perfect day to plan out your upcoming year — you know what you want to do, what you’ve got to do it with, and who you can count on all at your fingertips. Go for it!’ Sounds encouraging, maybe you had a pretty good August.”

She shrugged, flipping towards the front to see what the magazine had thought would be in style for this past August. “How’s the cookie?” she asked, peeking over the top of her magazine to see him take another large bite to her satisfaction.

Zee laughed, “Yeah, you play up those big puppy eyes. Then it’s impossible to avoid feeling sorry for you then. I’d be forced to give you big sloppy kisses and cuddles till you decide to play another round.” she rolled her shoulders back against her chair, trying not to notice how empty her arms felt, with Kyle sitting right there.

"Or we could try team games, like game date night…invite Roy and Mar’i. We’d be one team and they’d be on the other. That could be fun too." Zatanna pressed her lips together at Farmville, tapping her now ringless finger against the magazine cover, "You know, Clark was obsessed with Farmville. I think he even tried to make me a farm one time…mostly just so I could send him gifts I think."

She drops her magazine to the side of her chair with a slick smack, pulling out another from her bag, “Horoscopes from…mmm November of last year, or 'Stars Are Just Like Us!' I’ll hold up the pictures.”

"You’re reading old horoscopes? Aw mannnnn," He ;aughed and snagged another cookie, leaning back in the metal chair, balancing it on the two back legs. "What was I doing in August? Finishing up working at the fashion house I guess. And thinking about you a lot, heh…" Kyle smiled a bit at her, eyes softening affectionately.

"The cookies are fantastic. I can’t believe you made them for me! You’re the best. I’ll probably eat all of them like…right now. Heh. But I gotta say - I know I’m in Queen Tower because the food here is all fancy and all organic and sustainable stuff, heh.” He devoured the second cookie and then tapped on the thin glass, beating out a little rhythm to release his excess energy. Seeing Zee always made him excited, one more frustration that he couldn’t actually hold her or feel her.

When she mentioned Clark, his eyes instinctively drifted down to her left hand, as if reminding himself once more that — except — except the ring wasn’t there. Kyle nearly fell backwards in alarm, kicking his feet up so the chair fell forwards as his hands slapped palm-first on the window.

"Your ring," he said, his face close enough to the window to create condensation. His ring. Her ring. Both gone. "Your wedding ring, it’s…." He wanted to ask what happened, but at the same time, he didn’t want the evil thing inside him to know.

"It came to me yesterday, Zee. Said it could get us - me - it out of the cell. Said it needed my…help…one more time. I told it to take a hike. God it was tempting, Zee. But I’m not gonna listen to it.” He dragged his eyes away from her long fingers, back up to look at her face. The bruise, still there and matching the soreness on his own knuckles. He swallowed hard. “I’m not.”

She smiled, still crooked but nonetheless sincere, “Your August was a lot more productive than mine. I still hadn’t even gotten show prep off the ground.”

Zee jiggled her foot on the ground to the tap of Kyle’s fingers against the separating window. “Oh, Ollie’s got fancy meals for everyone? Maybe I’ll grab dinner here then, you munching on cookies is just making me hungry. At least you’ve got a pretty nice place to stay here. It could be a whole lot worse Kyle.”

The slam of Kyle’s chair and his hand against the window shot Zee out of her trance in reading up on how the right shade of nail polish could polish off an outfit. Dropping her magazine, and taking two long strides over to his window she pressed her hands against it, “Kyle?” she exhales, her fingers curling in towards her palms, leaving only her knuckles against the pane dividing them. And no ring to tap against the surface.

"We’ll talk about my ring later, okay?" she whispers, as if the volume in her voice is enough to keep the poisonous creature inside Kyle at bay. "I’ll talk to you about it later.”

She backs away from the pane as the nearby guard begins to stroll over curiously, “I’m fine. It’s fine.” she appeases him, holding out her empty hands, and it enough to get him to back down.

Zee nods slowly as he detailed his latest encounter with the leach-like monster, “Good. Don’t listen to it. You’re staying strong that’s really good Kyle.”

Folding her arms loosely around her chest, she frowned, “Do you still see the jacks it left?”
Kyle remained at the window mesmerized by Zee. By her words. They resonated with him and he felt almost paralysed with the surge of feelings (ones he couldn’t name; maybe later, alone at night with his thoughts. Usually the best time to sort out his daily tides and eddies of emotions). What he could pinpoint now was that the paralysis felt good. He stayed at the window, staring at Zee because his world - his world with her - suddenly expanded. All in the space of ten seconds.

He nodded, both pleased by and accepting her words of encouragement. “I won’t listen to it. Fuck that noise,” he boasted lightly, shoving his hands in his pockets as he smirked at her.

When she asked about the jacks, Kyle nodded, his smirk fading. ”Yeah, they’re still here. I bet you can’t see them, they’re over —” Kyle motioned behind him under the bench at the back of the cell; but he stopped mid-sentence, blinking. It was just empty space. Kyle stalked over, ducking to see if maybe he’d kicked the jacks somewhere, but they really were just gone.

"Zee," Kyle called out from where he was crouching. He looked up at her with a hopeful grin. "I don’t see ‘em anymore, corazon. They’re gone. Oh man…oh man!" He bounced back up, coming over to the window and stroking along the glass. "I could hug you I would squeeze you so tight. And other things of course. But mostly with the hugging right now. You helped me get rid of ‘em." She helped him get beat the evil thing bit by bit; and this wasn’t the first time.

And that was the moment Kyle realized how Zee could help him get rid of it, once and for all.

Zee craned her neck to try and spy the small black jacks Kyle had described to her. He had his doubts that she’d be able to see it, but she still needed to be sure herself. “What’s up?” she asked, pressing her fingertips lightly against the pane, but keeping her arm held out to give herself some distance from the boundary, “Kyle, talk to me.”

She pulled back her hand and held it against her mouth, eyes wide, “No way. Kyle is that good? Is that good that it went away? I don’t know!” she clapped her hands together in front of her mouth, nodding with a small smile that looked nearly natural on her face despite the bruising, “I want to hug you too, tesoro. And then some.”

Bouncing on her toes she shook her head, “You really think I helped you get rid of it? Kyle is it even that easy?” her small smile faded, “That thing was rooted all over you, Kyle how can you even be sure…I mean really really sure.”

She moved closer to the glass, lying her hand flat against the surface, “I want you to be out of here but I need to be 100% positive that you are completely yourself, no puppet strings, no monsters waiting in the dark shadows. I want only Kyle in there, nothing more nothing less.”
"No, no - I’m still compromised, I’m not coming out of my cell. But everything you’ve done, it’s helped me, it’s…it’s hard to explain. The spell you used to…to drain it," Kyle’s skin turned a bit mottled, lip curling slightly as he remembered the agony that night. But he wasn’t sure if it was the violence of Zee’s spell or the vicious pleasure in her actions as she did it, which chilled him more. Still - if what his plan to get rid of the evil being once-and-for-all was to work, maybe he needed her to be that vicious person.

For now, he continued explaining, as he slowly sat back down. ”When Dick and I first encountered it in the restaurant, it took control of my constructs. Which is near impossible, Zee - because I gotta hella lotta willpower, and it’s not another Lantern entity attacking me. It’s not Parallax. But it still managed to…dirty my constructs. And constructs are the sum of my concentration and imagination, y’see? That’s why when you used the spell to pull it out of me, it took some of my blood too. It hurt, because I don’t wanna let go of my concentration or my willpower. It feeds on the same thing I need…huhnf. That’s why it’s best to locked up right now, doing this whole passive protest schtick. Not particularly Green Lanterny, but. It’s the best thing I can use my willpower for -making sure I don’t use my willpower.

"Anyway," he smiled slightly up at her. "It’s selfish to say, but…seeing you without your wedding ring on, it gave me…" He rubbed his mouth, not knowing how she was going to take this. "…it gave me hope. For us. It’s just…it’s one more step towards there being a lasting ‘us’." Kyle raised his unringed hand then, matching his fingertips to hers against the glass pane.

"It must’ve been hard for you, to take it off. Why’d you do it now?"

Zee kept her hand in place, even as Kyle pulled away to his seat. Her lips pursed as he explained the parasitic creature intertwined within him, “So if I hadn’t stopped, I would’ve taken your willpower you think?” she exhaled slowly, a small stream of air streaming from her mouth.

"You don’t always have to be the best Green Lantern, Kyle." she encouraged, her fingers curling in toward her palm forming a loose fist, but her hand still never leaving the glass, "Just admitting that you doing nothing is better than fighting, is probably just as strong."

Her fingers unfurled stretching out from her palm slowly. The familiar worn sensation on her ring finger still strange as she pressed her fingertips to the glass. Her hand felt lighter, her entire body really now that she stood in front of Kyle. “I might be a little selfish too, because I didn’t take it off just for you. Because he’s not here. He’s not coming back, at least not for me. I can’t just keep hanging onto him because I’m the one trying to save the day. He doesn’t get the glory for that. I won’t let him.”

She laughed softly as his hand pressed up on his side, ringless as well. Zee could almost feel the heat from his hand seeping into her digits. “You know, I don’t think I was aware that you wanted there to be a lasting future for us. Not that I don’t want it too…I just wasn’t sure that you planned any further than how you’d feel tomorrow for me.” she leaned forward, her forehead, then her cheek resting against the pane.

"I love you so much further than tomorrow, Kyle."
Kyle shook his head. “No. I don’t think it would’ve taken my willpower, but maybe it would’ve taken a lot of my hope away. Hope and will are connected…” he smiled at Zee. “One day I’m gonna sit you down and teach you the Lantern spectrum. I’ll even use colorful visuals so you don’t get bored.”

He hemmed and hawed at her assurance that he didn’t need to be the best at Green Lanterning. It wasn’t something Kyle ever considered. He couldn’t imagine not trying to excel at the job; and he knew this was tied into what happened to Alex. Giving himself some slack meant he was dishonoring the life she lost for him. He still couldn’t shake that feeling, and he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to.

"Awwww, but I like punching stuff," he said a little petulantly, smiling more. "It’s so fun and I’m so good at it." He pawed more at the window, imagining his fingers twining with Zee’s. As she talked, he looked down at his shoes, scuffing at the floor.

"Yeah. I was being cautious, Zee. Maybe a little too cautious, I’d just…I’d been used to being careful around you. There was so much that could’ve gone wrong between us, y’know? So many times it almost did, heh." His smile turned introspective and rueful. "A lot of those times were my fault, too. Sometimes? I dunno how we even got to this point, never mind thinking about…beyond. But.”

Zee’s soft skin pressed against the pane; and Kyle forgot to breathe for a moment. He reached over to his nearby table, nabbing one of his sharpies. Before she could move, he was drawing on the plastic window quickly, sharp swift lines that traced Zee’s profile as she stood there now. Lines that were familiar under his hand now.

"I love you too, Zee. So let’s…Let’s start making plans. For tomorrow. And next month. And next year. And five years from now." He took a step back and squinted, his ink lines on the pane blending against her living features on the other side. Kyle grinned. "And infinity and beyond."

"I’d like that a lot actually. Then maybe I’d be able to make a little sense of your outer space adventures. Maybe I’ll try and dig up some books to help explain me a little bit too- although maybe a little mystery is worth keeping around." she smirked slowly with a quiet laugh.

"Clearly you’ve got a good punch." she winked on her bruised side. A dark joke sure, but at least she could make fun of herself, "We like to play a little rough."

She draws back, tracing her fingers against the outline he’d created of her profile, “It’s okay that you were cautious. I think we both were for a while…clearly” she held up her hand, shaking out her empty ring finger, “There was a lot that could go wrong, but it didn’t, Kyle. We’re still here.”

She smiled wide, fully now. The green and yellow bruise fading back into her skin. “I want to make all my plans with you, Kyle. Spill all my secrets, and try and figure so much out with you.” she presses both her hands against the pane, “That’s all I want.” leaning in she pressed a firm kiss against the glass. “I love you.”
"I love you too," Kyle said with a certain amount of relief in his voice. He took a step back from the window - from Zee and the sketch of her on the glass, and the mark of her red lips in a perfect cupid’s bow.

He took a deep breath and continued. “And I need you to do me a favor, Zee. I’d like you to use a spell. That spell you used for—” Kyle cut his words off, tried again after another deep breath.

"Take my memories of him away, Zee. Wipe my mind clear of all the memories I made with Damian Khalid Wayne."