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“There seemed a certainty in degradation, a final safety. Man could rise to any height, but there was an animal level beneath which he could not fall. It was a satisfaction on which to rest.” - Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T. E. Lawrence
James Henton.
1918 - 1939
Beloved son.
It’s a simple headstone, no flourishes stretching beyond an inscription already half worn away with age. Eighty-one years. Alan exhales and lays the bouquet on the grave -- green and white, chrysanthemums and roses. He doesn’t know a damn thing about flowers. He doesn’t know what Jimmy might’ve liked either. It’s a matter of reminders, usually.
Today, Alan’s thinking of the green light amongst the wreckage, the strange shadows it had thrown over Jimmy as he’d pointed the way to salvation when death might’ve been sweeter. He sits on the grass, knees drawn to his chest and feels nothing less than ridiculous as he leans against the headstone, a shock of cold to overheated skin through an old polo shirt. It’s a dreadfully sunny day, quickly verging on the hazy territory of too warm, and Gotham’s All Saints Cemetery is deserted. Alan wouldn’t have it any other way.
He likes the safety of the routine. No one can fault Alan for visiting an old friend on that fateful anniversary. Leave some flowers, say a couple of words, take the train home and dwell on the future that never was. Simple, like the grave.
The singular time he’d deviated from this so-called routine was-- well, when Molly had been all caught up in the hospital, very much in labour, and Alan had found himself talking of life sentences to a dead man. Happiest day of anyone’s life, according to those in the know, and Alan hadn’t felt anything but the exhaustion of decades of dread crashing on him. He’d needed to tell Jimmy, about the kids, about the marriage that was yet to quench a thirst for the impossible.
And now, two decades plus a couple years after the fact, Alan’s departing from schedule again. His second visit in a month, once again concerned with the twins.
“Todd knows,” he starts, quiet. The risk has never left him.
Neither has the loneliness.
There’s little else Alan’s thought of since his talk with Todd. Hah. Talk, if he’s being generous. Alan can’t forgive his own cowardice, the words that wouldn’t come out. It’s an old fear, the possibility that Todd would turn out like him, and the reality hasn’t eased his heart. If anything, it’s aggravated it. Now, Alan knows Todd is like him, he knows the challenges and the guilt and the hate and the secrecy that must be inevitable. He’s met Damon Matthews twice on accident, quick glimpses at some event or other he’d been talked into as CEO of the Gotham Broadcasting Company, and he’d certainly seemed nice but Alan can’t--
He can’t imagine the horizon beyond the fear.
Todd’s happy, that’s what he says. Sure, Alan had been happy once, he’d been happy right before the world had gone up in flames and he’d woken up just in time to see the first man he had ever loved bleeding out right in front of him. That’s what happy means for men like them.
Just this once, Alan’s looking out for his boy.
“I miss you,” he says, instead of the inexplicable apology he’s bursting at the seams with. He does miss Jimmy, as much as he misses Doiby and Streak and every trace of the life he might’ve had, as much as it all still aches like an old wound.
He misses Jimmy in other ways, too. That first time -- first kiss, first touch -- refuses to leave Alan’s mind. There have been other men in the meantime, other guilt eating him alive but nothing and no one like Jimmy. Emboldened by the silence, Alan whispers something that’s a shade too close to I love you because he’s never once said it before and feels regret settle heavily in his stomach. Maybe he’d been too harsh on Todd. Maybe--
“Alan?”
If Alan jumps a couple of feet in the air, that’s his own business.
The sight of Jay Garrick, helmet shining in the sun, is nearly incomprehensible. Alan stares, distantly understands that he might be faintly flushed, too aware of what he’s just spoken. Abruptly, it feels like too long ago.
“I thought-- You weren’t answering the JSA alert, I didn’t--” Jay fumbles for a minute too long and then seems to catch himself, puts it all together despite Alan’s best intentions, “What are you doing?” His eyes have gone steely, cold like he’s facing off against this week’s villain and not his oldest friend. Alan would prefer the familiarity of a punch to the betrayal swirling in the air. With nothing better to do, he sits up, glances at the bouquet still laying there harmlessly like it’s done him some personal wrong.
JSA alerts often go unanswered as a matter of course, especially when Alan’s dedication to the whole superhero business tends to come and go. He frowns, though he doesn’t have it in him to stand his ground, he doesn’t think so.
Not here.
Not about this.
“What’s going on?” he asks anyway, though if Jay’s got time to piece together puzzles then there’s a good chance the situation’s well in hand.
“Icicle broke out but-- I guess the others have it all figured out.” Jay hesitates, like he’s debating whether Alan deserves being afforded the quiet dignity of a secret. He does not, as it turns out. “Alan, the grave…”
“Jimmy.” There’s few choices beyond digging himself deeper. “He died in the trainwreck.”
The trainwreck. There’s only ever been one for Alan, Jay must know.
By now, Jay must know a whole lot more than Alan would like and the quiet of the cemetery’s turned foreboding. He’s cold, frozen to the spot, and all at once, vaguely nauseous. There’s the terror a lifetime in the making. At least, there won’t be any discussions of cops and hospitals, not these days. No, it’s perfectly legal to be what Charles McNider would’ve once swiftly diagnosed with the kind of term Alan has often found difficult to reconcile with everything he knows about himself. Charles McNider is long dead. Alan -- against reason -- is not.
“Right.”
Jay’s eyes narrow, nothing short of suspicious. Not quite right, then. He, too, glances at the flowers, no doubt making the same assumptions Alan would. The bars, the clubs, the odd attempt at cruising, even the occasional stolen glance -- Alan had given it all up when he married Molly, he’d tried so hard to keep on the straight and narrow.
And for what?
Here comes the last indulgence standing, ready to drag him down into abysmal depths.
“Who was he to you?” Jay asks, firm, halfway through an interrogation. He doesn’t think Jay’s ever harboured any inclinations towards detective work but, at this exact moment, he may just give Batman a good run for his money.
The answer, Alan knows, is no one.
It’s hard to make a single sound.
Absurdly, he feels the stifling rush of a sob climbing up where it doesn’t belong because grown men don’t break down in tears at the suggestion that-- that they’re-- he’s--
“My friend,” Alan gasps out and it surprises him to recognise his own voice. “He was my friend.” He shouldn’t sound like himself, he thinks, not with the lump of despair stuck in his throat, but he does. Alan Scott, Green Lantern, All-American Hero, callous asshole and incurable coward, repressed degenerate. All of him, right there. The same man who hadn’t breathed a word of this for too many years to count, the same man currently meeting his end head-on, who’d lived undetected through hanging threats of institualization and police raids and riots.
Far from charitable, Jay considers that. “You said--”
“I know what I said.”
There’s a worrying amount of stops and starts here, Alan’s startled that his heart can take it. The Starheart, too. Hard to deny it, harder to sit here and take it.
“All these years,” Jay starts, shaking his head, his usual not-mad-just-disappointed routine that’s always cut deeper than any amount of shouting might, “So, that’s it? You’ve been lying to us this whole time? You’ve lived in my guest room, Alan, you could’ve warned me.”
“Of what?” tumbles out before Alan can help it, bleeding out with something like betrayal.
He knows what Jay means, what every guy means when he finds out he’s gotten too close to a man like Alan, realisations dawning upon realisations of actions that might’ve been misinterpreted. What were your intentions when you shared my home? Do you like me in the wrong way? is what he’s asking, nowhere near as terrified as Alan is. It’s distantly funny. Alan’s not laughing. That damned sob remains past its prime, he could crash to his knees here and beg for forgiveness, insist that he’s changed; like he’s done with Molly before, stilted nights in a bed that rarely saw more than one occupant, sweat soaking through pyjamas at the accusations thrown his way.
But it’s not childhood curiosity and these are not a young man’s mistakes. Alan’s had too much time to change and he’d failed, over and over. There’s no cure for that.
“Don’t play dumb.” If Jay regrets it, he doesn’t show a hint of remorse, growing colder by the minute. Alan can see the flickering fire of their friendship and wonders how soon until it goes out. “You could’ve at least tried for Molly’s sake, Alan. For the kids.”
As if he doesn’t tell himself just that twice hourly.
“What’s that got to do with you?” Alan asks, trembling through the effort to keep from falling apart.
“Me and Joan were there when you weren’t enough of a man to take care of your own family. That’s what it’s got to do with me,” and with all the cards laid on the table, Jay takes a step back, fists clenched. “You don't think that’s what messed up your son?”
In a way, it’s everything he’s ever pictured and it’s only car-crash-fascination -- an ugly desire to see just how much Jay’s willing to push -- that doesn’t let Alan crumble. He’s thought it all before yet somehow it stings worse than expected, this dedication to tearing open an already infected gash. Alan finds himself cruel.
“At least I have a son,” he says.
Jay flinches back and doesn’t mask the shock of grief nor the anger flashing in his eyes.
Having pushed too far, they size each other up, waiting for the next low blow. Alan’s looking forward to hearing how he’s no longer got a place in the JSA, there’s relief in knowing there won’t be much farther to fall and he can rest at the bottom of the pit he’s spent all this time digging.
Yes, relief.
Alan’s cheeks are wet. The tears don’t seem to take Jay by surprise, perhaps having expected them much sooner. Panic tugs at his insides.
“Have you told Ted?” Jay asks and Alan knows he’s thinking of shared hotel rooms across the years and training sessions, perceived dishonesty and immoral wishes. If it were up to Alan, if he could resist his own heart, he would take the truth to the grave, like Jimmy had before him. Instead, he’s nothing but a man. His own weakness often astounds him.
But god, Alan’s tired.
It’s been fifteen years since he’s left Molly and just about the same since he’s forgotten to unpack the boxes still strewn around the penthouse above GBC. He misses home. That’s always meant the tiny apartment on Nodell Blvd. and the bedroom he’d shared with Doiby and the late-night laughs and checkers accompanied by radio dramas turned up high. It was easier then, easier when it was only half an act. Plausible deniability and all that implied. Doiby had never asked and for that, Alan had loved him dearly.
He shakes his head no. He’s barely told Todd, even that had been wrenched out of him, unspoken all the same.
The loneliness known only to sole survivors clings, suffocates.
Jay regards Alan again, searching his eyes for something that’s bound to leave him unsatisfied with the answer. “Fine,” he agrees, rote, “You need to tell the others, Alan.”
With that, he’s off.
A gust of wind marks his departure and little else. What if he doesn’t say a thing? What’s Jay likely to do then?
It's the not knowing that wounds.
Alan takes off his ring and slips it into his pocket, wipes away his tears and fights past the twisted knot in his chest. There’s an odd note in the air, the faint taste of the personal apocalypse HUAC had once brought. If it all falls apart, Alan can’t say he’s strong enough to rebuild, not this time.
For now, the fear’s not going anywhere but neither is he.