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It's an old song
It's an old tale from way back when
It's an old song
And that is how it ends.
In the quiet and privacy of his own head, he knows that the Fear Entity wasn’t solely responsible for what he did as Parallax. Partly because he knows that he bears some (all) of the responsibility for his actions, no matter the influences he may have been under, but also because he knows himself. He knows what he’s capable of, and what he isn’t, and he knows that if handed the same quasi-infinite power again, he would be entirely capable of rearranging the universe to his liking. He came close enough the first time. The power wasn’t entirely him, that’s true enough. But the planning, the execution, the careful drawing-together of every strand of possibility – that wasn’t the entity, or grief-riddled insanity, or anything else. That was just him, at his worst and his best simultaneously.
He’d never really thought of himself as a planner, before that. His strength has always been in his reactivity: a mix of pilot training and natural proclivity. If you’re falling out of the sky, you need a plan and you need it fast. He’s always been able to do that. But he had to plan ahead, as Parallax – had to anticipate every possible move that could be made and pre-emptively counter them. And I would have gotten away with it too, he thinks, morbid humour fending off nausea, if not for that pesky kid.
He’s (mostly) glad that he didn’t succeed. He’s gone back, by and large, to his previous MO of trusting his gut and his ability to deal with situations as they arise. But he can still see the ways he would change things, if he could. How he would pick apart the League, or the Corps, or the fabric of reality itself. How he would engineer the perfect universe.
That way lies a familiar madness, but knowing it doesn’t stop the voice that whispers to him when something goes wrong, pointing out every alteration he hasn’t made, and how much better the universe would be if he did.
So sometimes, when he can’t sleep or when he’s stuck in a boring meeting or when there’s a buzzing in his head screaming at him to fix somethinganythingEVERYTHING, he runs the numbers on his life – just his – and pieces together probable futures. Weaves the strands of fate together every which way in his head, looking for the best outcome for his own life, because that’s the only one he has any right to interfere with. He doesn’t always get it right: he no longer sees every strand of reality. Can’t put together a puzzle without all the pieces.
But for smaller things, sections of the cosmic puzzle, he sometimes gets a glimpse of Truth, when he tries for it. Some people are more predictable than others, and some he knows well enough to predict even at their most erratic. A snippet of conversation, or a feeling, something more probable than not that jumps out at him from a course that he considers. A knot in the threads of fate where the build-up might change and the outcome might vary, but that moment will always happen. A fixed point in time. Or something that will be, if he decides to make it so.
Tonight he’s too jittery for sleep. So he lies in bed with his partners – his lovers! – people he adores more than life itself, and he picks up the strands of fate and tries to weave them into a workable future. One that he can aim for, one that would make him and the people he loves happy. And he tells himself maybe he can figure out how to make it work, the four of them together. Maybe he won’t ruin it. Maybe it’ll turn out alright.
That’s how it goes
Don’t ask why.
It’s him that ruins it most often, of course. He’s too much and not enough at the same time, and chronically bad at being in a relationship, let alone a relationship consisting of three separate relationships. It’s a miracle they’ve made it as long as they have, really. Eventually he says something or does something or they just get tired of having to compensate for everything he doesn’t say or do, and they kick him to the curb. Kindly, usually, which makes it hurt more. That seems reasonable to him – or at least to the version of him frowning at the puzzle pieces he’s holding in his mind’s eye as he lies in bed next to people who still love him, in the here and now.
He’s less bothered by that than he is by the myriad futures where he’s the one to break up with them. Where he gets too far into his own head and ruins everything by saying things he could never mean. Where he somehow gathers up the sheer balls to look each of them in the face and say: “Look, I think we all know this is for the best.” As if it ever could be.
“You don’t mean that.” Kyle looks devastated, in every iteration of this conversation. Like somehow he didn’t see it coming (surely everyone saw this coming). “Hal, come on. You don’t mean that. Things are good!”
They are – really good, in fact. That’s part of the problem, in most cases, his self-sabotaging tendencies rearing their ugly heads. And it never seems to change how the conversation goes.
John asks: “Is it Carol?”
He says it isn’t, of course it isn’t. Sometimes that’s true and sometimes it’s not. John never believes him anyway.
“You gonna give us an actual reason, Jordan?”
There isn’t one, and he thinks Guy usually knows it.
“We had a good run, but this isn’t working for me anymore. I’m sorry.”
Guy nods. “So this is just you running away from a good thing like the chickenshit you always have been. Good to know.”
He rolls his eyes, and doesn’t answer. Why bother? They all know Guy’s right.
Kyle’s the only one still trying. “Hal, please just – just talk to us. We can figure it out, whatever’s wrong. We can fix it.”
“There’s nothing to fix, sweetheart. This is for the best.”
“Don’t call me sweetheart when you’re breaking up with me!”
That’s usually the point where the full realisation of what he’s doing hits future-him. The point where he realises he’s giving up a lot of things he really doesn’t want to lose, for reasons that don’t ever seem good enough.
He walks it back, sometimes. Not very often. Too stubborn to quit, even while actively ripping his own heart out. And in all honesty, when comparing the possibilities, he thinks going through with it then and there is probably best. Better to rip the band-aid off quickly, rather than trying to eke out another few months where they all pretend to forget that he had one foot out the door already. A few months of knowing they’re just waiting for him to leave. Of knowing that he can’t stay now anyway, because he’s already ruined it.
And so whether he stays or whether he finds the strength (weakness) to leave the first time, eventually he walks away. Sometimes the three of them make it work, and sometimes they don’t – there’s a future where he’s their best man when they get married on some distant planet which considers triads the natural shape of a relationship. He’s not sure whether that’s meant to be a punishment, or not.
But in most futures he can see, he fades quietly out of their lives and lets them be happy. They deserve to be happy.
Don’t ask how
He could have come so close.
Even when he isn’t the one to break up with them, there seem to be so many other ways he manages to find to wreck everything beyond repair. A single relationship, usually, and then the ruin spreads to the others until all that’s left is to excise him from the group and hope that’s enough to stop the rot.
In that scenario, he usually manages to fuck it up with John first. Guy’s too used to his shortcomings, and Kyle’s too quick to forgive. John expects him to be the best version of himself (a creature he’s not sure ever actually existed), and when Hal inevitably falls short, whether as a Lantern or as a partner, John’s the one who’s most disappointed.
If it’s a Lantern problem, it’s because he disobeyed orders (John’s or Salaak’s or the Guardians’ or someone else’s entirely) for the thousandth time and someone got hurt because of it. Usually him.
And so he lies in the infirmary waiting for enough people to turn their backs so he can make a run for it. Snarks back at Guy when the fucker kicks his over-large boots up on the bed, and tries his best to reassure Kyle.
John’s voice is level as it cuts through the hubbub. There’s only a faint stricken look in his eyes to give any warning of what’s about to happen, and Hal’s usually too busy congratulating himself on yet another completed mission to notice.
“I can’t keep doing this.”
In the case where Hal manages to fuck it all up as a partner before he inevitably fucks it up as a Lantern, they are at least alone when John calls time on them. No Guy and Kyle to mediate, just John sitting him down and telling him it’s over. Because Hal lied, sometimes, about something big or something tiny and he hates that he doesn’t really know which is which. Because they’re arguing too much. Because they’re just not compatible anymore. Any number of different reasons, all of which boil down to Hal just not being good enough.
“I can’t keep doing this.”
They manage to hobble along for a while longer, usually, in the world’s worst three-legged race: Guy and Kyle both pulled between Hal and John, trying to keep everyone happy and occasionally trying to get them back together. Hal, meanwhile, tries to draw back as fast and as neatly as possible from all of them. Severs various ties as quietly as he can. Something’s got to give, they can’t all stay in relationship limbo forever, and he’s used to being on his own. He can take it – John doesn’t deserve to be kicked out of the relationship he wanted so much.
Hal ends up alone again, once he manages to shake Kyle and Guy. It takes longer than it should, both of them trying too hard to fix everything, and in the end it just makes him want to leave more. He can’t keep doing this.
The song was written long ago.
And that is how it goes.
There’s any number of possible futures where they all break up, of course. They’re all too determined, too unbending, too stubborn, for the relationship to work long-term. It hurts for a little while, or a long while, or forever, and eventually one or all of them move on. Sometimes he ends up with Carol, a respectable amount of time afterwards. They get married, have a kid – just the one. Hal carefully avoids looking at his face, heart clenching with what-could-have-beens. That future’s almost gone, slipping through his fingers even as he tries to bring it into focus. Carol’s moving on, maybe. He hopes so. She deserves to be happy.
Instead, the most probable outcome if they all break up in a fairly mundane way, is that he ends up right back where he started. The door to his quarters on Oa glides open, or maybe it’s a ratty apartment door on Earth, creaking on its hinges, or maybe he just turns a corner round a meteorite one day, and Sin’s standing there, looking the same as he always has done. He’s a green lantern again, somehow (how does that keep happening?), and he still moves into Hal’s space like he has a right to it.
He glances around the room, unimpressed as always at Hal’s lack of orderliness. Something in Hal’s chest aches for a moment. A cloying, choking yearning for how simple things were when he was a shithead rookie and Sin was “the greatest Green Lantern”. It passes like it always does, leaving only a quiet sense of grief in its wake.
“It’s been years, Jordan. You still haven’t unpacked?”
He rolls his eyes and doesn’t answer, turning towards the window to do… something. Long fingers grip his elbow and pull him back.
“You can’t ignore me forever.”
“I’m not ignoring you.”
“Good. We’re sector partners, after all. We can’t afford childishness.”
Sector partners. Wow, he must have pissed someone off.
“Get off me.” He shrugs Sinestro’s hand off his arm and steps back. Something closes off in Sin’s face.
“Still angry with me, then?”
Probably. Maybe. He doesn’t know, not without knowing everything that came before this exact moment. As far as present-him is concerned, Sinestro can fuck off and die at the end of the universe at the earliest opportunity. But that doesn’t feel like something this version of future-him would say.
He shrugs again. “I assume I’m not your favourite person in the universe either. We’ve got two rotations as sector partners and then, if you’ve not gone rogue again, we can ask to be reassigned. We just have to not kill each other before then.”
“How dull.” Sin murmurs.
A snort of laughter escapes him before he can stop it. A pleased smile just barely tilts the corner of Sinestro’s mouth. His eyes, when Hal turns to look at him properly, are fixed on his face. Calculating, planning, strategising. Hal wonders what weaknesses he’s inadvertently displayed that will prove to be the cornerstone of Sinestro’s next master plan.
He sighs and rolls his shoulders, mentally calculating when he can next get some time off to go see Guy and Kyle and John – oh that’s nice, they’re still friends – and ditch his new sector partner for a bit.
“Can we get through the month at least before you try to kill me?” He asks. “Salaak makes me fill out paperwork for that these days.”
“I don’t, at present, have any plans to murder you, Jordan.” Sinestro smirks at him. “That may change, of course. You are remarkably irritating.”
“Sure you don’t.”
“Why would I?”
Hal smiles back, purposefully fake. “Well, you’re really good at holding onto a grudge, if not a colour scheme.”
Sin’s smile widens slightly. “You think I’m still angry with you for lying to me.”
“Are you going to try and tell me you aren’t?”
“Don’t be a fool, Jordan. I was furious, at the time. And for a while afterwards, in fact. But it’s been years, and eventually it occurred to me to be proud of you.”
Hal stares at him. “Proud?”
“It was a very clever lie, my Hal.” Sin steps into his space, smiling as Hal flushes. A finger tilts his chin up to look Sinestro in the face. “A clever piece of manipulation that got you everything you wanted. You even tricked me. Why would I not admire it?”
Hal pushes the hand away from his face but refuses to step back – it feels too much like giving in.
“I’m waiting for the point where you say it’s all down to your training.”
Sinestro laughs. “Am I that predictable?”
To me, you are, Hal thinks, and flushes bright red at how telling a thought that would have been to say out loud.
The smile on Sin’s face turns fond, like he heard it anyway. Or like he knows without it needing to be said.
“My foolish Hal. Always fighting against fate.”
Hal’s barely had time to process that enough to decide how to respond before his chin is tilted up again and Sin’s mouth is pressed to his. Nothing special, as kisses go. Closed-mouth, almost chaste, and gentler than Sin usually is. Was. Tender enough that he’s caught off-guard, and it takes him a split second longer than it should to push him away. He knows Sin notices.
He frowns and wipes his mouth. “Don’t do that.”
“No?”
“No. We’re done. We’ve been done for years. Let it go already.”
“You and I are never going to be done, Jordan.” Sin smiles. “Your words, not mine. But I can wait, if you’re still angry.”
“Hoping I’ll decide to lie to you again?” Hal sneers at him.
Sinestro turns to leave. “I’m hoping that at some point you might decide to stop lying to yourself, actually.”
He has to cut the vision short at that point, angry with a future version of Sinestro that will never exist, and even angrier with his potential future self. He doesn’t need to see how it ends, anyway. He already knows.
A version of that conversation happens in a few other possible futures, if he and Sinestro end up on the same side while he’s single. Not many. A negligible number, really. But in all of them – every single one – he and Sinestro end up together again, at least for a time. He gives in, or Sinestro does, or they just fall back together somehow. Hal ends up with bite marks on his shoulders and fingerprint bruises on his hips in the shape of Thaal’s hands and it’s an excruciating display of weakness on his part, and maybe on Sin’s too, but god, at least he’s not alone. At least at the end of everything, he has someone, even if that someone is Sinestro.
He can face that – he knows by now that he’s always going to have an unreasonable soft spot for his most unreasonable ex. But he doesn’t want to know how he ends up wearing a yellow suit instead of a green one. Doesn’t want to know what he loses (or gains) in that transition, can’t even face the shadow of it. So he ignores the futures that are gold-tinted instead of green. They’re almost out of focus anyway (and he’s always been a coward).
It’s a sad song.
It’s a sad tale.
It’s a tragedy.
And all of these futures, of course, rely on him being around to live them. The four of them work an insanely dangerous job and none of them have a particularly strong regard for their own lives or personal safety. Each other’s lives, sure – but their own? Nah.
So there’s a lot of futures where one of them is missing. He doesn’t dare look at the ones where Kyle or Guy or John die, can feel whatever part of him turned into Parallax coiled around his shoulders, whispering to him that he should look, should see, because how can he fix it if he doesn’t know. He knows he shouldn’t. Can’t. Can’t fix it, can’t look, can’t watch and do nothing, can’t can’t can’t. He’ll hate himself, later on, if it turns out there is something he could have – should have – fixed, but that’s nothing new.
The futures where he dies, however, are comparatively banal. He’s died, what, four or five times already, and he was never particularly afraid of death to start with. So those futures bother him much less, and it turns out Guy gives a particularly good eulogy (add that to the pile of things that will get him punched if he says out loud). He dies, and they’re devastated and then they grieve and then they’re happy again. He dies and they move on. He dies and there’s a photo of the four of them on a chair at the front when the remaining three get married.
He dies, and the three of them can’t even look at each other anymore, too much guilt and rage and grief.
He dies, and Guy rips his murderer into bloody pieces and then vanishes into the seedy underbelly of space before he can be arrested. Atrocitus turns up dead and there’s a new leader of the Red Lanterns who doesn’t seem to recognise people he should.
He dies, and John’s grip on the corps tightens as he obsessively tracks down the traitors in their midst. They’re executed by firing squad, and no-one in the corps ever speaks their names again. If you’re looking for it, there’s a faint yellow tint to John’s irises.
He dies, and Kyle turns back the flow of time to undo it, and doesn’t let any of them out of his sight again. It would be more intrusive if he couldn’t see so far: there’s nowhere in the universe to hide from him, even if they wanted to. The light behind his eyes is arctic.
Those futures feel a little unfair. Like he’s projecting a stupid thing that he might do onto them, despite knowing that they would never, because they’re better than he is. But Kyle told him once that they were all very good at causing problems: maybe he’s underestimating them. The possibilities feel true. Not inevitable, but likely, under certain very specific circumstances. The shards he’s playing with hum a little when he plucks the strings of fate spider-webbing them into the tapestry of existence. One of them is icy cold, despite being entirely intangible.
Hal might end up coming back on his own, of course, even if he does die: he’s five for five so far, so odds seem good. He already knows that he could love a murderer, or a tyrant. He turns to look at Kyle, face smushed into Hal’s arm and drooling slightly, and wonders whether it would be easy to love a god. He has a suspicion it would be impossible, and also probably the easiest thing in the world.
So Hal might still end up happy, or at least content, if he comes back to life to be anything at all. But he doesn’t think the others would be, and he wants them to be happy more than he wants anything for himself.
It’s a sad song.
But we sing it anyway.
Sometimes it’s not Hal that leaves first, or even at all. Sometimes Kyle or John (or both of them) leave to be happy with someone else. Never Guy, at least as far as he can see. He doesn’t ever try to stop any of them leaving, but if one of them decides to stay, Guy stays with them. Loyal to the bone, even to Hal. Even if it’s just the two of them. And weirdly, it does seem to end up being just the two of them fairly frequently. There’s so many variables, so many different ways the gradual break-up could happen, so in the end Hal just picks one that looks happier than the others and pulls it apart to inspect it.
Kyle’s left to do White Lantern stuff, in this one, and Katma’s back… somehow? Probably best not to question that. Death isn’t exactly something that sticks, for the caped community, and having Katma back would be worth whatever it cost.
So Hal smiles and kisses John goodbye and ignores the side-eye Guy’s sending him. There’s a weird anticipatory crackle in the air for a few days afterwards, like Guy’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Hal just ignores it and carries on as normal. Guy will start a fight when he’s ready. It never takes too long.
It takes two more days, in fact. John’s been back with Katma for a week when Guy corners Hal in the kitchen while he’s getting a second cup of coffee.
“So, is that it? Are we done?”
Hal raises an eyebrow as he looks at his partner. Maybe he should have started this fight a couple of days ago – Guy’s clearly had too much time to work himself up. His shoulders are sitting almost level with his ears and there’s an angry flush spread over his face already. To the uninitiated, he just looks angry, but Hal’s known him too long to fall for that, and he knows fear too intimately not to know what this is actually about. Guy thinks he’s about to be hurt again.
“Done with what?”
Guy shrugs, (badly) faking nonchalance. “Well, Kyle’s dipped and John’s back with Katma. Figured I’d get ahead of you leaving.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“You always leave.”
“And I always come back.” In this future, at least, that’s not a lie.
Guy huffs angrily, but his shoulders relax ever so slightly. “Look, we don’t gotta… You don’t haveta pretend, you know? I’m an adult, I can handle a break-up.”
“Yeah, you seem to be handling John leaving us real well.” Hal scoffs.
Guy visibly restrains himself from physical violence, somewhat to Hal’s disappointment. They’d both probably feel better for a quick brawl.
“That’s not… Just. If you’re going to leave, can we get it over with?”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Hal, come on.”
“I’m not! Why would I be?”
“Because John and Kyle have fucking left, so what’s the damn point in pretending anymore?!”
“I’m not pretending. I never have been. Not with you. Not with any of you.” Hal answers, voice carefully level. “If this is you looking for an out now that it’s just the two of us, then you’re going to have to put on your big girl panties and actually say that.”
“No! No. Of course I’m not.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Guy shrugs again, glaring at the floor. “John’s not the only one with a better offer on the table.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Carol would take you back. If you asked, she would. So. Maybe you should think about asking.”
“Well first of all, no the fuck she wouldn’t, and I’m gonna tell her you’ve been talking shit. Secondly, I’m not going to think about asking, because why the fuck would I?”
“Because she’s the love of your life, or whatever, and I’m just the schmuck you got conned into a relationship with because you wanted John and Kyle!”
Hal takes a moment to gather his thoughts in the silence that follows. It’s not that he didn’t know Guy tended to assume he came last for most people, he just didn’t know he still thought it was true for Hal.
“I don’t want Carol, idiot. I want you.” He exhales, slowly. “Look, we can have this argument every day for the rest of our lives, if you really want. Maybe throw in a fistfight or two for old time’s sake. I can’t promise I’m never going to leave, any more than you can. Neither of us can even promise we’ll be alive this time next week. But I’m still here, and so are you, and I don’t want to be anywhere else. So stop being an asshole for once in your life and quit yelling at me because John and Kyle left.”
Guy stares at him for a moment, then half-smiles. “That’s your grand romantic confession? Telling me we’ll be dead soon and to stop being an asshole?”
“Did you want poetry?”
“Douchebag.” Guy smiles, properly this time, and steps forward into Hal’s arms. If they both hold each other a little tighter than usual, there’s no-one else there to notice.
Eventually, Guy sighs and relaxes. “I fucking hate that he left.”
“I know.”
“Johnny deserves to be happy. Just… I thought he was happy with us.”
“Yeah.” Hal murmurs. “So did I.”
“Sorry for bein’ an asshole.”
Hal grins and smacks a kiss to the side of his head. “I’m used to that. We didn’t even end up brawling on the floor this time.”
“We still could. Naked, of course.”
“Nah, my back’s not up to that shit anymore.”
“Old man.”
“I heard your knees pop earlier, don’t start.” Hal tilts Guy’s face towards him and kisses him gently. Trying to convey all the reassurance he can. “Come on. We’re going back to bed so you can fuck me somewhere comfortable.”
He spends a little longer on this one, smiling to himself as Guy snores on his shoulder in the present and in this future. Even if he doesn’t get to keep them all, he might still… This would be enough. This would be more than enough.
Cause here’s the thing
To know how the story ends, and still begin to sing again
As if it might turn out this time…
There’s so many ways it could all go wrong that by the time he finds one where it doesn’t, it’s almost an anticlimax. It would be, if it wasn’t for the relief that it exists at all. That there’s a future where it all works out – even if it’s only one in a thousand, that’s better than nothing. There’s a chance he could keep them and they might decide to keep him. A chance he might not fuck everything up beyond repair, might live long enough to get old with them. Just a chance. That’s all he needs, really.
It’s a quieter future than the others. Not actually quiet, of course – there’s quite literally no future that he can see where he chooses to give up being a Green Lantern, and his chosen partners are loud. But quieter. An everyday humdrum existence that he should despise the thought of. A string of date nights which seems to spool out forever, a lifetime of stupid arguments and minor apocalypses and inside jokes and Justice League meetings and Corps briefings and really spectacular sex.
John retires from being Corps leader eventually – says he got tired of the paperwork – and goes back to careering through the stars with the rest of them. Kyle White-Lanterns on-and-off, and occasionally comes home with a random artefact from a long-dead civilisation that he picked up while time-travelling because that’s the kind of shit he gets up to unsupervised. He still blushes when Hal calls him sweetheart. Guy’s the only one of them that actually semi-sort-of retires to reopen his bar. He doesn’t give the ring back. Hal himself is a Green Lantern, of course – nothing more or less. He’s around more than Kyle and less than John, and that seems to be okay by everyone. He goes grey, and the world doesn’t end.
There’s a child here too, to his surprise. He’s got no idea how that happens, and he looks away before he can see any telling details. Not because it hurts, this time, but because if this is his future – his real actual future – then he wants to meet them properly for the first time when he’s supposed to. Anything else feels like cheating, in a way that all his other nosing through timelines hasn’t. And if it doesn’t happen, if this is another thing he loses… Well, it’ll be easier if the grief doesn’t have a face. But watching his future self light up when he sees his daughter (stop looking, Hal) makes it hard to maintain the required cautious degree of pessimism.
They still sleep in the same places, in this halcyon future – Guy snoring into Hal’s ear on one side, Kyle wedged between him and John on the other, and one of John’s arms slung over him so his fingers are brushing Hal’s hip. He smiles a little and brushes some hair out of Kyle’s face, watches his partners sleep, present and future overlaid and entwined. One future in a sea of thousands where it all goes well. And some of the bad ones are absolute nightmares. It’s bad odds. Really bad odds, nothing a half-decent gambler would ever choose to bet on. But he’s done more with less, when he’s made up his mind that he wants something, and he’s stubborn as all fuck. He can make it work. He can.
He will.