Chapter Text
January 2005
Something About You - Boston
When I was younger, I thought I could stand on my own
It wasn't easy, I stood like a man made of stone
People always said the universe would give them a sign when it was time for things to change; Hal didn't expect that he'd be given a literal sign.
Oakton Park Community Church Hosts Alcoholics Anonymous
7PM - All Are Welcome
It had lured him in as he'd flown overhead. Actual message impossible to see but he'd been low enough to the ground for the white light to call out to him. There in the snowy night, it was a beacon that his gut told him to follow. He always trusted his gut and he was never wrong. Unfortunately for him, the instinct he felt that got him here had nothing to do with heroism or aliens or the color green.
It had everything to do with how human he was, how flawed and fragile. Which was why another incredibly human emotion took center stage: Denial.
Now, standing at the bottom of a staircase looking at the rec room down a long hallway, he wasn’t so sure he should be here. He could hear the other attendees, faintly, hidden away with the nativity set now that the holidays were over.
And he couldn't bring himself to take another step.
He wished it was fear that stopped him and cursed that he was as famous as he was in overcoming fear in the face of danger. Actually, considering that fact, he figured that it wouldn’t be quite so anonymous as the sign had proclaimed if he walked in. His ugly mug had been plastered on every television screen and tabloid for the past decade. You had to be living under a rock not to know who Hal Jordan was.
Maybe he could just walk in, take a seat in the back, and keep the attention off of himself. Listen, rather than speak. Just making it into the room was the first step in admitting he had a problem and that he'd had it for a while. Probably--definitely--before he'd even become a Green Lantern.
Now, it was too hard to avoid.
Thanks to Sinestro.
“Damn it!” He ran a shaky hand through his hair and took a step back, shoes squeaking against the linoleum. “This was a mistake.”
Then the world went ass over teakettle as he ran smack into a body that was racing down the steps. Limbs tangled, the contents of hands and pockets clattered to the ground, and you landed atop him with a combined oof.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” came your muffled voice from atop him. “Shit, sorry!”
"It's ok," Hal groaned. He reached a hand up to make sure the moisture he felt on the back of his head was just meltwater and not any blood. Clean. Well, grey and murky, but that was sure better than red. "No harm, no foul."
You pushed yourself somewhat upright and his eyes locked with yours, thin, tortoiseshell-frame glasses askew on your face and his fingers twitched at the sudden and intense urge to fix them for you.
The thing was, Hal wasn't really one for believing in fate. As soon as that green bubble snatched him up, he learned that the universe was what it said it was. Full of big rocks moving around and smashing into things by chance, sometimes leaving destruction in their wake. It was full of wonderful moments and painful ones. Countless innocent souls, and some not-so-innocent. If fate was real, there wouldn't need to be a Green Lantern Corps to interfere with it.
However, if his sign to land here had been anything other than a literal sign, he wouldn't have taken the fact that he fell for you while actually falling as anything other than some act of fate.
You, coincidentally, seemed to have a similar idea in mind.
"You know, I wasn't entirely convinced I should be going to this meeting," you laughed and pushed yourself to your feet. You held your hand out to help him up as well. "Running into you gave me the sign I needed not to."
"By that logic, I should be turning tail and running right in there, then," Hal quipped back with a dry chuckle. "I wasn't sure if I should stay."
It was a cliche little moment then, as he moved left and you moved right, a dance as you tried to get around each other to stay and leave respectively. The two of you laughed awkwardly, your hand going up to fiddle with your glasses, and his to rub at his neck.
"So...uh," Hal cleared his throat awkwardly. "Since this isn't working out so well for either of us, you wanna get a drink?"
"God, yes."
"Alright," you deposited quarter after quarter into the jukebox. "We're each going to choose a song that's catchy enough, and for the duration of that song, we're gonna talk about what brought us to that meeting."
"Sweetheart, I think I need more than one beer if I'm gonna do that," Hal joked. His chin rested on your shoulder, arm around your waist. "Hell, I'm gonna need more than one song too."
"Well I don't have any more quarters, Lantern Man."
If Hal thought he'd fallen for you before, he was in deeper now. It was cliche to say that you were unlike anyone he'd ever met before, because you were just like everyone else. As human as they come, full of flaws and sarcasm, a little bit jaded but still hopeful enough. Just like him.
The walk from the church to the bar was a pretty cordial one. Neither of you were actually from this town, but where Hal was just passing by, you were there for work.
"I'm a private investigator," you explained. "From Central City. But people hire me to get information, so I hit the road a lot. Pretty fast-paced because no one likes to pay the per-diem for very long. So I follow people around, take pictures, compile records, get information. Evidence.”
"Hope you're not following me," Hal teased in return, shooting you a very charming grin. "Or maybe I hope you are...wouldn't be so bad."
Eventually you reached "Phil's Place" which looked like a backwater dive bar if he'd ever seen one. He knew places like these like the back of his hand; home sweet home.
"Considering where we both just found ourselves, and despite my previous enthusiastic answer about a drink, I normally wouldn't have picked this place. But the local cafe is only open 'til 3pm and despite you being a superhero, I don't just invite guys back to my motel room if I don't get to know them a little bit first."
"Do you normally scope out prospective bedmates at AA meetings?"
"You gotta buy me the drink you promised if you wanna get an answer to that one, Jordan," you winked and then walked in.
For a little while, it felt like a normal night out. The light din of chatter around the bar, conversation with a pretty woman that made him smile a little too much, and a cold beer in his hand.
A cold beer. Singular. That was all either of you limited yourselves to, and if the bar wasn't so dead, the bartender would surely be annoyed by that fact. Of course, you had also ordered a Roy Rogers which had been drunk and refilled twice over by now. But the Busch Lights that you'd clinked together as soon as they were in your hands lingered. It was almost like a test of wills, as you mirrored each other with your hesitant consumption. Hal would take a sip, and you would follow, then vice versa. There was a heaviness that outweighed the glass of the bottles any time either of you picked up your drinks, belied by the lightheartedness of your flirting and conversation.
He thought he'd avoided having to acknowledge it until you started fishing quarters from your pockets and suggested spilling your deep dark secrets.
Jukebox Confessions, you called them.
"The whole point," you explained as you flipped through the selection of songs, "is to keep it short and sweet. Jukeboxes never have songs anyone's dying to listen to, but it's usually enough to get people around to listen to the song and not really eavesdrop on you. Get it off your chest, and after the song ends, we move on."
"And how many times have you done this before?" Hal asked.
"First time," you replied confidently, then pressed the buttons for your selection. He agreed to give it a shot, and then made his own selection.
The song you'd chosen: Movin' Out. Billy Joel.
As you returned to your spots at the bar, Hal realized that you were right. The few patrons by the pool table began to nod their heads along as Anthony worked at the grocery store, saving his pennies for someday.
You took a swig of your beer, for courage, and then started.
"Shouldn't be a shock to anyone but I've got issues. Don't we all?" You shot Hal a cheeky little smile. "I was never really in AA, as in I don't have any coins or chips or do any steps. But I sit in those meetings and sometimes I speak but mostly I listen, and most of the time I know I'm in the right place doing the right thing. Cheaper than therapy. The three-hundred-a-day-plus-expenses I charge my clients shockingly doesn't cover the kind of health insurance I would need for everything that needs to be fixed."
Your smile faded then.
"This job I'm on has been a hard one, though.” You confessed. "Sometimes it feels like I got this job by accident. P.I’s are usually cops and I went to art school, but I've always been good at finding things. Finding people. You know what they say. Find what you're good at and let it kill you."
"I don't think that's the quote."
"Close enough. So I'm doing my digging and am inadvertently also digging up memories I thought I'd buried. I don't...I don't know these people I’m paid to follow, and I'm very good at compartmentalizing. Not this time. Suddenly I'm right back to a place where I need to be numb to make it to the end of the day, and...and I'd passed by that church enough times this week to know that the meeting should have been the right thing to do. Go there and listen and make the right choices. But as soon as I ran into you, I dunno. Suddenly I knew being there wasn’t gonna help me the way a Busch Light would.”
The jukebox was still going, Billy Joel still crooning.
“How long has it been?” Hal asked.
“Since I’ve been going to meetings or since I stopped drinking?” You responded.
"Both. Either.”
“Long enough where I know I can stop at one. Long enough that I can have a beer with a friend and it not be an issue.”
“Am I a friend?”
“I mean. I’m contemplating sleeping with you, so your graduation to friend isn’t far off.”
He snorted a bit of unexpected laughter and lifted his bottle to clink it with yours. You tossed your head back to laugh and then simply grinned at him just as the song came to a stop.
“One and done,” you announced. “Wasn’t so bad. I might be onto something with this Jukebox Confession thing.”
“You use humor and sexual innuendos to avoid your trauma a lot?”
“Are you buying it?”
“Sure am, sweetheart. I sure am.”
“Your turn, big boy.” You offered. “Let’s hear why Mr. Handsome Homegrown Hero has such sad eyes.”
It was Hal’s turn to throw his head back in a deep laugh. But it didn’t last very long as his song started playing.
Something About You. Boston. It was probably his least favorite song on the album but that was the point, you’d said. It didn’t have to be a song you’d want to stop and actually listen to.
He’d kind of chosen it because of you though, to be honest. Because there just was something about you...
He took a deep breath, took a swig, and then started with his own tale.
"Well, you already know how my story starts." He lifted up his hand and let the green ring glint in the low light of the bar. "Protector of the planet. The galaxy. Sector 2814. It comes with enough problems, and what you said about being numb to make it til the end of the day...yeah that's about where I'm at. I mean, I've been doing the job for long enough. Almost twenty years. Shit.”
He picked at the label on the bottle and contemplated his words for a second.
"Well, no, that's a bit misleading. I think I was already at that point before getting the big green gig. Looking for a purpose, wondering what the hell the point of it all was."
"'The point of it all,' as in..." Your brow lifted in question.
"Life." Hal clarified matter-of-factly.
"Well, when you find it, let me know." You teased, trying to keep it light but not dismissive.
"See and that's what I thought I found when I got the ring. We're all looking for some greater purpose. To help people, to protect them. But a job is a job is a job. Only this one has real consequences. How many times have I had to decide who lives and who dies because I wouldn't be strong enough or fast enough?"
If he closed his eyes, he could still hear the screams of those he failed to save. And what had he felt? No fear, that was for certain, especially faced against his former mentor, as he tried to leverage widespread terror in the name of progress. Peace only achieved after destruction.
How many died because Hal tried to reason with Sinestro, instead of outright stopping him?
"The trolley problem was only supposed to be theoretical," he grumbled. He grabbed his beer to take a sip, then slammed it on the bar top as he realized the bottle was empty.
"Do you think things will ever change?" Hal asked bitterly after a beat. "Do you think I'll find peace in that purpose again?"
"I think..." You paused and took a breath. It was only as you reached across and rested your hand over his that he realized how badly he was shaking. He turned his hand in yours and squeezed, relishing in the way your thumb rubbed back and forth.
Comfort wasn't something he had the opportunity to seek out often; damn aliens that he called his colleagues didn't offer it much, and the people here on earth were rarely able to see past their hero-worship to even think he needed it.
Until now.
The jukebox continued churning out notes until the end of the song. "I hope...you'll find peace in a new purpose, Hal. Just like you did before."
Another patron approached the jukebox and deposited a few more quarters and that was the last you and Hal spoke about the topic at hand.
But there was something about you, brought a change over me
Got this feeling inside, got to have you, have you