Archive of Our Own ^beta

The moment the words had left his lips, it was with a sort of instant regret. He could feel the mistake before he had even made it.

Quitting the Corps. He had been so sure that he’d wanted it until he found his feet back on Earth, firmly stuck there. And...and for what? Carol was the love of his life of course, or he thought that she might be. That it might make her happy, he could see the smile on her face already when he’d tell her that it was done, but what made him think that it’d make him happy?

What could ever make him happy? Because being a Green Lantern only got him so far and not being one already made him feel so much worse. Still, he resigned himself to this new life, it wasn’t so bad. He was right about it making Carol happy, he had all the time in the world for all the dates she wanted to go on.

They were at home one night, cuddling on the couch and watching tv together, and she could feel her sighing contentedly into his chest.

“I love this,” she breathed out, “having you home with me, not having to worry about some alien threat that would take you away for months at a time. It’s nice to be able to...y’know, keep an eye on you.”

It was said in a joking sort of way, a twitch at the corner of her lips. But he couldn’t help but frown as he hummed in false agreement, eyes kept firmly on the television.

They had just come back in from celebrating his birthday, she had brought him to dinner and they drank sparkling wine and ate foods that he wasn’t used to eating, French things that he couldn’t even begin to pronounce. And then Carol was warm at his side, insistent and ready to go to bed.

It wasn’t his fault that they had John Stewart, the new Green Lantern on the news. And maybe he did look a little too longingly at the ring on his finger, but it had been Carol who had started the argument. And she was the one who brought up how often he put off their wedding plans, it really wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t decide on a date.

None of it was his fault and he was so sick of being blamed for everything in his entire life.

Which, maybe, probably was the wrong thing to say to Carol. To stand-up from the couch and yell it into the open air. He hated seeing her angry at him, it made him get angry as well. Because he had sacrificed every good thing in his life for a shot at a normal life with a woman who still couldn’t stop pointing fingers at everything he did.

Happy fucking birthday to him.

He stormed out and decided to walk instead of driving, legs carrying him towards a bar that was becoming a little too familiar for his tastes. The bartender knew him as well, nodding and pouring him his regular drink.

“I’ll take one too. It’s on me.” A voice said beside him, and Hal didn’t have to turn to recognize who it was.

He had heard that voice crackling through his tv’s speakers, a man he admired to some degree and was incredibly jealous of in every other way. And he was sitting next to him, buying him a drink. It should’ve pissed him off, like John didn’t think he could buy his own drink, but he was too tired to be angry.

“Stewart.” Hal said, voice curt.
“Hal,” John said in response, raising his glass, “happy birthday, man.”

He snorted at that, slamming back his coke and rum in one go, because it certainly wasn’t happy by any stretch of the word. His entire life had spiraled out of control and it was all because he had given up the best thing that had ever happened to him, something that he knew was supposed to be Carol, something that he knew was the ring glittering on John’s finger.

He wanted to order another drink, wanted to yell or fight, all for the express purpose of getting his ass kicked in hope that he’d feel anything but that clawing, horrid despair of the worst mistake he had ever made in his life.

Instead, he slammed his glass down and turned to John with a sharp, dangerous grin on his face. He felt manic, angry, and ready to make even more mistakes.

“Let’s get out of here, John.”

And then he was practically dragging him out of the bar with a hand curled around his wrist. He pressed John up against the bricks of the alley next to the bar hard enough that he could hear the thump of his strong back against the rough surface.

“What about Carol?” John asked, stopping Hal with a hand in the middle of his chest.

He knew that it was an out, even if he could also see John’s eyes raking down his body like he wanted him too. And he knew that he should tell the truth, that he shouldn’t lie to a good man like John Stewart. But he knew that he wasn’t a good man, knew that John looked so good under the bright green neon lights of the bar sign hanging high above their heads.

He shouldn’t do it. But a voice in the back of his head was telling him to take. Take what he wanted for once in his fucking life, and that awful voice in his head was telling him that he wanted John but that he also wanted to hurt Carol like Carol hurt him.

But John was a good man.

“She dumped me.” He said, and kissed John before he could hear any words that he didn’t want to hear.

And John, playing the part of the false rebound, kissed him back, twisting his ring hand up in Hal’s hair. Hal panted at the feeling of the ring against his scalp, already pushing his hips hard against John’s, he was spiraling down to the darkest places inside of his mind, where he was wild and feral in ways that he never thought he was before.

Maybe it was just the intoxicating feeling of John Stewart’s lips against his. He hardly wanted to stop kissing him, but there was something much better he could think of to do with his mouth. He hit the dirty ground in the alley hard enough that he could feel shocks of pain throughout his knees, Hal knew that he’d be feeling it in the morning but the only thing that he cared to feel was John’s hard cock pressing up against his face. He mouthed at him through his pressed slacks, soaking them through, and he got a sick thrill about the fact that John would have to get them professionally cleaned to take the night out of them.

He was only content to mouth at him for so long though, he was hardly content with anything those days that wasn’t more, more, more. He quickly freed John from his pants, pushing them down until every inch of black and flushed skin was revealed to him.

It had been awhile since he had sucked cock, but he opened his mouth and sucked it all in easily enough. It wasn’t something he could’ve forgotten how to do, even if it was a skill he hadn’t exactly been open and honest about showing off. John seemed to appreciate it, groaning and sinking his ring hand back into Hal’s hair, sending him into another frenzy from everything he could ever want.

His brain told him to steal the ring while John was distracted. It was tempting, even though he knew that it would just go back to John, that he wouldn’t be able to use it as long as the guardians told him that he couldn’t. So, instead, he bobbed his head and sucked John off like he was on a time limit.

Of course, they couldn’t exactly take their time in a public alley. John muffled his sounds with his free hand slapped over his mouth. Their eyes met and Hal ran his tongue along the other side, just to see those brown eyes fluttering in pleasure.

“God, Hal. I’m close.” He panted, polite enough to warn Hal.

Hal probably wouldn’t have warned him and he knew as much. He wanted to take and take and take without any warning, he could see himself thrusting down into John’s throat without abandon. But they didn’t have the time for that, so he just tugged his own cock out of his pants and started to jerk off right there in that filthy alley.

John pushed his hips up shallowly, groaning softly as he filled Hal’s mouth up with cum. The few times he had done something like that, Hal had spit it out. But he swallowed every drop, and pulled back to stroke himself off quicker. John’s eyes were full of concern as he watched Hal’s hips stutter up into his hand, spurting cum over the ground and gasping.

His fingers stroked through Hal’s hair and it felt like an apology. So Hal got up off the ground, leaning hard against the bricks and pulling a crushed up pack of cigarettes out, half-forgotten in his pocket. He offered one to John, who declined with a wave of his hand.

John lit his cigarette for him, a green flame from his ring, and Hal felt jealousy spark through him like the disgusting smoke in his lungs. But he fought it down with an exhale, grey smoke pushed past pursed lips and floating up into the night air.

“I’m sorry that Carol broke up with you on your birthday, Hal.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Uh...me too.”
“She was lucky to have you.” John said and it was so honest that it made the guilt roll in his stomach.

He shook his head, flicking ash from the end of his cigarette.

“I really don’t think she was.”

And the darkness in the back of his mind delighted in the chaos that it created.