Title: Reality.
Summary: What is reality? Reality is when you're confronted with the truth, it freaks you out and your friend tries to help and ends up being much more. Reality is both wonderful and strange. Slash one-shot with ties to JLU's "Hunter's Moon".
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or make money from writing this. Do not sue me as you will get nothing in the settlement.
Warnings: Slash, theories on the aftermath of Gordanian occupation on Thanagar, etc.
Dedication: To Rose Midnight Moonlight Black for an idea and a comment and for asking questions, which, all and all, lead to the making of things that one usually would not bother with. Cheers.
Considering what his mother had often called the Gordanians and had more often than not recalled of them when he was growing up—vile, vicious magic engorged lizards that took, tortured and killed Thanagarians for sport, to steal Thanagar for their own, only wanting and taking and never giving anything but destruction in return—Rex should probably be a little perturbed by this Thanagar he had never thought he would see it as. The only problem is that he's not perturbed so much as totally and numbly freaked out by it.
And the Bat Brat isn't helping one little bit.
"So…I guess this a bad time to wonder why exactly the war went on for so long?"
Rex growls under his breath at just how full of life and young the man behind him sounds as the fly peacefully—though still fully alert, they're not stupid rookies (or at least Rex isn't) and know better—through the winding airspace and buildings of the rebuilt Thanagar. A place Rex had dreamed about in shambles, with him and possibly the League coming there to save it someday from its occupation. Only, it's not in shambles.
Everything is fine. And even better still, it is thriving.
They had been to one of the government buildings earlier that day on League business—Kai had run out of energy in his ring and landed on the planet, not really aware of exactly where he was landing and had been there three days while waiting for Warhawk and Batman to arrive with the Lantern battery that he had left in his room in the Watchtower; some government officials offering him a room in the Embassy since he was a Green Lantern and it was protocol for such visitors—and had spoken to one of the high ranking Gordanian ambassadors as well as an also high ranking Thanagarian ambassador. Warhawk hadn't said a word, letting the reality of it all sink in, with Batman doing the talking and being made aware that fighting among the Gordanians and Thanagarians had been finished since about ten years after the Gordanians occupied and made peace after the Thanagarian resistance were made aware of certain things. Not bad things, but certain historical differences that needed to be investigated.
Kai had gone back to his room at the Embassy and was making preparations to get them all a room at one of the nearby hostels or hotels or—and Batman kept joking about this for some stupid reason—brothels (since you didn't technically need to use their "services" to get a room).
Rex's mother was now seen as, perhaps not a hero, but a sort of foundation to the new peace on Thanagar; Earth was seen as off limits to any attacks from either race and—most astounding—one of the former resistance leaders that had been sent to kill Shayera wanted Warhawk to give her a message that Paran Dul (a rather pretty woman despite her age) and Kragger (a former lieutenant that no longer had his wings, had a bit of a problem with the muscles in the left side of his face and looked pretty healthy considering he could no longer fly) sent their most desperate apologies for Shayera and the two humans that were with her when they attacked.
"To think," Batman continued, both of them rising on a current of wind so they didn't accidentally crash into a pair of winged girls speaking quietly between themselves and glancing back at them like they were such a strange sight, "The entire war started because of some misunderstanding. How precious is it going to be when you tell your mom, I ask you?"
"Must you be so loud?"
"We're outside," Batman responded, doing a loop-de-loop around Rex and then flew backwards so that he was facing him, their stomachs a mere three feet from touching, "I can be as loud as I want. Why aren't you more…something? I'd have thought you'd be happy that you and your parents could visit here now that nobody will be likely to shoot Shayera or cut off her head and put in up on some trophy wall."
Though the image sends a violent shiver up and down his spine, Rex doesn't reply.
Terry isn't really sure if he likes it when Rex is this quiet. It either means that later he's going to do something really stupid—like go to that god awful bar his parents frequented and start a fight—or that this revelation of peace between the Thanagarians and Gordanians has left him quite out of his senses. Like a deer that no longer has to fear wolves because the wolves are no longer interested. It is a welcome change, but that doesn't mean it doesn't feel confusing or, somehow and someway, wrong.
By the time that Kai calls them and tells them that he has secured some rooms—and they are indeed in a brothel after all—Batman still can't get Warhawk to reply and they have passed over a small labyrinth of tall and square polished stones—tall and proud, like black figures of Stonehenge—with millions of names lining them. A recognition to walls for the dead.
The place is much more grand than Terry had thought it would be on entry, but damned if he wasn't a little thrilled that it turned out so well. The rooms they were to reside were on the same floor as the rooms with the actual…escorts…with Kai in his own room across from Terry's and Rex. That was all they could afford and, though Rex didn't say anything about it like Terry thought he would, the Dark Knight himself was a little perturbed to have to sleep in the same bed.
Aside from that little detail, Terry was quite ready to settle down for the night in the dead comfortable bed—all done up sort of like an Arabian ruler's around the turn of the century, all fluffy red pillows that could hold a whole man; and red and blue silky smooth sheets and scarves that Terry suspected were used as a theme for the establishment, pegs nailed into the wall the bed pressed against presented as evidence enough for that—and even managed to lay down comfortably upon for a good five seconds. Right before that obnoxious voice in the back of his head (the same one that convinced him to break up with Dana a month after graduation so that she could be happier, the little bastard) told him to say something to get Rex out of this meaningless funk.
"So…what do you think of all this?" He asked, totally standoffish and just the way he was, raising one hand to motion to the beauty and surreal and the peace.
Rex didn't turn from his place beside the window—still looking out into the endless and hopeful sky with its thousands of flying free Thanagarians that were happy in its depth and weightlessness. Their wings, which he was without—how dreadful was that, now that he thought of his mother and ancestry?—fluttered on every breeze and current and he removed him helmet, setting it on window's ledge. The air almost stung his face.
"I think…is it strange that I think that this is weird? For them to be on good terms and not, you know, gutting each other like cats in a cage?"
"Not at all," Terry spoke, assuring and voice quiet like Rex wished it had been for so long. And this was weird to him as well, but in a good way.
"I'm not against it, really," Rex continued, finally turning from the sky and the sites to sit on the edge of the—so damn comfortable, like a lotion cleansed dove, soft soft soft—bed, his rear getting a little nudge from the Dark Knight's foot that made him feel less agitated and out of himself and his out of awareness, "It's just that mom always said that Thanagar was the epitome of militia and rank and discipline and…unhappiness. Everyone here—even the Gordanian lizards that mom used to fight for the freedom from tyranny that as it turns out never really existed—is happy. It's like the twilight zone."
"Twilight what what?"
The 'what' on repeat almost caused Rex to turn and hit the Bat across the face but any such move that would have happened was swiftly interrupted by the door opening up.
Both Earth heroes looked to find a rather tall Thanagarian in their doorway. He didn't wear the prim and proper armor of a ranking officer in the army—if such a concept still existed here—but rather, an ensemble rather like Carter Hall had worn and with fewer details, helmet without the flare of feather carvings, but smooth and rounded out, revealing a semi handsome lower facial line. The man looked like he was expected, but blinked owlishly—as far as either hero could tell with his helmet—at the sight of Batman.
"Oh, I'm sorry," he directed at Rex, accent thick and language staining the air like the crack of a whip or the tar of cigarettes, "I didn't know this room was already in occupancy. Could I come back later?"
Rex strained for a long sentence, but only managed to sift and cough up one of the few Thanagarian words his mother taught him, not gaining much measure as he couldn't bring his wings up to pose the inflection of curiosity, "Later?"
The other man nodded and both Rex and Terry noted with distaste how the older male looked Rex up and down like… "Yes. I've never seen you here before and I'm rather curious to try something new after the same old things for so long. You look like you're from off planet."
A notch in the back of the cogs of Rex's mind clicked into place with all the simplicity of an exploding atomic bomb. His face turned red for the universe to see, amusing the Thanagarian, but sending Batman into a sitting up position, hand finding Warhawk's shoulder.
Terry leaned in toward Rex's ear and, rubbing his nose against the darker man's ear, whispered like a spy, "What did he just say?"
The shoulder touch was a welcome gesture, as was the whisper, but the nuzzling caused Warhawk to be a bit slower on the uptake than he would have had he been in a more dignified position, "I…he…he thinks I'm a whore."
Batman moved his head almost unnoticed by the other League member and looked over the Thanagarian, still standing there, but eyeing the black clad human with the air of a rabbit before a baboon. The other didn't know whether Terry was friendly or likely to strike out and that made this a little better to play in their favor.
And to pull the world into an even more topsy-turvy direction than it already was, Terry snorted and brought both arms around Warhawk's neck, nose snuffling into the shell of Rex's ear and causing the other Thanagarian to widen his eyes and take a step away from the door.
"What are you…?" Rex started, but stopped immediately when Terry's mouth found his ear again and he whispered, ever silently.
"Tell him I'm your boyfriend or husband. It will keep him and anyone else we don't want near us to stay well away until we leave tomorrow back for Earth."
Terry's explanation came fully with one hand kneading Rex's hair and the other rubbing circles along the lines that made up his chest. Rex might have liked it even—and did in a really freaky way that could go in the bin with the rest of his day—if he wasn't busy thinking about which phrase he could remember.
His memory didn't process and the only phrase he could remember (he would later recall as something that changed his life for even knowing at all) came out in explanation to the other man in the door, joining in on Terry's act—to make it convincing—by bringing one arm up to trace the lines of the Batsuit.
"I'm sorry. I'm from off planet and this is my boyfriend. Please leave."
Very freaked out already, the other man simply nodded and shut the door on his hasty retreat; a couple of the glasses left by the staff for the room's occupants making a quiet tinkling noise with the reverberations the door echoed with.
Once the man left, Terry made to disengage, but was held back by Rex's arm having a deadlocked grip on his wrist.
Without permission, Rex removed the other League member's mask, Terry's wide blue eyes greeting him, perhaps not in total understanding, but pretty damn close to it. He had that half smile he carried around like another limb—the one that Rex was certain Bruce never had—with a head tilt added to it.
Rex took it as a good sign that he didn't pull away just yet.
"I'm…bored?"
Terry chuckled deeply at such a thing that came out of Rex like a question when Terry knew he was trying to assert himself, in his ways.
"Well," Terry looked around, eyeing the bed and then lying back where he had been. Not completely splayed out before, as Rex took up some of the bed as well, but pretty darn close, with his arms going behind his head, one leg bending to fit his foot under his other leg's back of the knee and the ankle of his other foot touching Rex's thigh just enough to make the older man shiver, "Is it alright if I just lie here? I'm tired and comfortable now."
"Why not?" Rex muttered, getting up and locking the door, checking twice and speaking again, but with his usual snideness put away in favor of jest, "I can do all the work anyway, right?"
"Of course," Terry grinned, all knowing and all powerful and, for once, Rex didn't hate that about him.