See the first chapter for notes, etc.

3C

Two

Hal woke up in stages. Reaching out, he encountered the faint buzz that signaled his ring was still on his finger and then allowed himself to focus on his surroundings. What he heard, what he felt.

It was a comfortable bed, a quiet room, the steady sound of a single person's footfalls the only noticeable noise. He opened his eyes a sliver, watching Lex pace, studying and cataloging him the way he would any enemy. When it didn't seem like he was going to be allowed a moment alone any time soon, he opened his eyes completely, shifting on the bed as though he was just waking.

"You couldn't get it off." Hal's voice was bland as he sat up, noticing his uniform still firmly in place.

Lex turned to face him, giving a startled expression Hal immediately decided was fake. "No. It wouldn't even let me take off the finger."

Hal grimaced, glad Lex didn't try for the whole arm. He had seen that succeed with other Lanterns.

"Satisfied now? Can I go?"

"Go? Go where? Back to your petty little heroing with your new friends? Back to the pathetic little life you gave yourself so you could pretend to still be one of us?"

"I am still human, Lex. I bet your signs showed you that."

"Hmm, yes, still within the realm of possibilities for a human, but not a very natural one." Lex moved suddenly, crawling onto the bed. "Have they found a universal form of conditioning?"

If Lex didn't want to let him out, Hal was going to have to fight to escape. And he didn't feel like fighting, yet, not against whatever Lex Luthor had up his sleeves. Instead he fell back to the bed, the back of his head hitting the pillow with a soft sound.

"It's not all that different from what we do to our own military personnel."

Lex nodded at that, taking a cellphone out that Hal hadn't noticed before and typing something. "Then human methods for breaking it may work as well."

"What? Whoa, Lex-"

"We already have one alien flying above us, manipulating us into a false sense of security. I refuse to allow iyou/i to be the other one."

"Because we used to fuck sometimes? Lex, this is ridiculous."

Something slid across Lex's face, cold and dark, dangerous. Hal realized he was suddenly seeing what Clark spoke of, when he told his tales of fighting Lex. Then, just like that, it was gone. "Ah, lessening your attachments to your homeworld, very sly of them."

"Lex-"

"Not to worry, we'll find a way to fix that, too." His hands planted on Hal's cheeks, he loomed over him, smirking. "You'll be the old Hal soon enough, good as new."

Hal wondered if Clark would hear it if he screamed.

When Hal had realized he was seeing Lex too often not to call it a relationship, he'd gone on a bender. Tom had to drag him out of the last bar, where he'd gotten into a fight with five marines after seeing one grope a waitress. He'd, of course, been losing horribly, but was too drunk to notice.

In the morning, patched up by Tom's expert hand's and Carol's favorite hangover remedy, he'd left Lex a voicemail. If they'd actually been dating, he'd have felt bad.

Lex showed up by the end of the day, leaning against Hal's beat up car at the edge of the parking lot, looking for all the world like someone's annoying kid brother.

"Didn't you get my message?"

Hal wasn't so cowardly as to hastily reach over and lock the door to keep Lex out, so he ended up driving towards his favorite diner with Lex Luthor in his passenger seat.

"What is it, exactly, that isn't working out for you?" The tone was nothing but intellectual curiosity, as if Lex had no personal stake in what was happening.

Eyes fixed to the road, Hal had answered, stiltingly, "You realize I'm still in the Air Force, right? I'm on loan to Ferris as part of their contract."

"Yes, and...?"

"DADT?"

"Ah. Of course. It's not the sex that's suddenly become unpalatable, it's your sense of commitment to the prejudices of your masters." Hal's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "But that could have been a concern weeks, nay months ago. Why now?" Lex lazily rolled down his window, leaning his head partway out, his hair flitting wildly in the wind. "Commitment. You couldn't handle it with dear Ms. Ferris, not after what marriage and promises had done to your mother."

"Shut the fuck up, Lex." He hadn't told Lex about any of that, assumed it was in his file somewhere, or maybe Lex had hired someone to dig it up. Privacy didn't exist around Lex Luthor.

"Do calm down, Harold. I'm not looking for wedding bells and picket fences."

A hand settled heavily on Hal's thigh, and worry and intrigue unseated his anger. "It doesn't matter, if word about this gets out to the wrong people, I'm done. My career is over."

Lex snorted. "You'd get discharged and I'd have you flying the exact same planes for me the next day."

"Until this whatever-it-is between us starts to bore you."

"Hm, point." The fingers slid up, caressing Hal's inner thigh as Lex paused. "Then, consider this: I recently inherited the entire family fortune from dear old dead dad. I am rich, and powerful, and no where a very many skeletons are hidden. And to cross you over us would be to cross me."

Hal had other reasons why they needed to break up, but as Lex rambled on with unceasing logic about why they could keep it up, he'd known there would be equally good counters for anything else. He'd taken Lex back to his place, instead of the diner, and they'd had sex in Hal's bed for the first time. There was something hollow about it, that settled in the pit of Hal's chest, but over time that became easy enough to ignore.

Hal hadn't left Lex's home in six days.

There were no emergencies, Lex was fond of telling him, and no reason for Green Lantern. And without Green Lantern, who was he? Lex had picked apart his newly formed civilian identity, mocking the hasty background Hal had created, and burning with humiliation Hal had agreed it was largely useless. He barely even lived that life.

He kept his shields up constantly now. He thought that was what Lex wanted-it was a slow drain on his power, not the same as a fight might be, but without his battery eventually Hal's ring would be too weak to keep its grip on him. At least, that's what Hal thought Lex believed.

Hal spent most of those days lounging in the bed. Lex's bed. The bed they shared. A house with dozens of rooms, with beds and couches and even very comfortable chairs, but Lex has settled Hal into his bedroom and Hal had found no good way to deny him. It had been almost a decade since he'd known another human's touch and Lex remembered every spot that made Hal's body sing for him.

A part of Hal wondered if Lex was trying to break him. Another part acknowledged that with enough time, he'd succeed.