Hi! Welcome to the fictions of Onyx.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Justice League. They are owned by a number of people and companies, the number of which will not include me. Onyx, however, is my character, and is not to be stolen, bought, sold, or otherwise infringed upon by any means. If you want to borrow, ask nicely. This demented plotline is also my property.
******************************************************************************
HAWK'S NIGHT, LANTERN'S LIGHT
*'Ow! Get off my wing....'* Shayera's words echoed through her head, pulling her from blissful sleep to painful awareness. Things were so much nicer when one was asleep...
"Ugh. Ever since I got back from War World, he's been invading my dreams." She paused for a moment, looking back and considering. It was almost amusing, remembering the expression on Lantern's face when she'd expressed her dismay at possibly being stuck on the planet with him for all eternity.
*'Just the two of us?' The expression on his face. Pain, regret. 'Oh.' Turn, fly away, fly from him and the emotions he projected... Get away from the possibility that he might express his emotions, trap them both within them...*
"I need a drink."
A few minutes later, she moved down the hallway, weary but alert. Her nightgown swirled around her, indicating air movement from some source. The nightgown itself was relatively short, yellow and made of silk. It was backless to accommodate for her wings, and tied behind her neck with two thin straps. The bottom edge of the gown fell too mid-thigh, revealing an expanse of her smooth legs. At this time of night, she had not expected to meet anyone, so her feet were bare, and she wore no robe. Her mask was still in her room. Without it, she was almost unrecognizable. Certainly, no one would expect her to be Hawkgirl - if, of course, they didn't notice her wings.
The light was on in the kitchen. Unusual, there shouldn't be anyone in there at this time of night... She moved to the kitchen at little more than a tiptoe, feet silent. Someone must have heard her, though, because there was a muffled hiss from the kitchen and the light went out rather suddenly. Alarmed, she reached instinctively for her weapon, only to find she did not have it...
"Hawkgirl? Is that you?"
"Lantern?"
"Yeah. What are you doing up now?"
"Getting a drink. Or trying to. What were you doing in the kitchen?"
"I wasn't in the kitchen. I think you'll find that was J'Onn and possibly Onyx."
"Oh." She glanced back at the door of the kitchen, then sighed and stepped through the doorway, scanning the kitchen with her acute eyes and ears. Nothing, not a single thing.
"Empty," she remarked carelessly over her shoulder. She could just see Lantern's silhouette enter the kitchen door, a quick movement of his hand, and the lights blazed on. Shayera winced.
"Sorry," muttered Lantern, and for the first time Shayera realized what he was wearing.
A pair of black drawstring pants, snug at the waist, straight-legged and looser at the bottom. No shirt. His chest was perfect as she understood the definition, broad and muscular with excellent definition to all the muscles. His abdomen was tight and lean, chest scattered sparsely with curly black hair. He was not wearing his ring.
It took her a moment to realize that as she was studying, she too was being studied. The expanse of sleek skin revealed by the nightgown was much more than her costume had ever shown, and - oh, her helmet!
"I've never seen you without your mask," came the neutral remark.
"The point of wearing one is that you don't see what lies beneath it."
"You should loose the mask more often. You look good without it."
She turned to stare at him, startled, and he had the grace to look away. "Uhm, where did you leave the hard stuff?"
"I didn't have it last. Check behind the false panel in the closet on top, to the right of the sink."
"Got it. What do you want?"
"Screwdriver."
"Me, too. Could you grab the orange juice?"
"Sure. These always were my favorite. Of course," he added, digging in the refrigerator, "when I was still in the Marines, we mixed these things using real screwdrivers."
Hawkgirl chuckled. She'd rarely heard John speak of his time in the military on Earth. In fact, she'd rarely heard him speak at all. Most of what was said between the two of them was accusatory shouts, arguments, and the like. To have a conversation with him was...different, to say the least.
Setting the glasses and two containers on the table, she spared only a brief glance around. J'Onn must have left that potted fern in there earlier.
"You know," she remarked as she began mixing the drinks, "I kind of like getting to talk without the costumes between us."
It took Lantern's cough from behind her to realize just how broadly that statement could be interpreted, and Hawkgirl blushed. "Sorry, that came out wrong."
"Did it?"
She cocked her head to get a different view of him. "You sure you haven't had anything to drink yet this evening?"
"Positive." He accepted the glass from her, took a swig, and coughed. "You mix these things strong."
"Fifty-fifty."
"That explains it. I go seventy-thirty!"
"Can't hold your liquor, Lantern?"
"Not by Thanagarian standards, I can't."
"What's that supposed to mean?" She leaned forward over the table, eyes flashing. He quickly rocked back in his chair and raised his hands - his right still full of the drinking glass - to signal he did not want a fight.
"Thanagar's a tough place. From what I've heard, you learn to drink early and hold liquor no matter what. Is that true?"
Something behind Shayera's coldness collapsed, and brought the ferocity down with it. Her shoulders slumped, and she gazed steadily at the drink in her hand.
"Shayera? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up -"
"No. No, it's all right. Yes, you're right about Thanagar. It's tough, kill or be killed most of the time. You don't learn how to talk, only to fight... drugs, drinking, they're a way out for a lot of people. I had to clean up a lot before I got into the police force as a detective, but even now, I can get carried away..."
"I don't think one drink qualifies as getting carried away, Shayera."
"That's the problem. It's never just one drink. It's always two, three, four, more... I can't help myself most of the time."
John regarded her with sympathy shining in his eyes. He knew what she was going through, knew it perfectly well. He'd been there before.
"My life was hardly perfect, either. I took my first drink when I was nine. Beer, out on the docks. Won my first fistfight at twelve, against a kid twice my size. Broke his nose."
Shayera glanced up, curious. "Why?"
"White kid, real jerk, called me a couple of racist names. My buddy wanted to shoot him. I said no, spare his life, but let him go through life being called Crooked or something like that. So I broke his nose. He bled all over my good jacket, too. Dad whaled me for coming home with blood on my jacket."
Shayera winced, saddened by the pain behind his confessions. She'd been fortunate, she'd had a good relationship with her father. Of course, he was often out of the house for his detective duties. He'd been killed while she was still young.
"I'm sorry, John. I never thought..."
"Hey, it's O.K. I've put most of it behind me. Talking about it does help, though." Ruefully, he glanced at the nearly-empty glass in his hand. "Of course, so does this. Tipping back his head, he drained the glass, coughing only once.
However, he paused, looking through the bottom of the glass, staring at something in the corner.
"What?" Shayera followed his gaze.
"How long has that been there?" With his finger, he indicated the potted fern sitting silently in the corner.
"Oh, I think J'Onn left it there yesterday. He has a green thumb, you know."
"Actually, he has two."
Shayera groaned, then laughed. "You are terrible!"
"Need a pillow to throw?"
"No, I'm so impressed you have a sense of humor..."
"You know, I've never heard you laugh before."
Startled by the remark, Shayera stopped laughing and gazed sharply at him, her black eyes piercing his own - now a deep, chocolate brown. Those eyes fell quickly below her gaze, however, as he dropped his head, ashamed.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that." Clearly pained, he rose and began mixing another drink - this one clearly heavier on the vodka than the orange juice.
"You're going to have a hangover."
"No." John shook his head slightly. "No, I'm not that lucky. The instant that ring goes back on my finger, I may as well have been drinking water, for all the good it does me. The ring energy completely purges alcohol from my system."
"Wish I was that lucky."
"Hey, you've got Onyx's detox formula - what the Hell does she put in that thing, anyway?"
"Don't ask, don't know." Shayera began mixing herself another drink. John didn't remember her finishing the first.
The cold stiffness in her shoulders indicated to John that he had, indeed, misspoken. Whether or not she admitted it, she had been hurt.
"Shay, look, I'm sorry..."
"Why should you be sorry? It was only honesty."
"That's why. I should know when not to say things."
"Something we should both work on, I guess." Head lowered, she turned away, wings lowered. Pained. "I'm going back to bed."
"Shayera, WAIT!" John jumped after her, catching her by the elbow as she reached the door.
"Let go of me, Lantern!"
"No! I don't want us to go back to the way we were, Shayera. For a moment back there, I felt like we had something."
"Well, you felt wrong! Let go!"
"Shay, please. Don't do this. Stop fighting me."
"You're drunk, Lantern."
"Maybe. But if this is the only way my feelings get out in the open, so be it..." He released her elbow and caught her chin instead. Shayera didn't have time to react before his lips seized her own in a powerful kiss...
When they left the kitchen a minute later, the potted fern in the corner promptly began to squirm. Long palm leaves quickly became slender, muscular arms, lithe, powerful legs. A torso and a head formed, a crown of disheveled ebony hair falling over the blazing green eyes.
"J'Onn!" Swiping the hair out of her eyes, she unfolded her lean form. "Martian Manhunter, you are going to pay for phasing out and leaving me in this kitchen..."
The next morning, a meeting was called early. Shayera found a small, corked bottle of Onyx's 'potion' lying in front of her door, and drank it with all due haste. She showed up at the meeting on time and without incident. John was already there when she got in, and she took her normal seat across from him. Slowly, the others filed in. Superman took his seat at the head of the oval-shaped table. Diana seated herself to his left. J'Onn would sit to his right, when he got in. The seat beyond J'Onn's was Onyx's - she did not once mention the fact she had left her potion for Shayera. In fact, she avoided both Hawkgirl and Lantern's eyes altogether - challenging, since John sat to her immediate left, and Shayera almost directly across the table. Flash, next to Diana and across from Onyx, was nearly asleep. He'd been on monitor duty for graveyard shift. Batman quietly seated himself opposite Superman, at the other end of the table.
"Where is J'Onn?" Superman turned his gaze to Onyx, who promptly began studying the tabletop with greater-than-normal intensity. "Onyx?"
"He'll be up shortly." The moment she finished speaking, a loud chuckle interrupted the conversation, such as it was. All eyes turned toward the floor, just in time to see J'Onn phase through the layers of titanium and shoot through the edge of Green Lantern's chair - and consequently, through the edge of Green Lantern - and vanish into the ceiling. Dead silence reigned for a moment, only to be broken by Batman.
"Onyx?"
"Yes, Bruce?"
"Are you responsible for this?"
"Uhh…"
"Don't tell me you spiked his coffee again."
"It was in retaliation for a very cruel prank..."
"Unacceptable!"
"Nobody asked you, Batfreak!"
"It's a joke between friends, Bruce, lighten up..."
While the argument continued behind them, John and Shayera grinned at one another across the table.
"You were right about one thing, Shayera."
"What's that, John?"
"It was nice not to have the uniforms between us."
******************************************************************************
Shall I continue?