Fic: A Boy from Nowhere (7/?) Guy/Kyle (Green Lantern Corps, HSAU)

[perpetual_motion]

Title: A Boy from Nowhere (7/?)
Author: Perpetual Motion
Fandom: Green Lantern Corps [DC Comics]
Pairing: Guy/Kyle
Rating: PG-13 (Language)
Summary: Guy and his mom try to talk again, and then Coach drops in.

Dis: Lies and bullshit, as always.

Author's Notes: I meant for "Boy from Nowhere" to be a single, 1500 word story, but it grew, so I let it, and it fits in with other prompts for my dcu_freeforall table, so it's grown. The prompt for this bit is "public safety." And more love to lasergirl, who reads it before you see it and tells me if it's ready.

Previous Parts: Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six


A Boy from Nowhere (7/?)
By Perpetual Motion

His mother walks in a quarter after six. Guy's poking his straw in the remains of his protein shake. When she reaches up to stroke his hair, he pulls away. "Leave me alone," he mutters.

"You're talking," his mother smiles as she says it. "That's a good sign."

"Whatever." Guy sucks down the last of the shake, puts it aside, and finally looks at his mother. She's still in her uniform from the factory—beige pants, beige shirt, white sneakers—and she's clutching her purse in her hands like it's the only thing keeping her in place. He feels bad in a different way than he already does, angry at himself for making her upset. "I'm feeling a little better," he says, and she relaxes back against her chair, sets her purse on the floor.

"Good. I'm so glad." She touches his arm, and Guy allows it. "The social worker came by," he tells her. "He brought a therapist."

"Dr. Sarrek?" His mother smiles when Guy looks confused. "I'm speaking with him, too. It's part of…" She tugs at her uniform shirt for a moment. "It's part of everything we're doing now."

"Why?"

"It's…it's kind of a test. They want to see that you and I are dealing with what's happened to us."

Guy thinks about that for a minute. "They want to know if they have to take me away," he says.

His mother is quiet for a few seconds. "Yes," she says, almost in a whisper. "That's part of it."

"They don't trust you."

She's silent again. "No. They don't."

"You never touched me!" It tries to be a yell, and Guy gets a full body shiver from the ache of attempting it. "You never hurt me," he says more quietly. "You never—"

"It's good that they're asking," his mother interrupts. "It's a show of concern."

"You called Mace. You tried to pull Dad off of me."

"It's not just about that night, Guy. It's everything before, and they want to know how we're going to handle it now."

"They?"

"The people at family services."

"I don't like them," Guy tells her. "My social worker is…" He can't come up with an appropriate word. "I think he's in it to feel good about himself," he finally says. "I think he's doing it to feel important."

His mother breathes out in a heavy whoosh of air. She leans towards the bed, clasps both of her hands over Guy's hand. "Some people are just good people," she says, slow and deliberate. "Some people just want to help."

"He freaks me out," Guys admits.

"You've had…When I married your father, he was a very sweet man. He brought me flowers from the side of the road, and he was so excited when I got pregnant. He wanted a family. He was a good man, once. I know it's hard to see that, and I don't expect you believe it, but he was a good person."

Guy digests that while he watches his mother stare at her hands holding his. "What happened?"

"I don't know."

Guy breathes in, ready to ask if it was him. Ready to ask what he did that caused such a change, because he knows it wasn't Mace. Mace was always the favorite. Before he can say anything, there's a knock on the door.

"Come in," his mother calls, and she straightens up, obviously expecting a doctor.

Coach Kilowog walks in, pausing a few steps from the door to take in the scene. He nods to Guy's mom. "Mrs. Gardner."

"Mr. Kilowog," she returns, her voice level. It reminds Guy of the way she'd talk to his father after he'd had a few beers.

"I heard a rumor that Guy was feeling up to visitors. I can come back if now's not a good time."

Guy doesn't say anything. He's watching his mother, the way she sits entirely still. He knows the posture. It's his mother weighing her options between saying something and getting yelled at or staying silent and possibly getting hit. Coach won't lay a finger on her, Guy knows, but he doesn't know how to tell her that without embarrassing her.

"Hey, Coach," Guy says instead. He tries to smile, to show his mother it's okay. "Think I'm out for the season."

"I'll put you to work; don't you worry." Coach sits in the extra chair. He reaches up to the bed rail. "Need this for any reason?"

"I dunno."

"Do you mind, ma'am?"

Guy's mother blinks. "Pardon?"

"The bed rail, do you mind if I put it down?"

"Oh. I…that's…I hadn't thought about it." She looks at the bed rail for a long moment. "It can come down. That's fine."

There's a rattle, then a clank, and Coach gives a satisfied grunt when the bed rail drops. He pulls up the extra chair, positioning himself near Guy's feet and facing Guy's mother. "How's the head?"

"Doesn't hurt right now."

"The jaw?"

"It's okay."

"Rest of your face looks pretty bad."

Guy doesn't know what to say to that. He looks at his mother. She's blanching, the color fading from her cheeks. "It does?" he asks. He watches his mother glare at Coach. Coach doesn't seem to notice.

"Suppose they haven't let you out of bed to check a mirror."

"There's not one in the bathroom," Guy explains. He looks at his mother. "Is it bad?"

"I didn't want you to see it," she tells him. "I didn't…"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Gardner," Coach says, sincere. "I didn't mean to—"

"No," she interrupts him, her tone sharp. "No. I just didn't want…" She shakes her head and stands up. "I'll be right back." She walks out of the room and down the hall.

Guy stares at the door. He stares at Coach. "What—"

"You look like someone took a bat to your face, kid. Can't blame her for not letting you see it." Coach leans back in his chair, crosses his arms. "Can't remember ever seeing you with face damage before. Must have ticked off your dad pretty good."

"Yeah," Guy mutters. "I don't remember it. I've got brain damage."

Coach breathes out hard. "That's what I heard."

"How?"

"Your brother stopped by the school to talk to Principal Salaak. Principal called me in so I could get the news, too. I'm down a first-string player since you're out for the season."

"Did you call social services after practice that day?"

"Don't remember that, either?"

"No."

"I called them. They didn't want to tell me anything at first, but I got them to tell me that they'd sent someone to your house."

"What happened after that?"

Coach considers the question for a moment, working his jaw back and forth. "What do you think happened?" He asks.

"I think I went home and got the shit kicked out of me."

"Language."

Guy almost laughs at the absurdity of it. He's stuck in a hospital with a wired jaw and a scrambled brain, and Coach is getting onto him about his language. "Sorry, Coach," he mumbles instead.

"Not that I can't appreciate your apt assessment of the situation, but my team managers don't get to swear, either."

"Manager?"

"You're off the field due to injury. I can still put you to work if you want."

"Yeah," Guy says. "I can do that."

Coach grins. "Thought so." He uncrosses his arms, puts his hands behind his head. "After I got off the phone, I told you to lay low."

"I remember you telling me that before you called."

"I did, but we talked about it again. You said you had to go home. You wanted to make sure your mom was okay."

Guy doesn't know what to say. He went home to rescue his mom? He'd never tried to rescue his mom. He'd just tried to stay out of the way. "I don't remember that."

"Damned noble of you," Coach tells him. "I tried to talk you out of it, but you said that you figured a social worker showing up would work your dad up worse than usual, and you thought he might do something really bad to her."

"Did I?"

"You did."

Guy tries to digest that, tries to picture himself running out to save his mom. "Did I do anything else?"

"Saw you talking to Rayner by the bleachers when you left. Couldn't hear most of it, but I did hear you yell at him."

Guy winces at that. "What'd I say?"

"I'm not repeating your exact words, but you told him to leave you alone."

Guy doesn't have to ask which words aren't getting repeated. He's yelled that a few people, and it's always come out as, "Leave me the fuck alone, asshole." He looks down at the bed, pulls at the sheet that's over his legs. "Oh," he mutters.

"Didn't know you two were friends," Coach says in the mildly interested tone that makes the team confess to anything.

"We're kinda friends." Guy looks up. "We were…getting to know each other."

"He's been asking about you. Caught me after practice the other day, asked if I'd talked to you. I told him I hadn't. Need me to pass along a message?"

"I dunno."

"He's a nice guy. Big step up for you."

"Huh?"

"Tommy's a good player, but he's a fight-starting jerk. You can do better than that."

Guy doesn't know what to say to that. Coach has his fierce look on, the one he pulls out when they're down by a touchdown as the fourth quarter starts up. "Okay."

Coach straightens up, clamps a hand on Guy's leg. "Look, Gardner, I came to check on you, and I came to make sure you're all right, but you've got all the signs of a man who's getting handled like he's gonna break because no one wants to tell you the flat truth."

Something in Guy warms up. It shoots through him, makes him shake a little. "Everyone's been nice," he says, and he can see by Coach's grin that he gets it.

"You've had it rough for awhile, kid, no question. And I can understand why everyone's concerned, given the damage you've got now, but you're not someone who's ever responded well to plain kindness."

"I—"

Coach cuts him off. "It's all right. Some people are built to be blunt, and you're one of them. So here it is: You're messed up right now. You're bruised and you're broken, and everything you knew—bad as it was at times—was what you knew, and you accepted it. Everyone's being nice, and everyone's being cautious, and they're doing it because they're scared for you. They think you won't heal up, that you won't work through everything that's happened. Let them be nice, all right? Let them coddle you a little and tell you it's okay to be angry and it's okay to be scared and it's okay to let your guard down. Because all of that's true. They'll come back around and remember who you are soon enough, but right now, what needs to happen is that you need to accept that a bunch of people care about you, and they're going to show it in ways you think are soft."

Guy doesn't know what to say. "Okay."

"And it's not your fault, Gardner. You got that? Not a single damned bit of it."

"I know—"

"No, you don't. Because no one's told you, yet. Because no one wants to upset you." Coach stands up, he leans over the bed. If it was his father, Guy thinks, he'd be cowering back, waiting for the punch, but it's not. It's Coach. "None of it's your fault. Got it?"

"Got it."

"Good." Coach clasps him on the shoulder, gives him a bare whisper of his usual shake. "You're smart. Remember that."

"I will."

"All right." Coach sits back down. He stretches. "When do they—" he cuts off as Guy's mother walks back into the room.

"Here," she says, and she thrusts a mirror in Guy's direction. Her face is damp like she's just washed it, and she sniffles. "I had to go down to the third floor," she explains, and there's a hurried edge to it, like she's afraid Guy's going to call her a liar, or worse.

"Thanks, Mom," Guy says, and he takes the mirror. He doesn't look into it for a minute. "All right," he says, and he holds it up, makes himself look at himself. "Holy shit."

His face is mottled purple and green and yellow, the bruises running into one another from the bottom of his jaw up to his hairline. "Holy shit," he repeats, because it's all he can say.

"He slammed you against the wall," his mother says, so softly he almost doesn’t hear it. "He just kept slamming you against the wall." She sags into her chair and puts her head in her hands.

Guy doesn't know how to comfort her. He looks at Coach. Coach moves his chair closer, puts his hand on the armrest of his mother's chair, but he doesn't say anything. They sit in silence for a few minutes, Guy staring at his reflection, then at his mother, then at Coach. He puts the mirror on the bed table after awhile and presses himself into the pillows.

"Coach?"

"Yeah, Gardner?" Coach's voice is low, but he doesn't sound defeated, just interested.

"You gonna see Kyle around?"

"Probably. Usually see him in the halls. Want me to tell him to stop by?"

"Yeah. If it's all right." Guy looks at his mother. "Is it all right?"

"They're releasing you tomorrow," she says, "but he can stop by your brother's if he wants to visit before you go back to school."

"Thanks."

Coach pulls paper and pen from his pocket and writes down the address Guy's mother gives him. He stands afterwards, shaking her hand, patting Guy on the leg. "Remember what I said," he orders Guy.

"Yes, Coach."

Guy's mother watches Coach leave. "What'd he say?" she asks.

Coach had said everyone's being nice to help him. Guy thinks he can do the same for his mom. "He says I can be team manager," Guy tells her. "He says I'm still on the team."

"That's nice."

"Thanks for not showing me my face," he says. "It probably would have freaked me out."

She doesn't say anything in response. She grips his hand, and they sit in silence, and something in Guy warms up again. Something feels, he realizes, like it might be getting better.

Part Eight

Comments

[perpet-fic.livejournal.com]

Stupid LJ. Doesn't it know better by now?

I'm so happy you liked it. Kilowog was awesome to write, and yes, Kyle will finally reappear like the world's longest magic trick!