Chapter Text
The worst part. The final sting to his pride, is that it takes Hal fucking Jordan to get him to go. He can feel it, the sharp heat in his blood, the fire that's still threatening to burn him from the inside out. It isn't fair- not after all the work John had put in. It didn't feel right, having to look at him and say he wasn't enough. Wasn't true, besides, when John is the only reason he gets up some mornings - even if he'll never know it.
But the facts are that Guy is losing control. It's not the sparking ring, or the temper, half as much as the boosts in raw power, the way Guy loses time and is exhausted by the end of it, running hot and risking a violent burnout the longer it goes on. It's not the Yellow, it's something worse, something fundamentally wrong with Guy, and he can't even point to a decent starting place.
He's going supernova. And it takes Hal fucking Jordan to make anyone do anything about it. Including Guy.
Oa can't help him. The patchwork job they'd done in their first healing had been enough to bring Guy back, but if they could do more, they were taking their sweet ass time, and Guy isn't sure he could put faith in them again even if they did offer up an answer better than 'the human species is so primitive.' (And Kilowog always looked so - guilty, at the leaks. The lapses, when Guy noticed them, and Guy was sick of making the few friends he had look so damn helpless.)
It's Jordan that gets him home. Gets him a medical leave that isn't quite endless but feels a little like being put in storage. If space can't help him, maybe home can. Guy had given his back an incredulous look, watched with equal disbelief as Jordan spun a crazy story and not a single objection was raised. He'd thought it was bullshit. An attempt to get Guy out of the public eye of the Corps and their thoughts on both his attitude and control and general insubordination. Like his shaken faith was unreasonable.
He'd thought it was bullshit all the way back to Earth. Felt his shoulders stiffen in a way he couldn't shake when they bypassed the Watchtower completely. Stared at Jordan's back in disbelief when he didn't peel off to go his own way or break for the coast. Had the flyaway thought he was going to be taken to fucking Kansas before they get to the Nevada desert and drop to ground level.
"You trying to get me killed by snakebite, Jordan?"
"Don't be dramatic. A snake would have to be at least five feet bigger to put a dent in your thick hide," Jordan scoffs. He's got his hands shoved in his damn jacket, jeans scuffed and boots heavy, and Guy stays suited up mostly because he doesn't have any shoes on. He should at least look like he'd try to catch the idiot if he collapses from heat stroke. "Come on. The guy we gotta meet isn't far."
Guy scans the desert, nothing but red dust in every direction all the way to the horizon, only a few shades too right to be mistaken for Mars. Jordan smirks, cocky and infuriating and brief. "Get a move on, Gardner."
He expects it to be excruciating heat all the way. They make it half a mile before he registers the air is getting cooler, a gentle breeze that does more than stir hot air carrying them up the gentle slope of a hill.
Grass shoots. Little dots of greenery that isn't shrubs, connecting in patches into a meadow of small wildflowers that definitely have no business growing here. Guy floats before he realizes it, conscious of how heavy his tread is and thrown off by the fragile, unnatural green. Jordan frowns up at him, gait slowing but still walking.
"You can land," he says, strangely quiet.
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
"Guy."
"Where the hell are we, Jordan?" He could go up. There's nothing but open sky, and Jordan could try to drag him down, but he'd have to fight every step of the way. Guy could make him work for it. Guy could make him pay for it. To his credit, Jordan only points. Further ahead, a winding smoke trail, and Guy flies before Jordan can curse and temper him. The air gets nicer, the sun less harsh, everything so picturesque it's unnatural. Like he flew into a postcard.
A cabin. Quaint. Big. With a fucking chimney. All at once and too late Guy thinks: Witch.
He floats, rage flickering in his chest, so hot it burns. So broken he needs a fucking witch to fix him, rip out what's inconvenient and paper together what's useful. Like Guy didn't have a career of seeing the husks they made of people that needed them. Like Guy had anything to trade that would let him be himself after.
"No."
"Guy!"
"No!" Guy yells, defiant and desperate and sick enough to shake with it. Jordan in front of him, but it's Sinestro that brought him, and it's Guy paying the price for every second it takes. "No!" It's Zod, it's alien magic, all around and in the air and in his lungs and hooking in his blood. It's cold and drawing out every last shred of heat he has until he's burning just to- "Fuck you, no! I won't! Whatever the hell you think you're doing-"
"I think I'm trying to get you help! You need to get a grip, Guy. And you need to trust me. No one down there is going to-"
"Oh, and what, you'll be around to make sure, will you? Fuck you, Jordan. I'd rather go supernova first." Jordan's face does something awful, not a flinch but a hurt that Guy shouldn't have to feel sympathy for. Sudden and surprising and squirreled away.
"Um," comes from below them, curious and a little plaintive. Guy breathes out steam, glares down expecting crackling power and floating runes, dark clothes and a wispy figure too damn small for the power locked away inside its frame. "Could you maybe not do it on Earth at least?"
"Roy!" Jordan snaps, and Guy startles only because it's a name he recognizes.
"What? You heard him. He's gonna explode," comes the defensive response. Roy squints up at them, one arm raised to shadow his eyes, and a far cry from the skin-and-bones he expected. Tank top, stained with dirt streaks and no longer white, and as Guy lowered down a little closer the jeans didn't look unscathed either.
Roy notices. "Uh uh, no way, you go explode in deep space or whatever. Shoo."
"Your nephew is a witch?" Guy asks. Jordan's sigh is heavy, weary, and Roy scowls at Jordan instead of him.
"Nephew," he repeats flatly, sort of like an accusation. Jordan rubs the back of his neck, drops the suit a second time, eyes no less troubled.
"You know I care about you," he says. Roy hums. Eyes Guy.
"So is your timer like super long?"
"I'm not literally going to explode," Guy says, fights the urge to cross his arms because he sees Jordan already doing it. Roy looks between them both, and Guy wonders whose kid he actually is. He'd taken Jordan at his word, about being his uncle, but Roy doesn't have his coloring. The red hair is one thing, but his eyes are green not brown, and Guy doesn't think the differences in their skin tone comes down to a tan.
"Sure," Roy says like he doesn't really believe it. He's not wearing shoes, and Guy wonders if the tattoo on his bicep is magical. "What do you want?"
"This is Guy Gardner," Jordan starts, "he needs help." And, yeah, screw this, actually.
"They want you to fix me. Take out the grumpy bits and leave the rest. Apparently, I ain't zen enough for the Corps."
"That's not what this is about, and you know it," Jordan defends. Guy gives him a disgusted look.
"Great. I don't do that," Roy says.
"He needs help," Jordan says. "And he needs somewhere to stay for a while - without anyone else breathing down his neck. I was hoping he could stay here. You have the room."
"Oh, well, if I have the room," Roy says sarcastically. But he looks at Guy again, a frown on his face. "Why isn't the Corps helping you?"
"It's complicated," Jordan answers, and then jerks back when the witch glares at him.
"When I ask you a question, Hal, I'll ask you the question." Guy hadn't fully grasped his annoyance before Roy was rebuffing it. He feels - still irritated, honestly, but there's a curiosity there, too. At this kid.
"So?"
"I ran into some condensed magical bullshit," Guy settles on, "and it's starting to get difficult to. Keep under wraps."
Roy absorbs that. Huffs.
"What the hell am I supposed to do about it?"
"Roy you are the most powerful witch on this continent," Jordan says wearily. Guy blinks.
"I'm a terrible witch," Roy mutters. Looks Guy over again. Slumps. "But if you're thirsty or whatever I have tea." Guy could leave. He sees it, as Roy turns to go inside, in the way Jordan still seems uncertain; he could leave, and this witch wouldn't drag him back.
He thinks maybe that's why he doesn't, when all is said and done.