Chapter Text
“God,” Roy says while he closes the trunk of his car. It’s the 21st of December and he has spent his afternoon walking around a crowded mall picking gifts for an invitation that didn’t come until the evening of yesterday, when he had already resigned himself to spending the holidays trying to make his daughter believe in Santa like every other Christmas, with maybe some visits from Dinah and Connor or even Jade, if he was lucky and if the Interpol wasn’t that pissed off with her this year. “It’s been a while since we've done this.”
“Has it, really?” Dinah questions, leaning in against the vehicle. She’s dressed for the season, her short frame enveloped by a long, heavy black fur coat. She looks elegant and beautiful as usual, but something about the winter time makes her grungy looks turn wistful. “We do this every year.”
Roy laughs, half self-conscious, not really wanting to be the one addressing the elephant in the room. “I mean, yeah, but this year… You know.”
It’s not that Roy avoids talking about his feelings with Dinah. She’s one of his go to people for it, in fact — there is very little you can be embarrassed about around someone who held you through the grossest parts of heroin withdrawal. But it’s one thing to go to Dinah to vent about the grief and the regret again and again, something that had no other place to go but each other’s ears, and it’s another to name it out loud now that those feelings are living things, resurrected and reformed and too present for comfort. Roy knows it’s hard for her, too, can see it in the way her usual sharp focus is a little scattered now, her mind wandering around to places Roy’s physical presence can’t reach.
But Dinah smiles gently, her eyes softening with that same sorrow Roy knows intimately, an arrow-shaped, green tinted one. So maybe it’s not winter time that makes her look wistful; it’s probably the same thing that's making Roy's old demons come out for a party after a decade-long silence. “Don't I know it, Roy.”
Roy smiles nervously. “Sorry. I just… I feel like we just spent 3 and a half hours doing last minute Christmas shopping and we haven’t said his name once. It’s. Really weird.”
“Hey, you’re the one avoiding saying You-Know-Who's name,” Dinah jokes and this time Roy's smile is genuine. He thinks she doesn’t get enough credit for how funny she is, how her company can lift weights from your shoulders. “But don’t apologize, kid. You’re right. It’s fucking weird that Ollie came back from the dead, it's even weirder going Christmas shopping for family reunion like everything is normal. But this wasn’t our normal anymore, right? Not for 10 years.”
Roy sighs, feeling somewhat relieved that Dinah gave shape to the feelings that were squeezing his chest all this time. “Yeah. Isn't this crazy? I mean, Hey guys, I died but now I'm alive again after you all had finally made peace with losing me forever. Anyway, Christmas supper at my place. Who's bringing the eggnog? Oh, and by the way, God is real and my pal Hal Jordan works for him. Seriously, what the fuck?”
Dinah snorts, her face opening when she smiles. “If I knew Hal Jordan was the one working for God all along I wouldn’t have bothered praying that much,” she says and Roy laughs again, the pent-up tension in him easing the more he talks to her. It shouldn't be surprising – Dinah has always been good at making things easier for him. She pauses for a second, turns her eyes away from his and contemplates the white-blue static of the cold air for a minute. “Had you, actually? Made peace with it before all this?”
It's Roy's turn to contemplate the stillness around them while he gathers his words. Dinah waits quietly, and for a few, quiet moments it’s just them in silence and the even fall of the snow.
Roy stares down at his boots, at the shape they make when buried in the snow. “I don't know. I guess that's what I told myself. It wasn't the first time I lost a father, you know? I've been there, done that a couple times before. But with Ollie it was different. Because there was all of that… baggage. Felt like all my time with him was spent trying to forgive and forget and then when I finally did he was gone.”
Dinah hums. It’s not the first time he told her that; in fact, it's possibly the hundredth time they have had a similar conversation over the years. But it's different this time, a sense of urgency that wasn’t there before, as if this is the last time they can talk about it before the world spins on its axis again and forces them to move on.
“It's like that with Ollie,” Dinah says, and surely enough, her words sound final. “You think you're done with him and somehow he manages to find his way back into your life.”
“Yeah,” Roy sighs. He has never been quite the smoker but he feels like the moment calls for a cigarette — or at least a finite spark that can burn through the half-white landscape, lighting it up briefly, something to heat up the tip of his fingers. He forgot to wear gloves.
Dinah looks back at him, and she smiles again, this time warmer, the spark he was looking for. “Hey, let's cheer up, okay? It’s Christmas. No better time for awkward reunions than now. So, who's bringing the eggnog?”
Roy can’t help but smile too. “Me, I guess? Ollie insisted on being the one to roast the ham. Let's hope he remembers his way around an oven.”
“With his soul back to his body we should hope he doesn’t want to make this Chili Christmas,” Dinah says, rolling her eyes with fondness, and Roy snorts. “What about Connor?”
“He's making vegetarian options, I think, whatever those are. Mia said she can make a killer potato salad, so that leaves you on gingerbread cookie duty.”
“Just my luck,” Dinah sighs. “Can we get in the car? My ears are freezing.”
“Yeah, yeah, let's go,” he agrees. He stuffs his hands in his pockets to warm up his fingers. They get inside the car together and when he turns the heater on it’s like coming back from the dead. “You better go easy on the sugar in those cookies unless you want to spend Christmas running after a toddler on sugar rush.”
“Geez, kid, when did you get so strict?” Dinah says. “It's fucking Christmas, Roy. Let's let the tiger out a little.”
“You’ll regret those words so bad,” Roy says, but she's right. It’s Christmas. He might as well let himself go.