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He doesn't know.

He doesn't.

This has been a fight from day one, the two of them in some weird geosynchronous orbit around each other. It's been push and pull and anger and bitterness over things out of both their respective control's and they've taken it out on each other. Because some fundamental part of each of them realizes, knew from day one, 'this guy can take it'.

'Soul Brothers' is a ridiculous fucking term and Jim has no idea if Kyle meant it, because when was the last time he didn't have to fight for friendship? To badger or bully his way into someone's life with the sheer crushing weight of his personality until they tolerated him and came to accept him being in their space? But Kyle was a giver, he was bright in all the same ways Jim was used to being bright, and they're... they're cancelling each other out somehow.

It's like they're tuned into the wrong frequencies, and everything they say's being cut with static. He has a moment where he desperately wishes Uhura were here. She's his communications liaison, maybe she could translate the mess he's made of this, comb over their communiques and find the answers embedded in the substrata.

Jim drags a hand through his hair, his body language says confusion and frustration and impatience and a little anger, though it's directed more at himself than at Kyle. Then he just gives him a look. He doesn't want to be honest, and he's pretty sure he could get away with keeping his secrets if he really felt like it. But doing the opposite is a challenge. Kyle implied he couldn't. And most of the time, that's all it takes.

"Because you did something for me. I don't care if you'd do it for anybody, I'm not 'anybody'. If I have to accept the fact that you'll put yourself in danger for someone else, you need to accept that I get to thank you for it." He should sound argumentative, but instead he just manages 'tired'. "I don't exactly have a surplus of people in my life who do nice things 'just because'. How the hell can I not be grateful for what you did?"

Is Jim still fighting? It’d be unbelievable if Kyle wasn’t absolutely certain he’d do the exact same thing in that position. He’d been right, speaking to Damian. Too alike, and when they weren’t, too different. It made for an odd pair. It was -- what Jim had said to him at the pool table. I don’t get you. Kyle was utterly certain Jim hated him, why were they still here?

You know what can break me. Kyle hated somebody else having that kind of power over him. Only Kilowog knew - and Jim.. it didn’t matter what else had happened between them, Kyle knew Jim wouldn’t use it unless it was absolutely necessary. Or if he’s feeling vicious, says the cynical part of his mind. He hurt you once, you hurt him, what’s to stop either of you from doing it again? You said friends, he said friends, how far down does that word go?

He takes a breath to centre himself, and watches Jim. It’s funny, did he just see -- don’t deserve amidst that surplus of people. But noticing that is maybe too much like chess. Too much like seeing his own lack of self-worth in somebody else. And this man is used... to being special, to being the exception to everybody's rules. He doesn't know how to handle being... just somebody. Not the way Kyle had always wanted to be just one of the guys.

(make me special again and something in Kyle’s stomach twists in horror as he shoves Parallax back down. It’s a fear he’ll have to face, eventually. Not today.)

‘Okay,’ he says, quietly, unconsciously mirroring Jim in running his own hand through his hair, green ring standing out against the black. I’m not fighting this. I’m going to sit down and swallow it.

‘My hands are fully healed. No long-term effects.’

Edited 2013-07-11 02:07 (UTC)

The relief shows in the way colour bleeds back into his knuckles, and Jim... doesn't look at Kyle, save for one brief flicker of attention. But he does smile.

"Good. I'm glad to hear it. Ring stuff?"

'Online.' He doesn't realise how happy he is until he says it, and a brief smile flickers across his face. Losing it had been like losing a limb, as much as he'd never admit it. Hearing its quiet hum in his mind again was... a reunion with an old friend.

'You need anything moved from a tall shelf?'

"I might be crippled, Princess, but I'm still taller than you. If you want to make yourself useful there's a bag in the kitchen." And Jim, who's so terrible at giving gifts that he doesn't even want to see Kyle's reaction to it, simply heads over to flop on the couch.

'Hey, you're the princess here. And come on, you're only taller by a few inches.'

He troops off to the kitchen, and stops dead at what he sees. It's -- well he remembers talking about it but he didn't actually expect somebody to take him seriously. How much had these cost? How long had Jim spent looking for them, on Keeliai's streets, with that leg?

He comes back out holding the bottle of black paint, his expression one of complete shock, and wonder, and maybe a bit of gratitude.

'Why?' he asks, simply.

Well, that's a better reaction than he was expecting. He was half holding out to get the whole bag thrown at his head or something, so he breaks out in a bit of a smile. "Would you believe me if I said it's because I don't believe in no-win scenarios?"

I always knew you'd paint again. And sure it had taken the better part of the last few days and no pain medication to speak of, haggling with shop-owners and bargaining until he could barely see straight, but it was for him as much as for Kyle. It took his mind off the pain, gave him something to do. Something he felt useful doing.

"I could only find like, eight different colours. I figured you could mix them to get more, though. No clue how all that works, you're the genius here, I'll let you sort it out."

'I could—' he falters. It's too much like his mother, and he bites his lip, he's just her wee daft boy again. 'Ma, she used to—'

He falls completely silent, taking in deep, sharp breaths, staring at the can of paint. 'Past tense,' he says, weakly, looking at Jim like he's about to collapse. 'I finally... used past tense.' Sudden nausea is hitting him, he's showing weakness and he doesn't want to care about that at all.

His hand stretches out for a chair and it's the ring that responds, making a construct, and he sits down right into it, breathing harshly, hands trembling.

How do you be there for just one person? Jim's used to being a savior for planets, star systems, entire races. How do you scale it back? He'd had this problem with Banner, too, and that might have been a victory but the only thing Kyle and Bruce have in common is that they both need to be pulled back.

Jim knows how to throw a life ring for Bruce. But Kyle?

He's done the wrong thing since day one, and he honestly has no idea what to do or how to even ask, what do you need?

His mouth twists in frustration, determination, and he levers himself off the couch awkwardly with that cast of his and limps over to Kyle's construct chair. He reaches out, and there's no hesitation to it. He leaps, remember? He reaches out and he drops his hand against Kyle's shoulder and applies a steady pressure there. 'I'm sorry' seems useless, so he doesn't say it. He lets Kyle's language speak for him instead, I'm here.

He knows exactly what he needs, and he's had to do without it for months - his family. The Corps, Guy, they'd know. He misses his partner acutely, it's a sharp ache that time won't heal, it will only take and keep taking until there's nothing left but a hollow shell where a heart used to be (he's been broken before, it's the getting up that's hard. He thought he was getting better, he's not.)

He doesn't respond to the touch, not at first. He lets himself be, floats back into that hospital room where he's watching her die and they're all helpless. Remembers reaching into the void with all the force of his will and pulling her back, having never told her how much she meant, thanked her for everything she did, because he'd been too busy defending his ass of an absent father.

He closes his eyes and focuses on the sensation of the can in his hands, and Jim's hand on his shoulder. Eventually he reaches up and twines his fingers with Jim's, (selfishly) taking. Thank you.

Jim tightens the grip a little, and pulls upward. It's a hey, c'mere. It's like being back in that cell, beaten and bleeding, saying, you need to lean on me, too.

He opens his eyes, looks at Jim. Hm? The hesitation is just habit though, and he follows Jim's lead.

Jim doesn't really like hugs, it's too much like being physically restrained. Funny how he's managed to hug Kyle more now than just about anybody he knows. Except maybe Bones. Bones got a lot of that whenever Jim got drunk on campus.

So he pulls him up out of the chair, leans on him a little so he can lean his cane against his thigh and let it go, and wraps his arms around Kyle. If Kyle needs to take, he can. When it comes to compassion, Jim has lots to spare. Even if he hides it.

Almost, he yells what the hell, man, your leg! out of anger, or fear, because he's not supposed to take things like this, he's the one who gives. Jim is giving, too, Kyle still isn't sure why.

'What the hell man, your leg,' he says, softly, chidingly. Maybe neither of them got hugged enough.

"Will be fine. Now shut up, and let me do this touchy-feely crap in relative peace, okay?"

A beat. He rests his chin thoughtfully against Kyle's shoulder. "If you ever tell anybody you and I are having words." It's light and teasing. He's trying, though he's still not sure how (or why).

It's exactly what Guy would say, give or take a few noogies. Kyle quietens, and when he's had enough he lets go, fixes Jim with a look that's gratitude and relief. They're not fighting.

'You slept in between me and the door,' he says, in the same soft voice. 'Why?' What am I, to you? Are we friends?

Do you even know what friendship is? He snorts a little, at the thought. They've both had it circle around back to them in different ways, meaning different things each time.

Jim frowns a little, in thought. Suddenly, all he can think of is Spock, fingers pressed against the glass, Jim a silent passenger in the mind-meld of the moment, watching himself die. This is what you would have done.

The parallels are a little unsettling, and he reclaims his cane, fingers curled around it.

"You seem to be under this weird impression that I'm complicated, Kyle. I'm not. A captain's job is to protect his crew and the people he cares about. Why do you think I--" came back for you? "Stepped into that fight? I wasn't going to let you go down alone, and I wasn't going to let anyone hurt you or Spock if there was something I could do to stop it."

He frowns. 'I thought you were under the impression I was complicated. All that about never meeting a mountain you couldn't move? There's nothing to it, here. My job is to stand in between people and oblivion. That's my core, that's what I do.' And I love it, he doesn't add, despite how much it's taken from me. 'It confuses me, that you'd thank me for being who I am. It's like--' he tilts his head, 'giving back.'

Nobody does that.

"I warned you about that third category, Angel." His tone's wry, but there's some faint amusement there, too. "If it's any consolation, it confuses the hell out of me that you'd ask why I'd try to protect you." How are you missing it? Jim is, at his core, a protector. Kyle stands between people and oblivion, fine. Jim erases that oblivion from their horizons, smudges it out with bright words and self-assurance and simple things like-- like fucking paint.

It's who he is, too.

What does friendship mean, to you?

'You know what my worst fear is,' he says, suddenly blank, and barely audible. 'You can... protect me from that.'

You've earned it.

Then he looks at the can of paint. 'We're equals. You have to give to me, too. Like in there, you shouldn't have jumped in.' It didn't matter that Kyle might've acted similarly in the same situation. 'The things I can take from the world, let me take them. I never ask for any quarter.'

"You know I will." He bumps Kyle's shoulder gently with his own, leaning a little heavily on his cane when he does. It's... weird, to be speaking so candidly about this sort of thing. It's all stuff he's tried wheedle Spock into saying, stuff he saw written in the blazing grief inside his mind. But he was never this forthright with Bones.

"No. That's not-- look, it's not that I don't think you can or can't take it or whatever. It's instinct. It's not like I planned on getting my leg broken." There's a grimace that passes over his expression, and he feels pinpricks walk up his spine. The pain is there, omnipresent, it's a phantom that dogs his literal steps and he'll always have the memory of that sensation, the sharp and sickening crack when he felt the break. The immediate white-out cold-water shock, the disbelief and the anger and then the pain, fucking hell it crawled its way up into his mind and laid down roots there, the only thing that kept him from being hysterical about it was the fact that he needed to stay in control, be a leader, show no weakness.

He exhales.

"There's a lot of things you can ask of me, and there's a few you can't. Don't ever ask me to leave you behind. It's not about what you can take. It's about not being alone. I made a promise, Kyle."

Edited 2013-07-11 04:30 (UTC)

The difference is he's always been forthright, but the difficulty was chess (or go). You just didn't do it with family, and Kyle still had the tendency to invite everyone into his house, and keep them safe. It was his responsibility, so much so that it had simply carved a hole into his heart and turned to stone there, immovable, unshakeable.

Honestly, he knows his caution would have taken over, and only if Spock entered the fray than Kyle would have joined it. His instinct wasn't to just leap, lest he land in a pit of vipers. The last Green Lantern in the universe couldn't afford that level of stupidity, or naivete. Any weakness had to be one he could surmount. Not the weakness. Not ever.

He smiles, light and teasing. 'Y'know, I'm pretty sure that was my line.'

"So say it." His tone is vaguely amused. "But I might charge you royalties."

He turns away from Kyle, back to the couch. Standing for too long hurts, and although he can put up with it, every once in a while he just doesn't want to have to. He doesn't mind showing a little weakness either, and he sinks back onto the couch without comment.

'I'd like to see you try.'

He tosses the paint can in his hand, and catches it, looking at it pensively, but smiling.

'How much did this cost?'

"Hey, I don't know about you, but where I come from? It's rude to pricecheck a gift." Jim sprawls a little, tips his head back against the couch. "Don't worry about it, okay?"

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