![[I saw three ships]](../2005-1icon.png)
Not that Lyle was counting on it being a big romantic moment or anything. But he was thinking it would be nice if it could suck less than New Year's Eve last year, when his father popped his head into the lab to ask if he thought he'd be done with the serum by the end of the week.
The year itself has actually sucked less than others in most ways and a lot more in some really really important ways. So he had been looking forward to the new year, the first year where he was in control of Things Not Sucking, and maybe having the parts that didn't suck last longer than, you know, four days.
So, yeah, maybe he does have some expectations for New Year's Eve, but he really doesn't think it had been a lot to ask that the night do a little more than blow really hard. Especially since he had done most of the work himself, for fuck's sake. It wasn't easy to arrange it so that he and Brainy and Cos were the only three with no dates (especially since one of Triplicate Girl's triplicates — the one who insists on callling herself Mary Kate — had a huge thing for Cos).
This is supposed to be his New Years Eve, from the the open-collared white shirt that Cos is wearing which Lyle had given to him for his birthday (and wow he's really tan and all golden and shit and it's just really hot) right down to the tight black t-shirt Lyle had casually offered to Brainy when met Lyle in his quarters to go to the party, and he managed to not lick his lips at the inhumanly smooth, green skin stretched over Querl's flat belly.
Everyone still seems to think that Lyle only falls ass-backwards into things but it's all. a careful. plan.
And he did not plan on a huge rift in time being torn open in the middle of the rec room. Nor did he plan the body that came through, because if he had to pick someone to be dumped out of a massive fucking hole in space and time, it would have been someone way less annoying.
Or, you know, anyone in the whole of the United Planets.
Anyone.
"Happy New Year," Supergirl says, "um," with a sheepish smile as she tucks a strand of pale, fine hair behind her ear.
There's a moment of stunned silence before Ultra Boy breaks it with, "Good goddamn," and then it's pandemonium.
Lyle gapes at Cos with wide eyes and then turns to raise an eyebrow at Querl.
They both look smitten.
Jo was right. Good goddamn.
Everyone knows that Cos is obsessed with Superman.
He has every Superman book ever published, an authentic Superboy t-shirt (framed, that he bought at one of those underground conventions that had slipped past the SP a few years back) and wears a silver s-shield on a thin cord around his neck, a barely noticible bump under his uniform.
Lyle has always found this funny and cute and completely endearing and for an entire week last month had jerked off to the thought of Cos in a Superman outfit.
He's finding it less endearing when confronted with an actual member of the Super-family. A blonde, big-titted member, who is better at the sweet routine than Lyle himself. Possibly because she actually means it. Which only makes it worse, really.
Across the rec-room, she's touching Cos's elbow, and Cos lets his fingers brush the charm, which is just visible at the open collar.
Lyle swallows against the rock that's suddenly stuck in the base of his throat, and smiles back when she catches his eye with a sunny, perfect grin.
Definitely makes it worse.
He pauses outside Cos's door on his way to the lab.
Cos is snoring; deep sleep, Lyle knows, from the one night he stayed after and the sound of it lulled him into unconsiousness.
He touches the door and it shimmers, and he lets his chromatophoric impulse diffuse with Cos's magnetic field, tugging at it.
Cos makes a small, mewling noise.
Lyle smirks and disentangles himself, skritching at the metal a bit before stepping away.
Ha.
Supergirl's room is down the hall, next to Imra.
He can hear them inside, giggling quietly.
Ha, Lyle thinks again, smugly, something uncomfortably warm and prickly filling his chest.
"Andromeda," Querl says without looking up.
Atom Girl is perched on the edge of a row of test tubes, and even at the size of Lyle's thumb, Lyle can tell she's rolling her eyes.
"The galaxy or the constellation?" Lyle sprawls into his chair, leaning back into the curve of the almost-plush sling. He knows he looks good. He can see his own nipples through his thin white t-shirt and when he passed a mirror in the hallway, his eyeliner was still artfully smudged under his eyes.
Happy fucking New Year.
"Or the girl," he muses snarkily after a moment.
Salu drifts over to him and says into his ear, "Ruler of men."
"I can hear you, woman," Querl says, relatively mild — distracted, Lyle thinks, sulkily — and Salu settles onto Lyle's wrist, her legs dangling into his palm.
"No, he can't," she says, pitching her voice toward Lyle. "Ass."
"She's not." Querl stops, his fingers (bare, one glove is laid over his thigh) keying in something too fast for Lyle to follow; it brings up a series of images: Linda Danvers, Matrix and Kara Zor-El (AKA big-titted blonde in the rec room). There are a lot of the last one, Kara and Kal-El, Kara and the Teen Titans, Kara and the Outsiders, Kara and Lex Luthor.
Lyle twitches and Salu is jerked free of his palm. She assumes regular size, bending to brush a kiss across his cheek, a lock of her hair tickling his neck.
"Don't stay up too late, boys," she says and Querl makes an affirmative noise, staring at Kara as she smiles, the sun blazing behind her. She ruffles Lyle's hair and then is gone, back into the tiny, globed Imsk that rules the east corner of the lab.
"Lyle," Querl says, turning to look at him suddenly with dark, intent eyes.
Lyle smirks and lets his knees fall open slightly. "Mm."
"Did Krinn tell you where she was boarding?"
Lyle sighs and slumps back into the chair, jamming a fist into his cheek.
"The chained woman," Querl murmurs to himself, already with his back to Lyle again, and the screen in front of him flashes with images of her.
Lyle concentrates on breathing without spontaneously and vehemently telling Querl to shut the fuck up.
"Shut the fuck up," Lyle moans, holding his head.
Star Boy rubs between his shoulderblades sympathetically. "What were you thinking?"
The problem, Lyle considers, is that he wasn't thinking.
Seven Minutes in Heaven was not a Plan. It was close to being a plan, because Lyle had rigged it at the last second for threesomes and had Cos and Brainy in the warm dark of the supply closet. A minute of foreplay arguing, thirty seconds each to run his tongue into their mouths, Brainy's cordite-tinged taste against Cos's metallic tongue and Cos's hand on Lyle's nape; Lyle stumbled back, meeting Querl's hipbone with his ass and Querl's hands were on his belly, Cos's breath hitching and whimpery and—
If the door opening was like a bucket of cold water, Kara standing there with a huge shit-eating grin on her face had been the entire fucking Pacific.
"We decided that because there's three of you, it's only two and a half minutes in heaven."
"What?" Lyle said dumbly when Cos laughed sheepishly and Querl made a big show of rolling his eyes. "Wait!"
He remembers grabbing at Querl at the threshhold, and the desperation in his own voice. "But that math doesn't even make sense!"
Lyle doesn't really remember the rest, on account of proceeding to get spectacularly hammered. But he's sure there must be damage control that needs to be done as soon as possible.
Thom's voice is cool and soothing, even if he sounds a little confused. "You're obviously not going to out-drink a Kryptonian."
"Seriously, dude," Ultra Boy adds and Lyle suspects Thom's eyes are rolling; he can almost feel Jo cupping his hands in front of his own chest. "Especially not one with huge reservoirs—"
"I will vomit," Lyle says with his eyes still closed, "on you."
There's a moment of silence.
"I'm just sayin'," Jo says sullenly and Lyle thinks maybe he'll just nap for the rest of the day instead.
Other Plans include:
"It can't land between two of you," Supergirl says when the bottle lands, as far as Lyle's concerned, on both Brainy and Cos. "Spin it again Lyle."
"Yeah, Lyle," Shadow Lass says, sharing and grin with Kara. "Spin it again."
Lyle grinds his teeth and ends up having to make out with Cham.
Again.
"It's not really their dare, though," Kara points out when Light Lass dares Lyle to give Brainy and Cos lapdances. "Shouldn't he have to do something that's only a dare for him?"
Lyle wonders, again, who would really miss her.
Lightning Lad strokes his chin. "That is a good point."
Streaking, Lyle thinks, is just stupid when you can't turn invisible.
"Never have I ever," Element Lad says, and it's always Jan who gets to the deliberately embarrassing sex part of the game immediately, like, third question in. "Never have I ever fooled around with an immediate teammate."
Everyone laughs and it becomes a chugging contest as every single one of them drinks.
Including Kara.
"Supergirl," Lyle says patiently and he can't help the smirk that's curving his lip up on one side. "You're supposed to drink if you have done it."
Kara smiles. "I know."
Lyle's face seems to be paralyzed. "Oh."
"I played this with the Titans once."
Now Cos's face seems to be paralyzed. With the dumbest grin ever. "Really?"
Lyle pulls Cos's beer from his slack hand and chugs the rest of that, too.
"I give up," Lyle announces to no one, finally.
Also, he needs some new Plans that don't involve 21st Century party games.
"You don't like me," Kara says and Lyle jumps a little, triggers the protein sequence that turns his hands, and the silverware in it, invisible.
He doesn't say anything, just crosses his right ankle over his left knee when she sits down to his right.
"Toast?"
Lyle nudges the plate at her with his elbow and she takes a piece and rips it in half, jams it into her mouth.
"And it's okay that you don't like me." Crumbs dust the table when she speaks. Cos would probably find this endearing. Querl would save them in a bag for DNA. Lyle wishes he could hit her. Not because he has a problem hitting girls (Shadow Lass has kicked his ass so many times that Lyle thinks girls shouldn't be allowed to hit him), but because he would probably break his hand.
"Don't worry about it," he says, finally, as she chews.
She smiles and there are, of course, no crumbs left between her teeth. "Oh, I'm not worrying. Sorry, I'm still a little new to all of this. Even the being on Earth stuff, you know?"
I don't care, Lyle thinks, but says, "Sure."
"I just wanted you to know that I know. And that I don't mind, because I'm a part of the team now."
"Oh."
"Because, I mean," she smiles, "we have to work together. And Cos and Brainy like you."
Lyle exhales and smiles his best fake smile and that warm, prickly feeling is back. "I know that."
"Okay." She looks down between them. "Your whole left side is gone, did you know?"
Lyle didn't know. Stupid adrenal glands.
"Yeah, so." She wipes the corners of her mouth with a napkin and shuffles all the empty plates and glasses within reaching distance (even the ones that aren't hers) onto her tray. "See you in briefing later."
Lyle shreds a piece of toast for a minute, getting melty butter on his fingertips. Then: "Wait," he says outloud to no one. "What briefing?"
The magnetic field is up on the lab, and Lyle enters his code and pushes a bit of the invisibility sequence so the lab knows it's him.
"Why did I have to get told about this by Superslu…uh. Um."
He's not sure what he was expecting, but it's definitely not seeing the main screen covered with images that are him now. Every smirk and sulk and sneer. His hand on Cos's shoulderblade. His invisible elbow pressed against Querl's ribs. Licking his bottom lip, narrowing his eyes, biting at the big knuckle on his thumb.
Also, there's Cos pushing Brainy back against Lyle's chair, lowering him into it, his wet, pink mouth open against Querl's. And those are. Wet, pink tongues.
Oh.
He takes an abortive step forward when Querl breaks away, twists his head to look at him.
"Well," he says impatiently and yanks Cos's top from his belt.
Lyle's clothes hit the floor at record speeds.
"I've only," Lyle says harshly, biting Cos's chin hard, "been trying to get the two of you in the same bed for a year."
"No!" Cos laughs, "And you were so subtle about it, too." He makes a high-pitched moaning noise at Lyle's teeth, on his adam's apple now.
"If you knew…" Lyle licks at the bite mark and sits up, pushing one hand back through his hair.
Querl smirks. "We like you brittle."
"Mm, you're not as much fun when you're all compliant."
Lyle thinks about being offended, but it's just true.
"I don't know, Krinn," Querl leans back and spreads his legs, one arm behind his head and the other stroking up under his uniform top, green fingers against that green belly, "A little obedience never hurt anyone."
"Fuck you." Lyle tries to crawl towards him but Querl stops him with a boot against his chest.
"Was that an order?" he asks dryly.
"Well, it wasn't a request." Lyle slides his hand up the back of Querl's boot, fitting his hand into the warm space behind his knee.
"You know, Brainy," Cos says his voice dark and rich against Lyle's ear. "I think you're right."
Querl smirks. "Can I get that in writing, please?"
"Less talk," Lyle says and shoves up Brainy's shirt, putting his mouth against the dip where his navel would be.
"Good plan."
"Well," Lyle thinks maybe this calls for a little retcon later about how, exactly, Kara got here, although he'll probably still have to at least thank her, "Yeah."
"Now," Brainy says, fisting a hand in Lyle's hair. "Less. Talk."
Cos's hands slide up the backs of his thighs and Brainy tugs his head down.
Best. Plan. Ever.
![[fin]](../2005-1banner.png)