Work Text:
Kyle rubbed a hand down his face. The digital clock accusingly blinked 3:24am at him. He had lost count of how many mugs of coffee and energy drinks he’d drained. Not that they were doing anything anymore. Kyle was utterly exhausted.
The day had started… oh sometime around yesterday morning. Or perhaps you should call it night, seeing as Kyle was ripped out of his sleep by the Justice League’s all hands on deck alarm going off sometime around five. The rest of that day had been spent fighting, cleaning up, finding another problem, more fighting, almost getting blown up, fighting some more and so forth.
And when he’d come home in the evening, sore, tired and annoyed, he’d noticed his work desk. With the unfinished commission on it. Which he was already overdue on. So with a resigned sigh, Green Lantern, one of earth’s mighty protectors, member of the Justice League, had sat his butt down in front of his drawing table and set to work.
Present Kyle stretched his back out of the hunch he’d been sitting in and winced as something audibly cracked. Right now he was working on a different commission, but we’ll get to that.
He’d finished the overdue commission and rushed to deliver it. Once he was done with that, it was already well into the next morning. Kyle was ready to collapse into bed at this point. But now it was Thursday. That meant he had to help old Ms Kimberly with her shopping. Why? Well it had something to do with two bottles of tequila, Ms Kimberly’s tiny evil dog, a fire extinguisher and so many bad decisions. But that’s another story.
So under threat of having his darkest secrets revealed to the world, Kyle resigned himself to staying awake until he’d helped Ms Kimberly, because he knew if he tried to get in a quick nap he’d be waking up next week at the earliest.
He’d downed two mugs of coffee and done his own shopping at six in the morning. At least now he didn’t have to worry about that anymore. Then he’d helped Ms Kimberly. And then he had to go be a superhero again. The moment his Justice League communicator went off he could have cried. But alas, duty called and he had no time to curl up and weep over the unfairness of the universe.
And of course after another few hours spent superheroing he’d come home and found the very important sticky note which he’d accidentally buried under a stack of paper. The sticky note telling him that before he worked on that overdue commission he had finished that morning, there was also another vitally important commission waiting for his attention which he should get done asap.
And that was how he’d ended up here, at almost four in the morning now, having been awake for far too long. He was pretty sure he couldn’t feel his fingertips anymore. Kyle drew in a shaky breath and put his pencil aside. He buried his face in his hands. Just a short break, then he’d finish the commission, and then he could fall into a coma in his bed for the foreseeable future.
He dragged his hands down his face and winced when the light caused a sharp pain to spike behind his eyes. He groaned and rubbed at his forehead. Kyle reached out for his pencil and accidentally swept it clean off his desk. He bent down and grabbed it.
Sitting up brought a wave of dizziness and nausea with it. Kyle slumped in his chair and let his head hang over the back. Just half an hour, twenty minutes maybe, and he’d be done. He wanted to cry. His head was pounding and his sense of balance was extremely wonky. He was pretty sure he was shaking. He needed to rest.
But he also needed to finish this commission if he wanted to keep his reputation of always delivering his work, albeit sometimes late. He steeled himself. He could do this, he had to. Kyle sat up to get to work and promptly crumpled forward. His head hit something hard on the way down as he slumped to the ground. Consciousness left him.
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Warmth. Darkness. Soft pressure on his forehead, around his hand. Soft voices drifting in and out. Eventually Kyle noticed that he was awake. His eyes remained closed as he blissfully drifted in the moment. A deep chuckle pulled him into reality.
Kyle carefully opened his eyes. The room was almost completely dark, only a small amount of light filtering in through the blinds. Enough to tell that there was someone sitting next to the bed he laid on.
“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Hal said.
Kyle grumbled something incoherent and rubbed at his eyes.
Hal spoke in a pleasantly quiet voice. “Gave us quite a scare there.”
He made a questioning noise. What /had/ happened? The last thing he could remember was… He lifted a hand to his head. There was a painful bump.
“You didn’t show at the debrief meeting for the big alert. Guy went to look for you. He called us when he found you laying on the floor, unconscious. How long were you awake for, Kyle?”
Kyle’s brain wasn’t awake enough for math yet. “Wednesday. 5,” he croaked out.
Hal drew in a sharp breath. “Jesus, Kyle. No wonder you passed out.” He didn’t bother asking why Kyle hadn’t slept. He knew how these things happened. Kyle appreciated that.
He sighed when he remembered the latest reason for his sleep deprivation. “Commission is screwed.”
Hal sighed too. “No, your commission is fine. John was able to finish it and we sent it off.” He stood up and pulled the blinds up a bit to let in more light. Kyle made a sound of protest and buried his face in his blanket.
Hal laughed and ruffled his hair. Kyle lifted his face away from the blankets once his eyes grew accustomed to the light. Hal looked worried, even though he did his best to hide it. “I don’t want you pulling a stunt like this again, you hear me? At some point you need to sleep and one of your responsibilities will have to be put aside so you can take care of yourself. Even if it ends up being superhero stuff.”
Kyle huffed. “Yes, mom.” He knew it had been stupid, but it had all just piled up and-
Hal lightly swatted his arm, drawing him from his spiral. “You’re awake now. Stop being lazy and get up.”
After a lot of complaints and many good arguments on why Kyle should definitely stay in bed a little longer, Kyle was dressed and standing in his living room.
“Gee, is there anyone you didn’t call?” Kyle felt his question was reasonable considering how many people were crammed into his apartment. Besides the other Lanterns, half the freaking Justice League was here!
Batman came toward him and handed him a glass of water and a protein bar. Kyle obediently took them. “According to the information we got from the Lanterns, we were led to assume this was a life and death situation and not a case of an overworked artist collapsing from exhaustion.”
Kyle smiled into his glass of water. Leave it to Batman to utterly expose how worried everyone had been in a way that made you think that he definitely hadn’t been.
He looked around at everyone. Guy and John near the window, Diana and Barry on the couch, Alan leaning against a wall with his arms crossed, Jenny next to him and Hal standing at his side. “Thanks.”
Guy rolled his eyes and threw a crumpled bag of chips at him. “You owe me at least three beers for the heart attack I had when I found you. Now eat your stupid protein bar, ya sap.”
Kyle chuckled and set himself to teasing everyone over showing their worry. He was glad to have these people.