roxy. The Talented Miss Ripley part 19

This is a tiny little bitlet—but it seemed just perfect the way it was. More tomorrow, if all works out!

The Talented Miss Ripley
A post-mpreg fiction
Fandom: SV
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Rating:2

What went before

Art by

laurab1

Working on the book about everyday heroes had taken his photographer, Calvin, and himself to a lot of out of the way places, some had been unpleasant, but nothing was as bad as this.

The earthquake had been a devastating one; lots of rescue crews from the States, from all over, had volunteered to help. They went about their business, and on the whole ignored the television crews, newspaper reporters and freelancers like Clark, doing what they’d been trained to do.

Clark climbed around piles of rubble, smoke and ash thick in the air. His hair under the helmet was matted and clogged with dust. The handkerchief tied around his neck was actually wet with sweat--he was dirty, reeking, and he was tired, but knew he wasn’t even close to being as bone weary and worn as the men around him were.

The earthquake had leveled blocks, and he had to ignore the hundreds of voices calling out for rescue, for help…he could hear screaming, all the time. The smell….

“How do you people do it?” he muttered to himself, looking out over the crushed landscape. Humans: fragile, weak, so fucking breakable, so stupidly brave... “How do you get out of bed, and face this each day?” There were men around him, grown men, with the tracks of tears scoring lines through the dirt and ash smeared across their faces, exhaustion and fear wearing them down. He could feel tears drying on his own face, the frustration of trying not to make a mistake, of trying to deal with all of it on a human level bringing it’s own type of exhaustion to him. They all worked on, not stopping to wipe their faces, not wasting time on useless embarrassment.

The man next to him, thinking Clark was speaking to him, shrugged. “You just do. You get the fuck up and do it and you do it the next day, and the next day and the day after that. It’s what you do, that’s all.” He looked out over the smoking landscape; crumbled flattened buildings, ash and smoke in the air turning the sun into a bloody ball high above them.

Calvin climbed over a small rise of debris, told him he was turning in for the night—unless Clark wanted more shots at night of the crew? Clark shook his head, and told him to get some rest--they’d be ready to leave in the morning.

He watched him go, sighed heavily and tapped the guy who’d been standing next to him, on the shoulder. “Can I...can I ask you a few questions?” And felt a deep sense of shame. This man was doing everything he could and he—he was asking questions—knowing that in a few hours, he’d be back in Metropolis, safe, clean warm, holding his happy, healthy daughter, talking to Lex—touching Lex….

“Right, right—you’re the guy who’s writing that book.”

“This isn’t for the book so much, as it’s for me,” he said. The guy looked at him, dirt making his face an unreadable mask. His eyes were cold, narrowed at Clark, but after a moment, he nodded, and some life came back into them. “Sure, come over here, out of the way.”

They headed to a little huddle of tents, and the guy wet a rag and rubbed it over his head and neck. He offered Clark water, which he refused. He grabbed a meal from a tent manned by more volunteers and went off into the darkness at the farthest edge of the work area. Lights on towers lit up the darkness as they came on one by one and they sat, and Clark watched him eat. Gray was his name, and he ate without a word, and Clark was quiet until he finished.

Gray lit up a cigarette after he was finished, and smiled in a bitter way, shrugged, when Clark grimaced a bit. The night sky reflected red back from the fires on the ground in the distance, sirens bleated like they had all day, all night long.

They talked and talked, and after a while, Clark just held him and let him cry. After Gray fell asleep, he left the tents and walked and walked. Far out of the ring of lights, the crush of people, the smell and sound, he walked and he thought. He talked to heroes every day, talked to people who put their bodies on the line—as fragile as porcelain, precious. Lives given in service of others, lives that might not have been lost if someone like him was on the lines with them….

Clark had spent months interviewing rescue workers across the country, in other nations—at the scene of fires, of earthquake and landslides and flood. He’d been knee deep in filth and gone days without being able to clean himself, he’d spent nights in emergency wards, on streets that rivaled photos of old Dresden in ancient newsreels--he’d been as close to these men and women as he could. He’d known all this—but tonight—he *knew* it.

He ran out into the darkness, and headed back to the current site, and began to work.

“Hey, is that a voice over there?”

‘There’s something here!” Clark’s voice called out over the rubble, again and again, pointing out an impossible rescue here, pulling immovable rubble aside there, working so fast that he was invisible, unknown.

He came from that job knowing he had to do something to help—something personal, real.

There was only one person he knew who could help him do that.
TBC!

Tags:

ripley part two

Flat. Top-Level Comments Only

Posted by

ladydey.livejournal.com

*sniffle, sniffle* Clark.

He came from that job knowing he had to do something to help-something personal, real.

There was only one person he knew who could help him do that.

- I love that you let Clark come to Superman his own way, not as a reflection of any parental morality, but as a deep felt belief of his own life experiences. Clark grew up to be such a good man in this series - I love....

- At least Lex threw his slight hissy fit when Clark was away. He got it all out of his system so that now all that's left is the PLAN. Neat!

Posted by

ladydey.livejournal.com

I think I really need to get to bed earlier...

Posted by

The Talented Miss Ripley part 19

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