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roxyTitle:: Out Of A Foreign Land
Author:: Roxy
Pairings/Characters:: Lex/Clark
Rating:: varying to nc-17
Word Count::
Summary:: Captain Trips has destroyed his world, but gives Lex one more chance to alter fate.
Notes:: written as an answer to the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sv_renaissance "Steven King Challenge" 2008
Word count:3326
Rating: PG
Out Of A Foreign Land
You know the story. Captain Trips killed three quarters of the world in no time at all.
Captain Trips ate cities, states, continents, like brie on a cracker. Chewed them up, slurped the people down and spit out the husks. Born one bright summer day in the heart of the old west, it brought death to all corners of the world, but no one knew right off.
It took a few weeks….
They walked around, the dead people, worrying, working, laughing, fighting, fucking…life as usual only…it really wasn't, not at all.
There were a lot of stories out of that time. This is one that might have happened.
******
Week one
John Alman yanked his carry-on bag from the overhead, and sighed, the sigh curling and fluttering in the back of his throat until he coughed, trying to quell the irritating tickle. God damn summer cold had been bugging him ever since he left Texas…he coughed on the steward, coughed on the guy selling coffee in the ubiquitous Starbucks coffee kiosk on the concourse…to make a long tale short, he brought a dose for death for everyone he met.
He got out of the taxi, tossed the fare and a big tip to the driver. After killing him, he walked the short block to his place of employment, swinging his bag along, whistling--spewing death. Later that evening, he planned to relax—a few drinks, a hot shower, and bed—hopefully not alone.
He turned through the big glass doors of LuthorCorp and headed for the floor his office was on. Along the way, he touched, jostled, coughed on…
One potato, two potato, three potato, four,
five potato, six potato, seven potato more…
Week two….
"Sir, there's a fax here from the CDC. They're recommending that all air traffic in and out of the city be blocked. And railways closed, and…"
Lex stood in front of the large office windows that looked out over his city. He crossed arms behind his back. He nodded. "Right. Bottle us up. Lock us in until we eat each other." He turned and stared at his aide, who blushed on cue. Lex had hired him because he found his tendency to blush bright red when he leveled an intense stare at him attractive. That and his cocksucker mouth, but he'd never attempted to find out if Ron would. Ron was preternaturally effective an aide and Lex would rather have efficiency than sex any day. There were dozens and dozens of competent sex workers available to him. Paying for it was simple, erased possible complications, and the last thing he needed to do was ruin a valuable working relationship…"Ron, what the fuck is going on here? The hospitals are filling up, people are sick everywhere. The death toll from this—this—*flu*, it's astronomical." He walked towards his desk. "If the city knew the actual count, there'd be rioting in the fucking streets." Lex was worried, worried enough to lose his self-censor and Ron was blushing right on clue. Lex apologized but his attention was on the news cast, on the files Ron brought, on the fax from the CDC…
His secretary interrupted him. "Call on line twelve, your fiancé, Lex."
Jesus. "Thanks Mell, I've got it." He gestured to Ron to keep on working, and Ron crossed the room to the other desk, prepared to coordinate the various streams of information, to ready them for Lex's consumption.
"Lex…" A dry scratchy whine assaulted his ears. "When are you coming home? I'm sick…"
"That's what the staff is for, Victoria. To get you meds and soup and whatnot—"
There was a disgusting noise, Victoria was retching, and gasping…"I'm really sick, and no one's here to take me to the hospital," she complained. "If they haven’t run off they're sleeping." She sounded like a sick child about to break into a tantrum, and Lex broke out in a cold sweat.
"Sweetheart, isn’t anyone there at all?"
"No, they're all asleep and even if I kick them, they won’t wake up. Wake up!" she shrieked and through the phone, Lex heard a sound like a melon being hit with a baseball bat.
More retching, more gasping, and Victoria's voice sounded weaker and rougher. "Come home."
"Of course, right away. Go to bed, and wait for me, I'll bring you chicken soup."
"No soup!" she squalled. "Just—just come home—I'm afraid."
"All right, darling, you get in bed, cover up warm and I'll be home soon. I'm leaving right this instant, promise," he soothed, and hung up the phone. Ron looked at him and he said. "Ron, get me the governor on the phone. We have a situation that's equal to terrorist attack--I want to know what I can do. And get me the chief of police, and…order some food, and coffee, this will be an all-nighter—again."
He knew Ron had heard Vic. And he didn’t give a damn. His city was more important than any one person.
He spoke to the media, vowed that even with massive sick outs and the hospitals beginning to fill up, the city would continue to go on, business as usual. He invited the city's hero to make an appearance, "any day now, Superman. The people of the city need your show of support, a vote of confidence as it were. You know how much the people of Metropolis, the *kids*, depend on you, admire you. We're waiting."
The conference ended, and he stalked away. "Super Bastard," he hissed under his breath.
Mercy glanced towards him and grinned. "Mom always liked you best…" she murmured.
"Go to hell," he snapped. "Free will is very much overrated…"
She chuckled, and held the door to his office.
******
Mell went home the third day.
"My family needs me, and I need them. I quit," she said, smoothing her hand over a permanently wrinkled suit. Her eyes were bright red from lack of sleep, she looked haunted. "Bill called and the kids are coughing and…and…" a tear slipped down her cheek. Lex shook his head and said, "I can't let you quit, Mell. Just--get out of here. There's nothing else we can do right now. Go on home, come back when you're ready."
She nodded. "Thanks, Lex. I—thanks."
"Sure, see you in a couple of days, right?"
Boys and girls, come out to play.
The moon doth shine as bright as day!
Leaves your supper and leave your sleep,
And come with your playfellows into the street.
Week three
"Boss, they're gathering up on the Avenue of Heroes. They're screaming for Superjerk to come save them…the dumb fucks."
"Now, now, it's not nice to refer to the public as dumb fucks, Mercy," he scolded gently. Superman…gone. Disappeared. Maybe he caused this, Lex thought. Didn't have to be on purpose. Maybe some alien disease that mutated, attacked humans. A pandemic. It happened. Hell, it was happening now. Dogs. Cats, birds…maybe he caused it, and went to ground out of fear, or shame--or waiting for the rest of his kind to take over a nicely cleansed planet….
They'd been holed up in the Towers for four days straight, and it seemed like a lifetime. He was getting no reports from police, from any local news—the national news they got was spotty and bad when they got it—listening to it was like listening to a death knell. The last he'd heard from the governor, the National Guard was taking over. At first, it'd seemed like a god send to Lex, but they were watching when the Guard broke in and slaughtered the plucky little crew of station WBC, Bruce's toy broadcasting network. Not even Wayne Broadcasting could hold out against the government in all its glory. The world was falling apart. Freedom of the press was a luxury of the state in comfort. The State under duress was an entirely different animal, and the point was hammered home in the shrieks and agonized cries of men and women who'd left for work one day, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in their briefcases, travel mugs with amusing slogans on warm in their hands, to become Americans murdered by other Americans at the order of their government. If only WBC had stuck to gossip and the weather…reporting about the arrest and execution of the Daily Planet's editorial staff and the subsequent fire that killed many more employees was in hindsight, stupid.
This was no longer America; this was the end of the world.
Lex watched Mercy stalk around and around the room like a tigress in a cage. Hope sat on Lex's desk, tossed them bags of chips and warm sodas looted from vending machines and described what she'd seen on her recon of the building. Death, death and more death. Lex shook his head. His building, *his*, and they were barricaded in his suite like—like animals in the zoo—in his LexCorp Towers, built out of his sweat and blood…well, not his blood alone but still. What kind of justice was this when a man had to hide—hide!—in his own home?
"You know what," he said, and cared not one bit that he sounded drunk, fuck, he was drunk. "There *aint* no fucking justice. TANJ, indeed…" Lex shook his head, and leaned back in his desk chair, tossed back the rest of a glass of scotch, his…he wasn't sure how many already. Drinking himself into a stupor was something he hadn't done since Superfucker took to the skies. He lit a cigarette from the pack Hope tossed him, (smoking again because what the fuck, they were all going to be dead soon), and hummed "it's the end of the world as we know it…" just a catchy tune he'd heard playing over a pirate radio station for a few hours a day or two ago. The towering cloud of black smoke that he could see from windows on the north side of the office was all that remained of the station. He shrugged and tipped the glass back. If he'd been in charge, he'd have done the same thing.
"Lex, Lex…" His feet hit the floor with a thud; the glass missed his desk and spilled into the thick nap of the rug unnoticed. Ron was calling.
He was in the interior office, balled up on a pile of blankets turning his office couch into a sickbed. Deathbed. Ron looked horrible, looked like he was being eaten from the inside out. His eyes were burning in black eye sockets. Lex wet a cloth and pressed it to his mouth but Ron shoved it away. "No, don't…Lex." He grabbed at Lex with a weak, white hot hand and begged him, "Am I going to die?"
Lex wiped his head with the lukewarm cloth. "Yes."
"I know, I knew it…I just thought…more time. I need more." Ron stopped, leaned to the side and retched up black mucus, streaked with red, and the smell of blood filled the room. "Time," he gasped.
"Shh…rest, rest."
"No! I'm dead. I need to know…you to know. I loved--" He coughed, gargled phlegm and blood. He stared at Lex with eyes no longer bright, but the milky color of old jade and the light in them was fading and Lex said, "Yes, I know. Always did. Wanted to tell you, but I was afraid to." He touched Ron's cheek gently. "Loved you from the first moment I saw you," he lied. Ron made a move meant to be a smile, closed his eyes and was gone.
Lex stood and wiped his hands. Competent help deserved acknowledgement. It deserved respect. It was the least he could do, he thought, and covered Ron with the blanket, covered his face. He walked back into the now empty office, dropped into his chair. Should he refill his glass, he wondered, looking at the crystal lying in a dark ring on the carpet.
Hope ran into the room. "The National Guard's coming up the fucking stairs. God damnit Boss, I told you we should have left—we're trapped up here now. Why the fuck am I head of your security if you don’t fucking listen?" she raged as she ripped through the drawers of Lex's desk. She pushed his legs aside and as he swung in his chair, she pulled out the guns they weren’t allowed to carry in the building. "Fucking hell, why didn't I do this days ago? We should have been armed; we should have been out of this glass and steel coffin days ago…" she muttered angrily and Mercy took a gun from her and patted her arm.
"We'll get them. We're going to leave this place now. We…we couldn't before."
"Oh." Understanding flooded her eyes and she glanced towards Lex. "He's—he's gone than. Lex. We have to run for it. Do you hear me? Lex?"
Lex watched her mouth, nodding slightly; hoping at some point something in all this would begin to make sense.
"BOSS." She took a step towards him and the world fell back into place. He rolled his shoulders and straightened his tie…his tie.
"All right, all right—what do we do?"
Hope headed for the doorway. "They'll be here in a moment. They've been moving up while you been fucking around playing Florence Nightingale to—"
"Hope. You overstep yourself," Lex said quietly and she paled.
"I'm sorry, Lex. I didn’t know he was that kind of important—"
"He wasn't. Come on." He was adjusting the gun in a shoulder holster, almost clear of his desk--Hope, his head of security, was just beginning to open the door--Mercy, his personal aide and bodyguard, was stooping to pick up a butterfly knife she'd fumbled--the door blew in and LexCorp was under siege.
Things might have gone differently if one of the young soldiers hadn't startled and drawn on Mercy when she came up from the floor. Hope shot him dead, gunfire filled the air and Mercy threw Lex on the ground, covered him with herself. For what seemed an eternity, the office was full of flying lead, glass…
Noise almost as loud as the gunfire filled the office—Lex realized it was his ears, ringing. The air was sharp, the odor of blood and other much less pleasant smells made him scrub at his nose. "Fucking…"
Mercy rolled off of him, checked him for injury thoroughly and impersonally, totally in job mode. He stood as soon as she released him, his breath thunderously loud in the quiet. Mercy crawled over to Hope and held her. Hope's eyes were black as coal, the scorched hole between them nearly bloodless "Ah. She's dead." Mercy sounded unreal, her voice cracked in disbelief, heartbroken.
Lex stared down at her. "Mercy? Mercy…" He reached out slowly and touched her shoulder.
She flinched from his touch and dropped Hope. "Let's go. We've got to get out now." She walked to the door, stepping over the bodies of the soldiers on the floor. "We're dead if we stay."
"We're dead anyway."
"Boss. You know you’re not going to die of *this* stuff. Shit, you might not die ever. Think."
The elevators were all locked down, emergency lighting flickered and he could hear the air shutting down—the building was dying and their choice was definitely made.
"Let's get to the stairs, Lex. I don't think…I hope you've been working out. It's going to be a hell of a walk." Lex groaned inside. It was going to be a long, long, nightmare of a walk, and he had one warm bottle of orange juice in his pocket….
He thought all the way down the stairs…when he wasn't vomiting, when he wasn't trying to breathe thick fetid air, when they clawed their way over the bodies jammed like lemmings against the doors, he was thinking. There was no damn way this thing could kill this fast—right before radio silence, the CDC was saying it took a few days. All these people, they should still be walking. Dead, yes—but they shouldn't know it yet. They took another turn in the stairwell, and here the lights were out---blown or broken, he couldn’t tell. From somewhere on her person, Mercy produced a flashlight. Its thin beam managed to point out where the most body clogged portions of the stairwell were. Lex took a step and something thick and squishy gave beneath his foot--he stumbled, and let out a high pitched yell…he'd stepped in an upturned palm…Mercy whipped around, halfway through the door to the next landing, gun out and cocked. "Fuck! Boss—you scared the piss out of me!"
It terrified Lex, more than the awful squishy feeling under his heel, or the corpses piled in the stairwell. He'd seen Mercy look a lot of ways, but never on the edge of screaming panic.
Something about that flicked the switch. He stared around himself, stared at her. The vision he'd been hiding from ever since Smallville filled his mind. Cassandra got most of it wrong. He pressed a fist to his mouth, hard, biting down on a giggle. Not his fault. For once, something gone bad that was not his fault, but still…he saw himself all in white and standing on a field of bones and ash, as far as the eye could see…
It's the end of the world.
"Boss…Mr. Luthor…Lex!" Mercy was shaking him. "Come back damn it!"
He was staring into green eyes, black curls framing them. "Come back now—damn it, I need you!"
His cheek stung and his ears rung—she'd smacked him—Lex yanked out of Mercy's grip and staggered back. No…no bones, no corn no wind nobody but his bodyguard and…"Let's get the fuck out," he gasped.
"Now you're talking," she growled and went through the door.
Cut thistles in May
They'll grow in a day
Cut them in June
That is too soon.
Cut them in July
Then they will die
It was so fucking quiet that Lex kept driving Mercy nuts trying to draw her into conversation. He wasn't the kind of person usually given to pointless small talk, but…he *had* to talk. He was driven to fill the empty spaces, to cover the lack of sound that meant death. "Mercy, maybe you're right. I think…this mutation of mine is protecting me. Maybe that is why I haven't gotten sick so far. So far."
She nodded, eyes jerking right and left. "Unh-hunh. And maybe there's not enough human stuff left in me for me to get sick. I don't know. I sure don't feel so good right now."
Lex felt sympathy for her loss and her…condition. He winced and as if reading his mind, she waved it off. "Boss, you never lied to us. Hope and I know—knew--we were rebuilt from day one and we're always been grateful for the second chance. In fact, we…we always…" she stopped talking, swallowed with a dry click. "We kind of thought of you as a father, y'know? I mean, you raised us, taught us…made us." She shook her head. "See? That's why I don't like talking. I say all kinds of stupid shit."
She jumped over a huddled mass of bodies, frowned when Lex's smooth leather soles slipped on them, on the fluid slick wool carpet. She reached out for him and he grabbed her hand like a life line, squeezing until a fully human being would have cried out. "I wish we had the leisure to mourn. I feel that need like a—a brick in my stomach. But right now, I need you to save us, Mercy. If you can."
"Are you fucking kidding me?" She said, "I was born for this." But her eyes glittered with unshed tears and Lex wondered just when they'd have time to properly mourn her sister.
TBC
part2
Author:: Roxy
Pairings/Characters:: Lex/Clark
Rating:: varying to nc-17
Word Count::
Summary:: Captain Trips has destroyed his world, but gives Lex one more chance to alter fate.
Notes:: written as an answer to the
sv_renaissance "Steven King Challenge" 2008Word count:3326
Rating: PG
Out Of A Foreign Land
You know the story. Captain Trips killed three quarters of the world in no time at all.
Captain Trips ate cities, states, continents, like brie on a cracker. Chewed them up, slurped the people down and spit out the husks. Born one bright summer day in the heart of the old west, it brought death to all corners of the world, but no one knew right off.
It took a few weeks….
They walked around, the dead people, worrying, working, laughing, fighting, fucking…life as usual only…it really wasn't, not at all.
There were a lot of stories out of that time. This is one that might have happened.
Week one
John Alman yanked his carry-on bag from the overhead, and sighed, the sigh curling and fluttering in the back of his throat until he coughed, trying to quell the irritating tickle. God damn summer cold had been bugging him ever since he left Texas…he coughed on the steward, coughed on the guy selling coffee in the ubiquitous Starbucks coffee kiosk on the concourse…to make a long tale short, he brought a dose for death for everyone he met.
He got out of the taxi, tossed the fare and a big tip to the driver. After killing him, he walked the short block to his place of employment, swinging his bag along, whistling--spewing death. Later that evening, he planned to relax—a few drinks, a hot shower, and bed—hopefully not alone.
He turned through the big glass doors of LuthorCorp and headed for the floor his office was on. Along the way, he touched, jostled, coughed on…
five potato, six potato, seven potato more…
Week two….
"Sir, there's a fax here from the CDC. They're recommending that all air traffic in and out of the city be blocked. And railways closed, and…"
Lex stood in front of the large office windows that looked out over his city. He crossed arms behind his back. He nodded. "Right. Bottle us up. Lock us in until we eat each other." He turned and stared at his aide, who blushed on cue. Lex had hired him because he found his tendency to blush bright red when he leveled an intense stare at him attractive. That and his cocksucker mouth, but he'd never attempted to find out if Ron would. Ron was preternaturally effective an aide and Lex would rather have efficiency than sex any day. There were dozens and dozens of competent sex workers available to him. Paying for it was simple, erased possible complications, and the last thing he needed to do was ruin a valuable working relationship…"Ron, what the fuck is going on here? The hospitals are filling up, people are sick everywhere. The death toll from this—this—*flu*, it's astronomical." He walked towards his desk. "If the city knew the actual count, there'd be rioting in the fucking streets." Lex was worried, worried enough to lose his self-censor and Ron was blushing right on clue. Lex apologized but his attention was on the news cast, on the files Ron brought, on the fax from the CDC…
His secretary interrupted him. "Call on line twelve, your fiancé, Lex."
Jesus. "Thanks Mell, I've got it." He gestured to Ron to keep on working, and Ron crossed the room to the other desk, prepared to coordinate the various streams of information, to ready them for Lex's consumption.
"Lex…" A dry scratchy whine assaulted his ears. "When are you coming home? I'm sick…"
"That's what the staff is for, Victoria. To get you meds and soup and whatnot—"
There was a disgusting noise, Victoria was retching, and gasping…"I'm really sick, and no one's here to take me to the hospital," she complained. "If they haven’t run off they're sleeping." She sounded like a sick child about to break into a tantrum, and Lex broke out in a cold sweat.
"Sweetheart, isn’t anyone there at all?"
"No, they're all asleep and even if I kick them, they won’t wake up. Wake up!" she shrieked and through the phone, Lex heard a sound like a melon being hit with a baseball bat.
More retching, more gasping, and Victoria's voice sounded weaker and rougher. "Come home."
"Of course, right away. Go to bed, and wait for me, I'll bring you chicken soup."
"No soup!" she squalled. "Just—just come home—I'm afraid."
"All right, darling, you get in bed, cover up warm and I'll be home soon. I'm leaving right this instant, promise," he soothed, and hung up the phone. Ron looked at him and he said. "Ron, get me the governor on the phone. We have a situation that's equal to terrorist attack--I want to know what I can do. And get me the chief of police, and…order some food, and coffee, this will be an all-nighter—again."
He knew Ron had heard Vic. And he didn’t give a damn. His city was more important than any one person.
He spoke to the media, vowed that even with massive sick outs and the hospitals beginning to fill up, the city would continue to go on, business as usual. He invited the city's hero to make an appearance, "any day now, Superman. The people of the city need your show of support, a vote of confidence as it were. You know how much the people of Metropolis, the *kids*, depend on you, admire you. We're waiting."
The conference ended, and he stalked away. "Super Bastard," he hissed under his breath.
Mercy glanced towards him and grinned. "Mom always liked you best…" she murmured.
"Go to hell," he snapped. "Free will is very much overrated…"
She chuckled, and held the door to his office.
Mell went home the third day.
"My family needs me, and I need them. I quit," she said, smoothing her hand over a permanently wrinkled suit. Her eyes were bright red from lack of sleep, she looked haunted. "Bill called and the kids are coughing and…and…" a tear slipped down her cheek. Lex shook his head and said, "I can't let you quit, Mell. Just--get out of here. There's nothing else we can do right now. Go on home, come back when you're ready."
She nodded. "Thanks, Lex. I—thanks."
"Sure, see you in a couple of days, right?"
The moon doth shine as bright as day!
Leaves your supper and leave your sleep,
And come with your playfellows into the street.
Week three
"Boss, they're gathering up on the Avenue of Heroes. They're screaming for Superjerk to come save them…the dumb fucks."
"Now, now, it's not nice to refer to the public as dumb fucks, Mercy," he scolded gently. Superman…gone. Disappeared. Maybe he caused this, Lex thought. Didn't have to be on purpose. Maybe some alien disease that mutated, attacked humans. A pandemic. It happened. Hell, it was happening now. Dogs. Cats, birds…maybe he caused it, and went to ground out of fear, or shame--or waiting for the rest of his kind to take over a nicely cleansed planet….
They'd been holed up in the Towers for four days straight, and it seemed like a lifetime. He was getting no reports from police, from any local news—the national news they got was spotty and bad when they got it—listening to it was like listening to a death knell. The last he'd heard from the governor, the National Guard was taking over. At first, it'd seemed like a god send to Lex, but they were watching when the Guard broke in and slaughtered the plucky little crew of station WBC, Bruce's toy broadcasting network. Not even Wayne Broadcasting could hold out against the government in all its glory. The world was falling apart. Freedom of the press was a luxury of the state in comfort. The State under duress was an entirely different animal, and the point was hammered home in the shrieks and agonized cries of men and women who'd left for work one day, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in their briefcases, travel mugs with amusing slogans on warm in their hands, to become Americans murdered by other Americans at the order of their government. If only WBC had stuck to gossip and the weather…reporting about the arrest and execution of the Daily Planet's editorial staff and the subsequent fire that killed many more employees was in hindsight, stupid.
This was no longer America; this was the end of the world.
Lex watched Mercy stalk around and around the room like a tigress in a cage. Hope sat on Lex's desk, tossed them bags of chips and warm sodas looted from vending machines and described what she'd seen on her recon of the building. Death, death and more death. Lex shook his head. His building, *his*, and they were barricaded in his suite like—like animals in the zoo—in his LexCorp Towers, built out of his sweat and blood…well, not his blood alone but still. What kind of justice was this when a man had to hide—hide!—in his own home?
"You know what," he said, and cared not one bit that he sounded drunk, fuck, he was drunk. "There *aint* no fucking justice. TANJ, indeed…" Lex shook his head, and leaned back in his desk chair, tossed back the rest of a glass of scotch, his…he wasn't sure how many already. Drinking himself into a stupor was something he hadn't done since Superfucker took to the skies. He lit a cigarette from the pack Hope tossed him, (smoking again because what the fuck, they were all going to be dead soon), and hummed "it's the end of the world as we know it…" just a catchy tune he'd heard playing over a pirate radio station for a few hours a day or two ago. The towering cloud of black smoke that he could see from windows on the north side of the office was all that remained of the station. He shrugged and tipped the glass back. If he'd been in charge, he'd have done the same thing.
"Lex, Lex…" His feet hit the floor with a thud; the glass missed his desk and spilled into the thick nap of the rug unnoticed. Ron was calling.
He was in the interior office, balled up on a pile of blankets turning his office couch into a sickbed. Deathbed. Ron looked horrible, looked like he was being eaten from the inside out. His eyes were burning in black eye sockets. Lex wet a cloth and pressed it to his mouth but Ron shoved it away. "No, don't…Lex." He grabbed at Lex with a weak, white hot hand and begged him, "Am I going to die?"
Lex wiped his head with the lukewarm cloth. "Yes."
"I know, I knew it…I just thought…more time. I need more." Ron stopped, leaned to the side and retched up black mucus, streaked with red, and the smell of blood filled the room. "Time," he gasped.
"Shh…rest, rest."
"No! I'm dead. I need to know…you to know. I loved--" He coughed, gargled phlegm and blood. He stared at Lex with eyes no longer bright, but the milky color of old jade and the light in them was fading and Lex said, "Yes, I know. Always did. Wanted to tell you, but I was afraid to." He touched Ron's cheek gently. "Loved you from the first moment I saw you," he lied. Ron made a move meant to be a smile, closed his eyes and was gone.
Lex stood and wiped his hands. Competent help deserved acknowledgement. It deserved respect. It was the least he could do, he thought, and covered Ron with the blanket, covered his face. He walked back into the now empty office, dropped into his chair. Should he refill his glass, he wondered, looking at the crystal lying in a dark ring on the carpet.
Hope ran into the room. "The National Guard's coming up the fucking stairs. God damnit Boss, I told you we should have left—we're trapped up here now. Why the fuck am I head of your security if you don’t fucking listen?" she raged as she ripped through the drawers of Lex's desk. She pushed his legs aside and as he swung in his chair, she pulled out the guns they weren’t allowed to carry in the building. "Fucking hell, why didn't I do this days ago? We should have been armed; we should have been out of this glass and steel coffin days ago…" she muttered angrily and Mercy took a gun from her and patted her arm.
"We'll get them. We're going to leave this place now. We…we couldn't before."
"Oh." Understanding flooded her eyes and she glanced towards Lex. "He's—he's gone than. Lex. We have to run for it. Do you hear me? Lex?"
Lex watched her mouth, nodding slightly; hoping at some point something in all this would begin to make sense.
"BOSS." She took a step towards him and the world fell back into place. He rolled his shoulders and straightened his tie…his tie.
"All right, all right—what do we do?"
Hope headed for the doorway. "They'll be here in a moment. They've been moving up while you been fucking around playing Florence Nightingale to—"
"Hope. You overstep yourself," Lex said quietly and she paled.
"I'm sorry, Lex. I didn’t know he was that kind of important—"
"He wasn't. Come on." He was adjusting the gun in a shoulder holster, almost clear of his desk--Hope, his head of security, was just beginning to open the door--Mercy, his personal aide and bodyguard, was stooping to pick up a butterfly knife she'd fumbled--the door blew in and LexCorp was under siege.
Things might have gone differently if one of the young soldiers hadn't startled and drawn on Mercy when she came up from the floor. Hope shot him dead, gunfire filled the air and Mercy threw Lex on the ground, covered him with herself. For what seemed an eternity, the office was full of flying lead, glass…
Noise almost as loud as the gunfire filled the office—Lex realized it was his ears, ringing. The air was sharp, the odor of blood and other much less pleasant smells made him scrub at his nose. "Fucking…"
Mercy rolled off of him, checked him for injury thoroughly and impersonally, totally in job mode. He stood as soon as she released him, his breath thunderously loud in the quiet. Mercy crawled over to Hope and held her. Hope's eyes were black as coal, the scorched hole between them nearly bloodless "Ah. She's dead." Mercy sounded unreal, her voice cracked in disbelief, heartbroken.
Lex stared down at her. "Mercy? Mercy…" He reached out slowly and touched her shoulder.
She flinched from his touch and dropped Hope. "Let's go. We've got to get out now." She walked to the door, stepping over the bodies of the soldiers on the floor. "We're dead if we stay."
"We're dead anyway."
"Boss. You know you’re not going to die of *this* stuff. Shit, you might not die ever. Think."
The elevators were all locked down, emergency lighting flickered and he could hear the air shutting down—the building was dying and their choice was definitely made.
"Let's get to the stairs, Lex. I don't think…I hope you've been working out. It's going to be a hell of a walk." Lex groaned inside. It was going to be a long, long, nightmare of a walk, and he had one warm bottle of orange juice in his pocket….
He thought all the way down the stairs…when he wasn't vomiting, when he wasn't trying to breathe thick fetid air, when they clawed their way over the bodies jammed like lemmings against the doors, he was thinking. There was no damn way this thing could kill this fast—right before radio silence, the CDC was saying it took a few days. All these people, they should still be walking. Dead, yes—but they shouldn't know it yet. They took another turn in the stairwell, and here the lights were out---blown or broken, he couldn’t tell. From somewhere on her person, Mercy produced a flashlight. Its thin beam managed to point out where the most body clogged portions of the stairwell were. Lex took a step and something thick and squishy gave beneath his foot--he stumbled, and let out a high pitched yell…he'd stepped in an upturned palm…Mercy whipped around, halfway through the door to the next landing, gun out and cocked. "Fuck! Boss—you scared the piss out of me!"
It terrified Lex, more than the awful squishy feeling under his heel, or the corpses piled in the stairwell. He'd seen Mercy look a lot of ways, but never on the edge of screaming panic.
Something about that flicked the switch. He stared around himself, stared at her. The vision he'd been hiding from ever since Smallville filled his mind. Cassandra got most of it wrong. He pressed a fist to his mouth, hard, biting down on a giggle. Not his fault. For once, something gone bad that was not his fault, but still…he saw himself all in white and standing on a field of bones and ash, as far as the eye could see…
It's the end of the world.
"Boss…Mr. Luthor…Lex!" Mercy was shaking him. "Come back damn it!"
He was staring into green eyes, black curls framing them. "Come back now—damn it, I need you!"
His cheek stung and his ears rung—she'd smacked him—Lex yanked out of Mercy's grip and staggered back. No…no bones, no corn no wind nobody but his bodyguard and…"Let's get the fuck out," he gasped.
"Now you're talking," she growled and went through the door.
They'll grow in a day
Cut them in June
That is too soon.
Cut them in July
Then they will die
It was so fucking quiet that Lex kept driving Mercy nuts trying to draw her into conversation. He wasn't the kind of person usually given to pointless small talk, but…he *had* to talk. He was driven to fill the empty spaces, to cover the lack of sound that meant death. "Mercy, maybe you're right. I think…this mutation of mine is protecting me. Maybe that is why I haven't gotten sick so far. So far."
She nodded, eyes jerking right and left. "Unh-hunh. And maybe there's not enough human stuff left in me for me to get sick. I don't know. I sure don't feel so good right now."
Lex felt sympathy for her loss and her…condition. He winced and as if reading his mind, she waved it off. "Boss, you never lied to us. Hope and I know—knew--we were rebuilt from day one and we're always been grateful for the second chance. In fact, we…we always…" she stopped talking, swallowed with a dry click. "We kind of thought of you as a father, y'know? I mean, you raised us, taught us…made us." She shook her head. "See? That's why I don't like talking. I say all kinds of stupid shit."
She jumped over a huddled mass of bodies, frowned when Lex's smooth leather soles slipped on them, on the fluid slick wool carpet. She reached out for him and he grabbed her hand like a life line, squeezing until a fully human being would have cried out. "I wish we had the leisure to mourn. I feel that need like a—a brick in my stomach. But right now, I need you to save us, Mercy. If you can."
"Are you fucking kidding me?" She said, "I was born for this." But her eyes glittered with unshed tears and Lex wondered just when they'd have time to properly mourn her sister.
TBC
part2
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(no subject)
5/14/11 09:06 pm (UTC)Hope is dead. Love, love, love Mercy! Poor Ron was in love with Lex. Who could blame him. Only on the first chapter and I'm already hooked :D
(no subject)
5/14/11 09:58 pm (UTC)Yeah, I hit the ground running with this one! I'm glad you're reading it--this is one of my very favorite stories of my own. :)