fic post: Out Of A Foreign Land part 2
2/5/08 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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:3238
Rating: PG
Out Of A Foreign Land
PART ONE
Now I lay me down to sleep…
They shoved through the doors of LexCorp and out to the Avenue of Business. The avenue swept majestically up to the horizon, the blue sky and fluffy white clouds overhead mocking the fires, the thick black clouds that rose up from the streets and tried to blot out the sun. He watched the white clouds pull apart like cotton wool in the gentle breeze and wondered for the hundredth time, just where the fuck was Superman? It drove him nuts that he had no Kryptonite with him...what if this was a plot? What if…maybe he should head back to Smallville, get the reserves he had under the castle basement. The shades of the Kents couldn’t keep him out of Smallville anymore. There were bigger things at stake than hurt feeling and shame. He wondered if Martha was okay, and felt strange about wondering. He hadn't thought of her in years…He turned to head east on the avenue.
"Boss, where the hell are you going?"
"Parking garage—we should get out of town." He picked his way fastidiously around overturned garbage cans, cursing quietly when he slid in something thick and gluey. He felt her hand on him, nearly as strong as Clark's….
"Okay but…look around. Car's not going to help us."
He stopped, looked up and down the avenue, and his stomach clenched hard. In the time they'd barricaded themselves in LexCorp, Metropolis had died. She was dead and in pieces like a corpse on a battle field. Smoke wreathed the Daily Planet Globe, it lurched and screeched as it tried to rotate, the multi-screen display plastered over the Galaxy Media Group building was going crazy—the screens flashed no news, no ads, they shrieked and stuttered in violent colors, or were black—dead. Fires sputtered here and there, cars were nose to ass in the road, piling up, spilling over onto the sidewalk. The air stank of fuel and burning tar, and…bodies. Bodies everywhere. He licked his lips, watched the last death throes of his city. The faces of the dead taunted him. "Ah. The car is useless."
Mercy looked at him, her eyebrows a visual equivalent of 'duh.'
They walked through the choked roadway, farther and farther from the city center. He looked back once, to see the Planet's globe lurch around once more, and stop.
At about the point that Lex was ready to scream, Mercy did. It was full of wild glee, and Lex relaxed—a bit. "Come on, Boss! A motorcycle!" his bodyguard yelled. "While you've been moping, I've been looking for transportation." She yanked the body of a cop from his motorcycle, plucked his helmet free and tossed it to Lex. "Wear it," she growled when he pulled a face. "I can’t worry about you and me too."
Whether it was crawling with contagion or not hardly made a difference now. No point in worrying. He was either dead, or his mutation was working to save him. And Mercy…he supposed she had as much chance as he did of survival. What was meat, human, was mostly built from his DNA. The nagging thought in the back of his mind whispered her lungs, her trachea, her heart, still human, still susceptible... but it *had* been more than three days—in the time they'd been blocked in LexCorp, everyone but Mercy and he had died, and if that fucking soldier hadn't got off a lucky shot, Hope would be here with them--he plopped the helmet on his head.
Lex managed to convince her to slip the leather jacket over her lightweight blouse. "I can probably heal better from road rash than you, so don’t argue. If I have to wear this horrible thing you have to wear the jacket." He wrinkled his nose as he buckled the helmet on. "Smells. This guy's hygiene left a lot to be desired."
"Boss—the guy is right here dead. Show some respect."
"Don’t be ridiculous. He doesn't give a damn what we're saying." But the flat clouded eyes followed him, looking reproachful, so much so that Lex tipped him onto his face, and ignored Mercy's little sneer.
She started the bike, and waited for Lex to settle himself. "Been on the back of a bike before?" she asked.
"Oh yeah," he said, and smiled wickedly.
She held her hands up, "God. Don’t tell me any drug fueled sex addict stories, I don’t want to ralph."
They argued on their way out of the city, but it was mostly a way of distracting themselves from what lay on every foot of the road. People had tried to get out, and it hadn’t been easy or nice. Like rats in a box, the citizens of Metropolis had gone down fighting each other, fighting over an inch of road, a sip of water…an illusion.
They stopped once before leaving the city, at Mercy's insistence. She ransacked a camping outfitters, once a big name, now an upscale equipment filled graveyard. Dragging a couple of backpacks through the aisles, she stuffed them full of camping equipment while Lex followed, bemused. She was muttering, "We'll need this…and this…" She yanked off her skirt, as totally unconcerned about stripping in front of him, as he was completely uninterested, and shimmied into cargo pants. "Here," she snapped. "Take off those stupid loafers and put these on." She tossed him a pair of hiking boots.
"God…"
"Wear them, or I'll leave you a blistering, screaming lump on the highway. Boss."
"If this ever gets better, I'm going to fire you."
She turned and smirked at him, and thrust a backpack at him. "Load up, Mr. Luthor."
On the way out, they stopped to spit in the fake lake in the center of the store.
******
They stopped at the freeway exit leading to two possible destinations—outside to the suburbs, farming country—and east, towards Gotham. Mercy straddled the bike and watched Lex stand at the crossroads. "Where to, Lex? The estate, or west to Smallville or—?"
He stared westwards, towards the big blue expanse of cloudless sky, towards where the sun beat down, yellow and hot…"Gotham."
"The fuck--Gotham? Why? It's not going to be any different than Met. The castle can at least provide us with some protection—as a base until…until…whatever. Mr. Paranoid Senior filled it with supplies, and now Junior wants to go practically naked and unarmed into unknown territory instead of going where it might be SAFE."
"It's not unknown. Bruce is there—Batman. Dick and the new one, Jay, Jason, something…It'll be different. They won’t let it be all—like this.
"Lex." She wanted to reason with him. He could feel he was going off track again…"Lex, most of the damn world is like this. Gotham—the Bats—they might all be dead."
"No," he said firmly. "I'd know it if he was dead. We…share something. We are. Were friends." He fucking *knew* he was jumping the track, but he couldn't stop….
Mercy sighed, kicked the bike in gear. "Boss," she yelled, "I think you’re making a big mistake. Smallville. We need to go there. But if you want we'll go to Gotham. Pray something is happening, something good." She muttered, "And if it turns out we headed there for a pity fuck—I'll kill you myself." She coughed a little…"fucking dust."
Lex sat behind her, arms tight around her waist, slowly let the weight of the helmet pull his head forward until it rested on her back. He refused to look at the road, trying not to—to cry. He gasped with the effort, squeezed his eyes shut against the looking and prayed hard as hell that Bruce was alive.
*****
Ring around the rosy
A pocket full of posies
ashes, ashes, we all fall down
For miles and miles there was nothing—no cars, corpses, no sign that anything was wrong and if he chose to he could pretend that nothing *was* wrong, that he and his bodyguard were out for a drive on a lovely afternoon. He felt like he was barely connected to the body on the bike, he was soaring, flying—he closed his eyes for a moment to pretend…Clark held him in his arms, he had his own wrapped around Clark's waist and they were flying, flying…
"Boss, hey Boss, fuckin' hell..." The bike wobbled to a stop, the elevated road bed in front of them casting shadows—and between the huge art deco supports bed sheets hung, splashed with paint.
ABADON ALL HOPE YEE WHO ENTRE HER
Great swooping swirls of red paint spelled out a message--or a warning--trailed like blood the length of the sheets. The shadows did little to hide the humped forms scattered under the el.
Mercy wiped her sweating forehead, and her streaming eyes. "Jesus. I told you, I told you it'd be bad."
It stank. The air was thick with the smell of rot, the smell of charred meat. Lex guessed that here were the cars they didn’t see on the way. Tangled vehicles completely blocked access to the road into the city. They had to dismount, Mercy cursing creatively all the while…
"Cap it, Mercy. What are you going to protect me against—zombies?"
"Lex, shit—that's not funny at all." Lex silently agreed with her—he'd scared himself, but no way in hell was he looking over his shoulder. He was *not* waiting for one of those bodies to rise, he wasn't….
"Oh. Fuck." Mercy stopped abruptly and Lex grabbed her shoulder.
"What fuck? What--oh."
Corpses hung like fruit from the art deco struts of the roadway underside. Crows mumbled and creaked and flopped away from their meals. The corpses swayed under their departing weight and Lex almost screamed—it looked like they were moving purposefully.
"Something's weird with them," Mercy muttered.
"Jesus, you think?" Lex snapped but as they came closer to the underpass, he saw it. Crows flew up in big black clouds as they approached; Mercy had her guns out, snarling.
The bodies were hung upside down, each had one leg tied twisted behind the other…ignoring the arms, they looked like figure fours hung underneath the roadway, or bats, giant bats. Lex shivered. This was worse than not good. Hell grew in Gotham—
"You see? They're all smiling," she whispered. "They're all cut. See?"
Great big grins stretched from cheekbone to cheekbone. The scene was a stage set from advent-garde horror movie out of the last century, heavy on atmosphere. Grins, grins, everywhere—Lex nearly shrieked when an ululating moan tore the silence. The heavy flap of crow's wings filled the air as well as Mercy cursing, and a single emphatic shot…silence fell thick again when the echoes died away.
"One of them—it was still. Alive," she said. Lex felt weak and sick himself at the sight of Mercy, dark purple under her eyes, snot unnoticed on her upper lip. "I had to."
He came close, ripped off his tie and wiped her nose and kissed her wet, burning forehead. "I know. It was a kindness."
"Yes, that's what I meant it as."
The forest of hanged men and women thinned as they walked on and Lex found himself counting the corpses…he lost count quickly. Mercy was saying, "What the hell, is the whole city out here?" and then they were at the end of the overpass and both of them froze—Lex felt his heart skitter, heard Mercy whisper, "Shit."
On the final arch into the city, he was hanging, swathed in black and gray of course, flesh blue and mottled and loose on his bones. He hung by a boot heel, and his arms were spread over the entrance to Gotham, a welcome sign. A warning. Under him, a tall thin figure dressed in crusty green and purple rags sat. Black streaks ran from the crown of his head to his shoulders, over his laddered white chest.
He looked up and smiled. His smile wasn't as horrible as the one on the corpse above him, but it was very close. "I know you." He moved, unfolded, draped the bits and pieces of a long frock coat around himself and smiled. "He's beautiful, isn't he? At peace. The shades of his parents haunt him no more. By the way, *I* had nothing to do with that," he sniffed. "It wasn't me...I'm fairly certain…" He tilted his head back, and the long ears of the cowl hanging over him brushed his forehead. "He's happy like this. Watching over the city he loved. This is the way he'd have wanted to go. And he has his entourage, his helpers and servants into the other side. As it should be. He was a prince among men." He bowed, deep and seemingly sincere. "Goodnight sweet prince, flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." He whirled until he was bare inches from Lex, his breath warm and rank and in a low deep voice growled, "Helloo, Lex. Come to play?"
Other creatures came out of the shadows, creeping, crawling, to arrange themselves around the green and white scarecrow. "Behold, the world turned upside down—and here I am. A king in the country of the blind…heh heh. And you, Lex Luthor. Come for him, have you? Well forget it, sunshine, he's mine. You can take your narrow white ass and you little fairy princess the fuck out of my town."
"God." Lex stared up at the nightmare, looked into the fires of hell. "You did it. You killed him."
"NO! No, *I* didn’t kill him, if I'd done it, it wouldn’t be like this…" He reached up a pale thin hand and caressed the face over him. "He kissed me, and then he died. Just like I imagined it." He threw back his long head, closed his eyes and smiled into the morning sun. He refocused on Lex. "Well. He would have but he was like this when I found him. All of them." He cast his eyes down modestly and shyly said, "I added the smiles, though."
Lex sucked in air and backed up until he and Mercy were back to back—she was like a furnace, and so tense it was like leaning against a board….
"Hell of a joke, don't you think? Such a long courtship, leading to this…now the end of the world is come and we'll never know for sure. Just like you and the Boy Scout. Neither of us will ever know. It was supposed to be me and--and--who killed him? The little bird killed him."
Lex was staggered, disbelieving. "Jason? Why?"
The lean figure swayed slightly. "Don’t you mean Tim…oh, riiight, not in this version, you don't." He snapped his fingers, "who, who—oh. Jason. Right. He was fun—would have been fun--" He waved his hand, impatient at Lex's refusal to understand. "Not him either. The real one." He pointed over Mercy's head. "That bird. Duck."
"A duck—" she started to say, and jerked Lex to the dirt with her. The rag-tag shambling crowd melted back into the shadows and on the struts over Batman, Nightwing crouched.
"Get out of Gotham."
"I'm fucking sick and tired of people telling me what to do." Lex snarled. Mercy muttered, "Yeah, Boss, piss off the murderous lunatic. Good game plan…" He heard the slide of metal on fabric.
Lex snapped his fingers at her, demanding silence, and stared at the grinning man hanging from the corpse. "How could you—to him--*why*?"
"Because the world is dying, and when the world is dying, you have to make sacrifices," he said with the air of an adult explaining something weird and grown-up to the children. "Give them everything you've got, and when you think you've given it all, give more. So I gave all I had."
"Where's Jay—where's Robin? Why are you here?"
"Dead," Dick moaned, "dead of the plague. Everyone's dying…" He flipped up along the struts and cart-wheeled on a ledge no wider than Lex's palm. Wheeled back to come to rest over Bruce again. "All dead except those who should be dead. It's okay. I'm going to make it right again," he grinned.
Joker appeared in the shadows, and raised his hand to point at Mercy, then at his own head. Dick inched closer, climbed down Bruce's body like a lizard on a wall. "You can keep him company," he told Lex, "He'd like that."
He tensed. Mercy took a breath; Lex squeezed her shoulder and stepped back. "Go." She put a shot between Dick's eyes.
The voice in the shadows cracked, "Go--go away now, *go away*. Leave us all alone."
Lex took Mercy by the arm, and led her back between the bodies, and the cars, back out of Gotham, back to the bike. There was silence between them, silence that ran on for miles—Lex's grip on her waist was as impersonal as a grip for dear life could be…it went on until they came to a crossroads. One way went back to Metropolis, and from there to Smallville, the other to Colorado—on to Nevada….
Mercy came to a stop. "Boss. I don’t give a fuck what you want. I earned the right to make this decision. We're going to Smallville, hear me?"
"Mercy, I agree. Whatever you want. Just…let it be."
She narrowed her eyes at him, nodded briefly. "Let's go." Lex felt a shiver of unease. Her eyes were burning in the purple smudges of her eye sockets.
******
There's a wind in the underpass, it whips through throwing grit and trash against his mostly bare legs, but he doesn't feel it. He's busy, gloved fingertips tapping against his chin, elbow planted solidly on a bare knee. Concentrating. He's trying to hold the threads of the world together. That's part of what he does, weave the fabric of reality---though he's finally been forced to admit, he's just not very good at it. It's full of snarls and knots….he waits. And weaves. Until he gets bored and makes things happen. Sometimes, what happens surprises even him. Like now—not that he's sure he wove this pattern. He wasn't insane like *this*…gotta admit, the joke *was* pretty damn good. Thing is, now that everything's different, he feels no need to make things happen, oh no, not at all. Not when there's little difference between the outside of his head and the inside.
He considers, nervous fingers twitch at the lapels of his frock coat and he decides—no sir, he doesn't like it. He hopes Lex Luthor finds what he's looking for. It'll go a long way towards fixing this.
There's a sound like a tall ship under sail, the creak that rope makes, swinging, burdened by weight. The light in the underpass shifts, undergoes changes like light underwater. The sun is suddenly blocked out by ebony wings, there's the faintest 'pock' of beaks hitting soft stuff.
But not where he sits.
The crows are wise enough to give him a wide berth. They understand a vast variety of crazy and bow before this one.
He watches and waits. He thinks. Waiting, thinking…and then…"I think…I won't believe in him. I think I won't believe in myself.
And, I won't believe in *you*."
A bat swoops into the dark, and there's a white, white grin there. It fades.
******
TBC
part 3
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:3238
Rating: PG
Out Of A Foreign Land
PART ONE
They shoved through the doors of LexCorp and out to the Avenue of Business. The avenue swept majestically up to the horizon, the blue sky and fluffy white clouds overhead mocking the fires, the thick black clouds that rose up from the streets and tried to blot out the sun. He watched the white clouds pull apart like cotton wool in the gentle breeze and wondered for the hundredth time, just where the fuck was Superman? It drove him nuts that he had no Kryptonite with him...what if this was a plot? What if…maybe he should head back to Smallville, get the reserves he had under the castle basement. The shades of the Kents couldn’t keep him out of Smallville anymore. There were bigger things at stake than hurt feeling and shame. He wondered if Martha was okay, and felt strange about wondering. He hadn't thought of her in years…He turned to head east on the avenue.
"Boss, where the hell are you going?"
"Parking garage—we should get out of town." He picked his way fastidiously around overturned garbage cans, cursing quietly when he slid in something thick and gluey. He felt her hand on him, nearly as strong as Clark's….
"Okay but…look around. Car's not going to help us."
He stopped, looked up and down the avenue, and his stomach clenched hard. In the time they'd barricaded themselves in LexCorp, Metropolis had died. She was dead and in pieces like a corpse on a battle field. Smoke wreathed the Daily Planet Globe, it lurched and screeched as it tried to rotate, the multi-screen display plastered over the Galaxy Media Group building was going crazy—the screens flashed no news, no ads, they shrieked and stuttered in violent colors, or were black—dead. Fires sputtered here and there, cars were nose to ass in the road, piling up, spilling over onto the sidewalk. The air stank of fuel and burning tar, and…bodies. Bodies everywhere. He licked his lips, watched the last death throes of his city. The faces of the dead taunted him. "Ah. The car is useless."
Mercy looked at him, her eyebrows a visual equivalent of 'duh.'
They walked through the choked roadway, farther and farther from the city center. He looked back once, to see the Planet's globe lurch around once more, and stop.
At about the point that Lex was ready to scream, Mercy did. It was full of wild glee, and Lex relaxed—a bit. "Come on, Boss! A motorcycle!" his bodyguard yelled. "While you've been moping, I've been looking for transportation." She yanked the body of a cop from his motorcycle, plucked his helmet free and tossed it to Lex. "Wear it," she growled when he pulled a face. "I can’t worry about you and me too."
Whether it was crawling with contagion or not hardly made a difference now. No point in worrying. He was either dead, or his mutation was working to save him. And Mercy…he supposed she had as much chance as he did of survival. What was meat, human, was mostly built from his DNA. The nagging thought in the back of his mind whispered her lungs, her trachea, her heart, still human, still susceptible... but it *had* been more than three days—in the time they'd been blocked in LexCorp, everyone but Mercy and he had died, and if that fucking soldier hadn't got off a lucky shot, Hope would be here with them--he plopped the helmet on his head.
Lex managed to convince her to slip the leather jacket over her lightweight blouse. "I can probably heal better from road rash than you, so don’t argue. If I have to wear this horrible thing you have to wear the jacket." He wrinkled his nose as he buckled the helmet on. "Smells. This guy's hygiene left a lot to be desired."
"Boss—the guy is right here dead. Show some respect."
"Don’t be ridiculous. He doesn't give a damn what we're saying." But the flat clouded eyes followed him, looking reproachful, so much so that Lex tipped him onto his face, and ignored Mercy's little sneer.
She started the bike, and waited for Lex to settle himself. "Been on the back of a bike before?" she asked.
"Oh yeah," he said, and smiled wickedly.
She held her hands up, "God. Don’t tell me any drug fueled sex addict stories, I don’t want to ralph."
They argued on their way out of the city, but it was mostly a way of distracting themselves from what lay on every foot of the road. People had tried to get out, and it hadn’t been easy or nice. Like rats in a box, the citizens of Metropolis had gone down fighting each other, fighting over an inch of road, a sip of water…an illusion.
They stopped once before leaving the city, at Mercy's insistence. She ransacked a camping outfitters, once a big name, now an upscale equipment filled graveyard. Dragging a couple of backpacks through the aisles, she stuffed them full of camping equipment while Lex followed, bemused. She was muttering, "We'll need this…and this…" She yanked off her skirt, as totally unconcerned about stripping in front of him, as he was completely uninterested, and shimmied into cargo pants. "Here," she snapped. "Take off those stupid loafers and put these on." She tossed him a pair of hiking boots.
"God…"
"Wear them, or I'll leave you a blistering, screaming lump on the highway. Boss."
"If this ever gets better, I'm going to fire you."
She turned and smirked at him, and thrust a backpack at him. "Load up, Mr. Luthor."
On the way out, they stopped to spit in the fake lake in the center of the store.
They stopped at the freeway exit leading to two possible destinations—outside to the suburbs, farming country—and east, towards Gotham. Mercy straddled the bike and watched Lex stand at the crossroads. "Where to, Lex? The estate, or west to Smallville or—?"
He stared westwards, towards the big blue expanse of cloudless sky, towards where the sun beat down, yellow and hot…"Gotham."
"The fuck--Gotham? Why? It's not going to be any different than Met. The castle can at least provide us with some protection—as a base until…until…whatever. Mr. Paranoid Senior filled it with supplies, and now Junior wants to go practically naked and unarmed into unknown territory instead of going where it might be SAFE."
"It's not unknown. Bruce is there—Batman. Dick and the new one, Jay, Jason, something…It'll be different. They won’t let it be all—like this.
"Lex." She wanted to reason with him. He could feel he was going off track again…"Lex, most of the damn world is like this. Gotham—the Bats—they might all be dead."
"No," he said firmly. "I'd know it if he was dead. We…share something. We are. Were friends." He fucking *knew* he was jumping the track, but he couldn't stop….
Mercy sighed, kicked the bike in gear. "Boss," she yelled, "I think you’re making a big mistake. Smallville. We need to go there. But if you want we'll go to Gotham. Pray something is happening, something good." She muttered, "And if it turns out we headed there for a pity fuck—I'll kill you myself." She coughed a little…"fucking dust."
Lex sat behind her, arms tight around her waist, slowly let the weight of the helmet pull his head forward until it rested on her back. He refused to look at the road, trying not to—to cry. He gasped with the effort, squeezed his eyes shut against the looking and prayed hard as hell that Bruce was alive.
A pocket full of posies
ashes, ashes, we all fall down
For miles and miles there was nothing—no cars, corpses, no sign that anything was wrong and if he chose to he could pretend that nothing *was* wrong, that he and his bodyguard were out for a drive on a lovely afternoon. He felt like he was barely connected to the body on the bike, he was soaring, flying—he closed his eyes for a moment to pretend…Clark held him in his arms, he had his own wrapped around Clark's waist and they were flying, flying…
"Boss, hey Boss, fuckin' hell..." The bike wobbled to a stop, the elevated road bed in front of them casting shadows—and between the huge art deco supports bed sheets hung, splashed with paint.
Great swooping swirls of red paint spelled out a message--or a warning--trailed like blood the length of the sheets. The shadows did little to hide the humped forms scattered under the el.
Mercy wiped her sweating forehead, and her streaming eyes. "Jesus. I told you, I told you it'd be bad."
It stank. The air was thick with the smell of rot, the smell of charred meat. Lex guessed that here were the cars they didn’t see on the way. Tangled vehicles completely blocked access to the road into the city. They had to dismount, Mercy cursing creatively all the while…
"Cap it, Mercy. What are you going to protect me against—zombies?"
"Lex, shit—that's not funny at all." Lex silently agreed with her—he'd scared himself, but no way in hell was he looking over his shoulder. He was *not* waiting for one of those bodies to rise, he wasn't….
"Oh. Fuck." Mercy stopped abruptly and Lex grabbed her shoulder.
"What fuck? What--oh."
Corpses hung like fruit from the art deco struts of the roadway underside. Crows mumbled and creaked and flopped away from their meals. The corpses swayed under their departing weight and Lex almost screamed—it looked like they were moving purposefully.
"Something's weird with them," Mercy muttered.
"Jesus, you think?" Lex snapped but as they came closer to the underpass, he saw it. Crows flew up in big black clouds as they approached; Mercy had her guns out, snarling.
The bodies were hung upside down, each had one leg tied twisted behind the other…ignoring the arms, they looked like figure fours hung underneath the roadway, or bats, giant bats. Lex shivered. This was worse than not good. Hell grew in Gotham—
"You see? They're all smiling," she whispered. "They're all cut. See?"
Great big grins stretched from cheekbone to cheekbone. The scene was a stage set from advent-garde horror movie out of the last century, heavy on atmosphere. Grins, grins, everywhere—Lex nearly shrieked when an ululating moan tore the silence. The heavy flap of crow's wings filled the air as well as Mercy cursing, and a single emphatic shot…silence fell thick again when the echoes died away.
"One of them—it was still. Alive," she said. Lex felt weak and sick himself at the sight of Mercy, dark purple under her eyes, snot unnoticed on her upper lip. "I had to."
He came close, ripped off his tie and wiped her nose and kissed her wet, burning forehead. "I know. It was a kindness."
"Yes, that's what I meant it as."
The forest of hanged men and women thinned as they walked on and Lex found himself counting the corpses…he lost count quickly. Mercy was saying, "What the hell, is the whole city out here?" and then they were at the end of the overpass and both of them froze—Lex felt his heart skitter, heard Mercy whisper, "Shit."
On the final arch into the city, he was hanging, swathed in black and gray of course, flesh blue and mottled and loose on his bones. He hung by a boot heel, and his arms were spread over the entrance to Gotham, a welcome sign. A warning. Under him, a tall thin figure dressed in crusty green and purple rags sat. Black streaks ran from the crown of his head to his shoulders, over his laddered white chest.
He looked up and smiled. His smile wasn't as horrible as the one on the corpse above him, but it was very close. "I know you." He moved, unfolded, draped the bits and pieces of a long frock coat around himself and smiled. "He's beautiful, isn't he? At peace. The shades of his parents haunt him no more. By the way, *I* had nothing to do with that," he sniffed. "It wasn't me...I'm fairly certain…" He tilted his head back, and the long ears of the cowl hanging over him brushed his forehead. "He's happy like this. Watching over the city he loved. This is the way he'd have wanted to go. And he has his entourage, his helpers and servants into the other side. As it should be. He was a prince among men." He bowed, deep and seemingly sincere. "Goodnight sweet prince, flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." He whirled until he was bare inches from Lex, his breath warm and rank and in a low deep voice growled, "Helloo, Lex. Come to play?"
Other creatures came out of the shadows, creeping, crawling, to arrange themselves around the green and white scarecrow. "Behold, the world turned upside down—and here I am. A king in the country of the blind…heh heh. And you, Lex Luthor. Come for him, have you? Well forget it, sunshine, he's mine. You can take your narrow white ass and you little fairy princess the fuck out of my town."
"God." Lex stared up at the nightmare, looked into the fires of hell. "You did it. You killed him."
"NO! No, *I* didn’t kill him, if I'd done it, it wouldn’t be like this…" He reached up a pale thin hand and caressed the face over him. "He kissed me, and then he died. Just like I imagined it." He threw back his long head, closed his eyes and smiled into the morning sun. He refocused on Lex. "Well. He would have but he was like this when I found him. All of them." He cast his eyes down modestly and shyly said, "I added the smiles, though."
Lex sucked in air and backed up until he and Mercy were back to back—she was like a furnace, and so tense it was like leaning against a board….
"Hell of a joke, don't you think? Such a long courtship, leading to this…now the end of the world is come and we'll never know for sure. Just like you and the Boy Scout. Neither of us will ever know. It was supposed to be me and--and--who killed him? The little bird killed him."
Lex was staggered, disbelieving. "Jason? Why?"
The lean figure swayed slightly. "Don’t you mean Tim…oh, riiight, not in this version, you don't." He snapped his fingers, "who, who—oh. Jason. Right. He was fun—would have been fun--" He waved his hand, impatient at Lex's refusal to understand. "Not him either. The real one." He pointed over Mercy's head. "That bird. Duck."
"A duck—" she started to say, and jerked Lex to the dirt with her. The rag-tag shambling crowd melted back into the shadows and on the struts over Batman, Nightwing crouched.
"Get out of Gotham."
"I'm fucking sick and tired of people telling me what to do." Lex snarled. Mercy muttered, "Yeah, Boss, piss off the murderous lunatic. Good game plan…" He heard the slide of metal on fabric.
Lex snapped his fingers at her, demanding silence, and stared at the grinning man hanging from the corpse. "How could you—to him--*why*?"
"Because the world is dying, and when the world is dying, you have to make sacrifices," he said with the air of an adult explaining something weird and grown-up to the children. "Give them everything you've got, and when you think you've given it all, give more. So I gave all I had."
"Where's Jay—where's Robin? Why are you here?"
"Dead," Dick moaned, "dead of the plague. Everyone's dying…" He flipped up along the struts and cart-wheeled on a ledge no wider than Lex's palm. Wheeled back to come to rest over Bruce again. "All dead except those who should be dead. It's okay. I'm going to make it right again," he grinned.
Joker appeared in the shadows, and raised his hand to point at Mercy, then at his own head. Dick inched closer, climbed down Bruce's body like a lizard on a wall. "You can keep him company," he told Lex, "He'd like that."
He tensed. Mercy took a breath; Lex squeezed her shoulder and stepped back. "Go." She put a shot between Dick's eyes.
The voice in the shadows cracked, "Go--go away now, *go away*. Leave us all alone."
Lex took Mercy by the arm, and led her back between the bodies, and the cars, back out of Gotham, back to the bike. There was silence between them, silence that ran on for miles—Lex's grip on her waist was as impersonal as a grip for dear life could be…it went on until they came to a crossroads. One way went back to Metropolis, and from there to Smallville, the other to Colorado—on to Nevada….
Mercy came to a stop. "Boss. I don’t give a fuck what you want. I earned the right to make this decision. We're going to Smallville, hear me?"
"Mercy, I agree. Whatever you want. Just…let it be."
She narrowed her eyes at him, nodded briefly. "Let's go." Lex felt a shiver of unease. Her eyes were burning in the purple smudges of her eye sockets.
There's a wind in the underpass, it whips through throwing grit and trash against his mostly bare legs, but he doesn't feel it. He's busy, gloved fingertips tapping against his chin, elbow planted solidly on a bare knee. Concentrating. He's trying to hold the threads of the world together. That's part of what he does, weave the fabric of reality---though he's finally been forced to admit, he's just not very good at it. It's full of snarls and knots….he waits. And weaves. Until he gets bored and makes things happen. Sometimes, what happens surprises even him. Like now—not that he's sure he wove this pattern. He wasn't insane like *this*…gotta admit, the joke *was* pretty damn good. Thing is, now that everything's different, he feels no need to make things happen, oh no, not at all. Not when there's little difference between the outside of his head and the inside.
He considers, nervous fingers twitch at the lapels of his frock coat and he decides—no sir, he doesn't like it. He hopes Lex Luthor finds what he's looking for. It'll go a long way towards fixing this.
There's a sound like a tall ship under sail, the creak that rope makes, swinging, burdened by weight. The light in the underpass shifts, undergoes changes like light underwater. The sun is suddenly blocked out by ebony wings, there's the faintest 'pock' of beaks hitting soft stuff.
But not where he sits.
The crows are wise enough to give him a wide berth. They understand a vast variety of crazy and bow before this one.
He watches and waits. He thinks. Waiting, thinking…and then…"I think…I won't believe in him. I think I won't believe in myself.
And, I won't believe in *you*."
A bat swoops into the dark, and there's a white, white grin there. It fades.
TBC
part 3
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(no subject)
2/5/08 07:34 pm (UTC)not to worry!
2/5/08 07:45 pm (UTC)I'm not doing any character death warnings, because for this story, it would cut the impact.
Re: not to worry!
2/5/08 07:48 pm (UTC)*runs off to start reading*
(no subject)
2/5/08 08:18 pm (UTC)I can't wait for more.
(no subject)
2/5/08 08:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/5/08 08:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/5/08 09:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/5/08 09:24 pm (UTC)Re: not to worry!
2/5/08 09:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/5/08 09:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/5/08 10:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/5/08 10:08 pm (UTC)*shudder*
Dude, all those people, hung up, and *Bruce*....good gods.
*hides in the corner*
(no subject)
2/5/08 10:21 pm (UTC)But *small voice* it's an awesome chapter. You made me feel really sad, and that's kinda the point, right? Right? *whimpers*
(no subject)
2/5/08 11:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/5/08 11:53 pm (UTC)Re: not to worry!
2/6/08 12:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
2/6/08 12:10 am (UTC)Yeah, Joker--I had to throw my other OTP in there! :)
(no subject)
2/6/08 12:11 am (UTC)I wonder....*G*
(no subject)
2/6/08 12:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
2/6/08 12:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
2/6/08 12:14 am (UTC)I was folding sweaters in Targehell, and it just hit me--the whole scene just like that!
(no subject)
2/6/08 12:16 am (UTC)It was kind of harsh, but I have to say--your reaction to it makes my little heart tapdance! *MMMMMMMMMMMKISS*
(no subject)
2/6/08 12:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
2/6/08 12:20 am (UTC)*nodnod*
Oh, yeah, I definitely think so! And I'm thrilled the last bit worked for you--yeah, it's the Joker. :)
(no subject)
2/6/08 12:38 am (UTC)*badshudder*
Dystopias freak me out enough, but damn... Joker ruling everything? Dick a nutcase? And what's this "He's Tim in the other version" thing?
What would Lex have done without Mercy there? I can see him walking in his loafers until his feet rot off.
I was hoping that Lex would hook up with Bruce for a while... yeah, that didn't happen here. =P
(no subject)
2/6/08 01:07 am (UTC)And what's this "He's Tim in the other version" thing
That's me playing with the idea that Joker is aware that he's a fictional character, and in this AU, Jason is Robin and only the Joker is aware that there's a Tim in another reality.
And without Mercy, Lex would have totally died in Metropolis, waiting for something to make senses--waiting for Superman to show up.
(no subject)
2/6/08 01:23 am (UTC):)
(no subject)
2/6/08 02:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
2/6/08 03:20 am (UTC)That was.... just.... freaking crazy weird! *shudders*
The nursery rhymes mixed in just make it that much more... distrubing. But damnit! I'm hooked! Freaked out as anything, but hooked. lol
(no subject)
2/6/08 03:52 am (UTC)HUUUUUG
Yes, despite her--she made me want to poke my eyes out every time I saw her. It's weird how much I hated her in that series because otherwise, she's okay with me.
(no subject)
2/6/08 03:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
2/6/08 04:15 am (UTC)*sniffles* Poor Bruce.
This is very creepy. Which is good, since it's supposed to be creepy. I've never read anything by King (only seen snippets of movies and such) so I can't compare it to the original. On it's own, it's creepy, disturbing, and tragic. Wonderful work!
(no subject)
2/6/08 06:58 am (UTC)So anyway, Laura San Giacomo pissed me off on several levels, none of which had anything to do with her. It was the writing and the directing and the fact that if Hollywood is going to eliminate or drastically alter a character in the transition from book to movie, it's nearly always a female character.
The same thing happened to Hermione in the first Harry Potter movie. It would've taken them about five minutes to do the scene with the logic test with the poisons, but they decided to spend more time on the chess game and Ron and completely left out Hermione's contribution to that part of the quest and turned her into a sort of cheerleader for Harry in that scene. grrrr! Fortunately, they've done pretty well by that character in the rest of the movies.
Okay, I'm off my soapbox now.
(no subject)
2/6/08 02:57 pm (UTC)That's exactly what my kid was saying--and true that they did a really poor job of combining the two characters, and lessened the impact of Nadine's destruction--since she was already playing the character as kind of nutty, when she actually lost everything, you kind of didn't care. And her makeup was terrible!!! But that was Miss FAshion person yelling in my ear. Between the sexism, the editing, and the horrible costume choices, she was having a fit. Otherwise, we enjoyed it very much. :)
(no subject)
2/6/08 03:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/6/08 05:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/6/08 07:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/7/08 01:43 am (UTC)I *LOVE* your icon, wow!!
(no subject)
2/7/08 01:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
2/7/08 02:20 am (UTC)Lame? *stares at you in disbelief* I will be haunted forever by the image of a mad Nightwing crawling down Batman's inverted corpse like a lizard crawling down a wall. Not that the entire Gotham scene isn't brilliantly written, you understand, but.... *shudders*
In Dick's defense he thought he was doing something good.
Yes, I could see that. I think it made everything creepier. *shudders some more* Though it does make perfect sense, of course -- who could take Bruce by surprise like that except someone he genuinely trusted? *closes eyes and curls up tight*
One thing I wanted to mention, but forgot earlier: when the Joker said that Batman had kissed him and then died, my very first thought (before the Joker clarified that Batman had already been dead when the Joker found him) was that Bruce had known he had the plague, and wanted to be certain the Joker caught it, too, so he used his last breath to infect and kill his enemy....
(no subject)
2/7/08 02:29 am (UTC)*blinkblink*...
niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!!!!!!
"I know. It was a kindness."
2/7/08 02:35 pm (UTC)and damn, they are all dead!dead!
*hugs dick*
(no subject)
2/7/08 05:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/7/08 05:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
6/18/08 03:56 pm (UTC)oh my gosh, *sniffles* this hurt so very much to read and the tears oh man - oh man! And just so you know this *hugs you* is magnificent! but gosh does it hurt, my heart's beating so hard ... your descripts are marvelous.
(no subject)
6/19/08 02:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
5/14/11 09:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
5/14/11 10:00 pm (UTC)