fic post: Out Of A Foreign Land part 3
2/7/08 11:44 am![[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: 2710
Rating: PG
Out Of A Foreign Land
They rode on, until Gotham was a distant point on the map, and finally stopped when Lex swore he was nearly unconscious with exhaustion. They camped back from the road in a stand of weed trees, and Mercy insisted that Lex sleep first while she took watch. "I'm too fucking wired anyway," and that was all she'd say in reference to the fact that she'd not too long ago shot dead one of the ex-nation's heroes. Lex assumed she was experiencing what he was—the feeling that Dick's death was the end of all hope. He rolled up in the sleeping bag she'd tossed him, and stared at the stars, flung across a sky that was fucking clear and Hollywood beautiful, just like the last few nights had been and pretty much as they'd been since the end of the world really settled in….
Lex shook all over, something was crawling over his skin—he peered between his lashes and saw a spider crawling up his chest. 'Shit!'
Trying to smack it off was a like hitting a brick wall--he opened his eyes fully and the spider was a black gauntlet, tracing scars on his body.
'A bullet hole, two. In your shoulder, and in your gut.'
The finger curled around the wounds, pressed gently into the slight depression that not even his healing ability could erase. The cool touch made him shiver, heat bloom in his groin…'Lucky shot…obviously, since you aren’t dead. Looks like burn scars…someone tried to set you on fire? I understand the impulse.'
Wet smile in a wet mouth--'You can't be here,' Lex gasped.
'I'm here. Not here. In the in-between where it doesn’t really matter. Everything happens here, all at once. Alexander Joseph Luthor, you need to go home, quick. They need you—she's dying.'
'I am trying to go home...I'm sorry. If I'd gotten here sooner, I might have saved you. I'm sorry.'
Hand waved casually, a small grin flitted over the perfect lips. Lex remembered how deceptively soft those lips were. 'The plague, a junkie, a mugger, a lover—it could have been anything. Go west.'
Bruce turned and walked into the landscape behind them. It was static, a crudely executed backdrop of farmland… 'Go west young man….'
He woke up fighting the hold of the bag, the dream dissolved but he remembered Bruce was in it, demanding he go home—wherever that was. It took him a few seconds more to identify the sound that'd made him wake--agonized coughing, retching. It brought him to his feet and quickly to Mercy's side. He threw more sticks onto the fire and bit his lip as the flames rose and cast light.
She looked bad. She looked very damn bad.
"Lex," she gasped and rolled her eyes up to meet his. "You better take the watch, I don't think I can—" she broke off, coughing for long, long moments. She was whiter than chalk, obviously weaker when the fit passed. "Aw fuck. So much for being safe, hunh? Shit Boss. I'm sorry. If I'd made you leave sooner, I might have saved you. I'm sorry."
It felt oddly like his own words being thrown back at him before the feeling passed…"Hey, we're going to be okay, you hear? The blame doesn't lie with you. I should have given the order to leave at the first sign things weren't going to get better." He held her hand and sighed. "That's my greatest fault—I never know when to let loose."
She laughed. "Are you kidding? That's one of your more endearing traits." Another harsh fit of coughing shook her, her voice came ragged and weak when she could talk again. "Where would I've been 'thout you? Body bag number what? And Hope…loved her. So much…" her voice trailed off, and rose again. "You saved me…the both of you…" Her grip tightened on his hand. He winced, and hoped she wasn't going to break bones, but didn’t move, didn't give voice to his pain. As long as she could talk, she told him about her life, how good it'd been, how he'd made it a happy one…by the time the sun was rising, she'd forgotten that her lover was dead, and was making plans for when she saw her again. By full sunrise, she was gone.
******
Lex buried her in the median strip, left the bike to mark her grave. Not out of sentimentality. It was useless to him, the tank was dry. He glared down the long black strip of the road. Miles to Smallville. Days. "Fuck!" He shouted, "Why me? Why me, god damn it?"
Startled cawing made him jump and he whirled with Mercy's gun out and ready in his hand--a few black shapes burst out of the trees and into the sky. He laughed. He hadn't expected an answer, but there it went. "Why me? Because the crows need fresh food," he muttered. He hefted his sleeping bag, and left her's next to the bike. No sense taking more than he needed.
He walked from sun up to sun down, grateful for the boots she'd made him wear but the straps of the pack were beginning to rub, and he needed to fix that before he blistered. He wasn't about to survive the plague and die of an infection, like some stupid Twilight Zone episode. There was another stand of weedy trees KDOT had planted in scattered islands along the road side. He flopped down in the shade to drink and cram down an energy bar, to think. He'd been carrying Mercy's pack, wearing his and he decided now was a good time to combine them. He was burning too much energy carrying the both of them.
He pulled an undershirt out of a tangled ball of clothing in Mercy's pack--he could rip it into strips and pad the straps of his pack with it--dumped out what was left. "Hunh. More energy bars—could she have picked lousier flavors? Socks…good. No underwear in either pack. What the hell Mercy, what did you have against underwear? Oh. Heh. A survival book. Ah, firestarter. Good thinking —" He stopped talking because the sound of his voice was beginning to weird him out. The overwhelming silence was driving him slowly crazy, and he was reminded how much people depended on each other to keep themselves tethered to reality—feeling the awful silence pressing against him was a familiar and totally unwelcome sensation. A few times during his march, he'd even thought there was something moving, just out of sight, movement he could only catch in the corner of his eye. It was sometimes tall and dark…or thin and white…his imagination was torturing him. Right before dawn, he'd woken to the sight of Clark crouched by the dying fire, silently watching over him in his sleeping bag, big green eyes full of sorrowful reproach…Lex snorted. At least the silence helped him identify it as an apparition—the hell Clark would *silently* chastise him about any damn thing…he was all about yelling, and man-handling him. Clark liked throwing him against things like walls, and his desk, and railings, and knocking him down and…he refused to think of the boy—man--anymore. Besides, Clark had to be dead, he was sure of it. He'd never come, never responded to any pleas from any quarter. The fucking alien was too much of a show boat to pass up the chance to look gloriously unselfish and giving. Had to be dead.
Lex wiped his eyes and swallowed against a lump in his throat—damn dust. He uncapped one of his precious bottles of water, moistened his mouth.
Poor little self-esteem plagued alien boy…all alone, just like him. Not even Lois Lane to warm his bed and oh yeah, he had plenty of information about *that* subject, or more properly, the lack of *that*. Only because—because--it was good business to know what your enemy was doing. And now he was going to stop thinking of things that had nothing to do with his survival—"that way madness lies."
This time the shapes he imagined he saw resolved into crows, they settles heavily back in the trees, and he could heard them muttering to each other. He was willing to believe they were real….
Madness. There was plenty of time to consider madness over the next few days of endless walking…the constant sapphire blue sky forced itself into his eyes, the dry warm air clawed at his lips and made them crack and split, his skin itched and peeled until he looked like he was unraveling in spots. The sun was constant, the heat was constant…any rare breeze crammed the smell of rotting meat into his nose…the empty landscape slowly changed. Hell surrounded him once more —cars again, and people, tumbled and scattered across the roadway. Crumpled, blistered metal, bloated, roasted meat.
He tried hard not to see mothers and fathers and babies on the road and in the cars, but tears he couldn't hold back spilled. He cried from the frustration and the exhaustion, the horror and. The loneliness. Just a couple of days on his own and he felt like being alone was killing him. He trudged on, drowning in self pity, disgusting himself, but he couldn’t stop crying….
******
It was full dark, and marginally cooler than the day. He stripped off the shirt he'd been wearing and threw it away from him. He didn’t give a damn—walking dead or not, he wasn't going to wear that reeking repellent piece of shit one more day. He dropped the backpack and sleeping bag under a tree, pulled the gun out of his waistband and tossed it into the pack. He ate another fucking energy bar. The next town, he was ransacking any house he could find for edible food. After he ate, and carefully drank his allotted amount water, he unrolled his bag and laid down, arms and legs spread wide, unprotected and not giving a shit. Hell, everyone was dead. Who was going to bother him, the zombies? Fuck, he'd almost welcome a god damn zombie at this point. If it had a tongue, if it could talk, than fine, sit and have a …a…
'Hey. Son. Wake up.'
'Who…oh. Wow. You're looking good for a guy dead ten years.'
'Yeah. So, doing the same as usual? Lying here and feeling sorry for yourself?'
'Fuck you Jonathan Kent. Fuck you so much. Fuck you coming and going, you puckered tight ass, fuck you with fucking bells on, you mother fucking hypocrite—'
'We all better?'
'God, yes. I've wanted to say that for years. Years. You bastard, I never could hurt you the way I wanted to—the way you hurt me. I was a kid, barely a man, and you treated me like shit.'
'Can we have done with your pity party now? Because you've got stuff to do. Get your butt back to Smallville. You have to save my son, and between the two of you, you're going to help save the world.'
Jonathan Kent was coming closer and closer, and Lex shivered. Was he coming to punch him? If he was, it was going to hurt—the man was all muscle, not gym rat muscles, real hard working muscle—Jonathan grabbed him, and smothered him in a hug, 'You can do it, son. Promise.'
Lex woke up all at once, tears streaming. "Crying again, just what I need," he sobbed. "I'm going to dehydrate my self, damn it."
God, that was all about wish fulfillment, a damn odd dream. He lay on the bag, stared into the dark and felt like he was spinning in circles. Bruce said west. Jonathan said Smallville. Smallville was more or less west.
Okay.
PART TWO
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
About fifteen minutes after Lex decided he should keep moving, try to manage a few more hours and maybe get into Smallville by the next nightfall, *he* came around through the trees, so quietly, Lex didn’t even realize he was there until he entered the circle of light the fire threw. His tall, lean body looked taller still in the flickering glow, firelight made wild eyes rimmed by the blackest lashes glitter, that gaze so intense that Lex felt impaled. Lex dropped his eyes, and then, all he could see was the red, red mouth.
"Hi."
"Hi? Hi? What the hell are you doing here?"
The guy smiled a little. "You say that like I've got some place to be." He stopped and raised his eyebrows, his hands. "Look around, my friend. Nobody here but you and me."
Lex tensed, and narrowed his eyes. "Yeah." He was kicking himself mentally, picturing the fucking gun in the bottom of the pack a couple of feet away. What the fuck…if he survived this evening, swear to God, he was sleeping with the gun in hand. He was eating with the gun, pissing with the gun—
"So, can I sit? I saw the light of your fire and I figured on the off chance it wasn't a car or part of the road burning…and okay, this will sound nuts but, can I…touch you? I'm not trying--" He stopped and took a deep shaky breath. "You know, I--I thought everyone was dead."
Just like that the guy changed, from a threat to a fellow castaway. Lex held out his hand, and the guy took it and they just shook like they were meeting over a boardroom table, but the naked, burning hunger in the guy's eyes betrayed what it meant to him—to both of them. Touching beautiful warm living flesh, blood and bone and skin…alive. "My name is Adam," he said, still holding Lex's hand.
"I'm Yves."
Adam cocked his head and frowned. "You're fucking kidding me." He tried to yank his hand away.
"Yes, actually, I am," Lex grinned and tightened his grip a little so that Adam stopped trying to pull loose.
"Aw, you fucking jerk-off," Adam grinned. "You always been such a jerk?"
"I suppose so," Lex smirked. "At least I've been told that many times, in many different ways. Lex Luthor." He said, and this time Adam did let his hand drop.
"Luthor, hunh? Fucking unreal. *The* Lex Luthor? Well, I guess you *have* heard it before. It's…this is all a long way from home for you, isn't it?"
Lex looked down at himself, aching feet shoved into already worn looking Timberlands, dirty legs exposed by pants torn off at the knee and a stinking t-shirt, skin freckled like it hadn't been since he was a little boy. He laughed. "I guess so. What about you? Where are you headed?"
"I'm…not sure. Just walking." But there was a familiar look in Adam's eyes, a look Lex knew pretty damn well. The guy wasn't answering the question, he was lying. Fine, he'd figure out what he was lying about—later. Right now, he just needed another person near, someone to keep him tethered. Adam seemed to pick up on what Lex was feeling. "Let me travel with you, if you don’t mind. I've got supplies; I won’t be a drain on you. And in times like this someone at your back is just good business, right?"
"Um. Right." Lex watched Adam run back in the direction he came from, with a promise to be back shortly, with real food, and more water…Lex wished for him to be a good guy so hard that it was almost a taste in his mouth. Please, please be normal, decent, help me, for god's sake—please be decent
"I had to be sure you wouldn’t just make me dead and take my stuff," Adam was back, grinning, a serious monster rig of a backpack loading him down. At Lex's lifted eyebrow he said, "I had a little time to shop before I left town. I went for the best." Lex nodded. Of course.
"So…we're going to…?"
"Smallville, Kansas, USA, former creamed corn supplier to the world. Now, the safest place in the world I can think of, which if you knew my history, you'd find screamingly funny…."
******
TBC
part 4
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: 2710
Rating: PG
Out Of A Foreign Land
They rode on, until Gotham was a distant point on the map, and finally stopped when Lex swore he was nearly unconscious with exhaustion. They camped back from the road in a stand of weed trees, and Mercy insisted that Lex sleep first while she took watch. "I'm too fucking wired anyway," and that was all she'd say in reference to the fact that she'd not too long ago shot dead one of the ex-nation's heroes. Lex assumed she was experiencing what he was—the feeling that Dick's death was the end of all hope. He rolled up in the sleeping bag she'd tossed him, and stared at the stars, flung across a sky that was fucking clear and Hollywood beautiful, just like the last few nights had been and pretty much as they'd been since the end of the world really settled in….
Lex shook all over, something was crawling over his skin—he peered between his lashes and saw a spider crawling up his chest. 'Shit!'
Trying to smack it off was a like hitting a brick wall--he opened his eyes fully and the spider was a black gauntlet, tracing scars on his body.
'A bullet hole, two. In your shoulder, and in your gut.'
The finger curled around the wounds, pressed gently into the slight depression that not even his healing ability could erase. The cool touch made him shiver, heat bloom in his groin…'Lucky shot…obviously, since you aren’t dead. Looks like burn scars…someone tried to set you on fire? I understand the impulse.'
Wet smile in a wet mouth--'You can't be here,' Lex gasped.
'I'm here. Not here. In the in-between where it doesn’t really matter. Everything happens here, all at once. Alexander Joseph Luthor, you need to go home, quick. They need you—she's dying.'
'I am trying to go home...I'm sorry. If I'd gotten here sooner, I might have saved you. I'm sorry.'
Hand waved casually, a small grin flitted over the perfect lips. Lex remembered how deceptively soft those lips were. 'The plague, a junkie, a mugger, a lover—it could have been anything. Go west.'
Bruce turned and walked into the landscape behind them. It was static, a crudely executed backdrop of farmland… 'Go west young man….'
He woke up fighting the hold of the bag, the dream dissolved but he remembered Bruce was in it, demanding he go home—wherever that was. It took him a few seconds more to identify the sound that'd made him wake--agonized coughing, retching. It brought him to his feet and quickly to Mercy's side. He threw more sticks onto the fire and bit his lip as the flames rose and cast light.
She looked bad. She looked very damn bad.
"Lex," she gasped and rolled her eyes up to meet his. "You better take the watch, I don't think I can—" she broke off, coughing for long, long moments. She was whiter than chalk, obviously weaker when the fit passed. "Aw fuck. So much for being safe, hunh? Shit Boss. I'm sorry. If I'd made you leave sooner, I might have saved you. I'm sorry."
It felt oddly like his own words being thrown back at him before the feeling passed…"Hey, we're going to be okay, you hear? The blame doesn't lie with you. I should have given the order to leave at the first sign things weren't going to get better." He held her hand and sighed. "That's my greatest fault—I never know when to let loose."
She laughed. "Are you kidding? That's one of your more endearing traits." Another harsh fit of coughing shook her, her voice came ragged and weak when she could talk again. "Where would I've been 'thout you? Body bag number what? And Hope…loved her. So much…" her voice trailed off, and rose again. "You saved me…the both of you…" Her grip tightened on his hand. He winced, and hoped she wasn't going to break bones, but didn’t move, didn't give voice to his pain. As long as she could talk, she told him about her life, how good it'd been, how he'd made it a happy one…by the time the sun was rising, she'd forgotten that her lover was dead, and was making plans for when she saw her again. By full sunrise, she was gone.
Lex buried her in the median strip, left the bike to mark her grave. Not out of sentimentality. It was useless to him, the tank was dry. He glared down the long black strip of the road. Miles to Smallville. Days. "Fuck!" He shouted, "Why me? Why me, god damn it?"
Startled cawing made him jump and he whirled with Mercy's gun out and ready in his hand--a few black shapes burst out of the trees and into the sky. He laughed. He hadn't expected an answer, but there it went. "Why me? Because the crows need fresh food," he muttered. He hefted his sleeping bag, and left her's next to the bike. No sense taking more than he needed.
He walked from sun up to sun down, grateful for the boots she'd made him wear but the straps of the pack were beginning to rub, and he needed to fix that before he blistered. He wasn't about to survive the plague and die of an infection, like some stupid Twilight Zone episode. There was another stand of weedy trees KDOT had planted in scattered islands along the road side. He flopped down in the shade to drink and cram down an energy bar, to think. He'd been carrying Mercy's pack, wearing his and he decided now was a good time to combine them. He was burning too much energy carrying the both of them.
He pulled an undershirt out of a tangled ball of clothing in Mercy's pack--he could rip it into strips and pad the straps of his pack with it--dumped out what was left. "Hunh. More energy bars—could she have picked lousier flavors? Socks…good. No underwear in either pack. What the hell Mercy, what did you have against underwear? Oh. Heh. A survival book. Ah, firestarter. Good thinking —" He stopped talking because the sound of his voice was beginning to weird him out. The overwhelming silence was driving him slowly crazy, and he was reminded how much people depended on each other to keep themselves tethered to reality—feeling the awful silence pressing against him was a familiar and totally unwelcome sensation. A few times during his march, he'd even thought there was something moving, just out of sight, movement he could only catch in the corner of his eye. It was sometimes tall and dark…or thin and white…his imagination was torturing him. Right before dawn, he'd woken to the sight of Clark crouched by the dying fire, silently watching over him in his sleeping bag, big green eyes full of sorrowful reproach…Lex snorted. At least the silence helped him identify it as an apparition—the hell Clark would *silently* chastise him about any damn thing…he was all about yelling, and man-handling him. Clark liked throwing him against things like walls, and his desk, and railings, and knocking him down and…he refused to think of the boy—man--anymore. Besides, Clark had to be dead, he was sure of it. He'd never come, never responded to any pleas from any quarter. The fucking alien was too much of a show boat to pass up the chance to look gloriously unselfish and giving. Had to be dead.
Lex wiped his eyes and swallowed against a lump in his throat—damn dust. He uncapped one of his precious bottles of water, moistened his mouth.
Poor little self-esteem plagued alien boy…all alone, just like him. Not even Lois Lane to warm his bed and oh yeah, he had plenty of information about *that* subject, or more properly, the lack of *that*. Only because—because--it was good business to know what your enemy was doing. And now he was going to stop thinking of things that had nothing to do with his survival—"that way madness lies."
This time the shapes he imagined he saw resolved into crows, they settles heavily back in the trees, and he could heard them muttering to each other. He was willing to believe they were real….
Madness. There was plenty of time to consider madness over the next few days of endless walking…the constant sapphire blue sky forced itself into his eyes, the dry warm air clawed at his lips and made them crack and split, his skin itched and peeled until he looked like he was unraveling in spots. The sun was constant, the heat was constant…any rare breeze crammed the smell of rotting meat into his nose…the empty landscape slowly changed. Hell surrounded him once more —cars again, and people, tumbled and scattered across the roadway. Crumpled, blistered metal, bloated, roasted meat.
He tried hard not to see mothers and fathers and babies on the road and in the cars, but tears he couldn't hold back spilled. He cried from the frustration and the exhaustion, the horror and. The loneliness. Just a couple of days on his own and he felt like being alone was killing him. He trudged on, drowning in self pity, disgusting himself, but he couldn’t stop crying….
It was full dark, and marginally cooler than the day. He stripped off the shirt he'd been wearing and threw it away from him. He didn’t give a damn—walking dead or not, he wasn't going to wear that reeking repellent piece of shit one more day. He dropped the backpack and sleeping bag under a tree, pulled the gun out of his waistband and tossed it into the pack. He ate another fucking energy bar. The next town, he was ransacking any house he could find for edible food. After he ate, and carefully drank his allotted amount water, he unrolled his bag and laid down, arms and legs spread wide, unprotected and not giving a shit. Hell, everyone was dead. Who was going to bother him, the zombies? Fuck, he'd almost welcome a god damn zombie at this point. If it had a tongue, if it could talk, than fine, sit and have a …a…
'Hey. Son. Wake up.'
'Who…oh. Wow. You're looking good for a guy dead ten years.'
'Yeah. So, doing the same as usual? Lying here and feeling sorry for yourself?'
'Fuck you Jonathan Kent. Fuck you so much. Fuck you coming and going, you puckered tight ass, fuck you with fucking bells on, you mother fucking hypocrite—'
'We all better?'
'God, yes. I've wanted to say that for years. Years. You bastard, I never could hurt you the way I wanted to—the way you hurt me. I was a kid, barely a man, and you treated me like shit.'
'Can we have done with your pity party now? Because you've got stuff to do. Get your butt back to Smallville. You have to save my son, and between the two of you, you're going to help save the world.'
Jonathan Kent was coming closer and closer, and Lex shivered. Was he coming to punch him? If he was, it was going to hurt—the man was all muscle, not gym rat muscles, real hard working muscle—Jonathan grabbed him, and smothered him in a hug, 'You can do it, son. Promise.'
Lex woke up all at once, tears streaming. "Crying again, just what I need," he sobbed. "I'm going to dehydrate my self, damn it."
God, that was all about wish fulfillment, a damn odd dream. He lay on the bag, stared into the dark and felt like he was spinning in circles. Bruce said west. Jonathan said Smallville. Smallville was more or less west.
Okay.
PART TWO
About fifteen minutes after Lex decided he should keep moving, try to manage a few more hours and maybe get into Smallville by the next nightfall, *he* came around through the trees, so quietly, Lex didn’t even realize he was there until he entered the circle of light the fire threw. His tall, lean body looked taller still in the flickering glow, firelight made wild eyes rimmed by the blackest lashes glitter, that gaze so intense that Lex felt impaled. Lex dropped his eyes, and then, all he could see was the red, red mouth.
"Hi."
"Hi? Hi? What the hell are you doing here?"
The guy smiled a little. "You say that like I've got some place to be." He stopped and raised his eyebrows, his hands. "Look around, my friend. Nobody here but you and me."
Lex tensed, and narrowed his eyes. "Yeah." He was kicking himself mentally, picturing the fucking gun in the bottom of the pack a couple of feet away. What the fuck…if he survived this evening, swear to God, he was sleeping with the gun in hand. He was eating with the gun, pissing with the gun—
"So, can I sit? I saw the light of your fire and I figured on the off chance it wasn't a car or part of the road burning…and okay, this will sound nuts but, can I…touch you? I'm not trying--" He stopped and took a deep shaky breath. "You know, I--I thought everyone was dead."
Just like that the guy changed, from a threat to a fellow castaway. Lex held out his hand, and the guy took it and they just shook like they were meeting over a boardroom table, but the naked, burning hunger in the guy's eyes betrayed what it meant to him—to both of them. Touching beautiful warm living flesh, blood and bone and skin…alive. "My name is Adam," he said, still holding Lex's hand.
"I'm Yves."
Adam cocked his head and frowned. "You're fucking kidding me." He tried to yank his hand away.
"Yes, actually, I am," Lex grinned and tightened his grip a little so that Adam stopped trying to pull loose.
"Aw, you fucking jerk-off," Adam grinned. "You always been such a jerk?"
"I suppose so," Lex smirked. "At least I've been told that many times, in many different ways. Lex Luthor." He said, and this time Adam did let his hand drop.
"Luthor, hunh? Fucking unreal. *The* Lex Luthor? Well, I guess you *have* heard it before. It's…this is all a long way from home for you, isn't it?"
Lex looked down at himself, aching feet shoved into already worn looking Timberlands, dirty legs exposed by pants torn off at the knee and a stinking t-shirt, skin freckled like it hadn't been since he was a little boy. He laughed. "I guess so. What about you? Where are you headed?"
"I'm…not sure. Just walking." But there was a familiar look in Adam's eyes, a look Lex knew pretty damn well. The guy wasn't answering the question, he was lying. Fine, he'd figure out what he was lying about—later. Right now, he just needed another person near, someone to keep him tethered. Adam seemed to pick up on what Lex was feeling. "Let me travel with you, if you don’t mind. I've got supplies; I won’t be a drain on you. And in times like this someone at your back is just good business, right?"
"Um. Right." Lex watched Adam run back in the direction he came from, with a promise to be back shortly, with real food, and more water…Lex wished for him to be a good guy so hard that it was almost a taste in his mouth. Please, please be normal, decent, help me, for god's sake—please be decent
"I had to be sure you wouldn’t just make me dead and take my stuff," Adam was back, grinning, a serious monster rig of a backpack loading him down. At Lex's lifted eyebrow he said, "I had a little time to shop before I left town. I went for the best." Lex nodded. Of course.
"So…we're going to…?"
"Smallville, Kansas, USA, former creamed corn supplier to the world. Now, the safest place in the world I can think of, which if you knew my history, you'd find screamingly funny…."
TBC
part 4
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![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
2/7/08 05:22 pm (UTC)I'm trying to not even speculate who "Adam" is....
Oh and I love the visitations - Lex and his ghosts.
(no subject)
2/7/08 05:36 pm (UTC)Ach, you know Adam! :) I thought this would be a lovely chance to use the character. This time out, he has an illness of the soul, instead of a physical one.
I love the visitations - Lex and his ghosts
Thank you! The ghosts were fun, and were happy to move the story on a bit for me. Smallville might be a bit of a disappointment for Lex...*koff* Or a blessing, hard to tell at the moment.
(no subject)
2/7/08 05:51 pm (UTC)Thank you! The ghosts were fun, and were happy to move the story on a bit for me. Smallville might be a bit of a disappointment for Lex...*koff* Or a blessing, hard to tell at the moment.
Occasionally the series makes use of (I won't even talk about whether they use it well because it is Smallville after all), what I hesitate to call seer abilities but, Lex's sort of communion with the past and the way that he visualizes people he has lost - Lex's regret made tangible (at least to him). If these visitations were happier, less tinged with angst, or the whiff of the mental illness, I think that Lex would be more open to what they're telling him. Hopefully this set of visitations works out better for him...
(no subject)
2/7/08 07:58 pm (UTC)Especially the 'whiff of mental illness'. This man's been trained to question everything about himself, especially the state of his mind. Who did that--? Wait, let me think--oh yeah, Mr. Come Onna My House for Thanksgiving Turkey' Guy.
(no subject)
2/7/08 05:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/7/08 05:46 pm (UTC)Sure, why not assume? Didn't you miss him? *G*
*roxy be killing the mystery*
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2/7/08 05:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/7/08 05:41 pm (UTC)Hand waved casually, a small grin flitted over the perfect lips. Lex remembered how deceptively soft those lips were. 'The plague, a junkie, a mugger, a lover—it could have been anything. Go west.'
Oh, geez, you kill me. And Adam? And who was the 'she' dead-Bruce spoke of? *grabs your pant leg* Please tell me! Aah!
Okay, I'm good.
This is an awesome update, and you know you have me salivating for more, more, more.
Sidenote: Have you checked out Chapter 13 of CFMWH? *shuffles feet* I wrote it for you. . . . *grins shyly*
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2/7/08 05:50 pm (UTC)I read chap 13! I commented...I don't trust that Chance guy *eyeballs him*...but I haven't read the new chapter, and I'm off to do just that!
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2/7/08 05:49 pm (UTC)Poor Mercy, I knew she wasn't long for the world, but the Clark mystery. Hmmm. Color me intrigued. :-D
Madness. There was plenty of time to consider madness over the next few days of endless walking…the constant sapphire blue sky forced itself into his eyes, the dry warm air clawed at his lips and made them crack and split, his skin itched and peeled until he looked like he was unraveling in spots. I love how you're writing this, I can see it as it's happening.
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2/7/08 05:57 pm (UTC)I can see it as it's happening.
Thank you so much! That's a wonderful thing to say. I try to write it as I see it in my head, so that just makes me kick up my heels--only in a manner of speaking, of course. *grin*.
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2/7/08 06:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/7/08 08:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/7/08 06:21 pm (UTC)I love the dreams. Creepy and sad.
*pets him*
And Adam? Probably not a good guy.
*waits*
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2/7/08 08:04 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/7/08 06:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/7/08 08:06 pm (UTC)Adam was cute, but creeepy. (or maybe Ian Somerhalder is *g*)
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2/7/08 07:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/7/08 08:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/7/08 11:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
2/8/08 05:10 am (UTC)Oh my dear, you have no idea HOW much I enjoyed writing that bit with Lex cussing out Jonathan. And no, he totally treated Lex like a kid having a tantrum. Now that he *knows* what Lex is capable of, he's more than ready to use him to save his family. Adam will help Lex and he'll help him more than he plans to. I really wanted to like him whe nhe first appeared on SV, I had high hopes that he'd be a friend to Clark in some way, (because Clark needs a guy friend with no strings attached), but nope. Being resurrected hasn't changed him any, lol!
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2/8/08 03:13 am (UTC)'Fuck you Jonathan Kent. Fuck you so much. Fuck you coming and going, you puckered tight ass, fuck you with fucking bells on, you mother fucking hypocrite—'
HAHAHA.
*catches breath*
HAHAHA. Priceless.
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2/8/08 05:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
2/8/08 04:02 am (UTC)RIP Mercy. *sniffles*
Adam? Adam Knight? You brought him back? Curious.
"Smallville, Kansas, USA, former creamed corn supplier to the world. Now, the safest place in the world I can think of, which if you knew my history, you'd find screamingly funny…."
hehehe
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2/8/08 05:13 am (UTC)*hugs* No sniffles! *petpetpet*
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2/8/08 02:18 pm (UTC)Seriously, Lex and his ghosts...I thought the scene with Dick was intense (for me at least), but the appearance of Jonathan Kent was just so tangible that it made me think of Lex on the island.
I can't wait for our boy to get to Smallville. I can only imagine the horror that's keeping Clark there. *g*
Great job!
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2/8/08 04:58 pm (UTC)I took a lot of liberty with the dream messengers. In The Stand, it was only Randall Flag or Mother Abigail, but Lex drags so many ghosts around with him all the time, it's almost canon. :)
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2/9/08 08:33 pm (UTC)GO SAVE CLARK, LEX! YOU'RE OUT ONLY HOPE!
:D
Sorry, couldn't resist!
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2/9/08 08:48 pm (UTC)*whackity whackity*
EVOL!!!
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2/10/08 06:04 pm (UTC)//'God, yes. I've wanted to say that for years. Years. You bastard, I never could hurt you the way I wanted to—the way you hurt me. I was a kid, barely a man, and you treated me like shit.' //
grrrrrrrrr, if here werent dead, I WANT TO KILL HIM ALL OVER AGAIN:...grrr
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2/10/08 07:45 pm (UTC)Thank you!!
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6/18/08 04:03 pm (UTC)But I don't like Adam, there's omething off about him.
I loved the last statement.. too true ^_^ but I wonder just how true and how the meteor mutants there have been affected
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6/19/08 06:07 am (UTC)