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sv fic:post: Out Of A Foreign Land part 6
Title:: 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
This is one of two amazing covers that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
danceswithgary made for the story. Mind you, some high-pitched whining may have been involved. *koff*
behind this cut is the second cover!
Word count: 4186
Rating: PG
Out Of A Foreign Land
PART THREE
If I should die before I wake
The Smallville sign came as shock. His mind had fixed on the image of that thing, from the second DreamBruce told him to go home and he began this descent into hell. He'd walked from Metropolis to Smallville, and it'd only cost him everything he had; the only person in the world who'd really cared about him, his sense of worth, his mind…he still wasn't entirely sure that Adam wasn't Louis in disguise. He sucked in a deep breath and clenched his jaw, if he started laughing he might not stop and he needed to be here, he needed to know he was alive and real and there it was, proof that it really happened. The sign, *the* sign, proudly proclaiming Smallville the meteor capital of the world—assholes. He shook his head and kept walking.
Corn growing green on either side of the road startled him…he'd expected drought, dead plants, but the stalks were bright, healthy, and already head height. He kept walking, listening for the sound of irrigators, of tractors, even though logic told him it was impossible. Why should it be different for Smallville than for Cloverdale? And yet…"hope is a thing with feathers," he muttered and on a wire over his head a crow dipped its beak and cawed.
He was bloody and dirty, his face itched and burned from dozens of little scratches, he felt exhausted and dispirited. The high he'd felt escaping Adam had evaporated, he felt like a whipped dog. Head down, trudging forward, trying to think of nothing but putting one foot in front of the other, one foot, one foot, he didn't realize where he was until the surface of the road changed, and he head the slap of water against the pylons…the bridge, water…"Water," he smiled. He remembered Loeb Bridge, he knew the water was dark and not all that clean but—his shirt went flying, he hopped from foot to foot and kicked off his boots, tossed off his shorts and dashed down the bank. He was about to jump in, shrugged and kicked off his underwear--with a hoot, he leaped into the cool, cool water.
He went straight down like rock, sank so quickly it startled him. Underwater he flailed his arms, trying to swim up, but he just kept sinking, darker and darker as he sank…he closed his eyes and let go of the breath he'd been fighting to keep. Yeah. This seemed right. This *was* right…back where he started. He smiled and his body stopped fighting. He let it go, and it felt…good.
Seconds later, he was choking and snorting water out of his nose, floating on the surface of the river. "*Damn* it," he coughed, "Make up your mind!" He was thrashing, bobbing in remarkably clean water. "Hopefully I won't get sick—" he stopped and laughed, "Right. Okay." He floated a bit, enjoying the feel, just letting go.
He climbed out and rinsed some of the dirt from his clothes, spread them out over grass to dry and sat naked on the bank to dry himself. He heard the distinct sound of a hawk in the distance, and smiled. okay, Jonathan, here I am
Across the road in a stand of trees crows flew out, cawing crazily and wheeled in a cloud to the east. Lex leaned back on his elbows in the sun-warm grass to watch them go. He was spread out to let the sun touch every bit of him. He felt clean. In fact, if it wasn't corny or possibly blasphemous to think so, he felt…cleansed. Washed in the water. He grinned, eyes tracking the bird's flight. "Fly away, fly away, fly away home…" he murmured. The sun was warm, and it was tempting to close his eyes and fall asleep on the river bank, but he had things to do. Places to go.
******
The main street of the town was a reminder that yes indeed, the world was dead. Smallville hadn't died any easier than Metropolis or Gotham. Maybe not as dramatic, but it was just as dead. This time when he thought he heard snuffling, and movement, he saw it too. Walking down the main drag, he counted four, possibly five mutants—he wasn't entirely sure about the pudgy old woman in a faded Warrior Angel sweatshirt and a hat with the tags still on, she was leaning on a shopping cart crammed to the brim with bulky plastic bags and might just have been what the people in town politely called eccentric, certainly her hat was. It was just the way she looked at him, like he was dinner or…worse. He needed to get to the castle as quickly as possible. Weapons, he had weapons there…he backed away from her and her shopping cart seemed to be…heaving.
He walked along the streets, looking for cars with keys in them. This was Smallville after all, where all the neighbors looked after each other; it should be easy to steal a car. He found a truck with a spare set under the floor mats, and headed out to the castle. He passed a few other probable mutants, wondered how that could even be. He was certain he'd swept Smallville clean of GreenK, purely for research purposes and if he'd shot the majority of it into space, it was only because it was good business to be the owner of the only supply of a certain commodity, and he was all about business. And a hot shower, fucking hell, he was taking a HOT shower, and sleeping on down, and whatever happened after that, he didn’t give a good god damn.
******
Generators were running; the place was clean and had been shut up carefully since the last time he'd been in Smallville. He wiped a finger along the piano in the study. There was only an accumulation of maybe a week or two of dust. He smiled ruefully. If his security in Smallville had been as efficient and dedicated to their jobs as his household staff, there would have been a great many less concussions. He sighed and dropped his hand. At least, he would only have suffered the ones Clark gifted him with.
The place looked unreal, as perfect as a memory. He could imagine the sound of Clark's footsteps, the unexplained little breezes that used to accompany so many of his visits. Lex hummed. Well, unexplained back then. All known now. It still amused him that no one ever pointed at the man in the primary colored suit ands shouted, 'that boy used to bring my me rutabagas' or whatever the fuck they yanked out of the ground there. He expelled a long breath, "Okay, okay, this is a new me. Hatred has no place in here. Besides, Jonathan would be mad and I'm not having him knock me out in my next dream," he muttered.
In the kitchen, he found the food in the freezer was still edible—the freezer functioned as it should, and he could hear the steady chug of a generator under the stairs to the basement, one of many the castle used in the event of power loss. He was surprised they were functioning at all--imagined fuel for them must be low; he'd have to check the underground tanks. He sent a short appreciative mental note of thanks to the paranoia that led his dad to outfit the castle to survive almost anything including a nuclear attack. May he rest.
A hot shower, alone and safe, was nearly as orgasmic an experience as he hoped it would be. Dinner was simple, a grilled chop and some re-heated frozen vegetables, but it was…wonderful. Sitting in the pool of light the stained glass fixture cast over the kitchen island, he picked and nibbled at dessert, a slice of the pie he'd found in the freezer. Music played softly in the background…the smell of spices and apples the only scent wafting on the air…the castle felt like home for the first time in a long, long while. He could almost pretend that ten years hadn't passed, that all was well, that the Kents were tucked into their beds and maybe, maybe this was the night that Clark would finally sneak out of the little yellow farmhouse and come to him, tell him everything, and then have spectacular sex with him by the light of the plasma TV….
Lex threw the plate across the stainless steel counter to smash on the quarry tile floor. "Fuck!" He sagged in his seat. "Fuck." He'd clean it up in the morning. He needed to sleep. He needed to—not think for a little.
'Hello, Alexander. Feeling cozy? Feeling…loved? I watched you bathe in the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river…well, it doesn't exactly flow by the throne of God, does it? Just kind of trickles out of Lowell County and dumps into the reservoir. Which right now, is chock full of dead things getting the long baptism. See Lex, it all sort of ends up there—all dead things.'
The man came out of the shadows, and Lex saw his face and instantly recognized him. He turned to water inside. He'd seen this man's face a thousand times in a thousand nightmares. All his life, he'd been trying to give it a name--alien, monster, mutant. Sometimes it was Fine, sometimes Zod. He'd seen those hot eyes boring into his, felt his hands on him, his mouth biting and tearing…
'Except for you, Lex.' Lex turned, and he was staring out of a set of French doors, sunlight or some acidic bright light, flooding in, making the white suit he wore glow. Warm hand on the back of his neck, soft lips at his ear whispered. 'Bones everywhere…but not yours…do you know why? Say it, Lex and you can have everything you've ever wanted. Respect. Love. Power, Lex. Greatest of all these, power…'
He was standing on that hill again, and all around him things shriveled and died at his touch. 'You don’t need anything but this. I'll set you here, you'll rule all—for me. With me.' The hand on the back of his neck burned, and he felt a hot hard length digging into his back and he wanted to press back… 'What I want from you is so little, so small, you'll never miss it.' Lex closed his eyes and groaned. He was heavy, hot…so hard…'all you have to do is say yes.' Lips brushed against his cheek, coarse hair tickled and scratched the sensitive skin of his scalp. 'Say yes, son, and let me take care of you.'
Lex turned and twisted in the sheets, moaning…'no, no, go away…' he flailed against the hold of the sheets and cried in his sleep….
He threw open the doors of the castle and ran down the drive out to the road. He leaped over the drainage ditch in the roadside and ran on across an open field, through the grass. After a bit, he was running through corn, taller and more mature than the corn he'd passed on the way into Smallville. He thought it looked familiar and then he remembered. Mother Abigail, he tried to yell out her name but his mouth was too dry…
'There you are, we've been waiting for you.' she was sitting on the porch again, gently rocking in an old fashioned rocking chair and plucking out a tune on her guitar. She hummed, the occasional word floating free. It was soothing, the rocking, the playing; so much that it took him a minute or two before he noticed she had company. When he did, she stopped playing.
A big man in a bright white tee-shirt and new jeans sat next to her. He had a big steel bowl of peas clasped between his knees and he was busily shelling them, his big bare feet tapping in time to music only he could hear, apparently. His head was bent over the bowl and a fall of dark hair hid his face.
'You did so good, honey. I'm proud of you. Now you're home, and you done finish the first leg of your journey.' She dropped her hand and cupped frail brown fingers over to the dark head next to her knee. 'This one got impatient waiting, but he'll be with you when you're ready.' She smiled a sweet, kind smile and the man next to her lifted his head and smiled too, and the sun came out.
Lex woke, words echoing in his head. "I'm waiting for you." He fell flat on the floor, and finally came fully awake and the first thing he felt on waking was wonder, and warmth. From his toes to the crown of his head, he felt filled with it. He knew the feeling, remembered it from a lifetime gone past. Love, sweet, unconditional, asking for nothing in return, love. That dangerous thing. The feeling faded so slowly, and the feeling as it slipped away, hurt. He wanted desperately to hold it in—and he thought, I can't keep that feeling in this place.
"Shit." He staggered upright, flung open his closet door and dressed quickly, not even appreciating the fine materials, ignoring the dust that flew as he hastily threw on his clothes…he grabbed a pair of shoes from the dozens and dozens on the shelves and stopped. He dropped them to the floor like they were garbage. "Fuck that—I need a real pair of shoes," he muttered.
Dressed, his scuffed and dirty timberlands on his feet, he took the truck to the road again, one goal on his mind. The Kent home. He had to be there—even if it was just to sleep on the porch. There was no way he could spend another night in the castle. The castle was full of bad things, bad memories and spirits. At least at the farm house, the spirits would be kind. Martha always liked him, well, she had used to. Maybe her spirit would forgive him—Jonathan seemed to have, at least the Jonathan in his dreams. And even…maybe even Clark had found forgiveness from beyond the grave, and he relived that shining moment from the dream.
The truck engine died with a shudder on the farmhouse driveway. The moon silvered the front yard, the main house was dark, but there was a light on in the barn. Their generators must be running too…he hoped the light in the barn hadn’t attracted anyone—anything.
He stepped out of the truck; nerves sent him trotting quickly up the porch steps. He'd have to break the glass in the door to get in. He pulled off the lightweight sweater he wore and wrapped it around his fist, prepared to knock the glass in--on a whim, he tried the door handle and the door swung open. "That's either a bit of luck or a sign that it's finally run out."
He slipped the sweater back on and walked into the house, holding his breath as he carefully traversed the black maze of the living room and headed for the kitchen. The kitchen, what he could see of it, was exactly the same. Some small cosmetic changes, sure, but basically the same—the same table that he'd shared pie with Clark, the same couch he'd flopped on at the end of that day he'd worked on the farm…he wondered if Clark's room was the same, he remembered jerking off quietly and carefully in his bed while Clark slept on the couch below him. He sighed, and was about to head for the stairs when he realized that the refrigerator was humming. The fridge was working…he flicked the switch near the door and the kitchen light blinded him. 'Damn'!
A rising moaning swell of sound rolled down the stairs and Lex jumped a foot--felt pretty good he hadn't screamed—the ghastly croak became words, and a voice he recognized.
"Who—who's there—"
He ran up the stairs two at a time and looked for the door not to Clark's bedroom and burst through it, and there she was, a small thin shape swaddled in blankets in the middle of a queen sized bed.
"Oh, Martha, oh my god…" There was no smell, and the water next to her bed was clear and clean, she was sweating profusely, but her bedclothes were clean—just damp. If she was sick, it hadn't been long.
"Who is it? Who's there—I have a gun." She peered out into the darkness of the bedroom.
"That's good; please don't use it, Martha. It's me. Lex. I came to help. Can I help?"
"Lex? Lex is dead. Everyone is dead," she fretted. "It's just me now. Everything else is dead." She plucked at the cover pulled up to her chest. "The cows died first and Clark buried the dead animals. All of them died, you know? No eggs, no milk…she laughed thickly. "No people to sell it to…did you say Lex? I thought Lex was dead." She seemed to be drifting in and out of sleep, and it was obviously an effort for her to stay awake.
"I'm here. Go back to sleep." He pulled a chair away from her vanity and sat it next to the bedside and took her hand. Her palm was dry and warm and so very soft. Her fingers trembled just a bit in his hold and then relaxed. He listened to her breath even out, deepen…..
*****
"My *goodness*, what are you doing here, Lex?"
Lex jerked awake, and groaned, his neck and shoulders were one huge aching knot from sleeping in the chair. He was completely off guard and embarrassed, he scrubbed quickly at the trail of wet from the corner of his mouth. "Sorry," he apologized, not really sure for what.
"Lex Luthor, what in the world are you doing here—I thought I dreamt it. I…I dreamt you and Clark were here, and we were going to market, all of us…" she trailed off wistfully.
"I came home because...because…"
She nodded and seemed to know what he was trying to say. "It's instinct to want to be home when things go…go wrong. This is home for you, isn't it? I'm. I'm glad to see you." Her eyes looked bleak, but she smiled. Lex knew what she wanted to say was, 'I don't want to die alone.' He knew she must also be thinking 'even if it's just you, I don’t want to be alone'. And he was fine with getting even that much from her, really.
He stood. "Wait here, I'll be back in a few minutes. I promise," he said when she reached out to grab his hand. He took the water glass from her bedside, and went down to the kitchen.
He was able to throw together an omelet from odds and ends in the fridge and found bread in the freezer—he made toast for her, put the food and fresh water, and coffee for them both on a big tin tray and went back up the stairs. She looked so pleased, and also, very surprised. He set the tray down. "Martha, I'm not sure if I should feel insulted or flattered. You look positively shocked," he teased.
"I had no idea you could cook," she laughed breathily. "I just can't imagine you rummaging about in my tiny old kitchen."
He sat next to her, spread a tea-towel over her lap and handed her a plate. "Well you forget, I was a college student, and in fact, a penniless student—Dad paid tuition but nothing much else, he was angry with my choice of major. My roommate was skilled at all kinds of things," he laughed, and then blushed, and neither of them remarked on it. Gratefully Lex went on. "Bruce taught me how to cook, how to sew lost buttons back on…he was a good guy." He stopped, and his mouth twisted. He looked down until he was sure of control again. Martha was looking at him with too much sympathy. "So. How's your stomach handling this invasion of foodstuffs?"
"Good thanks, it's good." She nibbled on her egg and toast, and Lex sat. It was quiet but not uncomfortably so.
After she finished, he brought water to wash her face, and he brushed her hair and braided it. "No," he said to a teasing question. "Bruce did not teach me to braid hair. An employee of mine taught me, when she broke her hand…" he smiled fondly and Martha smiled at him.
"You look good with a smile Lex. I remember when you used to smile a bit more."
"Well…" he set the hairbrush on her bedside table. "We all did once."
She coughed hard, but not as hard as she would. He grimaced. "Martha…Clark…" his voice failed.
"Clark? Clark…" she took Lex's hand to borrow strength from him and his heart froze. "He died, it happened so fast, he was okay, he came home to help me, and then he was sick and in the blink of an eye, he was gone." She covered her mouth and shook.
Lex felt his own eyes fill, and ground his teeth. He knew it; he'd known Clark was dead. Superman never came back to metropolis, and he'd only abandon the city if he was dead.
She went on, voice shaky and distant with remembered pain. "One day, we were outside, he was checking the fuel tanks out by the truck shed, and I was in the root cellar, checking stores, and I heard him coughing. It startled me so much—Clark coughing, you know? By the time I got to him he was all folded up, and then—he was gone. Gone. And, and I thought—I don't want anyone cutting him into bits to find out what had made him tick', you understand?"
Lex nodded through a thick wave of guilt and murmured agreement. She didn't even try to pretend—or question that he knew. The truth was there because after all what did anything matter at the end of the world? Her dead son was the world's most perfect superhero and the arch-enemy of the world's most perfect superhero was sitting in his mother's bedroom, feeding her tea. He could feel tears gathering….
"So. I wrapped him in a—a—tarp, a big blue plastic tarp, and took him down to the root cellar, and I was going to bury him. I was. I came down day after day to bury him". She raised hands to her face. But I couldn’t because—he never changed." She lowered her hands again, and said, "He never changed. No…no rot. No corruption. I couldn't. And then, there was so much to do, trying to make sure I was safe, fending off attacks," she stopped at Lex's gasp. "Mutants. Clark said he thought that the virus was changing and effecting people who had the meteor induced mutation dormant in their bodies. Like the virus was unlocking it, or something…anyway, I got sick next, and my son is still laying on the dirt floor down there wrapped in a tarp. Lex, will you bury him for me please?"
What could he say?
He went down the cellar stairs, the beam of the flashlight he carried bobbed and dipped and picked out a long shape on the cellar floor. He doubted Martha remembered it right, he was fully prepared for a horrible stink, but there was none. He gingerly pulled back a corner of the tarp, ready for the same sort of horror he'd fallen over in the alley…
He looked like he was asleep. His hair was a little longer, looser, his mouth was faintly, faintly curved, still plump, full. He'd gotten used to seeing Clark's---Superman's—slash of a mouth, pale and compressed with hatred, anger, he only remembered his eyes tight and lined at the corners. He'd put it down to maturity, but here he lay and yes, he was bulkier than Clark his friend had been, and his skin was not as porcelain smooth, no tawny blush on his cheeks, but…long thick lashes brushed the tops of his cheeks, he looked sixteen again and about to wake up. Lex laid shaky fingers at his throat and of course, there was no pulse. He laid his cheek against Clark's broad still chest and hoped for a heartbeat. Nothing. He hadn’t really expected a beat but he understood why Martha couldn't do it, Clark's body didn’t have that empty, blank lifelessness that corpses had. He picked up the shovel on the floor and took a chunk out of the hard packed dirt. He kept glancing at the body as he tried to dig a hole big enough to put it in. He stopped, and wiped at his face.
"I'm not crying for you. I'm not, damn it." He put the shovel down, twitched the cover back over Clark's face and went back to the house
TBC
part 7
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" 2008This is one of two amazing covers that
danceswithgary made for the story. Mind you, some high-pitched whining may have been involved. *koff*behind this cut is the second cover!
Word count: 4186
Rating: PG
Out Of A Foreign Land
PART THREE
The Smallville sign came as shock. His mind had fixed on the image of that thing, from the second DreamBruce told him to go home and he began this descent into hell. He'd walked from Metropolis to Smallville, and it'd only cost him everything he had; the only person in the world who'd really cared about him, his sense of worth, his mind…he still wasn't entirely sure that Adam wasn't Louis in disguise. He sucked in a deep breath and clenched his jaw, if he started laughing he might not stop and he needed to be here, he needed to know he was alive and real and there it was, proof that it really happened. The sign, *the* sign, proudly proclaiming Smallville the meteor capital of the world—assholes. He shook his head and kept walking.
Corn growing green on either side of the road startled him…he'd expected drought, dead plants, but the stalks were bright, healthy, and already head height. He kept walking, listening for the sound of irrigators, of tractors, even though logic told him it was impossible. Why should it be different for Smallville than for Cloverdale? And yet…"hope is a thing with feathers," he muttered and on a wire over his head a crow dipped its beak and cawed.
He was bloody and dirty, his face itched and burned from dozens of little scratches, he felt exhausted and dispirited. The high he'd felt escaping Adam had evaporated, he felt like a whipped dog. Head down, trudging forward, trying to think of nothing but putting one foot in front of the other, one foot, one foot, he didn't realize where he was until the surface of the road changed, and he head the slap of water against the pylons…the bridge, water…"Water," he smiled. He remembered Loeb Bridge, he knew the water was dark and not all that clean but—his shirt went flying, he hopped from foot to foot and kicked off his boots, tossed off his shorts and dashed down the bank. He was about to jump in, shrugged and kicked off his underwear--with a hoot, he leaped into the cool, cool water.
He went straight down like rock, sank so quickly it startled him. Underwater he flailed his arms, trying to swim up, but he just kept sinking, darker and darker as he sank…he closed his eyes and let go of the breath he'd been fighting to keep. Yeah. This seemed right. This *was* right…back where he started. He smiled and his body stopped fighting. He let it go, and it felt…good.
Seconds later, he was choking and snorting water out of his nose, floating on the surface of the river. "*Damn* it," he coughed, "Make up your mind!" He was thrashing, bobbing in remarkably clean water. "Hopefully I won't get sick—" he stopped and laughed, "Right. Okay." He floated a bit, enjoying the feel, just letting go.
He climbed out and rinsed some of the dirt from his clothes, spread them out over grass to dry and sat naked on the bank to dry himself. He heard the distinct sound of a hawk in the distance, and smiled. okay, Jonathan, here I am
Across the road in a stand of trees crows flew out, cawing crazily and wheeled in a cloud to the east. Lex leaned back on his elbows in the sun-warm grass to watch them go. He was spread out to let the sun touch every bit of him. He felt clean. In fact, if it wasn't corny or possibly blasphemous to think so, he felt…cleansed. Washed in the water. He grinned, eyes tracking the bird's flight. "Fly away, fly away, fly away home…" he murmured. The sun was warm, and it was tempting to close his eyes and fall asleep on the river bank, but he had things to do. Places to go.
The main street of the town was a reminder that yes indeed, the world was dead. Smallville hadn't died any easier than Metropolis or Gotham. Maybe not as dramatic, but it was just as dead. This time when he thought he heard snuffling, and movement, he saw it too. Walking down the main drag, he counted four, possibly five mutants—he wasn't entirely sure about the pudgy old woman in a faded Warrior Angel sweatshirt and a hat with the tags still on, she was leaning on a shopping cart crammed to the brim with bulky plastic bags and might just have been what the people in town politely called eccentric, certainly her hat was. It was just the way she looked at him, like he was dinner or…worse. He needed to get to the castle as quickly as possible. Weapons, he had weapons there…he backed away from her and her shopping cart seemed to be…heaving.
He walked along the streets, looking for cars with keys in them. This was Smallville after all, where all the neighbors looked after each other; it should be easy to steal a car. He found a truck with a spare set under the floor mats, and headed out to the castle. He passed a few other probable mutants, wondered how that could even be. He was certain he'd swept Smallville clean of GreenK, purely for research purposes and if he'd shot the majority of it into space, it was only because it was good business to be the owner of the only supply of a certain commodity, and he was all about business. And a hot shower, fucking hell, he was taking a HOT shower, and sleeping on down, and whatever happened after that, he didn’t give a good god damn.
Generators were running; the place was clean and had been shut up carefully since the last time he'd been in Smallville. He wiped a finger along the piano in the study. There was only an accumulation of maybe a week or two of dust. He smiled ruefully. If his security in Smallville had been as efficient and dedicated to their jobs as his household staff, there would have been a great many less concussions. He sighed and dropped his hand. At least, he would only have suffered the ones Clark gifted him with.
The place looked unreal, as perfect as a memory. He could imagine the sound of Clark's footsteps, the unexplained little breezes that used to accompany so many of his visits. Lex hummed. Well, unexplained back then. All known now. It still amused him that no one ever pointed at the man in the primary colored suit ands shouted, 'that boy used to bring my me rutabagas' or whatever the fuck they yanked out of the ground there. He expelled a long breath, "Okay, okay, this is a new me. Hatred has no place in here. Besides, Jonathan would be mad and I'm not having him knock me out in my next dream," he muttered.
In the kitchen, he found the food in the freezer was still edible—the freezer functioned as it should, and he could hear the steady chug of a generator under the stairs to the basement, one of many the castle used in the event of power loss. He was surprised they were functioning at all--imagined fuel for them must be low; he'd have to check the underground tanks. He sent a short appreciative mental note of thanks to the paranoia that led his dad to outfit the castle to survive almost anything including a nuclear attack. May he rest.
A hot shower, alone and safe, was nearly as orgasmic an experience as he hoped it would be. Dinner was simple, a grilled chop and some re-heated frozen vegetables, but it was…wonderful. Sitting in the pool of light the stained glass fixture cast over the kitchen island, he picked and nibbled at dessert, a slice of the pie he'd found in the freezer. Music played softly in the background…the smell of spices and apples the only scent wafting on the air…the castle felt like home for the first time in a long, long while. He could almost pretend that ten years hadn't passed, that all was well, that the Kents were tucked into their beds and maybe, maybe this was the night that Clark would finally sneak out of the little yellow farmhouse and come to him, tell him everything, and then have spectacular sex with him by the light of the plasma TV….
Lex threw the plate across the stainless steel counter to smash on the quarry tile floor. "Fuck!" He sagged in his seat. "Fuck." He'd clean it up in the morning. He needed to sleep. He needed to—not think for a little.
'Hello, Alexander. Feeling cozy? Feeling…loved? I watched you bathe in the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river…well, it doesn't exactly flow by the throne of God, does it? Just kind of trickles out of Lowell County and dumps into the reservoir. Which right now, is chock full of dead things getting the long baptism. See Lex, it all sort of ends up there—all dead things.'
The man came out of the shadows, and Lex saw his face and instantly recognized him. He turned to water inside. He'd seen this man's face a thousand times in a thousand nightmares. All his life, he'd been trying to give it a name--alien, monster, mutant. Sometimes it was Fine, sometimes Zod. He'd seen those hot eyes boring into his, felt his hands on him, his mouth biting and tearing…
'Except for you, Lex.' Lex turned, and he was staring out of a set of French doors, sunlight or some acidic bright light, flooding in, making the white suit he wore glow. Warm hand on the back of his neck, soft lips at his ear whispered. 'Bones everywhere…but not yours…do you know why? Say it, Lex and you can have everything you've ever wanted. Respect. Love. Power, Lex. Greatest of all these, power…'
He was standing on that hill again, and all around him things shriveled and died at his touch. 'You don’t need anything but this. I'll set you here, you'll rule all—for me. With me.' The hand on the back of his neck burned, and he felt a hot hard length digging into his back and he wanted to press back… 'What I want from you is so little, so small, you'll never miss it.' Lex closed his eyes and groaned. He was heavy, hot…so hard…'all you have to do is say yes.' Lips brushed against his cheek, coarse hair tickled and scratched the sensitive skin of his scalp. 'Say yes, son, and let me take care of you.'
Lex turned and twisted in the sheets, moaning…'no, no, go away…' he flailed against the hold of the sheets and cried in his sleep….
He threw open the doors of the castle and ran down the drive out to the road. He leaped over the drainage ditch in the roadside and ran on across an open field, through the grass. After a bit, he was running through corn, taller and more mature than the corn he'd passed on the way into Smallville. He thought it looked familiar and then he remembered. Mother Abigail, he tried to yell out her name but his mouth was too dry…
'There you are, we've been waiting for you.' she was sitting on the porch again, gently rocking in an old fashioned rocking chair and plucking out a tune on her guitar. She hummed, the occasional word floating free. It was soothing, the rocking, the playing; so much that it took him a minute or two before he noticed she had company. When he did, she stopped playing.
A big man in a bright white tee-shirt and new jeans sat next to her. He had a big steel bowl of peas clasped between his knees and he was busily shelling them, his big bare feet tapping in time to music only he could hear, apparently. His head was bent over the bowl and a fall of dark hair hid his face.
'You did so good, honey. I'm proud of you. Now you're home, and you done finish the first leg of your journey.' She dropped her hand and cupped frail brown fingers over to the dark head next to her knee. 'This one got impatient waiting, but he'll be with you when you're ready.' She smiled a sweet, kind smile and the man next to her lifted his head and smiled too, and the sun came out.
Lex woke, words echoing in his head. "I'm waiting for you." He fell flat on the floor, and finally came fully awake and the first thing he felt on waking was wonder, and warmth. From his toes to the crown of his head, he felt filled with it. He knew the feeling, remembered it from a lifetime gone past. Love, sweet, unconditional, asking for nothing in return, love. That dangerous thing. The feeling faded so slowly, and the feeling as it slipped away, hurt. He wanted desperately to hold it in—and he thought, I can't keep that feeling in this place.
"Shit." He staggered upright, flung open his closet door and dressed quickly, not even appreciating the fine materials, ignoring the dust that flew as he hastily threw on his clothes…he grabbed a pair of shoes from the dozens and dozens on the shelves and stopped. He dropped them to the floor like they were garbage. "Fuck that—I need a real pair of shoes," he muttered.
Dressed, his scuffed and dirty timberlands on his feet, he took the truck to the road again, one goal on his mind. The Kent home. He had to be there—even if it was just to sleep on the porch. There was no way he could spend another night in the castle. The castle was full of bad things, bad memories and spirits. At least at the farm house, the spirits would be kind. Martha always liked him, well, she had used to. Maybe her spirit would forgive him—Jonathan seemed to have, at least the Jonathan in his dreams. And even…maybe even Clark had found forgiveness from beyond the grave, and he relived that shining moment from the dream.
The truck engine died with a shudder on the farmhouse driveway. The moon silvered the front yard, the main house was dark, but there was a light on in the barn. Their generators must be running too…he hoped the light in the barn hadn’t attracted anyone—anything.
He stepped out of the truck; nerves sent him trotting quickly up the porch steps. He'd have to break the glass in the door to get in. He pulled off the lightweight sweater he wore and wrapped it around his fist, prepared to knock the glass in--on a whim, he tried the door handle and the door swung open. "That's either a bit of luck or a sign that it's finally run out."
He slipped the sweater back on and walked into the house, holding his breath as he carefully traversed the black maze of the living room and headed for the kitchen. The kitchen, what he could see of it, was exactly the same. Some small cosmetic changes, sure, but basically the same—the same table that he'd shared pie with Clark, the same couch he'd flopped on at the end of that day he'd worked on the farm…he wondered if Clark's room was the same, he remembered jerking off quietly and carefully in his bed while Clark slept on the couch below him. He sighed, and was about to head for the stairs when he realized that the refrigerator was humming. The fridge was working…he flicked the switch near the door and the kitchen light blinded him. 'Damn'!
A rising moaning swell of sound rolled down the stairs and Lex jumped a foot--felt pretty good he hadn't screamed—the ghastly croak became words, and a voice he recognized.
"Who—who's there—"
He ran up the stairs two at a time and looked for the door not to Clark's bedroom and burst through it, and there she was, a small thin shape swaddled in blankets in the middle of a queen sized bed.
"Oh, Martha, oh my god…" There was no smell, and the water next to her bed was clear and clean, she was sweating profusely, but her bedclothes were clean—just damp. If she was sick, it hadn't been long.
"Who is it? Who's there—I have a gun." She peered out into the darkness of the bedroom.
"That's good; please don't use it, Martha. It's me. Lex. I came to help. Can I help?"
"Lex? Lex is dead. Everyone is dead," she fretted. "It's just me now. Everything else is dead." She plucked at the cover pulled up to her chest. "The cows died first and Clark buried the dead animals. All of them died, you know? No eggs, no milk…she laughed thickly. "No people to sell it to…did you say Lex? I thought Lex was dead." She seemed to be drifting in and out of sleep, and it was obviously an effort for her to stay awake.
"I'm here. Go back to sleep." He pulled a chair away from her vanity and sat it next to the bedside and took her hand. Her palm was dry and warm and so very soft. Her fingers trembled just a bit in his hold and then relaxed. He listened to her breath even out, deepen…..
"My *goodness*, what are you doing here, Lex?"
Lex jerked awake, and groaned, his neck and shoulders were one huge aching knot from sleeping in the chair. He was completely off guard and embarrassed, he scrubbed quickly at the trail of wet from the corner of his mouth. "Sorry," he apologized, not really sure for what.
"Lex Luthor, what in the world are you doing here—I thought I dreamt it. I…I dreamt you and Clark were here, and we were going to market, all of us…" she trailed off wistfully.
"I came home because...because…"
She nodded and seemed to know what he was trying to say. "It's instinct to want to be home when things go…go wrong. This is home for you, isn't it? I'm. I'm glad to see you." Her eyes looked bleak, but she smiled. Lex knew what she wanted to say was, 'I don't want to die alone.' He knew she must also be thinking 'even if it's just you, I don’t want to be alone'. And he was fine with getting even that much from her, really.
He stood. "Wait here, I'll be back in a few minutes. I promise," he said when she reached out to grab his hand. He took the water glass from her bedside, and went down to the kitchen.
He was able to throw together an omelet from odds and ends in the fridge and found bread in the freezer—he made toast for her, put the food and fresh water, and coffee for them both on a big tin tray and went back up the stairs. She looked so pleased, and also, very surprised. He set the tray down. "Martha, I'm not sure if I should feel insulted or flattered. You look positively shocked," he teased.
"I had no idea you could cook," she laughed breathily. "I just can't imagine you rummaging about in my tiny old kitchen."
He sat next to her, spread a tea-towel over her lap and handed her a plate. "Well you forget, I was a college student, and in fact, a penniless student—Dad paid tuition but nothing much else, he was angry with my choice of major. My roommate was skilled at all kinds of things," he laughed, and then blushed, and neither of them remarked on it. Gratefully Lex went on. "Bruce taught me how to cook, how to sew lost buttons back on…he was a good guy." He stopped, and his mouth twisted. He looked down until he was sure of control again. Martha was looking at him with too much sympathy. "So. How's your stomach handling this invasion of foodstuffs?"
"Good thanks, it's good." She nibbled on her egg and toast, and Lex sat. It was quiet but not uncomfortably so.
After she finished, he brought water to wash her face, and he brushed her hair and braided it. "No," he said to a teasing question. "Bruce did not teach me to braid hair. An employee of mine taught me, when she broke her hand…" he smiled fondly and Martha smiled at him.
"You look good with a smile Lex. I remember when you used to smile a bit more."
"Well…" he set the hairbrush on her bedside table. "We all did once."
She coughed hard, but not as hard as she would. He grimaced. "Martha…Clark…" his voice failed.
"Clark? Clark…" she took Lex's hand to borrow strength from him and his heart froze. "He died, it happened so fast, he was okay, he came home to help me, and then he was sick and in the blink of an eye, he was gone." She covered her mouth and shook.
Lex felt his own eyes fill, and ground his teeth. He knew it; he'd known Clark was dead. Superman never came back to metropolis, and he'd only abandon the city if he was dead.
She went on, voice shaky and distant with remembered pain. "One day, we were outside, he was checking the fuel tanks out by the truck shed, and I was in the root cellar, checking stores, and I heard him coughing. It startled me so much—Clark coughing, you know? By the time I got to him he was all folded up, and then—he was gone. Gone. And, and I thought—I don't want anyone cutting him into bits to find out what had made him tick', you understand?"
Lex nodded through a thick wave of guilt and murmured agreement. She didn't even try to pretend—or question that he knew. The truth was there because after all what did anything matter at the end of the world? Her dead son was the world's most perfect superhero and the arch-enemy of the world's most perfect superhero was sitting in his mother's bedroom, feeding her tea. He could feel tears gathering….
"So. I wrapped him in a—a—tarp, a big blue plastic tarp, and took him down to the root cellar, and I was going to bury him. I was. I came down day after day to bury him". She raised hands to her face. But I couldn’t because—he never changed." She lowered her hands again, and said, "He never changed. No…no rot. No corruption. I couldn't. And then, there was so much to do, trying to make sure I was safe, fending off attacks," she stopped at Lex's gasp. "Mutants. Clark said he thought that the virus was changing and effecting people who had the meteor induced mutation dormant in their bodies. Like the virus was unlocking it, or something…anyway, I got sick next, and my son is still laying on the dirt floor down there wrapped in a tarp. Lex, will you bury him for me please?"
What could he say?
He went down the cellar stairs, the beam of the flashlight he carried bobbed and dipped and picked out a long shape on the cellar floor. He doubted Martha remembered it right, he was fully prepared for a horrible stink, but there was none. He gingerly pulled back a corner of the tarp, ready for the same sort of horror he'd fallen over in the alley…
He looked like he was asleep. His hair was a little longer, looser, his mouth was faintly, faintly curved, still plump, full. He'd gotten used to seeing Clark's---Superman's—slash of a mouth, pale and compressed with hatred, anger, he only remembered his eyes tight and lined at the corners. He'd put it down to maturity, but here he lay and yes, he was bulkier than Clark his friend had been, and his skin was not as porcelain smooth, no tawny blush on his cheeks, but…long thick lashes brushed the tops of his cheeks, he looked sixteen again and about to wake up. Lex laid shaky fingers at his throat and of course, there was no pulse. He laid his cheek against Clark's broad still chest and hoped for a heartbeat. Nothing. He hadn’t really expected a beat but he understood why Martha couldn't do it, Clark's body didn’t have that empty, blank lifelessness that corpses had. He picked up the shovel on the floor and took a chunk out of the hard packed dirt. He kept glancing at the body as he tried to dig a hole big enough to put it in. He stopped, and wiped at his face.
"I'm not crying for you. I'm not, damn it." He put the shovel down, twitched the cover back over Clark's face and went back to the house
TBC
part 7
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