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seriousficTitle: The Villain Of The Story
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: R
Word Count: 2,501
Author’s Note: Betaed by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vagrantdream.
Characters/Pairings: Chloe/Davis, Lois, Clark, Lex
Last Part: Chapter 3
Next Part: Chapter 5
Summary: When Chloe invited Davis to hunt for Red-Eyes with her, she never expected to find something.
Chloe was at her Mac, putting the finishing touches on her article about Jeremy Creek, who’d come out of his coma weeks before his old tormentors started dropping like flies hitting a bug zapper. Lois lounged on Chloe’s bed, reading Teen Beat’s cover story on Clark Luthor with the occasional lick across her lips. Or at least, she had been.
“So let me get this straight. You didn’t show him your bra, you showed him the Wall of Weird?” Lois howled.
“I don’t see what my bra has to do with anything,” Chloe replied off-handedly.
Ever since flunking out of VMI (“Disciplinary reasons my ass,” Lois had snapped, “they’re biased against women!”), Lois had been attending Smallville Community College. The General had virtually put her under house arrest with the Sullivans, not wanting a repeat of the Lucy episode.
Since then, Lois had been Chloe’s babysitter, tutor (though it tended to work the other way around), and now best friend. She even helped out with the Torch occasionally, although mostly in finding new and exciting ways to mess up spell-check.
“Chloe. Chloe. Chloe. We all have our weird bits. I rate my gay porn collection on a scale of one through ten. But I don’t tell people that on a first date.”
”It wasn’t a date. We went to the dance as friends.”
“I’m going to stop you right there, because I think I see your problem. Chloe, he’s a teenage boy. Teenage boys are dumb and horny. For some people, that’s a turn-off. You can turn it to your advantage. Say he comes over to help you catch the red-eye. Answer the door in my old cheer uniform, tell him you were trying it on.”
“I don’t want to come off as desperate”
“You asked him out on a monster hunt. You define desperate.”
“I don’t want to brainwash him. I just want to know how he feels about me.”
Lois sat down on Chloe’s desk with a smile. “Of course he likes you. I’ve been babysitting the two of you for depressingly long enough to know that. Just be your Sullivan-Lane self and charge in. If he doesn’t feel the same way, at least you can stop wondering about it. And if he does, you can still borrow my cheerleading outfit.”
***
Davis put his flashlight under his chin. “You really think there’s some monster walking the cornrows of Smallville?”
Chloe kept her flashlight trained on her father’s crops. “Just a green-eyed monster.”
“Chloe, my roguish good looks are nothing to be jealous of.”
Chloe turned around, shining her flashlight in Davis’s face. The hunt for Red-Eyes was on hold. “I’m talking about the evil eye you’ve been giving Sean Kelvin since he got my number.”
“You deserve better, Chlo.”
“Like who?”
Davis looked around uncomfortably. “You shouldn’t settle, that’s all I’m saying. The guy’s a dog.”
“And I should wait for someone more honorable.”
Davis covered her flashlight’s glass with his hand, getting the light out of his eyes. The subdued glow came only from his flashlight, pointed at the ground. “Yeah.”
“Someone who respects me.”
”Exactly.”
“Someone I can trust.”
She took his flashlight in her hand and switched off. Now there was only the moonlight bleaching Chloe into silver, highlighting the curves of her face.
An epiphany struck Davis like lightning. Chloe liked him. Liked him. And she wanted him to kiss her. And he had no idea whether he wanted to… Okay, he wanted to, but was it just because she was a pretty girl and his friend who he wanted to be happy and really pretty—beautiful, even—and smart and funny and a good friend and suddenly something pushed through the crops, colliding with Davis. They hit the ground, then were caught in the beam of Chloe’s flashlight.
She recognized the moment-killer. “Greg? Greg Arkin?”
He was on his feet in an instant. “Run!”
Davis heard a helicopter’s rotors, people rustling through the crops. They scattered.
***
Gabe Sullivan watched the searchlights scanning the fields outside his home and thought if only this could happen every time my daughter wheedled her way into ‘hunting Red-Eyes’ with a boy alone in the middle of the night.
“Can’t you do something?” Chloe asked, waving the butcher knife she’d armed herself with for emphasis. “This is private property.”
“Yeah, try telling them that. I’ve called the police. They’ll handle it.”
“We should make a break for it,” Davis said. He was watching the commandos through the windows, catching brief glimpses of them as they moved through the cornstalks. “You really think anyone with that much hardware is going to back down because someone flashes a badge at them?”
“Assuming they aren’t the government,” Chloe said. “Or Luthorcorp… same difference. I’m going to go check on Greg. Being hunted like that must’ve scared him out of his mind.”
She went upstairs, leaving Gabe alone with Davis. Davis sat down, hands on his knees. “Why Greg Arkin, that’s what I don’t understand. Don’t tell me someone’s after his bug collection…”
Chloe screamed. In a flash Davis had hurdled the banister and was up the stairs, Gabe trailing after him. They found the shower still running and the window broken open. Chloe was nowhere in sight.
Davis crouched down to pick up Chloe’s knife. The blade was covered in blood.
“Oh God.” Gabe blanched. “Is that—“
“No, it’s not Chloe’s.” Davis shut off the shower spray.
“How can you tell?”
“I don’t know, I just—“ He prodded something fleshy in the drain. “He’s molting.”
“What?”
“What ever has your daughter, it’s not Greg Arkin anymore. I’m gonna need to borrow your car.”
***
Chloe woke up to the feel of blood trickling down her scalp. She remembered going upstairs, hearing the shower running, than Greg had come out… saying something about how the men in black had caught him feeding, then more about molting and breeding, but all she could process was the skin hanging off him in girthy swathes. Then he’d come at her and she’d plunged the knife into him, but Greg had only smiled…
She looked around. She was in the old mill; she could recognize it by the meteor rocks lighting up the darkness. Something warm and sticky coated her back and Chloe tried not to ponder the irony of her plan for Davis.
“Hey, Chloe, do you like kids?” Greg asked.
She struggled. Couldn’t break free. She was trapped like a fly in a web.
He tapped her face with two fingers like a pair of antenna. “Mm. You’re no Lana Lang, but you’ll do. That’s what evolution is all about, adaptation.”
“That’s why you’re doing this?”
Greg shrugged meagerly. “Biologically, we only exist to pass on our genes. And our children will be stronger, faster, better. In their new world, it won’t matter what clothes you wear or what car you drive.”
“Greg.” Her fingers were nearing her lips. “Greg, fight it. This isn’t you.”
”It is now. I’m a predator. Who would want to fight that?”
The door to the mill flew open, lock splintered. Davis stepped inside. “Let her go, Arkin.”
Greg hissed and vomited webbing over Chloe’s face. “I’m not sure what insect starts a mating ritual that way, but you gotta admit, it’s kinda cool.”
Davis rushed him. Greg lunged, hitting Davis with both feet. Kent flew back, tumbling into the green glow of the meteor rocks.
“It’s my nature, Davey. Red in tooth and claw. I couldn’t fight it, even if I wanted to. And why would I want to?”
“Because it’s gonna end with my foot on your throat.” Davis tried to sit up, his legs went out from under him. He felt the same nauseating drowsiness start up that had made him vomit on Lana Lang’s shoes. No! Not now… Numbness spread up his arms, veins stood out on his flesh…
“You don’t look so good, Davey. That’s what I hated about being human. So damn fragile…”
Davis was going into shock. His eyes rolled back in his head as a grand mal seizure wrecked his body.
Greg put a foot on his throat. “You can’t fight nature, Davey.” He pressed down. Davis went still.
Rubbing his hands together, Greg turned back to Chloe. A hand grabbed him by the ankle.
Greg turned to see Davis, no longer pale and sweaty but flushed with a gray hue, his eyes tinted red. Greg tried to jump, but Davis held on. He slammed Greg back down, splattering gravel, then grabbed a chunk of meteor rock. Greg’s scream was all too human as Davis brought the Kryptonite down on his head.
It took a moment of blood-soaked reality for Davis to realize what he’d done. Greg laid under him, skull caved in, limbs curling inward. Without conscious thought, he wiped down the meteor rock and stood up. Greg was still… churning.
Davis stepped back as thousands of beetles burst out of Greg, leaving only his skin and clothes. Davis wondered if it were flammable.
***
After checking on Chloe, Davis ran back to Gabe’s pick-up and the bottle of motor oil he’d seen in the back. The rest was easy. Why should he and Chloe have to suffer through the scrutiny of an investigation? Greg had been the one at fault. He’d reaped what he’d sown.
Once Davis had started the fire, he ripped Chloe out of her cocoon. She regained consciousness as he carried her outside. “Davis?”
“It’s alright. I’ve got you.”
***
Lex had the urge to run a hand over his bald scalp, a childhood tic that he hadn’t indulged in years. It wasn’t as if he was ever going to feel his hair growing back.
Something about the elevator ride into the depths of the Luthorcorp Building had him on edge. Perhaps it was how at ease Clark seemed. Lex had always sensed a certain… un-belonging about his brother. A skittish reluctance that made Lex feel uncomfortably superior. Here, Clark was in his element and Lex was on foreign soil.
“You know how Father keeps going on about how Smallville is your test? He wasn’t lying to you, Lex. For the last decade, Smallville has been the biggest science project in the world.”
“Testing what?” Lex asked as the elevator rumbled to a stop.
Clark smiled and ushered Lex through the open doors.
Level 33.1 was a long corridor with glass doors on either side. A security camera monitored them getting out, and Lex noted a card slot on the elevator panel. He tried one of the doors. It wouldn’t budge.
“This is what you’ve been running, Clark? A prison?”
“A containment facility. For those with gifts that would go unappreciated by the masses. Here’s someone you might remember.” They stopped at a glass door. Behind it, Jeremy Creek turned the pages of a book. Lex remembered seeing him twelve years ago, strung up in a cornfield. He looked worse now.
“The meteor shower,” Lex realized.
“It wasn’t just a bunch of rocks. The meteors came from a world that was destroyed in a dimensional shift; think of it was the universe’s biggest particle accelerator. The debris was bombarded into the island of stability. An entirely new element: Kryptonite.”
“It changed him.”
“He can absorb and redirect energy. Imagine how useful that ability will be, once we know how to recreate it.”
A burst of flame flared up behind Lex. He whirled to see it breaking against a glass door.
“Coach Arnold is having a little more trouble adapting to his new circumstances,” Clark quipped. “You’d think winning his 200th game would mollify him a little.”
“So what’s the endgame here, Clark? You’re just going to… keep them, is that it?”
“They’ll be released. Once we’re done with them.”
Lex gave in, ran a hand over his smooth scalp. “What gives you the right?”
Clark smiled brightly. “It’s my destiny.”
“I thought Luthors made their own destiny.”
Clark’s smile was rictus-still. “As you’re so keen to point out, I’m not really a Luthor.”
Lex remembered. How could he forget the decision that resulted in his present exile? The scary part was he couldn’t bring himself to regret it, and he knew his father wouldn’t have either.
“Let’s not fight, Lex. With Kryptonite, we can save the world. We can make our father proud. I don’t want to do that alone.”
He offered his hand.
Lex took it.
“Looks like the Luthor boys are here to stay.”
***
On Buffy, the Slayer was facing down a squad of improbably martial artsy vampires. Chloe ate her precious buttered popcorn, throwing a kernel at Davis’s mouth everytime the ‘drinking game’ said to.
“You know, you could just make me a bowl of popcorn. Or share.”
Chloe rolled her eyes at Davis’s suggestion. “I am sharing. God, are those geeks really going to be the Big Bads? Why does every show suck once it hits its sixth season?”
“You think that’s bad, imagine when it reaches eight.”
“They’ll probably make Buffy a lesbian or something.”
“Yeah, and then everyone gets married.”
“I hate wedding episodes. If I ever get married, promise me you’ll start some drama at the ‘forever hold your peace’ part. No one ever objects at weddings anymore.”
“I promise.”
Dawn was annoying. Chloe threw a kernel at Davis’s mouth. It added to the growing collection in his lap.
“What’s wrong, Davis? Is the mix of teen angst and supernatural adventuring not working for you?”
“I guess I’m just… pondering the moral implications of it.”
Chloe set her popcorn aside. “Yeah, all that premarital sex… boo!”
“That’s not what I mean. All those demons, they have souls. What Buffy’s doing is like vigilante justice.”
“What’s she supposed to do, tie ‘em up and leave them for the cops? They have to be stopped. They’re monsters.”
“And you don’t think she ever feels bad about killing vamps?”
“I read a fanfic once where Buffy had a good cry over that, but then she remembered that by slaying, she was keeping all her friends safe.”
“Ah, fanfic, Chloe? You know that’s just poorly-written gay porn.”
“Some of it’s well-written,” Chloe said defensively. “Hey, stupid question, but you’re not still thinking about the mill, are you?”
Davis sighed. Chloe scooped a handful of popcorn off his stomach and laid down on top of him, popping it kernel by kernel into his mouth and watching him chew.
“Feeling better?”
“It comes and goes,” he admitted.
“You couldn’t save him. After he set that fire, you were lucky to get me out. If you’d gone back in, you would’ve died. And I like you not-dead.” She set her head down on his chest. “You’re more snuggly this way.”
“But do you think Arkin deserved to die?”
Chloe scoffed. “He ate his mother! I know all life is precious, yadda yadda, but I’m not sending any flowers to the funeral. You?”
“No.” Davis wrapped his arms around her. “None at all.”
Something I always thought was weird about Smallville was how sometimes Clark is all “RARRR MUST NEVER KILL, KILLING IS WRONG AND ONLY BAD PEOPLE KILL!” and other times he’ll somehow accidentally kill someone (which, you know, if he really valued life that much, you’d think he’d be more careful. At least stop flinging people around thirty feet in the air all willy-nilly) and the next thing you know he’s moping over… Lana.
And that’s just not how anyone with a modicum of morality should act. If you kill someone, even if it’s inadvertent, even if it’s self-defense, you should feel something. That’s why so much of military training is conditioning soldiers and dehumanizing the enemy. Because when you kill someone, it means something.
On the other hand, LANA IS MOVING AWAY FOREVER, OH NOES!!!
So here we have Davis actually stopping and considering the implications of this new path he’s going down. He’s taken a life. He’s concealed it (which Clark has admittedly never “done”, but how many times have you seen him go up to some Kryptofreak’s parent and said “Here’s how your son really died, sir”?). And that’s not going to go away. Does this make Davis a more moral individual than Clark? Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say YES IT DOES.
Also, everyone say hi to Lois Lane. I know she has her detractors, but fuck it, I like her better than Pete. This allows me to give Chloe a sounding board so I can liven up the “Chloe thinks it over” scenes with some banter, but without opening the can of worms that is Chloe/Pete. Obviously, the dead butterfly that is Clark Luthor and/or Davis Kent has caused Lois to end up in Smallville. Either that or a wizard did it.
Anyway, you can relax, Chloe is still our leading lady, it’s just this fic isn’t going to be a sausage-fest. If that’s your thing, fandom has more sausage-fests than Germany in October (ba dum tish!). You’ve trusted me this far, trust me not to write Lois Lane as fabricating articles for the Daily Planet or fucking her editor or encouraging Clark to dance with Lana at an event he went with Chloe to or… well, you’ll be pleased to know that with Chloe’s help, Lois has accessed her latent overachiever and is sending out loads of college applications to schools with good journalism programs.
Oh, and chronologically, this chapter covers 1x02 Metamorphasis and 1x03 Hothead. Oh yes, I’m keeping track of the continuity in a Smallville fic. Yes, I have a problem.
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: R
Word Count: 2,501
Author’s Note: Betaed by
vagrantdream.Characters/Pairings: Chloe/Davis, Lois, Clark, Lex
Last Part: Chapter 3
Next Part: Chapter 5
Summary: When Chloe invited Davis to hunt for Red-Eyes with her, she never expected to find something.
Chloe was at her Mac, putting the finishing touches on her article about Jeremy Creek, who’d come out of his coma weeks before his old tormentors started dropping like flies hitting a bug zapper. Lois lounged on Chloe’s bed, reading Teen Beat’s cover story on Clark Luthor with the occasional lick across her lips. Or at least, she had been.
“So let me get this straight. You didn’t show him your bra, you showed him the Wall of Weird?” Lois howled.
“I don’t see what my bra has to do with anything,” Chloe replied off-handedly.
Ever since flunking out of VMI (“Disciplinary reasons my ass,” Lois had snapped, “they’re biased against women!”), Lois had been attending Smallville Community College. The General had virtually put her under house arrest with the Sullivans, not wanting a repeat of the Lucy episode.
Since then, Lois had been Chloe’s babysitter, tutor (though it tended to work the other way around), and now best friend. She even helped out with the Torch occasionally, although mostly in finding new and exciting ways to mess up spell-check.
“Chloe. Chloe. Chloe. We all have our weird bits. I rate my gay porn collection on a scale of one through ten. But I don’t tell people that on a first date.”
”It wasn’t a date. We went to the dance as friends.”
“I’m going to stop you right there, because I think I see your problem. Chloe, he’s a teenage boy. Teenage boys are dumb and horny. For some people, that’s a turn-off. You can turn it to your advantage. Say he comes over to help you catch the red-eye. Answer the door in my old cheer uniform, tell him you were trying it on.”
“I don’t want to come off as desperate”
“You asked him out on a monster hunt. You define desperate.”
“I don’t want to brainwash him. I just want to know how he feels about me.”
Lois sat down on Chloe’s desk with a smile. “Of course he likes you. I’ve been babysitting the two of you for depressingly long enough to know that. Just be your Sullivan-Lane self and charge in. If he doesn’t feel the same way, at least you can stop wondering about it. And if he does, you can still borrow my cheerleading outfit.”
***
Davis put his flashlight under his chin. “You really think there’s some monster walking the cornrows of Smallville?”
Chloe kept her flashlight trained on her father’s crops. “Just a green-eyed monster.”
“Chloe, my roguish good looks are nothing to be jealous of.”
Chloe turned around, shining her flashlight in Davis’s face. The hunt for Red-Eyes was on hold. “I’m talking about the evil eye you’ve been giving Sean Kelvin since he got my number.”
“You deserve better, Chlo.”
“Like who?”
Davis looked around uncomfortably. “You shouldn’t settle, that’s all I’m saying. The guy’s a dog.”
“And I should wait for someone more honorable.”
Davis covered her flashlight’s glass with his hand, getting the light out of his eyes. The subdued glow came only from his flashlight, pointed at the ground. “Yeah.”
“Someone who respects me.”
”Exactly.”
“Someone I can trust.”
She took his flashlight in her hand and switched off. Now there was only the moonlight bleaching Chloe into silver, highlighting the curves of her face.
An epiphany struck Davis like lightning. Chloe liked him. Liked him. And she wanted him to kiss her. And he had no idea whether he wanted to… Okay, he wanted to, but was it just because she was a pretty girl and his friend who he wanted to be happy and really pretty—beautiful, even—and smart and funny and a good friend and suddenly something pushed through the crops, colliding with Davis. They hit the ground, then were caught in the beam of Chloe’s flashlight.
She recognized the moment-killer. “Greg? Greg Arkin?”
He was on his feet in an instant. “Run!”
Davis heard a helicopter’s rotors, people rustling through the crops. They scattered.
***
Gabe Sullivan watched the searchlights scanning the fields outside his home and thought if only this could happen every time my daughter wheedled her way into ‘hunting Red-Eyes’ with a boy alone in the middle of the night.
“Can’t you do something?” Chloe asked, waving the butcher knife she’d armed herself with for emphasis. “This is private property.”
“Yeah, try telling them that. I’ve called the police. They’ll handle it.”
“We should make a break for it,” Davis said. He was watching the commandos through the windows, catching brief glimpses of them as they moved through the cornstalks. “You really think anyone with that much hardware is going to back down because someone flashes a badge at them?”
“Assuming they aren’t the government,” Chloe said. “Or Luthorcorp… same difference. I’m going to go check on Greg. Being hunted like that must’ve scared him out of his mind.”
She went upstairs, leaving Gabe alone with Davis. Davis sat down, hands on his knees. “Why Greg Arkin, that’s what I don’t understand. Don’t tell me someone’s after his bug collection…”
Chloe screamed. In a flash Davis had hurdled the banister and was up the stairs, Gabe trailing after him. They found the shower still running and the window broken open. Chloe was nowhere in sight.
Davis crouched down to pick up Chloe’s knife. The blade was covered in blood.
“Oh God.” Gabe blanched. “Is that—“
“No, it’s not Chloe’s.” Davis shut off the shower spray.
“How can you tell?”
“I don’t know, I just—“ He prodded something fleshy in the drain. “He’s molting.”
“What?”
“What ever has your daughter, it’s not Greg Arkin anymore. I’m gonna need to borrow your car.”
***
Chloe woke up to the feel of blood trickling down her scalp. She remembered going upstairs, hearing the shower running, than Greg had come out… saying something about how the men in black had caught him feeding, then more about molting and breeding, but all she could process was the skin hanging off him in girthy swathes. Then he’d come at her and she’d plunged the knife into him, but Greg had only smiled…
She looked around. She was in the old mill; she could recognize it by the meteor rocks lighting up the darkness. Something warm and sticky coated her back and Chloe tried not to ponder the irony of her plan for Davis.
“Hey, Chloe, do you like kids?” Greg asked.
She struggled. Couldn’t break free. She was trapped like a fly in a web.
He tapped her face with two fingers like a pair of antenna. “Mm. You’re no Lana Lang, but you’ll do. That’s what evolution is all about, adaptation.”
“That’s why you’re doing this?”
Greg shrugged meagerly. “Biologically, we only exist to pass on our genes. And our children will be stronger, faster, better. In their new world, it won’t matter what clothes you wear or what car you drive.”
“Greg.” Her fingers were nearing her lips. “Greg, fight it. This isn’t you.”
”It is now. I’m a predator. Who would want to fight that?”
The door to the mill flew open, lock splintered. Davis stepped inside. “Let her go, Arkin.”
Greg hissed and vomited webbing over Chloe’s face. “I’m not sure what insect starts a mating ritual that way, but you gotta admit, it’s kinda cool.”
Davis rushed him. Greg lunged, hitting Davis with both feet. Kent flew back, tumbling into the green glow of the meteor rocks.
“It’s my nature, Davey. Red in tooth and claw. I couldn’t fight it, even if I wanted to. And why would I want to?”
“Because it’s gonna end with my foot on your throat.” Davis tried to sit up, his legs went out from under him. He felt the same nauseating drowsiness start up that had made him vomit on Lana Lang’s shoes. No! Not now… Numbness spread up his arms, veins stood out on his flesh…
“You don’t look so good, Davey. That’s what I hated about being human. So damn fragile…”
Davis was going into shock. His eyes rolled back in his head as a grand mal seizure wrecked his body.
Greg put a foot on his throat. “You can’t fight nature, Davey.” He pressed down. Davis went still.
Rubbing his hands together, Greg turned back to Chloe. A hand grabbed him by the ankle.
Greg turned to see Davis, no longer pale and sweaty but flushed with a gray hue, his eyes tinted red. Greg tried to jump, but Davis held on. He slammed Greg back down, splattering gravel, then grabbed a chunk of meteor rock. Greg’s scream was all too human as Davis brought the Kryptonite down on his head.
It took a moment of blood-soaked reality for Davis to realize what he’d done. Greg laid under him, skull caved in, limbs curling inward. Without conscious thought, he wiped down the meteor rock and stood up. Greg was still… churning.
Davis stepped back as thousands of beetles burst out of Greg, leaving only his skin and clothes. Davis wondered if it were flammable.
***
After checking on Chloe, Davis ran back to Gabe’s pick-up and the bottle of motor oil he’d seen in the back. The rest was easy. Why should he and Chloe have to suffer through the scrutiny of an investigation? Greg had been the one at fault. He’d reaped what he’d sown.
Once Davis had started the fire, he ripped Chloe out of her cocoon. She regained consciousness as he carried her outside. “Davis?”
“It’s alright. I’ve got you.”
***
Lex had the urge to run a hand over his bald scalp, a childhood tic that he hadn’t indulged in years. It wasn’t as if he was ever going to feel his hair growing back.
Something about the elevator ride into the depths of the Luthorcorp Building had him on edge. Perhaps it was how at ease Clark seemed. Lex had always sensed a certain… un-belonging about his brother. A skittish reluctance that made Lex feel uncomfortably superior. Here, Clark was in his element and Lex was on foreign soil.
“You know how Father keeps going on about how Smallville is your test? He wasn’t lying to you, Lex. For the last decade, Smallville has been the biggest science project in the world.”
“Testing what?” Lex asked as the elevator rumbled to a stop.
Clark smiled and ushered Lex through the open doors.
Level 33.1 was a long corridor with glass doors on either side. A security camera monitored them getting out, and Lex noted a card slot on the elevator panel. He tried one of the doors. It wouldn’t budge.
“This is what you’ve been running, Clark? A prison?”
“A containment facility. For those with gifts that would go unappreciated by the masses. Here’s someone you might remember.” They stopped at a glass door. Behind it, Jeremy Creek turned the pages of a book. Lex remembered seeing him twelve years ago, strung up in a cornfield. He looked worse now.
“The meteor shower,” Lex realized.
“It wasn’t just a bunch of rocks. The meteors came from a world that was destroyed in a dimensional shift; think of it was the universe’s biggest particle accelerator. The debris was bombarded into the island of stability. An entirely new element: Kryptonite.”
“It changed him.”
“He can absorb and redirect energy. Imagine how useful that ability will be, once we know how to recreate it.”
A burst of flame flared up behind Lex. He whirled to see it breaking against a glass door.
“Coach Arnold is having a little more trouble adapting to his new circumstances,” Clark quipped. “You’d think winning his 200th game would mollify him a little.”
“So what’s the endgame here, Clark? You’re just going to… keep them, is that it?”
“They’ll be released. Once we’re done with them.”
Lex gave in, ran a hand over his smooth scalp. “What gives you the right?”
Clark smiled brightly. “It’s my destiny.”
“I thought Luthors made their own destiny.”
Clark’s smile was rictus-still. “As you’re so keen to point out, I’m not really a Luthor.”
Lex remembered. How could he forget the decision that resulted in his present exile? The scary part was he couldn’t bring himself to regret it, and he knew his father wouldn’t have either.
“Let’s not fight, Lex. With Kryptonite, we can save the world. We can make our father proud. I don’t want to do that alone.”
He offered his hand.
Lex took it.
“Looks like the Luthor boys are here to stay.”
***
On Buffy, the Slayer was facing down a squad of improbably martial artsy vampires. Chloe ate her precious buttered popcorn, throwing a kernel at Davis’s mouth everytime the ‘drinking game’ said to.
“You know, you could just make me a bowl of popcorn. Or share.”
Chloe rolled her eyes at Davis’s suggestion. “I am sharing. God, are those geeks really going to be the Big Bads? Why does every show suck once it hits its sixth season?”
“You think that’s bad, imagine when it reaches eight.”
“They’ll probably make Buffy a lesbian or something.”
“Yeah, and then everyone gets married.”
“I hate wedding episodes. If I ever get married, promise me you’ll start some drama at the ‘forever hold your peace’ part. No one ever objects at weddings anymore.”
“I promise.”
Dawn was annoying. Chloe threw a kernel at Davis’s mouth. It added to the growing collection in his lap.
“What’s wrong, Davis? Is the mix of teen angst and supernatural adventuring not working for you?”
“I guess I’m just… pondering the moral implications of it.”
Chloe set her popcorn aside. “Yeah, all that premarital sex… boo!”
“That’s not what I mean. All those demons, they have souls. What Buffy’s doing is like vigilante justice.”
“What’s she supposed to do, tie ‘em up and leave them for the cops? They have to be stopped. They’re monsters.”
“And you don’t think she ever feels bad about killing vamps?”
“I read a fanfic once where Buffy had a good cry over that, but then she remembered that by slaying, she was keeping all her friends safe.”
“Ah, fanfic, Chloe? You know that’s just poorly-written gay porn.”
“Some of it’s well-written,” Chloe said defensively. “Hey, stupid question, but you’re not still thinking about the mill, are you?”
Davis sighed. Chloe scooped a handful of popcorn off his stomach and laid down on top of him, popping it kernel by kernel into his mouth and watching him chew.
“Feeling better?”
“It comes and goes,” he admitted.
“You couldn’t save him. After he set that fire, you were lucky to get me out. If you’d gone back in, you would’ve died. And I like you not-dead.” She set her head down on his chest. “You’re more snuggly this way.”
“But do you think Arkin deserved to die?”
Chloe scoffed. “He ate his mother! I know all life is precious, yadda yadda, but I’m not sending any flowers to the funeral. You?”
“No.” Davis wrapped his arms around her. “None at all.”
Something I always thought was weird about Smallville was how sometimes Clark is all “RARRR MUST NEVER KILL, KILLING IS WRONG AND ONLY BAD PEOPLE KILL!” and other times he’ll somehow accidentally kill someone (which, you know, if he really valued life that much, you’d think he’d be more careful. At least stop flinging people around thirty feet in the air all willy-nilly) and the next thing you know he’s moping over… Lana.
And that’s just not how anyone with a modicum of morality should act. If you kill someone, even if it’s inadvertent, even if it’s self-defense, you should feel something. That’s why so much of military training is conditioning soldiers and dehumanizing the enemy. Because when you kill someone, it means something.
On the other hand, LANA IS MOVING AWAY FOREVER, OH NOES!!!
So here we have Davis actually stopping and considering the implications of this new path he’s going down. He’s taken a life. He’s concealed it (which Clark has admittedly never “done”, but how many times have you seen him go up to some Kryptofreak’s parent and said “Here’s how your son really died, sir”?). And that’s not going to go away. Does this make Davis a more moral individual than Clark? Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say YES IT DOES.
Also, everyone say hi to Lois Lane. I know she has her detractors, but fuck it, I like her better than Pete. This allows me to give Chloe a sounding board so I can liven up the “Chloe thinks it over” scenes with some banter, but without opening the can of worms that is Chloe/Pete. Obviously, the dead butterfly that is Clark Luthor and/or Davis Kent has caused Lois to end up in Smallville. Either that or a wizard did it.
Anyway, you can relax, Chloe is still our leading lady, it’s just this fic isn’t going to be a sausage-fest. If that’s your thing, fandom has more sausage-fests than Germany in October (ba dum tish!). You’ve trusted me this far, trust me not to write Lois Lane as fabricating articles for the Daily Planet or fucking her editor or encouraging Clark to dance with Lana at an event he went with Chloe to or… well, you’ll be pleased to know that with Chloe’s help, Lois has accessed her latent overachiever and is sending out loads of college applications to schools with good journalism programs.
Oh, and chronologically, this chapter covers 1x02 Metamorphasis and 1x03 Hothead. Oh yes, I’m keeping track of the continuity in a Smallville fic. Yes, I have a problem.
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 05:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-14 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 06:12 pm (UTC)“You think that’s bad, imagine when it reaches eight.”
“They’ll probably make Buffy a lesbian or something.”
haa love it!
This fic is just pure awesomeness!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 07:20 pm (UTC)Looking forward to the next chapter.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 07:36 pm (UTC)God, are those geeks really going to be the Big Bads? Why does every show suck once it hits its sixth season?”
“You think that’s bad, imagine when it reaches eight.”
VERY CLEVER :D
no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 08:06 pm (UTC)“Some of it’s well-written,” Chloe said defensively.
Thank you, Chloe. Don't insult my gay porn, Davis! I take that personally :P
This is all really very excellent, and if I have to say this 21 times I will. So much better than the show. So much better.
The thing about Davis killing and concealing it . . . He's far less wishy-washy than Clark and a bit more resolute, I've always thought, or as I like to say a little more hardcore. He'll suck it up and do what he feels he has to do. You can see that in "Turbulence." Doesn't mean he doesn't feel as bad as Clark would, of course he does. IMO, he's just a stronger person and far less narcissistic, so he has an easier time accepting difficult situations whereas Clark needs a lot of reassurance and petting that he did the right thing. It's one of the things I relate to and respect about Davis' character (and I don't mean to be callous about him killing 50+ people) He does what he thinks needs doing, sucks it up, and rolls with it. I've always thought he would have made for excellent superhero material in different circumstances, and you can see that contrast to Clark here.
And go Lois! I like her too.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-14 05:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-11 10:01 pm (UTC)“You think that’s bad, imagine when it reaches eight.”
“They’ll probably make Buffy a lesbian or something.”
“Yeah, and then everyone gets married.”
“I hate wedding episodes. If I ever get married, promise me you’ll start some drama at the ‘forever hold your peace’ part. No one ever objects at weddings anymore.”
“I promise.”
Excuse me while I finish laughing hysterically. This was just too funny. Well, if some things do end up that way at least we know Davis is a man of his word. Hee Hee. This was roll on the ground my stomach hurts funny.
I like how you handled this whole kiling MF's thing. I'm glad Davis is upset about it. He should be, but it was self defense and defense of Chloe. And yeah Clark was being hypicritcal when he's all don't kill but I won't even feel bad for all of those people I killed by accident.
Anyway, I'm a little confused. I know it's an AU so is this Lois like really a lot older then her. Was she in college? Lois was pretty funny though. I'm thinking that Lois got the cheer leading outfit by other means and didn't have it by being an actual cheer leader. Fantacies only. LOL. That was pretty funny.
Anyway great job, update soon.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-12 11:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-12 08:10 pm (UTC)2) Multiple gay porn references FTW.
3) Actual moral dilemma YS PLZ KTHNX
4) Chloe/Davis so cute and weee and d'awwwwwww!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-14 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-14 06:12 pm (UTC)