![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficTitle: The Villain Of The Story
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: R
Word Count: 2,900
Author’s Note: Betaed by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vagrantdream.
Characters/Pairings: Chloe/Davis, Clark/Lois, Lionel, Lex, Eric Summers,
Last Part: Chapter 18
Next Part: Chapter 20
Summary: Lex is a meteor freak. There are people who have ways of dealing with meteor freaks.
“I need you to help me with some grave-digging,” Chloe said without preamble as soon as Lois answered her phone.
Lois was at least grateful for the break from contemplating the newspaper headlines she had caused by sending out Chloe’s story. Mutually assured destruction—it sounded a lot better before everything was destroyed.
“Is that some reporter metaphor?” she asked.
“Grab a shovel and meet me at the graveyard.”
Chloe hung up.
***
Thought became action very quickly for Davis. It was like the Red had never left. Damage control. He needed to find out who Lex had told about this. Then he had to stop him from telling anyone else.
To do that, he needed to find Lex. To do that, he needed to get out of this bed.
It felt like he was splitting in half when he sat up. The crack of thunder at the same time made him wonder about his spine. He swung his legs out and already the pain abated. When he walked, the hurt quickly settled into a pattern he could live with.
Next on the agenda: Clothes. Transportation. A paramedic would do for both. Grabbing a robe from the dresser and wrapping it around himself, he ventured out and asked the first nurse he saw where the ambulances were, his little brother had said he was going to check them out. The nurse smiled politely and gave him directions, then hurried along at the sound of the next thunderclap. Davis wondered how hospitals got ready for tornadoes.
The ambulance bay was empty except for one EMT playing solitaire. Davis caught him in a chokehold just long enough for him to still be breathing when he was let go
Davis moved fast and precise. In forty seconds, he was wearing the paramedic’s uniform. Blue shirt, black pants, dark jacket. Good fit too. “Hope you don’t mind me driving,” Davis said, swiping his keys. “I only have a learner’s permit.”
***
There was one perk to the stormy weather currently painting the sky black like spilled pain. The cemetery caretaker was long gone, the steel gate swinging in the wind. Chloe bypassed the parking lot and parked her Bug right outside it, then held the gate open while she and Lois stepped through.
Lois carried the shovels.
“So, are we here for one grave in particular or will anyone who’s been recently hung do?”
“Here,” Chloe said, stopping in front of a grave so new the flowers on it were just wilting. The headstone read ‘Robert Rickman.’
“Bob Rickman?” Lois said. “The businessman?”
Chloe took a shovel from her. “Start digging.”
They got to work, as thunder rumbled above them like the sky was breaking.
“What a filthy job,” Lois griped, tossing off another shovelful of dirt.
”Could be worse,” Chloe replied tersely.
“How?“
“Could be raining.”
With another, still louder crack of thunder, the rainfall began.
“Okay, that’s it.” Lois tossed her shovel aside. “Why the hell are we digging up a perfectly good grave?”
Chloe’s shovel hit wood. “Because I need to know the truth.”
She knelt down and scrubbed the muddy dirt off the coffin with her bare hands, until she could open it up. Bob Rickman’s skull leered up at them, the rainwater immediately chiseling at it. Chloe looked at it, shoulders heaving like she was crying.
“What did you expect to find?” Lois asked from outside the pit.
“I don’t…” A trickle of green water ran past the skull. “Know.”
Chloe scrambled up, whirling around to clear off the rest of the coffin. She practically ripped the bottom half of the lid open. Reached in and scooped up a handful of the dust Bob Rickman had returned to.
What she let run through her fingers was glowing green.
“Meteor rocks,” Lois said.
“He was trying to save us.” Chloe let the rain wash her hands clean. “He was trying to protect me.”
Lightning exploded in epic contrast to Chloe’s quiet realization. All the puzzle pieces fitting together, slotting into place, the picture finally coming into focus. And in the flash of blue light, she saw something else.
“Lois!”
Lois turned around, not fast enough, as sleet flew away from Clark’s speeding passage. He grabbed Lois by the lapels and held her over the open grave. “You!”
“Lois!” Chloe screamed again, but she and Clark might as well have been on different worlds.
“You ruined everything!” Clark gritted out, rain washing over his face in thick torrents. “I loved you and you stabbed me in the heart!”
“Not you, Lex! He poisoned Chloe!”
”Chloe?” In another sky-splitting thunderbolt, Clark saw the blonde. Muddy water lapped at her feet. “You… goddamn idiot. He didn’t poison Chloe. He spared her. He could’ve had her arrested for trespassing on his property, but he didn’t! You have no idea how much Lex has done for you, for everyone! He’s helped so much!” He shook Lois. “This town is being overrun by monsters and he helped me turn the tide! We had it all under control, and now Smallville is going straight to hell!”
“Monsters?”
Clark dropped Lois to focus on Chloe. “Yes, Miss Sullivan. Monsters. Like your friend Bob down there. They’re real. We’ve been keeping them in check, no thanks to you. Bad enough you helped Greg Arkin get away from us—“
”Arkin? The commandoes?” Lois said, wiping her hair out of her eyes. “That was you.”
He turned on her, throwing off rainwater. “Yes, Lois! Try to keep up!”
A shovel crashed into the back of Clark’s head. Chloe had climbed out of the grave.
Clark turned around. “It runs in the family, Miss Sullivan.” He snatched the shovel from her and crushed the spade into tin foil.
“You.” Chloe backed up, fell on her ass in the mud. “That strength… you killed Justin!”
“I’m not a killer!” Clark threw the shovel away. “I capture them, humanely! I’m like a… a dog-catcher!”
“But if it wasn’t you…” Chloe remembered Davis’s ranting confession, and the last puzzle piece clicked into place. “Eric Summers. He’s killing the meteor freaks.”
Lightning boomed once more, drowning out Clark’s whispered “Lex.”
He ran, leaving a brief empty space in the rain that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.
***
It was bad outside, dark during day like a curtain had been drawn across the sun. Winds howled like banshees and Davis saw quite a few station wagons and minivans, loaded down with both luggage and family, headed out of town. One by one, the traffic lights stopped cycling and just flashed red. At one of the last, Davis figured out the ambulance’s siren. He drove to Lex’s mansion, never taking his foot off the pedal.
The mansion was obviously only being run by a skeleton crew. The parking lot, usually full of anonymous black sedans, was now a ghost town. It made for good parking. Davis imagined even Lex didn’t have enough money to hire employees who’d weather a tornado for him.
One of the remaining bodyguards stopped him at the door. “No visitors.”
“There’s a man hemorrhaging inside! Let me through or your boss will have a lawsuit on his hands that’ll eat up to his elbows!”
The guard reached for his earpiece and Davis swung, the tire iron secured with medical tape inside his jacket sleeve ending it quick. Davis stepped over the comatose form and didn’t close the door behind him, letting the storm in.
Hail joined the rain, growing so loud it sounded like the mansion was just a toybox being violently shaken. Davis walked into an argument between Lex and his father, something about Lex trying to buy out the plant. When Lex saw Davis he broke off in mid-sentence, the blood draining from his face. Lionel turned to see what had agitated his son.
“Mr. Luthor,” Davis said. “Can Lex come out to play?”
“Father, could you give us a minute?” Lex said, regaining his composure.
Davis just stared at him.
“I can see why you want to stay here,” Lionel said to Lex. “The town has welcomed you with open arms.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
Lionel grandly strolled out, eyeing Davis as he passed him. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” Lionel purred. He didn’t look back, though.
Davis slammed the door in a shocking burst of violence. “I thought you were my friend,” he gritted out. “Why?”
Lex walked around the room like a captain saying goodbye to a sinking ship. “It’s complicated.” He settled behind his desk. “I trust you’re familiar with the story of Cain and Abel.”
“The first murderer. The first victim.” Davis nodded. “I know it.”
“Did you ever wonder why Cain’s sacrifices weren’t as good as Abel’s?” Lex leaned forward, into the rain-shadowed light from the window. “He knew God didn’t deserve the sacrifice.”
Davis grabbed Lex by his tie and hauled him across the desk. “Who else knows!?”
“Just you and me. I thought it best it stay between friends.”
“Then what’s to stop me from ripping your head off like a weed?”
Lex put his hands around Davis’s wrist, lowering it. “Because I learned from Phelan’s example.”
“Phelan?”
“He put me on your trail. Or his last will and testament did. Now if anything happens to me, your secret goes out to every concerned party in the fifty states, starting with your parents.”
Slowly, Davis responded to the subtle pressure of Lex’s hands. He released Lex. “So what’s your game?” he asked, disgusted.
“Nothing.” Lex leaned back, adjusting his suit. “I’m going to destroy all the evidence of your extracurricular activities. A sign of good faith. We’re on the same side, Davis. It’s time we pool our resources.”
“I’m nowhere near your side.”
“One day you’ll look back at your naiveté and laugh. You’re fighting a war. On the battlefield, there are no neutral parties. Everyone takes a side.”
“Not me. I’m retired.”
Lex stood up as hail struck the mansion like a castle under siege. “Did you think you were the only one who knew about Kryps? My father knew. He’s known since the meteor shower.”
Davis cocked his head. “Meteor shower?”
“He’s using my brother to round them up. He’s turning them into an army. Lionel destroyed this town to get me back under his heel. What do you think he’ll do to the world—“
“What are you talking about?” Kent demanded.
“The Luthorcorp plant. He’s shutting it down. This is a one-horse town and my father just shot the horse.”
“No… before that.” Davis leaned over the desk, close enough to Lex to bite his face off. “What does the meteor shower have to do with the demons?”
“What demons?” Lex backed up, out of Davis’s face. “Davis, the Kryps aren’t some Biblical menace. They’re people exposed to meteor rocks, what we call Kryptonite.”
“People?”
“Yes, just blessed with abilities beyond the ken of mortal man.”
“Blessed…” Davis tried to sit down, stumbled, and sprawled on his back. “They were people,” he said, voice cracking. “All of them. Just people.”
Lex immediately grasped the source of Davis’s agony as he knelt over the stricken teenager. “They made their choice. They were killers. You only gave them what they deserved.”
“Killers…” The hail shattered windows, broke roof tiles. “We were all blessed, and we used our gifts to destroy each other. Even me.” He looked at Lex with eyes that had gazed into the abyss for too long. “We’re all demons, Lex. And this is the hell we’ve made.”
The door creaked open, its moan almost lost in the storm. Lionel.
“Get out!” Lex screamed, but as he got to his feet, he saw that Lionel’s were dangling off the floor.
Eric tossed the elder Luthor aside. “Hey ya, Lex. Nice weather we’re having.” He pulled the Starblade from his red jacket. “Oh, Davis, didn’t see you there. What’re you doing on the floor?”
Davis shut his eyes. “’And whoever shall cause one of these little ones who believe in me to fall into sin, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea,’” he quoted. “I’m sorry, Eric. I failed you.”
“Yeah, nice to see you too. Love the outfit, really suits you, and I hear the ladies love a man in uniform.” Eric stalked closer to Lex, who was inching around his desk.
“I gave you a burden you were never meant to bear.” If Davis’s eyes had been open, he would’ve seen nothing but the ceiling, never even looking at Eric’s advance on Lex.
“What are you talking about, Davis?” Eric’s eyes were fixed wolfishly on Lex. “This is the best job in the world. I get to kill people for God.”
“That occupation just doesn’t carry the same standing as a doctor. Maybe it’s your colleagues in the field.” Lex inched behind his desk as if it could offer any protection. It could. He pulled a .45 out of the righthand drawer. “That’s far enough, Mr… who are you anyway?”
“I’m the hero of the story.” He took a step forward. “Holly says hi.”
Lex shot him in the face.
And the chest.
And the leg. And the shoulder. And between the eyes.
Eric took another step. His wounds closed, the one in his head last. Eric touched his headshot, reaching into the wound up to the knuckle, then licked his fingers. “Mmm. Brain food.”
Davis grabbed his leg. “No.”
“What was that?”
Davis got up, letting go of Eric’s heel but standing between him and Lex. “I said no. No more killing, no more hurting. No more.”
“You would defy me to protect him?”
“Yes. Even him.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something? I have all your powers!”
“I still have one.”
“This I gotta hear.” Eric waved the dagger between him. “Faith? The courage of your conviction? Mommy and Daddy’s unconditional love?”
“Those. And a Size 14 shoe.” Davis kicked Eric square in the groin. “Grow those back.” He knelt down to flip Eric over, planted a knee between his shoulder blades, then wrenched his head back with an arm around his neck. “Lex, why aren’t those effeminate Italian shoes running?”
Lex ran, heels digging into the carpet when he remembered to grab his father.
Lionel had regained consciousness with the volley from Lex’s gun. He pushed Lex away, spellbound by the slow-motion arc of the Starblade in Eric’s hand. It sailed over Eric’s shoulder, toward Davis’s face, only stopping when Davis caught it by the cross-guard. The Starblade immediately disintegrated in Davis’s grip.
“Sageeth,” Lionel whispered.
Davis broke Eric’s wrist. “One thing I was always careful to avoid when I had the Red. Strangulation. You can heal, sure, but without oxygen, the brain just shuts down And once I get you in a noose, the only way you’ll wake up is for your trial.”
“Don’t call it the Red,” Eric gagged. “It’s the Voice of God…”
He went limp.
***
It was so tempting to pull the noose a little tighter, break the windpipe, the spine, then fall into the comfortable routine of denial. He didn’t. It was still tight enough to turn Eric’s throat red while the rest of him turned white.
Lex watched Davis tie off the curtain rope he’d used as a noose, not panicked, just overtly intrigued.
Davis sat back against Lex’s desk. “Don’t take that off until you have him secured. Chains, bars, guards… whatever works.”
Eric’s eyes were moving under their lids like he was watching a nightmare unfold. The rest of his body was paralyzed.
“You gonna arrest me?” Davis asked.
Lex stared at him, his eyes stuck wide open. “I don’t know.”
Davis came to a decision as the rain drizzled lightly, like they were in the eye of the storm. He stood up. “I’m going to leave now.”
He’d only gotten a few steps when the door flew off its hinges. Clark stood there, his presence the echoing thunder to his arrival. “Lex!”
“I’m fine, Clark.” Lex rubbed his temple. “Davis…”
Lionel leapt up, jabbing a finger at Davis. “Clark, stop him! He’s Sageeth!”
Clark’s eyes snapped to Davis who backed up, dropping into a defensive posture.
“It’s him!” Lionel cried. “You have to kill him, kill him now!”
Davis’s vision swung wildly to Lionel. “Lex, what’s your dad talking about?” he asked, trying to stay calm.
“But he’s… just some kid,” Clark said as his legs carried him toward Davis.
“That is just a shell, Clark, meant to deceive you! He’s camouflage for the ultimate predator, the ultimate destroyer! Even now it lurks in his subconscious, waiting for the right moment to strike!”
“That’s bullshit!” Davis backed into a wall trying to keep clear of Clark. “I’m free now, I was cured! I haven’t had that thing in my head since…” Davis turned to see Eric quietly shaking on the floor. He remembered his narcolepsy, how it had disappeared with the Red’s arrival. He remembered how Red Eyes only came out at night, while he slept. He remembered his own words. I don’t think he can control the Red, not like I could.
The conscious mind resisted the Red. He’d just put Eric’s out of commission.
Eric sat up, skin a rocky landscape of bone, voice deep, eyes blazing red at Davis. “God doesn’t love you.”
Then he attacked.
Author’s notes: This chapter covers 1x21 Tempest.
May I just say I love that Chloe’s first response to hearing her boyfriend is a serial killer is to dig up a grave and check things out? It’s very pragmatic, in a way. In a crazy way.
Now originally the story would linger on for a while, with Davis as a sort of pariah because the police suspected him of being a killer, but with Lex protecting him they couldn’t prove it. But then, this is the nineteenth chapter and as I wrote it, I realized there wasn’t going to be a better spot for a climax, with the tornado, and everyone converging on Lex for this confrontation. Better to have everything go wrong at once, dramatically speaking, than to stagger it out.
I also love that I got a chance to play around with canon and put Davis in a paramedic’s uniform. It works on a bit of a subtextual/ironical level too. He helps in emergencies, when he’s not causing them.
I did cheat a little with Davis being able to overcome Eric, given Eric’s strength, but if you need a big long action sequence, well, there’s always next chapter. I’ll just justify it as Davis having much better leverage and tai chi and stuff. Hey, if Captain America can get away with it…
And yes, I did quote Young Frankenstein, thank you for noticing.
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: R
Word Count: 2,900
Author’s Note: Betaed by
vagrantdream.Characters/Pairings: Chloe/Davis, Clark/Lois, Lionel, Lex, Eric Summers,
Last Part: Chapter 18
Next Part: Chapter 20
Summary: Lex is a meteor freak. There are people who have ways of dealing with meteor freaks.
“I need you to help me with some grave-digging,” Chloe said without preamble as soon as Lois answered her phone.
Lois was at least grateful for the break from contemplating the newspaper headlines she had caused by sending out Chloe’s story. Mutually assured destruction—it sounded a lot better before everything was destroyed.
“Is that some reporter metaphor?” she asked.
“Grab a shovel and meet me at the graveyard.”
Chloe hung up.
***
Thought became action very quickly for Davis. It was like the Red had never left. Damage control. He needed to find out who Lex had told about this. Then he had to stop him from telling anyone else.
To do that, he needed to find Lex. To do that, he needed to get out of this bed.
It felt like he was splitting in half when he sat up. The crack of thunder at the same time made him wonder about his spine. He swung his legs out and already the pain abated. When he walked, the hurt quickly settled into a pattern he could live with.
Next on the agenda: Clothes. Transportation. A paramedic would do for both. Grabbing a robe from the dresser and wrapping it around himself, he ventured out and asked the first nurse he saw where the ambulances were, his little brother had said he was going to check them out. The nurse smiled politely and gave him directions, then hurried along at the sound of the next thunderclap. Davis wondered how hospitals got ready for tornadoes.
The ambulance bay was empty except for one EMT playing solitaire. Davis caught him in a chokehold just long enough for him to still be breathing when he was let go
Davis moved fast and precise. In forty seconds, he was wearing the paramedic’s uniform. Blue shirt, black pants, dark jacket. Good fit too. “Hope you don’t mind me driving,” Davis said, swiping his keys. “I only have a learner’s permit.”
***
There was one perk to the stormy weather currently painting the sky black like spilled pain. The cemetery caretaker was long gone, the steel gate swinging in the wind. Chloe bypassed the parking lot and parked her Bug right outside it, then held the gate open while she and Lois stepped through.
Lois carried the shovels.
“So, are we here for one grave in particular or will anyone who’s been recently hung do?”
“Here,” Chloe said, stopping in front of a grave so new the flowers on it were just wilting. The headstone read ‘Robert Rickman.’
“Bob Rickman?” Lois said. “The businessman?”
Chloe took a shovel from her. “Start digging.”
They got to work, as thunder rumbled above them like the sky was breaking.
“What a filthy job,” Lois griped, tossing off another shovelful of dirt.
”Could be worse,” Chloe replied tersely.
“How?“
“Could be raining.”
With another, still louder crack of thunder, the rainfall began.
“Okay, that’s it.” Lois tossed her shovel aside. “Why the hell are we digging up a perfectly good grave?”
Chloe’s shovel hit wood. “Because I need to know the truth.”
She knelt down and scrubbed the muddy dirt off the coffin with her bare hands, until she could open it up. Bob Rickman’s skull leered up at them, the rainwater immediately chiseling at it. Chloe looked at it, shoulders heaving like she was crying.
“What did you expect to find?” Lois asked from outside the pit.
“I don’t…” A trickle of green water ran past the skull. “Know.”
Chloe scrambled up, whirling around to clear off the rest of the coffin. She practically ripped the bottom half of the lid open. Reached in and scooped up a handful of the dust Bob Rickman had returned to.
What she let run through her fingers was glowing green.
“Meteor rocks,” Lois said.
“He was trying to save us.” Chloe let the rain wash her hands clean. “He was trying to protect me.”
Lightning exploded in epic contrast to Chloe’s quiet realization. All the puzzle pieces fitting together, slotting into place, the picture finally coming into focus. And in the flash of blue light, she saw something else.
“Lois!”
Lois turned around, not fast enough, as sleet flew away from Clark’s speeding passage. He grabbed Lois by the lapels and held her over the open grave. “You!”
“Lois!” Chloe screamed again, but she and Clark might as well have been on different worlds.
“You ruined everything!” Clark gritted out, rain washing over his face in thick torrents. “I loved you and you stabbed me in the heart!”
“Not you, Lex! He poisoned Chloe!”
”Chloe?” In another sky-splitting thunderbolt, Clark saw the blonde. Muddy water lapped at her feet. “You… goddamn idiot. He didn’t poison Chloe. He spared her. He could’ve had her arrested for trespassing on his property, but he didn’t! You have no idea how much Lex has done for you, for everyone! He’s helped so much!” He shook Lois. “This town is being overrun by monsters and he helped me turn the tide! We had it all under control, and now Smallville is going straight to hell!”
“Monsters?”
Clark dropped Lois to focus on Chloe. “Yes, Miss Sullivan. Monsters. Like your friend Bob down there. They’re real. We’ve been keeping them in check, no thanks to you. Bad enough you helped Greg Arkin get away from us—“
”Arkin? The commandoes?” Lois said, wiping her hair out of her eyes. “That was you.”
He turned on her, throwing off rainwater. “Yes, Lois! Try to keep up!”
A shovel crashed into the back of Clark’s head. Chloe had climbed out of the grave.
Clark turned around. “It runs in the family, Miss Sullivan.” He snatched the shovel from her and crushed the spade into tin foil.
“You.” Chloe backed up, fell on her ass in the mud. “That strength… you killed Justin!”
“I’m not a killer!” Clark threw the shovel away. “I capture them, humanely! I’m like a… a dog-catcher!”
“But if it wasn’t you…” Chloe remembered Davis’s ranting confession, and the last puzzle piece clicked into place. “Eric Summers. He’s killing the meteor freaks.”
Lightning boomed once more, drowning out Clark’s whispered “Lex.”
He ran, leaving a brief empty space in the rain that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.
***
It was bad outside, dark during day like a curtain had been drawn across the sun. Winds howled like banshees and Davis saw quite a few station wagons and minivans, loaded down with both luggage and family, headed out of town. One by one, the traffic lights stopped cycling and just flashed red. At one of the last, Davis figured out the ambulance’s siren. He drove to Lex’s mansion, never taking his foot off the pedal.
The mansion was obviously only being run by a skeleton crew. The parking lot, usually full of anonymous black sedans, was now a ghost town. It made for good parking. Davis imagined even Lex didn’t have enough money to hire employees who’d weather a tornado for him.
One of the remaining bodyguards stopped him at the door. “No visitors.”
“There’s a man hemorrhaging inside! Let me through or your boss will have a lawsuit on his hands that’ll eat up to his elbows!”
The guard reached for his earpiece and Davis swung, the tire iron secured with medical tape inside his jacket sleeve ending it quick. Davis stepped over the comatose form and didn’t close the door behind him, letting the storm in.
Hail joined the rain, growing so loud it sounded like the mansion was just a toybox being violently shaken. Davis walked into an argument between Lex and his father, something about Lex trying to buy out the plant. When Lex saw Davis he broke off in mid-sentence, the blood draining from his face. Lionel turned to see what had agitated his son.
“Mr. Luthor,” Davis said. “Can Lex come out to play?”
“Father, could you give us a minute?” Lex said, regaining his composure.
Davis just stared at him.
“I can see why you want to stay here,” Lionel said to Lex. “The town has welcomed you with open arms.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
Lionel grandly strolled out, eyeing Davis as he passed him. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” Lionel purred. He didn’t look back, though.
Davis slammed the door in a shocking burst of violence. “I thought you were my friend,” he gritted out. “Why?”
Lex walked around the room like a captain saying goodbye to a sinking ship. “It’s complicated.” He settled behind his desk. “I trust you’re familiar with the story of Cain and Abel.”
“The first murderer. The first victim.” Davis nodded. “I know it.”
“Did you ever wonder why Cain’s sacrifices weren’t as good as Abel’s?” Lex leaned forward, into the rain-shadowed light from the window. “He knew God didn’t deserve the sacrifice.”
Davis grabbed Lex by his tie and hauled him across the desk. “Who else knows!?”
“Just you and me. I thought it best it stay between friends.”
“Then what’s to stop me from ripping your head off like a weed?”
Lex put his hands around Davis’s wrist, lowering it. “Because I learned from Phelan’s example.”
“Phelan?”
“He put me on your trail. Or his last will and testament did. Now if anything happens to me, your secret goes out to every concerned party in the fifty states, starting with your parents.”
Slowly, Davis responded to the subtle pressure of Lex’s hands. He released Lex. “So what’s your game?” he asked, disgusted.
“Nothing.” Lex leaned back, adjusting his suit. “I’m going to destroy all the evidence of your extracurricular activities. A sign of good faith. We’re on the same side, Davis. It’s time we pool our resources.”
“I’m nowhere near your side.”
“One day you’ll look back at your naiveté and laugh. You’re fighting a war. On the battlefield, there are no neutral parties. Everyone takes a side.”
“Not me. I’m retired.”
Lex stood up as hail struck the mansion like a castle under siege. “Did you think you were the only one who knew about Kryps? My father knew. He’s known since the meteor shower.”
Davis cocked his head. “Meteor shower?”
“He’s using my brother to round them up. He’s turning them into an army. Lionel destroyed this town to get me back under his heel. What do you think he’ll do to the world—“
“What are you talking about?” Kent demanded.
“The Luthorcorp plant. He’s shutting it down. This is a one-horse town and my father just shot the horse.”
“No… before that.” Davis leaned over the desk, close enough to Lex to bite his face off. “What does the meteor shower have to do with the demons?”
“What demons?” Lex backed up, out of Davis’s face. “Davis, the Kryps aren’t some Biblical menace. They’re people exposed to meteor rocks, what we call Kryptonite.”
“People?”
“Yes, just blessed with abilities beyond the ken of mortal man.”
“Blessed…” Davis tried to sit down, stumbled, and sprawled on his back. “They were people,” he said, voice cracking. “All of them. Just people.”
Lex immediately grasped the source of Davis’s agony as he knelt over the stricken teenager. “They made their choice. They were killers. You only gave them what they deserved.”
“Killers…” The hail shattered windows, broke roof tiles. “We were all blessed, and we used our gifts to destroy each other. Even me.” He looked at Lex with eyes that had gazed into the abyss for too long. “We’re all demons, Lex. And this is the hell we’ve made.”
The door creaked open, its moan almost lost in the storm. Lionel.
“Get out!” Lex screamed, but as he got to his feet, he saw that Lionel’s were dangling off the floor.
Eric tossed the elder Luthor aside. “Hey ya, Lex. Nice weather we’re having.” He pulled the Starblade from his red jacket. “Oh, Davis, didn’t see you there. What’re you doing on the floor?”
Davis shut his eyes. “’And whoever shall cause one of these little ones who believe in me to fall into sin, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea,’” he quoted. “I’m sorry, Eric. I failed you.”
“Yeah, nice to see you too. Love the outfit, really suits you, and I hear the ladies love a man in uniform.” Eric stalked closer to Lex, who was inching around his desk.
“I gave you a burden you were never meant to bear.” If Davis’s eyes had been open, he would’ve seen nothing but the ceiling, never even looking at Eric’s advance on Lex.
“What are you talking about, Davis?” Eric’s eyes were fixed wolfishly on Lex. “This is the best job in the world. I get to kill people for God.”
“That occupation just doesn’t carry the same standing as a doctor. Maybe it’s your colleagues in the field.” Lex inched behind his desk as if it could offer any protection. It could. He pulled a .45 out of the righthand drawer. “That’s far enough, Mr… who are you anyway?”
“I’m the hero of the story.” He took a step forward. “Holly says hi.”
Lex shot him in the face.
And the chest.
And the leg. And the shoulder. And between the eyes.
Eric took another step. His wounds closed, the one in his head last. Eric touched his headshot, reaching into the wound up to the knuckle, then licked his fingers. “Mmm. Brain food.”
Davis grabbed his leg. “No.”
“What was that?”
Davis got up, letting go of Eric’s heel but standing between him and Lex. “I said no. No more killing, no more hurting. No more.”
“You would defy me to protect him?”
“Yes. Even him.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something? I have all your powers!”
“I still have one.”
“This I gotta hear.” Eric waved the dagger between him. “Faith? The courage of your conviction? Mommy and Daddy’s unconditional love?”
“Those. And a Size 14 shoe.” Davis kicked Eric square in the groin. “Grow those back.” He knelt down to flip Eric over, planted a knee between his shoulder blades, then wrenched his head back with an arm around his neck. “Lex, why aren’t those effeminate Italian shoes running?”
Lex ran, heels digging into the carpet when he remembered to grab his father.
Lionel had regained consciousness with the volley from Lex’s gun. He pushed Lex away, spellbound by the slow-motion arc of the Starblade in Eric’s hand. It sailed over Eric’s shoulder, toward Davis’s face, only stopping when Davis caught it by the cross-guard. The Starblade immediately disintegrated in Davis’s grip.
“Sageeth,” Lionel whispered.
Davis broke Eric’s wrist. “One thing I was always careful to avoid when I had the Red. Strangulation. You can heal, sure, but without oxygen, the brain just shuts down And once I get you in a noose, the only way you’ll wake up is for your trial.”
“Don’t call it the Red,” Eric gagged. “It’s the Voice of God…”
He went limp.
***
It was so tempting to pull the noose a little tighter, break the windpipe, the spine, then fall into the comfortable routine of denial. He didn’t. It was still tight enough to turn Eric’s throat red while the rest of him turned white.
Lex watched Davis tie off the curtain rope he’d used as a noose, not panicked, just overtly intrigued.
Davis sat back against Lex’s desk. “Don’t take that off until you have him secured. Chains, bars, guards… whatever works.”
Eric’s eyes were moving under their lids like he was watching a nightmare unfold. The rest of his body was paralyzed.
“You gonna arrest me?” Davis asked.
Lex stared at him, his eyes stuck wide open. “I don’t know.”
Davis came to a decision as the rain drizzled lightly, like they were in the eye of the storm. He stood up. “I’m going to leave now.”
He’d only gotten a few steps when the door flew off its hinges. Clark stood there, his presence the echoing thunder to his arrival. “Lex!”
“I’m fine, Clark.” Lex rubbed his temple. “Davis…”
Lionel leapt up, jabbing a finger at Davis. “Clark, stop him! He’s Sageeth!”
Clark’s eyes snapped to Davis who backed up, dropping into a defensive posture.
“It’s him!” Lionel cried. “You have to kill him, kill him now!”
Davis’s vision swung wildly to Lionel. “Lex, what’s your dad talking about?” he asked, trying to stay calm.
“But he’s… just some kid,” Clark said as his legs carried him toward Davis.
“That is just a shell, Clark, meant to deceive you! He’s camouflage for the ultimate predator, the ultimate destroyer! Even now it lurks in his subconscious, waiting for the right moment to strike!”
“That’s bullshit!” Davis backed into a wall trying to keep clear of Clark. “I’m free now, I was cured! I haven’t had that thing in my head since…” Davis turned to see Eric quietly shaking on the floor. He remembered his narcolepsy, how it had disappeared with the Red’s arrival. He remembered how Red Eyes only came out at night, while he slept. He remembered his own words. I don’t think he can control the Red, not like I could.
The conscious mind resisted the Red. He’d just put Eric’s out of commission.
Eric sat up, skin a rocky landscape of bone, voice deep, eyes blazing red at Davis. “God doesn’t love you.”
Then he attacked.
Author’s notes: This chapter covers 1x21 Tempest.
May I just say I love that Chloe’s first response to hearing her boyfriend is a serial killer is to dig up a grave and check things out? It’s very pragmatic, in a way. In a crazy way.
Now originally the story would linger on for a while, with Davis as a sort of pariah because the police suspected him of being a killer, but with Lex protecting him they couldn’t prove it. But then, this is the nineteenth chapter and as I wrote it, I realized there wasn’t going to be a better spot for a climax, with the tornado, and everyone converging on Lex for this confrontation. Better to have everything go wrong at once, dramatically speaking, than to stagger it out.
I also love that I got a chance to play around with canon and put Davis in a paramedic’s uniform. It works on a bit of a subtextual/ironical level too. He helps in emergencies, when he’s not causing them.
I did cheat a little with Davis being able to overcome Eric, given Eric’s strength, but if you need a big long action sequence, well, there’s always next chapter. I’ll just justify it as Davis having much better leverage and tai chi and stuff. Hey, if Captain America can get away with it…
And yes, I did quote Young Frankenstein, thank you for noticing.
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-09 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-09 08:01 pm (UTC)This was a good chapter, yet again. You can tell that things are winding down (NOOOOOO) now.
AWWW, WITTLE DAVWIS IN HIS BIG PARAMEDIC UNIFORM!!!!!
no subject
Date: 2009-09-09 09:37 pm (UTC)I failed you.
Like Obi-Wan! Okay, not exactly like Obi-Wan, but still.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-09 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-09 11:44 pm (UTC)two more chapters ;;sads;;
Can Eric die horribly now? I bet Doomy goes back into Davis when he does.