cypanache
14th January 2009, 01:18
There Are No Heroes Here
Author: Cy Panache
Rating: R (for just a few words and general darkness)
Category: Dark/Angst
Timeline: This is set after Season 8's episode "Bride." Makes some general (what will undoubtedly be wrong) assumptions about "Legion." If you're not up on Season 8 and still want to read, pm me and I'll give you the points you need to know.
Disclaimer: Someone else's sandbox. I just play here because other people have all the best toys.
Author's Note: Awhile ago, I made the comment on the board about how Chloe's Braniac possession and the similarities with Lex's Zod possession had great potential for fic. Before "Legion" comes on and the powers that be take some crappy no-consequences way out, I decided I wanted to see if I could do this. So this is a short one-shot, for these two. It makes the assumption that Chloe's memory wipe from Abyss will remain even post-Brainiac (which based on spoilers for future eps may or may not be justified).
- + - + - + - + - + -
She buys a pack of cigarettes on impulse, a tiny act of rebellion (the only kind she feels safe with now). At sunset she goes up to the roof of Isis building and begins to smoke them one by one.
Twenty little death wishes, she never knew she had.
She coughs on the first inhale, is almost nauseous by the third cigarette, but it doesn't stop her. She's determined to do this, to punish herself since it seems no one else will.
Someone has to pay for the destruction she can see on the ground below.
Someone has to pay for Davis's death. For Jimmy's.
Chloe thinks it might as well be her.
It bothers her that no one else seems to agree. They're all going out of their way not to cast blame, to act normal, and she wonders at the fact they can do so. All these years, how has she failed to notice how her friends just let the horrors of this world, of things they can't understand, roll over them like water on plastic, never penetrating, never actually touching them?
She feels ripped open, all her plastic coating shredded leaving her porous, open to all the ugliness. She wants to stand at the top of this building and scream at the top her lungs -- “I did this! Hate me! Blame me!”
Acknowledge me.
The world is burning and she had a hand in it and her friends just wanted her to forget it, wanted her to go to Star City and sit with Jimmy like the dutiful new bride she should be. She thinks they're more bothered by her refusal to go, by the fact she let him die alone, than her apparent possession by some alien force, and inexplicable rescue by superheroes from the future. And she knows the denizens of Smallville have always been magnets for the weird and unexplained, but Alien possession? Superheroes? It is truly so surprising she didn't know how to rush to Jimmy's bed-side after that?
Maybe it is. The old Chloe knows it was a horrible selfish thing to do, to refuse to go her husband because she didn't know how to sit next his bed while she mourned the man who had done that to him.
But they can't see that she's different now, irreparably damaged, doesn't know where the woman who kissed Jimmy at the altar went. Isn't sure she wants to find her again.
That woman was so fucking complacent. There had been a time, when she'd been insatiable, a truthseeker, a quester, and then one day she apparently just . . . stopped. She's not sure how or why, can't put her finger on the reason in her memory, but it was as if she simply woke up and decided to stop asking questions.
And now it seems all she has are questions. Unknown piled on top of unknown until she can't breathe, until she thinks she might suffocate under the weight.
Unthinkingly she lights her fourth cigarette, fights a cough and when the wave of light-headedness hits, she sinks to the ground, groaning, “How many questions can I live with before I start looking for answers?”
“Chloe Sullivan, nicotine philosopher.”
His voice is still cultured and familiar, despite the newly acquired rasp of what—from the scar at his throat—she bets is too much time with a trach tube shoved down it, so Chloe isn't surprised when she looks over to find Lex Luthor leaning against the generator, in a posture that seems casual, almost insolent, but she knows is for support.
Scowling, she replies, “Come closer so I can blow some of this smoke in your face.”
The words lack heat, lack spark or fire. She still hates him for reasons she remembers and reasons she doesn't, but honestly she's too wrung out to do it tonight, just doesn't have the energy. So hey, he gets a free pass on the verbal flaying.
Lex just smiles, and without a glance at the ground, sits down on the roof to face her, arms loosely propped on bent knees. Its strangely casual posture, one she'd never thought to see him adopt.
But she's not the only one who's changed.
He's thinner than she remembers (not that she trusts her memory anymore), just this side of gaunt, looks like he's held together with nothing more than sinew and gristle and sheer force of will. Looks like he might break with a touch, but she knows that's deceptive, because she knows how strong that force of will is, had a front row seat to it.
Its first thing she remembers from coming out of her walking coma.
That monster tossing Clark like a rag-doll, advancing on her once again. And then its eyes find hers, and suddenly its not a monster at all.
It's Davis. Dear, wonderful, lost Davis, sinking to his knees looking like he's being ripped apart, looking at her like she's his world, his salvation.
“Kill me.” He hasn't looked away from her, but somehow she knows the words are meant for someone else, for Clark.
Clark who's picking himself up off the ground and staring at Davis in horror, “No, we can-”
“Kill me!!” Davis is screaming now, holding on by a thread, pleading for release, and she wants to scream at Clark, too. Isn't sure why, doesn't know why she thinks he can do anything against this thing Davis might become at any minute, but Davis thinks so and she just wants to help end his pain.
Davis is shaking, his face contorted, his voice growing weaker, “Please. I can't- I can't hold-”
But Clark remains rooted, hesitant, and why won't he just fucking act!
And then there's a shot. And another and another, and suddenly its Lex in front of her, standing over Davis, white-shirt splattered with his blood, pumping round after round of meteor-rock bullets into his body.
Five.
She's screaming.
Six.
Clark is yelling.
Seven.
Davis is still looking at her as he dies and his eyes say “It's okay.” Say “I love you.” Say “Thank you.”
And all she can think is, "Why?"
Eight.
Lex is still firing, but she's stopped hearing the shots. Everything goes silent, slow motion as she watches Davis's body jerk and twitch as Lex proceeds to unload the entire clip. And when its done, when she finally meets his eyes . . .
They're dead. Passionless. Empty.
She's pretty sure hers look the same.
And so now, four weeks later, she'll sit here with him on this roof, trying to kill them both with cigarette smoke because she doesn't have the energy to get up, because right now she's too empty to even find her hate, because he might be the only one in the world who won't tell her its not her fault.
Because he killed Davis when Clark wouldn't, or couldn't, or just fucking loved himself too much to take a human life.
She knows she shouldn't blame Clark. Knows there was nothing her friend could do, except there's a little niggling part in the back of her mind that whispers there was. That whispers he could have released Davis, saved him from becoming a monster if Clark would have just unbent enough to cross a line.
But Clark doesn't cross lines, and the man seated across from her obliterates them.
So maybe it always had to be Lex.
Realizing she's let the cigarette start to burn down, she takes a too deep drag, tries unsuccessfully to cover her cough, ignoring Lex's smirk when she fails.
“What are you doing up here anyway?” she finally asks.
“I would think that was obvious.” He holds out his hand, and she figures 'what the heck?' shortening his time on earth can only earn her brownie points. She tosses him the pack. Follows it with the cheap plastic lighter.
“Remind me to tell Lana she needs better security.”
“I'll add it to my to-do list.”
Lex lights up with practiced ease, and now they're staring at each other in the dying sunlight, faces highlighted by the glow of burning ash.
The walking dead taking a smoke break.
“So did you come for a thank you, an outpouring of gratitude? Think your one heroic act erases everything else, you've done?” Her voice is bitter, sharp, because she can't decide whether she is grateful or not, hates the idea that she might be.
Lex just smiles, awful and twisted, devoid of all mirth. “Is that what we're calling murder now? Heroism.”
The blunt cut words surprise her, shock her enough to look away. The Lex she knew had always been about justification. Horrible acts hidden beneath lofty ideals and greater goods. But he's stripped bare now, a predatory stranger devoid of all pretense.
Seeing her discomfort, Lex shakes his head and blows out a puff of smoke, “There are no heroes here, Chloe. Just . . . Us. Villains all.”
She flinches at the words, cutting too close to the truth of what she's been thinking, of her smiling friends, trying not to flinch when she touches them, decides he might be right.
“What happened to ends justifying the means?”
“Nothing. But I'm not afraid to admit what I did or that I'd do it again. Are you?”
“I didn't do anything.”
“Didn't you?”
She did. She willed it, wished for it, silently begged for someone to put Davis down like a dog. Lex acted, but he was merely her weapon, her desires made flesh.
And for the first time she lets herself think about Davis, not the sweet paramedic, not the intense stranger who'd been connected to her from the moment they met, but all of him the gentle and the monstrous, the light and the dark.
“Yes. I'd do it again.”
Lex doesn't say anything, but he's watching her and she knows he can see the resolve in her eyes, the truth there.
“You never answered my question. Why are you here?”
He lights another cigarette, extends it out to her.
She really should stop.
But she hasn't accomplished her goal of dying, so she crawls on hands and knees to take it, sits beside him and looks out at the sky, still strangely dark and clear due to how badly she apparently fucked over the Metropolis power grid.
Finally, Lex speaks, “The city burned at your feet. And you watched and you smiled and somewhere deep inside you felt something like joy. You don't remember it, but you know. You see it in other people's eyes, in their faces. In dreams you can't quite hold onto. And you'll tell yourself for the rest of your life that it wasn't you. But you'll wonder for the rest of your life whether it really was, whether there's something inside you, some weakness or flaw that let it in. That made that thing choose you.”
She realizes he's not really speaking about her, but himself, about Zod and Dark Thursday and so much of that time is hazy, but she remembers Lana telling her later about how long it took her to ever feel comfortable touching Lex again, about always looking for that thing inside him.
Alien possession and world destruction. What a thing to have in common.
Their own little club of two.
So she sits on the roof with the one other person in the world who might understand and watches the stars. Cold bright jewels that have made the two of them their playthings, their puppets, and for the first time in her life she gets it, his rage, his madness. She wants to fight back, lash out. Is willing to do anything to prevent this from ever happening again to anyone else.
“I still hate you.” She mutters, just to remind herself.
“Do you even remember why you started?”
No. She doesn't.
She frowns at that. She remembers later times, the kidnapping, her mother, but her hate, her distrust came earlier, and she doesn't know why.
Lex has been watching her carefully, and when she doesn't say anything, he nods in satisfaction like he's gotten confirmation of something she doesn't understand, and murmurs, “No heroes at all.”
She wants to ask what he means by that, but it would seem too much like they're having a conversation, so she sits and lets the cigarette go to ash, until it burns the tips of her fingers, welcomes the pain. Lex doesn't try to stop her, just sits and watches, and when she finally shakes the flame out, he reaches for her hand, draws her burned fingertips to his mouth and kisses each one.
She lets him, turns and straddles his lap and as she frees his cock, as Lex slips his hands inside her jeans, she force herself to look into his eyes, makes sure she knows exactly who she's with.
Punishes herself because no one else will.
They don't come together, don't join. Maybe they don't know how anymore, too many scars, too many walls. They're damaged goods making do with what they have.
It's fumbling hands and disconnected, empty release. They don't kiss, just breath in each other's ash-dead breath, and they never look away, never pretend the other is someone else to bring them peace.
Peace is something for heroes.
And on this roof-top, there's only the two of them.
Villains all.
Author: Cy Panache
Rating: R (for just a few words and general darkness)
Category: Dark/Angst
Timeline: This is set after Season 8's episode "Bride." Makes some general (what will undoubtedly be wrong) assumptions about "Legion." If you're not up on Season 8 and still want to read, pm me and I'll give you the points you need to know.
Disclaimer: Someone else's sandbox. I just play here because other people have all the best toys.
Author's Note: Awhile ago, I made the comment on the board about how Chloe's Braniac possession and the similarities with Lex's Zod possession had great potential for fic. Before "Legion" comes on and the powers that be take some crappy no-consequences way out, I decided I wanted to see if I could do this. So this is a short one-shot, for these two. It makes the assumption that Chloe's memory wipe from Abyss will remain even post-Brainiac (which based on spoilers for future eps may or may not be justified).
- + - + - + - + - + -
She buys a pack of cigarettes on impulse, a tiny act of rebellion (the only kind she feels safe with now). At sunset she goes up to the roof of Isis building and begins to smoke them one by one.
Twenty little death wishes, she never knew she had.
She coughs on the first inhale, is almost nauseous by the third cigarette, but it doesn't stop her. She's determined to do this, to punish herself since it seems no one else will.
Someone has to pay for the destruction she can see on the ground below.
Someone has to pay for Davis's death. For Jimmy's.
Chloe thinks it might as well be her.
It bothers her that no one else seems to agree. They're all going out of their way not to cast blame, to act normal, and she wonders at the fact they can do so. All these years, how has she failed to notice how her friends just let the horrors of this world, of things they can't understand, roll over them like water on plastic, never penetrating, never actually touching them?
She feels ripped open, all her plastic coating shredded leaving her porous, open to all the ugliness. She wants to stand at the top of this building and scream at the top her lungs -- “I did this! Hate me! Blame me!”
Acknowledge me.
The world is burning and she had a hand in it and her friends just wanted her to forget it, wanted her to go to Star City and sit with Jimmy like the dutiful new bride she should be. She thinks they're more bothered by her refusal to go, by the fact she let him die alone, than her apparent possession by some alien force, and inexplicable rescue by superheroes from the future. And she knows the denizens of Smallville have always been magnets for the weird and unexplained, but Alien possession? Superheroes? It is truly so surprising she didn't know how to rush to Jimmy's bed-side after that?
Maybe it is. The old Chloe knows it was a horrible selfish thing to do, to refuse to go her husband because she didn't know how to sit next his bed while she mourned the man who had done that to him.
But they can't see that she's different now, irreparably damaged, doesn't know where the woman who kissed Jimmy at the altar went. Isn't sure she wants to find her again.
That woman was so fucking complacent. There had been a time, when she'd been insatiable, a truthseeker, a quester, and then one day she apparently just . . . stopped. She's not sure how or why, can't put her finger on the reason in her memory, but it was as if she simply woke up and decided to stop asking questions.
And now it seems all she has are questions. Unknown piled on top of unknown until she can't breathe, until she thinks she might suffocate under the weight.
Unthinkingly she lights her fourth cigarette, fights a cough and when the wave of light-headedness hits, she sinks to the ground, groaning, “How many questions can I live with before I start looking for answers?”
“Chloe Sullivan, nicotine philosopher.”
His voice is still cultured and familiar, despite the newly acquired rasp of what—from the scar at his throat—she bets is too much time with a trach tube shoved down it, so Chloe isn't surprised when she looks over to find Lex Luthor leaning against the generator, in a posture that seems casual, almost insolent, but she knows is for support.
Scowling, she replies, “Come closer so I can blow some of this smoke in your face.”
The words lack heat, lack spark or fire. She still hates him for reasons she remembers and reasons she doesn't, but honestly she's too wrung out to do it tonight, just doesn't have the energy. So hey, he gets a free pass on the verbal flaying.
Lex just smiles, and without a glance at the ground, sits down on the roof to face her, arms loosely propped on bent knees. Its strangely casual posture, one she'd never thought to see him adopt.
But she's not the only one who's changed.
He's thinner than she remembers (not that she trusts her memory anymore), just this side of gaunt, looks like he's held together with nothing more than sinew and gristle and sheer force of will. Looks like he might break with a touch, but she knows that's deceptive, because she knows how strong that force of will is, had a front row seat to it.
Its first thing she remembers from coming out of her walking coma.
That monster tossing Clark like a rag-doll, advancing on her once again. And then its eyes find hers, and suddenly its not a monster at all.
It's Davis. Dear, wonderful, lost Davis, sinking to his knees looking like he's being ripped apart, looking at her like she's his world, his salvation.
“Kill me.” He hasn't looked away from her, but somehow she knows the words are meant for someone else, for Clark.
Clark who's picking himself up off the ground and staring at Davis in horror, “No, we can-”
“Kill me!!” Davis is screaming now, holding on by a thread, pleading for release, and she wants to scream at Clark, too. Isn't sure why, doesn't know why she thinks he can do anything against this thing Davis might become at any minute, but Davis thinks so and she just wants to help end his pain.
Davis is shaking, his face contorted, his voice growing weaker, “Please. I can't- I can't hold-”
But Clark remains rooted, hesitant, and why won't he just fucking act!
And then there's a shot. And another and another, and suddenly its Lex in front of her, standing over Davis, white-shirt splattered with his blood, pumping round after round of meteor-rock bullets into his body.
Five.
She's screaming.
Six.
Clark is yelling.
Seven.
Davis is still looking at her as he dies and his eyes say “It's okay.” Say “I love you.” Say “Thank you.”
And all she can think is, "Why?"
Eight.
Lex is still firing, but she's stopped hearing the shots. Everything goes silent, slow motion as she watches Davis's body jerk and twitch as Lex proceeds to unload the entire clip. And when its done, when she finally meets his eyes . . .
They're dead. Passionless. Empty.
She's pretty sure hers look the same.
And so now, four weeks later, she'll sit here with him on this roof, trying to kill them both with cigarette smoke because she doesn't have the energy to get up, because right now she's too empty to even find her hate, because he might be the only one in the world who won't tell her its not her fault.
Because he killed Davis when Clark wouldn't, or couldn't, or just fucking loved himself too much to take a human life.
She knows she shouldn't blame Clark. Knows there was nothing her friend could do, except there's a little niggling part in the back of her mind that whispers there was. That whispers he could have released Davis, saved him from becoming a monster if Clark would have just unbent enough to cross a line.
But Clark doesn't cross lines, and the man seated across from her obliterates them.
So maybe it always had to be Lex.
Realizing she's let the cigarette start to burn down, she takes a too deep drag, tries unsuccessfully to cover her cough, ignoring Lex's smirk when she fails.
“What are you doing up here anyway?” she finally asks.
“I would think that was obvious.” He holds out his hand, and she figures 'what the heck?' shortening his time on earth can only earn her brownie points. She tosses him the pack. Follows it with the cheap plastic lighter.
“Remind me to tell Lana she needs better security.”
“I'll add it to my to-do list.”
Lex lights up with practiced ease, and now they're staring at each other in the dying sunlight, faces highlighted by the glow of burning ash.
The walking dead taking a smoke break.
“So did you come for a thank you, an outpouring of gratitude? Think your one heroic act erases everything else, you've done?” Her voice is bitter, sharp, because she can't decide whether she is grateful or not, hates the idea that she might be.
Lex just smiles, awful and twisted, devoid of all mirth. “Is that what we're calling murder now? Heroism.”
The blunt cut words surprise her, shock her enough to look away. The Lex she knew had always been about justification. Horrible acts hidden beneath lofty ideals and greater goods. But he's stripped bare now, a predatory stranger devoid of all pretense.
Seeing her discomfort, Lex shakes his head and blows out a puff of smoke, “There are no heroes here, Chloe. Just . . . Us. Villains all.”
She flinches at the words, cutting too close to the truth of what she's been thinking, of her smiling friends, trying not to flinch when she touches them, decides he might be right.
“What happened to ends justifying the means?”
“Nothing. But I'm not afraid to admit what I did or that I'd do it again. Are you?”
“I didn't do anything.”
“Didn't you?”
She did. She willed it, wished for it, silently begged for someone to put Davis down like a dog. Lex acted, but he was merely her weapon, her desires made flesh.
And for the first time she lets herself think about Davis, not the sweet paramedic, not the intense stranger who'd been connected to her from the moment they met, but all of him the gentle and the monstrous, the light and the dark.
“Yes. I'd do it again.”
Lex doesn't say anything, but he's watching her and she knows he can see the resolve in her eyes, the truth there.
“You never answered my question. Why are you here?”
He lights another cigarette, extends it out to her.
She really should stop.
But she hasn't accomplished her goal of dying, so she crawls on hands and knees to take it, sits beside him and looks out at the sky, still strangely dark and clear due to how badly she apparently fucked over the Metropolis power grid.
Finally, Lex speaks, “The city burned at your feet. And you watched and you smiled and somewhere deep inside you felt something like joy. You don't remember it, but you know. You see it in other people's eyes, in their faces. In dreams you can't quite hold onto. And you'll tell yourself for the rest of your life that it wasn't you. But you'll wonder for the rest of your life whether it really was, whether there's something inside you, some weakness or flaw that let it in. That made that thing choose you.”
She realizes he's not really speaking about her, but himself, about Zod and Dark Thursday and so much of that time is hazy, but she remembers Lana telling her later about how long it took her to ever feel comfortable touching Lex again, about always looking for that thing inside him.
Alien possession and world destruction. What a thing to have in common.
Their own little club of two.
So she sits on the roof with the one other person in the world who might understand and watches the stars. Cold bright jewels that have made the two of them their playthings, their puppets, and for the first time in her life she gets it, his rage, his madness. She wants to fight back, lash out. Is willing to do anything to prevent this from ever happening again to anyone else.
“I still hate you.” She mutters, just to remind herself.
“Do you even remember why you started?”
No. She doesn't.
She frowns at that. She remembers later times, the kidnapping, her mother, but her hate, her distrust came earlier, and she doesn't know why.
Lex has been watching her carefully, and when she doesn't say anything, he nods in satisfaction like he's gotten confirmation of something she doesn't understand, and murmurs, “No heroes at all.”
She wants to ask what he means by that, but it would seem too much like they're having a conversation, so she sits and lets the cigarette go to ash, until it burns the tips of her fingers, welcomes the pain. Lex doesn't try to stop her, just sits and watches, and when she finally shakes the flame out, he reaches for her hand, draws her burned fingertips to his mouth and kisses each one.
She lets him, turns and straddles his lap and as she frees his cock, as Lex slips his hands inside her jeans, she force herself to look into his eyes, makes sure she knows exactly who she's with.
Punishes herself because no one else will.
They don't come together, don't join. Maybe they don't know how anymore, too many scars, too many walls. They're damaged goods making do with what they have.
It's fumbling hands and disconnected, empty release. They don't kiss, just breath in each other's ash-dead breath, and they never look away, never pretend the other is someone else to bring them peace.
Peace is something for heroes.
And on this roof-top, there's only the two of them.
Villains all.