Fic: Feeling (R, eventual Horrible/Hammer)
Title: Feeling (1/?)
Author: Sita
Pairing: Eventual Horrible/Hammer
Rating: R. Perhaps eventual NC-17.
Word Count: 1,657
A/N: Uh, hi, guys. :D This is my first Horrible fic, and I don't really know how I feel about it. But here it is. It's hella dark, but I have my reasons. This takes place post Act III. To me, Penny represented the Snidely Whiplash, "mwa ha ha you'll never foil my plans" mostly nonviolent popularized world of superheroes. When she died, that world died with her. That left Captain Hammer and Dr. Horrible very messed up in a very messed up place. In my head, this is where they have evolved to. We'll see how this goes.
It used to be about taking over the world. Or accumulating vast amounts of things. Or something like that; Dr. Horrible really couldn’t remember. But he used to have a goal, a set desired outcome. He used to have morals, for God’s sake. Okay, normal people probably wouldn’t have called them morals, but that’s how he saw them. He used to do things that were considered illegal, sure, but they weren’t morally reprehensible.
But the Evil League of Evil didn’t play games. They didn’t care about morals, actual or twisted or imagined or any combination of the three. They didn’t actually care much about accumulating anything. All they cared about was power. Using it. Abusing it. Tasting it in every twisted affair they executed. He’d never had a taste for it, but none of them knew that. He carried out every plan with perfect ruthlessness and a half-amused, half-bored smile that never quite reached his eyes.
It was a lie. He hadn’t felt anything at all for quite some time. Maybe that’s why it was so easy to pretend, pretend he was just like them.
He stood back, arms crossed with a half-smile on his face as he pretended to be enthralled with watching Professor Normal work. Professor Normal. Dr. Horrible had always found his name fairly ironic. There was nothing normal about the sickening methods he employed to get what he wanted.
The girl sobbed and shook and tried to wipe the blood off of her face with the stubby remains of her fingers. And the Professor just smiled and tossed the bone saw carelessly from hand to hand.
"Normal, you’ve taken her fingers. If she hasn’t told you the address by now, it’s my personal guess that she doesn’t know it."
Normal shrugged. "I realize. I’m really just entertaining myself now." He blinked down at her and frowned. "I can’t cope with her crying. Should I have her tongue out?"
"Why not?" I don’t care.
Maybe the girl’s bloodcurdling scream distracted him. Or maybe he’d just gotten so disillusioned with his life in the League that he wasn’t paying any attention from the get-go. Either way, he barely noticed anything was wrong until he saw a chunk of the wall collapse.
"What the-" Normal’s intended exclamation was interrupted by the blur that darted through the wall, crashed into him, and sent him flying across the room.
Dr. Horrible’s eyes narrowed as the blur slowed enough to produce an intelligible image, then widened for a split second. He fought back the shock that threatened to overtake his carefully schooled expression of mild boredom as the blur turned to face him. With a tiny smirk, he uncrossed his arms and tried to look taller.
"Captain Hammer," he said softly.
"Dr. Horrible," he replied, advancing slowly but steadily.
Dr. Horrible held his ground, but his mind raced. Last he’d heard, Hammer had experienced a meltdown so severe, doctors believed he’d never really recover. But here he was. At first glance he looked the same, though he did look thinner than Horrible remembered. But nothing about the way this man moved held any trace of the old Captain Hammer. He kept his head down when he walked, not out of fear or cowardice, but as a panther might keep its head close to the ground while stalking its prey. There was no arrogance. There was no element of performance. There was just a calm, cold fury that seemed to make the air around him shimmer icily.
And Horrible felt. It was a surge of white-hot rage, exactly the same and yet so different from Hammer’s. It rushed through his body, tensing his muscles under his coat and causing his fingers to twitch involuntarily.
"Fucking bastard!" Normal snarled, storming back towards the duo, holding his nose with one hand and brandishing the bone saw with the other. “Fucking bastard broke my fucking nose! I swear to God, Hammer, I am going to-“
“Get back, Normal.”
“Did you see-“
“I said to get back.”
No one defied Dr. Horrible. So the Professor sank back on his haunches and retreated.
The room was still, except for Captain Hammer’s slow, predatory advance. But Dr. Horrible refused to move. He clung to his newfound rage, relishing in the first feeling he’d had in months, and smiled joylessly.
“I heard you’d gone insane.”
“I heard the same about you.” His gaze flickered to the girl, unconscious in a pool of her own blood. “It looks like I heard right.”
“Walk away, Hammer. You have nothing to do with this.”
“It’s my job to protect people from psychos like you. I have everything to do with this.”
Dr. Horrible pulled out his gun and fired without so much as a warning. The bullet caught Hammer square in the shoulder, right where his unflinching gaze had placed it. Hammer hissed in pain, stumbled back, and fell to one knee.
“Since when do you use guns?” he snarled.
“I’ve changed, Captain.”
“So have I.”
“I can see that.” It was Dr. Horrible’s turn to advance, strolling carelessly towards the injured man. “Have you gotten more accustomed to pain? You didn’t do so well with it last time. I remember a lot of crying and whimpering, and I know that had to be embarrassing for you.”
Captain Hammer clapped his hand firmly over the bullet wound and forced a grimaced smile. “More embarrassing than you - oops, sorry - killing the love of your life?”
There it was again: the rage, the searing hot rage. It flared up inside of him so quickly that it dizzied him. His finger tightened on the trigger, and he was at Hammer’s side before he realized he was moving.
“I shot you once. Do you think I won’t do it again?”
“I’m the one who should be upset. You’re the one who murdered my girlfriend in cold blood.”
“You didn’t even care about her.”
“I liked her.”
“I loved her!” His hard-won coolness burned away inside of him, leaving him vibrating with fury. The only steady part of him was his hand. It held the gun tight against Captain Hammer’s temple. “I loved her, and I had to sit back and watch you use her, like she was some slut you grabbed off the street corner. She was too good for you.”
“She was too good for you!”
“At least I have the decency to admit that!”
“You’re one to talk about decency. How many people’s fingers have you cut off the last four months?”
He shoved the gun into Hammer’s mouth. Hard. Judging from the amount of resistance and the whimper of pain, he guessed that he’d chipped one of Hammer’s teeth.
“Fourteen. Want me to elaborate?”
Hammer jerked back from the gun, spitting out a tiny piece of tooth. “How do you think Penny would feel if she could see you now?”
Horrible froze. If Penny saw what he’d become... God, it killed him to think about it. In his mind, her eyes filled with sadness and she looked away, shaking her head.
And what hurt worst was that it hadn’t been a jab. Hammer wasn’t trying to provoke him. He honestly seemed disappointed.
“Shut up, Hammer.”
“I thought you were better than this.” His entire arm was soaked with blood now, but Hammer just winced and continued. “I really did, Billy.”
Dr. Horrible’s finger twitched on the trigger. “Don’t call me that. There is no Billy any more.”
“I’m starting to believe that. Look at you. Guns. Torture. What the hell happened?”
Horrible narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on the gun. “I grew the fuck up, Hammer.”
And he reared back, cracking the barrel of the gun squarely across Captain Hammer’s jaw.
Professor Normal crept over after a few minutes, and even he seemed awestruck by the sheer power and passion behind the blows that Horrible rained down on Hammer’s face. The other man was clearly unconscious, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop.
It felt good to feel again. It felt freeing, to finally let everything explode. Sure, it had technically been his device that caused Penny’s death, but if Captain Hammer hadn’t been provoking him...
So it was Hammer’s fault. It was all Hammer’s fault, and he had to fucking pay.
Professor Normal’s blood-streaked hand on his shoulder brought him back to the real world. He blinked down at the bruised, bloody mess he’d made of Captain Hammer’s face and briefly felt something that reminded him of remorse.
“Horrible. He isn’t going to be any fun later if you kill him now.”
Dr. Horrible stared at him, brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
Professor Normal grinned. “I saw the way you were beating him. You have a personal vendetta, my dear doctor, and if you beat him to death now, it won’t be nearly as satisfying as it could be with the right tools.”
Dr. Horrible stared, unblinking, for a second or two, then smiled his first actual smile in four or five months. “May I use your lab?”
“Would you like to?”
“Yes.”
“Finally. I’ve been trying to introduce you to the possibilities for months now. I was wondering why you never seemed interested.” He actually giggled as he cocked his head towards Captain Hammer’s unconscious body. “It seems as though you were just waiting for the right motivation.”
Dr. Horrible laughed softly, and it was frightening in its joy. “Motivation. Right. Just get him to the lab. I’ll meet you there in forty-five minutes.”
He started for the door of the office building.
“What about her?”
Dr. Horrible glanced dismissively down at the girl on the floor who was slowly regaining consciousness. He barely looked at her as he lifted her head by her hair and sent a bullet straight through her skull. He let her flop, boneless, to the floor and continued to walk to the entrance.
He had more important things to deal with.
This was written and posted within half an hour, so any and all mistakes are my own, and I apologize for them, but I'm half-asleep. ^^ I hope you enjoy.
Author: Sita
Pairing: Eventual Horrible/Hammer
Rating: R. Perhaps eventual NC-17.
Word Count: 1,657
A/N: Uh, hi, guys. :D This is my first Horrible fic, and I don't really know how I feel about it. But here it is. It's hella dark, but I have my reasons. This takes place post Act III. To me, Penny represented the Snidely Whiplash, "mwa ha ha you'll never foil my plans" mostly nonviolent popularized world of superheroes. When she died, that world died with her. That left Captain Hammer and Dr. Horrible very messed up in a very messed up place. In my head, this is where they have evolved to. We'll see how this goes.
It used to be about taking over the world. Or accumulating vast amounts of things. Or something like that; Dr. Horrible really couldn’t remember. But he used to have a goal, a set desired outcome. He used to have morals, for God’s sake. Okay, normal people probably wouldn’t have called them morals, but that’s how he saw them. He used to do things that were considered illegal, sure, but they weren’t morally reprehensible.
But the Evil League of Evil didn’t play games. They didn’t care about morals, actual or twisted or imagined or any combination of the three. They didn’t actually care much about accumulating anything. All they cared about was power. Using it. Abusing it. Tasting it in every twisted affair they executed. He’d never had a taste for it, but none of them knew that. He carried out every plan with perfect ruthlessness and a half-amused, half-bored smile that never quite reached his eyes.
It was a lie. He hadn’t felt anything at all for quite some time. Maybe that’s why it was so easy to pretend, pretend he was just like them.
He stood back, arms crossed with a half-smile on his face as he pretended to be enthralled with watching Professor Normal work. Professor Normal. Dr. Horrible had always found his name fairly ironic. There was nothing normal about the sickening methods he employed to get what he wanted.
The girl sobbed and shook and tried to wipe the blood off of her face with the stubby remains of her fingers. And the Professor just smiled and tossed the bone saw carelessly from hand to hand.
"Normal, you’ve taken her fingers. If she hasn’t told you the address by now, it’s my personal guess that she doesn’t know it."
Normal shrugged. "I realize. I’m really just entertaining myself now." He blinked down at her and frowned. "I can’t cope with her crying. Should I have her tongue out?"
"Why not?" I don’t care.
Maybe the girl’s bloodcurdling scream distracted him. Or maybe he’d just gotten so disillusioned with his life in the League that he wasn’t paying any attention from the get-go. Either way, he barely noticed anything was wrong until he saw a chunk of the wall collapse.
"What the-" Normal’s intended exclamation was interrupted by the blur that darted through the wall, crashed into him, and sent him flying across the room.
Dr. Horrible’s eyes narrowed as the blur slowed enough to produce an intelligible image, then widened for a split second. He fought back the shock that threatened to overtake his carefully schooled expression of mild boredom as the blur turned to face him. With a tiny smirk, he uncrossed his arms and tried to look taller.
"Captain Hammer," he said softly.
"Dr. Horrible," he replied, advancing slowly but steadily.
Dr. Horrible held his ground, but his mind raced. Last he’d heard, Hammer had experienced a meltdown so severe, doctors believed he’d never really recover. But here he was. At first glance he looked the same, though he did look thinner than Horrible remembered. But nothing about the way this man moved held any trace of the old Captain Hammer. He kept his head down when he walked, not out of fear or cowardice, but as a panther might keep its head close to the ground while stalking its prey. There was no arrogance. There was no element of performance. There was just a calm, cold fury that seemed to make the air around him shimmer icily.
And Horrible felt. It was a surge of white-hot rage, exactly the same and yet so different from Hammer’s. It rushed through his body, tensing his muscles under his coat and causing his fingers to twitch involuntarily.
"Fucking bastard!" Normal snarled, storming back towards the duo, holding his nose with one hand and brandishing the bone saw with the other. “Fucking bastard broke my fucking nose! I swear to God, Hammer, I am going to-“
“Get back, Normal.”
“Did you see-“
“I said to get back.”
No one defied Dr. Horrible. So the Professor sank back on his haunches and retreated.
The room was still, except for Captain Hammer’s slow, predatory advance. But Dr. Horrible refused to move. He clung to his newfound rage, relishing in the first feeling he’d had in months, and smiled joylessly.
“I heard you’d gone insane.”
“I heard the same about you.” His gaze flickered to the girl, unconscious in a pool of her own blood. “It looks like I heard right.”
“Walk away, Hammer. You have nothing to do with this.”
“It’s my job to protect people from psychos like you. I have everything to do with this.”
Dr. Horrible pulled out his gun and fired without so much as a warning. The bullet caught Hammer square in the shoulder, right where his unflinching gaze had placed it. Hammer hissed in pain, stumbled back, and fell to one knee.
“Since when do you use guns?” he snarled.
“I’ve changed, Captain.”
“So have I.”
“I can see that.” It was Dr. Horrible’s turn to advance, strolling carelessly towards the injured man. “Have you gotten more accustomed to pain? You didn’t do so well with it last time. I remember a lot of crying and whimpering, and I know that had to be embarrassing for you.”
Captain Hammer clapped his hand firmly over the bullet wound and forced a grimaced smile. “More embarrassing than you - oops, sorry - killing the love of your life?”
There it was again: the rage, the searing hot rage. It flared up inside of him so quickly that it dizzied him. His finger tightened on the trigger, and he was at Hammer’s side before he realized he was moving.
“I shot you once. Do you think I won’t do it again?”
“I’m the one who should be upset. You’re the one who murdered my girlfriend in cold blood.”
“You didn’t even care about her.”
“I liked her.”
“I loved her!” His hard-won coolness burned away inside of him, leaving him vibrating with fury. The only steady part of him was his hand. It held the gun tight against Captain Hammer’s temple. “I loved her, and I had to sit back and watch you use her, like she was some slut you grabbed off the street corner. She was too good for you.”
“She was too good for you!”
“At least I have the decency to admit that!”
“You’re one to talk about decency. How many people’s fingers have you cut off the last four months?”
He shoved the gun into Hammer’s mouth. Hard. Judging from the amount of resistance and the whimper of pain, he guessed that he’d chipped one of Hammer’s teeth.
“Fourteen. Want me to elaborate?”
Hammer jerked back from the gun, spitting out a tiny piece of tooth. “How do you think Penny would feel if she could see you now?”
Horrible froze. If Penny saw what he’d become... God, it killed him to think about it. In his mind, her eyes filled with sadness and she looked away, shaking her head.
And what hurt worst was that it hadn’t been a jab. Hammer wasn’t trying to provoke him. He honestly seemed disappointed.
“Shut up, Hammer.”
“I thought you were better than this.” His entire arm was soaked with blood now, but Hammer just winced and continued. “I really did, Billy.”
Dr. Horrible’s finger twitched on the trigger. “Don’t call me that. There is no Billy any more.”
“I’m starting to believe that. Look at you. Guns. Torture. What the hell happened?”
Horrible narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on the gun. “I grew the fuck up, Hammer.”
And he reared back, cracking the barrel of the gun squarely across Captain Hammer’s jaw.
Professor Normal crept over after a few minutes, and even he seemed awestruck by the sheer power and passion behind the blows that Horrible rained down on Hammer’s face. The other man was clearly unconscious, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop.
It felt good to feel again. It felt freeing, to finally let everything explode. Sure, it had technically been his device that caused Penny’s death, but if Captain Hammer hadn’t been provoking him...
So it was Hammer’s fault. It was all Hammer’s fault, and he had to fucking pay.
Professor Normal’s blood-streaked hand on his shoulder brought him back to the real world. He blinked down at the bruised, bloody mess he’d made of Captain Hammer’s face and briefly felt something that reminded him of remorse.
“Horrible. He isn’t going to be any fun later if you kill him now.”
Dr. Horrible stared at him, brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
Professor Normal grinned. “I saw the way you were beating him. You have a personal vendetta, my dear doctor, and if you beat him to death now, it won’t be nearly as satisfying as it could be with the right tools.”
Dr. Horrible stared, unblinking, for a second or two, then smiled his first actual smile in four or five months. “May I use your lab?”
“Would you like to?”
“Yes.”
“Finally. I’ve been trying to introduce you to the possibilities for months now. I was wondering why you never seemed interested.” He actually giggled as he cocked his head towards Captain Hammer’s unconscious body. “It seems as though you were just waiting for the right motivation.”
Dr. Horrible laughed softly, and it was frightening in its joy. “Motivation. Right. Just get him to the lab. I’ll meet you there in forty-five minutes.”
He started for the door of the office building.
“What about her?”
Dr. Horrible glanced dismissively down at the girl on the floor who was slowly regaining consciousness. He barely looked at her as he lifted her head by her hair and sent a bullet straight through her skull. He let her flop, boneless, to the floor and continued to walk to the entrance.
He had more important things to deal with.
This was written and posted within half an hour, so any and all mistakes are my own, and I apologize for them, but I'm half-asleep. ^^ I hope you enjoy.