The House of the Earth Part 2 (2/8): Falling and Getting Up Again
Title: Chapter Two: Falling and Getting Up Again
Pairing/Characters: Kal-El, Bruce Wayne, Kara Zor-El
Notes: " The House of the Earth" is an AU in which a few thousand Kryptonians escaped the destruction of Krypton to flee to Earth and enslave its people.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2000
Summary: Kal practices walking, lying, and controlling his temper. The results are mixed.
"Okay, one more time."
Kal groaned but pulled himself to his feet and wavered across the bedroom, each step slow and halting. His hands waved in the air as he struggled to keep his balance. He was almost to the bed when Bruce reached out with one foot from his chair and nudged Kal's hip delicately; Kal staggered and crashed to the floor. "Why'd you do that?" he snarled. "I'm trying my best--"
"--You fell," Bruce noted dispassionately.
"Of course I fell! You pushed me!"
"You didn't have to fall. You could have simply floated with the impact."
"I--I guess that's true," said Kal.
"Good," said Bruce from his chair, curling his legs back under him. "Good instincts. You're going to be able to need to fall convincingly."
Kal dusted off his thigh where it had connected with the floor. It had been a pretty convincing fall to him. He reached up and grabbed a bedpost to pull himself upright and stood, leaning heavily on it. "I didn't ask you how this morning went with Alfred."
"We had a good conversation." Bruce's face almost glowed when he thought about it. "He was...pleased I had been transferred to you. He seems to have a touching faith in you."
Kal tried not to look too pleased with that, but he felt a bright spark of embarrassed pride. "I wish you could tell him everything."
Bruce laughed, a short, wondering sound. "I told him almost nothing, and yet...I think he understood almost everything I didn't say. When he left, he told me, 'I've always felt you were destined to change this world, Master Bruce. And I think that you and Kal together would be unstoppable.'" Bruce shook his head, his eyes far away. "How I've missed him."
"Could you tell me his last name?"
Bruce's eyes focused on Kal. "What?"
"Slaves don't legally have family names. But I know you have them. I'd like to know Alfred's."
"It's...Pennyworth. Alfred Pennyworth."
"Pennyworth," Kal repeated carefully, committing it to memory. "Thank you."
Far away, a chime rang out. "I skipped breakfast and lunch, I'd better go to dinner," Kal said.
"I'd like to go with you."
"You...you would?"
"We're going to have to appear in public a lot. We'd better start perfecting our public faces."
Kal grimaced. "I'm not sure I feel up to this. I'm exhausted."
For a brief instant, Bruce's face lit up in a leer. "All the better for our pretense. After all, everyone will expect us both to be exhausted."
Kal looked down. "Please don't say such things. It's not funny."
There was a sudden shift of motion, and Bruce was at his side, taking his hand almost tenderly, his flank pressed against him. Kal winced and tried to move away and Bruce's hand tightened on his. "No, Kal. You can't do this. You saw how Kara treated me in public, and you must do the same. If you seem cold to me, the other slaves will begin to be wonder if you are dissatisfied with me. I'll be vulnerable. Not every human is trustworthy." He twined his fingers through Kal's. "If your uncle notices you seem repulsed by slavery, he'll pay more attention to you, trust you less. And so, when I do this--" His long legs folded under him and he went to his knees in front of Kal, his eyes dropping submissively, "--You have to be able to--"
"--Please," Kal whispered. "Please. Not here. Not in this room." Bruce looked up at him. "I'll try outside, but here, in this circle of silence, please. Please don't do this. I'm asking you as a--as one person to another."
There was a short silence and then Bruce sprang to his feet in a bound, all submission gone, a tiger uncaged. "In here. In this room and this circle alone. And if you don't play the part well enough in public, Kal, I'll insist on practicing it in here until you get it right." He grinned at Kal, but Kal couldn't bring himself to smile in return.
"Very well. Let's get this dinner over with." Kal swiveled, lifting his feet above the ground, and headed for the door.
"You're forgetting something," Bruce said. He hadn't moved. He reached up and touched his bare neck, lightly.
The silver collar was still on the cabinet. Kal picked it up, glaring at the locks that could only be worked with Kryptonian strength. He remembered the moment where Kara had put the collar on Bruce before, how she had paused and asked, "Are you ready?"
"Do I have your permission to put this on you?" he said.
Bruce nodded. "I'm ready."
The collar clicked shut with a vicious finality, and they left the circle of silence and entered the world again.
: : :
"I see you gave Kal-El your pet," Zor-El noted as the first course was served. "Did you grow tired of him so quickly, my dear? Was he unsatisfactory?"
"Oh my, no," Kara said smugly. "But I saw how Kal was looking at him and I thought he'd make my cousin so much happier than me."
It was close enough to the truth that Kal felt a hot flush of shame burning him. On the floor beside him, Bruce nudged at his hand with his glossy head, like a spaniel might. Kal smoothed the hair beneath his hand. It was as soft as he had imagined three days ago.
A lifetime ago.
"Are you happy with him, cousin?" Kara's head was tilted, curiosity in her wide blue eyes.
"He's perfection incarnate," Kal said, trying to sound smug and satiated. "Absolutely lovely. I already don't know how I ever got by without him."
"He likes the strawberries," Kara said rather pointedly, and Bruce's head moved slightly beneath his hand.
Kal picked up a strawberry and lowered his hand. A delicate tongue lapped at his fingers and he tried not to shudder. "He's...he's quite adorable, cousin."
The tongue gave way to teeth and a rather sharp nip, and Kal felt obscurely better. He moved his hand back into Bruce's hair, feeling the dark strands slipping between his fingers.
"He seems a bit slow to me," Kal's aunt said distantly. "Are you sure he's not mentally defective?"
Kal felt his hand clench as if beyond his control, and--
Kara overturned her wineglass. The glass shattered and wine went everywhere. "Oh Rao, how clumsy I am!" exclaimed Kara. "Work is so tiring, I'm half-asleep at the table, I'm so sorry." She gestured at Kal. "It's all right, Kal, you don't need to get up, I can do it." Kal looked down and realized he was standing; he had jumped to his feet. Before or after Kara spilled her wine? He couldn't remember for sure. Kara clapped her hands and one of the slaves entered the room. "Fetch cloths and clean this mess up."
Kara was still looking at him. "You can sit down," she said carefully.
"I'm sorry," Kal said. "Force of habit. In college, we didn't have--"
"You can sit down," Kara repeated.
Kal sat down.
Bruce pressed against his leg, winding an arm around his thigh in a gesture that seemed affectionate but was clearly warning.
Kal lowered another strawberry to the kneeling man and smiled down fondly at the sight of Bruce Wayne nibbling food from his fingers.
He felt sick.
Bruce looked up and met his eyes, and for a moment the false adoration in them gave way to something tangled between warning and compassion. He pressed the back of Kal's hand to his cheek and smiled slightly.
Kal looked away from that smile to his plate and noticed for the first time a tiny red capsule next to it. That's right, he realized. He was an adult of twenty-two, and that meant taking the capsules of concentrated iao at meals once a week. When he had been a little boy he had imagined they had tasted like apples and candy, but he had been laughingly told that he wasn't old enough to have iao yet.
He picked up the little ruby-colored pill. The concentrated iao in it would extend his life far past what it would have been on Krypton. "The Gift of the Arrival," they called it.
The petals picked by human hands to extend Kryptonian life.
He considered throwing the blood-red thing across the room, but he had already come far too close to creating a scene today. Carefully, he put it in his mouth and swallowed. Alura beamed at him fondly. "How quickly you've grown up, Kal-El," his aunt said. "You're an adult now."
Kal smiled back at her, tasting gall and wormwood. An adult now.
: : :
"I'm afraid of peacocks. My favorite color is blue. I got in trouble once in biology for disagreeing with the teacher." Kal looked triumphantly at the man sitting on the floor across from him.
Bruce just shook his head. "The third one."
Kal made an irritated noise. "How did you know that one was the lie?"
"In this case it was easy. I'd already noticed the garden peacocks make you nervous. And about thirty percent of your wardrobe is blue. But even if I didn't know that, your voice tends to rise a bit when you're lying, and it went up on the third one. So you never got in trouble in school?"
"Sure. It was in Galactic History, though," Kal said glumly. "Your turn."
Bruce looked thoughtful. "I've been on six continents. When I was a little boy, I had an imaginary friend named 'Percival.' And I'm a virgin." He snickered slightly at Kal's expression and Kal felt a prickle of annoyance; he'd thrown that in there just to knock him off balance.
Apparently it had; Kal could no longer definitely remember Bruce's face or tone of voice while saying the other two statements. Reluctant to touch the topic of Bruce's virginity at all, Kal hastily said, "Your friend wasn't named Percival."
Bruce did a quick backwards somersault. "He was too, actually. He was a griffin. A talking griffin. No, I've only been on five continents; I haven't made it to South America yet."
Kal tried not to think what this revealed about Bruce's sexual experience; he failed. Under cover of needing to stretch his legs, he scrambled gingerly to his feet and began to pace the room carefully. "I need to do something."
Bruce stretched. "Two more statements, please."
Kal huffed a little. "I feel the need to do something. I really enjoy H'lvenite opera. I've never been to South America either."
"What's so bad about H'lvenite opera?" Bruce shrugged at his glare. "Since you're lying about liking it."
"H'lvenites are basically sentient chipmunks. Their opera is mostly screeching." Kal sat back down, massaging his calves.
"I understand the need to do something," Bruce said. "Trust me. I desperately need to get to Metropolis soon."
"Then let's--"
Bruce cut him off before he could finish getting to his feet again. "We can't go anywhere until Kara gets those new forgeries. If I'm caught off the El property without the proper papers we'll both be in trouble. Until then, we're going to keep working on your training." He leaned over and grabbed the little bag of possessions that Kara had brought by, drawing out a small stack of rectangular cards. There were crude designs in red and black on them.
"What are those? I've seen humans using them, but I never found out for what."
Bruce grinned and shuffled the cards together. "We're going to work on that poker face of yours." As he handed out the cards one by one, his grin turned just slightly wistful. "You never know, Kal. Maybe someday we'll go to South America together."
Kal watched Bruce's hands on the cards. "I'd like that," he said, imagining for just a moment a beach somewhere and Bruce laughing in the sun, un-collared, unfettered, walking at his side. Beautiful. Impossible.
"I'd like that too," Bruce said.
Pairing/Characters: Kal-El, Bruce Wayne, Kara Zor-El
Notes: " The House of the Earth" is an AU in which a few thousand Kryptonians escaped the destruction of Krypton to flee to Earth and enslave its people.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2000
Summary: Kal practices walking, lying, and controlling his temper. The results are mixed.
"Okay, one more time."
Kal groaned but pulled himself to his feet and wavered across the bedroom, each step slow and halting. His hands waved in the air as he struggled to keep his balance. He was almost to the bed when Bruce reached out with one foot from his chair and nudged Kal's hip delicately; Kal staggered and crashed to the floor. "Why'd you do that?" he snarled. "I'm trying my best--"
"--You fell," Bruce noted dispassionately.
"Of course I fell! You pushed me!"
"You didn't have to fall. You could have simply floated with the impact."
"I--I guess that's true," said Kal.
"Good," said Bruce from his chair, curling his legs back under him. "Good instincts. You're going to be able to need to fall convincingly."
Kal dusted off his thigh where it had connected with the floor. It had been a pretty convincing fall to him. He reached up and grabbed a bedpost to pull himself upright and stood, leaning heavily on it. "I didn't ask you how this morning went with Alfred."
"We had a good conversation." Bruce's face almost glowed when he thought about it. "He was...pleased I had been transferred to you. He seems to have a touching faith in you."
Kal tried not to look too pleased with that, but he felt a bright spark of embarrassed pride. "I wish you could tell him everything."
Bruce laughed, a short, wondering sound. "I told him almost nothing, and yet...I think he understood almost everything I didn't say. When he left, he told me, 'I've always felt you were destined to change this world, Master Bruce. And I think that you and Kal together would be unstoppable.'" Bruce shook his head, his eyes far away. "How I've missed him."
"Could you tell me his last name?"
Bruce's eyes focused on Kal. "What?"
"Slaves don't legally have family names. But I know you have them. I'd like to know Alfred's."
"It's...Pennyworth. Alfred Pennyworth."
"Pennyworth," Kal repeated carefully, committing it to memory. "Thank you."
Far away, a chime rang out. "I skipped breakfast and lunch, I'd better go to dinner," Kal said.
"I'd like to go with you."
"You...you would?"
"We're going to have to appear in public a lot. We'd better start perfecting our public faces."
Kal grimaced. "I'm not sure I feel up to this. I'm exhausted."
For a brief instant, Bruce's face lit up in a leer. "All the better for our pretense. After all, everyone will expect us both to be exhausted."
Kal looked down. "Please don't say such things. It's not funny."
There was a sudden shift of motion, and Bruce was at his side, taking his hand almost tenderly, his flank pressed against him. Kal winced and tried to move away and Bruce's hand tightened on his. "No, Kal. You can't do this. You saw how Kara treated me in public, and you must do the same. If you seem cold to me, the other slaves will begin to be wonder if you are dissatisfied with me. I'll be vulnerable. Not every human is trustworthy." He twined his fingers through Kal's. "If your uncle notices you seem repulsed by slavery, he'll pay more attention to you, trust you less. And so, when I do this--" His long legs folded under him and he went to his knees in front of Kal, his eyes dropping submissively, "--You have to be able to--"
"--Please," Kal whispered. "Please. Not here. Not in this room." Bruce looked up at him. "I'll try outside, but here, in this circle of silence, please. Please don't do this. I'm asking you as a--as one person to another."
There was a short silence and then Bruce sprang to his feet in a bound, all submission gone, a tiger uncaged. "In here. In this room and this circle alone. And if you don't play the part well enough in public, Kal, I'll insist on practicing it in here until you get it right." He grinned at Kal, but Kal couldn't bring himself to smile in return.
"Very well. Let's get this dinner over with." Kal swiveled, lifting his feet above the ground, and headed for the door.
"You're forgetting something," Bruce said. He hadn't moved. He reached up and touched his bare neck, lightly.
The silver collar was still on the cabinet. Kal picked it up, glaring at the locks that could only be worked with Kryptonian strength. He remembered the moment where Kara had put the collar on Bruce before, how she had paused and asked, "Are you ready?"
"Do I have your permission to put this on you?" he said.
Bruce nodded. "I'm ready."
The collar clicked shut with a vicious finality, and they left the circle of silence and entered the world again.
: : :
"I see you gave Kal-El your pet," Zor-El noted as the first course was served. "Did you grow tired of him so quickly, my dear? Was he unsatisfactory?"
"Oh my, no," Kara said smugly. "But I saw how Kal was looking at him and I thought he'd make my cousin so much happier than me."
It was close enough to the truth that Kal felt a hot flush of shame burning him. On the floor beside him, Bruce nudged at his hand with his glossy head, like a spaniel might. Kal smoothed the hair beneath his hand. It was as soft as he had imagined three days ago.
A lifetime ago.
"Are you happy with him, cousin?" Kara's head was tilted, curiosity in her wide blue eyes.
"He's perfection incarnate," Kal said, trying to sound smug and satiated. "Absolutely lovely. I already don't know how I ever got by without him."
"He likes the strawberries," Kara said rather pointedly, and Bruce's head moved slightly beneath his hand.
Kal picked up a strawberry and lowered his hand. A delicate tongue lapped at his fingers and he tried not to shudder. "He's...he's quite adorable, cousin."
The tongue gave way to teeth and a rather sharp nip, and Kal felt obscurely better. He moved his hand back into Bruce's hair, feeling the dark strands slipping between his fingers.
"He seems a bit slow to me," Kal's aunt said distantly. "Are you sure he's not mentally defective?"
Kal felt his hand clench as if beyond his control, and--
Kara overturned her wineglass. The glass shattered and wine went everywhere. "Oh Rao, how clumsy I am!" exclaimed Kara. "Work is so tiring, I'm half-asleep at the table, I'm so sorry." She gestured at Kal. "It's all right, Kal, you don't need to get up, I can do it." Kal looked down and realized he was standing; he had jumped to his feet. Before or after Kara spilled her wine? He couldn't remember for sure. Kara clapped her hands and one of the slaves entered the room. "Fetch cloths and clean this mess up."
Kara was still looking at him. "You can sit down," she said carefully.
"I'm sorry," Kal said. "Force of habit. In college, we didn't have--"
"You can sit down," Kara repeated.
Kal sat down.
Bruce pressed against his leg, winding an arm around his thigh in a gesture that seemed affectionate but was clearly warning.
Kal lowered another strawberry to the kneeling man and smiled down fondly at the sight of Bruce Wayne nibbling food from his fingers.
He felt sick.
Bruce looked up and met his eyes, and for a moment the false adoration in them gave way to something tangled between warning and compassion. He pressed the back of Kal's hand to his cheek and smiled slightly.
Kal looked away from that smile to his plate and noticed for the first time a tiny red capsule next to it. That's right, he realized. He was an adult of twenty-two, and that meant taking the capsules of concentrated iao at meals once a week. When he had been a little boy he had imagined they had tasted like apples and candy, but he had been laughingly told that he wasn't old enough to have iao yet.
He picked up the little ruby-colored pill. The concentrated iao in it would extend his life far past what it would have been on Krypton. "The Gift of the Arrival," they called it.
The petals picked by human hands to extend Kryptonian life.
He considered throwing the blood-red thing across the room, but he had already come far too close to creating a scene today. Carefully, he put it in his mouth and swallowed. Alura beamed at him fondly. "How quickly you've grown up, Kal-El," his aunt said. "You're an adult now."
Kal smiled back at her, tasting gall and wormwood. An adult now.
: : :
"I'm afraid of peacocks. My favorite color is blue. I got in trouble once in biology for disagreeing with the teacher." Kal looked triumphantly at the man sitting on the floor across from him.
Bruce just shook his head. "The third one."
Kal made an irritated noise. "How did you know that one was the lie?"
"In this case it was easy. I'd already noticed the garden peacocks make you nervous. And about thirty percent of your wardrobe is blue. But even if I didn't know that, your voice tends to rise a bit when you're lying, and it went up on the third one. So you never got in trouble in school?"
"Sure. It was in Galactic History, though," Kal said glumly. "Your turn."
Bruce looked thoughtful. "I've been on six continents. When I was a little boy, I had an imaginary friend named 'Percival.' And I'm a virgin." He snickered slightly at Kal's expression and Kal felt a prickle of annoyance; he'd thrown that in there just to knock him off balance.
Apparently it had; Kal could no longer definitely remember Bruce's face or tone of voice while saying the other two statements. Reluctant to touch the topic of Bruce's virginity at all, Kal hastily said, "Your friend wasn't named Percival."
Bruce did a quick backwards somersault. "He was too, actually. He was a griffin. A talking griffin. No, I've only been on five continents; I haven't made it to South America yet."
Kal tried not to think what this revealed about Bruce's sexual experience; he failed. Under cover of needing to stretch his legs, he scrambled gingerly to his feet and began to pace the room carefully. "I need to do something."
Bruce stretched. "Two more statements, please."
Kal huffed a little. "I feel the need to do something. I really enjoy H'lvenite opera. I've never been to South America either."
"What's so bad about H'lvenite opera?" Bruce shrugged at his glare. "Since you're lying about liking it."
"H'lvenites are basically sentient chipmunks. Their opera is mostly screeching." Kal sat back down, massaging his calves.
"I understand the need to do something," Bruce said. "Trust me. I desperately need to get to Metropolis soon."
"Then let's--"
Bruce cut him off before he could finish getting to his feet again. "We can't go anywhere until Kara gets those new forgeries. If I'm caught off the El property without the proper papers we'll both be in trouble. Until then, we're going to keep working on your training." He leaned over and grabbed the little bag of possessions that Kara had brought by, drawing out a small stack of rectangular cards. There were crude designs in red and black on them.
"What are those? I've seen humans using them, but I never found out for what."
Bruce grinned and shuffled the cards together. "We're going to work on that poker face of yours." As he handed out the cards one by one, his grin turned just slightly wistful. "You never know, Kal. Maybe someday we'll go to South America together."
Kal watched Bruce's hands on the cards. "I'd like that," he said, imagining for just a moment a beach somewhere and Bruce laughing in the sun, un-collared, unfettered, walking at his side. Beautiful. Impossible.
"I'd like that too," Bruce said.