822 words in new section.
I finished my fic with this installment. Will go into extra credit starting next week with additions to "Arkham."
Previous: "Christmas Eve" but renamed "Breath"
Update:
Lex fights.
As the doctors announce the need to cut before they can stitch, he fights. As male nurses maneuver him into positions at least as degrading as others Clark forced him into tonight to have easier access to his injuries, he fights. He fights in absolute stillness, not twitching, not speaking, but he fights nonetheless.
He won’t go back to Belle Reve. Won’t cry. Won’t allow the crutch of catatonia or Julian-hallucination.
Won’t. Accept. Comfort. From. Anyone.
WILL stop shaking.
Will NOT talk about tonight.
Won’t forget.
He taunts the Clark-monster in his head. He pisses on the voice of his father saying he brought this on himself. He rabbit-punches the ghost of Julian, then steals the pillow from his mother’s hands to do what he didn’t do the first time. He turns away from his dead brother to sheer the hair from his mother’s head before decapitating her. He strangles Helen, burns Desiree alive, flays Lana and shoots Jason between the eyes before shitting on his corpse. He exhumes Amanda, reanimates her, then buries her alive in the Metropolis landfill.
He ruins Jonathan and Martha Kent financially and keeps ruining them every time they think they’ve “turned things around.” He forces them to live through year after year of failure. He keeps them alive. He relishes their poverty. He kidnaps Jonathan Kent, knocks him out, slips an electrode under his scrotum, and sends him home. He bugs the Kent farm. Every time Jonathan spouts a platitude he sends an electric shock into Kent’s scrotal sack. Kent never figures out what causes the burn in his nuts.
He recognizes faces beyond the ones circulating through his semi-consciousness - that doctor, there. Tim Nguyun. He set Lex’s broken arm once. And her. The woman from the admitting desk. Peggy Sedilsky. She promised not to call his father that time with the laced weed and the twins from Manhattan. Doesn’t remember their names, but she kept her promise. She’s saying something to him, if he could hear her … but it’s tough over the screams of his father as he gouges out his eyes. They feel like warm, wet grapes against his thumbs.
That’s Perry White over her shoulder. Probably chased another story here but abandoned it when he spotted the crew working on him. That’s an orderly trying to push him back through the curtain they pull around his gurney, but White won’t budge. That’s a look of pity on White’s face, but it doesn’t prevent his mouth from moving, presumably asking questions, nor does it prevent him from pulling a reporter’s notebook and pen from his coat pocket. Fucking trench-coated ghoul. For White he produces a huge phlegm globule. Spits. Scores. That’s real. It’s oddly more cathartic than the murder fantasies. Oozes down his cheek, and White’s pitying look transmutes itself into one of hatred Lex prefers for the moment. Good.
He wonders what he might do to these people. Tries envisioning Peggy with a copper wire wrapped around her ankle, the end hooked to an empty light socket. He flips the switch. She jerks like an upside down marionette, and smoke streams from holes as they burn through her skin and uniform. Yes. He could do that.
Tries tracing patterns in Nguyun’s flesh with a scalpel. Okay. He can. Tries plowing with the instrument. He can. Uses the flat side to dig symbols from the cave wall into the man’s ass and thighs. This one doesn’t scream but groans, begs Lex to stop. He won’t.
“We’ve notified your people, Mr. Luthor. They’re on their way, so you won’t have to worry about the press.” That’s Nguyun, not groaning, but talking. Lex hears him now. They’ve given him the good shit, but it’s wearing off. Fine.
He has a plan. He *will* follow through.
Lex will work up to Nguyun and Sedilsky and the rest of tonight’s emergency room team. He’ll work up to Jason and Lana. He’ll make it to Desiree, Helen, his father, his ghosts. The elder Kents. He’ll work through everyone. He’ll work through them all.
No one survives this. No one alive survives this night. He’ll kill every bit of life on this fucking planet because he knows now what he refused to believe before. Kindness lies. Innocence deserves death. Goodness? Never existed. He dreamed it.
He’ll spare no one. He’ll destroy evil and therefore spare the naive from experiencing it. They’re ants to him. As a corporate mercy killer, he’ll teach humanity how this shithole world works.
But he needs more than the kind of power money buys. That plan for the presidency … yes. More necessary than ever before.
After he’s left Earth nothing but a bit of lava cooling in space he’ll take what’s left of his wrath out on Clark.
Somehow he thinks they’ll both still be around. Lex can’t wait to get started.
“Doctor,” he asks, “How soon before I can check out?”
That's it.
Also posted to my lj.
Previous: "Christmas Eve" but renamed "Breath"
Update:
Lex fights.
As the doctors announce the need to cut before they can stitch, he fights. As male nurses maneuver him into positions at least as degrading as others Clark forced him into tonight to have easier access to his injuries, he fights. He fights in absolute stillness, not twitching, not speaking, but he fights nonetheless.
He won’t go back to Belle Reve. Won’t cry. Won’t allow the crutch of catatonia or Julian-hallucination.
Won’t. Accept. Comfort. From. Anyone.
WILL stop shaking.
Will NOT talk about tonight.
Won’t forget.
He taunts the Clark-monster in his head. He pisses on the voice of his father saying he brought this on himself. He rabbit-punches the ghost of Julian, then steals the pillow from his mother’s hands to do what he didn’t do the first time. He turns away from his dead brother to sheer the hair from his mother’s head before decapitating her. He strangles Helen, burns Desiree alive, flays Lana and shoots Jason between the eyes before shitting on his corpse. He exhumes Amanda, reanimates her, then buries her alive in the Metropolis landfill.
He ruins Jonathan and Martha Kent financially and keeps ruining them every time they think they’ve “turned things around.” He forces them to live through year after year of failure. He keeps them alive. He relishes their poverty. He kidnaps Jonathan Kent, knocks him out, slips an electrode under his scrotum, and sends him home. He bugs the Kent farm. Every time Jonathan spouts a platitude he sends an electric shock into Kent’s scrotal sack. Kent never figures out what causes the burn in his nuts.
He recognizes faces beyond the ones circulating through his semi-consciousness - that doctor, there. Tim Nguyun. He set Lex’s broken arm once. And her. The woman from the admitting desk. Peggy Sedilsky. She promised not to call his father that time with the laced weed and the twins from Manhattan. Doesn’t remember their names, but she kept her promise. She’s saying something to him, if he could hear her … but it’s tough over the screams of his father as he gouges out his eyes. They feel like warm, wet grapes against his thumbs.
That’s Perry White over her shoulder. Probably chased another story here but abandoned it when he spotted the crew working on him. That’s an orderly trying to push him back through the curtain they pull around his gurney, but White won’t budge. That’s a look of pity on White’s face, but it doesn’t prevent his mouth from moving, presumably asking questions, nor does it prevent him from pulling a reporter’s notebook and pen from his coat pocket. Fucking trench-coated ghoul. For White he produces a huge phlegm globule. Spits. Scores. That’s real. It’s oddly more cathartic than the murder fantasies. Oozes down his cheek, and White’s pitying look transmutes itself into one of hatred Lex prefers for the moment. Good.
He wonders what he might do to these people. Tries envisioning Peggy with a copper wire wrapped around her ankle, the end hooked to an empty light socket. He flips the switch. She jerks like an upside down marionette, and smoke streams from holes as they burn through her skin and uniform. Yes. He could do that.
Tries tracing patterns in Nguyun’s flesh with a scalpel. Okay. He can. Tries plowing with the instrument. He can. Uses the flat side to dig symbols from the cave wall into the man’s ass and thighs. This one doesn’t scream but groans, begs Lex to stop. He won’t.
“We’ve notified your people, Mr. Luthor. They’re on their way, so you won’t have to worry about the press.” That’s Nguyun, not groaning, but talking. Lex hears him now. They’ve given him the good shit, but it’s wearing off. Fine.
He has a plan. He *will* follow through.
Lex will work up to Nguyun and Sedilsky and the rest of tonight’s emergency room team. He’ll work up to Jason and Lana. He’ll make it to Desiree, Helen, his father, his ghosts. The elder Kents. He’ll work through everyone. He’ll work through them all.
No one survives this. No one alive survives this night. He’ll kill every bit of life on this fucking planet because he knows now what he refused to believe before. Kindness lies. Innocence deserves death. Goodness? Never existed. He dreamed it.
He’ll spare no one. He’ll destroy evil and therefore spare the naive from experiencing it. They’re ants to him. As a corporate mercy killer, he’ll teach humanity how this shithole world works.
But he needs more than the kind of power money buys. That plan for the presidency … yes. More necessary than ever before.
After he’s left Earth nothing but a bit of lava cooling in space he’ll take what’s left of his wrath out on Clark.
Somehow he thinks they’ll both still be around. Lex can’t wait to get started.
“Doctor,” he asks, “How soon before I can check out?”
That's it.
Also posted to my lj.