Fic: Death and Those Who Wield Power (complete)
Title: Death and Those Who Wield Power
Author: josephina_x
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: withheld
Rating: R (for mindfuckery, read warnings)
Spoilers: for the entire series, really, but hard spoilers through 7x16 Descent
Word count: 400+
Summary: Brothers musing on darker thoughts, bloodied but unbowed. (Broken is relative.)
Warnings: Un-beta'd. Written with the full intention of fucking with your brains.
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
Comments: Yes, please! :)
Author's Note: Prompted by Nicnac's The People He's Killed, which is a Harry Potter fic, but it got me thinking... ("always" a bad thing *g*)
~*~*~*~*~*~
They died for him.
They died because of him.
He'd killed them.
Similar, but very different.
He hadn't asked for this. He hadn't asked for any of it. Hadn't wanted it; would've rejected it, given the choice.
He didn't have much choice, though, did he?
...Except that wasn't quite true, was it? Once, years ago, he'd lost his power, almost everything he'd had that he'd thought had made him him, and he'd been free. Working on the Kent Farm, feeling the sweat on his brow. Happy. Aching, but happy.
And then he'd convinced himself it was for the best to take it all back.
Chloe... god, Chloe. When Lionel had died -- no, when he'd killed him.
No, when he'd died for him--
It hurt. Far more than it should have.
Chloe Sullivan had been very much the opposite of helpful in the aftermath. Digging up things no-one really wanted to hear.
Clark had been furious.
He wanted the killing to stop.
But all those deaths, building up over the years and staining his hands red, even though on the surface they'd seemed accidents-of-circumstance... had they really been on purpose?
Because if he'd just been a little faster, a little stronger, a little smarter...
A little more thoughtful. A little less prone to shock...
Maybe some small part of him wanted them dead, for the threat they had been. Meteor-freaks.
Maybe that part was bigger than he wanted to admit.
But when it came right down to it, it really was all his fault, regardless. When he'd first learned about the meteor rocks, learned about what they could do, learned about how they'd hurt people, worse than he'd ever imagined...
If he'd just told the truth... at the very least, they could have cleaned up the town. How many meteor freaks could there not have been without the second exposure?
Too many.
But he'd been selfish. He'd lied, and deceived, and...
...and some small part of him had wanted more people around. More like him.
It did bad things to him inside to think what it might mean that Lionel, the evil bastard, had died for Clark, in the end. To "save" him.
When all was said and done, though, when it came right down to it? At the end of the day, it didn't matter whether it had been for him or because of him or in spite of him or even by his own hand.
It had happened. It was still happening.
He was guilty as sin.
He was, at the very least, responsible.
And he wasn't going to stop, thought Clark.
~*~*~*~*~*~
And he wasn't going to stop now, thought Lex.
~*~*~*~*~*~
AN2: *g* *g* *g*
...It is bad that I really hope this is unclear enough to fuck with your brains really badly if you think through the implications in all combinations? *eg*
Author: josephina_x
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: withheld
Rating: R (for mindfuckery, read warnings)
Spoilers: for the entire series, really, but hard spoilers through 7x16 Descent
Word count: 400+
Summary: Brothers musing on darker thoughts, bloodied but unbowed. (Broken is relative.)
Warnings: Un-beta'd. Written with the full intention of fucking with your brains.
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
Comments: Yes, please! :)
Author's Note: Prompted by Nicnac's The People He's Killed, which is a Harry Potter fic, but it got me thinking... ("always" a bad thing *g*)
~*~*~*~*~*~
They died for him.
They died because of him.
He'd killed them.
Similar, but very different.
He hadn't asked for this. He hadn't asked for any of it. Hadn't wanted it; would've rejected it, given the choice.
He didn't have much choice, though, did he?
...Except that wasn't quite true, was it? Once, years ago, he'd lost his power, almost everything he'd had that he'd thought had made him him, and he'd been free. Working on the Kent Farm, feeling the sweat on his brow. Happy. Aching, but happy.
And then he'd convinced himself it was for the best to take it all back.
Chloe... god, Chloe. When Lionel had died -- no, when he'd killed him.
No, when he'd died for him--
It hurt. Far more than it should have.
Chloe Sullivan had been very much the opposite of helpful in the aftermath. Digging up things no-one really wanted to hear.
Clark had been furious.
He wanted the killing to stop.
But all those deaths, building up over the years and staining his hands red, even though on the surface they'd seemed accidents-of-circumstance... had they really been on purpose?
Because if he'd just been a little faster, a little stronger, a little smarter...
A little more thoughtful. A little less prone to shock...
Maybe some small part of him wanted them dead, for the threat they had been. Meteor-freaks.
Maybe that part was bigger than he wanted to admit.
But when it came right down to it, it really was all his fault, regardless. When he'd first learned about the meteor rocks, learned about what they could do, learned about how they'd hurt people, worse than he'd ever imagined...
If he'd just told the truth... at the very least, they could have cleaned up the town. How many meteor freaks could there not have been without the second exposure?
Too many.
But he'd been selfish. He'd lied, and deceived, and...
...and some small part of him had wanted more people around. More like him.
It did bad things to him inside to think what it might mean that Lionel, the evil bastard, had died for Clark, in the end. To "save" him.
When all was said and done, though, when it came right down to it? At the end of the day, it didn't matter whether it had been for him or because of him or in spite of him or even by his own hand.
It had happened. It was still happening.
He was guilty as sin.
He was, at the very least, responsible.
And he wasn't going to stop, thought Clark.
~*~*~*~*~*~
And he wasn't going to stop now, thought Lex.
~*~*~*~*~*~
AN2: *g* *g* *g*
...It is bad that I really hope this is unclear enough to fuck with your brains really badly if you think through the implications in all combinations? *eg*