Star Child by kayladie (Part 3 of 3)

[teot]

Title: Star Child (Part 3 of 3)
Rating: R (for sex/violence)
Word Count: 24,097
Cover: Cover #2

Summary: Alex Luthor's father is enraged by the latest scandal his son has found himself in, so he banishes him to the wilds of Kansas. On the way, Alex's party is attacked by rogue Indians, who are fiercely protecting the land that they believe the Luthors are trying to steal from them. Among the savages is the most intriguing man he's ever met, and the stranger is just as entranced with Alex as Alex is with him. Together, the two of them will face both challenges and betrayals, and perhaps find the most important thing of all...love.



PART TWO

Kal led him unerringly through the woods, almost as though he could see in the dark. With everything Alex had learned about Kal, he wondered it that wasn’t exactly what he was doing. Alex had thought they were heading towards the river, but he quickly realized that they were going in an entirely different direction.

“Tell me about the day you lost your hair, Lex,” Kal asked suddenly, taking Alex by surprise.

Alex stumbled in the dark, grateful when Kal’s hand was there to steady him. “Why do you want to know about that?” he asked. Alex did not like thinking about that day.

“Please. It is important,” Kal insisted.

Seeing as he was on his way to being told the truths he’d wanted for a long time from Kal, Alex didn’t see how he could refuse the request. Starting a bit haltingly, he explained to Kal how he had been on a trip with his mother. He had been nine years old and so excited to be traveling with her without his father. Even at that age, Alex and his father had not gotten along.

Lillian Luthor had family in Wichita and they had spent the summer with them before Alex had to go back to school in New York. Alex had loved that summer with his mother’s family so much. They’d ridden horses, hunted rabbits, explored rivers and forests…it had been the most wonderful time of his life, and sometimes remembering that was the only thing that had gotten him through the horror of what had happened on their way back home.

The stagecoach had stopped at a tiny settlement called Smallville to stock up for the last part of the trip to Kansas City. Alex had wandered, following a squirrel he’d been trying to tempt to his hand with a few sunflower seeds. And then the sky started to fall. It was such complete devastation, that in the aftermath the settlement of Smallville was utterly destroyed and never rebuilt.

Alex’s voice grew flat as he related the story of the burning rocks falling all around him, but for some reason, with his hand firmly held in Kal’s, the usual pain of the memory eased a little. He hesitated when he got to the part where he remembered the young boy, wondering if Kal would be understanding if he said that the boy reminded Alex of him.

“You can tell me,” Kal urged softly, and Alex wondered if mind-reading wasn’t one of his abilities as well.

“There was a little boy nearby when I woke up. He said something to me…” Alex trailed off, unsure. “My mother said that I must have imagined him because he disappeared and I never saw him again.”

Kal halted their walking and turned to face Alex, cupping his hands around Alex’s face as he was so fond of doing. He smiled that smile that Alex had begun to think of as his own special Kal expression.

“Yes, you did, Lex. That little boy was me, and that is why I saved you that day by the stagecoach. As soon as I saw you clearly, I knew who you were. And I knew that I was meant to save you. I often dreamt of you and I knew that we would someday meet again,” Kal said.

Alex was stunned, shocked into silence, and yet he felt the truth of Kal’s words. Had he not sensed their connection from the very moment Kal had touched his face that day?

“Are you all right, love?” Kal asked with a tender smile. Alex managed to nod.

“I just…it’s so fantastic, I can barely wrap my head around it…” he half-stammered. “That word you said, mish…” Alex asked, stumbling over the pronunciation.

“Mishidhal,” Kal said.

“Yes, that. It’s not a Kawatche word, is it? What does it mean?”

“That is what I am about to show you,” Kal grinned. “Do you trust me, Lex?”

“You know that I do,” Alex said.

Kal stepped forward and lifted Alex off his feet, holding him around the waist. “Then hold on to me.”

Alex wrapped his arms around Kal’s neck and Kal shifted him slightly to the side. He grinned at Alex briefly before he started to run. Alex’s breath left his body in a whoosh of awe and amazement as the world around them blurred into simple stripes of color and shadows. It felt like flying and Alex couldn’t restrain a laugh at the sheer insanity and joy of it.

Less than a minute later, Kal stopped and set him back on the ground, but kept holding on because he seemed to know that Alex would be a bit unsteady on his feet. Alex found himself gasping for breath and he looked up at Kal.

“Oh, my god. That was…that was the most incredible…I can’t even…how do you keep yourself from just doing that all the time?”

Kal laughed. “I do it a lot more than you know. Sometimes I slip away for a few minutes and just run because I can.”

“Wow,” Alex breathed and then he glanced around to see where Kal had brought him. “Where are we?”

“A special place. Come, and I will show you.”

He turned and led Alex to the entrance to a cave just a few feet away. Alex had been so enthralled with the trip here that he hadn’t noticed it at first. They stepped inside, Kal once again having no trouble navigating their way in the dark. Suddenly, a bright light began to glow from one of the walls and Alex shrank back a bit, apprehensive in spite of himself.

Kal sent him a reassuring smile, and then walked towards the light. Alex watched as he tapped on a spot on the adjacent wall, and gaped when a small hole opened up there. Kal reached in and pulled out a small piece of metal, shaped like an octagon. He then placed the metal piece into a matching depression where the wall was glowing.

He took a step backwards and then spoke in a loud voice at the wall. Only, he wasn’t speaking English or Kawatche. Alex suddenly remembered the language Kal had spoken when they’d met the first time and wondered if this was the same one.

Alex nearly fainted with fright when the wall answered. “Kal-El,” it boomed, the only sound Alex recognized and then there was a babble of the same language that Kal had used.

“May we use English, Father? Lex cannot understand what we are saying,” Kal said.

“That would be acceptable,” the cave wall intoned.

Kal turned to face his lover, gave him an encouraging smile. Alex was glad someone was able to be so happy, because he was having a goddamn heart attack.

“I know this is a lot for you to try and accept, Lex, but please believe me when I say that you are safe. I meant what I said about protecting you.”

Alex nodded numbly. He knew that, he did, and any minute now, he was going to get his voice back so he could tell Kal that he knew that. Finally, he managed to get his brain and his mouth working together again.

“F-father? You called him father?” he asked.

“Yes, Lex. This is Jor-El of Krypton. He is my first father.”

“Your father is a cave wall?”

Kal smiled at Alex’s words. “No, Jor-El is no longer living. This is sort of like his spirit, a memory of him.”

“I…see,” Alex said, even though he really, really didn’t.

“Lex, you know all the things I am able to do? Things that no other human on earth is capable of?”

Alex nodded, his voice seeming to have deserted him once again.

“That is because I…I am not human, nor am I from earth,” Kal said softly and he stared hard into Alex’s eyes.

For the first time, Alex saw fear in Kal’s face. Fear that Alex would not be able to handle this, that he would reject Kal. Alex had always been an open-minded man, but this… This was almost too incredible for his mind to process. Alex’s brain began to whirl with the realization that Kal was alien to this planet, like those fantasy stories that Alex had read as a child, and he had powers, and he was an alien.

And then he looked again and saw the man who’d been his lover for the last two months, the man who’d made him feel more emotion, more joy, than any other person in his life. This was his Kal, who loved him, and had sworn to always protect him.

He could see the light dimming from Kal’s eyes the longer Alex stood not moving, just staring at him. Decision made, Alex stepped up to Kal and reached up to trace his fingers along the side of Kal’s face just the way Kal had so often done to him.

“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you’re mine, and I love you,” Alex said.

Kal’s whole body relaxed and he swept Alex up into a bone-crushing hug, followed by a deep kiss, and then more squeezing and hugging. Kal was laughing and telling Alex he loved him, and Alex could practically hear the relief flowing in his voice.

“Need to breathe here, Kal,” Alex gasped.

Guiltily, but still grinning like a loon, Kal set Alex back down on his feet, but kept hold of his shoulders as though he couldn’t bear to stop touching him. Alex liked that; he liked it a lot.

“So, my Son, you have chosen a mate. This is good, for you will need a companion by your side during your life on this planet.”

“Yes, Father. This is Alexander Luthor, and he is…” Kal stared at Alex with his every emotion shining in his eyes, and Alex had never seen him quite this open before. “He is everything.”

“As you are to me, Kal,” Alex said.

“This is what mishidhal means, Lex. Soul mates.”

“Yes,” Alex agreed, and he was suddenly eager to know more, to know everything. “Tell me more about your planet.”

“It would be easier to show you, Alexander Luthor,” Jor-El’s voice interrupted.

They both turned to look at the glowing lights where Jor-El’s memory resided. “Show me how?” Alex asked.

A brightly colored beam of energy shot out of the metal piece Kal had placed into the wall, and completely enveloped Alex. Gasping aloud as a multitude of images began flashing through his head, Alex suddenly knew everything. He saw the beauty that the planet Krypton once was. He watched as Jor-El pleaded with the council to believe him about their world’s imminent destruction, only to see his warnings go unheeded. He grieved and hoped along with them as Jor-El and Lara placed infant Kal-El into a tiny space pod to send him across the stars so that their son might live.

Alex fell to his knees with a shudder as the beam left him, and for a moment, he couldn’t speak. His brain felt stuffed full of all that he had seen and learned, and he breathed harshly as he tried to process it.

“Father, you could have given him a little warning!” Kal was shouting at the wall, a bit angrily.

Alex laughed softly, touched at Kal’s concern for him.

“I’m fine, Kal, it was just a bit startling, that’s all.”

Kal jerked his gaze to him in surprise. “Did you understand what I said?”

“Yes?” Alex said, wondering why Kal seemed so shocked.

“I was speaking Kryptonian,” Kal said, his eyes wide. “And now that I think of it, so are you!”

“Wow,” Alex replied. “I guess he gave me more than a history lesson then.”

They spent another couple of hours in the cave, while Kal answered every question Alex could think to ask. It was information overload, but Alex was more ecstatic than he’d ever been in his life. At least one hour of that was devoted to examining Kal’s spaceship, which was hidden in the caves.

Kal remembered very little about his time before the Kents, although he did always know that he was not from earth. Alex felt very honored when Kal told him that he had never revealed this information to anyone, not even the farmers who’d taken him in.

Jonathan and Martha Kent had found a young Kal-El wandering near their small homestead, and had immediately taken him in, figuring that he’d lost his parents in that odd storm that had so devastated Smallville. Their farm was closer to Granville, and so was spared any damage. Alex and Kal realized that the Kents must have found him literally hours after the two of them had their encounter in the field.

Once Star Child, as Great Father had named him, settled in with the Kawatche, he had given little thought to the way he’d arrived on the planet…until four years ago when he’d turned eighteen. He began to have odd dreams, of a man that looked like him, but that he somehow sensed wasn’t himself. The thing that puzzled young Star Child more was the nearly overwhelming need to go and look for something that had been lost to him.

One night, Star Child could stand it no longer, and he followed the urge, letting it lead him as he used his speed to blur across the Kansas countryside. Buried deep within a hole, and glowing as it called out to him was a small octagonal shaped piece of metal. This key led him to a nearby field where he found something else.

As he’d stood looking down at his spaceship, long hidden in the middle of an abandoned field near the dead town of Smallville, Star Child felt a sense of homecoming that he’d never felt before.

When the ship directed him to the caves where he spoke to his birth father for the first time, Kal-El finally remembered his true name, and had called himself that ever since.

Kal was eventually able to convince Alex that they’d spent enough time in the caves for now, and that they needed to return to the village before they were missed. He promised Alex that they would return soon, and Alex pouted slightly, but admitted grudgingly that he agreed it was time to go.

Alex might have gotten a little carried away in his excitement about all he had learned in the caves, because when they got back to their teepee, he couldn’t stop talking. Kal gave him an exasperated glare, because it was still very early in the morning and he wanted to sleep, but Alex was having none of that.

Alex was bursting with ideas of things they could do, places they could go, everything they could accomplish with the knowledge they had and the power that Kal possessed. He kept poking at Kal, questioning why he was wasting his time in a small Indian village when he could be conquering the world.

“Lex!” Kal finally shouted.

Alex paused long enough to give him a surprised glance.

“The world is not ready for the likes of you and me, not yet. Do not worry, we will have plenty of time to enact all these grand plans of yours. Right now, the Kawatche are my responsibility, and I take that responsibility very seriously. Great Father is old and he knows that he will not live much longer. He has entrusted care of his people to me, and I will not let him down,” Kal said carefully.

Alex felt shamed that he’d let his enthusiasm get the better of him. The Kawatche had spared his life and taken him in, just as they’d taken Kal in so many years ago. He apologized to Kal, and promised to try and be more patient.

“But once we do decide to conquer the world, can we make sure that it’s my father’s job to massage our weary feet at the end of every day?” Alex whispered into Kal’s ear, and was pleased when his mishidhal laughed.

~*~*~

Since it appeared that he’d be spending the next several years of his life as the mate of an Indian chieftain, Alex decided he’d better truly become a part of the Kawatche tribe. Fortunately, his experience with Jor-El had given him not only the ability to speak Kryptonian, but fluent Kawatche as well.

Three more blissful months passed, in which Alex developed friendships within the tribe apart from Kal, including a young man named Owl Feather, truly someone after Alex’s own heart. The boy was about fifteen, and on the verge of his manhood ceremony, but he still had all the playfulness of a child. He and Alex had somehow become involved in a prank war, and were constantly trying to outdo one another.

Without the constant stress of dealing with Gray Deer’s jealousy, Kal seemed much more relaxed and happy. One day, he came stomping out of the teepee and marched over to Owl Feather. Everyone in the village came to a screeching halt and stared at Star Child, whose face, hair, and shoulders were completely drenched in a vivid blue liquid for some reason.

Owl Feather had swallowed nervously, stammering that the prank had been intended for Alex, not him. Star Child was not well-known for his patience, or for his toleration of others messing about in his private space. They were all taken utterly by surprise when Star Child threw his head back and laughed, ruffling Owl Feather’s hair and forgiving him, although he did warn him that he’d better never be caught in the middle of the war between Owl Feather and Alex again.

Alex could barely recall what his life was like before he’d known Kal. With the ‘death’ of the Luthor heir, work on the railroad had ground to a halt, and the Kawatche had not felt the need to defend their territory in many months. Alex sometimes found himself wondering whether his father missed him, whether he mourned the loss of his only child or not, but he didn’t dwell on it often. All he had to do was look at Kal to realize how very lucky he was.

Looking back on things in the years to come, Alex realized he should have remembered that luck can change from good to bad all too quickly.

~*~*~

Alex yawned, and stretched as he woke from a refreshing sleep. Kal had been particularly energetic last night, so the rest had definitely been needed. He smiled lazily as he recalled some of the things they’d gotten up to. He looked around and saw that Kal was already gone, probably headed out on the weekly hunt with the other warriors.

With a sigh, he stood up and dressed quickly, heading out of the teepee towards the river for a quick wash, answering greetings called to him with a wave. By the time he returned, the sun in the sky told him it was already mid-morning. He’d slept in without meaning to and now he was going to be behind in his tasks, damn it. Hopefully, Kal wouldn’t get too upset, since Alex planned to blame it on him anyway.

Kal had trained him in the making of the tribe’s arrows, and that was now Alex’s responsibility. Kal still did the hatchets himself, and it was the job of each warrior to construct his own bow, but Alex now made most of the arrows the tribe used. Soon, he hoped to be able to join the warriors in the hunts, as Kal was also teaching him how to use a bow and arrow.

Alex gathered his materials and headed out to the center of the village to get to work. Maybe he’d be able to get caught up before Kal and the others got back. As he passed Owl Feather, who was helping his mother repair torn clothing, Alex gave him a playful glare and vowed revenge for the latest attack in their war. Owl Feather laughed and taunted him in return.

The rest of the tribe had truly accepted Alex’s place in Kal’s life when they saw him using the blade that Kal had previously never allowed anyone else to touch. The Kawatche knew it had some sort of significance to Star Child, even if they didn’t know what it was.

Alex and Kal knew, of course, that the blade was Kryptonian, and had been left in the cave by some visitor from Krypton in centuries past. Kal had liked the look of it and decided to keep it for his own. That he allowed Alex to use it spoke volumes about how important Alex was to him.

The attack, when it came, was swift and completely unexpected.

There was the sudden report of a rifle shot, so out of context that it took Alex a moment to place exactly what it was. By the time he did, two more shots had rung out and three of the women nearby who had been chatting peacefully moments before were sprawled dead on the ground.

The others began screaming in fear, and in a panic, they tried to get up and run, but the village was suddenly swarmed with men wearing uniforms. Soldiers! Alex could not believe they’d been found. He knew for a fact that his father’s people had been looking for the Kawatche village for years and had never been able to locate it.

Not all of the men were on the hunt, and those who remained quickly began to fight back. Their bows and hatchets might not have been as sophisticated as the guns and rifles of the soldiers, but they were just as accurate and deadly. Soon, there were almost as many of them on the ground dead or dying as there were Kawatche.

In the confusion, Alex was desperately trying to gather up the women and the children who were too young to fight. He shouted at them, attempting to lead them out of the village to hide in the forest. As he ran by a teepee, he caught sight of Owl Feather struggling with a soldier who was fighting him hand-to-hand. Alex ran towards them, grabbing a discarded rifle from the ground. With a hefty swing, he used it as a club on the back of the soldier’s head.

The man crumpled to the ground and Alex looked up into Owl Feather’s wide, frightened eyes. Trying to calm himself down as well, Alex reassured the boy.

“It’s going to be all right. I need you to do something, Owl Feather. You need to run, faster than you ever have before, and find Star Child and the rest of the warriors. Tell them what’s happened, and they’ll come to help. Can you do that?”

“Yes, Alex, I can do that,” Owl Feather said, his voice faint, but Alex could see he was trying to be brave.

“Go, then. Hurry!” Alex said. He watched for a moment as Owl Feather turned and ran towards the forest. As well as being their biggest joker, the boy was the village’s fastest runner - other than Kal, of course - and Alex could only hope that he would find the others in time.

The odds were very much against them, and the Kawatche were slowly losing the battle, as more and more of them fell victim to the bullets the soldiers fired. Alex fought his way towards the direction he’d sent the women and children, hoping that at least some of them had made it to safety. He was dismayed to see that the soldiers were following the ones who were fleeing into the woods, searching them out, and dragging them back to the village to be slaughtered.

He staggered forward as something slammed into his back, and before he could move, a hand was pushing his left arm sharply up behind his back, ripping the Kryptonian blade from his grasp. The next thing Alex knew, he was being dragged out of sight of the battle, the blade was at his throat, and a malicious voice was whispering in his ear.

“I will find it a great pleasure to kill Star Child’s whore with his own blade,” the voice hissed.

It was Gray Deer. Alex couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it. Because if Gray Deer was with the soldiers, that could only mean that he’d betrayed his own people.

“Star Child will rip out your throat with his bare hands!” Alex grunted.

“You speak the language of the Kawatche now? You think that you are one of them? You’re nothing but a demon’s plaything, and I will gut you in front of him!”

“You don’t have Great Father’s necklace this time. You will never get away from him,” Alex said, as he struggled against Gray Deer’s hold.

“Oh, but I do have it. Great Father was the first one to die, and when Star Child comes for you, I will kill you and then I will watch as he weakens, and when his pain is so great that he can no longer move, then I will kill him, too.”

“Why have you done this?” Alex asked, and then cried out in pain as Gray Deer wrenched his arm a little harder.

“Because the Kawatche turned their backs on me! Great Father chose a demon over his own flesh! I was supposed to be the leader of our people, and instead my father allowed a monster to cloud his mind and weaken his will.”

Gray Deer laughed, and a chill ran up Alex’s spine at the slightly manic tinge to the sound. Kal should have killed this lunatic when he had the chance.

“Great Father thought I would perish from being banished? Hah! I found the perfect revenge! I went to your father, demon whore.”

“What?” Alex gasped.

“Yes, I may not speak the white man’s tongue as well as Star Child, but I speak enough. I went to the camp where the railroad workers are, told them I knew where you were, told them I wanted to speak to Lionel Luthor.”

Alex couldn’t help the sob that escaped his throat. This massacre was all his fault! God, he wished Kal had killed Gray Deer during the challenge. If Alex got the chance, he was going to kill Gray Deer himself for bringing this hell down on innocent women and children.

“I don’t think your father was too happy when I told him you were letting an Indian fuck you and keep you as his whore. That was when he talked to the soldiers,” Gray Deer taunted. “In exchange for letting me be the one to kill Star Child, I led them here. Of course, I was not supposed to kill you. This was to be a rescue, although I don’t think your father was going to be very nice to you when he got you back. But I don’t think anyone will be suspicious if you are accidentally killed during the fighting, do you?” Gray Deer said, and Alex could hear the sneer in his voice.

“Gray Deer! Let him go!”

Kal’s voice had never sounded so good to Alex. He would get them both out of this somehow. Alex had faith in his mishidhal; he would not allow them to die at this coward’s hand. Still, Alex needed to warn him about the necklace.

Gray Deer had turned eagerly at Kal’s warning, and now both he and his hostage could see him clearly standing about twenty feet away.

“Kal! He has-” Alex started to say in Kryptonian and then choked as Gray Deer pressed the knife into his throat.

“Shut up, demon whore. I don’t know your words, but you will not warn him,” Gray Deer whispered furiously into Alex’s ear.

“I know, Lex,” Kal replied to Alex’s aborted warning, also using Kryptonian. “He has it on the wrist of the hand behind your back, if you can get it.”

“Stop using that demon language! You will not win here today, Star Child! I will kill him and bathe in his blood!” Gray Deer screamed, and that’s when Alex knew he had to do something quickly. Because the banished Kawatche was clearly no longer sane, and Alex feared he was really about to die at the maniac’s hand.

Alex might not have been a warrior, but he had learned a thing or two about dirty fighting while growing up listening to taunts about his lack of hair. He raised his left foot and brought it down hard on the instep of Gray Deer’s foot.

When the Indian cried out, he loosened his hold on Alex’s arm, and Alex twisted inside and away to avoid the blade at his throat, slamming his right fist into Gray Deer’s face as he did so. As it was, the knife still scraped his neck a little, but when he turned, he was still able to grab the necklace on Gray Deer’s wrist and rip it off. Alex threw it away as hard as he could, falling to the ground with the force of his motion.

Gray Deer roared with frustration, still standing there in shock. He looked up just in time to see Star Child give him an evil smile before he charged. Alex turned over just in time to see Kal literally appear in front of Gray Deer, he’d been moving so fast. He felt relief rush through his weary body. Kal would take care of that bastard this time for sure.

Alex’s eyes started to fall closed…and then he heard Gray Deer laughing hysterically.

Snapping back to attention, Alex couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Kal gave a strangled little cry, and stumbled backwards a step. On instinct, Gray Deer had thrust the blade he still held forward just as Kal had run up to him, and now the knife was buried deep in Kal’s stomach. Gray Deer still held onto the weapon and he continued to laugh as he pulled it from Kal’s belly and lifted it high victoriously, watching his enemy’s blood drip down his hand.

Kal clasped both hands over his wound, and fell to his knees, crying out in pain and agony. Gray Deer looked down at him, madness shining in his eyes.

“I win, Star Child! I have finally beaten you!”

Alex felt a white-hot rage suffusing his entire body, and before he even realized that he was moving, he was up and tackling Gray Deer to the ground. He felt strength he would never have guessed that he could possess and he used it to strip Gray Deer of the weapon that had hurt his mishidhal. Once, twice, three times he brought the blade savagely down into Gray Deer’s chest and neck, and Gray Deer wasn’t laughing anymore now.

Alex sat astride his foe’s vanquished body, tremors running through him, his breath coming in short, harsh gasps. He raised his arm to wipe away the blood that was covering his eyes, blurring his vision.

“L-lex…you have to…” Kal’s words stuttered to a halt as he wheezed, struggling to breathe.

Alex jerked, startled out of his stupor at the sound of Kal’s voice. Dropping the knife, he rushed to Kal’s side, trying to help him to his feet.

“I’ve got to get you out of here,” Alex said fearfully.

Kal shook his head, groaning in pain as Alex succeeded in getting him to his feet. He leaned heavily on Alex, almost making them both fall to the ground again.

“Have to…help the others…soldiers killing…” Kal gasped.

Alex took a quick look around them and knew, as much as it hurt his heart, that there was not much they could do for the Kawatche people now. The soldiers simply outnumbered them by too great a margin.

“It’s too late, Kal. We can’t-” Alex broke off as a sob threatened to choke him. “It’s too late,” he repeated. “But I’m not going to let you die, too.”

Kal’s body started to buckle again, and Alex had to strain to keep him upright. He fought off the rush of fear that swept through him at the realization that Kal might really die.

“Stay with me, Kal! Stay with me! You have to help me get you out of here. I can’t do it by myself. You need to use a little of that speed, love. I know you can do it. Just enough to get us to the caves, can you do that? If we can get to the caves, I know Jor-El can help us,” Alex pleaded.

He slapped Kal’s face lightly with his free arm, and tried to get him moving in the right direction. Kal took a stumbling step or two, raising Alex’s hopes. They shattered again when Kal gave a great sigh and collapsed to the ground, pulling Alex with him. Frantic, Alex rolled an unconscious Kal over to his back and screamed at him.

“NO! No, you don’t, you fucking alien bastard! You’re not going to do this to me! We have a destiny, remember, Kal?! You’re not leaving me to face it alone!” He grabbed Kal’s shoulders and shook him, trying to wake him up. Without realizing it, he switched instinctively to the Kryptonian language. “You promised me, Soul Mate! You promised to protect me! YOU PROMISED!”

Kal coughed and opened his eyes. “Stop…screaming at me,” he whispered.

Alex gave a half-hysterical bark of laughter, and switched back to English, which was much more satisfying to curse in. “You miserable fucker. You’d better get up off your ass and get us out of this mess.”

“Help me,” Kal said weakly, and reached his hand up to Alex.

Somehow, between the two of them, they got Kal back on his feet, and once again started stumbling towards the direction of the caves. Alex knew it was only luck that they hadn’t been spotted by any of the soldiers yet. And then that luck changed on him, too.

He heard a shout from behind them and risked a look over his shoulder. Easily half a dozen soldiers, running right towards them. Looking back at Kal, he tried not to let his desperation show, but he had to get Kal moving if they were going to live.

“Kal, you have to use your speed. It’s the only way and you have to do it now, or we are going to die. You swore to protect me. Are you going to let these soldiers kill me?” Alex said, his tone intense.

He was trying not to think of his words as selfish, but Alex knew the way Kal’s mind worked. The idiot would let himself be killed without a second thought, but he would do anything to protect his Lex. Hopefully, the notion would be enough for Kal to find some tiny spark of strength deep down inside and let him use his gifts now.

Kal grunted as he wrapped an arm around Alex and lifted him off the ground. He could only manage an inch or two, but it was enough. And then he ran. Alex could tell it was nowhere near his normal speed, but it was sufficient to get them away from the village. This tale would probably be told for years to come by the men who’d witnessed it. Alex had seen Kal take off running in super speed before. To those soldiers, it would appear as though Kal and Alex had vanished into thin air.

Unfortunately, Kal ran out of steam after only about thirty seconds. He slowed more and more until he finally stopped and fell to the ground, again taking Alex with him.

“No more…can…run…no more,” Kal panted, and Alex was alarmed at how pale he was.

“That’s all right. You did good, you got us out of there. I knew you could,” Alex praised him, even as he stood up and tried to get his bearings on where they were. He had no idea how far they had been able to go, but he guessed it was no more than four or five miles. The caves were probably at least another five miles away.

“Okay, we need to find some shelter. You can rest, I’ll take care of your wound, and then…then we’ll go on to the caves, and Jor-El will fix this. He will,” Alex said. He was uncertain if he was trying to reassure Kal or himself.

The fates decided to grant them a small boon, as Alex found a long abandoned shack - probably used by trappers before the Kawatche had either killed them or scared them off their land - a few hundred yards to the south of them. He hurried back to Kal with a little hope in his heart. He’d been expecting to have to build a lean-to, and this was much better. It would give Alex more time to take care of his mishidhal.

It felt like an Herculean effort, but Alex eventually got Kal to the shack and laid him down on the floor, fretting that he didn’t have any way to make it more comfortable. Kal’s breathing was shallow and labored, and Alex bit his lip with worry as he sat down beside him. He pried Kal’s hand away from the wound where it had been pressed almost since Gray Deer had yanked the blade out of his body.

When he did so, a flow of dark red blood gushed out of Kal and all over the floor. Kal shuddered and went completely unconscious again. Alex stared in horror at the injury, which was far, far worse than he’d realized.

“Oh, god,” Alex moaned. Kal was going to die and there was nothing he could do.

He had nothing to help him deal with this; no cloth to try and stop the bleeding, no needle to try and stitch the gaping flesh closed, not even any water to try and clean the area. Alex felt tears fill his eyes, and begin to stream down his face.

“Oh, god,” he repeated. “Don’t leave me, please don’t leave me,” he sobbed and laid his forehead on his lover’s chest, winding one hand into Kal’s hair. This was pain like he’d never known in his life. It had hurt losing his mother; he’d felt as though his heart had been ripped in half. To lose Kal would be like losing his soul. Kal was his mishidhal, his soul mate, his other half. Alex couldn’t bear it, he couldn’t.

He felt a tentative caress on the top of his head and looked up to see Kal smiling faintly at him, his eyes dulled with pain. Kal stroked his cheek in his familiar way, and Alex felt his heart squeeze.

“Will…always…love you,” Kal whispered. “Always…be with…you…in spirit,” he promised.

“I will always love you, too, but I don’t want your spirit, Kal. I want you! I can’t go on without you. I can’t,” Alex choked through his tears.

“My Lex,” Kal sighed, almost happily, and a dreamy smile crossed his face. Then his eyes slid closed and he stopped breathing.

“No! No, no, no, no,” Alex cried and pounded on Kal’s chest in fear and anger and frustration. No, he would not give up so easily! He was Alexander Joseph Luthor and one thing he had never been in his life was a quitter. Defiantly, he pressed both hands over the hole in Kal’s stomach, determined to do everything he could do to stop the bleeding, if he had to hold it in Kal’s body with the sheer force of his own will.

A bright light blossomed under his hands, flowing upward and outward and swallowing up both Kal and Alex completely. Alex gaped at the energy pulsing from himself to Kal, and noted in wonder that it felt soothing and cool where it seemed it should have felt hot. He could feel the hum and buzz of it through his whole body. It lasted for several seconds before it gradually diminished, slipping away and leaving Alex feeling as though he’d been wrapped in a comforting embrace.

Alex lifted his hands up in front of him and stared at them incredulously. Kal gasped in a huge breath of air, and gave a little cough before falling still once more. Only now he seemed to be relaxed in sleep instead of unconscious. And he was breathing!

Alex’s gaze fell to Kal’s stomach and his breath caught in his throat in awe. He lowered his face to the level of Kal’s belly and looked again to be certain that he wasn’t dreaming. The wound was completely healed. There was nothing there but a small scar, vaguely in the shape of the Kryptonian blade.

Hesitantly, he reached his hand up and rubbed it across the blood-stained, but whole, skin of Kal’s torso. He started crying again, only this time his tears were ones of joy and relief. Alex wasn’t sure what exactly had happened, he just knew that he wasn’t going to lose Kal.

He stretched out beside Kal, wrapping his arms around his mishidhal protectively, and fell into an exhausted slumber.

~*~*~

Kal slept for two days, but Alex was no longer worried. He knew in his soul that Kal was going to be all right. In the meantime, Alex’s woodsman skills were being sorely tested. He didn’t want to wander too far away from Kal while he was asleep, and so he limited his hunting to within a few hundred yards of the shack. And since he had no weapons, he had to recall how Kal had shown him to fashion traps. He was most pleased when he was successful, and even more pleased when he was able to start a fire on his own.

He had even found a tiny stream of water that flowed nearby, no doubt the reason the original owners of the shack had built it in this spot in the first place. Still, his greatest moment of happiness came when Kal finally opened his eyes.

They stayed in the shack for another couple of days while Kal regained his strength. Then the only decision to make was whether to go to the caves first to check in with Jor-El, or to attempt to go back to the village, to see if anyone else had survived.

Alex voted for the caves as he had a lot of questions about just how he had managed the healing, but Kal had no answers for him and almost as many questions himself. However, Kal was anxious to go to the village and find out the fate of the people he considered himself responsible for.

Alex didn’t want him to go back there at all, because he knew the odds were that no one else had lived through the attack, but Kal was insistent. So, on the fifth day, after they were both confident that Kal was back to full health, he picked Alex up and ran back to the Kawatche village.

It was just as bad as Alex had feared it would be. Every man, woman, and child had been slain, some of the females showing signs of having been raped before they were killed. Kal and Alex both had to fight back tears as they methodically buried friends and family. Alex nearly lost it when he came upon Owl Feather’s body, mere yards from the spot where Alex had last spoken to him. They comforted one another silently, touching and embracing often, saddened to have lost their adopted family, but grateful to still be alive themselves.

When they could do no more, Kal once again picked Alex up and they sped to the caves. Jor-El listened as they explained what had happened in the Kawatche village and in the trapper’s shack.

“Alexander Luthor’s body has been altered, Kal-El, both by the meteor shower on the day you arrived, and by myself on the day you claimed him as your mate. Your life span will be long, my Son, and Alexander will now be able to share that with you. As for the healing, it is a rare and wonderful thing that sometimes happens between two deeply bonded souls. Truly, you should cherish the connection between the two of you.”

“We do, Father,” Kal said and gave Alex a warm, loving look.

“Yes, we certainly do,” Alex agreed as he returned his soul mate’s gaze.

They spent a few days in the caves, mourning and remembering the Kawatche people together, and then planning what they were going to do next. Alex knew they would have to deal with Lionel sooner or later, but he was perfectly willing to put that off until as much later as he could get away with.

“It looks like we will be exploring some of your plans and ideas sooner than we had thought, Lex,” Kal said.

“I’ve had a few new thoughts, too,” Alex said with a wicked grin.

“I suppose I will have to leave Star Child behind me now. It will be easier for us to travel as two white men than as a white man and an Indian,” he said wistfully.

“Yep, and that means you’ll have to cut your hair,” Alex said, the grin growing wider.

Kal grimaced at him. But then he shot Alex a wicked smile of his own. “Hah, but that means you will no longer be able to play with it and braid it.”

“Hmm, this is true. Maybe you could keep it a little long,” Alex admitted. He promptly reached over and began to braid a section of Kal’s hair. “Better do it while I still can,” he grinned. “What about your name? Kal-El is not exactly going to work either.”

“I don’t know. I had not thought of that.” He smiled indulgently as he tilted his head towards Alex so that he could reach his hair easier, and took the opportunity to steal a kiss as he did so.

“Well, you were once known as Clark Kent, weren’t you?”

“Yes, but that was so long ago,” Kal demurred.

“I like the name Clark. It has character,” Alex teased. “Tell you what. If you’ll go by Clark, I’ll start going by Lex.”

Kal pretended to think it over and then nodded, laughing as Alex playfully beat him on the nose with the braid he’d just finished. Lex leaned forward and kissed Clark, softly, tenderly, sealing the pact they’d just made.

Clark smiled when he pulled away and said, “Clark Kent and Lex Luthor. I like the sound of that.”

-fin-

Please remember to leave feedback!