The House of the Earth Part 2 (6/8): Something Deeper Than Pain
Title: Chapter Six: Something Deeper Than Pain
Pairing/Characters: Kal/Bruce
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: NC-17
Word Count: 2900
Summary: A Kryptonian party causes problems for Kal and Bruce and things get complicated.
"Oh dear." Vek-Ozh's handsome face crinkled in almost ludicrous disappointment. "You didn't bring your human here in that?"
Kal glanced at Bruce, his head bowed, wearing black robes with the El crest subtly woven into them. "What's wrong with that?"
Vek looked like he was richly amused. "My dear Kal. It's just..." He waved his hands as if unable to express himself fully. "So...sober! But then, you Els are always so conservative." He shifted to English and addressed himself to Bruce. "You. Go upstairs. There are extra outfits in the room on the right. Change."
Bruce looked at Kal as if waiting for permission; with a start Kal realized he had to give it. "Do as he says, Brucie."
Vek took his arm to lead him into the dining hall. "Consider the outfit a gift. We'll send the old clothes along tomorrow. You're just the quaintest thing, Kal. Honestly." Kal was going to press him on the question of why Bruce's clothing was inappropriate again, but when they entered the hall the answer was abruptly clear to him.
On cushions next to each chair the human slaves crouched, dressed only in the skimpiest of silks and leathers. Some of the outfits didn't cover the privates, and a few of the slaves were totally naked. Kal felt himself starting to flush with embarrassment and anger. He took a deep breath, trying to center his mind. Embarrassment would be notable. He couldn't be notable.
He sat down and nibbled on the appetizers, making small talk with the Kryptonians next to him, trying to look natural. But when he looked over and saw Bruce enter the room, he knew he was failing utterly.
Bruce was wearing something like a robe of shifting silver mesh, loose and fluid over his body. Through the shimmering cloth you could easily see his muscled body, like pale stone under rippling water. With his eyes cast down and his hands clasped demurely in front of him, he looked entirely decorative. But Kal found himself remembering the strength and power of those arms, the tense vitality of the sinewy legs. The way those hands held a knife that separated life from death with delicate and unshakable conviction. In any way that truly mattered, Bruce was more powerful than anyone in this room.
Bruce took his place on the floor next to Kal's chair. Kal ruffled his hair affectionately and continued his conversation with a prominent Senator. As the Senator complained about taxation issues, Kal marveled that no other Kryptonian in the room seemed able to sense the contempt and fury that radiated from Bruce like silver flame. Kal could almost feel it, a blaze of energy around the other man as he listened, listened, picking up information, planning. How blind could his fellow Kryptonians be, to not see the fierce intensity and disdain right in front of their eyes?
The meal dragged on. There seemed to be some Kryptonians missing; people joked about habitual tardiness, about wanting to skip the boring stuff and come only when the fun began. Kal felt uneasiness crawl through him, queasy and dizzying. They'd get out of here before dinner was over, he reassured himself. Bruce would make his connection and they'd flee this room, flee its stifling closeness, the laughing anticipation. He glanced down at Bruce, but Bruce shook his head in the tiniest of negations. His contact wasn't here yet. Continue, Bruce's hands flickered briefly against his leg.
The dishes were being cleared away; Kal consumed a tiny dish of sorbet, tasting nothing, yearning for their little room and the silence there. No sanctuary, his mind whispered, but anything was better than this. Most of the older Kryptonians were saying their goodbyes now, some looking slightly disapproving, most giving playful winks to the younger members who stayed behind. There were about thirty Kryptonians and their personal slaves left in the room now; someone started to play a recording of Kryptonian music, a droning throb of reeded instruments.
The table was taken down and replaced by small stands beside each person; a slave put a goblet of something viscous and dark green on Kal's stand. He twitched and almost rose, but Bruce's arm around his leg warned him. Continue. He picked up the heavy goblet and sipped it very carefully; a burning warmth in his throat, heavy and insinuating. Something offworld, designed to affect Kryptonians. He put the goblet back down.
Vek's goblet was almost empty already. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bottle of white pills. "You'll like these," he said, handing them out around to crows of laughter. "This is the good stuff, straight from Rigel." He washed it down with the dregs of the green liqueur, smiling a sleepy and lopsided smile at Kal. "Loosen up a little, Kal. You're way too tense."
One of the Kryptonians nudged her slave with a foot. "Dance," she said in English. The slave girl began to whirl in the center of the room, a strange dervish of a dance. The Kryptonians clapped along with her movements, laughing, and while they watched Kal slipped the white pill into his pocket. Someone else shoved their male slave into the center as well. "Together, together," chanted the Kryptonians. There was some debate about if the girl was pretty enough or if the dancer they had last time was more comely. "Kiss her," someone called to the dancing couple, and the male slave pulled the female close and kissed her on the lips as they danced. The Kryptonians whooped. Someone had lit some kind of incense somewhere and the room was filling with some heavy, sleepy scent; Kal prayed it wasn't drugged as well.
"C'mere," Kal heard Vek slur in English beside him. He looked over to see Vek pulling his slave onto his lap. "That's it, pretty girl. Ah," Vek muttered, shoving her back and forth on his lap. "Move. Move, damn you." The woman ground up against him, winding her arms around his neck, and Vek grunted in satisfaction, his hands reaching to grasp at her breasts. The woman's face was blank as her hips moved against his.
Kal almost stood then. He looked down at Bruce, knowing his look was almost pleading, unable to help it. "I really ought to go," he said in Kryptonian, speaking to Vek, his eyes locked on Bruce's. Bruce's face was pale and set, grim and negating. No sanctuary.
Vek's voice was dreamy, clotted with lust and drugs. "Are you going to play with yours, Kal, or are you going to pass it on to someone who will? Shame to waste it just because you're a prude." Elsewhere around the room, other Kryptonians were watching their slaves kiss and caress each other, stripping off their clothes and urging them to mate. Some slaves were kneeling between their masters' legs. Kal felt sick and dizzy. Toys to be used and enjoyed and broken and replaced.
There were arms winding around his neck, a body pressed against his. Bruce had risen from his cushion. "Master, I live to serve," Bruce murmured. "Use me as you will, but don't cast me away."
Vek chuckled. "Smart boy. Not everyone here is as kind as Kal." He groaned and shifted underneath his slave, muttering a Kryptonian obscenity, his eyes dim.
Bruce leaned forward and put his lips very briefly to Kal's temple; closer to a salute than a kiss. Then he pulled himself onto Kal's lap, straddling the Kryptonian's legs, facing outward into the room. A couple of Kryptonians across the room whistled appreciatively and Bruce raised his arms to the ceiling, letting the loose mesh robe slip from his shoulders, leaving him bare from the waist up. His hands moved down to clasp Kal's thighs, then reached back for Kal's hands, pulling them around his waist, then lower.
There was soft cloth under Kal's hands, parting to give way to warm skin with strong muscles under it. Kal's fingers were on Bruce's inner thighs. "Oh, he's a bold one," someone said. "Look at that smile, the minx." Bruce's fingers entwined in his, urging them inward and upward until Kal could feel soft, soft skin under his hands, silken and vulnerable. Against his fingers, Bruce's twitched peremptorily: continue.
Cautiously, trying not to shake, Kal stroked at the satiny skin, feeling it slip under his hands. Bruce made a small noise and his back straightened slightly; beneath his fingers Kal could feel arousal hardening the softness, stiffening the silk. Kal curled his fingers around the rising heat and tightened just a little, running his thumb up and down along the shaft lightly. Bruce rocked forward, his hands coming down on Kal's knees, and pushed his hips against Kal's hand. On Kal's knees, through the silk of his robe, he could feel Bruce's fingers moving slowly, almost languidly: continue. There was a tremor running through his body somewhere, a long faint ripple like water. Bruce bunched up the robe until he could touch Kal's bare knees. His hands were shaking, the gesture breaking off, starting again. Con--Con--Continue. Kal tightened his grip just a little, feeling heat and heaviness, heat rising in his own body, smoldering.
"Ah," Bruce said. "Ah." Without any warning, he shifted backwards on Kal's lap until his body was tight against Kal's, the warm curve of him pressed hard against Kal's hips.
It was like a match to dry tinder; Kal's body flared uncontrollably, arousal heavy and tense against the cloth between them. Bruce made another wordless sound and shifted his hips against Kal's, the friction delirious and sweet.
He couldn't see Bruce's eyes. He wanted to see Bruce's face. Instead he stared at the delicate strength of the man's spine through his skin, at the scars twining down his shoulders. He felt a terrifying urge to put his lips to those marks of agony; instead he turned his head and rested his cheek against them, panting. He passed his thumb up the hot length in his hand again, feeling slickness at the tip; his hand slipped a bit faster and the shiver in Bruce's body deepened to a shudder. With his cheek pressed against Bruce's back, Kal could hear his hoarse breaths, the low moan trembling underneath them. "Rao," Kal said, unsure if Bruce could hear him over the music. "Oh Rao, I'm so sorry."
The tension in Bruce's body suddenly translated into motion; the human swiveled sharply on Kal's lap, swinging his leg over the Kryptonian's head in a fluid motion until they were face to face. Bruce put his hands on Kal's shoulders and shoved forward almost fiercely, thrusting hard against matching hardness. His face was flushed, his eyes half-closed and heavy. Kal shifted his hands to re-grasp Bruce's erection, hot and tight, and Bruce threw his head back at the touch, his mouth working. He made a guttural noise and his hands clenched on Kal's shoulders.
"Ah," he said. "Ah. Kal."
Kal stared, the world slowing down in shock; stared at the shape of his name on Bruce's mouth. Bruce bit his lip, his face strained and distant; but when Kal stroked him again he gasped as if it were dragged from him: "Kal. Yes." His face tightened into something beyond pleasure and he opened his mouth as if to say something more, then jolted forward with a look of blank and rapturous surprise. Kal could feel the sharp spasms under his fingers, the sudden wet warmth, but all he could see was Bruce's face and all he could hear was the hoarse, wordless noises Bruce was making.
As his climax slowed, Bruce shook his head sharply: once, then twice. He took a deep breath and turned his head cautiously, eyes wary.
No one was paying them any attention at all. Beside them, Vek had sunk into some kind of glassy stupor; most of the other Kryptonians were either similarly lost in a drugged haze or focused on their slaves' behavior.
No one had overheard them.
Bruce slid off Kal's lap with a brisk, businesslike motion that still caused enough friction to wrench a muffled moan from Kal's lips. He was aching, unsatisfied, in an agony of need; as Bruce cleaned himself off with a towel from the stand, he took deep breaths, focusing. The raging fire slowed to a dull burn that he could ignore. Bruce cast him an opaque look, entirely unreadable, then turned to pick his way through the crowd of half-conscious bodies to go to the side of a woman, her dark hair cut in a rather severe bob.
She hadn't been at the dinner; Kal recognized her master as a rising young scientist who was currently waving a hand in front of his eyes slowly, giggling slightly. As Bruce approached, she glanced at him, then past him to Kal.
Her eyes were hazel with flecks of green, like leaves and sunlight. There was a perfectly straight scar passing along one cheekbone like a silver line. Her eyes assessed Kal briefly, then turned back to Bruce without any change of expression. Bruce took her hand in a strangely formal gesture and leaned forward as if to embrace her, pulling her close. They looked like any other pair of cavorting slaves, but Kal could see their hands flickering in motions more complicated than the ones Bruce had taught him so far.
Eventually the woman smiled and broke away to go back to massaging her oblivious master's shoulders. Bruce met Kal's eye across the room and nodded very slightly. "I'm leaving now," Kal said to the snoring Vek, and headed for the door. Bruce caught up with him at the door and Kal took his chain in hand to lead him through the dark and silent streets of Metropolis. There were birds singing somewhere in the darkness, singing just as if the world made any sense at all.
: : :
The spheres hummed into life. Bruce stripped his stained clothing from himself with quick, economical motions, brutally ungraceful, making no attempt to shield his nakedness from Kal. He threw the clothes in the incinerator, then shrugged into a clean outfit. Kal stood silently in the middle of the room, his feet on the floor, balancing. Not looking at Bruce.
After he finished dressing, Bruce looked at Kal for the first time. "If I do that again, you are to strike me," he said. His voice was totally flat, his face expressionless. "If I call you by your name in public, you are to strike me across the face. Then you are to explain that it's a game we play, where I break the rules and you punish me. If I ever do that again."
Kal felt cold all over, a wave of numb shock. "No. No. I would rather die than ever harm you."
Bruce's jaw clenched as if he were chewing iron. "Then we will be exposed and we will probably both die and fail the rebellion utterly. Because I was weak. Because I wasn't able to--wasn't able to--" His voice cracked and rose to almost a shout. "--Wasn't able to control myself." He met Kal's eyes and whatever he saw there caused him to wince slightly. "Kal." He stopped and took a long, deep breath. "Kal. Self-control is the only kind of control I have in my life. I have lived for nothing beyond the day my people will be free. I have swallowed every slight, borne every insult, weathered every pain, for the vision of a world of free humanity. I thought..." He paused, his hands clenching. "All this time I've been wondering how I would handle the moment when your unruly emotions broke free in public, when you were unable to control yourself. And then I..." His laugh was mocking and mirthless. "I'm a fool."
He stepped closer to Kal and rested his hands on the Kryptonian's shoulders as if they were hot metal, as if they burned him beyond bearing to touch. "I need you to be stronger than me, Kal. If you care for me at all, you will do as I ask."
"And strike you down? For calling me what I want you to be able to call me freely?"
"Outside this circle, yes. Outside, where we are what the world says we are."
"And inside this circle?" Kal asked bitterly. "What are we inside?"
Bruce looked at him a long time. "I don't know," he said finally. There was pain in his eyes, and something below that pain, unreadable. "I don't know."
Something underneath it all, Kal thought, meeting those dark eyes. They were shadowed, haunted. Beautiful. Something deeper than pain.
"We have to go," Bruce said, lifting his hands from Kal's shoulders gently, deliberately. "The meeting is soon. We're lucky I managed to make the contact at all."
Kal nodded mutely and headed for the door, Bruce falling into step behind him once more, his silver-bound shadow.
That was the question, Kal thought as they passed through the silent streets again, the moon lighting their way:
What could possibly be deeper than pain?
Pairing/Characters: Kal/Bruce
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: NC-17
Word Count: 2900
Summary: A Kryptonian party causes problems for Kal and Bruce and things get complicated.
"Oh dear." Vek-Ozh's handsome face crinkled in almost ludicrous disappointment. "You didn't bring your human here in that?"
Kal glanced at Bruce, his head bowed, wearing black robes with the El crest subtly woven into them. "What's wrong with that?"
Vek looked like he was richly amused. "My dear Kal. It's just..." He waved his hands as if unable to express himself fully. "So...sober! But then, you Els are always so conservative." He shifted to English and addressed himself to Bruce. "You. Go upstairs. There are extra outfits in the room on the right. Change."
Bruce looked at Kal as if waiting for permission; with a start Kal realized he had to give it. "Do as he says, Brucie."
Vek took his arm to lead him into the dining hall. "Consider the outfit a gift. We'll send the old clothes along tomorrow. You're just the quaintest thing, Kal. Honestly." Kal was going to press him on the question of why Bruce's clothing was inappropriate again, but when they entered the hall the answer was abruptly clear to him.
On cushions next to each chair the human slaves crouched, dressed only in the skimpiest of silks and leathers. Some of the outfits didn't cover the privates, and a few of the slaves were totally naked. Kal felt himself starting to flush with embarrassment and anger. He took a deep breath, trying to center his mind. Embarrassment would be notable. He couldn't be notable.
He sat down and nibbled on the appetizers, making small talk with the Kryptonians next to him, trying to look natural. But when he looked over and saw Bruce enter the room, he knew he was failing utterly.
Bruce was wearing something like a robe of shifting silver mesh, loose and fluid over his body. Through the shimmering cloth you could easily see his muscled body, like pale stone under rippling water. With his eyes cast down and his hands clasped demurely in front of him, he looked entirely decorative. But Kal found himself remembering the strength and power of those arms, the tense vitality of the sinewy legs. The way those hands held a knife that separated life from death with delicate and unshakable conviction. In any way that truly mattered, Bruce was more powerful than anyone in this room.
Bruce took his place on the floor next to Kal's chair. Kal ruffled his hair affectionately and continued his conversation with a prominent Senator. As the Senator complained about taxation issues, Kal marveled that no other Kryptonian in the room seemed able to sense the contempt and fury that radiated from Bruce like silver flame. Kal could almost feel it, a blaze of energy around the other man as he listened, listened, picking up information, planning. How blind could his fellow Kryptonians be, to not see the fierce intensity and disdain right in front of their eyes?
The meal dragged on. There seemed to be some Kryptonians missing; people joked about habitual tardiness, about wanting to skip the boring stuff and come only when the fun began. Kal felt uneasiness crawl through him, queasy and dizzying. They'd get out of here before dinner was over, he reassured himself. Bruce would make his connection and they'd flee this room, flee its stifling closeness, the laughing anticipation. He glanced down at Bruce, but Bruce shook his head in the tiniest of negations. His contact wasn't here yet. Continue, Bruce's hands flickered briefly against his leg.
The dishes were being cleared away; Kal consumed a tiny dish of sorbet, tasting nothing, yearning for their little room and the silence there. No sanctuary, his mind whispered, but anything was better than this. Most of the older Kryptonians were saying their goodbyes now, some looking slightly disapproving, most giving playful winks to the younger members who stayed behind. There were about thirty Kryptonians and their personal slaves left in the room now; someone started to play a recording of Kryptonian music, a droning throb of reeded instruments.
The table was taken down and replaced by small stands beside each person; a slave put a goblet of something viscous and dark green on Kal's stand. He twitched and almost rose, but Bruce's arm around his leg warned him. Continue. He picked up the heavy goblet and sipped it very carefully; a burning warmth in his throat, heavy and insinuating. Something offworld, designed to affect Kryptonians. He put the goblet back down.
Vek's goblet was almost empty already. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bottle of white pills. "You'll like these," he said, handing them out around to crows of laughter. "This is the good stuff, straight from Rigel." He washed it down with the dregs of the green liqueur, smiling a sleepy and lopsided smile at Kal. "Loosen up a little, Kal. You're way too tense."
One of the Kryptonians nudged her slave with a foot. "Dance," she said in English. The slave girl began to whirl in the center of the room, a strange dervish of a dance. The Kryptonians clapped along with her movements, laughing, and while they watched Kal slipped the white pill into his pocket. Someone else shoved their male slave into the center as well. "Together, together," chanted the Kryptonians. There was some debate about if the girl was pretty enough or if the dancer they had last time was more comely. "Kiss her," someone called to the dancing couple, and the male slave pulled the female close and kissed her on the lips as they danced. The Kryptonians whooped. Someone had lit some kind of incense somewhere and the room was filling with some heavy, sleepy scent; Kal prayed it wasn't drugged as well.
"C'mere," Kal heard Vek slur in English beside him. He looked over to see Vek pulling his slave onto his lap. "That's it, pretty girl. Ah," Vek muttered, shoving her back and forth on his lap. "Move. Move, damn you." The woman ground up against him, winding her arms around his neck, and Vek grunted in satisfaction, his hands reaching to grasp at her breasts. The woman's face was blank as her hips moved against his.
Kal almost stood then. He looked down at Bruce, knowing his look was almost pleading, unable to help it. "I really ought to go," he said in Kryptonian, speaking to Vek, his eyes locked on Bruce's. Bruce's face was pale and set, grim and negating. No sanctuary.
Vek's voice was dreamy, clotted with lust and drugs. "Are you going to play with yours, Kal, or are you going to pass it on to someone who will? Shame to waste it just because you're a prude." Elsewhere around the room, other Kryptonians were watching their slaves kiss and caress each other, stripping off their clothes and urging them to mate. Some slaves were kneeling between their masters' legs. Kal felt sick and dizzy. Toys to be used and enjoyed and broken and replaced.
There were arms winding around his neck, a body pressed against his. Bruce had risen from his cushion. "Master, I live to serve," Bruce murmured. "Use me as you will, but don't cast me away."
Vek chuckled. "Smart boy. Not everyone here is as kind as Kal." He groaned and shifted underneath his slave, muttering a Kryptonian obscenity, his eyes dim.
Bruce leaned forward and put his lips very briefly to Kal's temple; closer to a salute than a kiss. Then he pulled himself onto Kal's lap, straddling the Kryptonian's legs, facing outward into the room. A couple of Kryptonians across the room whistled appreciatively and Bruce raised his arms to the ceiling, letting the loose mesh robe slip from his shoulders, leaving him bare from the waist up. His hands moved down to clasp Kal's thighs, then reached back for Kal's hands, pulling them around his waist, then lower.
There was soft cloth under Kal's hands, parting to give way to warm skin with strong muscles under it. Kal's fingers were on Bruce's inner thighs. "Oh, he's a bold one," someone said. "Look at that smile, the minx." Bruce's fingers entwined in his, urging them inward and upward until Kal could feel soft, soft skin under his hands, silken and vulnerable. Against his fingers, Bruce's twitched peremptorily: continue.
Cautiously, trying not to shake, Kal stroked at the satiny skin, feeling it slip under his hands. Bruce made a small noise and his back straightened slightly; beneath his fingers Kal could feel arousal hardening the softness, stiffening the silk. Kal curled his fingers around the rising heat and tightened just a little, running his thumb up and down along the shaft lightly. Bruce rocked forward, his hands coming down on Kal's knees, and pushed his hips against Kal's hand. On Kal's knees, through the silk of his robe, he could feel Bruce's fingers moving slowly, almost languidly: continue. There was a tremor running through his body somewhere, a long faint ripple like water. Bruce bunched up the robe until he could touch Kal's bare knees. His hands were shaking, the gesture breaking off, starting again. Con--Con--Continue. Kal tightened his grip just a little, feeling heat and heaviness, heat rising in his own body, smoldering.
"Ah," Bruce said. "Ah." Without any warning, he shifted backwards on Kal's lap until his body was tight against Kal's, the warm curve of him pressed hard against Kal's hips.
It was like a match to dry tinder; Kal's body flared uncontrollably, arousal heavy and tense against the cloth between them. Bruce made another wordless sound and shifted his hips against Kal's, the friction delirious and sweet.
He couldn't see Bruce's eyes. He wanted to see Bruce's face. Instead he stared at the delicate strength of the man's spine through his skin, at the scars twining down his shoulders. He felt a terrifying urge to put his lips to those marks of agony; instead he turned his head and rested his cheek against them, panting. He passed his thumb up the hot length in his hand again, feeling slickness at the tip; his hand slipped a bit faster and the shiver in Bruce's body deepened to a shudder. With his cheek pressed against Bruce's back, Kal could hear his hoarse breaths, the low moan trembling underneath them. "Rao," Kal said, unsure if Bruce could hear him over the music. "Oh Rao, I'm so sorry."
The tension in Bruce's body suddenly translated into motion; the human swiveled sharply on Kal's lap, swinging his leg over the Kryptonian's head in a fluid motion until they were face to face. Bruce put his hands on Kal's shoulders and shoved forward almost fiercely, thrusting hard against matching hardness. His face was flushed, his eyes half-closed and heavy. Kal shifted his hands to re-grasp Bruce's erection, hot and tight, and Bruce threw his head back at the touch, his mouth working. He made a guttural noise and his hands clenched on Kal's shoulders.
"Ah," he said. "Ah. Kal."
Kal stared, the world slowing down in shock; stared at the shape of his name on Bruce's mouth. Bruce bit his lip, his face strained and distant; but when Kal stroked him again he gasped as if it were dragged from him: "Kal. Yes." His face tightened into something beyond pleasure and he opened his mouth as if to say something more, then jolted forward with a look of blank and rapturous surprise. Kal could feel the sharp spasms under his fingers, the sudden wet warmth, but all he could see was Bruce's face and all he could hear was the hoarse, wordless noises Bruce was making.
As his climax slowed, Bruce shook his head sharply: once, then twice. He took a deep breath and turned his head cautiously, eyes wary.
No one was paying them any attention at all. Beside them, Vek had sunk into some kind of glassy stupor; most of the other Kryptonians were either similarly lost in a drugged haze or focused on their slaves' behavior.
No one had overheard them.
Bruce slid off Kal's lap with a brisk, businesslike motion that still caused enough friction to wrench a muffled moan from Kal's lips. He was aching, unsatisfied, in an agony of need; as Bruce cleaned himself off with a towel from the stand, he took deep breaths, focusing. The raging fire slowed to a dull burn that he could ignore. Bruce cast him an opaque look, entirely unreadable, then turned to pick his way through the crowd of half-conscious bodies to go to the side of a woman, her dark hair cut in a rather severe bob.
She hadn't been at the dinner; Kal recognized her master as a rising young scientist who was currently waving a hand in front of his eyes slowly, giggling slightly. As Bruce approached, she glanced at him, then past him to Kal.
Her eyes were hazel with flecks of green, like leaves and sunlight. There was a perfectly straight scar passing along one cheekbone like a silver line. Her eyes assessed Kal briefly, then turned back to Bruce without any change of expression. Bruce took her hand in a strangely formal gesture and leaned forward as if to embrace her, pulling her close. They looked like any other pair of cavorting slaves, but Kal could see their hands flickering in motions more complicated than the ones Bruce had taught him so far.
Eventually the woman smiled and broke away to go back to massaging her oblivious master's shoulders. Bruce met Kal's eye across the room and nodded very slightly. "I'm leaving now," Kal said to the snoring Vek, and headed for the door. Bruce caught up with him at the door and Kal took his chain in hand to lead him through the dark and silent streets of Metropolis. There were birds singing somewhere in the darkness, singing just as if the world made any sense at all.
: : :
The spheres hummed into life. Bruce stripped his stained clothing from himself with quick, economical motions, brutally ungraceful, making no attempt to shield his nakedness from Kal. He threw the clothes in the incinerator, then shrugged into a clean outfit. Kal stood silently in the middle of the room, his feet on the floor, balancing. Not looking at Bruce.
After he finished dressing, Bruce looked at Kal for the first time. "If I do that again, you are to strike me," he said. His voice was totally flat, his face expressionless. "If I call you by your name in public, you are to strike me across the face. Then you are to explain that it's a game we play, where I break the rules and you punish me. If I ever do that again."
Kal felt cold all over, a wave of numb shock. "No. No. I would rather die than ever harm you."
Bruce's jaw clenched as if he were chewing iron. "Then we will be exposed and we will probably both die and fail the rebellion utterly. Because I was weak. Because I wasn't able to--wasn't able to--" His voice cracked and rose to almost a shout. "--Wasn't able to control myself." He met Kal's eyes and whatever he saw there caused him to wince slightly. "Kal." He stopped and took a long, deep breath. "Kal. Self-control is the only kind of control I have in my life. I have lived for nothing beyond the day my people will be free. I have swallowed every slight, borne every insult, weathered every pain, for the vision of a world of free humanity. I thought..." He paused, his hands clenching. "All this time I've been wondering how I would handle the moment when your unruly emotions broke free in public, when you were unable to control yourself. And then I..." His laugh was mocking and mirthless. "I'm a fool."
He stepped closer to Kal and rested his hands on the Kryptonian's shoulders as if they were hot metal, as if they burned him beyond bearing to touch. "I need you to be stronger than me, Kal. If you care for me at all, you will do as I ask."
"And strike you down? For calling me what I want you to be able to call me freely?"
"Outside this circle, yes. Outside, where we are what the world says we are."
"And inside this circle?" Kal asked bitterly. "What are we inside?"
Bruce looked at him a long time. "I don't know," he said finally. There was pain in his eyes, and something below that pain, unreadable. "I don't know."
Something underneath it all, Kal thought, meeting those dark eyes. They were shadowed, haunted. Beautiful. Something deeper than pain.
"We have to go," Bruce said, lifting his hands from Kal's shoulders gently, deliberately. "The meeting is soon. We're lucky I managed to make the contact at all."
Kal nodded mutely and headed for the door, Bruce falling into step behind him once more, his silver-bound shadow.
That was the question, Kal thought as they passed through the silent streets again, the moon lighting their way:
What could possibly be deeper than pain?