Ficlet: Inevitable | SR | Kitty(/Lex) | R | 1/1
Title: With Fortune's Hand II: Four Relationships They Wished They Could Forget: Inevitable
Fandom: Superman Returns
Characters/Pairing: Kitty Kowalski(/Lex Luthor)
Rating: Hard R (for language and references to rape)
Word Count: 556
Prompt: For the Superman Movieverse Pairings Challenge: Metropolis, smoke/ashes, dream; For hc_bingo: Rape/Recovery; For the 2010 DCU Free For All Autumn Challenge: Nightmare, Blood
Summary: Catherine can't escape what Lex did to her.
Disclaimer: DC and WB own everything, the schmucks.
Author's Notes: Third in the second part of the With Fortune's Hand Series. HUGE spoilers for Aftermath. And HOORAY, I have muses! \O/
Inevitable
Every once in a while-well, more like a few nights a week-Catherine still woke up screaming, tangled in her bedsheets and pleading to be let go. She knew she could hardly be blamed, considering what that... that monster did to her, but that didn't stop the tears and the self-loathing that came in a crashing wave just as soon as she realized she was alone in her bed and safe in her tiny apartment maybe twelve blocks from where she strongly suspected Superman lived with his wife and their family-not that she'd ever tell anyone that last bit.
Never mind that Lex was dead as a doornail, dropped by a shard of kryptonite to the back and a bullet to the brain. In the nightmares, he was alive and well, and she was still on The Heracles, pinned beneath his weight and handcuffed to a wall in the filthy hold. With his sickening sneer looming over her, he dug his fingertips into her shoulders as he used her again and again, bruising deep and tearing her flesh. She was nothing more than a fuck-toy to him, kept alive only to provide him entertainment while he waited for his plans to unfold.
There was no getting away, no slipping the handcuffs, no anything, not when she couldn't get enough breath to scream, didn't have the energy left to fight, was too dizzy from the drugs she knew he was pumping her with. Her whole world was swirling panic, utter terror, and blinding agony, all at Lex's hands. It-
A shuddering breath, and she was back in the present. Raking a hand through her tangled hair-grown out to its natural wavy brown these days-she blinked away the images that tried to persist behind her eyelids. She was in her bedroom in Metropolis, not on a boat. Her wrists were free, no cuffs, and she was wearing warm, clean pajamas, not a tattered, stained silk nightie.
And Lex was gone. She'd put that bullet in his forehead herself, right between his eyes, seen the furious light of rage go out of them as he'd fallen to the blood-streaked and kryptonite-dusted floor. Nothing but ashes now, with his body cremated twice over on her request, he couldn't hurt her anymore. Couldn't touch her. Couldn't threaten her. Never again. Especially not with the man that finally took her off that boat and away from the wreckage of Lex's madness living so close by. He'd never stand for it if Lex was alive, she was sure.
Pushing back the covers, she slipped out of bed and went to the little window that looked out on Hobb's River, just south of the bridge where she'd learned later that Lex had shot Superman and taken him prisoner. In the early autumn night, cold moonlight shone down on the dark water, headlights traversed the bridge, and the silhouettes of ships moved north on the river toward the bay and the harbor, the world going on as always, quiet and safe, as it had been since those horrible weeks came to an end four years ago.
Safe.
If only she could make herself believe it, when the nightmares were there every time she closed her eyes. When in her darkest dreams Lex smiled at her sweetly, and and she waited for the worst to come, inevitable, always, forever.
~*~*~*~
Fandom: Superman Returns
Characters/Pairing: Kitty Kowalski(/Lex Luthor)
Rating: Hard R (for language and references to rape)
Word Count: 556
Prompt: For the Superman Movieverse Pairings Challenge: Metropolis, smoke/ashes, dream; For hc_bingo: Rape/Recovery; For the 2010 DCU Free For All Autumn Challenge: Nightmare, Blood
Summary: Catherine can't escape what Lex did to her.
Disclaimer: DC and WB own everything, the schmucks.
Author's Notes: Third in the second part of the With Fortune's Hand Series. HUGE spoilers for Aftermath. And HOORAY, I have muses! \O/
Inevitable
Every once in a while-well, more like a few nights a week-Catherine still woke up screaming, tangled in her bedsheets and pleading to be let go. She knew she could hardly be blamed, considering what that... that monster did to her, but that didn't stop the tears and the self-loathing that came in a crashing wave just as soon as she realized she was alone in her bed and safe in her tiny apartment maybe twelve blocks from where she strongly suspected Superman lived with his wife and their family-not that she'd ever tell anyone that last bit.
Never mind that Lex was dead as a doornail, dropped by a shard of kryptonite to the back and a bullet to the brain. In the nightmares, he was alive and well, and she was still on The Heracles, pinned beneath his weight and handcuffed to a wall in the filthy hold. With his sickening sneer looming over her, he dug his fingertips into her shoulders as he used her again and again, bruising deep and tearing her flesh. She was nothing more than a fuck-toy to him, kept alive only to provide him entertainment while he waited for his plans to unfold.
There was no getting away, no slipping the handcuffs, no anything, not when she couldn't get enough breath to scream, didn't have the energy left to fight, was too dizzy from the drugs she knew he was pumping her with. Her whole world was swirling panic, utter terror, and blinding agony, all at Lex's hands. It-
A shuddering breath, and she was back in the present. Raking a hand through her tangled hair-grown out to its natural wavy brown these days-she blinked away the images that tried to persist behind her eyelids. She was in her bedroom in Metropolis, not on a boat. Her wrists were free, no cuffs, and she was wearing warm, clean pajamas, not a tattered, stained silk nightie.
And Lex was gone. She'd put that bullet in his forehead herself, right between his eyes, seen the furious light of rage go out of them as he'd fallen to the blood-streaked and kryptonite-dusted floor. Nothing but ashes now, with his body cremated twice over on her request, he couldn't hurt her anymore. Couldn't touch her. Couldn't threaten her. Never again. Especially not with the man that finally took her off that boat and away from the wreckage of Lex's madness living so close by. He'd never stand for it if Lex was alive, she was sure.
Pushing back the covers, she slipped out of bed and went to the little window that looked out on Hobb's River, just south of the bridge where she'd learned later that Lex had shot Superman and taken him prisoner. In the early autumn night, cold moonlight shone down on the dark water, headlights traversed the bridge, and the silhouettes of ships moved north on the river toward the bay and the harbor, the world going on as always, quiet and safe, as it had been since those horrible weeks came to an end four years ago.
Safe.
If only she could make herself believe it, when the nightmares were there every time she closed her eyes. When in her darkest dreams Lex smiled at her sweetly, and and she waited for the worst to come, inevitable, always, forever.
~*~*~*~