(no subject)

Testing semagic - just re-downloaded it.

And Daughter Moonshine saw Sound of Music on TV last week. She bought her own copy today with allowance money. This is me, feeling proud of her. Sweet kid.

SV Community Fic Challenge. I hope.

I think it was the [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] who did a round robin fic last year that went multi-fandom and plenty fun. I'd like to attempt something similar here, but restricted to SV, and post "Shattered" pre "Asylum."

Here's what happens: I post the first part in this entry, and then you add to it in comments. You can do anything you want, because after the intro it's all yours. Keep the tone; change it; go surreal; go uber-real; continue to torture Lex; torture Clark; don't torture anyone; go het, gen, slash -- whatever. The only goal is to keep it going, the only rule not to end the thread before "Asylum" airs, January 14. No flames. Also? Give a few others a chance to post before posting again.

I obviously start this as a darkfic, but that's because that's my bent. Please don't let it limit you, because I think the fun of the challenge is to try to make our wildly different styles bank off each other in odd ways. For example, I like the thought of someone like happyminion turning this sucker completely away from darkfic because she loves Lex and can't stand to see him tortured. Anything can happen here.

If this project fails, I hope it fails spectacularly. Otherwise, I'd like to see us all just enjoying each other. Hurray imagination! Hurray community!

*****************************************
Here's the first part:

As the over-muscled orderly in powder blue scrubs wedges something thick and rubbery between his teeth, Lex thinks, "He knows. He knows. Clark knows, and he’s letting it happen anyway." Too many volts. The inevitable upshot of years as Lionel’s son. Sick irony of scubs that look like the sky on a good day.

Not even the dignity of a doctor overseeing the procedure. No. Instead he gets nurses checking their watches, waiting for their ancient equipment to charge. Shouldn’t a treatment this extreme require a specialist?

"Does this thing even work? They build a gorgeous facility and then stock it with old machines," Nurse Broadbosom , as he’s grown to think of her, says around her snapping gum. "Billionaire bean counters. Pains in the ass. Can you believe what they’re doing to the characters on Days?" They all join the soap opera gossip.

They don’t know whose son they’re about to electrocute. Electrocute? No. That’s capital punishment. This is therapy. Lex can’t talk around the wedge in his mouth. He thinks of orthodontics, the pain his dentist described as "discomfort" every time he tightened his braces - age twelve, cosmetic treatment. "Luthors don’t whine, son." Just a little Tylenol, Dad. Give me something, please. It hurts. "Cut it out, Lex. I don’t want to hear another ridiculous word about toothache." Not the first time his father called him a girl. Not the last. And braces. Well. They’re not exactly electroconvulsive therapy, now are they? He probably deserves what he gets for indulging such a whiny memory.

Lex pictures his dad flicking the switch.

Pictures Helen flicking the switch.

Pictures Clark.

Clark let them take him because of what Lex saw. He counts his blessings: 1, 2, 3. Dad. Helen. Clark. An exceptional year.

"This one’s dead." For a moment Lex thinks the nurse means him, but they’re fidgeting over the machine that won’t rev. The orderly offers to fetch another.

Broadbosom nods, drawing a pack of cigarettes from the waistband of her uiniform. "Join me outside for a smoke first?" He beams in reply, and Lex envisions the two detouring off to a custodial closet first for a quickie. Gruesome. He wishes their offspring ulcers, acne, and low SAT scores.

Lex has a catalogue of horrors, and he doesn’t much like how mundane this particular scenario feels. He prefers the atmosphere of the mansion for dealing with villainous types. Where’s the mood? Stained glass backlit by moon and stars? Glint of swords tastefully scattered here and there?

Or the drama of waking to an abandoned cockpit, wires torn loose and hanging, the sea rushing up to burst through a windshield not meant to take that kind of force?

In contrast he has the sour smell of his own body confined too many days in the same straightjacket. And the wallpaper -- red flowers tied with pink ribbon on a white background. He can’t abide the notion of experiencing this *torture* in such a ridiculous environment.

Even Rachel Dunlevy’s axe wielding perversion of domesticity beats this room, now.

When Lex becomes a very bad man, which he certainly intends to do, since everyone in his life has apparently conspired to make him one, he will treat his victims to the better clichés of suffering. Because this? The waiting? The ugly room? The ugly people? And the fucking LIGHT? Horrible.


***********************************************************

Okay. Your turn.