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The dream begins as it always does. He and Grayson are chasing some two-bit hood across the roofs of Gotham, feet scrabbling on the crazy angles, tiles slipping loose beneath to crash on the ground far below. The thug leaps, an amazing jump, adrenaline-fueled, and Grayson follows after.
Wayne is the older detective. Ten years on the force to Grayson's two. His foot slips and he skids down, clutching a gutter at the last minute. Fingers screaming protest, muscles and sinews crying out.
It continues as it always does. Dick's face above him, inching down the sloping roof, reaching for him. "Grab my hand, Bruce! Grab my hand!"
Bruce looks down. Far below him, Gotham's cobblestones spin in a dizzying pattern. He closes his eyes for a moment and misses the instant when Grayson's footing slips. A sharp gasp is the only sound his partner makes as he clatters past Bruce and into the open air, falling.
It ends as it always does. The body crumpled on the stones below, red pooled beneath it. He doesn't remember the hands that eventually help him up, doesn't remember much of anything. Just the vertiginous pattern beneath him, just the crawling nausea, just the panic.
It ends as it always does.
: : :
"Heard you retired from the force. That's rough, Bruce." Lex Luthor's voice was as unctuous as Bruce remembered it from their college days.
"A Gotham detective that's afraid of heights isn't going to be of much help out there on the streets," Bruce noted. "I can't even climb a ladder without getting dizzy anymore." He shook his head. "With my family trust fund I don't need to worry about money, at least."
"But you always wanted to be a detective. You didn't need to take such drastic steps. You could have--"
"--done desk work? Me? No, Lex, that's not my style."
"It never was," Luthor said thoughtfully. He fiddled with a gold-plated pen, rolling it across his mahogany desk. Lex Luthor: recently returned from living in Europe, setting up a branch office in Gotham. That his money had been made war profiteering was not generally spoken out loud--at least, not more than once.
Bruce fidgeted, standing up from the overly-comfortable chair to adjust a gilt-framed print on the wall. "You didn't ask me here to give your condolences, Lex. Nor to reminisce about our school days. So what is it?"
Luthor's green eyes glinted. "Never one for the small talk, either." He pursed his lips, looking down at the pen. "I have an odd favor to ask of you, Bruce. I've decided to ask you because I know you can keep a confidence." He looked up at the detective. "I need you to follow my husband." Bruce rolled his eyes and Luthor continued hastily, "It's not what you think. Kal would never be unfaithful to me, it's not that. It's--it's more complicated than that."
Lex stood up and walked across the room to stand next to Bruce. Dropping his voice, he said, "Tell me, Bruce. Do you believe that the spirits of the dead can possess the living?"
Bruce drew back from the man's intense gaze, his lip lifting in scorn. "No. That's nonsense. And I can't believe a rational man like you would believe it either."
Lex sighed and turned away, his shoulders slumping. "Then you can't help me. Thanks, Bruce."
Seeing Lex this way--unflappable, cool Lex--piqued Bruce's curiosity. Besides, what else did he have to do with his time? "Well, why don't you tell me a little more about it," he said grudgingly, and Lex's eyes lit with hope again.
"Bruce, I'm at my wit's end. Lately, Kal's been--well, it's impossible to explain to someone who hasn't seen it. He'll be there one moment, and then the next--he's off in some other place, lost in his mind. Staring into space. Then he'll come to and smile like nothing's happened." Luthor shook his head and started pacing the room. "He wanders Gotham. Just leaves and disappears, no one knows where. He won't tell me, he acts as if I'm joking with him. I'm telling you, Bruce, when he's like that he looks different, he walks different. It's--uncanny." A long, almost shaky sigh. "I know it's bizarre, but I'm worried. So worried. Bruce, I just want to know what's going on."
Bruce shook his head, grimacing. "Forgive me for being blunt, Lex, but it sounds like he's just got a screw loose."
Lex's eyes glinted; he looked almost on the edge of tears. "Don't you think I know that? I just want someone I can trust to find out what he does before I start looking into...professional care."
"Arkham?"
Lex nodded gravely and Bruce shuddered. Lex leaned close to him. "Look, Bruce. We'll be at the Iceberg Lounge tonight. Just come by and see him for a moment, then let me know if you'll take the job, all right?"
He could never resist a mystery. Bruce nodded.
: : :
The Iceberg Lounge was cold. Bruce sat at the bar, nursing a gin and tonic. The restaurant was filled with weird blue-white light, refracting prisms from the walls and ceiling.
In the dining room proper Bruce could see Lex sitting at a table with another man. Kal Luthor's back was turned to Bruce; Bruce couldn't see his face. The ice in Bruce's drink clinked as he sipped from it.
Eventually, Lex rose from the table, smiling and taking the check. The other man rose too, turned and made his way out of the restaurant. As he passed through the bar Bruce got his first good look at Kal.
The man's face was almost eerily beautiful: cheekbones as sharp and fine as cut crystal, a sweetly curving mouth, startlingly blue eyes. One lock of dark hair fell across his forehead in an odd spiral shape, twisting. Above the scarlet sweater, his unsmiling face was pale--remote as the moon, or as a captive in fairyland. A faerie prince, enchanted.
Kal swept past Bruce and out the door, leaving Bruce sitting at the bar, as dizzy as if he had gazed off a precipitous height.
He knew even before Lex caught his eye that he would be taking the job.
: : :
The next day, Bruce was waiting in his car outside Luthor's apartment building. Kal emerged in a royal-blue jacket, his hair tossed slightly by the wind, and got into a tiny convertible.
Bruce followed him through the twisting Gotham streets. The route Kal took seemed to be almost random, winding lazily along. He finally parked near Gotham Cathedral. Bruce followed him into the graveyard behind the massive church, keeping a safe distance. The figure in blue wandered between the gravestones, finally stopping in front of one. For a long time he stood silent and still, staring at the stone. Then he knelt down, reached out, and brushed his fingers across the stone lightly. Standing abruptly, he made his way out of the graveyard.
Bruce hurried to the tilted slate stone Kal had stopped at, reading the blurred and lichen-covered inscription hastily. Arise Mather, 1680-1711. Nothing else.
The wrought-iron gate clicked behind Kal and Bruce moved to catch up.
The convertable wound through the city once more, ending up this time in front of Gotham Art Museum. Bruce followed him as he paced slowly, deliberately through the halls, finally stopping in front of a large painting. Staring at it fixedly, he sank down onto the bench facing it.
Nearly an hour later, he was still staring up at it, unmoving. This gave Bruce plenty of time to study both the man and the painting from his vantage point at the door.
The painting was of a young man, staring out of the canvas with an enigmatic smile on his face. He was wearing a scarlet shirt, somewhat open at the neck, one hand raised in a gesture that seemed almost like an esoteric symbol.
His face was a nearly perfect match for that of the man sitting beneath it, gazing at it raptly. Even their hair was the same--the same twisting lock of black hair falling between the eyes. But where the sapphire eyes of the portrait were sharp and knowing, the eyes of the real man in front of it were abstracted, dreamy, lost.
Bruce looked from one to the other. After a while he realized he had been staring at Kal's face for almost twenty minutes, nearly as lost in contemplation as the other man was. He shook himself a bit and gestured to a guard. "Could you tell me a little more about the painting that young man is sitting in front of?" he asked quietly, pointing to the portrait.
The guard handed him a small booklet, opened to a description: Portrait of Arise Mather. Artist unknown, c. 1708. Arise Mather was the son of the mayor of Innsmouth. Accused in one of the last witch-trials of the United States.
Bruce looked up from the booklet to see that Kal had arisen from the bench and was making his way toward the door. Bruce shrank back, but Kal's brilliant, almost glassy gaze didn't flicker as he walked past Bruce again, his bright blue coat almost brushing the detective.
Kal's convertible made its way through Gotham, eventually ending up at the piers. The graceful figure made its way along the wharf. A thick fog had come up, shrouding the pier in mist, but Kal continued to stare out at the ocean as if it weren't completely hidden. Bruce followed at a safe distance, mesmerized by the drifting fog, which revealed and obscured Kal in turn. All sounds were muffled by the mist enveloping the two of them.
Kal stopped at the end of the pier, gazing out into the mist.
Then, without any warning at all, he stepped off into the ocean.
Bruce was in the water almost before he realized it, cold biting through his clothes, bitter icy water numbing him. He spotted Kal drifting nearby, his eyes closed, face pale and serene as if he were already dead--Bruce felt panic strike through him and in a surge of motion had his arms around the other man, dragging him to the edge of the water, lifting him out.
Kal's eyes had opened as Bruce touched him and were still fixed on him, dazed and uncomprehending. He started to stand, his clothes streaming water, then crumpled forward into Bruce's arms.
: : :
The cramped Gotham apartment was still silent. Bruce turned another page in the book he was reading. In the tiny kitchen, a pair of slacks and a maroon sweater hung above a heater, wisps of steam rising off them. Bruce turned another page, not really seeing the words in front of his eyes, remembering the sensation that had run through him when Kal had met his eyes for the first time, there in the freezing waters.
He heard a rustle of sheets in the bedroom, and rose to walk to the door. Kal was moving restlessly, his eyes still closed. "Fly away," he muttered indistinctly. "Free, free, fly away...fly..." His voice trailed off into a ragged sigh and his eyes opened and fixed on Bruce, luminous and oddly vulnerable. Then they went sharp and wary again. "Who are you? What am I doing here?" He started to move and then froze. "Where are my clothes?"
Bruce couldn't help smiling just a bit at the man's discomfiture. "You decided to go swimming in Gotham Bay. I fished you out--your clothes are drying in the kitchen."
The wariness gave way to bemusement. "Swimming? What--I don't know what you're talking about."
Bruce gave him a long look as Kal bit his lip, gaze focused inward. "Here," he said nonchalantly, tossing a black silk bathrobe on the bed. "Change into that and we'll talk."
Turning his back and leaving the room was surprisingly difficult.
Sounds of cloth being adjusted from the bedroom. Bruce fixed two cups of tea. Kal's skin under his hands had been almost as white and smooth as the china. He took a deep breath and focused on the tea.
The bedroom door opened and Kal came out in Bruce's bathrobe, pulling it tight over his chest almost defensively. Bruce gestured to the teacups and a chair, and he sank into the chair gracefully, eyeing Bruce. Then he reached out a hand. "I have to thank you for saving me, apparently. My name is Kal, Kal Luthor."
Bruce took the hand briefly. "Bruce Wayne. So," he asked as Kal took a sip of tea, "How did you come to fall into the bay?"
Kal's eyes were cautious. He absent-mindedly twined the lock of hair on his forehead around a finger; it fell into place, spiraling. "Did I fall in? I...can't remember anything." He frowned. "The last thing I remember is getting in my car."
"Where were you going?"
Kal shook his head. "Just...wandering. I like to wander the city sometimes. I haven't been here long, and it's all so strange and interesting. So I...wander."
"I like to wander too," Bruce said.
A sudden very sweet smile. The first time Kal smiled at him. "I'm glad I'm not the only wanderer."
Bruce still was deciding how to respond to that when his phone rang. He smiled reassuringly at Kal. "This should only be a moment," he said, stepping into the bedroom and closing the door to take the call.
"Bruce? It's Barbara. I've been going through those old Gotham records you asked for." Dr. Barbara Gordon was a professor at Hudson University, specializing in Gotham history, but she seemed to know just about everything; she was one of the Gotham police department's most reliable researchers. "Arise Mather, Innsmouth witch trials? Great story there. So this 'Arise'--that was his real name, believe it or not--was caught up in the witch trials that hit Innsmouth in the early eighteenth century. He was accused of consorting with the Devil to gain supernatural powers: flight, invulnerability, the works." She paused. "Consorting with the Devil carnally, to make it perfectly plain. He was put on trial and found guilty, but before they could hang him he threw himself from the steeple of the town church." Barbara's voice was dry. "Arise didn't live up to his name. So much for the flight and invulnerability, I guess."
Bruce shivered involuntarily. "Don't," he said.
He could almost hear her shrug. "Well, that's the end of the story. What did you need it for?"
"Just a case I'm working on."
There was a faint click from the other room, a door closing. "I'd better run, Babs. Thanks so much." He hung up and went back into the living room.
Which was empty, of course. The clothes hanging in the kitchen were gone; it was as if the other man had never been there.
A teacup on the coffee table, half-empty, wisps of steam still rising from it. Bruce picked it up, put his mouth to where those perfect lips had touched.
He felt himself shuddering and didn't know how to stop.
: : :
The next morning he was sitting outside the Luthor apartment again. Kal emerged in his navy blue coat and went driving again, Bruce trailing him at a discreet distance through the winding streets, past increasingly familiar neighborhoods...until he found himself sitting in front of his own apartment.
Kal was putting a note on Bruce's door. Bruce pulled up and got out of the car; Kal turned and smiled at him, brilliant and slightly sheepish. "Ah, you've caught me out." He gestured at the note. "I'm sorry I bolted like that, I just felt...rather foolish, all of a sudden." Bruce pulled the note off the door as Kal continued. "I felt badly later, that I must have seemed ungrateful."
He was backing toward his car as he spoke, and had the door open before Bruce looked up and said, "Yes."
"Yes?" Kal looked flustered for a second.
Bruce waved the note. "Yes, I'd love to see you again sometime as well. How about today?"
A faint blush crept into Kal's cheeks. "Are you--certain?"
"Are you busy today?"
Kal shook his head. "Just...wandering again."
Bruce moved closer to him. "We could wander together."
Kal smiled very faintly. His jacket was open; beneath it he was wearing a maroon shirt. Around his neck was a torc made of twisting gold. The ends, resting against his collarbone, were capped with rubies shaped like shields or crests. "One person alone is a wanderer. Two people together are always going somewhere."
Bruce couldn't seem to look away from his eyes, deep as the sea, sad and enthralled. "I'm not sure that's true," he said softly.
But he got in the car when Kal opened the door for him.
: : :
Kal drove aimlessly through the Gotham streets, not speaking, sometimes looking over at Bruce and smiling slightly, a shy smile. Once, at a stop light, he reached out and brushed Bruce's knee lightly with a gloved hand. Bruce managed to keep himself from reaching out and capturing that elusive hand, from turning the touch into something more than fleeting. He watched the clear-cut profile of the man driving, knowing this was not what Lex had hired him to do, unable to stop looking.
The city fell away behind them and they drove through the woods on the outskirts of town. Bruce knew Gotham well enough to know that they were on the fringes of the grounds of Luthor Manor, Lex's family estate before they had moved to Metropolis. Kal pulled off the road and parked behind some some bushes, then reached into the back seat and grabbed something. Flashing an almost mischievous smile at Bruce, he got out of the car and disappeared into the brush.
Bruce followed, just barely keeping the flash of maroon and navy in sight, until he found himself in front of a gaping hole in the side of a hill. Damp, cool air wafted from it. A flicker of light within; Bruce hesitated a moment longer and then followed Kal inside.
Squeezing between damp rocks, he emerged into a surprisingly large cavern. Kal handed him an extra flashlight; Bruce switched it on and played the beam around the room.
What he saw took his breath away. The ceiling was thickly hung with myriad stalactites in coral and golden hues; the light glanced off them almost dizzyingly. Water dripped slowly from them, and Bruce could hear the measured splash of water into pools, steady as a metronome: drip...drip...drip. There was a faint rustling of wings somewhere nearby.
Bruce closed his eyes. He probably should have found it unnerving here, but somehow he didn't. He felt...safe. There were no heights to fear here, only the solid certainty of the earth all around him, sheltering him from the openness of space. He took a deep breath of damp air, let it out slowly.
When he opened his eyes again, Kal was gone from his side. He hadn't heard the other man move at all, and he scrambled to catch up with the wavering beam of light from Kal's flashlight.
When he finally came to Kal, his alarm increased. Kal was staring blankly up at the ceiling, his eyes gone strange and otherworldly, his mouth slightly open. "Under the ground," Kal murmured, and his voice was eerie and detached, the rhythms all different. "Don't want to be here. Trapped." The echoes of his voice skittered from the rocks around them, blending with the steady drip of water: trapped...trapped...trapped. "Trapped under the ground. I can't--I want to be free, I want to..." his voice faded out and he lifted his flashlight with a shaking hand; light played crazily around the cave, lighting the stalactites. "This has been here, growing, for centuries. For so long. And it will be here long after we're dead. Long after we're..." The trembling spread to his whole body, and Bruce reached out without thinking and clasped his shoulders.
"Kal, Kal. Where are you? Come back to me, Kal."
The other man's eyes were wild and frightened, but the otherworldly look in them faded somewhat and he focused on Bruce. "I'm here," he whispered. "But he won't let me stay here with you, he won't."
"Who, Kal? What are you talking about?"
Kal blinked. "There's...there's someone else in my head, Bruce," he whispered. "He wants to possess me, take me over." Then he shook his head violently, the twisting, spiraling curl of hair on his forehead bobbing. "No, no, that's crazy! That's crazy to say." He stared at Bruce. "Do you think I'm crazy? Do you?"
Bruce didn't know what to think, but he knew what Kal needed to hear. "No, no." His hands tightened on Kal's shoulders and he drew the other man into an embrace. Kal trembled against him. "No, love, no, you're not crazy." His hands were in Kal's hair, soft as night, and Kal's breath was ragged, and Bruce's was too.
"I have a dream, over and over again," Kal whispered against Bruce's shoulder. "I'm in a long, dark corridor, and the walls are all lined with broken mirrors, just showing parts of me. Splinters and fragments. There's a door at the end, and as I walk toward it I know. I know if I open that door, I'll die." He looked up at Bruce, his eyes bright with tears. "I don't want to die, Bruce! I want to stay here--" He paused and drew in a breath, "--stay here with you. With you." A look of dawning surprise mingled with the terror on his face, and Bruce caught his breath.
"I'll keep you safe, Kal, I swear. You'll be safe with me, always. I'll never, never let you go." His voice was shaking and he meant the words more than anything he'd ever said as he brought his mouth to Kal's, sealing the moment with a kiss, irrevocable. Forever.
: : :
Sex with Kal was like falling without landing. White skin and cobalt eyes, head thrown back in a free fall of rapture. Fear transmuted into ecstasy, vertiginous. Embracing fear and finding pleasure. They were delirious with joy.
Delirious.
Falling.
: : :
Bruce glanced at the calendar as he dressed. Had it only been a week since he and Kal had started...whatever it was they had? It felt like it had only been a few hours. It felt like they had been together for decades. Time didn't seem to apply in any of the normal ways.
His faerie prince.
Every day was the same: they would meet somewhere discreet, somewhere gossip was unlikely to get back to Lex Luthor. They would wander the city for hours, hand in hand, seeing nothing but each other, each other. Eventually the need, the desire would grow too strong and they would wind back to Bruce's apartment for hours of passion, need meeting need over and over again until it grew dark and Kal had to return to his husband. Sometimes they couldn't make it back to Bruce's apartment in time; the image of Kal's ghost-white body among the dark slate headstones of Gotham cemetery burned in Bruce's mind and he felt lust leap in him uncontrollably. Two hours until they'd meet again. He was aching with desire already. Inexhaustible, eternal need. He took a long breath and tried to find himself in the tumbling cascade of emotion.
The phone rang. "Bruce?" Kal's voice on the other end was filled with terror. "I had it again. The dream. The corridor. I touched the doorknob and the door opened and I saw it. I saw it."
Bruce could feel his pulse hammering. "Saw what? Kal, calm down and tell me."
"A church. It was a white church with lilac bushes outside. A white--a white steeple. A window like a diamond on the front. I saw it, I saw it."
Bruce kept his voice level. "Kal. Listen to me. You're not crazy and no one is trying to possess you. That's the church at Innsmouth, it's a historical village. I've been there, I'm sure you have too, and that's what you're remembering."
"I've never--I've never--"
"Maybe as a child, maybe you don't remember it consciously, but your mind has fixed on that and on that painting. There's nothing mystical about it." He hesitated. This seemed risky, but it might be the only way to break through these delusions. "Kal, we'll go there. Today, right now, and I'll show you there are no ghosts, nothing to dread. We'll face your fear and get through it, Kal. And then you'll be free."
"Free..." Kal's whisper was faint. "All right, Bruce. All right."
The ride was about thirty minutes. Kal sat in the seat next to Bruce, his face fixed and distant, focused on something Bruce couldn't see or hear. He was wearing a jewel-bright royal blue shirt, a red silk scarf around his neck. His lips moved slightly as the road slipped by them, traveling north.
He was out of the car almost before Bruce brought it to a full stop, moving mechanically to the center of the village green and staring up at the church spire. Bruce took his hand, pulling him away. "Look, Kal," he said, gesturing around the tidy reconstruction of the Puritan village. "This is what you remember, right?"
Kal moved slightly toward one building. "The blacksmith," he said dreamily. "I used to listen to him, hammering. Like music."
His voice was as distant as if he were on the other side of the world, and Bruce grabbed him almost roughly, trying to make him focus, dragging him over to the building. "They have exhibitions. Exhibitions, Kal." He pointed at the sign.
Kal shook his head slowly. "The woods were deeper. Closer. I can hear him, he wants me to--wants me to--" He shuddered all over and closed his eyes. "No, I can't bear it, buried forever in the ground, I have to be free...to rise..."
"Kal!" Bruce kissed him; his lips were like marble. "Stay with me, love, stay with me. Stay here with me."
Kal's eyes opened, infinitely weary and despairing. "I'm sorry, Bruce," he said flatly. "It's too late." He moved away, walking to the center of the green again. He looked up at the church, then turned suddenly to Bruce, who was coming up behind him. "Bruce!" he cried, his voice desperate. "I want you to know. That I loved you. No matter what, just remember I loved you." Bruce tried to embrace him, but he buried his head in his hands. "No, no, it's too late, he'll never let me go now, never let me be free--" One frantic, brief kiss, and then suddenly he was running across the square, the red scarf flowing behind him like a banner.
Running into the church.
Bruce pelted after him, yelling his name, throwing open the door and charging down the aisle. Through a side door, he saw a flash of red cloth as Kal started up the stairs to the steeple.
No!
Bruce started up the stairs, hearing Kal's pounding steps above him. He looked up--and the steeple's winding stairs soared above him, dizzying and vast, stretching and bending in sick and giddy vertigo.
Sweating, cursing, almost weeping, he staggered up the steps one by one, each one an impossible effort of will. Two flights, and below him the church floor yawned and swayed. He closed his eyes and wrenched himself after the footsteps that he had to catch, had to stop, had to save. Slow, too slow, each step agony increasing, clinging to the rail and panting. Dimly, through the pounding of his heart, the roaring in his ears, he heard the trap door at the top of the stairs slam shut.
He heard the despairing, brief cry of horror.
From a side window he saw the body plummet down, scarf like a scarlet meteor trail, falling.
He heard the impact, final and flat and impossible, impossible to accept.
Impossible.
: : :
The inquest was short and perfunctory. The judgment was that Bruce Wayne was not responsible for the unfortunate death of Kal Luthor; in his condition it was not feasible to expect him to prevent the man's suicide.
Luthor came to him after and put a hand on his shoulder. "Bruce," he said gently. Bruce looked at him. "I just wanted to say that I understand. I don't blame you. You and I both understand what ghosts haunted Kal." His eyes were shadowed and sad as he shook his head. "Bruce, you and I know who was really responsible for Kal's death."
Bruce nodded wordlessly. He did a lot of things wordlessly these days.
He knew.
Oh, he knew.
: : :
He wandered a lot. He saw Kal everywhere, in every dark-haired, elegant man passing by. Everywhere he went he saw that dark head held high, those dreamy eyes shining, the graceful walk. Gotham was haunted by Kal and Bruce was the ghost within it.
Wandering.
Lost.
He was walking aimlessly one day, one day much like all the others, when his attention was somehow drawn to a group of people leaving a building, the main offices of the Gotham Gazette. On the outskirts of the group was a man with dark shaggy hair, unkempt and unruly. Thick and smudgy glasses over grayish-blue eyes. His gray suit was ill-cut and he seemed almost lost within it, slouched and uncomfortable.
He looked nothing at all like Kal.
And yet somehow Bruce found himself following the group, watching the awkward man as he tried to make conversation with his co-workers and was mostly ignored. A man no one would look at twice, gawky and unattractive.
And yet Bruce was still following him as he entered a ratty apartment building, was at the end of the hall as he closed his apartment door behind him.
He stood for a long time in front of the door, staring at the peeling paint. Then he knocked.
The man who opened the door glared at him. "I don't have any money for encyclopedias and I don't want Jesus as my personal lord and savior, so just shove off, okay?" His voice had a nasal, Midwestern twang and he shoved his glasses higher up on his nose, squinting angrily.
Bruce stared at him. "I'm not selling anything."
"Oh, right. Everyone's selling something, mister." The door started to swing shut; Bruce hastily put his foot in it. "All right, this isn't funny. Get out of here or--or I'll call the cops!" The door banged against his foot as the man tried to close it.
Bruce couldn't seem to think of anything to say. "Please don't," he said softly. "Please."
The door stayed mostly closed on Bruce's foot but the banging stopped. After a moment, the man's voice came from behind the door, slightly muffled. "What the hell do you want?"
"Just to talk to you. Just to talk. I need to talk to you."
Slowly, slowly, the door opened. "Don't think I can't defend myself if you try anything," said the man pugnaciously. Then he deflated somewhat. "It's not as if I've got anything to steal, anyway."
That certainly seemed to be true. The room was bare to the point of bleakness; even the lamps were just bare bulbs. Bruce looked around and the man looked at Bruce. Suddenly the hostile mouth quirked very slightly. "If you're going to break into my apartment and stand there like a mooncalf, the least you can do is introduce yourself."
"Bruce. Bruce Wayne. Have you lived here long?"
"What is this, an interrogation?"
"Where are you from?"
The man's eyes snapped fury behind the thick glasses. "I don't know what your game is, Mr. Wayne, But I've been here in Gotham for two years, and that's two longer than I want. You want to see some ID, huh?" He pulled out his wallet and wrenched a card from it, his hand shaking. Bruce looked at it: a Kansas driver's license. Clark Kent.
He looked at it for a long time, then up at the man in front of him, still shaking with anger. "I'm sorry, Mr. Kent. I guess I made a mistake."
The anger seemed to go out of the other man in a rush and his shoulders slumped. "Never mind," he muttered, not meeting Bruce's eyes. "Anyone can make a mistake."
There was a photograph on the dresser: Clark with an older man and woman, his arms wrapped around each of them. "Your parents?" Bruce asked idly. He didn't really want to leave.
Clark almost smiled. "Yeah, my Ma and Pa. That was taken just before Pa died." He shook off Bruce's reflexive apology. "The bank was going to foreclose on the farm, so I came to Gotham to try and make enough money to keep it." The almost-smile took on a bitter edge. "It hasn't worked out so well."
He looked and sounded nothing at all like Kal. "Would you like to go out for dinner tomorrow night?"
Clark almost started laughing, but then his expression flashed close to fury again. "Just what the hell do you think I am?"
Bruce spoke without thinking. "Lonely. I think you're lonely."
The other man pulled in a breath as if Bruce had hit him, his grayish eyes wide with shock, mouth open. For a long, long moment, he simply looked at Bruce. Then he said, "I suppose I am." His voice was very small. "I suppose I am," he repeated dully.
Bruce pressed his advantage. "I'll pick you up here at seven?"
Clark bit his lip, worrying at it, his eyes anxious. Then he met Bruce's eyes with a glint of defiance. "Yes. I'd like that."
: : :
They saw each other every day after that. Bruce would pick him up after work and they'd go out to dinner, then sit and talk over coffee. Clark told funny stories about his boyhood in Kansas, his hands making gracelessly charming gestures that Bruce found himself laughing at despite himself. Bruce told Clark about his parents, about how he came to be a detective, things he had never told anyone.
They never touched. They just talked. Clark seemed happy with that, although his eyes watched Bruce avidly when he didn't think Bruce was watching.
Then one night, as Clark turned away from Bruce at his apartment door, Bruce suddenly said, "Wait." As Clark paused, he reached out and slipped the reporter's thick glasses down his nose just a little bit, just enough to have an unobstructed look at the other man's eyes for a moment.
Without the thick lenses the man's eyes gleamed like turquoise, like sapphire, like an eternal sky. Bruce felt like he was falling into them, falling forward, leaning--
He stopped himself and turned away, turning his back on the startled Kansan for a second, collecting himself. He took a shaky breath and turned back to see Clark still staring at him, the glasses firmly back in place. "I'm sorry," Bruce said, unsure what exactly he was apologizing for.
"It's all right," Clark said, pushing the glasses up on his nose. "I'll see you tomorrow?" he asked as the door started to close behind him.
"Of course."
: : :
The next night they were walking toward their usual favorite coffee shop. Clark's hands were stuffed in the pockets of his ill-fitting gray suit, the dingy greenish-gray shirt underneath turning his skin almost a sickly color. He was laughing while talking about his mother's cooking.
Bruce's gaze was caught by the store window behind him: a department store, the new men's fashions of the season draped on posed manikins. "Clark," he said abruptly, "Wouldn't you like some more flattering clothes?"
Clark looked surprised. "I kind of like my clothes," he said, but Bruce was already entering the store, and he trailed after.
"You always wear gray and green, Clark. You could look so much better," Bruce said, sifting through the racks of brightly-colored clothes. He lifted a shirt from the rack: royal blue, with a mandarin collar and golden buttons. He held it against Clark's chest, tilting his head to evaluate it.
"Gosh, Bruce, I--I--I think I'd look silly in that," Clark said uneasily. "I'm just not that...flashy."
"The collar's all wrong anyway," said Bruce, putting it back. The hangers flipped by, quicker and quicker. "This one. This one is perfect." Bruce held the open-necked shirt out to Clark, who took it gingerly. "Look, here's another. This would look great on you." A scarlet shirt was added to the royal blue. In a few moments Clark's arms were overflowing with gleaming ruby and sapphire cloth. "Try them on. I'd love to see them on you."
Bruce's voice was casual and nonchalant, but Clark continued to hesitate. "They're just...they're not really...me, Bruce. And I could never accept such a gift from you--"
Bruce smiled, or at least his lips moved up over the ache in the back of his throat. "Oh come on, can't a man buy his boyfriend some new clothes?"
Clark's eyes flickered at "boyfriend." "You'd like to see me in these?" He swallowed. "You'd...like me in these?"
Bruce shrugged. "Sure. Live a little, Clark."
Clark sighed and disappeared into the dressing room. Bruce waited, staring at the entrance. He heard a slight rattling sound and realized his fingers were drumming on the metal rack he was leaning against.
When Clark came around the corner, in form-fitting navy blue pants and a loose, flowing scarlet shirt, Bruce felt a little of the darkness around him lift. Just a little. Enough that he was able to reach out and adjust the shoulders of the shirt slightly, the material soft under his hands, Clark's shoulders tense and strained. He squeezed slightly, suddenly realizing this was the first time he had touched Clark, and a hesitant smile flickered on Clark's face.
"I guess I'll take them," Clark said weakly.
: : :
When they met for dinner the next day, Clark was carefully dressed in his new clothes, blinking at Bruce from behind the thick glasses. Bruce smiled and put a hand on the small of Clark's back. "You should show off your new style, Clark. No need to slouch."
Clark inhaled carefully and leaned back into Bruce's hand, squaring his shoulders and standing up straight. "That's beautiful," Bruce said. "You're beautiful."
They went out to eat at the Iceberg Lounge instead of their usual greasy spoon. Clark looked around at the crystal decor nervously. "I feel really out of place here, Bruce," he said, laughing slightly. "You can dress up the farm boy, but he's still just...what I am."
Bruce leaned forward. "You're much more than just a farm boy, Clark. I see so much in you. So much."
Clark's eyes behind the glasses were direct and hopeful, almost wistful. "Really?"
Bruce stared at those eyes for a long time. Then he said, "Have you ever considered getting contacts?"
The table rattled as Clark shoved his chair back, throwing down his napkin and stalking from the restaurant, stiff-legged with fury. Bruce chased after him, almost panicking when he lost him in the crowd, following the flash of crimson down the street like a will o' the wisp.
Clark whirled as Bruce came up behind him, his face taut with anger. "What are you doing, Bruce? Why are you doing this? I'd hoped--I'd hoped you could like me. For myself. I was so happy. So--" His face twisted. "Why've you got to try and change me? Why?"
Bruce stared at him, agony running through his veins like acid. "I promised someone I'd save him," he whispered. "I failed. I failed." Clark's expression was baffled and filled with pain, and Bruce rallied to say, "You don't have to change, Clark." He stepped forward and took Clark in his arms for the first time. "You're perfect. It's not your fault I'm...chasing ghosts."
Clark raised his face to Bruce, his eyes fluttering closed behind the glasses, under the mop of shaggy hair. So close, so similar...Bruce pulled him into his arms, avoiding the kiss, and he felt Clark sigh wearily.
"I'll look into getting contacts," Clark said softly, and Bruce felt hope leap inside him again.
: : :
"It's just an appointment for a contact fitting and a haircut, Bruce, it's nothing earth-shattering." Clark smiled and turned the doorknob, preparing to leave Bruce's apartment. "I'll be back in just a few hours. There's no reason to look so nervous."
Bruce smiled, but he knew he probably looked like hell. He held out a gift-wrapped box. "I bought this for you."
Clark fluttered his eyelashes coyly. "Why, you shouldn't have," he simpered. The lid opened and he lifted out a shining length of cloth. A scarlet silk scarf. "You shouldn't have," he repeated dully, staring at it. Then his jaw set and he wrapped it around his neck with a flourish, the ends flowing behind him. "I'll be back before you know it," he said with a grin, and disappeared.
The hours crawled by. Bruce sat and waited, unable to read, unable to do anything but wait. Ghosts whispered to him about redemption, about resurrection. He buried his head in his hands.
He heard the click of the door and looked up to see Clark, brilliant in scarlet and azure, his turquoise eyes shining, unhidden, his hair combed back away from his face. Bruce leapt from his chair, joy filling his heart. "How do I look?" Clark asked shyly, smiling.
Bruce drank him in with his eyes, devoured him. Then he frowned slightly. "Beautiful, but your hair..." he reached out a hand and Clark's smile disappeared abruptly. Bruce shook his head abstractedly. "It shouldn't all be combed back like that, there should be one curl on the forehead, I told you that, didn't you tell the stylist that?"
Clark angrily brushed away the reaching hand. "Damn you," he hissed. "Won't you leave me one thing that's mine? Just one thing?"
Bruce could hardly hear him through the roaring in his ears, the siren song of hope and desire. "It should fall, fall like a spiral, curling. Like this. Can't you see?"
Clark flinched back from the tracing finger and turned away from Bruce. "God." The whisper was choked with agony. He stepped away, into the bathroom, and Bruce could hear his fists thump on the wall, a hopeless, hollow sound. "If I do this, if I do this, Bruce--"
"--You can ask anything of me, anything. I promise."
He had expected Clark to ask if Bruce would love him if he gave in, and he didn't know how he might answer. He loved Clark, but it was all tied up in the echoing caves and the ghosts, the swirling vertigo of everything he needed. He was surprised when the voice said instead, bleak as winter, "Will you forgive me?"
Surprised, he asked, "Of course, but for what?"
There was only silence behind the door. Bruce was about to repeat the question when it swung open again.
The light behind him created almost an aureole of radiance. He stepped from the light toward Bruce, who felt something like ecstasy tightening his throat. The clothes, the stance, the eyes, the hair. Everything was perfect. Bruce had saved him after all, he was here, arisen, and Bruce would keep him safe now, always, always.
Redemption.
The beloved turquoise eyes were swimming, incongruously, with tears. But how could anyone feel sad when the world was perfect again, when all the shattered pieces had come together, when hope and desire had created the world anew?
"Bruce," said the vision. "Bruce."
Only when the tears spilled over could Bruce seem to move from his haze of joy. And then he was wiping the tears away, and his love was laughing in his arms, the tears banished, and he was kissing his love again and again, falling together, never stop, never.
: : :
Bruce turned the key in the lock and entered the apartment, looking around in distaste at the bare and shabby surroundings. "You can't move in with me fast enough to make me happy," he said to his lover, who was pulling on a shirt.
Red silk rustled; a kiss dropped on Bruce's cheek. "What can I say, I have a sentimental attachment to the place we met." Bruce's lover moved to stand in front of the mirror and adjust his hair, the curl just so, his eyes bright with happiness. Bruce came up behind him and put his hands on the other man's waist, feeling the taut muscles under the red silk, sliding his hands up, enjoying the feeling of cloth and skin mingling, the way his lover sighed and smiled, the bright eyes in the mirror growing heavy with desire. "Bruce, love, we'll be late." Late to the Iceberg Lounge again. They ate nowhere else now. They would sit, prisms of light sliding over them, not speaking, just looking at each other, their feet under the table touching and sending daggers of desire through them both. Could they sit there through dessert before they had to hurry away to fall into bed, to fall into each other? Over and over they failed the test, failed it with crazed abandon. Long, drunken nights of joyous delirium.
Bruce kissed the back of his love's head, feeling hair like black silk slipping under his lips. He moved to nibble the curve of an ear, glancing into the mirror to enjoy the effect he was having on the other man, the flush in his high cheekbones, the slightly parted lips, the eyes sliding closed. He started to kiss the nape of the neck...and his mouth encountered metal, cold and gleaming. Twisting gold under his lips.
He looked up into the mirror to see that his lover was wearing a golden torc around his neck, the ends shield-shaped rubies.
For a long moment he stood frozen, watching their perfect reflections in the mirror. The man in his arms sighed and moved his head back against Bruce, exposing his flawless throat, the pulse fluttering fast and vulnerable between the ends of the torc. The torc.
The world shifted.
Bruce stepped back and smiled. "Actually, I was thinking we might not go to the Iceberg Lounge tonight. I was thinking of taking a drive."
"Oh?" Clark's eyes were confused; this was a change of routine. "Where?"
"Just...wandering," said Bruce, taking Clark by the hand as the look in his eyes changed from confusion to wariness.
The drive was silent. Clark's gaze shifted nervously to Bruce as they headed north, out of Gotham, the small towns flowing by them. "Bruce. Where are we going?" Clark's voice was barely above a whisper, and Bruce didn't answer him.
By the time they pulled into Innsmouth, Clark was agitated, his breath quick. "Why are we here?"
Bruce looked at him and smiled, a pleasant smile, a slightly curious smile. "You're here to help me solve a mystery, Clark. I never could resist a mystery." He got out of the car, the door slamming, Clark following. "And Luthor knew that, didn't he?"
He could see that Clark was shivering. "I don't know what you're talking about. Bruce--"
Bruce leaned forward and grabbed Clark, started to drag him toward the church. "We're going to get to the bottom of this, you and I. We'll solve this mystery together and I'll finally be free." Clark tried to twist away, but Bruce's hand was like a vise, inexorable. Bruce wrenched the church door open and pushed Clark in in front of him; Clark met his gaze and fell back whatever he saw there, letting Bruce herd him toward the door to the steeple. "Someone I loved very much died here, Clark. I promised I'd keep him safe and I failed, I failed him. But now we're going to do it again, you're going to be Kal--" as he heard the word echo through the church he realized it was the first time he had said it aloud since the last time he had cried it in anguish, seeing the falling body--"You're going to be Kal for me and I'll have my second chance." He advanced toward Clark and Clark moved away from him, into the steeple. "Go up the stairs, Clark. Go up and I'll follow you. I'll follow you to the top this time. I'll have my second chance, you've given me that."
At the bottom step, Clark whirled to face him. "I don't know what you're talking about! I don't--"
Bruce shoved him and he stumbled up onto the first few stairs. "Climb," he hissed.
Clark climbed, Bruce following him, words tumbling out of him in anguish. "I couldn't follow him, that day. I couldn't keep him safe. And Luthor knew I'd never be able to follow him. To follow you!" Clark looked back at him; there were tears streaking his face. "It was you all along that I was following, pretending to be the real Kal Luthor. All that nonsense about ghosts and the past and being haunted--that was all to drag me in, to make me believe it when you seemed to fall to your death. But I'm the one haunted now, and today I'm exorcising the ghosts. Today I'll be free."
Bruce hardly even felt the stairs under his feet, focused on Clark's face in the gloom of the steeple. At the window halfway up he paused and grabbed Clark's arm. "Here. Here was where I saw him fall. I couldn't follow him, I couldn't keep him safe. But it wasn't you that fell that day, was it? Was it?" he repeated, shaking Clark's arm.
Something broke in Clark's face. "No, I never fell. He was there, Luthor was, waiting for me, with his husband's body. Already dead. He threw the body."
Bruce could feel a feral snarl on his face. "And then you two just waited there, just waited, laughing at me--" Clark shook his head violently but Bruce went on, "--and then you climbed down and went home. The perfect murder."
"I didn't know what he planned, not until the very end," Clark's voice was shaking. "He told me he'd pay for the farm mortgage, that I just had to dress up like his husband and lead you around, I didn't know, I didn't know--"
"Did he tell you you had to fuck me?"
For just a second, Clark's face was very calm. "No. That was always me. Always."
Bruce pushed him away again. "Up. Go up. You're my second chance."
For a long moment, Clark met his eyes. Then he took a breath and started climbing again.
"He trained you and taught you and coached you how to be Kal, how to be perfect." Bruce could hear the sob in his voice as he followed the bright figure, splintered wood under his hands. "So perfect." Through the trap door and onto the top of the steeple, still staring at Clark, who sank to his knees as far away as he could get from Bruce, his face in his hands. "And I was perfect too, the perfect witness, the perfect person to tell everyone that Kal Luthor was suicidal, that he jumped, that I couldn't follow him...here..."
His voice trailed off as he looked around, realizing where he was. "I made it," he said hoarsely. "I made it." The vertigo was gone, the ground below him perfectly stable. Triumph went through him like a blade, and he turned back to Clark. "But you made one mistake. You kept the torc." Clark lifted his eyes and Bruce continued, "He gave it to you as a present. You should have pawned it. You should know better than to keep souvenirs of a killing. You shouldn't have been, shouldn't have been so sentimental." He heard his voice break on the word, and something else seemed to break inside him too, remembering Clark's shy and hopeful face. "Oh God," he said, anguish wringing the last anger out of him, "I loved you, I loved you so, I wanted to keep you safe."
Clark came slowly to his feet. "I loved you too. I was safe when you found me again, you couldn't prove anything. All I had to do was...but I couldn't do it. I wanted to be with you so much. So I let you change me," he gestured at the bright red and blue clothes, "I let you make me who you needed me to be, because I loved you so much, I wanted you to be happy again, happy with me, whoever I was. You promised you'd forgive me, Bruce. You promised. I love you," he said, his eyes pleading, reaching out with a tentative hand to touch his face; Bruce shuddered but didn't pull away. "I'll do anything for you, we can be happy, we can keep each other safe, just...let me in..."
The hand on his cheek was warm and real, the face before him was Kal's and Clark's together, lovely and hopeful, luminous and lost. Just one step forward, just one step and he would be in his love's arms, kissing him, forgiving him...
He took the step. Clark's mouth was warm and trembling under his; Bruce tasted tears and held him close for one perfect moment, one perfect moment--
A figure rose abruptly from the trap door, shadowed in the dusk light: a man in Puritan clothes, his face hidden in shadow. "I heard voices," the figure said, stepping forward.
It happened so quickly, so quickly. Clark recoiled from Bruce's arms at the sight, stepping backwards. Too far back. There was a sharp grating noise as his foot lost purchase on the edge of the roof, but otherwise the moment was perfectly silent.
Clark didn't make a sound as he fell.
"Merciful God," exclaimed the museum curator, turning to pelt down the stairs, but Bruce knew better now. He stood on the edge, looking down, and realized that he was finally free. Free of fear, free of desire, free of hope. Free of everything that had tied him to this earth. Free.
Now he could fly away, he realized. The thought was tiny in the vast and unfurling immensity of his mind. All it would take was one step forward. Just one step and
he could
finally
fly