vessel

Reccing Notes: The continuation to Lathe, davis pov this time. Again in the infamous-as-canon-AU universe, with the experimental format. Updating with this because the next installment of the series is almost finished. XD

by vagrantdream at her/my journal
1578 words, pg-13, infamous and eternal (in a very AU manner of speaking)

Davis Bloome is no longer a paramedic, not the everyday hero going through the tickertape parade. He tells himself that he’s a shell that woke up.

I.
Davis Bloome is no longer a paramedic, not the everyday hero going through the tickertape parade. He hasn’t stepped forward and declared to the world all he is.
He may not be real, but he can’t let himself believe that he’s just the ultimate destroyer, because then that's all he will be.
He tells himself that he’s a shell that woke up.

i. There used to be messages to his cell phone, about the same time every day. Chloe’s voice, full of familiar surrounding warmth, concern and guilt. A voice that meant she was cured of that construct inside of her.

ii. He remembers it well, cold, terrible; just like whatever was in him. They were the same. One wanted to absorb, one wanted to destroy. He knew there was nothing of her left, even as Chloe’s hands and Chloe’s face had sealed him in that crystal. He would have promised anything if her eyes would just come back.

iii. It was like the story of the monkey’s paw. You wished, you wished, you got your wish, and then you had nothing left. (It was sick, he’d thought, that the last memory he’d ever have of her would be tainted with cold.)

iv. After about seven days the messages tapered off into emptiness. He still replayed them.

II.
He’s kept his promise. He’s hasn’t returned to the Metropolis general. He’s probably been fired by now; but he’s not human. It’s not like he needs to eat.

i. He’s found a way to hold it in him, just maybe. There are drugs that freeze the spikes within his body, keep them from piercing through, stiffen every inch of human skin, and fill his mind with images he doesn’t ever want to see again. He needs to and deserves to see them a thousand times over because they all came from what he was. What he can become again.

ii.The human side, for a while, has some relief. There are lapses of hours without blackouts. He pretends he is Davis. There are hours where he tries, does anything he can do to help, anything that doesn’t involve his past. He thinks he’s fooling himself. Doing Samaritan deeds will never make up for what he is.

iii. He hears the name Chloe Sullivan a lot more, now and understands. She spends her day shying away from reporters, hiding away from the world where Superman is a household name. He knows she’s not happy.

iv. He hasn’t ventured near Isis. It’s the only right thing he can do by her. What was once Davis Bloome, paramedic, is really a shell, covering the darkness that can rip her to shreds. She’s cured now. There’s no guarantee that she’ll be safe. He won’t risk her.

v. There is nothing human about him, no vulnerable epidermis, no normal human heart, just a genetic camouflage; there is no way that going to confession can clear his soul. She’s still his salvation


III.
Maybe it’s inevitable that this patchwork of vain hope he’s constructed will fall apart. Just not today.

i. Every other part of him is geared toward her more intensely than before. He replays memories, until he can picture every detail, the clutch of her fingers against the fabric of his uniform, the nervous gleam of moisture on her lips, her face warring between openness and fear, a split second when it felt like he had something.

ii. He still dreams of her, of the memories. But they are just that, snapshots that leave him feeling broken. He can’t hold her there, can’t tell her to stay because he’s afraid that the day will come that there won’t be anything left of him to see her anymore.

iii. He should have been prepared for the fact that it was meant to evolve into something darker, more destructive. The injections hold it frozen, sometimes for just hours now. The lapses are shortening again. The supply of injections is depleted faster every time.


iv. Even dreams of her become touched by death. (He sees her reaching out to him as it takes hold. It’s her hand on his shoulder, her face so convinced and trusting. Believing him. A traitorous little part of him wants it, can feel himself instinctively leaning into the touch. He needs to yell at her, tell her to move, now that he knows. He can’t move the sound past his vocal cords. He’s frozen, the drugs fighting his way through the shell encasing him. He can’t control it, no more than he can voice anything. He can’t say a word even as the spikes break their way across his skin, pierce her.) He knows her eyes.

v. It’s not working and he knows it. He slides the needle into his arm and his fingers tremble like those of the addict’s he’s put on IVs.

IV.
He has to believe it will get better; or simply end. (He doesn’t have that choice.)

i. It’ll be two hours this time; maybe less, maybe more. For once he doesn’t see the images, and wonders if it is trying to purge itself of guilt. Limbo is a relief that he doesn’t deserve.

ii. He can still see, still hear. There’s the opening a shutting of doors behind the wall, the rattle of the knob. No, he thinks, not now. He hopes it’s the landlord taking him for a stoner again. (No one else knows who he is, here.)


iii. “Davis! I know you’re in there. Open the door, will you?” He knows her voice. The knob rattles once, twice, stops altogether. She’ll leave, he thinks. She’s got to.

iv. There’s no tell tale twist of key before the door swings open. She’s there again, filling the gaps between dream and reality; but that was a dream and this isn’t. He knows how it ends and he can’t let it happen. He realizes he can’t move.


V.
Chance is not kind.

i. “Davis. Are you okay?!” It feels like fire and not a single fiber of muscle twitches. A rattle from human lungs. “Davis.” She crouches on her knees on the unremarkable carpet, close enough that he can smell freesias. One inch, one inch would be enough. Its one thing to feel pain, another to feel the grief before it happens. She touches him and she dies.

ii. This is where the dream starts. He can feel slight tremors building in his shoulders. Any moment she’s going to reach out and...

iii. She’s different. There’s nothing tactile about how she stays a whole six inches away. “I wish I could make you relax, but I have a feeling that’s not happening.” The small tan hand holding the discarded needle transfixes him. “So this is how you’re dealing with it. Somehow, I doubt this is FDA approved.” (She’s got an hour where he can’t argue. She starts at the beginning.)

iv. He can speak, and she’s said almost all he needed to say. She knows about the destruction of the wedding, the fact that he’s changing, what he is before he says a word. She’s already latched onto her goal and that’s that. He expects her to draw up a chart any minute.

“You’ll be in danger. There’s a chance that without that computer inside of you, or whatever program it was supposed to be running, it’ll destroy you. You want to help me but I can’t let you do whatever you are going to do. ”

“Does it look like I have a plan? I’m going to be here, and try and figure out one.”

v. This is too much like before. He can’t keep still; she’s watching him like he deserves to be held when she knows. He feels weak; thinks that he’s going to crumble and seal her fate.

“It’s different. Don’t you see? Before, I was scared. Now, I know what I am and you can’t just… I’m not an innocent man. I’m a murderer.”
His fingers clench and unclench and he’s perfectly aware that his nails can’t make the slightest scratch on his skin.
Something flickers across her face and she doesn’t move.

“That makes me even more qualified to help.”
She thinks of her hands, the signals flat lining over the hospital bed, the twist of loyalty inside her and something much darker. Oliver saying they were in the same boat. The fact that she couldn’t find Sebastian no matter how many discharge records she went through.
“I think I may be too.”

VI.
(He could still try to do the right thing. Keep with the injections until everything starts spiraling again; until he can’t remember her face and she can go back to the life that she’s running from.
That doesn’t sound right.)

i. “I’m here to be your friend. I know when I… was that, it’s what I needed most. I won’t let you do this thing alone.” He doesn’t have to try to believe that.

ii. She looks at home in the center of his empty kitchen, not frightened, not anything but Chloe, and when she asks him to tell her word-for-word what the construct said, it feels like he’s talking about someone else.

iii. She never even pauses over the fact that he’s not real, not in the same way she is. “The way I see it, it doesn’t matter. You know Descartes right? You think, therefore you are. If you were just a bit of coding you wouldn’t be fighting this.”
He thinks that just at much about her as it does about him.

I.
Davis Bloome is a part of the monster that wasn’t made to wake up. His skin shouldn’t hold chaos underneath without cracking, but he has to believe it can.
Sometimes its almost easy to.