Smallville/Sandman crossover. Delirium challenge fic. Pre-slash. S1. I don't own any of it.
Delirium
She stretches her ? arm-limbs, maybe she’s a tree. Sway in the breeze and chlorophyll with delight. She was once filled with chloro. Delight? When her eyes were one color. Eyes. Trees have eyes where there once were limbs and she has limbs and eyes, so she must be a tree. Shake in the windy day: flutterbies laugh.
She wriggles her roots in the dirt, turns her face into the rainbow dizzy of beamy sunnyness, and is,.,.,..,, She likes commas. They are like plums hanging from her branches waving in the wind. She is going to be a…tadpole when she grew up with chocolate people to be filled with vitreous humor, if she could just get her tenses right.
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Lex
Clark’s home was between somewhere and somewhere else.
So, when Lex practiced saying that he was in the neighborhood, that he was passing by, this was not untrue.
Speeding down the long straight angled curves of Kansas byways, under a horizontal sky filled with nothing but the road. Rushing out into the oncoming lane, he passed tractors and trailers that were crawling in an effort to keep him from his destination. The giddiness of anticipation like a Methuselah of brandy on Lex’s tongue after a long day of not time yet.
He carom careened by three cars, a truck and a Winnebago pulling a boat in one pass, nearly hitting a milk tanker coming the other way. Nearly. Not quite. Almost. There.
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Clark
Clark piled his chores in a mental stack. The things that had to be done before he could go over to Lex’s. Pile drive posts in the endless lines of fences. He could speed through that. Slam, slam, slam. Milk the cows. That kinda hadta be done at cow speed, which is slow. Haul feed from point A to point B. It’s like an algebra equation.
If Clark has ten feed bags to carry to the North field, which is three miles from the feed silo, going 90 miles an hour and carrying two bags a trip, how long will it take him?
Forever. Too long.
Anyway, he’s taking Trig this year and he’s done his homework.
Course, he has an English essay on Julius Caesar. Blah, blah, destiny, blah, blah, Ides of March. An excuse to go over to Lex’s. Not that he needs one, but that might buy another hour from his parents.
He zipped around the barn, the air a wonderful rush of freedom around his face and in his hair and over his ears. He stops.
There was a girl standing in front of the house. Her hair was, well, you don’t get hair like that much in Kansas. Red and yellow and blue and purple and shaved and spiked and full of leaves. Her clothes were, well you don’t get clothes like that much in Kansas. She was dressed like Clark imagines people dress at those clubs that Lex goes to. Net and leather and sweat dancing in the flickering lights.
Lex in net and leather, sweat trickling down the curve of his exposed neck, dancing in the flickering lights.
Focus.
Girl dressed for a rave, standing in his yard, waving her arms around and smiling at the sun. She was not wearing shoes. Maybe she was from Metropolis. Maybe she was from California. Maybe she was insane. Maybe she was lost. Maybe she had been attacked by a shoe eating meteor mutant – hey it could happen. Maybe she needed help and he was standing here like a dork holding a fence post. Clark said, “Um…hey. Can I help you? Did your car break down?” which is a stupid question, but Clark really wanted this to be normal for once, but, why were there plums scattered across the yard?
She opened her eyes and smiled at him. One eye was blue and one eye was green. “I drove a car once with my brother. I’m a very good driver. But a mean man yelled at me, and now he’s covered in bugs.”
“Okay.” Insane, but not from California. Maybe she was from Europe. Maybe she was an alien in bare feet. “Are you okay? Is there anything I can do to help you?
“I’m a tree or I’m looking for my doggie. He is losted and he’s all Mr. Losty MacLosty. He’s this big and he’s smart and he’s supposed to look out for me, but he’s missing; so, I’m looking for him and he was my brother’s, but my brother is gone, so, I’m looking after him, and first, I thought if I spun really fast, I’d find him, but I didn’t and I can’t see him, and then I thought, you’re a like an anthropomorphic person-thingy of stuff and I know all sorts of people who think about you all the time; so, I thought you could help me.” She smiled and tilted her head. “Have you seen him?” The colors in her hair seemed to move as Clark watched.
“Umm…I’m sorry, what was that?” Clark feels himself slowing to cow speed in the face of the girl’s Chloe on chocolate covered espresso bean (now that was a bad idea) impersonation.
“You’re pretty, but…” She began to hop from one foot to the other. Clark could have sworn that she didn’t have dreadlocks a moment ago. “I should have gone to Gotham, which is like my town or something, but it’s dark and they’re mean there and I don’t think Barnabas would go there. Do you?”
“So, you’re looking for your dog?” Clark tried to focus on the girl, but there were sentences growing out the plums.
“Yes!” The girl ran forward and gave Clark a quick fragile hug. She smelled like old leather and vinegar and sweat and girl.
A car door slammed shut. “So, Clark. Who’s your friend?” Clark turned to see Lex leaning against this week’s Porsche and the world was just a little more everything. Clark wanted to smile the happy bubbling up in his indestructible destructible veins and so he did.
Focus.
“I’m not sure actually.” Clark ducked his head to break eye contact. For a second, then he glanced up to catch eyes again. Good. Lex had come closer.
“Clark is going to help me find my lost doggie, because I can’t do it on my own.” The girl was wearing a charm bracelet around her neck, which was attached to a red leash. She waved one end in the air. Clark was afraid that she was going to offer it to him, but she just started flapping her arms and said, “I might get distracted and is there a word for things not being the same always. There must be a word for it…the thing that lets you know when time is happening, because my sundial is broken and if there’s a word then maybe I can fix it.”
Clark said, “I’m sorry Lex, but I think I should go do something for her.” There was definitely something not normal going on and he wasn’t sure that Lex could stand another blow to the head. It would be third one this week.
Lex said, “Keep the world safe for lost dogs and English women.” It seemed like every time Lex drove out, he had to turn away from the gate. Paradise lost without even hell to rule. Well, for now.
The girl said, “Wheee!” and spun in a rustle of pink crinoline skirts and paisley flannel. She said, “All around the foozberry bush, the fuzzy chased the twinkle, round and round and up and down, where is my twinkle.”
A brown and white dog trotted around the barn, panting, well it was a dog. It said, “Hey, kiddo, I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“And I was the last place that you looked.” The girl did a little dance. The dog sat down and panted. The air was full of plums and flutterbies. When she was done dancing, the dog picked up the end of the leash. The girl waved, “Bye now,” and they dissolved into a sparkle of…Clark wasn’t sure what it was. Lex had a pretty good idea, but he had better things to do.
Lex said, “Now that the world is safe, would you like to go for a ride.” No reason Lex had to leave alone.
While Clark said, “So, what do you do you know about Julius Caesar?” The afternoon seemed dizzy with excuses of possibilities.
Lex smiled, “Why man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a colossus and we petty men walk under his huge legs and peep about. Hop in.”
They smiled bright as the sun on a Kansas afternoon and drove away in a hail of rocks and dust and plum commas.