Work Text:
He had nightmares sometimes, he guesses. He knows what the concept of a nightmare is, but he didn't know that they would scare that bad. That they would hurt him that bad.
He was near invunerable, after all.
They seem real, even though when we wakes up he knows they aren't. He can feel rapidly loosing his TTK while falling out of the air, feel the high heats that make him sick when so little can, can feel what he thinks kryptonite must be like, feel mortality. He sees Ex, and Roxy, and Tana, and Rex, and Sam lying motuonless, burned, with their faces ruined like zombies in the horror movies he and Roxy watch when it's only them awake. His family- this must be what a family is, he had nothing else to base it on. His family, they can be hurt so easily, much easier than he can. They are so mortal.
He doesn't understand mortality.
When he wakes up, the fear goes away most of the time. His TTK is still there, he is not in a volcano, and there is no kryptonite in sight. But.
But.
Its hard to get the picture of Ex's, Tana's, Roxy's, Rex's, Sam's, even Kay's faces all rotted up and chewed to bits and lifeless, still, out of his head. His family isn't one for stillness, well maybe other than Dubbilex. Dubbilex is still, but his mind isn't and Superboy swears he can feel it moving most days.
In his nightmares, he can't feel Ex's mind moving. Tana isn't following everything with her eyes, with attention to detail Superboy never could have. Roxy isn't tapping out some rhythm on her knee and letting out little puffs of air. Rex is silent, not even pulling at his shirt like he does. Kay is knocked out, which is reason enough for her to be still. There aren't many people who could knock out Knockout. Sam is coated in his silver, still as a statue. Maybe he had become a statue. Their faces, all their faces were rotted, clawed up, chewed. Gone. Like everything his family had ever been was gone. Like they never had been in the first place.
Part of him, the Cadmus part, says that it isn't logical for for them to be clawed and rotted and gone. He knows, logically he knows, that they were alright. But another part of him can't stop worrying, can't stop asking "what if?"'s, and thats the part of him that won't let him go back to bed, the part of him that gnaws at his stomach. That part of him wouldn't let him be.
Maybe that was the Superman part of him.
He gets up. There's three bedrooms in their apartment, which Rex says is pretty good, despite the rooms being real small and there being four of them. Superboy had his own room 'cause Dubbilex says a growing boy needs space. Rex says stars need space. Roxy had her own room 'cause she's the only girl- the lady of the house, she said. (She liked being called a lady.) Rex and Dubbilex shared the last room. Sometimes Superboy wished he shared his room- especially when he had nightmares. The apartment was small, though. It was easy to check on everyone.
Roxy's room is across from his, and he makes sure to open her door real quiet so he doesn't wake her up. Roxy hated being woken up. She moved in her sleep, he could see her kicking and grumbling, legs tangled in her green blanket. Her face isn't made up, so she doesn't look like a movie star like she likes to. She just looks like Roxy. Superboy still thinks she's real pretty, but most importantly he can see her face is in one piece. Its blotchy with sleep, but so so alive. Really alive, moving. Superboy let out a breath, just watching her for a second, making sure she was alright. She was alive, asleep, just Roxy. He would have straightened her blankets out or something like a real family would, but he didn't want to wake her. He shut the door to her room, still making sure to be real quiet.
He jiggles the doorknob to Rex and Ex's room. Its suppossed to lock, but almost all the locks are broken. It doesn't really matter- Superboy would always be there to protect them, after all. They don't really need locks, and Roxy had explained that he really should leave a half locked door alone. But Rex and Ex's door isn't even half locked. Maybe he's over thinking things. He does that, sometimes. The door opens.
Ex's bed is closest to the door and he's still, still, still- Superboy finds himself hovering above Ex with his fingers on his neck like he had shown him. Pulse. There's a pulse, of course there's a pulse. Ex is fine, just asleep. Still, but not still. Asleep, but alive. Fine, he's fine. He lets his feet touch the ground again. His heart goes down as he tells the part of him, the Superman part, that Dubbilex is fine. Still, but not still.
"Kid? That you?" Rex sounds groggy, and Superboy can see him blinking sleep from his eyes. He's awake and he's talking. Good- Rex is always taalking. Superboy takes something- comfort?- in Rex talking.
"Yeah, it's just me," he responds. He watches Rex prop himself up on one elbow, bald spot shining just a bit from the stars outside.
"Why're you up, champ?" Rex asks. Maybe he thinks Superboy was waking Dubbilex up because he had sensed some danger or some emergency and he wanted a part of it. Superboy supposses that makes sense- there's probably good money in nighttime heroics. And, besides, Rex likes to know what he's up to.
"Just checking," he raised and lowers one shoulder.
Rex gets a weird look on his face, the same sort of look he gets sometimes when he looks at Roxy when her back is turned to him. Superboy doesn't know what that look is, but it makes him squirm a bit. Or, it would if he wasn't Superboy. Superheroes don't squirm from weird looks from people they care about- right?
"Alright," Rex says after a moment too much of silence for Superboy's hopes. "Going back to bed?"
He shifts from bare foot to bare foot and rubs at the velvety hair his undercut had left on the back of his neck. It was growing out- he'd have to trim it again. "I was gonna go to Tana's."
Rex nods. "Have a good time, be safe, all that jazz." He turns to leave but Rex stops him. "I'm no Dubbilex and I- well, you know you can talk to me, right kid?"
"I know." He deliberately doesn't squirm. He doesn't know what Rex had cut himself off from saying and since Rex doesn't do that, doesn't cut himself off, he isn't sure he wants to know. "I'm going to Tana's now." He leaves before Rex can stop him again.
He changes from his t-shirt and boxers to his bright red and blue spandex. He tightens his garter around his thigh, tightens his boots, and wraps his leather jacket around himself. He presses his nose into the collar. The logical, Cadmus part of him says he has no reason to do that, but it makes the other part of him feel better. Its familiar.
He doesn't go to Tana's.
He touches down in front of Kay's club instead, and he could feel the music and the beat before he could even see the flashing neon lights. The bouncer grabs his shoulder when he tries to walk in because he's baby faced and couldn't pass for 18 of he tried. And he wasn't trying, not now. He just had to make Kay was alive, was moving, standing invincible above everyone else like she always did.
The bouncer tells him he can't go in, he needs to show some ID. Superboy doesn't listen, doesn't even hear him saying words. He throws him with his TTK and he knows he must have hurt him but he can open the door now, and the music is so loud it makes his chest hurt.
Even in the smoke, the haze, the sound there is no mistaking her. Kay looks like a goddess on the center pole. She's wearing higher heels than she normally does and she looks dangerous when she smiles. She looks in total control. Her face and body look perfect because she looks carved of marble everyday.
Superboy is able to look, see her breath, see her dance only for a few minutes before another bouncer pushes him out. Superboy could take him one-handed, but he didn't need to. He had seen what he had come to see. Kay, moving, breathing, face in one perfect piece. The Kay of his dreams had been missing her eyes, and he could tell she died choking on a laugh. The real Kay was still moving, still laughing. He's see her soon, she was never really in his past. She was alive, alive, unstill, moving. That's what he had come to see.
He lets himself get thrown out of the club. He doesn't care about the hacking and spitting of the bouncers or the neon. Kay's in there. Alive.
Sam had never liked Kay. Sam... Sam was silver, he wasn't easy to kill. Superboy had seen the scars, he'd heard the stories. Sam Makoa was probably the hardest man to kill in Hawaii other than Superboy himself. But what if his luck ran out? What if the next time he coated himself in silver it didn't realease him and it took his heart from him and left him a shell. What if some thug got a lucky shot? What if King Shark or the Silicone Dragons or any of Sam's enemies caught up to him. Shark would leave him mauled and his face would be in shreds, innards on the outside, body still trying to cover itself in silver as Sam struggles to breath, cause Shark would probably eat his heart or one of his lungs or-
Superboy finds himself in front of Sam's precinct. He doesn't remember taking off, he doesn't remember flying. It was like he had teleported, but he couldn't teleport so he had to have flown. It was late. He knew it was late, late enough that Sam had probably headed home, it was too late for a detective to be in the office.
But he was already here and maybe Sam had stayed late to finish up a case or maybe his shift was late today. It wouldn't hurt to check.
The precinct was almost empty other than the normal drunks and whores in the slammer and a few guards.
"Sam here?" Superboy asks and it's not as brash as he wanted it to be. "Sam Makoa? The detective?"
The desk cop with the bags under his eyes and the coffee Superboy could smell across the room shook his head. "Headed home for the night awhile ago."
"Oh." Superboy bit the inside of his cheek and his heart twisted up into a right little spring. "Tell him I stopped by?"
The cop gave him a look that he got sometimes when he was out with Tana, or Kay, or when his face looked busted up. It made his chest tighter, he always hated that look. "I'll tell him. Is there-?"
"Nah. I just wanted to talk to him. Thanks."
He leaves to avoid questions he doesn't want to answer and pity he doesn't know why he receives. He was Superboy and he didn't want pity- not even when his chest felt like it had been stepped on by one of the Luthor robots they showed on the news.
It was Sam, Superboy reminded himself. Maybe he was finally getting those calls back from the FBI 'cause who knew what was going on with Sam and the FBI? Superboy would be happy for him. It would be stupid to miss him- he wasn't his dad. Sam's strong and he wasn't dead, his guts were still in his body and he was probably just getting some rest.
Rest. Rest would be nice, maybe he should go to bed, he thinks to himself as he kicks off to finally, finally go to Tana's people knew she was his girlfriend and she kicked up dust about things people would rather have left alone. Superboy watched TV, and the hero's girl always got shot or kidnapped or killed or flayed alive. Maybe some serial had taken her skin for his collection- she has such nice, soft, pretty skin. When Superboy closes his eyes he sees her, lacking skin, muscle falling off her body without their casing. She asks him why he hadn't gotten there, why he hadn't stopped this, teeth moving without lips. He shakes his head. He feels sick.
He lands on her balcony and her windchimes tink-a-link when He touches down. The air is still and hot. He smells a storm coming, but hopefully it was just rain. Tana loved rain.
She had given him a key that worked for both her doors, 'cause she didn't like it when he banged on her windows so she'd let him in. He struggles with the key until it finally lets him in. He had almost been ready to just break the door.
Superboy floats to her bedroom, not wanting to wake her with his footsteps. Tana is such a light sleeper, lighter even than Roxy. Her bedroom fan hums quietly as he enters. Her face is in her pillow and Superboy moves to lie in silence next to her. He presses his face into her back, breathing in her scent and feeling her heartbeat through her ribs.
"Mm, baby?" Tana speaks groggily, like she isn't really awake. "That you?"
"Yeah." He doesn't realize how much hearing her voice sets him at ease. She had talked him through all sorts of things before. She talked him through things boys his age should know and she talked him through how to be a boyfriend. "Can I sleep with you?" he asked, feeling like a small child.
"Sure baby," Tana still doesn't sound truly awake but she was alive and there and breathing and warm and that's all Superboy really cared about. She was so much to him, he couldn't loose her.
Superboy strips down because Tana doesn't want his dirty boots on her clean sheets. He talks himself this, that the reason he wants to be in just his briefs wasn't because he wanted his skin to touch her skin. He wants only two sets of thin skin between the pumping of their blood. He likes having his body touch hers, even when they are just breathing together.
He leaves his spandex in a heap on the floor and crawls under the covers with her, one arm tight around her stomach and his eat on her back so he could feel her heartbeat. He had read once that babies slept better when they felt another heartbeat. Superboy wonders if he is a baby. He took his jacket to bed with him, holding it to his chest like a baby blanket, face in the familiar leather.
Nightmares don't come again that night. His family was safe, they were all in one piece. But he knows, he knows that wouldn't always be. They are so vunerable, so mortal, so human.
So is he.
The nightmares will come again later, they always did. They must have come with the part of him with worry. They must have come with the Superman part.
And he always wants to be Superman.