slayers_desire | kidnapping Clark to a red-sun Earth

There they are, popped outside (oh dear, how is she going to explain this to him, the red sun is right there in plain view. It would've been something else if they were PINpointing to the inside of a building and it would have maybe taken him a little while to--)

She's thinking of lies, already, trying to come up with a good way to explain herself in a way that will keep him participating. Better yet, that'll keep him from wanting to kill her. Sick and powerless or not, he's still bigger and stronger than her.

Clark feels the draining effect of the red sun immediately, and his heart sinks along with it because he knew it was a mistake to trust her, to trust anybody, and he pushes her away from him, already weakened down to normal human strength. "I trusted you!" he says, full of anguish.

Without the yellow sunlight to keep him strengthened, though, he stumbles and falls to one knee as he tries to get away. He feels awful, and he can't tell it isn't just the red light, thinking it's part of the trap.

April moves forward, just in case she had to stop Clark from attacking Victor. Fortunately he is just moving to get away. And it is easy enough for her to place one hand on him. Using her enhanced strength to keep him close.

"I am so sorry." She apologizes to both Clark. And to Victor, for placing the other woman in this situation.

That's Victor's heart breaking, and she stumbles back a little. "Hon, no, listen. Listen, we're here for a reason. We're here so other kryptonians won't follow us. And you... you know how we talked about how magic can be good for you? We're gonna use it to turn back time, and fix what's going on in your world."

Lies, lies, lies, but maybe it'll get him drinking the potions he needs to drink and stay still for as long as they need him to.

He struggles to get away, because it's April and he knows he can't trust her, and now he knows he can't trust Victor either, and he was stupid enough to walk right into their trap. And his mind is twisting in on itself again, because this is just like the vision his future self gave to April, where the other Kryptonians had powers and were coming to kill him, to stab him with kryptonite knives and slice him open.

But he's too weak to get away from April, without his strength, and with the unnatural fever raging through his body. "No," he moans, because he's so tired of being scared and trying to run, and it didn't do him any good anyway.

As April as been keeping a careful watch on Clark, she has also been sensing his growing fear and paranoia. And she knows that he is trying to get away from her. Because right now -- he doesn't trust her. And it hurts.

She distances herself mentally, so the emotional heartbreak doesn't interfere. And she moves to pick him up in her arms.

"I think he is beyond hearing any sense." She looks at Victor, April's eyes wet because of how torn her heart is because of this situation. Of how ugly it has become. Of what Brainaic had wanted to happen.

"Yeah, I think you're right." She's at April's side, unsure if she needs help carrying Clark, mind a flutter of which order they need to do things in, what supplies she has. Victor's brain is like an unbound organizer in a hurricane wind, like a shuffling deck of cards. "We gonna get him inside?"

He still tries to get away, struggling in her hold, but he can't offer up any real resistance. Under the red sunlight, the silver kryptonite seems to almost feed off him, draining his energy. All he can think is that he's finally been captured, that he's going to be killed, or cut open, that he's going to be their lab rat and there's nothing he can do about it.

"Yes. There is a bed inside we can lay him down on." April gestures towards the door, which she will need help opening. She watches with fear as the tendril almost consumes Clark's aura.

"Unfortunately... the silver kryptonite is feeding off him faster. We must work quickly. And he..." She takes a breath. "Is going to believe that we are experimenting on him."

Door is opened, and held for her, and she thinks about eight curses in five different languages, only three of them from Earth. To be entirely fair, she really does only mostly know how to curse in Martian. On the surface, she looks calm, collected, fully in control.

"Yeah, absolutely," she says, voice clipped. "Good plan."

He's given up now, too exhausted to fight, just accepting whatever is going to happen to him. He has his eyes closed, not wanting to watch, too tired to watch and fear them, their faces shifting around him and becoming monsters he doesn't recognize. And when he's set down, he doesn't register the change in texture beneath him, doesn't take any comfort from it at all.

Placing him on the bed, April gently smooths his hair. Noting that his temperature is high with concern. She reaches to gently remove the charm around his neck -- the one that protects him against magic.

With a nervous glance at Victor, she speaks, "You mentioned restraints?"

"I did. I brought two." She gets them out of the first pocket of her bag, there for easy access in case Clark got freaked and started thrashing. Two sets of police-grade handcuffs, none of that fuzzy, lined stuff -- not that she owns that, she just knows a guy.

She hands the cuffs over to April and pulls chalk out of the bag, drawing symbols on the footboard, sketching from a notecard. This method of kryptonite extraction was taught to her from this dude in Tibet who swears by it. It won't work.

His struggles renew a little when he feels the cool metal of the cuffs slipping closed around his wrists, because this can't be happening to him, not after all he's done to try to prevent it, and in his mind he's being chained down in a laboratory somewhere, drugged and helpless. The hallucinations are getting stronger. Brainiac never intended that the infection would get this far or this powerful.

Her eyes are wetter by the time that April finishes confining Clark with the handcuffs. She watches Victor create the magic symbols.

And doesn't see any difference in his aura yet.

"His hallucinations are getting worse..." Fetching a wet cloth, April will do what she can to keep the fever down. Sending soothing touches of comfort and safety to any area of Clark's mind that is willing to listen.

"Well, looks like I'm going to be making a grumpy visit to a monk. Foolproof my rear end," she mutters, setting the chalk down and starting with candles.

A white candle, a red one, blue, yellow, green, black, flipping open the lighter, hissing when she accidentally burns her thumb in her haste. That's fine, though, it's just a little burn.

She sprinkles dried herbs on each candle's flame and the fires glow bright blue, and crackle, and it smells like peppermint and cloves and ozone, but it isn't going to work, either.

The cool wetness on his forehead is shockingly cold, and he can't figure out what it is, maybe they're cutting open his head and he's bleeding down his face, maybe he's being dunked in the kryptonite tank at Summerholt again. He doesn't know, and can't figure it out, lost in a sea of confusion and terror.

The little touches of April's mind are like tiny raindrops trying to quench a fire, and he can hear the little echoes they leave behind, some part of him recognizing what they are, but he can't respond.

Watching the bright blueness of the candle's, April's eyes go red at the sound and the smell. She senses the horrible imagery of where Clark's mind has him trapped. And tries to focus more of her gifts into his mind, to give him something to hold onto.

"No change." She reports to Victor.

"Clark sweetie. You can fight this." She gives him the imagery of the Tree.

A twinge of panic, bubbling up, actually becoming apparent instead of hidden under layers of control. "I'm so sorry. God. I have a few others, I-I...."

She's choosing them in the wrong order, and she thought she was choosing in the right order, based on probability and the reliability of each source and -- stop, not important, she gets out a brown felt charm bag that she sewed herself, solid white stitched designs all over it, it looks like Voodoo. She places it on Clark's chest. Nothing.

She reaches into her bag for something else.

Clark sees the Tree, but it's burning, hot as the fire consuming him from the inside out. He can't even see what's going on around him anymore. There's nothing but the pain, and the fear, and wanting to just die. There's nothing left for him, he thinks, so there's no point.

Only the unbreakable thread, stretched thin by his poisoned mind, keeps him bound together with April. Keeps him holding on, even if he doesn't consciously realize it.

April shifts her calming thoughts around the tree, so that the raindrops can stop the imagery of it burning. She needs him to remember that he still has something to live for.

"Victor..." She reaches out a hand to the other woman. Concerned that the only lifeline for Clark is freaking out. "I know this is frightening. And scary. But we need your mind to work its logical wonders."

"We can have an emotional breakdown later. Promise."

In her mind, all she can think is about how stupid she is, about how she needs to be smarter, why isn't she smarter, she should make better choices, what if this doesn't work. She looks at April, stricken, big brown eyes shining, and there's a look like pain. But she nods, tries to dunk her doubts underwater, expression folding in on itself like fresh laundry, hiding her self-loathing under layers of forced and heavy calm, like hiding a body under wet concrete.

"Yeah. Of course, yeah."

A potion, teal in the bottle, darker blue once it's exposed to air, and she cups Clark's face, drips it into his mouth. It tastes like cough medicine and lavender. And she recites:

"Warmth of day and cold of night
screw that stupid kryptonite.
Get that crap out of his blood;
nip this issue in the bud."

Clark's whole body goes rigid, tugging against the handcuffs like he's having a seizure, and he lets out a strangled cry. His whole body hurts, as the silver kryptonite invading his brain and blood is forced downwards, collecting together in one spot, cohering into a dense little splinter. It works its way out of him, dropping from the cut on his finger and landing on the bed with a heavy thump. It's tiny, almost deceptively innocent-looking, but behaves as though it weighs eighty pounds.

His fever breaks, fresh sweat forming on his face, and he relaxes back down with a sigh. He still hurts, like the aching aftereffects of having the flu, deep down in his bones. But the fire is gone, the hallucinations are clearing, and his fear is fading away. He keeps his eyes closed, just trying to breathe, and the image of the Tree takes root more fully in his mind, the flames going out in a torrential downpour.

When the seizure starts, April's face goes pale. She feels a weight of guilt and panic. Angry at herself for demanding that Victor continue, when the other girl is in pain. Angry at herself for allowing Clark to open the damn package in the first place.

But when the splinter of silver drops from his finger with a thump, she realizes the magic worked. "Oh God... Victor... its out."

She wipes the cooling forehead down again. "He is back." Her own eyes are wet with tears of relief, and released anxiety.

Her first thought is that she's killing him, God, she's killing him, she's killing Clark, the way he's screaming, she's--

She feels physically ill, stomach lurching like a drunk man trying to walk a tightrope, and she presses her hands to her forehead, sinking down next to the bed.

It's not until she says that he's back that she realizes she did a good thing. And then she starts crying. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I hurt him, is he really okay? Is he really... God."

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