trans_9 | Shrunken Heads [Closed]

Entry tags:

doc samson,
kon-el

Shrunken Heads [Closed]

Superspeed means not being seen. Just a rush of air, just a flash of...something out of the corner of someone's eye, that's what people tend to feel and see. And that's how Kon makes his way into one specific Sensorium.

Kon hadn't wanted anyone to see him meet with the man waiting for him here.

"What, no office? None of those chairs with the little headrests? I'm feeling skimped on here, Doc."

Sarcasm. Total defense mechanism.

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"You're the one who selected this location," Samson pointed out.

"If this is the place that makes you feel the most comfortable, then by all means," he gestured towards the empty room, "make yourself comfortable."

Kon stands there for a moment and thinks about it.

Then a field spreads out from his feet, and he and Samson are standing on top of a hill, looking out over rolling wheat fields. There's a farm nearby--Kon's careful to make it look different from the Kent farm, with a grain silo. The sun is warm on their faces, but not too hot, and there's shade there, because of a huge oak tree growing on the hill.

"Still missing something," he says thoughtfully, and then snaps his fingers and there's a chair for Samson that looks like it belongs with a fancy desk, but there's no desk with it, and no other furniture.

Rather than summoning up a place for him to sit, he simply sits in the empty air, floating as if he's perched in a comfy seat.

"Very nice," Doc had to admit. It reminded him of where he grew up.

He took a seat in the very-out-of-place office chair.

"Why this location?" Kon didn't particularly strike him as a farmboy.

"First place that was ever home. After a long time of never having one for long."

Not a farmboy in his bones, but he's learning to be one now. Or at least he was.

He'd ask about the people who took him in, but, considering the boy hadn't even given him his proper name, yet, Doc figured that subject was off-limits.

"What was your favorite activity to do outside when you were here?"

"Play fetch with my dog," he admits, almost like it's a shameful secret.

But he does love that dog, embarrassing though it may be.

"With trees. (He's got powers, too.)"

Edited 2010-08-03 08:04 (UTC)

That got a chuckle out of the Doc. "I wish I had a dog that could do that sometimes." But, alas.

Anyway...

"Now, at the end of our last conversation, there was quite a bit you needed to get off your chest. Is there anything in particular you'd like to begin this conversation with?"

That gets an insecure shrug.

"I don't know how to talk about that stuff."

Here's where the struggle lies.

"I wanna deal with it so it's not bugging me anymore, but I don't know how to start. I'm not really Mr. Feelings, y'know?"

"Then let's start at the beginning."

Samson looked through the few notes he took the other day.

"You said you were cloned from your world's greatest hero and greatest villain, correct?"

"Superman--hero. Lex Luthor--villain. I already told you about Kal, he's all about truth, justice, mom's apple pie. Everyone--and I mean everyone--looks up to Superman."

Edited 2010-08-03 08:25 (UTC)

"So tell me about Lex Luthor."

This is where Kon pauses. His body language changes. He sits up and draws up his knees.

"Total scum. He'd toss a girl scout troupe in a volcano if it served his purposes somehow. Power-hungry, manipulative, occasionally sadistic, twisted..."

How does one describe Lex Luthor, really?

"He doesn't do it for wealth. Yeah, he goes in for that, but it's not enough for him, and he doesn't just do it for power. He does everything for Lex Luthor. For his own ego. And more than anything else, he has a hate-on for Superman."

Edited 2010-08-03 08:31 (UTC)

"He scares you," Samson added.

Kon looks up, face full of anger, ready to spout out denial, but then just sits there for a moment, breathing in and out.

Finally, he says, "He made me."

He doesn't know how to explain it.

"He snuck into Project Cadmus, made it so half my DNA was from him, put programming in my head..."

There's too much to say here.

"The guy created a living person just to get to an enemy. And when you've had someone control you, when you were made by them to be controlled..."

Kon admits, honestly, "Yes. He scares the ever-lovin' shit out of me."

Edited 2010-08-03 08:42 (UTC)

He paused for a moment, giving Kon a bit of time to compose himself.

"There's no shame in being afraid," he responded gently. "And I do know how hard it is for you to admit that. No one wants to be the victim. Especially when they're supposed to be the hero."

"He made me hurt my friends. My girlfriend. I nearly took out my whole team."

"That wasn't your fault. Something, which, on a rational level, I'm sure you know that. But, deep down, do you really believe that? Or is there some part of you that doesn't want to acknowledge that painful truth?"

"Two edges to that, Doc."

Either he'd been in control, but responsible, or it'd been out of his control and he'd been a victim. Powerless.

Edited 2010-08-03 09:29 (UTC)

"I know. And I know which one cuts deeper, but that's usually the one that's the truth.

"Most victims of subliminal mind control that, as a defense mechanism, they choose to blame themselves. With more over mind-control, as in, being controlled by a telepath or something, they can point to the external influence and say 'that clearly was not me at all, no part of me wanted to do those things at all, it was that telepath.' But with a more subliminal control, they can't point to that, so they point the finger within. After all, the thoughts behind those actions had to come from somewhere, right? So they believe that there was something in them all along, some part of who they are that always wanted to do the awful things that they were forced to do. That all someone else did was unearth what was there and let it run free.

"Except that's not the truth at all.

"Superboy... someone put a thought in your head that was never yours. They made you do things that no part of you ever wanted to do. You were as much as victim as anyone who got hurt in that mess.

"For any boy, super or not, that can be incredibly painful in and of itself. But, in your circumstance, you probably feel as if you accept that truth, that you'll be disappointing Kal, that' you'll be failing to live up to the standards of Superman, and worst of all, that you'll be surrendering power to Lex Luthor.

"Am I right?"

That gets something like a full body wince out of him, and he buries his face in his knees.

That'd be a yes.

Doc got up from his chair, and placed his hands gently on Kon's shoulders.

"I want you to listen to me very carefully.

"What happened to you wasn't your fault. There was nothing you could do to stop it.

"Accepting what happened will not give power to Lex Luthor. It'll be the first step in taking it away.

"This isn't a scar on your psyche, this is an open wound. You can try to ignore it, to bury it under layers of bravado, nonchalance, and immaturity, but it'll still be there. So long as it is there, Lex does have a power over you. He has a way to hurt you and a way to make you afraid.

"But if you accept the truth, it will hurt, and I'm sorry that it will, but the pain will eventually pass. Not overnight, but it will pass, and that wound will heal. And once it does, you'll be stronger, and Lex won't have that power, he won't have that way to hurt you anymore.

"If you can do that, then if Kal is even a fraction of the man you told me he is, then he will be more proud of you than you can possibly imagine. Because confronting that kind of pain and coming out stronger? That takes the strength and courage of a true Superman."

Kon just nods at him, trying to reconcile it in his head.

"It used all my own feelings when he did it. Said the code words and it was my anger, my hate, dialed up to a hundred."

He said, "I'm not bad, am I. Not from his DNA and not from what he made me do. That's the hard part to think. It's like, in my head, I'm a rotten apple, and only the outside doesn't look that way, and I keep having to tell myself the inside's not rotten."

"DNA can decide a lot of things about you. Your gender, what you'll look like, what you might be allergic too, genetic conditions you might predisposed to. But as for the person you are? DNA doesn't decide what you think or how you feel. DNA doesn't decide who you are or who you want to be. Some people can influence you, positively or negatively, but Kal's DNA has never made a decision for you, neither has Lex's. At the end of the day, you decide who you want to be.

"So you tell me. Have you chosen to be a bad person?"

"I've made, like, a ton of mistakes and dumb choices..."

But.

"But no. I've always tried to be a good person. Even if sometimes I suck at it."

"It's okay if you suck at it sometimes. Everyone makes mistakes and poor decisions every now and again. What matters is that you try. That's really the difference between screwing up and being a dick."

He smiled kindly at Kon.

"So how does it feel, knowing that you really are a good kid?"

Kon sits there for a little bit, and then finally nods.

"Better. I feel...better. Still mixed up a little, but I don't know. It's easier to believe something when someone else tells you than when you're telling yourself. Too easy to second-guess yourself."

"Good," he said. he was genuinely happy for the kid.

"Now, before we end this session-- and I probably should've warned you about this-- you're getting a bit of homework."

"Are you kidding me?" he groans the groan of a kid getting homework. "What do I gotta do?"

"Simple. You just have to do... you," he said.

"Sometime between now and the next time we talk, I want you to go out and do something that is uniquely you. Not something Kal would do. Not something Lex would do. I want you to do something that, everyone who knows you, who happens to see you, will go 'that is so... Superboy', or whatever your real name is, because no one else alive would do something like that.

"So... be you. And enjoy it. And be completely unashamed about it.

"...then write me a ten page report on how that feels."

"Well, one thing that's uniquely me is I never do ten page reports."

"Find another thing," he told Kon, briefly patting on the shoulder.

"And the report should be single spaced," he said as he made his way towards the door. Apparently he was serious about this homework thing.

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