After Thriller

Rating: PG-13/T

Genre: Humor/Hurt/Comfort

Summary: For the hc_bingo challenge, prompt "Attacked by a Creature". Crack-ish, coda to "Rabid". Tess is way too drugged out to care that Zod is mocking her.

Author's Note: …And thus, born from my desperate desire to write more of these two together, this fic was born. Yeah, I know it's on the odd side.

Disclaimer: I don't own Smallville. It belongs to Jerry Siegal, Joe Shuster and the CW.

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"My, my, you certainly know how to get yourself into predicaments, don't you Miss Mercer?"

Tess is so pumped full of drugs that she can't bring herself to care about how sickeningly smug Zod sounds, or that the Major in charge of the army that she's been looking for for the last month is standing in the door of her room. Actually, she giggles a bit. "That's an understatement."

Between the bite wound that's been tightly bandaged on her shoulder and the insane thrashing she'd done when she was… Out of it (Right, right, let's call it that) that seemed to have led to strained muscled and more than a few ugly bruises, the doctors had probably seen it fit to pump her full of enough painkillers and sedatives to topple an elephant.

Zod looks sharp. The Kandorian uniform is gone, and he's in a black jacket and slacks, a dark gray shirt poking out from the former. "You've assimilatited. Good for you." Tess shakes her head and tries to compose herself, because she slurred a little bit with that sentence.

"We had more than a few training courses on the art of adapting to new environments and blending in with the locals."

"Except when you're leaving your tech-crap everywhere. And by tech-crap I mean John Corben." Zod's eyes narrow, and now Tess is the one chuckling like a know-it-all bitch. She goes to roll onto her right side, but forgets that she has a gaping hole covered by a few layers of gauze and bandages, and she can still feel enough of it that the motion makes the wound scream. She lets out a choked noise and for a moment is too distracted to actually think to roll back over.

Zod, on the other hand, revels in her pain, tilting his head to the side and smiling serenely. "That zombie must have taken quite a bite out of you." He says the word like he's just discovered its existence today and finds it endlessly entertaining (and maybe he has. Do (did) they have zombies on Krypton?).

"Oh, stop enjoying yourself, you bastard." Zod starts laughing a surprisingly real laugh, and he looks truly amused as she manages to push herself back onto her back.

"You're quite candid with the right persuasion, aren't you Tess?" He strolls up and taps the bag of whatever medicine is currently dripping into her arm (or it could be saline, hell if she knows).

"I know you had something to do with this," Tess growls, "I don't know how, but you did."

"And if I did?"

"I'll… I don't know." Tess runs her left hand down her face, and then starts to scratch at the bandage on her shoulder. Zod cocks an eyebrow at her, and then grabs her hand.

"Come now, stop that. Don't want to make it worse."

"Screw you." He snorts again, but assumes a firm grip on her wrist. He leans in right next to her ear.

"Maybe later, darling, when you're in your better mind. Besides, I have some business to take care of." Zod plants a kiss on her cheek, and even through the haze of medication Tess can tell that yeah, he's still mocking her, but he's also making a legitimate offer.

"Corn-dog- horn-dog, I mean. God I hate you."

"And I hate you, darling."

"No, seriously. I hate you. And where the have hell- have you been for the last month?" Zod draws a chair over from the wall and sits down beside her. Goodie: This is going to be drawn-out.

"That's for me to know and you to find out, Tess. I have every confidence that you'll figure it out on your own; when not high on pain medication, you strike me as the resourceful type."

"I know people."

"I'm sure you do." Zod picks up her left hand, the one with the IV in it, and clucks his tongue. "That's going to bruise. I would hope nurses in a major hospital would be better at this." If Tess had the right words and less fog in her head, she would tell him that all things considered the nurses did just fine for trying to insert a needle into a woman who was thrashing around and trying to bite them.

But the fog is getting worse, and Tess suddenly realizes that Zod's right hand is a distraction; the left is playing with the IV drip controls, adjusting the amount. She wants to ask what he's doing and demand that he stop it, because the last thing she wants is to be unconscious and alone with him again. Too late, though. "Sweet dreams, Tess."

I guess it was morphine. She thinks as she starts to pass out. Bastard.

-End