Heroes: There's no More Feeling

Notes: So. This was chapter three. Now it's not anymore. It's Interlude One. Interludes, I've decided, are things I could fit into the story but don't feel like fitting in.

Oh and look…I'm not dead. If you thought so I don't blame you, I thought I was dead a couple of times but as it turned out I was just knee deep in Young Avengers, Justice League, and Supernatural. Respectively. It was hard for Richie and V to compete. But anyway…now that I've written this and three other chapters I'm not even sure if I want to keep it up as is or take it down, edit it, and then start reposting… Hell, I don't even remember the original plot line. Probably for the best since I think I'd like this new angle I have better anyway.

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Interlude One

There's No More Feeling

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Watching Virgil sleep was probably atthe heightof dysfunction. He was peaceful though, actually looked his age for a change of pace, and it was hard not to watch. Richie had never really thought about it before but what they did aged them…it did that to everyone though. It not only forced you to be mature, but it made you live your life so much faster and harder. The Superhero life span was a sucky one, though from what he understood if you were 'lucky' death was just a temporary thing, like a vacation.

But it was still really dysfunctional to be watching his best friend sleep. It bordered on creepy.

Richie rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, mind going back to his post 'staring at V' thoughts. It was amazing how a million tiny things could go wrong in a split instant, that even the most cautious of people would never even think of. Then again most people just saw surface things, where as he could see through them, around them, behind them, and comprehend the smallest part of them. The world had no secrets from him and he never wondered how things worked, because the world was just one giant detailed blueprint to him.

He supposed talking to Jacob about the way his power worked had him looking at things just a little bit differently. Instead of seeing all possibilities he was trying to filter his mind to just the negative possibilities. And damn, but there were a lot of them.

He was sleeping on Virgil's floor, which he'd done a thousand times before, only now his mind had provided well over a dozen perfectly logical and probable ways for him to die. Undoubtedly his mind could have provided more but he'd been getting kind of weirded out.

Then again there was a lot that had freaked him out lately. Not the least of which was his unintentional viewing of Jacob in a…less than totally clothed state the day they'd first met. He blamed Virgil of course, for leaving the clothes in his room instead of putting them in the bathroom. Another thing was Virgil in general; he wasn't acting as clueless as usual and nothing good could possibly come of that. And, of course, himself.

But freaking himself out was nothing new.

He sighed and looked over at the clock. 5 AM. He didn't think he'd slept at all. Then again he hadn't really slept all week. His brain didn't seem to want to shut down long enough for him to get rest. Like the headaches it seemed to be happening more and more frequently and only getting worse and worse, like something was on the inside of his skull and wanted to escape and since it couldn't it was running around in crazed circles and screaming loudly.

Sometimes he wanted to bang his head against something sharp just to break it open and let what was inside ooze out. That, however, was not a healthy impulse and should be shared with no one lest he end up in a place with padded walls.

He pushed himself up, not bothering to be quiet because nothing short of an earthquake would wake Virgil before he was good and ready to be awake.

He headed for the kitchen hoping for something sweet and heart destroying to take his mind off of…his mind. He was pretty sure there was something wrong with him, which brought him back to that long ago, faded thought about more mutation.

He wasn't sure how to check for the change though. It was one thing to distinguish how he and Virgil were different from normal humans but trying to figure out how he was different from himself was probably going to be just a little bit more complex.

He expected everything to be off and quiet but instead saw the backyard light dancing along the tiles of the kitchen floor. He yawned and scratched the back of his neck while walking over, not really feeling the chill of the bare floor beneath his feet.

A glance out of the backdoor found Jacob, sitting on the stoop with his legs pulled up to his chest and watching the deserted street behind the Hawkins house with total concentration. Richie leaned against the frame, considering. Should he go out there or just go back upstairs…he knew he never particularly cared for people intruding upon his solitude, as it were.

A car went past, lights reaching out into the back yard and almost touching Jacob who wrapped his arms tighter around himself, as if he was cold. Which he wasn't, it was still early summer and nearly sixty-five degrees. The sun was creeping along the edge of the horizon, preparing to announce the beginning of yet another day. Jacob's hair ruffled lightly as the grass bent in a breeze. Richie's breath hit the window in a cloud and…nothing at all was being accomplished.

He pushed the door open somewhat and Jacob turned to look at him. He blinked then turned back to the road, hunching over slightly.

"Been out here long?" And why did that sound so damn close to some kind of cheesy come on to his ears? Why did it matter if it sounded like that anyway? It was just a perfectly reasonable question, not the end of the world.

"All night. Cars go past approximately every fifteen minutes between the hours of midnight and five."

"Uh. Wow. That's…"

"Completely useless information." There was a note of strained amusement to his tone. "I just…had to focus on something."

"Ah." Richie sat next to Jacob. Goosebumps were running the length of the other teen's bare arms and he was shivering minutely even though Richie knew there was no way he was cold. "Couldn't sleep?"

"Never."

Richie started, drawing back some. "Never?"

"Wha…no, not never sleep." Jacob laughed and shook his head. "Who never sleeps? I think the UN has rules about depriving POW of sleep-"

Richie's mind was kind enough to supply the exact part of the Geneva Convention that was and he couldn't help but wonder how he knew that without having…had any base knowledge for it. Was he just wired to all sorts of random stuff now? How could that even work?

"Batman, I've heard."

"Oh. Well that can't be good…you're joking." Jacob's lips twitched again and he ducked his head but Richie could still see the blush. "Obviously. Sorry. Its late, my brain is fried."

Richie shrugged and tilted his head slightly. "So?"

"I sleep, when I can manage. Sometimes my head is so loud and busy that I can't even hear myself think and it's just so much that I want to reach inside and just pull it all out." Jacob's fingers clenched on his arms for a moment, a sign of unease Richie noted absently. "In a big bloody gray mess…I can see it perfectly, feel the texture of blood and brain under my fingertips. Just to make all of the voices stop for a little while."

"You'd probably be dead, so more than a little while." And Richie didn't even want to think about how closely that echoed his own thoughts at all. Richie looked away from Jacob at the street, pointedly not reflecting on his earlier 'head bashing' train of thought.

In fact he very much didn't think about how sometimes the noise of his mind, thousands of thoughts that didn't belong to him. Sure, they were there but they weren't 'Richie's' thoughts. They were the thoughts of a hyperactive non-stop brain that he happened to inhabit when there was room for him up there. They were some kind of constant white noise but they weren't always apart of him.

Yeah. Not thinking about it.

The other teen made a strangled noise, something that was either a laugh or the prelude to crying. "Yeah. You have a point."

Silence stretched between them as the sun continued to climb higher into the sky. Early risers were stirring now, readying for work and school. A car drove past, dark blue with tinted windows. Sixteen minutes and twenty-two seconds his brain supplied before he even knew what it was giving him. He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face before looking over at Jacob again.

"Hey I was wondering-"

"I've found nothing good starts that way." Jacob said, eyes darting over in his direction for a moment. "But go ahead anyway. I hear you heroes like to live dangerously."

Richie laughed, a hint of mocking in his tone. Live dangerously…maybe, but not as dangerously as they could. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd actually thought 'Holy shit, we're going to die' and those times all dealt with villains who weren't from Dakota. The bang babies didn't really scare him because…he knew most of them. Like Hotstreak; sure the guy was a total asshole and a jerk but he wasn't more than a bully with firepower behind him. Even Ebon, at his worst, never wanted to kill them so much as maim and humiliate them. He was a thug, not an out and out killer. At least not to Richie's knowledge.

No, it was when dealing with people like Joker and The Toy Maker and Sinestro that Richie was afraid. They were the real deal, leaving bodies in their wake and laughing while they did it and nothing like the petty criminals he and Static put away.

"What's it like, really? The way you see things? I was thinking earlier and…I can imagine but I'm not sure if it's right."

"It's…huh…I…didn't I explain this already?" He said finally as he wrapped his arms around his knees, drawing into himself. "It's like seeing everything but seeing layers of everything with…strings and buttons and facts and figures and…possibilities. I guess."

Richie nodded; that was after all how Jacob had explained it the first time around. It just wasn't a very definite sort of explanation and Richie wanted something more than that because…because he didn't know. He looked at Jacob and there was nothing. He looked at other people and all sorts of things came to him, from simple things like height and weight to more specialized things. He couldn't look at Virgil and not have, in that whispery part of his mind that was there without being focused on, ideas about how better to help Static and Gear.

And it was getting worse…now he was knowing more…things were coming to him that he simply shouldn't know just being smart.

"Like a road." Richie found himself talking without realizing he was. He did that occasionally, some part of his brain would think something out and take over while leaving the part that was Richie to watch and follow along. "And you can see where the road was and where it is and then all of the different forks in the road that could be followed."

Jacob didn't move for a moment then he tilted his head to the side and a slow smile curved his lips. "Yeah. Exactly."

Richie focused on the smile for a moment then nodded to himself, a strangely warm feeling settling over him, like when he'd solved some big challenge. He didn't get too many challenges these days; most things were an open book.

"But it's always night and there are things, terrible things, no matter which way I look and so I never move. I just…watch and try not to throw up. I rock back and forth in corners talking to myself occasionally, for my own amusement."

"…huh?"

"I figure when I stop laughing at that sort of thing I need to just be put out my misery." Richie could just make out the ghost of a smile from the corner of his eye. "I like that though. A road…but with me in the middle of the road and a truck about to mow me down. How's that?"

Richie rolled his eyes, glad for the light tone the conversation as taking. He shoved Jacob lightly and was rewarded with one of the first non-sardonic laughs he'd heard from the other man. "Your paranoia is hardly a feature of the road."

"Bullshit, my paranoia is the road…wait. No…it's the…yellow line? White line?" Richie snorted but Jacob waved a hand at him to be quiet. "It's…the sky? Uh…the tress…you know what, fuck you."

"Because it's my fault it's meaningless to the road?"

Jacob nodded. "Pretty much."

"That's stupid."

Jacob opened his mouth to reply but the sound of the door creaking open made them both turn. Virgil was standing in the doorway, mouth open mid-yawn. Richie couldn't help but snicker; something about V early in the morning was always laugh worthy. He looked so…out of it.

"Why're you up?" Richie asked once Virgil's yawn had subsided. Virgil's brow furrowed in what could only be early morning 'too incoherent to understand' confusion. "If I woke you up-"

"Nah. Wanted an early start…I think. I had a reason when I got up." Virgil blinked almost owlishly then, shaking his head, turned around went back inside, muttering to himself. Jacob was silent for a moment, face unreadable.

"Wow. That…is he always?"

"Pretty much." Richie couldn't stop a fond smile from quirking his lips.

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"Sir, he's waking up." The words kind of hovered over him, echoing in his head with a soft urgency.

There were other sounds but the way the echoed made it impossible for him to define them properly. There was also a hazy white light and, despite some misgivings about going towards a light floating in the darkness and what that might imply, he went for it anyway. The light got brighter and brighter and the sounds around him echoed less until his eyes were open and staring at a dull gray ceiling. There was a lamp hovering around his torso, bright but not blinding.

Where…a hospital. I'm in a goddamn hospital. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

He tried to lift his hand but found he couldn't actually feel his body. Frowning some, because who was to say he even had a body at this point, he tired to move head to look around but found it felt too heavy to do so. A little distressing but not so much so that he was really bothered by it. Then again, his head felt kind of…fuzzy, like he was there but…wasn't, at the same time.

That didn't make any sense.

He was really high.

A man came into his line of sight and he was treated to a hard smile cold blue eyes. "I see. We've been waiting for you to wake up for sometime."

He just blinked. Not because he didn't have anything to say, he always had something to say, but because he found his mouth wasn't working at the moment and that kind of hindered the speech thing. Oh well, by the looks of things he wasn't expected to respond.

"We put a lot of work into rebuilding you after that little incident in Dakota you understand. You weren't my first pick for this little experiment of course but Alva seemed to think it was genius and I do have to admit the state we found you in gave us so much to work with."

He just blinked again; mind racing to fill in what he could in the man's statement. Alva…that rich fuck who was to blame for all of the shit in Dakota nine out of ten times, obviously. Incident…which one? There'd be so many things that he was at the center at that were referred to as 'incidents' because 'Group of super humans lead by Sociopath blow shit up!' sounds really bad, even if it was accurate.

Still…god, which one. Obviously whatever it was had left some damage if the way this guy was talking was any indication…what…oh. Yeah. The dumbshit cure had put his powers on the fritz. They'd lost Talon and then the Ambiguously Gay Duo had come after them to stop them from…

Oh.

Oh shit.

Wait…he didn't feel like two people. Was he still two people? He didn't want to be two people, especially if he had to be part of Ebon. He didn't like the other teen for one thing and for another was just too much male type togetherness for his personal comfort. He wasn't that sort…and if he had been that sort, and that was a big if, he would have never looked Ebon's way.

Static perhaps. Or…Robin maybe. He'd never seen the guy in real life of course but he was an impressive sight in newspapers and…

Why was he thinking about this again?

His panic must have shown because the man smirked and moved for a moment before a mirror replaced him. He stared at himself, not sure what to think. He looked like him except…not. Red hair, green eyes, same roguishly handsome face if was permitted to say so but…well he was ink colored. Like that fuck Ebon had been. That didn't bode well at all.

But he didn't have a second head and he didn't feel like anyone other than himself so…well, he was fucking confused.

"We were able to eliminate that other…personality. He was too risky an element, a sociopath if his file was correct. I'd explain the process to you but I'm not sure if you'd understand, with your tenth grade education." Fuck you, you condescending bastard. "However I didn't see a reason to eliminate his power from your DNA, it could prove useful after all."

Yeah, he could see that. The man came back, staring down at him. He stared back placidly, wondering if he could even get panicked at this point. How much shit did they have pumped into him anyway…whatever it was, it was grade A.

"Do you know who I am?" I'll take an annoying prick with no hair for 400 Alex. "Lex Luthor. You've been unconscious for some time so I'm sure that doesn't mean quite what it could, but I'm sure it means something to you."

Yep. It meant he was officially fucked. Nothing good could come of Lex fucking Luthor deciding to play doctor on him with Alva working back up.

So fucked. Not even grade A drugs could detract from that.

"I have a proposition. You can work for me and bring me Static and Gear, along with a few run away experiments that may have slipped away from us at some point, and I'll let you live. Or you can refuse and I'll kill you."

Because that's a really fair choice right there. Death or go into league with the guy who is insane enough to take on Superman on the regular. Goody.

He blinked, hoping that would pass as a yes. Sure, this would in no way end well, but at least he wouldn't be dead. End up back in jail maybe but still…not dead. Superheroes didn't kill people; they just locked them up a lot and, hopefully, protected them from crazy bald dudes.

He could go for that.

"Good. When the tranquilizers wear off you'll be brought up to speak to me." Luthor smiled slowly and it if he'd had any control over his body he probably would have run away. He wasn't a wuss but this guy…unreal. Why did he always get involved with the crazy ones? Why did that sound so wrong? "We have lots to talk about Francis."

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You know, I wrote this and then went 'Wha? Hotstreak? Hotstreak doesn't have the sense God gave a shovel! Lex would never…wait. Yeah he would.' So if you too question Lex's common sense remember…He's the Goddamn Lex Luthor (…does anyone get the reference? Maybe?) He can do whatever he wants, even if it doesn't make sense to me or you.

Now, having said all that I'm gonna go start to edit some stuff. Amazing what glaring errors you can pick out a year later.