And thus we begin the next part of Kahn, the chapter I can't freakin' end. A quick note: I mention Lex Luthor here. I really only know about him because of his ties with Bruce Wayne (and the first two seasons of Smallville), so I'm going to mildly mess up his cannon here. And I shrug because he isn't truthfully a Batman character, so I could care less.
Downstairs, as Sean had halfway suspected was pure euphemism. Going downstairs involved many steps, but none he went down physically. First there was a strategic retreat to the restroom where he took another round of meds. Then there was an hour of mingling with the lecture's after-party crowd and being "Henry's new friend," a title that irked him in the exact wrong way but he grinned and bore with aplomb. Thank God there was alcohol floating around. Next he arranged with the service that had watched Butterfree during the lecture to bring the kit back to the other two Isis breeds from his apartment so the trio wouldn't spend any longer apart apart than he had promised and Gyrados wouldn't murder him. Then he called Max to ask her to be around to let the animal transporter into the building. And then he found himself committing to watching an alarmingly womanish sounding film with Max later that week. Then she said it:
"Bye, Sean. Love you!"
"Yeah..." he found himself drawling, half because long syllables were part of the character act called Sean, and half because if he didn't hide behind Sean's hard, unflappable exterior, he was going shatter. "Love you, too, babe."
Closing the phone, he didn't shatter, but he wanted to at least crumple. But he didn't because he turned around to find 'Henry's' eyes boring into him, politely but silently demanding an explanation. The next step in going 'downstairs' was to explain how, exactly, the annoying pink tinkerbelle next door had wormed her way into his graces enough to have his apartment's passcode, be trusted with his cats, be called babe, and merit a 'love you' –in the space of three weeks. This was made particularly difficult by the fact that even Sean, who had the advantage of having known the girl since childhood in another life, had no idea how it had happened.
The step after that involved mournfully watching his motorcycle get taken away to the hotel's underground lot by someone who (fortunately) knew how to handle the machine, while Henry's driver pulled up to the curb. Sean had the pleasure of stepping into the vehicle's rear first. He eyed the driver holding the door as he did.
Having played driver for Wayne no few times, to the point where even Mary McGinnis knew he was something of a chauffeur, he had learned something about what the driver said about the driven. No hat, so the money wasn't old or trying to fake it. Matte black clothes with no white shirt, no tie, but a high collared jacket that was buttoned shut up the waist, at the cuffs, and along the right side of the neck meant probable ties to the eastern hemisphere. Most importantly, the driver eyed him back, but only above the belt, so the fit, moderately comely man wasn't a bodyguard or anyone that did more than guard their employer's body.
Somehow Sean had the feeling that Mother McGinnis wouldn't have been so eager for her son to work for the multibillionaire Bruce Wayne had she known about the subcultures he would be exposed to during the course of his day job. That would have been too bad if she had forbidden it, because the things Terry had learned over the last two years as a chauffeur were invaluable.
He twitched his face into a genial expression before letting his eyes slide over the driver, and he stepped into the vehicle before his smirk could break through his mask of nonchalant nonrecognition.
He knew the driver's full name.
—
The smirk didn't last for long. The car's windows weren't tinted, as he had originally thought, but completely opaque from both sides. There were cameras that could shoot through the one-sided glass, and so many of the more paparazzi harangued members of the various elite classes had opted either for opaque glass that could roll over windows at the touch of a button or for false windows with reflective glass on the outside and vid screens on the inside.
There were no buttons. There were no vid screens. There was no window or vid screen connecting the passenger area to the driver's compartment. It was discretely but lowly lit in cool tones, and stepping in, Sean felt like he was moving from day into night. From summer into winter as well. Suddenly, he was grateful that he had insisted on not leaving his leather jacket at the coat check for a second time that day.
It was strange. He had been taken across an entire underground complex with nightclubs, parks, haute couture, fine dining, torture chambers, and lord knew what else, but he hadn't realized how deep Kahn's pockets ran until he had awkwardly perched himself on a seat in a car interior that put any and everything else he had ever seen to utter shame. And he had known half the drivers in Gotham.
Kahn was rich, had a life steeped in privacy, and was completely uninterested in the city surrounding him. And, to tell the truth, he scared him.
Having read through every case file of the original bat's that he could get his hands on, he had the tendency to compare his adversaries to the ones Wayne had faced back in the day. Ten (Melanie) for example, had seemed for a time to be his Catwoman and Selina Kyle. Willy Watts was his Harvy Dent. Zeta was to some small extent his Superman. Even Dr. Curvier had been poured from the same mold as Dr. Emile Dorian, whose creation Tygrus was the object of Kahn's obsession.
But Kahn, Kahn was something entirely alien to him. The man was part Bane because he monkeyed around with his own body. And he was part Penguin, too cultured to do anything but the most important dirty work. Part Two-Face in that he was given to trusting chance over logic—Sean was only here with Kahn instead of quietly moving through the shadows of the Pride because he had chanced to have a genetic marker that resulted in melanism when he spliced. And he was part Lex Luthor, because criminal or not, how did you take down the leader of a place you yourself were a citizen of?
You didn't. The Justice League had waited three years until after Luthor's term as the 45th president of the United States had ended before bringing forth the evidence of his crimes—his new crimes—and all the legal (and less than legal) battles had only resulted in a stalemate. The former president's influence was reduced to only two times that of most world leaders combined, and the League had been forced to give up the Watchtower and fragment into groups placed under the jurisdiction of their various nations.
Kahn was all that, and yet something else entirely. Beneath the veneer of civilized geniality and (aboveground, anyway) impeccable dress sense, there was something wild—human, but like a human that had long gone feral and now laughed to itself as it moved among the sheep. Sean looked up at Kahn as he lowered himself onto the same soft bench seat, the leather molding along his legs and spine. The driver—Benard—shut the door. As the latch clicked, the last slice of warm summer light died on Sean's skin, and he was unable to repress a shiver in the chill of the car's interior.
As Kahn smiled that familiar small feral grin at him and went about removing his cuff links, a cruel part of his brain reminded him that, when he was very, very young, his father had called him his little lamb.
—
Given the frigid temperature (mid-forties, Fahreinheit, maybe), Sean stared at Kahn when he removed his suit's jacket, but his brain didn't make the connection until the belt went too, and then he freaked.
"What are you doing!" His question's answer was actually rather obvious, but it needed to be said.
Kahn, three buttons down his shirt paused, looked at him, then closed his eyes before he had quite rolled them. He heaved an aggravated sigh instead, which Sean could only tell was aggravated because the man's brows drew together for a moment. Judging by sound alone, the man was merely quietly amused. "Sean, you are such a puzzle."
Sean blinked. "What?"
"You have no manners at all, no idea how to behave in any form of civilized society." His voice rose intensity with almost every word. "You stare at nothing when you should be pretending to pay attention you stare when you should look away, and now you insist on taking the moral high ground with me, in my own private property!"
Kahn resumed his unbuttoning without another word. Flushing as much as his artificially tinted skin would allow, Sean tore his gaze away and closed his eyes. Kahn's words tumbled around in his head. Pay attention. No manners. Behave. Embarrassed me.
But Kahn hadn't said that last. His father had. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
"A wonderful sentiment, but this is not the time."
"No. It never is."
The sounds of rustling stopped, for just a moment. "No, I suppose not. You really don't know when to be silent, do you?"
"Not really."
"Or when someone has asked you a rhetorical question, apparently." ...Oh. There was a groan that turned into a hiss. Three sharp breaths later, he was told, "You can look now."
Sean opened his eyes. Reclined yet somehow rigid, Kahn was in a extreme state of undress. Kahn was a tiger. Kahn was...orange.
His jaw dropped "What—"
A rumble of a growl came up from Kahn's chest, and he bit back the rest of the words. The tiger shrugged out of the starched shirt, carefully because of his increased size. The pants came off each leg, and...that was that.
Sean looked away.
"Look at me."
Or not. "I—"
"Be quiet. Look."
He looked. Kahn was orange, of course, but other things were off. Wrong. The ears had hardly changed at all, just gaining little elfin points. The fur was thin, hardly more than a few millimeters in places. The claws were almost nonexistent as well, hands and feet—and speaking of feet, the man still had heels. And balls. Of his feet. He looked away until the growl came again, sharper.
Kahn gestured at his body. "There is a time an a place for everything. Times to be men and times to be animals. This is what happens when you try to be both. There is a case by your knee." The...man pointed to a pouch set in the door. "Open it."
Sean did. There were two syringes, one spent, one filled with the bluegreen Splice anti-serum he had grown unused to seeing with human eyes. That wasn't what held his attention. The other syringe, empty save for a few last drop of orange, was labelled 'Henry.' He blinked and, unwillingly, looked back again. "You Spliced yourself with human DNA. You're not—"
"And to think I once thought you were quiet. No, Henry is not my true form, as if there were such a thing. I'm only Henry when I am Henry. And I when I am Kahn, I am never Henry. And right now, to prove a point I have turned myself into an ugly mess. Give the antiserum." It was handed, and this time Sean watched Kahn change. Ears, claws, fur, all grew. The albinism marker was unmasked as the extra human DNA was shredded, and in a ripple orange changed to silvery white. Kahn grew another half foot from the waist up, and experience told Sean that the remodeled feet would push the tiger almost another foot past that when standing.
The spacious car began to feel unbelievably cramped. "A time and a place, Sean," Kahn repeated. During that event, it was your time to be a man. Instead, you acted like an animal, dressed in a way you knew you had no business dressing, acted rude to everyone who was willing to look past that, and dammit, only their respect for Henry kept them from making you leave. And now, when you're finally free to be the animal you've been acting for the past four hours, you cry outrage. Animal or man. Pantharis or Sean. When you decide to be one, dammit boy, put the other one away!"
Sean stared. "Just like that. Throw a switch and be a different person."
An incredulous expression, tongue flickering past the fangs in a swift sideways motion. "Have you tried?"
"As a matter a fact—"
"Ttch. As a matter a fact—"
"—Yes! I have tried," he bit out. "I try, all the time! You think it's so easy to change, to make yourself fit. I can't do it. I was too "soft" when I was little, and my dad hated it. His little lamb." He laughed darkly. "And I just wanted him to be proud of me, just one time, so I tried. I whaled into the next kid that picked on me, and my father told my mother I was her son.
"I was...friends with this girl, and she was the only person I could call from Juvie, because God knew my parents wanted nothing to do with me. I told her everything, and I get out, and for eight months she passes me in the halls at school like we're perfect strangers. Dammit, my best friend was ashamed of me. And my...old boss..."
He tilted his head back and laughed in a cracking voice. "Do you think I do this on purpose? If I could have cut myself up so my father only saw the pieces he wanted to, if I could make myself be the right person for everybody I meet, why the hell would I be here, Kahn?
"I'm here because, at some point, I stopped caring—about what anyone thought. It just hurts too much to think, maybe just once I'll do this right and someone will be proud of me. But it never lasts. I graduate high school—no one thought I would, but my boss had made me this promise if I did—and so I did. And they all told me they were so proud, but a day later my mother is thinking I'm lazy and too stupid to remember to drive on the left side of the road, and my boss good as tells me I'm a useless child who can't do anything by myself. So why bother? Even when I try so hard I almost kill myself, its never enough.
"So yeah, Kahn. I could have tried to fit in for your—sorry, Henry's sake. I could have bought a suit, laughed, smiled, tried, but I still wouldn't have fit in, and they still would be laughing about it right now, wondering who the hell I thought I was trying to fool."
He looked into the impassive face staring back at him him. "...Why am I even bothering? Like I care if you're embarrassed of me too."
—
"Exactly how much did you have to drink, Sean?"
He blinked. Then started laughing uncontrollably. "So now I'm a drunk too? Wonderful." Claws clamped over his wrist and pulled. "Ow!" The other set of claws dug into his shoulder, and his next cry of pain was much more unarticulated. Kahn paused for a long second. Then claws pulled off his jacket, fabric ripped, buttons popped and suddenly he was down to his undershirt and the bruises that lined his shoulders and arms.
"When did this happen?"
Sean bristled, hiding a frisson of fear. "That is none of your business." A finger dug strategically into his stomach, and he gasped.
"Oh, I would beg to differ. Has someone looked at you at all?"
"I did. I'm taking medicine. It's fine." Kahn just looked at him. "I'm fine," he asserted. "It was old medicine, in one of those caches people hid, back around the cataclysm, but it still works."
But Kahn wasn't listening. He pressed a small panel near the door's handle. "Get us down there, now, Benard. And I want every doctor we have waiting, ready to save the life of a kitten that was stupid enough to mix 20th century pain medication with alcohol!"
"I'm fine!" Sean protested one last time, even as the tiger pulled his head on to his lap. He would have said it again, but the look leveled at him put paid to that.
"You," Kahn said with an icy venom as he drew hair off of Sean's face with his claws, "are an idiot."
—
Tip: when you find one of your characters is acting OOC, ask yourself first if drugs and/or alcohol could be involved before you sigh in disgust and rewrite. In this case, both applied. I'm sorry, but Terry is an idiot, and this day and age's drugs are dangerous.