Author's Note: whoa, 7th already? :o) Anyway, here's a longish snippet – set just after Eclipsed. Because I love this episode, but it might just be the scariest in terms of plain old thriller, and the creepy song the possessed people hum really makes it worse. So I wrote this to make it all better :D
Disclaimer: I don't own Justice League, and I don't own The Creeping Terror – although I think the latter is public domain by now. I saw bits and pieces, and believe me, it is as hilarious as it sounds :o)
Snapshot Collection
7. Company
There's not a muscle in his body that doesn't ache, and the burns on his arm and leg still sting in spite of whatever J'onn has put on them, but at the end of the day, Flash reflects it could have been a lot worse.
End-Of-The-World worse.
He's been avoiding to think about it for a while now, as he's trying to get some rest. The thing is, it's hard to go to sleep when he hears the creepy hum whenever he closes his eyes. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to imagine what the five most powerful beings in the universe could have done to him if he had let them catch him – if he hadn't found that big old lamp.
He had found it very easy not to be scared about running to the sun and throwing the wormhole generator into it. Not after Superman burned two inch-deep dents into his skin with his heat vision. And wouldn't miss whatever he was aiming at next.
What really doesn't help is the nagging thought that, had Bats been there and infected by the creepy snake people as well, Flash would almost certainly have died. Way before he got to the spotlight in the engineering bay.
Yeah. All in all, not his favourite averted apocalypse.
Damn creepy snake people.
Still, it's over now, the bad stuff has disappeared into the wormhole, and every member of the League is himself or herself again.
Now, if Flash could only get some shut-eye …
There's a quiet, polite knock on the door. Flash can only think of one person who can knock in such an unobtrusive way, and come to think of it, it's rather funny coming from the 'faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive' and stuff guy.
"C'min, Supes," he calls, glad for the distraction. Sure enough, Superman pokes his head in.
"I thought you'd be asleep by now."
"Well," Flash says rather lamely, because he's so tired he really can't think of a smarter answer, "I'm not. Whatcha doin'?"
"I was helping fixing the Javelin with J'onn and Diana. It's really badly wrecked, you know."
"Yeah, I – I know. I kinda helped with the wrecking. What's the body count now? Javelin-7 39 point something?"
Superman smiles and crosses his arms. "I think you're exaggerating. Must be the …" His eyes glance upwards, and when they come back on Flash, there's a slight hesitation in them. "… twelfth? Thirteenth? I don't know. But not the thirty-ninth. Otherwise Batman would have killed us all by now."
Don't think, don't think … "Yeah. He's scary like that."
His voice must have lacked its usually buoyant tone, or something must have shown on his face, because Superman frowns and peers at him. "Flash, are you all right?"
Yup, fine, dandy and peachy and everything. Flash's shoulders sag a bit as the remainder of the terror from earlier sinks into the pit of his stomach and pools with the plain old tiredness. It's cold, and it's heavy, and no amount of bright and cheerful façade is going to convince the big guy that it's not there.
"Nope. I can't sleep. Been trying for hours."
There's an unspoken rule – or guideline, rather – in the League regarding the seriousness of any given situation. If it's so grave that the Flash has nothing funny to say – not one silly one-liner – then it's bad, indeed. It's always remained implicit, but it's proven true as time went by.
So Flash expects Superman to react accordingly – to show surprise, or even concern. Instead, he gives a smile and closes the door behind him.
"I just won a bet. Lantern figured that if there was something wrong, you'd be too darn proud to admit it."
Flash knows he should be really annoyed, but he can't help a snicker. Plus, there's just something about Supes saying 'darn' – he may not have been a very dedicated boy scout after all, but there's no way in heck he would utter a goshdang bad word.
"Well, you can tell him I resent that. I'm not some crazy stubborn guy who dresses like a flying rodent and refuses to admit it when he's down." He winks at Superman. "But you're so not telling Bats I said that."
Superman takes up a chair that he plants near the bed, and sits on it back to front, resting his arms on the top of the back. "So. Can't sleep?"
Flash shifts a bit uncomfortably. And wishes he could joke his way out, as he usually does.
"Yeah. No big deal, though. I just got a … Well. That stuff was one bad scare. You know."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not really. I mean, not right now. I just gotta get that creepy song out of my head." Right about now would be great. "You're back, everybody is, we saved the world again – I say yay. Just – give me a little while to be sure everything's okay again."
When he moves again, trying to get to a comfortable position, he puts his weight on the side of his left thigh and the searing pain makes him hiss. When his eyes return to Superman, the big guy looks definitely ill-at-ease.
"I never got a chance to apologise," he says, and just his voice is enough to understand that he really is sorry. "I saw the security tapes. Not that I needed them to know I did that," he adds, gesturing to Flash's bandaged arm.
There's something on the face of the Man of Steel that looks almost haunted for a second, and Flash wonders if Superman's thinking the same thing that occurred to him.
They have seen other security tapes, recently. The Other Batman – the Justice Lord Batman – gave their reality's counterpart a copy of the security tapes from that fateful day in the other – twin? – dimension's White House. They all watched, all the while avoiding the urge to glance at Superman.
Flash had never seen him so pale. But then, he had felt pretty sick to the stomach himself at that point.
It creeps him beyond coherent thought that Superman went in for the kill in the exact same way that the Justice Lord version murdered Lex Luthor.
Oddly enough, though, now that good ol' Supes is actually in the room, sitting next to his bed and talking casually, it's much easier to brush off the irrational fear that the creepy snake people might try their number on them again. He's good company, even when he's feeling down, or guilty – like now. He's like a smiling, solid six-foot-three brick wall who smells of soap and his mum's apple pie (he often brown-bags slices for dessert when he takes meals at the Watchtower) and when Flash hears the name of Superman, that's who he pictures. Not the most powerful alien in the world, who can kill you just by looking at you. Or, you know, through you.
Must be the apple pie thing. It's hard to stay afraid of someone who smells like Aunt Iris' kitchen when he used to visit in the summer.
Iris West Allen baked a mean pie, but Martha Kent's remains unequalled.
Typically, this train of thoughts – from security tapes to apple pie – runs through Flash's head in seconds. When he looks up at Superman, he has a genuine smile on his face and it comes from a good, warm place.
"Well, we've all been used at one point for one thing or another. I stole isotopes for Grodd, remember? Man, that mind-control thingy of his was – it was like some really bad trip. From what I heard," he adds hastily, because Superman sports the beginning of a frown and the last thing he wants is a lecture about drugs and how bad they are.
The frown disappears, but it's replaced by a deadly serious look. "I'm sorry, Flash."
"No problem, big guy. I don't hold grudges if there's evil possession involved."
The silence that follows is companionable, almost comfy. Almost, because any hospital room, even if it's the medical bay of the most expensive and sophisticated satellite built by man – complete with TV set and DVD/VCR combo – will never feel entirely comfortable for Flash. It's not … right.
Then Superman throws him a sideways glance.
"If you're that tired, then you probably won't want to take a look at this."
The Boy Scout – or not really, as Flash remembers Supes telling him – often sucks at subtle hints. But somehow Flash has so far failed to see the video box that landed at one point on his bedside table.
His eyes widen as he reads the title on the old, worn cardboard box.
"The Creeping Terror? Are you kidding? But you never want to watch that movie!"
The Creeping Terror is, in Flash's opinion, one of the worst and funniest films of all time. It's of the classic aliens-from-outer-space-come-to-sample-humanity kind; the actual filming is absolutely, delightfully dreadful, and the special effects are even worse. The 'carpet monster' in particular is to die for.
In short, Flash loves it, and he's been trying for ages to get Superman to watch it with him over a big box of popcorn and have a good laugh over bad cinematography and an exceptionally bad case of alien misrepresentation. So far, out of the three aliens of the League, only Hawgirl has spared an hour and a half – and she's mostly spent it howling with laughter.
Flash hasn't worked up the guts yet to ask J'onn, because he's unsure about the Martian's reception. J'onn J'onnz is not exactly known for his sense of humour.
Supes hasn't brought popcorn, because you're not supposed to bring food in the medbay, but the occasion is too good to pass.
Flash doesn't know if it's the familiarity of the hilariously bad voice-over, or the quiet, amused voice of Superman making comments and asking falsely innocent questions during the course of the movie, but the tension is all but gone now.
In fact, by the time the slug-like monster starts devouring people at 'Lover's Lane' and play with their cars, he's fast asleep. With a smile on his face.
When Clark notices that the Flash is finally sound asleep, he turns down the sound until only a Kryptonian can hear it and tries not to laugh too loud.
This film is terrible. But Clark is curious about how it wraps up.
Besides, it's as good an excuse as any to keep the kid company. After what's happened with the Justice Lords, Superman knows all too well what it feels like to wake up to a nightmare.
The Creeping Terror is in bits on YouTube – legally, since it's public domain. And it really is terrible :D The monster looks like the mutant baby of a giant slug and a hairy carpet. I figured watching a 1950s/60s film about alien invasion with an alien (especially Supes, who looks anything but and has enough of a sense of humour not to take it seriously) had some kind of absurdly funny quality :o)
Next up: Flash wonders how come they almost never go to Gotham, but when he stops to think about it, GL knows the answer.