wander away

Title: Baggage
Fandom: Smallville, set in my Strange Love universe
Rating: R, because Jason likes to cuss.
Genre: Drama, gen
Characters: Jason, Zod
Feedback: Would be preferred.
Disclaimer: Main characters and situations belong to Al Gough, Miles Millar, DC Comics, and Warner Brothers Co.

Notes: Well, here's an oddity - a little AU fic I’ve written based on my Strange Love AU. It takes place in the future, features Jason and Zod, and was basically an excuse to write something angsty. I’m more used to writing drama than comedy; Strange Love is a big departure from the type of fic I usually write.

Summary: Not every rift ends in a rain of blood and a man flying in the sky. Sometimes, it's much more mundane.



Jason wasn’t stupid, so he would have seen it if he had been looking. It wasn’t slim, like a business briefcase, but bulky and big enough to comfortably fit the pieces of his best friend’s life. A suitcase in the Luthor mansion wasn’t an unusual sight, so it wasn’t Jason’s fault that he didn’t pay more attention.

Zod was sitting in the dark on one of the fancy large sofas in the entertainment room, staring at a blank television screen. He was waiting for his father to finish a meeting in the next room, one of those unending conferences that Mr. Luthor had started calling more and more of ever since he had won the presidential election. Even with no one else around, Zod sat very still and very straight and had Mom been there, she would have told Jason for the millionth time to adopt the same posture.

Collapsing into the seat next to Zod, Jason stretched his legs out. He didn’t like being shorter than the other boy. “You should turn on the lights.”

“I don’t find it necessary. My eyes are suited for more than what is visible to humans, even under subpar conditions.” Zod had grown out of speaking about himself in the third person but still sounded like one of those boring science textbooks whenever he talked. Not that he was ever boring to Jason.

Jason exhaled loudly and swung his hand down on Zod’s t-shirt covered stomach. His friend didn’t flinch at the sudden action, like a human would, but just blinked slowly. One of the best things about hanging out with Zod was that Jason could roughhouse all he wanted, there was no way he could hurt Zod. Jason’s fingernails were encrusted with dirt and he clenched his hand into a fist as he informed Zod. “Megan Bell kissed me during detention.” That had been cool. Megan had blue eyes, freckles on her nose, and smelled like wildflowers.

“I’m pleased for you.” But Zod didn’t really look too happy. He didn’t look too sad either. Just distracted.

Jason couldn’t have that. He liked it when Zod paid attention to him. Because Zod was smart and Zod never got exasperated with Jason the way the teachers and Mom and Dad sometimes did. “She said she’s gonna be my girl.” Jason added in a confidential tone. It was a big deal to have a girlfriend when you were in the fifth grade. “You better not tell anyone else.”

“I won’t.” Zod promised. He wasn’t in any grade at all and took his classes with Mr. Luthor, so he didn’t really have many friends at all.

“I won’t beat you up if you do.” The fact that he knew it was impossible didn’t stop Jason from saying it. He wasn’t really thinking, just talking at random. “But you’re my best friend so it’s, like, my right, that you can’t talk.” He waited for an answer but Zod continued not contributing to the conversation and Jason didn’t want to look like a loser so he finally asked, “Where’s the remote?”

He rooted around his side of the sofa in the search, Zod being no help at all. Then Jason looked around, rolled his eyes, and pointed his arm over Zod’s body, gesturing with his index finger. “It’s next to you. Help me get it.” Zod didn’t move and Jason was forced to stretch over until he could reach the remote with his fingers. “Never mind.”

He rolled back to his side and turned the television on with a click and a swoosh. Jason was about to say something as he flipped through the channels but, just then, Zod turned very deliberately. His face was really close to Jason’s and he seemed like he wanted to talk, so Jason stopped playing with the remote. A blue glow bathed the side of Zod’s face, making the green-eyed boy look freaky when he announced, “I’ll be moving away in a week.”

Jason looked at Zod for a moment and then grinned. “That was a good one! You’re getting funny, Zod.”

“It’s the truth.” Zod didn’t smile and had a serious look on his face. But then, that was a common expression for Zod.

“Whatever, man.” Jason punched his friend’s shoulder and directed his attention to the animated robot crushing Tokyo onscreen. “Look! Can you make a robot for me that can do that?”

He talked excitedly with Zod about what design and color scheme he wanted his robot to have and how many weapons it should be equipped with, illustrating his ideas with wild hand gestures. Half an hour later, when that topic had been exhausted, they went searching for the video games. The two were engaged in a bloody animated battle when Mr. Luthor and Mr. Ross came out of the meeting room. Mr. Luthor suggested that Jason call Mom and tell her he’d be home in an hour or two.

But Jason got so caught up making sure his ninja monkey had more grenade bananas than Zod’s that he lost track of time and ended up staying much later. When he finally got home, Mom yelled at him and Dad had fed his dinner to Shelby. Then he had to rush to get his math homework done before it was time to go to bed.

*

Jason wasn’t happy. So he yelled at Zod on the phone and demanded they meet at their treehouse next to Shuster Lake. The fact that he arrived there first annoyed him even more, because he knew how fast Zod was. As he waited, he sat with his legs crossed and stabbed letters into the wooden floorboards with his Swiss Army knife, stuff along the lines of “DIE ALIEN DIE.”

As soon as he saw the dark hair emerge from the hole where the rope ladder hung, Jason said flatly. “Mom says you’re moving away.”

Zod paused a moment to process the statement, then asked calmly. “Which one?” It was hard to tell which one of his mothers Jason was talking about at any given time.

Jason scowled. “Both of them.” Mom had smiled sadly and tried to give him a hug when she said it, her eyes bright and shiny. Mother had pulled her ghostly ermine coat around her transparent shoulders and remarked airily you do know your strange little friend is leaving soon, don’t you darling. He hadn’t looked either of them in the eye, just stared straight ahead and wished he could wake up. “Is it true?”

“Yes.” Zod replied, faintly confused. He pulled himself up the rest of the way and stood next to Jason, but didn’t sit down. “I told you two days ago.”

“You didn’t tell me anything!” Jason had never felt so angry in his life. He wanted to hit Zod, though he knew he would only end up hurting his hand. He wanted to wipe that stupid reasonable look off of Zod’s face and make him feel. Stumbling to his feet, he said. “You’re supposed to make sure I understood, not just mention it! I thought you were joking!”

“I wouldn’t do that.” Zod insisted. “I believed that I had given you ample notice.”

“You couldn’t tell I thought you were joking?” The disbelief in Jason’s voice was clear.

The afternoon sunlight, streaming through the trees, hit Zod’s eyes at an odd angle so that they looked just the tiniest bit red. Zod shut his eyes and shook his head. ”I can’t read humans. Your species is far too unpredictable.”

“I’m not a species! I’m a person! Stop talking like that!” It was frightening the way Zod was so utterly untouchable, so above it all, like he didn’t have emotions because they were for lesser beings, because they were for Jason. Zod had never seemed more alien than at that moment. It was as though he was gone already, was such a far distance away– stars and galaxies away- that he could never be reached again.

No. Jason had to stop thinking like that. Mother would tell him that he was being impulsive. He needed to think and appeal to Zod through the only way the alien knew. He took a deep breath. “Why are you leaving anyway?”

He already knew why and so didn’t really listen to Zod’s answer. Mr. Luthor was the President now and had to live in the White House, which was all the way in Washington, D.C. Jason hated Mr. Luthor, who seemed nice enough and had lots of cool things, but probably cared more about sitting in some stuffy building and making speeches than the fact that Jason would be losing his best friend.

“Look, don’t go.” He was interrupting Zod (who was talking about accessibility and tradition or something), but he didn’t care. He had been making up a plan, something that would be so logical that Zod, who was very scientific, would be forced to agree. “They can’t make you. It’s not fair.” There. That sounded reasonable

Zod sighed. “Lana needs me. I can’t do that to her.”

“Your mom did it to Great-Aunt Nell when she wanted to go to Metropolis.” He had overheard Aunt Chloe and Mom talking about that one day and had remembered it, never thinking it would come in useful. “You could move in with us.”

“She was seventeen. I look about eight in appearance.”

“You can stay here if you get her permission.” Jason cajoled.

Zod shook his head again, so quickly that it looked like he was angry. A horrible thought began to occur to Jason. Zod wasn’t thankful that Jason had found a way out of this problem. Zod wasn’t thinking up plans, using that smart brain of his to stop himself from, like, being exiled. Because Zod could easily think of something, he was a genius, but he wasn’t even trying. He didn’t, maybe he didn’t-

“You don’t want to stay.” Jason said. His voice was weird, like he had a sore throat.

Zod’s eyes shot wide open.

“It’s that stupid alien thing, isn’t it?” he hissed. “You still want to rule the world or whatever. Some stupid shit that’s more important than your friends.” He was supposed to be Zod’s second-in-command, the one who decided what countries were to be conquered. They were supposed to rule the earth together. It was their destiny or something. Zod had promised and now even that was being taken away from him.

“Y-you are important to me.” That was the first time he had ever heard Zod stutter and he couldn’t be proud of it. Zod was still using those stupid big words and sounding all superior. “The distance will be mere inconvenience. We will still be able to regularly communicate, even if by the crude standards of this planet.”

This planet. That didn’t matter. The same way Jason didn’t matter. He had no choice now but to use his ace in the hole. And he never would have done it unless it was necessary. Zod would see that and, after he stayed, he’d forgive Jason. “If you go, I’m going to tell everyone you’re an alien.”

Jason would never tell. But he didn’t want Zod to go. There wasn’t a choice at all.

Zod’s eyes narrowed and he thrust his chin up. There was a thin smile on his lips and it wasn’t nice at all. “If you want to,” he said dismissively. “No one’s going to believe you.”

“Fuck you! Go to Washington D.C.!” He didn’t know what to do and he couldn’t think of what else to say. “Live in the fucking White House! I hope the FBI dissects you, freak!”

“Your behavior is irrational and foolish.” His friend’s - the alien’s – speech had gotten more and more clipped and now it sounded like he had to force the syllables out between his teeth. “I won’t be goaded into an argument but I can assure you that you will regret your words.”

“Go away, fucktard!” And then Jason punched Zod in the face.

There was a loud sickening crack. For a second, it was though Jason couldn’t feel his hand at all. But he had seen Zod flinch and the pain rushed back in a red wave that washed over his eyes and nearly made him pass out.

Zod moved toward him, but he backed away, cradling his broken hand to his chest. He couldn’t see what expression was on Zod’s face because of the tears in his eyes but he hoped that the alien was hurt. Jason was crying and he never wanted Zod to see him cry and he couldn’t even think anymore, only scream.

“Go the hell away!”

Only when he was sure that Zod had left did he collapse onto the floor of the treehouse. The wood dug into his knees, but it wasn’t anything compared to his hand. Another shift and he was laying on his side, keening loudly and rocking back and forth. He curled his knees up to his chest and took deep breaths so he could stop crying. He could do that embarrassing hiccupping thing but he had to stop crying.

For some strange reason, he thought of Mom packing up the winter clothes before summer arrived. She’d put each article of clothing in a clearly marked box that read ‘jackets’ or ‘scarves’. They would always look so big and heavy to Jason but Mom had a way of making them fit into the small boxes, as if she were some sort of magician.

Jason couldn’t help thinking that Zod would have a box like that in his mind. It would be labeled ‘Jason’ in large black letters and, when Zod was packing up to move, he’d put every memory they’d ever shared in there, like when he taught Zod how to play football or when Zod had shown him that guy hunting the bear among the stars. Zod was scientific and neat and, in the same way that Zod would label his microscope slides before packing them away, Zod would take this box and put it in some dark damp corner of his alien mind. There it would stay as the days passed and Zod, having no reason to pull it back out, would eventually forget that it had ever existed.

Jason couldn’t stop crying.

*

He didn’t see Zod for the rest of the week. Didn’t go over to the Luthor mansion and refused to take Zod’s calls, much to Mom and Dad’s disappointment. Whenever he started to feel lonely, he would find some of his friends from school to hang out with or try to teach Shelby a new trick. Shelby, unfortunately, was a pretty dumb dog and took forever to teach.

Clark suggested that he go talk to Zod and had added that it wasn’t worth losing friends over little misunderstandings. Jason responded back that at least he had never lied to Zod. His brother had left him alone after that.

Megan came up to Jason one day during recess while he was kicking a soccer ball around by himself (and having lots of fun, by the way) and held out a box. “Zod wants me to give this to you,” she said.

Jason had talked about his friend often enough that Megan knew who Zod was but, as far as he knew, the alien had never met Megan before. Zod must have gone through some extra trouble to track her down and convince her to deliver the box. Jason didn’t appreciate the effort.

“Ask me if I care.” Jason replied. Then added, “Go away.”

Megan, with some weird girl instinct, could sense that something was wrong and began to make soothing noises. She tried to gently pat his shoulder and her blonde hair, tied up in braids, brushed against his arm. It was irritating. Also, Jason noticed, her teeth were crooked.

He shrugged her hand away and muttered, “Look, do you understand English, or are you so ugly that it’s affected your intelligence?”

Her eyes welled up and she let out a loud cry. She punched him in the stomach, threw the box at him, and ran away. It hit the grass with a muffled thump and didn’t roll. There was something that looked like a clasp holding it shut so the contents didn’t spill out.

He picked it up and opened it. It was about the size of a videotape and looked like one of those jewelry chests that Mom used, except it was sorta dark gray in color. Inside, there was a letter he didn’t want to read and something heavy and shiny and golden. It looked like a circle cut in half, except three-dimensional, so Jason supposed it was a half sphere. The flat side was smooth, but the rounded side had bumps and ridges that formed familiar shapes. Jason looked at them and recognized North America.

Zod had given Jason his half of the world, just like he had promised.

If it weren’t for the fact that recess was almost over, Jason would have dug a hole in the field and buried it on the spot. Instead, he stared at it, running his thumb over the continents and thought about nothing in particular until the bell rang.

He put the half-world and letter back into the box and hid the entire thing in the back of his closet, under all the failed tests that Mom would never find out about and his comic books. The box was horrible and wonderful at the same time, but at least it was something that he could lock up and keep forever.

He didn’t tell anyone else, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

*

The day Zod was supposed to leave, Jason hid in the bushes outside Luthor mansion and spied on his friend. It felt a little weird, but it wasn’t like he was stalking, because Clark watched people all the time. Jason stayed as quiet as possible so he wouldn’t rustle the leaves and be detected. It wasn’t easy since Mother was ranting at him about ridiculous sentimentalities or something. He ignored her.

Zod stood in the mansion’s driveway, surrounded by suitcases. Lana, who Jason didn’t call Aunt Lana because it freaked her out, brushed brown hair away from her face. She was really pretty, prettier than any of the girls at school and even Ms. Harold, the art teacher, but Jason hated her a lot because it was her fault he didn’t have a best friend anymore.

She reached down and took Zod’s hand in her own. Sensing her unease, Zod met her eyes and gave her a reassuring smile. She smiled in return and squeezed his hand. Jason could read her lips.I’m glad you’re here or Time sad to dare, she was saying.

A black limo pulled up and rolled to a stop. The chauffeur got out and held the door in back open for Mr. Luthor. Alexander Joseph Luthor, President of the fucking United States. Forget Lana, this was all his fault. He was supposed to be one of the good guys, not the person most likely to be Jason’s Sworn Archenemy Until the End of Time.

Lana hugged Mr. Luthor, who asked them either Are you ready to go? or I swear it’s being like snow (again, Jason was reading lips). Lana nodded and let Mr. Luthor guide her into the limo. Zod didn’t follow her, but looked around and waved.

It looked like he was staring straight at Jason. The expression on his face was sad, like he wanted something he knew he couldn’t have but kept hoping for anyway.

Jason ducked down further, wishing the bushes weren’t so trimmed and make it so hard to hide. He should run out and say goodbye. Mom would call him selfish. Dad would say that he was being a coward. Maybe he was.

Mr. Luthor tapped the alien on the arm. Coming, Zod (Homing god)? Who are you waving to? (Blue wouldn’t say thing cool)?

No one. Jason could read those words loud and clear. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see Zod enter the limo. He heard the low growl of the engine staring and the crunch of tires on gravel.

Jason waited. How long, he didn’t know. It felt like forever.

When he opened his eyes, Zod would be there, looking at him with those big green eyes that Jason envied (they probably let Zod get away with murder) and asking if Jason felt okay. Jason would smile, say yes, and they’d go inside the mansion, where Zod would try to feed Jason something he had grown in a lab. Jason would refuse and there’d be a chase (Zod wouldn’t try to superspeed – that’d be cheating) that would end in Jason pushing Zod into the pool.

Jason opened his eyes. He was alone with the ground and the wind and the stupid bushes. Even Mother was gone.

Zod was probably at the airport terminal by now, walking past one of those rotating machines that the luggage came out of. You could always see a few unmarked and unclaimed suitcases, the ones that no one recognized – you could tell them because they kept going around and around.

Jason wondered how long they kept on spinning if no one picked them up.