"Is something wrong?" Adrian's impression of his brother's lovestruck goddess was lukewarm at best.
It wasn't that he disliked Lana personally, but women who always carried themselves in dreamy melancholy simply irritated him.
Lana hesitated, unsure how to start, then finally asked, "Are all these paintings yours, Adrian?"
After a brief pause, she decided it was best to address the unsettling images covering the walls.
"Looks like it. You won't find paintings like these in any gallery right now. They confuse people too much," Adrian replied casually, his tone dismissive.
These pieces were just his idle creations, products of restless nights and darker thoughts.
His knack for art had surfaced when, as a child, he first used a box of crayons to sketch the destruction of Clark's lost homeworld. As the template of power within him continued to unfold, not only had his body evolved, but his mind had grown sharper and more formidable.
That growth carried a cost. Feelings of emptiness, doubt, and a void-like hunger surfaced within him, expanding his consciousness into unsettling places — dark oceans, endless skies, vast abysses. He saw and sensed things no ordinary human mind was meant to grasp.
It wasn't madness, but transcendence. A new clarity, a higher vantage point. Adrian sometimes wondered if Clark's so-called "super brain" felt the same. His expanding awareness enhanced not only his memory and perception but gave him a strange, almost divine perspective of the world.
To manage the flood of thoughts, he turned them into paintings. He poured his mental power and inner darkness into canvases filled with alien forms, terrible vastness, and incomprehensible dread. His works resembled something out of cosmic horror, whispering of ancient things just beyond mortal reach.
Not only did he paint — he also wrote. His texts, heavy with mystery and impossible detail, blended the cosmic dread of his imagination with the grim corners of the DC world around him. Gotham's decaying streets, Arkham's suffocating halls, Atlantis's abyssal creatures — all found their way into his mythos.
It wasn't plagiarism, but reinvention. He bent the shadows of myth into something new. Something that belonged here.
…
"This is incredible! It's like stepping into another world," Lana said, awe breaking through her unease.
At first, the paintings had terrified her, pulling her into suffocating visions. Yet as she calmed, she couldn't deny their strange beauty. They lured her like a siren's song, both frightening and impossible to look away from.
"Thank you for the compliment, but they're just sketches, really. If you call them art, they're the cheapest kind of art," Adrian dismissed flatly.
"Sketches? You mean… you're building an entire world? With words too?" Lana asked, surprised.
In her mind, Adrian was Clark's opposite in every way. Clark was warm, open, and polite. Adrian, however, was cold, aloof — nonchalant. She never expected that beneath his icy exterior was not just power, but talent.
"The draft's there," Adrian pointed toward a stack of printed pages on the shelf. "If you're curious, take it. But don't lose it."
Though his words were polite, his tone left little doubt: it was time for her to leave.
He knew Clark was standing outside the whole time, probably wrestling with his own thoughts. If he didn't let Lana out soon, Clark would start to overthink.
Lana sensed his dismissal, her smile fading slightly. She had meant to talk to him about what happened with Jerome, but he clearly had no interest.
Still, she stepped over to the bookshelf, picked up the manuscript, and said lightly, "Aunt Nell knows people in publishing. Maybe this could get printed one day."
"Maybe," Adrian said, indifferent.
Her attempt at encouragement bounced off his unreadable expression, leaving her a little disheartened. After a few more pleasantries, she sighed and moved toward the door.
"If I'm gone too long, Nell might send a search party. I should go," she said with a playful smile. Then, as if remembering something, she turned back, her tone softening. "And… thank you. For yesterday."
Before he could respond, she slipped out, closing the door behind her.
Adrian stood still, arms crossed. His face betrayed nothing, but her words lingered. Publishing… perhaps that wasn't a bad idea. Not because he wanted recognition, but because a published book could give him something more practical: a way to explain money. A way to build legitimacy. To launder what needed laundering.
After a moment, he raised his voice, eyes on the door. "Clark. I know you're out there. Come in."
The hinges creaked, and Clark stepped in with an embarrassed look.
"Sorry. I wasn't trying to eavesdrop. It's just… my hearing's been sharper since yesterday. I can't seem to block things out," Clark admitted.
Adrian waved it off. "Don't apologize. When I first realized I could hear for miles, I couldn't control it either. You'll adapt. It takes time."
Clark pressed his lips together, hesitant. The memory of their fight still hung heavy between them. After a silence, he finally asked, voice low, "Adrian… Jerome's death. Was it you?"
____
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