Disclaimer: The following piece of writing is a fantasy. It never happened. It has nothing to do with Smallville or the CW or any of the creators of any of the permutations of the characters mentioned. It is no different than writing down a dream I had about a TV show in my dream journal and then sharing that dream journal with my friends via an LJ post. It is no different than talking in a public forum about how much better a movie would have been if it had ended a different way than it did and then lining out that different way. I don't make money from my fantasies, nor any other gain but to hear what other people of like mind think of said fantasies. And no one has domain over my fantasies nor how I choose to express them.
Feedback: Only if you're honest. Chocolate and champagne are always nice, but only if it's honest chocolate and champagne. I'm a sucker for good constructive criticism.
Warnings: Schmoop, drama, angst, mild kink, very mild het, extremely graphic boy/boy sex, alien weirdness. WIP! This is a WIP!
Author's Note/Continuity: You will find that the canon of Smallville is rearranged, discarded, embraced, or used as can(n)on fodder at my whimsy. Please also note that I stopped watching Smallville mid-seventh season. I don't know what happens after around episode Blue; I don't even read the episode guides, plot points, or reviews. Therefore, it is very possible that as I go forward, I will contradict the show at its base rather than only in the details. It's very possible I'll bring in comics characters of my own interpretation that the show itself has brought in or will bring in completely differently. I've been rewriting the show since mid-second season anyway, but trying to incorporate some things that I thought worked, or could have worked with some tweaking. It is probably best for the purposes of reading this story that you disregard anything that's been going on in the last couple of seasons on Smallville.
Spoilers: Through 4th season.
Prequels: Eleventh in the "Manual Transmission" series. Go home for the first ten.
Sequels: Part twelve in this continuing series is Fifth Gear and Beyond II. Link at the bottom.
Summary: Not every shift is a smooth one. Transmissions tend to stick, gears tend to grind, and when the various parts do not communicate properly, stalling is imminent. Even once the vehicle is operating efficiently, one finds that merging into traffic is delicate business: Everyone else on the road must be in tandem with your efforts. It is not despite this struggle that a destination be reached, but rather because of it. Bumps in the road are part of the journey, but a body in motion...
Fifth Gear and Beyond byline: bipolypesca creation date: December 2009
* * * * * *
"My son. I am gratified to see you again. You appear well."
Clark closed his eyes on a weary sigh, wishing with all he had in him that he would never have to come back to this wretched place again. He hated Krypton, he hated aliens, he hated this cave, he hated creepy screeching overheating stones, and he hated... Jor-El.
Lex had slipped the key he'd need into Clark's pocket just before he'd left, allowing him the mercy of not having to request that which he didn't want to use. Clark had held it tightly in his hand for a long time before he'd gotten close enough to the wall to let it suck the key into its waiting depression.
Though he'd already tried many times to destroy it and had failed, he had spent some time standing in the cave, staring at the stone and wondering if he had enough strength to throw it out of the very atmosphere and, if he did, whether it would be safely out of reach there in the dead of space. But the very fact that there had once existed a race like the Kryptonians told him beyond a doubt that it would not. If the stone could be dangerous to Lex—dangerous to anyone—then he couldn't let it fall into the wrong hands, or even into unknown hands.
Though Clark continued to stare at the small, clear artifact that had brought him back to this place, a grimace crawled across his lips at Jor-El's greeting. "Do I?" he said wearily. "Well, I feel lousy. I don't want to be here."
"And yet you have returned."
Clark's head snapped up, his glare burning into the soft white light and constant rushing wind that poured from the cave wall. "After what you did to Lex," he growled, "I don't ever want to hear your voice again." He gestured angrily with the warm stone in his hand. "I wouldn't even be here if—"
"The one you have chosen," Jor-El interrupted, which, despite his dominating nature, was unusual for him, "he did not recover?" There was a mild anxiety in his voice that did little more than make Clark suspicious about his intent.
"He recovered," Clark answered with a sneer, "physically, and to some extent emotionally. But he's going to be forever scarred, forever affected by what you did to him."
"Yes," Jor-El said simply, as if this was not at all a bad thing. "It is as he wished."
"What?" Clark sputtered. "Lex didn't want you to nearly kill him."
"Your chosen sought answers. He believed it was worth the risk."
Clark scoffed, shaking his head at the egoism of this entity: Of course a paltry, unimportant little human wouldn't at all mind such an invasive procedure if it meant that the great and powerful Jor-El could give him a little insight into the way things worked. "Oh, really? And he told you that, did he?"
"I was in his mind, Kal-El."
Clark paused, waiting for more only to realize that was his answer. He swallowed reflexively and shook his head in denial. "Lex wouldn't have risked dying—leaving forever—just for a few answers."
"It was as he wished," he repeated with a tone that suggested the subject was closed. "What assistance has he offered you for your mission?"
Both wanting to press on with their argument over Lex, and yet not wanting to hear a word more of it, Clark let it go and instead gave the cave wall an odd look. "My ‘mission’? Oh," he realized. "World domination. Right."
"Of a sort. Yes."
"I haven't asked him for any ‘assistance.’ And I don't plan on it."
"Kal-El, he is the one you have chosen; he should be involved."
"I'm not going to do any of that!" he shouted, angry and exasperated and so, so sick of being himself. "Why can't you get that through your thick alien skull? I'm not interested in taking over the world with my thousand hybrid kids, okay?"
Jor-El's voice became stern and harsh, a threat Clark had grown very used to over the past few years. "You are my son," he said deliberately. "You will do what is expected of you."
Rage curled like corrosive acid in Clark's stomach. How dare he? How dare this creature who had built an infant as a means to his own ends refer to Clark as his son? "You are not my father!" he shouted with great emphasis. "You're my engineer. And you can't make me do anything."
Jor-El paused for a long, long time. "Are you so certain, Kal-El?"
He let out a derisive scoff. "Yeah, okay, fine. You want the world taken over by a Kryptonian? By a family of Kryptonian-human hybrids? That's great. But you're going to have to find some way to take control of me and do it yourself. Because there is no way in hell that I will ever willingly do what you want of me. If you want to be my puppeteer as well as my architect, you go right ahead. I'm sure there's nothing I can do to stop you. But don't think for even a minute that I, as an individual, will ever bow down to your wishes. If you get what you want, Jor-El, you steal it. I will not hand it to you."
Jor-El didn't respond to this challenge, speaking with a quiet curiosity instead. "You feel great sympathy for these humans."
"You're damn right I do," Clark said stonily.
"Then why would you allow them to destroy themselves?"
He rolled his eyes. "They're not going to destroy themselves just because Krypton destroyed itself."
"They are on the brink of disaster, Kal-El."
Clark shook his head, knowing exactly what manipulative tactic Jor-El was trying on him: He saw Clark's love for certain humans and for humanity in general as a weakness he could exploit for his own gain. But he wasn't fooling anyone but himself. Clark knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jor-El had no genuine concern for Earth's problems—climatic, political, or otherwise. "They'll find a way to stop it. They always do. When disaster looms, they've always made the right decision just in time. Their history is filled with precedence."
"Their history is also filled with precedence of the opposite. What if you are wrong, Kal-El?"
"Then I'll help," he snapped without hesitation. "I'll do anything I can to help. But I won't dominate them. That's not the way to assist a people, it's just a way to oppress them. Is that how you ran Krypton: Oppress the people?" he asked sardonically. "’Cause I see how well that worked out for you. You know, if this was Krypton, and some other race across the galaxy that you didn't even know existed decided without your input that you weren't doing so great and they sent one of their own people to do the things you want me to do to Earth, you can't tell me that every Kryptonian wouldn't band together to find some way to stamp him out no matter how powerful he was. I mean, do you really believe that even if I was willing to do the things you say that it would ever work? These people—humans—maybe you don't understand them. But they have a lot of soul and fire and heart. They all do. And when they're threatened, they come together and become a force to reckon with. It isn't just that you're planning something I would never agree to, Jor-El. Your plan isn't even sound." He shrugged. "Not that I'll get a chance to prove that to you."
"We will see."
Clark rolled his eyes. Why did he even bother trying? If Jor-El really was just a sophisticated alien programme that approximated his biological father's will at the time of his death, then was it even possible to change his—or its—mind about anything? "Yeah, I guess we will," he muttered.
"You've come about the Element—the Fire Crystal you hold," Jor-El said, easily closing the previous subject as if their fundamental disagreement bothered him not at all.
"Crystal?" Clark looked down at the item in his hand. He, Lex, and his parents had all been calling it a ‘stone,’ but he supposed crystal applied just as well, if not more so. At least now he knew which of the many meanings that the Kryptonian symbol within could have had actually applied. "Yes," he answered. "Lex found this thing in a statue in an ancient tomb in Egypt. It controlled him—or the key did: Forced him to exhaust himself digging for it until he found it and brought it to me." Clark sneered at the cave wall in disgust. "You have no respect for free will. It's important to humans. It's important to me."
There was a long pause, but without any expression to read, it meant nothing to Clark. "I am sorry, Kal-El," Jor-El said at length, and Clark turned from the light with a scoff of derision over the feigned sincerity of this apology. "But you are mistaken."
"What are you talking about?" he spat. "Mistaken about what?"
"The powers of the Elements. They can not dominate the will of man. If they could, you would certainly have been in possession of all of them long before now."
Clark flinched and swallowed hard, not sure which of the many questions that had just assailed his mind he should ask first. Without thinking, he blurted, "All?" in a shaking, terrified voice.
"There are three."
Clark closed his eyes in despair. Three? Why was it that just when he was thinking he might be approaching a scary and dramatic end to something alien and insane that had been building, it suddenly ballooned into something larger and more terrible than he could have imagined?
"Are you saying," he asked, bypassing this chilling information for now, "that the stone—the Fire Crystal—didn't control Lex? That it didn't force him to find it and bring it to me?"
"That is correct."
Clark found his gaze drawn to his right, to the now indecipherable pictograph of Segeeth and Naman, which he had been catapulted into the last time he and Lex had been here and Lex had met his temporary but all too real death. He stared at the spider cracks and remaining flakes of colour, somehow glad it no longer existed. He'd never liked it. "You're telling me... that Lex's need to find this thing, his obsession to put it into my hands... was somehow self-inflicted."
"Your chosen's desire to avoid certain paths that lay before him is..." he trailed off as if searching for the correct—or perhaps even polite—word, "...considerable. He is quite strong, Kal-El. He remembers more from our communion than I would have expected."
"Your communion?" he asked with suspicion. "I don't understand. Did you—? Did you tell Lex to find the stone?"
"No. But it was one path of many. The attainment of this Crystal could have led him to the others. Being led to the others would have, without doubt, brought him the greatest corruption imaginable. During our communication, I sensed that he did not as yet desire it. When events began to unfold toward that possible end, he must have—perhaps subconsciously—recognized a vestige of the memory, and yearned to rid himself of the very possibility by passing the tool on to you: The only on the planet who has the power to control the Elements without losing himself."
Clark gaped. So much had just become clear to him—so many frightening dreams of memory from which he'd soothed Lex back to sleep. A phrase that had been spoken in his mind long ago in these very caves suddenly was clear as glass. "A formidable ally," he muttered.
"Yes."
Clark gazed down at the stone in his hand. He'd known when he'd first seen it that it had the capacity to lead him to corruption, to lead him to Jor-El. He'd never thought it could wield that same power over a human—over Lex. The last time Lex had reached for it on the iced-over driveway of the Kent home, it had hummed deep within itself and Clark had sensed a great danger. He'd thought the danger was to Lex, and perhaps it was. But the greater danger was perhaps that Lex would be only a weight dropped into a pond: It was the ripples he might cause that would change everything.
Now Clark was considering that perhaps the greatest danger of all was that any human could be that weight.
Suddenly and with great fierceness, Clark held the Fire Crystal aloft, pointing its face at the cave wall with a straightened arm and trembling fingers, hoping beyond hope that Jor-El would snatch it from him and hide it away, and always knowing that no such thing would happen. "What is this thing's purpose?" he demanded. "And what can it do?"
~
"Mrs. Kent, it's really all—"
"Hand me that bottle there," she gestured vaguely at the many first aid implements on the table. "The brown one with the black cap."
Lex's gaze travelled over the choices, found the one she'd mentioned, and he handed it to her where she crouched by Lex's knee. He then looked to Mr. Kent, perhaps with some hope of assistance, but received only an expressionless stare in response. Lex knew what had Mr. Kent's mind occupied, and he understood just as well that the reason Mrs. Kent was making such a fuss over his torn pant leg and the cut on his knee was to keep her own thoughts from lingering on her impotent worry for her son.
They had all stared after him for some time once he'd disappeared so suddenly from their vision. It had probably only been the cold that had driven them finally inside: The arm around his back had told him that of him and Mrs. Kent, at least one of them was trembling. As soon as Lex had taken the chair offered to him, she'd noticed the tear in his clothes and the dripping blood and had rushed about to tend to it. In his haste to reach Clark, find out what terrifying thing was happening to him, Lex's slick-soled shoes had slipped on the ice and he'd fallen almost without noticing. He hadn't even realized the cut was there until Mrs. Kent had made a fuss over the possibility of infection.
"Mr. Kent... do you think that—AAH!" Lex started toward his knee, his first instinct to remove whatever the hell was searing through his flesh, but he stopped short of slapping Mrs. Kent's hand away. He only made a tight fist by his side, sucking air through his teeth while he stared at her with indignant shock.
She blew gently at the cut on his knee, a little tightness around her mouth and eyes, as if she was trying not to smile. When she went to put the bottle in her hand back onto the table, Lex snatched it from her.
Iodine.
He put it back on the table with a definitive clunk. "I should have gotten you a no-sting first aid kit as a stocking stuffer," he said with some strain in his voice, and blinked the water from his eyes.
Mrs. Kent shot him a quick, amused smirk as she bandaged the now numb cut on his knee. She closed the small ripped section of his pants over it when she was done, a considering expression on her face.
Realizing with a start that she was about to offer to sew the rip closed, Lex quickly thanked her and stood up to help her to her feet. She seemed startled by his sudden movement, but was thankfully skewed from intention.
"I'll make us some tea," she offered instead, and Lex thanked her quietly before regaining his seat.
He watched her silently as she gathered up the first aid kit, put it in its place under the sink, crossed to the counter, rinsed the kettle, filled it, set it to boil—her hands moving without effort as she undertook a familiar task: Something to do when she felt she could do nothing. Lex's hands fidgeted on the table; he wouldn't have minded something familiar to busy them with as well.
"How much longer do you think he'll be?" Lex asked Mr. Kent quietly, his blank gaze not leaving the tabletop.
"You know as much as we do, Lex." It was the first words Mr. Kent had spoken since Clark had rushed into whatever it was that lay before him, and the words were dull, defeated, and numb. He spoke like a man who had long ago accepted that he would occasionally or even often suffer in the manner he currently suffered, and was simply waiting for the relief to come, all the while not certain it would.
They were silent again, each staring at their chosen blank section of the table, until Mrs. Kent brought two steaming mugs of tea, and they each had a new place to focus their eyes. She brought another cup for herself and settled into the chair beside them both. Some minutes passed as the three of them sat, all but twitching, around the breakfast table, though the hour was far from breakfast time. They waited for their drinks to cool and let the radiating warmth take the chill from their fingers. Occasionally, someone would bring a cup close to their mouth, only to put it down again when it became obvious it was still too hot to drink.
The refrigerator's cooling system switched on.
Outside, the wind picked up briefly.
Mr. Kent sipped his tea and winced, obviously burnt, then sipped it again anyway.
Lex started to take a deep breath as if to sigh, but as soon as he'd started, the extra oxygen only reminded him of the painful knots in his stomach, and he resumed breathing shallowly. He decided to burn himself on his tea, too. It was very briefly distracting and he found himself disappointed that the tea would soon cool.
Mrs. Kent had a tight grip on her mug and her fingers were white and red.
Lex stared at them.
A minute passed.
"Is it always like this?" he mumbled.
Mrs. Kent didn't look up. "Like what, dear?"
He shook his head minutely, offered a ghost of a shrug, and finally dragged his gaze from Mrs. Kent's hands to her face. "So... nerve-wracking?"
Unexpectedly, Mrs. Kent offered a gentle smile at her tea. "Every time, Lex." Slowly, she took a sip, glanced at Lex only briefly, her smile wan, and then looked back down into the mug with a haunted expression. "Every time."
Lex tried to smile back, but was sure he succeeded even less than she had. "I suppose I had better get used to it, then," he muttered without enthusiasm.
Mr. Kent snorted softly, but said nothing.
Lex heard the unspoken sentiment just the same, and he agreed. ‘Yeah, good luck with that.’
The silence was so loud. The refrigerator kicked off again, removing the last of the white noise, and the intensity of the quiet only increased. Lex thought he would go mad if someone did not speak.
"The first time," he started, because he was sure no one else would, "I was ever worried about Clark—and I mean panic-stricken worry, heart-stopping worry—was when we stood on a sidewalk in Russia and a little girl was nearly crushed to death by a garbage truck."
"He told us about that," Mrs. Kent said softly, her tone gently encouraging him to go on. Lex wondered if the silence was ripping into her as much as it was him.
"I saw what was going to happen even before Clark moved. I knew I couldn't stop him. I knew that if I could stop him, he'd hate me for it anyway." He glanced up and found Mr. Kent's gaze on him. "She wouldn't..." he trailed off and shook his head.
Mr. Kent gave an almost imperceptible nod, and somehow, Lex didn't feel any judgment in his gaze. He was mildly astonished to realize that Mr. Kent, put in Lex's shoes, might also have wished to stop Clark's impetuous, inexorable, and inherently natural action.
He took a deep breath past the tightness in his gut and tried to go on. "I was completely powerless. I couldn't protect him." He gazed down into his mug, unable to hold Mr. Kent's gaze, feeling guilt over the impotence he knew he couldn't have avoided. "Not even from himself."
A soft hand settled over his own on the side of the mug. He looked up into Mrs. Kent's sympathetic eyes and tried out a half-smile.
"You've had Clark with you since he was a small child. You've watched all of this develop. I imagine you must have been through this a hundred times."
Mrs. Kent pressed her lips together, an expression of sympathy perhaps for the both of them. "Probably more," she said, and patted Lex's hand once before pulling away.
"Do you remember the first time?" Lex tried, not sure if such a subject would be welcome in any situation, much less this one. But he could at least be sure that whatever the first time had been, it had turned out all right in the end. So perhaps revisiting it in discussion would bring some hope that this time would be just the same. Even if that hope was false. "The first time you worried like this?"
Mrs. Kent breathed a single soft laugh. She met her husband's gaze somewhat fondly. "When were we ever not worried about Clark?" Mr. Kent reached over to take her hand on the tabletop and it was waiting for him almost before he'd moved. She looked into her mug again. "Just from the way we found him, we knew he was different. And you have to understand," she caught Lex's gaze to get her point across, "he was strong the moment he came to us. Stronger than any child should be." She shrugged slightly. "And we worried about that: About what he might accidentally break, or how he would suffer if he accidentally hurt someone. Clark was a very empathetic and sensitive child. He was happy all the time unless he sensed someone else wasn't. If he thought I was crying, he would cry. If Jonathan whacked his thumb with a hammer, Clark would grab his own and cry, ‘Ouch!’ and then blow on Jon's thumb or try to get him some ice."
Lex chuckled at the mental image and Mrs. Kent smiled with him.
"It wasn't as if he was imitating him, but actually empathizing, almost as if he could feel the pain, even though Clark never seemed to feel pain himself. With such strong empathy, we worried about how he would be affected if he knew he'd caused pain he was seeing others feel." She shrugged a shoulder. "But that was a constant, dull concern. One of a thousand. I think..." she glanced at her husband as if to confirm her thoughts before she uttered them, then met Lex's gaze again. "I think the first time we really worried—heart-stopping worry, like you say—was the first time Clark came across a piece of meteor rock."
"Or at least the first time he reacted to it," Mr. Kent added. "When we found him, there was meteor rock everywhere and it didn't seem to bother him. And I find it hard to believe that for the first couple of years, we never stumbled across the stuff even once."
Lex opened his mouth to mention some of the things he had learned in the caves with Clark, things about the mutation of Clark's genes, the accumulative effect of living on Earth, and how it was expected to slowly make Clark's home planet literally poison to him. But he belatedly realized they hadn't mentioned the caves or Jor-El even once since Clark had taken off toward them, and he didn't want to be the one to bring it up. He wasn't sure he wanted it brought up at all. So he simply remained silent and listened to their story.
Mrs. Kent was nodding at her husband's words, having not noticed Lex's stalled interjection. "Whatever changed, we knew it when we came across it that day. We were all walking together in Frazier Woods." A smile ghosted across her lips. "Clark loved the outdoors then maybe even more than he does now." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "He was so happy, just as always... and then he was suddenly on the ground."
Mr. Kent took up the story, maybe because he didn't want Mrs. Kent to have to continue, or maybe because his own vivid memories insisted, Lex couldn't be sure. "He was screaming and crying, throwing a fit. Not like a spoiled kid in a toy store, but like a child filled with unexpected and excruciating pain."
"We were in a panic, no idea what was causing it, afraid to move him and having a hard time getting hold of him anyway."
"But Clark seemed to instinctively know where the pain was coming from and he wriggled his way back along the path while he screamed. I remember his skin crawling as if every vein in his body was alive, like thin snakes or worms trying to get out."
Lex swallowed, feeling vaguely ill.
"Eventually he moved far enough away to stop being effected. He got quiet so suddenly."
"The quiet was scarier than the screaming. We didn't understand what had happened to him."
Mr. Kent chuckled very softly. "And then he popped back up on his feet like nothing had happened. Wiped his face and smiled at us."
"But he refused to go any further down that path. We walked back to the truck and came home."
Mr. and Mrs. Kent shared a long gaze before releasing each other's hand. Mrs. Kent sipped her tea while Mr. Kent went on. "Before we left, I jammed a stick into the ground at the point Clark had fallen, and later that day I went back out to see if I could figure out what had happened to him. The only thing even a little strange that I found out there was a small crater a few feet farther into the woods. It couldn't have been more than eight inches across, and it was mostly filled in. But under a couple years’ worth of blown dirt and dried leaves, there was a chunk of meteor rock about half the size of my fist. I wasn't sure that was what had caused it. But I knew the meteor shower had left a lot of these rocks all over town, and I knew that Clark had come down with them. It was the only connection I saw."
"We weren't about to try it out by bringing that stuff into the house and seeing if it bothered Clark, of course—"
"No," Mr. Kent agreed softly.
"—but we started avoiding the sites of the largest strikes, like Crater Lake and at least the inner paths through the woods. There were a few other incidents as the years went on that made us certain the meteor rock really was the problem. But it was that first time... when Clark laid screaming and twisting on the forest floor..." her eyes were becoming limpid, and she only shook her head and didn't go on.
Lex knew the words just the same: It was the first time that feeling had really hit home, that feeling of powerlessness, that feeling that there was something out there they couldn't protect Clark from, something that his own body, his own nature, reacted with to thwart their efforts to keep their son safe. Something that could come up fast and without warning and against which they would have no defence—no defence but to run away from it, and even then it would still be there to taunt them.
These same feelings had beaten a path through Lex's heart and mind when Clark had run into the street to save that little girl. Lex couldn't stop emergencies from happening when Clark was near, he couldn't overpower him and force him to let things happen rather than chance exposing himself, and he couldn't control the consequences of that exposure. If the wrong kinds of people saw Clark do what he could do, no amount of Lex's money or influence could avoid what would come next. He would be powerless to do anything. He would be able only to stand by and watch, hoping against hope that it would come out all right in the end—that Clark would come out all right in the end.
"How do you do it?" Lex asked in a hush. They gazed at him in question. "How do you live with the fear every day?"
Mr. Kent shrugged. "What choice do we have?"
"But doesn't it ever lessen?" he asked, talking through a tightening throat. "Even a little bit?"
Mr. Kent only looked into his tea, a wan, wry smile on his lips.
Mrs. Kent shook her head. "No, Lex. Not so long as you love him."
Lex winced and lowered his gaze. Mr. Kent was right: It wasn't any kind of choice.
Minutes passed in silence as their minds wandered and their tea cooled. When the quiet was shattered with the creak of the screen door, the three of them all shot to their feet with the startlingly loud clatter of chairs scraping the linoleum.
"I'm okay," Clark said before he'd fully entered the room. This much should have been obvious, but it was the right thing to say. All three of them let out breath no one had realized they'd been holding. They all walked around the table and toward him. Lex led the procession, not sure it was the appropriate thing to do and not caring if it wasn't. He had to touch him. He had to make sure he was real.
He crossed the room quickly and pressed a palm to Clark's shoulder. Clark stopped in his tracks and smiled at him with sympathy. "I'm really okay."
Lex swallowed and put his hands into his pockets, ignoring the slight tremble and hoping everyone else would, too. If the worry had been intense, the relief was overwhelming. It was as if he hadn't truly realized just how terrified he was until the moment had passed. "Okay."
"What did he say, Clark?" Mrs. Kent said from a few steps behind Lex. He glanced over his shoulder and found her against her husband's side, his arm over her shoulders, rubbing warmly at her upper arm.
"What is that thing?" Mr. Kent added.
Lex turned his head and watched Clark take a couple more steps into the room. He chose the chair with no mug in front of it and sat down, two of the other three chairs quickly filled once again, and Mrs. Kent hurriedly prepared another cup of tea.
Clark's hair was windblown and his face was flushed and he took a moment to compose himself, not meeting anyone's gaze. He released the tail, smoothed it back, and fastened it again; he took a deep breath and sighed heavily, then scrubbed his face with his hands like a tired old man. "Thanks, Mom," he said quietly when she'd placed a steaming mug in front of him. She touched his shoulder gently and he met her gaze with a smile before she moved back to her chair.
Clark didn't have to wait for tea to cool and he took a long gulp, steam rising around his face and intensifying the flush. When he put the mug back down, his shoulders noticeably squared and everyone's posture straightened in response.
"Well, it's definitely Kryptonian." He said this not because anyone didn't already know that, but because he knew all four of them had been hoping they were wrong. The air was filled with a palpable but fleeting disappointment. "He called it an Element. A Crystal. The symbol on it—or, inside it, I guess—means ‘fire.’ It also means, in some sense, everything else I thought it could mean."
"Does it have a purpose?" Lex asked, not because he suspected it didn't—that it was some kind of useless Kryptonian paperweight—but because he thought asking might help Clark to debrief. Whatever he'd just learned must have been terribly powerful and emotional for him, and now he had to find a way to repeat it to others before he had a real chance to come to terms with or even understand it himself. Lex had once found himself in a similar situation after a visit to the caves, and hadn't been able to explain anything to anyone for months, so he had great sympathy for Clark's current predicament.
"Yeah," Clark breathed softly. "‘The stone is possessed of great...’" he laughed slightly and looked at Lex as if to say ‘just like you said,’ then completed his quote, "‘power.’"
Lex breathed a single laugh and looked down. Apparently he'd found exactly what he'd been looking for in Egypt after all.
"What kind of power?" Mrs. Kent asked carefully. "What can it do?"
"I think it can do a lot of things. But," he shrugged a shoulder, "one of them kind of stood out." He met each of their gazes in turn, then looked back into his mug. "It can... heal me."
"Heal you?" Mr. Kent asked, obviously interested though equally unsure.
"Yeah. I mean, if I should ever get injured or sick somehow—however that would happen—it could—i-it could save me." He said this apologetically, painfully aware that even speaking of the possibility of him getting injured or sick was only enforcing his parents’ and Lex's fears.
Lex let out a quick breath. "Sounds like a useful thing to have around." He sobered. It was only upon learning the powers of the thing that he'd realized Clark didn't seem to be carrying it anymore. "Where is it?"
"In the cave. Jor-El showed me this chamber behind the wall." He let out a mild laugh. "I never even knew it was there. It's hidden so only I can get to it—I mean, only I can trigger the mechanism that exposes it. Inside, there's this..." he trailed off as if trying to find an appropriate word, then gave up and finished with, "table. This big stone slab of a table, almost like an altar—an altar to knowledge, I guess."
Lex's brow tightened. He didn't understand the reference.
"There's a depression on top, inside the stone, where it and..." he trailed off and swallowed hard, "and two more Crystals go."
Everyone took in a sharp breath.
Lex was the first to speak, his question quickly stepped on by Mrs. Kent's astonished voice. "Two more—?"
"Clark..."
Clark looked up at his mother, then at Lex. "Yeah," he said in a harsh whisper, his face ashen. "There are three."
Something started to bother Lex, something coalescing in the back of his mind, needling at him. He left it there, mostly ignoring it, enthralled by Clark's story.
"He says that when the three are brought together, they'll unleash ‘a repository to all knowledge of the twenty-eight known galaxies.’ I'm not really sure—"
"Oh, my god," Lex interrupted in a whisper. "An intergalactic encyclopaedia."
Clark shrugged unenthusiastically. "Yeah, I guess."
Lex scoffed incredulously and leaned back into his chair with a thump. He shook his head in disbelief. "And he called it a crystal, didn't he? Not a stone. A crystal."
Now Clark was watching him with curiosity. "Yes." His gaze flicked to his parents, equally confused, then back. "Lex?"
Lex couldn't stop shaking his head. What a fool he'd been. How blind. If he would have just seen, then maybe Clark wouldn't have had to go to the caves at all.
"Lex," Mr. Kent said gruffly. "If you know anything about this..."
"There's a legend," he said, and scoffed again and continued to shake his head at himself and his obtuseness. "I can't believe it," he muttered.
"What?"
Lex leaned forward and finally met Clark's gaze again. "An old Mayan legend: It refers to crystals—three crystals and I never even— You bring them together," he said, miming making something whole with his hands, "you learn everything. Of course we—" he broke off again, trying to organize his thoughts, explain what he'd so suddenly and astonishingly realized. He started over. "The Egyptian legend I told you about, the one that led me to the tomb," Clark nodded quickly, "it speaks of a piece of technology that leads to power." He paused, but Clark only continued to look at him with confusion. "Don't you see? Knowledge is power. That's the metaphor! The legend spoke of this stone—probably a mistranslation, a-a crystal, not a stone, and it must have been only a part of a larger story," he shook his head, "maybe lost in antiquity by the Egyptians, or referred to only by the piece of the document that is missing, but The Legend of the Three Crystals was preserved in its entirety by the Mayans—just described in so different a way that... But these are pieces of the same puzzle!" He laughed quietly at himself. "I'd always researched them separately. I never imagined..."
A minute passed as everyone tried to wrap their heads around the idea that this Kryptonian business was referred to in the legends of yet another civilization that had changed radically or even all but collapsed hundreds or thousands of years before Clark had arrived on Earth. With the Kawatche, this now made three.
"Son," Mr. Kent eventually said, "did he tell you where the other two pieces are?"
Clark shook his head. "He doesn't know."
Lex's brow tightened. "Then how are you supposed to find them?"
Clark squirmed noticeably in his seat, staring into his tea mug somewhat petulantly. "I don't know that I want to find them," he muttered.
"Clark..." Lex leaned toward him, "the sto—the Crystals are Kryptonian—they're part of you. You're the only person on this planet who should possess them."
He sighed sharply. "I know. But that's what Jor-El wants me to do—go on some worldwide quest to find these other two stones, bring them all together, and then use their power to learn the things he wants me to learn. But I don't really know that I want to have ‘all the knowledge of the known galaxies’ at my fingertips."
"But, Clark, that knowledge could do wonderful things for this world," Lex insisted.
"Yeah, it could also do terrible things for this world, Lex!" he shot back, then calmed with a sharp sigh. "I mean, what if it could teach us how to build more destructive weapons using technology we're not equipped to deal with?"
"But if you're the only one with access, you could sieve out only what you wanted the world to know."
"How am I supposed to make those decisions, Lex? How am I supposed to know what's going to be okay for this world to know? I can't take on that kind of responsibility! The responsibility for the whole world? Who can? Who should? No. It's better that they stay hidden." He paused, his mouth set in a thin line, and then he sighed somewhat heavily. "Only..."
"What?"
He shook his head and remained silent. Lex exchanged a glance with Clark's parents, who looked startled at the direction the conversation had taken and were watching their son with great love and concern.
"What is it, Clark?" Lex asked again.
"It's just... There's more."
Lex listened cautiously.
Clark sighed. "I-I asked Jor-El why the Fire Crystal made that sound. He knew right away. He says there's no doubt."
Mrs. Kent's hand crept a little farther across the table as if reaching for her son without meaning to.
He took a deep, steadying breath and let it out slowly. "‘The Crystal shrieks because human hands have touched another of the three.’"
It was clear the words were not his own. It was also clear that regardless of anything Jor-El had said or done in the past, Clark did not doubt this assessment. And it was painfully clear that the assessment filled him with utter dread.
"I take it that's bad," Jonathan said dryly and Clark laughed without humour.
"Yeah. And it can get a lot worse. If a human understands what the Crystals can do, knows that there are three that must be brought together... well, they could come looking for this one."
"But," Lex leaned forward again, "then why didn't it screech when I touched it? Or your parents?"
Clark shook his head. "No, it's connected to the others—they all are. ‘It doesn't cry for itself, only for them.’ If I had been in possession of one of the other stones the first time you touched this one, the one I had would have screamed. Um... I-I think."
"Well, does he know who has it?" Mr. Kent asked.
"No. He doesn't know which one it is or where it is or..."
Mr. Kent scoffed. "What good is he?" he muttered.
Clark smirked wanly. "But... he does know what the other two stones can do." He swallowed hard. "He told me. I... I don't think either one is the kind of thing that should be in the wrong hands."
Lex nodded once with determination. "Then we have to find it."
He laughed softly without humour. "How? I wouldn't even know where to start."
"The legend says that one of the three was lost in China a millennium ago. Though it's becoming abundantly clear it isn't just a legend."
Clark looked at him dully. "Where in China?"
Lex laughed. "If I knew where, I'd have gotten it long ago. I've only researched the legend as a hobby. I don't think I ever really believed it was real... until now. I can start researching it more deeply."
"But, Lex—"
"What about the other one?" Mr. Kent interrupted. "Remember anything about it?"
Lex turned to him and shook his head. "Lost in antiquity. Disappeared without a trace a long time ago. If we're lucky, maybe that's the one that's already been found by this other person. Now that I know the one lost in China is real, I'm sure I can find it. It's just going to take some time, study, proper application of resources—"
"But, Lex, I don't want you to look for it!" Clark insisted, and Lex turned to him with a start. He huffed with irritation. "Don't you understand? It's what Jor-El wants. He thinks this ‘repository of knowledge’—it'll help me run the world. That's his ultimate goal. That's what these Crystals are about."
"And what happens if someone comes for the Fire Crystal, Clark? What happens if they find the other one, and then they come for this one to put them all together?"
Clark drew himself up straight. "Then I'll stop them."
Lex didn't hesitate. "And what if they know about kryptonite?"
The colour drained from Clark's face and he swallowed hard.
Softening, Lex reached across the table and laid a hand on Clark's forearm. "I understand your hesitation. But if those Crystals are for you, if they have such incredible power, I think there's more of a chance of it turning out much worse for the world if some power-hungry aspiring despot has them than if you do. No one says you have to do anything with them once you have them, Clark. You don't have to use the repository. You don't even have to put the Crystals together if you don't want to. But for everyone's sake... I think you've got to get them out of circulation."
"Lex is right, Clark."
Lex blinked, but didn't turn to look at Mr. Kent and show the astonishment he felt. He'd never get used to that voice saying those words.
"Not everyone will be so hesitant to use whatever power these things have," Mrs. Kent added.
Clark was wilting under the dominating opinion, his head hanging low between his shoulders. "What am I supposed to do?" he muttered.
Lex squeezed his arm. "I'll help you."
When Clark raised his head and met his gaze, the sorrow in them was painfully clear. "But how?"
Lex tried not to let his sympathy for Clark's obvious reticence show too acutely. "If it was found, I imagine it would be quite like the other—indecipherable, completely unlike anything anyone's ever seen before, probably couched in ancient myth and metaphor through whatever legend was followed to find it. I could put feelers out for information, Clark, anything that might have been recently found, any digs that have just concluded or are in progress at the moment. I can research for any further myths that share some of the interesting characteristics of the Egyptian legend that let me to the Fire Crystal, or the Mayans’ Legend of the Three. I can't make any promises, but I'm confident we could find at least some helpful information that way."
"But can you do all that without drawing attention? Won't people start to wonder—?"
Lex was shaking his head before Clark was finished. "No. Clark, this isn't unusual: I put out feelers like this every day for my own research, both business and personal. No one would think twice about it and no one's going to make these connections without the input we've received from Jor-El. In all this time, no one even managed to connect these two legends, realize they were two pieces of a puzzle much larger than the sum of themselves."
Clark was quiet, thinking this through. "Even if you found out who has the other Crystal—the one that's been touched by human hands—even if you found out who it is, where it is... what am I supposed to do? Just walk up and steal it?"
Lex didn't want to say, ‘Of course.’ In his opinion, the Crystals were Clark's, were made only for Clark to handle, and anyone else who had them would be the thief. Clark would only be recovering his own property. But he knew Clark wasn't going to see it that way. He shrugged. "Well, maybe we can buy it from them," he offered, though he privately doubted anyone who had bothered to find it would be willing to give it up for any price.
"Buy it?" Clark asked.
"Sure," Lex tried to make his voice confident. "Most people who look into mythology and undertake digs are either in it for fortune or for the benefit of a museum of some sort." This, at least, was true. "For the right amount of money, this kind of individual might be happy to sell a piece. For the right price, a museum could buy a hundred others with as much or more educational value."
There was a brief silence. "You're offering to buy it yourself," Mr. Kent said gruffly.
Lex didn't acknowledge him. This was a subject on which they would never agree. "Clark, whatever these stones can do, I know they're meant for you. I knew it in the desert. I know it even more now. I'm certain that no human should be using them or even be given an opportunity to do so. If we can get hold of another of them and place it into your hands where it belongs—even if all you're going to do is hide it away in the cave—that's good enough. It'd put me at ease about the Crystals’ very existence. This is something I really believe we need to do if we can. I'm willing to put any resources into it that you need. Just say the word."
Clark watched him with wide eyes through all he had to say, and then his gaze flickered to his father, and faltered.
Lex's fingers tightened on Clark's arm and he shifted an inch closer to the edge of his chair. "Clark."
He was gratified when his gaze was met again and, after a long pause, Clark nodded once, slightly but with assurance. "Okay." Mr. Kent sighed quietly but he didn't speak. "Check into it. See if you can find anything out. But don't—"
"Don't worry. No one will have any idea it's connected to you in any way. And I won't take any drastic steps without your say-so."
Clark nodded, thanking him briefly with his expression, but not relaxing or losing any of the tension in his shoulders. Lex leaned back in his chair, his fingers trailing along Clark's arm until they only barely held the tips of one another's fingers on the tabletop. Lex waited. They all did.
"It's just..." Clark finally said, "I just know he wants me to get the three of them together and get all this knowledge they hold in order to help, you know, put his whole plan into action. It just feels like looking—actively looking—for another one of these things is just me taking a step toward becoming what he wants. And I don't have a choice because if I don't do it, then maybe even worse things could happen." He scoffed and looked up to his parents. "Do you know what he said?" he asked rhetorically, and met Lex's gaze. "He said that I needed to dominate the world so that the world doesn't destroy itself, so that humanity doesn't destroy itself. That it would be an act of mercy for me to become some kind of tyrannical czar." His lip curled in obvious disgust. "He has absolutely no faith in people."
Lex sighed softly. "After what happened to Krypton, as far advanced as their civilization was in comparison to ours... I can understand why he wouldn't."
Clark nodded. "Yeah. He says he doesn't want to see happen on Earth what happened to Krypton—though I'm far from believing his reasons are quite so altruistic. And he says only I can stop it. But I don't see that it's imminent. I mean, look at what good people are doing—look at what you're doing—to try to fix the mistakes people have been making, to try to keep the world safe."
Lex lowered his gaze, having not expected the compliment and feeling unequipped to gracefully accept it at the moment.
"I can't believe that there's no hope for Earth. And even if I did, I couldn't believe that I could single-handedly change that."
"You'll change the world, Clark," Mr. Kent said, and Lex turned to look at him: His jaw strong, his eyes steady, and his expression one of absolute conviction. "But you'll do it in your own way. Not his."
~
"Ugh. I can't believe you're drinking that stuff."
Pete grinned, feeling unreasonable pride over grossing Chloe out. "Just because your palate isn't as sophisticated as mine..."
She shot him a wry look and slapped his shoulder softly as they made their way around the counter to the pickup side to await their drinks: Chloe's usual triple caramel capp and Pete's new semi-regular small cup of spicy cayenne drinking chocolate. "Hey, I liked the orange one. Kind of."
He shrugged, enjoying her pseudo-defensiveness. "I've never seen you order it."
"Yeah, well, if I'm going to pay three bucks for a drink, it had better be the size of my head and have at least as much caffeine as it does calories."
Pete laughed and shook his head, letting it go. "I'm just glad to have the time to actually relax and have a drink—any drink. I didn't think three more classes would make such a difference, but this new course load is really kicking my ass. Thank god for the weekend."
"Aw," Chloe offered through only a small chuckle, and rubbed her hand over Pete's arm sympathetically.
"Seriously, I don't know how Clark does it—or how he was doing it before he dropped those other classes—because I still don't have as many courses as he does and I feel like I can't keep up."
"Oh, you're doing fine. Give yourself a little while to get used to it. You spent a few months kind of slacking and now you have to rush to catch up. Besides, you can't compare yourself to Clark. You can't compare anyone to Clark. He's a speed demon. I think he does schoolwork in his sleep and teleports from class to class."
Pete swallowed hard, feeling uncomfortable about the subject matter. He did have some idea what skills Clark had in his favour that might help him do more than other students, and he didn't want to go too far pretending he didn't understand it. He still had to lie to Chloe, but he didn't have to push it. "Yeah, well... in the meantime, I'm trying to figure out what the hell I might want to major in at college. I really need to narrow it down. Everything looks equally interesting to me, you know?"
Chloe nodded. "Sometimes when I look at all the options, I find myself reading too much about stuff I know I don't need to be focussing on." She mimed flipping through a college brochure. "‘Hmmm, Greek Philosophy, that sounds interesting.’" She pretended to point out a particular entry and looked up at Pete with wide eyes. "‘Ooh, Parapsychology!’"
Pete snickered. "Exactly! I mean, I know I'll have first semester to decide for real, and that it can always be changed later, but I'd like to get at least a little more focus as to direction. Like, look at you..."
She raised her eyebrows and smiled widely. "Hmmm?"
Quickly, Pete looked her up and down and quirked his eyebrows in gaudy appreciation, then went on seriously after he'd gotten her to roll her eyes. "You've known what you've wanted to do since you were, like, born."
She tilted her head once in somewhat wry agreement.
"Clark figured out he's made to be a social worker and he's adjusted his course load to match."
"I still think he would have made a great reporter."
Pete rolled his eyes. "You just don't want to have to change proofreaders."
"I resent that comment."
"But you don't deny it."
Chloe looked away primly and cleared her throat.
"Uh-huh." He went on, "Lana's got her art thing... but the only thing I'm really sure about is that I like dealing with people; I want to have some kind of public interaction. It's kinda vague, you know?"
"Maybe you should follow Clark's lead. You can't get much more public interaction than social work, right?"
"Meh," Pete wrinkled his nose and looked behind the counter, wondering why their drinks were taking so long. "I don't think it's my thing. Too depressing."
"What about politics?"
He met her gaze again, listening but mildly confused at the suggestion.
"Well, think about it. Your family is well respected," she ticked the reasons off on her fingers, "you don't have any skeletons in your closet—uh, that I'm aware of—you're fantastic with people, and—"
He was shaking his head as she went on, and had to interrupt. "Yeah, but, there's so much b.s. in politics."
Chloe let out a dry laugh. "Funny you mention that. I was just going to say: And you're a great bullshitter." She grinned winningly, showing a swath of her little white teeth and perfect pink gums.
Pete tried to give her a dirty look, but couldn't help but smile back. "Ha-ha." He took a deep breath and sighed harshly as he realized the barista was taking so long because of his drink. It appeared to be the first time he'd ever made any sipping chocolate, and he looked a bit confused. "I don't know, I was maybe thinking more like... public relations."
Chloe snorted. "Pete, if there's less b.s. in PR than there is in politics, then this country's in even worse shape than I thought."
Pete laughed out loud as finally they were handed their drinks. "Yeah, that's a good point."
"Well, whatever you decide," Chloe said, offering up her cup as if making a toast, "I'll be right behind you."
Pete nodded once. "Yeah, in the lunch line at Met U's student cafeteria."
She winked and tapped her cup to Pete's. "Damn straight."
They each looked at their drinks and realized they were too hot to follow up the toast with an immediate sip, shrugged, and headed for the exit, pulling their coats more securely around them in expectation of the upcoming cold.
The toast had been one of hope and optimism, not necessarily of reality. They had both followed all the admissions guidelines to the letter and gotten their applications and all the necessary paperwork on its way, and they each intended to continue going forward with the process with meticulous attention to detail, but they knew they were unlikely to hear back until at least March, if not April. They also knew that it was not a given they would each receive the same manner of response.
Though Chloe reached the door first, Pete reached over her head and opened it for her, then followed close behind as she approached his car parked by the curb just down the block. "Here, I'll get it," he said softly, and made as if to walk around her.
But she spun on her heel as she reached the passenger side and wrapped her free hand around the back of his neck before he'd gotten very far. "C'mere, you," she said with a smirk, and laid an unexpected and very enjoyable kiss right on his lips.
Pete laughed against her mouth, still trying unsuccessfully to open the passenger side door, before he gave up and wrapped her up in turn. Even if the toast proved ill-fated, Pete knew that whatever happened, he'd be right behind her, at whatever school and in whatever city it turned out to be. Met U had always been his father's dream for all his children, and it was just luck that Chloe also wanted to go there.
But if it didn't pan out, Pete wasn't about to give up his own dream just to live out his father's.
~
"You sure you want to do this?"
Clark looked across the luxury cream beige interior of one of Lex's larger BMW sedans, a jet black 760Li, studying carefully what he could see of Lex's expression. "Don't you?"
Lex glanced over briefly then turned his gaze back to the road. He smirked. "It was my idea."
"I remember. And it was a good one."
"Still?"
Clark sighed and laid his head back. "Jor-El screws up everything. I'm not going to let him screw this up, too. It's taken so long, who knows when the next time...?"
He saw Lex nodding slowly out of the corner of his eye. "Okay."
"I'm actually really looking forward to it."
This time Lex glanced over for a moment longer, smiling. "Yeah, me too."
Clark grinned, feeling less stressed just thinking about the weekend ahead. "I could go for some coffee, though."
"Lucky for us, Smallville has only one main road, and the Talon happens to be on it."
It couldn't have been two minutes later that they pulled into the town square and Lex was sliding the sedan into a tight parking space across the street from the Talon, appreciating the smooth handling despite the size of the vehicle.
"Oh, jeez, look at that."
Lex finished putting the car in park, then followed the line of Clark's pointing hand as he turned off the ignition. The line terminated across the street and half a block down, with Chloe Sullivan and Pete Ross standing by Pete's classic powder blue ’64 Falcon, each of them with a coffee in hand and held aloft—though Pete's was unusually small.
Pete's free hand was fumbling at the handle of the passenger side door while Chloe's was around the back of his neck. They kissed with passion and joy, the kiss not deep because neither of them could stop smiling against the other's mouth. Chloe pressed herself close just as Pete managed to get the door partially open, and he wrapped his newly free arm around her lower back.
She kissed him hard once, twice, three times, then leaned back at an angle, grinning. He grinned back, inclining his head slightly and shaking it as if in disbelief, and she pressed a tight kiss to his forehead before slapping his shoulder and pushing him playfully away. She had to open the door herself as it had closed after he'd let it go, and Pete practically floated around the front of the car to the driver's side, his grin never fading.
"It's disgusting, isn't it? They never stop."
Lex snorted. "I think it's charming."
Clark let his hand fall back to his lap and chuckled softly. As Pete and Chloe drove by, not noticing them, Lex turned back to Clark to see him grinning and shaking his head. "Yeah, it is," he said with obvious fondness for his friends. Then he met Lex's gaze briefly, still smiling even if his eyes did betray a flash of sadness, and quickly opened his door to get out of the car.
Lex lowered his gaze to the empty seat before turning to vacate the car as well. He recognized the fleeting melancholy in Clark's eyes. As happy as Clark was for his friends, Lex knew it was hard sometimes to see them be so openly affectionate with one another and know that they could never have that kind of freedom.
With a sigh, Lex pressed the All Lock button on his keys and, after a quick check for traffic, started across the street, hearing Clark's heavier footfalls a few steps behind him.
"Hey, Kent!" someone called just as Lex hopped onto the opposite curb. He turned, not recognizing the voice, and saw Clark stopped just past the centre of the road, looking behind him to the opposite sidewalk where a dark-haired teenage boy in a letter jacket, presumably the one who had called him, was standing, watching him.
The boy looked just slightly familiar to Lex, but before he had a chance to wonder who it might have been, there was a flash of red out of the corner of his left eye, and his head whipped in that direction to alight on a scene that all but stopped his heart.
The car was flashy, obviously well taken care of, souped-up with dual exhaust, 15 or maybe even custom 17 inch drag radials, and what sounded like a 383 stroker engine. It was a beautiful classic Camaro, a ’68, with a custom candy red paint job and pearl white flames licking the doors. It was plainly rebuilt and had serious power. In any other situation, Lex might have just taken a minute to appreciate it. But when it came around the corner without a screech on those fat radials, fishtailed briefly from the speed, and showed no sign of slowing down or of the driver being aware that he needed to do so, Lex saw it all so clearly and so quickly that there was no room for anything else.
The car rushed forward. Clark turned at the last moment. He saw it only as it barrelled into him. Even he, with all his speed, had no time to react. The Camaro slammed into him just like it would had he been a telephone pole. Its front end crunched, the hood curling. It split down the middle, throwing smoke and sparks and metal and paint. The edges were raw and sharp. The driver, not yet aware of his own mortality and so not wearing a seatbelt, flew forward into the windshield. It cracked beautifully, symmetrically, like a drop in a pond, and bright red blood ran along its design. The driver's neck was broken. He died instantly, and it only highlighted for the crowd the incredible, impossible, atypical oddness of Clark standing there, in the middle of the wrecked heap, unharmed. And when Clark tried to say to the terrified, gaping bystanders, ‘It's okay. I'm not dangerous. Please don't be afraid of me,’ that's when the government came and dragged him off. Somehow, they already knew about the kryptonite. They'd brought it along to subdue him. Lex couldn't do anything. He tried, he approached, he yelled, he did all he could to shoulder his way through. They pushed him aside. They didn't care who he was or what he could offer them. Because he could never offer them anything worth more than what they'd already taken.
It all flew past his mind's eye in a millisecond, a story that had been clear since the day he'd learned of Clark's nature. He wouldn't have said, if asked, that he'd taken the time to think of it. It was just there. It flashed by, and he opened his mouth, and without thought of what the people on the sidewalks would think of calm, cool Mr. Luthor losing control of himself in the centre of town, he jetted back off the sidewalk, into the street, and screamed, "CLARK, MOVE!"
Clark's head whipped back toward him, and Lex wondered if Clark had just slid into his speed, because he suddenly felt exactly as Clark had described the rest of the world when he was going fast: Like everything had slowed down. Only this time, Lex could feel it, and he was just as slow as everything else. Clark's expression was confused, and he incrementally looked to the right, toward the racing car. He tilted his head slightly, as if to say, ‘How odd,’ and then, before Lex had managed to clear the parked cars at the curb, not sure what good it would do but fully intending nonetheless to throw himself into Clark, over him, Clark took the smallest, calmest step forward, out of danger's way by inches, and the world sped up again.
The car zipped by so fast, it caught the pull tab of the zipper on Clark's open jacket, smacking it violently without dislodging it. It arced back with the limits of the fabric and caught Lex in the knuckles just as he was skidding to a stop so close to Clark's chest that Clark reached out to steady him, sure they were going to collide. Lex winced briefly at the pain but otherwise didn't notice it much.
He tried to steady his breath. "Are you all right?" he asked in a whisper, though his abating panic and the tremor coming into his hands had already decided the danger was past and it was okay to break down now.
"I'm fine," Clark answered, his voice utterly nonchalant, and looked back over his shoulder, across the street. The boy who had called his name was disappearing around the corner with two other kids his age. Apparently it hadn't been important.
Lex wasn't sure who the boy was who had innocently called Clark's name and nearly caused his exposure to the world, nearly destroyed both their lives with that single shout. And though he was sure that the boy hadn't had any ill will, he felt an intense dislike curdling in his gut just the same.
Lex jumped nearly out of his skin at the loud voice approaching behind him. "I don't know what it is with kids these days," said a rotund man in cowboy boots as he stepped off the curb with some effort. "He'll get someone killed if he doesn't kill himself first, driving like that. You fellas all right?"
"We're fine," Lex said tersely. He turned back toward Clark and realized suddenly how close he was standing to him. He took a step back, sliding his trembling hands into his pockets. They began to talk around him, and he heard every word despite feeling he was not there.
They talked, and he relived the past. The barely past—what had occurred only moments ago—and pasts slightly more distant.
The speeding truck was hurtling toward her. Her parents reached for her from the sidewalk. Lex reached, too. But not for the girl.
"Thanks, Mr. Talbot." Of course Clark knew who the man was. He probably knew who all of the people on this street were. Lex wouldn't have been surprised if Clark knew who'd been in the Camaro. Lex hoped Clark wouldn't tell him. "Just a close call, that's all."
‘Clark, no!’ There was little more than a blur and he felt his fingers brush evanescing cloth.
There was a brief silence, and Lex didn't look back, but imagined the man was nodding. "Well, ya'll take care now, then."
"Yes, sir."
"Oh, tell your parents I said hello, Clark. Marion's gonna be up later this week to place an order, too."
‘How do you live with the fear every day? Doesn't it ever lessen? Even a little?’
Clark smiled politely. "Okay. I'll let them know. Thanks, Mr. Talbot."
‘No, Lex. Not so long as you love him.’
Lex heard the large man lumber off behind him, letting out a grunt as he had to mount the curb once again. He stared, unseeing, at the centre of Clark's chest, where he knew his pendant rested beneath his shirt.
It wasn't a choice. It was no kind of choice at all.
A moment passed, and Clark reached out as if to touch him, then glanced around, changed his mind, and slid his hands into his pockets. Lex's gaze followed the movement. The slider body of the zipper on Clark's jacket was warped. The free side was twisted outward and wouldn't fit snugly over the insertion pin or teeth anymore. Lex's hand throbbed.
"Lex, are you okay?" Clark asked quietly.
"I don't need any coffee, Clark," he answered numbly.
"Okay. But let's get off the street. Everyone's looking."
Lex turned stiffly on his heel and marched up onto the curb, took two steps, and stopped. Clark shuffled to a stop behind him, paused, then walked around to face him again. "Lex?"
"I'm going to wait here," Lex said in a monotone. He knew that when he spoke, he started too quickly, stepping over the ends of Clark's questions, his voice unnatural, both rushed and emotionless. But he didn't seem able to correct it. He tried speaking more softly instead. "Go get what you want and we'll go, all right?"
"You don't want—"
"No, I'll wait here."
Clark didn't move, and when Lex thought to finally look up from his chest and meet his gaze, he looked unsure, so Lex tried to offer a small smile. It seemed to make it worse.
He took a breath and tried again, remembered how to joke. "Get moving, Clark; it's cold." This last was probably true judging by the ice-melt littering the sidewalk and the visible breath of everyone on the street, including himself, but Lex felt as if his skin was on fire. He would have liked to rip his coat and sweater off and let the chill air permeate his skin, calm his heart, his blood pressure.
But the joking worked. Clark finally cracked a small smile and nodded. "Yeah, all right. Be right back."
Lex was glad it was winter. The outside tables had long since been put away, so it might not have looked so strange for Lex to be standing on the sidewalk, staring into the Talon while Clark placed his order instead of taking a load off on an available chair.
He watched through the glass, looking past his own dull reflection, watching Clark join the short line, move forward, place an order, pay, wait under the ‘Pick Up Here’ sign. He moved like a normal person, unaffected by his brush with terror, maybe not even recognizing the absolute tragedy he'd so narrowly avoided.
He was so casual, in fact, that Lex wondered if he'd overreacted, imagined more danger than there had actually been. But he shook his head in denial as soon as he'd thought of it. It had been close. Too damn close.
~
Clark sipped at his coffee, watching Lex out of the corner of his eye. The car came to a full stop and waited. There was no traffic. The roads were well-plowed and salted. Lex looked both ways twice, then slowly moved on.
The speed limit changed from thirty-five to forty-five as they got a little farther away from the centre of town. Their speed increased from thirty to forty.
They approached a sign warning that there was a blind drive coming up, and to slow speed to forty. Lex down-shifted using the manual-shift control buttons on the steering wheel and slowed to twenty-five.
Clark put his coffee into a cup holder and looked at him curiously. "What are you so nervous about?"
"What?" Lex didn't even attempt to glance at him, both eyes on the road, both hands on the wheel. "I'm not nervous; what are you talking about?"
Clark didn't respond. He waited as the blind drive went by and the road opened up. They passed a fifty miles per hour sign. Their speed increased back to forty. Lex needed to shift up but didn't seem to notice.
The heat wasn't on; Lex had turned it off as soon as he'd started the car after leaving the Talon. Clark had nothing to say about it as he'd always had a little trouble telling whether the temperature was cold, chilly, or comfortable for humans. He figured if Lex was turning off the heat, it must be comfortable. The very slight sheen of sweat at his temples suggested that maybe it was even a little too warm. But then why could he see the mist of every exhale?
Because it was Clark's nature to literally look deeper when he couldn't find what he sought on the surface, his x-ray vision clicked on almost without effort, and clothing, skin, bone, and muscle melted away to show him the beat of Lex's heart—the far too fast, almost birdlike beat of Lex's heart.
"Lex, your heart is pounding."
A sudden and startling flash of bone crossed his eyes and Clark backed out of his special vision, jerking his head back slightly in surprise. He was greeted in normal vision with Lex wearing a wry expression and holding his hand up, fingers splayed, between Clark's eyes and his own chest. "I'm gonna get cancer if you keep that up."
Clark rolled his eyes. "I'm not actually throwing x-rays at your body, Lex," he said as Lex's hand made its way quickly back to the wheel. "I'm just changing my eyes so I can see in blueshift. You're not going to get cancer." He paused and listened to the engine try too hard. Lex really needed to shift. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine."
Clark shook his head. "No, something's wrong."
"I just—" he sighed harshly and glanced at the dashboard with a furrowed brow. He suddenly seemed to realize his RPM was way too high and finally shifted gears. "Nothing's wrong, Clark. I just... I'm trying to pay attention to the road, all right?"
Clark looked at the road ahead of them: It was straight and long and unvaried and led right to Metropolis without many other options. They were in the fifty-five zone. Lex still hadn't breached forty-five. "Lex, you're never this cautious of a driver. You haven't hit the speed limit since we were downtown."
"I... don't want to get into an accident."
Clark sighed and looked down at his hands in his lap, nodding. "Because of me," he said glumly. "Because you're worried about me not being hurt when I should be, and people asking questions." He looked up to see Lex glance at him just out of the corner of his eye, then focus forward again and say nothing. "Look, I know that threw you back there. But, listen, it was really okay."
Lex's lips thinned. "I can see that, Clark. You're fine. I know that."
"No, I mean..." he turned in his seat, pulling up a knee. "I know it's hard to imagine, but I really do have great reaction time, Lex. I could have even gotten away with a little burst of speed if I had to, just a step or two steps, and people wouldn't have trusted their own eyes afterward. They would have just said, ‘that was a close call,’ or call it a miracle. You know how after accidents people are always saying how things happened so fast they were over before they knew it."
Lex scoffed softly and shook his head. "Yeah. And then someone happens to look back. They happen to see that you've been lucky or part of a ‘miracle’ a hell of a lot. They start asking questions..." he trailed off, dismissing the possibility as unacceptable with the set of his mouth and a slight toss of his head. "I just don't want anyone to start asking uncomfortable questions about you, Clark. There's too damn much out there to put together."
"It won't happen, Lex."
"No, not if I can help it."
Clark looked at the speedometer and sighed. "You're not going to drive like a seventy-year-old grandmother forever."
Lex shot him an honestly befuddled expression, then followed his gesture to the dashboard. He finally let out a little breath of laughter and shook his head as if at himself. Eyes back on the road, he depressed the accelerator just a little, approaching fifty.
"You want me to drive?"
"Not really."
"Lex." Clark reached out and laid a hand on Lex's over the wheel. "You should relax. Just let me drive for a little while. It'll be fine."
Lex took a deep breath and sighed sharply, then finally turned on his hazard lights and began to very slowly pull off the road.
~
"He'll be fine, Jonathan."
"I know."
Martha continued to dry the dishes, her back to the countertop, watching her husband stare into his coffee at the kitchen island. "It's only two days."
"Yep."
She looked at the plate in her hand, swiping off the last vestiges of streaking. "And Lex knows the city very well."
"He does."
"He lived there a long time."
"He did."
She put the plate away gently, careful not to make much racket. She paused, sighed, and reached for a water glass from the drain, beginning to dry it just as diligently as she had the plate.
The Kents did own a dishwasher. But it got remarkably little use whenever Clark was away from home.
"And it's not as if Clark—"
"Martha," Jon looked up from his coffee with a smirk. "Are you trying to convince me or yourself?"
She looked at him in surprise, then pressed her lips together somewhat wryly. "Both," she admitted with some self-deprecation. She put the glass away half damp and joined her husband at the island, sighing. "I know it's silly to be worried. It won't be long before Clark is living out there to go to school, and then what? I'm just..." she trailed off and shrugged and Jonathan put an arm around her shoulders.
"I know."
"Even though I know there's not much I can do to protect him... I just feel better when he isn't so far away."
Jon kissed the top of her head and nodded against it. "Yeah. But we're just going to have to let Lex protect him right now."
She paused, then scoffed against his chest and leaned back to meet his gaze. "Who are you and what have you done with my husband?"
He chuckled knowingly and took his arm back, wrapping both hands around his coffee mug. "I might not trust Lex one hundred percent, but I know when I'm beat." He shrugged a shoulder. "I've got to count on that boy whether I like it or not, so I might as well get used to it."
"Mmm..." she hummed thoughtfully, staring out at nothing, thinking. "You know, I think Lex is good for Clark."
Jon let out a disbelieving scoff and pinned her with an incredulous look. "Don't you think you've got that backward, Martha?"
"Well... I already know the reverse is true. But think about what Lex offers him. He's got no real reason to want to help Clark go to the school of his choice other than that he... well, he loves him, and he cares about his future, his happiness."
Jon waved her off, making a dismissive sound. "Paying for four years at Met U is like buying another fancy car for Lex. Don't read too much into financial gestures, Martha."
"Oh, it's not just the money, Jonathan," she said in a huff, and leaned her elbow on the counter and her chin in her hand. "He helped him figure out what he wanted to do with his life, he convinced him to adjust his course load so he could breathe... and he cares about him. That's what really matters," she said with a nod. "That's why Lex is good for him."
"If you say so." Jon sipped his coffee.
Martha fixed him with a dry look, then rolled her eyes when he didn't acknowledge it. "Speaking of Met U..."
"Ahh, here we go," Jonathan got to his feet to top off his cup.
"Well, we've got to talk about it, Jon," she said with some annoyance, her arm falling to the countertop. "Unless you're expecting a suitcase full of cash to fall out of the sky—"
"All right, woman," he said over his shoulder, putting the brakes on her tone.
She sighed harshly. "Well, what are we going to do?"
"We'll figure something out," he said vaguely.
Martha rolled her eyes and tried to count to ten. "Like what? Do you...?" she took a steadying breath and let out a quick huff. "Do you want me to ask Daddy for—?"
He spun on his heel. "No!"
She focussed her gaze on the table. "He's helped before," she said softly. "He told me... he said that he wished he could have gotten to know Clark. I know he'd jump at the chance—"
"We're paying for Clark's schooling, Martha. We're his parents and we'll take care of it."
Feeling a burning behind her eyes, Martha looked at the ceiling, shaking her head and biting her lip. "I would love to do that, Jon. I just don't see how."
There was a short pause and then a long, heavy sigh behind her. Warm, strong hands landed on her shoulders and she closed her eyes as he kneaded her gently. "I'm not sure," he admitted, and kissed the crown of her head again. "I was thinking... maybe we could sell some land."
"Sell?" she repeated in confusion, and whipped around to look at him. It was true they had already leased out the forty acres at the back of their land that they hadn't used in years, but that was a far different situation from selling some of their land. "But, Jonathan, this land has been in your family—"
"The point of this land is to support the Kent family. That's what it's always done." He shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest. "If we have to carve off a little piece of it to make it keep doing that, then it'll still be doing its job."
"But, Jonathan—"
He waved off her concerns and turned back to the countertop for his coffee. "Look, I'm not saying I'm decided," he said, leaning back against the counter and crossing one ankle over the other. "I'm just saying it's an option. Maybe we'll find something better by then. All I know is that Clark is going to school where he wants, and we're going to be the people signing the checks." He shook his head. "Call it ‘stubborn’ if you want. But as far as I'm concerned, that's just taking pride in the job of being a parent. We're Clark's parents. And, damn it, we're going to do our job."
Speechless, Martha watched him sip his coffee, his opinion on the matter clearly closing the subject, and slowly, she smiled up at him with honest pride in her eyes.
Told you, Daddy. I found a good man.
~
He was surprised how right Clark had been. As soon as he was out from behind the wheel, Lex felt a hundred times better. No matter how diligent Lex was on the road, he knew he could never hope to match Clark's alertness and reaction time. If an accident was avoidable in even one way, then the driver being able to in effect slow down the entire world, get out of the vehicle, run up to where the accident was likely to take place, and figure out the exact route of avoidance before getting back into the car and following that route, was as safe as anyone could ever hope to be in a moving vehicle.
After a few minutes, when Lex reached out to turn the heat back on, Clark grinned over at him winningly and Lex rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered, his only verbal admission that Clark had been right.
Now that he was in the passenger seat, it was starting to feel to him like they were going too slow. A peek at the speedometer confirmed it.
"Christ, Clark, how fast are you going?"
Clark glanced down. "Sixty."
"Hmpfh." Lex laid his head against the headrest and closed his eyes most of the way. "Feels like we're crawling."
Clark glanced over at him wryly, but wisely didn't mention Lex's own little anti-speed episode not half an hour ago. "Speed limit's fifty-five, Lex," he said instead. "Wouldn't want to get pulled over."
"It's going to take us forever to get to Metropolis."
"Three hours, just like always."
Lex's eyes popped open and he looked at Clark incredulously. "It takes you three hours to get to Metropolis?"
Clark chuckled, shaking his head. "Look, if you want, I can just pull over, pick the car up, and run it there."
Lex shrugged. "I suppose it'd be easier on the environment. Though I'm not sure how well the car would hold up to those hurricane force winds. The one time you used your speed with me in tow, I couldn't breathe the entire way."
Clark wrinkled his nose at the embarrassment of that particular memory. "Yeah. Sorry about that."
Lex shot him a quirk of a smile. "I got over it."
They travelled a little while further in a companionable silence. Lex considered turning the radio on for background noise, but he wasn't really interested.
"You know," Clark said at length, "this is a great car."
"Yeah?" Lex looked to him with interest. He'd only heard Clark appreciate coupes before. "You want it?"
"No." Clark shook his head and laughed, as if to say he should have expected that. "But..." he added with a shrug, "it might make me think twice before breaking up with you."
"Oh! Well..." Lex rolled his eyes in mock offence. "That's good." He looked out the window and muttered, just loud enough to be heard, "Dick."
Clark laughed at the easy banter, glad to have elicited the reaction he'd wanted. "You know, I'm really glad we're finally going to Metropolis together—alone, and for the weekend. It's cool. I'm looking forward to it."
"Hmm," Lex hummed noncommittally. He watched Clark with fond silence for a few seconds. "Do you know what I love about you?"
Clark's eyebrows reached for his hairline briefly, as he obviously had not expected such an affectionate question. "Huh. Umm..." he looked over at Lex a few times in between checks of the road. "Let's see. I guess... my... ass?"
Lex laughed aloud.
"My sexual prowess? My ability to give you a blowjob without needing to breathe?"
Lex snorted a little louder with each suggestion. He took a breath as if to deny these things, then gave a conceding tilt of his head. "Well... wasn't exactly what I was thinking of at the moment, but they're all valid points."
Clark shook his head, grinning. "So what do you love about me, Lex? Can't wait to hear."
Smile softening, Lex sighed quietly. "Your..." he gestured with an open hand, searching for the right words, "wonder, I guess. Your gratitude. The way you look at things, you know? The fact that you're not jaded or surfeited with life." He shrugged. "Little things make you happy. That's nice. It's, uh," he chuckled dryly, "in my experience, it's very refreshing."
Clark continued to look out the windshield, his brow tightening in confusion. "‘Refreshing’?" He looked over to Lex to confirm this and received a nod in response. "Lex, we've been together for over two years. It's still ‘refreshing’?"
Lex thought about it briefly. "Yeah," he finally said. "Yeah, it is, actually. I think maybe it always will be."
"But I might not always be this way, you know. I could get jaded if you keep giving me everything I want. I might even become a real spoiled little brat if you're not careful." He smirked. "Just like you."
"Hey!" Lex's offence wasn't all an act.
"Well." Clark glanced at him, smirking, and shrugged. "Tell me I'm wrong."
Lex only glared at him with narrowed eyes. He adjusted slightly in his seat to look at Clark more directly, and seriously considered his expression. "You don't honestly think I'm spoiled, do you?"
Clark's smirk softened into more of a smile. "Well, I don't think you're spoiled for me. But you can't deny you're spoiled for a lot of other things."
"Like what?"
Clark didn't hesitate. "Money."
Lex shrugged it off. "Money isn't important."
"See? That's how you know you're spoiled for it. If you won the lottery, you wouldn't even care."
Lex's brow furrowed. "I wouldn't play the lottery."
"I rest my case."
Lex sighed and tried to think of an argument. "You know," he said at length, "Shenstone said that he loved his friend William Somervile for nothing so much as his floccinaucinihilipilification of money."
A very long pause went by. The tires turned on the macadam. The engine purred. Lex waited.
"I have..." Clark finally said, "no idea... what you just said."
"The fact that he didn't care about money," Lex explained.
Clark glanced over at him as if he wasn't sure he believed it. "That's what that means? That he didn't care?"
"Yeah."
Clark looked back at the road in consideration for a few moments. "Lex, has anyone ever told you that you use way too many big, unnecessary words?"
Lex grinned. Because, in fact, people had told him that. He took a deep breath. "So what you're saying is that you find my garrulous use of superlatives somewhat superfluous and you'd appreciate any attempt I could facilitate in being less supererogatory?"
Clark rolled his eyes so hard Lex wouldn't have been surprised if he'd fallen unconscious. He let out a long-suffering sigh. "This is gonna be a loooong drive."
"All right," Lex said with a serious nod. "I'll attempt to be less sesquipedalian."
"Lex! Seriously!"
Lex couldn't hold back his laugh anymore as Clark just shook his head at him.
Another long pause went by.
"I think I've read that, though. I've just never heard it pronounced before. Didn't he say that after Somervile had died?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"Huh. You know," Clark looked at him wryly, "he was probably just being nice."
Lex sighed dramatically out his window.
~
The locks on the door were a bit redundant as a pin code was needed to get the elevator to come to this level. But this was Metropolis and a person would have to be mentally unbalanced to have less than two locks on his door, elevator security be damned.
So after arriving on their floor, Lex punched in the second security code, unlocked the door's three manual locks, and pushed it open, gesturing Clark to go in first.
"Jeez," Clark muttered, walking in with a bookbag on one shoulder, his duffel on the other, and his neck swiveling this way and that to take in his surroundings.
"Like it?" Lex closed the door behind them and pressed a switch on the wall. The blinds at the glass door entrances to the balcony opened and retracted soundlessly, exposing the dull winter sunshine, the Metropolis skyline, and the city below.
"Wow! Look at that view!" Clark dropped his bags by the sofa and went to all but press his face against the glass. He didn't touch it, though, sliding his hands into his back pockets and keeping just far enough away that his breath didn't fog the glass. "Lex, this apartment is awesome."
He had to laugh softly to himself as he removed his coat and scarf and hung them on a coatrack by the door. Clark had barely seen the place yet, but was already making his decree of approval.
Clark turned around at the breathy sound, shooting him somewhat of an indulgent expression. "But I guess you already know that, huh?" he asked dryly.
Lex put his small suitcase on the floor next to Clark's duffel and slid his hands into his pockets, smiling only slightly. "Actually," he started truthfully, "you might be surprised just how relieved I am to hear you say that."
Clark's smile faded and he tilted his head in mild confusion. "Relieved?" he parroted. "What do you mean?" He took his hands out of his pockets and spread them briefly, then let them fall to his sides. "What, didn't you think I'd like the place?"
Lex shrugged and took a few steps toward him. "Not exactly. But I was a bit anxious."
"But... why?"
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking around this apartment where he hadn't spent much time, and trying to imagine it in its new light.
He did still use the penthouse if he had to stay overnight in Metropolis for business, but he wouldn't say he ever ‘hung out’ here. It was a place to sleep, shower, and change. He didn't even eat meals here, and there was no regular staff. Someone from a service came in once a day to tidy the place up when he was in town, and twice a month to dust when it wasn't being used, which was most of the time. It hadn't been anything close to ‘home’ in a very long time.
In fact, the last time he'd had a considerable stay here had been almost exactly two years ago on a four day drug-and-alcohol bender—a sad little pity-me party that was a reaction to a rather unfortunate misunderstanding—and that was hardly a pleasant memory. What he could remember of it, that is.
But these several thousand square feet were about to undergo a radical promotion.
"Well," Lex shrugged, "it's just that... this is where I'm going to be living."
Clark's confusion only deepened. He looked taken aback. "Living? Wait—what?"
Finally, Lex's gaze stopped perusing the room and met Clark's stare. "While you're at college."
Clark only stared at him, gaping. There was a long, tense silence. "You're—" he broke off and swallowed, took a breath and tried again. "You're moving back to Metropolis?"
Lex nodded almost imperceptibly. "Yeah," he breathed.
"But w— I mean, when?"
Lex didn't answer. He only laughed once, softly, and continued to watch him.
"Wh— But... You mean..." Clark lowered his voice to a whisper as if afraid to be wrong aloud. "You mean to be with me?"
Lex's smile grew slightly. "I do. If that's all right."
"You c—" the rest of Clark's breath came out of him in a rush, his eyes starting to shine, a flush rising in his cheeks, and then there was a blur, and big, strong, desperate arms were being flung around Lex's back.
He was startled to find Clark so close so fast, and struggled to get his hands out of his pockets and reciprocate, unable to help but laugh at Clark's joy. Finally his hands were free and he slid them up Clark's back, over his shoulder blades, and turned to place a kiss on the curve of his jaw.
"Oh, Lex! Lex, I— Oh, thank you, thank you so much," he cried happily, pressing his hot face into Lex's neck and squeezing him almost tight enough to cut off his breath. There was also quite a lot of relief in his tone. Lex knew he hadn't been the only one concerned about what four years of this kind of distance might have done to their relationship.
Maybe the true test of their love would have been that time, that distance. But Lex didn't need to challenge what they had; they'd been tested together a thousand times and he already knew it was real. So what would be the point of risking the damage of something so pure with the foolish nonsense of romanticism? ‘I'll wait for you’ was the promise of those who had no choice. But Lex always had a choice. And if Clark had wanted to go to college in the Australian outback, Lex would have followed him there, too.
"Oh," Clark said suddenly, his voice changing, his breath stopping. "Oh, no."
Lex opened his eyes. He frowned.
"No, Lex, you can't. You can't." He leaned back suddenly, taking Lex's shoulders in his hands, his expression filled with regret. "LuthorCorp Headquarters are in Smallville now. You can't move away..." he trailed off as Lex was shaking his head.
"No, Clark, I've been making preparations to move the HQ back to Metropolis in the summer. The paperwork is already underway."
Clark's eyes widened and he gasped as if horrified, confusing Lex all the more. "Lex, you can't do that!" he exclaimed. "All those people, all those jobs you brought in, you can't just—my god, Smallville would fall into a recession and—"
"Clark, Clark," Lex interrupted, laughing softly at the panic in his voice for his hometown. "No one's going to lose their job. Relax."
"But—"
Lex tried to wave him off, mainly exhibiting impatience. "Look, this building is the headquarters, that building is the headquarters, it's all very subjective. I mean, we're talking stationary here. LuthorCorp is too big to close down an office and I need the staff in Smallville. The truth of the matter is, I, personally, can run things more efficiently from Metropolis. But I didn't live here, so it was easier to have the HQ close to home. Moving it back will be a little easier on my helicopter and loosen my time constraints, but it's not going to make all the work that needs done in Smallville disappear."
Clark seemed to mull this over, his eyes twitching this way and that.
Lex smirked and reached up around Clark's arms awkwardly to take his biceps in hand. "Clark," he said, and waited for Clark to meet his gaze. "I love you. But I didn't open new business offices and invent a bunch of busy work to keep it going just in order to have an excuse to stay closer to home."
The expression on Clark's face faded quickly from worry to wryness.
Lex held back a snort of laughter. "Smallville's offices are a necessity, just as the ones in Metropolis are. And they're not going anywhere, just like the ones in Metropolis didn't. Okay?"
Slowly, Clark's smile returned, brightened, and became infectious. "Okay," he whispered as he threw himself back into their hug. "Oh, god, I'm so happy," he breathed against Lex's ear, making him shiver.
Lex let a minute go by, soaking up Clark's heavy, grateful warmth and cherishing each second of his closeness. "Come on," he finally said in a gentle tone, and tried to get Clark to raise his head again. "Let me show you the rest of the place. I've had some changes made for us, okay?"
Clark sniffed, but when he finally let go and backed up a few inches, his face was dry, though his eyes were red. "Okay," he agreed.
Lex reached for his own bag. "Grab your stuff. There's a place for everything."
~
Lex was uncharacteristically nervous as he showed Clark around the penthouse. He had given the redecorators very specific instructions, and he had received regular updates in the form of digital photos and videos of their progress, but he had never gotten a chance to check the place over a final time after they had finished. He hoped everything was as it was supposed to be.
The bedroom was much the same, with the exception that there was now an end table on each side instead of just the one, and each had their own alarm clock, lamp, and other necessities. The walk-in closet had also been rearranged to leave one side empty.
What used to be Lex's private gym had been transformed into half gym and half study: On one side of the room, a solid mahogany desk was placed in front of the glass walls where it would be flooded with afternoon sunlight, and was topped with a lamp, a new laptop, and a printer/scanner combo. On the other side was a treadmill, a versatile home gym weight machine, and a hanging heavy bag for boxing—a selection that had been brutally pared down, though Clark had never seen it before and so wouldn't have realized that.
The master bathroom, attached to the bedroom but also accessible from the gym-cum-study, had been the most drastic remodeling job: Lex had wanted to replace the one large sink and vanity with two spacious sinks side by side, topped with expanded mirrors. That had necessitated moving the toilet across the room. So long as the floor was being torn to shreds anyway, he'd decided to upgrade the sunken tub to something a bit larger, have a separate standing shower stall installed in the corner, and have the tile redone completely. When he opened the door, he blinked a few times. If it hadn't been for the video updates, he wouldn't have recognized the room at all.
"Jeez, Lex, your bathroom's bigger than your kitchen." Clark stepped in and looked around. "I think it might be the biggest room in the apartment, actually."
Lex shot a wry look at the back of Clark's head, though he didn't turn to see it. "Now you're just exaggerating."
"Yeah? Do you have a measuring tape?"
Lex rolled his eyes. "No." He stepped into the room behind him and looked everything over with a quick but critical eye. He nodded with satisfaction.
Clark was up on the second step leading to the sunken tub, looking into its depths and shaking his head.
"What?"
He sighed and looked back over his shoulder. "Do you know that there are families of four in this world who live in rooms smaller than your bathtub?"
Lex shot him a briefly perplexed look, then snorted and jerked the door open, pointing back into the study. "Get out there!" he demanded through a laugh, slapping Clark's shoulder in mock chastisement as he passed.
"Spoiled, spoiled, spoiled," Clark clucked his tongue. Then he settled into his new computer chair with a sigh. "Looks like I'm right behind you, too," he said, lifting the screen of the laptop just to take a quick peek, then closing it again. He grinned up at Lex brightly.
Lex just shot him an indulgent look, then checked his watch. "Despite your abominable driving, it's still early. Let's go catch a show and get a bite to eat, hm?"
"Great!" Clark popped back out of the chair, sliding it back into place carefully behind him. "I don't need to dress up or anything, do I?" he said with an almost imperceptible curl to his lip.
"Nah," Lex waved him off. "Don't worry about it. Let's go casual this weekend."
Clark looked Lex up and down, then looked himself up and down. "Uh, yeah, Lex. Easy for you to say," he said, gesturing to the obvious difference between Lex's black dress pants and steel grey cashmere sweater and Clark's jeans, blue cotton tee, and red windbreaker.
Lex shrugged a shoulder fluidly. "Well, feel free to change into something else." He gestured back toward the door they'd just exited as the bedroom was on the other side of it and Clark had already hung up all the college clothes Lex had insisted he bring along ‘just in case.’ "Quickest way to the closet is back through there."
"I have a better idea." Clark crossed his arms over his chest. "How about you change into jeans?"
Lex's lip curled. "Yeah," he said, turning and heading for the door to the hall. "That'll definitely happen."
He smirked at the snort of laughter that followed him out the door.
~
"Let me ask you something."
"Mm-hm."
They sat in the back of Lex's hired car on their way to whatever Lex would deem a casual restaurant, and Lex didn't stop texting or e-mailing or whatever it was he was doing with his phone, but Clark knew from experience that didn't mean he wasn't being listened to. A man in his twenties did not overtake a billion-dollar corporation, improve its reputation, and increase the value of its stock without being able to multi-task.
Clark would have been happier taking the trains or even just walking out in the wintry air rather than being driven around all night like a snob, but Lex had said there wasn't time if they were going to eat a proper meal before taking in a show, so Clark's hollow belly had convinced him to agree to the hired car for this one night, just as long as they got to walk and otherwise get around like normal people the following night. Clark wasn't sure where the restaurant was, but at the moment, they were stuck at a red light in Midtown.
When Clark leaned forward and pressed the button that would raise the divider and cut them off from their driver, Lex paused for just a moment to glance over with only his eyes, eyebrows arched sharply with obvious curiosity, and then continued with what he was doing.
Clark sat back in his seat with a sigh when the divider was closed all the way. "You said you had made some changes to the penthouse."
"Yes..." Lex sounded expectant but continued to work.
"Well, it looked to me like..." Clark shrugged a shoulder though he wasn't sure Lex could see him. "I don't know, like maybe that place was made for two instead of one. Kind of."
At first Clark thought Lex wouldn't respond, but after a moment he casually said, "That would be accurate."
Clark nodded and looked out the window. They were moving through the light. "But... you didn't say anything about... I mean... Well, you said you're moving back to Metropolis to, you know, be close to me while I go to college."
Lex didn't respond.
Clark looked back at him, but saw no clues in his expression. He tried not to squirm in his seat, feeling awkward as he peered at the side of Lex's downturned face, wishing he could just know for sure without asking. "But you didn't say anything about— I mean, I kind of got the impression that—"
Finally Lex looked up from his phone to meet Clark's gaze. "It would probably be best for you if you stayed on campus," he said, his voice so soft and quiet that Clark very nearly read it as regret.
Clark nodded slowly and Lex looked back to his phone. "So even though there are two sinks and... two alarm clocks and... a place for me to study..." he said leadingly.
"I want you to be comfortable, Clark. You're welcome there any hour of any day for any length of time."
Clark let a beat go by, tucking a loose shank of hair behind his ear and trying to sound just as casual as Lex did. "Even every hour of every day?"
Lex sighed and his fingers stilled. He looked up, forward, to the darkened divider, and let his hands fall to his lap, phone still on and waiting.
"I'm not trying to invite myself, Lex, not at all. I just got the impression—"
"I'm not going to say I wouldn't welcome it," he said, his voice full of defiance, as if someone had challenged him. He turned to meet Clark's eyes. "I would love it. I just... don't think your parents would approve."
Clark tried not to give away too much but, judging by the little quirk at one corner of Lex's lips, he didn't fully succeed in hiding his elation. He lifted a shoulder and dropped it. "It would sure be a lot cheaper for them."
Lex laughed softly and shook his head. "Yes. And so I'm sure your parents wouldn't approve."
Clark had to agree, though he didn't say so. It sometimes seemed to him that whatever would make things harder for his family financially, that was the path his father would choose to follow. He knew it was really just a matter of family pride—his father's work ethic, responsible nature, and the Kent brand of stick-to-itiveness—but sometimes it seemed more like self-flagellation.
The truth was it would never go over well anyway, Clark officially moving into Lex's penthouse. The media would surely pick it up, or Clark's classmates would get suspicious, or Lex's father would hold it over them somehow. Clark could hope and wish but he didn't honestly believe that it would ever be something they could do.
He knew and had known for some time that if he chose to push the issue, Lex would be willing to come out for him. The problem was, as it had always been, the scrutiny it would bring on Clark, not the professional hardships it would bring on Lex. Clark, being what and who he was, simply could not afford to have the media watching his every move. Even if their interest was solely in Clark's life with Lex, it would be too easy for them to pick up on something else they shouldn't. Some time ago Clark and Lex had decided to come out to Clark's family and closest friends, but they'd never taken it any further than that for a reason: A secret to protect an even bigger secret.
But neither did Clark fool himself that they could keep forever. To-day they might decide to be discreet in public, to-morrow they might decide to employ separate housing to keep up the façade, but one day, maybe even one day soon, someone was going to notice how much time they spent together, and someone else was going to question Lex's lack of female companionship over the past several years, and Clark and Lex and everyone they knew were going to have to figure out how to deal with it. But Clark had to agree that there was no reason to bring that on any faster than necessary.
They already had plenty to deal with at home: Those Elements weren't going anywhere no matter how much Clark wished the situation would be magically resolved by the time they returned to Smallville. They didn't need to be focussing just yet on how to stave off public scrutiny.
"Well," Clark said with a sigh, resigned to their situation, "can I sleep over sometimes?"
Lex smirked. "I think that can be arranged."
~
Lex pulled his knees a little closer to his own chest and arched his back to adjust the angle. Clark's smooth, slow rocking motions were less a thrust and more of a caress. Every full circuit of movement brought a sweet, tingling stroke of sensation, but Lex couldn't have called it a ‘collision.’ If anything, Clark was massaging him from within.
They lay on their sides, Lex's head resting on the plump pillows at the head of the bed, Clark's cheek against the curve of Lex's neck where he occasionally kissed and nuzzled the damp skin as they undulated together. Clark's arms were warmly around him, one wrapped low around his ribs, the other around his shoulders, his right hand resting on Lex's left biceps, which tightened and flexed as Lex leisurely jerked himself off to their rhythm.
They'd been like this for some time, having come together sleepily in the centre of the bed, sluggish after their late evening out following the long, uneventful drive from Smallville, but still craving one another's touch despite their mutual lack of energy. Without words they had undressed one another and without suggestion Lex had turned his back as a request, which Clark had granted just as silently.
Slick with the thick lubricant Lex had brought from home to stock their bedside drawer, they had slid together and sighed and easily found a rhythm just as lazy as they each felt. Lex was hard in his own hand, but not painfully so, his arousal just as pleasant and comfortable as their position. The hard, cold edge of Clark's pendant against the soft skin below Lex's shoulder blade had long since warmed to his body temperature and was not an annoyance, but a reminder, surely leaving an indentation where it lay. As he often did, Lex wished it was something he could keep, but knew it would be gone and forgotten even more quickly than he would have guessed.
A quiet sigh caressed Lex's ear and he answered it in kind, his neck arcing to find the softness above Clark's shoulder where the curve of his head could rest.
"Lex..." Clark breathed, then turned his head to mouth under Lex's jaw, murmuring lost words there. His hips might have increased their speed just slightly, his arm tightening just a bit over Lex's chest, and Lex gripped his rock hard forearm with his free hand.
He let out a quiet groan from deep in his throat when Clark sought more fully into him than he had before, and pressed himself back with equal force, pushing Clark as deeply as he could possibly go in their position. They balanced there for only a moment before Clark broke the tension and returned once again to his slow gyrations.
"Oh, Lex," he panted in between placing soft, wet circles of suction along the length of Lex's neck. "God, you feel so good." His hands kneaded softly at Lex's side and arm, his embrace warm and just slightly tacky with a very thin sheen of sweat. The comforter had been tossed to the bottom of the bed some time ago, the soft cotton sheet tangled around their legs, the comparably cool air of the room—from which they had at first hid in their cocoon of fabric—now welcome on heated skin.
Clark shifted his hips a bit to the left on his next circuit, causing a particularly sweet stroke that made Lex gasp and every muscle in his body briefly tighten. Clark moaned against his ear as if in response to the sound. He began moving a little farther away with each stroke, causing the mattress to bounce off beat for a moment before it caught up to them.
Lex's hand sped up just a little, his hips rocking in time, his ass squeezing the base of Clark's cock each time they reached the apex of their connection and began once again to pull away.
Clark's moans became a bit louder, bookended by gasps of Lex's name, and Lex groaned back at him wordlessly, the pulse deep inside his body beginning to spread its fingers ever further outward and upward, making his cock swell in his hand, and his skin warm to a burn.
As Clark's hands kneaded absently at Lex's side and arm, squeezing and releasing the same two handfuls of skin over and over again until they were surely pink with stimulation, his hips hitched unexpectedly, a groan breaking in Lex's throat. Then he pushed forward hard—much harder than he had—nearly putting Lex onto his stomach, and he stilled, and he stopped breathing, and his hands stopped moving, instead carefully wrapping around the curves of the flesh they held.
Frozen in position, Clark cried out a few times, gently, softly, the sounds close to mewling. Then his muscles relaxed, his grip on Lex's arm and side weakening, and he sighed, and rested his head heavily on Lex's shoulder.
As Clark remained still and the seconds ticked by, Lex's hand slowed on himself, his eyes opening in mild confusion. Breathing heavily, he also stilled, trying to see Clark out of the corner of his eye, though all he could make out was a small bit of his messy dark brown hair.
At length, Clark began to move slightly once again, nuzzling gently at Lex's neck, his hips beginning to rock, but barely, erratically, as if he'd suddenly lost the ability to coordinate himself. His hands began to softly stroke the skin beneath them, the desperate kneading gone as if it had never been, his fingers plagued by a constant if minuscule tremble.
Lex's confusion grew. Trying to catch his breath, he released himself completely and reached back to lay his hand on Clark's warm thigh. Clark was humming contentedly against Lex's shoulder, placing soft, dry kisses there, as Lex contorted himself to be able to look back and just make out Clark's face, too close to focus on.
"Clark?" he asked uncertainly.
"Mmm." Clark's hips were still trying to build up a small, soft rhythm, and mostly failing.
"Clark, did you...?" Lex laughed softly at himself, sure after so long of learning Clark's idiosyncrasies he would never need to ask this question. "Did you come?"
Clark's eyes popped open, Lex could see that much, and he stilled. Slowly, he raised his head from Lex's shoulder and arced his neck to meet his eyes. His expression became sheepish and pinched. "Um... sorry." His face was already flushed, but had now become a bit brighter in the cheeks.
A laugh burst unexpectedly from Lex's throat. "No," he said through a chuckle. "I just—" he broke off, then scoffed with disbelief, utterly mystified. "You were holding me."
Clark only looked at him in confusion, eyes still dazed as his cock continued to intermittently twitch inside Lex's body, though his hips had stilled. "What?"
"You were holding me." Lex reached up to close his hand over Clark's on his arm, illustrating his point. "You didn't take your hands away. You... you always take your hands away."
"Oh." Clark blinked at Lex's hand on his, and at his own hand on Lex's arm, looking surprised to find them both there. "I-I don't know," he said, sounding puzzled. "I felt like it was okay—like I was okay. Um..." he met Lex's eyes uncertainly. "Is that okay?"
Lex only stared at him, lips parted and eyes wide in astonishment, and then he felt his face light up as a cockeyed smile of utter delight bloomed across his lips.
The hesitation in Clark's expression suddenly vanished.
Was it okay? Of course it was okay. What Lex had spent the last two years wanting was for Clark to realize it was okay.
Clark seemed to grasp this all at once and one of his brightest grins spread across his face, and they soon were both quietly laughing in pure joy.
Lex leaned back the bit farther he could as an invitation, and Clark leaned up on his elbow to arc himself around Lex's back, and they kissed. Lex reached awkwardly behind Clark's neck with his left hand and buried his fingers in his long, soft hair as the kiss deepened.
"Yeah," Lex said, looking into Clark's eyes and smiling with great affection when they'd parted. "That's okay, Clark. That is very okay."
Clark grinned back at him with a soft breath of a laugh, and adjusted his hips slightly as the hand on Lex's side slid downward to cradle his abandoned erection. Lex's own hand closed over his, not guiding so much as coming along for the ride, and Lex turned fully onto his side again, burying his grin briefly in the pillow under his head before the relatively minor stimulation inside him reminded him of his desire and the grin became a soft smile on its own.
Clark had been softening inside and he couldn't have thrust hard now even if he'd wanted to as they would lose their connection completely. He only shifted his hips very gently this way and that, side to side and forward, never back, just enough to offer a little stimulation where it would matter.
He pressed his lips against the side of Lex's neck, humming there happily as Lex slid back into the sensations.
Lex was where he needed to be relatively quickly, the break in stimulation heightening his sensitivity so that when it resumed, it didn't take much to nudge him gently over an edge. The orgasm was soft—not powerful or mind-blowing, just a warm, comfortable, safe thing. Instead of passion akin to pain or a rapidly tightening desire as it so often was with Clark, it felt as though the happiness in his chest had run south and was leaking out of him in pulses—security and satisfaction and quiet joy.
He said nothing but knew it was all there in his reactions, in his body: The way he inhaled sharply but not too sharply, the way his fingers tensed on Clark's own but didn't tighten, the way his neck arched to lay his head on Clark's shoulder once again, yet applied very little pressure there.
When the final wave had passed, Lex let out his breath in a rush and curled forward into himself, pulling Clark's hand away from his deflating erection and gripping it in his own in silent refusal of any effort he might make to pull it back completely. As he panted and calmed and came down from a height, Clark kissed his neck, his cheek, his ear, used his free hand to stroke his stomach, his side, his arm, and murmured indecipherable sweet nothings against his skin until finally Lex felt close enough to himself to release him. Then Clark reached down between them and pulled himself gently out to Lex's breathy moan and, in the same movement, Lex turned around to take Clark into his arms.
Lex gazed at him across the pillows, at his flushed face and the slight sheen of sweat on his forehead, and his messy hair cascading over his shoulder, tangled around the chain of his pendant. He knew that his own eyes were filled with love and adoration and he reveled in feeling no need to quell it. When he offered the smallest of smiles, Clark grinned back at him and sighed, utterly satiated.
"I know," Lex breathed, reaching out to comb Clark's hair back from his temple, "that you will never hurt me, Clark. I know it."
Clark's eyes fluttered briefly closed at the touch, and then he watched Lex expressionlessly for several seconds. "You know," he finally said, "I think you're right."
Lex hadn't been expecting an agreement. He'd never received one before. He, in fact, seemed to be getting quite a few things this evening that he had never received before. His eyebrows arched in mild surprise.
Clark shrugged. "After all of this time, all of these things we've..." he trailed off, his cheeks darkening even while his lips pulled into a small self-satisfied leer, "you know, done." Lex smirked. "I'm starting to think that maybe I'm... like, I'm incapable of hurting you." He paused to swallow and reached down to pull the indigo sheet up over them both. "I don't know, I... I honestly think that if I had a choice between hurting you and, I don't know, the world ending or something... I wouldn't be able to do it." He shook his head minutely against the pillow. "I just wouldn't be able to do it."
Lex's massaging fingers stilled in Clark's hair. He hadn't by any stretch of the imagination been thinking about what he'd said in this light. His mind had been strictly on the present, on their relationship here, on the possibilities Clark had worried over in their bed since the very beginning.
But the moment Clark mentioned what to him was a surely impossible future, Lex remembered the things he'd seen. He remembered the things he could be.
War drums. Shells drop. Lightning streaks the sky.
‘Why didn't you stop me? You were supposed to be able to stop me!’
He didn't say a word. But Clark saw it.
"Don't." Clark's hand was around his arm, shaking him lightly and bringing him out of his own thoughts. "Lex, don't. That isn't a decision I'm ever going to have to make."
It was in him to argue, to insist that it was possible, that Clark didn't know, couldn't know, wouldn't be so sure if he'd seen the things Lex had seen in that cave. But through his fear, his logical mind saw there was no point to this, that it would only ruin the moment they had and bring them nothing worthwhile in trade.
So, with a great force of will, Lex pushed it out of his mind. He took a deep, cleansing breath, closing his eyes briefly, and relaxed. Soon he was able to smile again.
Clark smiled back, though the expression in his eyes suggested he knew that Lex had censored himself, and he appreciated it. He shook Lex's shoulder once again, playfully this time, as a segue to a new subject—any new subject. "Hey," he whispered. "Okay if I sleep on this side?"
Lex's smile became more satiated, more real. "You can sleep on whichever side you want, Clark," he answered casually. "Just know that if you sleep there more than once... you've claimed it for the entirety of your college education."
Clark's eyebrows arched sharply. "Wow," he said without inflection. "So... life decision?"
"Mmm."
Clark sighed deeply and settled into his spot as if fully deciding to stay there. "I think... I'll sleep on that side to-morrow night," he said, gesturing at Lex's place with a nod.
Lex chuckled as Clark pulled the quilt over them. Lex's skin had begun to cool and goose bumps had begun to bloom over his arms, the only thing alerting Clark that it was time to do so. The snowstorm the weatherman had promised was picking up outside, the wind howling threateningly around their twenty-third story window, but offering no danger. It was only an excuse to move closer together and stay there.
"You know," Clark said, glancing around the room curiously, "in all the time we've been together, I've never been here. I mean, we managed to make it to Moscow together, but... not to your place in Metropolis." He gave Lex a somewhat perplexed look and shook his head. "That's odd in itself, but... what's really weird is that I feel," he shrugged, "kind of at home here."
"Hmm," Lex hummed with a smile. "Then I'm glad we finally made it."
"Yeah. Me, too." He sighed and watched his own fingers trail up and down Lex's arm. "I was worried, you know."
"No, I..." He shrugged a shoulder softly. "I mean about college. About moving away from Smallville—moving away from you. I... I knew you wouldn't want me using my abilities all the time to run out and see you; that you'd be afraid someone would figure me out. It's a long drive, and..." he trailed off.
"Clark. Whatever you have to do, wherever you need to go... if you want me there, I'll find a way to be there."
Clark's surprised gaze caught his and he stilled for a long beat. Then he let out a small scoff of disbelief. "I-I don't even know what to say to that."
Lex smiled briefly, then sobered. "Say that you know."
Clark's surprise faded into a sweet, fond smile. "I know."
"Now say that you love me."
The smile expanded, then faded into seriousness. He scooted slightly closer. "I love you."
Lex didn't have to tell him what to do next.
~
"Have I mentioned that I'm starving?"
"We're almost there, Clark."
"Lex, we've passed about forty restaurants. You're killing me, here."
Lex only snorted softly and shook his head, his breath filling the air before him with thick puffs of white.
The snow had stopped sometime in the early morning and Clark had awoken to look out the window and way, way down to find plows clearing the streets and shop owners shoveling the sidewalks—just like it was in Smallville, if quite a bit more of it. He hadn't stood there for long, the height making him a little dizzy as usual, but had immediately started figuring out how he was going to convince Lex to walk around in the cold all day. Compared to their time in Moscow, this Kansas snowstorm was surely peanuts. But Lex had looked awfully comfortable snuggled under the thick down quilt over the bed.
To his surprise, it hadn't been difficult to convince Lex at all, and Clark hadn't even gotten to use most of the best ideas he'd come up with in the half hour before Lex had woken up. Apparently Lex had already been resigned to the situation when it had started snowing the previous evening and was just happy to see it had at least stopped.
"Here, let's just cross."
Clark was lost in his own thoughts—mostly of food—and glanced up to find Lex looking down the one-way street at traffic that was just starting to be allowed through the light, giving them plenty of room to make it across without any danger. He quickly made the sharp turn and took a few longer than usual strides in order to keep up.
"Luthors don't get ticketed for jaywalking, huh?"
Lex smirked. "Clark, I don't think they've given a ticket for jaywalking in this city since the turn of the century—the last century."
If Clark had been listening through the end of that sentence, he probably would have at least chuckled, but his attention was skewed about halfway through, just as they were reaching the small break through the piled snow on the far curb. "Uh, Lex—"
"I see them." Clark glanced at him and found a steady determination coming into his eyes. He didn't alter their direction of approach. "Don't worry about it. Just act natural and let me do the talking."
Clark swallowed hard and did his best not to change his gait. He appreciated it more than he could say—especially at the moment—when Lex delayed a step for just a second so that Clark came up along side him instead of trailing half a step behind. It felt to him that they presented more of a united front this way, even if that impression was misleading.
As the gaggle of about twenty reporters closed in, however, they had no choice but to slow down.
They obviously hadn't been hanging around in a group in the middle of the sidewalk, huddling deeply into their winter coats against the cold, without a reason: Most of them, even while they approached, kept looking back over their shoulders toward the unmarked door they had been standing outside of, as if afraid they might miss something terribly important exiting it. Clark assumed they were stalking some unfortunate celebrity or politician who was trying in vain to have a nice, private night out at some underground, unadvertised, need-a-password-to-get-in nightclub. Some years ago, he might have been more interested in who it was. But the path his life had taken since meeting Lex—a man immutably in the public eye—had compelled his world view to be more aligned with sympathy for the stalked rather than the more common pervasive interest in what the stalkers could glean from the private life of a public figure.
Lex let out a little sigh at what was probably the last second he couldn't be heard, a puff of white breath dancing in the still air, then plastered a friendly and immovable smile onto his face.
"Mr. Luthor!" many of them were already shouting to get his attention, though Clark saw far too many gazes flickering in his own direction, too.
With the speed of a man who'd done this a thousand times before, Lex fired off answers to three or four questions that Clark assumed must have been business related. Since all the questions seemed to be coming at the same moment, all muddled together and pushing the others roughly out of the way, he wasn't really sure to which Lex's responses belonged, but the reporters seemed to have no trouble.
It didn't take long at all for the first, "Mr. Luthor, who's your friend?" and Clark picked up on that one pretty easily. He ducked his head, then looked off toward his left, across the street, wishing they were on another block. He would even have been fine with one that hadn't been shoveled yet.
"Oh," Lex sounded as if he'd forgotten Clark was there. He turned and gestured at him with an open, gloved hand. "This is Clark." Clark offered a brief, pained smile. "He's the son of a farming family from Smallville—friends of mine."
Clark wrinkled his nose, though he quickly remembered to smooth it for the cameras. ‘Son of a farming family’? What was he, an Ingalls? He felt like he ought to be wearing dirty overalls and chewing on a piece of straw.
"Clark is looking into doing some social work in Metropolis after he finishes school and, uh... well, I'm just giving him a tour of the big city."
"Is this student under consideration for the LuthorCorp scholarship?" a reporter on the far edge of the crowd asked.
Lex looked seriously taken aback, as if bothered by this suggestion. "No, of course not," he said, and did, indeed, sound offended. "As his family are personal friends of mine, it wouldn't be appropriate for Clark to be considered for the LuthorCorp scholarship."
That quickly, Clark's existence seemed dismissed out of hand and they resumed asking Lex questions about LuthorCorp, projects Ceres Terra and Aurora, and what else might be in store in the coming months.
He answered a few more of their inquiries efficiently and politely, then suggested they needed to be on their way before Clark was bored to tears. As he began to try to sidestep the crowd, he made a ‘come here’ gesture toward the shadows across the street, and two beefy security men that Clark hadn't even known were there came jogging over to protect them as they wound a snake's path through and around the press of bodies on the sidewalk.
Clark gaped at them in shock, wondering how long they'd been there or if they'd been following them from street to street. Learning to suppress his powers so that they didn't drive him insane could sometimes have the unfortunate side effect of causing him to miss things as they happened. It was a more than acceptable compromise, but occasionally disorienting just the same.
At first it seemed that they were going to have trouble breaking free, the tight sea of people and electronics closing around them with every step Lex took, stifling their movements. Clark was concerned there was going to be an altercation with the security men that would be much more likely than anything else to land them all on the news in an unflattering light. But, with providential timing, the door the reporters had been staking out opened, pouring bluish light and the deafening sound of a wild party out into the cold night air, and they all turned and rushed back to it, ocean to the shore.
Clark was still trying to look over his shoulder at the commotion even as Lex hurried him along to the corner. "Lex—?"
"Just keep going, Clark. Best not to look back."
~
Lex dug into his shrimp lo mein with fondness, appreciation, and not a little nostalgia. The cuisine in Metropolis's Chinatown was all hit and miss, and he'd spent years of his life trying just about every dive from Montgomery to Grand in order to ferret out who made the best pot stickers, dumplings, mu shu, dim sum, and all manner of Westernized ‘Chinese food.’ For ten years and running, the best lo mein in Metropolis had been found only at Lin Yao's Tea House. It was small, isolated, and a huge pain in the ass to get to, but it was well worth it.
It was late and most sane people had already had dinner and were headed to nightclubs, bars, or home, so there were only two other couples in the tiny restaurant: Two college-age kids, obviously intoxicated, though being neither loud nor obnoxious (mainly just giggling over their food, or perhaps their company), and an older couple by the window who took turns glaring at the first couple. All four were Chinese and all four spoke quiet Mandarin to one another.
The lo mein was as delicious as always, with a pleasant brown sauce settling at the bottom of his plate and encouraging him to repeatedly mix the noodles as well as attempt to eat the dish from the bottom up. He glanced up in between mouthfuls and watched Clark pick at his Kung Pao chicken. Clark wasn't smiling.
Lex gestured at Clark's plate with his chopsticks. "Don't you like it? We could order something else."
"No, it's good," Clark said politely, taking a small bite as if to prove his point, though he then immediately resumed moving it aimlessly around his plate.
Lex watched him stir the sauce for a few seconds. "Would you prefer a fork?"
Clark's chopsticks stilled and he smiled tightly at his dinner. "I'm not a child, Lex," he muttered, his tone dark. "I'm capable of using chopsticks."
The food in Lex's mouth was swallowed rather suddenly and rather hard. He cleared his throat and reached for his glass of water. After he'd had a sip and tried to put it back down, the sound of the glass hitting the table seemed unreasonably loud.
He didn't want to ask. He really didn't.
He let the silence stretch for as long as he could, but nothing changed. "Is, uh... something wrong?"
Clark just scoffed at his plate, still refusing to meet Lex's eyes, and shook his head minutely, but not as if to reply in the negative. It was more the kind of headshake that said, ‘Right, like you don't know.’
Lex leaned slightly forward over their small, uneven table, and the shift of weight pushed the table leg at Clark's right to the floor. "Clark?" he said softly.
"Look, I—" He shook his head again, his lips pressed tightly together and pale. "You know, I just really didn't care for what you said back there."
"‘What I said’?" Lex flipped a hand upward on the table helplessly. "What did I say?"
Clark started turning individual hunks of chicken over as if to soak their other sides in the sauce. When he spoke, he muttered so lowly that Lex had to lean even closer to pick up his words. The table creaked. "You made yourself sound like my uncle."
Lex let out a breathy scoff of a laugh and sat up straight, the table keeling naturally back toward him again. He looked down at his noodles. The brown sauce gathering at the bottom of the plate didn't look as appetizing as it had only moments ago.
He spared a quick glance to his right at the other two couples and found neither of them looking their way. Just the same, he kept his voice below even sotto voce in tone. "Well, how did you want me to introduce you, Clark?" he whispered across the table, dropping his voice even further. "As my teenaged lover?"
Clark scoffed in obvious irritation, looking briefly away, then continued to sulk over his meal.
Lex let out a sharp sigh. This evening was not going as planned. "Clark, look, everything I said out there was the truth," he whispered. "All I did was leave out the things we agreed a long time ago to leave out."
"Yeah, but..." Clark's voice was almost at a normal pitch until he glanced up, saw the concern on Lex's face, then noticed the other people in the restaurant. He leaned forward and breathed his words as well. "All that stuff about being ‘a friend of my family’... couldn't you have just said we were friends?"
Lex's stomach tightened with anger. Why should he be made to feel defensive about this? Why was it his responsibility to take the blame for how they both knew the world really was? "Yeah, I'm sure that would have looked wonderful on the news." He sketched an imaginary headline in the air with sharp gestures, "Lex Luthor Tight-Lipped about Evening on the Town with Teenaged Male ‘Friend.’"
"You still could have come up with some story about—"
"Clark, are you honestly chastising me because I didn't lie more?" he hissed angrily.
Clark finally dropped his chopsticks onto his plate and sat back into his seat with a harsh sigh. He crossed his arms over his chest. "I just don't want to look at you and be thinking of you as my avuncular benefactor." He seemed to shiver slightly. "It creeped me out."
After a beat of silence, the anger in Lex's expression melded into regret, and his shoulders slumped. He sighed softly, looking down but no longer seeing his food.
A tense minute passed with the only sounds the occasional smattering of Mandarin, the sizzle of the kitchen grill, and the steady drone of Metropolis traffic.
"Look," Clark finally said, no longer whispering, "can we just take this stuff and go back? I'm not even hungry."
"You were starving twenty minutes ago," Lex muttered. Then, "Yeah, all right," and he got up to ask for a couple of to-go containers. He didn't know why he was bothering. The lo mein was never quite as good the second time around.
~
After a few blocks of miserable silence in the miserable cold, Lex hailed a cab to take them the rest of the way back to the penthouse in at least moderate comfort. He figured if they were going to act like they didn't know one another, they might as well do it in the back of a cab like a normal couple.
When they reached the penthouse door, Lex opened it and invited Clark to walk through with just a gesture. He did, with Lex on his heels, and Lex turned to close the door behind them. He turned back around after locking it, fully expecting to walk into the room and become involved in another uncomfortable—but louder—discussion. But Clark was right there, bearing down on him, having barely moved into the room at all.
He gasped quietly in surprise. "Jesus," he breathed, then let out a small laugh of relief.
But Clark didn't smile. He took half a step forward, then another, and Lex had no choice but to back into the door or get trod on. "Christ, Clark, what—"
Clark reached out and took the plastic bag of Chinese leftovers from Lex's hand, then there was a quick blur, less than the blink of an eye, and the bag was gone, and Lex noticed the refrigerator door was slowly closing. Clark put one hand on the door by Lex's left shoulder, the other on the doorjamb by Lex's right ear. Still he bore down on him, expressionless.
Lex stared up at him defiantly, his back straight. He wasn't going to apologize, damn it. He couldn't help that things were the way they were. He wasn't going to take responsibility for the whole screwed up world. So he just stared. And Clark stared. And it went on so long it was uncomfortable.
Finally, Clark's lips parted. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and secretive. "The world is different," he said.
Lex only looked at him in confusion, listening to his own breath coming too fast, his gut still broiling with muted rage.
But then Clark's eyes softened, suddenly, painfully, and he wasn't full of blame or accusation or resentment. He wasn't angry. He never had been. He was hurt.
"The world... is different, Lex," he said again, and Lex knew he was supposed to understand something that he didn't, and he hoped that it would come to him if he just waited.
Clark paused, and when he spoke again, though his voice was still soft and close, a noticeable reporteresque lilt had come into his tone, "Mr. Luthor," he said, and Lex instantly understood, "who's your friend?"
Lex looked at him for a long, slow moment; at this large, super-human man hovering over him, full of strength and power and yet need. His own choler and indignation fizzled as if it had never been. He swallowed hard, caught by Clark's stare. Then he opened his mouth, and he answered as he would have in a different world.
"This is Clark Kent," he said simply. "My lover."
Clark continued to watch him with pain in his eyes, his shoulders relaxing minutely.
"The love of my life," Lex went on, in a voice so soft it might have been lost to anyone but Clark. "And the man I want to spend the rest—"
He was cut off by Clark's hard, sudden, passionate kiss, his weight pressing Lex tightly against the door. With a bittersweet sound of regret lost in Clark's mouth, Lex reached up and tried to push Clark's coat off his shoulders even as Clark was trying to do the same to Lex's. With an awkward, hurried pushing and pulling of fabrics, both finally hit the floor, and Lex was frantically working on Clark's long-sleeved tee when he felt his feet leave the floor.
Their kiss was broken by Lex's gasp at the sudden lack of gravity, and he opened his eyes to find himself in Clark's arms, automatically wrapping his own around Clark's neck for extra support.
Clark turned away from the door, and Lex immediately felt ridiculous, being carted off like some nubile young wife. "Clark—" he began to protest.
But Clark heard it coming. "Deal with it," he said gruffly, and resealed their kiss with no less passion as he carried Lex in his arms to their new bedroom.
~
Lionel sat in his darkened office, only one desk lamp issuing soft light onto his hands. He turned the dark crystal in his fingers, feeling the smoothness of its edges, the sharpness of its strange design.
It was a tantalizing mystery and he found himself regretting that he'd been unable to have a conversation with the man who had found the crystal before he'd fallen to his tragic... accidental death. So many had looked for so long, and only this one man had deciphered enough of the legends to pinpoint its Honduras location. Lionel imagined there might have been other illuminating facts hidden deeply in Mr. Cole's mind.
No matter. If one man was able to unlock the mystery, then there would be another who could do the same. Lionel just had to find him—or her.
"So many years..." Lionel muttered, and leaned back into his buttery calf leather office chair, holding the crystal above his head and looking up at it in fascination. For so long, he wasn't sure that it wasn't just a meaningless legend, leading to nothing but shadows and ghosts. He'd hoped, he'd studied, at times he'd even believed, but he was never truly certain. Not until the box was handed to him and he'd unlatched its lid and found the crystal resting inside.
It was cool to the touch, always. No matter how long he held it in his hand, it never warmed to his body temperature, but instead chilled his fingers. He could put it in a pocket, close to his chest or leg, and it would remain, indefinitely, a cooled spot on his skin.
The symbol on the crystal was familiar because it had been copied in a few scattered documents over the centuries. But it had never been translated that Lionel could find. Even now he didn't know what it meant.
The symbol, or design, consisted of two diagonally parallel lines, curved at each end, with one small oblong oval placed above the top line and below the bottom, each also diagonally from the other. There was a tiny circle at both ends of the lines’ curves that completed the stamp.
It was beautiful, elegant. The symbol looked as though it had been seared into the crystal like a brand, much of the material around it also burned away unevenly. But what could have possibly marred it was its own mystery as, try as he might, Lionel had been unable to get even a minuscule sample of it to chip away for analysis. Its material seemed invulnerable to outside forces.
Whatever this artifact was—unbelievably ancient according to most documents, powerful according to them all, and even extraterrestrial according to some—Lionel was certain it was the beginning to everything that he wanted. If he could unlock this thing's secrets, regaining LuthorCorp would be only the beginning. The power he'd lost would be only an insignificant percentage of what he could gain.
All he needed was to find the right person to decipher this thing for him, the right mind to understand it and enlighten him. In some obscure legends, he was sure this item promised, almost literally, to turn the bearer into a new man—into, in fact, whatever kind of man he wished to be.
Lionel's desire in this matter was quite unmuddied and unfettered by stipulations, and he had every intention of using this crystal's power to achieve it.
He would, quite simply, rule.
~
Lex attempted to gasp awake, but he couldn't take a breath. A great vise was around his chest, squeezing it, depressing it with such power that he couldn't expand his lungs even one iota. For a terrifying moment, he thought he was having a heart attack.
Then reality caught up with consciousness and he began beating frantically on Clark's arm, wheezing.
Clark jerked awake, the movement briefly causing a tightening that brought static into Lex's head, and then his arm relaxed and he sat up. "What's wrong?" he said in a sleepy mumble. "What—you okay?"
Lex took in great gulps of air and had a brief coughing fit.
The sheets shifted as Clark leaned over him in the dark. "Lex?"
Finally, Lex had his breath back and no longer felt he might pass out. He took deep, heavy breaths and tried to calm his racing heart. "I'm all right," he said in a hush. "I think I, uh..." he hesitated, not wanting to lie but knowing full well he shouldn't tell the truth, "I think I had a nightmare. I don't know."
Clark sighed softly and ran a soothing hand down Lex's arm. He kissed his bare shoulder and laid a warm cheek on it. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked gently.
Lex closed his eyes on the guilt. "No. I, uh... I don't remember it."
He turned onto his back, Clark making room for him and adjusting the bedding as he moved. "You sure?"
"Yeah." He reached out an arm. "Come here."
Clark laid his head on Lex's chest, his arm resting lightly over Lex's stomach, and Lex wrapped his arm around Clark's shoulders, rubbing at his biceps with the other palm. He went still and didn't make any comment about Lex's racing heart, believing he already knew its reason.
They lay quietly for a little while, Lex rubbing Clark's arm slowly, and Clark running a thumb over the expanse of skin on Lex's side where his hand lay. Eventually, Lex's curiosity overwhelmed him and he said Clark's name softly to see if he was still awake.
"Yeah?" he whispered back.
He tried to keep his tone conversational. "Were you... dreaming at all?"
Clark nodded against his shoulder, so close that Lex felt his eyelashes flutter when he opened his eyes. "Mm-hm. Yeah."
"What about?"
"You, um..." he said in a mumble, then sighed softly. "You were flying."
Lex let out a little scoff of surprise. It wasn't an answer he'd been expecting. "Flying? Me?"
"Yeah. Not like in a plane, but just... through the air. Clouds, you know. And you took me with you. I was... on your back. I was holding on, and you said..." he paused and swallowed, a sound sticky with sleep. "You said, ‘Hold me tight, Clark. Whatever you do, don't let me go.’"
Little chills crept up Lex's spine and down his arms.
"And you... you said it real intense, too, like you were afraid I would fall. I held you, I held on as hard as I thought was okay, ’cause I didn't want to fall, either." He chuckled nervously. "It was... really a long way down."
Lex swallowed, feeling nervous himself. "Were you scared?"
Clark laughed breathily. "I was terrified. We were so high. Didn't know how you... how you'd ever get us back down..." he trailed off, his voice becoming so hushed as to be almost imperceptible, and Lex gathered he had fallen back to sleep.
Lex couldn't get back to sleep so quickly. If it had been years ago, he probably would have thought nothing of it—Clark had a dream, it frightened him, he held on tight because the dream told him he had to, it had been just a little too tight for the real world, and it was over now and it meant nothing.
But since Lex's own experience in the caves, he had gained a whole new respect for dreams and their meanings—especially where Kryptonians were concerned. To this day, he still had frightening nightmares of his own—some were memories from that experience, some were mixtures of memory and his own fears, and it was often difficult to separate one attribute from the other, to break the dreams down into what he had truly seen was a possibility and what he was just afraid might be. The dreams had lessened considerably over time, but when they did come, they were every bit as powerful as they had been in the beginning, his mind still trying to come to terms with the futures he couldn't bear to live.
But this dream... It just didn't make sense. Lex was flying?
He'll fly. He will fly.
Don't let him fall.
It should have been the other way around. Maybe it had been, but Clark couldn't or wouldn't recognize it, not yet. Maybe it had been Clark who had flown in his dream, and Lex had been so adamant about Clark holding on because it was Lex who didn't want to fall. Maybe Clark was still just too afraid of himself, of his abilities—even the ones he hadn't yet discovered—and he was projecting the power onto Lex instead. Certainly this business with the Fire Crystal could have cast his mind in that direction.
But what if I fall?
Or was it just as Clark said? Was he truly afraid of how high Lex could take them? Too much power, and Clark would be afraid of it, what it could do, afraid to fall from grace. Afraid that if Lex takes him too high, takes them too high, he will fall. Maybe they both would.
They'd agreed not to put off this trip, despite the new developments regarding the Crystals and Jor-El, because it had taken literally years to come about and they didn't want to waste the opportunity. But no matter how much Clark—indeed, how much either of them—wanted to pretend that because they'd resolved not to think about it, the problems were not there, the reality was that the issues of Clark's destiny did not stop awaiting them, and certainly did not stop demanding to be addressed.
That's the thing about vacations, Lex thought, smirking to himself and shaking his head lightly. When you get home, everything's right where you left it.
~
"Christ, Clark, how fast are you going?"
Clark rolled his eyes and shook his head, though he couldn't stop himself from grinning. "Three hours, Lex. You're just going to have to deal with it."
Lex sighed dramatically and let his head fall to the headrest with a dull thunk.
"If it's such a horrible drive, why don't you build one of those super-speed trains in between Smallville and Metropolis? You know, one of those 200 mile-per-hour bullet jobs?"
Lex looked over at him, his eyebrows arched. "That's not a bad idea."
Clark's jaw dropped and he stared at him, agape. "Lex, I'm kidding!"
"It's still not a bad—"
"Lex. Who the hell would ever ride it back? Nobody ever comes to Smallville."
Lex smirked at him for a long, still beat. "I did."
"Hmpfh. I don't think banishment counts."
"Best thing that ever happened to me."
That comment and the adoring tone in which it was delivered melted Clark's wry humour right off his tongue, and all he could do was beam over at Lex in between careful checks of the empty road before them. "Yeah, me too," he said just as quietly, wishing he could offer Lex more than a few seconds at a time of the love in his eyes as they zoomed along the straight road home at sixty miles an hour.
His grin quickly turned to a worried frown, however, when he heard a click and realized Lex was unfastening his seatbelt. "Hey..."
Lex scooted to the edge of his seat, draping an arm over Clark's headrest and pressing warm kisses and a chilled nose against Clark's neck.
Clark's eyes immediately felt heavy and he let out a breathy laugh, focussing carefully on the road. "Lex... I don't think that's safe."
He pressed his lips to the shell of Clark's ear and it tingled and grew hot. "Just watch the road, farm boy," he muttered, and traced a wet chain of kisses along the curve of Clark's jaw.
Clark chuckled nervously, not able to stop himself from tilting his head to the left to give Lex a little more room. Chilly fingers slid across his chest and under his collar, stroking the far side of his neck, his face, and under his ear as Lex continued to trace patterns on Clark's skin with his tongue.
It was when the hand started trailing down Clark's chest that his spine straightened and he took a tighter hold of the steering wheel. "Lex—" he tried to say, but it came out choked when the warming fingers landed over the crotch of his jeans and started to rub him awake. Lex worried Clark's earlobe between his teeth. A high-pitched disbelieving laugh burst from Clark's throat.
"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me," he mumbled through a strained sigh as nimble fingers began to unzip his fly.
"I'm not kidding," Lex breathed against his skin, his tone dark on the surface but laced with joyful mischief.
"We're gonna crash," Clark warned in a sing-song voice.
Lex chuckled warmly against him and nipped the skin under his mouth. "You haven't even swerved."
This much was true. The car was perfectly steady and centred as it traversed the two-lane highway, and their speed hadn't varied from sixty miles per hour. Just the same, Clark reached out and hit the active cruise control so he could relax his accelerator foot and have one less thing to worry about. It was just in time, too.
"You know," Lex was saying as he reached inside Clark's briefs, stroking him leisurely and making his breathing uneven, "you really don't deserve this."
Clark let out another too-high, incredulous laugh.
"But I am supremely bored."
With that, Lex leaned down, resting his chest on the armrests between them, and took Clark wetly into his mouth.
Clark's head fell back with a muted smack of leather and he let out a breathy moan. His mouth was open, his thighs were tensed, and his toes were curling in his shoes, but he never once lost sight of the road or drifted out of his lane.
~
"Welcome home, Mr. Luthor."
Lex looked up from his briefcase, which he had been setting beside his office desk, and found Marcia Mercy, a member of his household staff who had come to the forefront of Lex's attention more and more often recently, dusting the shelves of his second floor office library. "Thank you," he said, his tone clipped, and settled into his desk chair.
There was silence but for the fan of his laptop as he opened the screen and began looking over the issues awaiting him in e-mail, which had been pouring in as usual while he'd been away. As he worked, he was aware she hadn't left the room, and was privately a bit miffed. This wasn't because he needed privacy to concentrate on his work, as there was often staff milling about the general area while he did so, and always had been since his infancy. The staff was taken for granted, they were trained to be invisible, and for all intents and purposes, they were.
But not Marcia. Not now.
Marcia was Lex's employee, but she had taken it upon herself to follow the orders of another which, he was sure she knew, would have been immediately supplanted by Lex's own if he'd ever been informed that the orders had been issued.
When he'd first become aware of Clark's order to Marcia to keep Lex's father away from Lex—in body and in word—until Clark deemed Lex well enough to handle it, he'd thought he'd known exactly how he felt about it: It was unacceptable. Clark had no right. His staff should have come to him to confirm the order. These actions were akin to mutiny.
But after he'd confronted Clark, and had discovered what exactly had been kept from him—its uselessness, its crassness, its stupidity—it had been difficult to keep such staunchness in his position. If there had been a single important word, a solitary meeting missed or work-related detail omitted, he would have been able to stand strong, certain his anger and disappointment were righteous. But there was nothing. His father had wanted at him only to insult, injure, and berate. In theory, it was still mutinous. But in practice...
It was easy to forgive Clark because Clark was Clark. Though subversiveness was not normally his modus operandi, his need to protect those he loved was always paramount and Lex understood it better than most could. He could appreciate it, even if the efforts were mildly misguided.
Marcia, on the other hand, was a bit more of an enigma. It was true that Lex's staff knew Clark's orders were to be followed. But certainly they understood there was room for doubt if and when Clark's orders seemed to contradict Lex's own wishes. Marcia surely knew that what she'd been told to do would not merit the approval of her employer. And yet she had decided to follow the order just the same, despite the possible threat of risk to her position.
Lex had purposefully not spoken to her about it—barely spoken to her at all since that incident, in fact—but he privately wondered where exactly she was coming from. What seemed to most easily fit the facts was simply that she was more concerned about protecting her employer than she was about keeping her job, but that seemed exceedingly counterintuitive. Had she no sense of self-preservation?
And now, as Marcia continued to work in the same room as Lex rather than scurry away at the first opportunity in order to avoid the possibility of his wrath descending upon her, it struck him as silent defiance. It was as if she had no shame about the decision she'd made to follow orders that by all rights she should not have, as if she had no fear of retribution for what might or might not have been her demonstration of a lack of loyalty.
It was downright annoying.
Not least of all because it seemed to suggest that her breach of protocol was meant as loyalty, not a lack of it. How the hell was he supposed to chastise someone for that?
"Marcia," Lex said harshly and looked up at her from his computer screen.
She approached the banister, dusting cloth still in hand. "Yes, Mr. Luthor?"
He stared at her hard, waiting.
She waited right back at him, the picture of calm. "Can I get you something, Mr. Luthor?"
Not a trace of apology, not a hint of fear or concern. As he glared up at her unmoved expression, he came to realize quite vividly that if he fired her right this second, she wouldn't balk. She also wouldn't apologize, or beg to be retained, and she would not promise it would never happen again.
Because for quite some time, Marcia hadn't just done her job. She'd done considerably more. And if she was willing to risk her position to follow orders she knew she was not required to follow because she believed it was what was best for him, did that truly mean Lex couldn't trust her? Or did it simply mean that it was she, more than anyone else in his employ, that he could trust?
Marcia had shown loyalty even beyond being loyal. It might not have been proper. But Lex got the feeling he'd be a fool to throw it away.
As his suspicions finally capitulated to reason, Lex's eyes softened. He offered the smallest of smiles and spoke softly. "Tea, please."
She nodded once, a world of understanding in her eyes. "Right away, sir."
He watched her walk out the door, her back straight with dignity, and he had to chuckle to himself: It had just occurred to him how deeply his father would disapprove of his reasoning.
This was one of the attributes that tended to inform him he'd made an intelligent decision.
~
"Mom?" Clark called from the upstairs bathroom, having now dug through the little bowl of hair bands twice.
"Yeah, Clark?" she called up the steps back to him.
"Have you seen my red hair bands?"
"Did you check the bowl, honey?"
He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Mom. Nothing here but black."
He gave up on finding any and headed down the hall, taking the stairs two at a time.
"What's wrong with black?" his mother asked him, laundry basket in hand, as he came clomping down the stairs.
Clark pointed vaguely at his chest. "I'm wearing a red shirt, that's all."
"Oh."
Clark's father was sitting at the table where they'd all had an awkward breakfast together not an hour ago as each tried in their own way to ignore their thoughts of the caves and the Elements and how it would all unfold in time, and had instead tried to be a normal family on a normal Monday having a normal breakfast. They had all had plenty of practice at this over the years and by the time their plates were half empty, they'd managed to nestle into a comfortable reality once again. By the time the table had been cleared, everything had been compartmentalized the way they'd always done it, and they were able to go forward with their day—with their lives—without feeling crippled by that which they had never been able to control.
Now, his father sat sipping a cup of coffee and reading the morning paper just like he did most every day. He turned the page loudly, clearing his throat and shooting them both an uncomfortable look regarding the subject currently under discussion.
"Oh," Clark said, and pointed at his mother's ponytail as he passed behind her. "You're wearing one."
"Am I?" She balanced the hamper on her hip and reached back as if to touch it. "I'm sorry, Clark, I don't know where I keep losing them."
Clark snorted a laugh and waved her off, shaking his head. "I should probably conduct an x-ray search around the property one of these days. I'd love to know where they all end up."
His father let out a great, annoyed sigh, and they both looked at him, then smirked knowingly at each other. "You know, Clark," his mother said in a tone of voice that suggested she was only speaking to irk her husband, all in good fun, "I think your hair has gotten longer than mine."
"Yeah," Jonathan added dryly before Clark had a chance to respond, "you keep going, soon it'll be longer than Lana's." He turned another page of the paper and shook it out needlessly.
Clark shot him an indulgent look. "Yeah," he replied just as dryly. "And then I'm going to join Aerosmith, take a lot of controlled substances, and marry a groupie."
"Hey, you said it, I didn't."
"Dad." Clark turned to face him, crossed his arms, and glared when his father met his gaze with a questioning lift of his eyebrows. "Do I really have to get out the ’70s photo albums? I mean, do I?"
His father blanched noticeably for just a moment, then seemed to recover. "Let's drop it, shall we?" he said in no uncertain terms, and went back to reading his paper.
Clark chuckled good-naturedly and turned to find his mother only barely holding back a smirk.
"Do you need this?" she asked through a badly suppressed chuckle, pointing vaguely at her ponytail.
"That's all right, Mom. Black is fine." He checked his watch. "I gotta get going." He kissed his mother on the cheek, sped up to the bathroom, grabbed a hair tie, pulled his hair back, sped into his room, grabbed his bookbag, and was clapping his dad on the shoulder before anyone knew he'd left the kitchen. "See you guys later."
He zoomed out the door in a blur and the screen closed slowly behind him.
"Lex is in the paper again," Jonathan said after his son had left.
"Oh?" Martha grabbed the dishtowels from the counters and tossed them in the hamper. "What for this time?"
"It says the new breed of phytoplankton is surviving and multiplying at the expected rate. Something called the ‘North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre’ seems to be showing early signs of possible population recovery."
"Well, that's great!" Martha exclaimed with honest enthusiasm. "I bet Lex was thrilled to get that news."
"I don't know," Jonathan said with a sigh. He put the paper on the table and leaned forward to look it over with a more critical eye. "It says here that it's still too early to tell."
"Oh."
"Their main concern is that the artificially induced mutations might not continue to be replicated as the new breed starts reproducing naturally in the wild. If that happens, they'll start dying off just like the others and then they're back at square one. They say they're not enough generations into it to be sure what's going to happen." He grunted unhappily.
Martha walked around the table to peek over his shoulder, hamper balanced on a hip.
"It says the protests and demonstrations are increasing. Another environmentalist group seems to be taking the initiative after Citizens for a Natural World bowed out because of that disturbed fellow who kidnapped Lex. Oh—says here they put him in Belle Reve. Turned out to be a real nut, I guess."
She let out a long sigh. "Well, I feel ashamed saying this, but... good."
"I'm right there with you, Martha."
She smiled down at him and watched him fondly for a few seconds as he got to the end of the article, then went back to the top and started reading it again, his brow still furrowed in concentration. "Don't worry," she said gently, and rubbed his upper back with her free hand. "I'm sure even if this initial attempt doesn't work, Lex will figure it out."
He looked up at her with a frown. "Worried? Who says I'm worried?"
Martha smiled at him knowingly. "You want Lex to succeed, Jon. We both know that."
He harrumphed his disagreement and looked back to the paper. She waited, always patient for what she knew would come, and eventually he shrugged. "Well... for Clark's sake."
She pursed her lips to suppress her smile, and rubbed warmly at his back. "For all our sakes, Jonathan. God knows we've got to do something."
~
Lana sneaked into school after the second bell and ignored the curious, wide-eyed looks she got as she walked through the halls. For the most part, the assessment of Smallville High's student body didn't matter to her. There were only a few people whose opinions she wished to solicit and she was hoping to get to them before everyone else started getting to her.
She hadn't told anyone, or asked for advice, and she'd gone alone. She hadn't wanted anyone to get the chance to talk her out of it.
She'd already made the decision and she knew she wanted to mark it with something dramatic and outward-facing, even if that thing was utterly shallow and ultimately unimportant.
She also knew she was taking a chance and figured that Pete and Chloe would already be in class, but more than once she'd seen both Brad and Clark running into their classes at the last possible second, very nearly late if not technically so. So when the second bell chimed, she hurried around the corner to the row of lockers they shared, and smiled at what she saw.
Brad had apparently made it to class on time, but Clark had just slammed his locker and was spinning the combination dial.
"Hey, Clark," she said, already wincing.
He glanced up so quickly she barely saw his face. "Hey, Lana, sorry I'm—" he'd started off talking at great speeds, but he just as suddenly broke off, and his head snapped back up and he stared. "Whoa."
Lana offered a tiny shrug, feeling her cheeks burn hot with the scrutiny, and she turned slowly in place. "Well," she said with a nervous chuckle, "what do you think?"
"Lana... I..." he shook his head, gaping.
Lana couldn't stand his wide eyes anymore and she looked down at her shiny black shoes. The toes were wet from sloughing through the parking lot.
"Wow. I mean, just... Wow. You look... really hot!"
Her head whipped up in surprise and she met Clark's eyes with startled ones of her own, then snorted in an unladylike manner and briefly covered her mouth with her hand. "Really?" she asked, her eyebrows slanted in honest uncertainty, hungry for Clark's approval.
"Oh my god, Lana." He finally lowered his books and took a step closer, his mouth still hanging open. "I mean, don't get me wrong, you always look beautiful."
She blushed hotly, becoming for the first time painfully aware that the tips of her ears were visible. She hadn't noticed before just how exposed the pixie cut made her feel.
"But... man, that cut really opens up your face. You look—gosh, just terrific, Lana. Really terrific."
Lana let out a long breath. "You have no idea how relieved I am to hear you say that." She leaned slightly in, lowering her tone conspiratorially. "You're actually the first person to see me."
Clark's eyebrows climbed his forehead, his expression plainly pleased. "Really? Chloe... Brad...?" Lana shook her head at each suggestion. "Wow." He straightened, looking proud. Then he spun a finger quickly in the air. "Lemme see the back again."
Utterly thrilled with his interest and approval, she turned around more slowly, smiling winningly when she faced him again.
He was appraising her with a slow nod, a wide grin on his face. "Whatever happened to that cheerleader who didn't know who she was, anyway?"
She beamed, shrugging, and made a dismissive sound. "I never liked her much."
Clark's eyes softened just slightly, as if a small sadness had come into them, but then his smile reasserted itself. "More importantly, though: Do you like it?"
Her head dropped forward an inch and her eyebrows lifted. "Do I like it? Are you kidding? I love it. Do you know how long I spent on my hair this morning, Clark? Hm? Fifteen minutes, that's how long. Fifteen minutes. Do you know how long I used to spend on my hair every morning?"
Clark fixed her with a wry look. "An hour and a half?"
She blinked, skewed from intention, and her eye was drawn to Clark's hair, pulled back in a loose tail at his neck. "Oh." She snorted. "Right. Sorry."
He shook his head and grinned. "You know what? I have to tell you, if there was one person in the world who could make me—" he took just a moment to glance around at the empty hall, then leaned in and whispered anyway, "you know, not gay? Well... I know that person would be just like you."
Lana's eyebrows arched sharply, likely hidden beneath her new hairline. It seemed to her that this was a somewhat scandalous thing for Clark to say, and she loved that.
Clark winked as she beamed, and then he seemed startled and looked at his watch. "Aw, crap. Uh..." he started walking past her, then backwards to continue looking at her as he headed down the hall, "look, I gotta get to class, but... just..." he shook his head as if in disbelief. "Just wow."
Lana laughed aloud as he finally turned the corner and she heard his footsteps pick up to a run as he rushed to class. "‘Wow,’" she repeated to herself in a whisper.
That had definitely gone over a lot better than she had dared to hope. She knew that all her pseudo-friends—the ones made when she was ‘that cheerleader’ Clark had mentioned—would be cattily trashing her behind her back for at least a month. She could only hope that her other real friends—and especially Brad—were even half as happy as Clark with her hair. His fawning had really given her the boost of confidence she'd needed.
Her smile wasn't long-lived, however. She had a distinct feeling that when Clark discovered the reason behind the new ’do—the decision she'd come to that had caused her to want to make a more obvious outward change to her appearance—he wouldn't be nearly as appreciative.
She sighed at the thought of that upcoming discussion, then headed toward the library to work on some sketches. This was a free period for her. She figured a few minutes before it was over, she'd head to Brad's classroom and surprise him on his way out: Really surprise him.
~
Clark turned the last corner in a human-speed rush, not sure if Lana was going to be coming his way or not and so unwilling to use his abilities. But it was only his super-human reaction time that kept him from running headfirst into Justin Sharp.
Justin was a popular boy, a jock: Tall, handsome, strong, with dark spiky hair and bright blue eyes. He was also the only other student at Smallville High that Clark knew was gay. And as far as Clark knew, he was the only other person who knew it.
"Oh. Kent. Uh—"
"Sorry," Clark said over him, rushing around him. "I'm late."
Justin turned as Clark went by, his eyes wide, a hand coming out of the pocket of his letter jacket. "Uh, but, I—I wanted to talk to you."
"Oh." Clark paused just minutely in his gait, but then continued walking backwards to class. He was so late. "Yeah, I heard you outside the Talon—um," he looked behind him at the approaching classroom, then at his watch. "Sorry, man, I've got to get to this class. I'll see ya later."
"Yeah, but I can't—" Justin broke off and sighed, then turned on his heel. "Whatever," he mumbled as he headed around the corner.
A little stab of guilt got Clark in the gut as he ducked into the classroom to the sound of one of Mrs. Trivett's wittiest tardy welcomes and he made his way to his desk. He already felt bad over having to reject Justin a few months ago when he'd first come out to Clark rather intimately in the boys’ locker room after gym. Now the guy obviously had something he wanted to say to him, or perhaps ask him, and Clark wasn't making it easy. And this after he'd specifically told Justin, ‘If you ever need someone to talk to...’
He winced at his own thoughts as he opened his AP Calc book to the proper page.
He knew it must have been hard on Justin, too, not just being gay and out to no one but Clark—who he barely knew—but also the fact that Clark did not and could not, by any stretch of the imagination, fit into Justin's circle. So the only time Justin could really talk to him without having to worry about his friends’ opinions was if he happened to catch Clark alone, or at the very least when Justin was alone. With someone as popular as Justin and his clique, that wasn't likely to happen often.
With a determined set to his chin, Clark decided to make time for him the next time Justin tried to get his attention, even if he was running late for class. If he'd been in the guy's shoes, he would have hoped that someone would do the same for him.
~
"Hey, Cuz."
With wide eyes, Chloe looked up from her drafting board where she was putting the finishing touches on this week's Torch, actually on schedule for once. But the voice that she thought she'd just heard had skewed her attention with very little effort.
When her gaze alit on the person across the room, it became clear that her ears had not been deceiving her. "Oh, my god. Lois!"
Chloe's cousin, Lois Lane—tall, thin, and annoyingly pretty—stood in the doorway to the Torch office, her hands in the tight hip pockets of her form-fitting jeans, rocking back on her heels as if sheepish about her very presence there. She wore a quirky, open smile on just the corners of her mouth.
Chloe tilted her head with familiar wariness. "Uh-oh..."
Lois's eyebrows reached for her hairline and she scoffed. "Really? First look?"
Chloe rolled her eyes and walked out from behind the drafting board. "You've never been anywhere near as inscrutable as you think you are. What's going on? I mean," she shrugged, "not that I'm not happy to see you..."
"But what am I doing here?"
Chloe inclined her head briefly in concession.
Lois let out a tight sigh and slapped her hands lightly on her thighs. "Yeah..." she said quietly. "You promise you won't tell anyone?"
"Always."
She nodded, recognizing the truth of that assertion. "I... screwed up."
Chloe couldn't help it: She let out a great snort of laughter and dropped her forehead into her hand.
"What?" Lois exclaimed, obviously affecting offence if not actually offended. "Oh, like you never made a—"
"Oh, please," Chloe interrupted her, and tried her best to keep a straight face. "It's just: Would you be anywhere near Smallville—and especially Smallville High of all places—if you hadn't screwed up? I mean, what? You've been exiled here à la Luthor heir, right? The General finally got fed up enough that he's banished you to the sticks."
Lois pointed a long, slim finger with short, unpainted nails at her. "Hey, I'll have you know that I'm the picture of—"
"M'uh-huh." Chloe only continued to fix her with a knowing and not at all indulgent stare. "What'd you do, Lois?"
With a disgusted scoff, Lois rolled her eyes and gave up. She collapsed into the nearest chair, slouched, and groaned pathetically as she laid her head back. "I have a defence. I do!" A long pause went by.
"Which is...?"
She sighed heavily, then winced. "Senioritis."
Chloe thought about this only briefly, her eyes shifting, before she realized what she was being not quite told. "Oh, Lois. You didn't."
"Look, I didn't drop out, I just—"
"Lois!"
"Hey, I got busy!"
It was all Chloe could do to keep her laughter in check. "You're telling me... he's making you come here...?"
Lois lifted her head and fixed Chloe with a dry look. "He thought you'd be a good influence on me."
"Oh, man!" That was all she could take. She laughed heartily, sitting back on the edge of the desk behind her, and shaking her head. "Oh, Lois," she said, her tone plainly adoring. She could always count on her cousin to be, if nothing else, interesting. "How many credits do you need?"
She shrugged and looked down at her hands, which were suddenly fidgeting with one another. "Six," she mumbled.
Chloe's jaw dropped. "Holy crap, Lois, did you go to school at all last year?"
"Of course! Of course I did. I just..."
"Uh-huh."
She let out a sharp sigh and waved Chloe off, plainly done making excuses. "The important thing," she said, leaning forward, elbows on knees, "is that I need credits, and judging from the amount of complaining in your e-mails, you need some help around here. I could really use the extracurricular. I don't want to have to be in this town any longer than I have to—uh, no offence to you and your shitkicker-wearing brethren."
Chloe snorted. "None taken," she said, her voice as dry as it had ever been.
"So what do you need?" she asked, suddenly all helpful smiles. "Get your coffee, make copies..." her hands flailed uselessly toward the drafting board, "uh, measure something?"
"Measure something?"
Lois's hands turned palm up helplessly and the most pathetic expression she could manage pinched her face. "Chlo, work with me here. I gotta get back to Met U. I've just gotta. I'm asking you. As family. Please. Help me."
Chloe sighed heavily. "What I really need is a proofreader."
"Done!" she exclaimed happily.
"But... I've seen how you spell. So that's out."
Lois pursed her lips and tilted her head to the side, wryness etched all over her face. "Cute, Cuz."
"I could... maybe use another reporter."
Lois jumped to her feet. "Ferret out the dirt!" she said, stabbing a finger into the air with great enthusiasm. "I can do that! Who wouldn't talk to me, right?" She put her hands on her hips, managing to look both statuesque and supremely awkward. "I'm personable."
An unladylike snort was out before Chloe could stop it. She only looked at her cousin, shaking her head and privately wondering just how much extra proofreading was ahead of her. "Oh, man."
"Oh. And, um... one other thing."
Chloe groaned. "Oh, Lois, please don't tell me you need a place to stay. My house is already—"
"No, no, no, no, no," Lois waved her off. "The General is paying for an apartment; he's already got one picked out in town and I'm half moved in, no problem. But, um... he's not sending much extra cash. Says I need to," she made liberal use of air quotes, "‘build character.’ Truth is, Chlo... I'm gonna need a job. Like, fast. Is anybody hiring that you know of?"
Chloe quirked an eyebrow. "Hiring? Yeah. Hiring someone who's never worked a day in her life? Not so sure."
Lois offered her best and most charming smile, amply laced with piteousness. "But I'm personable."
Chloe covered her face with her hands. "Ohhh, maaaaan."
~
There was a soft knock on the jamb of his ajar door and Pete looked up from his homework to find his father standing in his doorway, looking tentatively concerned. "Pete?"
"Yeah, Dad?"
"Aren't you... going out with Chloe?"
Pete sighed with regret and looked back to his pile of books. He lifted and dropped the cover of the open one with a shrug. "’Fraid not. I've got homework up to my eyeballs."
"Yeah?" His dad slipped into the room, crossed his arms, and leaned back against the open jamb. "The new courses are pretty tough, huh?"
"Well," Pete shrugged, the memory of what Chloe had said making him smile a little despite himself, "I'm a little behind from starting late, so I guess I'll be rushing around trying to catch up for a little while."
"They're good, strong courses, Pete. I know they look excellent on your college application."
He nodded, widening his eyes briefly at the thickness of his Civics textbook. "They had better. This stuff is not easy. It's, you know, complicated."
"Maybe. But you can get through it, Pete."
Pete treated his dad to a quick smile, appreciating his support as it still sometimes felt kind of novel.
There had been times in the past when he hadn't been so sure his father believed he could get through much of anything. There had been times—long, hard times—that he believed his father might have thought him incapable of living up to any of his expectations, in fact. There had even been times when he felt like nothing more than his dad's one big disappointment.
Pete was too small, too short, not athletic enough, not ambitious enough, and didn't even have any lawyerly or doctoral dreams like his sister Kathy—dreams she was achieving, of course. The only thing Pete had ever been really sure about his whole life was Chloe. He'd been damn sure about her from the moment he'd met her, but he'd also been just as sure that it would never amount to anything. Now that reality had proved him wrong, he was maybe more satisfied than an eighteen year old high school kid had right to be, and certainly more than his father probably would have liked. His dad still couldn't help but see grand things for him, though Pete himself probably would have been happy working in a garage for the rest of his life, so long as he could find one to hire him close enough to wherever Chloe's intense journalistic aspirations took her.
But these days, when his dad saw grand things for him, it wasn't grand disappointments he focussed on—that Pete was too small to play sports competitively and so would never go to college on a football scholarship like his brothers, or that Pete had no interest in spending another ten years in school to become something ultimately respectable like a doctor like his sister—it was the other things that could be out there for him that he saw: The things that might match Pete's personality instead of just enhancing the family name, the things that Pete could do that might make him happy, the future that was waiting for him, and not his father.
"I know," his dad said, pushing off from the doorjamb and walking over to put a strong, meaty hand on Pete's shoulder, "that you can do anything you put your mind to."
The corner of Pete's mouth twitched in a little smile.
He remembered times, too, that his father had said those words and managed to make them sound terribly disapproving. Not anymore. He finally sounded sincere because the words were finally true.
In an odd and unexpected way, Pete had Chloe to thank for it. If Chloe had never responded to him, Pete likely wouldn't have put up much of a fight when his mother wanted him to move to Wichita with her after the divorce. He wouldn't have argued so vociferously with his parents to let him stay in Smallville, maybe even thinking distance from Chloe would give him some peace of mind. He certainly wouldn't have decided to set out on his own and start looking for some way to work, support himself, and attend high school at the same time through senior year.
Both Pete and his father knew it had been the entirety of that situation which had birthed a newfound respect for Pete in his dad's eyes. It had probably been the first time in his life he'd fought tooth and nail for what he'd wanted, the first time he'd shown that he was capable of not capitulating—if it really mattered to him.
Maybe it was just understanding that there was something that really did matter to Pete that opened his father's eyes to his potential. Or maybe it was the understanding that if Pete was willing to fight that hard for something he wanted... perhaps he just had never wanted any of the things his father had pushed him to fight for over the course of his life. Maybe now his dad finally understood that it wasn't that Pete lacked ambition. It was that he lacked the ambition to live his father's dreams.
The only thing Pete truly lacked right now, like so many others his age, was a solid sense of direction. But once he found it, he'd shown he could scratch, claw, and bleed for it just as hard as anyone.
His dad slapped him on the shoulder once more, and a smirk came into his voice. "Even be President."
They grinned at one another, both chuckling, both remembering a time when Pete was a little boy and his father, like so many parents, had told him that regularly. That had been back before the disappointment, back when Pete's dad still believed in him. After all this time, it was nice to be believed in like that again.
Because when his father saw his future with such fresh eyes, Pete couldn't help but see it that way too, even if the way was still a little cloudy, even if he wasn't even sure what the destination was just yet, it was still easier to take a step forward with a strong hand on his shoulder reminding him he knew he'd find his way.
"Yeah," he said, his tone and smile both laced with irony. "There's an idea."
~
Chloe put the finishing touches on the place settings at the kitchen table while her father worked at the stove. It would just be the two of them for a change. Lana was out with Brad, Pete was stuck at home struggling through his pile of homework, and Chloe had actually finished the Torch before her deadline for the first time all year. Lois had been invited to dinner by Chloe since it was her first night in Smallville, but had begged off, explaining she was desperate to get her clothes and Whitesnake albums unpacked, much to Gabe's relief.
Gabe was looking at the evening as an occasion of sorts, since he barely seemed able to spend quality time with his daughter anymore, and he'd gone all out: Wild mushroom ravioli in cream sauce, fresh bruschetta, and even a bottle of pinot gris he'd picked up on the way home. (He'd never had any problem with his daughter having a glass of good wine with dinner so long as it was at home.)
The pasta was draining, the sauce was bubbling, and Chloe was pouring the wine. Gabe was adding a few extra herbs to the sauce, hovering over it even more than usual, his thoughts in a whirl as he tried to get them into some kind of proper order.
Gabe had never intended to be a single father. As a young man, it wasn't even something that had occurred to him. But when Moira had found it necessary to leave them for her own reasons, he'd been thrown into that role nonetheless. He was and had always been desperately proud of his daughter and tried to remain as involved as he could, despite the fact that she was so independent, it almost seemed as though she didn't need him most of the time, and she more or less had raised herself. She was always off working on her school paper, conducting interviews, ferreting out stories, developing sources he couldn't imagine he would have been able to develop, much less any other high school girl he'd ever heard of. She was rife with direction and determination and self-assurance and had been for as long as Gabe could remember.
The truth was that most of the work she constantly threw herself into went right over Gabe's head, but that didn't stop him from beaming with pride as every issue of the Torch was released—which he made the time to read cover to cover every week—and being always amazed at the level of sheer fortitude that raced through his little girl's veins. He didn't think he'd ever seen anyone with so much pluck at such an early age, and so utterly immovable from the path she'd chosen.
As the years passed by, he knew there was some inescapable distance growing between them—the kind of distance that always grew between a young woman and her father, who was still seeing his little girl and somehow unable, no matter how hard he tried, to fully perceive the adult she was becoming. But he prided himself on paying attention, on doing his best to follow the changes, to see Chloe as who she really was and was becoming, not on who she'd once been. It was probably hard for any parent, and probably a little harder for a single dad, but he tried not to let that hold him back.
That was why when he'd reached into his bureau last week and pulled out a pair of briefs that were a few sizes too small, and not the cut he wore anyway, he'd resolved to keep his mouth shut for a while. She's an adult, he'd kept telling himself. She's responsible. She is not a child. Pete is a nice kid. A nice kid. Chloe is practically a grown woman. Pete is a—
"Little bastard," he muttered over the sauce.
"Sorry, what?"
Gabe glanced over his shoulder and found his daughter peering at him with a questioning expression, bottle of wine still in her hands and tilted as if she'd been interrupted in pouring. He plastered a smile onto his face, hoping it didn't look too plastic. "Nothing—uh, I think it's finished."
"Oh." After another brief pause, she went on with what she was doing, disregarding whatever it was she thought she'd heard.
He grabbed the drained ravioli and stirred them gently into the sauce, carefully separating them without tearing their fragile crimped edges. Chloe brought over their pasta bowls and he filled them carefully, then tossed a handful of chopped chives on each. As she placed the bowls back on their place mats, he pulled the warmed bruschetta from the oven, placed a serving on each of two small side plates, and carried them to the table.
After they'd settled in, he raised his glass and offered a toast when Chloe did the same. "To family," he said, his smile honest again, and her grin lit up the room the way it always had as she gently tapped her glass to his.
"To family," she repeated, and they each sipped their wine.
"Well, tuck in, kid. I'm willing to bet all you've had all day is coffee and PowerBars."
"Not true," Chloe said, though she was already cutting into a ravioli with obvious anticipation. "I had a cherry Pop-Tart at breakfast."
Gabe snorted. "My mistake."
The ravioli was a little past al dente, which was the way they both preferred their pasta, and the filling was rich and juicy and bursting with earthy flavour. Gabe loved to cook, and Chloe loved to eat what he cooked, and they both only wished that his schedule at the plant and Chloe's many and varied reporter activities meshed more often to give them more opportunities to have nights like this one.
For a few minutes, there was no sound but that of cutlery on plates and wine glasses being lifted and replaced. Though Gabe's thoughts were constantly whirling and various opening lines made their way to the back of his throat only to recede, it was Chloe who finally opened the conversation.
"Dad, this is really delic—"
"Are you having sex with Pete?"
Chloe coughed.
Gabe blinked, startled by his own tongue, and reached for his wine. He downed the glass in two deep gulps.
Chloe's mouth was hanging partway open and she suddenly seemed to remember there was food in it, and swallowed roughly. "What—?"
"No, I didn't mean to—"
"Dad, jeez!"
"I only meant—" Gabe sighed and plopped the stem of his glass back onto the table. He reached for the bottle of wine and topped them both up, though Chloe had thus far only sipped hers. "Sorry, that was a little..."
"Blunt?"
He let out a single nervous chuckle and put the bottle down on the table a bit more loudly than he'd meant to. "I should have—I just... Look, Chloe, I'm your father. You know? I-I mean, I have to ask these questions."
Chloe blinked her wide, shocked eyes a few times, and finally reached for her overly full wine glass. She took a slightly deeper drink than usual and put it back down. Her hands fell into her lap, out of view. "I..." she shook her head in utter disbelief.
"I'm not..." Gabe squirmed uncomfortably, "accusing you of anything, I just—"
"No?" Chloe asked through an incredulous laugh.
"No," he insisted, and, despite their mutual embarrassment, met his daughter's eyes steadily. "I'm not saying there's anything wrong with— I know how you feel about Pete and— Look, I know you're eighteen—"
"Dad, why are you asking me this all of a sudden? I mean," she looked down and around briefly, mouth still partially agape, and appearing for all the world like she'd rather be getting kidnapped, drugged, and beaten right now—anything else, anywhere else, "what did...?"
Gabe shrugged jerkily and wished he didn't show embarrassment so acutely. He knew his entire face was a laughable shade of lobster red, whereas Chloe's embarrassment settled mainly in her cheeks and the tips of her ears, making her look even prettier, just like her mother. "I think some of his... laundry got mixed up with mine."
Chloe shot him an honestly perplexed look, tilting her head briefly, and then her eyes suddenly dulled. For the briefest moment, he thought he saw anger flash in her eyes, but then her expression became mostly wry. Sucking in a sharp breath, she reached for her wine glass. "I see," she said in an unchanging monotone.
"Chloe, honey..." he leaned forward on the table, pushing his suddenly unappetizing dinner out of the way. "I just... I have to know that you're... you know... being..."
Chloe let out a very slow breath. She closed her eyes as if in pain and winced. "Safe?"
Gabe stared into his ravioli. He cleared his throat. "Well... yes."
"Yes."
He hurriedly looked up and found himself meeting his daughter's suddenly rock steady gaze. "Yes?"
"Yes, Dad." She swallowed nervously, though her eyes were clear. "Every time. I promise."
Gabe had to bite his tongue, knowing that, Wait, so it's been more than once? was not only not a helpful question but would make him look supremely naïve. She's an adult. She's responsible. Pete is a... nice... boy.
Instead, he blew out a tense breath with puffed cheeks, and nodded. "Do you need... any... help getting...?"
Chloe made a small, distressed sound and looked away. "I'm already on the pill, Dad. Th—" she cleared her throat. "Thanks."
"Right. Okay."
That was it then, wasn't it? It was official. Gabe Sullivan's little girl, cute little Chloe with the sunshine hair and the eyes like the sea and the perfect pattern of tiny brown freckles speckling her angelic face... was having sex. With a boy.
Yes, but he's a nice boy.
"Dad..." Chloe leaned forward, her embarrassment fading into sympathy, and reached across the table to put her hand on his. "Really. Thanks. It's sweet that you're trying to be all..." she shrugged minutely and offered an awkward, lopsided smile, "fatherly."
Just like that, the little girl vanished. Instead there was a woman, an adult sitting across from him, recovering from the discomfort before he could, showing maturity and understanding he hadn't even thought to expect, and Gabe suddenly knew without having to convince himself that Chloe was going to be just fine.
"Pete's a nice boy," he said, and for once he didn't have to force it. "You just make sure he treats you right."
Her smile grew and changed and, if anything, it was she who was indulging him, her path already clear—just as clear as it had always been for her. Finally it was clear to Gabe, too. Chloe was in love and she knew it and she hadn't let it change her. She was too strong for that. She always had been.
Gently, she patted Gabe's hand on the table, an adult soothing a child. "I will, Dad. I promise."
He tried to smile and watched her pick up her fork and continue eating her dinner. He supposed it didn't really matter how hard you tried or how close you watched: If you were a parent, you were sure to somehow miss exactly when and exactly how your little girl grew up.
~
Lex opened his eyes with difficulty and squinted at the clock. It was well after nine.
Clark's still tacky body was pressed against his back, his breathing deep and even where it billowed over Lex's neck, his embrace limp and warm.
"Clark," Lex breathed, but received no response. He jostled his own shoulder. "Clark," he said more clearly.
Clark's head jerked against him lightly. "Mm?"
"Don't fall asleep. You'll miss your curfew."
"Mm."
Clark took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, stretching his limbs without unwrapping them from Lex's body, then falling suddenly still again. Lex waited, but Clark made no indication of any further movement. His own eyes were growing heavier, all worn out from the activities of the previous hour.
"Clark."
"Mm-hm."
"Curfew."
"Yeah."
Getting sleepier by the second, and not sure what other options, if any, he had in his bag of ‘wake Clark up and get him to go home so Mr. Kent doesn't kill me’ tricks that didn't require moving, Lex was very close to giving up.
Then Clark shifted slightly and placed a trail of warm kisses along Lex's jaw. "Mind if I stay over?"
"I don't," Lex said with a sleepy shrug, "but you stayed over last night. They won't go for it."
Clark grunted noncommittally. "Well, I'm eighteen," he mumbled. "I can do what I want."
Lex snorted. He'd hate to be in the room the day Clark tried that one out on his father. "Mm-hm. You still live under their roof."
"Hm." He didn't seem to have an opinion on this one way or another, only stretching again and falling still once more.
Lex was starting to drift off again by the time he heard Clark swallow and speak sleepily near his ear. "Well, maybe I'll move out. Then I really can do whatever I want."
Lex's eyes snapped open. He replayed the response in his mind, wondering if he'd been half asleep and therefore half dreaming. "What?"
Clark nuzzled his neck briefly. "I said maybe I'll move out."
Lex's breath caught in his throat. "No."
"Hm?"
"I said no."
There was a long pause, Clark tensing against his back, a wave of anger suddenly coming from him so acutely that Lex didn't even need to look at him to know how he felt. "Jeez, Lex," he scoffed incredulously, lifting his cheek from Lex's skin. "I didn't mean I'd move in with you. I meant getting my own place."
"I know what you meant," Lex snapped, his own body starting to thrum with irritation, though he hadn't moved. "You're not going to move away from your parents because of me—because of us."
This time the pause was shorter, and then Clark seemed to meld against his back, his embrace becoming slightly tighter. He lowered his lips to the shell of Lex's ear and spoke quietly. "Okay," he said. "Hey, I-I wouldn't really do it. I was just..."
Feeling suddenly foolish at his show of temper over such a small thing, Lex relaxed, laughed softly at himself, and turned over in Clark's embrace to meet his gaze. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I should have realized you were joking."
Clark shrugged. "I was maybe twenty-five percent serious. I've never thought about it that much. I, um..." he ran a warm hand down Lex's bare arm. "I didn't mean to scare you. Sometimes I guess I kind of forget how much you care about all of us. Not just me."
"You're a family, Clark," Lex said softly. "You might not realize how rare that is because you've been lucky enough to always have it, but you shouldn't toss it away trivially."
"No, I-I know. I wouldn't. I promise." He laid a quick kiss on Lex's forehead, making him close his eyes. They didn't want to come back open again and Lex had to force them halfway. "You're family too, you know."
A smile spread slowly across Lex's lips. "I like the sound of that." After a moment, he glanced back over his shoulder at the clock. "But being family isn't going to stop your dad from kicking my ass."
Clark snickered.
"You'd better get moving because I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to be awake."
Clark shook his head, clucking his tongue. "It's not even ten yet, Lex. I think you're getting old."
Lex quirked an eyebrow at Clark's amusement, then reached behind his head for the nearest pillow and whacked him in the face with it. Clark only laughed, but at least it got him out of bed.
~
Lana sat in the barber's chair before a table topped with a myriad of implements ranging from simple mousse to a set of various scissors between which it was difficult to understand the difference. Atop the cluttered surface was a mirror so large and all-encompassing that Lana wasn't sure the sky wasn't made of it. The reflection seemed odd to her, the hairdresser looking large and hulking and Lana like a porcelain doll in the chair, which seemed to be expanding, or perhaps she was shrinking. There was something not right about her hairdresser's face, too, as if it had become pinched with sin.
"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice dull and deep.
Lana met her own eyes in the mirror, despite that her reflection seemed so very far away. "Do it," she said. Her voice was small, unreal. She felt as though a child had pulled her string.
There was a sharp, swift sound and a tug at the back of her neck, and Lana watched blood pour over her shoulders in the mirror. She wanted to be horrified, or to scream, but it didn't really hurt, and the hairdresser looked so happy, his smile spreading and spreading until it was all she could see as she rapidly shrunk in the mirror.
Only of course she wasn't at the hairdresser's at all, as it was Graduation Day, and she stood on stage, approaching the podium to accept her high school diploma. It was only as she walked across the stage that she realized she'd forgotten to wear anything under her gown and heat began to prickle at her temples. But it was okay because the breeze was mild and no one could possibly know and as soon as she got off this stage, she'd go find some slacks or something and it would be fine.
Only as she reached for the diploma, the principal's face morphed into her hairdresser's face, more pinched than ever, demonic even, and too long and not the right shade of pink. Before she could react, he reached out with his free hand and tore a slice from her gown from throat to knee, exposing her bareness for all the students and their parents to see. Though the principal/hairdresser laughed, everyone else only looked at her with utter disapproval as she tried vainly to cover herself with a diploma in one hand and a cup of espresso in the other, which she had forgotten she'd been holding and didn't seem able to put down now.
Lana woke with a tiny gasp, briefly startled by the warm body beside her.
The room was pitch black but still real enough to inform her she'd only been dreaming. Unfortunately, she then remembered that she was at Brad's house—or, more accurately, Brad's parents’ house—and was not, by any stretch of the imagination, supposed to be sleeping over.
"Crap," she whispered to herself, and rolled out of his limp embrace. Her bare feet hit the floor with a muted thump and she began feeling around in the dark for her clothes.
She found her sweater and yanked it over her head, not worrying about where her bra might have ended up or whether the sweater was inside out. Then she self-consciously patted her short hair down, scraping her fingernails through the strands that seemed to be sticking up every which way, not convinced she was having any effect whatsoever.
She had a pair of jeans halfway on before she realized they were way too big and tossed them aside, trying to find her own.
Brad was a deep sleeper and snored softly through all of this mucking about, not even waking when she placed a gentle goodbye kiss on the corner of his mouth and sneaked out of his room on her tiptoes.
Silently, she hoped Brad's parents and siblings were just as deeply asleep as Brad himself was, because she would be mortified to run into any of them in the halls. She had not at all intended to stay so late. The plan had been sex, a chat, and then she'd go home. They'd done it a dozen times before without a hitch. But this time, though the sex had been just as great as always, their chat had turned out to be a lot deeper and more meaningful than their usual pillow talk.
They were already technically adults, but would soon be entering the grown-up world, leaving high school behind and trying to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives. Brad liked football, but certainly not enough to try to build a career on it—and he wasn't good enough to go pro anyway, which he readily admitted. But what he was good at was working on cars. His father was a mechanic and had been teaching him about cars since he was old enough to hold a wrench.
But his dad worked at another man's garage, he didn't have his own, and it was something Brad had always wanted to do. He thought he had a real opportunity to do so if he went in fifty-fifty with his cousin, who was working on getting his half of the money together. It was a risk, of course, putting everything he had into the place and hoping like hell that it didn't fail and ruin him, but success couldn't come without a little risk. Lana believed that herself, having run the Talon as long as she had. It certainly wasn't the same, of course, with Lex Luthor as the Talon's only investor and half-owner, if the coffee shoppe had failed, the only thing Lana would have had to deal with was the guilt and the shame. If Brad went through with this and it failed, he and his family would lose everything.
Lana was of course concerned for him, but also wonderfully proud of his initiative. Brad had no interest in going to college and had not even bothered to apply anywhere or look into grants, loans, or scholarships. But when it came to owning his own garage, he was fully committed and passionate, and Lana had to admire him for it. She was sure that if she'd had to personally risk for the Talon as much as Brad was going to be risking for his garage, the Talon would not exist and in its place would stand Smallville's one and only public parking garage.
Slipping through the front door, she closed it quietly behind her, for once happy about the automatic lock despite how often Brad complained he'd been ‘locked out of the house again.’
It wasn't until she was climbing into her car and noticed how Brad's parents had been sure not to park her in that she realized what a fool she was. They knew she was here. Her car was parked brazenly right in the driveway. Who did she think she was kidding?
Cheeks burning, she put the car in neutral and coasted slowly out of the drive, not turning on the lights or starting the engine until she had drifted a few houses down in the middle of the street. She then drove slowly away, keeping her engine as quiet as possible.
Just as she supported Brad's plan, he supported her decision for her own future, which was a nice change of pace after suffering through Aunt Nell's lecture, and then Chloe's rant, which she'd had no choice but to listen to as she hadn't yet gotten around to swearing her to secrecy before she'd started. You would have thought Lana had been casually letting them know that she'd decided to assassinate a world leader next week, the way they'd each gone on and on about what a mistake she was making.
It might have been true that there was a tiny bit of selfishness embedded in Brad's show of support, but that was okay. Lana was glad he wanted her to stick around. Her friends had held her to Smallville when she'd been informed Aunt Nell was moving to Metropolis and planned on taking Lana with her, but it wouldn't always be that way. The Talon might not have been enough. If she was honest with herself, she knew it definitely wouldn't have been.
But the chance of happiness—true happiness—with Brad, as they supported one another in what they did—even if it was difficult, even if they ended up staying in the apartment above the Talon for far, far longer than either of them calculated they would have to before getting their own house—that was more than enough to make her want to try.
She'd been through an awful lot in the past with Whitney and with Clark and, despite her young age, there had been a while there when she'd been thinking that maybe finding the right person wasn't what she was meant to be doing. Maybe the old adage was true: As soon as you stop looking for love, that's when it drops into your lap.
Or runs you off the road and into a ditch, as the case might be.
Lana snickered at her own thoughts as she pulled onto the main road and pressed a preset on her radio. A gentle violin concerto began swaying out of the car's speakers—Tchaikovsky, she thought, though she wouldn't have sworn to it.
To her surprise and relief, Brad had even said that her new haircut looked beautiful on her. A quick glance at herself in the rearview mirror reminded her, however, of the particular delight he'd taken in mussing the hell out of it. She tried again to straighten it with scrapes of her fingernails, but knew she still wasn't having much effect. She grinned at the thought anyway, just glad Chloe hadn't been right about guys hating it when their girlfriends cut their hair short.
If he did hate it, he at least had the good sense to lie about it. Lana was all for honesty in a relationship, but there were certain times that there was no true or false, just the right thing to say and the wrong thing to say. ‘Do these pants make me look fat?’ ‘Do you think I look older than when we first met?’ and, ‘Do you like my new haircut?’ were definitely in the ‘time to say the right thing’ category.
Then, of course, there were the times that called for a mixture of the truth and the right thing to say. For instance, the first time they'd made love—Lana's first time ever—and she had asked him if he'd ever done it before. It would have been easy for him to lie; she probably wouldn't have known. But he was honest and he said that he had, and he said it like an apology, regret in his eyes. For a second, it had hurt, made her feel childish and under-prepared. But then he'd known it was time to say the right thing, and he had. He'd said that ever since they'd met, he'd realized those few times were really just to prepare him for her, to make it better and easier for her, so she wouldn't have to suffer for his inexperience.
Corny? Oh, yes. Exactly what she'd needed to hear just then? Absolutely.
After spending so much time with one boy who told the truth but had no idea what the right thing was to say or when to say it, and another who knew the right things to say but appeared to be violently allergic to telling the truth, it was damn nice to finally find one that knew how to do both.
Even if the whole world disapproved of her decision as much as her Aunt Nell and Chloe had, Lana wasn't going to throw away what might turn out to be her only chance to keep hold of someone like Brad—someone who appeared to be everything she was sure she wanted.
~
"Clark, that's great! Gosh, you must have worked so hard. I'm so happy for you!"
Clark beamed, looking down into his coffee with a sudden bout of bashfulness. It was a little easier to accept a compliment when he wasn't already terribly proud of himself.
It had been a lot of hard work to get his college essay, application, and other paperwork off to the college of his choice so long before any of his friends in order to apply for early action, and he'd done it without letting anyone close to him in on what he was doing.
Being accepted into Met U was of course its own reward, but the appreciation of his friends and family was a further boon to his admittedly already inflated ego. He tried to school his smile a little and act like a grown-up instead of the six year old shouting ‘look at me!’ with glee, which was just about how he currently felt.
"Thanks, Lana," he finally said, and offered a small, dignified smile. "Chloe and Pete should hear back soon. For Chloe's sake, I hope they both get in. But for Pete's sake, if she doesn't, then I hope he doesn't either."
Lana chuckled quietly as she slid into the booth across from him, putting the coffeepot in her hand down and out of the way. "‘For Pete's sake’?"
Clark snorted. "Uh, for the sake of our friend whose name is Pete."
"Right, right." She sighed, her smile slowly softening. "I know what you mean, though. If they end up going to different colleges," she shook her head, "there'll be no living with either of them."
"Yeah..." Clark trailed off, trying to figure out how to gently say what he wanted to say. He rested his forearms on the table and leaned forward slightly over his coffee. Lana caught the movement and did the same, looking curious. "You know, Lana... um... you're going to have to make a decision soon, too. I mean, there really isn't much time left if you want to go to school in the fall."
Lana's curious expression smoothed into placidity, then froze. She blinked a few times and looked to her right, biting her bottom lip. "Um, Clark..." She cleared her throat and reached back to nervously run her fingernails down the crown of her pixie haircut, smoothing the already smooth hair to the shape of her head. "You know, I've been thinking and..."
"Is it the France thing?"
Apparently skewed from subject, Lana met his gaze in sudden confusion. "Huh?"
Clark spread his hands in a shrug. "Well, I was thinking that if you decide to do the France thing this summer—the art thing—that maybe you'll end up wanting to go to school over there. So... like, maybe that was why you weren't applying here yet." He shrugged a shoulder, a sheepish expression settling onto his face. "I'll admit I had kind of been hoping all four of us would go to Met U together. But if you have a chance to go to school in Paris—"
"Clark," Lana interrupted, shaking her head, "I'm not... going to college in Paris. I'm actually not going to go to college at all."
Clark stared at her for a minute, attempting to process this information. Finally, he glanced around them, suddenly afraid someone might be listening in, and lowered his voice. "What? Lana, what are you talking about? Of course you're going to college." He spread his hands, at a loss. "I mean, why wouldn't you want to go to college?"
She shrugged. "There's just nothing I really want to study. I have the Talon here..." she glanced around the establishment. "And I like it. You know? I like running my own business. In a few years, maybe I could expand, start a chain. I'm sure if I came up with a good enough plan, Lex would be willing to invest. This place has done so well the past couple of years."
"Well, Lana, I'm sure that you could do that, but then shouldn't you go to college now for business management? Or, I don't know, restauranteering or something?"
"How much more could I have to learn about running a place like this that I haven't learned running this very place for three years?" She shrugged. "I guess I could take some local night courses if I really wanted to go in that direction. But I don't think I should leave behind the momentum I've built here in order to go to school for another four years, or even for two."
Clark watched her for a long, quiet moment, watched her gaze be not perfectly steady, watched the way she seemed almost defiant as she looked back at him, and yet unsure. Eventually he sighed, shook his head, and looked down into his rapidly cooling coffee. "Is this about Brad?" he asked softly. "About wanting to be with him?"
He glanced up just in time to catch the end of her one-shouldered shrug. "Partly. Sure."
But her voice had trembled a bit and Clark was sure he was a larger part of this decision than she'd admitted. He knew it wasn't any of his business; that he shouldn't get involved. Every time he'd tried to get in between Lana and Brad in any way, it had only pushed her away from Clark and closer to Brad. The only thing he wanted was to protect Lana, but due to their past together, she didn't see it that way. He supposed that if he was in her shoes, he would have felt the same.
But now Lana was going to hang her future on this guy? Not just try to make their relationship last, which he certainly couldn't fault anyone for, but actually give up college, give up on the option of a different future altogether? He couldn't help it: That made him mad.
"Lana," he said, doing his best to keep his voice steady. "If Brad really cares about you, he should want you to continue your education. He should commute or wait for you or find some way to make it work. Don't just—"
She was nodding in agreement, which was surprising, and she broke in. "I know. You're right. And I'm sure he would. But what's the point? Going away just to see if he follows?" She shook her head in answer to her own question. "I'm happy here, Clark," she said, meeting his gaze steadily, her eyes bright with sincerity. "For the first time in a long, long time, I'm actually happy. I don't want to give that up."
Clark held her gaze for a few beats, then looked toward the table. What could he say to that? If there was one thing Clark had always wanted for Lana, it was for her to be happy. Now she was saying that she was. It seemed that a friend—a real friend—would not argue that point. And yet, there was something in Clark's chest screaming for him to get her to change her mind. Something just didn't feel right about it. Almost nothing, in fact, felt right about it.
But what could he really say? ‘You're wrong’? Tell Lana she wasn't actually happy, she just imagined she was? Tell her not to waste her life on a fleeting feeling? What did Clark know about it? He'd made a ritual of avoiding seeing Lana with Brad, or even seeing Brad at all. Who was he to say it wasn't just what Lana felt it was?
"You know, Clark," she reached across the table and carefully laid her fingertips on his forearm, "I can always change my mind later. I mean, college isn't going anywhere. This is just my decision for now."
He nodded, but didn't meet her gaze.
Lana sighed. "I knew you wouldn't be happy about this. I should have talked to you about it before, but... it never seemed like the right time. I know I'm a big coward, but I'm glad you brought it up so I didn't have to."
He let out one soft chuckle and finally met her eyes. He found them awash in sympathy. He saw no regret in her eyes, no uncertainty about her decision. Maybe Clark didn't think it was a good choice, but Lana obviously believed it was the right decision for her. At least for now.
"College might not be going anywhere, but it sure is getting more expensive by the minute, you know."
She nodded, chuckling. "Well, I certainly can't argue with you there."
He watched her for a minute as her smile softened and the sympathy made its way back into her eyes, and he wondered, if Lana felt sorry for him but not for herself, did that mean she was being entirely more mature about this situation than he was, or just that she was blind to the risk she was taking with her future? It might have been easier for Clark to make a concerted effort to talk her out of this if he had been one hundred percent sure that he was right. But the truth was, he only had a feeling. And, as someone had once wisely told him, he couldn't live Lana's life for her.
"When did you decide this, anyway? You said you've been wanting to tell me."
Lana glanced up at her hairline, then pointed at it vaguely when Clark didn't immediately get it.
"What, your hair?"
She shrugged as an admission.
"Oh, so you cut your hair because—"
"Kind of an outward, ‘Hey, look at me, I made a decision and now there's a big change you can see!’" She winced. "It's pathetic, isn't it?"
Clark snorted and all but laid his head on the table. "Hardly. I'm just surprised I missed the point in the first place." When she only looked at him, mildly confused, he leaned forward and spoke softly. "I started growing mine out when I got involved with Lex. Believe me... I get it."
They both chuckled and Lana briefly covered her eyes with her hand as if embarrassed. "I hate to tell you this, Clark," she said, her voice a conspiratorial whisper, "but I think that just makes us both pathetic."
They laughed and Clark took the opportunity to check his watch. "Oh! Crap. Well, this pathetic person has got to get moving or he'll be late." He paused in grabbing his bookbag from beside him on the booth's seat. "Uh... you have first period free, right?"
"Yeah," she said with a smile. "First and second, actually." She checked her own watch. "Though it looks like you're going to miss half of yours."
He let out a nervous chuckle. "Uh... yeah. I'd better book. See ya!"
She shook her head at him fondly. "Bye, Clark."
Lana stayed where she was for a minute, watching Clark hurry down the street. He was never going to make it to first period at anything even approaching a decent time unless he managed to catch a ride, but there wasn't much Lana could do about it. She had opened this morning and she was the only person here until Tommy came in about fifteen minutes before Lana had to leave to catch her first class of the day. It was a really tight schedule, but he was the one employee she could actually count on to be on time, every time. She just wished he was available more often.
A tall, skinny customer—one of her regulars—was heading toward the front counter, digging his wallet out of his back pocket, so Lana sprang to her feet and headed to her usual place, feeling a little lighter now that she'd gotten the news off her chest for the final time. Clark certainly hadn't approved, but at least he hadn't shouted or lectured her much.
She took her customer's order and was expertly steaming a cup of half and half—and how that man could stay skinny as a beanpole while he drank all his coffees breve Lana would never know—when a familiar voice stayed her hand with a rather threatening greeting.
"You are so dead. You have no idea how dead you are."
Lana looked away from the espresso machine, over her shoulder, with an honestly shocked expression on her face. She was met with Chloe's numb gaze. "Oooookay." She put the cappuccino together as quickly as she could, slapped on a lid, and took her customer's payment. "Have a nice day," she said, though her heart wasn't in it. She turned back to Chloe. "So... explain."
Chloe slid into the now vacant space in front of the counter and leaned on it. "I had an interesting conversation with my father last night while you were out gallivanting around town with your jock boyfriend."
Lana's eyebrows arched sharply. "I wasn't aware I was gallivanting."
Chloe's eyes narrowed. "Oh, you were. Believe me."
She'd been unsure at first, wondering if Chloe was genuinely angry with her for being out all night, but now she picked up on the friendly brand of sarcasm that so often marked Chloe's tone and expression. "Okay, I'll take your word for it. So what was so interesting about this conversation?"
"Probably what caused it."
Lana only fixed her with an expectant look that displayed her lack of information on the subject.
Chloe leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper. "You wanna do me a favour and keep your boyfriend's laundry out of my dad's drawers?"
As Lana became more and more perplexed, Chloe reached into her purse and drew out a little paper bag. Lana took it, found the opening, and peeked inside to see a pair of men's low-rise white briefs, neatly folded. A little click went off in her brain and her head snapped up to meet Chloe's gaze, her mouth gaping with shock. "Oh, no."
"Uh-huh."
"He didn't think—?"
"Ohhhh, yes he did."
"Oh, my god." Lana briefly slapped a hand over her eyes, feeling her face burn with mortification. "Oh, Chloe, I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed with all sincerity and closed her hand over Chloe's on the counter. She winced. "God, what did he say?"
Finally Chloe cracked a little smirk, seemingly satisfied with Lana's sympathetic reaction. She chuckled. "It wasn't really that bad. He didn't yell or anything. It was just really..."
"Awkward?"
"Oh, yeah. To the point of physical pain, actually."
"So on a scale of one to ten...?"
She nodded. "This baby went to eleven."
Lana made a quiet sound of empathetic distress and bowed her head, her eyes tightly closed. After a few seconds, she peeked up out of one open eye, face pinched with silent apology. "Triple caramel mocha on the house?"
Chloe didn't miss a beat. "As if anything else could soothe my soul."
Lana had to laugh then, and squeezed Chloe's hand before turning back to her espresso machine.
"Actually," Chloe said casually as Lana went about preparing her drink, "there is just one other thing you could maybe do for me..."
"Aw," Lana looked back over her shoulder with nothing but sympathy. "Anything, Chloe, just name it."
There was a very long pause, and Lana finally stopped steaming the milk to turn and face her properly. She was plainly hesitating, rubbing nervously at one palm with the opposite thumb. "Chlo?"
"Ugh," Chloe sighed and rolled her eyes. "You've never met my cousin, have you?"
Lana thought about it briefly. "Um, no, I don't think so."
"Lois. She's... just moved into town for a little while."
"Oh." Lana blinked, not sure what Chloe's tone was meant to communicate. She didn't recall Chloe ever mentioning that she disliked her cousin. "And that's... bad?"
Chloe met her gaze finally, looking surprised. "Oh. Oh, no, no, not at all. I love Lois. She's really, you know, great."
"Oh. Okay. Um, great." Still feeling lost, Lana turned back to making Chloe's drink and waited for her to get around to the point.
"She's also sort of, um... what's the word...?"
Pressing a lid onto the extra large cup, Lana gave a little shrug. "Different? Overbearing?"
"Unemployed."
"Oh." They stared at one another. "Oh! Oh, sure, Chloe!" Lana said with all seriousness. "I'm really kind of in need of—"
"She has no experience," Chloe interrupted, some warning in her tone. "And very little grace."
Lana blinked. "Oh. Well, that's o—"
"She also has never used an espresso machine or waited tables or, you know, been nice to a member of the public."
Lana paused. "I... see."
"She can be kind of... grating."
"Uh-huh. Well..."
"But she's poor. And desperate. And in all likelihood will leave Smallville at the end of the school year anyway. I don't think..." Chloe looked around at the many bottles and dishes behind the counter, "she can do too much damage in five months."
Lana's eyebrows reached for her hairline. "Uh... huh."
With somewhat weakened movements, Chloe gestured at the paper bag on the counter with its embarrassing contents.
As she quickly grabbed it and stuffed it into the pockets of her apron, Lana was getting the distinct impression that Chloe didn't believe the punishment fit the crime, but was hoping Lana wouldn't notice. "Right. Well..." She sighed quietly. Honestly, how bad could one person be? She couldn't be any worse than the people Lana had had to fire over the years. Could she? "I do owe you one."
All at once, Chloe brightened. She grabbed her gratis coffee and started for the door, walking backwards as she spoke effusively. "Thanks, Lana! I really appreciate this! I promise you won't re— Um. Well, thanks!"
As Chloe slipped through the door to a tinkle of bells, Lana worried her bottom lip between her teeth. This cousin—what was her name, Lois? Well, she couldn't be that bad. She just couldn't.
The bells tinkled again and a stream of teenagers poured through the door—cheerleader seniors whose senioritis was almost as bad as Lana's; they'd all dropped their first period classes, too. (Though they'd done it in order to sleep late in the mornings rather than to be available for opening the Talon, unfortunately for Lana.) They were all talking and laughing and eying the menu above Lana's head, and she sighed heavily to herself.
She didn't care how green this Lois person was. Lana needed staff.
~
Lois walked up to the broad shoulders in the red sweater and tapped one. A long tail of dark brown hair shifted to the left as a shamefully gorgeous face with high cheekbones, full lips, and big, soulful green eyes looked back at her. She'd thought so.
"Clark, right?"
The little frown caused by the scene she'd just watched take place completely dissipated and he smiled winningly at her instead. "Oh, hey! Yeah, I'm Clark. Lois, right? Chloe's cousin? We met at the, uh..."
"Yep!" She held out a hand near his elbow and he shuffled the books he was trying to arrange in his locker to reach back and shake it. "Guilty as charged."
"Yeah, I heard you moved into town. So you're going to school with us for the rest of the year?"
"Yep." She grinned. "Lucky you."
He offered a friendly chuckle and turned back to his locker to finish trading his textbooks.
"Hey, um... what's with those guys giving you a hard time?"
Clark glanced briefly the way they'd gone, but when he started to look away again, his gaze suddenly snapped back to that direction with enough interest that Lois looked after them, too. One of the letter jacket crowd still hadn't gone around the corner and was hovering by the end locker, looking uncertainly in Clark's direction. He was a cute one, too, with black spiky hair, an athletic build without being bulky or cavemanesque, and bright blue eyes. She wouldn't have kicked him out of bed for eating crackers, that was for sure.
For a moment, Lois was certain Clark was going to take off after the guy. But then the moment passed, the cute jock half-sneered, rolled his eyes, and finally trailed after his friends, and Clark looked back into his locker, shaking his head.
"Nothing really," he said through a sigh. "Smallville sport."
"And you're the ball?"
He snorted. "Something like that."
He didn't seem bothered by his situation, though, turning with a genuine, friendly smile after he'd finished getting what he needed and had spun the combination dial on the locker door. "Hey, are you looking for a particular class?"
"Español. I heard we've got it same period." She looked around. "I... have no idea where it is and I hate standing around in halls staring at maps."
"You like to know what you're doing, huh?"
She shrugged. "Well, I like to look like I know what I'm doing. Whether I actually do or not doesn't matter much."
He laughed out loud at that and pointed vaguely toward a hall, which they both started walking down, falling into step beside one another. Lois noticed that though Clark towered over most of the student body, it was he who moved out of their way when a collision was imminent, and not the other way around. It seemed a little backwards to her, but she supposed he might have once emitted the illusion of helplessness despite his size, and his classmates had picked up on it long ago. She hadn't known him for very long and hadn't formed much of an impression, but she certainly did have the very few things she did know about him burned into her brain.
They had only met once before, on the campus at Metropolis University. Lois had been there because she was starting class in the fall (unaware at the time that she'd messed up her senior year of high school and would be unceremoniously chucked out of college as soon as they overcame their clerical error and noticed the deficiency), Chloe had been there because she was interested in attending after her senior year, and Clark was there... well, Clark didn't seem to have any reason to be there at all. Chloe had said that he'd come along to be a good friend, so she didn't have to make the long trip alone.
At first glance, Lois wouldn't have minded scooping the tall, lean drink of water up for herself, even despite his Amish-like background. But upon that tidbit of information, she'd instantly assumed there was something going on between he and Chloe, which immediately made him off limits in her book. Family was family and she wasn't the kind to eat from another gal's beefcake platter, anyway.
But Chloe's mounting panic over her assumption had led her to expose a little of Clark's actual situation to Lois—namely the fact that he was as gay as a parade in San Francisco in June—and that had made him even further off limits, catapulting him into the universe of, ‘Why waste my time?’ On the plus side, it made him safe to say hello to. He wasn't likely to translate it into, ‘Hey, I'm easy, horny, and have no standards, so let's go have unprotected sex in the back of your crappy Camaro because I obviously find you irresistible and can't wait to start wasting my life on you.’ Some guys had very elaborate internal translators, and as far as she could tell, they didn't change much in college, either.
"So why Spanish?" she asked, just to spur on some small talk.
Clark shrugged and dodged another oncoming teenager. "I need a second language if I want to do social work. Spanish is the most useful in that field."
She looked up at his hulking frame. He must have been close to six and a half feet tall. "Somehow, I don't envision you gently encouraging little kids to come forward about their abusive parents."
He looked to her sharply, obviously startled. "What? Why?"
The earnestness of his reaction made her laugh and she just shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, facing forward again. "I guess just because you're so big. I mean, you're bigger than most of those guys who were roughing you up back there. I'd find you intimidating."
"Oh." He seemed to calm at the explanation and she wondered what it was he'd thought she'd meant. "Well... they don't really rough me up, they just like to give me a hard time. And size isn't everything, anyway. I think I'm pretty good with kids. I... like kids."
He hesitated at this last assertion and she wondered how sure he was that it was true. Though, when she peered at his expression, he seemed to be both sincere and troubled at the same time, as if children offered him some kind of danger despite his concern for their welfare. Perhaps he was allergic to them. Lois had occasionally thought she was allergic to them.
Lois was, in her own opinion, not mother material.
"That last one," she said leadingly, backtracking the subject, "with the black hair."
Clark glanced at her briefly but said nothing as they turned a corner.
"He must be, what? Half a head shorter than you? I saw how he kind of hung back while his buddies were all up in your grill. You think he's intimidated? I mean, despite size not being everything."
Clark only shrugged. She noticed he sped up his gait slightly as they started up a set of stairs.
She let a few seconds of silence go by, then continued casually. "I just thought it was cool of him to not participate, even if he didn't exactly object. I don't usually go for the jock type, but that kid doesn't seem so bad. Think you could introduce me?"
To her surprise, he snorted rather loudly and looked to her with a sudden great grin. She was briefly offended, thinking he was laughing at her chances with some backwoods, letter jacket-wearing hick, but something in his amused smile gave her pause. "Uh... I don't think that would work out, Lois. Might want to focus your attentions elsewhere."
"Oh?" she did her best to keep her annoyance out of her voice. "And why is that?"
Clark's smile faded a bit and she realized she might not have fully kept the offence out of her voice after all. "I don't mean... I mean... Well, I just don't think he's the kind of guy that... Um..."
He'd stopped at the top of the landing after moving them out of the throng of traffic and he stood there, biting his lip and looking both shamed and desperate.
A little bell went off in Lois's head. "Ohh!" she said, wanting to slap a palm to her head, wondering where her gaydar had gone. That guy had definitely had more than a little product in his hair. "You mean that he's more your type. Never mind, I get it."
Clark's eyes and mouth all made perfect, if brief, ohs, and now Lois wanted to slap a hand over her mouth.
"Oh," she said, her voice flat. "Shit."
Clark took a step forward, which he didn't really have room to do, and leaned down to whisper fiercely only inches from her face. "What does that mean? What are you—? What do you mean by that?"
"I... just... meant, uh..." Shit. Stupid, Lois. Very stupid.
She seemed to recall a very emphatic rider attached to her single insight into Clark, and that rider read something like, ‘...just between you and me... goes no further... ever.’ She supposed she should have realized—and had probably realized at the time—that ‘no further’ also included the subject of the insight.
Ever, Lois.
"Uhhh... shit."
Clark was still standing uncomfortably close to her, his gaze occasionally darting around the two of them and back, his voice becoming a little quieter each time he spoke, until Lois had reason to be glad he was standing so close, as otherwise she wouldn't have been able to hear him.
An extra note of panic came into his voice and he ran a hand self-consciously over his pulled back hair and the tail down his back. "Am I... I-I mean, obvious or something?"
"Oh, no!" Lois held out her hands, rushing to reassure him. "You're really not. I mean, I wouldn't have guessed, I—"
Briefly, he was relieved, his shoulders relaxing, his minted breath puffing out in a stream, but he was just as quickly angry instead of worried and his shoulders ratcheted back up toward his ears. "How did you—? Who—?"
"Look, forget I said anything. I mean, I didn't even say anything. I mean, I wouldn't even say anything! Just..." she finally let her hands fall to her sides, and they quickly slunk into her hip pockets in embarrassment at the person to whom they were irrevocably attached. "I just... I could tell. That's all. I-I can just tell these things. Um, sometimes."
Clark continued to stare down at her, his nostrils flaring. The second bell went off and the halls were thinning out, but he didn't seem to notice.
"Listen, I'm from Metropolis, you know? I mean, um, this kind of thing, it's not, uh..." she was stumbling over her words, feeling stupid and slow as she tried to think up a believable reason why two brief meetings would lead her to uncover Clark's closely guarded secret while his classmates all milled about him, blissfully unaware despite seeing him every single day, "well... unusual. I-I mean, I had friends like you in high school." This last bit, at least, was partially true. Lois had had one gay friend in high school. And he was honestly more of an acquaintance. And, actually, he'd been out for years. She was aware it wasn't really the same thing.
"Friends like me?"
"You know. Um..." she glanced around but found the halls almost creepily empty. Just the same, she lowered her voice to a hiss. "Gay."
Clark's eyes flared and his back straightened. He stared at her for a long, tense beat. Then his lip curled.
"Chloe!"
Before she could say a word, he'd spun on his heel and was racing down the stairs at breakneck speed.
Lois ran to the landing, calling after him. "Clark! She didn't—I just guessed! Clark, don't—!" She gave up at the sound of the door at the lower landing slamming open, knowing he wouldn't be able to hear her anymore anyway. With a heavy sigh, hating herself and her stupid big mouth, she slid her hands into her back pockets and looked wistfully over her shoulder, down the hall.
"Pero no me dijiste donde está la clase de Español."
~
"I don't believe it."
Chloe looked up from her drafting board, where she spent most of her free periods, to find Clark's large frame filling the doorway. His fists were clenched at his sides, an angry flush high in his cheeks, and he looked for all the world like he was ready to commit a grisly murder.
"Clark?" She put her marker down. "Jeez, are you okay? What's wrong?"
He took a step into the room, moving restlessly from foot to foot even when he was still. "I mean, if someone else would have told me you were going to do this, I wouldn't have believed it. God, Chloe, it was forever ago and this whole time you've acted like I could trust you!"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Chloe held her hands up, palms out, as she came out from behind the board and approached him, though leaving a good few feet worth of space between them. "I'm definitely picking up that you're pissed off at me, Clark, but what exactly is it that I'm meant to have done?"
He shook his head, an ugly smile turning the corners of his mouth, and he crossed his arms stiffly over his chest. "I just had a really interesting conversation with Lois Lane. You know? Your cousin?"
Chloe scoffed, her bristly hackles starting to show as her irritation at Clark's tone asserted itself. "Yeah, Clark, I've heard of her."
"And she's heard of me!"
Chloe spread her arms, utterly nonplussed. "What are you talking about?" she cried.
His arms uncrossed and became like columns of steel at his sides, his fists bunched so tightly the flesh screamed white. When he spoke, his voice boomed across the room. "I'm talking about how the hell is it that someone who is a complete stranger to me knows something that only my closest friends and family are privy to?"
There was a ringing silence left in the air after his voice had died away, and Chloe gaped into it. Speechless, she did the only thing that made sense to her in the moment: She hurriedly passed Clark by to go shut the door.
She stood there for a few seconds, staring blankly at the chipped wood, her hand wrapped tightly around the doorknob.
"When did you tell her, Chloe?" he asked, his voice now so soft it was somehow more intimidating than the shouting had been. "Was it the very moment after I told you and you promised not to tell anyone else? Or did you wait until I'd left for Moscow? Or maybe it was that day on campus at Met U—"
Chloe's burning eyes closed and her shoulders came up slightly in a wince.
"Was that it? ‘That's my friend Clark; his family owns an organic farm and, oh, here's something interesting: He's a homosexual.’"
She spun on her heel, not bothering to wipe away the moisture gathering at the corners of her eyes. "Clark, it wasn't like that!"
He said nothing, only crossed his arms over his chest again, standing ramrod straight and staring her down with eyes she would have sworn were seconds from shooting lasers at her.
"I can't believe she told you... Clark, I swear, I told her—"
"What, Chloe?" he interrupted angrily. "What? You told her not to tell anyone else? Made her promise, even? Well, you know, it's recently come to my attention that that doesn't work as well as a person might think it should."
She swallowed hard against the guilt welling in her throat. The details of that day flashed through her mind and she wished she could kick her former self right in the ass. It had seemed so harmless at the time.
"Why would you do this, Chloe?" Clark asked, a small tremble coming into his voice, and Chloe's eyes burned afresh as she recognized the hurt behind his anger. "Why would you betray me like that?"
"Clark," she shook her head, taking a step away from the door and toward him. But he shuffled half a step back, maintaining their distance, and she stopped moving. "I didn't mean to... to betray you," she said, not liking the taste of the word. "Lois—I mean, I never imagined she would come here. Lois is Metropolis—that's just what she is. She belongs in Smallville like a hubcap belongs on a tractor. I never thought it would matter or even come up. I just..."
He was only shaking his head minutely, staring at her, his anger not abating in the slightest.
"It doesn't matter, Chloe!" he boomed once again, making her start. "It doesn't matter if Lois tells a hundred people or not a single other person, because Lois is not the person I asked not to tell anyone! Lois is not the one who made a promise to me!" He paused, drawing himself up straight again as he'd leaned slightly forward with the intensity of his anger. His voice dropped to a furious whisper forced through clenched teeth. "And she's not the one who broke it."
"But I didn't—"
"You told me I could trust you, Chloe." His voice was soft as he interrupted her, but stopped her just as cold as a scream. "I believed you."
The tears that had been threatening spilled over her lashes, tracing hot, embarrassed tracks down her face. "Clark, you can trust me," she said, putting her fist to her chest and taking a single step forward. "I swear that—"
"Yeah?" Clark moved forward suddenly, closing in on her, so close she could feel the heated rage radiating from his skin. "Well, you had a chance to prove that. Looks like it didn't work out."
Before she could say a word, he was brushing past her, dismissing her presence, and when he opened the door and walked through, he didn't slam it, and that silent exit was so much scarier than if he'd put a hole in the wall with the doorknob. At least then she would have known his rage was explosive and so would probably fade. This anger ran much deeper.
She didn't have to think about it; she knew how deep it ran. She'd seen it in his eyes, in the depth of his hurt. It wasn't about this secret—not completely. Of course he was upset with her about this incident, but his disappointment ran further—it ran into the future.
Chloe had been given one serious chance to prove her trustworthiness, to show the veracity of her honour, to demonstrate that she could be relied upon with Clark's deepest, darkest secrets—not just this one, but maybe even one day with the secret that as far as she knew, he had shared with no one.
And she'd blown it. She'd lost Clark's trust just when she might have been about to truly gain it. And for what? Because Lois was going to tease her about a nonexistent romantic relationship with the boy she'd had a powerful crush on for years? Because it would be embarrassing? Because if Lois met Pete, maybe she'd tease him about it, too?
All along Pete had known Chloe desired Clark, and had even kept his feelings for her to himself in deference to that. Certainly, if the situation should ever arise, he would know that Lois's jokes had no basis in reality. He and Chloe both knew what Clark's love life really was, and so they would share that knowledge even if Lois was on the outside, prodding for a jealous reaction that wasn't warranted. Pete might have even had some fun pretending some possessive envy just to string Lois's misconceptions along. It could have been their little inside joke.
How easily Chloe had opened her mouth to share information that wasn't hers to share. What had she been thinking? It wouldn't matter because Lois wasn't from their area? Does a promise of secrecy become null and void once county lines are crossed? And what if all of them had ended up at Met U together? Lois would be a year ahead of them, but if they were all on the same campus, it wouldn't matter.
More to the point, even if Clark and Lois had never met again for the rest of their lives, it wouldn't have changed the fact that Chloe really did break her promise to Clark. She'd broken it quickly and thoughtlessly and hadn't even had the decency to feel guilty about it afterwards. Truth be told, she hadn't even thought about it at all since the day it had happened. She'd never looked on it as a broken promise, and had gone forward fully believing she was a good friend who protected Clark's privacy.
If it wasn't bad enough that she'd just lost Clark's trust, and that the possibility of ever becoming close enough to him to learn the truth about him had just plummeted down to nil, she was stricken to realize that she might have just lost his friendship altogether.
"Chloe?" a tentative voice asked from the door.
Chloe spun on her heel with a gasp, wiping at her wet cheeks as an afterthought.
Lois's cautious expression melded into pained regret and sympathy. "Oh, no. Oh, Chloe, I'm so—"
"It's not your fault," she said, her voice choked and high. The sound of her own sorrow made her face twist and she brought her hands up to hide behind them as the hot tears started to flow freely. "I did it. I did it. Oh, god damn it."
There was the soft clacking of Lois's snow boots as she quickly approached and then her long arms wrapped around Chloe's back and Chloe pushed her face, still covered by her hands, into Lois's shoulder, and sobbed.
"Me and my big mouth," Lois muttered.
A laugh burst through Chloe's sobs, followed by a wet hiccough. "I was just thinking the same thing."
"Yeah. I guess it's not the first time my chattering has gotten you in trouble."
"Not yours," Chloe said, shaking her head against Lois's soft cream coloured sweater. The tears choked her again and she was barely able to get out the last word, not even sure once she did that her cousin could have understood her. "Mine."
~
"I'll have a shot of the cayenne sipping chocolate, please."
"The cayenne what?"
Lex looked up in surprise from his money clip to the young woman behind the counter. He glanced at her nametag but it didn't help. "Cayenne sipping chocolate. A shot. Please." He offered a folded twenty dollar bill between two bent fingers and she stared at it.
"Right!" she exclaimed suddenly, snatching the money out of his hand and offering a very uncertain but very enthusiastic smile. "Chocolate. Of the spicy sipping variety. Coming right up!"
Twenty still in hand, she turned and disappeared into the back room.
Lex leaned on the counter and drummed his fingers. He looked pointedly to his left at the sipping chocolate station, which was emphatically not located in the back room.
Being forty-nine percent owner of the place, he was just about to walk behind the counter and make it himself when Lana appeared from the back, looking flustered and overworked, her new employee right on her heels.
"Oh, hey, Lex," she said, her voice tired and rushed.
He nodded once. "Lana." He gestured vaguely at her head. "I like the haircut."
For a brief moment, she brightened, smiling widely. "Thank you," she said sincerely. Just as quickly, the smile was gone, and the stress was back between her eyebrows and at the corners of her mouth. "Okay, let me show you this again..." she said, her voice tight with what seemed to be a repressed scream, as she led the tall, slim new employee to the sipping chocolate station and began to slowly and emphatically demonstrate the process, exaggerating her movements for the employee's—Lois, her nametag had said—benefit.
Lex moved to the pickup counter and watched, bemused. It was nearly five more minutes before the drink was ready, and a line was forming and shifting impatiently on its collective feet at the ordering counter. Finally, the new barista brought it to him, holding it carefully in her hand, despite the tightly applied lid, as if the cup contained a volatile acid which was out to get her. Despite all of this, when she handed it over, she did so with a bright, charming smile, wide, clear eyes, and a perky instruction to ‘enjoy!’
"Thank you," Lex said softly, and continued to hold her gaze, smirking.
She stared back, her smile slowly becoming more and more fake. "Um... so... was there anything else?"
Lex remained silent, though his smirk grew slightly, until finally Lana came up beside the girl and grumbled, "It's not a twenty dollar cup of chocolate, Lois; get him his change."
"Oh, right!" She was off to the register in a flurry of brown ponytail and teal apron. Lana moved to stand where she had been, put the heels of her hands on the counter, closed her eyes, and let out a long, slow breath.
"There ya go!" the cheery, if incompetent barista exclaimed, handing Lex his change with another wide smile. Lex peeled the bulk of it out of her hand and left her with the change and single. Her smile brightened even farther, though that hadn't seemed possible, before she moved back to the counter and asked in a chipper voice what she could get the next person.
"Tipping is only going to encourage her."
Lex snorted softly, looking back to Lana as she slowly opened eyes that seemed only moments from shooting lasers out of their pupils. "Why don't you just fire her?"
Lana stilled and met his gaze silently, almost hopefully.
He shrugged. "If she can't do the job..."
Suddenly Lana's brow furrowed as if in pity and she closed her eyes on a soft, pained sigh. "I can't," she whispered, and shook her head.
"All right. Well, that's what partners are for. I'll do it."
He'd just started to turn for the hinged hip-high door that would lead him behind the counter when Lana's hand shot out and grabbed his arm with more strength than he would have imagined she possessed. "No, you can't either. You don't understand."
Lex only turned back and looked at her with raised eyebrows.
After a long, pained, piteous look, she finally sighed and bowed her head, letting go of Lex's arm. "Lois is Chloe's cousin," she finally said, as if admitting a deep, shameful secret.
Lex shrugged a shoulder fluidly. "But if she can't do the job—"
"No, no," Lana waved him off wearily. "There's this whole thing with Chloe and her dad and me and..."
"Ah," everything suddenly became crystal clear. "So this is a favour."
She nodded quickly, wincing.
Lex's eyes shifted toward Lois, watching her carefully add whipped cream to a drink, tongue at the corner of her mouth in studious concentration, though the whipped cream was nonetheless listing dangerously to one side. Sure enough, as he watched, the crooked pile of sugary cream flipped onto its side and sloshed foam over the edge of the cappuccino cup. The person being served was already plainly nonplussed, judging by her expression, and so showed very little reaction. In silence, she took the drink and walked carefully to the amenities counter, where she acquired a liberal handful of napkins.
Lex tried not to snicker. "Hm. Well, if that's the payback, then I hope you're appropriately ashamed of whatever terrible, inhumane thing you've done to deserve it."
Lana let out a small, pathetic sound. "I am," she said dully. "Please, God, believe me: I am so, so sorry."
Lex couldn't help but chuckle at that, and he took a quick sip of his chocolate, his brow furrowing slightly at the heat. "Hm," he said, judging the flavour and texture on his tongue. "This could use a little more cayenne."
"I was using a stronger mix, but I had to cut back. People were saying it was too spicy." She reached under the counter and pulled up a large container of cayenne, and Lex opened the cup so she could sprinkle a bit on top, then mix it in with a stirring straw. "That should fix it."
He took another sip and nodded his approval.
"Enjoy it while you can," she said with a weary sigh, tossing the stirring straw into the trash. She glanced over her shoulder to see just how badly her new hire was doing. "I'm guessing I'll have to remove it from the menu soon." She turned back to him and saw his questioning expression. She shrugged a shoulder. "Low sales."
"Oh, come on, you can't give up on this stuff so quickly. This is the origin of chocolate. Every self-respecting chocolate lover should appreciate the rich tradition of xocoatl. Only royalty used to have access to this drink."
"Yeah, well, maybe this town's tastes are more on the commoner side." She didn't sound like she wanted to believe it, but rather as if she was repeating what someone else had told her.
"Or maybe it just needs marketed a little better." Lex waved a hand toward the menu when Lana looked at him in confusion. "‘Cayenne sipping chocolate’? ‘Orange sipping chocolate’? How about some new, more exciting names, and an enticing blurb to go with each?" He gave a shrug and said the first thing that came to mind. "‘Exotic Aztec Chili-infused Chocolate—enjoy this Mesoamerican blend once reserved only for Aztec royalty and the elite classes, believed by the ancient Mayans to be "the food of the gods." Made with the finest cocoa beans imported from Oaxaca, this rich infusion has been used for centuries to chase away the winter chill and delight the palate.’" He shrugged again and sipped his spicy sweet drink. "Sometimes it isn't the product that needs changed, but the presentation. Try a little rebranding."
Lana was watching him carefully, her once lackluster eyes regaining some life as she plainly sifted through his advice. This was one of the things Lex had liked about Lana since she'd first come up with a viable plan for the redesign of the old movie house: Underneath her diminutive, fragile, cheerleaderesque exterior, when she wanted to be, she was wonderfully shrewd. Given time and opportunity, Lex would not have been surprised if she ended up building a string of Talons across the state and perhaps, eventually, the country.
Slowly, she turned her head away, though continuing to watch him with her calculating eyes. "Actually, that's a really interesting idea."
"Well," he said, and offered his cup slightly to bid her farewell, "feel free to use that if you don't come up with anything better. And good luck with, uh..." his eyes darted toward Lois, who was twisting fruitlessly at the espresso machine, trying to force the portafilter in the wrong way.
Lana rolled her eyes, grunting quietly. She took a moment to steel herself before offering him a pinched smile and turning back to her latest Brobdingnagian task.
In an effort at politeness, Lex tried to smother his humour into his cup on the way out the door.
~
Lex was just finishing his drink as he walked through the door of his home office and so could only greet Clark with eyebrows raised in surprise and a grunt of acknowledgment, his mouth awash in chocolate. Clark got up from Lex's office chair, where he'd presumably been messing around on the laptop.
Lex swallowed his mouthful as quickly as he could. "Hey!" he said cheerfully as he tossed the cup into the trash.
"Hi."
He crossed to Clark's side where he stood beside the desk. "I didn't expect you to be here."
He reached up to place a soft kiss hello on Clark's mouth, smirking as he leaned back and Clark licked his own lips, obviously noticing the flavour. "Chocolate," Lex said by way of explanation, gesturing vaguely toward the discarded cup. "What's going on? I thought you had studying."
The slight joy that had come into Clark's eyes at the greeting, and presumably the mention of chocolate, faded immediately into a troubled shadow. His expression took on a mien of disgruntlement.
The hand still resting on Clark's arm slid down and off and smoothly into Lex's pocket. "Uh-oh," he said quietly. He tilted his head just a bit, watching Clark carefully. "Did I do something?"
At that, Clark's gaze snapped to his, wide with surprise. "What? No! No, why would you—?"
Lex only shrugged. "I don't know. But you don't look happy, and I feel better being certain I'm not the cause before I ask what's wrong." He smirked until Clark offered a small laugh and a roll of his eyes. "So... what's wrong?"
Clark sighed heavily and Lex gestured toward the loveseat across the room. Clark went to settle into it and Lex sat in the cushy chair across from him.
"Chloe told someone about me," he finally muttered.
Lex was taken aback. "What? Wait a minute, I thought Chloe didn't know about you."
"Huh?"
"I thought only Pete—"
"Oh—no," Clark waved him off. "Not that. No, she doesn't know that," he widened his eyes looking away, "thank god," he finished in a mutter. "No, she told someone that I'm gay."
"Oh." Lex paused. Then, "Oh," he said with rather more feeling, his brow furrowing. "Why the hell—?"
"An excellent question, if I do say so myself."
Lex spread his hands. "I assume she answered it."
"Not well enough," Clark quipped, and slouched suddenly back into his seat. He crossed his arms over his chest, obviously decided on the subject.
"I see." He waited a beat but nothing further was forthcoming. "So you and Chloe..."
Clark cut a hand through the air without hesitation. "Finito."
Lex raised an eyebrow. "Honestly?"
"I can't trust her," Clark said with a shrug. "As messed up as my life is, Lex?" He shook his head dismissively, crossing his arms over his chest again. "I can't afford to be hanging out with people I can't trust."
In Lex's personal opinion, it wasn't all so black and white. But he knew enough about Clark's way of dealing with things to know that arguing with him right now was not going to help anything. He was going to need some time to think through what Chloe really meant to him before he'd be willing to truly rethink ‘finito.’ Instead, Lex decided to casually discuss the fine points of how to expel Chloe from his life. "All right," he said easily, and leaned forward with a considering expression. "So... what about Pete?"
Clark's brow furrowed and he met Lex's gaze in confusion. "Huh? What about Pete?"
"Well, he's Chloe's boyfriend." Lex paused but Clark didn't respond or react in any way. Lex smiled and spread his hands, letting out a soft scoff of incredulity. "Well, Clark, you don't expect to be able to cut yourself off from Chloe and still be best friends with Pete, do you?"
There was a sudden change to Clark's expression and it quickly became astonished. This was obviously not something he had considered. "Uh... I-I..." His expression dulled. "Oh, crap."
"Even if you figure you can trust Pete not to ever talk to Chloe about you, are you sure that he'd be willing to live two portions of his life completely separate from one another?"
Clark stared at him, looking stunned.
"I could be wrong of course," Lex shrugged casually. "You know Pete much better than I do."
He blinked, his gaze moving to the arm of Lex's chair, his lips parted slightly, and he stared for several long moments. "Ugh," he finally said in disgust and put his hands over his eyes. He fell pathetically against the back of his seat. "You know," he said, "can we just change the subject? Maybe? Please?"
Lex laughed softly, looking down at his hands. He let a few seconds go by. "I have some inquiries out to my contacts in China about the lost Crystal. There are some documents being flown out to me that I haven't seen in years so I can look them over again. I think that—"
"UGH!" Clark exclaimed even louder. He dropped his hands from his face, then got out of his seat. Lex was surprised to find him soon sliding onto a knee beside Lex's chair. "How about we change the subject?" Clark said again, but this time, it was followed with a smirk that was more leer than smile, and an unmistakable glint of mischief came into his eyes. Big, warm hands were laid without pretext on Lex's thighs, warming right through the dark wool slacks he wore.
Lex held his gaze for a long beat, trying and failing to not smile back. "Well, sir, whatever could you have in mind?"
~
Clark hummed against Lex's lips, not quite kissing him but not pulling away either.
They lay on their sides in the centre of the bed, bare, rocking their groins together in a slow, lazy rhythm. Now and then, one or the other of them reached down between their bodies to adjust their lengths against one another, or offer a few long, leisurely strokes.
Lex turned their closeness into a kiss because he couldn't not, and Clark kissed him back softly.
"It feels good," he breathed when Lex had released his mouth again. "I missed you."
Lex smiled silently, not willing to mention that the number of hours they had been apart was not long enough to start missing someone, as he'd been feeling similarly anyway. "Clark—"
"I want you inside me," he suddenly whispered, close and soft, and Lex felt both a thrill and a beat of disappointment at the same time. "And I want to see you. Just like this."
Clark's body was unbelievable, as if he was specifically designed to please Lex personally, and the sensation of sinking into him was unlike anything Lex—or any human, for that matter—had ever known. Everything about his structure was unique and unexpected, even after he'd experienced it a hundred times. Somehow, the memory never did it justice, and the actual experience surprised him each and every time.
However, Lex had been taking a breath to say something similar. Clark's gentle words had preempted his request.
But Lex was nothing if not flexible, and he immediately worked out a compromise. He smirked. "I've got a better idea."
Clark looked at him curiously, obviously having not expected that response.
Lex advanced, leaning up on an elbow, Clark eagerly beginning to turn onto his back. But Lex only reached over him, to the end table drawer. He dug out a bottle of lube quickly, then rummaged around for a bit until he found the object he'd wanted.
When he leaned back with a sex toy in his hand—the lavender silicone dildo they'd used to prove to themselves that Clark was able to take Lex into himself without physically harming him—Clark's eyes flared with understanding, and one corner of his mouth turned upward in approval.
Grinning wolfishly, Lex applied a liberal amount of lube to its shaft and head, leaving one hand and the toy's base clean.
"You have good ideas."
"Occasionally."
Lex laid on his side again, holding the toy behind Clark's back as he turned toward him again and slid a warm leg over Lex's hip in blatant invitation. He shuffled close, pressing his hardened length against Lex's own, where it drooled lightly in anticipation.
"I can't imagine," Clark said with an all too knowing grin, "what you might be planning to do with that."
"Oh, good," Lex said through an amused chuckle. "Then it'll be a surprise."
As Clark resumed rocking softly against him, the frottage light and almost delicate, Lex reached down with the still slick hand that did not hold the toy, and brushed gently at Clark's entrance. He imagined he would not need to prepare him, and found he was right, the muscle already relaxed and dilated with Clark's excitement.
Inside, he quickly spread the lubrication still clinging to his fingers, earning a quiet, breathy gasp, and then tapped the head of the toy to Clark's hole.
Clark's eyes fluttered closed and he leaned in with a sigh, Lex turning his head just in time to avoid bumping noses and instead end on the soft collision of a kiss. As Clark kissed him and continued to rock his hips, rubbing them together in front, and plainly trying to achieve penetration in back, Lex took his time caressing Clark's entrance with the toy, pressing just slightly in before pulling back and sliding the tip around once more. He encountered very little resistance and knew Clark would have loved it if he just shoved the whole thing in to the hilt in one long, rough, powerful stroke, but Lex didn't want to be rushed.
He reveled in Clark's soft kisses and the careful press of his rubbing thrusts; the way each time he pulled back, he went just a little too far, casually, as if he didn't really want Lex to notice his impatience and yet was unable to stop illustrating it.
A minute later, when Lex finally allowed the entire head of the toy to slide inside, Clark broke their kiss with a deep inhale and opened his eyes. They were heavy-lidded and smoky as they gazed across the scant space between them on the pillow, his lips swollen and flushed from their kiss, his cheeks a shade deeper than their perpetual blush.
Clark watched him lazily for a few moments as Lex quite literally toyed with him, never pushing the dildo any deeper than an inch past the head before pulling it back to the corona, turning it this way and that, and enjoying the pleasant little hitches in Clark's rhythm he caused.
"I take it back," Clark mumbled.
"Hm?"
"This was a terrible idea."
Lex cocked an eyebrow, but he didn't stop moving his wrist. "Oh?"
"If—" Clark broke off and closed his eyes briefly as Lex teased half an inch deeper, then retreated again. He blew out a steady breath, his cheeks puffing faintly. "If that was you," he started again, "it'd be a lot easier to convince you not to make me wait."
Lex grinned without shame, denying nothing.
Clark seemed unable to stop himself from smiling back, though the brief roll of his eyes demonstrated his indulgence.
Lex continued his slow, measured invasion, deftly avoiding Clark's occasional attempts to increase his speed by thrusting back at unexpected moments.
Though he emitted the occasional quiet sound of frustration, it wasn't until the toy sought deeply enough to tap his internal barrier that his subtle requests turned to demands. His eyes flew open on a gasp of surprised pleasure—Clark's memory, too, seemed not to do the experience justice—and he didn't hesitate. "Push it through."
Lex chuckled lightly and pulled the toy back an inch, only to tap the barrier again.
Clark's hips had ground to a standstill, his attention focussed elsewhere. "Lex," he growled through clenched teeth. "Push it through."
"All in good time."
Clark let out a sound somewhere between frustration and disgust, and closed his eyes again, this time on a harsh sigh. He gave a little shake of his head against the pillow, his hips beginning to rock again, furrows etching themselves between his brows, as he plainly tried to restrain himself from forcing what it was he wanted. He could have easily reached back and pushed the toy deep himself, or moved too quickly for Lex to react, but for the moment at least, he seemed resigned to letting Lex have his fun.
When Lex at first took his mouth again, he found his kiss tight, his mouth drawn with frustration. But with the warm press of Lex's lips and the gentle probing of his tongue, Clark soon softened, kissing him back sweetly, and soon deeply.
Again and again Lex slid the head of the dildo against the sensitive membrane but not through, eliciting all manner of pleased, longing, and irritated sounds. Clark's leg drew farther over Lex's hip, as if he wanted to believe perhaps access was the problem, in the meantime pressing Lex's engorged erection tightly between Clark's own and Lex's belly. Lex's eyes fluttered at the pressure, a small sound escaping his own throat, but swallowed up by another of Clark's frustrated growls.
As intense as the sensations were that Clark felt at this repetitive beat, Lex knew from experience that they were only an appetizer to the ecstasy Clark would feel with the first breach. He would shout or stop breathing or begin to whine as if from some far away place, all thoughts of propriety and inhibition lost to him.
Lex craved the vision, but knew the longer he waited, the more satisfying it would be for the both of them when he finally gave in to Clark's demands.
Lex gave a sharp twist of his wrist as he slid the toy against Clark's barrier for the umpteenth time, and Clark suddenly let out a great snarl. "Fine," he spat, his voice laced with vexation. "But two can play at this game."
Just as Lex's eyebrows arched, Clark pulled away from him and turned onto his stomach, Lex ready to adjust the toy's depth of entry at a moment's notice, in case Clark tried to impale himself on it. But Clark only reached into the still open bedside drawer, rifling way into the back and discarding the first two toys he found, until he grasped the one he was apparently looking for.
It wasn't one of the collection they had picked out together, but rather one Lex had already owned: A rose-coloured anal vibrator about four inches long, kinked up and down the curved shaft, with a flared base. It was made of high-quality silicon and quite sturdy, but Lex had crossed it off the list of items to try on Clark for the first time because of the vibrating bullet just inside the tip; they were both concerned that if Clark broke it with a spasm of internal muscles, the bullet could break lose and not be easily retrieved. By the time they'd realized that Clark was not going to shatter the toys used inside him, it had become clear that it would be pointless to use this one anyway, as Clark appeared to possess no prostate, which was what this toy was built to stimulate, and it wasn't long enough to reach his internal membrane, from which Clark received his most intense sexual sensations.
Lex smirked and did not say that he had intended to soon suggest this very idea himself—that it had, in fact, been his intention since he'd started this—as Clark found the bottle of lubricant hidden in the sheets and slicked up the vibrator, wicked determination in his eyes. He got himself back into position, affording Lex a gasp and a quick glare as Lex once again pushed the dildo against the membrane but no farther, and he reached around Lex's back and down.
Lex knew he was asking for it, but he didn't care. He liked the sounds Clark was making.
With them both reaching around one another, Clark was even closer than he had been, their noses only inches apart on the pillow they now shared. When Clark's slick fingers first brushed across Lex's entrance, Lex jerked at the intensity of the sensation, and felt as though his gasp was made of Clark's sigh.
Lex wasn't quite so easily ready as Clark, and Clark began to slowly slick him and stretch him, presumably intending to go just as slowly as Lex had. But he quickly lost patience with protracted preparation as Lex continued his onslaught against the sensitive barrier, giving no quarter. Instead, he pressed the tip of the vibrator to Lex's hole and gave a slight, questioning nudge inward.
The material itself was smooth and easy to insert, and the lube made it absolutely glide. Smirking with sudden victory, Clark slipped it steadily inside, stopping the moment Lex's sibilation told him it had settled against the right spot. With a smug little quirk of his eyebrows, he turned the dial on the base and Lex's body spasmed and his hand stilled as the vibration buzzed to life.
Clark's smug smirk became a grin as he began to move the tip of the toy against Lex's prostate in precise imitation of Lex's own assault. It was only as a groan was ripped from him that Lex realized he had stilled, and he gave a harder than usual thrust against Clark's barrier, though being careful enough to not penetrate it.
A sharp, surprised cry came from Clark's throat, and the dial on the base was turned another click in response.
Halfway through his answering moan, Lex broke into quiet laughter. Clark was trying to draw him into a game of one-upmanship, knowing the only thing Lex would soon have left to do to intensify the sensations was to give him exactly what he wanted. So rather than capitulate, Lex lessened the length of his strokes, and instead pushed his hips forward, away from the delicious vibration inside, to squeeze Clark's erection between them.
A brief expression of confusion crossed Clark's face, whether because he hadn't expected it, or because he'd perhaps forgotten there were other parts of him to be stimulated, and Clark looked down. He adjusted his position, shuffling his hips down an inch, and straightening his legs, then leaned forward so they pressed together from groin to knee.
"Mm," Lex hummed and rolled his hips. They moved in tandem, brushing together everywhere, their loins mildly slicked with excitement and a light sweat.
Perhaps unconsciously, the cadence of Clark's hand began to match that of Lex's, and both to that of their rocking hips.
On each circuit, there was a heavy, beautiful pressure on Lex's erection, and then a relief of it, immediately followed by the spasm-inducing buzz of the vibrator nudging his prostate just as he felt his own hand's thrust halted by the resistance of Clark's internal barrier, and then it started all over again. They rocked and thrust, thrust and rocked, Lex's eyes slowly drifting closed to the hypnotic tempo.
Minutes went by, or maybe hours, or maybe days, and the metre didn't change, didn't falter, didn't hitch. They rode an ever-cresting wave miles from shore, steady and spellbound.
When Lex finally opened his eyes again, it was only to check that they weren't floating away from the very earth, and he was greeted with a vision that surprised and engaged him: Clark's eyes, wide and fascinated, his lips parted and shining, his breaths coming fast and heavy, every other one accented with the sound of a whispered sigh.
Lex felt a tiny smile turn the corners of his lips upward. "Do you like this?" he asked, though it was hardly necessary.
Clark nodded as if it was a perfectly logical question to ask.
Lex's smile grew. "Me, too."
Clark's lips pressed together just long enough for a noisy swallow, and then he parted them to pant again. "It feels... different."
"Hm?" Lex's eyes drifted closed briefly at the apex of a particularly sweet circuit of movement, then opened slowly once again. "Different how?"
"Um..." Clark gave the impression he was trying to catch his breath, though Lex knew it was an illusion. "Having you here... like this. I can... feel you against me. All the way down, I can feel you against me."
Unexpectedly, Clark captured Lex's foot between his own two feet to demonstrate his meaning. They were indeed pressed together practically from chest to toes, all of their heat building around them, very little dissipating.
"And you're hot and you're hard against me, but... but you're still fucking me. A-And I'm fucking you, too, and..." He trailed off, then shook his head as if uncertain how to finish. "I don't know," he said, licking his already wet lips. "It just feels different."
"Yeah," Lex said, his only response. He moved only an inch closer on the pillow and took Clark's plump, shining lips in a deep kiss, tongue delving deep, lips building a soft but firm suction.
As Clark groaned into him, Lex finally pushed the toy through—not spearing the membrane, but breaching it slowly with a steady pressure—and Clark shouted, ripping himself away from Lex's mouth.
He turned his head sharply toward the ceiling, eyes shut tight against the sudden sensation, and held his breath for a protracted beat. Then, all at once, he relaxed, a week's worth of breath seeming to come out of him in one long sigh. He turned back to Lex and kissed him hard.
His hand had understandably stopped at the sudden breach, but after a few seconds he came partly back to himself, and he imitated Lex's strokes: Long, slow, and steady, but equally firm and strong. Soon they fell back into a mutual rhythm: Pressing in and pulling away, pulling out and sliding together.
Warm pulses began to bloom from Lex's ass to his groin and back, a tingling almost like sparks of electricity, but not quite that. The bottoms of his feet became heated, akin to a sensation of pins and needles, or sitting too near a fire. His cheeks and palms and ears all warmed, and his brow furrowed tight as he began to uncontrollably clench his teeth against what was oncoming.
"Clark..." he warned.
"Yes—Yes—" Clark gasped, rushing the words atop one another, taking a sharp pant of a breath in between each.
He began to bounce on the bed more than thrust forward, and Lex did his best not to alter the strokes of the dildo deep inside Clark's body, a mere inch of its length sliding back and forth through the sensitized membrane. He knew it was all Clark would need.
Clark let out a bark of a shout, his muscles tensing, one hand stilling on the buzzing toy pressing tight against the perfect place, the other spread flat and hot and damp against the centre of Lex's back, making Lex want to grin with the hard-won victory of Clark's confidence reaching a point where he felt he could safely touch his lover through even the apex of his passion. But Lex, too, was finding a peak, and he had lost control of his facial expression.
As Clark began to spurt his release wantonly on Lex's belly, Lex thrust forward, pressing them tightly together, sharing the pulses between them. His own fluids quickly mixed with Clark's on his skin, Clark not getting away completely clean, either.
Soon the only sound in the room was a duet of rough panting as they each recovered their equilibrium. After a minute, Lex started to arch toward Clark's belly, and Clark quickly took the hint and gradually reduced the vibration until it stilled. Then he gently tugged and the vibrator slipped out almost effortlessly, Lex only giving off a slight shiver from hyper-sensitivity. He leaned up on an elbow to remove the toy from Clark's body as well, Clark's shudder coming at the sudden release of resistance as the tip passed through the membrane, the rest of the exit causing no further reaction.
Lex tossed the toy over the edge of the bed and out of the way, and Clark leaned away to follow suit. By the time he looked back, Lex was sighing, his heavy-lidded eyes closing gratefully as he burrowed a bit deeper into his pillow. He knew he should sit up and grab some tissues to clean himself with before the stickiness began to dry, but he wasn't interested in moving.
"Lex."
"Mmm." Lex sought forward for Clark's mouth, opening his eyes when he didn't easily find it.
He was greeted with Clark's forehead instead, as Clark was looking pointedly down between them. "What...? Lex, tell me I'm imagining things."
"Hm?" Lex looked down, in the same general direction Clark was. His own stomach was saturated with fluids. Lex snorted and rested his head on the pillow again, closing his eyes. "No, I really am basting in my own juices over here." He smirked with satisfaction. "Yours, too."
"Lex," Clark said, his voice too jarring.
"Shh..."
"Lex..." he trailed off and scoffed. "Lex, it's... it's moving."
Lex's brow furrowed and, unable to quickly work out the riddle, he opened his eyes. "What?"
"It's mo-ving?" Clark said it like a question: ‘Are you hearing what I'm saying?’
Confused, Lex again looked down.
What was moving? His cock gave off regular pulses as it deflated, but this was surely not unusual—Clark's was acting similarly. The only—
Lex's eyes widened.
The splatters on Lex's belly were drifting to his side, which would have been perfectly normal if they'd been drifting toward the side that was on the bed, oozing down to stain the sheets. But the fluid was sliding the other way—against gravity.
"What the—?"
Lex stared, waiting for it to become obvious that his eyes were playing tricks on him, but it didn't. The semen on his belly was very, very slowly making a small turn, traveling up toward his far hip for just an inch before heading down toward his leg at almost a ninety degree angle.
With the scattered mess on Lex's skin, the few droplets that were acting against nature could have belonged to either of them. But they had no doubts whose it was.
In a sudden panic, Lex reached out for the Kleenex box and ripped out a handful, swiping the offending fluid from his body and tossing the tissues in the trash. With one tissue after another, he swiped meticulously at himself until every last trace of it was gone, though his panic began to abate as soon as the tiny bit that had caused it was gone.
When he turned from his task to meet Clark's eyes, he found them wide and terrified and a dozen similar instances shot through Lex's memory, making him wince.
"Clark," he said as soothingly as he could under the circumstances. "It's far too soon."
"But what if—?"
"No, Clark," Lex insisted. "It is too soon—too soon by years. You know that."
"Lex," Clark voice was thick with incredulity. "My semen. Was crawling. Up. Your stomach."
This, Lex could not deny. He swallowed hard, trying to push his heart out of his throat. "I think..." He paused for a long moment. "I want to start studying this."
Clark blinked and shook his head, plainly taken aback. "Huh?"
Lex turned a leg under him and pulled a sheet over his lap, trying his best to look authoritative despite his combined state of undress, afterglow, and befuddlement. "Look, the only way we're going to get this under control when it's time is if we study it and understand it beforehand. I've tried to bring this up a few times since the caves, but you always cut me off at the pass."
"I—"
"I know," Lex pressed on, "that neither of us wants to have to think about it, Clark. But I think it is time that we start dealing with it. This... incident could mean nothing, or be incredibly important, or rest somewhere in between. And we won't know which unless we look into it. We simply can't let our ignorance go on like this."
Clark didn't answer. For a long time, he merely stared at Lex's now clean belly, his brows drawing more and more tightly together as his stress level went through the roof. Lex wanted to say something to calm him down, but the truth was that the only way Clark was likely to take a solid step toward understanding how his body worked was if he was more frightened of the consequences of not being prepared than he was of the knowledge itself. Lex knew his mind was going to all sorts of horrifying and unnatural places right now, and he purposefully kept his mouth shut and let it.
Eventually, Clark opened his mouth, but then he closed it again and shook his head. "I just..." he said, never raising his gaze from Lex's stomach, "...can't handle any more crap. I... really just can't."
"It's going to be all right, Clark," Lex said quietly. "We're going to deal with this together."
Clark let out a disbelieving laugh devoid of humour. "How can we even hope to understand this? This... alien genetic manipulation? I mean, we don't know the first thing about Kryptonian physiology."
Lex let a small smile sit on his mouth, waiting until Clark was bothered enough by the long silence to meet his eyes. "Clark, I've spent the last six years manipulating the genes of microscopic organisms that are arguably the basis of life on this planet. And yet they're so different from humans as to be easily considered alien." He shrugged. "I think I've got the experience needed for the job."
Clark blinked at him silently. "The phytoplankton."
Lex nodded once.
"Ceres Terra."
"Mm."
"I—" Clark looked stunned.
Lex smirked. "If you're concerned about my education, I do have a masters in genetics."
"Oh, my god." Clark shook his head in plain disbelief. "Why didn't I ever—? You've been spending all this time... researching them... learning how to genetically engineer them to stop doing what they were doing and start doing what you wanted them to do. I mean, it's practically like you've been practicing for this!"
The smugness of Lex's smile suddenly dissipated, instead leaving him with a frozen expression. "It's... just a coincidence, Clark."
Clark snorted loudly. "After what you saw in that cave, Lex, I'm surprised you can still use that word with a straight face."
Lex's smile faded altogether even as Clark's started to assert itself.
Clark was thinking the very thing Lex had wanted him to—that it was awfully handy that Lex had a great deal of experience in this field, and that he knew all about Clark's nature, and so would be the perfect person to help him get his reproductive abilities under control before they asserted themselves. It was the thought of the cave that had given him pause, and it had come to his mind just before Clark had mentioned it.
Though it was all so much muddle now, during his communion with Jor-El, Lex had seen every connection in his life, from his past to his present to every possible future. But he knew he had seen them not because Jor-El wished to enlighten him, but rather because Jor-El had wished to enlighten himself. Lex had just been along for the ride.
But what had just occurred to him was that this necessarily meant that Jor-El must have realized that if anyone on Earth could help Clark defeat the genetically enhanced reproduction Jor-El had programmed him with, it would be Lex. If he knew that... why did he even let Lex live?
Jor-El's desire for Clark to take over the planet and turn it into a quasi-Kryptonian Eden was dependent on his ability to pepper the world with his super-powered progeny. Was Jor-El that confident that Clark would change his mind when the time came? Or did he believe his plan would be achievable even if Clark decided not to go that route?
Or was Jor-El just certain that it was going to be impossible for anyone to put a stop to what he had put in motion?
For a moment, the thought was sobering. Kryptonians had possessed technology well beyond Earth's abilities. They had transported their last son safely across who knew how many galaxies at impossible speeds—a task humans were centuries if not millennia from being able to achieve. What chance did Lex have to single-handedly thwart their carefully laid out plans?
But it was only a moment. Because Lex was made of stronger stuff. And as all impossible things eventually did, this task offered itself as a challenge.
"We're gonna figure this out, Clark. Together. Okay?"
Clark's smile had become more confident, more relaxed. "Okay." His eyes softened, and he scooted a little closer. "I trust you, Lex."
Lex reached out and wrapped an arm around Clark's neck, bringing him close for a gentle kiss, even as his determination hardened into diamond-like inviolability.
~
Pete looked up from his pile of schoolwork and sighed in sympathy.
He and Chloe were at the public library, ostensibly to study together. But while Pete had interpreted ‘study’ to mean ‘work on school stuff,’ to Chloe it had apparently meant ‘plop yourself down in front of the microfiche machine and go through every Smallville Ledger published since the meteor shower looking for mentions of our good friend Clark Kent.’
In any other situation, Pete probably would have been trying to talk her out of it, distract her, get her to focus on something else. But after hearing what had happened between Chloe and Clark at school, he understood where she was coming from. Chloe believed she'd blown any chance she'd ever had at having Clark confide in her on his own, and she figured the only way she was going to be able to prove herself again was if she found out the truth for herself, went to Clark with it, and showed him that she could keep a secret when it really mattered.
Pete wasn't sure how right she was. He knew that if Clark found out Chloe was still investigating him, it would only make him angrier. He also was pretty sure that if Chloe found out the truth and went to him with it, she would initially push Clark farther away. But she might have been right that, given time, as Clark saw that Chloe could be trusted with what she'd found out, she would regain his trust by default.
That, or he'd just never talk to her again.
For his own part, Pete was deeply and privately hurt by Chloe's distress. He was always aware that he could just open his mouth and tell her the very things she strove to know, but he'd never felt that helplessness as acutely as he did right now. But it wasn't his right to tell Chloe what Clark wasn't ready for her to hear, and he knew there wasn't anything he could do from the other end, either. Clark was pissed, and he had a right to be pissed, and Pete knew if he tried to say anything to Clark, he'd just be told to butt the hell out.
Having to watch her go through frame after frame after frame of newsprint, trying to gather information only so that she could go tell Clark she'd never reveal it to anyone, all in a wild gamble to win his trust back, all the while knowing that he had the ability to put a stop to it if only he was willing to break his own word, was an agonizing form of suffering. He couldn't help but feel somewhat responsible for what Chloe was putting herself through. She knew she'd made a mistake in telling Lois, and Pete knew she wouldn't do something like that ever again, and how badly she regretted it. Surely if Clark was anything but totally clueless, he must have known that Chloe was a good friend, that she would never purposefully hurt him. He must have known how foolish he would be to walk away from her because of one thoughtless mistake.
Regardless, Pete knew Chloe wasn't going to unravel the truth spending five straight hours at the microfiche machine, no matter how many Clark-related articles she found, because she'd already told him what track she was on, and it was the wrong track: Contrary to Chloe's suspicions, Pete knew Clark was no meteor freak.
So, for the first several hours, he'd remained silent, letting her bury herself in her research, which was an activity he knew offered her more comfort than just about anything else could when she was seriously upset—even him. He'd just sat quietly by, plugging away at his own mountain of homework, letting her work it all out, offering moral support only by his presence. But now it was getting close to closing time, and Chloe had been rubbing her eyes every two minutes for at least the last forty-five. She needed to take a break—preferably an all-night break—and Pete didn't want the library's PA system to make the decision for her. It was better she was convinced of it herself, or she'd never relax.
Quietly, Pete closed his Macroeconomics book and approached her chair. She jumped slightly when his hands slid over her shoulders, but he'd been expecting that and didn't let his caress stutter. As he massaged gently at the tight cords of muscle there, she let out a pained little grunt and closed her eyes, letting her head fall forward for a moment.
"Hey," he whispered, and placed a firm kiss on the crown of her head. Her hair smelled like peaches and cream and salt and he inhaled deeply, closing his eyes on one of his favourite scents. "How about we take off and do something fun, huh?" he murmured into soft strands.
She looked up again and focussed on the screen, her head straining forward a bit as she squinted at it, the muscles under his hands tensing back to where they'd been. "I might be on to something, here."
Pete sighed softly. "Yeah?"
"Do you know that nearly every article about Lex's frequent violent run-ins either mentions Clark, alludes to Clark, or, if it doesn't, I already happen to know Clark was involved? There are only a couple that don't seem to have any connection to him, but I'm willing to bet that with some more research, I can dig up something that shows he was somehow associated with it."
"Hm. So maybe Clark gets Lex in trouble just so he can help him out."
Chloe snorted, his intended response. "There's an idea." She paused. "Though I wouldn't totally rule out the reverse."
"How do you mean?"
"Maybe Lex gets himself into trouble because he knows Clark will come rescue him. You know? Like in that old show... um, what was it, with Linda Hamilton?"
Pete shrugged, though she couldn't see him.
"Beauty and the Beast!" she said suddenly. "The beast character could feel when the beauty character was in trouble and he'd come running to save her. She started purposefully putting herself into harm's way because she knew she'd get to see him. Then one day he got hurt or captured or something, and she felt like a real ass."
Pete snickered. "Sorry, is Lex the beauty in this scenario?"
She chuckled and shook her head, which would have been a good sign if she hadn't reached out and slid the microfilm roll to the next page. "I don't know if that's part of it, anyway. But Clark definitely seems to be attuned to him somehow. I mean, how does he know where to show up? And just when? And how is he just in time every time?"
"Chlo—"
"Lex was in town the day of the meteor shower, and Clark was orphaned that same day. And I can't help wondering, from what we've seen about the way that stuff works on people, is it possible they were near each other at the time? Somehow... I don't know... connected by the same falling piece? Some bond made—maybe a psychic one—that draws them together? At least, maybe in times of danger."
"Hm. All very good theories. Hey, listen. I'm hungry. And this schoolwork is killing me. You want to go get something to eat with me? Take a little break?"
"Um." Chloe checked her watch quickly, then a second time, surprised. "Oh. We've been here a while."
"Yeah," Pete agreed, keeping his voice casual. "I've had about all I can take of GDP, price indices, and long-run economic growth. I need fries."
"I'm not really hungry..." she said, but he could tell by her trailing tone that she was at least slightly open for convincing.
He smiled at the minor victory and moved around her chair to crouch at her side. "If you come watch me eat, I promise I'll do very childish things with french fries that will make you laugh."
She chuckled quietly at the mental images this promise likely encouraged, placing her hand over her mouth to stifle the sound and avoid being shushed.
"Come on," he encouraged, drawing out the vowels as he got to his feet and reached over to tug on her far hand, encouraging her out of the chair. "Let me treat you to the gastronomical ecstasy of the fine gourmand cuisine found only... at the Smallville Diner."
She finally got out of the chair, turning her back on the microfiche and snickering with obvious fondness.
"I don't know if you know this," Pete said in a quiet, conspiratorial tone, "but I'm unemployed."
Chloe nodded, grinning and wincing at the same time. "I've heard, yeah."
He pulled her just a little closer, pretending not to notice when she shot a quick, longing look at the machine out of the corner of her eye. "But I happen to know that all you really need right now is a strawberry milkshake topped with nauseating amounts of whipped cream and at least two cherries. And that, my love," he placed a quick, gentle kiss on her smiling lips, "is something this humble high school student is thankfully able to provide."
~
"Are you ready?"
"Nnnnope!" Clark said cheerily, hiking up his shirt a little farther.
Lex chuckled and squirted some of the gel onto Clark's belly.
He jerked lightly. "Ooh, that's cold."
Lex met his gaze, smirking. "It'll warm up," he said, though he knew that Clark secretly enjoyed the chill.
The old lab hadn't been used in years. Lex had done some of his own research down here just after he'd come to Smallville, before he'd taken over LuthorCorp and acquired access to all the resources he could have ever wanted. There had been some pieces of equipment still down here that were no longer necessary, others that needed updated, and a few that he could still use. Over the course of the last week, he'd had all new lighting installed, cleaned out the old, and brought in the new.
The ultrasound machine, and much of the other telling equipment, had been brought down by deliverymen, still boxed in plain containers that did not suggest what might be inside other than to say ‘fragile equipment’ and helpful information regarding which side was up. As necessary, he'd covered what was already there with white sheets as new items were brought in by new men unrelated to even the companies who had brought in the other items, ensuring that no one but himself and Clark had any idea what they were going to be doing in this room.
Lex's house staff, of course, had been aware that large package after large package had been delivered to this room and, despite their unflappable professionalism, he was sure at least a few were curious. They had probably been even more curious as they realized that Lex and Clark were disappearing into the lab together, rather than just their eccentric employer all by his lonesome. But as far as Lex was concerned, let them all think the deliveries had been of a bunch of kinky sex equipment and he was turning the lab into a pleasure dungeon. It was better that than any of them stumbling across the truth of what they were doing and getting a little too curious.
Yesterday, Lex'd had a state of the art hospital bed brought in, and made it himself with soft, dark coloured sheets, trying to avoid making it feel like a hospital bed. The more comfortable Clark was, the easier this would go for both of them. He knew Clark wasn't looking forward to this, but had finally agreed to take a step because they had to do something and a peek inside was as good a start as any. Besides, this was going to be abdominal rather than anal, making the procedure completely noninvasive, and with Lex at the controls and Clark being able to keep his clothes on, more or less, it was about as comfortable as any medical procedure could be.
Lex's chair was set up beside the bed, in front of the monitor mounted atop the machine and attached to the control board, all on its wheeled stand. Clark was stretched out on the bed, his red tee hiked up to his chest, his pendant lost in its folds, his jeans unzipped, and they and his underwear tugged down to the first blush of pubic hair.
As Clark plainly concentrated on keeping his breathing steady to avoid holding it, Lex began spreading the liberal amount of gel around Clark's belly with the transducer.
The ultrasound screen flared to life in a jumbled, staticky view of blue and black and Lex immediately squinted and started trying to find a frame of reference. He had used an ultrasound machine before, several times when he was a child: When his mother was pregnant with Julian, Lex had been a hellion about getting to use the transducer to take a picture of the baby and, with a possibly inappropriate pride at his son's spoiled insistence to be allowed to take the reins, Lionel had quickly found the technician's price and Lex had gotten his first lesson.
He'd picked it up pretty easily, understanding that everything on the screen was reversed—left side to right—and that the top of the image was not the space under his mother's ribs like it would have been natural to assume, but actually the skin directly under the transducer. The technician had been surprised at the speed with which Lex had grasped these seemingly simple but orientationally difficult basics and had moved on to explaining the effects various types of body structures had on the sonogram image: Solid things, like bones, were bright white; anything filled with fluid and healthy, like a liver, looked empty, and if you scanned through it, you could often see objects on the other side more clearly (this was partly why it had been so easy to see Julian floating in his amniotic haven—his mother's uncomfortably full bladder had been a big help as well); when sections appeared fuzzy or difficult to make out, it was often because something that did not conduct well, like body fat or bowel gas, was in the way.
He'd been given nearly twenty minutes this first time, until his mother announced that if he didn't let her up immediately, she was going to wet her gown. As a precocious child, he had of course assumed he was now practically an expert. As he spent so much of his young life in and out of hospitals, being bombarded with myriads of tests to try to figure out what had happened to his body to cause him to lose all his hair, if it would ever grow back and when, and why his white blood cell count was constantly off the charts but he showed no other signs of cancer, he had insisted on learning everything he could be taught about the equipment around him and the procedures he was undergoing. Many times he'd found himself once again under a transducer and each time he'd insisted on being allowed to scan himself and had learned just a little more about how it worked.
Soon he understood how to best and most quickly orient the image, how to assess blood flow, how to identify each organ and differentiate among them, and how to obtain and read closeup images of particular organs. If he had to suffer through all of these procedures, he figured he might as well get to take something away from them. He knew now it had just been his way of attempting to distance himself from what was being done to him, but at the time he'd just wanted to learn, and learn he did.
In college, he'd taken all the medical and science courses he could fit around his business courses and had been given further opportunities to use various medical machinery, including both 2D and 3D ultrasound machines. While he had never actually undergone the certification procedures, Lex was confident enough in his ability to read sonograms that he believed he could do some good here.
He didn't have a choice, of course. Unless Clark looked absolutely human inside—in which case the scan would be useless anyway—there was no way they could bring someone else in without putting him at risk.
Lex quickly orientated the scan and moved in for a closer look at what they were both sure would be the most obvious difference between Clark's insides and, for example, Lex's own; an organ he'd seen on many sonograms, but never one done on a male. "Yep," he said, nodding slightly. "There it is."
Clark winced. "A... uterus?"
"Mm-hm."
From the lesson they'd been exposed to in the caves when Clark had asked for information on his own biology, they had expected this, but Clark had of course still been hoping maybe they were wrong.
"It's not the same shape and it's quite a bit bigger—in fact, all of your organs seem larger than humans’—but that's definitely what it is."
"Great," he muttered unenthusiastically, and Lex did his best to hold down a smirk.
He backed out of the image of the womb, finding nothing particularly amazing about it other than its unusual size, and began seeking out other portions of Clark's internal structure. The images were all unusually clear, and Lex belatedly realized it was because he was coming across very little body fat. Other than himself, almost everyone he'd ever scanned or seen being scanned had been pregnant women, and he was used to grainier images.
"This is interesting," Lex murmured to himself. "Everything's just a little out of alignment—not quite where you would expect it to be. Guess they had to make room..."
He continued slowly sliding the transducer across Clark's belly, then over his abdomen, viewing not only his reproductive organs but also taking the opportunity to seek out the gall bladder, liver, pancreas, stomach (larger than usual, of course, which explained so very much), and intestines, finding them all intact and healthy, but none of them in quite the right place. The closer to Clark's heart that the transducer travelled, however, the closer the organs became to human placement, his stomach almost in the right place, and his literally large heart right where it belonged. It became obvious that his internal structure had been slightly adjusted so as to not crowd out the extra reproductive organs he would be developing.
Curiosity momentarily satisfied, Lex lifted the transducer from the height to which it had travelled and replaced it on Clark's belly several inches below his navel. "All right, let's see..." He used the control board to move the image closer and farther away, squinting to make out details, taking his time so as to not miss anything. "Hm... that's interesting..."
He continued to mutter to himself as each detail made itself apparent, some more surprising than others.
He was so involved in the image that he only became aware how long Clark had been completely silent when he made a small, distressed sound in the back of his throat. Lex automatically glanced at the transducer to be sure everything was all right with it, then briefly at Clark's face, then back to the screen. His brain caught up half a second later and he did a double-take, finding Clark's expression pinched, his lips pressed tightly together in a thin, grimacing line, his eyes straining up and to the right, away from Lex and the machine and the monitor, the lids rimmed in red.
For a moment, Lex's lips parted in astonishment, not understanding why Clark appeared so upset, but he just as quickly grasped his situation.
For years it had felt to Lex that he was perpetually in and out of doctors’ offices, subjected to a million tests, poked, prodded, and ‘hmm’ed over with maddening regularity, being told by well-meaning scientists that he was ‘an interesting kid’ and that he'd ‘make it into the medical textbooks.’ But Lex hadn't wanted to make it into the medical textbooks. He'd just wanted to be home or at school and not be looked at twice by his peers. He'd just wanted to not have to feel like such a freak.
Lex reached out with his free hand to cup the curve of Clark's jaw fiercely, even as he lifted the transducer from his belly and dropped it unceremoniously into the slot made for it on the machine's frame. "Clark," he said, reaching out with his other hand to cradle Clark's face in his palms, and encourage him to turn his head. "Clark, look at me."
At first it seemed that he might not, his neck straining farther away, his gaze seeming to reach for the farthermost corner of the room, shining moisture veiling his eyes. But then he suddenly tossed his head toward Lex, not meeting his eyes, staring blindly toward his chest instead, the furrows between his eyebrows becoming twice as deep.
"Clark," Lex insisted, stroking his cheeks firmly with his thumbs. "Please look at me."
Slowly, he did, meeting Lex's gaze briefly twice before finally holding it.
Lex opened his mouth, hesitated, and closed it. Instead, he just looked at him, rubbing his thumbs over Clark's jaw, cheekbones, lips, chin, letting his fingers trail over his neck and throat and earlobes, saying nothing, hoping his eyes could affirm the things Clark should already know were true.
You're not a science experiment.
You're not a freak.
You are a person, and we are doing this together. I am not doing it to you.
I love you.
Lex stared and stared, stroked and caressed his skin, willing it all to come through, and soon Clark's expression began to smooth, his eyes to clear. Finally, he blinked, and the hurt once clouding his eyes dissipated, replaced with first realization, then calm, and finally tenderness. The corner of his mouth twitched as if considering a small, sheepish smile.
Lex leaned forward and laid their mouths gently together. Clark's tightly crossed arms relaxed, three warm, dry fingers tentatively stroking the edge of Lex's jaw, then moving away. Lex kissed him twice more before leaning back, holding his gaze steadily. "Okay?" he asked in a whisper.
Clark nodded once, one upturned corner of his mouth soon becoming two as the sheepish smile finally asserted itself and he looked down and shook his head, as if feeling foolish. "Yeah," he said softly. "Okay. I'm okay."
Lex swiped a thumb over Clark's smiling mouth once more. "You're sure?"
A soft breath of a laugh puffed across Lex's thumb. "Yeah," he said, his voice normalizing, and he adjusted his position on the bed, moving up a bit to centre his head on the pillow. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry," he shrugged. "I don't..."
"Nothing to be sorry for," Lex whispered, and kissed him quickly once more before taking his hands away. He put one hand on the transducer, looking at Clark and raising his eyebrows slightly in question, only continuing when he was given an assured nod and a smile.
He gently replaced it where it had been, low on Clark's belly, and the screen flared back to life. Clark held his tee up with loose fists, and eyes that were so recently filled with shame and distress were now genuinely interested. He craned his neck to try to see the screen and Lex turned the stand a bit, leaning to his left so they could both see it.
He found the womb again and pointed it out. "See that?"
Clark nodded awkwardly against his pillow, neck twisted at an unnatural angle. "Is that it? Jeez, it's huge, isn't it?"
"Mm-hm. And this..." Lex found the smaller object he'd been studying before he'd noticed Clark's discomfort and worked the control board to get a closer look.
"What?"
"I'm not sure... it looks almost like a very large gland... sort of an ellipse, see?" he was tracing it on the screen, trying to differentiate it from the background for Clark's benefit.
Clark snorted, looking away from the screen and at Lex instead. "Gland?" he said wryly. "Maybe it's my missing prostate."
Lex glanced at him briefly, smirking. "That's a thought. But I don't think so. I think..." he trailed off and sighed. "All right, I can't be sure, but I think this is, for lack of a better word... an ovary."
Clark's head whipped back to the screen.
"It's not the same size and shape as a female ovary—it's considerably larger—and I only see one, but I'm pretty sure that's its purpose."
"I can't even tell..."
Lex lifted a hand to the screen, once again tracing out the edges of the object he was referring to.
Clark scoffed. "That just looks like a mass of blue on black, Lex."
"Yeah, I know. But I'm telling you, it's there."
"An ovary, though?" Clark seemed unconvinced. "I mean, I actually possess an ovary?"
Lex chuckled and met his doubtful gaze. "Should that be surprising? He did say you were hermaphroditic. What did you think you were gonna put in that womb?"
Clark shrugged and looked back to the screen, squinting. "Yeah, I know. But I thought... I-I don't know, I guess I just didn't think it through in detail." He paused, staring uncomprehendingly at the screen. "But, seriously, that's actually an ovary?"
"Well..." Lex hedged, "I think so. Not quite like a human one, though. I have to say, these genetic adjustments—assuming Kryptonian males are normally like human males—they're just ingenious. Your biological parents were absolutely brilliant."
"What do you mean? What's so ingenious about an ovary?"
"No, it's..." Lex sought around a bit with the transducer, finding some of the objects he'd been privately studying earlier. "In a human female, the ovaries each have one tube, which goes into the uterus. Once a month, an egg is released from an ovary into the fallopian tube and, if it remains unfertilized, it's expelled from the uterus during menstruation."
Clark, of course, had been to Biology, so this was not news to him. "Right..."
"But this ovary has two tubes leading from it. One into the... well, your uterus—"
Clark couldn't help the curl that ran across his upper lip.
"—but the other... you see..." Lex leaned forward, moving the transducer back and forth over a small area, fiddling with the control board to get the best image he could.
Interested, Clark sat partway up to get a better view. The screen suddenly became a mass of blue static.
Lex's hand stilled. "You've got to relax your abdomen, Clark," he said gently. "I have to push in a little bit to get a good image."
"Oh. Sorry." Clark laid back down, craning his neck, and Lex took a minute to adjust the angle of the screen so Clark could see it a little better.
"There," he said, finally getting the image he wanted. "It's hard to see, but... right there."
Lex pointed out what seemed to Clark to be pieces of a line slightly darker than its surroundings moving down the screen.
Clark shook his head and half shrugged. "I can hardly see anything."
"In a human female, the fallopian tubes aren't usually even visible on an ultrasound at all unless they're diseased. This is quite a bit larger than that, but you're right: It's still not easy to see."
He moved the transducer a little lower. "But do you see that, uh... that darker bit of line there?" he said, running a finger along the screen. "That ovary also has a second tube, which looks like it leads right into your testes."
Clark only looked at him in dubious confusion, not sure what the significance was.
"You see?" Lex said, though it was surely obvious that Clark did not. "So, just like in a human female, your ova can be released into the uterus for possible fertilization. But ova can also be released into the testes, where sperm is being produced, so that when you ejaculate, you emit both sperm and ova. Therefore, if you turned out to be gay—which you are—and you turned out to be a top—which you often are—you would still be able to engage in fatherhood. As a bottom, your body could of course act maternally, and as a top, you could cause your partners’ bodies to act maternally."
These were all things that Jor-El had already explained, but not in quite so much detail, so it was still enlightening to understand the step-by-step process behind it. Besides, this situation was quite a bit calmer than the shocking one they'd undergone in the caves.
Clark only stared at Lex for a few beats, processing this information. "You know, I don't really think I'm ‘often’ a top."
Lex was still peering into the image, and met his gaze suddenly, his studious attention briefly skewed. "Oh?" he said with obvious surprise.
"Well..." The sudden focussed attention brought a blush to Clark's cheeks and he looked at Lex with wide eyes, trying to convey what he wasn't saying.
Lex smirked, looking a bit smug. "Well, suffice it to say you used to be. True, I think we've, uh... expanded your horizons a bit over the past half year or so." He looked back to the screen, clearing his throat. "Maybe both our horizons," he added.
Clark tried unsuccessfully to hold down his own smug grin.
He was sure Lex noticed, but he let him get away with it. "You know," he said seriously as he continually adjusted the transducer, "if you were human, I could tell you exactly how to stop multiple pregnancies—or any pregnancy for that matter—when your cells start to mature."
Clark's eyebrows arched in surprise. "Oh?" he said, his awe plain in his voice. "Already? That's impressive."
Lex shrugged, obviously not quite so impressed. "Well, it's simple." He gestured at the screen. "Just clip the tubes—both the one going into the uterus and the one going into the testes."
Clark looked back at the screen, trying and failing to follow the tubes all the way from origin to destination with his eyes. He wasn't even sure which tube Lex was looking at right now. He could have told him there was a little Martian inside Clark's belly, directing his blood flow and electrical impulses, and Clark wouldn't have been able to argue the point based on these images.
"Unfortunately," Lex concluded, "in your case, it wouldn't work."
This, at least, was something Clark readily understood. He nodded. "I'd have to be exposed to kryptonite to even get you in, and then after you took it away, I'd just heal."
"Precisely."
Clark stared at the screen in silence as Lex continued to seek with the transducer and mess with the controls. He hesitated for a while, but finally couldn't help himself. "You know... maybe if you did it and then just left a little piece—"
"Clark," Lex interrupted, his tone leaving no room for misunderstanding. "No."
Clark swallowed hard, remembering the one other time they'd spoken of kryptonite, and Clark's attempt to use it toward his own ends. Lex's anger and hurt had been palpable then, and Clark felt it no less now. "But just a tiny piece, Lex," he said, keeping his voice quiet and nonconfrontational. "Just at the severed ends, to keep it from healing. Not enough to make me feel sick all over. Like, maybe just some dust or a paste or something like that, adhered to the cuts, would do it."
Lex exhaled heavily, but he didn't immediately discard the idea as Clark thought he might. Instead, he appeared regretful—either that Clark had thought of it, or that Clark had verbalized it, or perhaps that Lex had already thought of it himself and wished he had something better with which to parry.
"Look, Clark..." he started, shaking his head and staring blindly at the control board, "we're just starting out, here. There have to be other options. I'd like to research the ones that don't include cutting you open and poisoning you, if you don't mind."
Clark was briefly silent. "Okay," he agreed quietly. "But... if we can't figure anything else out..."
Again, Lex sighed, and closed his eyes briefly. He gave a nearly imperceptible nod. "Only if the time is close and we've tried everything else."
"Okay," Clark said immediately but softly, then paused. "You know, for what it's worth, I hope there's another way, too. I mean, I'm not eager to introduce that stuff into my body, Lex. I'm really not."
Lex finally graced him with a small smile, then looked back to the screen, almost physically shaking himself from the unsettling idea of using kryptonite to force Clark's bizarre internal structure into submission.
After gazing at it for a few more seconds, his brow furrowed. "You know, there's just one thing I don't understand."
Clark snorted loudly at the annoyance in Lex's voice as he spouted this surely ridiculous assertion. "There's one thing?" he repeated incredulously.
"Well..." Lex shrugged and smirked in his direction, acknowledging there was quite a bit more he didn't fully understand. "I get that after ejaculation inside your partner, your ova would join with his sperm for fertilization, then probably seek out an abdominal cavity to take root and begin to develop. But what I don't get is how it would join with his sperm."
Clark shrugged, that question only raising more questions in his mind. "Yeah, well, how would sperm get to my... womb-thing?"
Lex glanced at him out of the corner of his eye briefly as he'd floundered for the word. "No, that's actually pretty clear: There's a passage..." He moved the transducer to the right and down, and pressed it in. "See there? That's the top of your rectum, attached to the sigmoid colon as it should be."
Clark didn't, not really, but he nodded anyway.
"But..." he moved it slightly farther to the right and slightly farther down. "See that there?"
It was another slightly darker line, or bits of one. Clark was surprised to realize that must have meant it was a tube just like the tubes from the ovary Lex had pointed out and Clark had barely been able to see. Maybe he was getting the hang of reading this thing after all.
"That tube doesn't belong. At the other end, it disappears behind the..." Lex's hesitation was less about discomfort and more a mild amusement at Clark's own floundering, "‘womb-thing’... and I'm guessing it connects to it at the back. Here, it branches off from the rectum. Now, certainly not all sperm would find their way in there, but some would. Even if only one in a million made it to the uterus, you'd still have around fifty or so, and assuming you had five or six ova sitting there waiting—"
Clark lifted his hands from his hiked up tee and waved his surrender, palms out, head inclined and shaking. "Okay, okay! That's... I really don't need to hear any more."
"Right," Lex said and awkwardly continued on. "Uh... but, anyway... the average human male's semen doesn't spend its leisure time hanging around its own rectum, so I'm not sure how exactly your ova would access sperm in your partners’ bodies."
Clark felt a hot beat of shame go through him every time Lex referred to his imaginary multiple partners. He wanted to say, ‘don't say that; my partner is you, not some group of unnamed men.’ But he understood why Lex would prefer not to say ‘my body’ or ‘my sperm.’ If Clark could have distanced himself from this situation, he would have, too. He was already trying, though failing, to pretend he was looking at someone else's ultrasound. But it still somehow made him feel like a big cheater.
Lex paused, looking not at the screen, but through it, plainly considering some new idea.
"What?"
"Hm?" Lex met his gaze, then looked back to the screen, giving a half shrug. "Oh, I just... You know, I wonder if perhaps your eggs are mobile."
"Uh... Huh?"
"Well, I'm wondering what shape they are," Lex explained, gesturing vaguely in the air with his free hand. "The common thing to envision is a round, bulky cell, like a human female's ovum, or a barely macroscopic chicken egg, but for all we know, Kryptonian ova could look remarkably like human sperm. I wonder if they're equipped with an appendage to help them move around outside your body. It would still be a hell of a lot of travelling, but I suppose that if your ova are able to survive longer than human ova or sperm, it might be possible for them to travel inside a human male body, find the testes, extract a few spermatozoa, and then travel to an appropriate abdominal cavity before putting down roots." He paused. "Or... perhaps they can levitate."
This last was offered with obviously fake casualness and a still beat went by before he looked at Clark out of the corner of his eye. Clark scowled, instantly soured on the idea, then looked away with a slight roll of his eyes. "I can't fly, Lex," he muttered.
Lex looked back to the screen. "If you say so," he said, the indifference evident but not believable. "But there is a difference between not being able to and not wanting to..."
Clark wanted to argue the point, but he only swallowed hard and didn't respond. Lex was already leaning more closely to the screen as he finished his sentence, apparently halfway to closing the subject even before he'd finished speaking. He was biting his lip, staring into the ultrasound image as if it was purposefully and perhaps spitefully hiding something from him.
"What I need," he said, as if someone had asked him this in exasperation, "is a sample to put under a microscope."
Clark scoffed his disbelief. "Lex," he said in no uncertain terms, "I am not jerking off into a cup so that you can sift through my jizz."
Lex looked at him suddenly, his eyes wide, his expression honestly surprised. "Why not?" he asked, plainly mystified at Clark's lack of cooperation.
Clark's jaw dropped. "Because it's undignified, that's why!" he cried. He threw his hands into the air in an impotent gesture, wanting very much to toss the transducer across the room, but somehow sure it cost as much as or more than a new car. "This whole damn thing is undignified!"
Lex's arm relaxed, pulling the transducer a few inches away from Clark's stomach. As the screen went black, Lex watched him carefully for a few seconds. The rate of Clark's breath had increased with his agitation, something he now knew he must have picked up from humans over the years.
"How can it be undignified, Clark?" Lex finally asked, his voice soft and calm. "This is your body. It's what you're made of. Not taking the time to understand it is certainly not going to make it any easier to deal with the things it throws at you as you get older."
Clark took a deep breath, opened his mouth to argue, but his words were stunted before they ever emerged and he closed his mouth with a click. Lex was right, and they both knew it.
His cheeks burned red, and he crossed his arms tightly over his chest, though it was awkward in his position to do so, his pendant and bunched up shirt hitching his arms up too high. For a long time, he said nothing, merely glaring angrily at the ceiling. Then, finally, he closed his eyes tight from embarrassment and turned his face away. "I hate this," he breathed at the dark.
There was brief silence and then Lex sighed softly and there was a rustling sound. Softness was swiped across Clark's belly, removing the conductive gel. Then there was a click and the sound of something big powering down. Soon after, a warm hand rested where the transducer had been.
"I know, Clark."
With an angry movement, Clark reached down and tugged his pants and underwear up. The fly was closed and he was reaching just as roughly for his shirt when he felt a light touch on his ribs and finally opened his eyes to find Lex pulling it into place for him. He straightened the cloth carefully and smoothed it down from sternum to hem, then gently placed Clark's pendant over his heart. His hand then drifted down to rest on his belly again. Clark looked down at it, watching the fingers trace soft, elliptical patterns on the shirt, beside his navel.
Somehow, he wanted to not be comforted, to remain angry, to perhaps even turn his anger on Lex, as blaming someone might have made him feel a little better, and since Lex was the man at the controls, he was pretty handy. But the soft touch did comfort him, did calm him, and he knew he wasn't really angry at Lex and that yelling at him would probably only make him feel worse instead of better.
His anger was at the fact that this had to be done, that they were forced to make such efforts to understand Clark's physiology before it came around to bite them both in about a decade. His anger was where it had always been: At the fact that he was not normal, that he would never be normal, and that no matter what he did or how he hoped, he was destined to be reminded of just how different he was again and again and again.
Maybe he was angry at Lex just a little bit. Just because Lex always seemed to be better at dealing with the weird stuff than Clark himself was. Maybe he was a little jealous that he couldn't accept himself as readily as Lex was able to accept him.
But what he most certainly was, when all was said and done, was grateful. Because Clark wouldn't have ever imagined that he would find someone who would be better equipped to handle the alien stuff than the alien himself was. Humans thought themselves lucky when they found a partner who accepted the way they squeezed the toothpaste tube or the fact that they snored like a band saw. But finding someone who could readily accept that you were a genetically engineered hermaphroditic alien sent to Earth to reproduce indiscriminately and perform a super-powered hostile takeover of the entire world? That wasn't just lucky. It was inconceivable.
Clark let out a long sigh, continuing to watch Lex's hand move gently on his stomach, feeling his tension fade away.
"Lex—"
"It's all right, Clark," he said, and leaned forward to place a gentle kiss at the corner of his mouth. "I know."
~
"Hey, there he is."
Martha looked up from the books, immediately and casually turning the page filled with the calculations they had been tweaking for the past hour, leaving a blank page on top. Her son was stepping through the door, jacket too thin for the bracingly cold temperature outside, snow lining the collar and melting into his long, loose hair.
"Hey, Clark. Did you have dinner?"
He stopped to take his shoes off just inside the door, sparing them only a glance, but no smile. "Nah, I'm not hungry. Thanks, Mom."
Martha immediately shared a concerned look with her husband. It wasn't just the lack of interest in dinner—though that on its own was enough cause for alarm when it came to Clark's normally voracious appetite—but his tone was so glum it made her feel downtrodden. "Everything all right, Clark?"
Clark sighed, hanging up his damp jacket, and padded into the kitchen and straight for the fridge. Martha, knowing where he was headed, turned to get a glass for him out of the cupboard so that when he came over with the carafe of milk in hand, it was ready for him. He offered her a wan smile as he took the glass. "Thanks."
"Something... going on with Lex, son?" Jonathan asked from where he still stood by the kitchen island. "You don't seem too happy."
Clark looked out the corner of his eye at his father as he gulped down half a glass of milk. When he stopped to take a breath, he nodded, wiping his mouth. "Yeah... we did the scan to-day."
"Ah."
Jonathan was already sliding onto a stool and Martha went to join him, Clark following as if unable to resist the draw of their gravity. He sat down with a sigh.
Clark had mentioned that he and Lex were trying to figure out how his reproductive system worked, and they approved of the effort, not so much in spite of their fears, but rather because of them. Ever since the things Clark had learned about himself in the cave, Martha and Jonathan had been concerned about what it was going to mean for their son's future in general, and certainly what it would mean regarding his relationship with Lex.
The three of them hadn't talked about it much, not after the first time when they'd spent hours talking it all out as Lex lay unconscious in Clark's bed, exhausted from his own experience in the caves. But it had always been hanging over them, silently. Finding out when he did had given him a good amount of time to figure out what he was going to do when his procreative abilities began to assert themselves around the age of twenty-seven or so. But time had continued marching resolutely forward and, as far as Martha and Jonathan could tell, no one had been making any effort to figure out what to do about it. Clark avoided the subject like it had the plague, and after receiving Lex's angry assurance he wouldn't be running for the hills because of this new and disturbing information, Martha hadn't felt she had the right to pry any farther.
When Clark had nervously mentioned that he and Lex were finally going to start trying to figure out how this was going to work, Martha had to admit she felt a sense of relief. She wasn't so sure that there was anything to be done, but Clark insisted that Lex was a scientist, a genius, and if anyone could figure it out, it would be him. The newspapers touted his brilliance in the field of genetic manipulation every time Ceres Terra had a new development, so she couldn't exactly disagree.
But despite her and her husband's relief and even the cautious hope and optimism they employed, they both knew how uncomfortable this was for Clark. She'd had a feeling he wasn't going to be coming home from these research sessions with a smile on his face and a lightness to his step—at least not until the day they'd hit on the discovery they needed.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Ugh." Clark plopped his head onto his forearm on the table.
With a sympathetic sound, Martha reached out and stroked his cold, damp hair from the crown of his head to under his shoulder blades and rubbed there at the centre of his back. "That bad?"
He let out a long, pathetic groan. "I am such a freak."
"Oh, honey."
"Come on, Clark," Jonathan said, his sympathy smartly tempered with pragmaticism. "Feeling sorry for yourself isn't going to help anything. Did you find out anything useful?"
Clark's head rose from its haven and he fixed his dad with a dry look. "Yes. That I am a freak."
Jon rolled his eyes and Clark snorted softly.
He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "I have a womb."
"Oh... well," Martha said awkwardly, wincing and patting his hand.
"Aaaaaaaand an ovary."
Jonathan made a distressed sound and rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger.
"I swear, Dad, if you ever make a single PMS joke... a single one..."
Jonathan snorted loudly, his fingers still over his eyes, and his shoulders began to shake.
Martha twisted her lips wryly, glad someone was getting some entertainment out of this. "Just one?" she asked.
Clark made a shape with his hands, about the size of a Fabergé egg. "One big one." Then his hands expanded further. "Womb's extra big, too." He scoffed. "I assume to accommodate the legions of super-infants I'm expected to bear three times a year."
There was a brief, uncomfortable silence in the room as each of them presumably envisioned the disaster of a world Jor-El wanted Clark to turn Earth into.
"You know, Clark," Martha said gently, "there are humans who are hermaphrodites, too." She nodded when he looked up at her. "‘Intersex,’ they call them. Just because you have both male and female organs doesn't mean—"
"Mom, intersex humans don't have working organs of both genders. Either one set is dormant or the other is, and in many cases, they're completely sterile, with none of the equipment working the way it should. Believe me, it was the first thing I looked into, too. I'm more like an intersexual hopped up on massive amounts of hormones and fertility drugs—or-or at least I will be in a few years." He shook his head sadly. "It's not the same thing."
She sighed, wishing she could cite a single case where a human's body went through something similar to what Clark's body would, but try as she might, she hadn't been able to find even a single claim of it, much less a scientifically proven one. She patted his hand again, not sure what else to offer. "I know, honey."
"Son," Jonathan said, leaning forward onto the laminate to meet his son's gaze steadily, "you know that none of this—"
"—affects how you feel about me; I'm still your son and you love me..." Clark nodded as he rattled off the old assurances, smiling a knowing smile. "I know, Dad." His smile grew, warmth and appreciation in his eyes. "And thanks."
Jonathan smiled sheepishly and gave one quick nod, satisfied that his son knew he was accepted, and he sat back in his seat.
Clark chuckled softly. "But let me respectfully submit... that I am still a huge freak."
Jonathan laughed with a wince of empathy even as Martha reached out to stroke her son's arm again.
"Oh, Clark," she said, shaking her head and trying in vain not to chuckle at Clark's good-natured self-flagellation.
~
"Oh!" Chloe turned on her heel, attempting to head back down the hall the other way, but Pete caught her in his arms and turned her back around, nudging her along gently.
"I'm not walking around the building again."
"Aw, come on, Pete," she said, sounding positively pathetic. "He's coming right this way."
"Chloe, there's an ice storm out there and I've got dents in my head from the last time. It's not going to kill you to walk by Clark in the hall." He nudged her along a little more firmly at the small of her back as she tried to dig into the floor with her toes.
For lack of a more dignified word, she whined.
"It'll take two seconds and then it'll be over and we'll be sitting nice and warm and Clark-less in Journalism. Bonus: No ice pellets down our collars. So just keep walking."
This time she growled her frustration, but she finally lurched forward at his last nudge and began walking quickly, gaze on the floor as Clark got closer.
The flow of student traffic pushed them close enough together that when Clark passed by, he and Pete nearly rubbed shoulders. "Hey, Clark," Pete said, trying to act normal.
Clark barely glanced at him, frowning, back straight and shoulders squared. "Pete," he said emotionlessly, and kept walking.
As soon as he was past, Chloe came to a stop and turned to watch him go.
"Man," Pete said, feigning a shiver and running his hands over his arms. "Is it just me or did the temperature just drop ten degrees in here?"
"It's not you, Pete," Chloe said glumly, watching Clark disappear around the far corner. "It's me."
"Aww!" he said through a sympathetic chuckle and reached out to give her a hug.
She laid her head limply on his shoulder, one hand patting unenthusiastically at his back, the other arm still wrapped around her schoolbooks and notepad. "God, I'm an idiot."
"Oh, jeez." Pete rolled his eyes over her shoulder, then pulled back to look at her. He waited until her big, sad eyes met his. She looked like the cutest kicked puppy in the world. "Come on, Chlo. You're the smartest woman I've ever met."
She offered a pathetic little smile, still looking miserable, but at least appreciating the compliment.
"Clark'll get over it. It's not like you took an ad out in The Planet. It was one little slip-up, a mistake. He'll figure that out."
Finally she took a deep breath, as if coming to life, and nodded with some assurance. "I know what I have to do. I'll prove myself one way or another."
Pete's smile faded just slightly, Chloe's self-prescribed mission to uncover the truth about Clark not having been exactly what he'd been referring to. But the point had been to cheer her up, and he had to admit that her determination did at least that. "Right," he said with a single nod, and leaned in to kiss her quickly on the cheek. "So don't worry about it right now. Let's just get to class."
~
The sheen of sweat on Lex's skin had long since dried and if he'd not been so distracted, he probably would have noticed that he was chilled and goose bumps stood up all over his skin.
He was hovering over a microscope in his makeshift lab, wearing only a pair of blue pyjama bottoms, and he was absolutely fascinated with what he was seeing.
Clark had continued to show marked resistance to providing a sample for their research, blushing beet red every time the subject came up, and Lex figured that even if he insisted Clark at least try, he probably wouldn't have been able to do it, so bothered was he by the idea.
So, acting at his most devious, Lex had tucked a useful container into the bedside drawer and awaited the right moment. They'd been lost in passion for half an hour, Clark on his knees and elbows, Lex thrusting feverishly into him from behind, when Clark's siren had begun to rise. Though difficult to pull even a single hand away, Lex had reached for the container with deft fingers and had it in place before Clark had known what was happening.
It wasn't until the last spasms had passed that he fell to his side with a disbelieving gasp of Lex's name, looking in shock at the ejaculate gathered in the clear plastic container.
Lex had placed it carefully on the end table, then ignored it, kissing and embracing Clark with abandon until Clark finally dismissed it as well and focussed on the business of helping him get off.
Lex had given himself very little time to recover after his own orgasm ripped through him before he got to his knees while he kissed Clark hard and deep into the pillows. "You're not angry," he said breathlessly as he pulled back just far enough to meet Clark's dazed eyes.
"I—"
Lex kissed him hard again, the rest of his response lost in Lex's mouth. "Tell me you're not angry," he said through a grin when he'd pulled away again.
Clark snorted, shaking his head. "I think you're a jerk."
Lex tilted his head briefly as if to suggest this was all right by him. "But we're okay?"
Clark's line of sight shifted to the container of semen and back. He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, fine—"
Again, Lex took his mouth, not letting him finish, pulling away only when Clark tried to wrap his arms around him. "Sorry," he said, sliding out of bed and reaching for his pyjamas on the floor. "I don't know how long this stuff is going to last."
Clark gaped, but he couldn't fully suppress his grin. "Lex—"
"Shouldn't take long," he said, knowing he was lying even as he grabbed the container, put on the lid, and placed it gently into a paper bag—all of which had also been waiting secretly in the drawer for the right moment.
He flashed Clark a grin on his way out the door and got only a comical groan in response as Clark slapped his hands over his rapidly reddening face.
Lex smiled at the memory, the movement pushing his eyes off the microscope, and he turned to make a few notes in the pad he had waiting. He was careful about the language he used, getting down the information he needed to keep, but in such a way that if somehow the pad was found or stolen, he could have said the notes were regarding hermaphroditic animal or even plant research.
He wasn't wearing a watch, but assumed he'd been down here now for at least an hour. Most of that time had been used to separate the cells so that he could study each type independently, as trying to figure out what the hell was going on when they were all mixed together had proven nearly impossible.
Of course, he had expected this research to be interesting—the first human look at alien cells, how could it not be? But he'd still been surprised as the details had begun to make themselves clear.
There was a tentative knock at the door and Lex looked up at it in expectation.
"It's me," came an uncertain voice from the other side.
"Ah." Lex rolled his chair back to reach under the table behind him and press the hidden button that would release the hydraulic locks on the door. The only key was in the pocket of his light blue pyjama bottoms.
At the hiss of the release, the door came slowly open and Clark poked his head inside. He looked like he'd showered since Lex had seen him last. "Am I interrupting?"
Lex waved him in, sliding his chair back to the microscope. "Come look at this."
The heavy steel door swung slowly shut behind him as he came down the stairs, automatically locking as soon as it sealed.
Clark had his clothes back on, which might have made Lex feel underdressed if he cared a whit right now about clothing. He changed out the sample he'd been studying for the last several minutes and slid another one onto the stage instead. When Clark only looked at him expectantly, Lex gestured toward the eyepieces. "Go on, take a look."
With a shrug and a small smile, Clark put his eyes to the oculars. Lex adjusted the magnification to 400+ so Clark could properly see what he was looking at.
"Oh." He sounded surprised.
"Obviously, that one's just sperm."
Clark looked over to him with a wide grin. "Hey, they look normal!"
Lex couldn't help but let out a little chuckle. "Uh-huh, yeah. Here are the eggs." He traded out the petri dishes and lowered the magnification.
Looking somewhat more skittish, Clark approached the oculars again, but then only appeared confused. "Well... I don't know, they look pretty normal, too, don't they? Uh, aside from being from a man and all."
"I concur." Lex reached for a third dish. He held it in front of him, smirking.
After a few beats of silence, Clark looked away from the microscope. He frowned at the dish. "What's that?"
"This," Lex said, leaning forward in his chair, his eyebrows arched dramatically, "is the third type of cell."
Clark's eyes widened to the size of walnuts. His head dropped forward a couple of inches. "The what?"
Still smirking, Lex changed out the second dish for the third, and increased the magnification, though not as high as it had been for the sperm cells. He gestured at the microscope. "Please. Observe."
With obvious hesitation, Clark turned and looked into the oculars, his eyes nearly as wide as their circumference. "Okay, what the hell is that?"
Lex spread his hands and closed them again, doing his best to hold down his glee at scientific discovery. "At first I thought they were some kind of rod bacteria, that perhaps my dishes were contaminated. But they definitely aren't. They move with purpose and they don't seem to replicate."
"Uh," Clark looked to him with obvious concern. "Wait, ‘move with purpose’? What kind of purpose?"
"I'm..." he shrugged, "not sure. They seem to be looking for something."
"Looking for something?"
"Well, the sperm behave like sperm—they're swimming around like crazy, occasionally trying to smash their heads into the edges of the dish, being normal. The eggs act like eggs: They just sit there. In a human female, they'd be moved through the fallopian tube by the fimbria. I assume your tube has some similar transportation system. But these..." Lex wagged a finger at them, shifting in his seat. "They've been systematically scanning whatever dish they're in, almost in a grid-like formation, as if they're trying to find something."
Clark nodded and glanced back into the microscope. "Yeah, it does look kind of orderly."
"More than that, they've also been acting as transporters for the ova. When they're in the same dish, they kept gathering underneath the eggs, essentially picking them up and moving them from place to place. When I began to try to separate the three types of cell, each time I tried to remove an egg, these cells rushed the pipette. I'm not sure if they were attempting to protect it, or to go along with it, but it was very difficult to separate them."
"Wait a minute," Clark moved away from the microscope, leaning heavily on his hands on the edge of the desk, and scoffed. "Are you saying these things are aware?" He looked at Lex incredulously and Lex offered a little shrug in concession. He glared at the microscope askance, his expression filled with distaste. "What the hell are they?"
"I'm not... really sure what they are just yet. Some sort of seeker-slash-transporter cells. But I was thinking about what we were saying before—that somehow your eggs would have to get to your partners’ sperm cells, and that in humans there is no direct route to do that."
"Yeah..."
"Well," he gestured at the dish on the stage. "Maybe these guys are trying to find some unrelated sperm to bring the egg to."
"All right." Clark stood up and took a step away from the table. "That's... just creepy."
"It's just a theory..."
There must have been something in Lex's tone that gave Clark pause, because his head suddenly snapped toward him, alarm in his eyes. "Which you won't be testing, right?"
Lex looked up at him, startled. "Well... it isn't like it could fertilize. These cells aren't mature yet, according to Jor-El. I'm just wondering—"
"Lex, do you really think you should be messing around with this?"
He scoffed. "Clark... I thought the whole point was to be messing around with this."
"No." Clark stood up straight, his mouth settling into a thin line. "The point of this was to find out how to stop pregnancies from happening, not aim for in-vitro fertilization!"
Lex spread his hands, gaping. "How the hell are we supposed to figure out how to prevent something if we don't know how it happens in the first place?"
Clark took a deep breath and half a step forward, gearing up to argue. But then he paused, and quickly deflated. He slumped back against the table behind him and crossed his arms over his chest. "Shit."
Lex laughed once, softly, as much at their pointless shouting match as at Clark's sudden dejection. "Look, maybe I could just introduce some of my sperm cells to the seeker cells. See if they react. There doesn't have to be an ovum present."
"And what if nothing happens?"
"Well..." Lex thought about it a few seconds. "I could sterilize some of my sperm cells and introduce them to a dish with a few seeker cells and one ovum, see if that causes any focussed activity." He glanced up to judge Clark's reaction, but he looked just as glum as ever. "We already know your cells aren't mature. But if my cells are sterile on top of that—"
"It doesn't matter, though, does it?" Clark met his gaze, but Lex's only offered his confusion. "Don't you remember what Jor-El said?" Wearily, he took a breath, the next words he spoke obviously a quote, "‘Upon reaching your own sexual maturity, you will possess the ability to create a child within any sexually mature human being on the planet, even if that being is known to be barren.’"
Halfway through, Lex realized it sounded familiar, and he nodded at the hazy memory. He'd been a little dazed at the time.
"Believe me, it stuck with me." Clark shrugged. "I can only assume that either those ‘seeker’ cells or the ova themselves have some ability to heal or reanimate sterile cells—maybe even dead cells. I don't think human sterility will matter." He sighed, gazing mournfully at the microscope. "But, like you said, mine aren't mature anyway. I guess at this point it doesn't really matter what you do to them." He shivered. "It just creeps me out."
"I wouldn't do this kind of research if I thought there was any possibility of fertilization. You know that."
"Yeah," Clark said tonelessly. "You do realize, though... if the cells are like me, it's possible that once fertilization occurs..."
"There might be no stopping it. Yeah. I know."
Clark looked down at his feet, quiet for a long moment. "It's good we're doing this now," he finally said. "I'm sorry I pushed it off so long."
"Clark, come on, I'm just as much to blame. I didn't exactly push the issue."
"Yeah, you're right, this is all your fault."
Lex stared at him and Clark looked up from under his lashes, coyly, and smiled.
Lex snorted. "Well, I'm glad we got that all figured out."
~
Sebastian sat in his car with his hands on the wheel, squeezing so tightly the knuckles had long since gone white.
He didn't want to go into that building for his scheduled meeting with the senior Mr. Luthor. He'd been specifically asked to procure information on the project Aurora, but the junior Mr. Luthor had seen fit to provide him with very little on that subject. He'd been instructed to say he simply couldn't find anything on it, and though this was technically true, he wasn't sure how well it was going to go over with Mr. Luthor. Sebastian knew from experience that the man could be horribly intimidating when he was not given exactly what he'd requested.
The younger Mr. Luthor had told him not to worry, that the information he was going to be providing would be interesting enough on its own merits to make up for the deficiency of the other material. Sebastian, of course, had no choice but to accept this. He'd glanced over the material himself, but he was not well-versed on the subject of economics—which was what he gathered the documents were about—and so he had no way to judge for himself the veracity of the younger Mr. Luthor's assertions.
He glanced for the umpteenth time at the digital clock in his dashboard, pushing it until the last possible minute that he could get moving and yet not be late for the meeting. When he finally did step out of the car, the bitter wind of a Metropolis winter hit him right in the face, but it did little for the nervous sweat slicking his body and making his clothes stick uncomfortably to his skin.
The cold was almost a treat, he realized, when he stepped into the lobby and the temperature, carefully controlled to a comfortable seventy-six for optimum employee productivity, sat heavily on his clammy skin. He quickly removed his coat and scarf, draping them over his arm as the receptionist waved him in after a single look.
The elevator was stifling, getting hotter and hotter as it stopped every few floors to let another person or two on, until Sebastian nearly catapulted himself out of the car upon reaching the floor of Mr. Luthor's office. He supposed a couple of curious looks were directed at his back, but he didn't care. It was a believable excuse that he was nervous to be late to a meeting with Mr. Lionel Luthor. Anyone would have been.
Checking his watch and realizing he'd left himself precious little time, he stopped at the men's room on his way and held his hands under cold running water until they began to hurt. Then he dabbed his face with the same, careful to avoid his hairline. When he dried his face, the mirror told him he still looked a mixture of flushed and pale, but he only shook his head at himself and tried not to laugh. Had Mr. Luthor ever seen him any other way? He'd probably always assumed Sebastian led a terribly unhealthy life to make him look so feeble.
After gathering up his things, he headed straight for Mr. Luthor's office, not bothering to stop at his secretary's desk as he knew she wouldn't stop him once she saw him. He gave a short warning knock on Mr. Luthor's door and walked right in, doing his best to keep his back straight, appear calm, cool, and collected, and if possible, somewhat brash. He tossed his things onto the nearest chair, envelope still in hand, and settled himself into the seat in front of Mr. Luthor's desk without an invitation.
"Ah. Sebastian," Mr. Luthor said dryly. "Please come in."
Sebastian tossed the envelope onto the desk. Despite his sarcasm, Mr. Luthor gathered it up with great anticipation, opened it, and began sifting through its contents.
Sebastian swallowed the nervousness in his throat, keeping his voice placid. "My payment?"
Mr. Luthor waved vaguely to his right, and Sebastian quickly found the indicated paper bag. He got up, grabbed it, and checked the contents. He didn't count it, of course—he had never had the gall to do so in Mr. Luthor's presence—but he made a show of being sure it at least contained money.
"Hm," Mr. Luthor hummed, sounding not exactly thrilled with the contents of Sebastian's plunder. "Sit down here."
Sebastian swallowed, pausing for a few seconds as he looked into the bag, trying to maintain his façade of cool. "Something wrong?" he asked as he settled back into the seat, payment in hand.
"Were these documents marked as related to Aurora?"
He didn't hesitate, or at least he hoped he didn't. He'd been told he'd probably be asked this question. "No, sir. I couldn't find much on Aurora. I thought this might be of interest to you in its stead."
"Yes, well," Mr. Luthor waved him off. "It is at that. But," he looked up at him without moving his head, his eyes darkly shadowed by his brows, his expression heart-stoppingly cold, "it isn't exactly what I asked for, is it?"
Sebastian struggled to keep his breathing steady, feeling his heart beat in his ears. "If you're unsatisfied with my work, perhaps you'd like to renegotiate the terms of my employment."
Mr. Luthor's left eyebrow arched suddenly and sharply, the only indication that Sebastian's affected bravado had come as a surprise. It quickly smoothed and Mr. Luthor tugged absently at his right earlobe, chuckling in a manner that made the hairs on the back of Sebastian's neck stand up in fear. "No," he said with a satiated sigh, "no, I think we'll hold onto you a little while longer. But," he added, his voice serious though still somewhat amused, "if you happen to come across anything..."
Sebastian gave a sharp nod, indicating that he understood his orders, and Mr. Luthor looked back to the documents. "If there's nothing else, sir—"
"Just wait one minute," he interrupted, a hand held briefly palm out to stay Sebastian's departure. His eyes moved left to right hungrily as he shifted through the papers.
As the seconds ticked by, Sebastian found his gaze travelling aimlessly over the objects in Mr. Luthor's office. For the most part it was spartan, but everything that was there was artistically splendid. One thing the Luthors had in spades was damn good taste.
There was an abstract piece on the far wall that Sebastian hadn't seen before, and a new paperweight on the sparsely furnished desk: It was a vaguely pyramid-shaped obsidian object, etched with an interesting glyph that Sebastian didn't recognize, but he thought might have been Egyptian.
Fingers fidgeting for anything to occupy them as Mr. Luthor's silence stretched on, he reached out without thinking about it and took the paperweight in hand, turning it over and examining it half-heartedly for stamps. It was cold.
"Interesting paperweight." There seemed to be no stamp or signature on its underside; no clue whence it had originated.
"Uh," Mr. Luthor stuttered, which Sebastian wasn't sure he'd heard him do before. He looked up and found him vaguely reaching out a hand, as if to stop what Sebastian had already done. Then a saccharine smile spread across Mr. Luthor's face—looking rather obscene there, like a burlesque floorshow at Sunday services—and his voice steadied. "Yes, isn't it?" he said cheerily. "However," he went on as if speaking to a small child, "it is very rare. Please put it down."
Sebastian's eyebrows arched only briefly at the reaction, and then he leaned forward to carefully place it back where he'd gotten it. "Sorry, sir," he muttered.
Mr. Luthor watched it raptly as it was replaced, then turned back to the documents, his brow furrowing. "Well," he said with a sigh, "I'd be interested to see more of this if you can find it, but..." he shook his head, "I'm not so certain I can trust what my son puts into his files anymore." He flicked at the corner of the page as if to check the authenticity of its paper. "These... seem a little too good to be true."
"Very well," Sebastian said, putting his hands on the arms of his chair in anticipation of being dismissed. "Will there be anything else?"
Mr. Luthor waved him off, still scanning the pages.
"Good day, sir."
"Yes, good day, Sebastian," he said, his voice weary as if he'd thought he wouldn't need to speak again and was rather put out by the necessity of offering a parting word.
Sebastian wasn't bothered. He was just happy to get back to the elevator. He smiled widely at the receptionist on the way out the door, who also appeared put out by being expected to smile back, no matter how insincere the smile was.
He flung his coat over his shoulders and immediately huddled into it upon stepping outside. The cold Kansas winter winds could cut right to a man's bones.
~
Fire like acid. Ripping through his gut, charring his skin.
Scream. Thrash. Even the ability to curse is gone. Machinery beeps faster, the only indication he is heard.
‘We're losing him.’
The pain—surely at its limit, but not—intensifies threefold. White light bursts behind his eyes. His body is wrenched open. Every rib cracks, one after the other, only dull throbs under the agony of the unbearable heat.
Flames lick his arms, his head, his face. The sheets are on fire. The inferno envelops him.
He is a holocaust.
A child gasps and screams its first wet cry.
~
Clark woke groggily to the sound of someone choking. Confused and not fully alert, he tried to find the source in the dark, only belatedly realizing it was right beside him.
He sat up with a gasp and automatically reached over to shake Lex's shoulder. He'd done this too many times to have to think about his course of action.
"Lex!" he hissed. "Lex, wake up."
Lex jerked awake with a shout, which immediately denigrated to a harsh, wracking sob, and he shot up to a ninety degree angle.
"Lex, it's okay. I'm here." Clark tried to shimmy closer to him, wrap him reassuringly in his embrace, but Lex's arms were everywhere, fingers scratching over his own belly as if he thought it was crawling with insects, elbows colliding with Clark's ribs, hands in a flurry as he tried to untangle the sheets from his legs and push Clark away at the same time.
"Lex, it's all right; it's me." Clark tried to caress his face, brush away the tears or the sweat, whatever had Lex's cheeks dripping with moisture, barely able to touch him before being shoved away again.
Lex's sobbing or gasping or hyperventilating—what that sound was he was making, Clark couldn't be sure—never stopped, but his frantic movements began to come together with a single purpose: To push Clark away from him.
"It's okay—" an open-handed slap caught him in the face, not hurting of course, but making him start briefly before trying again. "Lex, it's okay. Tell me what—"
"No," he finally said, the first attempt at a word he'd made since waking. "No, get—"
Clark tried to get hold of Lex's flailing arms, hold them still, calm him down. "Lex, talk to me. Tell me what—"
Lex ripped his hands from Clark's grasp, not stronger, but startling enough without any regard for the damage he could do to himself that Clark let him go, and then both palms were splayed on Clark's chest, and Lex pushed him with all his might. "Back the FUCK off!"
Clark let himself fall back onto the mattress with the force of Lex's push and the pull of gravity. Eyes wide with shock, he lay on his back, arms close to his sides, palms out above his shoulders, and remained still.
A light suddenly blared through the room, and Clark forgot to react, only watching as Lex became visible, squinting against the brightness, his face red and angry and wet, his eyelids swollen with tears.
"Okay," Clark breathed, remaining as unobtrusive as he could, chest and belly exposed, submitting like a newborn puppy. He watched Lex with careful concern but made no move to touch him or approach him again.
For a long moment, Lex watched him suspiciously. Then his lips parted as if with astonishment and he very suddenly turned his back. He sat on the edge of the bed for a beat, his back straight as an arrow, before reaching out for tissues from the dispenser on the nightstand. He blew his nose quietly, then grabbed another to mop his face. Over the course of a minute or maybe two, his breathing began to slow, his head to bow, his back to curve. Eventually he held his head in his hands, elbows on knees.
"Shit," he muttered. "God, I'm sorry. I'm sorry; I just—"
"It's okay," Clark said softly, finally dropping his hands from their position of surrender.
Lex raised his head and laughed once, but there was no humour in it. "I just felt so crowded for a second. Like the walls were closing in on me. Christ, Clark, I'm sorry."
Tension broken, Clark took the chance of slowly sitting up, but still he didn't reach out for him. "It's okay, Lex," he said, and sighed with regret. "It... must have been a bad one."
Lex shook his head, though not apparently in disagreement, and hid his face in his hands. After a moment, he rubbed his face roughly, then took a deep breath as he turned to lie back down. He made no move to turn off the light, tucking one arm behind his head, which might have looked casual if it hadn't been trembling. "Yeah," he said shortly.
Clark watched him silently. Lex didn't meet his gaze. "Don't want to talk about it?"
Lex glanced at him so briefly he might not have. "Not really, no."
Clark sighed and adjusted the sheet over his own hip. "It might... make it a little easier if you do."
Lex's jaw was set. "I'll get through it."
"Yes. But we'd get through it better together."
He shrugged a shoulder fluidly. "You're here."
Clark sighed again, more heavily this time. "Do you remember," he started leadingly, "that you nearly lost a lucrative deal because you waited too long to talk about something? The very deal that helped push LuthorCorp down the path you wanted, in fact?"
Despite his flushed face and obvious distress, one corner of Lex's mouth did turn slightly up. "Yeah, I remember."
"So..." Clark prodded, but nothing more was forthcoming. He shrugged a shoulder. "What? You're just going to wait for it to get so bad you can't think again?"
Lex closed his eyes on a tense sigh. "I'm all right."
Clark scoffed. "You're all right."
He didn't respond. Lying perfectly still with his eyes closed, Clark might have believed he'd fallen back to sleep if not for the fact that his heart was beating like the wings of a nervous hummingbird, so loud and fast that Clark was sure even some humans could have heard it from where he sat.
A long, silent time passed, and Clark was getting close to giving up, lying down, seeing if Lex would at least welcome the comfort of his touch if not his ear, when Lex took a breath a bit deeper than the one before it and opened his mouth.
"You won't like it."
It hadn't at all been what he'd expected. Those words gave Clark serious pause. For a moment, he even considered rescinding the offer. Maybe he didn't want to hear about the nightmare after all. But that moment was gone quickly.
"I don't care. Let me help."
Lex's bloodshot eyes drifted open and he turned his head on the pillow to look at Clark steadily. He swallowed, a sticky sound. "I... died in flame."
Clark winced, though it wasn't the first time he'd heard of some vision regarding the death of one or the other of them. "You died?" he asked, his tone encouraging Lex to continue.
"Yes," Lex confirmed, but he didn't offer any more. He simply continued to look at him.
Clark shrugged helplessly. "Lex, I know you're going to have a good future," he said, though he'd said it many times before. "It's not going to be like that."
Lex was shaking his head. "No, Clark. It wasn't... bad."
Clark quirked an eyebrow. "Dying in flame?"
Unexpectedly, Lex let out a short burst of a laugh. "No. It... It just wasn't what I would call a ‘bad’ future. It-It was just something that happened."
Clark turned a hand palm up on the mattress, totally at a loss. "Sorry, how do you die in flame and not be having a bad future? Sounds pretty crappy to me. I mean, how did it happen?"
Lex looked at him for a long time, long enough that Clark began to think he wouldn't say any more. "Something was... burning its way out of me."
"Burning out of you?" Clark repeated with distaste. "God. What?"
Lex's swallow was loud in Clark's ears. He tried to keep his hearing at a normal level, but the long, tense silences made him hungry for sound and the repeated switches into his elevated hearing were all but beyond his control.
"It was, uh... a-a child."
A large stone seemed to hit Clark in the chest and yet he did not move. He stopped breathing. Over the course of two or three seconds, his elevated hearing brought him the sound of the snow softly falling outside, his x-ray vision gave him a view of the inside of Lex's belly, and then his telescopic vision shot across the grounds and the woods and into his own home, showing him a picture of his own made bed, which was where he suddenly realized he'd rather be at the moment, hiding under the blankets, pretending to be asleep or dead or someone else.
All his senses then rushed back to him with a whoosh, leaving him reeling.
When he spoke, his voice was high and cracked. "My child?" he asked, though certainly it could have been no other. "Burning its way out of you?"
Though Clark vaguely remembered it was he who was supposed to be calming Lex down from his dream, it was suddenly Lex rushing to comfort Clark. "It wasn't a memory, Clark," he said steadily. "It was only a dream."
Clark's eyes and nose burned, his vision beginning to blur, his throat tight. "Are you sure?"
"I am. I'm sure."
It didn't occur to Clark in this moment that most of the dreams Lex had that bothered him so were memories—the memories of the futures he'd seen when Jor-El had accosted him in the cave—and yet Clark had never hesitated to disregard them, to tell Lex those were impossible futures, that they could only have one future together and it wouldn't be a nightmare.
But when Lex told him in no uncertain terms that this dream had not been a vestige of what he'd been shown in that cave, that it had not been a possibility, but only a fear, a great relief flooded Clark's body. It was only in that moment, for the first time since Lex had told him what he'd seen in the caves, that Clark began to grasp the intensity of the terror Lex lived with every day. Somehow, knowing that it had been shown as a true possibility that a child, sired by Clark, would burn Lex to ashes in its struggle to be born—even if that possibility was then deftly avoided by the steps they took toward their own future—would be much, much worse than only imagining such a thing might be possible.
He finally understood why it didn't help much when he insisted that the terrible futures Lex had seen would never come to be. What was terrifying was the fact that they were possible.
"Oh, god." Clark buried his face in his hands, the tears of horror in his eyes turning to those of relief, just dampening his lower lids and the heels of his hands before they ceased completely. "Lex," he said when he'd calmed, his voice still full of breaks. "You know that I wouldn't— That I don't—"
"I know," Lex said softly.
Clark lowered his hands from his face and found Lex watching him with tenderness. "You don't have to worry."
He shrugged a shoulder casually. "I'm not worried. Not really. I know I'll feel a little better about things once we have this all figured out, but I'm confident that we will figure it all out."
"Then why are you dreaming about stuff like that?" Clark asked helplessly.
Lex smiled and looked away, putting forth the impression that he found the question almost endearing. "Ask my subconscious. I don't know. I suppose there's always a little room for doubt. And... well, to be honest, I find the possibility terrifying. I'm never going to be willing to go through that. It's not..."
"Natural. Lex, I would never ask you—"
"I know." He met his gaze steadily, no uncertainty in his eyes. "I know you wouldn't. But in dreams..." he shrugged, "anything is possible."
Clark looked at him through blurry eyes for a long, still beat. "I'm sorry if you're scared," he finally whispered.
Lex smiled softly. He took the arm from behind his head and reached out to Clark with it. It was no longer trembling. "Come here."
Without hesitation, Clark slid his length against him, relieved to finally be allowed to wrap his arms around Lex's body—one over his ribs, the other under his neck—and press gentle kisses to the side of his heated throat.
Lex turned to kiss the crown of Clark's head, murmuring his words into his hair. "We're taking the right steps. We're doing the right things. Everything will be fine."
Clark nodded against his shoulder, hoping with all he had in him that Lex was right, and wishing his own faith wasn't so fickle.
~
Clark sneaked into the steamy bathroom and closed the door behind him, smirking at the ill-defined peach-coloured form on the other side of the frosted glass enclosure.
He could have let his special vision kick in, peek through the door to see Lex unselfconsciously washing his body, letting the water run over his head and into his mouth, follow the rivulets as they caressed his length and found their way into every dark crease. But for the moment he preferred to just lean back, taking in the hidden movements, letting the mist and textured door tease him with their obscured details.
Silently, Clark kicked off the shorts he'd pulled on to walk from Lex's bedroom to the bathroom, and he padded up the few stairs that led to the shower. When he opened the door, he might have guessed it would startle Lex to realize he wasn't alone, but Lex only turned and smirked knowingly at him.
"I was wondering if you were ever going to come in."
Clark grinned, somehow delighted that he hadn't been as covert as he'd thought, and he stepped into the shower, closing the door behind him.
Lex tended to use all eight showerheads, rolling his eyes at Clark's suggestions of conservation, so Clark was instantly soaked with water a bit warmer than most people liked it, and he pushed his hair back out of his eyes. Lex put down the loofah in his hand as Clark approached, leaving both hands free to slide up Clark's bare back as he wrapped his arms around Lex's waist and inclined his head to kiss him softly on the mouth.
"How are you feeling?" he asked quietly when their lips had separated, though they continued to hold one another under the shower's spray.
Lex gave a small nod, smiling lazily. "I'm good."
"No more bad dreams?"
"Not a one."
Clark smiled and leaned in to kiss him again, a bit more deeply this time.
It had taken some time for them both to fall back to sleep after Lex's nightmare and their subsequent conversation, but it was a Sunday morning and they'd had no reason not to sleep in to make up for lost time. It was rapidly approaching noon and they'd only recently roused themselves from sleep. They'd taken breakfast in bed, which Lex had of course finished first. He'd left Clark to satisfy his appetite while Lex headed for the shower to clear away the last of his grogginess.
Clark felt a lot better after the good night's rest and his hearty breakfast, and was gratified to hear Lex felt the same. He remembered a time, not that long ago, that things like that could throw them off for days if not weeks. He wasn't sure if they were just getting used to the weird stuff, or if they were both coming to understand that so long as they came at things together, they'd find a way to work them out somehow. There was no need to waste a bunch of time stressing out.
Clark shuffled a little closer, bringing Lex's body more tightly to him, and tilted his head to deepen their kiss. Lex groaned appreciatively into his mouth. Just as Clark started to feel the first stirrings in his groin, he was aware of Lex becoming rapidly hard against his thigh.
Lex broke their kiss with a slight wince as if of discomfort.
Clark smiled hesitantly into his eyes. "You all right?"
The wince was gone just as quickly, and Lex nodded, smiled briefly, and took Clark's mouth again, this time with rather more heated passion than before. Clark moaned contentedly into his mouth, his moan becoming slightly higher pitched at the end when Lex got hold of his tongue and pulled at it with a powerful suction. That move always seemed to catch Clark off guard and he felt it all the way down.
Lex pulled Clark closer to him, his arms sliding up behind Clark's shoulders and squeezing down, his hands wrapping tightly around his traps, the fingers digging in.
Clark let out a quiet sound as Lex pressed into him hard, grabbing repeatedly at Clark's shoulders with clawlike fingers.
Then he winced again, harder than before, and pulled slightly away as if to catch his breath.
Clark was a bit dazed by the sudden intensity. He opened his eyes halfway to see Lex's brow tightly furrowed, his teeth bared as he panted. "Lex? Sure you're all right?"
Lex's stiff cock pulsed hard where it rested in the crease of Clark's groin and he winced again. Then he quickly slid his hands from Clark's shoulders and grabbed his hips instead, pulling them tightly together and making Clark groan.
He shook his head, letting out a quiet chuckle. "Yeah. I'm just," he shrugged a shoulder, "really feeling this."
Before Clark's smile could fully take his mouth, Lex was kissing him with forceful passion once again, his hands kneading roughly at Clark's hips as his cock beat out a quick tempo next to Clark's own.
"God!" Lex ripped himself away again, a wince more intense than the last pulling his lips back in a grimace.
Growing rapidly hard and flushed at Lex's enthusiasm, Clark took half a step, pressing Lex's back against the wall, and thrust his hips forward, trapping both their pulsing flesh between them. Lex's groan at the sudden increase in pressure was nearly a shout and he thrust sharply back at him.
He approached quickly, Clark ready to receive another hard kiss, but then Lex suddenly curled in on himself as though he'd been punched in the gut, and Clark took an unsteady half step backward.
"Lex? What's going on?"
Lex's expression kept oscillating among pleasure, pain, and confusion, and Clark was starting to get concerned.
"I'm not—ahh!" again his spine curled, but this time when Clark tried to take another step back, give him some space, Lex grabbed hold of his arms with a powerful strength, yanking him back into place.
"Lex—"
Another half groan, half shout was torn from Lex's throat and this time his eyes widened in obvious surprise.
Clark started with shock when a wet stream of ejaculate suddenly sprayed across his chest. He looked down, catching the unexpected sight of Lex rapidly emptying himself in four strong spurts, making a strained, confused sound of pleasure with each.
Flabbergasted, Clark met Lex's equally startled gaze.
"Oh, god," Lex finally gasped when his body stopped spasming. He blushed more quickly and more completely than Clark had ever seen him do. "Jesus, I'm sorry," he breathed, panting hard, bewilderment still dominating his expression.
A lopsided grin tugged at one corner of Clark's mouth as the shower washed away the mess Lex had made on his stomach. "Um... it's okay," he said, still not sure what to make of it. As far as Clark could tell, he hadn't been doing anything different than any other time that should have awarded him such a powerful reaction. "I guess I'll take that as a compliment?"
A laugh burst through Lex's lips even as he looked away, too embarrassed to meet Clark's gaze. "I don't—god!" he curled in on himself again, wincing and grimacing, and every hint of a smile disappeared from Clark's face.
"Lex, what's going on?"
Again, a warm shot of creamy fluid roped across Clark's chest, and Lex's fingers dug so far into Clark's arms that he knew a human would have been badly bruised, and worried Lex would break his fingers on him.
"Lex, what the hell—?"
It passed slightly faster than the first, and Lex let him go when it was done, letting out a distressed sound somewhat like a sob. One hand went to cradle his temple, the other low on his own belly. He pressed his back into the shower wall, panting harshly, his expression twisted with a chilling fear.
Clark was at a loss, spreading his hands, mouth hanging agape in surprise. "Lex, what is—are you okay?"
His panting lost some of its edge and Clark noticed his erection, which had looked almost painful moments ago, was quickly deflating—almost as quickly as it had asserted itself. Slowly, Lex lowered his trembling hand from his head, laying it by the other on his stomach. "I... think so," he said uncertainly.
The water was plentiful and the pressure was powerful, washing Clark's body quickly clean of the evidence of this strange occurrence. Soon there was nothing at all to indicate something odd had happened but the memory and the horrifying tension straining against the corners of the room.
"Okay, um..." Clark shifted on his feet, feeling he just couldn't get a grasp on the situation. "What just happened? I mean—" he scoffed. "I-I didn't even do anything. Right?"
Lex shrugged vaguely, rubbing his belly, his eyes deeply distressed as they darted from side to side.
Clark stared at Lex's hands on his own belly, watching the way they firmly massaged the area, as though in attempt to soothe a deep-seated tummy ache. He swallowed hard. "Well... does it hurt? Are you in pain?"
"No," Lex said, his voice barely audible.
"Well... Well..." Clark shook his head in exasperation, understanding nothing. "Well, what the hell was that?" he cried.
"I don't know." Lex raised his head, finally meeting Clark's gaze, his eyes murky with anxiety. "But I do not have a good feeling about it."
* * * * * *
~~~ To Be Continued . . . ~~~
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