Disclaimer: Well...obviously not mine. Otherwise, I wouldn't need to write fan fiction now, would I?
Warnings: Slash.
Feedback:Voiceless009 -- It would be much appreciated!
Summary: "Clark, are you an alien?"
"Clark, are you an alien?"
A flinch. A telltale sign that I'd hit the proverbial nail on the head. It was such a small movement, the tiniest flicker of one eyelid, but it was enough.
Well. It wasn't enough.
I wait patiently, smiling vaguely, intending to put him at ease. Well...not too much at ease. He hesitates a fraction too long.
"Lex, have you been drinking?"
I wait a moment longer. His eyes dart around, focusing on wooden beams, on the old sofa, the open doors, and then finally, reluctantly, on me.
He's waiting too.
I'm not backing down.
"No, Lex," he sighs, tilting his head to look at me from an angle, not directly, "I'm not."
I feel my smile evaporate into the air.
Wrong answer.
How disappointing.
"All right," I shrug, not offering an apology for my crazy insinuations, because that would hurt too much for both of us, "I just wanted to clear that up."
I turn and begin to descend. I don't say goodbye and neither does he. He knows that I am disappointed.
I know. He knows that I know. It isn't the secret that is wedged in between us anymore. It's the words.
To give my mind distraction, and because I apparently enjoy torturing myself, I tick off the boxes on the checklist in my head. Again.
Speed. Strength. Vision. All enhanced far beyond human standards. These attributes and undoubtedly many more besides.
Severe aversion to meteor fragments. Definitely not a mutant.
The caves. The language that has never sat on any human's tongue. And Clark understands it.
As I step back outside, I take the opportunity to pause and look up at the sun. I don't shield my eyes. Unlike Clark, I look directly into the light.
This will be the last time I ever see the sun from this angle. Next time I look it will be from a window in the vice presidential office of the LuthorCorp building.
That didn't sound so terrible. Not really.
The first time through to the first ten times my father requested I return to Metropolis, it had always seemed so much worse a fate.
To remain in Smallville and be Lex. Or to return to Metropolis and be great. It had been becoming increasingly difficult to choose to stay.
I'd just wanted to see whether my friendship with Clark was worth staying for.
Apparently you can spend years with a person, build a friendship in the midst of a minefield of prejudice and hatred, crack your head and your heart open for inspection, even share your bed in the hopes that what you have together will evolve into something even more beautiful, and still not be worthy of their trust.
Well, I'm through.
I'm tired of fighting my father and I am sick and tired of trying to prove myself to Clark.
I'll leave tonight.
He will have to be left with only the Smallville gossip to tell him he has been left behind.
Vindictive? Or merciful? I don't even know anymore.
I open the car door.
I don't need to see Clark to know when he is there. I don't grace him with the acknowledgement of turning around to face him.
"Alien is such an ugly word." He sounds out of breath. But it must be impossible for a man who could probably circle the United States without breaking a sweat to find it at all difficult to get to my car from the loft. "I prefer to think of myself as a...Visitor From A Distant Planet."