fic post:Live No Life
12/15/06 01:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roxyTitle: Live No Life
Author:Roxymissrose
Pairing:Lex/Clark
WIP:: 4/5
Rating:PG-13
Spoilers: none
Word Count:3198
Summary: Lex and Clark have such influence on each other, whether they know it or not.
Notes: This is the answer to the "A Clexian Tale" challenge. I finally answered it, almost six months later....
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
I
“Martha. I…have news for you.”
“Oh my God, Lex—I’d given up hope—what have you found?”
“I may have a lead. I’m going to tell you something—but bear in mind that these things often don’t pan out…he might be alive.” His stomach burned acid as he listened to her startled exclamation of joy, hope… “Remember, it may not be true. My people are tearing apart the city—the country—looking for confirmation of this.”
“Lex, Lex…thank you. You’ve been a good friend to me. Thank you.”
He managed to get her off the phone as politely as possible. He sighed, and rubbed his face, shoulders heavy and aching with the weight of the world. Worlds. It was already getting dark—the air was colder now than when he’d first sat down in the study. A click of the remote turned on the fireplace, and the gas flames tried to light the room, shadows still hung in all the corners. He sneered at himself. How very symbolic of his life—shadows over hung everything and he may have thought he was changing but at every turn, he proved himself wrong. Like long dead Jonathan Kent said, in that tedious cliché-rich way he had—the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
This particular tree had rotten roots and twisted limbs, and the fruit it bore was poison.
Part of the dark shifted, and Clark stood there, looking at him in that way that he’d grown entirely familiar with. Barely concealed anger, sadness, disappointment…fuck. So little difference in those eyes—it was like revisiting the past, soon…soon disappointment and sadness would be replace with hatred and disgust.
“The woman you were speaking to was my mother, wasn’t it?” He strode forward, into the light.
Lex leaned back, arms resting on the chair and his head tilted back a little so that he could see Clark’s face.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Lex shrugged. “There are a dozen reasons.”
“Are any of them the truth?”
Lex opened his mouth, closed it. Shrugged again. “What do you want me to say, Clark?” He blinked and Clark wasn’t standing by the fire any longer. He was at Lex’s knees, he was bent, each of his hands griped Lex’s knees. He looked intensely at Lex and Lex knew Clark could easily kill him—he wasn’t raised by Jonathan this time—he was raised by the poisonous branch of a deadly tree.
Clark closed his eyes. “Tell me why and tell me the truth.”
Lex sighed. “The minute you opened your eyes, and I looked into them, I couldn’t give you up.”
Clark nodded. “The woman on the phone, I see her face, but I don’t *know* her.” He looked at Lex. “I don’t want to leave…please. I don’t know her.”
Lex nodded. “I understand. But you’ll want to, more than likely very soon. You’re remembering more and more every day.” He looked into Clark’s eyes. “You might not tell me, but it’s there in your eyes. You know me.”
Clark stared back steadily. “I’m not a child, I never was. Make love to me.”
Lex coughed, Clark’s request crashed though his brain and rendered him speechless, stupid with shock. He managed to stammer out, “No—no…” He was trying to push away from the desk, but Clark loomed over him, trapping him at the desk. Images he’d managed to keep suppressed, barely, broke free—he can almost feel them shattering inside….
Clark cradled his face, pulled him closer and pressed hot lips to his smooth brow. “Make love to me, please.”
Lex pushed him away, and Clark was back in the shadows. “Do you want me to tell you about a dream I had…a dream about you?”
Lex shook his head—no, no.
“It was…frightening. And good. You held me, and touched me, and I shook all over, when I woke, I *was* shivering, my pajamas were…wet…but by the time I stopped shivering…”
Lex stood, “I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to know.” He tried to move past Clark, but he stopped him, massive hand wrapped around his bicep, not tight but the touch made him freeze.
“By that time I knew. I remembered having sex, and the feeling of being lost, and alone, and I remembered one other thing…I remembered you.”
Lex turned his face to him slowly, lifted his chin and smiled. “Did you? And how did you find the experience?”
“Confusing,” Clark confessed. “Because you hate me. The look in your eyes in my memory is nothing like the look in your eyes now.”
Lex continued to smile, “You’re going to remember the other side of the coin soon, you’re going to remember just how much you hate me.” He said. He stroked Clark’s cheek. “I do want to make love to you. But I can’t.” He walked out and Clark followed him.
He followed Lex to his room, and Lex sat on the edge of his bed. “Clark. I’ll lose you if we do this. I know it. And I’ve wanted to do this since the moment I first saw you.”
Clark stepped up to the bed, reached out and unbuttoned Lex’s shirt, pulled it free from his body. His thumbs traced Lex’s collarbones. “I know. I remembered that. The way you’d look at me...I used to leave your place and think of it all the way home—I’d jerk off at night, thinking of the way you looked at me…your mouth…”
Lex closed his eyes and the tiniest broken sound escaped him. Clark leaned down and kissed him. “I want everything, but I don’t feel like I have time—please.” He unbuttoned Lex’s pants, pulled the zipper and slid his pants off. He put his warm hand over the bulge in his boxers. “Lex, it’s like I dreamed. So hot under the silk and so smooth…” He squeezed slightly. “Lex…” He slid to his knees and kissed the straining shape trapped in the silk.
Lex dropped his head back. “Oh…Clark…oh god, Clark…” He pulled him away from his dick. “Clark, he said, his voice loud and frantic, “Listen to me.” He grabbed Clark’s head, his hands tight on either side of his face. “I loved you then, I love you now, and I never stopped. You’re a good man, and I wanted you to save me, but I didn’t know how to ask—I wanted you—but the one good thing I did was not take you.”’ His eyes were locked on Clark’s searching, hoping… “Please remember…”
“Lex, how can I forget this? No matter what else I remember, how could I forget all of this?”
Lex closed his eyes against the rush of tears, and Clark kissed him, wet, hard, and he groaned, and Lex realized that *this* was Clark’s first kiss…again. This was what was important. Not coming on each other, in him…this trust. This love. He let himself fall again.
Clark was pressed against him, hard and hot and whispered in his ear, “I love you, no matter what, I love you…”
****
II
Lex waited, but it wasn’t the next morning, the next morning Clark kept him in bed, and found every spot on his body that made him weak and aroused, Clark touched him until he was helpless with desire Or the morning after that—that morning Clark made him breakfast and brought it to bed, read his paper and ate his toast and read him the best bits from the gossip columns, until Lex was helpless with laughter.…and the morning after that, he greeted Lex with a smile, and a kiss, and told him that he was glad for everything because it brought them close together. He held Lex and begged him to tell him the same, that he’d never give Clark up, and Lex listened and realized just how deep and meaningful, so all consuming and so everlasting a teen’s first love is, and he went cold. He’d fallen, all right. He’d taken the wrong path; he’d done things the Luthor way--again. He reached out as desperately as Clark reached out to him. He pet Clark, and kissed him, and swore that Clark belonged to him forever and justified it, it really wasn’t a lie and this wasn’t wrong…he wasn’t really a child…it really would last forever….
Early morning, and Lex is sitting at the breakfast table, alone. It’s been a very long time since he’s eaten alone. He’s grown used to lively, sometimes confusing conversation, from alphabets to cars, and odd and interesting gifts that have grown from macaroni landscapes to handwritten illuminated copies of remarkably bad poetry, which he treasures. He smiles around the rim of his cup and thumbs through the Planet, bypassing the business section….
There’s a noise at the end of the hall, he waits for his lover to join him, and Clark comes out of their—the bedroom. His eyes are cold, and all he asks for is the phone.
Lex puts the paper down and says, “Certainly. Do you plan to tell her I lied all these months?” He relaxes in his chair…he’s stopped falling.
“No, it would hurt her too much. I don’t want you to call her anymore.”
“Of course,” he mutters with a small smile. Clark turns away and Lex says in a light, mocking tone, “I suppose last night was the last time we’ll have sex...” His hand closed over the knife at his plate, and he believes for a moment, deeply and completely that he can drive it into his own chest. Should drive it into his chest. The moment passes and he draws on the lessons learned at his father’s knee. “Pity, you were just starting to get good at it.”
Clark whirls back to face him, anger making his eyes stormy. “You took advantage of me--”
Lex laughs out loud now. “Yes, yes I did. Why do you seem surprised?”
“I suppose I’m lucky you didn’t take the opportunity to cut me into bits, though I’m sure that was coming—after you got bored with this—this…” He stops and glares, no doubt hoping to convey the depths of his moral outrage and disgust by brain waves. Lex waves that off—anyone was an amateur compared to dear departed dad.
“Cut you into bits?” He smiles, a small sardonic curl. “You make a solid argument for it now.”
Clark takes a furious step forward, his invincible hands curling into fists—he looks angry, eager….
“I feel I should warn you about the kryptonite gas I have ready to steam out of the vents.” He watches Clark. He looks horrified for a moment, even…hurt, but it flickers across his face so quickly Lex isn’t sure he imagined it, and then he’s narrowing his eyes at Lex, and that’s an expression he’s too, too familiar with.
“You’re lying.”
“I prefer to call it teasing.”
Clark a week or so ago, would have cursed, this person just…stomps off.
“Still having tantrums,” Lex whispers into his cup and hears the door slam to Clark’s room.
When he’s certain Clark is distracted, he goes out to the patio, and gives in to sorrow. Just for a moment. He turns his face to the sun and mourns the loss of a life he’d grown accustomed to.
Clark is standing in the living room when he comes back in, wearing the simplest of what Lex has provided for him.
“Luthor—I have no proof you engineered this situation, but I warn you, if you try to use any of it to your advantage, I’ll make sure that every waking moment is a living, breathing, nightmare for you.” Lex lifts an eyebrow. That was different. Not quite…Superman.
“If, *if* you didn’t have anything to do with it, than I suppose I should thank you…if you hadn’t intervened I might still be comatose—perhaps dead. Fortunate that we had an instance in which our interests coincided.” He looks down his nose at Lex, and Lex can only smile at the way Clark expressed himself. Whether he knows it or not—Lex seems to have had some influence.
“I’ll be watching you, Luthor.”
“Yes, yes,” Lex rolls his eyes and turns away before Clark finishes speaking, wanders over to the bar. By the time he’s carefully dropped a cube of ice into his glass and turns back, the room is empty. He raises the glass to his lips, takes a slow precise sip, and watches the curtain swell in the breeze let in by the open patio doors.
Lex wanders around in an apartment that seems too big. He’s assaulted several times a day with full body memories of the first and the last night he and Clark spent together—it never fails to make him ragingly hard, but never angry. There’s been something killed inside of him—burned out, and he was ashes inside. Even so, he wasn’t exactly empty, not exactly sad. He found as days passed, he really had no regrets. He would do it again, and he would do it the same way.
Of course, there was the need for revenge. That went without saying. Revenge was the corner stone of his life after all. And he found the perfect revenge was to give Clark none, and tore his empire into shreds, and rebuilt it in a new image.
No threat in the world make him reveal how much of what he did was spurred on by the look in the eyes of the young boy who’d lived with him for not long enough….
III
One morning, he wakes with a cry—he dreamed he was dying, drowning in blood, and reaching out for Clark who won’t come to him, but stands on the edge of the lake of blood Lex is sinking into, crying….
That afternoon, he has a limousine prepared to take him to Smallville. He has dozens of white tulips in the car, and he’s dressed severely, all in black—armored. He’s nervous, more nervous than he can ever remember. He’s prepared for every eventuality, even death by shotgun blast. Prepared for everything except possibly…
“Lex, Lex…” Martha runs to him, enfolds him in her arms, and he finds himself holding back the way he hasn’t in months gone by. He inhales…her familiar scent surrounds him—Chanel, cinnamon, and most of all, cotton and sunlight, just like Clark—it tortures and accuses him.
“Come in, it’s been so lonely without you. You stopped calling.” She looks at him accusingly. “You stopped taking my calls.”
Hope flares, and he thinks that maybe, maybe Clark spared him this. “Well…you son returned to you, I rather assumed that…”
She looks at him with exasperated affection, “That I’d have no use for you anymore? Idiot.”
“Martha…” he says, and smiles. “Yes. Idiot.”
Martha leads him into the kitchen, a place that’s become as comfortable to him as his own—more so. He feels…empty, thirsty…he yearns for this comfort with every cell…Martha pours him coffee, and makes him eat homemade pastries full of sugar and fat and empty calories and they make him feel wonderfully full. They talk idly and after a long while, the talk turns to Clark.
“He’s back,” she says, “but he’s…different. I can’t explain how. Of course, he’s been through a lot, but…”
Lex is afraid. What has Clark told her, that she’s able to sit with him, talk to him, feed him? He’s especially sharp, on edge as she continues to speak.
She says, “Clark told me that you found him right after you found the rumors to be true that he was alive, he said he was in bad shape, but you helped to bring him out of the coma he was in, he said he lost his memory for a few days—that you helped him to recover them. It was a moving story and a testimonial to the fact that he still cares for you.”
Lex can’t keep a bitter laugh from breaking free. It slices him to pieces as it pierces the air.
“No, it’s true…he really does care for you. Because if he didn’t he wouldn’t have told me such a load of bullshit.”
Lex stares at her, shocked speechless. He’s a man who not so long ago dealt with the most heinous criminals imaginable as a matter of course—a man who’s ordered the death of so many and once took lives with his own hand and this woman saying bullshit stunned him almost as much as…finding out there was no Santa.
“Yes,” she repeats, emphatically. “Bullshit—So.” She places her cup on the table just so, and pats her lips with a decorative paper napkin. “You can finally tell me the truth.”
Lex struggles to speak a time or two until he manages, with a weak smile, “Martha—please, I--let me finish my coffee first, you make an excellent cup and I will miss it.” And then he proceeds to tell her every bit of the truth, every hard fact, and leaving nothing out and softening nothing…it feels like throwing himself off a very high place….
*****
IV
The sun had set, and the kitchen was plunged into darkness before Martha finally stood to turn on a light. She came back to the table and faced Lex. “Lex…you couldn’t escape it, could you? Your father’s legacy followed you like a black dog, it ate up everything that was good in you and left nothing behind.” She stood, and he stood too. “Sit.” She leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, hugging herself, her eyes closed. “You pretended to be a friend for months. Watched me cry…” her eyes flew open. “Cried with me.”
He dropped his head—looking into her face was like looking into the sun. His hands spread against the warm oak table top and he barely whispered. “…please.”
She came back to sit opposite him again. “You’re not that person anymore, Lex. It may have been a game to you at the start but it’s different now. Maybe we were all called to suffer to bring us together. I don’t know, but I believe there’s a reason for everything. I believe that you always wanted to be here,” she spread her hands and looked around the kitchen, back to Lex. “I believe…that you were meant to be here. With him. And that it would have been different if you were. If you’d been given that chance.”
Lex couldn’t look up. He couldn’t. He’d leave now, before…before it got too bad.
“Don’t think you don’t have a chance. And one more thing…he never forgot how much your friendship meant back then, when you were both boys.”
Lex drove back to the city; Martha’s parting words in his ear. Love was complicated when it wasn’t balanced with personal gain. He used to think it made no sense, that it had no basis in reality. It only took the loss of everything to discover the truth
Pain and all, yes, the journey had been worth it. With everything behind him in ashes and flames, he had only one direction left to him, and that was forward.
concluded in part five
Author:Roxymissrose
Pairing:Lex/Clark
WIP:: 4/5
Rating:PG-13
Spoilers: none
Word Count:3198
Summary: Lex and Clark have such influence on each other, whether they know it or not.
Notes: This is the answer to the "A Clexian Tale" challenge. I finally answered it, almost six months later....
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
I
“Martha. I…have news for you.”
“Oh my God, Lex—I’d given up hope—what have you found?”
“I may have a lead. I’m going to tell you something—but bear in mind that these things often don’t pan out…he might be alive.” His stomach burned acid as he listened to her startled exclamation of joy, hope… “Remember, it may not be true. My people are tearing apart the city—the country—looking for confirmation of this.”
“Lex, Lex…thank you. You’ve been a good friend to me. Thank you.”
He managed to get her off the phone as politely as possible. He sighed, and rubbed his face, shoulders heavy and aching with the weight of the world. Worlds. It was already getting dark—the air was colder now than when he’d first sat down in the study. A click of the remote turned on the fireplace, and the gas flames tried to light the room, shadows still hung in all the corners. He sneered at himself. How very symbolic of his life—shadows over hung everything and he may have thought he was changing but at every turn, he proved himself wrong. Like long dead Jonathan Kent said, in that tedious cliché-rich way he had—the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
This particular tree had rotten roots and twisted limbs, and the fruit it bore was poison.
Part of the dark shifted, and Clark stood there, looking at him in that way that he’d grown entirely familiar with. Barely concealed anger, sadness, disappointment…fuck. So little difference in those eyes—it was like revisiting the past, soon…soon disappointment and sadness would be replace with hatred and disgust.
“The woman you were speaking to was my mother, wasn’t it?” He strode forward, into the light.
Lex leaned back, arms resting on the chair and his head tilted back a little so that he could see Clark’s face.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Lex shrugged. “There are a dozen reasons.”
“Are any of them the truth?”
Lex opened his mouth, closed it. Shrugged again. “What do you want me to say, Clark?” He blinked and Clark wasn’t standing by the fire any longer. He was at Lex’s knees, he was bent, each of his hands griped Lex’s knees. He looked intensely at Lex and Lex knew Clark could easily kill him—he wasn’t raised by Jonathan this time—he was raised by the poisonous branch of a deadly tree.
Clark closed his eyes. “Tell me why and tell me the truth.”
Lex sighed. “The minute you opened your eyes, and I looked into them, I couldn’t give you up.”
Clark nodded. “The woman on the phone, I see her face, but I don’t *know* her.” He looked at Lex. “I don’t want to leave…please. I don’t know her.”
Lex nodded. “I understand. But you’ll want to, more than likely very soon. You’re remembering more and more every day.” He looked into Clark’s eyes. “You might not tell me, but it’s there in your eyes. You know me.”
Clark stared back steadily. “I’m not a child, I never was. Make love to me.”
Lex coughed, Clark’s request crashed though his brain and rendered him speechless, stupid with shock. He managed to stammer out, “No—no…” He was trying to push away from the desk, but Clark loomed over him, trapping him at the desk. Images he’d managed to keep suppressed, barely, broke free—he can almost feel them shattering inside….
Clark cradled his face, pulled him closer and pressed hot lips to his smooth brow. “Make love to me, please.”
Lex pushed him away, and Clark was back in the shadows. “Do you want me to tell you about a dream I had…a dream about you?”
Lex shook his head—no, no.
“It was…frightening. And good. You held me, and touched me, and I shook all over, when I woke, I *was* shivering, my pajamas were…wet…but by the time I stopped shivering…”
Lex stood, “I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to know.” He tried to move past Clark, but he stopped him, massive hand wrapped around his bicep, not tight but the touch made him freeze.
“By that time I knew. I remembered having sex, and the feeling of being lost, and alone, and I remembered one other thing…I remembered you.”
Lex turned his face to him slowly, lifted his chin and smiled. “Did you? And how did you find the experience?”
“Confusing,” Clark confessed. “Because you hate me. The look in your eyes in my memory is nothing like the look in your eyes now.”
Lex continued to smile, “You’re going to remember the other side of the coin soon, you’re going to remember just how much you hate me.” He said. He stroked Clark’s cheek. “I do want to make love to you. But I can’t.” He walked out and Clark followed him.
He followed Lex to his room, and Lex sat on the edge of his bed. “Clark. I’ll lose you if we do this. I know it. And I’ve wanted to do this since the moment I first saw you.”
Clark stepped up to the bed, reached out and unbuttoned Lex’s shirt, pulled it free from his body. His thumbs traced Lex’s collarbones. “I know. I remembered that. The way you’d look at me...I used to leave your place and think of it all the way home—I’d jerk off at night, thinking of the way you looked at me…your mouth…”
Lex closed his eyes and the tiniest broken sound escaped him. Clark leaned down and kissed him. “I want everything, but I don’t feel like I have time—please.” He unbuttoned Lex’s pants, pulled the zipper and slid his pants off. He put his warm hand over the bulge in his boxers. “Lex, it’s like I dreamed. So hot under the silk and so smooth…” He squeezed slightly. “Lex…” He slid to his knees and kissed the straining shape trapped in the silk.
Lex dropped his head back. “Oh…Clark…oh god, Clark…” He pulled him away from his dick. “Clark, he said, his voice loud and frantic, “Listen to me.” He grabbed Clark’s head, his hands tight on either side of his face. “I loved you then, I love you now, and I never stopped. You’re a good man, and I wanted you to save me, but I didn’t know how to ask—I wanted you—but the one good thing I did was not take you.”’ His eyes were locked on Clark’s searching, hoping… “Please remember…”
“Lex, how can I forget this? No matter what else I remember, how could I forget all of this?”
Lex closed his eyes against the rush of tears, and Clark kissed him, wet, hard, and he groaned, and Lex realized that *this* was Clark’s first kiss…again. This was what was important. Not coming on each other, in him…this trust. This love. He let himself fall again.
Clark was pressed against him, hard and hot and whispered in his ear, “I love you, no matter what, I love you…”
****
II
Lex waited, but it wasn’t the next morning, the next morning Clark kept him in bed, and found every spot on his body that made him weak and aroused, Clark touched him until he was helpless with desire Or the morning after that—that morning Clark made him breakfast and brought it to bed, read his paper and ate his toast and read him the best bits from the gossip columns, until Lex was helpless with laughter.…and the morning after that, he greeted Lex with a smile, and a kiss, and told him that he was glad for everything because it brought them close together. He held Lex and begged him to tell him the same, that he’d never give Clark up, and Lex listened and realized just how deep and meaningful, so all consuming and so everlasting a teen’s first love is, and he went cold. He’d fallen, all right. He’d taken the wrong path; he’d done things the Luthor way--again. He reached out as desperately as Clark reached out to him. He pet Clark, and kissed him, and swore that Clark belonged to him forever and justified it, it really wasn’t a lie and this wasn’t wrong…he wasn’t really a child…it really would last forever….
Early morning, and Lex is sitting at the breakfast table, alone. It’s been a very long time since he’s eaten alone. He’s grown used to lively, sometimes confusing conversation, from alphabets to cars, and odd and interesting gifts that have grown from macaroni landscapes to handwritten illuminated copies of remarkably bad poetry, which he treasures. He smiles around the rim of his cup and thumbs through the Planet, bypassing the business section….
There’s a noise at the end of the hall, he waits for his lover to join him, and Clark comes out of their—the bedroom. His eyes are cold, and all he asks for is the phone.
Lex puts the paper down and says, “Certainly. Do you plan to tell her I lied all these months?” He relaxes in his chair…he’s stopped falling.
“No, it would hurt her too much. I don’t want you to call her anymore.”
“Of course,” he mutters with a small smile. Clark turns away and Lex says in a light, mocking tone, “I suppose last night was the last time we’ll have sex...” His hand closed over the knife at his plate, and he believes for a moment, deeply and completely that he can drive it into his own chest. Should drive it into his chest. The moment passes and he draws on the lessons learned at his father’s knee. “Pity, you were just starting to get good at it.”
Clark whirls back to face him, anger making his eyes stormy. “You took advantage of me--”
Lex laughs out loud now. “Yes, yes I did. Why do you seem surprised?”
“I suppose I’m lucky you didn’t take the opportunity to cut me into bits, though I’m sure that was coming—after you got bored with this—this…” He stops and glares, no doubt hoping to convey the depths of his moral outrage and disgust by brain waves. Lex waves that off—anyone was an amateur compared to dear departed dad.
“Cut you into bits?” He smiles, a small sardonic curl. “You make a solid argument for it now.”
Clark takes a furious step forward, his invincible hands curling into fists—he looks angry, eager….
“I feel I should warn you about the kryptonite gas I have ready to steam out of the vents.” He watches Clark. He looks horrified for a moment, even…hurt, but it flickers across his face so quickly Lex isn’t sure he imagined it, and then he’s narrowing his eyes at Lex, and that’s an expression he’s too, too familiar with.
“You’re lying.”
“I prefer to call it teasing.”
Clark a week or so ago, would have cursed, this person just…stomps off.
“Still having tantrums,” Lex whispers into his cup and hears the door slam to Clark’s room.
When he’s certain Clark is distracted, he goes out to the patio, and gives in to sorrow. Just for a moment. He turns his face to the sun and mourns the loss of a life he’d grown accustomed to.
Clark is standing in the living room when he comes back in, wearing the simplest of what Lex has provided for him.
“Luthor—I have no proof you engineered this situation, but I warn you, if you try to use any of it to your advantage, I’ll make sure that every waking moment is a living, breathing, nightmare for you.” Lex lifts an eyebrow. That was different. Not quite…Superman.
“If, *if* you didn’t have anything to do with it, than I suppose I should thank you…if you hadn’t intervened I might still be comatose—perhaps dead. Fortunate that we had an instance in which our interests coincided.” He looks down his nose at Lex, and Lex can only smile at the way Clark expressed himself. Whether he knows it or not—Lex seems to have had some influence.
“I’ll be watching you, Luthor.”
“Yes, yes,” Lex rolls his eyes and turns away before Clark finishes speaking, wanders over to the bar. By the time he’s carefully dropped a cube of ice into his glass and turns back, the room is empty. He raises the glass to his lips, takes a slow precise sip, and watches the curtain swell in the breeze let in by the open patio doors.
Lex wanders around in an apartment that seems too big. He’s assaulted several times a day with full body memories of the first and the last night he and Clark spent together—it never fails to make him ragingly hard, but never angry. There’s been something killed inside of him—burned out, and he was ashes inside. Even so, he wasn’t exactly empty, not exactly sad. He found as days passed, he really had no regrets. He would do it again, and he would do it the same way.
Of course, there was the need for revenge. That went without saying. Revenge was the corner stone of his life after all. And he found the perfect revenge was to give Clark none, and tore his empire into shreds, and rebuilt it in a new image.
No threat in the world make him reveal how much of what he did was spurred on by the look in the eyes of the young boy who’d lived with him for not long enough….
III
One morning, he wakes with a cry—he dreamed he was dying, drowning in blood, and reaching out for Clark who won’t come to him, but stands on the edge of the lake of blood Lex is sinking into, crying….
That afternoon, he has a limousine prepared to take him to Smallville. He has dozens of white tulips in the car, and he’s dressed severely, all in black—armored. He’s nervous, more nervous than he can ever remember. He’s prepared for every eventuality, even death by shotgun blast. Prepared for everything except possibly…
“Lex, Lex…” Martha runs to him, enfolds him in her arms, and he finds himself holding back the way he hasn’t in months gone by. He inhales…her familiar scent surrounds him—Chanel, cinnamon, and most of all, cotton and sunlight, just like Clark—it tortures and accuses him.
“Come in, it’s been so lonely without you. You stopped calling.” She looks at him accusingly. “You stopped taking my calls.”
Hope flares, and he thinks that maybe, maybe Clark spared him this. “Well…you son returned to you, I rather assumed that…”
She looks at him with exasperated affection, “That I’d have no use for you anymore? Idiot.”
“Martha…” he says, and smiles. “Yes. Idiot.”
Martha leads him into the kitchen, a place that’s become as comfortable to him as his own—more so. He feels…empty, thirsty…he yearns for this comfort with every cell…Martha pours him coffee, and makes him eat homemade pastries full of sugar and fat and empty calories and they make him feel wonderfully full. They talk idly and after a long while, the talk turns to Clark.
“He’s back,” she says, “but he’s…different. I can’t explain how. Of course, he’s been through a lot, but…”
Lex is afraid. What has Clark told her, that she’s able to sit with him, talk to him, feed him? He’s especially sharp, on edge as she continues to speak.
She says, “Clark told me that you found him right after you found the rumors to be true that he was alive, he said he was in bad shape, but you helped to bring him out of the coma he was in, he said he lost his memory for a few days—that you helped him to recover them. It was a moving story and a testimonial to the fact that he still cares for you.”
Lex can’t keep a bitter laugh from breaking free. It slices him to pieces as it pierces the air.
“No, it’s true…he really does care for you. Because if he didn’t he wouldn’t have told me such a load of bullshit.”
Lex stares at her, shocked speechless. He’s a man who not so long ago dealt with the most heinous criminals imaginable as a matter of course—a man who’s ordered the death of so many and once took lives with his own hand and this woman saying bullshit stunned him almost as much as…finding out there was no Santa.
“Yes,” she repeats, emphatically. “Bullshit—So.” She places her cup on the table just so, and pats her lips with a decorative paper napkin. “You can finally tell me the truth.”
Lex struggles to speak a time or two until he manages, with a weak smile, “Martha—please, I--let me finish my coffee first, you make an excellent cup and I will miss it.” And then he proceeds to tell her every bit of the truth, every hard fact, and leaving nothing out and softening nothing…it feels like throwing himself off a very high place….
*****
IV
The sun had set, and the kitchen was plunged into darkness before Martha finally stood to turn on a light. She came back to the table and faced Lex. “Lex…you couldn’t escape it, could you? Your father’s legacy followed you like a black dog, it ate up everything that was good in you and left nothing behind.” She stood, and he stood too. “Sit.” She leaned against the kitchen counter, arms crossed, hugging herself, her eyes closed. “You pretended to be a friend for months. Watched me cry…” her eyes flew open. “Cried with me.”
He dropped his head—looking into her face was like looking into the sun. His hands spread against the warm oak table top and he barely whispered. “…please.”
She came back to sit opposite him again. “You’re not that person anymore, Lex. It may have been a game to you at the start but it’s different now. Maybe we were all called to suffer to bring us together. I don’t know, but I believe there’s a reason for everything. I believe that you always wanted to be here,” she spread her hands and looked around the kitchen, back to Lex. “I believe…that you were meant to be here. With him. And that it would have been different if you were. If you’d been given that chance.”
Lex couldn’t look up. He couldn’t. He’d leave now, before…before it got too bad.
“Don’t think you don’t have a chance. And one more thing…he never forgot how much your friendship meant back then, when you were both boys.”
Lex drove back to the city; Martha’s parting words in his ear. Love was complicated when it wasn’t balanced with personal gain. He used to think it made no sense, that it had no basis in reality. It only took the loss of everything to discover the truth
Pain and all, yes, the journey had been worth it. With everything behind him in ashes and flames, he had only one direction left to him, and that was forward.
concluded in part five
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(no subject)
12/15/06 08:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
12/16/06 03:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
12/15/06 12:41 pm (UTC)a v unique premise, written in a totally heartbreaking way!
cannot WAIT for part 5!!!
(no subject)
12/16/06 03:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
12/15/06 02:05 pm (UTC)My only concern: I can't understand how Martha can forgive Lex so easily, after first guessing and then knowing all the truth. If I knew someone was always trying to hurt my son and that he almost dissected him, besides lying and pretending to me for months, I certainly wouldn't be that sweet and forgiving, much less would I accept any responsibility on decisions freely made by an adult (Lex was already an adult when he met Clark) that resulted in cruel, dreadful things done to my son.
As for the rest of the part, awesome job, Roxy. You amaze me with your enormous talent. :)
(no subject)
12/16/06 03:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
12/16/06 10:22 am (UTC)And I'm all for the happy endings!
(no subject)
12/15/06 06:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
12/16/06 03:44 am (UTC)Thanks!!
(no subject)
12/15/06 10:31 pm (UTC)tell me, no, lie to me there will be some happy end!!
you cannot be this cruel, and tear them apart before christmas!!!
and i love your martha SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much!!!!!!!
(no subject)
12/16/06 03:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
12/16/06 09:34 pm (UTC)your special brand of happy endings and clexy happiness is always sufficient for me :)
(no subject)
12/16/06 07:12 pm (UTC)*hurries on to read part 5*
(no subject)
1/9/07 06:06 am (UTC)Clark was pressed against him, hard and hot and whispered in his ear, “I love you, no matter what, I love you…”
Oh god. How I love how you showed this! It's just so perfect. Makes me weepy. And I know what comes next, and dread it, but it has to come.
Trust Clark to remember Lex 'despoiling' him and not the loving part. Of course, it was Lex taking advantage. Sure. If that makes you feel better, Clark, then believe that--but--
Lex fundamentally changed through his experience. He wanted Clark to save him when they were so young, and it took this reversion to do it. He is saved, changed by a pair of huge round eyes and big puppy hands.
I love that so much--because how could he NOT be changed by the whole experience? Anger burned out of him, and revenge (but is it really revenge, or something else, Lex? ) cold company. Of course he would not change a thing he did.
And he dresses as for a funeral to go to see Martha. Bless your Martha. She is kinder than he probably deserves, but maybe she can see why he did what he did and can empathize. He expects her to rebuke him utterly for failing to be other than what his father made of him... but she's right. He's different. Very different, if he should gladly give up and change everything on the slimmest hope that Clark might understand what really happened between them.
(no subject)
1/9/07 06:19 am (UTC)I know I played fast and loose with Martha, like I said before, I kind of made her Saint Martha, but Lex needed that forgiveness.
And maybe Martha knows how her son can be.
Thanks so much for reading again and your yummy comments! It's a wonderful treat!
(no subject)
8/16/07 03:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
11/22/12 03:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
11/22/12 04:05 pm (UTC)