Dilemma by Keikokin [ - ]

this was added on the original drabble, so I left it in the drabble category.



"Lex?" Clark felt instantly sober, despite the two entire bottles of Southern Comfort it had taken him to get loaded in the first place.

"Hello Clark." Lex took in the bottles and a half of empty Southern Comfort, which had been Pete's. "I take it your parents are away?" He looked amused.

"Err, yeah, at a farmer's convention for the week," Clark grinned feeling a bit less sober than previously.

Lex laughed while shaking his head. "I never thought you had it in you Clark. Perhaps I've been more of an influence than I thought." He looked to Pete. "He isn't going to get sick on my shoes or anything if I sit down, is he?"

Clark responded by picking up Pete and putting him in his hammock. Lex raised his eyebrow and Clark bit his lip as he belatedly realized he forgot to act as though it was an effort. "Umm."

"Yes, let me guess I should just ignore that right? Along with all the other things you've been keeping me including but not limited to some secret feelings you've been harboring for me. At least if Mr. Ross is to be believed." Lex's voice became very cold and all too much like Lionel's for Clark. It sounded accusing.

Clark held the side of his head, trying to wrap his head around what Lex just said. "Do you mind going a bit slower Lex? I don't think I can take it right now."

"Well you'll excuse me if I cannot stomach any of your lies or half-truths right now. I have a feeling Clark that this is my golden opportunity to get the truth from you." Lex climbed to the top of the stairs.

Looking at the bottles he turned to face Clark. "Since I have a hard time believing that Mr. Ross is incapable of drinking more than a half bottle of Southern Comfort without passing out, I'll have to assume the remaining two bottles were drunk by you. Did you?"

"Uh, yeah," Clark felt a bit proud of that fact. He knew it was good to be able to drink others under the table. Or at least that's how Pete's brothers always made it sound. It was like being King of the Hill.

Lex smiled and Clark knew he'd made another mistake. "Clark if a normal human drank two bottles of Southern Comfort in the time it took for someone else to drink half a bottle; they'd probably be in the hospital with alcoholic poisoning or worse dead."

Clark paled trying to think of an answer. Lex held up a hand. "Then add to that fact the ease with which you carried Pete and placed him into the hammock. I'm guessing that with his recent growth spurt and bulking up, Mr. Ross goes around 220 easily. And you picked him up as easily as I would a piece of paper. Don't even tell me that slinging around bales of hay did that."

Lex sat down where Pete had previously been and sighed. "You can't always get what you want Clark, trust me. As a Luthor I think I was taught that in the crib. But I'm offering you the chance right now to come clean with me."

Clark looked down at the floor. "I don't want to lose your friendship Lex."

"Until you tell me the truth, you might as well have lost it anyway," Lex got up and started to leave.

Clark grabbed him by the arm. Lex stiffened. "Let go Clark."

"I'll…I'll tell you but does this mean that you …um…feel the same?"

Lex turned and glared at Clark. "If you aren't ready to come clean without some assurance of safety or getting what you want, then you aren't mature enough to enter into a risk filled relationship. I can guarantee I can offer you no assurances. If you want some simple relationship you'd be better off with Mr. Ross." Lex ripped his arm out of Clark's grasp. "I'm what you call high-maintenance Clark. It's all or nothing. Get back to me if you're ready to give your all, otherwise stay out of my life."

Clark watched Lex go and wondered how things ever got this bad between them.

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Pete woke up to a pounding head. "Ugh, oh man," he grunted as he tried unsuccessfully to raise his head. Clark was at his side with a three aspirin and some water. Pete took it gratefully and realized it was a morning after hangover. But Clark seemed fine, if a bit…sad?

"Don't you get hangovers?" Pete asked unhappily.

"I guess not." Clark slumped onto the old couch, looking very depressed.

"What's wrong?" Pete was confused. This was not a normal reaction to drinking.

"Lex was here last night."

Pete's eyes went wide. "Oh man, do you think he'll rat us out to your folks or worse MINE?"

"No, I don't think so Pete. He didn't seem to care about that." Clark stared at his hands pensively.

Pete frowned. "Okay, so if you're not upset about that, then what's wrong?"

"Lex wants the truth or he's ending our friendship…for good."

A glib reply had to be swallowed as Pete came to grips with the situation despite his aching head. "You're gay aren't you?"

If anything Clark seemed to curl in upon himself, an impressive feat given his size.

Pete sighed audibly. "Look, as long as you don't come on to me I don't care. Oh and don't do any of that stuff in front of me." Clark nodded but remained silent. Pete rubbed a hand over his head. "Oh man, don't make me play Cupid between you two. I don't think my stomach can handle it for one."

Clark got up. "I'll go make us breakfast. It will make you feel better." He left using a burst of super-speed.

"There goes one fucked up alien," Pete mused.
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Lex Luthor sat staring at the same figures he had all morning. But they still didn't make any sense. He got up and looked out the window toward Metropolis. Maybe Lionel was right. Maybe it was time to move back to the city. He certainly didn't want to stay here now.

What a mess.

"I never should have given him an ultimatum," Lex mused. "So much for going on the offensive, but I don't have a choice now." Looking toward the farm he smiled sadly. "Goodbye Clark, I wish it could have been different."

Lex went back to his desk and made preparations to return to the city. He ordered the chopper to come to take him back to the penthouse and for the house to be sealed up. A quiet hush fell over the castle in the corn. Even the crickets didn't seem to want to disturb Lex's pain, much less the staff.
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Pete turned off his cell phone and looked across the table at Clark, who was playing with his food and not really eating. "That was mom. She got a call from the Luthor estate. It seems that your Lex is hauling ass back to Metropolis."

Clark pushed his plate away and stared at his breakfast. "Oh."

Pete rolled his head back and then snapped it forward to glare at Clark. "Man if you're going to be like this why not just tell him?"

"What's to tell Pete? I don't know what you're talking about." Clark replied on auto-mode.

"Look you can feed your bullshit to someone else. If your folks come home and find you sulking like this they are going to blame me! I said I'd keep an eye on you. Either you go find him and tell him or I will."

Clark's mouth fell open. "You wouldn't."

Pete started to dial on his phone, knowing that Clark would never let him out of the house.

"Pete stop it! This isn't funny!"

"No shit, it's not funny I said I wasn't going to play Cupid and here I am! It's ringing!"

Clark bit his lip and tried to wrestle the phone away from Pete without seriously hurting his friend.

"Luthor."

Clark froze in fear as he heard the familiar voice come over the line, thanks to his super-hearing.

"Hey, Lex man, it's Pete. Look I thought I should let you know that Clark here is as gay as Liberace. He wants you but he's too afraid to tell you."

"Tell Clark it doesn't count if it doesn't come from him. And I'm leaving for Metropolis so he never has to see me again. I appreciate what you're trying to do Pete, but Clark had to do this on his own."

Clark grabbed the phone suddenly surprising Pete. "Lex!"
"Clark."

"Um, Pete's right, well except the Liberace part…okay maybe. But I …I don't want you to leave."

"I have to Clark. I can't live here with the lies between us."

"Then I'll meet you in your lab." Clark handed Pete the phone and took off for the castle.

Pete gasped and grabbed the truck keys as soon as the wind settled in the room. He jumped into the truck's cab, put it in gear and headed for the castle, while hoping that Clark wasn't really going to volunteer to be a LexCorp lab experiment.

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Lex stared down at the phone in his hand. Why had Clark chosen to meet in the lab? Was Pete Ross forcing him into it? Did this mean that Pete no longer hated him? Was Clark really going to come clean?

He headed down to his lab and stopped short at seeing Clark sitting in a chair with a needle in his hand. His eyes met Lex's and he looked resolute. "Why did you want to meet here Clark? And what's with the needle?"

In reply Clark tossed Lex the lead box that his own mother had given him as a boy and he'd given to Clark. He frowned looking down at it. "Clark?"

"You'll need to open it and bring it closer so I can take some blood."

Lex felt angry. "If this is some sort of trick Clark."

"I swear on my parent's graves that it's not a trick."

Lex snapped. "Your parents aren't dead Clark."

"No, my biological ones Jor-El and Lara are. Although I'm not sure they got buried since they got blown to bits when our planet was destroyed."

Lex felt the room go hazy at the corners. He took a moment to recover, leaning against the door frame. "W-what?"

"Open the box Lex." Clark said in his most authoritative voice.

Lex did so on auto-pilot as his mind was refusing to work. He watched in amazement as Clark's veins went green and he shook like a leaf taking a sample of blood. Clark held it out to Lex then fell to the floor.

"Close the box." Clark gasped.

Blinking rapidly Lex tried to process what he'd just seen and heard. The scientist in him moved forward toward Clark holding out the box. Clark's lips turned blue and his face started to become riddled with pulsing green veins. "Does it hurt?"

"Yes. Please Lex close the box," Clark's breath was becoming raspy. Lex shut the box and watched Clark recover from the exposure to the green piece of meteor. He turned and put the blood onto a slide, covered it and quickly looked at it under a microscope. What he saw left no doubt in his mind. His knees went out from under him. He slid to the floor, covered his mouth with his hands and stared at Clark.

A groan escaped Clark's lips as he recovered from the lengthy meteor exposure. Lex watched in amazement as the puncture wound on Clark's arm from the needle incision closed up in front of his eyes. Curiously he reached out and smoothed his fingers over where it had been. "Oh god, you mean you really are not a mutant? But I always thought that –"

"I'm from the planet Krypton and my birth name is Kal-El." Clark sat up and took Lex's hands away from his face. They trembled in his own larger hands and a pang of guilt entered Clark's subconscious for not preparing Lex better for the news.

"I've never heard of Krypton," Lex whispered. His eyes drifted to Clark's. "Did it really explode?"

"Yes, it did. As far as I know I'm the only survivor," Clark answered feeling the familiar pain at being so alone in the universe.

"How? When?" Lex asked in succession.

"I arrived the day of the meteor shower in a small ship. I found the Kent's in their turned over truck and they adopted me. I'm sorry about your hair Lex. That was my fault." Clark bit his lip nervously.

Lex reached out with one hand and gently caressed Clark's face. "Compared to the other mutants I got lucky, no shaving for life and a supped up immune system." Clark smiled nervously. He leaned into Lex's hand. "No wonder you're so handsome."

Clark blushed. "Does this mean you uh….feel the same?"

Lex smirked. "Are you asking me out Clark?"

"Um, yes?" Clark grinned shyly.

"Then I accept, but we might have to conduct some experiments Clark." Lex said seriously.

Clark pulled away from Lex and turned pale once more, "Experiments?"

"Calm down, I don't know how safe you are Clark. What if I gave you a blow job and it killed me?"

Clark blinked then blushed. "You'd do that?"

Lex winked. "I've got a lot to teach you farm boy."

"I…I …um know it's safe to kiss humans," Clark fiddled with his hands nervously.

"Oh that's real good to know," Lex whispered and leaned over to give Clark their first kiss.

It was to be one of many in a long, long, long relationship.

The end