AUTHOR: Julian Lee,
CATEGORIES: Clark/Lex, first time, ep-related for "Nicodemus"
SPOILERS: All "Nicodemus," all the time
RATING: PG-13 for some naughty langauge (no, not *that* kind of naughty language. Jeez, you people...)
DISCLAIMER: If they belonged to me, the sexual tension that's been floating around all season would be carried to its logical conlusion. Since they belong to the WB and Gough/Millar Ink instead, we'll just have to live in the subtext.
SUMMARY: "So, what *would* you have done, Lex?"
This
by Julian Lee
Lex supposed he should've been surprised that someone was ringing his doorbell at one in the morning, but he wasn't. And he supposed he should've been shocked that that someone was Clark Kent, but he certainly was not. These late-night visits were getting to be something of a habit with them.
And, oh, how they made Lex ache.
"Hello, Clark," Lex said, leaning heavily on the edge of the door.
"Lex." Clark looked around as though just now realizing where he was. "I, um."
"Couldn't sleep," Lex supplied.
"Getting to be the normal state of things," Clark said ruefully.
Lex stood aside. "Yeah. Coming in?"
"Can I?"
"This is, what, the fourth time you've done this, and I haven't thrown you back into the night yet."
Clark smiled crookedly and stepped just inside the doorway. "You'd have every right to. I mean, it *is* -- jeez, I don't even know what time it is."
"Just after one." Lex shut the door.
"It -- really? Oh, man, Lex, I'm so sorry. I should--" Clark tried to return to the door, but Lex planted himself in front of it.
"Clark, it's one in the morning. There's no way you're going to get me all riled up for five minutes and then disappear again."
Clark raised an eyebrow. "Riled up?"
There was a suggestiveness in his voice that Lex was trying desperately not to hear. "What do you want, Clark?" he demanded, far more harshly than he'd meant to.
"I'm sorry, Lex," Clark said again. "I just...I wanted to apologize."
Lex folded his arms across his chest. "By my count, Clark, you have now apologized twice."
Clark's eyes dropped to the floor, and he shuffled his feet far too adorably for Lex's comfort. "I meant -- for earlier. My dad--"
"Only said what pretty much everyone in Smallville thinks but is too chickenshit to say to my face."
Clark's hands clenched into enormous angry fists against his thighs. There were parts of his father's rant that he was still trying to unravel -- parts that hinted at ulterior motives to Lex's friendship with Clark that had nothing to do with superhuman abilities or Kent family land. The possibility that such a thing might be true had Clark equal parts exhilerated and terrified -- and rather riled up himself. The rest of the tirade, though -- *that* he had no confusion about. "He was wrong. And he had no right -- and then you left before I had a chance to..." His words trailed away uncertainly.
There was something immeasurably entertaining about the number of lefts and rights and wrongs in that sentence, but even Lex knew better than to make a crack about it. Clark wasn't done apologizing, anyway.
"Then when Pete--" He swallowed, tasting the metal bite of the fear he'd felt that he had come too late, that Pete was really going to--"I didn't mean to shove you so hard."
Lex shrugged and blocked out the memory of the hot stab of those endless minutes when he believed that his friendship with Clark was really over. "You had a role to play."
Clark lifted his eyes to Lex's, and they were so soulful and earnest that Lex felt ashamed of every lie he'd ever told to anyone, simply by association with the ones he'd told Clark today. "Still, I didn't mean to -- I never wanted to hurt you."
Against his will, Lex's hand went to the base of his skull, to the still-sore spot where his head had connected with the fireplace. "I'm fine, Clark," he said, and winced. Another lie.
Clark didn't miss either movement. He took a half-step forward, then stopped, his tongue poking hesitantly between his lips. "Can I -- I mean, is there--"
Sighing, Lex turned so Clark could see the bruise coloring his skin. Clark hissed, and a second later Lex felt large, warm fingers brush tentatively against the bump. "I did that to you?"
"Well, technically, the fireplace did that to me," Lex said dryly, putting all the force of his Luthor cynicism into erasing the shockwave those fingers were sending through his head.
"Damn it, Lex--"
He whirled around. "I've never heard you swear before." He grinned, grateful for the chance to change the subject. "I like it."
"Lex. Don't," Clark growled. "Don't--" He spun away and stared into the house.
Lex shuddered in the sudden chill of the air. It was only then that he noticed he wasn't wearing a shirt. He cleared his throat, and Clark halfway turned back to him. "I'm going to go grab a shirt or
something."
>From the startled jerk Clark gave, Lex figured he hadn't noticed, either. "I -- I'll be here."
Lex tilted his head towards the stairs. "Come with me. I get the feeling there's something else you want to tell me."
Clark shrugged slowly, almost more of a shoulder roll. "It's been a weird couple days, you know?"
With a snort, Lex headed towards the stairway. "No shit."
When Lex was halfway up the stairs, he was fairly certain that Clark hadn't followed him. When Lex was at the top of the stairs, Clark was right behind him. He turned and blinked at his friend in lazy surprise. "Hello, Clark."
Clark set his jaw and refused to answer, so Lex shrugged again and continued down the hall. Clark hesitated in the doorway to the bedroom, and Lex tugged his sleeve. "It's not the Queen's chamber or anything." **Though my father often calls me a queen,** Lex thought with an inward grimace.
Coming into the room, Clark's trepidation surrendered to the exhausted confusion that had plagued him ever since his father's diatribe against Lex in the Kent kitchen. He slumped on the edge of Lex's bed and dug his fingers into the comforter. It wasn't comforting.
Lex disappeared into his enormous walk-in closet and surveyed his clothes, frowning. Did he own *anything* that wasn't lavender or black? He sighed and grabbed the handiest black sweater. Didn't seem like a night for lavender. "Listen, Clark," he called, his voice momentarily muffled as he slid the shirt over his head, "if this is about Hamilton, I--"
"Lana kissed me."
Lex froze, the sweater halfway on, his arms suspended awkwardly at shoulder level. *That* wasn't what he had expected from Clark tonight. Or any night.
"Lex? Did you hear me?"
Cursing silently, Lex finished pulling down the sweater. He smoothed it very precisely with his hand and walked out of his closet (yeah, yeah, he'd heard all the jokes -- made some of them once or twice, too -- they really aren't as funny as you think they are). "I heard. Congratulations." He was astonished by how sincere he managed to make that sound.
Clark made a small impatient noise and waved his hand around. His other hand, Lex noted, maintained its death grip on the comforter. "It wasn't--" He shook his head. "It was no good."
Lex pushed up his sleeves and sat next to his friend. "No good?"
"Well, I mean, the kiss itself was good -- the actual physical...mechanics of it."
Forcing himself not to laugh at Clark describing a kiss in the same terms as simple machines, Lex leaned back on his elbows. "But?"
Clark's shoulders dropped further. "OK. We were at the pool, and Lana -- obviously, this was all after the flower sneezed on her, so it wasn't her. Except that it was. If anything, it was *more* her than any other time. Inhibitions and all that."
Sometimes, Lex marveled, Clark would do things, *say* things that would clue his audience in to the oft-forgotten fact that he was only fifteen. For this, Lex was eternally grateful. Forgetting Clark's age would be a *monumentally* dumb idea. Lionel had exiled his son from Metropolis to Smallville; Lex didn't like to ponder where another fall would land him.
Okay. So. Pay attention, Lex.
"Then she..." Clark blushed. "Well, she stripped."
Lex was infinitely glad he had decided against a drink, because he'd be choking on it right now. "She *stripped*?" And good God, could his voice sound any more junior-high-girl jealous?
"Not...completely," Clark said, his eyes dark and pleading for Lex to save him. Lex pressed his lips together and stared back, unblinking. Clark sighed. "She was down to her bra and underwear,
so it was, I guess, like a bikini, only, uh, red. And, um. Lacy."
Well, now. If Lana Lang in lacy red undergarments wasn't at the absolute *bottom* of images Lex wanted to ponder, he didn't know what was. Except possibly Whitney Fordman in the same get-up.
"Then she jumped into the pool."
"That's logical," Lex commented absently, and was rewarded by a befuddled glare from Clark.
"So after she swam around for a while," Clark continued, "She climbed back out of the pool and..."
"Kissed you."
"Yeah."
"In a manner which you found mechanically acceptable but in other ways...what?"
Clark pushed both of his hands through his dark hair. "Don't you get it, Lex? She doesn't want me?"
"Uh, Clark?" Lex asked, still recovering from multiple shocks. "She *stripped* to her underwear in front of you, got all wet, and then sucked your face off. Which part of this scenario leads you to the conclusion that she doesn't want you?"
Clark leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, propping his chin on his fists. "The part where -- as she was kissing me, the door opened, and Principal Kwan came in. Lana pushed me into the pool and ran away. I'll be serving my detention Saturday morning."
Lex chuckled. "Is this the first detention you've ever gotten, Clark?"
He laughed reluctantly. "Yeah."
"Well at least it's for something good."
"Only it *wasn't* good!" Clark jumped off the bed and started pacing the room. "She wasn't -- the Nicodemus flower takes away your inhibitions, right?"
Lex closed his eyes and absolutely did not think of a Clark Kent free of inhibitions. He nodded.
"So Lana lost her inhibitions, and she didn't fling herself at me and say, 'You're the one I've always wanted, Clark,' or anything similarly soap-operaish."
Lex opened his eyes and regarded Clark. "Soap-operaish?"
"Tell me the scene with Pete and the gun couldn't have been lifted from 'Edge of Night' or something."
"Except that he had an actual, loaded gun pointed at my head. And, do you have *any* idea how long ago 'Edge of Night' was cancelled?"
"This is so not the point," Clark protested. "She teased me, Lex. And not in the good way!"
Lex half fell over as one of his arms collapsed under him. What the hell did Clark know about being teased in the good way?
"What she wants," Clark said quietly, his voice a jumbled mess of anger and regret and resignation and disappointment that made Lex hurt all over, "isn't me. It's the power trip she gets from me wanting her."
Wow. And, just, wow. Who ever would have guessed that Clark could be so insightful, so practically *clinical,* about the girl he'd had a larger-than-Texas sized crush on for who knew how long? "I'm sorry, Clark," Lex said softly, and almost meant it.
"So am I." He stopped pacing about a foot from Lex, who fought a desperate battle to continue his conversation with Clark's *eyes.* "Except that I'm not as sorry as I thought I'd be. I've spent the last few hours trying to think -- what would have happened if the flower had sneezed on me?"
Nope. No way would Clark drag Lex into that gutter. Not a chance in -- oops. Too late. He forced himself into the sternly concerned elder brother role he had invented for moments such as this, dangerous moments when he was *this* far from slamming Clark face-down on the bed and fucking him in a wholly unfraternal manner. "Given how sick the meteor rocks make you, what would have happened would have been one very sick young man. Don't do this, Clark. Don't torture yourself."
"It's not torture," Clark said, far too casually, dropping onto the bed again. He was possibly closer than he had been last time, but possibly this was just the hallucination of what Lex was rapidly
coming to think of as his completely unbalanced mind. "I'm just wondering, is all. If you'd asked me yesterday, we all know what I would have said."
He waited a moment for Lex to supply the answer to his rhetorical question, but Lex found he couldn't get the syllables of "Lana Lang" around his tongue. Perhaps because his tongue was making other plans -- oh, for crying out loud, would you *stop* already?
"But today, I don't think that's my answer anymore." Clark, Lex was pleased to note, hadn't actually answered the question, either. "I can't help but wonder what I *would* do."
"Well," Lex said briskly, straightening his back and putting a tiny, half-hearted effort into making himself seem respectable, "the flower has been eradicated, so we'll never know, will we?"
Clark shrugged. "Guess not." He looked at Lex out of the corner of his eye. "What about you, Lex? What would it have been for you?"
Lex tilted his head to look incredulously at his friend. Even for someone as naive as Clark -- "Isn't that obvious? I mean, isn't it really, *painfully* obvious?"
"When people were feeling the effects of the flower, they were acting out their *hidden* desires." He grinned. "You -- you're already conquering the world; nothing hidden there."
Lex shook his head sadly. "Clark, I can be far, far more ruthless than I have been. You know that."
"Yeah. I guess I do." Clark kept his gaze fastened on the view outside the window, and Lex felt something not unlike guilt stab him.
"Still." Lex pushed himself upright so they sat shoulder to shoulder. "I don't know, were my inhibitions suddenly removed, that more business deals or corporate marauding is what I'd pursue."
"No?" Clark raised an eyebrow.
"Because, as you say, it's pretty much what I do now. Some would say it's what I do now to keep my mind off other things I'd *rather* be doing."
Then he leaned.
Just a little. A change in pressure more than a change in position. But where before his shoulder had just happened to be touching Clark's, now it was clearly *touching* Clark's.
Clark licked his lips. "Really?" he asked, and Lex was extremely pleased to hear his voice shake.
And then Clark leaned, too.
"So, what *would* you have done, Lex?"
It occurred to Lex that the Nicodemus flower was just one of many ways to lose your inhibitions. There was alcohol. There was the brain-stopping reality of cold steel pointed at your head.
There was the undeniable *nearness* of Clark Kent.
"This." He leaned his head in and pressed a soft kiss to the corner of Clark's mouth. He wasn't trying to be chaste; it was just the only part of Clark's mouth he could really reach from here. Then he sat back and waited. Waited for his friend to scream a couple obscenities and run from the room, or sock him in the jaw and run from the room, or mutter something about needing to get home and run from the room. Really, he was waiting for Clark to do anything but continue to sit next to him on the bed, the ghostliest trace of a smile playing around his lips.
"Ask me the question, Lex," he murmured.
Lex blinked four times in rapid succession. "Huh?"
"I know my answer now. Ask me again." Clark smiled in what could only be described as a seductive manner.
So though Lex found his voice being held down by a whole boatload of hope and lust that had taken up residence in his throat, he managed to whisper, "What would you have done, Clark?"
"This."
Clark had a lot more manuvering room. Well, he was freakishly tall, and strong, and facing in the right direction, so it only stood to reaso -- that's as far as that thought got before the message finally made it through to Lex's brain that he was kissing Clark. A lot. With tongue.
Lex finally ran out of air and pulled away, though he really, reeeally didn't want to. He grinned up at what had to be the best thing to come out of Smallville since...well, okay, *nothing* this
good had *ever* come out of Smallville before. "Hey, Clark, got any other inhibitions?"
Clark laughed. "*Tons.* This is Kansas, after all."
FIN
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