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jadelennox: vampire diaries. Preferably something with Bonnie and Caroline and Elena being awesome. If you want more than that, how about, hmm, it's senior year, and in the midst of everything they still have to pass chemistry. (Or the class of your choice.)
“Why do we have to take this?” Caroline whined. “It’s not like it makes any difference.” She leaned back into her pillows, pouting.
“It’s knowledge,” Bonnie pointed out. “True stuff.” Crosslegged on the edge of Caroline’s bed, she was dividing her attention between the textbook and her careful notes. Bonnie had an unbroken line of A pluses in science classes since seventh grade, when they started giving out A pluses, and both Elena and Caroline always relied on her to get them through the tests.
“Except it’s not true,” Caroline argued, closing her book with a slam. “Listen, was there anywhere in the course that they explained how people can come back from the dead? Or turn into vampires or see ghosts or your pick of the thingie of the week? No.”
“She has a point,” Elena acknowledged. “I don’t think physics has the kind of answers Mystic Falls needs.”
“Einstein called quantum entanglement ‘spooky action at a distance,’” Bonnie said, flipping through her notebook. “Maybe there are scientific explanations for all this; we just don’t know enough yet. Witchcraft is a lot like chemistry, you know: you have to have all the ingredients in the right proportions, and then you have to have enough energy to drive the reaction.”
“So you’re, like, this cutting-edge scientist?” Caroline said. “That’s kind of cool.”
“I think I’m more like a doctor,” Bonnie mused. “I mean, think about it. A doctor has to know what works, and sometimes why it works—that helps if you encounter something new. But you don’t really need to know how or why calcium molecules bond together to fix a broken bone.”
“So, if you could do anything, would you want to be a witch scientist?” Elena asked.
Bonnie froze. Maybe she’d stopped asking herself what she’d want to do if she were completely free; Elena had gone through the same thing for a while—a couple of years, to be honest. Elena was still weighed down by all the vampire politics; she might never leave Mystic Falls. And Caroline was still figuring out the ‘not old enough to drink legally, forever’ thing. But Bonnie had choices, if she let herself see them.
“I don’t know,” Bonnie said after a minute. “I love the magic, and I’m good at it. The theoretical stuff—the whole point of it is that you don’t get immediately useful results. You build a foundation.”
“Maybe,” Elena suggested, closing her own textbook, “that’s what witchcraft needs. But right now, I need some hot chocolate. Who wants some?”
“Oooh, me!” Caroline said, raising her hand, and Bonnie smiled and followed suit.
Elena turned to see her friends before she left Caroline’s room on her snack-hunting errand. Caroline was chattering about the Senior Prom. Bonnie’s eyes were on a diagram of a complex molecule. Elena thought that, maybe, Bonnie was imagining what a real magic textbook might look like. Not a spellbook, but a book that explained what magic was and why it worked. A book only Bonnie Bennet could write.
Elena hoped she’d be around to see it.
Forthefourthvine: Clark/Lex, toga
Clark didn’t know where to look.
You’d think that years dealing with X-ray vision would’ve prepared him for acres of bared skin, but he’d had the X-ray under control for a while and it had always been very clear to him that there were some powers that were inherently abusive unless used only to investigate and defend. Even for surveillance, he only looked at skeletons unless he absolutely had to get skin-level detail, and skeletons were not a turn-on.
Also it was very different when it was Lex who looked like he’d just tossed a sheet over his shoulder after rising naked out of bed, the bottoms of his thighs exposed by the improvised skirt wrapped around his waist. Lex’s suits always seemed to have been sewed on around him. Clark had seen him with his tie impeccably knotted at 2 am, screaming at some poor minion about the latest Superman incursion. And then the same morning, different tie, equally suave, taking a breakfast meeting with a Senator.
So, seeing Lex’s shoulder and a chunk of his chest seemed incredibly invasive. Lex’s jackets hid the cut of the muscle underneath—broader now than when they were in Smallville, but surprisingly strong. Of course Lex wouldn’t want people knowing how hard he could punch if forced to it.
“Done with your eyeful?” Lex snapped, and Clark blushed. “I agree, those idiots should not have burned my clothes when they kidnapped me, but what can you expect from aliens?”
Clark swallowed the jab. “Are you all right?”
Lex raised his eyebrows, somehow indicating that if he were suffering some negative effects from his offworld captivity, he wouldn’t be confessing as much to Superman.
“I would’ve thought you’d appreciate the chance to wear a toga,” Clark tried, for lack of anything better. Why weren’t Lex’s people here to take him away already? The Justice League’s American staging area/business office wasn’t that out of the way.
Lex looked, if anything, even more annoyed. “This—sheet, which by the way I picked up from the altar on which they were going to sacrifice me—”
“You’re welcome—” Clark muttered, because that was going to be his only chance.
“—is nothing like the classic toga, something you would know if you’d had a minimally satisfactory education.”
“Not all of us had your advantages,” Clark snapped, even though he knew better. Lex was just so good at pushing every last button.
“Yes, because superstrength, superspeed, and supersenses are so limiting. My heart fairly bleeds.”
Clark had walked into that one, and invulnerability didn’t protect him. Where was Lex’s limo? “Well—it looks good on you.”
And finally, something that shut Lex up. Clark considered doing a victory dance. But he didn’t want to be distracted from Lex’s dumbfounded expression.
Of course it couldn’t last. “You actually think—” Lex began, and then uncharacteristically reconsidered. “I’m not sure I should take fashion guidance from a man who wears a primary-colored, skin-tight suit with a cape.”
That, on the other hand, was a criticism that had been tired when Joan Rivers first offered it on national TV. Clark shrugged. “I’ve learned to go with what works for me.”
Lex bit his lip and did one of those once-overs he used to offer on a regular basis. “And why do you think the toga works for me?”
Now it was Clark’s turn to be puzzled. “You have seen your shoulders, right? And your arms.”
This also produced a blessed period of silence. Maybe Lex was ashamed of the hairlessness. He did tend to turn the lights out when he was with someone, intimately—not that Clark checked up on him, except that Lex’s lovers often turned homicidal as soon as the afterglow wore off, so it was only a matter of public safety for Clark to keep an ear open—anyway, Lex wasn’t used to people looking at him, and it must be galling for Superman to be ogling him.
“If you were anyone else,” Lex said, and shook his head.
Yeah, Clark got that. If he were anyone else, maybe Lex wouldn’t have minded so much being seen so vulnerable. If he were anyone else, maybe he and Lex wouldn’t have become such bitter enemies. “Maybe I’m not as hostile to you as you think I am,” he said.
“All right,” Lex announced, as if there were an audience, “I tried, but there is a limit.”
“What?” Lex wasn’t making any sense, above and beyond his usual cryptic superiority. Clark decided to scan in more detail for any signs of brain damage, but before he could implement his plan something truly shocking happened: Lex kissed him.
Lex’s mouth was soft and dry. He waited only half a second at most before slipping his tongue between Clark’s lips, one hand on Clark’s cheek like that was all he needed to keep Clark under control. Which might have been true, since Clark couldn’t move. Clark couldn’t feel Lex’s scar at all. Clark couldn’t feel his toes. Lex’s mouth was so warm, and fireworks were going off inside Clark’s skull: Oh, he thought. This.
“Keep feeding me lines like that,” Lex mumbled between kisses, “see what else you get fed.” That sounded—God, that sounded promising. Clark’s erection strained painfully against his suit. His hands unfroze long enough to get them around Lex’s shoulders and pull him in tight, forcing Lex to tilt his head up further.
Which was, of course, when Lex’s minions arrived.
Lex didn’t look the slightest bit fazed when they pulled apart, only a faint flush on his cheeks. Clark turned so that the cape hid his lower body from most scrutiny, earning him a knowing look from Lex and an irritated one from Mercy.
“Superman,” Lex said, when he was at the door. Clark, with truly superhuman effort, met his eyes. “Come by tonight and you’ll see how much better the toga looks on my floor.”
jadelennox: vampire diaries. Preferably something with Bonnie and Caroline and Elena being awesome. If you want more than that, how about, hmm, it's senior year, and in the midst of everything they still have to pass chemistry. (Or the class of your choice.)“Why do we have to take this?” Caroline whined. “It’s not like it makes any difference.” She leaned back into her pillows, pouting.
“It’s knowledge,” Bonnie pointed out. “True stuff.” Crosslegged on the edge of Caroline’s bed, she was dividing her attention between the textbook and her careful notes. Bonnie had an unbroken line of A pluses in science classes since seventh grade, when they started giving out A pluses, and both Elena and Caroline always relied on her to get them through the tests.
“Except it’s not true,” Caroline argued, closing her book with a slam. “Listen, was there anywhere in the course that they explained how people can come back from the dead? Or turn into vampires or see ghosts or your pick of the thingie of the week? No.”
“She has a point,” Elena acknowledged. “I don’t think physics has the kind of answers Mystic Falls needs.”
“Einstein called quantum entanglement ‘spooky action at a distance,’” Bonnie said, flipping through her notebook. “Maybe there are scientific explanations for all this; we just don’t know enough yet. Witchcraft is a lot like chemistry, you know: you have to have all the ingredients in the right proportions, and then you have to have enough energy to drive the reaction.”
“So you’re, like, this cutting-edge scientist?” Caroline said. “That’s kind of cool.”
“I think I’m more like a doctor,” Bonnie mused. “I mean, think about it. A doctor has to know what works, and sometimes why it works—that helps if you encounter something new. But you don’t really need to know how or why calcium molecules bond together to fix a broken bone.”
“So, if you could do anything, would you want to be a witch scientist?” Elena asked.
Bonnie froze. Maybe she’d stopped asking herself what she’d want to do if she were completely free; Elena had gone through the same thing for a while—a couple of years, to be honest. Elena was still weighed down by all the vampire politics; she might never leave Mystic Falls. And Caroline was still figuring out the ‘not old enough to drink legally, forever’ thing. But Bonnie had choices, if she let herself see them.
“I don’t know,” Bonnie said after a minute. “I love the magic, and I’m good at it. The theoretical stuff—the whole point of it is that you don’t get immediately useful results. You build a foundation.”
“Maybe,” Elena suggested, closing her own textbook, “that’s what witchcraft needs. But right now, I need some hot chocolate. Who wants some?”
“Oooh, me!” Caroline said, raising her hand, and Bonnie smiled and followed suit.
Elena turned to see her friends before she left Caroline’s room on her snack-hunting errand. Caroline was chattering about the Senior Prom. Bonnie’s eyes were on a diagram of a complex molecule. Elena thought that, maybe, Bonnie was imagining what a real magic textbook might look like. Not a spellbook, but a book that explained what magic was and why it worked. A book only Bonnie Bennet could write.
Elena hoped she’d be around to see it.
For
thefourthvine: Clark/Lex, togaClark didn’t know where to look.
You’d think that years dealing with X-ray vision would’ve prepared him for acres of bared skin, but he’d had the X-ray under control for a while and it had always been very clear to him that there were some powers that were inherently abusive unless used only to investigate and defend. Even for surveillance, he only looked at skeletons unless he absolutely had to get skin-level detail, and skeletons were not a turn-on.
Also it was very different when it was Lex who looked like he’d just tossed a sheet over his shoulder after rising naked out of bed, the bottoms of his thighs exposed by the improvised skirt wrapped around his waist. Lex’s suits always seemed to have been sewed on around him. Clark had seen him with his tie impeccably knotted at 2 am, screaming at some poor minion about the latest Superman incursion. And then the same morning, different tie, equally suave, taking a breakfast meeting with a Senator.
So, seeing Lex’s shoulder and a chunk of his chest seemed incredibly invasive. Lex’s jackets hid the cut of the muscle underneath—broader now than when they were in Smallville, but surprisingly strong. Of course Lex wouldn’t want people knowing how hard he could punch if forced to it.
“Done with your eyeful?” Lex snapped, and Clark blushed. “I agree, those idiots should not have burned my clothes when they kidnapped me, but what can you expect from aliens?”
Clark swallowed the jab. “Are you all right?”
Lex raised his eyebrows, somehow indicating that if he were suffering some negative effects from his offworld captivity, he wouldn’t be confessing as much to Superman.
“I would’ve thought you’d appreciate the chance to wear a toga,” Clark tried, for lack of anything better. Why weren’t Lex’s people here to take him away already? The Justice League’s American staging area/business office wasn’t that out of the way.
Lex looked, if anything, even more annoyed. “This—sheet, which by the way I picked up from the altar on which they were going to sacrifice me—”
“You’re welcome—” Clark muttered, because that was going to be his only chance.
“—is nothing like the classic toga, something you would know if you’d had a minimally satisfactory education.”
“Not all of us had your advantages,” Clark snapped, even though he knew better. Lex was just so good at pushing every last button.
“Yes, because superstrength, superspeed, and supersenses are so limiting. My heart fairly bleeds.”
Clark had walked into that one, and invulnerability didn’t protect him. Where was Lex’s limo? “Well—it looks good on you.”
And finally, something that shut Lex up. Clark considered doing a victory dance. But he didn’t want to be distracted from Lex’s dumbfounded expression.
Of course it couldn’t last. “You actually think—” Lex began, and then uncharacteristically reconsidered. “I’m not sure I should take fashion guidance from a man who wears a primary-colored, skin-tight suit with a cape.”
That, on the other hand, was a criticism that had been tired when Joan Rivers first offered it on national TV. Clark shrugged. “I’ve learned to go with what works for me.”
Lex bit his lip and did one of those once-overs he used to offer on a regular basis. “And why do you think the toga works for me?”
Now it was Clark’s turn to be puzzled. “You have seen your shoulders, right? And your arms.”
This also produced a blessed period of silence. Maybe Lex was ashamed of the hairlessness. He did tend to turn the lights out when he was with someone, intimately—not that Clark checked up on him, except that Lex’s lovers often turned homicidal as soon as the afterglow wore off, so it was only a matter of public safety for Clark to keep an ear open—anyway, Lex wasn’t used to people looking at him, and it must be galling for Superman to be ogling him.
“If you were anyone else,” Lex said, and shook his head.
Yeah, Clark got that. If he were anyone else, maybe Lex wouldn’t have minded so much being seen so vulnerable. If he were anyone else, maybe he and Lex wouldn’t have become such bitter enemies. “Maybe I’m not as hostile to you as you think I am,” he said.
“All right,” Lex announced, as if there were an audience, “I tried, but there is a limit.”
“What?” Lex wasn’t making any sense, above and beyond his usual cryptic superiority. Clark decided to scan in more detail for any signs of brain damage, but before he could implement his plan something truly shocking happened: Lex kissed him.
Lex’s mouth was soft and dry. He waited only half a second at most before slipping his tongue between Clark’s lips, one hand on Clark’s cheek like that was all he needed to keep Clark under control. Which might have been true, since Clark couldn’t move. Clark couldn’t feel Lex’s scar at all. Clark couldn’t feel his toes. Lex’s mouth was so warm, and fireworks were going off inside Clark’s skull: Oh, he thought. This.
“Keep feeding me lines like that,” Lex mumbled between kisses, “see what else you get fed.” That sounded—God, that sounded promising. Clark’s erection strained painfully against his suit. His hands unfroze long enough to get them around Lex’s shoulders and pull him in tight, forcing Lex to tilt his head up further.
Which was, of course, when Lex’s minions arrived.
Lex didn’t look the slightest bit fazed when they pulled apart, only a faint flush on his cheeks. Clark turned so that the cape hid his lower body from most scrutiny, earning him a knowing look from Lex and an irritated one from Mercy.
“Superman,” Lex said, when he was at the door. Clark, with truly superhuman effort, met his eyes. “Come by tonight and you’ll see how much better the toga looks on my floor.”
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