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runpunkrun: Lex gets turned into a vampire.
“You can’t tell me you didn’t know,” Lex said with his usual scorn, still holding the towel against his shoulder even though he wasn’t bleeding any more. “I haven’t been outside on a sunny day in years. All my windows are polarized glass. Every member of my personal staff gets regular transfusions!”
Clark eyed the pile of empty blood bags around Lex and was very glad that Lex hadn’t gotten a chance to demonstrate his personnel practices before Clark got him out of range of the assassin’s bullet and into the hospital suite. True, Clark had been thinking ‘surgery’ more than ‘orgy of blood drinking,’ but it had worked out the same, once Clark had gotten rid of the doctors and nurses. Lex was still staring at him aggressively, awaiting some reaction. “I thought you were turning into Howard Hughes! Not a—” he couldn’t say the word.
“Yes, because that’s implausible, says the human-shaped alien.” Like Lex had any business being snarky about it. He was already pale, bald, sexy, and richer than God. Literal blood-drinking was both only a small step sideways and unimaginably grotesque.
“How did it happen?” Clark asked.
Lex’s jaw tightened, but he answered. “Apparently meteor rocks aren’t the only things that can create vampires. The legend, as is too often the case, has a factual basis, as I discovered when I was looking for an artifact in Eastern Europe five years ago. The serum doesn’t work on standard-issue vampires. I hurt myself fairly badly experimenting with different versions of it, so that’s off the table for now.”
Clark scanned Lex’s body, but it was the same as always. Lex had been a fast healer even before; and X-ray didn’t reveal anything … unhuman.
“Try sonography,” Lex suggested, startling Clark back into human-range vision. Clark flushed, and then he was mad at Lex for catching him off guard. “You should be able to detect some changes in the blood vessels. I still have a pulse, albeit slower, and even a working digestive system, about which the less said the better.”
Clark realized that Lex hadn’t in fact given up any significant details about the source of his transformation, which was no doubt deliberate. This changed everything. The League had been treating Lex as if his plans might come to fruition in years, decades at the maximum. But if Lex was a vampire, then stony centuries might not be too long for him to wait, given how much he wanted. Their whole strategy needed to be rethought.
Bruce’s plans, the ones he didn’t think Clark knew about, would have to be updated.
“Can you do it now?” Lex asked, softly, head tilted just a little.
“What? Lex,” he said, rattled, the name he hadn’t spoken in years spilling out of him as easily as Jimmy’s, or Lois’s. “I don’t—”
“You don’t kill people,” Lex said. “But I’m not people. Finish the syllogism yourself. If you can.”
“You’re the President,” Clark said, more because some response was required than because he had any idea how to deal with the larger issues.
Lex finally put the towel on the gurney next to him and scowled down at his ruined shirt. “Fortunately, the Constitution only specifies birth and age. Technically I don’t think there’s any problem with being undead, and it would be hard to argue incapacity. Impeachment, yes, that’s a real possibility, if you want to put the country through that again. Or, I did just get shot; no one would blame Superman too much if I didn’t make it.”
“Lex!” he snapped, again: this wasn’t Luthor in front of him, not right now. “I’m not going to kill you!”
Something flowed across Lex’s face, a shark moving in murky water. “Blackmail, then?”
Clark hesitated. He believed in the truth, but any way he could think of to expose the President as a vampire ended not with truth but with real witchhunts. “Tell me you’re not planning to create an army of vampires and enslave humanity.”
Lex raised a contemptuous eyebrow. “I saw that movie too. I learned back in Smallville not to create potential competitors. Or suffer them to exist.”
Which probably answered the question of what had happened to the vampire who’d made the mistake of turning Lex. And the idea that Lex wouldn’t be interested in having peers wasn’t at all implausible, given the model of Lex’s foreign relations policy.
Clark had so many more questions—did it hurt, does it still hurt, are you afraid, what happens when people start to notice that you aren’t getting older? But there was only one that really mattered. “If you’re not killing people, then I’m not going to interfere,” he said. “And if you want—we could talk, sometime. About … being different.”
Lex opened his mouth (Clark flashed back to his first sight of the teeth, needle-sharp like a piranha’s, sudden terror not for his own safety but that this wasn’t Lex, that Lex had been replaced by some impostor; then the bone-deep certainty that the monster was the same man he’d known for years, only sea-changed) but didn’t speak for a long moment, obviously reconsidering his first impulse. “I’m not that lonely, Superman.”
“Maybe I am,” Clark said, the leftover shock making him reckless. Not even Bruce knew all the dirty secrets of Krypton, or all the things he’d done over the years flitting back and forth between Clark and Superman. If Lex could be so changed, and still exactly himself, then maybe—he couldn’t even let himself think about it in more detail, for fear of missing what the real Lex, the one outside of his head, was doing. “Standing offer, Lex.”
And Lex’s face changed again, this time not distorting into the bloodthirsty snarling creature he’d been after he’d been shot; something more subtle, turning the clock back to the Lex of Clark’s regrets. “I have to go,” he said, almost apologetic, even though Clark well understood the necessity of getting the leader of the free world back into the public eye, visibly un-assassinated if not exactly alive.
Clark nodded.
“I’ll tell them you performed laser surgery,” Lex said, somehow managing to indicate his contempt for the gullibility of the general populace without changing his expression or his tone at all. “And—” Clark hadn’t seen Lex hesitate in years. He’d trained himself out of it the same way he’d trained himself into affable approachability, like a razorblade disguised as a butter knife. “The Secret Service has standing orders to allow Superman into the Oval Office.”
Clark blinked. He’d always assumed the orders involved more Kryptonite and less welcoming. It seemed that there’d been a lot of changes in Lex that he’d missed.
He didn’t plan to miss any more.
runpunkrun: Lex gets turned into a vampire. “You can’t tell me you didn’t know,” Lex said with his usual scorn, still holding the towel against his shoulder even though he wasn’t bleeding any more. “I haven’t been outside on a sunny day in years. All my windows are polarized glass. Every member of my personal staff gets regular transfusions!”
Clark eyed the pile of empty blood bags around Lex and was very glad that Lex hadn’t gotten a chance to demonstrate his personnel practices before Clark got him out of range of the assassin’s bullet and into the hospital suite. True, Clark had been thinking ‘surgery’ more than ‘orgy of blood drinking,’ but it had worked out the same, once Clark had gotten rid of the doctors and nurses. Lex was still staring at him aggressively, awaiting some reaction. “I thought you were turning into Howard Hughes! Not a—” he couldn’t say the word.
“Yes, because that’s implausible, says the human-shaped alien.” Like Lex had any business being snarky about it. He was already pale, bald, sexy, and richer than God. Literal blood-drinking was both only a small step sideways and unimaginably grotesque.
“How did it happen?” Clark asked.
Lex’s jaw tightened, but he answered. “Apparently meteor rocks aren’t the only things that can create vampires. The legend, as is too often the case, has a factual basis, as I discovered when I was looking for an artifact in Eastern Europe five years ago. The serum doesn’t work on standard-issue vampires. I hurt myself fairly badly experimenting with different versions of it, so that’s off the table for now.”
Clark scanned Lex’s body, but it was the same as always. Lex had been a fast healer even before; and X-ray didn’t reveal anything … unhuman.
“Try sonography,” Lex suggested, startling Clark back into human-range vision. Clark flushed, and then he was mad at Lex for catching him off guard. “You should be able to detect some changes in the blood vessels. I still have a pulse, albeit slower, and even a working digestive system, about which the less said the better.”
Clark realized that Lex hadn’t in fact given up any significant details about the source of his transformation, which was no doubt deliberate. This changed everything. The League had been treating Lex as if his plans might come to fruition in years, decades at the maximum. But if Lex was a vampire, then stony centuries might not be too long for him to wait, given how much he wanted. Their whole strategy needed to be rethought.
Bruce’s plans, the ones he didn’t think Clark knew about, would have to be updated.
“Can you do it now?” Lex asked, softly, head tilted just a little.
“What? Lex,” he said, rattled, the name he hadn’t spoken in years spilling out of him as easily as Jimmy’s, or Lois’s. “I don’t—”
“You don’t kill people,” Lex said. “But I’m not people. Finish the syllogism yourself. If you can.”
“You’re the President,” Clark said, more because some response was required than because he had any idea how to deal with the larger issues.
Lex finally put the towel on the gurney next to him and scowled down at his ruined shirt. “Fortunately, the Constitution only specifies birth and age. Technically I don’t think there’s any problem with being undead, and it would be hard to argue incapacity. Impeachment, yes, that’s a real possibility, if you want to put the country through that again. Or, I did just get shot; no one would blame Superman too much if I didn’t make it.”
“Lex!” he snapped, again: this wasn’t Luthor in front of him, not right now. “I’m not going to kill you!”
Something flowed across Lex’s face, a shark moving in murky water. “Blackmail, then?”
Clark hesitated. He believed in the truth, but any way he could think of to expose the President as a vampire ended not with truth but with real witchhunts. “Tell me you’re not planning to create an army of vampires and enslave humanity.”
Lex raised a contemptuous eyebrow. “I saw that movie too. I learned back in Smallville not to create potential competitors. Or suffer them to exist.”
Which probably answered the question of what had happened to the vampire who’d made the mistake of turning Lex. And the idea that Lex wouldn’t be interested in having peers wasn’t at all implausible, given the model of Lex’s foreign relations policy.
Clark had so many more questions—did it hurt, does it still hurt, are you afraid, what happens when people start to notice that you aren’t getting older? But there was only one that really mattered. “If you’re not killing people, then I’m not going to interfere,” he said. “And if you want—we could talk, sometime. About … being different.”
Lex opened his mouth (Clark flashed back to his first sight of the teeth, needle-sharp like a piranha’s, sudden terror not for his own safety but that this wasn’t Lex, that Lex had been replaced by some impostor; then the bone-deep certainty that the monster was the same man he’d known for years, only sea-changed) but didn’t speak for a long moment, obviously reconsidering his first impulse. “I’m not that lonely, Superman.”
“Maybe I am,” Clark said, the leftover shock making him reckless. Not even Bruce knew all the dirty secrets of Krypton, or all the things he’d done over the years flitting back and forth between Clark and Superman. If Lex could be so changed, and still exactly himself, then maybe—he couldn’t even let himself think about it in more detail, for fear of missing what the real Lex, the one outside of his head, was doing. “Standing offer, Lex.”
And Lex’s face changed again, this time not distorting into the bloodthirsty snarling creature he’d been after he’d been shot; something more subtle, turning the clock back to the Lex of Clark’s regrets. “I have to go,” he said, almost apologetic, even though Clark well understood the necessity of getting the leader of the free world back into the public eye, visibly un-assassinated if not exactly alive.
Clark nodded.
“I’ll tell them you performed laser surgery,” Lex said, somehow managing to indicate his contempt for the gullibility of the general populace without changing his expression or his tone at all. “And—” Clark hadn’t seen Lex hesitate in years. He’d trained himself out of it the same way he’d trained himself into affable approachability, like a razorblade disguised as a butter knife. “The Secret Service has standing orders to allow Superman into the Oval Office.”
Clark blinked. He’d always assumed the orders involved more Kryptonite and less welcoming. It seemed that there’d been a lot of changes in Lex that he’d missed.
He didn’t plan to miss any more.
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like a razorblade disguised as a butter knife
So good. I like Clark's surprise and how it puts him off guard enough to use Lex's first name.
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