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kotofeika: Smallville - Clex (or not). Meteors grant wishes. What if Lex wished for a friend - and, being an ickle comic book geek, for a super-powered friend from another planet? Years later, Clark discovers that Lex just made him up.
The look on Lex’s face nearly stopped Clark’s heart. Lex hadn’t been in as much pain when his father died, and for all Lionel’s horrors Lex had loved him still. “Does that mean that if I die, he dies?”
“I only see the truth of the past,” the witch said. “And this isn’t my kind of magic. Your guess is as good as mine. Better, given your history of meteor rock experiments.”
“Okay!” Clark said, deciding that this was one conversation better ended quickly. He’d made some dumb decisions in his life, but this was by far the worst. When he’d thought he might get more information about his origins, he hadn’t even considered—
A meteor mutation powerful enough to conjure up an entire person. An entire alien superhero.
Lex’s heartbeat was stuttering like a raver’s nightmare.
Clark gave up on subtlety and sped them back to the penthouse.
Lex went straight to the brandy and started pouring. Clark considered shattering the glass with a well-aimed blast of supersound, but Lex would probably cut himself and take it as a metaphor.
“You should go,” Lex said.
“Yeah, no.”
Lex looked up. “I order you to go.”
Lex had apparently forgotten at least a dozen incidents from their shared past, and not just because of the head injuries. “Lex,” Clark said patiently, “I’m not going. You don’t control me. I don’t think you have since you were a little kid.”
Clark’s whole chest clenched with the sudden realization that, even at nine, Lex had known enough not to want a companion brought into a house with Lionel Luthor. He surely hadn’t conjured up the Kents, but he’d brought them there, ready to take in a newly created small boy.
Lex didn’t do well with sympathy, so Clark didn’t bring up this insight.
“Why aren’t you yelling? Or threatening me?” Lex sounded almost wounded. Clark knew enough psychology to realize that Lex was falling back on the old patterns, as if the drinking hadn’t been enough of a clue.
“Lex,” Clark said, “you gave me life. You gave me powers so that I could help people. How could I be angry about that?”
“I didn’t give you a choice,” Lex said, and slammed his glass down so that alcohol sloshed over the edge.
Lex knew better than anyone how little a choice a child had in the way he started out. This was about more than that. Lex thought that no one could love him without being coerced into it.
Clark crossed his arms over his chest. “I remember some epic fights where I was pretty sure I had a choice. I even remember issuing a couple of ultimatums of my own.”
“That only means that I didn’t make you a sure thing!” Lex snapped.
They’d spent enough time talking about free will and destiny that Clark could see the matter from Lex’s perspective. “Lex,” he said, trying not to sound either brainwashed or condescending, “there’s a big difference between a capacity and a requirement. You and I, we made a bunch of choices after that cornfield. Good and bad. Maybe that’s how you made me: so that I’d always see the ability to choose the good, even when things seemed inevitable. If you made me a hero, then don’t you think it’s at least possible that you are the right thing for me?”
Ordinarily, Clark would want to let that percolate for a while, possibly by distracting Lex’s higher functions with sex. But nothing about the situation was ordinary. He wasn’t going to let Lex out of his sight (and Lex had an almost uncanny ability to sense when Clark was looking at him through buildings, which now that he thought about it was possibly a side effect of the whole ‘Lex made me out of wishes’ thing). “Just don’t … don’t do anything you can’t take back, okay?”
Lex swallowed. He stared out at the Metropolis night. Their reflections were blurry in the glass, superimposed over the city they shared. “I wanted to be a great man,” he said. “Instead I conjured one up.”
You were a kid in need of a protector, Clark didn’t say. “It doesn’t have to be either-or,” he insisted. “Look, we don’t really know what this means—maybe there’s even a Krypton after all. You couldn’t have made up all those artifacts from around the world. We just don’t know—”
He trailed off, because he’d clearly hit on something effective. A puzzle, a problem to be solved: if not from Clark Kent aka Kal-El’s home planet, what was the source of all that evidence from the Kawatche caves and elsewhere? That was the kind of quest that Lex could really get his teeth into.
And get his face blown off, if Clark didn’t supervise properly. But Lex’s despair was visibly lifting, so Clark wasn’t going to worry about that just yet.
“You’re right,” Lex said – denying credit was never his vice – “we need to know more.” He headed behind his desk and started typing before he’d even seated himself.
Clark knew that the troubles from this revelation were far from over. But Lex had built well: Clark was going to save him from every danger, most especially himself.
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avidrosette: Smallville, Clark/Lex pre-slash, post-Jitters, what if Clark found a way to publicize Lex's heroism?
“‘In a world of cutthroat CEOs, billionaire scion Lex Luthor is the old-fashioned exception,’” Lionel quoted as he burst through the door as if there were a hundred paparazzi there to snap pictures and shout questions.
Lex ignored him. No. Lex wanted to ignore him, but wasn’t (yet) strong enough to do so. His shoulders stiffened and his refusal to look up was obvious.
“Congratulations, son, you’re a hero!”
Lex braced himself and pushed back from his desk, rising as Lionel came towards him.
“‘I just did what I hope anyone would have done whose employees were at risk,’” Lionel continued, not needing to refer to the newspaper in his hand. Coming out of his mouth, the words sounded even more false than they’d done when Lex had offered the quote. The hell of it was, he did think going in and offering himself as a hostage had been his duty. He’d never grown up with loyalty, but he wanted to be the kind of man who deserved it; that meant being the kind of man who offered it in return.
“I do know how to read,” he pointed out. “Or are you fact-checking?” That was an amusing thought: his father, concerned with facts.
“I’m just wondering how you got your little friend to be so … effusive,” Lionel said. The suggestiveness made Lex’s skin crawl. Lionel used his disgust as another tool, Lex knew, so he tried to control it, but he knew he’d be wondering, later, if Clark had any idea of what Lex wanted to do to him.
Self-evidently not, given the interview he’d provided.
Lex forced his mind to the monster at hand.
“What do you want?” he asked, not because it would work but because Lionel needed his cues.
The folded paper hit Lex’s desk. “I just want you to understand that, should you decide to capitalize on your doubtless brief reputational boost, the internal documentation is very clear that the decisions that led to Earl Jenkins’ unfortunate condition can be traced directly to your door.”
“I wouldn’t have expected anything less,” Lex conceded. Lex had his own documentation, naturally, but a battle between forensic accountants was so nasty and confusing; he wouldn’t get anywhere by accusing his father in public.
Clark had made at least as many problems as he’d solved with his well-intentioned campaign to rehabilitate Lex’s image. For one thing, Level 3 would be a bigger news story with a heroism hook. Lex couldn’t make himself resent Clark for that, though. Clark would never have even considered the possibility that other people wouldn’t be as generous in their interpretations of Lex’s behavior. That was why Lex—
These were thoughts that couldn’t be allowed, not in front of Lionel. “Having delivered your counsel of silence, you are welcome to go,” he suggested.
“Oh, no, son,” his father said. “It seems that matters in Smallville are starting to get … interesting. I’ll be having my people set up a satellite office here in the next few days.”
Lex determinedly managed not to flinch. Apparently Lionel felt a need for some good publicity himself—or at least a need to dodge the bad. If he was constantly around when Lex was, then the public would think of them as cut from the same cloth. That was one reason why Lionel had sent Lex so far away when Lex was younger and more visibly enraged; but now Lex had coattails.
“In that case,” he said, “welcome to town.”
He’d have to discourage Clark from visiting the mansion, of course, but that necessity had been bearing down on him for a while. Lionel’s mind was faster and dirtier than most, but he wouldn’t be alone.
Clark had saved him. Clark had championed him.
Lex could do no less. And he planned to do considerably more.
But not just yet.
Smallville, he was learning, was a dangerous place. It wasn’t the worst idea in the world to have his father here.
kotofeika: Smallville - Clex (or not). Meteors grant wishes. What if Lex wished for a friend - and, being an ickle comic book geek, for a super-powered friend from another planet? Years later, Clark discovers that Lex just made him up.The look on Lex’s face nearly stopped Clark’s heart. Lex hadn’t been in as much pain when his father died, and for all Lionel’s horrors Lex had loved him still. “Does that mean that if I die, he dies?”
“I only see the truth of the past,” the witch said. “And this isn’t my kind of magic. Your guess is as good as mine. Better, given your history of meteor rock experiments.”
“Okay!” Clark said, deciding that this was one conversation better ended quickly. He’d made some dumb decisions in his life, but this was by far the worst. When he’d thought he might get more information about his origins, he hadn’t even considered—
A meteor mutation powerful enough to conjure up an entire person. An entire alien superhero.
Lex’s heartbeat was stuttering like a raver’s nightmare.
Clark gave up on subtlety and sped them back to the penthouse.
Lex went straight to the brandy and started pouring. Clark considered shattering the glass with a well-aimed blast of supersound, but Lex would probably cut himself and take it as a metaphor.
“You should go,” Lex said.
“Yeah, no.”
Lex looked up. “I order you to go.”
Lex had apparently forgotten at least a dozen incidents from their shared past, and not just because of the head injuries. “Lex,” Clark said patiently, “I’m not going. You don’t control me. I don’t think you have since you were a little kid.”
Clark’s whole chest clenched with the sudden realization that, even at nine, Lex had known enough not to want a companion brought into a house with Lionel Luthor. He surely hadn’t conjured up the Kents, but he’d brought them there, ready to take in a newly created small boy.
Lex didn’t do well with sympathy, so Clark didn’t bring up this insight.
“Why aren’t you yelling? Or threatening me?” Lex sounded almost wounded. Clark knew enough psychology to realize that Lex was falling back on the old patterns, as if the drinking hadn’t been enough of a clue.
“Lex,” Clark said, “you gave me life. You gave me powers so that I could help people. How could I be angry about that?”
“I didn’t give you a choice,” Lex said, and slammed his glass down so that alcohol sloshed over the edge.
Lex knew better than anyone how little a choice a child had in the way he started out. This was about more than that. Lex thought that no one could love him without being coerced into it.
Clark crossed his arms over his chest. “I remember some epic fights where I was pretty sure I had a choice. I even remember issuing a couple of ultimatums of my own.”
“That only means that I didn’t make you a sure thing!” Lex snapped.
They’d spent enough time talking about free will and destiny that Clark could see the matter from Lex’s perspective. “Lex,” he said, trying not to sound either brainwashed or condescending, “there’s a big difference between a capacity and a requirement. You and I, we made a bunch of choices after that cornfield. Good and bad. Maybe that’s how you made me: so that I’d always see the ability to choose the good, even when things seemed inevitable. If you made me a hero, then don’t you think it’s at least possible that you are the right thing for me?”
Ordinarily, Clark would want to let that percolate for a while, possibly by distracting Lex’s higher functions with sex. But nothing about the situation was ordinary. He wasn’t going to let Lex out of his sight (and Lex had an almost uncanny ability to sense when Clark was looking at him through buildings, which now that he thought about it was possibly a side effect of the whole ‘Lex made me out of wishes’ thing). “Just don’t … don’t do anything you can’t take back, okay?”
Lex swallowed. He stared out at the Metropolis night. Their reflections were blurry in the glass, superimposed over the city they shared. “I wanted to be a great man,” he said. “Instead I conjured one up.”
You were a kid in need of a protector, Clark didn’t say. “It doesn’t have to be either-or,” he insisted. “Look, we don’t really know what this means—maybe there’s even a Krypton after all. You couldn’t have made up all those artifacts from around the world. We just don’t know—”
He trailed off, because he’d clearly hit on something effective. A puzzle, a problem to be solved: if not from Clark Kent aka Kal-El’s home planet, what was the source of all that evidence from the Kawatche caves and elsewhere? That was the kind of quest that Lex could really get his teeth into.
And get his face blown off, if Clark didn’t supervise properly. But Lex’s despair was visibly lifting, so Clark wasn’t going to worry about that just yet.
“You’re right,” Lex said – denying credit was never his vice – “we need to know more.” He headed behind his desk and started typing before he’d even seated himself.
Clark knew that the troubles from this revelation were far from over. But Lex had built well: Clark was going to save him from every danger, most especially himself.
... and for
avidrosette: Smallville, Clark/Lex pre-slash, post-Jitters, what if Clark found a way to publicize Lex's heroism?“‘In a world of cutthroat CEOs, billionaire scion Lex Luthor is the old-fashioned exception,’” Lionel quoted as he burst through the door as if there were a hundred paparazzi there to snap pictures and shout questions.
Lex ignored him. No. Lex wanted to ignore him, but wasn’t (yet) strong enough to do so. His shoulders stiffened and his refusal to look up was obvious.
“Congratulations, son, you’re a hero!”
Lex braced himself and pushed back from his desk, rising as Lionel came towards him.
“‘I just did what I hope anyone would have done whose employees were at risk,’” Lionel continued, not needing to refer to the newspaper in his hand. Coming out of his mouth, the words sounded even more false than they’d done when Lex had offered the quote. The hell of it was, he did think going in and offering himself as a hostage had been his duty. He’d never grown up with loyalty, but he wanted to be the kind of man who deserved it; that meant being the kind of man who offered it in return.
“I do know how to read,” he pointed out. “Or are you fact-checking?” That was an amusing thought: his father, concerned with facts.
“I’m just wondering how you got your little friend to be so … effusive,” Lionel said. The suggestiveness made Lex’s skin crawl. Lionel used his disgust as another tool, Lex knew, so he tried to control it, but he knew he’d be wondering, later, if Clark had any idea of what Lex wanted to do to him.
Self-evidently not, given the interview he’d provided.
Lex forced his mind to the monster at hand.
“What do you want?” he asked, not because it would work but because Lionel needed his cues.
The folded paper hit Lex’s desk. “I just want you to understand that, should you decide to capitalize on your doubtless brief reputational boost, the internal documentation is very clear that the decisions that led to Earl Jenkins’ unfortunate condition can be traced directly to your door.”
“I wouldn’t have expected anything less,” Lex conceded. Lex had his own documentation, naturally, but a battle between forensic accountants was so nasty and confusing; he wouldn’t get anywhere by accusing his father in public.
Clark had made at least as many problems as he’d solved with his well-intentioned campaign to rehabilitate Lex’s image. For one thing, Level 3 would be a bigger news story with a heroism hook. Lex couldn’t make himself resent Clark for that, though. Clark would never have even considered the possibility that other people wouldn’t be as generous in their interpretations of Lex’s behavior. That was why Lex—
These were thoughts that couldn’t be allowed, not in front of Lionel. “Having delivered your counsel of silence, you are welcome to go,” he suggested.
“Oh, no, son,” his father said. “It seems that matters in Smallville are starting to get … interesting. I’ll be having my people set up a satellite office here in the next few days.”
Lex determinedly managed not to flinch. Apparently Lionel felt a need for some good publicity himself—or at least a need to dodge the bad. If he was constantly around when Lex was, then the public would think of them as cut from the same cloth. That was one reason why Lionel had sent Lex so far away when Lex was younger and more visibly enraged; but now Lex had coattails.
“In that case,” he said, “welcome to town.”
He’d have to discourage Clark from visiting the mansion, of course, but that necessity had been bearing down on him for a while. Lionel’s mind was faster and dirtier than most, but he wouldn’t be alone.
Clark had saved him. Clark had championed him.
Lex could do no less. And he planned to do considerably more.
But not just yet.
Smallville, he was learning, was a dangerous place. It wasn’t the worst idea in the world to have his father here.
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