Fic: The Dark Side
This is getting longer and longer! In this part, the hurt-comfort took over. Well, I guess torturing your protagonists always works.
Title: The Dark Side (3/?)
Rating: teens
Fandom: SV/Sandman/Good Omens/Buffy
Length: 5670 words
Summary:
The grounds around the mansion were huge, and Clark didn't bother looking for a more convenient entry than the front gate, a huge wrought iron door. He leapt over it easily, landing in puddle on the other side. He grimaced at the muddy water soaking his socks and boots, the only parts of his clothing that were still dry after running through the heavy rain. Water dripped from his bangs into his face and ran down the back of his neck. The rain was loud, pattering onto the gravel road and the wild, untrimmed grass. It looked no better kept than any patch of grass outside the regal doors, rather worse, with wild-grown rose bushes crouching like thorny, disfigured dwarves in the high grass. Ahead of Clark, the mansion sat huge, squat and half-finished at the end of the drive; the whole left wing had roof and no windows, leaving the wind and the rain to erode the priceless old structure.
A broken fountain sat in the middle of the driveway in front of the entry, its marble startlingly pale even in the complete darkness of the rainy night. Had the castle been inhabited, limousines would have parked around it, as it was, only an overturned container full of blocks of stone lay like a stranded whale at the edge of the circular drive. Weeds had conquered the heap of stones. There were rose bushes by the castle as well, but they were leafless and bent, small dead skeletons of plants, shying away from the ominous structure.
Clark hesitated by the fountain. The mansion was regal and forbidding, like the tomb of a king, but there was something else about it. It felt alive. Inhabited. He glanced over his shoulder, tried to hear anything over the rushing of the rain. He remembered how many questions Lex had asked about the mansion on their drive to the farm. The wizard had been very interested in it - could it be that there was more to the haunted castle than just people using it as a cover story for meteor mutants? Maybe this was where Lex had gone after leaving Clark's barn.
He jumped at a sudden high-pitched cry and stumbled backwards against the fountain. Suddenly, the windows on the right side of the mansion were filled with fire - no, a flickering cold light falling through stained glass windows, making it look like flames. It winked at him, wavered and flashed, then was gone, like lightning, as quickly as it had come.
Ice-cold dread gripped Clark, and he felt a sharp wind gather around the mansion, driving the rain into his face like lashes, pushing him back. His powers seemed gone, or else helpless against whatever it was that wanted him to leave. Clark almost gave up then, frightened to death of something so much more powerful than him, but there was another cry, barely audible over the howling wind, a low and strangled cry of pain, human and frightened.
He had to go. Someone else was here, and whoever it was, they were even weaker than Clark, even more helpless in the face of whatever haunted the castle. They needed his help. Maybe it was even Lex who was hurting whoever was in there, and if so, Clark probably couldn't help them at all, but he had to try. He ventured into the hostile, unnatural wind, and as he reached the heavy wooden door the wind subsided in defeat. Clark grabbed the door on both sides, ready to lift it out of its angles, but as he touched it he jumped back and stared at his hands in horror. Something warm ran over them, and in the first moment he thought it was blood, but it was just the rain, inexplicably warm as if the mansion were a living body. Clark clenched his teeth against the sudden nausea and seized the door again.
It groaned and crunched, the wood splintered, but then it gave away. Clark tossed it aside and stared at the hall beyond. The room itself wasn't as big as expected, and the walls where white and empty, some of them bare stone. He stepped in, chose the hallway that led to the right, and instantly spotted the flicker of light coming from under one of the doorways, and through the inlaid glass of the double doors. Clark jogged towards it, but froze with his hands on the glass at the sound coming from the other side: a screeching and scratching as if a bird was being torn apart alive, its talons clawing at a chalk board.
Clark sucked in a shocked breath and threw the doors wide open.
The sight that greeted him made him flinch back in horror. The room on the other side was big, some kind of ball room or big hall, with tall stained glass windows and an empty grate gaping on one wall. The bare floor was wooden, and must have been expensive once, but now it was ruined. There was blood all over it, or some other dark, slick liquid, and the wooden floor was defaced by scratches and burns.
In the middle of it, just between Clark and the windows, two figures where locked in desperate struggle. One was the wizard, Lex, his bald head pressed against the floor, the claws of a horrible creature clenched around his neck, strangling him. It was formed of shadows, its features barely recognizable as those of a human with a mane of shaggy hair, and it rippled and throbbed as if the darkness condensed at times. Whatever it was, it was even worse than the lying crook of a wizard it was trying to kill.
The worst of all were its eyes as it turned its head towards Clark: human eyes lodged in darkness, startlingly real and white eyeballs, blazing with madness.
In that moment, Clark didn't think of how he hated Lex, or how Lex deserved to be hurt, all he knew was fear, fear for himself and for a helpless, wounded human being. He launched himself at the shadow-thing, and it seemed to straighten in surprise, but was gone like vapour when Clark jumped through it. He staggered a few steps further until he regained his balance and stared around wildly for any sign of it, but it was gone.
Fear overcame Clark, just as it had driven him forward a second ago. He grabbed Lex's limp body and made a run for it, just out of this cursed place, as quickly as possible. Maybe the thing couldn't bewitch him like Lex had if he was just fast enough. A moment later he stopped on the road outside Smallville, panting not from exertion but from a closely averted panic attack.
Only then did he notice the state of the man slung over his shoulder.
Lex's shirt was ripped to pieces, and bloody gashes had been torn deep into his skin and flesh. In one place Clark saw what looked like a bit of bone laid bare - a rib, maybe. His stomach lurched. Lex's hands were mangled, too, as if he had tried to claw his way through barbed wire, and black bruises were forming along his neck where the thing had strangled him.
A car went by on the other lane, ignoring them, probably not even seeing them, but in the shine of the headlights, Clark noticed another thing that sent a wave of horror through him. Where his shirt-sleeves touched Lex's bloody wounds, they sizzled and burnt away as if held to a flame or dropped in acid. And Lex's blood wasn't red, in the passing light it was clearly an inky black with a shimmer as purple as bruises.
Jesus, what was this guy? Could he still be human? Even Clark's blood was red, and it definitely didn't burn holes into clothing,. Feeling sick, Clark tried to find a pulse. It was there, quick and irregular, fluttering and far too weak. This didn't look good. Whatever business Lex had had with the creature had nearly killed him and might kill him yet. Clark remembered what Lex had said after questioning him, about the haunted house not only being a cover story for Clark and about looking for someone or something in Smallville.
Clark had to make a choice. He could either leave Lex here, or take him home. Taking him to a hospital was decidedly not on an option, considering that Lex was apparently no more human than Clark.
What if he was the companion Death had promised him? That'd be horrible.
It really wasn't any choice at all. Clark couldn't just leave someone to die, not even if they were an evil deceitful monster. He gathered Lex up again more carefully, and this time Lex's forehead creased into a small frown, and his eyes opened. Pale, confused eyes sought his face, then rolled back into his skull. Clark got up and ran them home.
He went through the screen door at full speed, making it rattle in its frame, and stopped in the living room. "Mom!" he hollered. "Dad! I need your help!"
"Clark?" his dad's voice came sleepily from upstairs. "What's wrong?"
Clark stood dripping in the living room, unsure what to do. The man in his arms shivered and twitched a little, and as the lights went on upstairs, Clark noticed how white Lex's face was. His wet skin looked clammy and dead.
Jonathan came down the stairs, dressed in his flannel pyjamas, and Clark's mom a few steps behind him wrapped in a fuzzy bathrobe.
"He's injured," Clark said helplessly.
His dad stopped dead at the foot of the stairs and his face darkened. "This guy -"
"He's not my nephew," Martha breathed, obviously puzzled. "I don't have a nephew!"
"He's some kind of wizard," Clark interrupted them before they could properly freak out. "I don't know what he did to us, but he's hurt. I think he's dying."
Jonathan grunted something suspiciously like, "Serves him right," but Martha pushed past him and took a look at Lex. Her eyes widened in disbelief. "Honey, his blood - ?"
"I don't think he's human, Mom. He can do magic and I saw him in the castle, fighting some kind of creature - I couldn't take him to a hospital, they would've noticed he's different."
"A wizard?" Jonathan echoed. "Son, you're not serious. He's a meteor freak, that's what -"
"No, he isn't," Clark insisted, unable to explain what that what he had seen tonight simply hadn't felt like meteor freaks. His parents didn't look convinced. "What do we do now?"
They looked at each other, a silent demand in his mom's eyes, and Jonathan threw up his hands. "I'll go get a tarp. You're not putting that thing on our couch."
Clark stared after his dad's back until the door slammed behind him. He probably hadn't even noticed his choice of words, just spat them out in anger, but Clark had felt them like a slap.
That thing. How often had his parents assured him that he was human, when he was not? In Clark's worst nightmares they turned away from him in horror calling him things like that - thing, monster, creature, freak. But when Clark woke up he could always calm himself down with the knowledge that his parents would never say something like that, that they had loved him from the first moment, regardless of what he was. They were the most open-hearted people ever, one in a million, Clark was so lucky to have been found by them, others couldn't be trusted to react the same way.
"Clark?" His mom was touching his shoulder, carefully avoiding contact with Lex's acid blood. "What happened to you? Why did you go to the Luthor mansion?"
Clark felt the heat of embarrassment shoot through his body as he remembered just what had happened between them the evening before, what Lex had made him feel, the heat and confusion afterwards. "I - I followed him," he croaked out. "I heard a scream, I thought someone might be in trouble, so I broke in."
Her look lasted a moment longer, all-seeing, then she just nodded. Dad came back with a tarp and threw it over the couch, folding it several times. Martha pursed her lips at the black plastic, then pulled out a pillow from under it and laid it on top. Clark lowered Lex's slack body onto the covered couch, glad to get some distance between them. His skin was thankfully unaffected by Lex's strange blood, but his shirt was ruined. There were even some small holes in his jeans.
The bleeding had already stopped, though. Even the horrible gash on the right light of Lex's torso that had laid his ribs bare had already half-closed. Clark remembered how he had lost his powers and cracked his ribs, and how the injury had instantly been gone after he got his powers back. It seemed he wasn't the only one who healed fast.
Martha got a pair of fresh rubber gloves from a cupboard in the kitchen and knelt down by the couch. She touched Lex's cheek, then snapped the glove off again in a decisive motion and felt his pulse. She sighed and shook her head, pushing back a stray strand of red hair.
"I don't know," she said to Clark and Jonathan, shaking her head. "He needs a doctor, probably, but since he's different… I guess all we can do is wait."
"And if he wakes up, what then?" Jonathan asked. "He'll probably try to mess with our minds again as soon as he opens his eyes."
Clark eyes the wounded, pale man on the couch, the shallow, shivering lifting and falling of his chest. "He's weak, Dad. If he tries something, I'll just be faster than him." He wasn't as confident as he pretended to be, but the other option was probably his dad sitting vigil by the couch with the shotgun in his hands. Recalling how scary Lex had been in the barn, Clark would rather it was him facing the wizard when he woke up than either of his parents.
"I think he's right, Jonathan," his mom soothed. "He's probably lucky if he pulls through the night. You know that if it was Clark, we'd want people to help him."
"Clark wouldn't do this to people!" Jonathan objected hotly. "Insinuating himself into other people's life, messing with their heads - this man is a snake, Martha. A criminal." Grumbling, but clearly admitting defeat in this matter because his wife remained steely, Jonathan left for the kitchen. Martha threw an old afghan over Lex's still form.
Clark hadn't told them the worst yet: that Lex knew his secret. He decided it could wait for now.
"I'll fix you a hot chocolate," his mom promised.
*
His parents went back to bed eventually and Clark sat down in the easy chair where he could watch Lex. He didn't need sleep like normal people did, at least not as much or as often, but sitting alone in the living room in the middle of the night was dead boring.
He felt wide-awake and sober now, the odd haze of the last few hours gone like fog in the light of day. His dream of the girl with the pale skin who had claimed to be Death seemed no more than a dream now. Probably just his subconscious putting two and two together and remembering how interested Lex had been in the haunted castle, flavouring it with his usual nightmares of being abandoned and his desire for a friend, fostered by his recent visit to Pete and Lex's claim to be his cousin.
It hadn't been very nightmarish, though. Neither had what Lex had done to him hurt until the very last part, when the spell broke and Clark could see him for what he was, a liar and deceiver; but by then Clark's head had already been too addled by conflicting fears and desires to think straight, which explained what he had done after Lex left…
Clark was so occupied with trying to repress his more shameful thoughts that he didn't notice the change in Lex's breathing or the motion as he jerked away. A moment later Lex was standing upright, staring about wildly, his eyes wide with the terror of some cornered beast about to lash out and Clark jumped up as well, ready to knock him out again, when Lex's swayed and collapsed onto the rug, clutching his side where the flesh wound was. Sweat had broken out on his skin, and he craned his head as Clark warily stepped closer, his breaths coming in fast shallow gasps.
"What - ?" he rasped. "You."
Clark frowned. "Don't try anything," he said, trying to sound menacing and in control. He probably just sounded nervous.
Hunched in on himself, as if trying to curl around the pain, Lex blinked up at him for a few moments longer, confused and disbelieving, before he gritted his teeth and hissed in pain, then squeezed his eyes shut. "Where?" he gasped, then stifled a groan.
"I brought you back to the farm," Clark explained cautiously, unable to bring up much anger now. "That thing in the mansion nearly killed you."
And it might yet. Lex seemed to try to say something else, but it was drowned out by a shiver. Clark seized his upper arm and pulled him up, then made him lie down on the couch again. Lex's cheeks looked clammy, his eyes feverish, and he murmured something that sounded very much like, "Dad," over and over again, until he slipped back into unconsciousness. Belatedly, Clark thought that maybe he should have made him drink something, but then again, he didn't even know what Lex drank. Maybe the blood of toads, or something. He could imagine those lips wrapped around some slithery animal, a snake perhaps, biting off the head with relish. Okay, probably not. But he had hesitated before he dug into the stew.
Clark went back to the easy chair and settled down for another long period of waiting and brooding. It stopped raining outside close to sunrise. Not much later, the cock crowed a first tentative time, like someone clearing their throat. Clark superspeeded into the kitchen and helped himself to some milk. He took a pitcher of water and a clean glass back with him, so he wouldn't have to leave if Lex woke up again. So odd, he reflected, having to care for someone who'd hurt you. A bit like saving Whitney's life had been, the couple of times he had had to do it, but for some reason, this felt fare more complicated. For a brief time he had actually liked Lex and even now that the spell was lifted, Clark could still remember that.
When he returned, Lex had started thrashing and twitching on the sofa. He looked hot, his cheeks were pale with small red spots blotting them, and shining with sweat. Clark sat down warily.
Then, all of a sudden, Lex's eyes snapped open. He stared at the ceiling for a while, then turned onto his side with a small movement, his eyes falling on Clark. Even in the dim morning light they appeared bloodshot. He was perfectly still, like one of the rabbits they used to have behind the shed. They would cover in the grass when you pulled them out of their cages, pressed against the ground as if that could make them invisible, their ears flat against their back and their eyes dark and dewy, their twitchy noses the only thing that moved. But Lex didn't look frightened, merely weak and wary.
Clark filled the glass with water and cautiously approached Lex, offering it to him. Lex's eyes widened, as if Clark had just done something inconceivable. As if he'd just remembered that Clark was an alien and it only now fully registered in his mind.
Lex took the offered glass, his eyes never leaving Clark, and sipped water, then gulped it down thirstily. His fingers, which had been bloody and raw just a few hours before were already scabbed over and healing. Clark took the glass again and put it onto the table. He tried not to look Lex directly in the eyes, because that was how it had started at the station, wasn't it? That endless look they had shared, that Clark could have drowned in. Now it didn't feel like that, though. Lex just seemed a very strange presence on the couch, neither friendly nor appealing.
"What the hell are you doing?" Lex whispered hoarsely.
Clark frowned down at him. "I probably saved your life," he said indignantly.
Lex's face went taut, but Clark couldn't tell if it was pain or anger or something else entirely. "It won't work."
He was probably delirious, talking nonsense. "What won't work?"
"Life debts. I'm not demon enough."
"You're what?" Clark asked, sure that he'd misunderstood.
Lex's eyebrows drew together in a puzzled frown. He stared at Clark like he was some kind of confounding riddle. "I'm part demon. If I were fully demonic, I would have been indebted to you for saving my life and would have had to carry out one order for you, however small or large." He spoke very softly still, like someone with a badly aching throat, but his voice was clear and lucid, making it unlikely that he was speaking in delirium. "You didn't know that," Lex concluded after studying Clark's face for a moment. "So what do you want from me?"
"Want from you?" Clark echoed. "I don't want anything! You showed up here, lied to me, forced my family to take you in, you cut me with a knife and made want to - to do things with you and then you left. I would have gladly never seen you again."
"I didn't manipulate your emotions," Lex said. "But I did lie and make you believe it. So why did you save me?"
Clark exhaled sharply in exasperation. "You're - ," he stopped, unsure what to say. Human, he'd almost said, but Lex wasn't. Finally he settled on, "You would have died."
Lex stared at him, then turned onto his back to stare at the ceiling, He huffed out a raw laugh, followed by a painful wince. "I don't believe this."
"You better do."
Clark turned around at his dad's unexpected voice. He had gotten up and dressed and come done the stairs and was scowling at Lex now.
"I couldn't put my finger on it yesterday, but now I know," Jonathan said, still not looking at Clark but at the man on their couch. "That bald head of yours. The lack of respect. I knew I had seen your face before. You're that Luthor boy. The one who got caught in the meteor shower, am I right?"
Lex struggled to sit up. He went pale at the effort, but his face showed no pain or emotion other than a schooled blankness. Clark's dad took a step closer. "You should be darn grateful, boy. This isn't the first time someone from this family has saved your life. But I guess it's too much to expect from a Luthor."
"Would you care to clarify that?" Lex asked, his voice betraying nothing.
Clark noticed that something about his Dad's behaviour had changed since last night. He still regarded Lex with undisguised mistrust and disapproval, but he didn't seem ready to shoot him at the smallest provocation anymore.
"You were just a boy. Got caught in the meteor shower. We were driving along the road when your father jumped in front of our car. He was frantic, the only time I've seen the man lose his composure. Wouldn't touch you for some reason, so I had to carry you from that field to our car and we drove you to the hospital. You'd lost all your hair. I thought for sure you'd die before we got to town. That's what gave you your powers, isn't it?"
Lex sank back onto the couch after staring at Jonathan for a long moment. His voice was toneless. "I didn't know any of this."
"Well, now you do," Jonathan replied darkly and turned away, walking towards the screen door to pull on his boots. "I'm gonna feed the animals."
Clark turned around to look at Lex, but his eyes had fallen shut. He didn't seem to be asleep, his face was too tense for that, a deep frown creasing his brow, but he still looked pale and sick, and above all exhausted. Clark went after his dad.
He found him in the chicken coop, throwing out wheat grain to the bickering hens, muttering curses that stopped when he noticed Clark. "Hey, son. How was your night? Luthor cause you any trouble?"
Clark shook his head and watched the chickens peck at the grains in the dirt for a while. He still couldn't believe that Lex was a Luthor or that his parents had met them during the meteor shower - had they already had Clark then? Done with feeding the chickens, his dad slipped out of the coop, carefully closing the door after him. He handed the basket with eggs to Clark, then headed for the barn. Clark followed him.
"It's my fault that Lex is like this," Clark said after a while. Jonathan spun around on his heels and seized Clark's shoulder, looking him in the eyes.
"No. No, don't you ever think that, Clark. We've talked about this before. The meteor freaks aren't your fault. What they do with their powers isn't your fault. You've got powers and you're handling them just fine. Just fine."
Clark looked away. His dad grunted something, then picked up a bale of hay and carried it to the cows. "You've changed your mind on Lex, though," Clark insisted. "I thought it was because it’s the meteors that made him different."
His dad leaned onto the fence, staring the green pasture. The cows crowded around the hay, their big wet noses pushing each other aside. Even this early in the morning flies buzzed around their eyes and noses. "Yeah, maybe I see things a little different this morning. Woke up and remembered where I'd seen his sorry face before. It's not the meteors, Clark. He's a Luthor. If anything it's his father who made him what he is. It may not be his fault that he is the way he is, but he's still dangerous. I don't want him here. I don't want him to find out anything about you."
Clark clenched his hands to fists. "Dad, he already knows."
The weathered features of Jonathan's face smoothed out in blank shock. He stared at Clark, rage sparking in his eyes. "How?"
"The same way he made us believe him. He made me tell him." Clark really hoped he wasn't signing Lex's death warrant by saying that. He didn't want his dad to become a murderer in a fit of rage.
Jonathan unfroze very slowly. He turned away from Clark, taking a few harsh breaths. Then he suddenly pounded his fist onto the fence. "Goddammit."
"Dad?"
For a long moment he didn't react, just stared down at his fist, his jaws working in some unspoken turmoil. "Damn it."
"Dad, he promised to keep quiet about it if I kept quiet about him being a wizard. Or a meteor mutant, or whatever." More like threatened, but Clark felt justified to keep that to himself.
"Clark." He sounded pained. "Don't you see? We're at this man's mercy. He's too powerful. There's nothing we can threaten him with, nothing we can promise him. And we certainly can't rely on him to honour his promise."
They headed for the barn again. Even now, taking care of the farm was pure instinct for Jonathan. Clark thought he might be having a nervous breakdown if there weren't cows to feed and chores to do. They both stopped dead when they rounded the barn and saw Lex standing by the barn door, leaning heavily onto the wall with one arm, the other hand clutching his side. He was almost as white-faced as Death in Clark's dream now, his skin nearly translucent, his bald head making him look frail in the bright light and without the armour of the leather jacket he'd worn the day before. Even his lips had lost all colour.
Clark felt his dad tense up and straighten as he approached Lex, like he was expecting a fight.
Lex's voice was tight, as if he had to force out every breath. "I don't know if my nature makes me evil," he said, staring straight at both of them, his eyes the only thing about him that radiated strength and iron will. "But I do know for sure that I am not a good man. The creature in the mansion is my father's ghost. I'm responsible for his death. I didn't know it is he who haunts Smallville or I wouldn't have suspected your son - " He swayed, his eyes loosing their steely focus for a second. They strayed downwards to glance at his hand. Black blood was welling through his fingers; the wound had opened up again. "I killed him. I don't deserve any…," his head lolled, then snapped up again. He made a lurching step towards Jonathan, who recoiled in horror. "I sincerely wish to apologize for my - "
Whatever else he had been trying to say was lost as his knees gave away under him and he dropped to the ground, out cold.
Clark had never heard his dad curse so much in one morning.
*
The next time Lex woke, his first thought was that the fever had broken. He felt cold, chilled to the bone for the first time in years. The hellfire in his veins seemed to have been extinguished and shivers crept up his spine.
He was back in the Kent's living room, with no recollection of how he had gotten there again. He had gone outside to apologize and leave the Kent's alone, with the intention to find some quiet place where he could lick his wounds and nurse himself back to health, but he seemed to have overestimated himself.
This hadn't happened before. Other creatures had attacked him, demons and warlocks, and some even had sapped his magic, but none had ever come as close to depleting the near endless reservoir of chaos magic that Lex had access to. Clark Kent had without doubt saved Lex's life and Lex had no idea how he had done it. The Kent boy was peculiar. A blank slate, an empty well, not an ounce of magic in him, but still radiating raw power and life force. Lex had never met anyone who could be charmed so easily with magic. It was as if the boy had no defences at all, and that had made Lex suspicious, had made him suspect that it was Clark Kent who haunted Smallville in the harmless guise of an innocent boy.
Instead Clark Kent was not only the least magical, but also the most selfless person Lex had ever encountered. Inhumanly good, so much it made Lex ache deep inside, worse than his wounds.
He sensed that he wasn't alone and turned around, opening his eyes. His teeth were close to chattering. Jonathan Kent sat in the easy chair that Clark had occupied all night. Mr Kent was clearly human, with the spark of magic that all living things on earth had, but he, too, was very down to earth. Those people were among the easiest to ensnare.
But Lex knew with sudden certainty that even if he had had the power to try and bewitch the Kents again, he would not do it. Not even if his life depended on it. They had wakened something in the hollow of his heart. He almost felt human again.
Mr Kent sat with his elbows on his knees, staring darkly at Lex.
"Clark's outside, doing his chores," he said suddenly. "My wife's in town, buying groceries. But as long as you know about Clark, our peaceful life could end tomorrow. There's nothing I can do to protect them. I could take you and my shotgun behind the shed - "
"Maybe you should," Lex agreed softly. He wouldn't have a day ago, would have fought with teeth and claws, but since he'd been to the mansion and faced Lionel's ghost, he felt very tired. "It might even work while I'm this weak."
Mr Kent stared at him in obvious horror, even though it was he who had first suggested it. He was a good man, Lex reminded himself. A man who'd saved his life once; a kind man despite his gruff exterior.
"I'm not human, Mr Kent. At least not entirely."
"Damn you, Luthor," Kent whispered. "Neither is my son."
Lex felt very tired. Maybe it wouldn't even be necessary for Mr Kent to overcome his morals. Maybe Dad would get his revenge after all. "I'm nothing like Clark. I couldn't be if I tried."
"Will you shut up?" Mr Kent thundered. "I'm not becoming a murderer because of a Luthor. We'll find another way. And you won't say a word of this to Martha or Clark, understood?"
Lex stared at him. The Kents made no sense at all. They were closer to impossible than any piece of magic Lex had ever seen. Did this man actually intend to keep him here?
"Are we clear?" Kent repeated tensely.
Lex nodded, shivering. Maybe this was all a fever dream. "Yes, sir," he slurred, laughing at the absurdity of it all. The laughter turned into chattering teeth. Kent scowled at him. Then he threw another blanket over Lex. The weight of it settled heavily over his body.
Maybe this was hell, to be surrounded by good people, forever holding a mirror of his own deficiency to his face.
Title: The Dark Side (3/?)
Rating: teens
Fandom: SV/Sandman/Good Omens/Buffy
Length: 5670 words
Summary:
The grounds around the mansion were huge, and Clark didn't bother looking for a more convenient entry than the front gate, a huge wrought iron door. He leapt over it easily, landing in puddle on the other side. He grimaced at the muddy water soaking his socks and boots, the only parts of his clothing that were still dry after running through the heavy rain. Water dripped from his bangs into his face and ran down the back of his neck. The rain was loud, pattering onto the gravel road and the wild, untrimmed grass. It looked no better kept than any patch of grass outside the regal doors, rather worse, with wild-grown rose bushes crouching like thorny, disfigured dwarves in the high grass. Ahead of Clark, the mansion sat huge, squat and half-finished at the end of the drive; the whole left wing had roof and no windows, leaving the wind and the rain to erode the priceless old structure.
A broken fountain sat in the middle of the driveway in front of the entry, its marble startlingly pale even in the complete darkness of the rainy night. Had the castle been inhabited, limousines would have parked around it, as it was, only an overturned container full of blocks of stone lay like a stranded whale at the edge of the circular drive. Weeds had conquered the heap of stones. There were rose bushes by the castle as well, but they were leafless and bent, small dead skeletons of plants, shying away from the ominous structure.
Clark hesitated by the fountain. The mansion was regal and forbidding, like the tomb of a king, but there was something else about it. It felt alive. Inhabited. He glanced over his shoulder, tried to hear anything over the rushing of the rain. He remembered how many questions Lex had asked about the mansion on their drive to the farm. The wizard had been very interested in it - could it be that there was more to the haunted castle than just people using it as a cover story for meteor mutants? Maybe this was where Lex had gone after leaving Clark's barn.
He jumped at a sudden high-pitched cry and stumbled backwards against the fountain. Suddenly, the windows on the right side of the mansion were filled with fire - no, a flickering cold light falling through stained glass windows, making it look like flames. It winked at him, wavered and flashed, then was gone, like lightning, as quickly as it had come.
Ice-cold dread gripped Clark, and he felt a sharp wind gather around the mansion, driving the rain into his face like lashes, pushing him back. His powers seemed gone, or else helpless against whatever it was that wanted him to leave. Clark almost gave up then, frightened to death of something so much more powerful than him, but there was another cry, barely audible over the howling wind, a low and strangled cry of pain, human and frightened.
He had to go. Someone else was here, and whoever it was, they were even weaker than Clark, even more helpless in the face of whatever haunted the castle. They needed his help. Maybe it was even Lex who was hurting whoever was in there, and if so, Clark probably couldn't help them at all, but he had to try. He ventured into the hostile, unnatural wind, and as he reached the heavy wooden door the wind subsided in defeat. Clark grabbed the door on both sides, ready to lift it out of its angles, but as he touched it he jumped back and stared at his hands in horror. Something warm ran over them, and in the first moment he thought it was blood, but it was just the rain, inexplicably warm as if the mansion were a living body. Clark clenched his teeth against the sudden nausea and seized the door again.
It groaned and crunched, the wood splintered, but then it gave away. Clark tossed it aside and stared at the hall beyond. The room itself wasn't as big as expected, and the walls where white and empty, some of them bare stone. He stepped in, chose the hallway that led to the right, and instantly spotted the flicker of light coming from under one of the doorways, and through the inlaid glass of the double doors. Clark jogged towards it, but froze with his hands on the glass at the sound coming from the other side: a screeching and scratching as if a bird was being torn apart alive, its talons clawing at a chalk board.
Clark sucked in a shocked breath and threw the doors wide open.
The sight that greeted him made him flinch back in horror. The room on the other side was big, some kind of ball room or big hall, with tall stained glass windows and an empty grate gaping on one wall. The bare floor was wooden, and must have been expensive once, but now it was ruined. There was blood all over it, or some other dark, slick liquid, and the wooden floor was defaced by scratches and burns.
In the middle of it, just between Clark and the windows, two figures where locked in desperate struggle. One was the wizard, Lex, his bald head pressed against the floor, the claws of a horrible creature clenched around his neck, strangling him. It was formed of shadows, its features barely recognizable as those of a human with a mane of shaggy hair, and it rippled and throbbed as if the darkness condensed at times. Whatever it was, it was even worse than the lying crook of a wizard it was trying to kill.
The worst of all were its eyes as it turned its head towards Clark: human eyes lodged in darkness, startlingly real and white eyeballs, blazing with madness.
In that moment, Clark didn't think of how he hated Lex, or how Lex deserved to be hurt, all he knew was fear, fear for himself and for a helpless, wounded human being. He launched himself at the shadow-thing, and it seemed to straighten in surprise, but was gone like vapour when Clark jumped through it. He staggered a few steps further until he regained his balance and stared around wildly for any sign of it, but it was gone.
Fear overcame Clark, just as it had driven him forward a second ago. He grabbed Lex's limp body and made a run for it, just out of this cursed place, as quickly as possible. Maybe the thing couldn't bewitch him like Lex had if he was just fast enough. A moment later he stopped on the road outside Smallville, panting not from exertion but from a closely averted panic attack.
Only then did he notice the state of the man slung over his shoulder.
Lex's shirt was ripped to pieces, and bloody gashes had been torn deep into his skin and flesh. In one place Clark saw what looked like a bit of bone laid bare - a rib, maybe. His stomach lurched. Lex's hands were mangled, too, as if he had tried to claw his way through barbed wire, and black bruises were forming along his neck where the thing had strangled him.
A car went by on the other lane, ignoring them, probably not even seeing them, but in the shine of the headlights, Clark noticed another thing that sent a wave of horror through him. Where his shirt-sleeves touched Lex's bloody wounds, they sizzled and burnt away as if held to a flame or dropped in acid. And Lex's blood wasn't red, in the passing light it was clearly an inky black with a shimmer as purple as bruises.
Jesus, what was this guy? Could he still be human? Even Clark's blood was red, and it definitely didn't burn holes into clothing,. Feeling sick, Clark tried to find a pulse. It was there, quick and irregular, fluttering and far too weak. This didn't look good. Whatever business Lex had had with the creature had nearly killed him and might kill him yet. Clark remembered what Lex had said after questioning him, about the haunted house not only being a cover story for Clark and about looking for someone or something in Smallville.
Clark had to make a choice. He could either leave Lex here, or take him home. Taking him to a hospital was decidedly not on an option, considering that Lex was apparently no more human than Clark.
What if he was the companion Death had promised him? That'd be horrible.
It really wasn't any choice at all. Clark couldn't just leave someone to die, not even if they were an evil deceitful monster. He gathered Lex up again more carefully, and this time Lex's forehead creased into a small frown, and his eyes opened. Pale, confused eyes sought his face, then rolled back into his skull. Clark got up and ran them home.
He went through the screen door at full speed, making it rattle in its frame, and stopped in the living room. "Mom!" he hollered. "Dad! I need your help!"
"Clark?" his dad's voice came sleepily from upstairs. "What's wrong?"
Clark stood dripping in the living room, unsure what to do. The man in his arms shivered and twitched a little, and as the lights went on upstairs, Clark noticed how white Lex's face was. His wet skin looked clammy and dead.
Jonathan came down the stairs, dressed in his flannel pyjamas, and Clark's mom a few steps behind him wrapped in a fuzzy bathrobe.
"He's injured," Clark said helplessly.
His dad stopped dead at the foot of the stairs and his face darkened. "This guy -"
"He's not my nephew," Martha breathed, obviously puzzled. "I don't have a nephew!"
"He's some kind of wizard," Clark interrupted them before they could properly freak out. "I don't know what he did to us, but he's hurt. I think he's dying."
Jonathan grunted something suspiciously like, "Serves him right," but Martha pushed past him and took a look at Lex. Her eyes widened in disbelief. "Honey, his blood - ?"
"I don't think he's human, Mom. He can do magic and I saw him in the castle, fighting some kind of creature - I couldn't take him to a hospital, they would've noticed he's different."
"A wizard?" Jonathan echoed. "Son, you're not serious. He's a meteor freak, that's what -"
"No, he isn't," Clark insisted, unable to explain what that what he had seen tonight simply hadn't felt like meteor freaks. His parents didn't look convinced. "What do we do now?"
They looked at each other, a silent demand in his mom's eyes, and Jonathan threw up his hands. "I'll go get a tarp. You're not putting that thing on our couch."
Clark stared after his dad's back until the door slammed behind him. He probably hadn't even noticed his choice of words, just spat them out in anger, but Clark had felt them like a slap.
That thing. How often had his parents assured him that he was human, when he was not? In Clark's worst nightmares they turned away from him in horror calling him things like that - thing, monster, creature, freak. But when Clark woke up he could always calm himself down with the knowledge that his parents would never say something like that, that they had loved him from the first moment, regardless of what he was. They were the most open-hearted people ever, one in a million, Clark was so lucky to have been found by them, others couldn't be trusted to react the same way.
"Clark?" His mom was touching his shoulder, carefully avoiding contact with Lex's acid blood. "What happened to you? Why did you go to the Luthor mansion?"
Clark felt the heat of embarrassment shoot through his body as he remembered just what had happened between them the evening before, what Lex had made him feel, the heat and confusion afterwards. "I - I followed him," he croaked out. "I heard a scream, I thought someone might be in trouble, so I broke in."
Her look lasted a moment longer, all-seeing, then she just nodded. Dad came back with a tarp and threw it over the couch, folding it several times. Martha pursed her lips at the black plastic, then pulled out a pillow from under it and laid it on top. Clark lowered Lex's slack body onto the covered couch, glad to get some distance between them. His skin was thankfully unaffected by Lex's strange blood, but his shirt was ruined. There were even some small holes in his jeans.
The bleeding had already stopped, though. Even the horrible gash on the right light of Lex's torso that had laid his ribs bare had already half-closed. Clark remembered how he had lost his powers and cracked his ribs, and how the injury had instantly been gone after he got his powers back. It seemed he wasn't the only one who healed fast.
Martha got a pair of fresh rubber gloves from a cupboard in the kitchen and knelt down by the couch. She touched Lex's cheek, then snapped the glove off again in a decisive motion and felt his pulse. She sighed and shook her head, pushing back a stray strand of red hair.
"I don't know," she said to Clark and Jonathan, shaking her head. "He needs a doctor, probably, but since he's different… I guess all we can do is wait."
"And if he wakes up, what then?" Jonathan asked. "He'll probably try to mess with our minds again as soon as he opens his eyes."
Clark eyes the wounded, pale man on the couch, the shallow, shivering lifting and falling of his chest. "He's weak, Dad. If he tries something, I'll just be faster than him." He wasn't as confident as he pretended to be, but the other option was probably his dad sitting vigil by the couch with the shotgun in his hands. Recalling how scary Lex had been in the barn, Clark would rather it was him facing the wizard when he woke up than either of his parents.
"I think he's right, Jonathan," his mom soothed. "He's probably lucky if he pulls through the night. You know that if it was Clark, we'd want people to help him."
"Clark wouldn't do this to people!" Jonathan objected hotly. "Insinuating himself into other people's life, messing with their heads - this man is a snake, Martha. A criminal." Grumbling, but clearly admitting defeat in this matter because his wife remained steely, Jonathan left for the kitchen. Martha threw an old afghan over Lex's still form.
Clark hadn't told them the worst yet: that Lex knew his secret. He decided it could wait for now.
"I'll fix you a hot chocolate," his mom promised.
*
His parents went back to bed eventually and Clark sat down in the easy chair where he could watch Lex. He didn't need sleep like normal people did, at least not as much or as often, but sitting alone in the living room in the middle of the night was dead boring.
He felt wide-awake and sober now, the odd haze of the last few hours gone like fog in the light of day. His dream of the girl with the pale skin who had claimed to be Death seemed no more than a dream now. Probably just his subconscious putting two and two together and remembering how interested Lex had been in the haunted castle, flavouring it with his usual nightmares of being abandoned and his desire for a friend, fostered by his recent visit to Pete and Lex's claim to be his cousin.
It hadn't been very nightmarish, though. Neither had what Lex had done to him hurt until the very last part, when the spell broke and Clark could see him for what he was, a liar and deceiver; but by then Clark's head had already been too addled by conflicting fears and desires to think straight, which explained what he had done after Lex left…
Clark was so occupied with trying to repress his more shameful thoughts that he didn't notice the change in Lex's breathing or the motion as he jerked away. A moment later Lex was standing upright, staring about wildly, his eyes wide with the terror of some cornered beast about to lash out and Clark jumped up as well, ready to knock him out again, when Lex's swayed and collapsed onto the rug, clutching his side where the flesh wound was. Sweat had broken out on his skin, and he craned his head as Clark warily stepped closer, his breaths coming in fast shallow gasps.
"What - ?" he rasped. "You."
Clark frowned. "Don't try anything," he said, trying to sound menacing and in control. He probably just sounded nervous.
Hunched in on himself, as if trying to curl around the pain, Lex blinked up at him for a few moments longer, confused and disbelieving, before he gritted his teeth and hissed in pain, then squeezed his eyes shut. "Where?" he gasped, then stifled a groan.
"I brought you back to the farm," Clark explained cautiously, unable to bring up much anger now. "That thing in the mansion nearly killed you."
And it might yet. Lex seemed to try to say something else, but it was drowned out by a shiver. Clark seized his upper arm and pulled him up, then made him lie down on the couch again. Lex's cheeks looked clammy, his eyes feverish, and he murmured something that sounded very much like, "Dad," over and over again, until he slipped back into unconsciousness. Belatedly, Clark thought that maybe he should have made him drink something, but then again, he didn't even know what Lex drank. Maybe the blood of toads, or something. He could imagine those lips wrapped around some slithery animal, a snake perhaps, biting off the head with relish. Okay, probably not. But he had hesitated before he dug into the stew.
Clark went back to the easy chair and settled down for another long period of waiting and brooding. It stopped raining outside close to sunrise. Not much later, the cock crowed a first tentative time, like someone clearing their throat. Clark superspeeded into the kitchen and helped himself to some milk. He took a pitcher of water and a clean glass back with him, so he wouldn't have to leave if Lex woke up again. So odd, he reflected, having to care for someone who'd hurt you. A bit like saving Whitney's life had been, the couple of times he had had to do it, but for some reason, this felt fare more complicated. For a brief time he had actually liked Lex and even now that the spell was lifted, Clark could still remember that.
When he returned, Lex had started thrashing and twitching on the sofa. He looked hot, his cheeks were pale with small red spots blotting them, and shining with sweat. Clark sat down warily.
Then, all of a sudden, Lex's eyes snapped open. He stared at the ceiling for a while, then turned onto his side with a small movement, his eyes falling on Clark. Even in the dim morning light they appeared bloodshot. He was perfectly still, like one of the rabbits they used to have behind the shed. They would cover in the grass when you pulled them out of their cages, pressed against the ground as if that could make them invisible, their ears flat against their back and their eyes dark and dewy, their twitchy noses the only thing that moved. But Lex didn't look frightened, merely weak and wary.
Clark filled the glass with water and cautiously approached Lex, offering it to him. Lex's eyes widened, as if Clark had just done something inconceivable. As if he'd just remembered that Clark was an alien and it only now fully registered in his mind.
Lex took the offered glass, his eyes never leaving Clark, and sipped water, then gulped it down thirstily. His fingers, which had been bloody and raw just a few hours before were already scabbed over and healing. Clark took the glass again and put it onto the table. He tried not to look Lex directly in the eyes, because that was how it had started at the station, wasn't it? That endless look they had shared, that Clark could have drowned in. Now it didn't feel like that, though. Lex just seemed a very strange presence on the couch, neither friendly nor appealing.
"What the hell are you doing?" Lex whispered hoarsely.
Clark frowned down at him. "I probably saved your life," he said indignantly.
Lex's face went taut, but Clark couldn't tell if it was pain or anger or something else entirely. "It won't work."
He was probably delirious, talking nonsense. "What won't work?"
"Life debts. I'm not demon enough."
"You're what?" Clark asked, sure that he'd misunderstood.
Lex's eyebrows drew together in a puzzled frown. He stared at Clark like he was some kind of confounding riddle. "I'm part demon. If I were fully demonic, I would have been indebted to you for saving my life and would have had to carry out one order for you, however small or large." He spoke very softly still, like someone with a badly aching throat, but his voice was clear and lucid, making it unlikely that he was speaking in delirium. "You didn't know that," Lex concluded after studying Clark's face for a moment. "So what do you want from me?"
"Want from you?" Clark echoed. "I don't want anything! You showed up here, lied to me, forced my family to take you in, you cut me with a knife and made want to - to do things with you and then you left. I would have gladly never seen you again."
"I didn't manipulate your emotions," Lex said. "But I did lie and make you believe it. So why did you save me?"
Clark exhaled sharply in exasperation. "You're - ," he stopped, unsure what to say. Human, he'd almost said, but Lex wasn't. Finally he settled on, "You would have died."
Lex stared at him, then turned onto his back to stare at the ceiling, He huffed out a raw laugh, followed by a painful wince. "I don't believe this."
"You better do."
Clark turned around at his dad's unexpected voice. He had gotten up and dressed and come done the stairs and was scowling at Lex now.
"I couldn't put my finger on it yesterday, but now I know," Jonathan said, still not looking at Clark but at the man on their couch. "That bald head of yours. The lack of respect. I knew I had seen your face before. You're that Luthor boy. The one who got caught in the meteor shower, am I right?"
Lex struggled to sit up. He went pale at the effort, but his face showed no pain or emotion other than a schooled blankness. Clark's dad took a step closer. "You should be darn grateful, boy. This isn't the first time someone from this family has saved your life. But I guess it's too much to expect from a Luthor."
"Would you care to clarify that?" Lex asked, his voice betraying nothing.
Clark noticed that something about his Dad's behaviour had changed since last night. He still regarded Lex with undisguised mistrust and disapproval, but he didn't seem ready to shoot him at the smallest provocation anymore.
"You were just a boy. Got caught in the meteor shower. We were driving along the road when your father jumped in front of our car. He was frantic, the only time I've seen the man lose his composure. Wouldn't touch you for some reason, so I had to carry you from that field to our car and we drove you to the hospital. You'd lost all your hair. I thought for sure you'd die before we got to town. That's what gave you your powers, isn't it?"
Lex sank back onto the couch after staring at Jonathan for a long moment. His voice was toneless. "I didn't know any of this."
"Well, now you do," Jonathan replied darkly and turned away, walking towards the screen door to pull on his boots. "I'm gonna feed the animals."
Clark turned around to look at Lex, but his eyes had fallen shut. He didn't seem to be asleep, his face was too tense for that, a deep frown creasing his brow, but he still looked pale and sick, and above all exhausted. Clark went after his dad.
He found him in the chicken coop, throwing out wheat grain to the bickering hens, muttering curses that stopped when he noticed Clark. "Hey, son. How was your night? Luthor cause you any trouble?"
Clark shook his head and watched the chickens peck at the grains in the dirt for a while. He still couldn't believe that Lex was a Luthor or that his parents had met them during the meteor shower - had they already had Clark then? Done with feeding the chickens, his dad slipped out of the coop, carefully closing the door after him. He handed the basket with eggs to Clark, then headed for the barn. Clark followed him.
"It's my fault that Lex is like this," Clark said after a while. Jonathan spun around on his heels and seized Clark's shoulder, looking him in the eyes.
"No. No, don't you ever think that, Clark. We've talked about this before. The meteor freaks aren't your fault. What they do with their powers isn't your fault. You've got powers and you're handling them just fine. Just fine."
Clark looked away. His dad grunted something, then picked up a bale of hay and carried it to the cows. "You've changed your mind on Lex, though," Clark insisted. "I thought it was because it’s the meteors that made him different."
His dad leaned onto the fence, staring the green pasture. The cows crowded around the hay, their big wet noses pushing each other aside. Even this early in the morning flies buzzed around their eyes and noses. "Yeah, maybe I see things a little different this morning. Woke up and remembered where I'd seen his sorry face before. It's not the meteors, Clark. He's a Luthor. If anything it's his father who made him what he is. It may not be his fault that he is the way he is, but he's still dangerous. I don't want him here. I don't want him to find out anything about you."
Clark clenched his hands to fists. "Dad, he already knows."
The weathered features of Jonathan's face smoothed out in blank shock. He stared at Clark, rage sparking in his eyes. "How?"
"The same way he made us believe him. He made me tell him." Clark really hoped he wasn't signing Lex's death warrant by saying that. He didn't want his dad to become a murderer in a fit of rage.
Jonathan unfroze very slowly. He turned away from Clark, taking a few harsh breaths. Then he suddenly pounded his fist onto the fence. "Goddammit."
"Dad?"
For a long moment he didn't react, just stared down at his fist, his jaws working in some unspoken turmoil. "Damn it."
"Dad, he promised to keep quiet about it if I kept quiet about him being a wizard. Or a meteor mutant, or whatever." More like threatened, but Clark felt justified to keep that to himself.
"Clark." He sounded pained. "Don't you see? We're at this man's mercy. He's too powerful. There's nothing we can threaten him with, nothing we can promise him. And we certainly can't rely on him to honour his promise."
They headed for the barn again. Even now, taking care of the farm was pure instinct for Jonathan. Clark thought he might be having a nervous breakdown if there weren't cows to feed and chores to do. They both stopped dead when they rounded the barn and saw Lex standing by the barn door, leaning heavily onto the wall with one arm, the other hand clutching his side. He was almost as white-faced as Death in Clark's dream now, his skin nearly translucent, his bald head making him look frail in the bright light and without the armour of the leather jacket he'd worn the day before. Even his lips had lost all colour.
Clark felt his dad tense up and straighten as he approached Lex, like he was expecting a fight.
Lex's voice was tight, as if he had to force out every breath. "I don't know if my nature makes me evil," he said, staring straight at both of them, his eyes the only thing about him that radiated strength and iron will. "But I do know for sure that I am not a good man. The creature in the mansion is my father's ghost. I'm responsible for his death. I didn't know it is he who haunts Smallville or I wouldn't have suspected your son - " He swayed, his eyes loosing their steely focus for a second. They strayed downwards to glance at his hand. Black blood was welling through his fingers; the wound had opened up again. "I killed him. I don't deserve any…," his head lolled, then snapped up again. He made a lurching step towards Jonathan, who recoiled in horror. "I sincerely wish to apologize for my - "
Whatever else he had been trying to say was lost as his knees gave away under him and he dropped to the ground, out cold.
Clark had never heard his dad curse so much in one morning.
*
The next time Lex woke, his first thought was that the fever had broken. He felt cold, chilled to the bone for the first time in years. The hellfire in his veins seemed to have been extinguished and shivers crept up his spine.
He was back in the Kent's living room, with no recollection of how he had gotten there again. He had gone outside to apologize and leave the Kent's alone, with the intention to find some quiet place where he could lick his wounds and nurse himself back to health, but he seemed to have overestimated himself.
This hadn't happened before. Other creatures had attacked him, demons and warlocks, and some even had sapped his magic, but none had ever come as close to depleting the near endless reservoir of chaos magic that Lex had access to. Clark Kent had without doubt saved Lex's life and Lex had no idea how he had done it. The Kent boy was peculiar. A blank slate, an empty well, not an ounce of magic in him, but still radiating raw power and life force. Lex had never met anyone who could be charmed so easily with magic. It was as if the boy had no defences at all, and that had made Lex suspicious, had made him suspect that it was Clark Kent who haunted Smallville in the harmless guise of an innocent boy.
Instead Clark Kent was not only the least magical, but also the most selfless person Lex had ever encountered. Inhumanly good, so much it made Lex ache deep inside, worse than his wounds.
He sensed that he wasn't alone and turned around, opening his eyes. His teeth were close to chattering. Jonathan Kent sat in the easy chair that Clark had occupied all night. Mr Kent was clearly human, with the spark of magic that all living things on earth had, but he, too, was very down to earth. Those people were among the easiest to ensnare.
But Lex knew with sudden certainty that even if he had had the power to try and bewitch the Kents again, he would not do it. Not even if his life depended on it. They had wakened something in the hollow of his heart. He almost felt human again.
Mr Kent sat with his elbows on his knees, staring darkly at Lex.
"Clark's outside, doing his chores," he said suddenly. "My wife's in town, buying groceries. But as long as you know about Clark, our peaceful life could end tomorrow. There's nothing I can do to protect them. I could take you and my shotgun behind the shed - "
"Maybe you should," Lex agreed softly. He wouldn't have a day ago, would have fought with teeth and claws, but since he'd been to the mansion and faced Lionel's ghost, he felt very tired. "It might even work while I'm this weak."
Mr Kent stared at him in obvious horror, even though it was he who had first suggested it. He was a good man, Lex reminded himself. A man who'd saved his life once; a kind man despite his gruff exterior.
"I'm not human, Mr Kent. At least not entirely."
"Damn you, Luthor," Kent whispered. "Neither is my son."
Lex felt very tired. Maybe it wouldn't even be necessary for Mr Kent to overcome his morals. Maybe Dad would get his revenge after all. "I'm nothing like Clark. I couldn't be if I tried."
"Will you shut up?" Mr Kent thundered. "I'm not becoming a murderer because of a Luthor. We'll find another way. And you won't say a word of this to Martha or Clark, understood?"
Lex stared at him. The Kents made no sense at all. They were closer to impossible than any piece of magic Lex had ever seen. Did this man actually intend to keep him here?
"Are we clear?" Kent repeated tensely.
Lex nodded, shivering. Maybe this was all a fever dream. "Yes, sir," he slurred, laughing at the absurdity of it all. The laughter turned into chattering teeth. Kent scowled at him. Then he threw another blanket over Lex. The weight of it settled heavily over his body.
Maybe this was hell, to be surrounded by good people, forever holding a mirror of his own deficiency to his face.