Lex-Clark fic: Community Service, Part 2
The second chapter of my light(ish) teenage!Lex fic, Community Service. And the plot thickens:
Teen!Lex meets kid!Clark. Add Kryptonite and stir gently. :)
I hope you enjoy!!
Part One
And Part Two:
Community Service
Part Two
At six o’clock precisely, Lex entered the museum’s main rotunda, fully armed for a siege.
He’d dressed down for the ordeal, in a mauve Lauren cashmere pullover and dark denim. Slung over one shoulder was his sleeping bag; over the other, his bookbag, packed with items intended to help him survive the night: Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, a dog-eared copy of I, Claudius, his PDA, and a few favorite issues from his Warrior Angel comics collection (the “everyday” issues, not the collectibles, of course). He’d considered slipping in a joint or two, until he remembered that was what had gotten him into trouble in the first place.
He planned on having plenty of time to amuse himself after he treated these brats to the most whirlwind, cursory tour he could devise. After all, he recalled with grim amusement, hadn’t his father always urged him to make the best of a bad situation?
The assistant curator wore a smile that was, if possible, even more obnoxiously bright than before as she stood under the rotunda’s impressive dome, ready to greet him as he crossed the marble threshold. Lex forced his tightly-pressed lips upward in a coldly polite response, idly pondering how much Lionel was paying her for this humiliation.
“Right on time,” she said approvingly. “The scouts and their chaperones will be arriving in a few minutes, but I wanted some time alone with you first to go over a few details.”
She handed him an itinerary, and Lex scanned it with a rapidly sinking heart. “Your first hour with the boys will be in the Earth and Space wing; also, I’d like you to give them a little tour of the planetarium before the star show. After a quick snack, they’ll get a chance to explore the interactive exhibits-I’m sure they’ll have plenty of questions for you to answer-and finally, you’ll move on to tell them a little bit about gems and fossils, ending in the Hall of Dinosaurs. That’s where all of you will be spending the night. Oh, and the den mothers thought you might enjoy joining in the boys’ special Story Time before bed. It ought to be fun.”
Only if purgatory is supposed to be fun, Lex thought, morosely dropping his sleeping bag and bookbag on a cart that would hold them until lights-out. He thought wistfully of his books and comics, so near and yet so far.
An entire night completely ruined, and no way out: Lionel was nothing if not thorough.
The curator continued to rattle on about the schedule, cheerfully suggesting points of interest to show the Scouts, but Lex barely heard her. His gaze wandered to the mineral and fossil exhibits mounted around the hall’s perimeter, stopping abruptly on one that had a too-familiar look.
“What’s a meteorite from Smallville doing here in the Main Hall?” Lex raised a curious eyebrow, smoothly sliding his question into one of the curator’s rare pauses for breath. Mostly to change the subject, he walked over to examine an enormous greenish boulder, which was unprotected by any glass. “Granted, it’s big, but isn’t a common rock like that a little below your standards?” As he reached out a hand to touch it, he was surprised at the chill that ran down his spine, and quickly withdrew his arm. So much for seven years of therapy, he reflected wryly.
The curator followed him over and patted the huge rock lovingly. “This is by far the largest specimen found so far,” she boasted. “And it’s part of our local history, as you know.”
“Yes, I do. I know all about the meteor shower,” he replied softly, leveling a long, unblinking stare at the curator. “It nearly killed me.”
Lex watched with satisfaction as her face paled under his steady gaze. His stare often had that effect on people. It was a weapon he’d used to his advantage many times with his teachers at Excelsior.
Clearing her throat nervously, she lowered her eyes. “Of course. I’m sorry.” Lex barely managed to keep his lips from curling into a cynical smile.
A babble of excited, high-pitched voices rose from the direction of the museum’s main entrance, and the annoying woman jerked her head up with obvious relief. “They’re here. I’ll just have a word with the troop leaders, and then I’m off.” She patted his arm. “I know you’ll have a wonderful time.”
With barely bottled resentment, he watched her exit the hall as a stream of boys in a mixture of navy blue and tan uniforms burst into the rotunda, their sneakers squeaking on the gleaming marble tiles. Loud whispers, exclamations, and the sound of running feet echoed in the hall as their den mothers tried to corral them into a group. Lex closed his eyes and sighed.
A tugging on his elbow jolted him back to life. A skinny, tow-headed kid squinted up at him curiously from about waist-level. “You’re bald,” the kid announced, without preamble.
Lex glared downwards. “And you’re short. For the record, that’s worse.”
A harried-looking den mother dragged the kid away apologetically. Around him, mass confusion continued to reign in the hall while he looked on, wishing he were almost anywhere else. From somewhere close behind him came the sounds of a minor scuffle.
“No shoving, jerk! You hurt my buddy!”
It sounded as if a fight was breaking out close behind him, near the meteorite exhibit. Mildly curious, he turned to face the exhibit-and what he saw made him catch his breath. The formerly dull, unremarkable rock now sparkled with a soft emerald glow.
Odd, he mused, narrowing his eyes. Over the years, he’d done plenty of research into the meteor shower, but he couldn’t recall reading about this particular phenomenon. He extended a cautious hand, but before he could touch the rock’s surface, his elbow was jostled by the two scuffling Scouts. The smaller one, a pudgy, dark-skinned boy with fierce black eyes, was angrily pushing a kid who was at least a head taller, and probably much older.
Lex was about to snap at both of them to cut it out, when he noticed a third boy slumped, motionless, at the foot of the exhibit’s pedestal. Alarmed, he swept the rotunda for any sign of an adult, but the overwhelmed den mothers and troop leaders were far too busy to notice his frantic wave.
The taller kid pushed back against the younger boy, causing the smaller Scout to stumble and trip over his friend’s inert body, while the older boy jeered at him. “You’re an even bigger wuss than your buddy, Ross! And he’s not even a Scout!”
The schoolboy jeering brought back memories that Lex would much rather have left undisturbed. Flushed with anger, he grabbed the taller kid by the arm and yanked him closer, ignoring the boy’s howl of protest, and bent to whisper in the kid’s ear, as softly as possible: “If you want to live long enough to earn your next Merit Badge, you’ll back off.”
While the bully retreated with a strangled snarl, Lex turned his attention to the boy sprawled underneath the meteorite display. He still hadn’t moved, and Lex couldn’t see his face, which was hidden by a mass of tousled, dark curls. He knelt in concern to examine the youth, and was relieved to discover that nothing was broken, and there was no sign of bruises or trauma.
He was at a loss to explain why such an otherwise-healthy-looking kid had passed out. There was nothing obvious to account for it. In fact, if he hadn’t been lying unconscious on the floor, Lex would have called him a perfect physical specimen. It was puzzling.
The bully had been right about one thing: The kid wasn’t wearing a Scout uniform. His bright red-and-blue plaid shirt marked him as an outsider in this group, and probably explained why he’d been targeted by the small-minded loudmouth.
Lex knew all about being an outsider. With a sudden rush of sympathy, he reached out, gently brushing the curls away from the boy’s pallid face. At his soft touch, the youngster groaned and turned to look up at Lex.
The most startling pair of green eyes that he’d ever seen regarded him gravely. Amazingly, in spite of his obvious pain, the boy’s lips tugged upwards, smiling at him as if in recognition.
Lex stared back, spellbound-and, at the same time, mystified at the unexpected effect this boy had on him. True, he wasn’t used to getting smiles from children. Whether it was because of his appearance, or his personality, or both, most of them had a knack for making him feel as if he were a creature who’d just crawled from the slimy depths of the ocean.
But there was something more. He tried to remember the last time anyone had looked at him with as much innocent warmth as this pale, beautiful boy. From somewhere in the depths of his mind, he recalled the tingling sensation of small fingers softly brushing across his bare scalp, in a gesture that was somehow comforting beyond words. Lex shivered at the memory, and wondered where it had come from.
He looked again at the boy, whose eyes had shut, and his forehead furrowed in concern as he watched a sickly greenish tinge spread over the child’s face.
“Come on,” Lex whispered, encouragingly. “We’ll get you to a doctor.”
The boy shook his head weakly at the mention of a doctor, but he obediently laced an arm around Lex’s neck and allowed the teenager to lift him to his feet. He felt unusually warm as he leaned against Lex, who considered, worriedly, whether the boy could be running a fever. When the child’s color seemed to improve after taking just a few steps away from the exhibit, he felt a surprising sense of relief.
He surrendered his charge to a troop leader with a strange reluctance. Before the kid slipped out of Lex’s grasp, he looked up shyly, and broke into another angelic smile. “Thanks.”
Lex stared after the retreating pair until they disappeared into an adjoining office. Trailing in the pair’s wake was the short, pudgy kid, who fluttered around his buddy with wide, concerned eyes. “You’re welcome,” Lex whispered, and wondered why he felt as if he’d just made a new friend.
Glancing toward the meteorite display, Lex noticed that the rock’s unusual radiance was beginning to fade. The phenomenon, whatever it was, had evidently done some electrical damage to the small track lights that surrounded the exhibit; they were sputtering and giving off an unmistakeable whiff of ozone. He watched in fascination as emerald sparks traveled down the base of the lights like green lightning, running along the cords and disappearing into the pedestal.
A swift, surreptitious glance around the hall told him that the strange electrical effect had gone unnoticed by everyone except a few of the Scouts, and the injured boy, who had just re-emerged from the office with the troop leader, apple-cheeked and healthy. Inexplicably, he seemed to have completely recovered from his illness, whatever it had been.
Lex added the observation to his mental tally of odd events. It was growing longer by the minute. This evening might prove to be more interesting than he'd thought.
One of the den mothers came up to him, interrupting his thoughts with a smile. “We’re ready, I think. Where do we start the tour?”
Lex drew a deep breath. “The Earth and Space wing. Do your kids know much about galaxies and the universe?”
“Well,” she giggled, “they’ve all seen Star Wars.”
“Great.” Lex sighed and advanced to the head of the group. Interesting or not, it was going to be a long night.
Conclusion
Teen!Lex meets kid!Clark. Add Kryptonite and stir gently. :)
I hope you enjoy!!
Part One
And Part Two:
Community Service
Part Two
At six o’clock precisely, Lex entered the museum’s main rotunda, fully armed for a siege.
He’d dressed down for the ordeal, in a mauve Lauren cashmere pullover and dark denim. Slung over one shoulder was his sleeping bag; over the other, his bookbag, packed with items intended to help him survive the night: Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, a dog-eared copy of I, Claudius, his PDA, and a few favorite issues from his Warrior Angel comics collection (the “everyday” issues, not the collectibles, of course). He’d considered slipping in a joint or two, until he remembered that was what had gotten him into trouble in the first place.
He planned on having plenty of time to amuse himself after he treated these brats to the most whirlwind, cursory tour he could devise. After all, he recalled with grim amusement, hadn’t his father always urged him to make the best of a bad situation?
The assistant curator wore a smile that was, if possible, even more obnoxiously bright than before as she stood under the rotunda’s impressive dome, ready to greet him as he crossed the marble threshold. Lex forced his tightly-pressed lips upward in a coldly polite response, idly pondering how much Lionel was paying her for this humiliation.
“Right on time,” she said approvingly. “The scouts and their chaperones will be arriving in a few minutes, but I wanted some time alone with you first to go over a few details.”
She handed him an itinerary, and Lex scanned it with a rapidly sinking heart. “Your first hour with the boys will be in the Earth and Space wing; also, I’d like you to give them a little tour of the planetarium before the star show. After a quick snack, they’ll get a chance to explore the interactive exhibits-I’m sure they’ll have plenty of questions for you to answer-and finally, you’ll move on to tell them a little bit about gems and fossils, ending in the Hall of Dinosaurs. That’s where all of you will be spending the night. Oh, and the den mothers thought you might enjoy joining in the boys’ special Story Time before bed. It ought to be fun.”
Only if purgatory is supposed to be fun, Lex thought, morosely dropping his sleeping bag and bookbag on a cart that would hold them until lights-out. He thought wistfully of his books and comics, so near and yet so far.
An entire night completely ruined, and no way out: Lionel was nothing if not thorough.
The curator continued to rattle on about the schedule, cheerfully suggesting points of interest to show the Scouts, but Lex barely heard her. His gaze wandered to the mineral and fossil exhibits mounted around the hall’s perimeter, stopping abruptly on one that had a too-familiar look.
“What’s a meteorite from Smallville doing here in the Main Hall?” Lex raised a curious eyebrow, smoothly sliding his question into one of the curator’s rare pauses for breath. Mostly to change the subject, he walked over to examine an enormous greenish boulder, which was unprotected by any glass. “Granted, it’s big, but isn’t a common rock like that a little below your standards?” As he reached out a hand to touch it, he was surprised at the chill that ran down his spine, and quickly withdrew his arm. So much for seven years of therapy, he reflected wryly.
The curator followed him over and patted the huge rock lovingly. “This is by far the largest specimen found so far,” she boasted. “And it’s part of our local history, as you know.”
“Yes, I do. I know all about the meteor shower,” he replied softly, leveling a long, unblinking stare at the curator. “It nearly killed me.”
Lex watched with satisfaction as her face paled under his steady gaze. His stare often had that effect on people. It was a weapon he’d used to his advantage many times with his teachers at Excelsior.
Clearing her throat nervously, she lowered her eyes. “Of course. I’m sorry.” Lex barely managed to keep his lips from curling into a cynical smile.
A babble of excited, high-pitched voices rose from the direction of the museum’s main entrance, and the annoying woman jerked her head up with obvious relief. “They’re here. I’ll just have a word with the troop leaders, and then I’m off.” She patted his arm. “I know you’ll have a wonderful time.”
With barely bottled resentment, he watched her exit the hall as a stream of boys in a mixture of navy blue and tan uniforms burst into the rotunda, their sneakers squeaking on the gleaming marble tiles. Loud whispers, exclamations, and the sound of running feet echoed in the hall as their den mothers tried to corral them into a group. Lex closed his eyes and sighed.
A tugging on his elbow jolted him back to life. A skinny, tow-headed kid squinted up at him curiously from about waist-level. “You’re bald,” the kid announced, without preamble.
Lex glared downwards. “And you’re short. For the record, that’s worse.”
A harried-looking den mother dragged the kid away apologetically. Around him, mass confusion continued to reign in the hall while he looked on, wishing he were almost anywhere else. From somewhere close behind him came the sounds of a minor scuffle.
“No shoving, jerk! You hurt my buddy!”
It sounded as if a fight was breaking out close behind him, near the meteorite exhibit. Mildly curious, he turned to face the exhibit-and what he saw made him catch his breath. The formerly dull, unremarkable rock now sparkled with a soft emerald glow.
Odd, he mused, narrowing his eyes. Over the years, he’d done plenty of research into the meteor shower, but he couldn’t recall reading about this particular phenomenon. He extended a cautious hand, but before he could touch the rock’s surface, his elbow was jostled by the two scuffling Scouts. The smaller one, a pudgy, dark-skinned boy with fierce black eyes, was angrily pushing a kid who was at least a head taller, and probably much older.
Lex was about to snap at both of them to cut it out, when he noticed a third boy slumped, motionless, at the foot of the exhibit’s pedestal. Alarmed, he swept the rotunda for any sign of an adult, but the overwhelmed den mothers and troop leaders were far too busy to notice his frantic wave.
The taller kid pushed back against the younger boy, causing the smaller Scout to stumble and trip over his friend’s inert body, while the older boy jeered at him. “You’re an even bigger wuss than your buddy, Ross! And he’s not even a Scout!”
The schoolboy jeering brought back memories that Lex would much rather have left undisturbed. Flushed with anger, he grabbed the taller kid by the arm and yanked him closer, ignoring the boy’s howl of protest, and bent to whisper in the kid’s ear, as softly as possible: “If you want to live long enough to earn your next Merit Badge, you’ll back off.”
While the bully retreated with a strangled snarl, Lex turned his attention to the boy sprawled underneath the meteorite display. He still hadn’t moved, and Lex couldn’t see his face, which was hidden by a mass of tousled, dark curls. He knelt in concern to examine the youth, and was relieved to discover that nothing was broken, and there was no sign of bruises or trauma.
He was at a loss to explain why such an otherwise-healthy-looking kid had passed out. There was nothing obvious to account for it. In fact, if he hadn’t been lying unconscious on the floor, Lex would have called him a perfect physical specimen. It was puzzling.
The bully had been right about one thing: The kid wasn’t wearing a Scout uniform. His bright red-and-blue plaid shirt marked him as an outsider in this group, and probably explained why he’d been targeted by the small-minded loudmouth.
Lex knew all about being an outsider. With a sudden rush of sympathy, he reached out, gently brushing the curls away from the boy’s pallid face. At his soft touch, the youngster groaned and turned to look up at Lex.
The most startling pair of green eyes that he’d ever seen regarded him gravely. Amazingly, in spite of his obvious pain, the boy’s lips tugged upwards, smiling at him as if in recognition.
Lex stared back, spellbound-and, at the same time, mystified at the unexpected effect this boy had on him. True, he wasn’t used to getting smiles from children. Whether it was because of his appearance, or his personality, or both, most of them had a knack for making him feel as if he were a creature who’d just crawled from the slimy depths of the ocean.
But there was something more. He tried to remember the last time anyone had looked at him with as much innocent warmth as this pale, beautiful boy. From somewhere in the depths of his mind, he recalled the tingling sensation of small fingers softly brushing across his bare scalp, in a gesture that was somehow comforting beyond words. Lex shivered at the memory, and wondered where it had come from.
He looked again at the boy, whose eyes had shut, and his forehead furrowed in concern as he watched a sickly greenish tinge spread over the child’s face.
“Come on,” Lex whispered, encouragingly. “We’ll get you to a doctor.”
The boy shook his head weakly at the mention of a doctor, but he obediently laced an arm around Lex’s neck and allowed the teenager to lift him to his feet. He felt unusually warm as he leaned against Lex, who considered, worriedly, whether the boy could be running a fever. When the child’s color seemed to improve after taking just a few steps away from the exhibit, he felt a surprising sense of relief.
He surrendered his charge to a troop leader with a strange reluctance. Before the kid slipped out of Lex’s grasp, he looked up shyly, and broke into another angelic smile. “Thanks.”
Lex stared after the retreating pair until they disappeared into an adjoining office. Trailing in the pair’s wake was the short, pudgy kid, who fluttered around his buddy with wide, concerned eyes. “You’re welcome,” Lex whispered, and wondered why he felt as if he’d just made a new friend.
Glancing toward the meteorite display, Lex noticed that the rock’s unusual radiance was beginning to fade. The phenomenon, whatever it was, had evidently done some electrical damage to the small track lights that surrounded the exhibit; they were sputtering and giving off an unmistakeable whiff of ozone. He watched in fascination as emerald sparks traveled down the base of the lights like green lightning, running along the cords and disappearing into the pedestal.
A swift, surreptitious glance around the hall told him that the strange electrical effect had gone unnoticed by everyone except a few of the Scouts, and the injured boy, who had just re-emerged from the office with the troop leader, apple-cheeked and healthy. Inexplicably, he seemed to have completely recovered from his illness, whatever it had been.
Lex added the observation to his mental tally of odd events. It was growing longer by the minute. This evening might prove to be more interesting than he'd thought.
One of the den mothers came up to him, interrupting his thoughts with a smile. “We’re ready, I think. Where do we start the tour?”
Lex drew a deep breath. “The Earth and Space wing. Do your kids know much about galaxies and the universe?”
“Well,” she giggled, “they’ve all seen Star Wars.”
“Great.” Lex sighed and advanced to the head of the group. Interesting or not, it was going to be a long night.
Conclusion