Fic: Crying Into Scotch (complete)
Title: Crying Into Scotch
Author: josephina_x
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark, Lex
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: major for 7x10 Persona, goes wildly AU after that
Word count: 3100+
Summary: Clark and Lex get unbelievably drunk and lament together after the events of Persona.
Warnings: Un-beta'd. So, so very OOC in so many ways (forced fix-it fic -- is that an actual acronym? FFIF? or is the "forced" redundant?).
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
Comments: Yes, please! :)
Author's Note: This is all nicnac918's fault. She brought up Lana and Bizarro in comments. This happened. I blame her.
I re-read the episode recap on the Smallville Wikia page before I started. This may have gotten a little away from me.
Also posted to AO3, if you'd rather read there.
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Lex!" Clark called, stumbling into the mansion.
Lex was on the floor of the library, sitting with his back against one of the legs of the pool table, a decanter of scotch standing within arm's reach.
Lex tilted his head over at Clark by rolling it across the cylindrical hunk of wood behind his head.
"Cl'rk?" he said, wondering if he'd drunk enough to be hallucinating.
"Lex!" Clark called. "Lex?" Then he stopped in the middle of the library floor, standing unsteadily on his feet.
"Oh," Clark said, finally spotting Lex. He wandered over and dropped down next to him, shoulder-to-shoulder, and sighed heavily.
"Hi," said Clark.
"Hi," said Lex, blinking at them, because when were they on speaking terms again? Was he really that drunk? That seemed like something he'd remember...
"Are you drunk?" Lex asked, after Clark had put his head down on Lex's shoulder without reservation and said 'mmph'.
"Yes," Clark stated clearly. "I can do that now."
Lex blinked at him, and if he wasn't as drunk as he was, the first words out of his mouth would have been, "Really? Do tell." Because Clark not having the ability to get drunk sounded like something very interesting that he would really want to know about, in the '"Hah! I'm going to catch you out now!" sort-of way.
Instead, he sat there and stared at Clark's hair, which was, god help him, right fucking there, and thought about petting it.
"Lana doesn't love me!" Clark wailed into his shoulder, which gave Lex pause as his hand stopped mid-air.
"Really? Do tell," said Lex. (Lex might have been operating under a time delay that night. He never was very sure about that, thinking back on it later. It was possible that he might have been drunk enough to try and be a good friend to Clark and listen to him wail about how his ex-wife, who had left him for Clark, didn't love Clark, but... well, it was possible that his laptop might turn into an elephant in the next thirty seconds, too. Didn't mean it was likely, or even slightly probable. ...Not without meteor-freak intervention, anyway. Lex wouldn't put anything past those meteor-freaks. He'd seen some really craaaaaaazy shit go down in 33.1 from time-to-time. Read: every time he checked up on the facilities. Damn meteor-freaks. Some days Lex didn't know why he put up with them. ...And then he'd remember The Aliens and put down the phone. Because really, if you couldn't be nice to a quasi-mutated human, who could you fight for the future of humanity with?)
Clark, however, seemed not aware of any oddness about Lex's asking after his sorrows. The offer didn't phase him in the least.
Instead, Clark said "Okay," and proceeded to tell him just that.
After awhile, Lex passed Clark the decanter, because it sounded like he might need it more than Lex did.
~*~*~*~*~*~
"So, let me get this straight," Lex said as Clark took another swig of scotch, straight-up. "The entity--"
"Bizarre-Phantom," Clark corrected.
"--that blew up my dam facility--"
"Heh, 'damn'," Clark giggled.
"--stole your DNA, and... 'shit happened' and you thought it had gone away--"
"Uh huh."
"--and then 'other stupid stuff happened'--"
"Uh huh."
"--and then you got put in 'time out' by your... dad?... for a month--" Lex couldn't help but add the question mark there, because he'd thought Jonathan very much dead.
"Stupid biological father," Clark grumbled.
...Okay. Lex took the scotch back -- he decided he needed it for that one. "--and then this thing which had stolen your face made love to Lana for a month while you were away--"
Clark growled.
Lex blinked. Lex took another large swig. "--and then--" he squeaked, before clearing his throat. "--And then when you got back, you found out that she loved the face-stealing-Phantom-thing more than you."
Clark nodded morosely.
"And then you chased it down all over the place, and got Lana to help you kill it."
"Uh huh."
"Which she did, even though she loved it more than you."
"She told it 'sorry' and everything," Clark complained. "Why would she do that?"
Funny. Lex was more worried about the fact that Lana had killed a being-thing that she knew she loved. After sleeping with it.
...Maybe he should stop trying to make up with her. --Just maybe. Only a thought. A very drunken one. He could not-mean-it later, he was sure. Although he probably shouldn't.
Lex mused over this for awhile. Then he asked, "Did you ever sleep with Lana while she and I were...?"
He got interrupted immediately by a wide-eyed Clark. "What? No! You guys were dating! And then married. That's totally messed up," he huffed. "I'm not a jerk," he grumbled.
Lex begged to differ, but then there were all sorts of types of jerks out there, and it was good to know he wasn't a cheating jerk, even if he was a lying one.
He thought about his own experiences with Lana. He compared them to Clark's. He took another swig of alcohol.
Lex said, "I think you beat me on the Lana-screwed-you-over-worse-than-me front."
"Ugh, I know," said Clark thoughtlessly. But then he added, "My life sucks."
Uh, no. Lex wasn't going to let him get away with that one, thank-you-very-much. "Your life does not suck."
"It does!"
"It does not!"
"It does! It so does!"
"No it doesn't! My life, now that sucks," Lex grumbled.
"What?" Clark raised his head and frowned down at Lex. "No it doesn't."
"Yes it does; it so does," Lex said, gesturing with the decanter in hand, until he decided to put it to a better use -- getting the liquid inside it io his lips and down his throat. After which, he slammed it down to the floor and added, "People keep blowing up my stop-the-evil-aliens plans!"
"You should stop them, then," Clark said reasonably.
"I can't stop them, I tried! They still keep blowing things up!"
Clark looked confused for a minute. Then the lightbulb went on and he said, "I meant the plans. You should stop the plans," he said with a grimace, reaching for the alcohol.
Lex handed it over, not really paying attention. He was too mad. "I can't! I need them to stop the evil aliens!"
"Why do you need to?" Clark asked, frowning.
"Because nobody else will!" Lex shrieked, throwing his hands up in the air. "Nobody else will help!"
"Maybe that's because people don't want to help you do stuff that hurts people and turns them into weapons," Clark frowned down at him.
"I'm trying to stop evil aliens -- it had better have something to do with weapons and hurting people," Lex growled. "Like -- oh, I don't know -- them!!!"
And then he added, "And I hate all my clone projects! I... I... I just hate them all!" And then Lex hated himself because he was getting all teary-eyed again, and he wasn't supposed to do that, damnit -- he'd been drinking. Drinking was supposed to make it go away and stop hurting so damn much.
"Oh. My. God." Clark said, his mouth dropping open. "You put a bunch of army-clones under the damn-dam again?!"
"What?" Lex said, distracted by Clark's shock-working-towards-anger. "No! God! I'm not gonna redo something that gets blown up! If it can't get through being blown up by humans, it's not like it's not just gonna get blown up by the aliens," he said, rolling his eyes. "I'm not stupid."
"Oh." Clark thought about this for a bit. "That makes sense."
"Thank you," Lex said, grabbing the scotch back, then eyed the empty bottle. "Damn." He groaned as he struggled to his knees and shuffled forward. He grabbed a full decanter from the cart, set it on the floor, thought better of it, and pulled down a second one. He shoved them both over with him as he made his way back to the pool table leg, resettled down next to Clark, and then shoved one of them over to his ex-friend. There. Now they each had one.
"Thanks," Clark said, and then he added after another swig, "...So, why do you hate clones so much?" he asked distractedly, leaning heavily into Lex.
"Because... because I just do!" Lex said, trying not to get all weepy. He decidedly did not sniffle.
He did, however, ask Clark plaintively, "...Are clones people?"
"Yes," said Clark decisively.
Lex started to have a panic attack.
"No," said Clark. "Maybe -- wait, are we talking about evil monster clones? Or some other type of clones?" Then Clark frowned like he wasn't sure there was another type of clones.
Lex saw light at the end of the tunnel. "Um..." Lex bit his lip. "Maybe?"
"You're not sure?" Clark gave him a weird look.
"He might have been!" Lex whined. "He-- he would have been. Lionel got him." And then Lex winced.
"Oh. Yeah. Yeah, that would do it," Clark said darkly, taking a huge swig of alcohol.
Lex's mind went blank for awhile. "I thought you liked Lionel!" he said after his brain tried to pick itself up off the floor, agog.
"I do not!" Clark said, sounding outraged and highly insulted.
"But... but you get along!"
"I kind of have to. It's not like I want to," Clark grumbled, hunching his shoulders and sliding down the table leg, curling into a pissed-off little elbows-and-knees ball. He glared at the world, as he took another swig of scotch.
"Why?" Lex asked, shocked, because really, what did Lionel have on Clark? That was... really wrong! Lionel had better not know Clark's Secret! He'd be pissed!
Clark muttered vague epithets that Lex couldn't really make out, except for a few bits about...
"Your bio-dad is mind-controlling my bio-dad?" Lex asked incredulously.
"I'm sorry!" Clark wailed. "I didn't want him to!"
Lex just started laughing.
"It's not funny!" Clark said, shocked to the core.
"It... it kind of is," Lex said as he managed to get some of the giggling under control. "Can you make him do things?" he asked, because Clark getting his father to push his father around would just be awesome.
"No," Clark said rolling his eyes. "He only listens to bio-dad, and bio-dad's a jerk. He doesn't listen to me at all. He's worse than Lionel."
Lex's eyes got wide. "Whaaat?" Then his eyes narrowed. "No. No. Like hell. Nobody's worse than Lionel."
"Tt," Clark said derisively. "He burned me, made me accidentally kill my little brother, and then exiled me to Metropolis for four months. And a bunch of other crap, too. He sucks."
What the fuck? Lex almost asked about the little brother thing, except he saw Clark's face and thought the better of it.
"He can't be that bad," Lex tried, thinking of electroshock crap that he hadn't needed to burn out memories he did need, all that shit with Helen, and all that shit with Lana. (Fuck Lana.)
Clark gave Lex a look. "He wants me to take over the world, and gets mad when I say no because that's stupid and wrong."
What the fuck. Even Lionel wasn't that bad. "When the hell did this shit start?" Lex asked angrily.
"Sophomore year of high school," Clark said, taking another swig.
What. The. Fuck. "Jesus-Holy-Christ. Where is this bastard? I will beat him down for you."
"No!" Clark yelled, turning to Lex and grabbing his arm. "No no no! You stay away from him!"
"Clark--"
"He mind-controlled Lionel. For fun. --He'll hurt you. I don't want you getting hurt!" Clark said.
Lex felt kind of warm inside.
Probably the alcohol.
"Fine," Lex grumbled. "But I get first dibs."
"No, you don't. You are staying away from him. There are no dibs," Clark said. "No dibs."
They frowned at each other. They both took large swigs from their decanters.
"Does killing evil monster clones count as killing?" Lex asked out of the blue (sort of).
"No," said Clark.
"What about almost-about-to-be-evil-monster clones?"
"Probably not," said Clark.
"Thank god," mumbled Lex, collapsing in relief and staring at the ceiling. He hadn't wanted to, because Gabriel was kind of Julian almost, but...
Yeah, no more cloning for him. It was too... Lex-needing-to-be-super-drunk-inducing.
"I'd have to ask Chloe to be sure," Clark added. "She'd know."
Oh god. "Please don't ask her," Lex begged.
" 'K?" Clark said.
"Good."
They sat there, not talking, just getting drunker and drunker.
Finally, Lex asked, "How do you get drunk?"
"Uhhh, alcohol?" Clark laughed.
Lex pulled a face and smacked Clark in the arm.
Clark looked startled and jumped, then grinned at Lex with his zillion-watt grin. Lex's brain shorted out for a bit, because he hadn't seen one of those in awhile. He'd gotten un-immune somewhat, it seemed. (If he ever had been. Lex didn't examine that thought too closely.)
"I went to the liquor store but they were closed--"
Well, it was kind of late.
"--and then I went to the bar, but then they kicked me out--"
...Was it really that late? Lex checked his watch.
"--and I wasn't done yet, and then I came here," Clark ended.
"You came here to get drunk? -Er?" Lex said.
"You have a lot of alcohol," Clark replied sagely, in the manner of the utterly-smashed.
Lex thought about this for all of two seconds. "Yes, I do," he agreed, after a quick mental tally of the alcohol in this room, and the wine cellar, and the other cellars, and he stopped when his alcohol-addled mind got fuzzy and forgot to remember the numbers before he ran out of rooms. Because, really -- close enough.
"What about Lana?" Lex asked, because he was a bastard like that -- haha! -- but he had still loved Lana and Clark had stolen her back anyway, so he deserved it -- so there.
Clark made a face, apparently remembering why he was here upon having been reminded. "At home, in my bed. I couldn't fall asleep, and I didn't want to stay."
It was Lex's turn to make a face. "Can't believe you didn't make her sleep on the couch." Because hadn't Lana been the one who had been cheating? For a month? She should have been so far into the doghouse that she should have been out in the henhouse.
"Lana doesn't like the couch."
"Exactly."
"But she'd complain, and it'd be all my fault! I don't want her unhappy."
Lex stared at Clark for a moment. He took another fortifying swig of alcohol. "You-- have a guilt problem," Lex stated, poking Clark in the arm.
"Yes," Clark said sadly.
"But now I can get drunk," Clark added, sounding a little happier.
Lex watched as Clark rummaged around in a pocket and pulled out a small piece of blue rock. He stared at it and smiled happily.
"Is that the blue-meteor-rock stuff?" Lex asked, remembering what Clark had rambled about before.
"Yeah," Clark sighed happily.
"I thought you said it got blown up when you used it on the evil face-stealing girlfriend-stealing Phantom guy-thing?"
"Kind of," Clark said. "Some bits didn't get blown up too small. Like this one."
Lex reached for it because he wanted a closer look -- blue meteor rock was new, he wanted all the colors, of course -- but Clark brought it to his chest and curled up around it like a pillbug.
"Nooooo," Clark said, "This is mine."
"I just want to look at it," Lex said, totally not pouting.
"I need it! For the drinking!"
"You need it for the drinking?" Lex repeated, because huh-the-what-now-who?
"Um, I--" Clark said. "Noooothing."
Lex frowned at him for a long time until it was almost a glare. "Totally not nothing," he grumbled, gathering up his decanter and shuffling his butt around the table leg until he was opposite Clark.
"Leeeeex," Clark said, trying to follow him.
Lex moved away again.
Clark followed him again.
They ended up making a full circuit around the table leg before Lex stopped, realizing that this wasn't working, damnit.
Stupid Clark with his stupid rock and his stupid lying mouth trying to stupidly lean up against him again like nothing was wrong.
Lex brought his knees up to his chest, crossed his arms, and glowered drunkenly at nothing in particular, slouched inward just a tad. Clark looked drunkenly worried.
"Um," said Clark. "I could... I could maybe... find you some too?"
Lex looked up at Clark warily.
Clark nodded hopefully.
"...Okay," said Lex.
Clark grinned again, totally relieved.
Lex forgot why he was so mad.
Lex let Clark shove himself right up against his side again, and pretended he didn't kind of like it.
"--Oh! But you're not allowed to kill any clones, though,"
Lex nearly did a spit-take on fine scotch. It burned his nose and the back of his throat. "What?" he yelped. "Why not?!?" That's not fair!
"Because you shouldn't be going after evil-monster clones, they might hurt you," Clark said, matter-of-factly.
Lex grumbled, caught between being completely irate at the thought of Clark thinking he couldn't take care of himself, and not-so-much-irate at Clark seeming to actually give a damn about him (still). Because why did he always get extra rules when nobody else did, huh? That wasn't fair!
"You should just tell me and let me handle them," Clark added.
Lex wasn't irate anymore.
"--But just the evil monster ones," Clark specified. "And you're not allowed to go after good aliens, ok?"
Lex blinked at Clark. "Well, yeah." Because he'd thought that was obvious. "Why would I go after good aliens? They're good. And not evil and trying to kill humanity and stuff. Good aliens would help beat up bad aliens for us; I'm not gonna hurt good aliens," Lex huffed.
Clark grinned and hugged him for some unknown reason. Maybe he'd been reading Warrior Angel lately?
"I'm tired!" Clark announced after a little more drinking.
"Then go to bed," Lex said reasonably. He didn't see what the big problem was -- Clark was an adult now. Couldn't he handle this?
"But Lana's there," Clark whined. "I don't want to."
Lex blinked. He thought this over.
"Ok," Lex said, standing up and only teetering on his feet just a little, having much practice at being close-to-blackout smashed and still maneuvering himself around on his own.
He grabbed Clark's hand and pulled him upright.
They both nearly toppled over, because apparently Clark was really bad at the whole walking thing. When drunk.
Except he seemed to learn quickly, because he didn't quite actually end up on the floor again as Lex pulled him along, out the library double-doors and down the hallway.
"Where are we going?" Clark whined.
"Bed," said Lex.
"Nooooo--" Clark said, digging in his heels.
They almost toppled over again.
"Not your bed, Clark!" Lex sighed, exasperated, half-hanging off of Clark now, the same way Clark was doing that to him.
"Huh?" It took Clark the time for them to both steady themselves on their feet again before he got it and let out an enlightened, "Oh."
After that revelation for the ages, Lex didn't have any trouble at all getting Clark into Lex's own Lana-free bed.
In lieu of covers, Clark curled up around Lex like a heavy, alcohol-breath-laden, really really warm comforter throw-pillow-like thing.
It was the best night's sleep Lex had ever had.
~*~*~*~*~*~
AN2: Next fic in the series is here.
Author: josephina_x
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark, Lex
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: major for 7x10 Persona, goes wildly AU after that
Word count: 3100+
Summary: Clark and Lex get unbelievably drunk and lament together after the events of Persona.
Warnings: Un-beta'd. So, so very OOC in so many ways (forced fix-it fic -- is that an actual acronym? FFIF? or is the "forced" redundant?).
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
Comments: Yes, please! :)
Author's Note: This is all nicnac918's fault. She brought up Lana and Bizarro in comments. This happened. I blame her.
I re-read the episode recap on the Smallville Wikia page before I started. This may have gotten a little away from me.
Also posted to AO3, if you'd rather read there.
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Lex!" Clark called, stumbling into the mansion.
Lex was on the floor of the library, sitting with his back against one of the legs of the pool table, a decanter of scotch standing within arm's reach.
Lex tilted his head over at Clark by rolling it across the cylindrical hunk of wood behind his head.
"Cl'rk?" he said, wondering if he'd drunk enough to be hallucinating.
"Lex!" Clark called. "Lex?" Then he stopped in the middle of the library floor, standing unsteadily on his feet.
"Oh," Clark said, finally spotting Lex. He wandered over and dropped down next to him, shoulder-to-shoulder, and sighed heavily.
"Hi," said Clark.
"Hi," said Lex, blinking at them, because when were they on speaking terms again? Was he really that drunk? That seemed like something he'd remember...
"Are you drunk?" Lex asked, after Clark had put his head down on Lex's shoulder without reservation and said 'mmph'.
"Yes," Clark stated clearly. "I can do that now."
Lex blinked at him, and if he wasn't as drunk as he was, the first words out of his mouth would have been, "Really? Do tell." Because Clark not having the ability to get drunk sounded like something very interesting that he would really want to know about, in the '"Hah! I'm going to catch you out now!" sort-of way.
Instead, he sat there and stared at Clark's hair, which was, god help him, right fucking there, and thought about petting it.
"Lana doesn't love me!" Clark wailed into his shoulder, which gave Lex pause as his hand stopped mid-air.
"Really? Do tell," said Lex. (Lex might have been operating under a time delay that night. He never was very sure about that, thinking back on it later. It was possible that he might have been drunk enough to try and be a good friend to Clark and listen to him wail about how his ex-wife, who had left him for Clark, didn't love Clark, but... well, it was possible that his laptop might turn into an elephant in the next thirty seconds, too. Didn't mean it was likely, or even slightly probable. ...Not without meteor-freak intervention, anyway. Lex wouldn't put anything past those meteor-freaks. He'd seen some really craaaaaaazy shit go down in 33.1 from time-to-time. Read: every time he checked up on the facilities. Damn meteor-freaks. Some days Lex didn't know why he put up with them. ...And then he'd remember The Aliens and put down the phone. Because really, if you couldn't be nice to a quasi-mutated human, who could you fight for the future of humanity with?)
Clark, however, seemed not aware of any oddness about Lex's asking after his sorrows. The offer didn't phase him in the least.
Instead, Clark said "Okay," and proceeded to tell him just that.
After awhile, Lex passed Clark the decanter, because it sounded like he might need it more than Lex did.
~*~*~*~*~*~
"So, let me get this straight," Lex said as Clark took another swig of scotch, straight-up. "The entity--"
"Bizarre-Phantom," Clark corrected.
"--that blew up my dam facility--"
"Heh, 'damn'," Clark giggled.
"--stole your DNA, and... 'shit happened' and you thought it had gone away--"
"Uh huh."
"--and then 'other stupid stuff happened'--"
"Uh huh."
"--and then you got put in 'time out' by your... dad?... for a month--" Lex couldn't help but add the question mark there, because he'd thought Jonathan very much dead.
"Stupid biological father," Clark grumbled.
...Okay. Lex took the scotch back -- he decided he needed it for that one. "--and then this thing which had stolen your face made love to Lana for a month while you were away--"
Clark growled.
Lex blinked. Lex took another large swig. "--and then--" he squeaked, before clearing his throat. "--And then when you got back, you found out that she loved the face-stealing-Phantom-thing more than you."
Clark nodded morosely.
"And then you chased it down all over the place, and got Lana to help you kill it."
"Uh huh."
"Which she did, even though she loved it more than you."
"She told it 'sorry' and everything," Clark complained. "Why would she do that?"
Funny. Lex was more worried about the fact that Lana had killed a being-thing that she knew she loved. After sleeping with it.
...Maybe he should stop trying to make up with her. --Just maybe. Only a thought. A very drunken one. He could not-mean-it later, he was sure. Although he probably shouldn't.
Lex mused over this for awhile. Then he asked, "Did you ever sleep with Lana while she and I were...?"
He got interrupted immediately by a wide-eyed Clark. "What? No! You guys were dating! And then married. That's totally messed up," he huffed. "I'm not a jerk," he grumbled.
Lex begged to differ, but then there were all sorts of types of jerks out there, and it was good to know he wasn't a cheating jerk, even if he was a lying one.
He thought about his own experiences with Lana. He compared them to Clark's. He took another swig of alcohol.
Lex said, "I think you beat me on the Lana-screwed-you-over-worse-than-me front."
"Ugh, I know," said Clark thoughtlessly. But then he added, "My life sucks."
Uh, no. Lex wasn't going to let him get away with that one, thank-you-very-much. "Your life does not suck."
"It does!"
"It does not!"
"It does! It so does!"
"No it doesn't! My life, now that sucks," Lex grumbled.
"What?" Clark raised his head and frowned down at Lex. "No it doesn't."
"Yes it does; it so does," Lex said, gesturing with the decanter in hand, until he decided to put it to a better use -- getting the liquid inside it io his lips and down his throat. After which, he slammed it down to the floor and added, "People keep blowing up my stop-the-evil-aliens plans!"
"You should stop them, then," Clark said reasonably.
"I can't stop them, I tried! They still keep blowing things up!"
Clark looked confused for a minute. Then the lightbulb went on and he said, "I meant the plans. You should stop the plans," he said with a grimace, reaching for the alcohol.
Lex handed it over, not really paying attention. He was too mad. "I can't! I need them to stop the evil aliens!"
"Why do you need to?" Clark asked, frowning.
"Because nobody else will!" Lex shrieked, throwing his hands up in the air. "Nobody else will help!"
"Maybe that's because people don't want to help you do stuff that hurts people and turns them into weapons," Clark frowned down at him.
"I'm trying to stop evil aliens -- it had better have something to do with weapons and hurting people," Lex growled. "Like -- oh, I don't know -- them!!!"
And then he added, "And I hate all my clone projects! I... I... I just hate them all!" And then Lex hated himself because he was getting all teary-eyed again, and he wasn't supposed to do that, damnit -- he'd been drinking. Drinking was supposed to make it go away and stop hurting so damn much.
"Oh. My. God." Clark said, his mouth dropping open. "You put a bunch of army-clones under the damn-dam again?!"
"What?" Lex said, distracted by Clark's shock-working-towards-anger. "No! God! I'm not gonna redo something that gets blown up! If it can't get through being blown up by humans, it's not like it's not just gonna get blown up by the aliens," he said, rolling his eyes. "I'm not stupid."
"Oh." Clark thought about this for a bit. "That makes sense."
"Thank you," Lex said, grabbing the scotch back, then eyed the empty bottle. "Damn." He groaned as he struggled to his knees and shuffled forward. He grabbed a full decanter from the cart, set it on the floor, thought better of it, and pulled down a second one. He shoved them both over with him as he made his way back to the pool table leg, resettled down next to Clark, and then shoved one of them over to his ex-friend. There. Now they each had one.
"Thanks," Clark said, and then he added after another swig, "...So, why do you hate clones so much?" he asked distractedly, leaning heavily into Lex.
"Because... because I just do!" Lex said, trying not to get all weepy. He decidedly did not sniffle.
He did, however, ask Clark plaintively, "...Are clones people?"
"Yes," said Clark decisively.
Lex started to have a panic attack.
"No," said Clark. "Maybe -- wait, are we talking about evil monster clones? Or some other type of clones?" Then Clark frowned like he wasn't sure there was another type of clones.
Lex saw light at the end of the tunnel. "Um..." Lex bit his lip. "Maybe?"
"You're not sure?" Clark gave him a weird look.
"He might have been!" Lex whined. "He-- he would have been. Lionel got him." And then Lex winced.
"Oh. Yeah. Yeah, that would do it," Clark said darkly, taking a huge swig of alcohol.
Lex's mind went blank for awhile. "I thought you liked Lionel!" he said after his brain tried to pick itself up off the floor, agog.
"I do not!" Clark said, sounding outraged and highly insulted.
"But... but you get along!"
"I kind of have to. It's not like I want to," Clark grumbled, hunching his shoulders and sliding down the table leg, curling into a pissed-off little elbows-and-knees ball. He glared at the world, as he took another swig of scotch.
"Why?" Lex asked, shocked, because really, what did Lionel have on Clark? That was... really wrong! Lionel had better not know Clark's Secret! He'd be pissed!
Clark muttered vague epithets that Lex couldn't really make out, except for a few bits about...
"Your bio-dad is mind-controlling my bio-dad?" Lex asked incredulously.
"I'm sorry!" Clark wailed. "I didn't want him to!"
Lex just started laughing.
"It's not funny!" Clark said, shocked to the core.
"It... it kind of is," Lex said as he managed to get some of the giggling under control. "Can you make him do things?" he asked, because Clark getting his father to push his father around would just be awesome.
"No," Clark said rolling his eyes. "He only listens to bio-dad, and bio-dad's a jerk. He doesn't listen to me at all. He's worse than Lionel."
Lex's eyes got wide. "Whaaat?" Then his eyes narrowed. "No. No. Like hell. Nobody's worse than Lionel."
"Tt," Clark said derisively. "He burned me, made me accidentally kill my little brother, and then exiled me to Metropolis for four months. And a bunch of other crap, too. He sucks."
What the fuck? Lex almost asked about the little brother thing, except he saw Clark's face and thought the better of it.
"He can't be that bad," Lex tried, thinking of electroshock crap that he hadn't needed to burn out memories he did need, all that shit with Helen, and all that shit with Lana. (Fuck Lana.)
Clark gave Lex a look. "He wants me to take over the world, and gets mad when I say no because that's stupid and wrong."
What the fuck. Even Lionel wasn't that bad. "When the hell did this shit start?" Lex asked angrily.
"Sophomore year of high school," Clark said, taking another swig.
What. The. Fuck. "Jesus-Holy-Christ. Where is this bastard? I will beat him down for you."
"No!" Clark yelled, turning to Lex and grabbing his arm. "No no no! You stay away from him!"
"Clark--"
"He mind-controlled Lionel. For fun. --He'll hurt you. I don't want you getting hurt!" Clark said.
Lex felt kind of warm inside.
Probably the alcohol.
"Fine," Lex grumbled. "But I get first dibs."
"No, you don't. You are staying away from him. There are no dibs," Clark said. "No dibs."
They frowned at each other. They both took large swigs from their decanters.
"Does killing evil monster clones count as killing?" Lex asked out of the blue (sort of).
"No," said Clark.
"What about almost-about-to-be-evil-monster clones?"
"Probably not," said Clark.
"Thank god," mumbled Lex, collapsing in relief and staring at the ceiling. He hadn't wanted to, because Gabriel was kind of Julian almost, but...
Yeah, no more cloning for him. It was too... Lex-needing-to-be-super-drunk-inducing.
"I'd have to ask Chloe to be sure," Clark added. "She'd know."
Oh god. "Please don't ask her," Lex begged.
" 'K?" Clark said.
"Good."
They sat there, not talking, just getting drunker and drunker.
Finally, Lex asked, "How do you get drunk?"
"Uhhh, alcohol?" Clark laughed.
Lex pulled a face and smacked Clark in the arm.
Clark looked startled and jumped, then grinned at Lex with his zillion-watt grin. Lex's brain shorted out for a bit, because he hadn't seen one of those in awhile. He'd gotten un-immune somewhat, it seemed. (If he ever had been. Lex didn't examine that thought too closely.)
"I went to the liquor store but they were closed--"
Well, it was kind of late.
"--and then I went to the bar, but then they kicked me out--"
...Was it really that late? Lex checked his watch.
"--and I wasn't done yet, and then I came here," Clark ended.
"You came here to get drunk? -Er?" Lex said.
"You have a lot of alcohol," Clark replied sagely, in the manner of the utterly-smashed.
Lex thought about this for all of two seconds. "Yes, I do," he agreed, after a quick mental tally of the alcohol in this room, and the wine cellar, and the other cellars, and he stopped when his alcohol-addled mind got fuzzy and forgot to remember the numbers before he ran out of rooms. Because, really -- close enough.
"What about Lana?" Lex asked, because he was a bastard like that -- haha! -- but he had still loved Lana and Clark had stolen her back anyway, so he deserved it -- so there.
Clark made a face, apparently remembering why he was here upon having been reminded. "At home, in my bed. I couldn't fall asleep, and I didn't want to stay."
It was Lex's turn to make a face. "Can't believe you didn't make her sleep on the couch." Because hadn't Lana been the one who had been cheating? For a month? She should have been so far into the doghouse that she should have been out in the henhouse.
"Lana doesn't like the couch."
"Exactly."
"But she'd complain, and it'd be all my fault! I don't want her unhappy."
Lex stared at Clark for a moment. He took another fortifying swig of alcohol. "You-- have a guilt problem," Lex stated, poking Clark in the arm.
"Yes," Clark said sadly.
"But now I can get drunk," Clark added, sounding a little happier.
Lex watched as Clark rummaged around in a pocket and pulled out a small piece of blue rock. He stared at it and smiled happily.
"Is that the blue-meteor-rock stuff?" Lex asked, remembering what Clark had rambled about before.
"Yeah," Clark sighed happily.
"I thought you said it got blown up when you used it on the evil face-stealing girlfriend-stealing Phantom guy-thing?"
"Kind of," Clark said. "Some bits didn't get blown up too small. Like this one."
Lex reached for it because he wanted a closer look -- blue meteor rock was new, he wanted all the colors, of course -- but Clark brought it to his chest and curled up around it like a pillbug.
"Nooooo," Clark said, "This is mine."
"I just want to look at it," Lex said, totally not pouting.
"I need it! For the drinking!"
"You need it for the drinking?" Lex repeated, because huh-the-what-now-who?
"Um, I--" Clark said. "Noooothing."
Lex frowned at him for a long time until it was almost a glare. "Totally not nothing," he grumbled, gathering up his decanter and shuffling his butt around the table leg until he was opposite Clark.
"Leeeeex," Clark said, trying to follow him.
Lex moved away again.
Clark followed him again.
They ended up making a full circuit around the table leg before Lex stopped, realizing that this wasn't working, damnit.
Stupid Clark with his stupid rock and his stupid lying mouth trying to stupidly lean up against him again like nothing was wrong.
Lex brought his knees up to his chest, crossed his arms, and glowered drunkenly at nothing in particular, slouched inward just a tad. Clark looked drunkenly worried.
"Um," said Clark. "I could... I could maybe... find you some too?"
Lex looked up at Clark warily.
Clark nodded hopefully.
"...Okay," said Lex.
Clark grinned again, totally relieved.
Lex forgot why he was so mad.
Lex let Clark shove himself right up against his side again, and pretended he didn't kind of like it.
"--Oh! But you're not allowed to kill any clones, though,"
Lex nearly did a spit-take on fine scotch. It burned his nose and the back of his throat. "What?" he yelped. "Why not?!?" That's not fair!
"Because you shouldn't be going after evil-monster clones, they might hurt you," Clark said, matter-of-factly.
Lex grumbled, caught between being completely irate at the thought of Clark thinking he couldn't take care of himself, and not-so-much-irate at Clark seeming to actually give a damn about him (still). Because why did he always get extra rules when nobody else did, huh? That wasn't fair!
"You should just tell me and let me handle them," Clark added.
Lex wasn't irate anymore.
"--But just the evil monster ones," Clark specified. "And you're not allowed to go after good aliens, ok?"
Lex blinked at Clark. "Well, yeah." Because he'd thought that was obvious. "Why would I go after good aliens? They're good. And not evil and trying to kill humanity and stuff. Good aliens would help beat up bad aliens for us; I'm not gonna hurt good aliens," Lex huffed.
Clark grinned and hugged him for some unknown reason. Maybe he'd been reading Warrior Angel lately?
"I'm tired!" Clark announced after a little more drinking.
"Then go to bed," Lex said reasonably. He didn't see what the big problem was -- Clark was an adult now. Couldn't he handle this?
"But Lana's there," Clark whined. "I don't want to."
Lex blinked. He thought this over.
"Ok," Lex said, standing up and only teetering on his feet just a little, having much practice at being close-to-blackout smashed and still maneuvering himself around on his own.
He grabbed Clark's hand and pulled him upright.
They both nearly toppled over, because apparently Clark was really bad at the whole walking thing. When drunk.
Except he seemed to learn quickly, because he didn't quite actually end up on the floor again as Lex pulled him along, out the library double-doors and down the hallway.
"Where are we going?" Clark whined.
"Bed," said Lex.
"Nooooo--" Clark said, digging in his heels.
They almost toppled over again.
"Not your bed, Clark!" Lex sighed, exasperated, half-hanging off of Clark now, the same way Clark was doing that to him.
"Huh?" It took Clark the time for them to both steady themselves on their feet again before he got it and let out an enlightened, "Oh."
After that revelation for the ages, Lex didn't have any trouble at all getting Clark into Lex's own Lana-free bed.
In lieu of covers, Clark curled up around Lex like a heavy, alcohol-breath-laden, really really warm comforter throw-pillow-like thing.
It was the best night's sleep Lex had ever had.
~*~*~*~*~*~
AN2: Next fic in the series is here.