Fic: ...Clark Is Actually Pretty Ok With This, Thanks (Part 3, 3/3)
Title: ...Clark Is Actually Pretty Ok With This, Thanks (Part 3 -- Wherein Lois Attempts to Serve Lex a Reality Check)
Author: josephina_x
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark, Lex
Rating: R (because it sort of has vague references to themes of BDSM *shrug*)
Spoilers: References season 6 and previous, general spoilers for early season 7 and all prior. Diverges at the end of Wrath (7x07) when Clark goes to talk to Lex.
Word count: 26,900+
Summary: What if Lex decided to be a little more... evil... at the end of Wrath? What if he decided to punish Clark, for Lana's transgression? ...What if Clark agreed to sacrifice himself for her sake? Would Clark break? Or would he... bend?
...Hey, that would be a totally crazy fic, am I right? --Unfortunately, this is not that. (Oops.) Here, Lex kind of goes the other route. You know, the whole brotherly-love one.
So, instead, you get Lex being pissed about Lana treating Clark like her own personal bitch, Clark's "sacrifice" isn't so much of one, and everybody else is left standing around scratching their heads while Lana ends up doing screechy-harpy things which we don't have to hear too much about -- you're welcome. (Chloe does, though. Feel sorry for Chloe, and send her emergency chocolate cake, stat.)
Warnings: Un-beta'd. Still an ungodly amount of Lois POV. A little character-bashing (Lois towards Lex, but, yeah, he kinda needs a bit of a reality check).
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
Comments: Yes, please! :)
Author's Note: Lex still doesn't know what he's doing with the 'pet' BDSM stuff (what else is new?).
Like Part 2, this installment is kinda SRS BSNS for the sake of 'teh pl0t'. It should be a little lighter towards the end, but, yeah. I am slightly worried that this is trying to devolve into a Huge Ass Deal, because I caught myself researching episodes (and that never ends well for what are supposed to be 'frivolous' fics), so I'll try to be a little more off-the-cuff and not with the worrying so much from now on :)
The first part of this fic is here on LJ.
The second part of this fic starts here on LJ.
Also posted to AO3 here (includes all chapters to-date).
Previous piece of part 3 is here.
~*~*~*~*~*~
"...And you're wondering why the people you've got on 24-7 alien watch are a little out there?"
Lex looked like he was mentally slapping himself.
"Look, half of this whole argument is based on your 'need' to be doing this alien stuff," Lois repeated. "But you still haven't made it clear why you think it's necessary that someone -- that someone you know about has to do it," she said in a burst of inspiration, "let alone you."
"Someone... someone I know about?" Lex said faintly.
"Well, yeah," Lois said. "You've said that there are three big alien things that happened -- the second meteor shower, the dam burst, Dark Thursday -- oh, hell, and you're leaving out the first meteor shower and all those aliens you said you were tracking that you said somebody else ganked before you got to them, so I guess that makes it at least five," -- wow, he looks kind of ill, now -- "and you don't seem to know much about anything that was going on there for any of that stuff, right? --I get that, ok? I get wanting to know what's going on, but you can't, always. It doesn't work that way. Sometimes you need to trust that the right people are out there doing the right things."
"This isn't like trusting our military or police force, Lane," Lex spat out, running his hands over his head, looking like he'd be pulling out hair if he had any. "I have absolutely no idea who or even how--"
Lois comtemplated flat out telling him it wasn't his problem.
Instead, she said, "Ok, fine. Let's say for the sake of argument that we're comparing unknown-whatever to you, and you get to bid on who gets to be in charge of dealing with alien menaces. Is what you've been doing with all these experiments -- hurting people, driving them insane, putting your own employees at risk helping you, breaking who knows how many laws -- in any way better than what's been going on already? What whoever else has been doing to stop them? Is the cost of what you've been doing trying to 'outbid' whoever else really worth it?"
...Oh, Lois thought when she caught a good look at his expression after that. Apparently he'd never thought about it that way before, and 'one person against the tide' was a lot different than 'multiple people who are all working towards the same thing'. It made it more clear that crazy decisions and sacrifices were not the best plan; some things in that light became obviously totally unacceptable. ...And then his expression changed again and-- Uh oh.
Shit. She hadn't thought he actually had some kind of morals.
I should've suspected something was up, the way he kept talking about his employees. Fuck.
He looked like he was two seconds away from shutting down completely, and Lois almost couldn't blame him. Nobody wants to know that they compromised themselves, doing what they knew was wrong for what they thought was right -- what they thought was the 'best' or only thing to do, 'given the circumstances', famous last words -- only to realize later that they never should have done.
Except I'm a military brat. I grew up on tales of how supposedly 'necessary' evils 'for the greater good' turned out to be the worst cock-ups in history. That's not something anyone ever really likes to talk about. But a lot of her dad's diplomatic missions had involved fixing CIA cover-op fuck-ups because of their interference in other countries' affairs -- or trying to, anyway. Road to hell and all that crap.
So, yeah, she could almost sympathize a little. But she couldn't let him get away with shutting down like that. Because if he did...
"Coward," she said abruptly.
"Excuse me!?!" Lex bristled.
"Don't give me that!" Lois said, crossing her arms. "You were about to get all closed-minded and convince yourself that you were right for doing what you were doing, and then keep on doing it to try and justify what you've already done, when you know that's not true--"
"I--!"
"--because you just realized it," Lois overrode him. "So you screwed up. Really really badly. So either be a coward and go on and lie to yourself," hah! she thought, watching him bristle again at that, "and blindly keep doing what you've been doing and make things that much worse, or man the fuck up, take a good hard look at what you've been doing, and stop cocking it all up!" she demanded, glaring at him.
She wasn't going to demand he fix things, because frankly that was impossible at this point -- with Wes and other dead it was unreasonable to even ask -- and she wasn't about to give Luthor any excuse to not even try.
"That's not--!!" Lex started. "I don't--!"
He stopped for a minute, clenching and unclenching his fists in his lap and breathing heavily through his nose.
Finally, he said, "Clark was right -- you are annoying."
Lois couldn't help but laugh a little at the glare she was getting right then.
"If it's any consolation, Clark says some pretty dumbass things sometimes, too," Lois said, trying to soften the blow a little. --But only a little.
"Like what," he snorted, more of a rhetorical question.
...Yeah, like Lois would let that one go. "Like, um, let's see. Oh, yeah! There was this one time, after the whole thing with Duncan, when Clark said that -- damn what was it? right -- 'sometimes in order to protect the ones we love, we keep secrets.' And that was just bullshit, so I told him that that was totally retarded."
Lex stared at her for a bit, then turned and stared at Clark, sleeping on the bed.
"Clark... said that..." Lex said slowly.
"Uh, yeah," Lois said, frowning.
"And... he sounded like he meant it..." It was almost a question.
"With a weird kind of conviction, he was really startled when I said what I-- wait, what is this?" Lois asked, because Lex was taking this really fucking seriously.
"I-- oh god, that son of a bitch, he wouldn't," Lex said quietly, covering his face with his hands and sounding like he thought the exact opposite. He paused for a moment, then said under his breath, "Goddamnit. That idiot."
"What, like you don't do it, too?" Lois called him on it.
"What?" Lex dropped his hands and looked up at her in perfect disbelief. "I most certainly do not--!"
"Yes, you do."
"I don't!" he insisted, glaring at her. "I have tried to discuss meteor-related events and the aliens and alien artifacts with Clark numerous times, and he--"
"I'm not talking about Clark," she said, waving him off. "I'm talking about everyone else."
Lex stopped and stared at her blankly.
"Didn't you just say that you didn't want everybody knowing about the aliens because you were afraid that there'd be riots and crap and people would get hurt?"
"That is not the same thing--" he spat out, right before his train of thought came to a screeching halt and a look of absolute horror crossed his face. "Oh my god, I sound like Clark," he said, clutching his hands around his head.
"Well, as long as you don't do guilt anything like Clark does, youll probably be ok," Lois said.
Wow. It got worse.
"Right. Maybe we should just forget I said that," Lois said.
Lex nodded slightly.
"Ok, then. So -- no more evil labs?" Lois said briskly, crossing mental fingers.
"They're not--" Lex cut himself off, then sighed. "I'll think about it," he gritted out.
"Good." Lois said, because if he didn't rethink it right, well, she could be a bee in his bonnet, or he could get the stinger.
...And there was always Clark to get in on the action, but apparently he was like the nuclear option of lambasting-Lex-for-mistakes warfare. Probably ought to save him for special occasions, then.
"Sooooo, anything else you want to talk about?" Lois said. At this point she was kind of asleep on her feet -- well, butt, since she was technically sitting down -- but what the hell.
Luthor was quiet for awhile, then said, "...I don't suppose you'd care to elaborate on the differences between 'being' and 'doing'?"
Lois blinked at him. It took her brain a second to remember the whole 'a person isn't what they do' thing from before that he didn't seem to get.
"Yeahhhhh, ok, that requires lots of philosophy textbooks and alcohol, and I'm all outta textbooks," she said.
And so she managed to shove herself upright and go teetering tiredly around the room for wherever the hell the minibar was, because all wicked-strange hotel rooms had them, right?
"Oh..." she said, leaning down in front of one of the cabinets.
"...Problem?" she heard quietly from the loveseat.
She got a small smile and grabbed the three unlabeled wine bottles. "Nope!"
Within a minute or two they were both lounging side-by-side on the loveseat with Dixie cups full of room temperature alcohol.
"Smooth," Lois rasped.
"Best moonshine wine I've ever had the pleasure of downing," Lex agreed hoarsely, barely holding down a cough.
"You mean brandy," Lois said with a thin, wide smile.
Lex gave her a long look sideways. After another sip, he said, "I've got a degree in biochemical engineering, which means I know chemistry. I damn well know my way around a distillation process, and this was not done commercially."
Lois' smile turned into a grin. "...So, what you're saying is that you've got a distillery in your cellar?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Lane," he scoffed. "I have win in my wine cellar." He took another sip. "The distillery's in the subbasement labs."
Lois laughed.
"Sh!" Lex shushed her, glancing at the bed.
"Aw, don't wanna share?" Lois teased.
"He doesn't drink, and he's technically still underage," Lex pointed out, and Lois sighed.
"Yeah..." she said sadly, downing the rest of her cup, then holding it out.
Lex refilled it for her.
"You're attempting to be a gentle-- genteel-- g'ntlem-- nice," she accused him, taking the cup back and watching him over the rim after another fortifying sip.
"I," he said, smoothly gesturing at himself with his own cup, "attempt nothing," he declared primly. "I am gentle," he then added drunkenly, before tilting his head back and finishing off the last of his cup.
Lois snickered, and then went, "awww," and patted him on the shoulder good-naturedly when he looked a little put out at being snickered at.
And then she refilled his cup.
He looked down at it. "You are trying to get me drunk," he accussed, a little sullenly.
"I am being gentlll-- nice, too. Because I can. I can be nice!" she said defensively.
"Mmaybe," he said, "I didn't actu-ally ask for more." He watched her suspiciously as he took another sip. "But you are also trying to get me drunk."
Lois giggled. "Yes I am," she admitted, downing another cup.
He blinked at her lazily. "Why?"
"Because!" she said surprised. At his look, she elaborated. "There is liquor." Another pause. "And you are here."
Luthor looked like he was having issues trying to wrap his head around "alcohol in the room" + "Luthor in the room" = "must attempt to get Luthor drunk".
"So, if Clark was awake--"
"Clark doesn't like drinking."
"...If Oliver was here--"
"He would punch you in the face."
"..."
Lex looked a little stymied. He drank a little more alcohol.
"...If Mrs. Kent was here?" he tried.
"She would bring more alcohol. And pie," Lois said dreamily.
Lex looked lost again for a minute, and then his eyes went distant.
"You've had Mrs. Kent's pie!" Lois said, poking him in the arm. How had he managed that?
"I didn't; she's just that nice," he said, and whoops, she must've said that out loud. "It's good pie," Lex admitted, taking another sip and running out of alcohol again. Refill!
...Oh this was such good stuff. They were only five? six? cups in and Luthor had already stopped with the big, flowery words.
"We are not talking about being and doing," Lex said out of nowhere.
"Yes," said Lois.
Lex blinked, then frowned. He started to say something then stopped. "...Why are we not talking about being and doing?" he rephrased carefully.
"No textbooks," Lois said.
"But... we do have alcohol!" Lex said, pointing at the one-and-one-half bottles remaining.
"No," Lois said absolutely. "Can't."
"But why?" Lex asked plaintively.
"No textbooks," Lois repeated.
Lex grumbled.
"No textbooks!"
"But..." he looked a little put out. "There are things," he said, gesturing again, his hands fluttering around. "Like... like cognitive dissonance and actions making people different and changing their minds and... things. Things," he stressed.
"You," Lois accused, poking at his arm with a finger, "are still using the big words." She frowned at him.
"Why would I not use big words when I'm... drunk?" Lex asked, then frowned. He glanced down at his hands, then reached up with a hand and poked at his head a little.
"I should not be drunk," he said, eyes widening.
Lois snickered.
"No no, I..." he stared down at the cup and then the bottles and started to look... worried?
"...Dinner?" Lois asked.
"What?" Lex said, glancing over at her. "Oh, I-- nuts?"
Lois laughed quietly, leaning into him.
"I meant almonds," he said in a flat tone, but he was smiling a little.
"Uh huh," Lois giggled out.
"And... very tired." He frowned a little. "Punch-drunk tired," he sighed. "Really shouldn't have..." He blinked. "I... probably... wouldn't have said... all that... if I'd just been drunk, instead of tired."
"You don't talk when you're drunk," Lois said, glancing up at him, then starting to straighten.
"No," Lex agreed. "I have practice at not doing so."
"You regretting telling me?" she asked, downing another cupful and not looking at him.
"...I could drink you under 'til you blackout," Lex said after awhile.
"No you can't," Lois said, not even bragging -- she had a pretty unbeatable record with Russian Generals; it was more of a fact. "Doesn't count anyway. You still said it all."
"But you might not remember..." he said quietly, staring down at the cup of alcohol in his hands.
"Mm. Maybe," Lois said. "Doubtful. Stuff is good, but not that good," she said, eyeing her new cupful critically.
"Cheers!" she said, tapping her cup against his, and downing that one too. "You're not keeping up," she added, eyeing his cup balefully.
"Well, that's unconscionable," Lex said, shaking something off. "Have to do something about that." He downed his cup, then poured and downed another in rapid succession.
He blinked and swayed a moment, then looked vaguely uneasy.
And then frowned down at his empty cup for a moment, before he refilled it and sipped at it again, seeming to ignore whatever had been bothering him about the alcohol.
They were about three-quarters through the last bottle when Lex's head hit her shoulder.
"Ow," Lex said quietly. "You are hard and bony," he complained.
Lois grinned and flicked a finger at his forehead.
"Lightweight," she said.
"No food, next-to-no sleep," Lex returned.
"Hangover from yesterday," Lois replied, pointing at herself.
"That's just more incentive," Lex murmured as a comeback, his eyes starting to dip closed, like little tired flutterbys. Butterflies.
Lois got a mental image of butterflies landing all over Lex's head and shoulders, wings softly opening and closing.
Lois grinned all over again.
"You're really not so bad, are you?" she said down at him. "You aren't trying to be evil."
"Wh--?" Lex said, glancing up at her and discoordinatedly shoving himself upright again to stare at her. "I'm not evil!"
There went all the imaginary butterflies, taking off in riotous cloud of color and light.
"...Misunderstood?" Lois tried, cocking her head.
Lex looked even more taken aback. "No! That's what the bad guys always say!"
"...You said you were ok with being a bad guy," Lois pointed out slowly, frowning a little.
"Yes, but that doesn't mean I want to be one!"
Lois blinked at him a few times, then said, "Are we friends now?" because they'd been talking about crazy-ass-shit and drinking together, and that was two of the... however many.
Plus, he was in good with her family, and had helped with Lori and everything, even.
"Wh-- What?" Lex said, swaying and looking taken aback. "No!" He looked a little freaked out. "I don't like being yelled at!"
Lois tilted her head sideways at him, because who-the-what-now?
"We can be opponents, though," he said. "That way I can hit you sometimes and complain and vent and not feel bad about it later. ...And, uh, you too, I guess," he added very belatedly.
"Ok," Lois agreed, thinking as fast as she could sideways on that much alcohol. "But you gotta be the hero."
"Yes, I-- what??? NO!" he yelled, then got really quiet. "NOnononono! No!" he hissed at her.
Lois frowned at him.
"You do not get to be the villain! No villaining for you!" Lex said, pointing at her, looking freaked-the-fuck out.
Huh? Lois frowned at him, to better stifle the grin that wanted to leak out, because really -- heroes and villains, instead of cops and robbers or cowboys and indians?
"Why not? I bet I'd be good at it," she said.
"Yes!" Lex said, tossing his hands up -- good thing he'd finished his cup first.
Lois frowned at him further, because it was better than laughing and she wanted to see how far this went.
"I can't be a villain... because I'd be good at it?" she asked.
"Yes!" Lex said. "Because you would do it, and then get into it, and then you'd get all," he waved his hands at her, "you, and-- and-- And then you would grin all... like that!" he pointed at her again as she did just that. "And then there would be doom. The bad kind. --No villaining!" he said adamantly. "You can be an anti-hero, though, if you want," he said after much deliberation and another cup of the last of the alcohol.
"I really can't be the villain?" Lois asked, teasing openly now.
"Nooo," said Lex. "You could be -- you're just not allowed," he glared at her.
"Also, Clark would kill me for you going evil and causing havoc, because it would probably end up actually being my fault this time," he grumbled under his breath, glancing up at Clark, who was somehow sleeping through all this, and then down at his cup like he wished he had more alcohol.
Lois snickered.
"It's not funny," Lex stressed. "No evildoing. I mean it. Or I'll-- I'll--" It looked like inspiration struck. "I'll sic The General on you!"
Lois blanched, then said heatedly. "No bringing parents into this!"
Lex opened his mouth, then went pale himself. "Okay," he said mildly and without any protest whatsoever.
Lois blinked at him, then frowned. "...Lionel?"
"What?" Lex stared at her for a full minute. "...Mrs. Kent can be scary," Lex said, finally. "And, uh... no more pie?" he tried, probably because the first one made no sense at all -- Mrs. Kent was a saint.
He did have a point about the pie, though. "Ok," she said. "And we can gang up on Lionel together."
Wow. And she'd thought Clark's grin could light up a barn!
"Ok, so what superpowers do I get?" Lois asked him, falling back into the cushions.
Luthor looked at her blankly.
"What? You're like the Q of giving superpowers to people!" she said.
"I am not!" Lex protested. "I'm not just some British Vanna White for gadgets and tricks!" he glowered at her.
Lois cracked up.
"Besides, those powers usually come with messed-up other-stuff," he pointed out. "Like sometimes-psychosis, and sometimes-mindcontrol, and I can't do that now anyway 'cause I ran out of the right DNA, remember?" Lex frowned. "And you with superpowers would be horrifying."
"What? I'd use them for good!"
"Horrifying," he repeated.
"Fine, whatever," Lois said. She didn't like the idea of possible-mindcontrol and probably-psychosis, anyway, even if they were just joking around.
Mostly.
"I guess if Green Arrow can do it without powers, I can, too," Lois declared.
"Sure, you've got the whole mad-army-brat-military-training thing going there, right?" he said easily, waving a hand at her.
"Welllll," she tapered off. "I know some things. But I haven't been through formal Green Beret or Navy Seal or Marines training, or anything."
"Hm," Lex said noncommittally.
"Ooh! --I will need a costume," Lois declared, and then she suddenly realized that she was actually in a pretty cool place to go looking for clothes for one.
And then she caught Lex looking at her sideways with a very odd piercing gaze and said, "...What?"
...which led to her finding out that Lex was really good at drawing in pencil on the back of random takeout menus at her direction, even though he said he wasn't really getting the shading or the lines right because he was too drunk, and led to a further discussion about how he'd have to figure out floating superpowers for her if she was gonna try to traipse around on three-inch stiletto heels like that while fighting crime or, say, gravity.
And when Lois finally asked him, "If you could have only one superpower, what would it be?" he said:
"Flight."
-- all wistfully.
"But that would be a bad idea," he continued, focused on filling in the dark coloring on her drawn costume's miniskirt.
"Why?" she asked, curious.
"Because I'm afraid of heights," he said, not looking up.
Lois stared at him. "But you fly in planes and helicopters all the time," she pointed out.
"Yeah," he said. "I had to get over it."
Lois blinked at him. "So... how'd you do it? Flooding? Exposure therapy?"
Lex dropped his shoulders slightly in a half-shrug as he finished up the lines on the high-heeled boots. "I guess. Lionel just kept taking me up in helicopters whenever he needed to go somewhere until I could keep my eyes open for the entire trip ten trips in a row. ...Oh, and falling asleep meant starting over."
"When did he start doing this?"
"When I was nine."
Yeah, it's official -- Lionel's a bastard, she thought, then --crap, now I'm actually starting to feel sorry for the guy.
He finished and folded the picture up, and then handed it to her, and when she took it from him she gave him a peck on the cheek.
Lex... looked a little shocked.
"Why did you do that?" he asked in odd tones, raising a hand to his cheek slowly.
"It's a thank-you for the drawing," Lois said, folding it again and stuffing it in a jeans pocket.
"But... but you don't even like me," he said, sounding really confused.
"But I like Grant," she said, "and you said he's kind of like family ...like you're, uh, brothers or something, right?"
Lex's eyes went a little wide, and he nodded slowly.
"Or something," he echoed.
"Okay..." Lois said, standing up slowly and groaning a little as she stretched. "So we won't kill each other in our sleep and he'll stay happy, right?"
"Right..." Lex agreed faintly as he stood up, watching her warily.
"And if you do anything really stupid again," she said, teetering on her feet as she poked him in the arm, "I will maybe put you in a headlock instead of yelling at you, because it sounds like you hate that and it doesn't get anywhere anyway?" she mostly promised him. She was better at the physical stuff, anyway.
"...Okay," Lex said uncertainly, sliding his hands into his pockets.
"Great!" Lois said. "So you get up there and go snuggle up with Smallville and I will--"
"--take the bed," Lex said slowly, "because that was why you were trying to get me so drunk that I passed out, until you ran out of alcohol."
Lois stopped, then grinned. "Figured that one out on your own, huh, Metropolis Boy?"
"I'm not completely stupid," he dissembled, watching her from under his eyelashes.
Lois chuckled to herself and managed to pull out the futon-bed flat on the opposite side of the room with his help and a little fumbling and stumbling and shushed giggles.
When she caught him standing there, looking at Clark and doing the rich boy equivalent of shuffling his feet -- oh man, these two guys, Lois swore -- she said, "Oh, shoo! Just go over there! He's your pet, you snuggle pets!" And with that, she patted him on the back twice, and then shoved him hard.
He practically fell onto the bed in a sprawl in front of Clark.
He glared at her a little when Clark tossed and turned a little at the mattress bounce, but he kicked off his shoes and shoved himself up onto the mattress, which was half the battle.
And then a three-quarters-asleep Clark turned over and wrapped an arm around him, reeling him in while muttering something incoherently, and that was the rest of it.
Lois sniggered to herself as Lex tried to look like he'd meant for that to happen, hit the lightswitch, and collapsed onto her own bed.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lois jerked awake in a pool of her own drool on a cushiony white floor with an immense headache.
"Oh god," she said, as she yanked at her arms and realized she was bound up in a straitjacket.
"Why, good morning, Miss Lane," Lionel said, crouching down in front of her as she pushed her back against the wall and levered herself upright, trying to get something solid behind her.
"What... what the hell..." Lois stammered, glancing around.
Then she realized that she was in a padded cell.
She jerked back and kicked out at Lionel, but he just rose to his feet, chuckling at her under his breath.
"Really, Miss Lane, save your energy," he said. "You'll need it."
"What the hell is going on?!" she demanded. Then she went a little pale. "Where's Lex?" That bastard, she thought, he did this! He doesn't want me talking!
"Oh, he's just one room over -- would you like to see him?" Lionel said breezily, turning and flipping a switch on a TV monitor hanging overhead, well out of her reach with her arms bound up like they were, even if she did manage to get herself upright.
She struggled, getting her feet under her, and shoving herself up finally once she worked her way over to a corner of the room, having two walls to lean against.
Then she sagged a little again and ended up sliding down the wall, back on her butt again as the room spun.
Lionel turned to glance at her curiously, then smiled. "Oh, the drugs in the alcohol might still be in your system; don't worry about it, just a mild sedative on top of the alcohol, we were careful with the dosage, given what heavy drinkers you both are." He turned back to the TV screen, finished fiddling with the knobs, then said, "aha!"
It looked like a security feed. It showed a white padded room, like hers, except that she wasn't in it -- Lex was, bound up like she was in a straitjacket on the floor, not moving.
Lois sucked in a breath.
"Is this some kind of a joke?" she said, straining against the jacket ties desperately.
"A joke? Oh, no, not at all," Lionel confessed. "Far from it. You've actually done me a great favor, Miss Lane," he said, smiling down at her. "I've been looking for something to use against Lex for years, now, and you just handed it to me," he said, pulling out a tape recorded and hitting the 'play' button with a flourish.
She heard
"You want a quote, Lane?"
"Here's one for you: I don't just believe in 'strange visitors', I know that there are intelligent homicidal would-be world-conquerors running around on the surface of this planet, and not just of the normal mean terrestrial variety."
"and"
"Not only is magic real, but apparently it's not just a random, isolated thing lost to the mists of time and history."
"...apparently demons actually do exist."
"Repeat that to anyone in an attempt to bring about some end to me that might prevent me from doing anything to prevent such a planetary takeover, and I'll kill you myself."
before he shut it off.
Lois felt a little ill. "That's not--"
"--what he said? Oh, but it is, just edited and ...recompiled a little, for time. You know, and I know, that the context really didn't make any real difference there, now did it?" Lionel said.
"How did you--" Lois said quietly, staring at the tape recorder.
"Oh, Lane," he chuckled. "You're the one who sent that photo of the two of them over your cellphone. It's not that hard to trace a phone by its GPS signal." He casually slipped the tape recorder into his coat pocket. "It didn't seem at all odd that within an hour-and-a-half, four of five available transient rooms at a rather exclusive and hard to find little club mall were suddenly and inexplicably filled?"
"You did that," she said quietly. "And you bugged the last one."
"You'll find that a good number of people will do quite a lot when a father will pay triple the normal board rate for five rooms, in the course of helping a few friends play a... 'prank' or two, all in good fun," he grinned at her. "Humor is so underrated."
"This isn't funny," she spat out at him, wrenching her left shoulder as she twisted and pulled too hard against the straitjacket.
"Really" he said, leaning against the far wall. "Because I think it's hilarious, he said, not sounding amused at all. "A single, below-sea-level reporter gets the drop on my son, has him spill information like water through a sieve, that which he'd never share with me, and then be stupid enough to fall for the same trick a third time?" He shook his head. "He might not remember the scotch before Belle Reeve, but he at least ought to remember what had happened with the poison in his cognac -- he ought to know better than to trust something easily-opened and unlabeled, by now," Lionel said, sounding aggrieved, as if he wasn't the one who had done that to him.
Lois felt like throwing up.
And then something caught her attention in the corner of her eye and Lionel looked up. "Oh good, he's finally waking up."
And Lex was. He stirred, then pushed himself to his knees and looked around...
...and started to visibly shake.
The TV had audio. He started screaming, kicking out, bashing his head against the floor, the walls--
Lionel sighed and flicked the sound off.
"Really, I'd thought him a little stronger than that," he voiced, tone dripping with disgust as Lois watched the screen in sheer horror. He sighed heavily. "Ah, well. I suppose that will take some work."
"Some work??" Lois shrieked, finally tearing her gaze away. "Are you insane?!?" she screamed at him. "Let him out of there!!"
"Oh, I think not," Lionel said firmly.
"Then let me go to him and calm him down, tell him what's going on!" she demanded, pushing herself upright again.
Lionel looked at her in surprise.
"Now, why would I want anyone to do that?" he said.
Lois stared at him, speechless, then started at the double-knock on the door.
"Ah, and that would be my cue to leave," Lionel said, straightening his coat. "It's time for you to go, my dear."
"If you think that I won't tell my father what you're doing--" Lois said heatedly as the door opened and two burly male nurses came in.
"Hm? Oh -- you misunderstand, Miss Lane," Lionel said, turning to face her as the nurses advanced. "You're not leaving the building, just this room. --Take her down to the lab and strap her in," he directed them.
Lois backed up a few steps. "What the hell?? What do you think you're doing!!" she yelled at him. "Stay away from me!" at the guards, who were slowly spreading out side-by-side, palms out, coming towards her.
"Oh, I'm tying up loose ends," he said. "You know a bit too much. A shame, really. The General will be very sad to hear that you've gone quite insane, as much as my own son, more's the pity. I'm sure I can cobble something together from the audiotape for him," he said, as Lois backed up against the far wall, desperately trying to think of a way out of this.
"You-- you can't do this!" she screamed at him as they grabbed her. She struggled and tried to pull away, to no avail.
"Oh, but I can," Lionel said. "After all, who's going to stop me? --You?" he laughed.
"You monster!!"
"Mm, I like to think of myself as more of a shrewd businessman, actually. I like to leave the visionary work to my son; such the imagination," he said, stroking his bearded chin as he glanced back up at the monitor. "Ah, it's too bad; I doubt I'll be able to get much more out of him than you did," he said as he walked out the open doorway. "That meteor-freak conversion idea, though -- now that sounded interesting," he shot back over his shoulder. "You won't mind helping me test out that theory, now, will you?"
"LIONEL!" she screamed at him, and she made a hard kick at the knee of the guard-nurse on her left.
He actually went down, and she twisted and kicked at the remaining guard.
The second nurse just grunted as he took the hit, snorted at her, grabbed ahold of her shoulder, and practically threw her at the floor, while Lionel blandly looked on.
She hit hard.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lois woke up screaming on the floor, with Lex crouched beside her looking worried.
She lashed out blindly at the blanket tangled and wrapped around her, getting halfway free, and he reached forward and caught her by the shoulders.
"NO!" she screamed, trying to pull away, and he let go immediately, eyes wide.
"...Lois?" Clark said hazily, leaning over them both, with the worst bedhead she'd ever seen.
It was too much. Lois began laughing so hard she started crying.
"Y-you, you bastard," she cried at him through her tears. "You gave me nightmares, you crazy fuck!" she said, whacking him in the arm a couple times, angrily.
And then she collapsed against Luthor, her head hitting his shoulder.
"I-- I'm... sorry?" Lex said, sounding confused. She felt him twist his neck away, probably to glance up at Clark.
And then his hands -- arms -- wrapped around her tentatively, then solidly, and she was pulled into a hug. Gently.
She started to giggle, because, well, --getting hugged by a Luthor? Way crazier than any stupid old aliens.
And then she felt another arm around her back and she got squeezed into Luthor's chest and, hey, that must be Clark, with the under the breath wordless protest she heard come from Lex right by her ear.
Lois took a deep breath in and let it out, finally starting to calm down again.
"...Sorry, I," she started to pull away, through two sets of arms, but it was actually easier than she'd thought. "I don't usually have bad dreams."
"You... want to talk about it?" Clark asked, looking worried, but also like he didn't want to pry or force her to share.
"Uh..." she said, rubbing at her freed-from-the-blanket arms. "I wouldn't want to make anybody paranoid."
"I'm not paranoid; I'm just thoroughly prepared," Lex said primly, and that got him a laugh; he deserved one for that.
"I, uh..." Lois took another breath -- the guys were close by, they were all ok, right? "I dreamed that there was something in the wine and Lionel grabbed me and Lex and we were stuck in Belle Reeve," she explained, a bit more in order than her dream had been.
Clark sucked in a breath.
Lex looked thoughtful.
"Where was Clark in all this?" he asked.
"What?" said Lois. "I... uh, I don't know..." Fuck -- she couldn't even remember asking. Why hadn't she? Stupid dream.
"Ah," Lex said, like that explained everything. "Not a nightmare then -- you just weren't asleep long enough."
"She wasn't?" Clark said dubiously, in a very 'what the hell?' tone.
"No," Lex said. "She totally missed out on the part where you strode in and beat them all up for her, in a cape and tights -- her own personal superhero," Lex said, looking up at him with a straight face.
"Wh-what?" Clark sputtered, while Lois got a mental image and started to giggle again. Then she realized that she must still be a bit drunk. She wondered how long she'd been asleep.
"Cape and--"
"No tights!" Clark said, cutting Lex off.
"But they'd show off your legs so nicely!" Lex said with a smirk, obviously trying to keep down laughter, with the way his eyes were glittering in the low-light of the one bedside lamp.
"No tights!" Clark said grumpily. "No tights ever."
"Sigh, poor tights," said Luthor, slumping dejectedly, and Lois giggled again, covering her mouth with her hands.
"...Are you guys drunk?" Clark asked, suddenly suspicious.
"Mmmaybe?" Lex said innocently.
Clark groaned.
"Just a cape and tights?" Lois said under her breath to Lex, and he grinned at her.
Clark must've heard her, too, because he turned bright red. Oops.
"Well, as long as you're all right..." Clark said.
Lois felt a little nervous.
"Hm, yes. I feel a little perturbed though," Lex said. "I don't think I like being thought so little of."
"J-jesus, Luthor, he had you in a straitjacket after being drugged. There's not a hell of a lot anybody could do--" Lois said, rewrapping her blanket around her.
Lex blinked at her, then sighed.
"Always underestimated," he said morosely, rolling his eyes up at the ceiling. "Oh well, I suppose I'd rather everyone did that, so long as my enemies continue to."
Clark tilted his head at Lex, and he said, with a sigh, "Really, after what happened with Belle Reeve, do you honestly think I wouldn't learn how to get myself out of a straitjacket?"
Lois and Clark both blinked at him.
"And I assure you," he continued, "My first response upon finding myself bound and tied in a padded room would most certainly not be to lose my mind in fear. I prefer anger and rage, thank you," he said calmly.
"Though I think that ending up in Belle Reeve, or being confined anywhere else, would be the least problematic, given that I generally tell my personal security staff where I am generally going, and they are trained to respond when my cell signal shows that I have deviated significantly from my itinerary," he said. "Not to mention that unless I give a signal otherwise, that within twelve hours of the last coded 'ok' response from me that they are respond appropriately."
"What happens if you miss the twelve hour mark?" Clark said.
"Then regardless of whether I send a late signal or not, they are to track me down with all haste and kick the door in," Lex told him. "And then be thoroughly irritated with me for oversleeping again," he said, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards.
"That doesn't help while you're being attacked," Clark said with a frown.
"No but the gun holstered at my back, the ankle holster with similar, and the various knives and lockpicks hidden on my person all do help. I have finally learned that there are better ways to handle a life-threatening situation than to wait for you to save me, Clark," he said smoothly, looking down.
Clark didn't seem to look very happy about it, though.
"Although I believe I need to apologize to you, Miss Lane -- I should have explained why I acted so strangely when I tasted the alcohol, I think?" he said, looking back at her.
"Why did you?" she asked, glancing down at his ankles briefly.
"I did say before that I've had distilled wine from an unlicensed still before..." he began. "The strength seemed a bit odd compared to the sugary flavor. It took a bit to taste it, but it had been cut with whiskey."
"Oh," Lois said. It had been really smooth -- she'd only tasted the sweet grapes and the apple flavoring, not the corn hops.
Clark sighed out deeply. "So, um, can we get back to sleep?"
"--Did it seem strange to you that all the other rooms filled up?" Lois asked suddenly, because that actually had been bothering her earlier.
Clark frowned at her, then glanced around the room for some reason. Lex just said, "Actually, it did, but the woman said she only rents them out on a night-to-night basis on the weekends, and the paper ledger seemed to reflect that."
Lois frowned a little. "Oh..."
"I would have been more worried if it had been a weekday; there usually seem to be at least two rooms free any other day of the week from the log," he added.
Clark sighed lightly and sagged against the bed, looking completely relaxed. "So, now we can sleep?" he nearly whined, looking at them both hopefully.
Lois and Lex both glanced at each other.
...When all was said and done, Lois ended up wrapped up in blankets and sleeping between the two of them on the big bed, Lex at her front and Clark at her back, arms wrapped around both her and Lex.
She turned down Lex's offer of the Glock 30 from his back holster, 'just in case, if she wanted.'
It was a nice gun. ...No Beretta M9, but still. Nice.
It didn't occur to her until the next morning, post-hangover and morning-coffee, that she'd been joking about him getting ahold of a damn butter knife the night before when he'd already been armed to the teeth.
And had been the whole time, probably from the previous day.
She wondered as she sipped at her coffee and watched the two Kansas boys bicker over strawberry tarts, if Lana had known he was packing in the coffee shop while she had been calling him insane.
He hadn't reached for anything once. That took control.
...She'd have to be careful if she wanted to catch him in a headlock. Bastard was full of surprises, apparently.
She narrowed her eyes at him over the rim of her mug as she sipped at her coffee.
Yup. Definitely bore watching, that one.
...And maybe Clark, too, she thought as she eyed the farmboy who had bested some of her dad's best guys hand-to-hand and unarmed, at one time, years ago.
~*~*~*~*~*~
AN2: ...Yes, there are plotty Lexy reasons why Lex is being so open with Lois, we'll get to that more next chappy with Lex POV :) ...whenever that comes out, it's unfortunately probably gonna be awhile :-/
Author: josephina_x
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark, Lex
Rating: R (because it sort of has vague references to themes of BDSM *shrug*)
Spoilers: References season 6 and previous, general spoilers for early season 7 and all prior. Diverges at the end of Wrath (7x07) when Clark goes to talk to Lex.
Word count: 26,900+
Summary: What if Lex decided to be a little more... evil... at the end of Wrath? What if he decided to punish Clark, for Lana's transgression? ...What if Clark agreed to sacrifice himself for her sake? Would Clark break? Or would he... bend?
...Hey, that would be a totally crazy fic, am I right? --Unfortunately, this is not that. (Oops.) Here, Lex kind of goes the other route. You know, the whole brotherly-love one.
So, instead, you get Lex being pissed about Lana treating Clark like her own personal bitch, Clark's "sacrifice" isn't so much of one, and everybody else is left standing around scratching their heads while Lana ends up doing screechy-harpy things which we don't have to hear too much about -- you're welcome. (Chloe does, though. Feel sorry for Chloe, and send her emergency chocolate cake, stat.)
Warnings: Un-beta'd. Still an ungodly amount of Lois POV. A little character-bashing (Lois towards Lex, but, yeah, he kinda needs a bit of a reality check).
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
Comments: Yes, please! :)
Author's Note: Lex still doesn't know what he's doing with the 'pet' BDSM stuff (what else is new?).
Like Part 2, this installment is kinda SRS BSNS for the sake of 'teh pl0t'. It should be a little lighter towards the end, but, yeah. I am slightly worried that this is trying to devolve into a Huge Ass Deal, because I caught myself researching episodes (and that never ends well for what are supposed to be 'frivolous' fics), so I'll try to be a little more off-the-cuff and not with the worrying so much from now on :)
The first part of this fic is here on LJ.
The second part of this fic starts here on LJ.
Also posted to AO3 here (includes all chapters to-date).
Previous piece of part 3 is here.
~*~*~*~*~*~
"...And you're wondering why the people you've got on 24-7 alien watch are a little out there?"
Lex looked like he was mentally slapping himself.
"Look, half of this whole argument is based on your 'need' to be doing this alien stuff," Lois repeated. "But you still haven't made it clear why you think it's necessary that someone -- that someone you know about has to do it," she said in a burst of inspiration, "let alone you."
"Someone... someone I know about?" Lex said faintly.
"Well, yeah," Lois said. "You've said that there are three big alien things that happened -- the second meteor shower, the dam burst, Dark Thursday -- oh, hell, and you're leaving out the first meteor shower and all those aliens you said you were tracking that you said somebody else ganked before you got to them, so I guess that makes it at least five," -- wow, he looks kind of ill, now -- "and you don't seem to know much about anything that was going on there for any of that stuff, right? --I get that, ok? I get wanting to know what's going on, but you can't, always. It doesn't work that way. Sometimes you need to trust that the right people are out there doing the right things."
"This isn't like trusting our military or police force, Lane," Lex spat out, running his hands over his head, looking like he'd be pulling out hair if he had any. "I have absolutely no idea who or even how--"
Lois comtemplated flat out telling him it wasn't his problem.
Instead, she said, "Ok, fine. Let's say for the sake of argument that we're comparing unknown-whatever to you, and you get to bid on who gets to be in charge of dealing with alien menaces. Is what you've been doing with all these experiments -- hurting people, driving them insane, putting your own employees at risk helping you, breaking who knows how many laws -- in any way better than what's been going on already? What whoever else has been doing to stop them? Is the cost of what you've been doing trying to 'outbid' whoever else really worth it?"
...Oh, Lois thought when she caught a good look at his expression after that. Apparently he'd never thought about it that way before, and 'one person against the tide' was a lot different than 'multiple people who are all working towards the same thing'. It made it more clear that crazy decisions and sacrifices were not the best plan; some things in that light became obviously totally unacceptable. ...And then his expression changed again and-- Uh oh.
Shit. She hadn't thought he actually had some kind of morals.
I should've suspected something was up, the way he kept talking about his employees. Fuck.
He looked like he was two seconds away from shutting down completely, and Lois almost couldn't blame him. Nobody wants to know that they compromised themselves, doing what they knew was wrong for what they thought was right -- what they thought was the 'best' or only thing to do, 'given the circumstances', famous last words -- only to realize later that they never should have done.
Except I'm a military brat. I grew up on tales of how supposedly 'necessary' evils 'for the greater good' turned out to be the worst cock-ups in history. That's not something anyone ever really likes to talk about. But a lot of her dad's diplomatic missions had involved fixing CIA cover-op fuck-ups because of their interference in other countries' affairs -- or trying to, anyway. Road to hell and all that crap.
So, yeah, she could almost sympathize a little. But she couldn't let him get away with shutting down like that. Because if he did...
"Coward," she said abruptly.
"Excuse me!?!" Lex bristled.
"Don't give me that!" Lois said, crossing her arms. "You were about to get all closed-minded and convince yourself that you were right for doing what you were doing, and then keep on doing it to try and justify what you've already done, when you know that's not true--"
"I--!"
"--because you just realized it," Lois overrode him. "So you screwed up. Really really badly. So either be a coward and go on and lie to yourself," hah! she thought, watching him bristle again at that, "and blindly keep doing what you've been doing and make things that much worse, or man the fuck up, take a good hard look at what you've been doing, and stop cocking it all up!" she demanded, glaring at him.
She wasn't going to demand he fix things, because frankly that was impossible at this point -- with Wes and other dead it was unreasonable to even ask -- and she wasn't about to give Luthor any excuse to not even try.
"That's not--!!" Lex started. "I don't--!"
He stopped for a minute, clenching and unclenching his fists in his lap and breathing heavily through his nose.
Finally, he said, "Clark was right -- you are annoying."
Lois couldn't help but laugh a little at the glare she was getting right then.
"If it's any consolation, Clark says some pretty dumbass things sometimes, too," Lois said, trying to soften the blow a little. --But only a little.
"Like what," he snorted, more of a rhetorical question.
...Yeah, like Lois would let that one go. "Like, um, let's see. Oh, yeah! There was this one time, after the whole thing with Duncan, when Clark said that -- damn what was it? right -- 'sometimes in order to protect the ones we love, we keep secrets.' And that was just bullshit, so I told him that that was totally retarded."
Lex stared at her for a bit, then turned and stared at Clark, sleeping on the bed.
"Clark... said that..." Lex said slowly.
"Uh, yeah," Lois said, frowning.
"And... he sounded like he meant it..." It was almost a question.
"With a weird kind of conviction, he was really startled when I said what I-- wait, what is this?" Lois asked, because Lex was taking this really fucking seriously.
"I-- oh god, that son of a bitch, he wouldn't," Lex said quietly, covering his face with his hands and sounding like he thought the exact opposite. He paused for a moment, then said under his breath, "Goddamnit. That idiot."
"What, like you don't do it, too?" Lois called him on it.
"What?" Lex dropped his hands and looked up at her in perfect disbelief. "I most certainly do not--!"
"Yes, you do."
"I don't!" he insisted, glaring at her. "I have tried to discuss meteor-related events and the aliens and alien artifacts with Clark numerous times, and he--"
"I'm not talking about Clark," she said, waving him off. "I'm talking about everyone else."
Lex stopped and stared at her blankly.
"Didn't you just say that you didn't want everybody knowing about the aliens because you were afraid that there'd be riots and crap and people would get hurt?"
"That is not the same thing--" he spat out, right before his train of thought came to a screeching halt and a look of absolute horror crossed his face. "Oh my god, I sound like Clark," he said, clutching his hands around his head.
"Well, as long as you don't do guilt anything like Clark does, youll probably be ok," Lois said.
Wow. It got worse.
"Right. Maybe we should just forget I said that," Lois said.
Lex nodded slightly.
"Ok, then. So -- no more evil labs?" Lois said briskly, crossing mental fingers.
"They're not--" Lex cut himself off, then sighed. "I'll think about it," he gritted out.
"Good." Lois said, because if he didn't rethink it right, well, she could be a bee in his bonnet, or he could get the stinger.
...And there was always Clark to get in on the action, but apparently he was like the nuclear option of lambasting-Lex-for-mistakes warfare. Probably ought to save him for special occasions, then.
"Sooooo, anything else you want to talk about?" Lois said. At this point she was kind of asleep on her feet -- well, butt, since she was technically sitting down -- but what the hell.
Luthor was quiet for awhile, then said, "...I don't suppose you'd care to elaborate on the differences between 'being' and 'doing'?"
Lois blinked at him. It took her brain a second to remember the whole 'a person isn't what they do' thing from before that he didn't seem to get.
"Yeahhhhh, ok, that requires lots of philosophy textbooks and alcohol, and I'm all outta textbooks," she said.
And so she managed to shove herself upright and go teetering tiredly around the room for wherever the hell the minibar was, because all wicked-strange hotel rooms had them, right?
"Oh..." she said, leaning down in front of one of the cabinets.
"...Problem?" she heard quietly from the loveseat.
She got a small smile and grabbed the three unlabeled wine bottles. "Nope!"
Within a minute or two they were both lounging side-by-side on the loveseat with Dixie cups full of room temperature alcohol.
"Smooth," Lois rasped.
"Best moonshine wine I've ever had the pleasure of downing," Lex agreed hoarsely, barely holding down a cough.
"You mean brandy," Lois said with a thin, wide smile.
Lex gave her a long look sideways. After another sip, he said, "I've got a degree in biochemical engineering, which means I know chemistry. I damn well know my way around a distillation process, and this was not done commercially."
Lois' smile turned into a grin. "...So, what you're saying is that you've got a distillery in your cellar?"
"Don't be ridiculous, Lane," he scoffed. "I have win in my wine cellar." He took another sip. "The distillery's in the subbasement labs."
Lois laughed.
"Sh!" Lex shushed her, glancing at the bed.
"Aw, don't wanna share?" Lois teased.
"He doesn't drink, and he's technically still underage," Lex pointed out, and Lois sighed.
"Yeah..." she said sadly, downing the rest of her cup, then holding it out.
Lex refilled it for her.
"You're attempting to be a gentle-- genteel-- g'ntlem-- nice," she accused him, taking the cup back and watching him over the rim after another fortifying sip.
"I," he said, smoothly gesturing at himself with his own cup, "attempt nothing," he declared primly. "I am gentle," he then added drunkenly, before tilting his head back and finishing off the last of his cup.
Lois snickered, and then went, "awww," and patted him on the shoulder good-naturedly when he looked a little put out at being snickered at.
And then she refilled his cup.
He looked down at it. "You are trying to get me drunk," he accussed, a little sullenly.
"I am being gentlll-- nice, too. Because I can. I can be nice!" she said defensively.
"Mmaybe," he said, "I didn't actu-ally ask for more." He watched her suspiciously as he took another sip. "But you are also trying to get me drunk."
Lois giggled. "Yes I am," she admitted, downing another cup.
He blinked at her lazily. "Why?"
"Because!" she said surprised. At his look, she elaborated. "There is liquor." Another pause. "And you are here."
Luthor looked like he was having issues trying to wrap his head around "alcohol in the room" + "Luthor in the room" = "must attempt to get Luthor drunk".
"So, if Clark was awake--"
"Clark doesn't like drinking."
"...If Oliver was here--"
"He would punch you in the face."
"..."
Lex looked a little stymied. He drank a little more alcohol.
"...If Mrs. Kent was here?" he tried.
"She would bring more alcohol. And pie," Lois said dreamily.
Lex looked lost again for a minute, and then his eyes went distant.
"You've had Mrs. Kent's pie!" Lois said, poking him in the arm. How had he managed that?
"I didn't; she's just that nice," he said, and whoops, she must've said that out loud. "It's good pie," Lex admitted, taking another sip and running out of alcohol again. Refill!
...Oh this was such good stuff. They were only five? six? cups in and Luthor had already stopped with the big, flowery words.
"We are not talking about being and doing," Lex said out of nowhere.
"Yes," said Lois.
Lex blinked, then frowned. He started to say something then stopped. "...Why are we not talking about being and doing?" he rephrased carefully.
"No textbooks," Lois said.
"But... we do have alcohol!" Lex said, pointing at the one-and-one-half bottles remaining.
"No," Lois said absolutely. "Can't."
"But why?" Lex asked plaintively.
"No textbooks," Lois repeated.
Lex grumbled.
"No textbooks!"
"But..." he looked a little put out. "There are things," he said, gesturing again, his hands fluttering around. "Like... like cognitive dissonance and actions making people different and changing their minds and... things. Things," he stressed.
"You," Lois accused, poking at his arm with a finger, "are still using the big words." She frowned at him.
"Why would I not use big words when I'm... drunk?" Lex asked, then frowned. He glanced down at his hands, then reached up with a hand and poked at his head a little.
"I should not be drunk," he said, eyes widening.
Lois snickered.
"No no, I..." he stared down at the cup and then the bottles and started to look... worried?
"...Dinner?" Lois asked.
"What?" Lex said, glancing over at her. "Oh, I-- nuts?"
Lois laughed quietly, leaning into him.
"I meant almonds," he said in a flat tone, but he was smiling a little.
"Uh huh," Lois giggled out.
"And... very tired." He frowned a little. "Punch-drunk tired," he sighed. "Really shouldn't have..." He blinked. "I... probably... wouldn't have said... all that... if I'd just been drunk, instead of tired."
"You don't talk when you're drunk," Lois said, glancing up at him, then starting to straighten.
"No," Lex agreed. "I have practice at not doing so."
"You regretting telling me?" she asked, downing another cupful and not looking at him.
"...I could drink you under 'til you blackout," Lex said after awhile.
"No you can't," Lois said, not even bragging -- she had a pretty unbeatable record with Russian Generals; it was more of a fact. "Doesn't count anyway. You still said it all."
"But you might not remember..." he said quietly, staring down at the cup of alcohol in his hands.
"Mm. Maybe," Lois said. "Doubtful. Stuff is good, but not that good," she said, eyeing her new cupful critically.
"Cheers!" she said, tapping her cup against his, and downing that one too. "You're not keeping up," she added, eyeing his cup balefully.
"Well, that's unconscionable," Lex said, shaking something off. "Have to do something about that." He downed his cup, then poured and downed another in rapid succession.
He blinked and swayed a moment, then looked vaguely uneasy.
And then frowned down at his empty cup for a moment, before he refilled it and sipped at it again, seeming to ignore whatever had been bothering him about the alcohol.
They were about three-quarters through the last bottle when Lex's head hit her shoulder.
"Ow," Lex said quietly. "You are hard and bony," he complained.
Lois grinned and flicked a finger at his forehead.
"Lightweight," she said.
"No food, next-to-no sleep," Lex returned.
"Hangover from yesterday," Lois replied, pointing at herself.
"That's just more incentive," Lex murmured as a comeback, his eyes starting to dip closed, like little tired flutterbys. Butterflies.
Lois got a mental image of butterflies landing all over Lex's head and shoulders, wings softly opening and closing.
Lois grinned all over again.
"You're really not so bad, are you?" she said down at him. "You aren't trying to be evil."
"Wh--?" Lex said, glancing up at her and discoordinatedly shoving himself upright again to stare at her. "I'm not evil!"
There went all the imaginary butterflies, taking off in riotous cloud of color and light.
"...Misunderstood?" Lois tried, cocking her head.
Lex looked even more taken aback. "No! That's what the bad guys always say!"
"...You said you were ok with being a bad guy," Lois pointed out slowly, frowning a little.
"Yes, but that doesn't mean I want to be one!"
Lois blinked at him a few times, then said, "Are we friends now?" because they'd been talking about crazy-ass-shit and drinking together, and that was two of the... however many.
Plus, he was in good with her family, and had helped with Lori and everything, even.
"Wh-- What?" Lex said, swaying and looking taken aback. "No!" He looked a little freaked out. "I don't like being yelled at!"
Lois tilted her head sideways at him, because who-the-what-now?
"We can be opponents, though," he said. "That way I can hit you sometimes and complain and vent and not feel bad about it later. ...And, uh, you too, I guess," he added very belatedly.
"Ok," Lois agreed, thinking as fast as she could sideways on that much alcohol. "But you gotta be the hero."
"Yes, I-- what??? NO!" he yelled, then got really quiet. "NOnononono! No!" he hissed at her.
Lois frowned at him.
"You do not get to be the villain! No villaining for you!" Lex said, pointing at her, looking freaked-the-fuck out.
Huh? Lois frowned at him, to better stifle the grin that wanted to leak out, because really -- heroes and villains, instead of cops and robbers or cowboys and indians?
"Why not? I bet I'd be good at it," she said.
"Yes!" Lex said, tossing his hands up -- good thing he'd finished his cup first.
Lois frowned at him further, because it was better than laughing and she wanted to see how far this went.
"I can't be a villain... because I'd be good at it?" she asked.
"Yes!" Lex said. "Because you would do it, and then get into it, and then you'd get all," he waved his hands at her, "you, and-- and-- And then you would grin all... like that!" he pointed at her again as she did just that. "And then there would be doom. The bad kind. --No villaining!" he said adamantly. "You can be an anti-hero, though, if you want," he said after much deliberation and another cup of the last of the alcohol.
"I really can't be the villain?" Lois asked, teasing openly now.
"Nooo," said Lex. "You could be -- you're just not allowed," he glared at her.
"Also, Clark would kill me for you going evil and causing havoc, because it would probably end up actually being my fault this time," he grumbled under his breath, glancing up at Clark, who was somehow sleeping through all this, and then down at his cup like he wished he had more alcohol.
Lois snickered.
"It's not funny," Lex stressed. "No evildoing. I mean it. Or I'll-- I'll--" It looked like inspiration struck. "I'll sic The General on you!"
Lois blanched, then said heatedly. "No bringing parents into this!"
Lex opened his mouth, then went pale himself. "Okay," he said mildly and without any protest whatsoever.
Lois blinked at him, then frowned. "...Lionel?"
"What?" Lex stared at her for a full minute. "...Mrs. Kent can be scary," Lex said, finally. "And, uh... no more pie?" he tried, probably because the first one made no sense at all -- Mrs. Kent was a saint.
He did have a point about the pie, though. "Ok," she said. "And we can gang up on Lionel together."
Wow. And she'd thought Clark's grin could light up a barn!
"Ok, so what superpowers do I get?" Lois asked him, falling back into the cushions.
Luthor looked at her blankly.
"What? You're like the Q of giving superpowers to people!" she said.
"I am not!" Lex protested. "I'm not just some British Vanna White for gadgets and tricks!" he glowered at her.
Lois cracked up.
"Besides, those powers usually come with messed-up other-stuff," he pointed out. "Like sometimes-psychosis, and sometimes-mindcontrol, and I can't do that now anyway 'cause I ran out of the right DNA, remember?" Lex frowned. "And you with superpowers would be horrifying."
"What? I'd use them for good!"
"Horrifying," he repeated.
"Fine, whatever," Lois said. She didn't like the idea of possible-mindcontrol and probably-psychosis, anyway, even if they were just joking around.
Mostly.
"I guess if Green Arrow can do it without powers, I can, too," Lois declared.
"Sure, you've got the whole mad-army-brat-military-training thing going there, right?" he said easily, waving a hand at her.
"Welllll," she tapered off. "I know some things. But I haven't been through formal Green Beret or Navy Seal or Marines training, or anything."
"Hm," Lex said noncommittally.
"Ooh! --I will need a costume," Lois declared, and then she suddenly realized that she was actually in a pretty cool place to go looking for clothes for one.
And then she caught Lex looking at her sideways with a very odd piercing gaze and said, "...What?"
...which led to her finding out that Lex was really good at drawing in pencil on the back of random takeout menus at her direction, even though he said he wasn't really getting the shading or the lines right because he was too drunk, and led to a further discussion about how he'd have to figure out floating superpowers for her if she was gonna try to traipse around on three-inch stiletto heels like that while fighting crime or, say, gravity.
And when Lois finally asked him, "If you could have only one superpower, what would it be?" he said:
"Flight."
-- all wistfully.
"But that would be a bad idea," he continued, focused on filling in the dark coloring on her drawn costume's miniskirt.
"Why?" she asked, curious.
"Because I'm afraid of heights," he said, not looking up.
Lois stared at him. "But you fly in planes and helicopters all the time," she pointed out.
"Yeah," he said. "I had to get over it."
Lois blinked at him. "So... how'd you do it? Flooding? Exposure therapy?"
Lex dropped his shoulders slightly in a half-shrug as he finished up the lines on the high-heeled boots. "I guess. Lionel just kept taking me up in helicopters whenever he needed to go somewhere until I could keep my eyes open for the entire trip ten trips in a row. ...Oh, and falling asleep meant starting over."
"When did he start doing this?"
"When I was nine."
Yeah, it's official -- Lionel's a bastard, she thought, then --crap, now I'm actually starting to feel sorry for the guy.
He finished and folded the picture up, and then handed it to her, and when she took it from him she gave him a peck on the cheek.
Lex... looked a little shocked.
"Why did you do that?" he asked in odd tones, raising a hand to his cheek slowly.
"It's a thank-you for the drawing," Lois said, folding it again and stuffing it in a jeans pocket.
"But... but you don't even like me," he said, sounding really confused.
"But I like Grant," she said, "and you said he's kind of like family ...like you're, uh, brothers or something, right?"
Lex's eyes went a little wide, and he nodded slowly.
"Or something," he echoed.
"Okay..." Lois said, standing up slowly and groaning a little as she stretched. "So we won't kill each other in our sleep and he'll stay happy, right?"
"Right..." Lex agreed faintly as he stood up, watching her warily.
"And if you do anything really stupid again," she said, teetering on her feet as she poked him in the arm, "I will maybe put you in a headlock instead of yelling at you, because it sounds like you hate that and it doesn't get anywhere anyway?" she mostly promised him. She was better at the physical stuff, anyway.
"...Okay," Lex said uncertainly, sliding his hands into his pockets.
"Great!" Lois said. "So you get up there and go snuggle up with Smallville and I will--"
"--take the bed," Lex said slowly, "because that was why you were trying to get me so drunk that I passed out, until you ran out of alcohol."
Lois stopped, then grinned. "Figured that one out on your own, huh, Metropolis Boy?"
"I'm not completely stupid," he dissembled, watching her from under his eyelashes.
Lois chuckled to herself and managed to pull out the futon-bed flat on the opposite side of the room with his help and a little fumbling and stumbling and shushed giggles.
When she caught him standing there, looking at Clark and doing the rich boy equivalent of shuffling his feet -- oh man, these two guys, Lois swore -- she said, "Oh, shoo! Just go over there! He's your pet, you snuggle pets!" And with that, she patted him on the back twice, and then shoved him hard.
He practically fell onto the bed in a sprawl in front of Clark.
He glared at her a little when Clark tossed and turned a little at the mattress bounce, but he kicked off his shoes and shoved himself up onto the mattress, which was half the battle.
And then a three-quarters-asleep Clark turned over and wrapped an arm around him, reeling him in while muttering something incoherently, and that was the rest of it.
Lois sniggered to herself as Lex tried to look like he'd meant for that to happen, hit the lightswitch, and collapsed onto her own bed.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lois jerked awake in a pool of her own drool on a cushiony white floor with an immense headache.
"Oh god," she said, as she yanked at her arms and realized she was bound up in a straitjacket.
"Why, good morning, Miss Lane," Lionel said, crouching down in front of her as she pushed her back against the wall and levered herself upright, trying to get something solid behind her.
"What... what the hell..." Lois stammered, glancing around.
Then she realized that she was in a padded cell.
She jerked back and kicked out at Lionel, but he just rose to his feet, chuckling at her under his breath.
"Really, Miss Lane, save your energy," he said. "You'll need it."
"What the hell is going on?!" she demanded. Then she went a little pale. "Where's Lex?" That bastard, she thought, he did this! He doesn't want me talking!
"Oh, he's just one room over -- would you like to see him?" Lionel said breezily, turning and flipping a switch on a TV monitor hanging overhead, well out of her reach with her arms bound up like they were, even if she did manage to get herself upright.
She struggled, getting her feet under her, and shoving herself up finally once she worked her way over to a corner of the room, having two walls to lean against.
Then she sagged a little again and ended up sliding down the wall, back on her butt again as the room spun.
Lionel turned to glance at her curiously, then smiled. "Oh, the drugs in the alcohol might still be in your system; don't worry about it, just a mild sedative on top of the alcohol, we were careful with the dosage, given what heavy drinkers you both are." He turned back to the TV screen, finished fiddling with the knobs, then said, "aha!"
It looked like a security feed. It showed a white padded room, like hers, except that she wasn't in it -- Lex was, bound up like she was in a straitjacket on the floor, not moving.
Lois sucked in a breath.
"Is this some kind of a joke?" she said, straining against the jacket ties desperately.
"A joke? Oh, no, not at all," Lionel confessed. "Far from it. You've actually done me a great favor, Miss Lane," he said, smiling down at her. "I've been looking for something to use against Lex for years, now, and you just handed it to me," he said, pulling out a tape recorded and hitting the 'play' button with a flourish.
She heard
"You want a quote, Lane?"
"Here's one for you: I don't just believe in 'strange visitors', I know that there are intelligent homicidal would-be world-conquerors running around on the surface of this planet, and not just of the normal mean terrestrial variety."
"and"
"Not only is magic real, but apparently it's not just a random, isolated thing lost to the mists of time and history."
"...apparently demons actually do exist."
"Repeat that to anyone in an attempt to bring about some end to me that might prevent me from doing anything to prevent such a planetary takeover, and I'll kill you myself."
before he shut it off.
Lois felt a little ill. "That's not--"
"--what he said? Oh, but it is, just edited and ...recompiled a little, for time. You know, and I know, that the context really didn't make any real difference there, now did it?" Lionel said.
"How did you--" Lois said quietly, staring at the tape recorder.
"Oh, Lane," he chuckled. "You're the one who sent that photo of the two of them over your cellphone. It's not that hard to trace a phone by its GPS signal." He casually slipped the tape recorder into his coat pocket. "It didn't seem at all odd that within an hour-and-a-half, four of five available transient rooms at a rather exclusive and hard to find little club mall were suddenly and inexplicably filled?"
"You did that," she said quietly. "And you bugged the last one."
"You'll find that a good number of people will do quite a lot when a father will pay triple the normal board rate for five rooms, in the course of helping a few friends play a... 'prank' or two, all in good fun," he grinned at her. "Humor is so underrated."
"This isn't funny," she spat out at him, wrenching her left shoulder as she twisted and pulled too hard against the straitjacket.
"Really" he said, leaning against the far wall. "Because I think it's hilarious, he said, not sounding amused at all. "A single, below-sea-level reporter gets the drop on my son, has him spill information like water through a sieve, that which he'd never share with me, and then be stupid enough to fall for the same trick a third time?" He shook his head. "He might not remember the scotch before Belle Reeve, but he at least ought to remember what had happened with the poison in his cognac -- he ought to know better than to trust something easily-opened and unlabeled, by now," Lionel said, sounding aggrieved, as if he wasn't the one who had done that to him.
Lois felt like throwing up.
And then something caught her attention in the corner of her eye and Lionel looked up. "Oh good, he's finally waking up."
And Lex was. He stirred, then pushed himself to his knees and looked around...
...and started to visibly shake.
The TV had audio. He started screaming, kicking out, bashing his head against the floor, the walls--
Lionel sighed and flicked the sound off.
"Really, I'd thought him a little stronger than that," he voiced, tone dripping with disgust as Lois watched the screen in sheer horror. He sighed heavily. "Ah, well. I suppose that will take some work."
"Some work??" Lois shrieked, finally tearing her gaze away. "Are you insane?!?" she screamed at him. "Let him out of there!!"
"Oh, I think not," Lionel said firmly.
"Then let me go to him and calm him down, tell him what's going on!" she demanded, pushing herself upright again.
Lionel looked at her in surprise.
"Now, why would I want anyone to do that?" he said.
Lois stared at him, speechless, then started at the double-knock on the door.
"Ah, and that would be my cue to leave," Lionel said, straightening his coat. "It's time for you to go, my dear."
"If you think that I won't tell my father what you're doing--" Lois said heatedly as the door opened and two burly male nurses came in.
"Hm? Oh -- you misunderstand, Miss Lane," Lionel said, turning to face her as the nurses advanced. "You're not leaving the building, just this room. --Take her down to the lab and strap her in," he directed them.
Lois backed up a few steps. "What the hell?? What do you think you're doing!!" she yelled at him. "Stay away from me!" at the guards, who were slowly spreading out side-by-side, palms out, coming towards her.
"Oh, I'm tying up loose ends," he said. "You know a bit too much. A shame, really. The General will be very sad to hear that you've gone quite insane, as much as my own son, more's the pity. I'm sure I can cobble something together from the audiotape for him," he said, as Lois backed up against the far wall, desperately trying to think of a way out of this.
"You-- you can't do this!" she screamed at him as they grabbed her. She struggled and tried to pull away, to no avail.
"Oh, but I can," Lionel said. "After all, who's going to stop me? --You?" he laughed.
"You monster!!"
"Mm, I like to think of myself as more of a shrewd businessman, actually. I like to leave the visionary work to my son; such the imagination," he said, stroking his bearded chin as he glanced back up at the monitor. "Ah, it's too bad; I doubt I'll be able to get much more out of him than you did," he said as he walked out the open doorway. "That meteor-freak conversion idea, though -- now that sounded interesting," he shot back over his shoulder. "You won't mind helping me test out that theory, now, will you?"
"LIONEL!" she screamed at him, and she made a hard kick at the knee of the guard-nurse on her left.
He actually went down, and she twisted and kicked at the remaining guard.
The second nurse just grunted as he took the hit, snorted at her, grabbed ahold of her shoulder, and practically threw her at the floor, while Lionel blandly looked on.
She hit hard.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lois woke up screaming on the floor, with Lex crouched beside her looking worried.
She lashed out blindly at the blanket tangled and wrapped around her, getting halfway free, and he reached forward and caught her by the shoulders.
"NO!" she screamed, trying to pull away, and he let go immediately, eyes wide.
"...Lois?" Clark said hazily, leaning over them both, with the worst bedhead she'd ever seen.
It was too much. Lois began laughing so hard she started crying.
"Y-you, you bastard," she cried at him through her tears. "You gave me nightmares, you crazy fuck!" she said, whacking him in the arm a couple times, angrily.
And then she collapsed against Luthor, her head hitting his shoulder.
"I-- I'm... sorry?" Lex said, sounding confused. She felt him twist his neck away, probably to glance up at Clark.
And then his hands -- arms -- wrapped around her tentatively, then solidly, and she was pulled into a hug. Gently.
She started to giggle, because, well, --getting hugged by a Luthor? Way crazier than any stupid old aliens.
And then she felt another arm around her back and she got squeezed into Luthor's chest and, hey, that must be Clark, with the under the breath wordless protest she heard come from Lex right by her ear.
Lois took a deep breath in and let it out, finally starting to calm down again.
"...Sorry, I," she started to pull away, through two sets of arms, but it was actually easier than she'd thought. "I don't usually have bad dreams."
"You... want to talk about it?" Clark asked, looking worried, but also like he didn't want to pry or force her to share.
"Uh..." she said, rubbing at her freed-from-the-blanket arms. "I wouldn't want to make anybody paranoid."
"I'm not paranoid; I'm just thoroughly prepared," Lex said primly, and that got him a laugh; he deserved one for that.
"I, uh..." Lois took another breath -- the guys were close by, they were all ok, right? "I dreamed that there was something in the wine and Lionel grabbed me and Lex and we were stuck in Belle Reeve," she explained, a bit more in order than her dream had been.
Clark sucked in a breath.
Lex looked thoughtful.
"Where was Clark in all this?" he asked.
"What?" said Lois. "I... uh, I don't know..." Fuck -- she couldn't even remember asking. Why hadn't she? Stupid dream.
"Ah," Lex said, like that explained everything. "Not a nightmare then -- you just weren't asleep long enough."
"She wasn't?" Clark said dubiously, in a very 'what the hell?' tone.
"No," Lex said. "She totally missed out on the part where you strode in and beat them all up for her, in a cape and tights -- her own personal superhero," Lex said, looking up at him with a straight face.
"Wh-what?" Clark sputtered, while Lois got a mental image and started to giggle again. Then she realized that she must still be a bit drunk. She wondered how long she'd been asleep.
"Cape and--"
"No tights!" Clark said, cutting Lex off.
"But they'd show off your legs so nicely!" Lex said with a smirk, obviously trying to keep down laughter, with the way his eyes were glittering in the low-light of the one bedside lamp.
"No tights!" Clark said grumpily. "No tights ever."
"Sigh, poor tights," said Luthor, slumping dejectedly, and Lois giggled again, covering her mouth with her hands.
"...Are you guys drunk?" Clark asked, suddenly suspicious.
"Mmmaybe?" Lex said innocently.
Clark groaned.
"Just a cape and tights?" Lois said under her breath to Lex, and he grinned at her.
Clark must've heard her, too, because he turned bright red. Oops.
"Well, as long as you're all right..." Clark said.
Lois felt a little nervous.
"Hm, yes. I feel a little perturbed though," Lex said. "I don't think I like being thought so little of."
"J-jesus, Luthor, he had you in a straitjacket after being drugged. There's not a hell of a lot anybody could do--" Lois said, rewrapping her blanket around her.
Lex blinked at her, then sighed.
"Always underestimated," he said morosely, rolling his eyes up at the ceiling. "Oh well, I suppose I'd rather everyone did that, so long as my enemies continue to."
Clark tilted his head at Lex, and he said, with a sigh, "Really, after what happened with Belle Reeve, do you honestly think I wouldn't learn how to get myself out of a straitjacket?"
Lois and Clark both blinked at him.
"And I assure you," he continued, "My first response upon finding myself bound and tied in a padded room would most certainly not be to lose my mind in fear. I prefer anger and rage, thank you," he said calmly.
"Though I think that ending up in Belle Reeve, or being confined anywhere else, would be the least problematic, given that I generally tell my personal security staff where I am generally going, and they are trained to respond when my cell signal shows that I have deviated significantly from my itinerary," he said. "Not to mention that unless I give a signal otherwise, that within twelve hours of the last coded 'ok' response from me that they are respond appropriately."
"What happens if you miss the twelve hour mark?" Clark said.
"Then regardless of whether I send a late signal or not, they are to track me down with all haste and kick the door in," Lex told him. "And then be thoroughly irritated with me for oversleeping again," he said, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards.
"That doesn't help while you're being attacked," Clark said with a frown.
"No but the gun holstered at my back, the ankle holster with similar, and the various knives and lockpicks hidden on my person all do help. I have finally learned that there are better ways to handle a life-threatening situation than to wait for you to save me, Clark," he said smoothly, looking down.
Clark didn't seem to look very happy about it, though.
"Although I believe I need to apologize to you, Miss Lane -- I should have explained why I acted so strangely when I tasted the alcohol, I think?" he said, looking back at her.
"Why did you?" she asked, glancing down at his ankles briefly.
"I did say before that I've had distilled wine from an unlicensed still before..." he began. "The strength seemed a bit odd compared to the sugary flavor. It took a bit to taste it, but it had been cut with whiskey."
"Oh," Lois said. It had been really smooth -- she'd only tasted the sweet grapes and the apple flavoring, not the corn hops.
Clark sighed out deeply. "So, um, can we get back to sleep?"
"--Did it seem strange to you that all the other rooms filled up?" Lois asked suddenly, because that actually had been bothering her earlier.
Clark frowned at her, then glanced around the room for some reason. Lex just said, "Actually, it did, but the woman said she only rents them out on a night-to-night basis on the weekends, and the paper ledger seemed to reflect that."
Lois frowned a little. "Oh..."
"I would have been more worried if it had been a weekday; there usually seem to be at least two rooms free any other day of the week from the log," he added.
Clark sighed lightly and sagged against the bed, looking completely relaxed. "So, now we can sleep?" he nearly whined, looking at them both hopefully.
Lois and Lex both glanced at each other.
...When all was said and done, Lois ended up wrapped up in blankets and sleeping between the two of them on the big bed, Lex at her front and Clark at her back, arms wrapped around both her and Lex.
She turned down Lex's offer of the Glock 30 from his back holster, 'just in case, if she wanted.'
It was a nice gun. ...No Beretta M9, but still. Nice.
It didn't occur to her until the next morning, post-hangover and morning-coffee, that she'd been joking about him getting ahold of a damn butter knife the night before when he'd already been armed to the teeth.
And had been the whole time, probably from the previous day.
She wondered as she sipped at her coffee and watched the two Kansas boys bicker over strawberry tarts, if Lana had known he was packing in the coffee shop while she had been calling him insane.
He hadn't reached for anything once. That took control.
...She'd have to be careful if she wanted to catch him in a headlock. Bastard was full of surprises, apparently.
She narrowed her eyes at him over the rim of her mug as she sipped at her coffee.
Yup. Definitely bore watching, that one.
...And maybe Clark, too, she thought as she eyed the farmboy who had bested some of her dad's best guys hand-to-hand and unarmed, at one time, years ago.
~*~*~*~*~*~
AN2: ...Yes, there are plotty Lexy reasons why Lex is being so open with Lois, we'll get to that more next chappy with Lex POV :) ...whenever that comes out, it's unfortunately probably gonna be awhile :-/