Fic: Cheater!!! (complete)
For the clexmas Bingo! Challenge
Shape: Individual Fill (to-be Blackout, eventually)
Prompts: "Camping"
Title: Cheater!!!
Author: josephina_x
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: pre-Clex
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: through 2x15 Prodigal
Word count: >1500
Summary: Clark is not just a liar. He's a cheater, too!
Warnings: Un-beta'd. Mild cursing.
Author's Note: *coughs* Possibly some prompts need additional clarification... *eg*
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Clark laughed.
Lex growled.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Clark laughed again.
"How are you doing that?!?!?!" Lex yelled, finally losing his temper. Every damn time! His little war avatar in the videogame would die, then un-die, he'd just be able to start to move, and immediately end up shot in the head.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Again.
It was getting annoying.
"Is everything ok?" Mrs. Ross called from the kitchen. Lex grumbled a noncommittal response under his breath, while Clark replied, sounding chipper, "Sure!"
It didn't help that Pete was watching this match from the couch, chuckling. They'd been taking turns because there were only two controllers. He and Clark were currently sitting on the floor, side-by-side, backs to the couch. Frankly, Lex felt the carpet was far more comfortable than the cushions, which had seemed almost brick-like in consistency by comparison.
Lex had had a hard day's work at the farm. He'd worked hard in the morning, broke bread with the entire Kent clan at breakfast, worked hard in the mid-morning, taken lunch with Mrs. Kent, had a short "break" in the afternoon when she'd all but urged him to use the landline as-needed and had tried to make headway on his financial situation all to no avail, worked even harder in the late afternoon out of frustration, and was unbelievably tired by day's end. But his mind was still whirring away and because of this he'd been literally unable to sit still at the table for dinner, let alone ready to fall asleep.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Clark, trying to be helpful, had suggested a safe pastime through which to take out his frustration and current feelings of aggression towards the world and life in general. He hadn't been sure how he'd talked Pete into letting them both come over, given Pete's animosity towards Luthors, but he had.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
...Of course, it was possible that he hadn't been trying to be helpful at all, given his crowing.
"Man, didn't you get a handicap for this match?" Pete asked, manfully failing to hide a smirk.
"...No." Lex gritted out. He'd felt self-assured after watching Clark and Pete play once, and had thought that he'd gotten a sufficient feel for the combat scenario and the players' capabilities. Considering this to be as much a game of tactics as button-mashing, he'd felt confident that he would win easily.
Bam-bam-bam! "aaaaagh!"
"Oh come on!" Lex protested in disgust. That time it was a headshot and two to the chest, spinning his little player around completely and leaving him half-in-pieces. That was insult to injury!
Lex glared at Clark. "You're watching my side of the screen, aren't you?" he queried suspiciously, suddenly realizing where he might be going wrong.
Clark grinned back, then held up his controller. He pressed down on the fire button with a deliberately exaggerated motion, all while watching Lex.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
--The hell? Lex's head whipped around just in time to see his character's body bonelessly hit the ground and bounce before fading out. No! "What--? How--?!"
Clark laughed again. Pete just shook his head.
"Cheat codes! Cheat codes for magic homing bullets!" Lex guessed desperately.
"Nope!" Clark said cheerfully.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Lex let out a strangled yell and tried desperately yet again to make his little soldier move before the Master Assassin got him again. Clearly, Clark had found his calling.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Lex threw down his controller in disgust. "I can't believe this!" he complained.
"Damn, man, you suck at this," Pete teased with an unbelievably amused undertone.
"Thank you, Ross, for your brilliant commentary," Lex sniped back at the peanut gallery. He blew out a breath and tried to compose himself.
"What's the score, Clark?"
"35 to 0."
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
"Sorry, 36 to 0."
"...Remind me, this a kill match or a timed one?" Pete continued, as if he didn't have eyes and couldn't read the screen.
"Timed."
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Lex gritted his teeth.
"How much left on the clock?"
"5 minutes." Lex could almost hear the grin in Clark's voice.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
"You giving up?" Clark asked in a half-taunt, glancing over. They locked eyes.
Damn, but did Clark know how to hit his buttons. Luthors didn't back down from challenges, and Clark knew it. Lex glared at Clark, clenched his jaw, and scooped the controller back up.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Even if it did seem completely unwinnable, Lex thought grimly as he glanced at the killscore. Well, that had never stopped him before, had it? He squared his shoulders and got back into it.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Pete's younger sister -- Kathy, that was it -- came trundling into the living room, and Lex modulated the cursing under his breath down to an unintelligible grumble. She watched Lex get killed two more times, then looked at the two younger men with a frown.
"Don't you guys have a no camping rule?" she asked in a tremorous voice with the beginnings of an "I'm gonna tell!" whine.
Lex turned and glanced up at her. "No camping?" he asked. He looked suspiciously at Clark and Pete, who had both suddenly magically gained extremely innocent looks. Too innocent.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Kathy gave him a look like he was obviously the idiot that he was. "You know," she said like she was explaining to a child littler than herself, and not someone nearly a decade older, "Camping. When somebody sits over a respawn point and just kills people right away as they come back?"
"Respawn point?" He'd been popping up all over the map, not just one place. He'd thought it was random.
Kathy sighed. "Is he," she pointed at Clark, "a sniper?"
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
"Yes."
"Is this the Winding Tower Map?"
"...Yes."
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
"Then he can see all the places where you respawn from up there," she pointed, "and can shoot you right away without ever having to move. That's cheating."
Lex blinked. He took a good look at Clark's side of the screen. Then he turned and glared at Clark, who was valiantly trying to hold a straight face, but was biting his lip, hard.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
That was it. He knew how to deal with this -- quickly, simply, and effectively.
Lex dropped the controller, grabbed a pillow from the couch, and starting beating Clark senseless about the head and shoulders with it. Clark, no mere mortal he, simply started laughing hysterically and keeled over sideways.
Pete watched this display from the safety of the couch, astonished.
Pete's younger sister rolled her eyes. "Boys," she said, with the utter disgust only a young American female could muster. "Moooom! The guys are getting vi-o-lent agaaaaaain!" she called, heading back into the kitchen.
"What?" Lex paused in his pillow-thwomping. He heard talking and heavier footsteps approaching from the kitchen.
"I-- He had it coming!" Lex called out reflexively, pre-emptively, and probably futilely, then nearly bit his tongue and tried to suppress a grimace. Since when did anybody ever listen to him when he'd been accused of wrongdoing, whether he'd actually done anything or not?
Pete let out a single, unintentional laugh. "What are you, six?" he choked, grinning, then realized what he'd just done and looked half-surprised, half-horrified with himself for treating a Luthor like a normal human being.
Mrs. Ross advanced with a tray of sugar cookies. "All right," she started, "what's all this about camping?" She surveyed the scene with a matronly knowledge and then tsked at the two younger men. "Oh really, you two ought to be ashamed -- this isn't how you treat guests!"
"We tried to tell him the rules and how to play when we started," said Clark.
"But he didn't want to know. He said he was 'perfectly capable of learning them as he went'," Pete parroted, ending smugly and folding his arms.
"Oh, and I suppose you tried very hard to convince him otherwise, did you?" she said with a dubious air. Clark and Pete exchanged glances. She shook her head. "I thought not."
"Here you are," she said, handing Lex the cookie plate. "You can have first dibs," she added, giving Clark and Pete a warning look.
Lex bit his lip absently and took the plate from her carefully. "Ah, thank you," he said, not really sure what to say. He knew how to interact with the Judge, but the Mother? Not so much. "Sorry for the trouble?"
"Oh, don't worry about it dear. And you two," she rounded on them as she straightened, "explain The Rules." she ended authoritatively.
"Yes ma'am," came the quiet chorus, meekly submitting.
Lex was in awe. Mrs. Ross was the best. Except for maybe Mrs. Kent. They were clearly both competing for the top spot. Apparently the Ross animosity towards Luthors did not extend to all members of the family. Leave it to a judge to be impartial and fair.
Mrs. Ross disappeared back into the kitchen. Clark was already eyeing the plate.
"Cheater." Lex accused with a smirk, biting into a cookie. 'And cheaters never win,' he thought with no small satisfaction.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Except, apparently, when they were Clark. Lex glowered.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Coda:
Lex had managed to 'survive' until the end of the match, and was now in the kitchen helping Mrs. Ross with the next batch of cookies while Clark and Pete battled it out for the privilege of who would get to thoroughly trash Lex in the next round of gaming.
"Man, I can't believe it. I mean, I saw it, but..." Pete said, shaking his head.
"Told you," Clark said, simply.
Pete frowned a little at his best friend. "You know that you really gotta get over this..." he swallowed, "crush, right?"
Clark sighed.
Pete added cautiously, "And you know he's not gonna be staying over at your place forever. Right?"
Clark sighed again.
"C'mon man. Clark." Pete paused the game and slapped him in the shoulder. "I know all the," he paused and made alien feeler motions with his fingers, "stuff has been getting you all confused lately, but... You know better than this, ok?"
Clark made a movement so slight it could barely be called a shrug.
"So he forgets to be all Luthor-y with you," Pete said, trying not to make a face like the words came out tasting rotten. "So what? Doesn't necessarily mean anything. Dude's known for his womanizing. And you totally deserve better anyway." Pete couldn't help it, he made a face at the last one. "And now you've got me talking to you like a girl. I hope you're happy." That got him a small smile from his friend.
"Yeah, maybe. And yeah, I know. I know about all that. But, I guess I just want to enjoy it while it lasts?" Clark replied wistfully.
"Ok, fine. But if it ends up like Lana," Clark winced, "don't say I didn't tell you so. And Chloe? Is totally your go-to-gal for all the ice cream and crying and stuff, ok? I got a reputation to maintain."
Clark laughed a little. "Since when?"
Pete smacked him in the arm, then unpaused the game. The battle for dominance raged on. But with Lex as a prize...
Clark won, of course.
THE END
Shape: Individual Fill (to-be Blackout, eventually)
Prompts: "Camping"
Title: Cheater!!!
Author: josephina_x
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: pre-Clex
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: through 2x15 Prodigal
Word count: >1500
Summary: Clark is not just a liar. He's a cheater, too!
Warnings: Un-beta'd. Mild cursing.
Author's Note: *coughs* Possibly some prompts need additional clarification... *eg*
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Clark laughed.
Lex growled.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Clark laughed again.
"How are you doing that?!?!?!" Lex yelled, finally losing his temper. Every damn time! His little war avatar in the videogame would die, then un-die, he'd just be able to start to move, and immediately end up shot in the head.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Again.
It was getting annoying.
"Is everything ok?" Mrs. Ross called from the kitchen. Lex grumbled a noncommittal response under his breath, while Clark replied, sounding chipper, "Sure!"
It didn't help that Pete was watching this match from the couch, chuckling. They'd been taking turns because there were only two controllers. He and Clark were currently sitting on the floor, side-by-side, backs to the couch. Frankly, Lex felt the carpet was far more comfortable than the cushions, which had seemed almost brick-like in consistency by comparison.
Lex had had a hard day's work at the farm. He'd worked hard in the morning, broke bread with the entire Kent clan at breakfast, worked hard in the mid-morning, taken lunch with Mrs. Kent, had a short "break" in the afternoon when she'd all but urged him to use the landline as-needed and had tried to make headway on his financial situation all to no avail, worked even harder in the late afternoon out of frustration, and was unbelievably tired by day's end. But his mind was still whirring away and because of this he'd been literally unable to sit still at the table for dinner, let alone ready to fall asleep.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Clark, trying to be helpful, had suggested a safe pastime through which to take out his frustration and current feelings of aggression towards the world and life in general. He hadn't been sure how he'd talked Pete into letting them both come over, given Pete's animosity towards Luthors, but he had.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
...Of course, it was possible that he hadn't been trying to be helpful at all, given his crowing.
"Man, didn't you get a handicap for this match?" Pete asked, manfully failing to hide a smirk.
"...No." Lex gritted out. He'd felt self-assured after watching Clark and Pete play once, and had thought that he'd gotten a sufficient feel for the combat scenario and the players' capabilities. Considering this to be as much a game of tactics as button-mashing, he'd felt confident that he would win easily.
Bam-bam-bam! "aaaaagh!"
"Oh come on!" Lex protested in disgust. That time it was a headshot and two to the chest, spinning his little player around completely and leaving him half-in-pieces. That was insult to injury!
Lex glared at Clark. "You're watching my side of the screen, aren't you?" he queried suspiciously, suddenly realizing where he might be going wrong.
Clark grinned back, then held up his controller. He pressed down on the fire button with a deliberately exaggerated motion, all while watching Lex.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
--The hell? Lex's head whipped around just in time to see his character's body bonelessly hit the ground and bounce before fading out. No! "What--? How--?!"
Clark laughed again. Pete just shook his head.
"Cheat codes! Cheat codes for magic homing bullets!" Lex guessed desperately.
"Nope!" Clark said cheerfully.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Lex let out a strangled yell and tried desperately yet again to make his little soldier move before the Master Assassin got him again. Clearly, Clark had found his calling.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Lex threw down his controller in disgust. "I can't believe this!" he complained.
"Damn, man, you suck at this," Pete teased with an unbelievably amused undertone.
"Thank you, Ross, for your brilliant commentary," Lex sniped back at the peanut gallery. He blew out a breath and tried to compose himself.
"What's the score, Clark?"
"35 to 0."
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
"Sorry, 36 to 0."
"...Remind me, this a kill match or a timed one?" Pete continued, as if he didn't have eyes and couldn't read the screen.
"Timed."
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Lex gritted his teeth.
"How much left on the clock?"
"5 minutes." Lex could almost hear the grin in Clark's voice.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
"You giving up?" Clark asked in a half-taunt, glancing over. They locked eyes.
Damn, but did Clark know how to hit his buttons. Luthors didn't back down from challenges, and Clark knew it. Lex glared at Clark, clenched his jaw, and scooped the controller back up.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Even if it did seem completely unwinnable, Lex thought grimly as he glanced at the killscore. Well, that had never stopped him before, had it? He squared his shoulders and got back into it.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Pete's younger sister -- Kathy, that was it -- came trundling into the living room, and Lex modulated the cursing under his breath down to an unintelligible grumble. She watched Lex get killed two more times, then looked at the two younger men with a frown.
"Don't you guys have a no camping rule?" she asked in a tremorous voice with the beginnings of an "I'm gonna tell!" whine.
Lex turned and glanced up at her. "No camping?" he asked. He looked suspiciously at Clark and Pete, who had both suddenly magically gained extremely innocent looks. Too innocent.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Kathy gave him a look like he was obviously the idiot that he was. "You know," she said like she was explaining to a child littler than herself, and not someone nearly a decade older, "Camping. When somebody sits over a respawn point and just kills people right away as they come back?"
"Respawn point?" He'd been popping up all over the map, not just one place. He'd thought it was random.
Kathy sighed. "Is he," she pointed at Clark, "a sniper?"
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
"Yes."
"Is this the Winding Tower Map?"
"...Yes."
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
"Then he can see all the places where you respawn from up there," she pointed, "and can shoot you right away without ever having to move. That's cheating."
Lex blinked. He took a good look at Clark's side of the screen. Then he turned and glared at Clark, who was valiantly trying to hold a straight face, but was biting his lip, hard.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
That was it. He knew how to deal with this -- quickly, simply, and effectively.
Lex dropped the controller, grabbed a pillow from the couch, and starting beating Clark senseless about the head and shoulders with it. Clark, no mere mortal he, simply started laughing hysterically and keeled over sideways.
Pete watched this display from the safety of the couch, astonished.
Pete's younger sister rolled her eyes. "Boys," she said, with the utter disgust only a young American female could muster. "Moooom! The guys are getting vi-o-lent agaaaaaain!" she called, heading back into the kitchen.
"What?" Lex paused in his pillow-thwomping. He heard talking and heavier footsteps approaching from the kitchen.
"I-- He had it coming!" Lex called out reflexively, pre-emptively, and probably futilely, then nearly bit his tongue and tried to suppress a grimace. Since when did anybody ever listen to him when he'd been accused of wrongdoing, whether he'd actually done anything or not?
Pete let out a single, unintentional laugh. "What are you, six?" he choked, grinning, then realized what he'd just done and looked half-surprised, half-horrified with himself for treating a Luthor like a normal human being.
Mrs. Ross advanced with a tray of sugar cookies. "All right," she started, "what's all this about camping?" She surveyed the scene with a matronly knowledge and then tsked at the two younger men. "Oh really, you two ought to be ashamed -- this isn't how you treat guests!"
"We tried to tell him the rules and how to play when we started," said Clark.
"But he didn't want to know. He said he was 'perfectly capable of learning them as he went'," Pete parroted, ending smugly and folding his arms.
"Oh, and I suppose you tried very hard to convince him otherwise, did you?" she said with a dubious air. Clark and Pete exchanged glances. She shook her head. "I thought not."
"Here you are," she said, handing Lex the cookie plate. "You can have first dibs," she added, giving Clark and Pete a warning look.
Lex bit his lip absently and took the plate from her carefully. "Ah, thank you," he said, not really sure what to say. He knew how to interact with the Judge, but the Mother? Not so much. "Sorry for the trouble?"
"Oh, don't worry about it dear. And you two," she rounded on them as she straightened, "explain The Rules." she ended authoritatively.
"Yes ma'am," came the quiet chorus, meekly submitting.
Lex was in awe. Mrs. Ross was the best. Except for maybe Mrs. Kent. They were clearly both competing for the top spot. Apparently the Ross animosity towards Luthors did not extend to all members of the family. Leave it to a judge to be impartial and fair.
Mrs. Ross disappeared back into the kitchen. Clark was already eyeing the plate.
"Cheater." Lex accused with a smirk, biting into a cookie. 'And cheaters never win,' he thought with no small satisfaction.
Bam! "aaaaagh!"
Except, apparently, when they were Clark. Lex glowered.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Coda:
Lex had managed to 'survive' until the end of the match, and was now in the kitchen helping Mrs. Ross with the next batch of cookies while Clark and Pete battled it out for the privilege of who would get to thoroughly trash Lex in the next round of gaming.
"Man, I can't believe it. I mean, I saw it, but..." Pete said, shaking his head.
"Told you," Clark said, simply.
Pete frowned a little at his best friend. "You know that you really gotta get over this..." he swallowed, "crush, right?"
Clark sighed.
Pete added cautiously, "And you know he's not gonna be staying over at your place forever. Right?"
Clark sighed again.
"C'mon man. Clark." Pete paused the game and slapped him in the shoulder. "I know all the," he paused and made alien feeler motions with his fingers, "stuff has been getting you all confused lately, but... You know better than this, ok?"
Clark made a movement so slight it could barely be called a shrug.
"So he forgets to be all Luthor-y with you," Pete said, trying not to make a face like the words came out tasting rotten. "So what? Doesn't necessarily mean anything. Dude's known for his womanizing. And you totally deserve better anyway." Pete couldn't help it, he made a face at the last one. "And now you've got me talking to you like a girl. I hope you're happy." That got him a small smile from his friend.
"Yeah, maybe. And yeah, I know. I know about all that. But, I guess I just want to enjoy it while it lasts?" Clark replied wistfully.
"Ok, fine. But if it ends up like Lana," Clark winced, "don't say I didn't tell you so. And Chloe? Is totally your go-to-gal for all the ice cream and crying and stuff, ok? I got a reputation to maintain."
Clark laughed a little. "Since when?"
Pete smacked him in the arm, then unpaused the game. The battle for dominance raged on. But with Lex as a prize...
Clark won, of course.
THE END