Fic: Christmas at Belle Reeve
Title: Christmas at Belle Reeve
Author: josephina_x
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark, Lex
Rating: G
Spoilers: through 3x08 (Shattered), with hints at 3x09 (Asylum)
Word count: 3700+
Summary: Clark and Lex are barely surviving that month, alone. But they keep reaching out to each other, and despite Lionel's machinations... eventually, something spans the divide.
Warnings: Un-beta'd. A little downer, if you consider the Smallville canon bookending it. ...Ah, well.
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
Comments: Yes, please! :)
Author's Note: Shattered aired 11/19/2003, while Asylum aired 1/14/2004. Lex was in Belle Reeve for four weeks and let out shortly after his electroshock "therapy". So, if we're reading the timeline correctly. Lex was either in until 12/19 and got out shortly thereafter, possibly in time for Christmas... or he was committed around 12/14, and was in Belle Reeve during the Christmas season. Of course, if we go with the second one... Hmmmm...
And thus do I claim that this story is canon-compliant! (After all, if Clark was trying to see Lex, why would he suddenly get all demanding after four weeks of thinking and being told that Lex didn't want to see him? How would he suddenly be able to get in and see Lex after a full month of stonewalling, a la Lionel? ;)
Also posted to AO3 here.
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Clark was antsy as hell.
He sat on the living room couch in the middle of his home, the Kent farmhouse just sparkling with good cheer for the season around him, and felt morose.
Because Lex was in Belle Reeve.
Lex was in Belle Reeve, because Clark had been a coward and ran away, and god, how could he do that? Have done that?
And what was going on with Lex in there? WHy did Lex refuse to see him?
...Well, that was actually probably a real easy one -- Clark had run off and left Lex to get grabbed by Lionel's goons, and they'd committed him to Belle Reeve.
Clark had made a promise to help Lex, and then he'd broken it.
He closed his eyes and hugged his knees and wished Lex would forgive him.
He wished Lex would see him.
He wished Lex would talk to him. Just once. Even if he was mad.
Even if he never wanted to see him again.
Just once.
He missed his friend.
And he hated Lionel for taking him away.
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Lex shivered in his thin -- almost paper-thin -- blue hospital gown.
He frowned up at the lights in his cell -- room. Room. In the ward.
They'd had a few more art sessions this week than usual, due to the Christmas season. Supposedly it was good for the inmates -- patients -- to have friends and family come see them, and being able to give a gift back was...
He'd been able to finally get down the pill-vanishing procedure. He'd gotten enough practice with the paint pots around, and everybody running about all too busy to really be watching him closely.
His head was starting to feel truly clear for the first time in weeks.
In some ways, that just made things worse.
This was because being truly aware of his condition and situation was a two-edged sword.
He felt a lot more frightened and panicky now than he had before. Because he was beginning to really realize how hopeless his situation was. How very under-his-thumb Lionel had all the doctors in this place. How he had almost no chance of getting out himself, through his own efforts. How little control he had, anymore.
How much he was dependent on someone like Clark or Chloe springing him from outside efforts that had nothing to do with him.
...It was also probably because he'd not been taking the anxiety meds and mood suppressants that they'd been prescribing for him. If that was what they were. Those pills could be anything.
Who would know?
...He wanted Clark.
He wanted to see him.
He wanted to touch him. Hug him. Smile at him.
...Shake him until he rattled.
He closed his eyes and frowned up at the ceiling, lying slack on his cold, hard, minimally-cushioned bed-slab.
Clark had left him, and that thought always left him in a vague and directionless rage. Because he could almost understand why.
Clark was an alien.
Clark wasn't human.
Lex should have known. Guessed.
Because no human would have acted the way Clark did.
Because Clark was more than human. Better.
He was better than human. So very much so.
It was all so clear now.
And Lex had to keep Clark's secret. (Like he'd always promised himself he would. If he ever found out. Before.) Because Belle Reeve was awful.
And as much as Lex hated Clark for letting his patricidal father grab him and drug him and stuff him in here, as much as he knew that Clark could have just as easily grabbed him and carried him along at a blurring getaway speed like a leaf in the wind, as much as he remembered what had happened -- but not what he'd been thinking at the time, really, that part was just one weeks-long haze -- and as much as he understood why Clark had been scared and unable to grab him under the circumstances due to his own fear and what was surely a time-honored long-standing Kent-family-induced ingrained behavioral conditioning, and as much as that excused nothing that Clark had or hadn't done, as much as all that...
...Lex would rather die than to have Clark stuck here in Belle Reeve along with him.
!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!
"Please," Clark begged the nurse. "Please, just for a few minutes?"
"Sir--" she began.
"It's Christmas," he said plaintively, drawing it out. "Can't you please-- couldn't you just ask? Just this once?"
The nurse, who looked unhappy to be reminded of being away from her family on the holiday, gave him a sour grapes look.
--Wait, maybe he could use that... "Has his dad even come and visited him?" Clark pointed out. "I mean, it'd be awful if nobody visited him at all, right?" he tried, hoping beyond hope, because he hadn't seen this nurse before when he come by any of the other times. If she wasn't one of the regulars, then maybe, just maybe, this nurse hadn't heard about Lex not wanting to see Clark, and she might--
"Only approved visitors are allowed to see Mr. Luthor, sir," she said.
Clark... frowned slightly as he mused that one over. "...I'm not on the list?" he asked finally, while knowing full-well he wasn't.
The nurse frowned at him.
"Okay," Clark said, game for the attempt, because he hadn't been shot down abruptly. "Then who is?"
"I can't give that information out," the nurse said, giving him the hairy eyeball.
"Ok, ok, sorry!" Clark backed off. "I didn't mean it like--" He grimaced, then tried, "How do people get on the list, then?" And then he put on his most innocent 'surely there must be a mistake!' look that he'd gotten from Chloe.
"Mr. Luthor's father--"
Aha! "--Wouldn't want him to be all alone on Christmas because he got caught up out of town doing whatever, right?" Clark tried, lying through his teeth, and praying that the nurse had never met Lionel, or she'd certainly know better. "Lex and I are friends; you can ask anybody," Clark tried. "Heck -- you can ask him!"
And sure, that was a big gamble, but Clark mentally crossed his fingers and hoped that Lex would find it harder to tell Clark to go away, that he wouldn't see him, knowing Clark was already there, than if he wasn't.
The nurse gave him a different sort of a sour look, but she got up from her chair and trundled off.
Clark gave her his brightest smile and a thank you as he mentally cheered, bubbling up with joy.
...which collapsed like a sad wheezy little balloon when the nurse returned twenty minutes later and said that Clark couldn't see him, and that he should just go.
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"Hello, Luthor," Ian drawled out mock-jovially, ducking his head into Lex's cell -- room -- with a chuckle. "Any books for you today?"
Lex didn't even bother to raise his head and sneer at Ian and his book cart.
"Huh. You're really down today," the freak said. "What, no visit from Daddy Luthor on Christmas? Missing your presents under the tree?"
Lex snarled and turned over, showing his back. Despite the fact that that wasn't a good -- safe -- idea to do.
"Well, if you're really that down about nobody, maybe you ought to lower your standards to anybody you can get." Ian snarked. "I guess it's just too bad that your other visitor didn't make it past the desk, then," Ian said in a sickeningly-sweet tone, along with a nasty laugh as a parting shot, and began to wheel his cart off.
Lex's eyes shot open and he was on his feet and to the doorway and hanging out of it, yelling, "Wait! What visitor?!" at Ian before he caught himself. He blamed the stupid drugs. Still in his system. If they weren't hiding them in his food, too.
Ian stopped, and slowly turned, a smirk on his face.
"What, nobody told you?" he said, all mock-innocence and light.
"Who?" Lex breathed out, hoping beyond hope--
"Kent," Ian bit out, and Lex nearly staggered with reflief. "Made a pretty big fuss, too," and his eyes went a little narrow, a little sly. "Why don't you want to see him?"
"...What?" Lex asked, his head shooting up, startled as he was at the odd question -- of course he wanted to see Clark!
"Really? You do?" Ian said, tilting his head and getting a wry, wide grin. "Because it sounded to me like he thought you didn't want to see him. The last couple of times he's been here, anyway," he added. "Kent sounded pretty cagey this time, from what I could hear through the vents."
...Clark wanted to see him?
Clark had come multiple times?
--And thought that Lex had been turning him away?
"Lionel," Lex growled out angrily, clutching the doorway in white-knuckled fists.
"Guess the guy with the power of attorney gets to decide who you do and don't see," Ian said, shaking his head, and looking almost rueful. --Fuck, Lex hated people's pity!
But then the freak said with a shrug, "Guess you could try telling the staff that you want Kent's name added on, but if your father's got the authority, he can override it and just have him taken right off again."
And, just like that, Lex's anger was forgotten.
"What, no books?" Ian called after him as Lex sped off down the hallway.
"No, I've got something better to do!" Lex called back over his shoulder, spirits rising like they hadn't in nearly three weeks -- no, even long before he'd found himself here.
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Lex was shivering with excitement. This would work. This would have to work.
...Assuming that it got past the mailroom. That no-one thought that he was trying to send coded, secret messages for help.
That his father would let anything, even the most innocuous-looking, through.
He might've been just a little too animated in his painting, though, because one of the nurses came over and accosted him. Damn!
...Except she complimented him on his work, and Lex slowly began to realize that she wasn't like the others.
She was new. He'd never seen her around before.
Which meant that she was probably just on covering somebody's holiday break, and might not have been fully-briefed on him, yet.
...And young, which meant that she might not know better than to bend the rules, for anyone or anything.
"Actually, I'm trying to get them all done as presents," Lex enthused, trying to appear both 'sane' and 'worrying not-sane', because too much of the former would just have her assuring him that he'd be out soon enough, and too much of the latter would drive her off, thinking his about-to-be request was a bad idea...
"Really?" she encouraged.
"Yes," Lex said. "But I had a treatment the other day, and couldn't give a friend of mine one of his -- they didn't even let him come to see me, because he wasn't on my visitor's list," Lex ended with a slightly vague frown he'd been practicing, hard.
"Not on your visitation list?" the nurse frowned slightly.
Lex nodded. "And I can't understand why. Why would I need a list? Can't they just say they're my friend and come up?" he asked plaintively.
"Oh, dear," the woman sighed. "Something must've gotten lost in the write-up."
Lex bit his lip and looked up at her, trying to approximate Clark's big-eyes look, probably with some success, the way the woman was looking at him now.
"Oh," Lex said, slumping his shoulders and trying to look forlorn. "But, how will I give him his picture now?" He paused only briefly, realizing-- "He's working all the time; he probably won't be able to come see me again anytime soon."
"Oh, well," the woman looked a little taken aback at this turn of events. "Maybe you could mail it to him."
"Could I?" he said, turning to look up at her.
"Well..." The woman bit her lip. She probably knew as well as Lex did that the mailroom was not in good straits this time of the holiday, having to process everything in very carefully, just as carefully as anything sent out.
And then Lex heard the magic words.
"Well, I suppose I could mail it for you."
And here was the sticky bit. Don't act too excited, he told himself. Don't give it away. Because if he did...
So he turned up to her with a round-eyed look and said, "Oh! I wouldn't want you to go to any trouble!"
"Oh, it'd be no trouble at all," she smiled down at him kindly, patting him on the shoulder.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Sure," she said, still smiling. "Just as soon as you're done and it's dry--"
Lex felt something nearly short out between his ears, and he forced himself to not let his smiling expression freeze in place -- he'd learned that was a tell.
He couldn't let it go that long. He couldn't. He needed to try and get this promise of a 'favor' by her taken care of by her before someone thought to inform her of Lionel's edicts concerning him. Whatever those were. Other than apparently cutting him off from all outside contact.
Well, of course he had. That was the one thing about the whole situation that actually made sense: don't let the murderer's witness blab to anyone so you keep on not getting caught.
It was the fact that Lex was still alive that was causing him headaches, and no small end of trouble.
"Are you all right?" shattered his thoughts, and he shook himself, suddenly aware that the smile he was looking at was now looking fixed.
"I--" Lex realized he'd gone glassy-eyed, or whatever he did when he tried to think too hard these days.
He turned to his easel. "Sorry, I--" He took a deep breath. "But it's already dry. I don't understand?" he said, thinking furiously. It was easier to do when he wasn't looking someone in the eye, these days.
He could almost hear the frown above him. "But your painting is still wet," he heard slowly.
He glanced up at her with a carefully-controlled level of confusion and then let his face clear in understanding. He laughed lightly. "Oh," he said, "not this one!"
"...No?" she asked.
Lex shook his head, smiling. "No, no. This one is for my mother," he lied glibly. "I made another one for my friend," he said, reaching down and riffling through a few of the images in his earlier, now-full easel sketchbook. He thought through and mentally-discarded a half-dozen potentials, trying to think of something that would work. He'd originally hoped that he could make an innocuous-seeming painting that had a 'help me!' message inside it to get to Clark somehow, but if he had an almost-sure path to give Clark something... well, anything that wouldn't get vetoed might do. ...If Clark had actually been wanting to see him, though Lex couldn't understand how or why, if Clark really wanted to see him, that he couldn't actually force his way in to see him. Considering.
But if Clark hadn't been coming because he'd thought Lex didn't want to see him... well, anything from Lex ought to be enough encouragement to try harder. Right?
...And, come to think of it, Lex did have one thing that he'd made that might actually work. He'd been thinking of Clark when he'd drawn it, actually. He'd even been in his right mind while doing so.
And so Lex finally pulled out and proudly presented to the nurse a single sheet of paper. "This was for him," Lex said, holding it out so that she could look over it.
"Ah," she said.
"I couldn't give it to him if I didn't already have it done," Lex said, letting the woman gently take the paper from his hands. "...I got a little confused what you meant because it didn't need drying," he added, as the silence grew, and he started to get nervous. Because. If she thought it was objectional, or triggering, or any of a million other things...
She slowly smiled and folded it up. "What is your friend's name?" she asked.
"Clark Kent," Lex readily supplied.
"Hm," she said. And then she pocketed it, turned, and began to walk away.
"--Don't you need his address?" Lex asked urgently, trying not to panic. Had she just been playing him? Was she actually in on it? --He didn't want Lionel to have that sketch! That was for--!
He had to fight down the urge to shoot to his feet or grab her by the arm -- as much as no-one but this single nurse was paying him much attention at the moment, either too-quick movement would set the guards on him soon enough, and the nurse herself wouldn't--
The woman turned back to him, frowning.
"I can get his address from the sign-in sheet," she told him. Then she caught a good look at his anxious expression -- which he didn't suppress soon enough, damnit! -- and then... smiled.
Lex blinked.
"Don't worry," she said. "People have to sign-in before they can be determined for eligibility for admittance as a visitor. And I'll get him put on your visitor's list while I'm at it," she added, almost covertly.
And with that, Lex felt his shoulders drop.
"Thank you," he whispered to her, because that was... that was...
...far better than anything he'd hoped for. He'd thought he might have to try and protest, demand, cajole at his next session, and hope it was put on the list -- if they did it -- and then stayed on long enough that Clark would be let through the next time he came -- if he timed the request-demand right -- but that was a lot of 'if's and--
If this temp-aid nurse added Clark's name to his visitation list without anyone knowing...
...it really might still be on there the next time he came and...
...oh god.
Lex felt himself tear up.
He gave the nurse, who was an angel-in-disguise as far as he was concerned, a little finger-wave as she left -- to take care of it for him, immediately! -- and turned back to his easel, barely seeing what he was working on anymore.
He was completely unaware of the glorious, genuine smile that was gracing his face at that moment.
And for the next three hours.
Until he went to sleep.
To good dreams.
Of escape.
With...
him.
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Clark frowned slightly as he got the mail from the mailbox that afternoon.
He sighed.
Christmas... just hadn't been. Without Lex.
He glanced at the envelopes, shuffling through them as he trudged back to the front porch.
He'd made it up the stairs, right in front of the screen door, reaching for the handle, when he...
Froze.
Because there was a letter with a return address from Belle Reeve on it. For him.
Clark forgot how to breathe.
He quickly shoved the letter in his shirt pocket, over his heart, as he glanced around furtively.
Then he took a deep breath and shoved open the door.
"Mail," he told his parents, clunking in and over to the kitchen table in his workboots, before dropping them on the table casually.
"Clark, shoes!" Martha said.
Clark glanced down and gave them a half-grimace, just like he always did, heart racing, and turned to head back to the front door.
"What's that you've got there, son?" his dad asked.
Clark almost froze.
Almost.
But he was a better liar than that.
When he needed to be.
So instead, he just kept turning, and moving forward, away from them, and tossed back, "Christmas card from Lana," he lied easily. To his parents. With a protective hand hovering over it, lest they think about attempting to steal it away.
He heard his dad chuckle behind him as he fled.
He didn't even feel heartsick about it at all.
He got his boots off, and shot up the stairs to his room.
He closed the door.
He sat down on his bed, pulled out the envelope.
...He learned how to breathe again.
Because, god, this could be so many things.
So many -- so very many -- bad things.
But. It was from Lex.
With shaking fingers -- that he had to stop from shaking before he continued -- he carefully opened the envelope, treating it, and its contents, like spun glass.
It wasn't a letter.
...What?
Clark slowly unfolded the drawing -- yes, a drawing -- and realized right away that it was one of Lex's sketches.
Coveted sketches, because Lex hardly ever let anyone see his work. Not even Clark.
Clark hissed out a breath, taking that in...
...and then finally took in the actual charcoal sketch itself.
Two children, playing in the snow.
Lex.
God, it made his heart ache. They looked... happy. Clark wished it was them.
...Maybe it was.
Or was supposed to be.
...Lex?
Did that mean...
...Lex wanted to see him?
Was that okay?
Clark's eyes widened as he looked over the picture again, and again, and again.
He couldn't see anything angry about it. Nothing resentful. Nothing...
...painful, okay, yes, there was pain aplenty. When Clark looked at it, he felt pain and solitude and a bit of desperation. Those two boys were obviously alone. Happy together, but... there was no-one else. No one for them.
Which was actually a lot like how Clark felt these days.
His parents hadn't just betrayed Lex -- well, that wasn't fair, they couldn't really, Lex wasn't their son--
--but Clark was. And that wasn't fair, either.
He'd asked for help. They had refused it.
They were supposed to be his home. His sanctuary, against the rest of the world, and everyone in it who didn't know, didn't believe in him, would hound him and hurt him if they knew--
--and maybe that willingness to shelter him had shattered a little bit, after everything with the baby and his running off like that.
Maybe there were limits to their love, now. ...Or maybe, just maybe, he hadn't known that there were, and they had been there all along.
Clark stared at Lex's sketch and took in a shaky breath. One thing was for certain -- Lex wanted to see him. Him. Alone.
Him alone?
Clark swallowed, bit his lip, and hoped and prayed that he wasn't misunderstanding. Lex wanted to see him.
So he'd go to see Lex.
And the next time he did...
--next time, he wouldn't take "no" for an answer.
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Author: josephina_x
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark, Lex
Rating: G
Spoilers: through 3x08 (Shattered), with hints at 3x09 (Asylum)
Word count: 3700+
Summary: Clark and Lex are barely surviving that month, alone. But they keep reaching out to each other, and despite Lionel's machinations... eventually, something spans the divide.
Warnings: Un-beta'd. A little downer, if you consider the Smallville canon bookending it. ...Ah, well.
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
Comments: Yes, please! :)
Author's Note: Shattered aired 11/19/2003, while Asylum aired 1/14/2004. Lex was in Belle Reeve for four weeks and let out shortly after his electroshock "therapy". So, if we're reading the timeline correctly. Lex was either in until 12/19 and got out shortly thereafter, possibly in time for Christmas... or he was committed around 12/14, and was in Belle Reeve during the Christmas season. Of course, if we go with the second one... Hmmmm...
And thus do I claim that this story is canon-compliant! (After all, if Clark was trying to see Lex, why would he suddenly get all demanding after four weeks of thinking and being told that Lex didn't want to see him? How would he suddenly be able to get in and see Lex after a full month of stonewalling, a la Lionel? ;)
Also posted to AO3 here.
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Clark was antsy as hell.
He sat on the living room couch in the middle of his home, the Kent farmhouse just sparkling with good cheer for the season around him, and felt morose.
Because Lex was in Belle Reeve.
Lex was in Belle Reeve, because Clark had been a coward and ran away, and god, how could he do that? Have done that?
And what was going on with Lex in there? WHy did Lex refuse to see him?
...Well, that was actually probably a real easy one -- Clark had run off and left Lex to get grabbed by Lionel's goons, and they'd committed him to Belle Reeve.
Clark had made a promise to help Lex, and then he'd broken it.
He closed his eyes and hugged his knees and wished Lex would forgive him.
He wished Lex would see him.
He wished Lex would talk to him. Just once. Even if he was mad.
Even if he never wanted to see him again.
Just once.
He missed his friend.
And he hated Lionel for taking him away.
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Lex shivered in his thin -- almost paper-thin -- blue hospital gown.
He frowned up at the lights in his cell -- room. Room. In the ward.
They'd had a few more art sessions this week than usual, due to the Christmas season. Supposedly it was good for the inmates -- patients -- to have friends and family come see them, and being able to give a gift back was...
He'd been able to finally get down the pill-vanishing procedure. He'd gotten enough practice with the paint pots around, and everybody running about all too busy to really be watching him closely.
His head was starting to feel truly clear for the first time in weeks.
In some ways, that just made things worse.
This was because being truly aware of his condition and situation was a two-edged sword.
He felt a lot more frightened and panicky now than he had before. Because he was beginning to really realize how hopeless his situation was. How very under-his-thumb Lionel had all the doctors in this place. How he had almost no chance of getting out himself, through his own efforts. How little control he had, anymore.
How much he was dependent on someone like Clark or Chloe springing him from outside efforts that had nothing to do with him.
...It was also probably because he'd not been taking the anxiety meds and mood suppressants that they'd been prescribing for him. If that was what they were. Those pills could be anything.
Who would know?
...He wanted Clark.
He wanted to see him.
He wanted to touch him. Hug him. Smile at him.
...Shake him until he rattled.
He closed his eyes and frowned up at the ceiling, lying slack on his cold, hard, minimally-cushioned bed-slab.
Clark had left him, and that thought always left him in a vague and directionless rage. Because he could almost understand why.
Clark was an alien.
Clark wasn't human.
Lex should have known. Guessed.
Because no human would have acted the way Clark did.
Because Clark was more than human. Better.
He was better than human. So very much so.
It was all so clear now.
And Lex had to keep Clark's secret. (Like he'd always promised himself he would. If he ever found out. Before.) Because Belle Reeve was awful.
And as much as Lex hated Clark for letting his patricidal father grab him and drug him and stuff him in here, as much as he knew that Clark could have just as easily grabbed him and carried him along at a blurring getaway speed like a leaf in the wind, as much as he remembered what had happened -- but not what he'd been thinking at the time, really, that part was just one weeks-long haze -- and as much as he understood why Clark had been scared and unable to grab him under the circumstances due to his own fear and what was surely a time-honored long-standing Kent-family-induced ingrained behavioral conditioning, and as much as that excused nothing that Clark had or hadn't done, as much as all that...
...Lex would rather die than to have Clark stuck here in Belle Reeve along with him.
!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!
"Please," Clark begged the nurse. "Please, just for a few minutes?"
"Sir--" she began.
"It's Christmas," he said plaintively, drawing it out. "Can't you please-- couldn't you just ask? Just this once?"
The nurse, who looked unhappy to be reminded of being away from her family on the holiday, gave him a sour grapes look.
--Wait, maybe he could use that... "Has his dad even come and visited him?" Clark pointed out. "I mean, it'd be awful if nobody visited him at all, right?" he tried, hoping beyond hope, because he hadn't seen this nurse before when he come by any of the other times. If she wasn't one of the regulars, then maybe, just maybe, this nurse hadn't heard about Lex not wanting to see Clark, and she might--
"Only approved visitors are allowed to see Mr. Luthor, sir," she said.
Clark... frowned slightly as he mused that one over. "...I'm not on the list?" he asked finally, while knowing full-well he wasn't.
The nurse frowned at him.
"Okay," Clark said, game for the attempt, because he hadn't been shot down abruptly. "Then who is?"
"I can't give that information out," the nurse said, giving him the hairy eyeball.
"Ok, ok, sorry!" Clark backed off. "I didn't mean it like--" He grimaced, then tried, "How do people get on the list, then?" And then he put on his most innocent 'surely there must be a mistake!' look that he'd gotten from Chloe.
"Mr. Luthor's father--"
Aha! "--Wouldn't want him to be all alone on Christmas because he got caught up out of town doing whatever, right?" Clark tried, lying through his teeth, and praying that the nurse had never met Lionel, or she'd certainly know better. "Lex and I are friends; you can ask anybody," Clark tried. "Heck -- you can ask him!"
And sure, that was a big gamble, but Clark mentally crossed his fingers and hoped that Lex would find it harder to tell Clark to go away, that he wouldn't see him, knowing Clark was already there, than if he wasn't.
The nurse gave him a different sort of a sour look, but she got up from her chair and trundled off.
Clark gave her his brightest smile and a thank you as he mentally cheered, bubbling up with joy.
...which collapsed like a sad wheezy little balloon when the nurse returned twenty minutes later and said that Clark couldn't see him, and that he should just go.
!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!
"Hello, Luthor," Ian drawled out mock-jovially, ducking his head into Lex's cell -- room -- with a chuckle. "Any books for you today?"
Lex didn't even bother to raise his head and sneer at Ian and his book cart.
"Huh. You're really down today," the freak said. "What, no visit from Daddy Luthor on Christmas? Missing your presents under the tree?"
Lex snarled and turned over, showing his back. Despite the fact that that wasn't a good -- safe -- idea to do.
"Well, if you're really that down about nobody, maybe you ought to lower your standards to anybody you can get." Ian snarked. "I guess it's just too bad that your other visitor didn't make it past the desk, then," Ian said in a sickeningly-sweet tone, along with a nasty laugh as a parting shot, and began to wheel his cart off.
Lex's eyes shot open and he was on his feet and to the doorway and hanging out of it, yelling, "Wait! What visitor?!" at Ian before he caught himself. He blamed the stupid drugs. Still in his system. If they weren't hiding them in his food, too.
Ian stopped, and slowly turned, a smirk on his face.
"What, nobody told you?" he said, all mock-innocence and light.
"Who?" Lex breathed out, hoping beyond hope--
"Kent," Ian bit out, and Lex nearly staggered with reflief. "Made a pretty big fuss, too," and his eyes went a little narrow, a little sly. "Why don't you want to see him?"
"...What?" Lex asked, his head shooting up, startled as he was at the odd question -- of course he wanted to see Clark!
"Really? You do?" Ian said, tilting his head and getting a wry, wide grin. "Because it sounded to me like he thought you didn't want to see him. The last couple of times he's been here, anyway," he added. "Kent sounded pretty cagey this time, from what I could hear through the vents."
...Clark wanted to see him?
Clark had come multiple times?
--And thought that Lex had been turning him away?
"Lionel," Lex growled out angrily, clutching the doorway in white-knuckled fists.
"Guess the guy with the power of attorney gets to decide who you do and don't see," Ian said, shaking his head, and looking almost rueful. --Fuck, Lex hated people's pity!
But then the freak said with a shrug, "Guess you could try telling the staff that you want Kent's name added on, but if your father's got the authority, he can override it and just have him taken right off again."
And, just like that, Lex's anger was forgotten.
"What, no books?" Ian called after him as Lex sped off down the hallway.
"No, I've got something better to do!" Lex called back over his shoulder, spirits rising like they hadn't in nearly three weeks -- no, even long before he'd found himself here.
!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!*!
Lex was shivering with excitement. This would work. This would have to work.
...Assuming that it got past the mailroom. That no-one thought that he was trying to send coded, secret messages for help.
That his father would let anything, even the most innocuous-looking, through.
He might've been just a little too animated in his painting, though, because one of the nurses came over and accosted him. Damn!
...Except she complimented him on his work, and Lex slowly began to realize that she wasn't like the others.
She was new. He'd never seen her around before.
Which meant that she was probably just on covering somebody's holiday break, and might not have been fully-briefed on him, yet.
...And young, which meant that she might not know better than to bend the rules, for anyone or anything.
"Actually, I'm trying to get them all done as presents," Lex enthused, trying to appear both 'sane' and 'worrying not-sane', because too much of the former would just have her assuring him that he'd be out soon enough, and too much of the latter would drive her off, thinking his about-to-be request was a bad idea...
"Really?" she encouraged.
"Yes," Lex said. "But I had a treatment the other day, and couldn't give a friend of mine one of his -- they didn't even let him come to see me, because he wasn't on my visitor's list," Lex ended with a slightly vague frown he'd been practicing, hard.
"Not on your visitation list?" the nurse frowned slightly.
Lex nodded. "And I can't understand why. Why would I need a list? Can't they just say they're my friend and come up?" he asked plaintively.
"Oh, dear," the woman sighed. "Something must've gotten lost in the write-up."
Lex bit his lip and looked up at her, trying to approximate Clark's big-eyes look, probably with some success, the way the woman was looking at him now.
"Oh," Lex said, slumping his shoulders and trying to look forlorn. "But, how will I give him his picture now?" He paused only briefly, realizing-- "He's working all the time; he probably won't be able to come see me again anytime soon."
"Oh, well," the woman looked a little taken aback at this turn of events. "Maybe you could mail it to him."
"Could I?" he said, turning to look up at her.
"Well..." The woman bit her lip. She probably knew as well as Lex did that the mailroom was not in good straits this time of the holiday, having to process everything in very carefully, just as carefully as anything sent out.
And then Lex heard the magic words.
"Well, I suppose I could mail it for you."
And here was the sticky bit. Don't act too excited, he told himself. Don't give it away. Because if he did...
So he turned up to her with a round-eyed look and said, "Oh! I wouldn't want you to go to any trouble!"
"Oh, it'd be no trouble at all," she smiled down at him kindly, patting him on the shoulder.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Sure," she said, still smiling. "Just as soon as you're done and it's dry--"
Lex felt something nearly short out between his ears, and he forced himself to not let his smiling expression freeze in place -- he'd learned that was a tell.
He couldn't let it go that long. He couldn't. He needed to try and get this promise of a 'favor' by her taken care of by her before someone thought to inform her of Lionel's edicts concerning him. Whatever those were. Other than apparently cutting him off from all outside contact.
Well, of course he had. That was the one thing about the whole situation that actually made sense: don't let the murderer's witness blab to anyone so you keep on not getting caught.
It was the fact that Lex was still alive that was causing him headaches, and no small end of trouble.
"Are you all right?" shattered his thoughts, and he shook himself, suddenly aware that the smile he was looking at was now looking fixed.
"I--" Lex realized he'd gone glassy-eyed, or whatever he did when he tried to think too hard these days.
He turned to his easel. "Sorry, I--" He took a deep breath. "But it's already dry. I don't understand?" he said, thinking furiously. It was easier to do when he wasn't looking someone in the eye, these days.
He could almost hear the frown above him. "But your painting is still wet," he heard slowly.
He glanced up at her with a carefully-controlled level of confusion and then let his face clear in understanding. He laughed lightly. "Oh," he said, "not this one!"
"...No?" she asked.
Lex shook his head, smiling. "No, no. This one is for my mother," he lied glibly. "I made another one for my friend," he said, reaching down and riffling through a few of the images in his earlier, now-full easel sketchbook. He thought through and mentally-discarded a half-dozen potentials, trying to think of something that would work. He'd originally hoped that he could make an innocuous-seeming painting that had a 'help me!' message inside it to get to Clark somehow, but if he had an almost-sure path to give Clark something... well, anything that wouldn't get vetoed might do. ...If Clark had actually been wanting to see him, though Lex couldn't understand how or why, if Clark really wanted to see him, that he couldn't actually force his way in to see him. Considering.
But if Clark hadn't been coming because he'd thought Lex didn't want to see him... well, anything from Lex ought to be enough encouragement to try harder. Right?
...And, come to think of it, Lex did have one thing that he'd made that might actually work. He'd been thinking of Clark when he'd drawn it, actually. He'd even been in his right mind while doing so.
And so Lex finally pulled out and proudly presented to the nurse a single sheet of paper. "This was for him," Lex said, holding it out so that she could look over it.
"Ah," she said.
"I couldn't give it to him if I didn't already have it done," Lex said, letting the woman gently take the paper from his hands. "...I got a little confused what you meant because it didn't need drying," he added, as the silence grew, and he started to get nervous. Because. If she thought it was objectional, or triggering, or any of a million other things...
She slowly smiled and folded it up. "What is your friend's name?" she asked.
"Clark Kent," Lex readily supplied.
"Hm," she said. And then she pocketed it, turned, and began to walk away.
"--Don't you need his address?" Lex asked urgently, trying not to panic. Had she just been playing him? Was she actually in on it? --He didn't want Lionel to have that sketch! That was for--!
He had to fight down the urge to shoot to his feet or grab her by the arm -- as much as no-one but this single nurse was paying him much attention at the moment, either too-quick movement would set the guards on him soon enough, and the nurse herself wouldn't--
The woman turned back to him, frowning.
"I can get his address from the sign-in sheet," she told him. Then she caught a good look at his anxious expression -- which he didn't suppress soon enough, damnit! -- and then... smiled.
Lex blinked.
"Don't worry," she said. "People have to sign-in before they can be determined for eligibility for admittance as a visitor. And I'll get him put on your visitor's list while I'm at it," she added, almost covertly.
And with that, Lex felt his shoulders drop.
"Thank you," he whispered to her, because that was... that was...
...far better than anything he'd hoped for. He'd thought he might have to try and protest, demand, cajole at his next session, and hope it was put on the list -- if they did it -- and then stayed on long enough that Clark would be let through the next time he came -- if he timed the request-demand right -- but that was a lot of 'if's and--
If this temp-aid nurse added Clark's name to his visitation list without anyone knowing...
...it really might still be on there the next time he came and...
...oh god.
Lex felt himself tear up.
He gave the nurse, who was an angel-in-disguise as far as he was concerned, a little finger-wave as she left -- to take care of it for him, immediately! -- and turned back to his easel, barely seeing what he was working on anymore.
He was completely unaware of the glorious, genuine smile that was gracing his face at that moment.
And for the next three hours.
Until he went to sleep.
To good dreams.
Of escape.
With...
him.
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Clark frowned slightly as he got the mail from the mailbox that afternoon.
He sighed.
Christmas... just hadn't been. Without Lex.
He glanced at the envelopes, shuffling through them as he trudged back to the front porch.
He'd made it up the stairs, right in front of the screen door, reaching for the handle, when he...
Froze.
Because there was a letter with a return address from Belle Reeve on it. For him.
Clark forgot how to breathe.
He quickly shoved the letter in his shirt pocket, over his heart, as he glanced around furtively.
Then he took a deep breath and shoved open the door.
"Mail," he told his parents, clunking in and over to the kitchen table in his workboots, before dropping them on the table casually.
"Clark, shoes!" Martha said.
Clark glanced down and gave them a half-grimace, just like he always did, heart racing, and turned to head back to the front door.
"What's that you've got there, son?" his dad asked.
Clark almost froze.
Almost.
But he was a better liar than that.
When he needed to be.
So instead, he just kept turning, and moving forward, away from them, and tossed back, "Christmas card from Lana," he lied easily. To his parents. With a protective hand hovering over it, lest they think about attempting to steal it away.
He heard his dad chuckle behind him as he fled.
He didn't even feel heartsick about it at all.
He got his boots off, and shot up the stairs to his room.
He closed the door.
He sat down on his bed, pulled out the envelope.
...He learned how to breathe again.
Because, god, this could be so many things.
So many -- so very many -- bad things.
But. It was from Lex.
With shaking fingers -- that he had to stop from shaking before he continued -- he carefully opened the envelope, treating it, and its contents, like spun glass.
It wasn't a letter.
...What?
Clark slowly unfolded the drawing -- yes, a drawing -- and realized right away that it was one of Lex's sketches.
Coveted sketches, because Lex hardly ever let anyone see his work. Not even Clark.
Clark hissed out a breath, taking that in...
...and then finally took in the actual charcoal sketch itself.
Two children, playing in the snow.
Lex.
God, it made his heart ache. They looked... happy. Clark wished it was them.
...Maybe it was.
Or was supposed to be.
...Lex?
Did that mean...
...Lex wanted to see him?
Was that okay?
Clark's eyes widened as he looked over the picture again, and again, and again.
He couldn't see anything angry about it. Nothing resentful. Nothing...
...painful, okay, yes, there was pain aplenty. When Clark looked at it, he felt pain and solitude and a bit of desperation. Those two boys were obviously alone. Happy together, but... there was no-one else. No one for them.
Which was actually a lot like how Clark felt these days.
His parents hadn't just betrayed Lex -- well, that wasn't fair, they couldn't really, Lex wasn't their son--
--but Clark was. And that wasn't fair, either.
He'd asked for help. They had refused it.
They were supposed to be his home. His sanctuary, against the rest of the world, and everyone in it who didn't know, didn't believe in him, would hound him and hurt him if they knew--
--and maybe that willingness to shelter him had shattered a little bit, after everything with the baby and his running off like that.
Maybe there were limits to their love, now. ...Or maybe, just maybe, he hadn't known that there were, and they had been there all along.
Clark stared at Lex's sketch and took in a shaky breath. One thing was for certain -- Lex wanted to see him. Him. Alone.
Him alone?
Clark swallowed, bit his lip, and hoped and prayed that he wasn't misunderstanding. Lex wanted to see him.
So he'd go to see Lex.
And the next time he did...
--next time, he wouldn't take "no" for an answer.
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