Fic: And Lo, The Stubborn Shall Inherit The Clark (3/4, complete)
For the clexmas Bingo! Challenge
Shape: Individual Fill (to-be Blackout, eventually, we hope)
Prompts: Costumes (yes, it contains others, but this was the original prompt)
Title: And Lo, The Stubborn Shall Inherit The Clark
Author: josephina_x
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: pre-Clex
Rating: R (to be safe)
Spoilers: general for early seasons, with a dash of in-joke or two for later-season madness :)
Word count: >11,300 total
Summary: Bunnies, drive-by-shootings, and guy chick flicks, Smallville-style. Also, scheming!Lana! (nooooooo! …wait, um, nm. We might be ok with this after all.)
Warnings: Un-beta'd. Except by the bunnies and redheads. Who only sometimes talk back, maybe.
Author's Note: Rating for sexual inclinations, and some language. Wacky timeline, story occurs sometime mid-season 2 (post-2x09, prior to 2x10 (and 2x13)) -- please assume 'events' from ‘real-life’ occurred earlier in the SVU:) Oh sweet brevity, why dost thou elude me so? No additional author’s notes at the end of the fic! Holy camoley!
Installments: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Related sillyfic version of this work: Inheriting Clark -- The Happy Bunny Version!
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Part 2
~*~*~*~*~*~
They were quiet for a time, while over-and-over the same thing would occur. Some teenagers would be walking down the sidewalk and eventually spot the two of them. The girls would invariably make a sort of ‘squee!’ing noise, take pictures, Clark would hold up the teacup sign, the girls would giggle again, and then the group would head into the Talon. The boys generally shook their heads and put on a show of having to be pulled inside by whatever girls they were invariably hanging out with. No-one seemed to recognize either of them properly. Lex tried not to worry about it. After all, his father would find out about his afternoon of playing dress-up one way or the other, no avoiding that and the subsequent dressing-down, but it seemed that sidestepping the newspapers to avoid any articles on him was, in fact, actually achievable. He doubted that all of the photos of him and Clark that would invariably end up on various online sharing sites could be taken down and purged, but besides the one that Chloe had taken, all others had been from a distance or in profile, with no good shots of his face, so if he managed to avoid recognition now, it simply wouldn't matter: there would be no solid proof to be had. Invariably, some townsfolk did come closer, but those who did seemed content to merely stare a little, or babble movie idol praise at him a bit without requiring a verbal response that might give him away. A smile in return seemed to be enough. He’d never seen such polite behavior towards a 'celebrity' before.
Then again, the little country town was rather unique -- when was the last time he had walked down the street unabashedly and unmistakably himself and had to worry about cameras going off in his face and his picture showing up in the tabloids, or being accosted as ‘that Luthor’ and taken to task for something his father had done that he had had no part of? Perhaps that had happened once or twice when he was in clearly in ‘business mode’ and not on a personal errand, but not often. Certainly not recently. It was a startling revelation, and in his estimation the town grew, while to his surprise Metropolis actually paled a little in comparison. When exactly had he started to think of Smallville as his home?
Lex looked down and selected a scone from the spread in front of him, gracefully slathered on some clotted cream, and, being careful not to smudge his lipstick, gingerly took a bite. Mmm, perhaps when both the senior level staff at the plant and the main figures in the community had supported his buyout of the plant, personally and monetarily. He was pleasantly surprised by the taste.
Clark was watching him hungrily. Lex’s heart skipped a beat. …No, wait, that might be actual hunger. Had Clark had lunch? He usually ate quite heartily, and on reflection, Martha had probably had a reason for overloading the tray so heavily.
Lex glanced around and realized that they'd come to a pronounced lull in activity. The street was fairly deserted, and had been for some time. Lex finished the last remnants of the scone, then brushed his hands off carefully, and raised a hand to Clark’s shoulder. He gently turned Clark to face him, then lifted the bunny head up over and off of Clark’s head, then swiveled and placed it on the sidewalk behind him, away and out of Clark’s reach.
Clark looked a little nervous and confused, and a little more so the latter when Lex picked up a plate of sandwiches and held it out between them. “Somehow, I doubt that your mother wanted me to eat all this, and it’s well past lunchtime with no foot-traffic in sight. I think it’s high time for a break.”
Clark grinned a little, distracted by the food, then reached out and grabbed a sandwich. “Yeah, she said if I helped out I’d get paid in food, and I haven’t had teacakes and things in ages.” Lex selected one of his own to nibble on, and contented himself with watching the rest of the cucumber sandwiches vanish into Clark like magic. So, given Clark’s earlier mood, food from his mother was an incentive to get Clark to do pretty much anything? Lex absently wondered if he could get Clark to do anything he wanted if he gave him food. Hmmm. Lex wondered if he gave Clark some cannoli, whether he could convince him to let Lex watch him eat them.
When they were done with that set, Lex set the plate down and finished off the rest of his tea. Clark surveyed the table, then leaned over and took one of the teapots by the handle. He pulled it up towards him, then glanced at Lex and noticed his empty cup. He straightened.
“Would you like some more?” Clark offered, holding up the blue porcelain teapot.
Lex nodded and held out his teacup. Not being quite so shell-shocked as he had been earlier, he was able to pay significantly more attention to his younger friend, and, as he watched Clark, this time he was aware of a vague sense of formal social engagement and he tried to place the movements. He watched as Clark transferred his left hand from supporting the underside of the pot to lightly touching the top of the lid, as he held it gently by the handle with his right. He moved in slightly, brought the teapot up to level, then lifted and poured about an imaginary fulcrum, keeping his left hand on the lid. It had an air of sensuality about it, and Lex was suddenly reminded of the graceful intricate and exact motions of a Japanese tea ceremony. When his cup was once again nearly filled, Clark brought the teapot level then back towards him in a smooth motion that had the last bit of exiting liquid fill the cup just so. He didn’t spill a drop.
Clark then turned and bent forward over the table slightly to refill his own cup, using similar unrushed motions. After setting the teapot down exactly where it had been before, he turned and asked, “Any sugar or cream?”
Lex shook his head. He covered a smile with his teacup, as he watched Clark take up one spoonful of sugar for his tea, tilting the spoon sideways to let it pour into the cup in a controlled trickle, then turn the teaspoon downwards and swirl in a precise manner twice clockwise, three times counter. He then lifted the teaspoon sideways and shook it downwards once to send any clinging moisture back to the cup, before setting it to the side and finally picking up the teacup by saucer with his left hand, taking a sip while loosely holding the handle with his right.
“Where did you learn to pour like that?” Lex asked curiously.
Clark blinked at him. “People have to learn how to pour tea?”
“Mmm, not as such. I was just wondering because not everyone knows to secure the lid without having suffered an avoidable accident at some point, and you seemed to have acquired your own method of pouring.”
Clark looked confused. “Um, is that bad?” He glanced down at the teapot and then back up at Lex, and he could almost hear the silent question: ‘Did I pour it wrong?’
“No, not bad, just… practiced. Everyone has their own way of serving tea, if they’ve been doing it long enough.” He paused as he took another sip and contemplated. “I thought yours was a family of coffee drinkers?”
“Mom sometimes drinks tea, but just with teabags. I, uh,” Clark looked like he was trying to decide whether he was supposed to be embarrassed or not, “When Lana and I were little, sometimes she’d invite me over for tea parties. Lana said we should take turns pouring, ‘cause we both wanted to and that would be fair.”
“Someone else wasn’t?” Lex inferred.
Clark nodded, then had to think for a minute. “One of Lana’s childhood friends. Emily something? I never met her, but apparently she always had to be the lady hostess.”
Lex hid a smile by raising his cup as something occurred to him. “Did you ever dress up?”
Clark simply shrugged. “Not really. All the extra stuff Lana had were dresses and things.” Clark pulled a face before continuing. “I tried some of the hats once or twice, but they were kind of flowery, and mom laughed one time when she came over early and saw me, so... Lana stopped pushing, and I started trying to sneak dad’s work gloves over in my backpack instead.”
“The sudden addition of the backpack wasn’t anomalous?”
Clark shrugged. “I just stuck them in with my action figures, it was easier to carry. They were polite, so they got invited, too. Pete’s, not so much,” Clark grinned.
“Pete got invited to these tea parties?” Lex asked incredulously. He was having trouble picturing that -- and apparently, for a reason:
“Only the once,” Clark laughed. “He kind of kicked over the table at one point, on purpose, because of an ‘air raid’.” Clark rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what he had against it, he usually loved cookies and jellybeans and stuff.”
Lex tried to think of how to phrase his next thought in such a way as to prevent Clark from accidentally getting the wrong idea, or, rather unfortunately, the ‘right’ one. He had a feeling that Clark didn’t realize that boys disliking tea parties was a stereotypical social norm, and that if he did he might feel required to stop acting contrary to said stereotype. He’d seen Clark react that way before, with other more minor things; Lex still didn't know why exactly Clark did that to himself, but he was fairly sure it went well beyond possible backlash to perceived sexual orientation -- assuming it actually had anything to do with that at all, which he doubted. “He never asked why he wasn’t invited a second time?”
“Uh...” Clark mulled it over. He began slowly, staring off into space a little as he was obviously trying to recall such an event from memory and failing. “He asked once if I was still having tea parties with Lana.” He frowned a little. “Lana sort of interrupted him? --He got distracted. I don’t think he asked again. Not when I was around, anyway.” He turned to Lex, looking a little pained. “It’s... it’s not like we lied about it, we just sort of didn’t bring it up. Pete would’ve made a fuss. He always wanted to play basketball and catch and, well, sports things. He’d barely even sit still for action-figure stuff sometimes,” Clark grimaced, “and if we weren’t doing what he wanted to do, he’d sulk. But he didn’t sulk if he forgot to ask.”
“...and he usually forgot to ask?”
Clark nodded.
“Secrets are ok, Clark.” Lex startled himself and nearly bit his tongue -- he could barely believe that those words had come out of his mouth, let alone in the same sentence without a negation in their midst. The last thing he wanted was for Clark to feel justified and comfortable in continuing to lie to him -- lord knew, he lied to him more than enough as it was -- and he fought to keep a grimace off of his face. Clark had practically jumped, then stared, then looked highly disconcerted. Well, that was both a comfort and... not.
Clark opened and closed his mouth as he paused, grimacing as he searched for words. He turned away from Lex slightly and would not look at him. He stared down into his teacup for a while, then, finally, he began. “It... wasn’t a secret, not really. Lana knew about it. I knew about it. Mom knew. Dad --maybe mom told him, I don’t know. Nell -- well, she kind of had to know, she was supposed to be watching us, and she was the one who made the cookies and tea. We just didn’t talk about it. Lana would come over with Nell, and she’d invite me over to play, but she’d smile the ‘tea today!’ smile, and I’d get what she really meant and go grab my stuff. Pete would maybe be angry about it if he found out now, and he definitely would have been back then at being left out.”
The addition of ‘maybe’ had sounded like a quick afterthought. That set off warning bells in Lex’s mind. He’d had a suspicion that Pete had learned Clark’s Big Secret recently, but this fairly blatant allusion made it sound as if Clark had not necessarily wanted him to know, and was more than likely regretting doing so. And given Clark’s lack of predilection on the subject with Lex already, meant that -- once burned, twice shy -- Lex’s chances of Clark telling him outright had probably dropped to near-zero, if not straight down into the realm of negative numbers entirely. Lex mentally snarled -- he knew there had been a reason he hadn’t liked Clark’s so-called ‘friend’ that went beyond the Ross's insane personal prejudice against all things Luthor. The boy was apparently not quite capable of maturely handling Clark’s Secret, whatever it was, or of being properly supportive of his friend, and thus further ruining the chances of anyone else who would in fact be perfectly capable of both; Lex was most displeased with Pete, indeed. More importantly, for Clark this was probably closer to twice burned, given Lex’s pushing already and his apparent ‘don’t ask, won’t tell’ policy about his secret. And -- he had a sinking feeling -- god only knew what might happen if Clark found out about The Room in an uncontrolled manner. He didn’t like to think that it was all about Clark, but every time he looked into something weird in town, Clark was always right in the exact center of the storm somehow, no exceptions. Unfortunately, for safety’s and sanity’s sake, he couldn’t just stick his head in the sand and completely ignore Chloe’s self-styled ‘meteor freaks’ and the other effects of the meteor rocks, either. Hoping and praying that everything was going to be ok just wouldn’t cut it -- he had a responsibility to the town to involve himself in dealing with such matters, given that he had the means to do something about it; it was patently unavoidable.
And, damnit, this was getting away from the main point, which was that Lex could have Clark. Just possibly not his secret. Except that, knowing how Clark was incapable of even glancing at another woman - person -- with any interest once dating someone, he would also likely be patently unable to separate personal and physical intimacy. If things got physical between them like Lex wanted, Clark would feel a very big obligation to share accompanied in the meantime by a huge amount of guilt for not already having done so. That meant ‘possibly not’ became ‘possibly not right away, but someday,’ and he could be patient if he knew that he would have all of Clark eventually. This could be endgame.
Except, and he fought the urge to grit his teeth at this, he did not want dating Clark, or anything further than that, to be about The Secret. He did not want to use him like that, especially since he wasn’t planning on discarding him, ever. He deserved better. They both did -- he did not want to have to hide from Clark and he wanted Clark to feel the same way with him, though quite frankly the thought of opening up like that scared the hell out of Lex.
So, he couldn’t ask outright without violating the ‘don’t ask, won’t tell’ policy and making Clark uncomfortable; even his brief forays skirting the issue had generally led to more lying and open-faced guilt on Clark’s part, and frustration and barely suppressed anger on Lex’s. Continuing to research anything Clark-related -- and, unfortunately, he usually didn’t realize the connection until after the fact -- was fraught with both the danger of early discovery by Clark before he could unearth Clark’s secret and the severity of the resulting aftermath when Lex would eventually have to fess up as part of full-disclosure, as much as he shied away from the idea. That not only didn’t leave him a lot of room to maneuver in, that left him no room at all. He was literally going to have to consciously decide to give up the -- he could admit it -- obsession with Clark’s secrets.
Well, maybe not today.
He was putting the cart before the horse. He’d have to take it slow with Clark and act with great care so that he did not indelibly link in his mind Lex’s amorous pursuit of him with the discussion of secrets of any kind. So, he’d start later, perhaps during a low-key movie night, make a very slow but definite advance, see how Clark reacted, and try to cement a definite start there to effectively make Clark off-limits to anyone else. He shouldn’t have to announce his intentions outright to the town, Clark would self-regulate his regular interactions with others for him -- thank god, because despite having recently learned in a very roundabout way of a blatantly forthright out-of-the-closet gay male couple living quite peacefully in town, he seriously doubted that the prevalent Smallville willingness to overlook or ignore behavior in direct violation of the state’s sodomy laws would extend to his own interest in a very mature, but still teenaged, 16-year-old male.
Lex decided to redirect the conversation to topics less fraught with danger. “I take it that Pete will not be helping the fine waitresses in my establishment by dressing up for the cause, then?”
Clark laughed. “Uh, no.” Then his smile turned slightly crooked and his eyes sparkled. “But...”
Lex inclined his head and played along.
“I hear tell that Chloe might get pulled to play the dormouse.”
“Chloe, the consummate coffee drinker? Wired and full of energy, Ms. Sullivan -- we are talking about the same person?”
Clark’s grin had reappeared by the end of his incredulous question. “Uh huh.”
Unbelievable. “Was the somnambulant tea-loving dormouse not sleepy in the film?”
“Well, she was a little bit. More like she wanted to be, but there were things to do.”
“Hmm.”
“...Plus, you should see Chloe without her coffee.”
“Oh?”
“Still wired.”
Lex choked down a laugh.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Part 4