SV Fic: "Still Two Fools" 5/9 (NC-17) - Clark/Lex, Mercy
Title: "Still Two Fools" 5/9 
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark/Lex, Mercy
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 2,677, for this chapter
Spoilers/Warnings: Future fic, although some vague spoilers for S6.
Summary: Clark and Mercy team up to save Lex from his real arch-nemesis: marriage.
Note: I totally stole a joke from Superdickory.com for this chapter. And that's terrible.
Previously: Clark and Mercy are on a mission to save Lex from getting married...for the ninth time. Unfortunately, Lex's bride-to-be wields the mighty power of EMO, which causes Clark to turn into a wibbling mess. The only cure is for Mercy to pistol-whip him. Last chapter, Clark and Mercy finally cornered Vivian in a snooty boutique (which nearly did Clark in, all on its own), only to discover that Vivian's an alien who's entered her mating cycle (naturally named after Xanga) and is planning to lay eggs in Lex's brain which will hatch and eat it. So, basically, she's about middle-level evil when it comes to Lex's wives. :P The crack continues:
Still Two Fools
by Kantayra
Chapter Five
“Well, how else are the larvae going to hatch?” Vivian demanded testily, still struggling in Mercy’s grip.
Clark started coughing so hard he thought he was going to keel over and die. “You’re going to lay eggs in Lex’s brain?” he finally screeched in horror.
Vivian got a dreamy expression on her face. “He has such a nice, big, squishy brain. It should provide plenty of nourishment for our larvae.”
Mercy twisted Vivian’s arm extra hard for good measure.
“Ow!” Vivian exclaimed.
“I think this might be worse than the plague-controlling wife.” Clark was still coughing in disbelief.
“Hell, it might be worse than Lana.” Mercy shivered.
Vivian puffed up her chest in outrage. “It is a great honor for any mere human to host a clutch of Xthl’thz’nk eggs,” she insisted primly.
Clark started coughing again.
“Do you need me to hit you on the back?” Mercy demanded. The narrowing of her eyes let him know only too well that Mercy was looking forward to the opportunity, as was her Evil Kryptonite Laser.
Clark stopped coughing. “But why?” he demanded of Vivian instead.
“Why what?”
“Why marry Lex? Why not just…” He gesticulated wildly in a way that probably had very little to do with the mechanics of laying eggs in someone’s brain, but then what did he know?
Vivian let out an outraged exclamation. “Maybe on this sinful planet you do things that way. But on Xthl’thz’nk, we never lay eggs in the brain before marriage!”
“Oh, right. Of course. Because heaven forbid your brain-eating larvae should be bastards.” Clark wondered if he was going insane. He met Mercy’s gaze over Vivian’s shoulder. Since Mercy’s expression was pretty much identical to the way he felt, he fortified himself with the knowledge that, no, Vivian was the crazy one.
“Apology accepted,” Vivian granted smoothly.
“Then I guess there’s just one more question,” Clark concluded. “Why pick Lex? There have to be thousands of other eligible bachelors who would draw less attention.”
“I told you,” Vivian insisted. “His brain will provide ample sustenance for our larvae. And…”
“And?”
“Well, okay, fine,” Vivian grumbled. “And also for the money.”
Clark and Mercy breathed a collective sigh of relief as the universe restored itself to the proper order: Lex’s crazy wife wanted to kill him for his money. Sure, the plan detoured through a very bizarre spot with brain-eating, legitimate, alien larvae, but that was all secondary. Now it was just business as usual.
“We have to kill her,” Mercy concluded. Clark was pretty sure she tried to snap Vivian’s neck then and there, but it didn’t work.
“Hey!” Clark protested. “We can’t just murder someone like that!”
Mercy blinked at him in disbelief. “Did you miss the part where she wants to lay eggs in Lex’s brain?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Clark insisted, pulling the recorder from his pocket. “I’ve got this all on tape. When Lex hears it-”
“Of course he’ll be completely sane and reasonable. Like you were last night.”
“Hey!” Clark protested. “I was fine until you pistol-whipped me!”
“You were blubbering!”
Clark glared at Mercy. Mercy glared at Clark. Things were pleasantly normal for a few moments and then, somehow, Vivian used Mercy’s distraction to break free.
Mercy lashed out instantly, her foot connecting with the side of Vivian’s head. The blow did nothing, and Mercy let out a startled shriek as Vivian caught her by the foot and threw her headlong into the far wall.
Clark caught her in an instant, but Vivian swiveled somehow so that her lips were right against his ear and whispered, “He doesn’t love you. He’s never loved you.”
Clark fell to the floor, crying, head cradled in his hands as he rocked back and forth.
With a self-satisfied little huff, Vivian straightened her dress. She twisted the doorknob savagely, effectively ruining Clark’s makeshift weld-job from earlier, and walked right out of the boutique. Clark could hear her limo drive away…
“Just like Lex is driving out of my life!” he wailed in abject woe.
Across the room, Mercy regained consciousness and groaned. “Not again! I’m going to kill that bitch…”
“B-But Lex loves her!” Clark protested.
“Have you already forgotten the part where she’s trying to lay eggs in his brain?”
“You know,” Clark countered sanctimoniously, “you may be good at guarding Lex’s body, but you suck at guarding his heart!”
“God, kill me now…” Mercy’s head fell down into her palms.
Clark sniffled some more. “So, are you going to fix me or what?”
Mercy’s gaze turned wicked.
“Not the Kryptonite!” he requested feebly.
She pistol-butted him with the Phantom Zone Laser. Clark suspected that Mercy was actually beginning to like him.
***
Lex Luthor let out a shriek of alarm when he was lifted off the pavement on his way out of the LexCorp Labs division on 48th Street. The shriek quickly turned to vivid vituperation and the usual round of death threats. Clark was pretty sure that Kryptonite couldn’t actually do what Lex had promised in that last one, but he winced anyway.
He finally set Lex down, squirming against Clark in a way that was actually kind of pleasant, atop the Daily Planet. It was safest that way; Lex couldn’t run for the fire escape without having to pass dozens of floors of reporters on his way out. If there was one thing Lex hated more than Superman, it was reporters.
“Thanks ever so for the unwanted detour,” Lex snapped, nervously readjusting his suit. “The assassination attempt on my fiancée was also appreciated.”
Clark held his hands up defensively. “That was all Mercy. I just wanted to talk.”
“And where is Mercy now?” Lex’s eyes flicked about the rooftop systematically.
“Out.”
“Out?”
“She said this was a bad idea. So I waited until she went out.”
“And then kidnapped me.”
“Well, yeah. Kinda.”
Lex gave him a very unamused little smile. “What do you want, Kal-El?”
Clark took a step closer. Lex didn’t step back. Clark’s cape billowed around them both, almost like it was trying to tangle them together. “Vivian’s trying to kill you. You can’t marry her.”
“Oh?” Lex raised one perfectly skeptical eyebrow and stepped into Clark’s personal space so that their faces were only inches apart. “Prove it.”
Clark held up the tape recorder and hit play. Lex listened to Vivian’s entire recorded confession with a supremely disinterested expression on his face. Clark finally hit stop after the conversation deteriorated to the sounds of Mercy getting beaten up and him blubbering. Lex’s eyes met his in time with the click of the stop button, sharp and intense all of a sudden.
“So you’re calling off the wedding, right?” Clark demanded.
“Because she’s trying to kill me for my money?” Lex countered.
Clark frowned. It seemed like Lex was…searching for something in his eyes, but Clark didn’t have the foggiest idea what that might be. “Do you really need a better reason?”
Lex pursed his lips and considered that like it was a very interesting and deep question. “What other alternative do I have?” he finally asked.
“Uh… Not to have evil alien eggs hatching in your brain?”
“Hmm.” Lex’s head tilted to one side, and he looked up at Clark through half-closed eyelids. “Do you honestly believe that I can do better?”
“Uh…” Clark’s knee-jerk reaction was to say yes, because how could anyone do worse? But then he remembered Lex’s track record, and the evidence seemed to be against him.
“At least this one wants me for my brain.”
Clark’s fingers itched like there was really something he should be doing right now. “And your money,” he reminded Lex.
“Who doesn’t want me for my money?” Lex’s eyes took on that impossible intensity that had reduced Clark to a fumbling idiot throughout all his teenage years. It turned out Lex’s gaze could still do that to him.
He couldn’t think of a damn thing to say.
“I thought as much,” Lex said half to himself. He turned and headed for the rooftop entrance.
“Wait, there are reporters down there. Let me fly you home.” Clark’s words came back to him in a rush now that it was too late.
Lex snorted. “What would be the point?” And shut the door behind him.
Clark stared, completely flummoxed, at the closed door before he finally took off back to his apartment. Obviously, Vivian was controlling Lex’s mind and making him entirely irrational. There was absolutely nothing else at play here. Clark would break Vivian’s hold over Lex, and then Lex would be free, and they could go back to hating each other as per usual. Simple and easy.
Right?
Right.
***
“We are not pistol-butting Lex!”
“It works on me,” Clark insisted.
“Yeah, but you’re not my boss. It kind of defeats the point of me being Lex’s bodyguard, if I beat him up.”
“Now you’re just being ridiculous. It’s the only way we’ve found to break Vivian’s mind-control.”
Mercy considered that. “Beating her up seemed to help. Physical pain must break the telepathic link somehow.”
“Yeah, where ‘somehow’ means that I’m too busy thinking ‘ow!’ to be affected,” Clark shot back.
“We should just kill her to be on the safe side.”
“If we kill her, then we’re no better than…” Clark trailed off.
Mercy put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot impatiently.
The ‘we’re no better than Lex’ speech kind of didn’t work when he was talking to Lex’s own private security force. Clark made note of that for any future debates.
“Fine,” Clark concluded. “Then how do we bring Lex back to his senses?”
Strategy time was interrupted by a knock on Clark’s door. Clark froze, eyes wide, as he x-rayed through the wood paneling to find that - holy shit! - Sandy The Downstairs Neighbor From Hell was out there and had him cornered.
“Don’t open the-!” Clark began to warn Mercy.
Too late, though. Mercy had opened the door.
On the other side, Sandy froze, mid-knock, looking thoroughly startled at the sight of Mercy. Then, her eyes narrowed to slits. “Who are you?” she demanded angrily.
Maybe Clark was feeling suicidal after his attempt to talk some sense into Lex had failed, or maybe he was just an opportunist and completely out of his mind. Whatever the case, some crazy part of him decided to go for it.
“Hey, Sandy, this is Mercy.” He looped an arm around Mercy’s shoulders causing her to jump about six inches off the ground. “Mercy, my neighbor Sandy.”
Sandy’s eyes narrowed to a precision that could sear a hole right through Mercy’s forehead.
Mercy’s expression was almost identical, except she was trying to burn a flaming hole through Clark’s hand on her shoulder. “Move it or lose it,” she informed him icily.
Clark’s hand snapped back instantly.
Sandy smiled in triumph.
Clark gulped.
“I was wondering if you could do me a favor?” She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “The ceiling light in my bedroom has gone out, and I can’t reach it. I hope you don’t mind. Especially since I let you use my computer yesterday.”
Inwardly, Clark was screaming.
To his complete and unabashed surprise, Mercy stepped in to save the day. “We’re already late for an important stockholder meeting,” she informed Sandy in a manner so professional it was downright scary.
“Stockholder meeting?” Sandy looked skeptically at Clark. “Aren’t you a reporter?”
“A stockholder meeting which Mr. Kent has been invited to cover,” Mercy lied smoothly. Clark was pretty impressed; the stockholder thing would inevitably always work for Lex, yet Mercy had managed to adapt it for him without even blinking. Mercy fixed Clark with an impatient stare. “Have you found your keys yet?”
Clark lunged for his keys and briefcase, catching her drift. “Got ‘em!”
“We’re already late then,” she snapped before smiling sweetly at Sandy. “If you could step aside, please.”
Sandy, looking rather forlorn, did so.
Clark fled after Mercy who, much to his chagrin, never broke into a run once. They escaped to Mercy’s car at long last, and Clark let out a huge sigh of relief when they pulled safely away from Clark’s building.
“That was annoying,” Mercy commented.
“She’ll be waiting for us to get back.”
“We’ll have to use Protocol 14, then.”
“Protocol 14?”
“Climb in through the window.”
“You couldn’t just say ‘climb in through the window’?”
“That tends to defeat the purpose of climbing in through the window, if the floozy you’re trying to avoid is within earshot.”
Clark snorted. “This happens to Lex a lot, I take it?”
Mercy rolled her eyes and pulled out onto Washington Avenue. Apparently, they were driving around first to add verisimilitude to Mercy’s story. Clark figured Lex and Mercy had gotten lots of practice being overly anal about adding elements of plausible deniability into all their lies. “You have no idea,” she sighed.
Clark grinned. “I’m just impressed that Lex finally learned how to say no.”
Mercy glared at him. “They’re not his type.”
“Like Vivian.”
“She’s definitely not his type.”
“Yeah, the blonde thing kind of freaks me out, too. I mean, has Lex ever dated a blonde before?”
Mercy blinked and repeated very slowly. “She is not his type.”
There was something weird about the emphasis there, like Clark was missing something. “I don’t know,” he finally retorted thoughtfully. “She’s an idiot, just like all his other wives.”
“An idiot?” Mercy pulled into Central Park and checked her watch. It seemed they were just going to sit there until their ‘meeting’ ran out. She smiled to herself and pulled out a PDA, checking off several items that Clark couldn’t quite make out. “I’ve called Lex’s wives many things, but never idiots. They usually nearly succeed in taking over the world…”
“They’re still idiots,” Clark insisted.
Mercy looked over at him skeptically.
“Well, they are!” he muttered, feeling somewhat sullen for having to defend his position. “Just think about it: they’re married to Lex, and the best thing they can think of to do is try to kill him for his money?”
“And power.”
Clark brushed that off dismissively. “It’s like getting a birthday present and throwing out the actual gift, just to keep the wrapping paper.”
Mercy blinked.
Clark was on a roll, now that his ire was up. “It’s insane! Nine women now have had a shot at having Lex, and they’ve all thrown him away for money and power? What are they thinking? They have the chance to fall asleep with Lex every night, wake up next to him every morning. They can touch him, kiss him, hold him, whenever they want. They can listen to his historical rants and tease him about all his silly scientific projects, and they don’t even have to break through his security to get to him.”
Mercy was staring at him, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, like he was crazy or something.
Clark blushed in response, suddenly realizing that maybe that speech of his had been a little weird. “I’m just saying,” he grumbled, slumping as far down in his seat as he could go. “They could have Lex. Some people would give anything for that. All his deranged ex-wives are too dumb to realize what they could have had.”
Mercy's left eye twitched.
“And that’s terrible!” Clark insisted.
Mercy coughed pointedly. “I’m going to work now.” She pointed to her PDA.
“Fine.” Clark opened the briefcase he’d grabbed on the way out. This seemed as good a time as any to write his article on the latest city council scandal.
He’d only been working for maybe five minutes though, when he caught Mercy studying him with a thoughtful expression out of the corner of his eye.
“What?” he demanded.
Mercy instantly turned back to her own work. “Nothing.”
“Well, all right then,” Clark huffed.
“Fine,” Mercy huffed right back.
“Fine.”
“Whatever.”
“You started it.”
“Will you shut up already?”
“I will when you- Ow!”
“Don’t blame me. You were asking for it.”
“Ow,” Clark insisted, sullenly rubbing his head.
Always remember, kiddies, it's immoral to lay eggs in someone's brain, unless you're married. Oh, and also, feedback. :P
Chapter Six
All Chapters
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark/Lex, Mercy
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 2,677, for this chapter
Spoilers/Warnings: Future fic, although some vague spoilers for S6.
Summary: Clark and Mercy team up to save Lex from his real arch-nemesis: marriage.
Note: I totally stole a joke from Superdickory.com for this chapter. And that's terrible.
Previously: Clark and Mercy are on a mission to save Lex from getting married...for the ninth time. Unfortunately, Lex's bride-to-be wields the mighty power of EMO, which causes Clark to turn into a wibbling mess. The only cure is for Mercy to pistol-whip him. Last chapter, Clark and Mercy finally cornered Vivian in a snooty boutique (which nearly did Clark in, all on its own), only to discover that Vivian's an alien who's entered her mating cycle (naturally named after Xanga) and is planning to lay eggs in Lex's brain which will hatch and eat it. So, basically, she's about middle-level evil when it comes to Lex's wives. :P The crack continues:
Still Two Fools
by Kantayra
Chapter Five
“Well, how else are the larvae going to hatch?” Vivian demanded testily, still struggling in Mercy’s grip.
Clark started coughing so hard he thought he was going to keel over and die. “You’re going to lay eggs in Lex’s brain?” he finally screeched in horror.
Vivian got a dreamy expression on her face. “He has such a nice, big, squishy brain. It should provide plenty of nourishment for our larvae.”
Mercy twisted Vivian’s arm extra hard for good measure.
“Ow!” Vivian exclaimed.
“I think this might be worse than the plague-controlling wife.” Clark was still coughing in disbelief.
“Hell, it might be worse than Lana.” Mercy shivered.
Vivian puffed up her chest in outrage. “It is a great honor for any mere human to host a clutch of Xthl’thz’nk eggs,” she insisted primly.
Clark started coughing again.
“Do you need me to hit you on the back?” Mercy demanded. The narrowing of her eyes let him know only too well that Mercy was looking forward to the opportunity, as was her Evil Kryptonite Laser.
Clark stopped coughing. “But why?” he demanded of Vivian instead.
“Why what?”
“Why marry Lex? Why not just…” He gesticulated wildly in a way that probably had very little to do with the mechanics of laying eggs in someone’s brain, but then what did he know?
Vivian let out an outraged exclamation. “Maybe on this sinful planet you do things that way. But on Xthl’thz’nk, we never lay eggs in the brain before marriage!”
“Oh, right. Of course. Because heaven forbid your brain-eating larvae should be bastards.” Clark wondered if he was going insane. He met Mercy’s gaze over Vivian’s shoulder. Since Mercy’s expression was pretty much identical to the way he felt, he fortified himself with the knowledge that, no, Vivian was the crazy one.
“Apology accepted,” Vivian granted smoothly.
“Then I guess there’s just one more question,” Clark concluded. “Why pick Lex? There have to be thousands of other eligible bachelors who would draw less attention.”
“I told you,” Vivian insisted. “His brain will provide ample sustenance for our larvae. And…”
“And?”
“Well, okay, fine,” Vivian grumbled. “And also for the money.”
Clark and Mercy breathed a collective sigh of relief as the universe restored itself to the proper order: Lex’s crazy wife wanted to kill him for his money. Sure, the plan detoured through a very bizarre spot with brain-eating, legitimate, alien larvae, but that was all secondary. Now it was just business as usual.
“We have to kill her,” Mercy concluded. Clark was pretty sure she tried to snap Vivian’s neck then and there, but it didn’t work.
“Hey!” Clark protested. “We can’t just murder someone like that!”
Mercy blinked at him in disbelief. “Did you miss the part where she wants to lay eggs in Lex’s brain?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Clark insisted, pulling the recorder from his pocket. “I’ve got this all on tape. When Lex hears it-”
“Of course he’ll be completely sane and reasonable. Like you were last night.”
“Hey!” Clark protested. “I was fine until you pistol-whipped me!”
“You were blubbering!”
Clark glared at Mercy. Mercy glared at Clark. Things were pleasantly normal for a few moments and then, somehow, Vivian used Mercy’s distraction to break free.
Mercy lashed out instantly, her foot connecting with the side of Vivian’s head. The blow did nothing, and Mercy let out a startled shriek as Vivian caught her by the foot and threw her headlong into the far wall.
Clark caught her in an instant, but Vivian swiveled somehow so that her lips were right against his ear and whispered, “He doesn’t love you. He’s never loved you.”
Clark fell to the floor, crying, head cradled in his hands as he rocked back and forth.
With a self-satisfied little huff, Vivian straightened her dress. She twisted the doorknob savagely, effectively ruining Clark’s makeshift weld-job from earlier, and walked right out of the boutique. Clark could hear her limo drive away…
“Just like Lex is driving out of my life!” he wailed in abject woe.
Across the room, Mercy regained consciousness and groaned. “Not again! I’m going to kill that bitch…”
“B-But Lex loves her!” Clark protested.
“Have you already forgotten the part where she’s trying to lay eggs in his brain?”
“You know,” Clark countered sanctimoniously, “you may be good at guarding Lex’s body, but you suck at guarding his heart!”
“God, kill me now…” Mercy’s head fell down into her palms.
Clark sniffled some more. “So, are you going to fix me or what?”
Mercy’s gaze turned wicked.
“Not the Kryptonite!” he requested feebly.
She pistol-butted him with the Phantom Zone Laser. Clark suspected that Mercy was actually beginning to like him.
***
Lex Luthor let out a shriek of alarm when he was lifted off the pavement on his way out of the LexCorp Labs division on 48th Street. The shriek quickly turned to vivid vituperation and the usual round of death threats. Clark was pretty sure that Kryptonite couldn’t actually do what Lex had promised in that last one, but he winced anyway.
He finally set Lex down, squirming against Clark in a way that was actually kind of pleasant, atop the Daily Planet. It was safest that way; Lex couldn’t run for the fire escape without having to pass dozens of floors of reporters on his way out. If there was one thing Lex hated more than Superman, it was reporters.
“Thanks ever so for the unwanted detour,” Lex snapped, nervously readjusting his suit. “The assassination attempt on my fiancée was also appreciated.”
Clark held his hands up defensively. “That was all Mercy. I just wanted to talk.”
“And where is Mercy now?” Lex’s eyes flicked about the rooftop systematically.
“Out.”
“Out?”
“She said this was a bad idea. So I waited until she went out.”
“And then kidnapped me.”
“Well, yeah. Kinda.”
Lex gave him a very unamused little smile. “What do you want, Kal-El?”
Clark took a step closer. Lex didn’t step back. Clark’s cape billowed around them both, almost like it was trying to tangle them together. “Vivian’s trying to kill you. You can’t marry her.”
“Oh?” Lex raised one perfectly skeptical eyebrow and stepped into Clark’s personal space so that their faces were only inches apart. “Prove it.”
Clark held up the tape recorder and hit play. Lex listened to Vivian’s entire recorded confession with a supremely disinterested expression on his face. Clark finally hit stop after the conversation deteriorated to the sounds of Mercy getting beaten up and him blubbering. Lex’s eyes met his in time with the click of the stop button, sharp and intense all of a sudden.
“So you’re calling off the wedding, right?” Clark demanded.
“Because she’s trying to kill me for my money?” Lex countered.
Clark frowned. It seemed like Lex was…searching for something in his eyes, but Clark didn’t have the foggiest idea what that might be. “Do you really need a better reason?”
Lex pursed his lips and considered that like it was a very interesting and deep question. “What other alternative do I have?” he finally asked.
“Uh… Not to have evil alien eggs hatching in your brain?”
“Hmm.” Lex’s head tilted to one side, and he looked up at Clark through half-closed eyelids. “Do you honestly believe that I can do better?”
“Uh…” Clark’s knee-jerk reaction was to say yes, because how could anyone do worse? But then he remembered Lex’s track record, and the evidence seemed to be against him.
“At least this one wants me for my brain.”
Clark’s fingers itched like there was really something he should be doing right now. “And your money,” he reminded Lex.
“Who doesn’t want me for my money?” Lex’s eyes took on that impossible intensity that had reduced Clark to a fumbling idiot throughout all his teenage years. It turned out Lex’s gaze could still do that to him.
He couldn’t think of a damn thing to say.
“I thought as much,” Lex said half to himself. He turned and headed for the rooftop entrance.
“Wait, there are reporters down there. Let me fly you home.” Clark’s words came back to him in a rush now that it was too late.
Lex snorted. “What would be the point?” And shut the door behind him.
Clark stared, completely flummoxed, at the closed door before he finally took off back to his apartment. Obviously, Vivian was controlling Lex’s mind and making him entirely irrational. There was absolutely nothing else at play here. Clark would break Vivian’s hold over Lex, and then Lex would be free, and they could go back to hating each other as per usual. Simple and easy.
Right?
Right.
***
“We are not pistol-butting Lex!”
“It works on me,” Clark insisted.
“Yeah, but you’re not my boss. It kind of defeats the point of me being Lex’s bodyguard, if I beat him up.”
“Now you’re just being ridiculous. It’s the only way we’ve found to break Vivian’s mind-control.”
Mercy considered that. “Beating her up seemed to help. Physical pain must break the telepathic link somehow.”
“Yeah, where ‘somehow’ means that I’m too busy thinking ‘ow!’ to be affected,” Clark shot back.
“We should just kill her to be on the safe side.”
“If we kill her, then we’re no better than…” Clark trailed off.
Mercy put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot impatiently.
The ‘we’re no better than Lex’ speech kind of didn’t work when he was talking to Lex’s own private security force. Clark made note of that for any future debates.
“Fine,” Clark concluded. “Then how do we bring Lex back to his senses?”
Strategy time was interrupted by a knock on Clark’s door. Clark froze, eyes wide, as he x-rayed through the wood paneling to find that - holy shit! - Sandy The Downstairs Neighbor From Hell was out there and had him cornered.
“Don’t open the-!” Clark began to warn Mercy.
Too late, though. Mercy had opened the door.
On the other side, Sandy froze, mid-knock, looking thoroughly startled at the sight of Mercy. Then, her eyes narrowed to slits. “Who are you?” she demanded angrily.
Maybe Clark was feeling suicidal after his attempt to talk some sense into Lex had failed, or maybe he was just an opportunist and completely out of his mind. Whatever the case, some crazy part of him decided to go for it.
“Hey, Sandy, this is Mercy.” He looped an arm around Mercy’s shoulders causing her to jump about six inches off the ground. “Mercy, my neighbor Sandy.”
Sandy’s eyes narrowed to a precision that could sear a hole right through Mercy’s forehead.
Mercy’s expression was almost identical, except she was trying to burn a flaming hole through Clark’s hand on her shoulder. “Move it or lose it,” she informed him icily.
Clark’s hand snapped back instantly.
Sandy smiled in triumph.
Clark gulped.
“I was wondering if you could do me a favor?” She fluttered her eyelashes at him. “The ceiling light in my bedroom has gone out, and I can’t reach it. I hope you don’t mind. Especially since I let you use my computer yesterday.”
Inwardly, Clark was screaming.
To his complete and unabashed surprise, Mercy stepped in to save the day. “We’re already late for an important stockholder meeting,” she informed Sandy in a manner so professional it was downright scary.
“Stockholder meeting?” Sandy looked skeptically at Clark. “Aren’t you a reporter?”
“A stockholder meeting which Mr. Kent has been invited to cover,” Mercy lied smoothly. Clark was pretty impressed; the stockholder thing would inevitably always work for Lex, yet Mercy had managed to adapt it for him without even blinking. Mercy fixed Clark with an impatient stare. “Have you found your keys yet?”
Clark lunged for his keys and briefcase, catching her drift. “Got ‘em!”
“We’re already late then,” she snapped before smiling sweetly at Sandy. “If you could step aside, please.”
Sandy, looking rather forlorn, did so.
Clark fled after Mercy who, much to his chagrin, never broke into a run once. They escaped to Mercy’s car at long last, and Clark let out a huge sigh of relief when they pulled safely away from Clark’s building.
“That was annoying,” Mercy commented.
“She’ll be waiting for us to get back.”
“We’ll have to use Protocol 14, then.”
“Protocol 14?”
“Climb in through the window.”
“You couldn’t just say ‘climb in through the window’?”
“That tends to defeat the purpose of climbing in through the window, if the floozy you’re trying to avoid is within earshot.”
Clark snorted. “This happens to Lex a lot, I take it?”
Mercy rolled her eyes and pulled out onto Washington Avenue. Apparently, they were driving around first to add verisimilitude to Mercy’s story. Clark figured Lex and Mercy had gotten lots of practice being overly anal about adding elements of plausible deniability into all their lies. “You have no idea,” she sighed.
Clark grinned. “I’m just impressed that Lex finally learned how to say no.”
Mercy glared at him. “They’re not his type.”
“Like Vivian.”
“She’s definitely not his type.”
“Yeah, the blonde thing kind of freaks me out, too. I mean, has Lex ever dated a blonde before?”
Mercy blinked and repeated very slowly. “She is not his type.”
There was something weird about the emphasis there, like Clark was missing something. “I don’t know,” he finally retorted thoughtfully. “She’s an idiot, just like all his other wives.”
“An idiot?” Mercy pulled into Central Park and checked her watch. It seemed they were just going to sit there until their ‘meeting’ ran out. She smiled to herself and pulled out a PDA, checking off several items that Clark couldn’t quite make out. “I’ve called Lex’s wives many things, but never idiots. They usually nearly succeed in taking over the world…”
“They’re still idiots,” Clark insisted.
Mercy looked over at him skeptically.
“Well, they are!” he muttered, feeling somewhat sullen for having to defend his position. “Just think about it: they’re married to Lex, and the best thing they can think of to do is try to kill him for his money?”
“And power.”
Clark brushed that off dismissively. “It’s like getting a birthday present and throwing out the actual gift, just to keep the wrapping paper.”
Mercy blinked.
Clark was on a roll, now that his ire was up. “It’s insane! Nine women now have had a shot at having Lex, and they’ve all thrown him away for money and power? What are they thinking? They have the chance to fall asleep with Lex every night, wake up next to him every morning. They can touch him, kiss him, hold him, whenever they want. They can listen to his historical rants and tease him about all his silly scientific projects, and they don’t even have to break through his security to get to him.”
Mercy was staring at him, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, like he was crazy or something.
Clark blushed in response, suddenly realizing that maybe that speech of his had been a little weird. “I’m just saying,” he grumbled, slumping as far down in his seat as he could go. “They could have Lex. Some people would give anything for that. All his deranged ex-wives are too dumb to realize what they could have had.”
Mercy's left eye twitched.
“And that’s terrible!” Clark insisted.
Mercy coughed pointedly. “I’m going to work now.” She pointed to her PDA.
“Fine.” Clark opened the briefcase he’d grabbed on the way out. This seemed as good a time as any to write his article on the latest city council scandal.
He’d only been working for maybe five minutes though, when he caught Mercy studying him with a thoughtful expression out of the corner of his eye.
“What?” he demanded.
Mercy instantly turned back to her own work. “Nothing.”
“Well, all right then,” Clark huffed.
“Fine,” Mercy huffed right back.
“Fine.”
“Whatever.”
“You started it.”
“Will you shut up already?”
“I will when you- Ow!”
“Don’t blame me. You were asking for it.”
“Ow,” Clark insisted, sullenly rubbing his head.
Always remember, kiddies, it's immoral to lay eggs in someone's brain, unless you're married. Oh, and also, feedback. :P
Chapter Six
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