Fic: Stranger Than Fiction - Smallville, Clex, PG-13, post-Season 10
Title: Stranger Than Fiction
Fandom: Smallville
Author: nevcolleil
Pairing: Clark/Lex (Clex)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In response to this prompt: President Lex Luthor is outwardly hostile towards Superman... at least until his security advisors reveal that people are writing Lex/Superman RPS. (Post Season 10; minimal spoilers)
It's when even Mercy - in her own, indirect way - begins suggesting that he play down his animosity towards the alien impostor that Lex knows something is up.
Mercy has no problem with animosity. Lex's, shall we say, abrasive approach to relations with Superman would be considered saintly next to how Mercy would handle things if she were in a position of national authority.
'Colonoscopy with a pair of Kryptonite gloves' would, in fact, not be overstating things a bit.
Mercy's also not one to promote playing nice for the sake of politics. For every Kal El-loving, Kryptonese-spouting Superman fan amongst the voting public in America, there are one or two extraterrestrial-fearing Conservatives who want Lex to play as dirty as he can to keep the Man of So-Called Steel toe-ing the line. Mercy knows this.
So whatever cause Mercy has to want to ratchet down the tension between himself and Superman, at least where the public eye can see, must concern Lex on some level far more critical than the ethical or political.
Finally, Lex demands that Mercy explain her motivations.
She is frighteningly uncomfortable preparing that explanation.
At last, she simply opens a number of browsers on a requested tablet, directs each of them to select URL's, and then hands the tablet to Lex with a look on her face like she is accusing him of having sired a Kryptonian love child.
After he's finished going over the reading material that Mercy has given him... Lex will not appreciate the irony of his having had this thought. The third web browser Mercy prepared for him she dedicated solely to a search for what Lex will soon know as 'mpreg'.
Lex spends an hour reading from Mercy's tablet.
Then he throws an armchair out his sitting room window.
Next, he puts a bill into the works that is going to have Congress sitting in special sessions for months. Because irritating his fellow politicians with radical legislation is Lex's favorite way to blow off steam next to tossing furniture out of the penthouse.
Afterwards, he returns to reading and thus begins a new age in the era of President Lex Luthor and Superman.
Because what his voting public has created and he has read puts Lex into a different way of looking at things like threats, petty grievances, and clashes of personality couldn't possibly.
--~--
It's after Lex hasn't signed off on anything morally ambiguous, secretly instigated anything quite clearly ethically lacking, or verbally berated Superman even once on camera for over six weeks that Kal El gets with the program as well.
A solid thud and what feels like a small-scale earthquake - localized to the penthouse floor of Lex's building - announce the alien's arrival, and Lex bravely walks out to meet him on the balcony, rather than running for his Kryptonite ring as instinct wisely tells him he should.
Superman doesn't look any different to Lex, after everything.
His is the same narrowed, blue gaze that has judged and struggled, in vain, to pierce Lex before. His chiseled jaw is clenched just as tight in righteous anger and hypocrisy as it's ever been; his handsome face looks just as angry-
Well... Perhaps Lex sees the Kryptonian a bit differently than he did before.
Or else his vocabulary's been corrupted by his recent reading selections.
But their situation- The situation in which Lex and the alien find themselves: Lex sees that, most certainly, in a different light. And so when Superman bellows, "Luthor! I know you're up to-" Lex doesn't let him finish his accusation or, indeed, respond to it at all.
He steps forward - as if he isn't taking his very life into his own hands - like he couldn't feel more casual, or pleased, about having Kal El in his private residence. He smiles like he's smiling at a lover, and poses next to the French doors he's left open specifically for the purpose of luring Superman down.
Ankles crossed... hands in pants pockets. On film - "if" this were being filmed - it would look like Lex has been waiting for the Son of Krypton to arrive in just this way. Like Superman has a standing invitation...
Lex should know. He's been practicing with his photographers for days.
His change in attitude immediately shocks Superman dumb. ('Like that's so hard to do,' Lex thinks, on reflex, then makes himself behave.)
"Hello, Clark," Lex says calmly, taking a chance on something he's read.
Kal El stumbles as if he's been struck.
"What- What did you just say?"
But beneath the horror plastered, almost comically, across the alien's face, there is a look of something strangely like hope in his expression, and Lex figures he was right not to put too much faith in something speculated about in fanfiction.
"Nevermind," he recovers smoothly. "Would you like to come in, Kal El? I assume you're here to talk. Not just to act out some peculiar aggression against Italian floor tile?" Lex can't help but mention the shattered tile work beneath Superman's ostentatiously booted feet.
Lex leads the way inside to his sitting room, some of his anxiety giving way to amusement at how Superman looks around him at the open, airy room. Lex has had the window he damaged repaired. The usually drawn curtains are pulled back, allowing sunshine to spill into this normally dark and private area.
The Kryptonian stares like Lex has splattered human entrails over every surface.
"Okay, Le- Luthor. What the hell is going on?"
If Lex had known that such a dreadfully understated - and yet obviously insidious - tactic would work so well at disarming his moderately unflappable nemesis, he might have tried this route much sooner.
In keeping with that idea, he does exactly the opposite of what he might have done before he'd been enlightened, and does not dissemble, relying on Superman to work his way to the truth for himself.
Lex tells Superman exactly what's going on.
"What's going on," Lex says, "is I've decided to give my constituents what, apparently, the majority of literate 18 - 35 year-olds in this country really want."
Kal El regards him unblinking.
Lex could continue in a more couth fashion, but he wants to see if he can make Mr. Faster Than a Speeding Bullet stutter again. So he goes for it.
Sinking into an armchair within reaching distance of a small wet bar, Lex looks Superman straight the eyes and pretends that his heart isn't thudding so loudly that the alien - even without his super hearing - would no doubt be able to hear it.
"People think we're doing it, Kal El.I want to give them evidence that they're right."
Superman's reaction is really rather disappointing.
At least at first.
He doesn't react.
"Doing... it? Doing what, Luthor?" the Kryptonian asks, growing more and more irate and attractively self-righteously impassioned as he goes on. "Whatever lies you're planning to spread about me? Most of the American public know not to believe that I'd ever collaborate with you on any sort of shady-"
"Oh, for fuck's sake, Superman..." The alien's obliviousness (or maybe denial) is actually almost cute, but it's new to Lex to think any such thing about his self-professed enemy, so he just rolls his eyes with a huff of annoyance and says, "I know you have a better grasp of human colloquallisms than that. Sex, Kal El. People think we're having sex. But don't want anyone to know about it, hence the "pretending" to hate one another in front of the public eye."
Now this reaction... was worth waiting for.
Superman blinks. Something he almost seems to purposefully avoid doing whenever Lex is in his sights. And then he-
Well. 'Freaks out' isn't a term Lex would ever have thought he'd think about an inhuman being with destructive capabilities surpassing that of the world's most deadly of bombs, but in the moment he really can't think of a phrase better suited to this reality.
"People think what?"
"That we're having sex."
"Because we hate each other?"
"They think we're only pretending to hate each other because we're actually having sex." 'Actually...' Lex considers, and then decides he might as well correct himself: "Or, to be more exact, some people think that we're pretending to hate one another because we're secretly having sex."
"Okay..."
"And the others think we only believe that we hate each other because we secretly want to have sex but can't bring ourselves to admit it."
There's an armchair much like the one Lex is sitting in near to where Superman is standing.
He stumbles into it.
This is perhaps one of the most bizarre and humiliating conversations that Lex has ever had, and yet he finds himself almost enjoying it.
"That- That is..."
"RPS," Lex says, voicing the acronym that best sums up the root of his new take on alien invader management. Then he gives into the urge he's been fighting all afternoon and fixes himself a scotch at the wet bar.
"RP-"
"S. Short for 'real person slash'. Slash as in Lex Luthor slash Kal El. Or, more typically, Superman. The slash denotes a 'pairing', which could technically mean 'of any two or more persons' but seems to have the connotation of referring exclusively to the pairing of two or more same-gender people when it comes to fanfiction."
"I don't understand."
Lex tosses back his drink in one go and fixes himself another.
"The tablet sitting on the coffee table?" Lex turns to see that Superman has found it. "Read the web pages open in the browser."
Thank god Kryptonians can read at the speed that most humans can only skim.
After only a handful of minutes, Kal El is up to speed. And while Lex attributed the series of scandalized facial expressions, gasps, and exclamations of dismay to come from the Kryptonian as he read to discomfort with the subject of his reading, Lex isn't surprised when Superman's first protest isn't about the indecency, inaccuracy, or - even, in some cases - physical impossibility of the fiction Lex's introduced him to...
Superman's first word of protest is an accusation. Against Lex as the author of this madness.
"You've done a lot of crazy... unkind, sometimes downright cruel things over the years, Luthor," Superman says in a voice like his petname. Steel. He sets the tablet down carefully. "But this is going too far."
Superman, Lex is amused to see, is blushing.
Make that, Lex is amused until he realizes that Superman's eyes look almost as red as his face.
The scotch glass in Lex's hand shakes before he can control his reactions, though control them he does. But in his momentary loss of cool, Lex regresses to old habits.
Regardless of how unsurprising Superman's suspicion might be, Lex glares at him with all the indignant fury of a wronged choir boy.
"Excuse me? And just what would I stand to gain from orchestrating something like this." The last thing Lex wants to talk about are the actual details of the amatuer fiction Mercy made him aware of. But if it will help him debunk the alien menace's conspiracy theory-
"Do you realize how many of the stories that have been written about us portray me as the submissive participant in our sexual encounters?"
"Oh, god, stop talking."
Superman flusters in a way that Lex has never seen. He closes his eyes and covers his face with his hands.
It's fascinating and oddly... familiar? It makes no sense that the sight of the big alien squirming in his seat - not in pain, but in a sort of boy-like embarrassment - should comfort Lex, but nonetheless. This is a Superman that Lex has never seen, and yet it feels like Lex is seeing the real him for the first time in memory.
Lex doesn't stop to analyze the feeling past its surface, but that isn't to say that he doesn't explore it. He is, after all, a scientist at heart.
"I'd say that at least half of them eventually devolve into scenes involving me on my knees," Lex says, holding onto the newly full glass of liquor in his hand like it's his life line. "Or begging you to-"
"I said, stop!"
Superman's head raises and-
And he shoots a laser beam out of his eyes. At Lex. It hits his scotch, instantly heating the glass to the point that Lex has dropped it, burned, before it explodes, the liquor inside carmelized into a syrupy residue and then evaporated.
Only the look on the Kryptonian's face, as he realizes what he's done and Lex tries to breathe, stops this from being the act of war that Lex would once have taken it to be.
Kal El's eyes are wide. He doesn't look angry - pushed to an act of violence by extreme discomfort and rage. He looks surprised. Sheepish. Apologetic.
Possibly, he has entirely forgotten who he is looking at. Superman has destroyed entire installations bearing LuthorCorp names, and yet he looks humiliated and sorry for having exploded one of Lex's drinking glasses.
"Oh, shit," Superman says, another shocking development. "I- I haven't done that in- I just wasn't expecting- Le- Luthor, I'm-"
Only the arrival of Mercy and her security team interrupts the alien from saying what Lex thinks he was about to say, and Lex is actually glad for it.
As much as he would have thought that he would revel in that word, out of Superman's mouth (not that Lex has ever believed that he would hear it) he doesn't think that he could tolerate it just now. Things are already too surreal.
Mercy and her men stop just inside of the sitting room, Mercy - Lex doesn't doubt - cursing herself for letting Lex talk her into waiting on a lower floor while he and Superman have their tete a tete.
Lex hadn't wanted anyone barging in on what might have otherwise been a perfect shot - hence his trusting his life to his security cameras and Mercy's excellent response time - and he waves Mercy back now.
Superman crossed the room in a blink upon realizing that he'd nearly lasered Lex's hand off.
He's on his knees at Lex's feet, as if checking up close to see that he hadn't actually injured Lex, when Mercy storms in, and he only rises to his feet after she and the security team have arrived on, and reluctantly exited, the scene.
As his heart rate returns to normal, Lex finds himself comparatively pleased.
If none of his photographers got that shot, Lex is going to have them all killed.
It would work wonders at quelling some of the speculations that have been made about the dominant/submissive nature of his "relationship" with the Kryptonian.
"It's quite alright," Lex says, standing as well. "It's a lot to take in. I demolished an arm chair, a wall of plate glass, and a sedan that just happened to unfortunately be parked beneath the Towers at the time just after I read my first piece."
He wonders if maybe he has forgotten who he's talking to, as well. He hadn't meant to share all that, although now that he has it's too late to take it back.
Superman's lips twitch almost as if the alien might smile at him.
Lex's plan is yielding strange and surprisingly non-destructive consequences that grow all the more strange with every passing moment.
"I don't really understand," Kal El says, struggling visibly to regain his bearings. He paces, noticably avoiding the remains of Lex's scotch glass. Lex gets the feeling he's pacing just to put some space between their bodies.
He can understand the feeling. After over a month of reading about his imaginary sex life with Superman, seeing the alien on his knees - under whatever circumstance, for whatever fleeting moment in time - in the center of Lex' sitting room has wreaked some havoc on Lex's sense of calm (nevermind his libido).
"If you didn't do this, why are you showing it to me, Luthor? What does it have to do with how quiet you've been lately?"
"I told you, I-"
"You want to give the people proof, I heard you. But why?"
As much as he is loathe to put himself in the crosshairs of that deadly blue gaze again (whatever Lex's dick might think about being in Superman's proximity) Lex walks into Kal El's path before he can pace back across the sitting room again and faces the handsome face that is so normal-looking and conflicted and, Lex is still certain, deceitful.
"Because if there's one thing I've learned about popular opinion over the years, Superman," Lex says, "it's that you can't stop it. You can't do much to change it. All you can do is try to influence it in your favor and learn to harness the outcome of that influence to the best of your ability."
"And how exactly do you plan to "harness" the popular opinion that we're- that we're secretly having sex with each other?" Superman asks. Watching the impervious being stammer over the word sex is worth every shard of broken glass on Lex's scorched carpet, he's sure.
"By refusing to continue being characterized as the dirty secret who lashes out at you in a fit of unrequited sexual tension," Lex explains, "or screams invectives because I'm too much of a coward to say what I'd really like to say."
Kal El is staring at him with a look in his guarded eyes that Lex couldn't possibly interpret.
"Which is?" Superman asks, and Lex's heart jumps for no reason at all.
They're talking about fiction, after all.
"I'll leave it to our adoring public to write the romantic dialogue," Lex says, as casually as he can manage. "I just want to give them the occasional, appropriate inspirational fodder."
If the world at large is going to think that he'd willingly sleep with with an alien, no matter what he does, then Lex would rather that they think his attraction is fully requitted and not at all something for which he would willingfully sacrifice his dignity.
Lex Luthor gets on his knees for no man, alien or otherwise.
"I'm even willing to delay certain projects that have been points of contention between the two of us in the past for the sake of rehabilitating our image," Lex admits, trying not to bristle at the way Superman visibly perks up at this.
Then suspicion finds its way again, inevitably, into the Kryptonian's expression.
"And what do you expect me from me in return?"
Lex tries not to smirk. The way Superman swallows and his eyes flicker, for the slightest fraction of a second, down Lex's body, Lex could almost allow to alter his answer.
But instead he says, "I wouldn't say no to a little less LuthorCorp property damage." Still, he takes a step closer to his nemesis-cum-reluctant-partner in spinning the public perspective. "And the rare sound bite that doesn't paint me to be an absolute villain would be nice."
Really, though - Lex suddenly decides - he would probably settle for just the occasional repeat of this.
And by 'this', Lex means Superman's shocked acquiescence when Lex reaches a hand up to wrap around the back of Kal El's neck and pull the alien's face down so that's it level with his.
Lex kisses him. He puts everything he's got into making it his most persuasive, most heated (and most photogenic) kiss yet.
When he pulls back, Superman looks like he did that one time he almost stumbled into a vat of molten Kryptonite in one of Lex's ill-fated warehouses.
For a second, the memory - and the taste on Lex's lips - make Lex glad that the alien has such an unparalleled sense of balance.
"Oh, and if you could not go all avenging alien superhero on my photographers when these pictures go to print, I'd really appreciate it," Lex says.
Superman blinks again. "What?"
Lex decides this is a good time to check back in with Mercy and plan his reaction speech to tomorrow's tabloids.
"Goodbye, Kal El. I'm heading back to D.C. in a couple of days. If you want to stop by once I'm there, just call ahead. I'll have Mercy turn off the defense lasers long enough for you to get inside the perimeter."
"Luthor!"
Half-way back across the sitting room, towards the elevator, Lex turns and gives Superman what he hopes is a cocky-looking smile.
"Oh, and Superman? You can call me Lex, if you'd like. You do in all of the books."
[and thus ends this particular work of utter crack :p]
Fandom: Smallville
Author: nevcolleil
Pairing: Clark/Lex (Clex)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In response to this prompt: President Lex Luthor is outwardly hostile towards Superman... at least until his security advisors reveal that people are writing Lex/Superman RPS. (Post Season 10; minimal spoilers)
It's when even Mercy - in her own, indirect way - begins suggesting that he play down his animosity towards the alien impostor that Lex knows something is up.
Mercy has no problem with animosity. Lex's, shall we say, abrasive approach to relations with Superman would be considered saintly next to how Mercy would handle things if she were in a position of national authority.
'Colonoscopy with a pair of Kryptonite gloves' would, in fact, not be overstating things a bit.
Mercy's also not one to promote playing nice for the sake of politics. For every Kal El-loving, Kryptonese-spouting Superman fan amongst the voting public in America, there are one or two extraterrestrial-fearing Conservatives who want Lex to play as dirty as he can to keep the Man of So-Called Steel toe-ing the line. Mercy knows this.
So whatever cause Mercy has to want to ratchet down the tension between himself and Superman, at least where the public eye can see, must concern Lex on some level far more critical than the ethical or political.
Finally, Lex demands that Mercy explain her motivations.
She is frighteningly uncomfortable preparing that explanation.
At last, she simply opens a number of browsers on a requested tablet, directs each of them to select URL's, and then hands the tablet to Lex with a look on her face like she is accusing him of having sired a Kryptonian love child.
After he's finished going over the reading material that Mercy has given him... Lex will not appreciate the irony of his having had this thought. The third web browser Mercy prepared for him she dedicated solely to a search for what Lex will soon know as 'mpreg'.
Lex spends an hour reading from Mercy's tablet.
Then he throws an armchair out his sitting room window.
Next, he puts a bill into the works that is going to have Congress sitting in special sessions for months. Because irritating his fellow politicians with radical legislation is Lex's favorite way to blow off steam next to tossing furniture out of the penthouse.
Afterwards, he returns to reading and thus begins a new age in the era of President Lex Luthor and Superman.
Because what his voting public has created and he has read puts Lex into a different way of looking at things like threats, petty grievances, and clashes of personality couldn't possibly.
--~--
It's after Lex hasn't signed off on anything morally ambiguous, secretly instigated anything quite clearly ethically lacking, or verbally berated Superman even once on camera for over six weeks that Kal El gets with the program as well.
A solid thud and what feels like a small-scale earthquake - localized to the penthouse floor of Lex's building - announce the alien's arrival, and Lex bravely walks out to meet him on the balcony, rather than running for his Kryptonite ring as instinct wisely tells him he should.
Superman doesn't look any different to Lex, after everything.
His is the same narrowed, blue gaze that has judged and struggled, in vain, to pierce Lex before. His chiseled jaw is clenched just as tight in righteous anger and hypocrisy as it's ever been; his handsome face looks just as angry-
Well... Perhaps Lex sees the Kryptonian a bit differently than he did before.
Or else his vocabulary's been corrupted by his recent reading selections.
But their situation- The situation in which Lex and the alien find themselves: Lex sees that, most certainly, in a different light. And so when Superman bellows, "Luthor! I know you're up to-" Lex doesn't let him finish his accusation or, indeed, respond to it at all.
He steps forward - as if he isn't taking his very life into his own hands - like he couldn't feel more casual, or pleased, about having Kal El in his private residence. He smiles like he's smiling at a lover, and poses next to the French doors he's left open specifically for the purpose of luring Superman down.
Ankles crossed... hands in pants pockets. On film - "if" this were being filmed - it would look like Lex has been waiting for the Son of Krypton to arrive in just this way. Like Superman has a standing invitation...
Lex should know. He's been practicing with his photographers for days.
His change in attitude immediately shocks Superman dumb. ('Like that's so hard to do,' Lex thinks, on reflex, then makes himself behave.)
"Hello, Clark," Lex says calmly, taking a chance on something he's read.
Kal El stumbles as if he's been struck.
"What- What did you just say?"
But beneath the horror plastered, almost comically, across the alien's face, there is a look of something strangely like hope in his expression, and Lex figures he was right not to put too much faith in something speculated about in fanfiction.
"Nevermind," he recovers smoothly. "Would you like to come in, Kal El? I assume you're here to talk. Not just to act out some peculiar aggression against Italian floor tile?" Lex can't help but mention the shattered tile work beneath Superman's ostentatiously booted feet.
Lex leads the way inside to his sitting room, some of his anxiety giving way to amusement at how Superman looks around him at the open, airy room. Lex has had the window he damaged repaired. The usually drawn curtains are pulled back, allowing sunshine to spill into this normally dark and private area.
The Kryptonian stares like Lex has splattered human entrails over every surface.
"Okay, Le- Luthor. What the hell is going on?"
If Lex had known that such a dreadfully understated - and yet obviously insidious - tactic would work so well at disarming his moderately unflappable nemesis, he might have tried this route much sooner.
In keeping with that idea, he does exactly the opposite of what he might have done before he'd been enlightened, and does not dissemble, relying on Superman to work his way to the truth for himself.
Lex tells Superman exactly what's going on.
"What's going on," Lex says, "is I've decided to give my constituents what, apparently, the majority of literate 18 - 35 year-olds in this country really want."
Kal El regards him unblinking.
Lex could continue in a more couth fashion, but he wants to see if he can make Mr. Faster Than a Speeding Bullet stutter again. So he goes for it.
Sinking into an armchair within reaching distance of a small wet bar, Lex looks Superman straight the eyes and pretends that his heart isn't thudding so loudly that the alien - even without his super hearing - would no doubt be able to hear it.
"People think we're doing it, Kal El.I want to give them evidence that they're right."
Superman's reaction is really rather disappointing.
At least at first.
He doesn't react.
"Doing... it? Doing what, Luthor?" the Kryptonian asks, growing more and more irate and attractively self-righteously impassioned as he goes on. "Whatever lies you're planning to spread about me? Most of the American public know not to believe that I'd ever collaborate with you on any sort of shady-"
"Oh, for fuck's sake, Superman..." The alien's obliviousness (or maybe denial) is actually almost cute, but it's new to Lex to think any such thing about his self-professed enemy, so he just rolls his eyes with a huff of annoyance and says, "I know you have a better grasp of human colloquallisms than that. Sex, Kal El. People think we're having sex. But don't want anyone to know about it, hence the "pretending" to hate one another in front of the public eye."
Now this reaction... was worth waiting for.
Superman blinks. Something he almost seems to purposefully avoid doing whenever Lex is in his sights. And then he-
Well. 'Freaks out' isn't a term Lex would ever have thought he'd think about an inhuman being with destructive capabilities surpassing that of the world's most deadly of bombs, but in the moment he really can't think of a phrase better suited to this reality.
"People think what?"
"That we're having sex."
"Because we hate each other?"
"They think we're only pretending to hate each other because we're actually having sex." 'Actually...' Lex considers, and then decides he might as well correct himself: "Or, to be more exact, some people think that we're pretending to hate one another because we're secretly having sex."
"Okay..."
"And the others think we only believe that we hate each other because we secretly want to have sex but can't bring ourselves to admit it."
There's an armchair much like the one Lex is sitting in near to where Superman is standing.
He stumbles into it.
This is perhaps one of the most bizarre and humiliating conversations that Lex has ever had, and yet he finds himself almost enjoying it.
"That- That is..."
"RPS," Lex says, voicing the acronym that best sums up the root of his new take on alien invader management. Then he gives into the urge he's been fighting all afternoon and fixes himself a scotch at the wet bar.
"RP-"
"S. Short for 'real person slash'. Slash as in Lex Luthor slash Kal El. Or, more typically, Superman. The slash denotes a 'pairing', which could technically mean 'of any two or more persons' but seems to have the connotation of referring exclusively to the pairing of two or more same-gender people when it comes to fanfiction."
"I don't understand."
Lex tosses back his drink in one go and fixes himself another.
"The tablet sitting on the coffee table?" Lex turns to see that Superman has found it. "Read the web pages open in the browser."
Thank god Kryptonians can read at the speed that most humans can only skim.
After only a handful of minutes, Kal El is up to speed. And while Lex attributed the series of scandalized facial expressions, gasps, and exclamations of dismay to come from the Kryptonian as he read to discomfort with the subject of his reading, Lex isn't surprised when Superman's first protest isn't about the indecency, inaccuracy, or - even, in some cases - physical impossibility of the fiction Lex's introduced him to...
Superman's first word of protest is an accusation. Against Lex as the author of this madness.
"You've done a lot of crazy... unkind, sometimes downright cruel things over the years, Luthor," Superman says in a voice like his petname. Steel. He sets the tablet down carefully. "But this is going too far."
Superman, Lex is amused to see, is blushing.
Make that, Lex is amused until he realizes that Superman's eyes look almost as red as his face.
The scotch glass in Lex's hand shakes before he can control his reactions, though control them he does. But in his momentary loss of cool, Lex regresses to old habits.
Regardless of how unsurprising Superman's suspicion might be, Lex glares at him with all the indignant fury of a wronged choir boy.
"Excuse me? And just what would I stand to gain from orchestrating something like this." The last thing Lex wants to talk about are the actual details of the amatuer fiction Mercy made him aware of. But if it will help him debunk the alien menace's conspiracy theory-
"Do you realize how many of the stories that have been written about us portray me as the submissive participant in our sexual encounters?"
"Oh, god, stop talking."
Superman flusters in a way that Lex has never seen. He closes his eyes and covers his face with his hands.
It's fascinating and oddly... familiar? It makes no sense that the sight of the big alien squirming in his seat - not in pain, but in a sort of boy-like embarrassment - should comfort Lex, but nonetheless. This is a Superman that Lex has never seen, and yet it feels like Lex is seeing the real him for the first time in memory.
Lex doesn't stop to analyze the feeling past its surface, but that isn't to say that he doesn't explore it. He is, after all, a scientist at heart.
"I'd say that at least half of them eventually devolve into scenes involving me on my knees," Lex says, holding onto the newly full glass of liquor in his hand like it's his life line. "Or begging you to-"
"I said, stop!"
Superman's head raises and-
And he shoots a laser beam out of his eyes. At Lex. It hits his scotch, instantly heating the glass to the point that Lex has dropped it, burned, before it explodes, the liquor inside carmelized into a syrupy residue and then evaporated.
Only the look on the Kryptonian's face, as he realizes what he's done and Lex tries to breathe, stops this from being the act of war that Lex would once have taken it to be.
Kal El's eyes are wide. He doesn't look angry - pushed to an act of violence by extreme discomfort and rage. He looks surprised. Sheepish. Apologetic.
Possibly, he has entirely forgotten who he is looking at. Superman has destroyed entire installations bearing LuthorCorp names, and yet he looks humiliated and sorry for having exploded one of Lex's drinking glasses.
"Oh, shit," Superman says, another shocking development. "I- I haven't done that in- I just wasn't expecting- Le- Luthor, I'm-"
Only the arrival of Mercy and her security team interrupts the alien from saying what Lex thinks he was about to say, and Lex is actually glad for it.
As much as he would have thought that he would revel in that word, out of Superman's mouth (not that Lex has ever believed that he would hear it) he doesn't think that he could tolerate it just now. Things are already too surreal.
Mercy and her men stop just inside of the sitting room, Mercy - Lex doesn't doubt - cursing herself for letting Lex talk her into waiting on a lower floor while he and Superman have their tete a tete.
Lex hadn't wanted anyone barging in on what might have otherwise been a perfect shot - hence his trusting his life to his security cameras and Mercy's excellent response time - and he waves Mercy back now.
Superman crossed the room in a blink upon realizing that he'd nearly lasered Lex's hand off.
He's on his knees at Lex's feet, as if checking up close to see that he hadn't actually injured Lex, when Mercy storms in, and he only rises to his feet after she and the security team have arrived on, and reluctantly exited, the scene.
As his heart rate returns to normal, Lex finds himself comparatively pleased.
If none of his photographers got that shot, Lex is going to have them all killed.
It would work wonders at quelling some of the speculations that have been made about the dominant/submissive nature of his "relationship" with the Kryptonian.
"It's quite alright," Lex says, standing as well. "It's a lot to take in. I demolished an arm chair, a wall of plate glass, and a sedan that just happened to unfortunately be parked beneath the Towers at the time just after I read my first piece."
He wonders if maybe he has forgotten who he's talking to, as well. He hadn't meant to share all that, although now that he has it's too late to take it back.
Superman's lips twitch almost as if the alien might smile at him.
Lex's plan is yielding strange and surprisingly non-destructive consequences that grow all the more strange with every passing moment.
"I don't really understand," Kal El says, struggling visibly to regain his bearings. He paces, noticably avoiding the remains of Lex's scotch glass. Lex gets the feeling he's pacing just to put some space between their bodies.
He can understand the feeling. After over a month of reading about his imaginary sex life with Superman, seeing the alien on his knees - under whatever circumstance, for whatever fleeting moment in time - in the center of Lex' sitting room has wreaked some havoc on Lex's sense of calm (nevermind his libido).
"If you didn't do this, why are you showing it to me, Luthor? What does it have to do with how quiet you've been lately?"
"I told you, I-"
"You want to give the people proof, I heard you. But why?"
As much as he is loathe to put himself in the crosshairs of that deadly blue gaze again (whatever Lex's dick might think about being in Superman's proximity) Lex walks into Kal El's path before he can pace back across the sitting room again and faces the handsome face that is so normal-looking and conflicted and, Lex is still certain, deceitful.
"Because if there's one thing I've learned about popular opinion over the years, Superman," Lex says, "it's that you can't stop it. You can't do much to change it. All you can do is try to influence it in your favor and learn to harness the outcome of that influence to the best of your ability."
"And how exactly do you plan to "harness" the popular opinion that we're- that we're secretly having sex with each other?" Superman asks. Watching the impervious being stammer over the word sex is worth every shard of broken glass on Lex's scorched carpet, he's sure.
"By refusing to continue being characterized as the dirty secret who lashes out at you in a fit of unrequited sexual tension," Lex explains, "or screams invectives because I'm too much of a coward to say what I'd really like to say."
Kal El is staring at him with a look in his guarded eyes that Lex couldn't possibly interpret.
"Which is?" Superman asks, and Lex's heart jumps for no reason at all.
They're talking about fiction, after all.
"I'll leave it to our adoring public to write the romantic dialogue," Lex says, as casually as he can manage. "I just want to give them the occasional, appropriate inspirational fodder."
If the world at large is going to think that he'd willingly sleep with with an alien, no matter what he does, then Lex would rather that they think his attraction is fully requitted and not at all something for which he would willingfully sacrifice his dignity.
Lex Luthor gets on his knees for no man, alien or otherwise.
"I'm even willing to delay certain projects that have been points of contention between the two of us in the past for the sake of rehabilitating our image," Lex admits, trying not to bristle at the way Superman visibly perks up at this.
Then suspicion finds its way again, inevitably, into the Kryptonian's expression.
"And what do you expect me from me in return?"
Lex tries not to smirk. The way Superman swallows and his eyes flicker, for the slightest fraction of a second, down Lex's body, Lex could almost allow to alter his answer.
But instead he says, "I wouldn't say no to a little less LuthorCorp property damage." Still, he takes a step closer to his nemesis-cum-reluctant-partner in spinning the public perspective. "And the rare sound bite that doesn't paint me to be an absolute villain would be nice."
Really, though - Lex suddenly decides - he would probably settle for just the occasional repeat of this.
And by 'this', Lex means Superman's shocked acquiescence when Lex reaches a hand up to wrap around the back of Kal El's neck and pull the alien's face down so that's it level with his.
Lex kisses him. He puts everything he's got into making it his most persuasive, most heated (and most photogenic) kiss yet.
When he pulls back, Superman looks like he did that one time he almost stumbled into a vat of molten Kryptonite in one of Lex's ill-fated warehouses.
For a second, the memory - and the taste on Lex's lips - make Lex glad that the alien has such an unparalleled sense of balance.
"Oh, and if you could not go all avenging alien superhero on my photographers when these pictures go to print, I'd really appreciate it," Lex says.
Superman blinks again. "What?"
Lex decides this is a good time to check back in with Mercy and plan his reaction speech to tomorrow's tabloids.
"Goodbye, Kal El. I'm heading back to D.C. in a couple of days. If you want to stop by once I'm there, just call ahead. I'll have Mercy turn off the defense lasers long enough for you to get inside the perimeter."
"Luthor!"
Half-way back across the sitting room, towards the elevator, Lex turns and gives Superman what he hopes is a cocky-looking smile.
"Oh, and Superman? You can call me Lex, if you'd like. You do in all of the books."
[and thus ends this particular work of utter crack :p]