Liar, Liar
Here's another extremely short piece. It's set sometime early in the first season, after Hourglass. Brief spoilers for that episode will ensue.
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: ‘Smallville’ and certain characters belong to Miller-Gough et. al. No profit is gained from this writing. Only, hopefully, enjoyment.
Clark’s never enjoyed psychology, and he figures that after being told you’re an alien, how the human mind works just . . . doesn’t seem as important, or necessary. Sure, he could study it so that he might better be able to understand those people around him (Chloe . . . especially Chloe, he’s pretty sure she’ll always be a mystery to him), but most of the time he thinks, "What’s the point?" And in his truly terrible moments, those moments when he’s sure he’ll never die or ever be able to be close to anyone, his mind whispers to him, "What’s the point, they’ll all be dead soon enough?"
All, except Lex.
There was no tombstone in that graveyard with Lex’s name carved into it. An endless sea of monuments to the dead, and the name he looks for right after ‘Jonathan and Martha Kent’ . . . isn’t there. And Clark doesn’t know what all that means. He doesn’t know why Lex means so much. Why does everything in his mind these days revolve around Lex? But, as he thinks back, it’s been that way ever since he pulled Lex out of the river. A few words of praise from Lex can lift Clark up so high, he’s soaring on wings for days, weeks even. And nobody makes him feel smaller than Lex does when he’s mocking and insulting him with all the derogatory comments about small towns, and the people who live in them. He hates nobody more than those who hurt or betray Lex. And therein lies the gist of ‘the Clark Conundrum,’ as Chloe calls him, when she’s feeling less than charitable. Clark believes in truth and justice. And Clark lies to everyone. But especially to Lex. He surprises himself these days, how accomplished a liar he’s become. He’s learned to think on his feet, and the lies come easier now. They’re also more plausible, or at least people want to believe something so badly that his lies go down smoother than honesty would. That’s a trick Lex once told him.
"If you include a significant amount of the truth in each lie, it’s easier to tell one, and have it believed as gospel. And if you make it so that the lie you’re telling is something the other person, or persons, would want to hear, and ultimately believe, then you have reached that for which every liar strives."
"What’s that, Lex?"
And Lex turned those hugely expressive, beautiful eyes on him and said, "Perfection, Clark." He said it like he was surprised Clark didn’t already know the answer. "Perfection through deceit. It’s at that point, that you can lie to everyone, no exceptions, even yourself. Because when someone who is close to you believes every word you say, no matter what, then you have power. And power that twisted and defined is what makes a man great. The ability to get what you want and be able to rationalize the means by which you attain it, to yourself above all, is a necessity for all dictators." Lex smiled then, like a shark, all teeth and ice-cold blue eyes, and saluted Clark with his glass before finishing it off, "bourbon, this time" he thinks, and setting it on the coffee table with a muted clink.
Clark can hardly remember what life was like before Lex crashed into it. Of course he recalls everything near perfectly, but in the abstract, what-was-I-thinking-way, he’s unable to fathom how unbelievably sheltered and deluded he was as a child on that small family farm. He wishes he could go back to that time, to when the whole world encompassed the fields, and town. It wasn’t until Lex came that he realized people he knew could grow up in pain. He brought the real world into Clark’s Smallville, and a part of him will always resent Lex for it.