SV Colin Luthor Verse Fic: En Plein Air - Chapter Three
Disclaimer: Smallville and certain characters belong to Miller-Gough et al. No profit is gained from this writing-only, hopefully, enjoyment.
There is no non-con/dub-con/rape depicted in this story, but there are references to it having occurred in the past. I included the tag just to be safe, as I certainly do not want to trigger anyone.
***
It’s the Saturday morning following Lin’s Friday night opening, and Lex has just barely managed to haul himself out of bed and downstairs for caffeine.
It’s 6:17, which is late for him these days. He can recall, hazy and surreal now, when he wouldn’t’ve even cracked open his eyes before 11. He can remember not even leaving a club until 4 and not even passing out until 7.
Lex has been awake this morning since 5, dreading opening his eyes to an empty bed, and he can already tell that, apart from Angie here in the kitchen and Greg already working outside at winterizing the grounds, the rest of the house is empty too, devoid of that particular intensity Lex is sure he can feel even halfway across the city.
That he can’t feel it now means Lin’s somewhere far away. Maybe north in that fortress he and Lucas try their damnedest not to mention.
When Lex is feeling charitable, he likes to think they talk around it to avoid making him feel bad. When he’s failing and embittered and thoroughly his father’s son, Lex knows they don’t talk about it around him because they don’t want him up there, poking around.
Lex must look almost as bad as he feels because Angie doesn’t say any more than she has to as he climbs onto a stool at the kitchen island. She probably thinks he’s hungover, which isn’t all that farfetched, considering who he is and the fact he’d attended a huge public event last night. Angie had packed him a lunch and a dinner yesterday, two Tupperware containers in a stylish little black bag Lex thinks Lin likely purchased online specifically for him.
Now, as she gently sets down a full demitasse in front of him, Lex tries not to wonder what she must be thinking: of him, of Lin, of them, of the fact Lex is 37 and single, and Lin is 30 and single, and they are still living together.
He tries not to wonder where Lin is or what he’s doing. A braver person would try calling him, but Lex is sitting here worrying just as much about seeing him after what happened last night as he is about what it means that Lin’s absent. He’s simultaneously thankful and terrified.
But Lin’s gone for bad reasons, and while Lex kind of thinks he fucked up last night, deep down he-knows he didn’t.
What’s fucked up is the relationship itself.
He takes a small sip of the bitter espresso and wishes it were whisky or vodka or fucking Everclear. Oblivion sounds lovely this time of year. And here he’d been gearing up for a vacation, a holiday, sweettalking Lin into flying, in a jet, somewhere overseas (Venice) where they could carefully be together for weeks and weeks, a month of just them and none of the accompanying bullshit. He’d been looking forward to forgetting the bad and remembering only the good, to showing off his painstakingly acquired cooking skills and reading to him and watching movies neither of them had seen and going out, disguised, as a couple. He wants to kiss Lin in public.
Lex brought his phone downstairs with him, but he hasn’t turned off the Do Not Disturb, so it’s lying right here on the counter silent and blank. He knows, though, that it’s full of messages and emails, all from work, none from family.
He wants to think of Julian and Lucas and Bruce and Dick, wants to miss them more than he does.
Lex finishes the espresso but keeps right on sitting and doing absolutely nothing.
Outside, it’s overcast and about to rain.
Ten minutes later, the house is still relatively silent and relatively empty, and Lex faces facts and pushes away from the counter, grabbing his phone and heading back upstairs. He’ll shower and dress and set up in his office for the morning. Angie will bug him with lunch around one o’clock, which he’ll pick at, and around two in the afternoon he’ll cave and pour himself a double. Heartier metabolism means he drinks three times as much and only pays for it with sleep.
“You need to eat more,” Lin always tells him. “Need more calories. Then you wouldn’t collapse like that.”
Lex’s response depends on the situation, on his mood.
Sometimes he says, “Well, we can’t all be solar-powered gods.”
To which, Lin snarks, “Demi-god, at best, and you just proved my point.”
Sometimes Lex is already fraying, and Lin’s little jabs become more kindling tossed onto the fire.
That’s when Lex jabs back, saying something like, “Yes, Mom. Help me remember to brush my teeth later too, ok?”
Or, “Who’s the older brother in this relationship again?”
And of course then Lin shuts down and walks out.
For Lex can’t help but remember, constantly, that they are who they are, that he is Lex Luthor and Lin is his younger brother, and that they are so goddamn screwed if any of this ever gets out, but Lin, of course, doesn’t want to be reminded because Lin, of course, dear, beautiful, lovely, extraordinary Lin, has already something of a skewed impression of family. He looks at Lex like Lex is the alien.
And it burns because he’s right, because somehow Lin is more human than Lex. He’s certainly more courageous.
When did caution turn into repression? And some snarled portion of Lex still resents the fact he’s always the bad guy, the nag, the one digging in his heels and holding everyone back.
Or is he?
Lex makes it up to the master bath and starts the shower before sliding out of his clothes.
After Lin vanished last night, Lex sat on the edge of the bed, on his side, with his head in his hands for almost an hour, just replaying over and over again everything that went wrong. He remembers how Lin wouldn’t come home with him and how it was Lex who moved away first when they reached the car. He remembers sighing when Lin walked into the bedroom and wonders now if Lin might not have misinterpreted that as frustration or annoyance instead of relief. Lex thinks he was too careful when he should’ve been insistent and bold, too distant, how he seemed to react the wrong way to everything Lin said.
But what Lin said was like every awful thing Lex had ever thought, distilled and repackaged and tossed back in his face almost casually. Lin’s pillow talk, his sweet nothings, are Lex’s nightmares.
Now, as he pulls open the glass door and steps in against the steam of the water, as he ducks his head low against the tile and lets the hot water pound high on his back, Lex tries not to see how Lin had looked at him last night, how wide and wet his eyes were as he made his awful declarations, how desperate he’d been, rough like he only gets when he’s clinging to the edge, when he’s more in the past than in the present, and Lex missed all the signs. He looked at the Lin he was with and ran headfirst into the realization that they’re not healthy together.
Julian’s right.
Why do they keep doing this to each other?
How can they ever fucking work?
Lin deserves better. He deserves more.
Lex tries to catch his breath on something that wants to be a sob: Lin deserves to be made happy, not ashamed. He deserves to live his life now and not be forced to relive the horrors of his childhood.
And then the air is suddenly sucked out of the shower as the glass door opens behind him, and Lex almost chokes as someone, the only one, runs a cold proprietary hand down Lex’s spine.
Then it’s Lin’s other arm wrapping around Lex’s collarbone and pulling him bodily back and against. It’s Lin, hotter than the scalding water.
There are no words for what Lex feels, for what he thinks when Lin is near, and Lin is still silent more often than not.
They don’t talk a whole lot, and Lex likes to think, chooses to believe, that it’s because they don’t need to, not that they’re just no good at it.
Between them, it’s always looks and touch, Lin’s eyes catching his from across the room or that specific tilt of his head that never fails to make Lex bite his lip to keep from laughing, or that ghastly imitation smile Lin forces onto his face in public that has Lex bailing on whatever he’d been doing, whoever he’d been talking to, and rushing over to pull Lin away, to try and rescue him, always too late, from whatever insensitive trash someone had lobbed at him.
Now, it’s Lin’s hand gliding up the back of Lex’s neck, his fingers curling around and gripping just this side of too tight because Lin still can’t ask for what he wants, what he needs, only play it out through Lex.
The problem with sublimation, of course, is it’s difficult to pick what’s buried and for how long. Lex remembers a lot, maybe even most of what happened, what he can stand to, but he’s almost as far from healthy and well-adjusted as Lin. He forgets sometimes or can’t bear to remember. He gets trapped in his head, stuck in loops, and every now and then he mixes things up, misremembers.
But he tries. He keeps trying for Lin.
So Lex turns in Lin’s arms and takes Lin by the throat, hard, almost harder than he means to. And something in him preens and unfolds, relaxes almost, when Linny’s eyes go that specific kind of wide, when his mouth drops open and his hands slacken, running soft and shaky along the back of Lex’s head.
Right answer.
Lex jerks Lin down by his throat, thumb rolling over Lin’s Adam’s apple. He pulls him down and down because his little brother is taller and broader, and Lex makes the kiss messy, something just as fucked up as they are, wet, scalding, and rude, imprecise and full of every single word Lex is too chickenshit to say and Lin is still too careful to let escape.
Lin takes and takes and hoards it all away for a rainy day, and of course today: well, just outside the master bath and beyond their little oasis, it’s overcast and raining, blowing sideways with that merciless Midwestern wind, all force and fury, the sound of it whistling through the cracks of the house Lex bought just for the two of them.
And here they are collapsing inward again. Wasn’t he just thinking they had to stop?
But when it’s right, it’s perfect.
Lex reaches down and wraps his hand around Lin’s cock, and he pulls until Lin’s groaning into Lex’s mouth, until he’s almost, just about, nearly a part of Lex and they’re almost on the same page again.
Lex slides his hand over Lin again and again, as he slides his tongue into and out of Lin’s mouth, until it’s only time separating them, not his doubts or Lin’s silence.
But then Lin turns him, moving as fast as only he can, and Lex is face-first against the tile once more. Lex is pushing back and all but begging for Lin’s long fingers, his wide palms, his too-clever tongue and lips.
It’s almost a repeat of last night, almost exactly the same except completely different because they’re getting it right this time. And Lex takes it upon himself to shift the moment, adjust it, to fill the silence with something beautiful before Lin says something. Lex recites, on an exhale, water cascading down his face, “ ‘License my roving hands, and let them go’. . . ”
And Colin, his love, his Lin, his Linny above and beyond all boundaries, huffs and finishes the passage, completes the circle. He whispers back into Lex’s ear through time and all manner of pain and suffering, pushing them once more toward ecstasy and away from misery: “ ‘Before, behind, between, above, below.’ ”
Right answer.
Lex arches his back, and Lin drapes himself over him, his chest to Lex’s back and their hands tangling beneath and inside. Lex comes, holding his breath with Lin’s hand hot and heavy inside him, and it’s only seconds before Lin’s following him, wet heat spilling between Lex’s thighs and running down, Lin’s lips sucking a new bruise on his left shoulder blade.
Lex breathes and breathes and grabs hold of Lin’s hand, pressing it against his chest, his heart, and while he can’t quite summon the courage to say. . .
Lin kisses Lex on the cheek and says, doing his best, “ ‘To enter in these bonds is to be free’. . . ”
It’s not exactly a romantic or healthy sentiment when applied to them. It is true, though.
Lex had already willingly given up everything before he knew better, and Lin never had a chance. And they’ll probably never be anything but unhealthy and codependent.
But Lex keeps trying for Lin, and Lin has never failed him-never.
“ ‘Souls unbodied,’ ” Lex murmurs, letting his head drop forward to rest against the tile. And he can feel Lin’s dark smile pressed like a kiss into his shoulder, can feel him hard again against his ass, and then they’re together in a moment where Lex wants for nothing, not a thing he doesn’t already possess.