Smallville Big Bang 2013 - Life as a Novel in Progress (post 1/6)
Title: Life as a Novel in Progress
Author: sue_dreams
Artist: Fruitbat00
Beta: tallihensia
Word Count: ~26,000
Rating: Teen plus (PG-13)
Pairing: Clark/Lex with mention of off-screen Lex/Bruce
Genre: slice of life with psuedo plot, supernatural romance, action
Warnings: brief mention of bloodplay, potential dub-con scenario (full note on that at end of work)
Spoilers: none, though there are allusions to the series
Artwork: I pushed the limits on getting this story done, and unfortunately, fruitbat00 ended up having technical difficulties as I was overhauling the final draft. Artwork will be linked as soon as possible.
Notes: Written for the smallvillebbang Smallville Big Bang 2013. Thank you to Tallihensia for a most fantastic beta. All mistakes are mine, but she's been a wonderful cheerleader and motivator, and her 11th hour notes and suggestions made this much better than I could have achieved by myself.
There are additional parts available to read under the Author meets Alien tag. Links are also found at the end of this story.
Chapters are all Clark PoV, prologue and interludes are Lex PoV. It should be clear, but if not...
Summary: Clark needs a place to stay now that he's ready to leave the dorms of Met U. Lois apparently thinks her best friend Lex needs a live-in caretaker. Cohabitation with a stranger is difficult enough when Clark isn't falling in love with him, or at least he thinks that'd be theoretically true. Lex is guarded, his past troubled, and if Clark wants a chance with the enigmatic writer, Clark is going to have to take a chance on him.
They can weather friendship with Lois, the neighbor's surplus of odd-tasting cookies, a potential stalker, and any amount of embarrassment over laundry, but those are all the 'normal' problems, and Clark and Lex are anything but normal.
Fic posted on Archive of our Own.
Overall Warnings (highlight to view): AU. Xenophilia. Mentions and brief interludes and mentions of blood play. There's no dub con between the main characters at all, but Lex is writing a character who has been captured and forced to touch his lead captor sexually in front of an audience. That scene is referred to again later. There is limited detail and because it is a snippet of Lex's writing, little explanation is given regarding motivations of any characters involved in the dub-con scene.
Or read on LJ in parts, starting with:
"I don't need a babysitter," Lex responded tartly.
Lois laughed at him as she flicked her cigarette and knocked ashes into the bushes that lined the bottom of the porch. "He needs a place to stay, you could use a little less seclusion. I'm willing to wager the only people you've spoken to this month are me, the crazy baker lady, and your agent."
"You would be wrong," Lex informed her. He didn't bother to elaborate, which just spoke for how tired and out of practice he was, because withholding information from Lois wouldn't stop her from having an opinion and sharing it with him regardless.
"Your creepy boyfriend doesn't count," she returned. She had him there, but he still had two different food delivery service drivers he had spoken to, so his comment stood. "How goes the writing, by the way? Is the sex still inspiring?"
"We've agreed to never share our sex lives," Lex reminded her. "I still hate Selena Kyle and I will never ask what you get up to with her, and I'd appreciate the same discretion from you."
"Except I'm nosy, your boyfriend is hot enough to land on the society page for blinking pretty, and you telling me about your kinky sexploits does not mean I have to return the favor. In fact, you sharing all the details with me may please me to the point where I am kind enough to share none of my details with you."
"As tempting as it is to have the promise of hearing nothing ever again, no." Lois seemed to have a too-high opinion of Lex's sex life. He had to admit that when he told her his vampire characters were based off him and Bruce, he had set her up to believe that two men with healthy libidos had sex an average of three times a night. Given her own experiences, she should have called him on his bullshit from the get-go.
She huffed at him, but said nothing, which was more worrying than any response she could have spoken. She drew a long inhale from her cigarette and blew it toward the street before going back to her original point. “He cooks. After he interned last year, he’s made my potluck dishes for all work get-togethers.”
“You indentured your intern? Is he’s going to cook for me in trade of rent? Because that doesn’t quite balance.”
“He gets a minimal wage for working evenings and weekends at the Planet, but that’s not going to be enough to live on. Unless he ends up in Suicide Slums. And Lex? He already circled ads for the Slums in the paper. If you don’t let him move in, he’s going to be dead in a month and Chloe will never forgive me.”
The short answer was that it wasn’t his problem, but Lois was asking and that was reason enough to make it his problem. At least she wasn’t asking him to put up bribe money to get Selena out of trouble in Gotham. Again.
“Between your writing schedule, and his class load and work schedule, you probably won’t see him more than three times a week. Meanwhile, he’ll probably cook like his mother, which means if you let him stay here, you’ll always have food in the kitchen. Your affair with your food delivery man can end.”
Lex considered it, but even if they both knew he was going to give in and agree, he couldn’t go out without a fight. He didn’t need the rent money, he didn’t actually need someone to feed him, but maybe he could get something else out of this. “You’ve been getting interviews with Metropolis’s new hero. Promise me the details that don’t make it into the paper.”
Her expression turned wary. “What makes you think I’ve left anything out?”
“Because he’s rescued you no less than three times and there’s no way you didn’t dig as much as you were able. I also know how to read between your lines. I understand there are things you can’t tell the general public, and there are things you probably wouldn’t share even with people who have a normal respect for privacy. I am neither. ”
“Point. Okay, there’s not a lot, because he’s nearly as good as you are about keeping his cards close to his chest, but I have a couple of ideas to fill in the pieces.”
Next Part: Chapter One
Author: sue_dreams
Artist: Fruitbat00
Beta: tallihensia
Word Count: ~26,000
Rating: Teen plus (PG-13)
Pairing: Clark/Lex with mention of off-screen Lex/Bruce
Genre: slice of life with psuedo plot, supernatural romance, action
Warnings: brief mention of bloodplay, potential dub-con scenario (full note on that at end of work)
Spoilers: none, though there are allusions to the series
Artwork: I pushed the limits on getting this story done, and unfortunately, fruitbat00 ended up having technical difficulties as I was overhauling the final draft. Artwork will be linked as soon as possible.
Notes: Written for the smallvillebbang Smallville Big Bang 2013. Thank you to Tallihensia for a most fantastic beta. All mistakes are mine, but she's been a wonderful cheerleader and motivator, and her 11th hour notes and suggestions made this much better than I could have achieved by myself.
There are additional parts available to read under the Author meets Alien tag. Links are also found at the end of this story.
Chapters are all Clark PoV, prologue and interludes are Lex PoV. It should be clear, but if not...
Summary: Clark needs a place to stay now that he's ready to leave the dorms of Met U. Lois apparently thinks her best friend Lex needs a live-in caretaker. Cohabitation with a stranger is difficult enough when Clark isn't falling in love with him, or at least he thinks that'd be theoretically true. Lex is guarded, his past troubled, and if Clark wants a chance with the enigmatic writer, Clark is going to have to take a chance on him.
They can weather friendship with Lois, the neighbor's surplus of odd-tasting cookies, a potential stalker, and any amount of embarrassment over laundry, but those are all the 'normal' problems, and Clark and Lex are anything but normal.
Fic posted on Archive of our Own.
Overall Warnings (highlight to view): AU. Xenophilia. Mentions and brief interludes and mentions of blood play. There's no dub con between the main characters at all, but Lex is writing a character who has been captured and forced to touch his lead captor sexually in front of an audience. That scene is referred to again later. There is limited detail and because it is a snippet of Lex's writing, little explanation is given regarding motivations of any characters involved in the dub-con scene.
Or read on LJ in parts, starting with:
"I don't need a babysitter," Lex responded tartly.
Lois laughed at him as she flicked her cigarette and knocked ashes into the bushes that lined the bottom of the porch. "He needs a place to stay, you could use a little less seclusion. I'm willing to wager the only people you've spoken to this month are me, the crazy baker lady, and your agent."
"You would be wrong," Lex informed her. He didn't bother to elaborate, which just spoke for how tired and out of practice he was, because withholding information from Lois wouldn't stop her from having an opinion and sharing it with him regardless.
"Your creepy boyfriend doesn't count," she returned. She had him there, but he still had two different food delivery service drivers he had spoken to, so his comment stood. "How goes the writing, by the way? Is the sex still inspiring?"
"We've agreed to never share our sex lives," Lex reminded her. "I still hate Selena Kyle and I will never ask what you get up to with her, and I'd appreciate the same discretion from you."
"Except I'm nosy, your boyfriend is hot enough to land on the society page for blinking pretty, and you telling me about your kinky sexploits does not mean I have to return the favor. In fact, you sharing all the details with me may please me to the point where I am kind enough to share none of my details with you."
"As tempting as it is to have the promise of hearing nothing ever again, no." Lois seemed to have a too-high opinion of Lex's sex life. He had to admit that when he told her his vampire characters were based off him and Bruce, he had set her up to believe that two men with healthy libidos had sex an average of three times a night. Given her own experiences, she should have called him on his bullshit from the get-go.
She huffed at him, but said nothing, which was more worrying than any response she could have spoken. She drew a long inhale from her cigarette and blew it toward the street before going back to her original point. “He cooks. After he interned last year, he’s made my potluck dishes for all work get-togethers.”
“You indentured your intern? Is he’s going to cook for me in trade of rent? Because that doesn’t quite balance.”
“He gets a minimal wage for working evenings and weekends at the Planet, but that’s not going to be enough to live on. Unless he ends up in Suicide Slums. And Lex? He already circled ads for the Slums in the paper. If you don’t let him move in, he’s going to be dead in a month and Chloe will never forgive me.”
The short answer was that it wasn’t his problem, but Lois was asking and that was reason enough to make it his problem. At least she wasn’t asking him to put up bribe money to get Selena out of trouble in Gotham. Again.
“Between your writing schedule, and his class load and work schedule, you probably won’t see him more than three times a week. Meanwhile, he’ll probably cook like his mother, which means if you let him stay here, you’ll always have food in the kitchen. Your affair with your food delivery man can end.”
Lex considered it, but even if they both knew he was going to give in and agree, he couldn’t go out without a fight. He didn’t need the rent money, he didn’t actually need someone to feed him, but maybe he could get something else out of this. “You’ve been getting interviews with Metropolis’s new hero. Promise me the details that don’t make it into the paper.”
Her expression turned wary. “What makes you think I’ve left anything out?”
“Because he’s rescued you no less than three times and there’s no way you didn’t dig as much as you were able. I also know how to read between your lines. I understand there are things you can’t tell the general public, and there are things you probably wouldn’t share even with people who have a normal respect for privacy. I am neither. ”
“Point. Okay, there’s not a lot, because he’s nearly as good as you are about keeping his cards close to his chest, but I have a couple of ideas to fill in the pieces.”
Next Part: Chapter One