(no subject)
Title: Sneeze
Pairing(s): Clex
Spoilers: up to Season 6 'Sneeze'
Category: episode-related, drama, angst, romance, h/c
Rating: PG
Summary: A re-write of 'Sneeze.' As the world tries to come to terms with the aftermath of Dark Thursday, Clark and Lex face more immediate concerns when the young Luthor is kidnapped by someone hoping to discover the source of his power during Zod's possession. Meanwhile, Clark's time in the Phantom Zone takes its toll on the Kryptonian in a particularly unwelcome fashion - a common cold.
Author's note: I guess an update a month is shaping up to be the norm now huh? Check it out though because I FINALLY managed to orchestrate some hurt/comfort - my absolute favouritest favourite of all fanfic genres! Who doesn't like to see their favourite characters being huggled when they need it? :D
Sneeze- part XI
Later that night, Clark was lying fully clothed on top of his bed, hands behind his head, back, booted feet crossed at the ankles. His inner temperature seemed to have calmed down now and he was back to just the red T-shirt, the patches of sweat under the arms dry enough to no longer be visible, although he still noticed a stiffness in the fabric there when he moved. His mom had been pestering him to change ever since he got back but Clark liked the imperfection, liked to be reminded how, just for a little while, he hadn't been invulnerable, hadn't been perfect, hadn't been... all powerful. It was a feeling he sensed he wouldn't be able to cherish much longer, if the growing strength and distinct lack of sneezes he'd been experiencing all evening were anything to go by.
He puffed out a short sigh. Then tensed and held his breath, eyes darting anxiously round the room for any signs of damage. Everything seemed to have remained intact and Clark breathed out more softly in relief. Pretty much the whole of the afternoon had been spent like this, with the Kryptonian obsessing over every breath. At one point he'd even tried to stop breathing altogether - he had ridden a rocket into space that time with no ill effects, oxygen clearly wasn't something he needed. But it seemed his body wanted it for some reason because it was still the holding of his breath he needed to concentrate on, not the taking of it, and he always fell back to a natural rhythm in the end.
Since he'd spent over twenty years doing that and no one had died from it yet he'd decided to stick with how he'd always breathed for now, until he figured out a better idea. So, as he let his body relax back to whatever passed as normal for it these days, he continued to scan his bedroom ceiling, eyes counting the faint green glow-in-the-dark stars he and his dad had put there when he was nine.
They'd spent almost a whole week setting them up, flicking through astronomy books and checking the telescope in the barn every night to make sure they arranged them as close to the actual constellations outside as possible. They still weren't right. Clark knew now that the Orion on his ceiling was far too close to Ursa Major and Caseopeia had been stuck on upside down, but for a nine year old boy who'd just been discovering the wonders of space for the first time the mistakes hadn't made the effect any less captivating that first night his dad had turned off the lights and left him alone in the home made planetarium. Too captivated, almost, Clark thought with a smile as he remembered how appalled Martha had been with the two of them when she'd discovered those first few nights of newly arranged plastic stars had been stopping Clark sleeping - as several grumpy, drowsy breakfasts had soon revealed. A stern faced threat to take them down had had Clark closing his eyes on the display soon enough though.
Of course, that was back when sleep had actually been a necessity for him and mistakes had been allowed, welcomed even as learning experience, because they'd had no lasting consequence. Unlike now. Clark's smile faded and it struck him for a moment that he seemed to have come full circle. Here he was, staring at the ceiling again without sleeping, while his parents and the rest of the town were happily snoring away. Only it wasn't wonder the white, moulded bits of plastic held for him now, more than a painful, heart-twisting nostalgia. Because he'd been wrong back then - they were no beautiful night sky, they weren't even a decent replica of one, they were just another lie, like the rest of his life. Their glow had visibly faded over the years as well, so much that some of them weren't even shining at all any more and the ones that were... well, the sickly shade of green they emitted had rather more ominous connotations for Clark these days.
No, the boy who'd stayed up night after night to watch those falsified constellations was miles away from the non-sleeping Clark Kent watching them now. This wasn't his life, not any more. There were far too many hard, suffocating realities demanding his attention now.
Clark turned his head toward the window, in a bid for escape perhaps. He'd left it open slightly in an effort to keep his body temperature regulated and a soft breeze was blowing the brown plaid curtains across it against the wooden chest of drawers to the left. Clark's eyes dropped down it and fell on the latest addition to the room - a bright red kite propped up against the bottom of the drawers. Chloe had turned up with it just before dinner with a reluctant Lois in tow, cheeks ruby red and face almost split in half by her smile, saying she was long overdue some quality time with her cousin and friends and, in a whisper, that it would be a good way for Clark to practice his new skill. The girls had even brought a picnic and Chloe called it a celebration of a job well done. She'd just heard from Metropolis Hospital that Lex's shoulder had been treated just fine and the MPD had written off the kidnapping as a failed attempt at gaining some of the infamous Luthor fortune. They were keeping an eye out for the guy who got away but, since Lex had testified personally that he didn't consider him a threat, the overall consensus was 'case closed.'
Ordinarily Clark would have shared his friend's enthusiasm. The threats of the day had been dealt with and the people he cared about were safe again. But every gust of 'wind' he worked up to keep his kite flying companions happy reminded him how temporary that safety could be for them with him around. The fact Lana had apparently turned down an offer to join them hadn't done much to boost his confidence either. According to Chloe, the 'drop-kicking heroine of the day' had some issues with the mansion's security system she wanted to discuss with Lex, but it sounded like a poor excuse to Clark. The number of break-ins over the years proved beyond doubt how important security was at the Luthor castle and, if anything, he'd have thought that would make Lana feel safer - making her reasoning little more than a dismissive 'I'm washing my hair' and leaving Clark to suspect himself as the more likely cause for her absence.
So, although he'd gone through the motions of having a good time that afternoon so as not to arouse suspicion, really Clark been hatching another plan. Lex had said it would be safer if he'd left, and yes, he'd been talking about a specific building before it became a crime scene, but Clark could see wider implications. He could see how safer it might be for everyone if he left Smallville altogether, if he left the country. It was something he'd always known. He remembered the awkward group discussion he and the others had had before Fine infected Lex - how he'd realised just how much danger everyone had put themselves in for him. He'd thought he'd have to live with it back then, that he didn't have the strength to leave his friends and family for good. But now... now Lana's hand was covered in a harsh and bloodied gauze and she was too scared to see him, his parents were being forced to re-assess their principles every day to try and come to terms with what they'd been willing to do over Dark Thursday and Chloe's loving support was becoming almost painful to accept when he knew he wasn't nearly half the man she believed he could be, was looking almost like a delusion he was unfairly cultivating.
It would still hurt to leave, but... Clark though it would be worth it, that he might be able to handle it, if it meant the people he loved were safe and better off. He turned back to the dull lights on the ceiling, only to be hit afresh by how much things had changed over the last few months, how completely separated from the life he'd once known he'd become, and he wondered what was left for him in Smallville now anyway.
That was when Lex started to scream.
Clark jerked upright, like he had every time since that first night, and, just like he had all those other times, he stopped himself, closed his eyes and tried to block the sound out. But it wouldn't be blocked, and soon he could make out words through Lex's yells. Things like 'no!' and 'stop!' and 'don't!'
It was the next part Clark had come to hate the most though, and Lex moved onto it even faster than normal that night.
"Clark! Clark! Clark!"
Just his name, over and over. But so strong, so desperate, Clark had to physically ball his hands into fists to hold himself back from rushing over. But he'd tried that before and Lex had pushed him away. Just dreams, he'd said, and he had them under control.
Except, clearly, he hadn't.
Clark opened his eyes again and took a couple of deep breaths. If he was leaving anyway, what did it matter what Lex's last thoughts of him were? He could hardly make things worse. The older man continued to murmur, his words slipping just out of hearing, and Clark nodded to himself. One last try, before he left. He couldn't just leave the man he loved screaming without one last try at making it right.
One of the red display cushions his mom would insist he arrange on the bed after he made it bobbed down the side of the comforter and onto the floor, pulled by the suction of wind left by the Kryptonian's exit.
*****
Unlike Clark's bedroom, Lex's held no vestiges of the past. In fact, even after five years of use it still looked little more than a luxury hotel room. Just a king sized bed in the centre, dark mahogany chest of drawers at the head and matching wardrobe and desk against the wall opposite.
As Clark swung the door open and stepped inside he realised Lex had his window open as well, far wider than his own had been. The rich, scarlet curtains were flapping against the frame like a thousand moths and Clark had enough left over sensitivity from his illness to realise the room was much too cold. No one should have been able to sleep in such conditions, which the Kryptonian supposed had been the point if the way Lex was lying on top of his burgundy covers was any indication, wearing only a pair of thin, purple slacks, chest bare to soak up as much of the freezing air as possible. His right arm was held against him by a thick, black sling, arranged not as a triangle of fabric like most, but as a tight oblong running from his elbow to his wrist, held in place by a black strap hooking over his left shoulder and down his back. This was to give more air to the right shoulder wound, Clark guessed, which had several bandages wrapped around it, looping under the older man's right arm. But from the way Lex's current thrashing seemed to have aggravated the wound, leaving a growing blotch of red to pulse through the fabric, the younger man thought something more traditional might have been better.
"No!" Lex yelled again, free arm jerking out to ward off whatever nightmare was attacking him this time, fingers curling into the palm to shape a tightly held fist. He was still for a second after that, breathing turning fast and shallow, then he was rolling against the sheets, harder than before, free arm lashing out while his encumbered one tugged sharply at its restraint. Whatever was happening in the dream clearly didn't account for the sling or damaged shoulder and Clark knew if Lex continued as he was he was really going to hurt himself.
"Lex," he started, hurrying forward.
But he misjudged the distance as he rushed and ended up banging the chest of drawers on the way. There was a thud as it settled again and a rattling sound from the top. Clark noticed something fall to the floor by his shoulder and turned automatically. A semi-transparent orange pot lay on the carpet by his feet, half full of pills.
A sudden, mind-numbing panic filled Clark for a second, compelling him to pick the thing up. Turning it over revealed a label marked 'diazepam.' Valium. He looked to the top of the drawers and found half a dozen more pots set up across it, but before his throat could clam up in shock he remembered something. A similar fear on top of a windmill. Lex curving his lips in a wry smile :: Not that. I'd never be that desperate ::
Clark let out the breath he didn't realise he'd been holding and replaced the pot with the others. Noting how all but that one were full and unopened. No, Lex had gone out of his way not to fall asleep tonight, that was what the open window was all about. But either he'd been too tired to keep it up, or the doctors in Metropolis had snuck him a sedative on the sly, because his plan had failed.
Clark turned back to the bed where Lex was still struggling. The older man's legs were thrashing out now and he started muttering again.
"No... don't... not again..."
"Lex, you're just dreaming, wake up," Clark said, reaching over to grip the other man's upper arm, just below the scarlet soaked bandages. He could feel Lex's muscles continue to flex under the hold but it kept his shoulder still at least. "Lex..."
"Claaark!"
It felt like a ball of kryptonite was trying to claw its way out of the younger man's throat and Clark had to swallow hard to keep it down.
"It's me Lex, I'm here," he continued, voice tight, his free arm reaching out to the struggling man's other side.
"No..." Lex muttered, his waving hand batting Clark's away, fist curling tighter. "Clark-get away!"
Clark froze.
"Get away... just leave... just-"
Lex cut off, choking, as if someone had forced him to stop, and Clark lowered his arm, his time on silver kryptonite playing back suddenly behind his eyes-himself advancing on Lex with nothing but anger in his mind, his hand round the other man's neck...
He blinked hard. Well that confirmed it, didn't it? That's really all he was to Lex now. The stuff of nightmares. Just another dangerous, murderous alien.
He uncurled his fingers from Lex's arm and moved them away, blinking back more inner kryptonite-stinging his eyes this time-as he staggered from the bed. Lex resumed his thrashing without the hold, but as painful as it looked Clark knew it wouldn't kill him. Knew it was a hurt the older man would get over. Just like he planned to get over Clark.
He turned and headed for the door. Just leave...
"Don't!"
More choking, which Clark ignored.
"Don't, please. Not Clark, don't-" Lex breathed in, long and deep, and the air scratched down his throat, leaving him rasping. Changing his voice completely. "Kneel before -!"
Clark heard a sharp tap of enamel as Lex bit back the words, but they'd been more than enough to get the younger man spinning round again, even as his hand gripped the door handle.
"Please..." Lex breathed, body stilling as though in defeat. "Just leave him... Just... Aaargh!"
The ending scream tore through him and Lex arched his back, redoubling his efforts at unneeded escape as he fell back down. Clark was back at his side in a blink.
"Lex!" he yelled. "Lex, wake up!"
He grabbed the other man's arms again but Lex kicked out at him with his feet, head and body moving so hard and fast Clark feared even holding him might not be enough, that if he gripped too tight and Lex twisted at the wrong moment the older man would just snap apart like brittle wood.
So Clark moved onto the bed himself, kneeling across Lex's legs to keep them still and pushing the other man's forearms as hard as he dared into the mattress to try and pin him down. A couple of silky red and white pillows slid to the floor in the struggle.
"Lex..." he hissed through his teeth as he worked. "You idiot. Why didn't you tell me? You're not dreaming about me, you're dreaming about him. You-"
"Stop. Stop," Lex muttered beneath him, head twisting from side to side, eyes moving frantically beneath his closed lids.
"Come on Lex, snap out of it. He's gone, it's over, wake up! Wake up!"
Clark was getting desperate now and more freaked out by the second at the sight of Lex so out of control. Not only was it a terrifying contrast to the man's usual calm, it felt disrespectful, somehow, seeing Lex this way. Like parting the curtain behind the great and powerful Oz to reveal him as the ordinary man he was.
There were a few more seconds of fighting, then a final shudder wracked through Lex's body and his eyes snapped open, all of him coiling up under Clark's touch like a spring. Reacting to the change in a way he couldn't have explained if he tried Clark pulled his hands away and let the older man bolt upright, knowing somehow that he needed the movement, needed the release. This left Lex hurtling into him and Clark incapable of anything but wrapping his arms around the moving man's back to cushion the impact between them.
Lex struggled to breathe for a few seconds. His throat felt raw, his shoulder was on fire and he'd just been watching people die over and over. Been killing them. Bones snapping between his hands. Bodies incinerated. Dust between his fingers. He could still feel it trickling down...
He tried to rub his hands down his sides but one of them was tightened up painfully and the other was stuck. He uncurled the fisted one with a hiss of discomfort and pulled the other arm harder. The fire in his shoulder burnt deeper.
"Ah!"
His other hand gripped on reflex at the pain and the fingers found warm acrylic, bunched it up and squeezed tight.
"Easy..." a voice whispered, and Lex felt heavy palms at his back, one of them rubbing up between his shoulder blades, warming the skin where the cold air was already starting to dry the droplets of sweat rolling down.
He blinked and everything came back into focus. His shoulder hurt because he'd been shot in it. His arm was in a sling, and this was his bedroom. It was cold because he'd left the window open. Fucking doctors with their fucking penicillin that he couldn't mix with his pills. He'd known he wouldn't sleep right so he'd tried not to at all. But the day had been so long. Near death. Hospital. Police. Then Lana complaining about security cameras of all things, claiming they were a violation of her privacy. He'd tried to explain no one watched the inside cameras. With Clark prone to god knew what alien phenomena inside the mansion he'd restricted security viewing to the grounds long ago, the inner cameras were precautionary only, there for re-viewings in case evidence of past events became necessary. Like his meeting with Pontius, which Lana had used herself to track Lex down. All footage was wiped on a weekly basis. But Lana refused to listen to reason, seeming to forget their recent camaraderie during the kidnapping and becoming almost hysterical, until Lex agreed to take down the camera in her room simply to pacify her before the discussion moved on to a full blown argument. An argument would have been too much, not when he needed his energy for staying awake.
Not that it made any difference in the end. He'd slept anyway. Lived through another Nightmare on Elm Street, with himself as Freddy Kruger, and now-
"You okay?"
That voice again. Soft and soothing in his ear. A warm body against him, hands on his back, holding him close. A heavy, pungent scent. Hay. Farmyard. Clark.
"Get the fuck off me..." Lex breathed, not as sharp as he would have liked but good enough. Harsh. Like he remembered he needed to be with the younger man now.
Clark pulled back to his haunches, arms slipping away. This left him still on Lex's outstretched legs and there was an awkward moment of shifting from both of them as the older man moved away, legs curling beneath him, back resting against the bed's black velvet headboard.
Lex stared hard at Clark from his new position and the younger man turned away from the gaze, disappointed as much as hurt by it, sorry to have lost the moment of intimacy they'd shared in Lex's less than awake state.
"I told you not to come back here," Lex said, voice rapidly gaining strength and turning hard.
"Lex, you were-"
"I was dreaming. What I do at night is no longer your concern, Clark. Get out."
Clark felt his own hands ball into fists, a flicker of defiance in his chest. He'd 'get out' soon enough, but until then he had nothing left to lose, and if all Lex was going to do with his sympathy was shoot it down, well, Clark didn't have the patience to keep offering it.
"No," he said, raising his head again.
A flash of something indefinable passed across Lex's face, widening his eyes. Surprise? Anger? Pride? Then it was gone and he was shaking his head.
"For god's sake, do you think I'm so weak I can't even handle a few nightmares without you there to hold my hand? Get over yourself."
"Yeah? Well let's take a look at your hand shall we?"
Clark reached forward before Lex had time to react and grabbed the older man's left wrist. Lex sucked in a breath as Clark stretched the arm out and the Kryptonian would have been ashamed at the hint of fear in the gasp if he wasn't so focused, body flushing like it had so often that day but with the heat of a chosen purpose this time. Lex was hurting because of him, he needed help, and he knew the stubborn bastard would never admit it to himself, never face up to the fact there were some things he wasn't strong enough to deal with on his own. But Clark was going to make him see it before he left. He couldn't fix the pain he'd caused, but he could at least try and get Lex to help himself.
Leaning across with his other arm, Clark pulled back Lex's still slightly curled fingers to reveal the older man's palm. A series of deep, half moon shaped marks formed a semi-circle across the top, not quite bleeding but raw enough to suggest they were on the verge of it. Marks from fingernails biting the skin, evidence of a fist clenching too tight for Lex's body to stand. Clark flicked his eyes up, mouth a hard line.
"Still think you can handle it?"
His hold turned slack, point made, and Lex took the opportunity to snatch his hand back. He opened his mouth to respond but Clark was already continuing.
"Lex, these are more than just nightmares. You can't control them and they're getting worse," he stated, tone flat. "You have them every night now. When you sleep at all."
Lex paused, mouth still open, eyebrows bunching together as what he was about to say shifted to something else.
"Have you been spying on me?"
"I..." Clark started to retort, before turning his head away. His firm expression remained unchanged, but he sucked his lower lip for a second in a gesture of unease. Because, actually, there had been a couple of times. When Lex was in Gotham he'd tailed him for a few nights-the place had a bad reputation, he wanted to make sure the other man stayed safe.
Lex curled his lips up and barked out a cutting, humourless laugh. He remembered all the flashes of plaid he seen on his recent journeys, the ones he'd put down to paranoia or mental instability. No way to tell now which had been real and which hadn't, no way to qualify his sanity on any acceptable level. Goddamn Clark for screwing with his mind-again!
"Lex, that's not the point..."
Lex begged to differ, his own mental health had always been a sensitive issue and the domino line of deception his life had been plagued with hardly helped. Top of the set up and ready to send all the other tiles smashing down being Clark, fucking 'I'm one hundred per cent human no matter what you see,' Kent. Perhaps being hard with the kid wouldn't be so difficult.
Clark turned to find fire in the older man's eyes, warming the pale ice to tempest tossed blue, and he was even glad of it for a second, glad to know Lex hadn't lost his strength, that the frightened, helpless man he'd walked in on wasn't all his friend had been reduced to. But despite that, a bout of impenetrable Luthor anger was not what either of them needed just then.
"No, it's not," the younger man pressed before Lex could start anything. "Lex, I don't have to spy on you, okay? I just hear you. Wherever you are, however far away. Here, Washington, London, China, it doesn't matter! I still hear you, every night. Screaming for help, calling my name, and I-" Clark choked off for a second. That piece of kryptonite was trying to close his throat up again. He looked down, voice more subdued as he continued. "I'm not even listening, Lex, I just..." He waved a hand over his ear in explanation, face softening as he recalled all the sleepless nights they'd both been suffering through the past few weeks, the impotent tears he'd forced back each time Lex's desperate, out of control cries had found him. So needy, so very un-Lexian, they'd left his heart pounding every time.
The newfound anger in Lex drained away, although he tried to school his face not to show it. He'd known he'd been yelling, with the sheets in disarray and his throat raw and dry every time he woke up it wasn't a difficult assumption, but he was yelling for Clark? Oh, his subconscious wasn't even trying to get with the program was it?
Lex licked his lips to alleviate the most recent parched state of his throat some and tried to dismiss the fact he'd apparently been crying like a child at night for the past two months. Not to mention how Clark had somehow tuned into him on an unconscious, seemingly permanent level.
"Well, I'm sorry to have disturbed you," he said. "I'll see my doctor tomorrow about some stronger medication. I assure you it won't happen again."
"Stronger medication?" Clark repeated, looking up, the edge to his voice returning. "Lex, you've got enough Valium here to knock out a whole farm." He waved a hand at the drawers beside them for emphasis. "Whatever's wrong with you, drugs aren't the answer."
"And when did you gain a degree in medicine, Clark?"
"Goddamn it, Lex!" Clark exploded, the constant brick wall the older man was offering finally knocking his patience all the way down. "I'm not trying to tell you what to do, I'm just saying you might need some help with this!"
"Well damn it, Clark, I don't want-"
Lex had an end of the sentence in mind - a cutting one, guaranteed to leave Clark reeling - but he shifted forward to make it and felt biting cold air swirl round his body, felt the wind soak into his shoulder and leave it aching and every part of him seemed to weigh down, all at once, with a heavy, mindnumbing fatigue. He remembered warm hands stroking between his shoulder blades and wished with all his heart they were still there, wished to be held tight and close again until the world blotted out around him, wished that, just for a moment, he didn't have to be strong and face the blood and bones and dust and death and all the guilt, oh the aching, crushing, suffocating guilt that came with it. His throat seized up just at the memory of the feeling and he fell silent.
Clark frowned, emerald eyes jading with impatience.
"You don't want what, Lex?" he pressed. "My help...? Me?"
Lex tried to speak again. Couldn't.
"Go ahead, say it. Get it out of the way," Clark continued, voice trembling with hurt at first, then twisting passed it to bitterness. "Tell me you don't love me. Tell me what we had meant nothing. Tell me it was all about the sex. Go on! It's not going to scare me away. I didn't come here to win you back, I..." A small swallow and the bitterness melted. A cluster of gentle wrinkles appeared at the corner of Clark's eyes. "I just want you to be okay..."
Lex's forehead scrunched up, the lines there sharper without any hair to cover them.
"Why?" he managed to get out. Because all Lex had done to Clark since Zod's departure was dismiss, ignore, shun and outright abuse the boy. Okay, Clark never had liked to see someone in pain, but Lex wasn't in the throes of a nightmare anymore. Why was the younger man still fighting to stay when he was using every tactic he knew to make him want to leave?
Clark looked like he wanted to cry when he heard the question, but pulled himself together with a shake of his head.
"Because I love you," he said, shrugging lightly, as though the fact were inescapable, like how darkness followed a sunset, or heat turned ice into water. "And I'm not you, Lex, I can't just switch that off."
He lifted up to his knees and reached forward, fingers brushing the older man's cheek in an impulsive need to feel him again, to touch Lex's skin and prove he was real.
But Lex jerked away, eyes fixing on the other man with almost perverse fascination, face tightening, breath turning shallow. This wasn't right. He'd spent the better part of five years analysing Clark, enough to know without doubt how he'd react to the kind of stress he'd been put through recently, and this calm, self-assured defiance wasn't it. The boy didn't like confrontations. Oh, not the ones he started himself, no, the ones where he could shout away his fears by telling people what to do. Just the ones that put himself in the spotlight, the ones he had to think about, ones that made him feel.
Because Clark was scared of his emotions. Why else spent half your life chasing a girl but never making a move? He hadn't wanted to risk opening himself up to his feelings and all the inner realisations the surrender brought with it. A caution Lex knew well.
So what was this about Clark not being scared away? Sticking to his claim of love even while Lex was rejecting it, belittling it, ripping it apart until it must be little more than a burden by now? Oh, Lex knew how that felt too. He'd barely lived through it himself even when Clark was a new and firm friend, rejecting the older man's feelings with nothing but unintentionally cutting, platonic advances. That Clark should be able to resist a deliberate, pitiless attack like the one Lex was launching at the moment wasn't right at all.
Clark fell back to his haunches, hands lowering to his thighs. He sighed.
"It doesn't matter what you say," he breathed. "You can shout at me for the rest of the night but it won't change anything. I still care about what happens to you. I always have... I always will..."
Lex shook his head.
"Stop it..." he hissed, eyes looking anywhere but the calm-eyed man kneeling in front of him, trying to deny his existence. This wasn't right. If he told someone to leave, they left, and if he wanted someone not to care about him, they didn't. He might not be as much of an expert at manipulation as his father, but he knew enough to play a Kansas farmboy. Didn't he? Didn't he?
"Don't you see? That's just it," Clark continued, mistaking Lex's reaction, voice still sickeningly pure and earnest. "I can't stop. I'm sorry. I know it's not what you want. I know I'm the last person you want in your life right now, and god knows you're better off without me -"
"What -?" Lex objected before he could stop himself. Better off without me? Something wild and fluttery was moving in the older man's chest, multiplying, a thousand wings brushing against his ribcage and making him frantic. Clark thought...? No. It was him Clark was better off without, the reverse was ludicrous, why would the younger man think that?
"- but I can't help the way I feel!" Clark continued over the interruption. His voice was rising a little now, a frantic need to get the words out before Lex could cut him off again spurring him on. "So go ahead and shout. Tell me you hate me! I'll still love you just the same -"
The fluttering in Lex's chest exploded into fireworks and he pressed his eyes shut, trying to will the feeling away, block out what the other man was saying. Still love him, even after the pain and the deliberate attacks? No. Lex didn't want that. Clark was supposed to stop. Because if he didn't that made it real. Made it, oh god, unconditional? And how could Lex deal with that when all he knew in life was how to pay? Everything had its price - business contracts, family, friends, marriage. You gave up your time, said the right things, offered your service, your body, your connections, and that got you your return. An alliance for the company, soft caresses from your mother, the trust of the man you'd been lusting after... When you stopped paying you lost the investment, that was how the world worked. But Clark... Clark was offering himself... for free?
"- say it, Lex. Tell me you don't want me! Tell me you hate me!" Clark realised he was shouting but couldn't seem to stop. He didn't even know why he was pushing like he was, just that he needed to hear Lex explain where they stood with each other once and for all, needed the closure. Or maybe, somewhere deep down, Clark just wanted the pain of it, wanted Lex to punish him for everything he'd made the older man suffer. "Just tell me, tell me..."
Lex shook his head again. The fireworks had rocketed up to his eyes, making them hot, and now Clark - Clark who only wanted to care for him, help him, love him, so honest it felt impossible - was begging him, begging, for confirmation of something that could only be agony to hear and Lex couldn't stand it. Couldn't stand how accepting Clark was being of the lie.
"Say it, Lex," Clark urged again, leaning forward to where Lex had turned his head, wanting the older man to face him.
He touched a hand to Lex's unhindered shoulder, intending to turn him round, curling fingers ready to pull. But all Lex felt was warmth - gentle skin on his own, seeking him out. And he remembered that same hand stroking his neck outside LuthorCorp while he opened his heart about Julian; remembered soft fingers gripping his arm and pulling him onto a broken catwalk and out of danger; remembered large hands patting his back in delight, making him real again after months of malaria warped visions.
"Fuck it, Clark, no! No, I don't hate you!" Lex yelled, hand slapping Clark's chest to thrust him away, eyes hard and bright as he opened them and turned back. "I'll never hate you, I... damn it. Not caring about you isn't the problem. The problem is I do care. I care too fucking much alright?!"
Clark stopped, hand still outstretched, and blinked his head back in bewilderment.
"I wanted you for so long," Lex continued, voice harsh and scratchy. "So when I finally got the chance to be with you, I was selfish. I held on. I let you into my life because I was... arrogant enough, to think I could keep you. But you're not mine, Clark. The things you're part of are bigger and... and now eighteen thousand people are dead and it's my fault!"
Lex stopped for breath and Clark was too speechless to break the following silence. He should have been more prepared, he supposed, knowing better than anyone how your whole world could change forever in the space of a few seconds. But working on a farm had made him nothing if not a creature of habit-a change in routine or his understanding of a something still had the power to shock. So, Lex didn't hate him? Maybe, even the opposite? But, how did that make him responsible for Zod? Whatever was going on in the other man's head it was too tangled for Clark to make sense of.
"Lex..." he breathed, hand resting back in his lap. "Zod did that to those people. It wasn't you, it -"
"But it was me, Clark," Lex pressed and Clark shook his head.
The stuff about him and Lex might be too complicated to think about, but he understood about Zod at least. He knew why Lex would blame himself for that. Eighteen thousand was... that was a lot of people. Like him, Lex wanted there to be a reason for their deaths, a moment he could pin down as when things went wrong, even if that moment landed on himself. He wanted a way to understand what had happened, instead of it just being a giant mess of well meaning acts that hadn't quite been enough. A road of good intentions leading to hell. Clark understood that, because he'd wanted the same thing so badly himself. But the truth was, sometimes terrible things happened, and there wasn't any one reason for it. Sometimes everyone screwed up and you just had to accept it. He'd had weeks together with Chloe and his parents to talk this out, but Lex had been alone. Alone and trying to shoulder the guilt by himself.
"No," Clark insisted. "You were possessed. You had no control over what happened."
"No, you don't understand," Lex answered. "If it wasn't for me Zod would never have got the chance. You could have stopped him, Clark. You could have stopped everything. But you didn't, because I let you get too close. And when the time came for you to do what you had to, you couldn't." Lex looked down with a twisted parody of smile and shook his head. "I should have let you go years back. Should have left as soon as learnt the truth but I just..." He swallowed and waved his free hand, as though brushing at invisible cobwebs. "It was me or the world, Clark. And you made the wrong choice. The world needs you more than I do..."
"Wait..." Clark muttered, the lines on his brow stacking up, perceptions shifting. "You think... because I love you..."
"It held you back, yes," Lex finished, voice flat. He was calmed down enough now to regret his outburst, but that didn't change the fact that the cat was out of the bag and showing no signs of climbing in again, so the older man figured he might as well finish his misguided explanation. Clark could understand or not, there was nothing he could do to change things either way. Lex had a suitcase packed already and instructions written out for his staff to move all his possessions to the penthouse in Metropolis. He'd be leaving Smallville for the last time at 10 o'clock sharp tomorrow morning no matter what. "I held you back. And as long as I'm part of your life I'll keep doing it. You can be more than you are, Clark, so much more. I will not stay here and be the one responsible for preventing that, or risk putting any more lives in danger by being your liability."
There was a pause, then Clark breathed out with a sharp "ha!" Because Lex hadn't chosen Zod's possession as his definitive moment for Dark Thursday, or Clark's failure to stop it, or even their botched dealings with Fine. No, Lex's guilt had taken him further than that, had taken him right back to Clark's first sexual advance in the Fortress, hell maybe even as far back as the crash on the Leob's bridge. Because he wasn't just shouldering Zod's actions, he was shouldering the younger Kryptonian's as well, taking all of Clark's mistakes as his own, because he'd somehow taken their relationship as the biggest crime of all. Clark wondered how the hell the other man came up with such crazy ideas. Then realised he knew.
"God, Lex, listen to yourself," he said. "You're saying, what? Caring about someone is wrong because it makes you weak? Is that you talking or your father?"
Lex pursed his lips-an instinctive response to the comparison. But...
"My father's a bastard, Clark," he muttered. "But sometimes he's right."
"No." Clark did grab Lex then, hands gripping both his upper arms and shaking lightly until the older man looked up. "That's not it. Loving you it... it made that night so much worse, but it wasn't why. I... Lex, you could have been my greatest enemy and I still couldn't have killed you, I just couldn't. Taking a life, it... it's just not something I can do." Clark swallowed and shifted his gaze away when he realised that wasn't entirely true. Far too many people had died, indirectly, as a result of his actions, and he knew, given the chance, he'd do the same things again. Greg Arkin, Tina Greer, Sean Calvin, the list went on. All people who'd been threatening his family or his friends. He'd hadn't killed them no, but he'd been one step away, and if the people he loved were ever in danger with no other way out... well, he couldn't be certain he wouldn't. Look at how he'd gone after Zod. So he added an amendment. "Not deliberately, not like that..."
Lex was silent, tense under his hold, and Clark realised being grabbed unawares in your bedroom, unclothed and vulnerable, by a superstrong alien couldn't be very comfortable. So he released the older man slowly, sitting back down again to show a physical attack was far from his intentions.
"Lex..." Clark muttered, shoulders sagging. He knew he hadn't got through. Lex wasn't an easy man to convince, he'd need more evidence than Clark's word to disprove an idea, especially one he'd been cultivating for the last two months. Clark needed to keep going, he just didn't know what else to say. "It was my choice not to kill you, mine. You're not responsible for my mistakes, any more than you are for Zod and... god... maybe I am weak... but you're not responsible for that either, if anything-" He blinked as something came back to him, flecks of hazel circling his eyes as he locked on to the other man, grabbing him another way. "Lex, do you know what it was like in the Phantom Zone?"
Lex turned his head, the start of a dismissal, but ended up eyeing Clark sideways on instead. Distracted by the question in spite of everything. Curiosity, as always, winning out. Clark took the opportunity to continue.
"The answer is, no you don't, you can't imagine," he said. "Or at least not how it was for me. I've lived my whole life barely knowing what it means to feel pain. Certainly not for long stretches at a time. But in that place I lost all of that. I had no speed, no strength, no sunlight to keep me healthy, and Lex, being there hurt. In ways I can't tell you. It hurt to move, it hurt to talk, it hurt to breathe." Clark sucked in a breath then, feeling light tremors course through his body as it remembered its imprisonment in the harsh, monochrome landscape. "And I'm... I'm not brave, Lex..." he continued, voice quietening. "Faced with that I... all I wanted to do was give up. I was ready to. When I first came to, I just lay there, hoping to die."
Lex opened and closed his mouth, brow knitting up tight. He wanted to stop the other man, tell him to give up whatever he was trying to explain and leave - because what did Clark's time in the Phantom Zone have to do with them now? But hearing the man you love tell you that in the not too distant past they'd been wanting to die was enough to disrupt even the best laid plans. It might have been disconnected to everything they'd been saying before, but it created a tearing sensation in the older man's chest nonetheless.
"Do you know what kept me going?" Clark pressed. "Because it wasn't some noble thought of stopping Zod and saving the world. That gave me a reason, sure, but it didn't push me on or keeping me fighting, it didn't keep me making step after step when each one felt like my last, no Lex, that was you."
Clark threw it in so quickly - no emphasis, no melodrama, just simple fact - Lex almost missed the implication. When he'd finally caught it, Clark was moving on before he could react.
"Because I knew you wouldn't give up. I knew that no matter what you'd keep going and I... I dunno, I didn't want to disappoint you? I wanted to think, if you were there, if you could see me, that you'd be proud of me..." Clark lowered his gaze, nodding to himself as he re-lived the experience. "That's how I kept going. That's why I'm not rotting in some non-existent reality right now." He flicked his eyes up again. Lex was watching him avidly, so it wasn't hard to meet his gaze this time. "You don't hold me back Lex. You make me stronger."
There was a pause while Lex stared and Clark could almost hear the whisper of thoughts whirling round his head, faster than even he could follow.
It made him bite his lip and look down, old intimidations flooding back.
"But I, err... I'm not trying to guilt trip you with this," he muttered. "You're right, I can be better than I am. I want to be. And I'll try, with or without you. I just..." He risked a glance up again and was relieved to find Lex didn't look angry. If anything his face seemed softer, the lines on his brow melting away. "You need help, Lex. I know you want to think you don't, but you do. And I'm not saying you should take it from me, or that you should call someone in or anything, just... just talk to someone. Lana, Chloe, anyone. I don't want you to be alone."
Clark let his eyes wonder over the other man for a moment, soaking him up, aware this might be his last chance. He'd never seen Lex so fragile. His bloodied shoulder and the sling left him vulnerable enough, but now his bare chest had started to tremble from the continuing breeze. His feet were bare and curling under the bed's remaining pillows in search of a modicum of warmth, while the fabric of his PJs flapped against his legs. Clark knew this was because they were silk and that was how they were supposed to act, but it looked like they were loose and swamping the older man, like he was wasting away inside them, and it hurt Clark to see. Not just because his friend was hurting, but because he knew there was so much more to Lex. That he kept a fierce power behind his small frame that would be criminal for him to lose.
"So, just... promise me you'll find someone," he finished. "Promise me and I swear I'll leave. You'll never have to see me again. Just -"
Clark cut off. It was hard to do anything else with Lex's arm curling round his neck and pulling him close, the older man's own body leaning in until his chin was resting on the Kryptonian's shoulder.
Part X | Part XII
Pairing(s): Clex
Spoilers: up to Season 6 'Sneeze'
Category: episode-related, drama, angst, romance, h/c
Rating: PG
Summary: A re-write of 'Sneeze.' As the world tries to come to terms with the aftermath of Dark Thursday, Clark and Lex face more immediate concerns when the young Luthor is kidnapped by someone hoping to discover the source of his power during Zod's possession. Meanwhile, Clark's time in the Phantom Zone takes its toll on the Kryptonian in a particularly unwelcome fashion - a common cold.
Author's note: I guess an update a month is shaping up to be the norm now huh? Check it out though because I FINALLY managed to orchestrate some hurt/comfort - my absolute favouritest favourite of all fanfic genres! Who doesn't like to see their favourite characters being huggled when they need it? :D
Sneeze- part XI
Later that night, Clark was lying fully clothed on top of his bed, hands behind his head, back, booted feet crossed at the ankles. His inner temperature seemed to have calmed down now and he was back to just the red T-shirt, the patches of sweat under the arms dry enough to no longer be visible, although he still noticed a stiffness in the fabric there when he moved. His mom had been pestering him to change ever since he got back but Clark liked the imperfection, liked to be reminded how, just for a little while, he hadn't been invulnerable, hadn't been perfect, hadn't been... all powerful. It was a feeling he sensed he wouldn't be able to cherish much longer, if the growing strength and distinct lack of sneezes he'd been experiencing all evening were anything to go by.
He puffed out a short sigh. Then tensed and held his breath, eyes darting anxiously round the room for any signs of damage. Everything seemed to have remained intact and Clark breathed out more softly in relief. Pretty much the whole of the afternoon had been spent like this, with the Kryptonian obsessing over every breath. At one point he'd even tried to stop breathing altogether - he had ridden a rocket into space that time with no ill effects, oxygen clearly wasn't something he needed. But it seemed his body wanted it for some reason because it was still the holding of his breath he needed to concentrate on, not the taking of it, and he always fell back to a natural rhythm in the end.
Since he'd spent over twenty years doing that and no one had died from it yet he'd decided to stick with how he'd always breathed for now, until he figured out a better idea. So, as he let his body relax back to whatever passed as normal for it these days, he continued to scan his bedroom ceiling, eyes counting the faint green glow-in-the-dark stars he and his dad had put there when he was nine.
They'd spent almost a whole week setting them up, flicking through astronomy books and checking the telescope in the barn every night to make sure they arranged them as close to the actual constellations outside as possible. They still weren't right. Clark knew now that the Orion on his ceiling was far too close to Ursa Major and Caseopeia had been stuck on upside down, but for a nine year old boy who'd just been discovering the wonders of space for the first time the mistakes hadn't made the effect any less captivating that first night his dad had turned off the lights and left him alone in the home made planetarium. Too captivated, almost, Clark thought with a smile as he remembered how appalled Martha had been with the two of them when she'd discovered those first few nights of newly arranged plastic stars had been stopping Clark sleeping - as several grumpy, drowsy breakfasts had soon revealed. A stern faced threat to take them down had had Clark closing his eyes on the display soon enough though.
Of course, that was back when sleep had actually been a necessity for him and mistakes had been allowed, welcomed even as learning experience, because they'd had no lasting consequence. Unlike now. Clark's smile faded and it struck him for a moment that he seemed to have come full circle. Here he was, staring at the ceiling again without sleeping, while his parents and the rest of the town were happily snoring away. Only it wasn't wonder the white, moulded bits of plastic held for him now, more than a painful, heart-twisting nostalgia. Because he'd been wrong back then - they were no beautiful night sky, they weren't even a decent replica of one, they were just another lie, like the rest of his life. Their glow had visibly faded over the years as well, so much that some of them weren't even shining at all any more and the ones that were... well, the sickly shade of green they emitted had rather more ominous connotations for Clark these days.
No, the boy who'd stayed up night after night to watch those falsified constellations was miles away from the non-sleeping Clark Kent watching them now. This wasn't his life, not any more. There were far too many hard, suffocating realities demanding his attention now.
Clark turned his head toward the window, in a bid for escape perhaps. He'd left it open slightly in an effort to keep his body temperature regulated and a soft breeze was blowing the brown plaid curtains across it against the wooden chest of drawers to the left. Clark's eyes dropped down it and fell on the latest addition to the room - a bright red kite propped up against the bottom of the drawers. Chloe had turned up with it just before dinner with a reluctant Lois in tow, cheeks ruby red and face almost split in half by her smile, saying she was long overdue some quality time with her cousin and friends and, in a whisper, that it would be a good way for Clark to practice his new skill. The girls had even brought a picnic and Chloe called it a celebration of a job well done. She'd just heard from Metropolis Hospital that Lex's shoulder had been treated just fine and the MPD had written off the kidnapping as a failed attempt at gaining some of the infamous Luthor fortune. They were keeping an eye out for the guy who got away but, since Lex had testified personally that he didn't consider him a threat, the overall consensus was 'case closed.'
Ordinarily Clark would have shared his friend's enthusiasm. The threats of the day had been dealt with and the people he cared about were safe again. But every gust of 'wind' he worked up to keep his kite flying companions happy reminded him how temporary that safety could be for them with him around. The fact Lana had apparently turned down an offer to join them hadn't done much to boost his confidence either. According to Chloe, the 'drop-kicking heroine of the day' had some issues with the mansion's security system she wanted to discuss with Lex, but it sounded like a poor excuse to Clark. The number of break-ins over the years proved beyond doubt how important security was at the Luthor castle and, if anything, he'd have thought that would make Lana feel safer - making her reasoning little more than a dismissive 'I'm washing my hair' and leaving Clark to suspect himself as the more likely cause for her absence.
So, although he'd gone through the motions of having a good time that afternoon so as not to arouse suspicion, really Clark been hatching another plan. Lex had said it would be safer if he'd left, and yes, he'd been talking about a specific building before it became a crime scene, but Clark could see wider implications. He could see how safer it might be for everyone if he left Smallville altogether, if he left the country. It was something he'd always known. He remembered the awkward group discussion he and the others had had before Fine infected Lex - how he'd realised just how much danger everyone had put themselves in for him. He'd thought he'd have to live with it back then, that he didn't have the strength to leave his friends and family for good. But now... now Lana's hand was covered in a harsh and bloodied gauze and she was too scared to see him, his parents were being forced to re-assess their principles every day to try and come to terms with what they'd been willing to do over Dark Thursday and Chloe's loving support was becoming almost painful to accept when he knew he wasn't nearly half the man she believed he could be, was looking almost like a delusion he was unfairly cultivating.
It would still hurt to leave, but... Clark though it would be worth it, that he might be able to handle it, if it meant the people he loved were safe and better off. He turned back to the dull lights on the ceiling, only to be hit afresh by how much things had changed over the last few months, how completely separated from the life he'd once known he'd become, and he wondered what was left for him in Smallville now anyway.
That was when Lex started to scream.
Clark jerked upright, like he had every time since that first night, and, just like he had all those other times, he stopped himself, closed his eyes and tried to block the sound out. But it wouldn't be blocked, and soon he could make out words through Lex's yells. Things like 'no!' and 'stop!' and 'don't!'
It was the next part Clark had come to hate the most though, and Lex moved onto it even faster than normal that night.
"Clark! Clark! Clark!"
Just his name, over and over. But so strong, so desperate, Clark had to physically ball his hands into fists to hold himself back from rushing over. But he'd tried that before and Lex had pushed him away. Just dreams, he'd said, and he had them under control.
Except, clearly, he hadn't.
Clark opened his eyes again and took a couple of deep breaths. If he was leaving anyway, what did it matter what Lex's last thoughts of him were? He could hardly make things worse. The older man continued to murmur, his words slipping just out of hearing, and Clark nodded to himself. One last try, before he left. He couldn't just leave the man he loved screaming without one last try at making it right.
One of the red display cushions his mom would insist he arrange on the bed after he made it bobbed down the side of the comforter and onto the floor, pulled by the suction of wind left by the Kryptonian's exit.
*****
Unlike Clark's bedroom, Lex's held no vestiges of the past. In fact, even after five years of use it still looked little more than a luxury hotel room. Just a king sized bed in the centre, dark mahogany chest of drawers at the head and matching wardrobe and desk against the wall opposite.
As Clark swung the door open and stepped inside he realised Lex had his window open as well, far wider than his own had been. The rich, scarlet curtains were flapping against the frame like a thousand moths and Clark had enough left over sensitivity from his illness to realise the room was much too cold. No one should have been able to sleep in such conditions, which the Kryptonian supposed had been the point if the way Lex was lying on top of his burgundy covers was any indication, wearing only a pair of thin, purple slacks, chest bare to soak up as much of the freezing air as possible. His right arm was held against him by a thick, black sling, arranged not as a triangle of fabric like most, but as a tight oblong running from his elbow to his wrist, held in place by a black strap hooking over his left shoulder and down his back. This was to give more air to the right shoulder wound, Clark guessed, which had several bandages wrapped around it, looping under the older man's right arm. But from the way Lex's current thrashing seemed to have aggravated the wound, leaving a growing blotch of red to pulse through the fabric, the younger man thought something more traditional might have been better.
"No!" Lex yelled again, free arm jerking out to ward off whatever nightmare was attacking him this time, fingers curling into the palm to shape a tightly held fist. He was still for a second after that, breathing turning fast and shallow, then he was rolling against the sheets, harder than before, free arm lashing out while his encumbered one tugged sharply at its restraint. Whatever was happening in the dream clearly didn't account for the sling or damaged shoulder and Clark knew if Lex continued as he was he was really going to hurt himself.
"Lex," he started, hurrying forward.
But he misjudged the distance as he rushed and ended up banging the chest of drawers on the way. There was a thud as it settled again and a rattling sound from the top. Clark noticed something fall to the floor by his shoulder and turned automatically. A semi-transparent orange pot lay on the carpet by his feet, half full of pills.
A sudden, mind-numbing panic filled Clark for a second, compelling him to pick the thing up. Turning it over revealed a label marked 'diazepam.' Valium. He looked to the top of the drawers and found half a dozen more pots set up across it, but before his throat could clam up in shock he remembered something. A similar fear on top of a windmill. Lex curving his lips in a wry smile :: Not that. I'd never be that desperate ::
Clark let out the breath he didn't realise he'd been holding and replaced the pot with the others. Noting how all but that one were full and unopened. No, Lex had gone out of his way not to fall asleep tonight, that was what the open window was all about. But either he'd been too tired to keep it up, or the doctors in Metropolis had snuck him a sedative on the sly, because his plan had failed.
Clark turned back to the bed where Lex was still struggling. The older man's legs were thrashing out now and he started muttering again.
"No... don't... not again..."
"Lex, you're just dreaming, wake up," Clark said, reaching over to grip the other man's upper arm, just below the scarlet soaked bandages. He could feel Lex's muscles continue to flex under the hold but it kept his shoulder still at least. "Lex..."
"Claaark!"
It felt like a ball of kryptonite was trying to claw its way out of the younger man's throat and Clark had to swallow hard to keep it down.
"It's me Lex, I'm here," he continued, voice tight, his free arm reaching out to the struggling man's other side.
"No..." Lex muttered, his waving hand batting Clark's away, fist curling tighter. "Clark-get away!"
Clark froze.
"Get away... just leave... just-"
Lex cut off, choking, as if someone had forced him to stop, and Clark lowered his arm, his time on silver kryptonite playing back suddenly behind his eyes-himself advancing on Lex with nothing but anger in his mind, his hand round the other man's neck...
He blinked hard. Well that confirmed it, didn't it? That's really all he was to Lex now. The stuff of nightmares. Just another dangerous, murderous alien.
He uncurled his fingers from Lex's arm and moved them away, blinking back more inner kryptonite-stinging his eyes this time-as he staggered from the bed. Lex resumed his thrashing without the hold, but as painful as it looked Clark knew it wouldn't kill him. Knew it was a hurt the older man would get over. Just like he planned to get over Clark.
He turned and headed for the door. Just leave...
"Don't!"
More choking, which Clark ignored.
"Don't, please. Not Clark, don't-" Lex breathed in, long and deep, and the air scratched down his throat, leaving him rasping. Changing his voice completely. "Kneel before -!"
Clark heard a sharp tap of enamel as Lex bit back the words, but they'd been more than enough to get the younger man spinning round again, even as his hand gripped the door handle.
"Please..." Lex breathed, body stilling as though in defeat. "Just leave him... Just... Aaargh!"
The ending scream tore through him and Lex arched his back, redoubling his efforts at unneeded escape as he fell back down. Clark was back at his side in a blink.
"Lex!" he yelled. "Lex, wake up!"
He grabbed the other man's arms again but Lex kicked out at him with his feet, head and body moving so hard and fast Clark feared even holding him might not be enough, that if he gripped too tight and Lex twisted at the wrong moment the older man would just snap apart like brittle wood.
So Clark moved onto the bed himself, kneeling across Lex's legs to keep them still and pushing the other man's forearms as hard as he dared into the mattress to try and pin him down. A couple of silky red and white pillows slid to the floor in the struggle.
"Lex..." he hissed through his teeth as he worked. "You idiot. Why didn't you tell me? You're not dreaming about me, you're dreaming about him. You-"
"Stop. Stop," Lex muttered beneath him, head twisting from side to side, eyes moving frantically beneath his closed lids.
"Come on Lex, snap out of it. He's gone, it's over, wake up! Wake up!"
Clark was getting desperate now and more freaked out by the second at the sight of Lex so out of control. Not only was it a terrifying contrast to the man's usual calm, it felt disrespectful, somehow, seeing Lex this way. Like parting the curtain behind the great and powerful Oz to reveal him as the ordinary man he was.
There were a few more seconds of fighting, then a final shudder wracked through Lex's body and his eyes snapped open, all of him coiling up under Clark's touch like a spring. Reacting to the change in a way he couldn't have explained if he tried Clark pulled his hands away and let the older man bolt upright, knowing somehow that he needed the movement, needed the release. This left Lex hurtling into him and Clark incapable of anything but wrapping his arms around the moving man's back to cushion the impact between them.
Lex struggled to breathe for a few seconds. His throat felt raw, his shoulder was on fire and he'd just been watching people die over and over. Been killing them. Bones snapping between his hands. Bodies incinerated. Dust between his fingers. He could still feel it trickling down...
He tried to rub his hands down his sides but one of them was tightened up painfully and the other was stuck. He uncurled the fisted one with a hiss of discomfort and pulled the other arm harder. The fire in his shoulder burnt deeper.
"Ah!"
His other hand gripped on reflex at the pain and the fingers found warm acrylic, bunched it up and squeezed tight.
"Easy..." a voice whispered, and Lex felt heavy palms at his back, one of them rubbing up between his shoulder blades, warming the skin where the cold air was already starting to dry the droplets of sweat rolling down.
He blinked and everything came back into focus. His shoulder hurt because he'd been shot in it. His arm was in a sling, and this was his bedroom. It was cold because he'd left the window open. Fucking doctors with their fucking penicillin that he couldn't mix with his pills. He'd known he wouldn't sleep right so he'd tried not to at all. But the day had been so long. Near death. Hospital. Police. Then Lana complaining about security cameras of all things, claiming they were a violation of her privacy. He'd tried to explain no one watched the inside cameras. With Clark prone to god knew what alien phenomena inside the mansion he'd restricted security viewing to the grounds long ago, the inner cameras were precautionary only, there for re-viewings in case evidence of past events became necessary. Like his meeting with Pontius, which Lana had used herself to track Lex down. All footage was wiped on a weekly basis. But Lana refused to listen to reason, seeming to forget their recent camaraderie during the kidnapping and becoming almost hysterical, until Lex agreed to take down the camera in her room simply to pacify her before the discussion moved on to a full blown argument. An argument would have been too much, not when he needed his energy for staying awake.
Not that it made any difference in the end. He'd slept anyway. Lived through another Nightmare on Elm Street, with himself as Freddy Kruger, and now-
"You okay?"
That voice again. Soft and soothing in his ear. A warm body against him, hands on his back, holding him close. A heavy, pungent scent. Hay. Farmyard. Clark.
"Get the fuck off me..." Lex breathed, not as sharp as he would have liked but good enough. Harsh. Like he remembered he needed to be with the younger man now.
Clark pulled back to his haunches, arms slipping away. This left him still on Lex's outstretched legs and there was an awkward moment of shifting from both of them as the older man moved away, legs curling beneath him, back resting against the bed's black velvet headboard.
Lex stared hard at Clark from his new position and the younger man turned away from the gaze, disappointed as much as hurt by it, sorry to have lost the moment of intimacy they'd shared in Lex's less than awake state.
"I told you not to come back here," Lex said, voice rapidly gaining strength and turning hard.
"Lex, you were-"
"I was dreaming. What I do at night is no longer your concern, Clark. Get out."
Clark felt his own hands ball into fists, a flicker of defiance in his chest. He'd 'get out' soon enough, but until then he had nothing left to lose, and if all Lex was going to do with his sympathy was shoot it down, well, Clark didn't have the patience to keep offering it.
"No," he said, raising his head again.
A flash of something indefinable passed across Lex's face, widening his eyes. Surprise? Anger? Pride? Then it was gone and he was shaking his head.
"For god's sake, do you think I'm so weak I can't even handle a few nightmares without you there to hold my hand? Get over yourself."
"Yeah? Well let's take a look at your hand shall we?"
Clark reached forward before Lex had time to react and grabbed the older man's left wrist. Lex sucked in a breath as Clark stretched the arm out and the Kryptonian would have been ashamed at the hint of fear in the gasp if he wasn't so focused, body flushing like it had so often that day but with the heat of a chosen purpose this time. Lex was hurting because of him, he needed help, and he knew the stubborn bastard would never admit it to himself, never face up to the fact there were some things he wasn't strong enough to deal with on his own. But Clark was going to make him see it before he left. He couldn't fix the pain he'd caused, but he could at least try and get Lex to help himself.
Leaning across with his other arm, Clark pulled back Lex's still slightly curled fingers to reveal the older man's palm. A series of deep, half moon shaped marks formed a semi-circle across the top, not quite bleeding but raw enough to suggest they were on the verge of it. Marks from fingernails biting the skin, evidence of a fist clenching too tight for Lex's body to stand. Clark flicked his eyes up, mouth a hard line.
"Still think you can handle it?"
His hold turned slack, point made, and Lex took the opportunity to snatch his hand back. He opened his mouth to respond but Clark was already continuing.
"Lex, these are more than just nightmares. You can't control them and they're getting worse," he stated, tone flat. "You have them every night now. When you sleep at all."
Lex paused, mouth still open, eyebrows bunching together as what he was about to say shifted to something else.
"Have you been spying on me?"
"I..." Clark started to retort, before turning his head away. His firm expression remained unchanged, but he sucked his lower lip for a second in a gesture of unease. Because, actually, there had been a couple of times. When Lex was in Gotham he'd tailed him for a few nights-the place had a bad reputation, he wanted to make sure the other man stayed safe.
Lex curled his lips up and barked out a cutting, humourless laugh. He remembered all the flashes of plaid he seen on his recent journeys, the ones he'd put down to paranoia or mental instability. No way to tell now which had been real and which hadn't, no way to qualify his sanity on any acceptable level. Goddamn Clark for screwing with his mind-again!
"Lex, that's not the point..."
Lex begged to differ, his own mental health had always been a sensitive issue and the domino line of deception his life had been plagued with hardly helped. Top of the set up and ready to send all the other tiles smashing down being Clark, fucking 'I'm one hundred per cent human no matter what you see,' Kent. Perhaps being hard with the kid wouldn't be so difficult.
Clark turned to find fire in the older man's eyes, warming the pale ice to tempest tossed blue, and he was even glad of it for a second, glad to know Lex hadn't lost his strength, that the frightened, helpless man he'd walked in on wasn't all his friend had been reduced to. But despite that, a bout of impenetrable Luthor anger was not what either of them needed just then.
"No, it's not," the younger man pressed before Lex could start anything. "Lex, I don't have to spy on you, okay? I just hear you. Wherever you are, however far away. Here, Washington, London, China, it doesn't matter! I still hear you, every night. Screaming for help, calling my name, and I-" Clark choked off for a second. That piece of kryptonite was trying to close his throat up again. He looked down, voice more subdued as he continued. "I'm not even listening, Lex, I just..." He waved a hand over his ear in explanation, face softening as he recalled all the sleepless nights they'd both been suffering through the past few weeks, the impotent tears he'd forced back each time Lex's desperate, out of control cries had found him. So needy, so very un-Lexian, they'd left his heart pounding every time.
The newfound anger in Lex drained away, although he tried to school his face not to show it. He'd known he'd been yelling, with the sheets in disarray and his throat raw and dry every time he woke up it wasn't a difficult assumption, but he was yelling for Clark? Oh, his subconscious wasn't even trying to get with the program was it?
Lex licked his lips to alleviate the most recent parched state of his throat some and tried to dismiss the fact he'd apparently been crying like a child at night for the past two months. Not to mention how Clark had somehow tuned into him on an unconscious, seemingly permanent level.
"Well, I'm sorry to have disturbed you," he said. "I'll see my doctor tomorrow about some stronger medication. I assure you it won't happen again."
"Stronger medication?" Clark repeated, looking up, the edge to his voice returning. "Lex, you've got enough Valium here to knock out a whole farm." He waved a hand at the drawers beside them for emphasis. "Whatever's wrong with you, drugs aren't the answer."
"And when did you gain a degree in medicine, Clark?"
"Goddamn it, Lex!" Clark exploded, the constant brick wall the older man was offering finally knocking his patience all the way down. "I'm not trying to tell you what to do, I'm just saying you might need some help with this!"
"Well damn it, Clark, I don't want-"
Lex had an end of the sentence in mind - a cutting one, guaranteed to leave Clark reeling - but he shifted forward to make it and felt biting cold air swirl round his body, felt the wind soak into his shoulder and leave it aching and every part of him seemed to weigh down, all at once, with a heavy, mindnumbing fatigue. He remembered warm hands stroking between his shoulder blades and wished with all his heart they were still there, wished to be held tight and close again until the world blotted out around him, wished that, just for a moment, he didn't have to be strong and face the blood and bones and dust and death and all the guilt, oh the aching, crushing, suffocating guilt that came with it. His throat seized up just at the memory of the feeling and he fell silent.
Clark frowned, emerald eyes jading with impatience.
"You don't want what, Lex?" he pressed. "My help...? Me?"
Lex tried to speak again. Couldn't.
"Go ahead, say it. Get it out of the way," Clark continued, voice trembling with hurt at first, then twisting passed it to bitterness. "Tell me you don't love me. Tell me what we had meant nothing. Tell me it was all about the sex. Go on! It's not going to scare me away. I didn't come here to win you back, I..." A small swallow and the bitterness melted. A cluster of gentle wrinkles appeared at the corner of Clark's eyes. "I just want you to be okay..."
Lex's forehead scrunched up, the lines there sharper without any hair to cover them.
"Why?" he managed to get out. Because all Lex had done to Clark since Zod's departure was dismiss, ignore, shun and outright abuse the boy. Okay, Clark never had liked to see someone in pain, but Lex wasn't in the throes of a nightmare anymore. Why was the younger man still fighting to stay when he was using every tactic he knew to make him want to leave?
Clark looked like he wanted to cry when he heard the question, but pulled himself together with a shake of his head.
"Because I love you," he said, shrugging lightly, as though the fact were inescapable, like how darkness followed a sunset, or heat turned ice into water. "And I'm not you, Lex, I can't just switch that off."
He lifted up to his knees and reached forward, fingers brushing the older man's cheek in an impulsive need to feel him again, to touch Lex's skin and prove he was real.
But Lex jerked away, eyes fixing on the other man with almost perverse fascination, face tightening, breath turning shallow. This wasn't right. He'd spent the better part of five years analysing Clark, enough to know without doubt how he'd react to the kind of stress he'd been put through recently, and this calm, self-assured defiance wasn't it. The boy didn't like confrontations. Oh, not the ones he started himself, no, the ones where he could shout away his fears by telling people what to do. Just the ones that put himself in the spotlight, the ones he had to think about, ones that made him feel.
Because Clark was scared of his emotions. Why else spent half your life chasing a girl but never making a move? He hadn't wanted to risk opening himself up to his feelings and all the inner realisations the surrender brought with it. A caution Lex knew well.
So what was this about Clark not being scared away? Sticking to his claim of love even while Lex was rejecting it, belittling it, ripping it apart until it must be little more than a burden by now? Oh, Lex knew how that felt too. He'd barely lived through it himself even when Clark was a new and firm friend, rejecting the older man's feelings with nothing but unintentionally cutting, platonic advances. That Clark should be able to resist a deliberate, pitiless attack like the one Lex was launching at the moment wasn't right at all.
Clark fell back to his haunches, hands lowering to his thighs. He sighed.
"It doesn't matter what you say," he breathed. "You can shout at me for the rest of the night but it won't change anything. I still care about what happens to you. I always have... I always will..."
Lex shook his head.
"Stop it..." he hissed, eyes looking anywhere but the calm-eyed man kneeling in front of him, trying to deny his existence. This wasn't right. If he told someone to leave, they left, and if he wanted someone not to care about him, they didn't. He might not be as much of an expert at manipulation as his father, but he knew enough to play a Kansas farmboy. Didn't he? Didn't he?
"Don't you see? That's just it," Clark continued, mistaking Lex's reaction, voice still sickeningly pure and earnest. "I can't stop. I'm sorry. I know it's not what you want. I know I'm the last person you want in your life right now, and god knows you're better off without me -"
"What -?" Lex objected before he could stop himself. Better off without me? Something wild and fluttery was moving in the older man's chest, multiplying, a thousand wings brushing against his ribcage and making him frantic. Clark thought...? No. It was him Clark was better off without, the reverse was ludicrous, why would the younger man think that?
"- but I can't help the way I feel!" Clark continued over the interruption. His voice was rising a little now, a frantic need to get the words out before Lex could cut him off again spurring him on. "So go ahead and shout. Tell me you hate me! I'll still love you just the same -"
The fluttering in Lex's chest exploded into fireworks and he pressed his eyes shut, trying to will the feeling away, block out what the other man was saying. Still love him, even after the pain and the deliberate attacks? No. Lex didn't want that. Clark was supposed to stop. Because if he didn't that made it real. Made it, oh god, unconditional? And how could Lex deal with that when all he knew in life was how to pay? Everything had its price - business contracts, family, friends, marriage. You gave up your time, said the right things, offered your service, your body, your connections, and that got you your return. An alliance for the company, soft caresses from your mother, the trust of the man you'd been lusting after... When you stopped paying you lost the investment, that was how the world worked. But Clark... Clark was offering himself... for free?
"- say it, Lex. Tell me you don't want me! Tell me you hate me!" Clark realised he was shouting but couldn't seem to stop. He didn't even know why he was pushing like he was, just that he needed to hear Lex explain where they stood with each other once and for all, needed the closure. Or maybe, somewhere deep down, Clark just wanted the pain of it, wanted Lex to punish him for everything he'd made the older man suffer. "Just tell me, tell me..."
Lex shook his head again. The fireworks had rocketed up to his eyes, making them hot, and now Clark - Clark who only wanted to care for him, help him, love him, so honest it felt impossible - was begging him, begging, for confirmation of something that could only be agony to hear and Lex couldn't stand it. Couldn't stand how accepting Clark was being of the lie.
"Say it, Lex," Clark urged again, leaning forward to where Lex had turned his head, wanting the older man to face him.
He touched a hand to Lex's unhindered shoulder, intending to turn him round, curling fingers ready to pull. But all Lex felt was warmth - gentle skin on his own, seeking him out. And he remembered that same hand stroking his neck outside LuthorCorp while he opened his heart about Julian; remembered soft fingers gripping his arm and pulling him onto a broken catwalk and out of danger; remembered large hands patting his back in delight, making him real again after months of malaria warped visions.
"Fuck it, Clark, no! No, I don't hate you!" Lex yelled, hand slapping Clark's chest to thrust him away, eyes hard and bright as he opened them and turned back. "I'll never hate you, I... damn it. Not caring about you isn't the problem. The problem is I do care. I care too fucking much alright?!"
Clark stopped, hand still outstretched, and blinked his head back in bewilderment.
"I wanted you for so long," Lex continued, voice harsh and scratchy. "So when I finally got the chance to be with you, I was selfish. I held on. I let you into my life because I was... arrogant enough, to think I could keep you. But you're not mine, Clark. The things you're part of are bigger and... and now eighteen thousand people are dead and it's my fault!"
Lex stopped for breath and Clark was too speechless to break the following silence. He should have been more prepared, he supposed, knowing better than anyone how your whole world could change forever in the space of a few seconds. But working on a farm had made him nothing if not a creature of habit-a change in routine or his understanding of a something still had the power to shock. So, Lex didn't hate him? Maybe, even the opposite? But, how did that make him responsible for Zod? Whatever was going on in the other man's head it was too tangled for Clark to make sense of.
"Lex..." he breathed, hand resting back in his lap. "Zod did that to those people. It wasn't you, it -"
"But it was me, Clark," Lex pressed and Clark shook his head.
The stuff about him and Lex might be too complicated to think about, but he understood about Zod at least. He knew why Lex would blame himself for that. Eighteen thousand was... that was a lot of people. Like him, Lex wanted there to be a reason for their deaths, a moment he could pin down as when things went wrong, even if that moment landed on himself. He wanted a way to understand what had happened, instead of it just being a giant mess of well meaning acts that hadn't quite been enough. A road of good intentions leading to hell. Clark understood that, because he'd wanted the same thing so badly himself. But the truth was, sometimes terrible things happened, and there wasn't any one reason for it. Sometimes everyone screwed up and you just had to accept it. He'd had weeks together with Chloe and his parents to talk this out, but Lex had been alone. Alone and trying to shoulder the guilt by himself.
"No," Clark insisted. "You were possessed. You had no control over what happened."
"No, you don't understand," Lex answered. "If it wasn't for me Zod would never have got the chance. You could have stopped him, Clark. You could have stopped everything. But you didn't, because I let you get too close. And when the time came for you to do what you had to, you couldn't." Lex looked down with a twisted parody of smile and shook his head. "I should have let you go years back. Should have left as soon as learnt the truth but I just..." He swallowed and waved his free hand, as though brushing at invisible cobwebs. "It was me or the world, Clark. And you made the wrong choice. The world needs you more than I do..."
"Wait..." Clark muttered, the lines on his brow stacking up, perceptions shifting. "You think... because I love you..."
"It held you back, yes," Lex finished, voice flat. He was calmed down enough now to regret his outburst, but that didn't change the fact that the cat was out of the bag and showing no signs of climbing in again, so the older man figured he might as well finish his misguided explanation. Clark could understand or not, there was nothing he could do to change things either way. Lex had a suitcase packed already and instructions written out for his staff to move all his possessions to the penthouse in Metropolis. He'd be leaving Smallville for the last time at 10 o'clock sharp tomorrow morning no matter what. "I held you back. And as long as I'm part of your life I'll keep doing it. You can be more than you are, Clark, so much more. I will not stay here and be the one responsible for preventing that, or risk putting any more lives in danger by being your liability."
There was a pause, then Clark breathed out with a sharp "ha!" Because Lex hadn't chosen Zod's possession as his definitive moment for Dark Thursday, or Clark's failure to stop it, or even their botched dealings with Fine. No, Lex's guilt had taken him further than that, had taken him right back to Clark's first sexual advance in the Fortress, hell maybe even as far back as the crash on the Leob's bridge. Because he wasn't just shouldering Zod's actions, he was shouldering the younger Kryptonian's as well, taking all of Clark's mistakes as his own, because he'd somehow taken their relationship as the biggest crime of all. Clark wondered how the hell the other man came up with such crazy ideas. Then realised he knew.
"God, Lex, listen to yourself," he said. "You're saying, what? Caring about someone is wrong because it makes you weak? Is that you talking or your father?"
Lex pursed his lips-an instinctive response to the comparison. But...
"My father's a bastard, Clark," he muttered. "But sometimes he's right."
"No." Clark did grab Lex then, hands gripping both his upper arms and shaking lightly until the older man looked up. "That's not it. Loving you it... it made that night so much worse, but it wasn't why. I... Lex, you could have been my greatest enemy and I still couldn't have killed you, I just couldn't. Taking a life, it... it's just not something I can do." Clark swallowed and shifted his gaze away when he realised that wasn't entirely true. Far too many people had died, indirectly, as a result of his actions, and he knew, given the chance, he'd do the same things again. Greg Arkin, Tina Greer, Sean Calvin, the list went on. All people who'd been threatening his family or his friends. He'd hadn't killed them no, but he'd been one step away, and if the people he loved were ever in danger with no other way out... well, he couldn't be certain he wouldn't. Look at how he'd gone after Zod. So he added an amendment. "Not deliberately, not like that..."
Lex was silent, tense under his hold, and Clark realised being grabbed unawares in your bedroom, unclothed and vulnerable, by a superstrong alien couldn't be very comfortable. So he released the older man slowly, sitting back down again to show a physical attack was far from his intentions.
"Lex..." Clark muttered, shoulders sagging. He knew he hadn't got through. Lex wasn't an easy man to convince, he'd need more evidence than Clark's word to disprove an idea, especially one he'd been cultivating for the last two months. Clark needed to keep going, he just didn't know what else to say. "It was my choice not to kill you, mine. You're not responsible for my mistakes, any more than you are for Zod and... god... maybe I am weak... but you're not responsible for that either, if anything-" He blinked as something came back to him, flecks of hazel circling his eyes as he locked on to the other man, grabbing him another way. "Lex, do you know what it was like in the Phantom Zone?"
Lex turned his head, the start of a dismissal, but ended up eyeing Clark sideways on instead. Distracted by the question in spite of everything. Curiosity, as always, winning out. Clark took the opportunity to continue.
"The answer is, no you don't, you can't imagine," he said. "Or at least not how it was for me. I've lived my whole life barely knowing what it means to feel pain. Certainly not for long stretches at a time. But in that place I lost all of that. I had no speed, no strength, no sunlight to keep me healthy, and Lex, being there hurt. In ways I can't tell you. It hurt to move, it hurt to talk, it hurt to breathe." Clark sucked in a breath then, feeling light tremors course through his body as it remembered its imprisonment in the harsh, monochrome landscape. "And I'm... I'm not brave, Lex..." he continued, voice quietening. "Faced with that I... all I wanted to do was give up. I was ready to. When I first came to, I just lay there, hoping to die."
Lex opened and closed his mouth, brow knitting up tight. He wanted to stop the other man, tell him to give up whatever he was trying to explain and leave - because what did Clark's time in the Phantom Zone have to do with them now? But hearing the man you love tell you that in the not too distant past they'd been wanting to die was enough to disrupt even the best laid plans. It might have been disconnected to everything they'd been saying before, but it created a tearing sensation in the older man's chest nonetheless.
"Do you know what kept me going?" Clark pressed. "Because it wasn't some noble thought of stopping Zod and saving the world. That gave me a reason, sure, but it didn't push me on or keeping me fighting, it didn't keep me making step after step when each one felt like my last, no Lex, that was you."
Clark threw it in so quickly - no emphasis, no melodrama, just simple fact - Lex almost missed the implication. When he'd finally caught it, Clark was moving on before he could react.
"Because I knew you wouldn't give up. I knew that no matter what you'd keep going and I... I dunno, I didn't want to disappoint you? I wanted to think, if you were there, if you could see me, that you'd be proud of me..." Clark lowered his gaze, nodding to himself as he re-lived the experience. "That's how I kept going. That's why I'm not rotting in some non-existent reality right now." He flicked his eyes up again. Lex was watching him avidly, so it wasn't hard to meet his gaze this time. "You don't hold me back Lex. You make me stronger."
There was a pause while Lex stared and Clark could almost hear the whisper of thoughts whirling round his head, faster than even he could follow.
It made him bite his lip and look down, old intimidations flooding back.
"But I, err... I'm not trying to guilt trip you with this," he muttered. "You're right, I can be better than I am. I want to be. And I'll try, with or without you. I just..." He risked a glance up again and was relieved to find Lex didn't look angry. If anything his face seemed softer, the lines on his brow melting away. "You need help, Lex. I know you want to think you don't, but you do. And I'm not saying you should take it from me, or that you should call someone in or anything, just... just talk to someone. Lana, Chloe, anyone. I don't want you to be alone."
Clark let his eyes wonder over the other man for a moment, soaking him up, aware this might be his last chance. He'd never seen Lex so fragile. His bloodied shoulder and the sling left him vulnerable enough, but now his bare chest had started to tremble from the continuing breeze. His feet were bare and curling under the bed's remaining pillows in search of a modicum of warmth, while the fabric of his PJs flapped against his legs. Clark knew this was because they were silk and that was how they were supposed to act, but it looked like they were loose and swamping the older man, like he was wasting away inside them, and it hurt Clark to see. Not just because his friend was hurting, but because he knew there was so much more to Lex. That he kept a fierce power behind his small frame that would be criminal for him to lose.
"So, just... promise me you'll find someone," he finished. "Promise me and I swear I'll leave. You'll never have to see me again. Just -"
Clark cut off. It was hard to do anything else with Lex's arm curling round his neck and pulling him close, the older man's own body leaning in until his chin was resting on the Kryptonian's shoulder.
Part X | Part XII