Spring Fling Fic: Get Away
Title: Get Away
Author: Tallihensia
Pairing: Clex (Lex/Clark)
Rating: R
Summary: After another adventure gone wrong, Lex decides the best thing he can do for Clark is to leave Clark. Clark, naturally, objects to this.
Type: drama, adventure, angst, romance
Word Count: 8,871
Warnings: none
Spoilers: General first few seasons.
Disclaimer: Only mine in my dreams. ;-) This story was written for free entertainment purposes only and may not be reproduced for profit or altered without permission.
Notes:
AU after season 5-6ish, however I mix and match in here, so don't take all of it as canon. In particular, the rift happened but not as Smallville showed it; and they got over it, eventually. This is a post-reconciliation story; one of those hiccups along the way.
For Clexmas Spring Fling. Prompt at end of story (it's a spoiler, sortof).
Get Away
Clark frowned at the phone as he put it down. That was the third time he'd gotten Lex's voice mail. It wasn't all that unusual to get Lex's voice mail periodically, what with all the important meetings and such; it was more remarkable, actually, that Clark got ahold of Lex as often as he did. It was a measure of how much Lex cared for Clark that he answered when he could, and returned his calls promptly when he couldn't. Since they'd gotten back together, Clark had never gotten three voice mails in a single day.
A sudden worry hit Clark and he bit his lip. No. No, Lex wouldn't have gone back to his old ways. Not after all they'd been through to reconnect. After all of Lex's wrong-doings, all of Clark's anger, all of their misunderstandings. They were together now, and Clark was sure that this time they were going to stay that way. But that didn't mean Clark wasn't worried about Lex.
Walking up the stairs of the Daily Planet to the roof, Clark x-rayed the Luthor building across the way. Lex wasn't in his office. Or the outer conference room. However, there were a bunch of security personnel milling around there, including the LuthorCorp foreign countries security head. Both she and the internal security chief were intent upon the computer they were looking at. Lex's admin came in, handed them some folders and left.
Clark pulled out his phone again and this time called the admin's desk. He watched with x-ray as Madline looked at the caller ID and grimaced, but she picked up anyhow. "Lex Luthor's office."
"Hi Maddie, it's Clark." Just because somebody had caller ID didn't mean the other person had to be rude and skip the introductions. "Is Lex around? I keep getting his voice mail."
"Hi Clark," Maddie's voice showed nothing of the frown she was wearing, instead happy and cheerful like she always was when she answered. "Lex extended his travel a few days. He's not going to be back until next week."
"Oh..." Clark glanced at the security huddled in the conference room and back at Maddie, thankful for his x-ray vision. "Well, could you let him know I called, please?"
"I'll do that, Clark." Maddie hung up the phone and then put her head in her hands.
Okay, that did it. Clark Kent may not be in the confidence of LuthorCorp security, but there was one person they would answer without evasion.
Quickly changing into Superman costume, Clark flew over and knocked on the conference room balcony door before he let himself in. The huddled masses looked up and there was a mix of dismayed and relieved and hopeful faces around the table. "I understand you have a problem here," Clark said, folding his arms across his chest and trying to look as if he knew more than he did.
Rosiland Talos, Security Head for international affairs, met his eyes squarely, "We're still investigating. It's nothing you can help with."
"Yet," Mike Tsui responded with a friendly grin Clark's way. "But we can always use another eye."
The Americans were more accepting of Superman's poking his nose in than Europeans generally were. Which made sense since the other countries only saw Superman when there were major disasters. Metropolis, however, was his city, and Clark liked to know more than just when things blew up. Since he and Lex had gotten back together, LuthorCorp had also been more friendly with Superman, working with him on several projects. Not all of LuthorCorp had been happy about the changed situation, however, overall, Security was relieved.
Clark moved in and glanced over Mike's shoulder at the computer display. He bit back a groan when he saw Lex on display in a small room, gagged and tied to a pole with his hands behind his back. His clothes were torn and dirty, and there was a bit of blood on the side of his face, but Lex's eyes were open and he was glaring.
The room itself didn't give many clues to where Lex was. Featureless, with stains on the floor that indicated it had been used for things like this before. There weren't any other people in the camera image.
"Live stream?" Clark asked.
Mike nodded. "Mexican drug cartel. They've put Lex up for auction. There's," he glanced at a clock, "another twenty minutes before the auction ends."
Clark's eyebrows raised. "How did Luthor manage to get kidnapped by a Mexican drug cartel?" Even before he reformed, the one thing Lex would never ever touch was drugs. It was a left-over from his youth, and Lex refused to have anything to do with street drugs or any person or corporation who dealt in them.
"We don't know," Rosiland sounded frustrated. "He was travelling in California, yes, but he wasn't anywhere near Los Angeles! He was supposed to be up north of San Francisco, checking out some Luthor holdings we recently acquired."
"Supposed to be?"
Mike shrugged, "He ditched our security after the last official visit. You know him. He does things like that."
Clark sighed. Yes, Lex did do that with a fair amount of regularity. It made protecting him a major headache. Clark was glad he didn't have Mike's job.
"Do we know where he is now?" Clark switched to what was important at the moment.
"We're working on it." Rosiland waved to one of the other groups working in a corner around several computers. "They're doing analysis of all other hostage videos from this same cartel. If we can match the room with other victims, we might be able to pinpoint a location. We're also working on tracing back the feeds and the auction information, though we know the auction data is going to a different location then where they are holding Lex."
"We have another team working on that," Mike put in. "They'll not escape justice."
"As long as it is justice," Clark reflexively said. Then he winced internally -- if Lex had been there, Clark would have been in the doghouse. He was supposed to have stopped making statements like that when Lex agreed to the truce between them.
Mike gave him a humorously resigned look. "Yes, we're in contact with the police, both here and the internationally."
Clark hovered for ten minutes, watching the auction and discussing options. He wanted to be out there flying around and searching. He wanted to be rescuing Lex. Clark tried to narrow his hearing down to Lex's heartbeat but something that was so reassuring at night was too elusive during the day. Clark hated waiting. All the superpowers in the world were of no use in waiting.
Finally, one of the research people said, "We've got it!"
"Where?!" Clark was ready to fly off on the instant.
Rosiland looked at him sharply. "You will wait for our team."
Clark restrained himself and nodded in acknowledgement. They had discussed it while waiting. With the publicity around the auction, it was better for LuthorCorp, and for Lex personally, if LuthorCorp rescued Lex and not Superman. Lex's opponents would have less to chew on if it was his own people who brought him back and not an alien with supernatural powers.
Still, though, Clark didn't want to wait. "I'll go now. If everything is okay, your team will do the rescuing. But if anything goes wrong, I'll be there for him."
Having to hold back and wait for others hurt. Clark wanted to rescue Lex. He wanted to swoop in and scoop his lover up and hold him and protect him. He wanted Lex to be all right. He wanted Lex to not be in trouble. That last was probably asking too much.
Clark flew to the location that Lex's people provided and he looked through the building and he saw Lex being held captive, just as on the tape. Lex didn't look too badly roughed up - probably the auction conditions, keep him intact for a better selling price. Clark wondered briefly if he could get a copy of the list of people bidding, once LuthorCorp had cracked those codes. He would like to express his displeasure in person. If Lex found out, though, he wouldn't let Clark do that. Lex was very insistent that Superman stay out of Lex's life as much as possible, not wanting people to make the connection between Clark Kent and Superman, and also his own pride in wanting to do things himself.
Even now, held captive in a dirty small room, Lex was defiant and angry. Staring around him with looks that promised retribution later. Some of those guards wanted badly to wipe that look off Lex's face; Clark could see their hands twitching on their guns. Luckily, their orders held. But Lex... Lex kept his fierce glare.
It was one of the things that Clark loved about Lex, that pride that kept Lex standing where other men would have long since broken. It also drove Clark nuts. Lex was incapable of bending. A strong solid oak tree that held up to the most furious wind storm.
And yet, Lex bent for Clark. He'd changed his business practices, he'd accepted Clark's apologies, he'd forgiven Clark. Clark had forgiven Lex too. Forgiveness hadn't come easy for Clark, because Lex had hurt many people over the years; and even if he was changed now, there was still all that in the past. As difficult as it had been for Clark, though, they both knew the forgiveness had been harder for Lex. Forgiveness didn't come naturally to Lex, and Clark had hurt Lex personally. The one thing Lex never forgave was betrayal. And yet Lex had forgiven him, because he loved Clark more.
It broke Clark's heart. Watching Lex struggle with love and caring, those human emotions that came so naturally to most people and yet were so foreign to Lex. Clark remembered how mature and in control a young twenty-one year-old Lex had seemed to a younger fifteen year-old Clark. It was only now, from a perspective of a thirty-two year old, that Clark realized how young Lex had been and how desperately he'd been trying to change himself back then. Lex tried to reach out to Clark and his parents and find something there that Lex had never had with his own life. Yet Clark and his parents hadn't seen that, and had let Lex down badly. They had expected Lex to somehow already have learned what came naturally to themselves, and forgot that love and trust need to be reciprocated to flourish.
If only Clark hadn't had to lie all the time. If only he didn't have those secrets that entwined their lives and poisoned their friendship. If only he'd been human. Yet if Clark had been human, both he and Lex would have died at the bridge. Perhaps Clark could have told Lex sooner.., but he hadn't. Instead of the 'what ifs', they both had to live their lives as they had been shaped by it, all the bad included with the good.
LuthorCorp was in position. Finally. Clark unfolded out of his hiding place and moved into a closer spot as the raid was carried out. Clark normally rescued people openly and flamboyantly - flinging himself between bullets, throwing bad guys to one side, holding up crumbling buildings. It probably was an over-reaction to how Clark had kept secret for so many years when he was young and how very much he loathed the secrets even now. But for all his dislike of it, Clark could still be subtle when he wanted to. He sped through the building, moving too fast to be seen while catching bullets in the shootout so no one died. He melted bullets he couldn't get to physically. He kissed Lex on the mouth as he sped by, unable to resist.
When it was all done, and the LuthorCorp personnel had shut down the cameras that were broadcasting, Clark moved into the open. "I'll take Luthor back to Metropolis."
Nobody objected. Not even Lex.
Lex gave him a sharp stare and then nodded, "I need to be to Headquarters as quickly as possible. There are things that need to be dealt with."
Clark carefully gathered Lex up in his arms, unable with all the eyes on them to kiss Lex the way he wanted to nor hold Lex as close as he wanted to. But Clark had Lex in his arms and knew that Lex was safe. It was enough for now. He sped to Metropolis, the speed of the flight preventing conversation.
At LuthorCorp, Clark let Lex go. Again with eyes upon them, Clark stayed to what was proper. Lex thanked Superman for his assistance; Superman replied that he was only doing his duty and he was glad that Mr. Luthor was unharmed. And then Superman flew away. But Clark got no more work done that day, staring out through concrete mortar and support beams, across two buildings and too much distance, watching Lex with his people.
... ... ...
That night, their lovemaking was frenzied and restless.
Clark wanted so much to claim Lex, to hold him, to keep him safe, to mark him in a way that no other would ever touch Lex again. He wanted to reassure himself of Lex's safety. To map out every inch of his body and recognize it, to claim it. To sooth away any remaining bruises or memories of pain and to hold Lex forever.
Lex didn't say much but his actions were just as desperate, his kisses the same combination of possessive and tender, a thread of melancholy and disbelief laced through his voice as he gasped Clark's name.
It reminded Clark of when they'd first reunited, when neither was quite sure if this was going to last.
But it did last, and it would last, and Lex was Clark's, and Clark was going to hold onto him and keep him safe.
They fell asleep twined together, sweat drying on their skin, the stars peeking in through the gap in the curtains by their bed.
... ... ...
"Clark, I'm sorry, but our vacation is going to have to be postponed," Lex said with no emotion as his hands smoothly flipped the tie in and out to settle perfectly at his throat.
Clark tore his gaze away from the deft fingers and upward to Lex's face. Lex looked as he always did, calm, relaxed, in control. There was no sign there of the furious anger from the day before or the tender love of the night before. Clark sighed.
"I'm sorry, Clark, but I have to be seen in the public's eye and I have to be active in LuthorCorp business. The kidnapping was resolved but if I leave right now, the press and my enemies will jump all over it."
"I know," Clark said quietly. He'd half-expected something like this from the moment he took Lex into his arms yesterday. He just wished Lex didn't look so much like a Luthor as said it.
Clark moved over and put his arms around Lex, tucking his head down over Lex's shoulder, bringing them close together. Lex stood stiffly for a moment and then returned the hug. Lex didn't, though, relax fully into it. He never did. Not since they were young together and the hugs were spontaneous and joyful. Clark still remembered the one from when Lex had returned; alive after a summer of being dead. Both of them had clung with fierce gladness and their lives had seemed to click together, back where they belonged.
Clark wanted those days back. He had been the one to throw them away, but he wanted them back. He wanted Lex to be that young, carefree person who had given the world to his best friend and grinned with satisfaction as he did.
Not that Clark was unhappy to have Lex now. All those years between them, and somehow they'd come together again. Clark turned his head to kiss the side of Lex's neck, getting a mouthful of the tie and shirt, but still feeling Lex underneath it.
"You do understand?" Lex sounded... remote. There was a trace of anxiety there, but mostly it was the business-Lex talking, not showing any hint of what he felt underneath.
Clark sighed again, keeping Lex in his grasp. "Yeah, I do. It's why LuthorCorp rescued you yesterday, not Superman. I would rather grab you and fly off with you now to wherever you want to go, but I do understand."
There was a smile on Lex's face as he gently pulled away. Clark saw indulgence and fondness as Lex let a little bit of his inner feelings through. "Clark, you're too good to me."
"Hey, be careful at work today." Clark didn't respond directly to Lex's statement, instead expressing his concern. He had to let Lex be on his own - Lex wouldn't have it any other way.
The smile changed to tenderness. Lex raised a hand and rested his fingers gently on Clark's cheek. "I will. You too." Leaning in, Lex kissed Clark softly.
It was just a press of lips to lips, not anything spectacular, and yet for Clark it was the world.
They went off to their separate work places. Clark every now and then looked out through his building into Lex's just to see him. Each time he did, he smiled, then went back to his article.
... ... ...
Clark slipped up behind Lex and nuzzled the back of his neck. "So, do I get to find out where we're going for vacation tomorrow, or is going to be a surprise?"
Lex slipped out of Clark's arms like oil from gears. "Vacation?" His voice was expressionless.
With a frown, Clark walked to where he could face Lex. "Our vacation that was postponed? To this week? Starting tomorrow?"
Lex's mouth was still, his eyes were remote, not a muscle twitched. Clark felt a shiver go through him.
"Lex?"
"There won't be any vacation, Clark." Lex's gaze held his but there was more distance there than the four feet that separated them. "In fact, it would probably be best if we stopped seeing each other."
The ground dropped out from under Clark's feet. The world tipped left and right and then sideways. Clark looked at Lex and went into superspeed mode without moving an inch as he heard the words over and over again in his mind. "Wha...?"
There was a flash of something across Lex's face. It looked like pain but it was gone too quickly for Clark to identify. "You heard me." Lex turned away and walked to the balcony. The night sky had replaced the twilight and the glow of the city reflected under the clouds.
Slowly, Clark settled back to the floor. He'd instinctively been hovering ever since the first words, waiting for the earthquake to stop, for his balance to come back. But there would be no balance here. "Lex?"
"I realize this is sudden. I'll move out of the penthouse until you find a place of your own. The Japanese LuthorCorp holdings are expecting me for a tour next week. After that, I'll go to Beijing, then Melbourne. You won't have to worry about seeing me around." Lex hesitated, then added softly, "And you don't have to worry about what I'll be doing. I promise, no evil-doing. That's not what this is about." His hand rested on the balcony railing gently, not gripping, simply lying there.
Everything was still spinning but this was something Clark could grab ahold of. "Then what is this about!? Lex." Clark swallowed against the lump in his throat. He had thought they were okay; he had really thought that Lex loved him and that they would make this work.
"It's not you, Clark." Lex's voice was sincere, yet he still didn't turn around. However, his hand tightened infinitesimally before it relaxed. Not a true relaxation but a forced smoothing of the muscles so they wouldn't betray him.
Clark's eyes darted from that hand to the muscles in Lex's back, watching to see if they tightened too, but by this time Lex had control of himself again. Obviously Lex didn't have full control, though, or he wouldn't be facing the night sky instead of Clark.
Well, Clark could make that tactic moot. He walked out on the balcony and stepped off, walking on the air until he was a little ways away and then turned to face Lex, folding his arms across his chest. "Bullshit. What is this about, Lex?"
Lex's eyebrows rose as he looked below Clark to the city, and then traced back up Clark's body. The corners of his mouth twitched and he nodded slightly, a concession to an opponent that had out-maneuvered him.
Clark flinched with the nod, a gesture that Lex had inherited from Lionel and that Clark had seen more times than he ever wanted to. The Luthors had granted that nod to each other time and time again in their endless battles, and rarely did they give it to others. "Lex..." Clark's plea was broken, the word tumbling through with his pain and his confusion.
It was Lex's turn to flinch. He turned sideways before he stopped himself and turned back, reluctance in every line of his body. "I'm sorry, Clark."
"I don't want sorry, I want an explanation."
Lex sighed and released his hold on the railing to run his hand over his head. "Clark, this... this whatever we've got, it's not working and it's not going to work. We should just admit that and go our separate ways before somebody gets hurt."
It had been working just fine! Clark stared at Lex, baffled. Then he got it, he realized what Lex had meant. He plummeted twenty feet down before he regained control and flew back up.
"Clark!" Lex's hands were gripping the railing again and he looked like he was almost ready to launch himself over it to go after Clark.
Clark didn't bother to reassure Lex, because he wasn't in fact fine, rather the opposite. But he flew over the railing again and stood until his feet were firmly on cement and his back was against the window. "There's somebody else."
"No!" Lex reached a hand out to Clark, then pulled it back. He used it instead to scrub over his face. "I'm making a total hash out of this. Give me business any day. Not this. Not this."
Lex paced the length of the balcony and back. "Clark, I thought... I'd thought we could do it. You had been my best friend once, and though we weren't that anymore, we were talking. It all came back, everything I had wanted back then. But we aren't back then, and we aren't those same two people anymore. I don't want to fight you; I don't ever want to fight you again. But we can't be together. Let's just accept that and move on."
"I don't understand," Clark whispered. This wasn't like before, when he and Lex had been at each other's throats with the lies and hatred between them. Lex genuinely sounded sorry. But he also meant it.
"It doesn't need to be understood." Lex looked away again and out over the city. "We're from two different worlds, you and I. Opposites might attract, but they can't live together without destroying each other. Anti-matter and matter."
"Electrons and protons," Clark snapped. "Yin and yang. Ebony and ivory. Stripes on a zebra. And we are not opposites! I might be from Krypton, but I love Earth and so do you, so the hell with different worlds."
Lex turned back, blinking. "Clark, that was a fucking expression! I didn't mean it like that."
"Than what did you mean?!" Clark folded his fingers into his palm, making fists so that he didn't touch anything that was breakable. Particularly Lex. Though what Clark really wanted to do was take that stubborn handsome man by the shoulders and shake him until he shut up. Then Clark would kiss him and kiss him until Lex yielded and they would have make-up sex.
Lex walked by him without a word, through the open glass door into the room. He stood in the middle and swung around. "Doesn't this prove it? You have no idea what I'm talking about! That's just typical, and it is exactly my point!"
"What point?" Clark was starting to get a headache.
"That we shouldn't be together." Lex sighed. "I know you think you have to stay with me from some noble sacrifice so I won't turn evil again, but I give you my word I won't do that anymore. Just don't make me..."
While they had been fighting, Clark had regained his balance and his surety. As Lex's words trailed off, Clark lost it again. He felt himself turn pale and he didn't dare move. He opened his mouth and nothing came out at first. Eventually, a whisper of sound made it through. "I stay because I love you. I love you, Lex. You thought... you thought I was your jailer?"
Lex looked aside, shame-faced.
Lex was a lying little bastard. Just last week after the kidnapping, they had been whispering - and yelling - words of love the whole night long. Lex wasn't often vocally demonstrative, but when they had reunited, he had been very clear that he loved Clark, always had, and always would. Clark had believed Lex then, and he didn't believe him now. Clark tried to get angry again, but the last bit had been too much for him. All he felt was the hurt and the pain. "Why? Why would you try and do that to me?"
"So you would leave!" Lex paced again, restlessly moving about the room. "Clark, you need to get away from me. I'm poison. Your dad was right. The only thing I'm good for is ruthless business-mongering. Relationships are nowhere in that category."
Very, very quietly, Clark sighed. Okay, this was familiar ground. He hadn't seen it for a long time, but obviously Lex had just buried it deeply. "Lex, I love you. My dad was wrong, you are not poison, and I'm never going to let you go. I won't leave you."
"You should."
"I won't."
"Why the hell not?! It's not like this is going anywhere!" Lex swung out and smashed a couple of vases to the floor, the ceramic shards scattering over the hardwood.
There was a reason Lex didn't keep anything particularly valuable in the living room. Not that the vases were cheap but at least they weren't antiques or something. Clark bit his lip to keep from saying anything.
"No relationship I'm ever in is going to work. You are not an exception. This is failing, and we should just accept it and get out while we still can."
Clark bit down harder.
"Leave, Clark." Lex walked to the door. "Or I'll leave first."
"No." Clark speeded in front of Lex, blocking his way. "Hell no." With one hand, he reached out and touched Lex's cheek gently. "I have something precious here, and I'm not giving it up. Lex, I don't know what you're seeing, but whatever it is, I don't believe it. We're doing great together, and we'll keep doing it. This relationship is working and I'm not leaving just because you're having a bad day."
As soon as the last sentence was out of his mouth, Clark knew it was a mistake. That part should have been an internal thought, not an external one.
Lex's eyes, which had softened somewhat, froze to glittering blue ice and he reached up and removed Clark's hand from his cheek. "Fuck you, too."
He stepped back but didn't turn away, staring at Clark coldly. "Did you know, Clark, that people are who are secure in their relationships are less aware of danger?"
Clark looked at him, bewildered at the turn the topic was taking. "I'm sorry, Lex, it was a stupid thing to say. I didn't mean it."
"It's true. They did a study. People who do well in relationships are slower to react to danger. Non-secure people will see the smoke sooner and be able to react."
Lex poked Clark in the chest. "You, Clark Kent, raised by the loving Kent family, don't see the smoke and are only assuming there is no danger. However, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss my warning as fantasy. There is something wrong, and we are better off apart than together."
Clark closed his eyes. It was true that Lex was a paranoid son of a bitch, raised by Lionel Luthor and his not-so-loving wife Lillian. Clark had learned enough over the years to know that Lex's fantasy of a loving mother was just that, a fantasy. And the love that Clark had tried to give him as a friend when he was a teenager had been stripped away by Clark himself when he got mad at Lex. So Lex's tendency to jump at shadows was justified. It had even been proved time after time to be correct. The question was why here, why now? What was it that Lex saw that Clark didn't?
"Okay Lex," Clark finally said, opening his eyes. "I believe that you're seeing something that I'm not. So explain it to me. What is the problem with our relationship? Why don't you think it's working?"
Lex gazed at Clark suspiciously, then restlessly turned and made another circuit around the room. His feet crushed the pottery shards on the floor as he passed over without acknowledging the shattered vase.
Clark didn't follow, but watched Lex with his eyes.
"Do you know why we had to postpone our vacation?" Lex finally asked.
Whatever Clark had been expecting, it wasn't this. "Because you, ah... because of the drug lords."
"Because I was kidnapped," Lex said bluntly. "Do you know why I was kidnapped?"
"No." Clark kept the answer short and struggled not to say something snide. Lex hadn't told him why. Clark had asked. Lex refused to say.
"I was setting up our vacation plans."
"With drug lords?" As the incredulous question slipped out, Clark slapped a hand over his traitorous mouth.
Lex glared. "Asshole."
"Sorry."
Lex made another circuit around the room. "I wanted us to have a nice romantic week together, away from everything we normally do. No trips to the cities, no trips to the farm. Nothing in Montana or the Caribbean."
"California," Clark realized. The business trip had just been a rouse. And it was true, neither of them got out there much. Clark sometimes as Superman for earthquakes, and Lex sometimes for business conferences, but it would be someplace neither of them associated with anything in particular. "San Francisco?"
"Too busy," Lex said, his fingers tracing his world globe and not looking over at Clark. "Further north. A small cabin in the redwoods. Where we could be alone without distractions. I'd only recently acquired the cabin, and though I'd ordered it to be ready, I wanted to make sure."
Clark's heart sank. This was going to be another one of Lex's disasters. Clark knew it now without Lex saying anything more. Lex got into more trouble without trying than any other person Clark had ever met. He couldn't even blame it on meteor mutants anymore now that they weren't in Smallville.
"The cabin was perfect. I decided to check the local area, see if there were some nice hiking trails you would like."
Oh God. Clark almost didn't want Lex to finish. He closed his eyes and waited.
"The cabin, as it turned out, was on the edge of a very large marijuana plot. Grown in the forest so police helicopters couldn't spot it from overhead, tended by diligent farmers. The previous owners of the cabin had obviously never been out hiking. I was, in very short order, captured by said farmers with their very large semi-automatic weapons and their paranoid attitudes. And they called their bosses, who called their bosses, who realized what they had."
Lex had been kidnapped because he was trying to make a nice romantic gesture for Clark. Oh wonderful. This was so… typical of things that happened to Lex! Molehills didn't exist in the Luthor world, only mountains. If Clark had been standing next to a wall, he would have banged his head on it. Instead, he swallowed and waited for the rest.
"This relationship is a bad idea. It won't work and I never should have tried it in the first place. We're only going to end up hating each other again, and this time it won't stop until one of us is dead. Let's stop while we're ahead and go our separate ways." Lex looked at Clark, his blue eyes darkened with shadows. Nothing else revealed his feelings.
Clark made a noise in the back of his throat. It sounded like a whine, the type a dog makes when it's been hurt. He didn't want to leave Lex. Yet if Lex was being hurt because of him, then wasn't it Clark's duty to leave? But he really didn't want to leave. "Lex..." What could Clark say? 'Stay with me and get killed some day?'
"I'm sorry, Clark, but I won't be responsible for your death."
Clark's death? The world spun in a quick circle as things changed position. They'd been doing that an awful lot this conversation. Clark had hold of the wrong end of the stick here. Lex wasn't worried about Lex getting hurt, oh no, of course he wasn't. Clark took a deep breath and then let it out. He walked over to a couch and sat down.
Predictably, Lex stayed standing. He was the grand master of casual when he wanted to be, but right now, Lex was freaked out and it was Clark in the room with him, so he wasn't holding up his guard as tightly as he could. Which was a good sign; Lex wasn't sure he could win this one, and wasn't, in fact, putting all of himself into it. Maybe that meant Clark could talk him out of it.
"Lex, if you could, please explain to me just why you think I'm in danger when you were the one kidnapped?" It was a statement, but Clark made it into a question, trying to get an answer without pushing Lex too far.
Lex eyed Clark like Clark was some grey slime unexpectedly crawling out of a test tube and Lex wasn't sure whether or not this was a good thing but at the very least it was interesting.
"Do you remember my first marriage, Clark?"
"Yes," Clark answered warily. The first wife to try and kill Lex. One would have thought Desiree would have put Lex off marriage for a lifetime.
"Do you remember my second marriage, Clark?"
But no, Lex had gone out and married Helen right after Desiree; the second wife to try and kill Lex. Clark could still remember Lex's funeral and how black the world was on that day, even through the haze of red kryptonite. "Yes," he replied even more cautiously. He wasn't sure how this related to his question, but he knew he'd find out - in Lex's usual round-about fashion.
Lex drew in a breath and let it out. He leaned one hip against the wall, facing Clark but looking over Clark's shoulder at the window behind. "Desiree got fifteen years in prison. It got commuted to a term in Belle Reve. While she was there, the other inmates figured out what she was doing with her breath and ganged up on her. She was raped repeatedly and badly beaten. She's currently in another home where she thinks she's six years old and spends her time drawing swirly pictures.
"Helen was severely injured from her fall from the plane and was confined to a wheelchair for three years before she learned to walk again. She got married in Europe where she's still on the run, but she had four miscarriages before realizing what else the injuries had done. Her husband divorced her and left her penniless. She currently eeks out a living performing illegal abortions in Italy."
Lex paused, closing his eyes. His delivery had been flat, without emotion, just the facts. Yet the fact that he had that information at all was telling.
Clark, though, had a really hard time feeling sorry for either of those women, considering what they had cost Lex. "Lex-"
"I'm not done." Lex shifted his gaze to look over Clark's other shoulder.
"Amanda killed herself after years of torment. Victoria and her father were disgraced among our peers; worse, she had to sleep with my father. Amy's brother was confined to a mental institution and she married a man who was a chronic abuser - of alcohol, and of her. Patrice killed herself. Syndie was killed by a gunman who was aiming at me. Tamara had extensive surgery and there are still shards left in her body from the explosion. Ted lost his arm. Patrick fell off the tower and died when LuthorCorp was attacked."
With an abrupt motion, Lex pushed off the wall and paced to the middle of the room, where he locked gazes with Clark. "And we both know what happened to Lana."
Clark winced. Lana was half his fault as well. But for all the others... "Lex, none of that was your fault!"
"No?" Lex laughed bitterly. "Then tell me why I haven't once ever had a relationship where the other person has gotten out alive, sane, or intact. I'm poison. Every person I touch ends up worse than when I met them. The only thing I'm good for at all is business. LuthorCorp thrives with an immoral bastard at the helm. But people? People die."
"Lex, that's ridiculous!"
"Then give me a reason! Just one!"
"Coincidence?" Clark offered weakly.
That got the scornful look from Lex that it deserved. Clark, though, didn't really know what to say, because, really, the list was pretty bad - and Lex had shortened it at that. He sighed. "Lex, it's not just you, and I'm not them." He tried on a wry smile. "Hell, considering how all my own relationships end up… we're probably perfect for each other. Maybe that's always been the problem; we should have been with each other from the start and we weren't."
Lex snorted. "At least you have normal relationships that result in break-ups and not deaths!"
Clark went still. The couch tore under his hands as he struggled for control. "I do not believe you just said that to me," Clark said softly, trying not to let his heat vision turn on. Giving up on that part, he turned to the fireplace and ignited it with one swift anger-directed glare.
In surprise, Lex took a few steps towards the fire, then turned and faced Clark. Without trying to hide it, Lex's expression was that of sheer bafflement.
A sorrow came over Clark, rising up from where he hid it deep within. "You forgot," Clark said. "You forgot about Kyla. About Alicia." He had loved Kyla, he really had, despite the short time they had been together. And Alicia would always be his heroine, no matter what she'd done after.
It took Lex a second, and then he flinched. "I'm sorry," he said with true regret.
Clark didn't respond at first, thinking of his early loves. Insane, violent, and he'd loved them so much… not unlike Lex, in some respects. And like Clark with Lex, what had ultimately happened to Alicia had a great deal to do with Clark's mistrust of her - or was it mistrust of loving her rather than herself? Did Clark always hurt the ones he loved? Lex's little soliloquy earlier had all the hallmarks of what happened to Clark as well. Clark's failed relationships just weren't as public as Lex's.
While Clark was thinking, Lex had come over and sat down beside him, all of his bluster from before totally gone. Which just proved to Clark how much of the anger had been a bluff. The pain for all the broken relationships probably wasn't, but Lex always did hide his hurt behind anger. As Clark hid his pain by pretending it wasn't there. With a sigh, Clark shifted over so their arms were touching as they sat together.
"Not your fault, Lex. I buried them. I didn't want what happened to have happened and just buried everything about them inside little holes in my soul and covered it up." Clark thought of proud Kyla whom he'd admired so much and who he knew loved him true. "There was Lana before, and there was Lana after. I used Lana as my cover, hiding in my love for her to forget the pain. I'm not surprised you didn't remember. I doubt if even my mom does."
"I'm really sorry, Clark. I shouldn't have said that. I didn't... You've... It's just that you've always had the perfect life. A wonderful family with loving parents, good friends who don't betray you, lovers who are true... And then there's my life. I didn't want my life to contaminate yours." Lex slumped over, defeated.
A lot of Clark's 'perfect life' was the lies and the pretenses that he hid behind. Yet, compared to Lex's... It was a miracle Lex was as sane and caring as he was. Even this... this argument they were having now, it was about Lex trying to save Clark, not about trying to take what Clark had.
Clark leaned a bit more into Lex. "Lex, you're not going to make me leave you, you're just not. And you're not going to leave me either. Just-" Okay, asking Lex to 'just accept it' was almost daring Lex not to. Clark luckily stopped before he finished.
Slipping his arm around Lex's shoulders, Clark held him. Finally, he simply said, "Lex, let's go on that vacation. Right now. You and I. Forget LuthorCorp, forget crime-fighting. Let's just go to your redwood retreat and take that time for us. No games, no power-plays, nobody trying to kill us. Well, hopefully none of that. Let's just get away, you and I together."
Lex leaned his head against Clark's shoulder. "It sounds so nice," he said wistfully.
"So let's do it!" Clark got up and took Lex's hands in his, pulling him up as well. They stood together like that, hands clasped, chest to chest, staring in each other's eyes. Clark knew he had won when Lex's mouth twisted up on one side in the barest hint of a smile.
Slipping into superspeed, Clark dashed over to the back room where his costume variants and Lex's suit were kept. He slipped into his navy blue and black costume that was near invisible in the darkness, and he grabbed Lex's plum and maroon suit and dashed back to Lex.
He paused for a kiss that he let lapse into real time so he could feel Lex's response, and then he speeded up again, undressing Lex and kissing and nibbling him all over his body as he did so. He would spend just long enough on a spot that Lex would start to respond and then Clark would move on to the next. When he was done playing, Clark dressed Lex most of the way... then let time go back to normal while he was kneeling at Lex's feet, looking up at him with a wicked grin.
Lex looked down at him with a combination of hunger and exasperation. "I hate it when you do that."
"Uh huh..." Clark leaned forward and then his mouth was too full to talk.
Lex's hands curled in his hair, politely not tugging even with Clark's invulnerability. There really wasn't a lot of hating going on there.
When Clark was done and Lex was slumping over, keeping his balance by sheer stubbornness, Clark picked Lex up and flew out the window.
The night was misty and foggy, perfect for a midnight get-away. Clark flew up amid the clouds as Lex snapped his visor down to protect against the velocity and settled himself into a more comfortable position in Clark's arms.
Or maybe it wasn't just comfort. Lex kept squirming down and finally reached his goal, undoing key snaps on Clark's uniform.
Clark gasped and his flight wobbled. "Lex... not while I'm flying!"
Lex spared a hand to activate his communication device that filtered Clark's words into his headset. "Sorry, what was that again?" Wicked and unrepentant, Lex went back to what he'd been doing.
With a moan, Clark flipped them around in a corkscrew while he attached the straps from Lex's suit to his. He finished up with his back to Earth and Lex on top. Then Clark didn't worry as much about the flight pattern.
When he came back to himself, they were still flying on a mostly westerly direction, Clark's body over the years having gotten used to flying on automatic with all the 'training' that Lex gave him.
"I hate it when you do that," Clark blinked as he regained vision and stared blurrily at the stars.
"Uh huh," Lex said smugly as he crawled back up Clark and curled himself into Clark's arms, hooking his legs between Clark's and looking past Clark's shoulder. "Oh look, there's Los Alamos."
It really should be slightly frightening that Lex could recognize the national laboratory in New Mexico at this distance in the air at night. Clark turned slightly sideways so they both could look forward and he turned his flight more north. They'd gone a lot more south than he'd planned when he wasn't paying attention. "Redwoods?"
"Drop me at Myer's Flat."
Clark really didn't know California geography that well. He tried to think...
"Or just drop me where Highway 101 meets 1 - you should be able to see that from the air."
Clark nodded; he could find the freeways easily enough. He glanced up at the stars, having outraced the fog a long time back. "Look, Jupiter is up."
"Almighty Zeus in the sky," Lex tiled his head to look as his body molded to Clark's, perfectly secure in his hold.
"Don't tease Diana like that," Clark stifled a laugh. Lex had gotten into arguments over ancient Greek mythologies more than once with the Amazon.
"She's not here; I was just saying..."
Clark grinned again. "Okay, I'll call mine if you'll call yours."
They switched their communications frequencies and Clark called the Justice League to confirm his vacation and that he'd be out of touch for a week. He'd already had it planned and they were going to cover him, so this was just to let them know, that yes, he was dropping off the board now.
Lex's calls were a little more varied and involved some language as he persuaded his minions that yes, he really was Lex Luthor; yes, he was going on vacation for a week without contact; and no, he hadn't been kidnapped, this was of his own free will.
Clark carefully refrained from pointing out that if Lex had just accepted the fact of their vacation in the first place, he wouldn't have to go through all that. Clark was still smarting a little from the force of emotions that had gone through him when he thought Lex had found somebody else. He was glad that Lex hadn't tried to use that particular tactic. Lex had managed to foil his own plot by wanting to hurt Clark just enough for Clark to leave him... yet not truly wanting to hurt Clark so badly that Clark would actually be hurt.
"The stars are lovely tonight," Lex said quietly. They were currently flying with Clark on top looking down and Lex below him looking up.
Clark realized he'd been brooding long past when Lex had finished with his calls.
"I'm sorry," Lex said even more quietly than before. Only super-hearing picked up the words.
"It's alright," Clark answered. He understood the impulse, he really did. Protect those you love by pushing them away. He'd found over the years, though, that that plan didn't work nearly as well in real life as it did in theory.
Lex let go of Clark and leaned back, stretching out his arms into the air, held up only by Clark's grasp and the straps.
Clark let go too and spread his own arms out so that they touched fingertip to fingertip. The straps strained but didn't break, being designed for more weight and tension than even this. A few inches of air were between their bodies, with the wind rushing through. Lex's suit protected him from the velocity but it was still a pretty daring thing to do.
Lex laughed.
It was such a carefree, fun sound that Clark responded in kind. He swooped low and then pulled up, Lex pulled along in his wake, almost freefall yet not.
With a practiced twist, Lex rolled in his straps so that he was facing the Earth. He moved his arms forward in a classic 'flying' pose.
Clark brought his hands forward as well to touch Lex's again, looking down not at the planet below them but at the man he loved. They flew together like that for awhile quietly, simply enjoying the flight.
Eventually, Lex pointed. "101."
They were north of San Francisco some ways and not a lot of other cities were that distinctive at night. Clark marveled at how well Lex knew geography from the air, almost as if he were the one with the power of flight who had been dashing around the world for the last decade. Though admittedly Lex did do a lot of that in helicopters, small planes, and under his own power.
When they'd gone up the freeway a ways, Lex tugged at Clark. "Drop me here."
Clark slowed and moved in closer to the ground. When they were about ten thousand feet up, Lex hit the controls to release the straps.
As always, Clark had to fight the impulse to grab as Lex fell away from him.
Lex, though, laughed again, shaping himself into a sky-diver's position, shooting through the sky with only gravity and the air around him.
Clark dove sharply, diving by Lex and then coming up again on his other side. With a grin, Lex banked, turning in a sharp spiral. Clark waited a moment until he was sure of the pattern then dove through the spiral, down towards earth, slowly enough that Lex was twisting around him like one half of a helix. With the thought, Clark banked in the other direction from Lex and then they were both twisting around in the air, their mouths in wide grins, laughter in the sky.
Free fall never lasted long enough. A few hundred feet up, Lex turned on the rocket boosters and straightened out his flight to follow the freeway. Clark flew over and slightly to one side of Lex, careful not to get in the wake of the boosters. They had originally been designed so that Lex could meet Superman on his own territory and bright the fight into the skies. As such, they weren't exactly safe for Clark, though Lex had downgraded them as much as he could while still leaving them effective for flight.
What had started out as a weapon between them had turned out to be one of the great joys in their relationship. Clark could fly with many other heroes in the Justice League, and it still gave him a trill to do so, having been solo in the skies for so long before he met other friendly fliers. Flying with his love, however, was a totally difference experience. And Lex loved to play. It wasn't considered childish to play... as long as Lex could call it 'showing off his technology' instead. It really was playing but Clark carefully didn't point that out to Lex, just enjoying their flights together instead. The true delight between them, meeting on equal grounds with Clark's natural ability and the genius engineering that Lex created.
Lex turned off the main road and ducked down into the trees. Clark followed.
"There." Lex pointed, and then came in for a landing on the porch and started stripping off his helmet and gear.
Clark glanced around with all his various power-assists but couldn't see or hear anybody around. Any humans, that is. There were some spotted owls and other wildlife roaming the woods. All was quiet, away from humans, and noisy amidst the wilderness sounds.
Landing beside Lex, Clark slipped his arm around Lex's waist. "Ready for a week away from work?" he teased.
Tilting his head back to look at Clark in both invitation and challenge, Lex answered, "I am if you're ready to stop super-hero'ing for that time."
They both knew a real disaster, on either front, would be the exception to the plans, but they were also both hoping that wouldn't happen. They also knew they'd spend the week working on their relationship. Clark had missed all the warning signs, and Lex was probably still worrying. They would need this time together just to patch things up.
Clark bent over and hovered his lips over Lex's. "I'll try," he promised, both to the spoken and unspoken. Then he descended fully upon those warm lips and Lex met him there, a prelude to their week together.
END
Author Notes:
- The prompt I used for Clexmas Spring Fling was: "Lex’s attempt to set up a romantic evening results in Clark having to save him." It was intended to be more humorous, but the story went all serious on me. And, uh, only peripherally having to do with the prompt. O.o
- The worlds of mix and match in Smallville, DC, and my own stuff, are hopefully not too muddled to make it through the reading. I didn't want to get into all the hows and whys of where the worlds diverged and mixed and all that, or you wouldn't have a story to read.
- Up for auction. Um, I've been re-reading too much Dresden Files lately (Jim Butcher). ;p Hey, at least I didn't use ebay (I thought about it ;p). ^^
- The study about being bad at relationships being good for survival? True. When I read it, I knew I had to use it. ;p
- {cough} How many viewers think later season Clark remembers Kyla? How many? No, okay, that's not very fair of me... but I really do think the *writers* forgot. Lana before, Lana after...
- To some readers, this fic might resemble Twilight's Secrets in certain parts. Good eye. ^^; I got frustrated with this fic in the middle of writing it and went off and wrote Twilight using some elements but using them differently as a way to relieve my frustration with this one. The two stories are hopefully still different enough that the similar use of those elements can be overlooked. ^^
Author: Tallihensia
Pairing: Clex (Lex/Clark)
Rating: R
Summary: After another adventure gone wrong, Lex decides the best thing he can do for Clark is to leave Clark. Clark, naturally, objects to this.
Type: drama, adventure, angst, romance
Word Count: 8,871
Warnings: none
Spoilers: General first few seasons.
Disclaimer: Only mine in my dreams. ;-) This story was written for free entertainment purposes only and may not be reproduced for profit or altered without permission.
Notes:
AU after season 5-6ish, however I mix and match in here, so don't take all of it as canon. In particular, the rift happened but not as Smallville showed it; and they got over it, eventually. This is a post-reconciliation story; one of those hiccups along the way.
For Clexmas Spring Fling. Prompt at end of story (it's a spoiler, sortof).
Get Away
Clark frowned at the phone as he put it down. That was the third time he'd gotten Lex's voice mail. It wasn't all that unusual to get Lex's voice mail periodically, what with all the important meetings and such; it was more remarkable, actually, that Clark got ahold of Lex as often as he did. It was a measure of how much Lex cared for Clark that he answered when he could, and returned his calls promptly when he couldn't. Since they'd gotten back together, Clark had never gotten three voice mails in a single day.
A sudden worry hit Clark and he bit his lip. No. No, Lex wouldn't have gone back to his old ways. Not after all they'd been through to reconnect. After all of Lex's wrong-doings, all of Clark's anger, all of their misunderstandings. They were together now, and Clark was sure that this time they were going to stay that way. But that didn't mean Clark wasn't worried about Lex.
Walking up the stairs of the Daily Planet to the roof, Clark x-rayed the Luthor building across the way. Lex wasn't in his office. Or the outer conference room. However, there were a bunch of security personnel milling around there, including the LuthorCorp foreign countries security head. Both she and the internal security chief were intent upon the computer they were looking at. Lex's admin came in, handed them some folders and left.
Clark pulled out his phone again and this time called the admin's desk. He watched with x-ray as Madline looked at the caller ID and grimaced, but she picked up anyhow. "Lex Luthor's office."
"Hi Maddie, it's Clark." Just because somebody had caller ID didn't mean the other person had to be rude and skip the introductions. "Is Lex around? I keep getting his voice mail."
"Hi Clark," Maddie's voice showed nothing of the frown she was wearing, instead happy and cheerful like she always was when she answered. "Lex extended his travel a few days. He's not going to be back until next week."
"Oh..." Clark glanced at the security huddled in the conference room and back at Maddie, thankful for his x-ray vision. "Well, could you let him know I called, please?"
"I'll do that, Clark." Maddie hung up the phone and then put her head in her hands.
Okay, that did it. Clark Kent may not be in the confidence of LuthorCorp security, but there was one person they would answer without evasion.
Quickly changing into Superman costume, Clark flew over and knocked on the conference room balcony door before he let himself in. The huddled masses looked up and there was a mix of dismayed and relieved and hopeful faces around the table. "I understand you have a problem here," Clark said, folding his arms across his chest and trying to look as if he knew more than he did.
Rosiland Talos, Security Head for international affairs, met his eyes squarely, "We're still investigating. It's nothing you can help with."
"Yet," Mike Tsui responded with a friendly grin Clark's way. "But we can always use another eye."
The Americans were more accepting of Superman's poking his nose in than Europeans generally were. Which made sense since the other countries only saw Superman when there were major disasters. Metropolis, however, was his city, and Clark liked to know more than just when things blew up. Since he and Lex had gotten back together, LuthorCorp had also been more friendly with Superman, working with him on several projects. Not all of LuthorCorp had been happy about the changed situation, however, overall, Security was relieved.
Clark moved in and glanced over Mike's shoulder at the computer display. He bit back a groan when he saw Lex on display in a small room, gagged and tied to a pole with his hands behind his back. His clothes were torn and dirty, and there was a bit of blood on the side of his face, but Lex's eyes were open and he was glaring.
The room itself didn't give many clues to where Lex was. Featureless, with stains on the floor that indicated it had been used for things like this before. There weren't any other people in the camera image.
"Live stream?" Clark asked.
Mike nodded. "Mexican drug cartel. They've put Lex up for auction. There's," he glanced at a clock, "another twenty minutes before the auction ends."
Clark's eyebrows raised. "How did Luthor manage to get kidnapped by a Mexican drug cartel?" Even before he reformed, the one thing Lex would never ever touch was drugs. It was a left-over from his youth, and Lex refused to have anything to do with street drugs or any person or corporation who dealt in them.
"We don't know," Rosiland sounded frustrated. "He was travelling in California, yes, but he wasn't anywhere near Los Angeles! He was supposed to be up north of San Francisco, checking out some Luthor holdings we recently acquired."
"Supposed to be?"
Mike shrugged, "He ditched our security after the last official visit. You know him. He does things like that."
Clark sighed. Yes, Lex did do that with a fair amount of regularity. It made protecting him a major headache. Clark was glad he didn't have Mike's job.
"Do we know where he is now?" Clark switched to what was important at the moment.
"We're working on it." Rosiland waved to one of the other groups working in a corner around several computers. "They're doing analysis of all other hostage videos from this same cartel. If we can match the room with other victims, we might be able to pinpoint a location. We're also working on tracing back the feeds and the auction information, though we know the auction data is going to a different location then where they are holding Lex."
"We have another team working on that," Mike put in. "They'll not escape justice."
"As long as it is justice," Clark reflexively said. Then he winced internally -- if Lex had been there, Clark would have been in the doghouse. He was supposed to have stopped making statements like that when Lex agreed to the truce between them.
Mike gave him a humorously resigned look. "Yes, we're in contact with the police, both here and the internationally."
Clark hovered for ten minutes, watching the auction and discussing options. He wanted to be out there flying around and searching. He wanted to be rescuing Lex. Clark tried to narrow his hearing down to Lex's heartbeat but something that was so reassuring at night was too elusive during the day. Clark hated waiting. All the superpowers in the world were of no use in waiting.
Finally, one of the research people said, "We've got it!"
"Where?!" Clark was ready to fly off on the instant.
Rosiland looked at him sharply. "You will wait for our team."
Clark restrained himself and nodded in acknowledgement. They had discussed it while waiting. With the publicity around the auction, it was better for LuthorCorp, and for Lex personally, if LuthorCorp rescued Lex and not Superman. Lex's opponents would have less to chew on if it was his own people who brought him back and not an alien with supernatural powers.
Still, though, Clark didn't want to wait. "I'll go now. If everything is okay, your team will do the rescuing. But if anything goes wrong, I'll be there for him."
Having to hold back and wait for others hurt. Clark wanted to rescue Lex. He wanted to swoop in and scoop his lover up and hold him and protect him. He wanted Lex to be all right. He wanted Lex to not be in trouble. That last was probably asking too much.
Clark flew to the location that Lex's people provided and he looked through the building and he saw Lex being held captive, just as on the tape. Lex didn't look too badly roughed up - probably the auction conditions, keep him intact for a better selling price. Clark wondered briefly if he could get a copy of the list of people bidding, once LuthorCorp had cracked those codes. He would like to express his displeasure in person. If Lex found out, though, he wouldn't let Clark do that. Lex was very insistent that Superman stay out of Lex's life as much as possible, not wanting people to make the connection between Clark Kent and Superman, and also his own pride in wanting to do things himself.
Even now, held captive in a dirty small room, Lex was defiant and angry. Staring around him with looks that promised retribution later. Some of those guards wanted badly to wipe that look off Lex's face; Clark could see their hands twitching on their guns. Luckily, their orders held. But Lex... Lex kept his fierce glare.
It was one of the things that Clark loved about Lex, that pride that kept Lex standing where other men would have long since broken. It also drove Clark nuts. Lex was incapable of bending. A strong solid oak tree that held up to the most furious wind storm.
And yet, Lex bent for Clark. He'd changed his business practices, he'd accepted Clark's apologies, he'd forgiven Clark. Clark had forgiven Lex too. Forgiveness hadn't come easy for Clark, because Lex had hurt many people over the years; and even if he was changed now, there was still all that in the past. As difficult as it had been for Clark, though, they both knew the forgiveness had been harder for Lex. Forgiveness didn't come naturally to Lex, and Clark had hurt Lex personally. The one thing Lex never forgave was betrayal. And yet Lex had forgiven him, because he loved Clark more.
It broke Clark's heart. Watching Lex struggle with love and caring, those human emotions that came so naturally to most people and yet were so foreign to Lex. Clark remembered how mature and in control a young twenty-one year-old Lex had seemed to a younger fifteen year-old Clark. It was only now, from a perspective of a thirty-two year old, that Clark realized how young Lex had been and how desperately he'd been trying to change himself back then. Lex tried to reach out to Clark and his parents and find something there that Lex had never had with his own life. Yet Clark and his parents hadn't seen that, and had let Lex down badly. They had expected Lex to somehow already have learned what came naturally to themselves, and forgot that love and trust need to be reciprocated to flourish.
If only Clark hadn't had to lie all the time. If only he didn't have those secrets that entwined their lives and poisoned their friendship. If only he'd been human. Yet if Clark had been human, both he and Lex would have died at the bridge. Perhaps Clark could have told Lex sooner.., but he hadn't. Instead of the 'what ifs', they both had to live their lives as they had been shaped by it, all the bad included with the good.
LuthorCorp was in position. Finally. Clark unfolded out of his hiding place and moved into a closer spot as the raid was carried out. Clark normally rescued people openly and flamboyantly - flinging himself between bullets, throwing bad guys to one side, holding up crumbling buildings. It probably was an over-reaction to how Clark had kept secret for so many years when he was young and how very much he loathed the secrets even now. But for all his dislike of it, Clark could still be subtle when he wanted to. He sped through the building, moving too fast to be seen while catching bullets in the shootout so no one died. He melted bullets he couldn't get to physically. He kissed Lex on the mouth as he sped by, unable to resist.
When it was all done, and the LuthorCorp personnel had shut down the cameras that were broadcasting, Clark moved into the open. "I'll take Luthor back to Metropolis."
Nobody objected. Not even Lex.
Lex gave him a sharp stare and then nodded, "I need to be to Headquarters as quickly as possible. There are things that need to be dealt with."
Clark carefully gathered Lex up in his arms, unable with all the eyes on them to kiss Lex the way he wanted to nor hold Lex as close as he wanted to. But Clark had Lex in his arms and knew that Lex was safe. It was enough for now. He sped to Metropolis, the speed of the flight preventing conversation.
At LuthorCorp, Clark let Lex go. Again with eyes upon them, Clark stayed to what was proper. Lex thanked Superman for his assistance; Superman replied that he was only doing his duty and he was glad that Mr. Luthor was unharmed. And then Superman flew away. But Clark got no more work done that day, staring out through concrete mortar and support beams, across two buildings and too much distance, watching Lex with his people.
... ... ...
That night, their lovemaking was frenzied and restless.
Clark wanted so much to claim Lex, to hold him, to keep him safe, to mark him in a way that no other would ever touch Lex again. He wanted to reassure himself of Lex's safety. To map out every inch of his body and recognize it, to claim it. To sooth away any remaining bruises or memories of pain and to hold Lex forever.
Lex didn't say much but his actions were just as desperate, his kisses the same combination of possessive and tender, a thread of melancholy and disbelief laced through his voice as he gasped Clark's name.
It reminded Clark of when they'd first reunited, when neither was quite sure if this was going to last.
But it did last, and it would last, and Lex was Clark's, and Clark was going to hold onto him and keep him safe.
They fell asleep twined together, sweat drying on their skin, the stars peeking in through the gap in the curtains by their bed.
... ... ...
"Clark, I'm sorry, but our vacation is going to have to be postponed," Lex said with no emotion as his hands smoothly flipped the tie in and out to settle perfectly at his throat.
Clark tore his gaze away from the deft fingers and upward to Lex's face. Lex looked as he always did, calm, relaxed, in control. There was no sign there of the furious anger from the day before or the tender love of the night before. Clark sighed.
"I'm sorry, Clark, but I have to be seen in the public's eye and I have to be active in LuthorCorp business. The kidnapping was resolved but if I leave right now, the press and my enemies will jump all over it."
"I know," Clark said quietly. He'd half-expected something like this from the moment he took Lex into his arms yesterday. He just wished Lex didn't look so much like a Luthor as said it.
Clark moved over and put his arms around Lex, tucking his head down over Lex's shoulder, bringing them close together. Lex stood stiffly for a moment and then returned the hug. Lex didn't, though, relax fully into it. He never did. Not since they were young together and the hugs were spontaneous and joyful. Clark still remembered the one from when Lex had returned; alive after a summer of being dead. Both of them had clung with fierce gladness and their lives had seemed to click together, back where they belonged.
Clark wanted those days back. He had been the one to throw them away, but he wanted them back. He wanted Lex to be that young, carefree person who had given the world to his best friend and grinned with satisfaction as he did.
Not that Clark was unhappy to have Lex now. All those years between them, and somehow they'd come together again. Clark turned his head to kiss the side of Lex's neck, getting a mouthful of the tie and shirt, but still feeling Lex underneath it.
"You do understand?" Lex sounded... remote. There was a trace of anxiety there, but mostly it was the business-Lex talking, not showing any hint of what he felt underneath.
Clark sighed again, keeping Lex in his grasp. "Yeah, I do. It's why LuthorCorp rescued you yesterday, not Superman. I would rather grab you and fly off with you now to wherever you want to go, but I do understand."
There was a smile on Lex's face as he gently pulled away. Clark saw indulgence and fondness as Lex let a little bit of his inner feelings through. "Clark, you're too good to me."
"Hey, be careful at work today." Clark didn't respond directly to Lex's statement, instead expressing his concern. He had to let Lex be on his own - Lex wouldn't have it any other way.
The smile changed to tenderness. Lex raised a hand and rested his fingers gently on Clark's cheek. "I will. You too." Leaning in, Lex kissed Clark softly.
It was just a press of lips to lips, not anything spectacular, and yet for Clark it was the world.
They went off to their separate work places. Clark every now and then looked out through his building into Lex's just to see him. Each time he did, he smiled, then went back to his article.
... ... ...
Clark slipped up behind Lex and nuzzled the back of his neck. "So, do I get to find out where we're going for vacation tomorrow, or is going to be a surprise?"
Lex slipped out of Clark's arms like oil from gears. "Vacation?" His voice was expressionless.
With a frown, Clark walked to where he could face Lex. "Our vacation that was postponed? To this week? Starting tomorrow?"
Lex's mouth was still, his eyes were remote, not a muscle twitched. Clark felt a shiver go through him.
"Lex?"
"There won't be any vacation, Clark." Lex's gaze held his but there was more distance there than the four feet that separated them. "In fact, it would probably be best if we stopped seeing each other."
The ground dropped out from under Clark's feet. The world tipped left and right and then sideways. Clark looked at Lex and went into superspeed mode without moving an inch as he heard the words over and over again in his mind. "Wha...?"
There was a flash of something across Lex's face. It looked like pain but it was gone too quickly for Clark to identify. "You heard me." Lex turned away and walked to the balcony. The night sky had replaced the twilight and the glow of the city reflected under the clouds.
Slowly, Clark settled back to the floor. He'd instinctively been hovering ever since the first words, waiting for the earthquake to stop, for his balance to come back. But there would be no balance here. "Lex?"
"I realize this is sudden. I'll move out of the penthouse until you find a place of your own. The Japanese LuthorCorp holdings are expecting me for a tour next week. After that, I'll go to Beijing, then Melbourne. You won't have to worry about seeing me around." Lex hesitated, then added softly, "And you don't have to worry about what I'll be doing. I promise, no evil-doing. That's not what this is about." His hand rested on the balcony railing gently, not gripping, simply lying there.
Everything was still spinning but this was something Clark could grab ahold of. "Then what is this about!? Lex." Clark swallowed against the lump in his throat. He had thought they were okay; he had really thought that Lex loved him and that they would make this work.
"It's not you, Clark." Lex's voice was sincere, yet he still didn't turn around. However, his hand tightened infinitesimally before it relaxed. Not a true relaxation but a forced smoothing of the muscles so they wouldn't betray him.
Clark's eyes darted from that hand to the muscles in Lex's back, watching to see if they tightened too, but by this time Lex had control of himself again. Obviously Lex didn't have full control, though, or he wouldn't be facing the night sky instead of Clark.
Well, Clark could make that tactic moot. He walked out on the balcony and stepped off, walking on the air until he was a little ways away and then turned to face Lex, folding his arms across his chest. "Bullshit. What is this about, Lex?"
Lex's eyebrows rose as he looked below Clark to the city, and then traced back up Clark's body. The corners of his mouth twitched and he nodded slightly, a concession to an opponent that had out-maneuvered him.
Clark flinched with the nod, a gesture that Lex had inherited from Lionel and that Clark had seen more times than he ever wanted to. The Luthors had granted that nod to each other time and time again in their endless battles, and rarely did they give it to others. "Lex..." Clark's plea was broken, the word tumbling through with his pain and his confusion.
It was Lex's turn to flinch. He turned sideways before he stopped himself and turned back, reluctance in every line of his body. "I'm sorry, Clark."
"I don't want sorry, I want an explanation."
Lex sighed and released his hold on the railing to run his hand over his head. "Clark, this... this whatever we've got, it's not working and it's not going to work. We should just admit that and go our separate ways before somebody gets hurt."
It had been working just fine! Clark stared at Lex, baffled. Then he got it, he realized what Lex had meant. He plummeted twenty feet down before he regained control and flew back up.
"Clark!" Lex's hands were gripping the railing again and he looked like he was almost ready to launch himself over it to go after Clark.
Clark didn't bother to reassure Lex, because he wasn't in fact fine, rather the opposite. But he flew over the railing again and stood until his feet were firmly on cement and his back was against the window. "There's somebody else."
"No!" Lex reached a hand out to Clark, then pulled it back. He used it instead to scrub over his face. "I'm making a total hash out of this. Give me business any day. Not this. Not this."
Lex paced the length of the balcony and back. "Clark, I thought... I'd thought we could do it. You had been my best friend once, and though we weren't that anymore, we were talking. It all came back, everything I had wanted back then. But we aren't back then, and we aren't those same two people anymore. I don't want to fight you; I don't ever want to fight you again. But we can't be together. Let's just accept that and move on."
"I don't understand," Clark whispered. This wasn't like before, when he and Lex had been at each other's throats with the lies and hatred between them. Lex genuinely sounded sorry. But he also meant it.
"It doesn't need to be understood." Lex looked away again and out over the city. "We're from two different worlds, you and I. Opposites might attract, but they can't live together without destroying each other. Anti-matter and matter."
"Electrons and protons," Clark snapped. "Yin and yang. Ebony and ivory. Stripes on a zebra. And we are not opposites! I might be from Krypton, but I love Earth and so do you, so the hell with different worlds."
Lex turned back, blinking. "Clark, that was a fucking expression! I didn't mean it like that."
"Than what did you mean?!" Clark folded his fingers into his palm, making fists so that he didn't touch anything that was breakable. Particularly Lex. Though what Clark really wanted to do was take that stubborn handsome man by the shoulders and shake him until he shut up. Then Clark would kiss him and kiss him until Lex yielded and they would have make-up sex.
Lex walked by him without a word, through the open glass door into the room. He stood in the middle and swung around. "Doesn't this prove it? You have no idea what I'm talking about! That's just typical, and it is exactly my point!"
"What point?" Clark was starting to get a headache.
"That we shouldn't be together." Lex sighed. "I know you think you have to stay with me from some noble sacrifice so I won't turn evil again, but I give you my word I won't do that anymore. Just don't make me..."
While they had been fighting, Clark had regained his balance and his surety. As Lex's words trailed off, Clark lost it again. He felt himself turn pale and he didn't dare move. He opened his mouth and nothing came out at first. Eventually, a whisper of sound made it through. "I stay because I love you. I love you, Lex. You thought... you thought I was your jailer?"
Lex looked aside, shame-faced.
Lex was a lying little bastard. Just last week after the kidnapping, they had been whispering - and yelling - words of love the whole night long. Lex wasn't often vocally demonstrative, but when they had reunited, he had been very clear that he loved Clark, always had, and always would. Clark had believed Lex then, and he didn't believe him now. Clark tried to get angry again, but the last bit had been too much for him. All he felt was the hurt and the pain. "Why? Why would you try and do that to me?"
"So you would leave!" Lex paced again, restlessly moving about the room. "Clark, you need to get away from me. I'm poison. Your dad was right. The only thing I'm good for is ruthless business-mongering. Relationships are nowhere in that category."
Very, very quietly, Clark sighed. Okay, this was familiar ground. He hadn't seen it for a long time, but obviously Lex had just buried it deeply. "Lex, I love you. My dad was wrong, you are not poison, and I'm never going to let you go. I won't leave you."
"You should."
"I won't."
"Why the hell not?! It's not like this is going anywhere!" Lex swung out and smashed a couple of vases to the floor, the ceramic shards scattering over the hardwood.
There was a reason Lex didn't keep anything particularly valuable in the living room. Not that the vases were cheap but at least they weren't antiques or something. Clark bit his lip to keep from saying anything.
"No relationship I'm ever in is going to work. You are not an exception. This is failing, and we should just accept it and get out while we still can."
Clark bit down harder.
"Leave, Clark." Lex walked to the door. "Or I'll leave first."
"No." Clark speeded in front of Lex, blocking his way. "Hell no." With one hand, he reached out and touched Lex's cheek gently. "I have something precious here, and I'm not giving it up. Lex, I don't know what you're seeing, but whatever it is, I don't believe it. We're doing great together, and we'll keep doing it. This relationship is working and I'm not leaving just because you're having a bad day."
As soon as the last sentence was out of his mouth, Clark knew it was a mistake. That part should have been an internal thought, not an external one.
Lex's eyes, which had softened somewhat, froze to glittering blue ice and he reached up and removed Clark's hand from his cheek. "Fuck you, too."
He stepped back but didn't turn away, staring at Clark coldly. "Did you know, Clark, that people are who are secure in their relationships are less aware of danger?"
Clark looked at him, bewildered at the turn the topic was taking. "I'm sorry, Lex, it was a stupid thing to say. I didn't mean it."
"It's true. They did a study. People who do well in relationships are slower to react to danger. Non-secure people will see the smoke sooner and be able to react."
Lex poked Clark in the chest. "You, Clark Kent, raised by the loving Kent family, don't see the smoke and are only assuming there is no danger. However, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss my warning as fantasy. There is something wrong, and we are better off apart than together."
Clark closed his eyes. It was true that Lex was a paranoid son of a bitch, raised by Lionel Luthor and his not-so-loving wife Lillian. Clark had learned enough over the years to know that Lex's fantasy of a loving mother was just that, a fantasy. And the love that Clark had tried to give him as a friend when he was a teenager had been stripped away by Clark himself when he got mad at Lex. So Lex's tendency to jump at shadows was justified. It had even been proved time after time to be correct. The question was why here, why now? What was it that Lex saw that Clark didn't?
"Okay Lex," Clark finally said, opening his eyes. "I believe that you're seeing something that I'm not. So explain it to me. What is the problem with our relationship? Why don't you think it's working?"
Lex gazed at Clark suspiciously, then restlessly turned and made another circuit around the room. His feet crushed the pottery shards on the floor as he passed over without acknowledging the shattered vase.
Clark didn't follow, but watched Lex with his eyes.
"Do you know why we had to postpone our vacation?" Lex finally asked.
Whatever Clark had been expecting, it wasn't this. "Because you, ah... because of the drug lords."
"Because I was kidnapped," Lex said bluntly. "Do you know why I was kidnapped?"
"No." Clark kept the answer short and struggled not to say something snide. Lex hadn't told him why. Clark had asked. Lex refused to say.
"I was setting up our vacation plans."
"With drug lords?" As the incredulous question slipped out, Clark slapped a hand over his traitorous mouth.
Lex glared. "Asshole."
"Sorry."
Lex made another circuit around the room. "I wanted us to have a nice romantic week together, away from everything we normally do. No trips to the cities, no trips to the farm. Nothing in Montana or the Caribbean."
"California," Clark realized. The business trip had just been a rouse. And it was true, neither of them got out there much. Clark sometimes as Superman for earthquakes, and Lex sometimes for business conferences, but it would be someplace neither of them associated with anything in particular. "San Francisco?"
"Too busy," Lex said, his fingers tracing his world globe and not looking over at Clark. "Further north. A small cabin in the redwoods. Where we could be alone without distractions. I'd only recently acquired the cabin, and though I'd ordered it to be ready, I wanted to make sure."
Clark's heart sank. This was going to be another one of Lex's disasters. Clark knew it now without Lex saying anything more. Lex got into more trouble without trying than any other person Clark had ever met. He couldn't even blame it on meteor mutants anymore now that they weren't in Smallville.
"The cabin was perfect. I decided to check the local area, see if there were some nice hiking trails you would like."
Oh God. Clark almost didn't want Lex to finish. He closed his eyes and waited.
"The cabin, as it turned out, was on the edge of a very large marijuana plot. Grown in the forest so police helicopters couldn't spot it from overhead, tended by diligent farmers. The previous owners of the cabin had obviously never been out hiking. I was, in very short order, captured by said farmers with their very large semi-automatic weapons and their paranoid attitudes. And they called their bosses, who called their bosses, who realized what they had."
Lex had been kidnapped because he was trying to make a nice romantic gesture for Clark. Oh wonderful. This was so… typical of things that happened to Lex! Molehills didn't exist in the Luthor world, only mountains. If Clark had been standing next to a wall, he would have banged his head on it. Instead, he swallowed and waited for the rest.
"This relationship is a bad idea. It won't work and I never should have tried it in the first place. We're only going to end up hating each other again, and this time it won't stop until one of us is dead. Let's stop while we're ahead and go our separate ways." Lex looked at Clark, his blue eyes darkened with shadows. Nothing else revealed his feelings.
Clark made a noise in the back of his throat. It sounded like a whine, the type a dog makes when it's been hurt. He didn't want to leave Lex. Yet if Lex was being hurt because of him, then wasn't it Clark's duty to leave? But he really didn't want to leave. "Lex..." What could Clark say? 'Stay with me and get killed some day?'
"I'm sorry, Clark, but I won't be responsible for your death."
Clark's death? The world spun in a quick circle as things changed position. They'd been doing that an awful lot this conversation. Clark had hold of the wrong end of the stick here. Lex wasn't worried about Lex getting hurt, oh no, of course he wasn't. Clark took a deep breath and then let it out. He walked over to a couch and sat down.
Predictably, Lex stayed standing. He was the grand master of casual when he wanted to be, but right now, Lex was freaked out and it was Clark in the room with him, so he wasn't holding up his guard as tightly as he could. Which was a good sign; Lex wasn't sure he could win this one, and wasn't, in fact, putting all of himself into it. Maybe that meant Clark could talk him out of it.
"Lex, if you could, please explain to me just why you think I'm in danger when you were the one kidnapped?" It was a statement, but Clark made it into a question, trying to get an answer without pushing Lex too far.
Lex eyed Clark like Clark was some grey slime unexpectedly crawling out of a test tube and Lex wasn't sure whether or not this was a good thing but at the very least it was interesting.
"Do you remember my first marriage, Clark?"
"Yes," Clark answered warily. The first wife to try and kill Lex. One would have thought Desiree would have put Lex off marriage for a lifetime.
"Do you remember my second marriage, Clark?"
But no, Lex had gone out and married Helen right after Desiree; the second wife to try and kill Lex. Clark could still remember Lex's funeral and how black the world was on that day, even through the haze of red kryptonite. "Yes," he replied even more cautiously. He wasn't sure how this related to his question, but he knew he'd find out - in Lex's usual round-about fashion.
Lex drew in a breath and let it out. He leaned one hip against the wall, facing Clark but looking over Clark's shoulder at the window behind. "Desiree got fifteen years in prison. It got commuted to a term in Belle Reve. While she was there, the other inmates figured out what she was doing with her breath and ganged up on her. She was raped repeatedly and badly beaten. She's currently in another home where she thinks she's six years old and spends her time drawing swirly pictures.
"Helen was severely injured from her fall from the plane and was confined to a wheelchair for three years before she learned to walk again. She got married in Europe where she's still on the run, but she had four miscarriages before realizing what else the injuries had done. Her husband divorced her and left her penniless. She currently eeks out a living performing illegal abortions in Italy."
Lex paused, closing his eyes. His delivery had been flat, without emotion, just the facts. Yet the fact that he had that information at all was telling.
Clark, though, had a really hard time feeling sorry for either of those women, considering what they had cost Lex. "Lex-"
"I'm not done." Lex shifted his gaze to look over Clark's other shoulder.
"Amanda killed herself after years of torment. Victoria and her father were disgraced among our peers; worse, she had to sleep with my father. Amy's brother was confined to a mental institution and she married a man who was a chronic abuser - of alcohol, and of her. Patrice killed herself. Syndie was killed by a gunman who was aiming at me. Tamara had extensive surgery and there are still shards left in her body from the explosion. Ted lost his arm. Patrick fell off the tower and died when LuthorCorp was attacked."
With an abrupt motion, Lex pushed off the wall and paced to the middle of the room, where he locked gazes with Clark. "And we both know what happened to Lana."
Clark winced. Lana was half his fault as well. But for all the others... "Lex, none of that was your fault!"
"No?" Lex laughed bitterly. "Then tell me why I haven't once ever had a relationship where the other person has gotten out alive, sane, or intact. I'm poison. Every person I touch ends up worse than when I met them. The only thing I'm good for at all is business. LuthorCorp thrives with an immoral bastard at the helm. But people? People die."
"Lex, that's ridiculous!"
"Then give me a reason! Just one!"
"Coincidence?" Clark offered weakly.
That got the scornful look from Lex that it deserved. Clark, though, didn't really know what to say, because, really, the list was pretty bad - and Lex had shortened it at that. He sighed. "Lex, it's not just you, and I'm not them." He tried on a wry smile. "Hell, considering how all my own relationships end up… we're probably perfect for each other. Maybe that's always been the problem; we should have been with each other from the start and we weren't."
Lex snorted. "At least you have normal relationships that result in break-ups and not deaths!"
Clark went still. The couch tore under his hands as he struggled for control. "I do not believe you just said that to me," Clark said softly, trying not to let his heat vision turn on. Giving up on that part, he turned to the fireplace and ignited it with one swift anger-directed glare.
In surprise, Lex took a few steps towards the fire, then turned and faced Clark. Without trying to hide it, Lex's expression was that of sheer bafflement.
A sorrow came over Clark, rising up from where he hid it deep within. "You forgot," Clark said. "You forgot about Kyla. About Alicia." He had loved Kyla, he really had, despite the short time they had been together. And Alicia would always be his heroine, no matter what she'd done after.
It took Lex a second, and then he flinched. "I'm sorry," he said with true regret.
Clark didn't respond at first, thinking of his early loves. Insane, violent, and he'd loved them so much… not unlike Lex, in some respects. And like Clark with Lex, what had ultimately happened to Alicia had a great deal to do with Clark's mistrust of her - or was it mistrust of loving her rather than herself? Did Clark always hurt the ones he loved? Lex's little soliloquy earlier had all the hallmarks of what happened to Clark as well. Clark's failed relationships just weren't as public as Lex's.
While Clark was thinking, Lex had come over and sat down beside him, all of his bluster from before totally gone. Which just proved to Clark how much of the anger had been a bluff. The pain for all the broken relationships probably wasn't, but Lex always did hide his hurt behind anger. As Clark hid his pain by pretending it wasn't there. With a sigh, Clark shifted over so their arms were touching as they sat together.
"Not your fault, Lex. I buried them. I didn't want what happened to have happened and just buried everything about them inside little holes in my soul and covered it up." Clark thought of proud Kyla whom he'd admired so much and who he knew loved him true. "There was Lana before, and there was Lana after. I used Lana as my cover, hiding in my love for her to forget the pain. I'm not surprised you didn't remember. I doubt if even my mom does."
"I'm really sorry, Clark. I shouldn't have said that. I didn't... You've... It's just that you've always had the perfect life. A wonderful family with loving parents, good friends who don't betray you, lovers who are true... And then there's my life. I didn't want my life to contaminate yours." Lex slumped over, defeated.
A lot of Clark's 'perfect life' was the lies and the pretenses that he hid behind. Yet, compared to Lex's... It was a miracle Lex was as sane and caring as he was. Even this... this argument they were having now, it was about Lex trying to save Clark, not about trying to take what Clark had.
Clark leaned a bit more into Lex. "Lex, you're not going to make me leave you, you're just not. And you're not going to leave me either. Just-" Okay, asking Lex to 'just accept it' was almost daring Lex not to. Clark luckily stopped before he finished.
Slipping his arm around Lex's shoulders, Clark held him. Finally, he simply said, "Lex, let's go on that vacation. Right now. You and I. Forget LuthorCorp, forget crime-fighting. Let's just go to your redwood retreat and take that time for us. No games, no power-plays, nobody trying to kill us. Well, hopefully none of that. Let's just get away, you and I together."
Lex leaned his head against Clark's shoulder. "It sounds so nice," he said wistfully.
"So let's do it!" Clark got up and took Lex's hands in his, pulling him up as well. They stood together like that, hands clasped, chest to chest, staring in each other's eyes. Clark knew he had won when Lex's mouth twisted up on one side in the barest hint of a smile.
Slipping into superspeed, Clark dashed over to the back room where his costume variants and Lex's suit were kept. He slipped into his navy blue and black costume that was near invisible in the darkness, and he grabbed Lex's plum and maroon suit and dashed back to Lex.
He paused for a kiss that he let lapse into real time so he could feel Lex's response, and then he speeded up again, undressing Lex and kissing and nibbling him all over his body as he did so. He would spend just long enough on a spot that Lex would start to respond and then Clark would move on to the next. When he was done playing, Clark dressed Lex most of the way... then let time go back to normal while he was kneeling at Lex's feet, looking up at him with a wicked grin.
Lex looked down at him with a combination of hunger and exasperation. "I hate it when you do that."
"Uh huh..." Clark leaned forward and then his mouth was too full to talk.
Lex's hands curled in his hair, politely not tugging even with Clark's invulnerability. There really wasn't a lot of hating going on there.
When Clark was done and Lex was slumping over, keeping his balance by sheer stubbornness, Clark picked Lex up and flew out the window.
The night was misty and foggy, perfect for a midnight get-away. Clark flew up amid the clouds as Lex snapped his visor down to protect against the velocity and settled himself into a more comfortable position in Clark's arms.
Or maybe it wasn't just comfort. Lex kept squirming down and finally reached his goal, undoing key snaps on Clark's uniform.
Clark gasped and his flight wobbled. "Lex... not while I'm flying!"
Lex spared a hand to activate his communication device that filtered Clark's words into his headset. "Sorry, what was that again?" Wicked and unrepentant, Lex went back to what he'd been doing.
With a moan, Clark flipped them around in a corkscrew while he attached the straps from Lex's suit to his. He finished up with his back to Earth and Lex on top. Then Clark didn't worry as much about the flight pattern.
When he came back to himself, they were still flying on a mostly westerly direction, Clark's body over the years having gotten used to flying on automatic with all the 'training' that Lex gave him.
"I hate it when you do that," Clark blinked as he regained vision and stared blurrily at the stars.
"Uh huh," Lex said smugly as he crawled back up Clark and curled himself into Clark's arms, hooking his legs between Clark's and looking past Clark's shoulder. "Oh look, there's Los Alamos."
It really should be slightly frightening that Lex could recognize the national laboratory in New Mexico at this distance in the air at night. Clark turned slightly sideways so they both could look forward and he turned his flight more north. They'd gone a lot more south than he'd planned when he wasn't paying attention. "Redwoods?"
"Drop me at Myer's Flat."
Clark really didn't know California geography that well. He tried to think...
"Or just drop me where Highway 101 meets 1 - you should be able to see that from the air."
Clark nodded; he could find the freeways easily enough. He glanced up at the stars, having outraced the fog a long time back. "Look, Jupiter is up."
"Almighty Zeus in the sky," Lex tiled his head to look as his body molded to Clark's, perfectly secure in his hold.
"Don't tease Diana like that," Clark stifled a laugh. Lex had gotten into arguments over ancient Greek mythologies more than once with the Amazon.
"She's not here; I was just saying..."
Clark grinned again. "Okay, I'll call mine if you'll call yours."
They switched their communications frequencies and Clark called the Justice League to confirm his vacation and that he'd be out of touch for a week. He'd already had it planned and they were going to cover him, so this was just to let them know, that yes, he was dropping off the board now.
Lex's calls were a little more varied and involved some language as he persuaded his minions that yes, he really was Lex Luthor; yes, he was going on vacation for a week without contact; and no, he hadn't been kidnapped, this was of his own free will.
Clark carefully refrained from pointing out that if Lex had just accepted the fact of their vacation in the first place, he wouldn't have to go through all that. Clark was still smarting a little from the force of emotions that had gone through him when he thought Lex had found somebody else. He was glad that Lex hadn't tried to use that particular tactic. Lex had managed to foil his own plot by wanting to hurt Clark just enough for Clark to leave him... yet not truly wanting to hurt Clark so badly that Clark would actually be hurt.
"The stars are lovely tonight," Lex said quietly. They were currently flying with Clark on top looking down and Lex below him looking up.
Clark realized he'd been brooding long past when Lex had finished with his calls.
"I'm sorry," Lex said even more quietly than before. Only super-hearing picked up the words.
"It's alright," Clark answered. He understood the impulse, he really did. Protect those you love by pushing them away. He'd found over the years, though, that that plan didn't work nearly as well in real life as it did in theory.
Lex let go of Clark and leaned back, stretching out his arms into the air, held up only by Clark's grasp and the straps.
Clark let go too and spread his own arms out so that they touched fingertip to fingertip. The straps strained but didn't break, being designed for more weight and tension than even this. A few inches of air were between their bodies, with the wind rushing through. Lex's suit protected him from the velocity but it was still a pretty daring thing to do.
Lex laughed.
It was such a carefree, fun sound that Clark responded in kind. He swooped low and then pulled up, Lex pulled along in his wake, almost freefall yet not.
With a practiced twist, Lex rolled in his straps so that he was facing the Earth. He moved his arms forward in a classic 'flying' pose.
Clark brought his hands forward as well to touch Lex's again, looking down not at the planet below them but at the man he loved. They flew together like that for awhile quietly, simply enjoying the flight.
Eventually, Lex pointed. "101."
They were north of San Francisco some ways and not a lot of other cities were that distinctive at night. Clark marveled at how well Lex knew geography from the air, almost as if he were the one with the power of flight who had been dashing around the world for the last decade. Though admittedly Lex did do a lot of that in helicopters, small planes, and under his own power.
When they'd gone up the freeway a ways, Lex tugged at Clark. "Drop me here."
Clark slowed and moved in closer to the ground. When they were about ten thousand feet up, Lex hit the controls to release the straps.
As always, Clark had to fight the impulse to grab as Lex fell away from him.
Lex, though, laughed again, shaping himself into a sky-diver's position, shooting through the sky with only gravity and the air around him.
Clark dove sharply, diving by Lex and then coming up again on his other side. With a grin, Lex banked, turning in a sharp spiral. Clark waited a moment until he was sure of the pattern then dove through the spiral, down towards earth, slowly enough that Lex was twisting around him like one half of a helix. With the thought, Clark banked in the other direction from Lex and then they were both twisting around in the air, their mouths in wide grins, laughter in the sky.
Free fall never lasted long enough. A few hundred feet up, Lex turned on the rocket boosters and straightened out his flight to follow the freeway. Clark flew over and slightly to one side of Lex, careful not to get in the wake of the boosters. They had originally been designed so that Lex could meet Superman on his own territory and bright the fight into the skies. As such, they weren't exactly safe for Clark, though Lex had downgraded them as much as he could while still leaving them effective for flight.
What had started out as a weapon between them had turned out to be one of the great joys in their relationship. Clark could fly with many other heroes in the Justice League, and it still gave him a trill to do so, having been solo in the skies for so long before he met other friendly fliers. Flying with his love, however, was a totally difference experience. And Lex loved to play. It wasn't considered childish to play... as long as Lex could call it 'showing off his technology' instead. It really was playing but Clark carefully didn't point that out to Lex, just enjoying their flights together instead. The true delight between them, meeting on equal grounds with Clark's natural ability and the genius engineering that Lex created.
Lex turned off the main road and ducked down into the trees. Clark followed.
"There." Lex pointed, and then came in for a landing on the porch and started stripping off his helmet and gear.
Clark glanced around with all his various power-assists but couldn't see or hear anybody around. Any humans, that is. There were some spotted owls and other wildlife roaming the woods. All was quiet, away from humans, and noisy amidst the wilderness sounds.
Landing beside Lex, Clark slipped his arm around Lex's waist. "Ready for a week away from work?" he teased.
Tilting his head back to look at Clark in both invitation and challenge, Lex answered, "I am if you're ready to stop super-hero'ing for that time."
They both knew a real disaster, on either front, would be the exception to the plans, but they were also both hoping that wouldn't happen. They also knew they'd spend the week working on their relationship. Clark had missed all the warning signs, and Lex was probably still worrying. They would need this time together just to patch things up.
Clark bent over and hovered his lips over Lex's. "I'll try," he promised, both to the spoken and unspoken. Then he descended fully upon those warm lips and Lex met him there, a prelude to their week together.
END
Author Notes:
- The prompt I used for Clexmas Spring Fling was: "Lex’s attempt to set up a romantic evening results in Clark having to save him." It was intended to be more humorous, but the story went all serious on me. And, uh, only peripherally having to do with the prompt. O.o
- The worlds of mix and match in Smallville, DC, and my own stuff, are hopefully not too muddled to make it through the reading. I didn't want to get into all the hows and whys of where the worlds diverged and mixed and all that, or you wouldn't have a story to read.
- Up for auction. Um, I've been re-reading too much Dresden Files lately (Jim Butcher). ;p Hey, at least I didn't use ebay (I thought about it ;p). ^^
- The study about being bad at relationships being good for survival? True. When I read it, I knew I had to use it. ;p
- {cough} How many viewers think later season Clark remembers Kyla? How many? No, okay, that's not very fair of me... but I really do think the *writers* forgot. Lana before, Lana after...
- To some readers, this fic might resemble Twilight's Secrets in certain parts. Good eye. ^^; I got frustrated with this fic in the middle of writing it and went off and wrote Twilight using some elements but using them differently as a way to relieve my frustration with this one. The two stories are hopefully still different enough that the similar use of those elements can be overlooked. ^^