Fic: Timeshared (Part 1) (2/3)
Title: Timeshared (Part 1)
Author: josephina_x
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark, Lex
Rating: R
Spoilers: general for the entire series; follows canon up through season 7 and a little of 8x01, but events and particulars diverge (at times rather drastically) from that point onward
Word count: 24,900+
Summary: The explicit use of the Orb actually did work the way everyone thought it would... more-or-less... and Clark discovers that he isn't who he thought he was...
Warnings: Un-beta'd. AU. Darkfic-ish. Rating for violence, nonconsensual enslavement and torture (both physical and mental). It, uh, gets better, though, making its way towards H/C. *coughs*
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
Comments: Yes, please! :)
Author's Note: I really don't know why more people don't play around with this basic premise. Should I leave out carrots and chocolate, or something? (Or did I miss a bunch of fics? Does anyone have links? I'd be forever grateful! *bigeyes*)
Also posted to AO3 here.
Previous post is here.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Clark slowly sat up, groaning. He shuddered and wiped a bit of spittle from the corner of his mouth.
"Th- h-ll?" he mumbled out. Something was really wrong.
He felt something heavy on his head and wrestled with straps, half-blind by starbursts of light across his vision. Grumbling, feeling fumble-fingered and all-the-wrong-size for his body like he hadn't in ages -- had he ever really felt that way before while stuck in Lex? -- he was finally able to pull it off.
Christ. It looked like some medieval torture device, all metal bands and straps and wires...
...Wires?
Clark followed the line with Lex's eyes once his vision cleared. Yes, wires. The damn thing was plugged into a wall socket--
Then his eyes widened and he stared down at what he was holding in his hands.
First, he felt horror.
Then, he felt rage.
He stood up, grasping the electroshock helmet in both hands, raised it over his head, and threw it at the floor as hard as he could. The thing crumpled, and crumpled further as Clark stomped the damnable thing into the hardwood floor, smashing it to pieces. He didn't stop until he was sure the thing could never be put back together again.
"Stupid-- stupid--!" Clark yelled at no-one as he paced the length of the entertainment room between the couch and the overturned wooden coffee table. His legs ached, and he had no doubt that Lex had kicked out hard enough to send it across the room where it lay when he spasmed. From the electrical shock. From the self-induced electrical shock.
"What the fuck is wrong with you!" he yelled again, knowing no one would hear him, not even Lex, and that almost made it that much worse.
How the hell could he have done this to himself? After Belle Reeve? Clark couldn't comprehend it. He must have been well and truly out of his mind to--
And then Clark remembered what he'd written in his last note to Lex. When he'd been so angry he wasn't thinking straight, because Lex had nearly drowned himself that time, and that had brought back the bridge...
And he only realized now how Lex would have reacted to what he'd written, how he knew better than to give Lex ultimatums--
Except Clark was dead now, and Lex still couldn't just leave him alone, and Lex was being an idiot, and... and Clark suddenly knew what he'd have to do to get through to him. The idea slotted into place like a puzzle piece. It just fit. And was fitting, given the circumstances. ...And was entirely horrific, but Clark wasn't about to let that stop him, because sometimes even ghosts got angry enough to make the walls bleed red once in awhile.
Clark stomped out of the TV room, down the hallway, snagged Lex's coat and keys on the way to the garage, strode out and down to one of the unwrecked cars, turned the key in the ignition switch, and drove off like a bat out of hell.
Yes, Clark knew exactly what do to, and exactly where he was going. He didn't need a note for this. In this case, a note would, in fact, be counterproductive. Lex needed to know how serious he was about this.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Tess arrived at the mansion at 11pm.
When she made it to the entertainment room and saw the destruction, her hand stilled on the doorknob.
She slowly walked in, looking about. No Lex. No entity-in-Lex.
She let out a breath of... not relief, exactly, but...
She started to straighten up the room, turning the coffee table upright and lifting it back into place.
Then she frowned as she caught sight of the remote.
She bent down and picked it up carefully, and realized that the note taped on top of the control pad had never been removed, never been touched -- it was straight and unwrinkled.
"Watch this, please," it had written across it. Tess' mouth thinned as she remembered how they'd debated quite a bit about the inclusion of the 'please'. But, given the placement of the coffee table and where the remote had landed, as well as the lack of mess on the opposite side of the table, Tess suddenly realized that the table must have been overturned before the swath of destruction had taken place. Which meant that the entity hadn't seen the note. Which meant that it hadn't watched the tape of Lex talking to it, explaining, asking yet again for more information in return.
So if the tape and this next, newest attempt at communication hadn't set it off, what had?
Surveying the room more carefully, Tess realized that all the damage and kicked-aside and overturned furniture centered around the crushed components of the electroshock device. ...At least, that was what Tess assumed it was, given its absence in the room, because whatever it was had been smashed and shattered beyond recognition.
Tess wondered whether it had been the change from physical to electrical shock that had caused the outburst of rage, or whether it had been something else. It had been the first time they'd tried it -- they couldn't have set things up indoors in such a way as to assure the entity would wake up in an otherwise soothing environment if it had been a physically violent shock -- and maybe the electricity had had a different effect on it.
But Tess realized she might be assuming too much. She'd heard whispers from his other staff that Lex was sometimes prone to fits of rage on occasion. Maybe the helmet hadn't worked and Lex had woken up upset. He hadn't seemed very open to the idea when she'd first brought it up, so much so that she'd never suggested it again. She'd been surprised when he'd brought it up again for this purpose.
Either way, he ought to be in bed. The entity defaulted to bringing him to Lex's rooms -- or to the couch in the library, but he hadn't been in the latter area when Tess had arrived. Lex himself would have retired to his rooms, this late and after such a failure.
But when Tess knocked on Lex's bedroom door, and then quietly let herself in, she was unprepared for the third possibility -- that Lex wasn't there at all.
That exact moment was when Tess started to panic.
She immediately rushed to the library and called up the mansion's surveillance footage, to see what it showed. She learned that, yes, the entity hadn't watched the tape; yes, the device had set it off in a rage somehow; and she traced down its movements through the house. She cursed when she saw that it had taken an undamaged car, and quickly dialed the security company for the car to call up a GPS trace on its coordinates.
She had a very sickening feeling when the last known position of the car turned out to be the parking lot at Belle Reeve Mental Hospital outside of Metropolis. The entity had never gone towards people before, and if it had 'swapped' out Lex's body for some crazy meteor-mutant inmate, or worse...
She called in the helicopter and got herself to Belle Reeve as fast as she could.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex woke in a pain-filled daze.
Never... doing that... again... he thought, groaning. He tried to sit up, felt his shoulders wrench, and smacked face first into something soft.
Th' hell? Lex thought dazedly. Why weren't his arms moving? ...Stuck behind his back?
He twisted to look back and realized he was handcuffed. He shifted and then realized he wasn't in bed.
A soft floor?
White walls.
Oh god. Oh god no. Nonono.
He slithered backwards and his back his the wall. He kicked himself upright and looked around in shock.
No - no - no!
He was in a padded cell.
Restrained in a low-lit, padded cell.
Oh god, what happened? What did I do?
Lex started to shake, and very nearly started to cry. I didn't hurt anyone, I couldn't have hurt anyone -- not again! No!!!
Lex started to scream and thrash uncontrollably.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex hated this thing.
Lex hated this thing like he had never hated anything or anyone else in his life before now.
Until this moment, he hadn't truly known what hate was, and that should have scared him a little, but the rage in him now felt too large for his skin to contain.
Lex hated with a hot rage that turned cold, so cold he was set shivering, and it took three fucking hours for Tess to get him out of there.
It had only been by luck that an enterprising young janitor had taken a shortcut through the section where he was being held that night, and wound up cleaning the floors and changing a few lightbulbs. Apparently that wing was currently in disuse and was usually only checked once a week.
It could have been three days before anyone had found him.
This knowledge felt like a block of lead in his gut and only made it all that much worse.
It had been a little after seven-thirty when Lex had shocked himself under. He heard later from Tess that it had been around eight when the entity had finally woken up, far longer than the usual time delay between shock-and-surfacing. The entity had gone berserk, hadn't even looked for a method of commincation -- physically violent and no curiosity when enraged, Lex mentally added to his list of the Kryptonian's personality traits, oh no, no pattern there, he thought sarcastically, that's not common to all the other Kryptonians we've had to deal with at all -- and had taken him, abducted him and his body away to Belle Reeve.
The entity had taken him into a building full of people... and then taken a tour of the facility.
It had acted like him. Just like him. It had fooled everyone.
Tess had finally managed to get Lex out by saying that what he'd done -- slipping away, locking himself away in a room in an unused wing, and yellng to see how long it took someone to notice something was wrong -- had been a sort of security check. She'd made out that the security monitors needed to pay attention to whether, when someone looked like they were exiting the facility, they'd actually exited the facility, and that the entire system was horrifically lax, if someone could get into the holding cell area after hours without anyone noticing. That someone doing what Lex had done could have just as easily been letting people out instead of locking themselves -- or someone else -- in.
The entity-in-Lex had arrived at the facility at eight-fifteen -- clearly not following the speed limit laws for the highway -- toured it for thirty-two minutes, talked with doctor after administrator after high-ranking security personnel coordinator, and then made to leave. And then not actually left. He'd looked up at one of the cameras and smiled thinly. Then he'd easily -- far, far too easily -- disappeared off the security grid. He and Tess still weren't sure exactly sure which hallways, service corridors, and stairwells he'd taken, but Lex was damned if he wasn't going to have every inch of the place properly covered from there on in. He'd gotten a pair of handcuffs from god-knows-where -- apparently a supply closet, he'd found out later after looking through inventory lists, and realizing what else they tended to stock with the straightjackets -- walked Lex's body into a vacant room, closed the door behind him, sat down, handcuffed himself, then had laid down and fallen asleep at eight-fifty-eight-pm, from the timestamp on the cell's security footage... cell footage that apparently wasn't ever looked at unless someone was listed as occupying the cell -- another oversight that Lex was going to see corrected.
Lex had regained consciousness at eight-fifty-nine pm, and promptly began to panic.
Lex tried to tell himself that it had been a perfectly reasonable response, given his previous experience at Belle Reeve, most of which he didn't really remember due to the electroshock treatment he'd received there...
And that thought had him suppressing shudders for hours, when he'd made that connection. Because those records had been scrubbed. No-one should have known about that, except those few people intimately involved in the matter, the majority of which were dead, the few remaining characterized by a strong refusal to talk.
Most of Smallville had circulated rumors about where he'd been that month, but even in those who had been somehow clued in in whispers to Belle Reeve had never known about the shock treatment.
No-one should have known.
This thing didn't just know him, it knew him. Intimately. Either it had full access to his memories, or...
Lex took a deep shuddering breath and leaned back in his office chair as far as he could go. Tess was at his right hand, they were safely esconced back in the library at the mansion again, and they were still reviewing the security footage she'd all but stolen at gunpoint from Belle Reeve for him.
And Lex found himself having to keep reminding himself of that every few minutes as he watched the entity play-act him on the screens.
Because the damn thing did it, and did it well.
Except when it didn't. On purpose. And then looked straight at the closest camera dead-on.
Tess had told him that the entity didn't even move like him. And it certainly hadn't.
When he had been walking Lex into the trap.
The entity had acted just as it usually did, avoiding people and moving the way it usually moved -- Tess confirmed -- from the exact moment at which Lex had been thought to have left the facility onwards.
But before that...
Before that, it had moved, acted, and apparently had sounded like Lex the entire time it had been interacting with the staff. It had talked like him. Exactly like him. It was exactly like him.
...Except for those short moments where it did something painfully obviously not-Lex-like -- lightly scuffing a shoe against the floor, or riffling its fingers behind its back, or a dozen other little, small things, over time -- and then immediately after doing so, casually glanced at the cameras as if to say, No, I'm really not you, just in case you were wondering and couldn't tell. Because no-one else can, you know. Not unless I want them to.
Lex had regained consciousness at eight-fifty-nine pm, and the janitor had found him at nine-twenty. Lex had spent the next ten minutes trying to explain to the hastily-called doctors what had happened -- except he couldn't without sounding crazy to anyone who didn't know about the Kryptonian menace, so it had mostly involved demanding for Tess to be called in and explain and strongly implying that she would have evidence that wouldn't be just one person's word against another's -- because he hadn't been in good straits when the janitor had come across him crying and begging like that to nothing but the four walls, nearly incoherent in panic.
Tess had arrived at eleven-thirty, frantic, and had been ushered in to see Lex in the interrogation room where he was still being held, despite his having been able to answer all of the security protocols correctly. It hurt that he hadn't been able to extricate himself from the situation on his own, especially since he'd put those protocols in place for that explicit purpose -- so that he'd never be held against his will in Belle Reeve ever again. He refused to acknowledge how scared he'd been.
Only after Tess had arrived had it become clear how goddamn insidious the entity had been. The reason why they hadn't let him leave the facility.
They'd thought Lex was insane, and that he'd been unofficially checking himself in.
The entity had made mention of having trouble falling asleep sometimes, casually mentioned nightmares. Worried -- about a friend, mind you -- how one could handle someone who might become violent at night when not quite awake enough to realize what they were doing. Wondered about some of the patients who had schitzophrenia, and what it was like to not feel entirely yourself sometimes. Slowly painted a picture across multiple conversations with different people of a very highly-stressed businessman who might, it just so happened, feel like spending a night or two in a safe, comfortable room at times, in a facility he owned and operated, where he could spend the night alone and without being bothered by, or bothering anyone else. ...Just in case he had screaming nightmares and a full-on psychotic break, to avoid hurting himself or others if not thoroughly restrained.
When Lex had been pulled from that room, the facility staff had realized something was wrong and compared notes. Apparently they weren't completely stupid. And when they'd pieced together the picture that the entity had spun out for them in all those not-so-random bits of odd comments and strange interests, they'd gotten worried -- and rightfully so... if it hadn't all been a complete and utter stinking, malintentioned fucking lie.
Tess hadn't been able to get him out of there until two-thirty the next morning, and he had no doubt that she was going to try and shield him at least a little from the bribes, threats, and other measures she had surely had to take to do so. She'd probably done everything short of calling in his 'special' security staff and storming the place with his own personal bodyguard of troops to extract him in a military strikeforce-like fashion, and Lex didn't doubt that it had been a near fucking thing that she hadn't had to make that call.
Fucking, goddamn alien. It had followed through with its warning... with another warning.
"You want to act suicidal? Maybe I'll take over and help... or maybe I'll help you along."
Because it was only by providence that that janitor had come by. It could have been three days before anyone had found him. Three days was a long time without food or water.
And the thing could've just as easily driven him off a cliff.
...And then proceeded to fly off and simply inhabit some other, less annoying, ignorant human being, if the behavior of the other entity had been any indication.
Lex got the message loud and clear.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Tess finished her long shower and dried off. She dressed in a nightgown and bathrobe, pushed her hair back behind an ear, and glanced at the clock -- three-thirty in the morning.
God, she was tired.
She couldn't imagine how Lex felt just then.
...It wouldn't hurt to check in on him in bed, right? Just this once?
It wouldn't really be taking liberties with him; Lex had told her that he wanted her living with him to help keep an eye out on any odd behavior on his part, as well as to have his main executive assistant close by. Even before he'd told her about the Kryptonian entity; possibly even before he'd known about it himself.
She'd sleep so much better knowing that he was where she thought he was. Where he should be.
She padded down the hallway to his room, silently opened the door a crack and waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. Then she swung open the door and stared at the vacant bed.
Oh god.
She checked the bathroom, then made for the library. He wasn't in there either. She half-ran down the corridor towards the garage--
And then she slowed as she saw light coming from under the door to the kitchen.
She breathed a sigh of relief and slowly walked to the door. She knocked and entered, pulling her bathrobe about her a little tighter with one hand and feeling slightly embarassed at her state of disshevelment in front of her employer.
Lex blinked up at her from a glass of milk and a stack of chocolate chip cookies, halfway through eating a bite. He stopped mid-chew.
Tess smiled slightly at his look, like he'd been caught in the act. She'd never seen him eating cookies before. It seemed so... normal.
"Sorry, I--" Tess took another deep breath. Lex had assured her that she had every right to be here; that the mansion was her home now, too. "I was just wondering where you were. After everything tonight, I..." she trailed off feeling like a fool.
Lex seemed to unpause and finish his mouthful of cookie. He washed it down with some milk, then set the glass down and smiled back.
"I just..." she said softly.
Lex sighed and gestured at a stool. Tess sat down gratefully.
And then she smiled as he pushed the cookie plate towards her.
She took a cookie, and watched him stand and get a second glass, pour her her own milk, and pass that over as well.
Their fingers barely touched, warm flesh contrasting against the cool glass.
He sat back down and finished his cookie.
Tess played with her necklace a bit.
"You're not Lex, are you?" Tess asked.
The entity looked up at her with a very Lex-like considering gaze. "What makes you say that, Miss Mercer?" it asked.
"Lex usually hunches over his food quite a bit more than that."
"No, he doesn't. He never--" A pause. "Damnit."
Tess grinned, then smoothed the expression away quickly.
The entity sighed gustily and gave up the pretense, slouching over entirely and holding its head up with an elbow on the table. It glared at her. "You learned that from Lex," it accused.
"I did not!" Tess responded, affronted. She'd learned that trick herself, long ago, thank you.
It rolled Lex's eyes, and it should have looked stranger, seeing it use Lex like that, seeing those expressions using Lex's face. "Whatever. Wasn't very nice."
Tess' eyes narrowed. "No, locking Lex in a cell in Belle Reeve 'wasn't very nice'," she snarled back.
"I warned him," it replied angrily. As though that covered everything. But then it continued. "And electroshock? What the hell was Lex on when he thought that was a good idea?" it shot back. "He goes from halfway bashing his brains in every night -- like that many head injuries is good for anyone -- and then nearly drowning himself -- like that's any better -- to that?" It hunched Lex's shoulders and looked irate. "I can't believe he did that to himself. It's bad enough that he isn't taking care of himself properly, but..." The entity cut himself off from whatever else it wanted to say, then bit into another cookie. It ate in silence, but Tess could almost see the cursing going on behind its eyes. Lex's eyes. What used to be Lex's eyes.
"You're angry with him," Tess said slowly.
"Of course I'm angry with him; he's being an idiot and hurting himself!" it yelled at her. "At this rate, I might as well drive him off a cliff and save him the trouble," it grumbled.
"You have been spying on him!"
"I-- what?" It looked at her in confusion, then rubbed Lex's face with his hands. "Oh, for god's sake--"
"How else would you know what he said?" Tess insisted.
"Lex said--?" The entity shook its head. "No, look -- I don't know what he's doing when I'm not... well..." It shook its head again. "Look, that's not important. I didn't know what Lex said; he probably said that because he was thinking of crashing off the bridge and his mind just goes there, ok?"
"What bridge?"
The entity stared at her. Then it closed its eyes and seemed to do a mental facepalm. It took a few deep breaths, that seemed to hitch at the end for some reason, then said slowly, "I am not spying on Lex, ok? He doesn't need to worry about me overhearing something and.. and... taking over when he's asleep and telling company secrets to other people over the phone, or something. Can you just tell him that so he'll stop? Please?"
Somehow, Tess felt that telling the entity Lex's real reasons for doing what he was doing would not help Lex at all. So instead, she said, "Really? So you don't usually wake up in the middle of the night and run Lex's body around doing who-knows-what?"
Its jaw clenched and he stood up abruptly, towering over Tess. "That's never happened before tonight. Whatever he's doing, either he's hurt himself badly enough that I'm coming up spontaneously, or the electricity did something different. He's never done that before." Then he paused and looked at her, mostly a question, and definitely a threat.
Tess gulped. "No, you're right -- he's never done that before. With electricity. Tonight was the first -- and only -- time," she assured it.
It stared at her for a moment before apparently deciding she wasn't lying, then sat back down on its own stool. "He needs to stop before it gets to be something he can't recover from. I shouldn't be coming up like this." It paused, then added, "It's not like you have to trust me," as it stared down into its milk glass. "I know Lex must have the whole place bugged and filmed by now. You can check." Then it suddenly looked tired beyond belief. "I wouldn't have gotten up, but... I just... I couldn't get back to sleep. Get him back to sleep." He gestured down at Lex's body. "I just wanted to get something to eat, and some warm milk, before lying down and trying again." Its lips thinned. "Lex hasn't exactly been eating properly; I didn't think a little extra food would hurt."
"Lex is fine," Tess protested.
"Lex is a fucking skeleton," it shot back, glaring at her again. Then it got a good look at her disbelieving expression and, with a terse, "Fine," started stripping off Lex's nightshirt.
Tess' eyes widened. She shouldn't be seeing--
"No, look. This-- this is your job, too, isn't it? To look after him? Look," it said, standing and grabbing her arm by the wrist. It wrapped her fingers around Lex wrist. "Just look!"
Tess blinked. Her fingers wrapped around Lex's wrist with space to spare.
"He's skeletal. I don't know what he's been doing, or not doing, but... he didn't used to be like this. He's skin and bones now." It pulled away and gestured at Lex's arms. "No muscle, almost. This isn't normal," it continued. "You should be able to look at pictures of him..." then it stopped and frowned. "No, wait, that might not..." it muttered, thinking. Then it brightened. "Ask his tailors," it said. "He might be able to hide it with his clothes, but his tailors would know. They have to know his sizes, and they'd keep records of any changes."
"How..." Tess asked, touching Lex's arm lightly. How had she not seen this?
"I'm only in and out intermittently," it said, patting her hand lightly. "I bet it was gradual, so it's not like you would have really noticed while it was happening unless there was something drastic, probably. But I just saw the difference all at once, so..." It trailed off and shrugged, pulling away from her and putting Lex's shirt back on him.
"How long have you been around?" Tess asked, looking up at it.
Its hands stilled at buttonning a button, then it smiled an empty smile at her and continued what it was doing. "I don't know what you mean," it lied.
"Yes, you do," Tess pressed. "Either you're lying about listening in on him, or you're lying about having been around him longer than we thought. You couldn't know him some other way. There are too many things, personal things, that Lex--" she swallowed. "You should watch the tape," she said decisively, changing topics.
It frowned at her. "What tape?"
"The tape you were supposed to watch tonight." It frowned at her. "You don't think Lex shocked himself indoors for fun, did you?"
It gave her a very dark look that nearly gave her pause. "Lex wanted me to watch some tape?" Tess nodded. "Do you know what's on it?"
"No, not exactly," Tess had to admit.
The entity sighed shortly, looked away, and said, "If I watch this tape, I'll be doing what Lex wants. He'll think that if he continues to do things like this to himself, that he'll get what he wants. He'll keep hurting himself."
And Tess suddenly realized that the entity hadn't really wanted to do to Lex what it had done, at all. Somehow, Lex had driven it into a corner.
Which meant they had to press the advantage, right now.
"I won't tell," Tess said, as earnestly as she could.
"Yes, you will," it said simply, not even bothering to look at her as it cleaned up the dishes.
"I can put the mansion's security tapes on a loop; he'll never know," Tess continued.
It laughed at her bleakly. "Of course he'll know. He'll take one look at you, ask, and know."
"I won't tell," Tess repeated, lying for all she was worth.
But it shook its head. "He'll know you're lying. He's good at knowing when people do that. Especially when you won't be wanting to lie to him."
And that... sounded really odd. But it also sounded like it might believe her, so--
"Please," Tess asked. "Just watch the tape. Lex wouldn't have done something so--" she thought quickly, "--so very desperate if it wasn't important."
Christ, the thing actually paused and looked at her. It was considering it. Either it was really bound up in keeping up this front of its... or it actually somehow cared about Lex's well-being for whatever reason.
"He does listen to me. Sometimes. I can convince him to stop hurting himself like this, trying to contact you. This was going to be his last attempt," Tess lied at the last. Mixing the drop of a lie with the truth. Because of course this wasn't going to be Lex's last attempt... or it wouldn't have been, until this thing had dropped Lex into the bowels of Belle Reeve. Tess suddenly started to rethink what she was doing...
"I-- ...Just. Just this once," it said, haltingly.
...just a little too late.
Tess took a deep breath, then outwardly smiled and nodded. What was done was done.
And Lex had worried that she couldn't handle it. She smiled inwardly, but this smile was a lot more sharp.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Tess had managed to convince it to let her watch with it, partly due to the fact that she would've seen it, or at least been briefed on its contents, if she'd been able to come that night. It had frowned and asked her point-blank why she hadn't been there, and she'd lied about car trouble. For some reason, it seemed to be taking everything she said at face value.
It settled into a corner of the couch, as Tess cued up the entertainment center. She started the video, and sat down next to it. Then she watched its eyes slowly close and its breathing even out, watched the tension slowly unwind out of Lex's body as the creature relaxed its hold.
Shit. If it fell asleep now...
She slid over, leaned close, and touched a hand to its shoulder.
It made a sleepy noise and curled an arm around her waist, pulling her in, mumbling something.
She stiffened, and that seemed to wake the alien up a little. It slowly blinked and tilted its head around, stared down at her, then it blinked again and its eyes seemed to refocus.
It... blushed. And started to pull away.
Tess relaxed and snuggled into it, slightly.
It... did that odd thing where it seemed to... pause, not quite stilling its motion, not quite freezing in place. It stiffened just slightly, staring down at her, then shifted into a more comfortable posture. For her.
She forced herself to look at the screen and relaxed herself further, pretending not to pay it any real attention at all. She felt it begin to relax as well, and it almost tentatively shifted its hold to something more... acceptable. Less familiar. Not sexual, and not taking liberties.
So, clearly alien, then.
But while it did not seem to scream "machoistic!" or gives off waves of pure masculinity, Lex had been correct in his initial blind assessment -- 'it' was most certainly 'he', and 'he' was most definitely male.
A somewhat uncomfortable, worried-at-such-close-proximity to a stunning female such as herself, male.
Geek, she thought unsympathetically, then wondered why exactly she was starting to think of it as having human qualities, again. She'd been very careful in the kitchen.
Too careful. She'd had to actively try and remind herself every time she had needed a pronoun.
Damn, but this thing was insidious.
And it seemed to be drifting off to sleep again.
What the hell do I have to do to... she thought in exasperation. Mentally hating this stupid man for making her do this, she reached up a hand to its chin, felt it half-startle, then pushed herself up and kissed it. Him.
He... didn't really react much. Its eyes fluttered shut, and its hands fell back to her waist again, loosely, and it relaxed all over, but...
God, this thing obviously was not Lex. It was completely willing to give her full control of the situation.
She slowly deepened the kiss, and felt it shiver under her, felt its jaw relax a little. She slipped her tongue in and it nearly collapsed back into the crook of the sofa completely. It finally started to respond, and then...
Eyes opened wide and she was being held out at arms length.
"You... shouldn't... do that..." it breathed raspily. Tess could feel the shivers running down its arms.
"Why not?"
It stared at her. "I'm not Lex." As if she needed reminding. "I... I didn't fall asleep completely. He's not back yet."
Oh. Tess smiled up at him, winding her hands around his borrowed wrists. "Lex doesn't let me kiss him like that."
"...That's supposed to be a reason? To let you kiss... his body? When he's... not around?"
Tess blinked at him, then reviewed her words. Oh, shit. "That's not what I--" she started.
He let go of her and dropped his hands. Turned away, looking miserable. "Just. Don't."
Tess inched closer, sitting up against his side. He curled his arms around himself and pushed Lex's body further into the side of the couch, wincing away, saying, "Stop."
"Don't you want to know why?" she asked, remembering what Lex had said about him not being curious.
"This is wrong," he replied, glancing up at the TV where Lex was still talking lowly, then glancing away.
Tess turned the TV off and tossed the remote onto the coffee table.
"We're supposed to be watching that," it said quietly, not looking at her.
"You were falling asleep; I'll have to rewind it anyway."
"I should be asleep," it said. "It's ten-past-four in the morning," it added, closing its eyes.
"How do you know what time it is?" Tess asked, watching it carefully. There weren't any clocks in view.
"Because it was three-twenty when..." it trailed off, then looked confused for a moment. "It... just is," it ended. "Lex is gonna be falling asleep at work tomorrow as it is and--"
"It's Saturday," Tess cut in.
"Huh?" it said, turning to look at her.
"It was Friday night when Lex shocked himself. It's Saturday now. He can sleep in."
It frowned at her, but the fatigue was obviously making it difficult for him to concentrate properly. "Didn't know what day it was," he muttered, turning away and settling into the side of the couch again.
"Do you know what the date is?" she asked.
"Don't care. Doesn't matter," it mumbled back.
"What do you care about?"
"Nothing," it said nearly inaudibly.
"Really? Not even about Lex?"
"No."
"You're lying."
"Am not."
"You are."
"Not."
"Yes, you are."
"Shut up," he growled, squeezing his eyes shut and shifting even farther away from her, withdrawing.
"You are lying."
"I'm not."
"You are. Admit it."
"Lex never did this," he mumbled, so quietly she almost didn't hear it.
"He never called you on it when you lied to him?" she asked lightly.
"N--" He stopped partway through the word, too late. He shifted about to face her, eyes wide.
"That woke you up, didn't it?" Tess said smugly. "You used to interact with Lex as someone else before you possessed him!" she crowed triumphantly. Then she wasn't feeling nearly so smug when she found herself sprawled backwards on the couch with a hand around her throat.
She tried to claw at him, but the next thing she realized, too late to react, he had her restrained -- both her hands caught in his free hand and held down above her head. He straddled her so she couldn't kick at him. She had no purchase.
So instead of fighting back like he'd expected, she relaxed. And then she realized that he wasn't actually trying to strangle the breath out of her. And then she smiled up at him.
"Was it something I said?" she asked sweetly, intentionally provoking him, then gasped as pure anger rippled across his face and the grip around her neck tightened.
"Right...handed...I...see..." she managed to get out, and his grip tightened further, but as spots filled her vision and unbidden tears leaked down the sides of her face, through it all she saw the fight between anger and something else in his face. And he seemed to gain control over himself... somehow... and slowly loosened his grip. It was a fight, though. He was breathing heavily by the time he was done, sweat standing out on Lex's forehead, and so was she.
She was probably going to have bruises from what he'd done later, but far more importantly... "You stopped," she whispered hoarsely. This was the first time anyone had seen any Kryptonian exhibit any sort of self-control.
"What?"
"You didn't kill me," she said, incredulously, like she could hardly believe it.
He reeled back like he'd been slapped, eyes wide. Horrified. He sat back, letting go over her completely.
"I--" he said, shakily.
She sat up slowly, smiling. She'd thought she'd gauged him correctly in this, but still, she could hardly believe it. She'd been right.
Dear god, but this meant that he really wasn't the threat that Lex was afraid of. ...And really was the possible source of information Lex had, conversely, hoped for, as well.
She stared at him, and he looked about to bolt. She touched his arm gently, and he flinched. But she didn't pull away, and she didn't let him do so, either. She moved in on him, and he shrank back again.
She was practically in his lap, and his eyes were darting about, anywhere but at her, when she brought her other hand up to his chin and tilted his head up to meet her eyes.
"I'm not angry," Tess told him.
"I don't understand," he said miserably, and it was clear he really didn't.
"I provoked you on purpose," she explained as gently as she could. She would leave the rage at him daring to lay a hand on her for later. Lex wanted information; she would get Lex information.
He started, startled all over again. Got angry. Pushed it back under with... remorse? Then righteous fury. Then guilt. He fought with himself internally, incessantly. She watched the thing tie himself up in a tangled mess of mental knots right in front of her, and realized that this wasn't an abnormal thing for it, the way its actions and thoughts seemed to be progressing. They almost made sense. A human sort of sense.
And if this thing had any sort of human-like reaction to guilt... Tess could use this.
"You shouldn't have done that," the alien said.
"I had to."
"No, you didn't!"
"I did."
"Why?" he asked, and Tess nearly sucked in a breath in surprise. It wasn't exactly curiousity, but... when had Kryptonians ever expressed even the most meager sort of interest in human affairs?
...Hell, for that matter, why did this Kryptonian care so much about Lex in the first place? These things could jump bodies like kangaroos on crack, couldn't they? It's not like the thing's health and well-being depended on and centered around Lex's own state of body and mind.
Just because this thing had known -- and self-admittedly lied to -- Lex previously didn't mean it had any reason to care about him then, either.
"Why?" she echoed back. He nodded tentatively. Fucking hell. "Because we need to know," she replied forcefully.
"Need to know what?" he asked, sounding aggrieved.
"About Kryptonians." You. "Everything."
"No, you don't," he said shakily.
"We do," she said firmly. "The war is coming--"
"What war?"
"...The war with the Kryptonians," Tess said.
He stared at her. Then laughed. Tess pushed down the rage hard, she couldn't let it surface, couldn't let this thing see how much she hated the idea that this thing thought that it would be no contest, could be no contest, no hope for humanity--
"You-- you--" he caught his breath slowly, then something seemed to dawn on him. "You... you think...?" He stared at her. "Lex thinks...?" His eyes defocused, looking through her. "No, that's..." He drew away, disentangled himself from her and stood up. "That's not..." he shook his head. "There's no war," he said, looking down at her bleakly.
Tess turned and stood herself. "No. We know that's not true. --We need to know. What to expect. How to fight it. How many of you are going to--" why is he shaking his head like that?
"There's no war," he repeated. "There's no-- it's over."
"...It's over?" Tess repeated dumbly.
"Everything's--" he sighed. "Everything's done. There's nothing left."
"What, you all just gave up?" Tess asked sarcastically. "Just like that? You surrender?"
"No," he frowned down at her. "That's not what I-- I mean, there's nothing else that's..." He stopped and started at her. "Didn't Lex tell you?" he asked, looking puzzled. "Krypton exploded. There's no-one left. Almost no-one survived. Veritas knew this," he ended, sounding like he was half-trying to convince himself. "They're all-- there's no one left to surrender. They're all dead or... they can't hurt anybody anymore," he ended roughly.
"That's not possible," Tess stated flatly.
"Why? What did Lex tell you?" he asked, looking like hed just bitten down on bitter herbs.
"He told me what I'm telling you -- he believes the same thing!" she said, standing her ground as the alien looked at her in clear disbelief.
"Lex isn't stupid," he said after awhile, looking annoyed with her.
"Yes, I know. So?"
" 'So'," he parroted her not-very-patiently, "If Aethyr and Nam-Ek were still around after the second meteor shower, they'd still be tearing up the place, burning people and snapping their arms and blowing up cars and otherwise murdering the rest of the planet. Since they aren't," he continued with his crazy logic, "then obviously they're not. Same goes for everybody else," he ended, spreading his arms wide.
"How do you know that?"
"Because I--" he grimaced. "--I just know."
"That's not good enough." Then Tess paused, because there was something very true about what he'd just said -- the only way those two would have stopped would be if someone had stopped them. "You know because you stopped them." And she watched the alien look highly uncomfortable. "Who were you inhabiting back then?" she prodded. "It couldn't have been Lex -- he wasn't even in town."
"What??" he stammered. "I wasn't inhabiting anyone -- I was alive!"
Tess blinked. That hadn't been what she'd been expecting to hear at all. "...Was alive?"
"Well, yeah. I'm... kind of dead now." And then he stared down and shuffled his feet a little. "Phantom, you know?" Like that said it all.
"You're not dead."
"Uh, yeah, I kinda am."
"You're not."
"I am! Ok? And I think I would know!" he said, crossing his arms and looking annoyed.
"What, because you've died so many times before that you have some basis for comparison?" And she watched it suddenly look a little embarrassed. "...You're kidding," she stated flatly.
"Well, it is a little different this time, but... I really am dead!" he protested as she glared. "Lex killed me ok? I have no body anymore, that means I'm dead! I'm pretty sure that's how it works!"
"You have Lex's body," she pointed out. And wow, she'd managed to get that out without sounding like she was two seconds away from throttling him out of it if she could.
He actually snorted. He made a snorting sound at her. Then he had the audacity to say, "Not really. Besides, this isn't my body, so it doesn't count."
I am arguing with a dangerous world-conquering alien ghost-like being who thinks he is dead, over whether he actually is dead or not, Tess thought bleakly. This is my life right now.
"What do you mean, Lex killed you?" she tried instead.
The entity shut the hell up. Which was stupid, because she doubted that that would really narrow it down all that much...
"I don't even know why you guys went straight to 'alien cohabitant' anyway," he muttered, looking somewhat incensed. "It's not like there aren't shapeshifters and magic users, and regular old meteor-created ghosts and body-snatching spirits, and all sorts of mind-controlling types and other stuff out there, too."
...Well, that was vaguely disturbing to hear, all put together at once like that. "Lex's bloodwork showed alien peptides of the type only found in the blood of those being overshadowed by a Kryptonian entity. --Phantom," she corrected herself, using his terminology.
"Alien peptides--" she saw thoughts run behind his eyes at high-speed. "Shit. Right." He closed his eyes and raised his hands as if to rake them through hair, then startled and stopped, blinking his eyes open when he hit bare scalp. "I--" he looked almost embarrassed for a moment. But then he frowned and slowly lowered his hands, as something seemed to occur to him. "Hey, he'd better not--" Then he frowned further. "He hasn't been trying to use his own blood to--" He started to look angry. "Is that why he's been looking so sick?!"
It took Tess a moment to see where he was going with that. "No, no -- he hasn't. The peptide levels haven't been high enough."
"That just means he'd think they'd need to draw more for--" the alien said grimly.
"He hasn't been," Tess interrupted. "I've been overseeing his medical care, and I'm at his side nearly all day. I would know." He'd better not have been, she thought resolutely. Then she almost had to mentally smack herself -- her, having something in common with this damnable Kryptonian!
"He'd damn well better not be," he muttered, unknowingly echoing her own thoughts as he scrunched up his shoulders again. Very un-Lex-like. Then he looked at her suspiciously. "You said he'd been getting bloodwork done--"
"It only takes a few drops; we haven't been bleeding him dry!" she snapped. And, oddly enough, her own anger seemed to calm him down.
After awhile, he added, "I guess it's good that you've got a way to tell for sure if somebody's a Phantom, if you have to," he acquiesced. "Most of them aren't very... nice."
"Neither are you," she shot back.
He glared right back. "I'm dead, and a ghost, and stuck inhabiting Lex's body whenever he's gone and done something unbelievably stupid. I'm pretty sure that at this point, I'm entitled to not have to try and be nice all the damn time, thank you."
"Not even when a lovely lady kisses you?" Tess asked.
"What are you talking abou--ou-ou-t? " and then he belatedly got a deer-in-headlights look. "Uh-- no-- that's-- I-- I have--" then he looked horribly pained for a moment, "Had. I-- I had-- just had a-- I only just... got out of... a relationship-- I mean, I just--" he said, sounding hangdog about it and backing up a step, then two, "and, uh, I-- I'm not--" He swallowed, hard. "You kiss really nicely," he ended lamely, looking like he was making an effort to stand his ground and not run away, or flinch, or twitch. Or get beaten into the floor by an angry female whose kissing style had been incorrectly complimented. Pfft. Geeky Kansas boys. Who apparently had had their hearts broken only recently, and were patently unable to be all stoic about it.
If Tess had had any doubt that he might not be Lex before...
"I'm-- I'm going to bed now--" he said uneasily, clearly wanting to go for the quick escape.
"You haven't watched the tape all the way through," Tess pointed out. "Aren't you going to respond to him?" she added, wondering how long she might be able to keep him talking.
"It repeated three times already; I doubt anything will change in however many more repeats the video does until the end of the DVD," he said, rolling his eyes as he opened the door. "And I said I'd watch it, not that I'd respond." And with that he made his exit.
Tess pursed her lips, thinking back. Had she really been that tired? ...She checked the tape just to be sure. And to give him a head start. Then she pursued him.
When she got to Lex's bedroom door and tried the doorknob, it rattled. Locked.
"Go away!" she heard the muffled yell from the other side of the door. Probably hiding under the sheets. She had no doubt he wouldn't be taking Lex anywhere else that night.
Tess smiled to herself and walked away slinkily back to her room. Still got it.
She reminded herself to let Lex know that he should add "girl-o-phobic" to his list of alien traits.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex stared up at Tess the next morning from his bagel at the dining room table. After a long pause: "You're kidding."
"No, sir." Tess looked very proud of herself. Almost the cat that ate the canary.
"...Surveillance?" he asked weakly. He didn't like the idea that this thing might be wandering around as him during all hours of the night. It might explain his now all-too-common fatigue, though.
"Even better." Tess handed over an audio recorder.
Lex frowned down at it, then glanced up.
"I added an audio recording bug to my necklace," she responded, almost shyly, playing with it about her neck.
"I see," said Lex.
"It should sync up with the mansion's video footage nicely," she said, glancing away, then down at her own breakfast. "I, ah, didn't quite catch everything from the beginning, but..." She straightened and suddenly looked highly professional. "I did manage to garner quite a bit of new information from him," she ended decisively.
Considering how professional she was acting now, Lex noted that she must have acted about as inversely unprofessional on the tape. "I'm sure you did," he said smoothly, and wondered if the woman was capable of blushing. He hoped to god that she hadn't... She really needs to know that she's my sister, he decided. Soon. Just so long as she hasn't... He clamped down on a shudder that he would not let pass through his frame.
"We'll watch after breakfast," he said instead, and kept his thoughts to himself under his usual pleasant mask.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex Luthor very carefully put his vaunted self-control to good use and did not hold his head in his hands. Neither did he get up, walk over to the window, and pound his head against the wall. He was great at self-control. He'd learned it well from having to deal with his father.
Oh yes, Lex Luthor was excellent at self-control. So, instead of doing all those things he really wanted to be doing, he merely leaned back, closed his eyes, and gestured at the screen, with its still-running audio commentary, and asked, "Do you know who this is?"
"Kal-El," came back the prompt, smug, and expected response.
Lex sighed, and exerted his vaunted self-control again.
"Yes, that's true," he said. It came out a little more weakly than he'd intended--
"Sir?"
--and of course Tess picked up on it. He pinched the bridge of his nose and asked, instead, "Do you know who Kal-El used to pretend to be?" Before he inhabited me? was the implied after-explanation.
He heard her pause. Inhale. Pause.
No, he hadn't thought so.
Lex knew, though, and it was posing a very big quandry.
His cold hatred of the alien being inside him died out not even halfway through the talk in the kitchen. He really should've known. Of all the people who had known enough to be able to hit him that hard, Clark had been one of them. Lex had only discounted the idea because (a) "Clark Kent" was patently not giving a damn about him at the moment, one way or the other, and (b) he never would've thought that the Clark he knew would have done anything so horrific, to anyone, for any reason. He'd thoroughly missed the fact that his mostly-silent passenger might view what he'd been doing highly as self-destructive and, knowing Lex, gone for a decisive tough-love approach that he knew was tough enough to shock him out of it enough to actually work. And it almost had. ...Until Tess had handed him this.
Of course, he was still immeasurably angry with Clark-nee-Kal-El, and would love to toss his rage to the rafters and destroy everything in sight, then find a way to make Clark hurt like hell for what he'd done... but at least Lex could understand it, and maybe even forgive him for it, now. After suitable revenge.
Though given Clark's response to Tess regarding 'relationship status', Lex might've already had pre-emptive revenge on him. If one didn't count that whole thing with Lana leaving him for Clark before all that followed. And all of the lies over the years. And Clark failing to tell him on multiple occasions about anything to do with the failed alien invasion. And never admitting to being an alien himself... though Lex supposed he could maybe let that one slide on account of self-preservation instincts -- Clark already had few enough of those as it was. But he'd also halfway strangled Tess to death last night, a highly inappropriate response under the circumstances, and to say that Lex was not pleased to see how easily Clark could turn homicidal was a vast understatement. Lex wasn't going to let him off the hook for that one, though he had also managed to stop himself without any outside influence acting upon him; Lex certainly hadn't been the one to stop him.
Yes, Lex felt that there was still some appropriate and fully-justified raging that could be going on just then.
But he really did not have the time to let himself indulge. Because at this stage he realized that it was quite possible that he knew as much or more than Clark did, at least about some things in his after/life. And anything that dealt with Lana and the two of them was also a very big quandry, indeed. So. Two quandries. And a headache. And...
"Son of a bitch..." he breathed out, as it finally occurred to him. "He wasn't lying."
"...Sir?"
"That-- man. At the Kent Farm." Who isn't Clark, but is Clark Kent.
Oh fuck. This just got a hell of a lot more complicated.
And if this conversation was any indication, Clark hadn't known. ...Still didn't know.
Shit.
"...Sir?" Tess was starting to sound worried. That wasn't good.
...Well, at least Clark defended me from my half-sister, to suffering no worse than a kiss? Lex thought with no small amusement because, well, if Clark could be counted on for anything... it was to not get past first base with his little half-sister, apparently. And cockblock her from having sex with her older brother.
Lex sat back and started laughing hysterically.
Clark saves the day again!
~*~*~*~*~*~
Next post is here.
Author: josephina_x
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: Clark, Lex
Rating: R
Spoilers: general for the entire series; follows canon up through season 7 and a little of 8x01, but events and particulars diverge (at times rather drastically) from that point onward
Word count: 24,900+
Summary: The explicit use of the Orb actually did work the way everyone thought it would... more-or-less... and Clark discovers that he isn't who he thought he was...
Warnings: Un-beta'd. AU. Darkfic-ish. Rating for violence, nonconsensual enslavement and torture (both physical and mental). It, uh, gets better, though, making its way towards H/C. *coughs*
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
Comments: Yes, please! :)
Author's Note: I really don't know why more people don't play around with this basic premise. Should I leave out carrots and chocolate, or something? (Or did I miss a bunch of fics? Does anyone have links? I'd be forever grateful! *bigeyes*)
Also posted to AO3 here.
Previous post is here.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Clark slowly sat up, groaning. He shuddered and wiped a bit of spittle from the corner of his mouth.
"Th- h-ll?" he mumbled out. Something was really wrong.
He felt something heavy on his head and wrestled with straps, half-blind by starbursts of light across his vision. Grumbling, feeling fumble-fingered and all-the-wrong-size for his body like he hadn't in ages -- had he ever really felt that way before while stuck in Lex? -- he was finally able to pull it off.
Christ. It looked like some medieval torture device, all metal bands and straps and wires...
...Wires?
Clark followed the line with Lex's eyes once his vision cleared. Yes, wires. The damn thing was plugged into a wall socket--
Then his eyes widened and he stared down at what he was holding in his hands.
First, he felt horror.
Then, he felt rage.
He stood up, grasping the electroshock helmet in both hands, raised it over his head, and threw it at the floor as hard as he could. The thing crumpled, and crumpled further as Clark stomped the damnable thing into the hardwood floor, smashing it to pieces. He didn't stop until he was sure the thing could never be put back together again.
"Stupid-- stupid--!" Clark yelled at no-one as he paced the length of the entertainment room between the couch and the overturned wooden coffee table. His legs ached, and he had no doubt that Lex had kicked out hard enough to send it across the room where it lay when he spasmed. From the electrical shock. From the self-induced electrical shock.
"What the fuck is wrong with you!" he yelled again, knowing no one would hear him, not even Lex, and that almost made it that much worse.
How the hell could he have done this to himself? After Belle Reeve? Clark couldn't comprehend it. He must have been well and truly out of his mind to--
And then Clark remembered what he'd written in his last note to Lex. When he'd been so angry he wasn't thinking straight, because Lex had nearly drowned himself that time, and that had brought back the bridge...
And he only realized now how Lex would have reacted to what he'd written, how he knew better than to give Lex ultimatums--
Except Clark was dead now, and Lex still couldn't just leave him alone, and Lex was being an idiot, and... and Clark suddenly knew what he'd have to do to get through to him. The idea slotted into place like a puzzle piece. It just fit. And was fitting, given the circumstances. ...And was entirely horrific, but Clark wasn't about to let that stop him, because sometimes even ghosts got angry enough to make the walls bleed red once in awhile.
Clark stomped out of the TV room, down the hallway, snagged Lex's coat and keys on the way to the garage, strode out and down to one of the unwrecked cars, turned the key in the ignition switch, and drove off like a bat out of hell.
Yes, Clark knew exactly what do to, and exactly where he was going. He didn't need a note for this. In this case, a note would, in fact, be counterproductive. Lex needed to know how serious he was about this.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Tess arrived at the mansion at 11pm.
When she made it to the entertainment room and saw the destruction, her hand stilled on the doorknob.
She slowly walked in, looking about. No Lex. No entity-in-Lex.
She let out a breath of... not relief, exactly, but...
She started to straighten up the room, turning the coffee table upright and lifting it back into place.
Then she frowned as she caught sight of the remote.
She bent down and picked it up carefully, and realized that the note taped on top of the control pad had never been removed, never been touched -- it was straight and unwrinkled.
"Watch this, please," it had written across it. Tess' mouth thinned as she remembered how they'd debated quite a bit about the inclusion of the 'please'. But, given the placement of the coffee table and where the remote had landed, as well as the lack of mess on the opposite side of the table, Tess suddenly realized that the table must have been overturned before the swath of destruction had taken place. Which meant that the entity hadn't seen the note. Which meant that it hadn't watched the tape of Lex talking to it, explaining, asking yet again for more information in return.
So if the tape and this next, newest attempt at communication hadn't set it off, what had?
Surveying the room more carefully, Tess realized that all the damage and kicked-aside and overturned furniture centered around the crushed components of the electroshock device. ...At least, that was what Tess assumed it was, given its absence in the room, because whatever it was had been smashed and shattered beyond recognition.
Tess wondered whether it had been the change from physical to electrical shock that had caused the outburst of rage, or whether it had been something else. It had been the first time they'd tried it -- they couldn't have set things up indoors in such a way as to assure the entity would wake up in an otherwise soothing environment if it had been a physically violent shock -- and maybe the electricity had had a different effect on it.
But Tess realized she might be assuming too much. She'd heard whispers from his other staff that Lex was sometimes prone to fits of rage on occasion. Maybe the helmet hadn't worked and Lex had woken up upset. He hadn't seemed very open to the idea when she'd first brought it up, so much so that she'd never suggested it again. She'd been surprised when he'd brought it up again for this purpose.
Either way, he ought to be in bed. The entity defaulted to bringing him to Lex's rooms -- or to the couch in the library, but he hadn't been in the latter area when Tess had arrived. Lex himself would have retired to his rooms, this late and after such a failure.
But when Tess knocked on Lex's bedroom door, and then quietly let herself in, she was unprepared for the third possibility -- that Lex wasn't there at all.
That exact moment was when Tess started to panic.
She immediately rushed to the library and called up the mansion's surveillance footage, to see what it showed. She learned that, yes, the entity hadn't watched the tape; yes, the device had set it off in a rage somehow; and she traced down its movements through the house. She cursed when she saw that it had taken an undamaged car, and quickly dialed the security company for the car to call up a GPS trace on its coordinates.
She had a very sickening feeling when the last known position of the car turned out to be the parking lot at Belle Reeve Mental Hospital outside of Metropolis. The entity had never gone towards people before, and if it had 'swapped' out Lex's body for some crazy meteor-mutant inmate, or worse...
She called in the helicopter and got herself to Belle Reeve as fast as she could.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex woke in a pain-filled daze.
Never... doing that... again... he thought, groaning. He tried to sit up, felt his shoulders wrench, and smacked face first into something soft.
Th' hell? Lex thought dazedly. Why weren't his arms moving? ...Stuck behind his back?
He twisted to look back and realized he was handcuffed. He shifted and then realized he wasn't in bed.
A soft floor?
White walls.
Oh god. Oh god no. Nonono.
He slithered backwards and his back his the wall. He kicked himself upright and looked around in shock.
No - no - no!
He was in a padded cell.
Restrained in a low-lit, padded cell.
Oh god, what happened? What did I do?
Lex started to shake, and very nearly started to cry. I didn't hurt anyone, I couldn't have hurt anyone -- not again! No!!!
Lex started to scream and thrash uncontrollably.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex hated this thing.
Lex hated this thing like he had never hated anything or anyone else in his life before now.
Until this moment, he hadn't truly known what hate was, and that should have scared him a little, but the rage in him now felt too large for his skin to contain.
Lex hated with a hot rage that turned cold, so cold he was set shivering, and it took three fucking hours for Tess to get him out of there.
It had only been by luck that an enterprising young janitor had taken a shortcut through the section where he was being held that night, and wound up cleaning the floors and changing a few lightbulbs. Apparently that wing was currently in disuse and was usually only checked once a week.
It could have been three days before anyone had found him.
This knowledge felt like a block of lead in his gut and only made it all that much worse.
It had been a little after seven-thirty when Lex had shocked himself under. He heard later from Tess that it had been around eight when the entity had finally woken up, far longer than the usual time delay between shock-and-surfacing. The entity had gone berserk, hadn't even looked for a method of commincation -- physically violent and no curiosity when enraged, Lex mentally added to his list of the Kryptonian's personality traits, oh no, no pattern there, he thought sarcastically, that's not common to all the other Kryptonians we've had to deal with at all -- and had taken him, abducted him and his body away to Belle Reeve.
The entity had taken him into a building full of people... and then taken a tour of the facility.
It had acted like him. Just like him. It had fooled everyone.
Tess had finally managed to get Lex out by saying that what he'd done -- slipping away, locking himself away in a room in an unused wing, and yellng to see how long it took someone to notice something was wrong -- had been a sort of security check. She'd made out that the security monitors needed to pay attention to whether, when someone looked like they were exiting the facility, they'd actually exited the facility, and that the entire system was horrifically lax, if someone could get into the holding cell area after hours without anyone noticing. That someone doing what Lex had done could have just as easily been letting people out instead of locking themselves -- or someone else -- in.
The entity-in-Lex had arrived at the facility at eight-fifteen -- clearly not following the speed limit laws for the highway -- toured it for thirty-two minutes, talked with doctor after administrator after high-ranking security personnel coordinator, and then made to leave. And then not actually left. He'd looked up at one of the cameras and smiled thinly. Then he'd easily -- far, far too easily -- disappeared off the security grid. He and Tess still weren't sure exactly sure which hallways, service corridors, and stairwells he'd taken, but Lex was damned if he wasn't going to have every inch of the place properly covered from there on in. He'd gotten a pair of handcuffs from god-knows-where -- apparently a supply closet, he'd found out later after looking through inventory lists, and realizing what else they tended to stock with the straightjackets -- walked Lex's body into a vacant room, closed the door behind him, sat down, handcuffed himself, then had laid down and fallen asleep at eight-fifty-eight-pm, from the timestamp on the cell's security footage... cell footage that apparently wasn't ever looked at unless someone was listed as occupying the cell -- another oversight that Lex was going to see corrected.
Lex had regained consciousness at eight-fifty-nine pm, and promptly began to panic.
Lex tried to tell himself that it had been a perfectly reasonable response, given his previous experience at Belle Reeve, most of which he didn't really remember due to the electroshock treatment he'd received there...
And that thought had him suppressing shudders for hours, when he'd made that connection. Because those records had been scrubbed. No-one should have known about that, except those few people intimately involved in the matter, the majority of which were dead, the few remaining characterized by a strong refusal to talk.
Most of Smallville had circulated rumors about where he'd been that month, but even in those who had been somehow clued in in whispers to Belle Reeve had never known about the shock treatment.
No-one should have known.
This thing didn't just know him, it knew him. Intimately. Either it had full access to his memories, or...
Lex took a deep shuddering breath and leaned back in his office chair as far as he could go. Tess was at his right hand, they were safely esconced back in the library at the mansion again, and they were still reviewing the security footage she'd all but stolen at gunpoint from Belle Reeve for him.
And Lex found himself having to keep reminding himself of that every few minutes as he watched the entity play-act him on the screens.
Because the damn thing did it, and did it well.
Except when it didn't. On purpose. And then looked straight at the closest camera dead-on.
Tess had told him that the entity didn't even move like him. And it certainly hadn't.
When he had been walking Lex into the trap.
The entity had acted just as it usually did, avoiding people and moving the way it usually moved -- Tess confirmed -- from the exact moment at which Lex had been thought to have left the facility onwards.
But before that...
Before that, it had moved, acted, and apparently had sounded like Lex the entire time it had been interacting with the staff. It had talked like him. Exactly like him. It was exactly like him.
...Except for those short moments where it did something painfully obviously not-Lex-like -- lightly scuffing a shoe against the floor, or riffling its fingers behind its back, or a dozen other little, small things, over time -- and then immediately after doing so, casually glanced at the cameras as if to say, No, I'm really not you, just in case you were wondering and couldn't tell. Because no-one else can, you know. Not unless I want them to.
Lex had regained consciousness at eight-fifty-nine pm, and the janitor had found him at nine-twenty. Lex had spent the next ten minutes trying to explain to the hastily-called doctors what had happened -- except he couldn't without sounding crazy to anyone who didn't know about the Kryptonian menace, so it had mostly involved demanding for Tess to be called in and explain and strongly implying that she would have evidence that wouldn't be just one person's word against another's -- because he hadn't been in good straits when the janitor had come across him crying and begging like that to nothing but the four walls, nearly incoherent in panic.
Tess had arrived at eleven-thirty, frantic, and had been ushered in to see Lex in the interrogation room where he was still being held, despite his having been able to answer all of the security protocols correctly. It hurt that he hadn't been able to extricate himself from the situation on his own, especially since he'd put those protocols in place for that explicit purpose -- so that he'd never be held against his will in Belle Reeve ever again. He refused to acknowledge how scared he'd been.
Only after Tess had arrived had it become clear how goddamn insidious the entity had been. The reason why they hadn't let him leave the facility.
They'd thought Lex was insane, and that he'd been unofficially checking himself in.
The entity had made mention of having trouble falling asleep sometimes, casually mentioned nightmares. Worried -- about a friend, mind you -- how one could handle someone who might become violent at night when not quite awake enough to realize what they were doing. Wondered about some of the patients who had schitzophrenia, and what it was like to not feel entirely yourself sometimes. Slowly painted a picture across multiple conversations with different people of a very highly-stressed businessman who might, it just so happened, feel like spending a night or two in a safe, comfortable room at times, in a facility he owned and operated, where he could spend the night alone and without being bothered by, or bothering anyone else. ...Just in case he had screaming nightmares and a full-on psychotic break, to avoid hurting himself or others if not thoroughly restrained.
When Lex had been pulled from that room, the facility staff had realized something was wrong and compared notes. Apparently they weren't completely stupid. And when they'd pieced together the picture that the entity had spun out for them in all those not-so-random bits of odd comments and strange interests, they'd gotten worried -- and rightfully so... if it hadn't all been a complete and utter stinking, malintentioned fucking lie.
Tess hadn't been able to get him out of there until two-thirty the next morning, and he had no doubt that she was going to try and shield him at least a little from the bribes, threats, and other measures she had surely had to take to do so. She'd probably done everything short of calling in his 'special' security staff and storming the place with his own personal bodyguard of troops to extract him in a military strikeforce-like fashion, and Lex didn't doubt that it had been a near fucking thing that she hadn't had to make that call.
Fucking, goddamn alien. It had followed through with its warning... with another warning.
"You want to act suicidal? Maybe I'll take over and help... or maybe I'll help you along."
Because it was only by providence that that janitor had come by. It could have been three days before anyone had found him. Three days was a long time without food or water.
And the thing could've just as easily driven him off a cliff.
...And then proceeded to fly off and simply inhabit some other, less annoying, ignorant human being, if the behavior of the other entity had been any indication.
Lex got the message loud and clear.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Tess finished her long shower and dried off. She dressed in a nightgown and bathrobe, pushed her hair back behind an ear, and glanced at the clock -- three-thirty in the morning.
God, she was tired.
She couldn't imagine how Lex felt just then.
...It wouldn't hurt to check in on him in bed, right? Just this once?
It wouldn't really be taking liberties with him; Lex had told her that he wanted her living with him to help keep an eye out on any odd behavior on his part, as well as to have his main executive assistant close by. Even before he'd told her about the Kryptonian entity; possibly even before he'd known about it himself.
She'd sleep so much better knowing that he was where she thought he was. Where he should be.
She padded down the hallway to his room, silently opened the door a crack and waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. Then she swung open the door and stared at the vacant bed.
Oh god.
She checked the bathroom, then made for the library. He wasn't in there either. She half-ran down the corridor towards the garage--
And then she slowed as she saw light coming from under the door to the kitchen.
She breathed a sigh of relief and slowly walked to the door. She knocked and entered, pulling her bathrobe about her a little tighter with one hand and feeling slightly embarassed at her state of disshevelment in front of her employer.
Lex blinked up at her from a glass of milk and a stack of chocolate chip cookies, halfway through eating a bite. He stopped mid-chew.
Tess smiled slightly at his look, like he'd been caught in the act. She'd never seen him eating cookies before. It seemed so... normal.
"Sorry, I--" Tess took another deep breath. Lex had assured her that she had every right to be here; that the mansion was her home now, too. "I was just wondering where you were. After everything tonight, I..." she trailed off feeling like a fool.
Lex seemed to unpause and finish his mouthful of cookie. He washed it down with some milk, then set the glass down and smiled back.
"I just..." she said softly.
Lex sighed and gestured at a stool. Tess sat down gratefully.
And then she smiled as he pushed the cookie plate towards her.
She took a cookie, and watched him stand and get a second glass, pour her her own milk, and pass that over as well.
Their fingers barely touched, warm flesh contrasting against the cool glass.
He sat back down and finished his cookie.
Tess played with her necklace a bit.
"You're not Lex, are you?" Tess asked.
The entity looked up at her with a very Lex-like considering gaze. "What makes you say that, Miss Mercer?" it asked.
"Lex usually hunches over his food quite a bit more than that."
"No, he doesn't. He never--" A pause. "Damnit."
Tess grinned, then smoothed the expression away quickly.
The entity sighed gustily and gave up the pretense, slouching over entirely and holding its head up with an elbow on the table. It glared at her. "You learned that from Lex," it accused.
"I did not!" Tess responded, affronted. She'd learned that trick herself, long ago, thank you.
It rolled Lex's eyes, and it should have looked stranger, seeing it use Lex like that, seeing those expressions using Lex's face. "Whatever. Wasn't very nice."
Tess' eyes narrowed. "No, locking Lex in a cell in Belle Reeve 'wasn't very nice'," she snarled back.
"I warned him," it replied angrily. As though that covered everything. But then it continued. "And electroshock? What the hell was Lex on when he thought that was a good idea?" it shot back. "He goes from halfway bashing his brains in every night -- like that many head injuries is good for anyone -- and then nearly drowning himself -- like that's any better -- to that?" It hunched Lex's shoulders and looked irate. "I can't believe he did that to himself. It's bad enough that he isn't taking care of himself properly, but..." The entity cut himself off from whatever else it wanted to say, then bit into another cookie. It ate in silence, but Tess could almost see the cursing going on behind its eyes. Lex's eyes. What used to be Lex's eyes.
"You're angry with him," Tess said slowly.
"Of course I'm angry with him; he's being an idiot and hurting himself!" it yelled at her. "At this rate, I might as well drive him off a cliff and save him the trouble," it grumbled.
"You have been spying on him!"
"I-- what?" It looked at her in confusion, then rubbed Lex's face with his hands. "Oh, for god's sake--"
"How else would you know what he said?" Tess insisted.
"Lex said--?" The entity shook its head. "No, look -- I don't know what he's doing when I'm not... well..." It shook its head again. "Look, that's not important. I didn't know what Lex said; he probably said that because he was thinking of crashing off the bridge and his mind just goes there, ok?"
"What bridge?"
The entity stared at her. Then it closed its eyes and seemed to do a mental facepalm. It took a few deep breaths, that seemed to hitch at the end for some reason, then said slowly, "I am not spying on Lex, ok? He doesn't need to worry about me overhearing something and.. and... taking over when he's asleep and telling company secrets to other people over the phone, or something. Can you just tell him that so he'll stop? Please?"
Somehow, Tess felt that telling the entity Lex's real reasons for doing what he was doing would not help Lex at all. So instead, she said, "Really? So you don't usually wake up in the middle of the night and run Lex's body around doing who-knows-what?"
Its jaw clenched and he stood up abruptly, towering over Tess. "That's never happened before tonight. Whatever he's doing, either he's hurt himself badly enough that I'm coming up spontaneously, or the electricity did something different. He's never done that before." Then he paused and looked at her, mostly a question, and definitely a threat.
Tess gulped. "No, you're right -- he's never done that before. With electricity. Tonight was the first -- and only -- time," she assured it.
It stared at her for a moment before apparently deciding she wasn't lying, then sat back down on its own stool. "He needs to stop before it gets to be something he can't recover from. I shouldn't be coming up like this." It paused, then added, "It's not like you have to trust me," as it stared down into its milk glass. "I know Lex must have the whole place bugged and filmed by now. You can check." Then it suddenly looked tired beyond belief. "I wouldn't have gotten up, but... I just... I couldn't get back to sleep. Get him back to sleep." He gestured down at Lex's body. "I just wanted to get something to eat, and some warm milk, before lying down and trying again." Its lips thinned. "Lex hasn't exactly been eating properly; I didn't think a little extra food would hurt."
"Lex is fine," Tess protested.
"Lex is a fucking skeleton," it shot back, glaring at her again. Then it got a good look at her disbelieving expression and, with a terse, "Fine," started stripping off Lex's nightshirt.
Tess' eyes widened. She shouldn't be seeing--
"No, look. This-- this is your job, too, isn't it? To look after him? Look," it said, standing and grabbing her arm by the wrist. It wrapped her fingers around Lex wrist. "Just look!"
Tess blinked. Her fingers wrapped around Lex's wrist with space to spare.
"He's skeletal. I don't know what he's been doing, or not doing, but... he didn't used to be like this. He's skin and bones now." It pulled away and gestured at Lex's arms. "No muscle, almost. This isn't normal," it continued. "You should be able to look at pictures of him..." then it stopped and frowned. "No, wait, that might not..." it muttered, thinking. Then it brightened. "Ask his tailors," it said. "He might be able to hide it with his clothes, but his tailors would know. They have to know his sizes, and they'd keep records of any changes."
"How..." Tess asked, touching Lex's arm lightly. How had she not seen this?
"I'm only in and out intermittently," it said, patting her hand lightly. "I bet it was gradual, so it's not like you would have really noticed while it was happening unless there was something drastic, probably. But I just saw the difference all at once, so..." It trailed off and shrugged, pulling away from her and putting Lex's shirt back on him.
"How long have you been around?" Tess asked, looking up at it.
Its hands stilled at buttonning a button, then it smiled an empty smile at her and continued what it was doing. "I don't know what you mean," it lied.
"Yes, you do," Tess pressed. "Either you're lying about listening in on him, or you're lying about having been around him longer than we thought. You couldn't know him some other way. There are too many things, personal things, that Lex--" she swallowed. "You should watch the tape," she said decisively, changing topics.
It frowned at her. "What tape?"
"The tape you were supposed to watch tonight." It frowned at her. "You don't think Lex shocked himself indoors for fun, did you?"
It gave her a very dark look that nearly gave her pause. "Lex wanted me to watch some tape?" Tess nodded. "Do you know what's on it?"
"No, not exactly," Tess had to admit.
The entity sighed shortly, looked away, and said, "If I watch this tape, I'll be doing what Lex wants. He'll think that if he continues to do things like this to himself, that he'll get what he wants. He'll keep hurting himself."
And Tess suddenly realized that the entity hadn't really wanted to do to Lex what it had done, at all. Somehow, Lex had driven it into a corner.
Which meant they had to press the advantage, right now.
"I won't tell," Tess said, as earnestly as she could.
"Yes, you will," it said simply, not even bothering to look at her as it cleaned up the dishes.
"I can put the mansion's security tapes on a loop; he'll never know," Tess continued.
It laughed at her bleakly. "Of course he'll know. He'll take one look at you, ask, and know."
"I won't tell," Tess repeated, lying for all she was worth.
But it shook its head. "He'll know you're lying. He's good at knowing when people do that. Especially when you won't be wanting to lie to him."
And that... sounded really odd. But it also sounded like it might believe her, so--
"Please," Tess asked. "Just watch the tape. Lex wouldn't have done something so--" she thought quickly, "--so very desperate if it wasn't important."
Christ, the thing actually paused and looked at her. It was considering it. Either it was really bound up in keeping up this front of its... or it actually somehow cared about Lex's well-being for whatever reason.
"He does listen to me. Sometimes. I can convince him to stop hurting himself like this, trying to contact you. This was going to be his last attempt," Tess lied at the last. Mixing the drop of a lie with the truth. Because of course this wasn't going to be Lex's last attempt... or it wouldn't have been, until this thing had dropped Lex into the bowels of Belle Reeve. Tess suddenly started to rethink what she was doing...
"I-- ...Just. Just this once," it said, haltingly.
...just a little too late.
Tess took a deep breath, then outwardly smiled and nodded. What was done was done.
And Lex had worried that she couldn't handle it. She smiled inwardly, but this smile was a lot more sharp.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Tess had managed to convince it to let her watch with it, partly due to the fact that she would've seen it, or at least been briefed on its contents, if she'd been able to come that night. It had frowned and asked her point-blank why she hadn't been there, and she'd lied about car trouble. For some reason, it seemed to be taking everything she said at face value.
It settled into a corner of the couch, as Tess cued up the entertainment center. She started the video, and sat down next to it. Then she watched its eyes slowly close and its breathing even out, watched the tension slowly unwind out of Lex's body as the creature relaxed its hold.
Shit. If it fell asleep now...
She slid over, leaned close, and touched a hand to its shoulder.
It made a sleepy noise and curled an arm around her waist, pulling her in, mumbling something.
She stiffened, and that seemed to wake the alien up a little. It slowly blinked and tilted its head around, stared down at her, then it blinked again and its eyes seemed to refocus.
It... blushed. And started to pull away.
Tess relaxed and snuggled into it, slightly.
It... did that odd thing where it seemed to... pause, not quite stilling its motion, not quite freezing in place. It stiffened just slightly, staring down at her, then shifted into a more comfortable posture. For her.
She forced herself to look at the screen and relaxed herself further, pretending not to pay it any real attention at all. She felt it begin to relax as well, and it almost tentatively shifted its hold to something more... acceptable. Less familiar. Not sexual, and not taking liberties.
So, clearly alien, then.
But while it did not seem to scream "machoistic!" or gives off waves of pure masculinity, Lex had been correct in his initial blind assessment -- 'it' was most certainly 'he', and 'he' was most definitely male.
A somewhat uncomfortable, worried-at-such-close-proximity to a stunning female such as herself, male.
Geek, she thought unsympathetically, then wondered why exactly she was starting to think of it as having human qualities, again. She'd been very careful in the kitchen.
Too careful. She'd had to actively try and remind herself every time she had needed a pronoun.
Damn, but this thing was insidious.
And it seemed to be drifting off to sleep again.
What the hell do I have to do to... she thought in exasperation. Mentally hating this stupid man for making her do this, she reached up a hand to its chin, felt it half-startle, then pushed herself up and kissed it. Him.
He... didn't really react much. Its eyes fluttered shut, and its hands fell back to her waist again, loosely, and it relaxed all over, but...
God, this thing obviously was not Lex. It was completely willing to give her full control of the situation.
She slowly deepened the kiss, and felt it shiver under her, felt its jaw relax a little. She slipped her tongue in and it nearly collapsed back into the crook of the sofa completely. It finally started to respond, and then...
Eyes opened wide and she was being held out at arms length.
"You... shouldn't... do that..." it breathed raspily. Tess could feel the shivers running down its arms.
"Why not?"
It stared at her. "I'm not Lex." As if she needed reminding. "I... I didn't fall asleep completely. He's not back yet."
Oh. Tess smiled up at him, winding her hands around his borrowed wrists. "Lex doesn't let me kiss him like that."
"...That's supposed to be a reason? To let you kiss... his body? When he's... not around?"
Tess blinked at him, then reviewed her words. Oh, shit. "That's not what I--" she started.
He let go of her and dropped his hands. Turned away, looking miserable. "Just. Don't."
Tess inched closer, sitting up against his side. He curled his arms around himself and pushed Lex's body further into the side of the couch, wincing away, saying, "Stop."
"Don't you want to know why?" she asked, remembering what Lex had said about him not being curious.
"This is wrong," he replied, glancing up at the TV where Lex was still talking lowly, then glancing away.
Tess turned the TV off and tossed the remote onto the coffee table.
"We're supposed to be watching that," it said quietly, not looking at her.
"You were falling asleep; I'll have to rewind it anyway."
"I should be asleep," it said. "It's ten-past-four in the morning," it added, closing its eyes.
"How do you know what time it is?" Tess asked, watching it carefully. There weren't any clocks in view.
"Because it was three-twenty when..." it trailed off, then looked confused for a moment. "It... just is," it ended. "Lex is gonna be falling asleep at work tomorrow as it is and--"
"It's Saturday," Tess cut in.
"Huh?" it said, turning to look at her.
"It was Friday night when Lex shocked himself. It's Saturday now. He can sleep in."
It frowned at her, but the fatigue was obviously making it difficult for him to concentrate properly. "Didn't know what day it was," he muttered, turning away and settling into the side of the couch again.
"Do you know what the date is?" she asked.
"Don't care. Doesn't matter," it mumbled back.
"What do you care about?"
"Nothing," it said nearly inaudibly.
"Really? Not even about Lex?"
"No."
"You're lying."
"Am not."
"You are."
"Not."
"Yes, you are."
"Shut up," he growled, squeezing his eyes shut and shifting even farther away from her, withdrawing.
"You are lying."
"I'm not."
"You are. Admit it."
"Lex never did this," he mumbled, so quietly she almost didn't hear it.
"He never called you on it when you lied to him?" she asked lightly.
"N--" He stopped partway through the word, too late. He shifted about to face her, eyes wide.
"That woke you up, didn't it?" Tess said smugly. "You used to interact with Lex as someone else before you possessed him!" she crowed triumphantly. Then she wasn't feeling nearly so smug when she found herself sprawled backwards on the couch with a hand around her throat.
She tried to claw at him, but the next thing she realized, too late to react, he had her restrained -- both her hands caught in his free hand and held down above her head. He straddled her so she couldn't kick at him. She had no purchase.
So instead of fighting back like he'd expected, she relaxed. And then she realized that he wasn't actually trying to strangle the breath out of her. And then she smiled up at him.
"Was it something I said?" she asked sweetly, intentionally provoking him, then gasped as pure anger rippled across his face and the grip around her neck tightened.
"Right...handed...I...see..." she managed to get out, and his grip tightened further, but as spots filled her vision and unbidden tears leaked down the sides of her face, through it all she saw the fight between anger and something else in his face. And he seemed to gain control over himself... somehow... and slowly loosened his grip. It was a fight, though. He was breathing heavily by the time he was done, sweat standing out on Lex's forehead, and so was she.
She was probably going to have bruises from what he'd done later, but far more importantly... "You stopped," she whispered hoarsely. This was the first time anyone had seen any Kryptonian exhibit any sort of self-control.
"What?"
"You didn't kill me," she said, incredulously, like she could hardly believe it.
He reeled back like he'd been slapped, eyes wide. Horrified. He sat back, letting go over her completely.
"I--" he said, shakily.
She sat up slowly, smiling. She'd thought she'd gauged him correctly in this, but still, she could hardly believe it. She'd been right.
Dear god, but this meant that he really wasn't the threat that Lex was afraid of. ...And really was the possible source of information Lex had, conversely, hoped for, as well.
She stared at him, and he looked about to bolt. She touched his arm gently, and he flinched. But she didn't pull away, and she didn't let him do so, either. She moved in on him, and he shrank back again.
She was practically in his lap, and his eyes were darting about, anywhere but at her, when she brought her other hand up to his chin and tilted his head up to meet her eyes.
"I'm not angry," Tess told him.
"I don't understand," he said miserably, and it was clear he really didn't.
"I provoked you on purpose," she explained as gently as she could. She would leave the rage at him daring to lay a hand on her for later. Lex wanted information; she would get Lex information.
He started, startled all over again. Got angry. Pushed it back under with... remorse? Then righteous fury. Then guilt. He fought with himself internally, incessantly. She watched the thing tie himself up in a tangled mess of mental knots right in front of her, and realized that this wasn't an abnormal thing for it, the way its actions and thoughts seemed to be progressing. They almost made sense. A human sort of sense.
And if this thing had any sort of human-like reaction to guilt... Tess could use this.
"You shouldn't have done that," the alien said.
"I had to."
"No, you didn't!"
"I did."
"Why?" he asked, and Tess nearly sucked in a breath in surprise. It wasn't exactly curiousity, but... when had Kryptonians ever expressed even the most meager sort of interest in human affairs?
...Hell, for that matter, why did this Kryptonian care so much about Lex in the first place? These things could jump bodies like kangaroos on crack, couldn't they? It's not like the thing's health and well-being depended on and centered around Lex's own state of body and mind.
Just because this thing had known -- and self-admittedly lied to -- Lex previously didn't mean it had any reason to care about him then, either.
"Why?" she echoed back. He nodded tentatively. Fucking hell. "Because we need to know," she replied forcefully.
"Need to know what?" he asked, sounding aggrieved.
"About Kryptonians." You. "Everything."
"No, you don't," he said shakily.
"We do," she said firmly. "The war is coming--"
"What war?"
"...The war with the Kryptonians," Tess said.
He stared at her. Then laughed. Tess pushed down the rage hard, she couldn't let it surface, couldn't let this thing see how much she hated the idea that this thing thought that it would be no contest, could be no contest, no hope for humanity--
"You-- you--" he caught his breath slowly, then something seemed to dawn on him. "You... you think...?" He stared at her. "Lex thinks...?" His eyes defocused, looking through her. "No, that's..." He drew away, disentangled himself from her and stood up. "That's not..." he shook his head. "There's no war," he said, looking down at her bleakly.
Tess turned and stood herself. "No. We know that's not true. --We need to know. What to expect. How to fight it. How many of you are going to--" why is he shaking his head like that?
"There's no war," he repeated. "There's no-- it's over."
"...It's over?" Tess repeated dumbly.
"Everything's--" he sighed. "Everything's done. There's nothing left."
"What, you all just gave up?" Tess asked sarcastically. "Just like that? You surrender?"
"No," he frowned down at her. "That's not what I-- I mean, there's nothing else that's..." He stopped and started at her. "Didn't Lex tell you?" he asked, looking puzzled. "Krypton exploded. There's no-one left. Almost no-one survived. Veritas knew this," he ended, sounding like he was half-trying to convince himself. "They're all-- there's no one left to surrender. They're all dead or... they can't hurt anybody anymore," he ended roughly.
"That's not possible," Tess stated flatly.
"Why? What did Lex tell you?" he asked, looking like hed just bitten down on bitter herbs.
"He told me what I'm telling you -- he believes the same thing!" she said, standing her ground as the alien looked at her in clear disbelief.
"Lex isn't stupid," he said after awhile, looking annoyed with her.
"Yes, I know. So?"
" 'So'," he parroted her not-very-patiently, "If Aethyr and Nam-Ek were still around after the second meteor shower, they'd still be tearing up the place, burning people and snapping their arms and blowing up cars and otherwise murdering the rest of the planet. Since they aren't," he continued with his crazy logic, "then obviously they're not. Same goes for everybody else," he ended, spreading his arms wide.
"How do you know that?"
"Because I--" he grimaced. "--I just know."
"That's not good enough." Then Tess paused, because there was something very true about what he'd just said -- the only way those two would have stopped would be if someone had stopped them. "You know because you stopped them." And she watched the alien look highly uncomfortable. "Who were you inhabiting back then?" she prodded. "It couldn't have been Lex -- he wasn't even in town."
"What??" he stammered. "I wasn't inhabiting anyone -- I was alive!"
Tess blinked. That hadn't been what she'd been expecting to hear at all. "...Was alive?"
"Well, yeah. I'm... kind of dead now." And then he stared down and shuffled his feet a little. "Phantom, you know?" Like that said it all.
"You're not dead."
"Uh, yeah, I kinda am."
"You're not."
"I am! Ok? And I think I would know!" he said, crossing his arms and looking annoyed.
"What, because you've died so many times before that you have some basis for comparison?" And she watched it suddenly look a little embarrassed. "...You're kidding," she stated flatly.
"Well, it is a little different this time, but... I really am dead!" he protested as she glared. "Lex killed me ok? I have no body anymore, that means I'm dead! I'm pretty sure that's how it works!"
"You have Lex's body," she pointed out. And wow, she'd managed to get that out without sounding like she was two seconds away from throttling him out of it if she could.
He actually snorted. He made a snorting sound at her. Then he had the audacity to say, "Not really. Besides, this isn't my body, so it doesn't count."
I am arguing with a dangerous world-conquering alien ghost-like being who thinks he is dead, over whether he actually is dead or not, Tess thought bleakly. This is my life right now.
"What do you mean, Lex killed you?" she tried instead.
The entity shut the hell up. Which was stupid, because she doubted that that would really narrow it down all that much...
"I don't even know why you guys went straight to 'alien cohabitant' anyway," he muttered, looking somewhat incensed. "It's not like there aren't shapeshifters and magic users, and regular old meteor-created ghosts and body-snatching spirits, and all sorts of mind-controlling types and other stuff out there, too."
...Well, that was vaguely disturbing to hear, all put together at once like that. "Lex's bloodwork showed alien peptides of the type only found in the blood of those being overshadowed by a Kryptonian entity. --Phantom," she corrected herself, using his terminology.
"Alien peptides--" she saw thoughts run behind his eyes at high-speed. "Shit. Right." He closed his eyes and raised his hands as if to rake them through hair, then startled and stopped, blinking his eyes open when he hit bare scalp. "I--" he looked almost embarrassed for a moment. But then he frowned and slowly lowered his hands, as something seemed to occur to him. "Hey, he'd better not--" Then he frowned further. "He hasn't been trying to use his own blood to--" He started to look angry. "Is that why he's been looking so sick?!"
It took Tess a moment to see where he was going with that. "No, no -- he hasn't. The peptide levels haven't been high enough."
"That just means he'd think they'd need to draw more for--" the alien said grimly.
"He hasn't been," Tess interrupted. "I've been overseeing his medical care, and I'm at his side nearly all day. I would know." He'd better not have been, she thought resolutely. Then she almost had to mentally smack herself -- her, having something in common with this damnable Kryptonian!
"He'd damn well better not be," he muttered, unknowingly echoing her own thoughts as he scrunched up his shoulders again. Very un-Lex-like. Then he looked at her suspiciously. "You said he'd been getting bloodwork done--"
"It only takes a few drops; we haven't been bleeding him dry!" she snapped. And, oddly enough, her own anger seemed to calm him down.
After awhile, he added, "I guess it's good that you've got a way to tell for sure if somebody's a Phantom, if you have to," he acquiesced. "Most of them aren't very... nice."
"Neither are you," she shot back.
He glared right back. "I'm dead, and a ghost, and stuck inhabiting Lex's body whenever he's gone and done something unbelievably stupid. I'm pretty sure that at this point, I'm entitled to not have to try and be nice all the damn time, thank you."
"Not even when a lovely lady kisses you?" Tess asked.
"What are you talking abou--ou-ou-t? " and then he belatedly got a deer-in-headlights look. "Uh-- no-- that's-- I-- I have--" then he looked horribly pained for a moment, "Had. I-- I had-- just had a-- I only just... got out of... a relationship-- I mean, I just--" he said, sounding hangdog about it and backing up a step, then two, "and, uh, I-- I'm not--" He swallowed, hard. "You kiss really nicely," he ended lamely, looking like he was making an effort to stand his ground and not run away, or flinch, or twitch. Or get beaten into the floor by an angry female whose kissing style had been incorrectly complimented. Pfft. Geeky Kansas boys. Who apparently had had their hearts broken only recently, and were patently unable to be all stoic about it.
If Tess had had any doubt that he might not be Lex before...
"I'm-- I'm going to bed now--" he said uneasily, clearly wanting to go for the quick escape.
"You haven't watched the tape all the way through," Tess pointed out. "Aren't you going to respond to him?" she added, wondering how long she might be able to keep him talking.
"It repeated three times already; I doubt anything will change in however many more repeats the video does until the end of the DVD," he said, rolling his eyes as he opened the door. "And I said I'd watch it, not that I'd respond." And with that he made his exit.
Tess pursed her lips, thinking back. Had she really been that tired? ...She checked the tape just to be sure. And to give him a head start. Then she pursued him.
When she got to Lex's bedroom door and tried the doorknob, it rattled. Locked.
"Go away!" she heard the muffled yell from the other side of the door. Probably hiding under the sheets. She had no doubt he wouldn't be taking Lex anywhere else that night.
Tess smiled to herself and walked away slinkily back to her room. Still got it.
She reminded herself to let Lex know that he should add "girl-o-phobic" to his list of alien traits.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex stared up at Tess the next morning from his bagel at the dining room table. After a long pause: "You're kidding."
"No, sir." Tess looked very proud of herself. Almost the cat that ate the canary.
"...Surveillance?" he asked weakly. He didn't like the idea that this thing might be wandering around as him during all hours of the night. It might explain his now all-too-common fatigue, though.
"Even better." Tess handed over an audio recorder.
Lex frowned down at it, then glanced up.
"I added an audio recording bug to my necklace," she responded, almost shyly, playing with it about her neck.
"I see," said Lex.
"It should sync up with the mansion's video footage nicely," she said, glancing away, then down at her own breakfast. "I, ah, didn't quite catch everything from the beginning, but..." She straightened and suddenly looked highly professional. "I did manage to garner quite a bit of new information from him," she ended decisively.
Considering how professional she was acting now, Lex noted that she must have acted about as inversely unprofessional on the tape. "I'm sure you did," he said smoothly, and wondered if the woman was capable of blushing. He hoped to god that she hadn't... She really needs to know that she's my sister, he decided. Soon. Just so long as she hasn't... He clamped down on a shudder that he would not let pass through his frame.
"We'll watch after breakfast," he said instead, and kept his thoughts to himself under his usual pleasant mask.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex Luthor very carefully put his vaunted self-control to good use and did not hold his head in his hands. Neither did he get up, walk over to the window, and pound his head against the wall. He was great at self-control. He'd learned it well from having to deal with his father.
Oh yes, Lex Luthor was excellent at self-control. So, instead of doing all those things he really wanted to be doing, he merely leaned back, closed his eyes, and gestured at the screen, with its still-running audio commentary, and asked, "Do you know who this is?"
"Kal-El," came back the prompt, smug, and expected response.
Lex sighed, and exerted his vaunted self-control again.
"Yes, that's true," he said. It came out a little more weakly than he'd intended--
"Sir?"
--and of course Tess picked up on it. He pinched the bridge of his nose and asked, instead, "Do you know who Kal-El used to pretend to be?" Before he inhabited me? was the implied after-explanation.
He heard her pause. Inhale. Pause.
No, he hadn't thought so.
Lex knew, though, and it was posing a very big quandry.
His cold hatred of the alien being inside him died out not even halfway through the talk in the kitchen. He really should've known. Of all the people who had known enough to be able to hit him that hard, Clark had been one of them. Lex had only discounted the idea because (a) "Clark Kent" was patently not giving a damn about him at the moment, one way or the other, and (b) he never would've thought that the Clark he knew would have done anything so horrific, to anyone, for any reason. He'd thoroughly missed the fact that his mostly-silent passenger might view what he'd been doing highly as self-destructive and, knowing Lex, gone for a decisive tough-love approach that he knew was tough enough to shock him out of it enough to actually work. And it almost had. ...Until Tess had handed him this.
Of course, he was still immeasurably angry with Clark-nee-Kal-El, and would love to toss his rage to the rafters and destroy everything in sight, then find a way to make Clark hurt like hell for what he'd done... but at least Lex could understand it, and maybe even forgive him for it, now. After suitable revenge.
Though given Clark's response to Tess regarding 'relationship status', Lex might've already had pre-emptive revenge on him. If one didn't count that whole thing with Lana leaving him for Clark before all that followed. And all of the lies over the years. And Clark failing to tell him on multiple occasions about anything to do with the failed alien invasion. And never admitting to being an alien himself... though Lex supposed he could maybe let that one slide on account of self-preservation instincts -- Clark already had few enough of those as it was. But he'd also halfway strangled Tess to death last night, a highly inappropriate response under the circumstances, and to say that Lex was not pleased to see how easily Clark could turn homicidal was a vast understatement. Lex wasn't going to let him off the hook for that one, though he had also managed to stop himself without any outside influence acting upon him; Lex certainly hadn't been the one to stop him.
Yes, Lex felt that there was still some appropriate and fully-justified raging that could be going on just then.
But he really did not have the time to let himself indulge. Because at this stage he realized that it was quite possible that he knew as much or more than Clark did, at least about some things in his after/life. And anything that dealt with Lana and the two of them was also a very big quandry, indeed. So. Two quandries. And a headache. And...
"Son of a bitch..." he breathed out, as it finally occurred to him. "He wasn't lying."
"...Sir?"
"That-- man. At the Kent Farm." Who isn't Clark, but is Clark Kent.
Oh fuck. This just got a hell of a lot more complicated.
And if this conversation was any indication, Clark hadn't known. ...Still didn't know.
Shit.
"...Sir?" Tess was starting to sound worried. That wasn't good.
...Well, at least Clark defended me from my half-sister, to suffering no worse than a kiss? Lex thought with no small amusement because, well, if Clark could be counted on for anything... it was to not get past first base with his little half-sister, apparently. And cockblock her from having sex with her older brother.
Lex sat back and started laughing hysterically.
Clark saves the day again!
~*~*~*~*~*~
Next post is here.