Fic: Masks (complete) (a 'treat' for jlvsclark !)
For my 2011 Halloween trick-or-treat-to-commenters post! :)
Prompter: jlvsclrk
Prompt: Clex old school, Costumes
Title: Masks
Author: josephina_x
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: pre-Clex
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: through 2x06 Redux.
Word count: 8,800+
Summary: Lex discovers that Clark is a juvenile delinquent. (No, really.) This invariably involves dancing for some reason we have yet to understand.
Warnings: Unbeta'd. Italics out the ying-yang, so grammar nazi's beware!
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
AN: This was supposed to be a drabble, but then it got away from me completely, like these things usually do. Stupid rabid bunnies. *sighs* Ah, well!
~*~*~*~*~*~
Clark was really nervous about doing this, at first really hadn't wanted to do this, but Pete had dared him. While drunk. Because he was a 'scaredy-cat' and wouldn't drink beer with him, never mind that he couldn't get drunk and it tasted gross.
...Which probably wasn't a good reason for doing anything.
But he'd been having a lousy time of it lately with the really really bad 'reunion' -- actually, first meeting apparently -- with his grandparents, and it was all because of the stupid alien stuff getting in the way and, really, he was totally sick of it. So he thought about it and thought about it, and came up with a plan.
He told his parents that he was going dressed up as a ghost, long white bedsheet covering him from head to toe with two small eyeholes. He spent a good deal of time in the bathroom getting ready, and then he gave them a quick goodbye before heading to the party at the Talon.
He slowly walked towards town, smiling at the kids running around near the cemetery who were dressed up as normal old witches and goblins and ghouls and grim reapers, though they couldn't see it through the sheet. Acceptable and accepted sorts of creatures and changelings by humans, who really weren't feared much at all by your average joe on the street. Laughed at and joked about, even, by some. Not really scary at all.
No, what was scary and feared by humans was what Clark was dressed as. And this was his plan, brilliant in his simplicity:
He was tired of lying all the time, and had been for a long time. So, why not take the one day of the year where everybody dressed up and put on masks, and instead use it to take his off? One day of the year he could totally be himself, and people would never know it. He could talk about things and just say it was 'backstory', pretend that it wasn't real, when in fact he wouldn't be lying at all. Pretty much the reverse of everything he had to do the reverse of the other 364 days, 365 on leap years.
Maybe someday when he was feeling up to it, he could even dress up so completely differently that he nobody would recognize him, know it was him, and he could even bring his abilities into play.
And he could slowly inure people to the idea of an alien among them, walking, talking, acting, well, alien and stuff. Maybe eventually people would have a good enough response about it that he would feel safe to completely share, and then he could stop pretending, at least in town.
It could totally work!
...Yeah, ok. This was a really stupid plan.
He liked the idea of getting to be himself in stealth, though. Whoever he really was.
Sometimes he looked in the mirror and wondered who Clark Kent really was -- a real person or a mask -- and whether he was the real person under all the lies. Or whether he'd be somebody completely different if he didn't have to, if he'd be accepted for who and what he was. Somebody he didn't know. Because he honestly couldn't imagine what he'd do if that ever happened, and he'd tried to.
Well, he'd certainly looked different in the mirror tonight.
Once he'd gotten out of line-of-sight of the farm, he took a deep breath, lifted the sheet a little bit, then whipped it off all at once, like ripping off a bandaid.
He folded the sheet up and stowed it carefully on the other side of the fence. It was Smallville -- nobody would steal it, there was a higher chance of it getting blown away by the wind. Then he straightened and took out the headband from his back pocket and carefully placed it on his forehead.
Then he started walking again.
More people around -- he kept walking and nobody said anything, really. He got a couple of absent looks, smiles, and casual waves from across the street by neighbors who bought produce from the farm, but that was about it.
So far so good.
He came up to the front door of the Talon and stopped. Took a deep breath again, because this was a lot more hazardous than being out the street -- in there was probably the majority of the high school population, and this could really damage his image if it went bad.
Right, like he had an image to damage, he thought morosely with a snort.
When a laughing couple had to dodge around him to get to the door, and he moved to the side in startlement, he realized how long he'd been standing there like an idiot, let out the breath and then marched up the stairs and opened the door.
Blaring music hit him like a wall. A wall of sound.
It wasn't even spooky Halloween music, it was just dance music, beat-and-grind.
Oh god.
Mostly just about everybody wasn't dressed up.
He gulped slightly, then turned and fled for the men's bathroom as casually as he could walk in such a panic.
When he was in he shut and locked the door behind him, then turned and rested his back against it for a bit, feeling unaccountably winded for no real physical effort. Finally, he moved over to one of the sinks and put his hands on either side of it, staring into the mirror.
He really had used too much green face paint.
Every bare inch of skin showing -- and a little past that, in case his clothing shifted -- was covered in green paint, and the headband with the sproingy wire springs with green puffballs on the ends -- his 'antennae' -- mocked him ruthlessly in his reflection.
His hair, which he'd carelessly gone at with the silver spraypaint because he knew he could scrub it off with turpentine paint thinner without any problems, was looking dumb and limp, rather than the hard spiky helmet-like look like he'd intended, and even more like a half-assed mess than before. His lips, which he'd taken the trouble to coat with spraypaint built up to saturation from a scrap piece of cloth, made a silver slash across his face that stood out glaringly against the surrounding green.
The old yellow plastic jacket he'd spraypainted silver and his black almost too-tight t-shirt and black jeans with strategic oval cutouts along the sides -- a spaceman's outfit if he'd ever read one in an old science fiction novella -- which had looked so cool to him before and he'd been so proud of, just looked tacky under the fluorescent lighting. At his hips, high up, shone the silver buckles he'd stolen from old dollar-store belts that he'd stitched onto black fabric strips and fastened around each thigh, turned into impromptu hip-holsters for a pair of squirt guns -- clear plastic but filled with water he'd managed to color an almost glowing neon blue. Those looked like something somebody would toss in the trash, not something he'd spent nearly an entire evening working on at normal speed, meticulously trying to get right. His old workboots, which he'd been even more meticulous in spraypainting, hitting all the gaps, getting three good even coats on, were still just an old pair of workboots.
He felt like a seven-year-old who'd just stumbled into an adult party. One with everybody decked out in proper, adult-dancing clubbing clothes, or as close as Smallville got and anyone here could imagine, with a killer DJ and a smoke machine and lights and... well, everything.
He kicked himself mentally. Why, oh why, hadn't he kept the sheet on until he'd gotten here and taken a good look around?
Oh, right -- because he was an IDIOT.
There was a reason he was at the very bottom of the social ladder, if he was even in the vicinity of the darn thing at all.
He took a deep breath. Ok, he could deal. At the very least he could wash the paint off so he wasn't a green freak, and why had he thought that was a good idea for a color anyway? He should probably count himself lucky that there hadn't been meteor rock laced through the paint.
And right as he reached for the faucet, there was a pounding on the door.
Oh, great.
Clark grimaced and looked at the door.
"Hey, open up man!" came the muffled yell through the door, barely audible under the pounding bass that was still thrumming through the walls, despite the theater's soundproofing. And his mom thought he turned up his headphones loud.
Clark sighed and unlocked the door, and Pete tumbled in, along with some smoke. His chest tightened briefly as he breathed in a little bit of it, before he forced himself to exhale normally and relax.
He didn't have a chance to lock the door, barely to close it, before Pete was rounding on him, yelling.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" his enraged friend demanded.
Clark frowned, and began to point out, "You dared me to--"
"Jesus, I didn't think you'd actually do it!"
Clark blinked.
"I mean, you're actually-- do you think this is funny--?! --you can't just-- In public!! --How did your parents let you out of the house!?!?" he yelled.
Clark started frowning more and more as Pete went on.
"So, you dared me to dress up like an alien, not thinking that I couldn't do it, but that I shouldn't do it?" Clark asked quietly.
"I was drunk! And I didn't think you were that stupid!" Pete explained to him like he had head trauma.
Clark clenched his teeth.
"I see," he said evenly.
"Man, you seriously need a minder. You just don't get this human stuff sometimes, do you?" Pete said, shaking his head, and Clark realized he was actually serious.
Clark felt his shoulders square.
"So, yeah, maybe this is salvageable. Not too many people saw you, I bet. I only did just 'cause I was looking out for you, and I barely recognized you. Just go out the window," Pete gestured at the bathroom window that exited onto the back alley, "and run home. I'll," he shook his head, "I don't know, do damage control tomorrow if anybody thinks they thought it was you, or whatever." As if Pete had a lot of popularity cred, what with being a puny third-stringer on the football team and all.
"But what about the party?" Clark asked. He'd wanted to go, Pete knew that. He'd wanted to go before Pete had. Chloe hadn't wanted to come, had said she had better things to do, but he'd talked Pete into it.
"God, Clark, just go home!"
"But-- I--"
The door shoved open and Clark backed up. Then he backed up even more because it was a girl. In the men's bathroom. Peeking in with the door practically half-wide-open like she had a right to be here.
"Pete!' she squealed. "Aren't you coming?" Then she glanced at Clark, did a double-take, and giggled. "God, seriously?" She opened the door a little further to get a good look at him and then laughed outright. "Who is this loser you're hanging with?"
"I'm not hanging, I'm coming, just give me a minute," he supplicated, gesturing at the stalls.
Clark felt like someone had socked him in the chest.
The simpering girl smooched Pete on the cheek, leaving behind a light lipstick imprint in pink, then gave Clark one last superior smirk and left, door swinging shut behind her and blowing another billowing thin cloud of smoke into his face. He turned his head away from it, stepping back, and Pete turned back to him.
"See, man, I can't babysit you tonight. Duty calls, y'know? Football team stuff, we're heading out."
Suddenly Clark had the horrible sinking feeling that when Pete and Chloe had laughingly said when he'd met them in the Torch that afternoon that they'd tossed a coin over who'd be taking care of him at the Talon that night, and that Pete had lost, that they hadn't been kidding, after all.
He breathed in and out and tried not to feel hurt. Or enraged.
And hey, he bet Pete leaving early didn't have anything to do with the flavor of the week whose tail Pete was clearly chasing, either. His lips thinned as he held down the snarling knot he felt in his chest.
"So, yeah, go home and stay out of trouble, ok?"
Clark nodded grimly. "Sure, Pete."
With that, Pete left. And in such a hurry that Clark had to close the door behind him. Some friend. He clenched his fists, breathing heavily, and felt heat prickle behind his eyes.
He clenched, then slowly unclenched his fists, and his breathing deepened even more.
Clark waited a good full five minutes until he was sure that Pete was surely long gone.
He looked at the mirrors lining the wall, and then the bathroom window. He felt calm. He collected himself.
Then he opened the door and stepped out to face the music head-on.
Because he didn't care.
He really didn't.
He wasn't a child.
He didn't need 'minding' or 'looking after'.
He didn't.
He did it because he didn't care.
He did it because he could.
So let people stare and laugh.
Let them.
Tonight was for masks, right?
So he'd wear a mask. He'd wear the best one ever.
Tonight he wasn't Clark Kent, geek and social outcast.
Tonight he wasn't Clark Kent, alien that nobody wanted, who everybody lied to.
Tonight he was a goddamn Alien-With-A-Capital-A.
An Alien who was invincible, who speeding cars couldn't even scratch. Who could run a 2-second mile. Who could lift trucks and rearrange them like Legos and thought it was hell-ass funny to do so.
A cool, untouchable Alien who didn't care what any damn puny human thought or didn't think about him, who derisive laughter and smirks and sniping comments simply slid off of, assuming they weren't ignored entirely as being completely beneath his notice.
He walked out and stood at the center of the entrance to the room, and took a deep breath, suddenly feeling powerful. He surveyed the entire party, saw people turn and stare. He held his head evenly and stalked out into the center of the room.
People moved out of his way.
Nobody laughed.
He saw some wide eyes, and a good number of stares -- god, it felt like everybody was staring at him -- but Clark was hidden deep inside an invincible Alien shell and nobody was laughing.
Imagine that.
The DJ started the next set as he made it to the edge of the area that was the dance floor.
He took a step onto it. One, two, three.
Four.
Closed his eyes.
He could practically feel the beat under his eyelids. Under his skin.
Started to sway slightly to it.
Didn't worry about what he was supposed to do, or what other people might think of how he moved. He felt sort of blank in those places where he usually felt shame, afraid. Fear of rejection.
Like a switch had flipped off.
And the mask had become everything.
He didn't worry about what might happen if he hit someone. He was the invincible Alien. These were mere mortals. If they didn't get out of his way, well, their stupidity for not recognizing him for what he was was on them.
He smiled a dark dark smile at the thought.
Swayed and tilted and flung his hands out, eyes slitted half-closed.
People moved and shifted out of his way like smoke.
He was the only real thing in the room.
Until Lex stepped up to him.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex had been half-hidden in a corner of the Talon, where the entire proceedings of the party were laid out before him and he could watch, content in his anonymity in the shadows.
He sipped at his punch and thought the smoke machines were a nice touch, if slightly overdone. He'd managed to convince Lana to turn down the output a little bit -- the rolling clouds over the floor had obscured everything up to a good three feet for awhile there, and Lex knew from his clubbing experience in Metropolis what young teenagers could and would get up to with cover like that.
Best to forestall that sort of thing before the teenaged smalltown rabble figured it out for themselves. This was supposed to be a food establishment, and somewhat... sanitary.
He'd given up hope of catching Clark at the party. He himself had thought he wouldn't be able to get away from the Luthorcorp function early enough to catch sight of his young friend, and apparently he'd been right. He sighed. He'd wanted to see what Clark had dressed up as, and maybe even join in the fun.
Well, as much as a Luthor could, anyway.
He hadn't exactly dressed up much himself, still in a dark black business suit and muted grey shirt, but he'd managed to swap the dress coat for a black leather jacket that wouldn't be amiss in either a club or a smalltown setting, one of his favorites, and a black cowboy hat to go with it.
Between the hat and the grey-tinted rectangular-lensed sunglasses, he felt invisible. So far, it didn't seem as though anyone had recognized him.
He stifled a laugh at the gullibility, or perhaps simply blind inobservance, of the townsfolk. Apparently it didn't take much.
He was about ready to go when a vision in silver and black -- and... green? -- slid right past him.
Lex stared.
Tall, dark green, and handsome, very male, broad shoulders. Confident walk, almost a stalk. That alone sent a shiver of interest down his spine, and he straightened. He turned a critical eye on the newcomer and appreciated the powerful, controlled, loose movement. Cataloged the touches that made this a custom-made outfit, but also the underlying clothing itself that told that it was all storebought-modified or homemade, though expertly done and with a lot of attention to detail -- there were no spiderwebbing cracks in the paint, and no spots that had accidentally missed notice. His lips twitched towards a smile as he noticed the kitchy antennae headband and then his eyes drifted down to the silver metallic-leather footwear -- ah, workboots -- so the man must be local.
Lex hadn't known that there was anyone in town like that. How very interesting.
...And, tearing his eyes away to glance briefly around the room, he wasn't the only one who'd noticed.
The man paused for only a moment before the dance floor, then stepped up and started to gyrate. He moved like metallic water, all flows, then like jagged crystal, all sharp edges. Starting and stopping and somehow conforming to the music... or, rather, like the music was conforming to him... Lex had never seen anything like it.
His silver hair drifted and shifted like a cloud, glinting under the lights. Silver jacket and boots catching the glare and winking out. Flashes of green skin hidden along lines in all sorts of places down his black-clad body, almost tantalizingly so.
He danced and danced, never slowing down.
Lex blinked as he realized that the smooth bastard wasn't even breaking a sweat.
He turned, and turned again, his lips twisting into a thin silver smile, before he tilted his head back and his face looked transported--
Lex forgot to breathe.
Lex slowly set his cup down with nearly-nerveless fingers, his eyes fixated on the alien being in front of him.
Oh my god.
That was Clark!
That... wasn't possible.
It couldn't be.
...But it was.
Lex slowly moved forward, drawn towards him almost hypnotically.
He'd seen Clark like this only once before.
Relaxed.
Self-assured.
Confident.
Standing tall and completely at ease with himself and his body.
He stopped at the center of the room, shaking himself. What was he doing? This was Smalltown America, USA. He couldn't approach a young man here on the dance floor.
Then he saw Lana out of the corner of his eye, staring at and practically drooling over Clark, who she obviously wasn't recognizing -- though god only knew how could she not? she must have been able to see his face from her vantage point, unlike him -- and felt the banked dark flames that never went out, that he tried to keep smothered deep down inside him, flare up.
Lex had tried to help Clark with Lana, time and time again. Case-in-point, the Talon around them. And until the very end she'd stuck with her bastard of a boyfriend who'd stripped and strung up Clark like an animal in a cornfield. And she knew it. And still chose him over Clark. And then continued to pine over him after he'd left her to literally fly away across an ocean to the other side of the planet, even. Into a warzone, because he preferred it to staying in Smallville. And that was really saying something.
She'd had more than a chance with Clark the last time he'd been acting this way, and hadn't been able to handle it, apparently left him in disgust and refused to associate with him over -- well, what Lex felt was comparatively mild misbehavior -- for quite some time.
No, she didn't deserve him.
And he didn't deserve that.
Lex glanced between them again, and wanted to shout in frustration as his co-owner in the building's venture started towards him.
Oh, to hell with it.
Clark deserved better than whatever response he would receive from Lana, either a slap in the face or ending up sloppy seconds; Lex was going to beat her to the punch.
Lex strode forward onto the dance floor, leaving broken couples tending to themselves in his wake, heading directly for Clark's small pocket of space.
He nearly paused at the edge, until Clark's eyes slid open and they locked gaze.
He moved forward two steps, nearby and close, but not too close, and picked up the movement of the beat, starting to sway. He knew how to dance, and dance well, but it was going to take some effort to match Clark's highly nonstandard moves, his grace and control joined with the music notwithstanding.
It would be worth it.
Clark tilted his head, still moving, not stopping his motion. His lips curled up slightly at the edges, and he looked him up and down, assessing.
Lex felt bare-skinned for just a moment, but shook the feeling off. He smiled back, wondering where his friend was.
Flash of teeth in an unrestrained, momentarily blinding, grin.
Ah, there he was.
Deep pools of green, not unlike the color of his new skin, bore into him.
Do you see me? his eyes asked. Do you?
Do you know me? Do you know what I am? they challenged, daring.
Yes, Lex saw him. He always had.
He was alien, different, other. And everybody who noticed and really saw him, wanted him. And Clark, he knew it.
Alienated? No. No, not cast out.
Not isolated. Self-removed.
Normal? Average? The thought nearly made Lex laugh.
Down to earth?
No, not earthbound. Not petty, not small-minded. Transcendent.
Incredible. Beautiful.
Untouchable.
Fuck that.
Lex reached towards Clark and his eyes narrowed as Clark... slid away.
He followed the movement, reached out again and... Clark shifted away. Again. And made it look intentionally unintentional.
To hell with that.
This time Lex moved forward aggressively and Clark... moved backwards away from him, along with him. But he wasn't shrinking away, it was more like a tidal flow, marshaling forces and--
Clark moved forward suddenly and Lex startled, found himself nearly stumbling backwards, barely turned it into a tiptoeing slide and swirl.
That... had been aggressive. Uncharacteristically aggressive. Nearly as aggressive as...
Their eyes locked again.
Oh.
Lex moved forward and the same thing happened. When Clark responded in kind Lex was almost unprepared again, had to dance backwards, shying away from him.
They twirled and oscillated and slid together and past each other, twin gazes never wavering from each other's eyes.
Lex felt like Clark was staring into his soul.
And this dance was not like sex, or heat, or anything that Lex could recall from his time in Metropolis.
But it was so easy, settling into a comfortable cadence. What was this?
It took three songs before he finally worked it out. Why it was familiar.
It was a fight.
This was like the fights he had with Clark.
He was having a fight with Clark.
Pushing like a shout, stepping aside and leaving things unanswered, pushing back in angry retaliation, the half-moves feinting a full-on rush or a beckoning slide were lies tasting of ashes in his mouth, back and forth and over and over but never gaining any ground, never getting any closer...
Lex got angry all over again.
When Clark moved towards him this time, Lex stood his ground, reached up, and caught Clark's chin with his left hand.
Clark stilled, eyes boring into his own, nostrils flaring ever so slightly.
Lex's eyes widened when Clark moved before he could react, smoothly and without hesitation -- brought his own hand up, curled it around the back of his head, and firmly but forcibly tilted Lex's head up from pressure applied at the base of his neck. He stilled at the touch, but was unable to suppress a shiver when Clark's thumb caressed the side of his head by his ear.
Clark's eyes shuttered slightly lower and his mouth slid into a thin silver sliver. He looked almost pleased.
Lex dropped his hand.
The music stopped.
The DJ make some noise about the set being over and a break in music, but Lex hardly heard it. Neither of them moved.
Clark caressed his head one more time before slowly moving his hand forward, along his cheek, towards his chin. It was almost a caress.
Almost.
Lex shivered all over again.
They turned together and left the dance floor, Clark more leading than following. Their gazes never dropped.
Lex felt himself struggling to keep up.
And Clark, amazingly, was... not quite stalking forward, but he was moving like a predator in a very territorial manner. His head was turned, tilted slightly as he looked back over his shoulder at him, out of the corner of his eye keeping his focus on Lex. His mouth was curled up at the edges, and he looked amused, but his eyes were very, very sharp.
That might not bode well.
Clark moved over to one of the smaller corner booths and the occupants scattered to the wind with barely a gesture from Clark, which was almost unnerving. Clark made to flop himself down casually on a seat, but Lex caught him by the elbow first and steered him farther back towards the entrance, back to the corner where he'd been standing earlier. It was a little quieter there, and he didn't want their conversation overheard.
Glancing back at him as they reached their destination, Lex realized that the amusement factor had apparently grown to epic proportions, and Clark's body language was practically screaming that he was merely allowing Lex to tow him around.
Lex refound his position, then thought the better of facing Clark like this with his back against the wall. He turned and slid slightly farther out into the room, which he realized was a good decision because Clark immediately followed his movement, casually leaning forward towards him across the pillar instead.
"I didn't see you earlier," Clark started, far too casually.
"I was here," Lex replied.
"Tucked away in shadow. That's not like you," Clark replied, gently touching a finger to the underside of the hat brim and raising it slightly.
"Maybe it's exactly like me."
Clark chuckled, and Lex knew he'd been right. He sounded exactly the same as earlier that month. Clark was high on whatever-it-was again.
And where the hell was Pete during all this? He'd been here earlier. Why hadn't he noticed Clark's backslide?
Hell, why hadn't he?
Or was he assuming too much? Was it possible that Clark had been drugged against his will or knowledge?
"Don't be silly, Lex, you make it a point to stand out... oh." Clark paused and showed his fangs in that grin that Lex wasn't sure he liked very much. "Ah, right. That's the mask."
"...The mask?" Lex asked, feeling strained.
"Yes." Clark's eyes glittered under the dim lighting. "You scream 'go ahead and look at me, I dare you! I don't care what you think!' at the top of your lungs, but," Clark leaned in, past him, and Lex felt warm breath puff across his ear, "what you don't want anyone to hear is the softer cry, 'look at me! notice me! how can you not see me!' because all anybody can see is the Luthor," and Clark pulled back, "when what you really want them to see is the Lex." Clark's suddenly frighteningly-dark gaze captured his own, and Lex suddenly found himself struggling to breathe.
"Maybe," Lex managed to get out, and the effort cost him dearly.
"Do you think I can see you?" Clark asked, his eyes suddenly glinting green-and-red.
Lex was barely able to respond, nodding once, but it was enough.
The force of Clark's gaze suddenly lightened up as he backed away slightly, and Lex breathed in and asked before he completely lost his nerve, "What is your mask tonight, Clark?"
Clark grinned that grin again. "I'm an alien," he replied.
"Yes, I can see that," Lex said quietly.
"Can you? Can you really?" Clark tossed back with an easy smile, and it sounded casual enough, but the intense watchful look he was getting completely belied it. It was a lie within a lie. This Clark was alien to him... and not. So was his usual Clark self, though in other ways completely, ways where somehow this Clark now seemed almost familiar. It made his head ache slightly.
"What kind of alien are you?" he tried again. Small talk should not be this hard.
"Oh, I don't know. The kind that gets dumped on a backwater planet like garbage? What kind of alien are you?" he smoothly replied. Verbal jujitsu in basic Clark form... except for the knife twist in the dark at the end.
"Human," Lex said simply, not sure how to take Clark's response -- garbage...?
"Well, I guess I'm not then," Clark answered.
"Good to know," Lex ended, dryly.
That got him a single barked laugh.
"Anything else I should know, Clark?" he added, hoping he wasn't accidentally going too far. Lex didn't want to push Clark too hard when he wasn't in control of his actions. He wasn't that desperate for answers. Yet.
"Oh, absolutely." And that seemed to be all Clark had to say on the matter, other than an amused, mysterious, there-and-fading Cheshire smile.
Ah, so he still had lines in the sand. That was... almost comforting. Lex let himself relax a bit.
"So, no rejoinders that we should go to Metropolis this time, Clark?" he quipped.
"This time?" Clark echoed quietly, then frowned at him and cocked his head. "Why would we go to Metropolis?" Lex almost felt relieved, up until Clark added. "You said the Luthorcorp masqued ball was boring. And not masqued. It's more fun here."
Oh, hell. He was definitely drugged. And possibly dangerous.
Ok, well, he'd learned his lesson from the last time. He wasn't leaving Clark alone, or taking him home.
Well, not to the farm, anyway.
"Not quite as fun here as elsewhere," he stressed very slightly, and Clark picked up on it right away. It seemed odd to him that Clark seemed more perceptive in this state than normally. Usually. For him. God, he needed a new name for Clark's type of normal.
"You want to leave?" Clark asked, leaning into his personal space.
"Yes," Lex replied, and somehow felt vaguely violated when Clark leaned in a little more. That was new. And unwelcome.
"Ok," Clark said. And Clark reached down and took Lex's hands by the wrists, and drew him forward, walking towards the door.
He was going at such a fast pace that Lex struggled to keep up. And he knew he had to keep up or he'd find himself being dragged -- Clark's had a steel vise grip on him. How was he doing this walking backwards? So surefooted going up and down stairs without watching where he was going?
They made it to the door and Clark shoved it open. Gave Lex a delighted version of the fang-grin, stepped outside... and they half-stumbled down the stairs together as Clark gasped and seemed to lose his balance once out in the cold, clean, crisp nighttime air.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The air outside hit Clark like a kick in the teeth.
He stumbled into Lex on the way down and clung to him for a moment before he lost strength in his fingers and dropped to his knees, then fell backwards against the stairs.
What had just happened?
He glanced down and remembered what he was wearing, felt unbelievably panicked at looking like this out in public. In front of other students. --And, oh god, what had he done on the dance floor?
He curled his arms around his sides and tried not to whimper. Why hadn't he gone out the window like Pete had said? The rest of it had been horrible, but that idea had been good.
He felt Lex plop down next to him and he shivered slightly, turned his head away from him. He'd talked alien stuff in front of Lex. To Lex. Lex would take one look at him like this and just know, he was sure of it.
Where had that feeling of power gone? That switch had flipped back over again.
"Clark."
Clark shook his head and wouldn't look at him. No way. Nope.
"Clark," Lex said, more softly.
Clark shifted away a little, or started to. He half-felt, half-saw the hand on his chin, tried to duck his head, still ended up turning to face him.
Kept his eyes down, half closed.
"Clark, look at me, please."
It was a quiet, unavoidable command, so he did. He couldn't not.
And all he saw in Lex's eyes was concern, for him.
He tried not to tear up.
"I don't--" He didn't know how to explain. "I didn't realize nobody else was going to dress up. I was-- I went straight to the bathroom. I-- I was going to leave, I swear." He felt like he was apologizing, like he needed to, though he had no idea what for.
"Ok, Clark. Ok," Lex soothed.
"I'm sorry."
"It's ok."
Lex finally let go of him, his soft grasp slowly letting go. Clark turned back straight, facing the street, and put his head in his hands.
After awhile, Lex's soft voice broke the silence.
"You weren't the only one to dress up, you know."
"Huh?" Clark said, looking back up. A voice in the back of his head belatedly started yelling, 'no, don't! it's a trick!'
Lex gestured to himself grandly.
Clark wondered if he looked as blank as he felt, but then he really looked at Lex for a moment, instead of just seeing all the individual pieces of what he was wearing, blinked at the whole picture.
"So, what am I?" Lex prompted.
"A space cowboy like me," Clark said without thinking, then blushed horribly red, he was sure of it.
Then Lex grinned at him, and Clark swore for a minute that he must be in space because they didn't have ground-level supernovas on Earth.
Wow.
"Got that in one," Lex ended with a smaller, still-happy smile.
"Wait, what? --Really?" Clark perked up.
Lex nodded.
"...Cool." And it kind of was.
He and Lex were aliens together. He could deal with that.
Lex stood and offered Clark a hand, helping him up. "I think I may need to have a talk with whomever owns the smoke machines," Lex offered, suddenly seeming infinitely patient somehow.
"...Why?"
"I think that the smoke might have affected you a bit... poorly."
"What?" The smoke? "Why?"
"You seem fine outdoors, and were somewhat fine when you first entered, from your own account. You only acted... differently... indoors in the main area. You didn't eat or drink anything that I saw," Clark nodded, "so that leaves environmental factors. You've been fine attending concerts here before. The only new unknown variable that remains is the smoke machines, thus they are the most likely the culprit."
Clark blinked, then frowned slightly. "I thought those things were safe."
"They were turned on a little high earlier, and the smoke they're supposed to release is generally white or grey, not colored."
"It isn't?" It had looked all sorts of colors to him.
"Generally the club lights are used to change the shade. I've been here long enough to see it for a period when the lights weren't being used. This smoke had a slightly red tinge, though I had thought I might have been imagining it at the time."
"It did?" Oh, wait--
Oh. Oh no. Not again!
"Running off to Metropolis," Clark muttered, running his hands through his hair.
Lex smirked slightly.
Oh, hell.
"Lex--" he started.
Lex held up a hand and shook his head. Clark quieted.
"Just tell me one thing," Lex asked.
"...Yeah?" Clark said reluctantly.
"Do you think anyone else will be adversely affected?" He paused. "Do I need to go in there and have them turn them off and air the place out?"
Clark looked in the windows and felt so far removed from everything. He knew what he should say.
He shrugged and stared at the ground. "I don't know. It's probably a good idea."
He could almost feel the weight of Lex's considering gaze.
"So, it's a drug to which only you are hypersensitive?"
Clark's head came up. "Wait, what?" he thought about that a little more and his eyes widened. "Why would anybody put a drug in a smoke machine?"
"Well, I believe it's more or less the 21'st century equivalent to spiking the punchbowl," Lex explained cooly.
Oh. So not good.
"If you think it's safe..." Lex gently prodded.
"I don't know, I swear." And it was true, even. "It's... it's meteor rock. I think." And he nearly bit his tongue after he'd said it. He knew he shouldn't have. He didn't know why he did. Maybe he was still a little affected? He had breathed it in, right?
"Meteor rock? The red kind?"
Clark nodded at the ground.
"Hmm," Lex added thoughtfully.
Clark could almost hear the gears turning, and stifled a groan. Yes, the class ring that I was wearing earlier that acted like a drug, Lex. Yes, the lead box with Lana's necklace that I get all weak-kneed around, Lex.
The lead box with the green rock that could hurt him--
Clark cursed inside his head over and over. Because this is exactly why you should always lie, stupid! Even on Halloween behind a mask or twelve.
He looked away from Lex, down the street towards home. If he started running at top normal human speed...?
"Do your parents know?" Lex asked quietly.
Clark's head whipped around. What? "Uh, yeah, they know. I told them," he clarified.
"Then why haven't you moved away?"
Huh?
Lex looked at him carefully, and he had an almost sad, pained look on his face. "If they know about your allergies to meteor rock, they should sell the farm and move. It's not safe for you here," he said, slowly.
Clark's mouth dropped open. Why would they sell the farm?! "But-- this is home!"
Lex waited. But what was he waiting for, he--
Then Clark got it.
And felt more than a little ill.
Not the meteor rock kind. Worse. Much much worse.
And he really didn't want to keep thinking about it, so he went for the distraction. "It's not safe for anyone here. Why do you still live here?" he asked.
"You asked me to stay," Lex reminded him.
Clark swallowed and looked away. He hadn't meant it that way, back then. Not if it'd mean Lex getting hurt. He'd never thought...
"I'm not sorry I did, Clark."
That just made it hurt even worse.
And why didn't everybody move away, anyway?
Lex sighed an actual sigh and glanced at the clock in the town square. "It's getting late, I should probably get you home," he said ruefully.
Trust Lex to remember his curfew. And normally he'd take him up on it and then ask him to stay like always, but...
Clark winced as he remembered the sheet he had to pick up. If Lex came home with him, he'd be expected to entertain, and how would he explain not taking the sheet off to his parents?
Lex noticed his recalcitrance and slid his hands into his pockets and asked, "Is there a problem?"
"Kind of."
Lex waited.
See, now, that wasn't fair, using silence like that. Usually Lex asked stuff straight up. That was a lot easier to deal with. Except... more lying.
Finally, he gave it up. "My parents don't know I dressed up like this before heading out."
Lex's eyebrows raised a good inch. "You snuck out of the house?"
"Sort of? I told them I was a ghost, and stowed the bedsheet once I was out," he admitted.
"How very teenage-rebellion of you," Lex approved with a slight smile.
Clark rolled his eyes, but actually felt kind of warm inside.
Which he really shouldn't, he knew, because breaking the rules should not feel like a good thing.
Too bad Lex usually made him want things he didn't have, then, and didn't even know he wanted until he did.
He was pretty sure that that was his dad's definition of a "bad influence".
...Of course, he was pretty sure that Lex's dad's definition of a bad influence was him, so it all evened out, he thought with a smile.
"Come on, then," Lex said, gesturing before turning and starting the other way up the street.
"What? Where are we going?" Clark said, jogging slightly to catch up.
"Back to the mansion. You can shower and change there. I think there's a spare set of clothes from the last time you used the pool," he added.
Yeah, that had not been fun. After that meteor freak attack had been resolved, his dad had shown up all up in arms over everything -- like there was really any totally safe swimming hole in Smallville -- and made him leave in his swim trunks right away. That had been embarrassing times a zillion.
He was gonna have to sneak-speed out to grab the turpentine from home, but that could actually work out. And, bonus -- more time with Lex! Except...
"Uh, but curfew is soon, Lex," Clark sighed.
But Lex had a smile like a man with a plan. "Did they know you were heading for the party?"
"Yeah?"
"And how long you'd stay?"
"No?"
"So I could've run into you and we could have been at the mansion for quite some time now."
"...Ok?" Clark didn't yet see where he was going with this.
"It may be a school night, but no-one would want to be out around town this late when adults might have been drinking--"
"Uh, actually, I don't have school tomorrow," Clark cut in. "They kind of decided to have an staff administration day this Friday."
"A three-day weekend for the teachers to nurse their hangovers?" Lex smiled.
Clark stifled a laugh as a cough. "Uh, not all of them? Pretty sure my English teacher is a teetotaler."
"Well, even easier then. Clearly" he drawled, "you have been at the mansion for some time," and Lex gave him a small grin here, "and we must not have been paying much attention to the clock's inevitable progression," he ended with a smirk.
"Oh no," Clark said, grinning as he played along. "What will we do?"
"Well, I think the responsible thing to do would be to call your parents and explain to them what happened," Lex continued, in his 'gotta act like an adult authority here' voice, "then apologize and negotiate out how the best thing to do would be for you to stay the night."
They made it to Lex's car, and Clark popped open the door and got in the passenger's seat while Lex slid into the driver's side over the door.
"Really?" Clark asked, hopeful.
"Really," Lex confirmed.
And Lex had work tomorrow and everything. This... was actually kind of a big deal.
A small voice nagged at him as Lex started the car, pointing out that maybe it wasn't such a good idea for him to be spending a bunch of time alone with Lex right after accidentally letting it out what the meteor rock could do to him. Both kinds.
He squashed that voice and squashed it hard. Lex was his friend and he worried about him. Maybe more than his parents did. His adoptive parents.
Clark took a deep breath in then out and put on his seatbelt.
"Um, Lex?" he asked as his friend moved out into the road and started the short drive to the mansion -- well, short when Lex was driving, anyway.
"Hmm?"
"You... didn't seem really surprised that I'd dressed up all crazy and kind of... dumb-looking like this."
There, he'd said it out loud.
Now he could shift uncomfortably in his seat for awhile.
"Clark, you don't look crazy or dumb," Lex chided.
Or not.
"I don't?" he asked dubiously.
"Clark, it's clear that you spent a great deal of time on your costume, and it's much better than many I've seen professionally done." And he sounded like he meant it, very matter-of-fact.
"But--?" Lex glanced over at him curiously and he tried to find the words for what he was feeling. "I guess it's... kind of weird that you're talking to me like..." Like he always did, even though he looked so... not himself right now.
Lex gave him short considering glances as he split his attention between the road and his passenger. Then he seemed to understand what he was trying to say. "You expected me to treat you differently based on how you look?"
"...Well, yeah?" Clark bit his lip absently. "Um, guess it sounds stupid when you put it like that," he said, feeling like a heel.
They were quiet for awhile, then:
"Dancing!" Clark burst out.
Lex glanced over, looking worried for a moment. "What?"
"You danced with me!"
Lex blinked several times. "Ah, well, yes," he said, and that was practically incoherent and speechless for Lex.
"Why did you dance with me?" he asked, because, well, that made no sense at all. They were both guys.
"Why did you dance with me?" Lex queried back.
Ok, that was annoying. Maybe he shouldn't do that to people so much.
"Well, because I was--" drugged, he started to say, but then stopped, because his mom had said last time that he wasn't a completely different person on the stuff. That he did things he wanted to do, and that those feelings had to come from somewhere.
So he crossed his arms and thought about it for awhile, then said, definitively, "I did it because I wanted to."
Wow. It was a good thing that they were at the mansion already and they'd both been wearing their seatbelts. Lex had slammed on the brakes really hard.
And was now staring at him intently, just as hard. "You wanted to dance with me?"
"...Yes."
Lex started laughing hysterically. He clutched at the steering wheel and nearly hit his forehead against it and laughed and laughed and... was he ever going to stop?
Ok, not doing wonders for his ego, right now.
He sat there and felt totally awful while Lex laughed until he cried and he finally couldn't take it anymore. He undid the seatbelt and grimly reached for the car door handle to get out of the car.
"Nn-- wai--t," Lex managed to get out, a hand on his shoulder. "i-- I. It. Mmph." he took a breath and was having trouble still. "Need a. Mmin--." He let out another laugh and was wiping tears away.
That was when Clark realized that he wasn't exactly looking happy.
He waited.
Lex finally calmed down and, well, didn't really look so good. "You... you wanted to dance with me?"
"Yes." Was that really bad?
"...Why did you want to?" Lex asked him quietly.
Clark felt a little squeamish all of a sudden, because that had sounded so plaintive and...
"I... I don't know. I just wanted to!" He felt worried. Maybe Pete was right about him and humans after all. He knew guys didn't dance with guys, but girls sometimes danced with girls and that was ok. He couldn't think why not, though, and nobody had ever told him why.
"I'm sorry, I just... I was drugged, right? When I'm on... that stuff... I just don't care. About anything. Ok?" He really didn't like talking about this, and squirmed in his seat again. "I just-- it stops mattering what anybody else thinks. I just do what I want, whenever I want. Which is bad." He probably shouldn't have to add the last bit there, but it was Lex. Sometimes it was good to be sure.
"So, you don't know?"
"No. I'm sorry. I... Look, I can just go--" Clark started.
"What? No, no, I," Lex waved at him, then must've realized how freaky his laughing like that had been and: "Clark, I wasn't laughing at you, I-- God. I was..." He grimaced and started to ghost his hand over his head, but knocked into his cowboy hat, and for a moment got a look like his wardrobe was out to get him. He sighed and readjusted it absently. "People do not want to dance with me, Clark."
Clark was flabbergasted. "Why not? You're a great dancer!"
For a moment Lex looked like he was going to lose it again, but he looked away and seemed to process that differently. "Thank you, Clark," he said. "You're a very good dancer, too."
"Uh, really not so much," Clark said, rolling his eyes.
"Clark, if anyone's told you otherwise, they were lying," Lex said intensely, slowly getting out of the car.
"No, that's-- I don't dance like that. Usually. Ever. Tonight was different."
"If you can dance like that once, you can do it again," Lex said.
"No, see, that was me, but not me," Clark tried to explain, getting out himself and slamming the car door. "I'm not like that, really. I worry too much about getting it right. I really can't. Not unless I'm..."
"...unrestrained?" Lex helpfully supplied.
"Well, yeah. And it would be a bad thing for me to dose on the red stuff just so I could, you know. A really bad idea."
"You couldn't just not care what other people think? Not even if you were dancing with no-one else around who would care about it?" Lex asked, sounding confused. Well, duh, Clark -- of course Lex would have a problem with that concept, he's the king of being able to tell people who think horrible things about somebody to go to hell. Not exactly a problem he should expect his friend to be able to understand. Knowing that, he got frustrated and tried a different tack.
"It's-- argh, look I can't dance with you anymore, ok? I know I'm not supposed to." He got a weird look from Lex. "Dance with guys. Guys don't dance together." Should he really have to be telling this to Lex? Lex knew practically everything about everything!
"Yes, they do," Lex said.
Clark blinked, then shook his head. "No, they don't. They--"
"Yes, they do," Lex insisted. "Sometimes, they do."
"Not here they don't!" Clark protested.
"Well, yes, that's generally true," Lex said. "But they do elsewhere."
"Where?"
"It depends on the time and circumstance."
Well, that was really helpful -- not. "I wish people would tell me these things," Clark griped, stomping up to the front door with Lex. Maybe they could have a talk about it sometime. Space cowboy to space cowboy.
Lex just smiled.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Prompter: jlvsclrk
Prompt: Clex old school, Costumes
Title: Masks
Author: josephina_x
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: pre-Clex
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: through 2x06 Redux.
Word count: 8,800+
Summary: Lex discovers that Clark is a juvenile delinquent. (No, really.) This invariably involves dancing for some reason we have yet to understand.
Warnings: Unbeta'd. Italics out the ying-yang, so grammar nazi's beware!
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
AN: This was supposed to be a drabble, but then it got away from me completely, like these things usually do. Stupid rabid bunnies. *sighs* Ah, well!
~*~*~*~*~*~
Clark was really nervous about doing this, at first really hadn't wanted to do this, but Pete had dared him. While drunk. Because he was a 'scaredy-cat' and wouldn't drink beer with him, never mind that he couldn't get drunk and it tasted gross.
...Which probably wasn't a good reason for doing anything.
But he'd been having a lousy time of it lately with the really really bad 'reunion' -- actually, first meeting apparently -- with his grandparents, and it was all because of the stupid alien stuff getting in the way and, really, he was totally sick of it. So he thought about it and thought about it, and came up with a plan.
He told his parents that he was going dressed up as a ghost, long white bedsheet covering him from head to toe with two small eyeholes. He spent a good deal of time in the bathroom getting ready, and then he gave them a quick goodbye before heading to the party at the Talon.
He slowly walked towards town, smiling at the kids running around near the cemetery who were dressed up as normal old witches and goblins and ghouls and grim reapers, though they couldn't see it through the sheet. Acceptable and accepted sorts of creatures and changelings by humans, who really weren't feared much at all by your average joe on the street. Laughed at and joked about, even, by some. Not really scary at all.
No, what was scary and feared by humans was what Clark was dressed as. And this was his plan, brilliant in his simplicity:
He was tired of lying all the time, and had been for a long time. So, why not take the one day of the year where everybody dressed up and put on masks, and instead use it to take his off? One day of the year he could totally be himself, and people would never know it. He could talk about things and just say it was 'backstory', pretend that it wasn't real, when in fact he wouldn't be lying at all. Pretty much the reverse of everything he had to do the reverse of the other 364 days, 365 on leap years.
Maybe someday when he was feeling up to it, he could even dress up so completely differently that he nobody would recognize him, know it was him, and he could even bring his abilities into play.
And he could slowly inure people to the idea of an alien among them, walking, talking, acting, well, alien and stuff. Maybe eventually people would have a good enough response about it that he would feel safe to completely share, and then he could stop pretending, at least in town.
It could totally work!
...Yeah, ok. This was a really stupid plan.
He liked the idea of getting to be himself in stealth, though. Whoever he really was.
Sometimes he looked in the mirror and wondered who Clark Kent really was -- a real person or a mask -- and whether he was the real person under all the lies. Or whether he'd be somebody completely different if he didn't have to, if he'd be accepted for who and what he was. Somebody he didn't know. Because he honestly couldn't imagine what he'd do if that ever happened, and he'd tried to.
Well, he'd certainly looked different in the mirror tonight.
Once he'd gotten out of line-of-sight of the farm, he took a deep breath, lifted the sheet a little bit, then whipped it off all at once, like ripping off a bandaid.
He folded the sheet up and stowed it carefully on the other side of the fence. It was Smallville -- nobody would steal it, there was a higher chance of it getting blown away by the wind. Then he straightened and took out the headband from his back pocket and carefully placed it on his forehead.
Then he started walking again.
More people around -- he kept walking and nobody said anything, really. He got a couple of absent looks, smiles, and casual waves from across the street by neighbors who bought produce from the farm, but that was about it.
So far so good.
He came up to the front door of the Talon and stopped. Took a deep breath again, because this was a lot more hazardous than being out the street -- in there was probably the majority of the high school population, and this could really damage his image if it went bad.
Right, like he had an image to damage, he thought morosely with a snort.
When a laughing couple had to dodge around him to get to the door, and he moved to the side in startlement, he realized how long he'd been standing there like an idiot, let out the breath and then marched up the stairs and opened the door.
Blaring music hit him like a wall. A wall of sound.
It wasn't even spooky Halloween music, it was just dance music, beat-and-grind.
Oh god.
Mostly just about everybody wasn't dressed up.
He gulped slightly, then turned and fled for the men's bathroom as casually as he could walk in such a panic.
When he was in he shut and locked the door behind him, then turned and rested his back against it for a bit, feeling unaccountably winded for no real physical effort. Finally, he moved over to one of the sinks and put his hands on either side of it, staring into the mirror.
He really had used too much green face paint.
Every bare inch of skin showing -- and a little past that, in case his clothing shifted -- was covered in green paint, and the headband with the sproingy wire springs with green puffballs on the ends -- his 'antennae' -- mocked him ruthlessly in his reflection.
His hair, which he'd carelessly gone at with the silver spraypaint because he knew he could scrub it off with turpentine paint thinner without any problems, was looking dumb and limp, rather than the hard spiky helmet-like look like he'd intended, and even more like a half-assed mess than before. His lips, which he'd taken the trouble to coat with spraypaint built up to saturation from a scrap piece of cloth, made a silver slash across his face that stood out glaringly against the surrounding green.
The old yellow plastic jacket he'd spraypainted silver and his black almost too-tight t-shirt and black jeans with strategic oval cutouts along the sides -- a spaceman's outfit if he'd ever read one in an old science fiction novella -- which had looked so cool to him before and he'd been so proud of, just looked tacky under the fluorescent lighting. At his hips, high up, shone the silver buckles he'd stolen from old dollar-store belts that he'd stitched onto black fabric strips and fastened around each thigh, turned into impromptu hip-holsters for a pair of squirt guns -- clear plastic but filled with water he'd managed to color an almost glowing neon blue. Those looked like something somebody would toss in the trash, not something he'd spent nearly an entire evening working on at normal speed, meticulously trying to get right. His old workboots, which he'd been even more meticulous in spraypainting, hitting all the gaps, getting three good even coats on, were still just an old pair of workboots.
He felt like a seven-year-old who'd just stumbled into an adult party. One with everybody decked out in proper, adult-dancing clubbing clothes, or as close as Smallville got and anyone here could imagine, with a killer DJ and a smoke machine and lights and... well, everything.
He kicked himself mentally. Why, oh why, hadn't he kept the sheet on until he'd gotten here and taken a good look around?
Oh, right -- because he was an IDIOT.
There was a reason he was at the very bottom of the social ladder, if he was even in the vicinity of the darn thing at all.
He took a deep breath. Ok, he could deal. At the very least he could wash the paint off so he wasn't a green freak, and why had he thought that was a good idea for a color anyway? He should probably count himself lucky that there hadn't been meteor rock laced through the paint.
And right as he reached for the faucet, there was a pounding on the door.
Oh, great.
Clark grimaced and looked at the door.
"Hey, open up man!" came the muffled yell through the door, barely audible under the pounding bass that was still thrumming through the walls, despite the theater's soundproofing. And his mom thought he turned up his headphones loud.
Clark sighed and unlocked the door, and Pete tumbled in, along with some smoke. His chest tightened briefly as he breathed in a little bit of it, before he forced himself to exhale normally and relax.
He didn't have a chance to lock the door, barely to close it, before Pete was rounding on him, yelling.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" his enraged friend demanded.
Clark frowned, and began to point out, "You dared me to--"
"Jesus, I didn't think you'd actually do it!"
Clark blinked.
"I mean, you're actually-- do you think this is funny--?! --you can't just-- In public!! --How did your parents let you out of the house!?!?" he yelled.
Clark started frowning more and more as Pete went on.
"So, you dared me to dress up like an alien, not thinking that I couldn't do it, but that I shouldn't do it?" Clark asked quietly.
"I was drunk! And I didn't think you were that stupid!" Pete explained to him like he had head trauma.
Clark clenched his teeth.
"I see," he said evenly.
"Man, you seriously need a minder. You just don't get this human stuff sometimes, do you?" Pete said, shaking his head, and Clark realized he was actually serious.
Clark felt his shoulders square.
"So, yeah, maybe this is salvageable. Not too many people saw you, I bet. I only did just 'cause I was looking out for you, and I barely recognized you. Just go out the window," Pete gestured at the bathroom window that exited onto the back alley, "and run home. I'll," he shook his head, "I don't know, do damage control tomorrow if anybody thinks they thought it was you, or whatever." As if Pete had a lot of popularity cred, what with being a puny third-stringer on the football team and all.
"But what about the party?" Clark asked. He'd wanted to go, Pete knew that. He'd wanted to go before Pete had. Chloe hadn't wanted to come, had said she had better things to do, but he'd talked Pete into it.
"God, Clark, just go home!"
"But-- I--"
The door shoved open and Clark backed up. Then he backed up even more because it was a girl. In the men's bathroom. Peeking in with the door practically half-wide-open like she had a right to be here.
"Pete!' she squealed. "Aren't you coming?" Then she glanced at Clark, did a double-take, and giggled. "God, seriously?" She opened the door a little further to get a good look at him and then laughed outright. "Who is this loser you're hanging with?"
"I'm not hanging, I'm coming, just give me a minute," he supplicated, gesturing at the stalls.
Clark felt like someone had socked him in the chest.
The simpering girl smooched Pete on the cheek, leaving behind a light lipstick imprint in pink, then gave Clark one last superior smirk and left, door swinging shut behind her and blowing another billowing thin cloud of smoke into his face. He turned his head away from it, stepping back, and Pete turned back to him.
"See, man, I can't babysit you tonight. Duty calls, y'know? Football team stuff, we're heading out."
Suddenly Clark had the horrible sinking feeling that when Pete and Chloe had laughingly said when he'd met them in the Torch that afternoon that they'd tossed a coin over who'd be taking care of him at the Talon that night, and that Pete had lost, that they hadn't been kidding, after all.
He breathed in and out and tried not to feel hurt. Or enraged.
And hey, he bet Pete leaving early didn't have anything to do with the flavor of the week whose tail Pete was clearly chasing, either. His lips thinned as he held down the snarling knot he felt in his chest.
"So, yeah, go home and stay out of trouble, ok?"
Clark nodded grimly. "Sure, Pete."
With that, Pete left. And in such a hurry that Clark had to close the door behind him. Some friend. He clenched his fists, breathing heavily, and felt heat prickle behind his eyes.
He clenched, then slowly unclenched his fists, and his breathing deepened even more.
Clark waited a good full five minutes until he was sure that Pete was surely long gone.
He looked at the mirrors lining the wall, and then the bathroom window. He felt calm. He collected himself.
Then he opened the door and stepped out to face the music head-on.
Because he didn't care.
He really didn't.
He wasn't a child.
He didn't need 'minding' or 'looking after'.
He didn't.
He did it because he didn't care.
He did it because he could.
So let people stare and laugh.
Let them.
Tonight was for masks, right?
So he'd wear a mask. He'd wear the best one ever.
Tonight he wasn't Clark Kent, geek and social outcast.
Tonight he wasn't Clark Kent, alien that nobody wanted, who everybody lied to.
Tonight he was a goddamn Alien-With-A-Capital-A.
An Alien who was invincible, who speeding cars couldn't even scratch. Who could run a 2-second mile. Who could lift trucks and rearrange them like Legos and thought it was hell-ass funny to do so.
A cool, untouchable Alien who didn't care what any damn puny human thought or didn't think about him, who derisive laughter and smirks and sniping comments simply slid off of, assuming they weren't ignored entirely as being completely beneath his notice.
He walked out and stood at the center of the entrance to the room, and took a deep breath, suddenly feeling powerful. He surveyed the entire party, saw people turn and stare. He held his head evenly and stalked out into the center of the room.
People moved out of his way.
Nobody laughed.
He saw some wide eyes, and a good number of stares -- god, it felt like everybody was staring at him -- but Clark was hidden deep inside an invincible Alien shell and nobody was laughing.
Imagine that.
The DJ started the next set as he made it to the edge of the area that was the dance floor.
He took a step onto it. One, two, three.
Four.
Closed his eyes.
He could practically feel the beat under his eyelids. Under his skin.
Started to sway slightly to it.
Didn't worry about what he was supposed to do, or what other people might think of how he moved. He felt sort of blank in those places where he usually felt shame, afraid. Fear of rejection.
Like a switch had flipped off.
And the mask had become everything.
He didn't worry about what might happen if he hit someone. He was the invincible Alien. These were mere mortals. If they didn't get out of his way, well, their stupidity for not recognizing him for what he was was on them.
He smiled a dark dark smile at the thought.
Swayed and tilted and flung his hands out, eyes slitted half-closed.
People moved and shifted out of his way like smoke.
He was the only real thing in the room.
Until Lex stepped up to him.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex had been half-hidden in a corner of the Talon, where the entire proceedings of the party were laid out before him and he could watch, content in his anonymity in the shadows.
He sipped at his punch and thought the smoke machines were a nice touch, if slightly overdone. He'd managed to convince Lana to turn down the output a little bit -- the rolling clouds over the floor had obscured everything up to a good three feet for awhile there, and Lex knew from his clubbing experience in Metropolis what young teenagers could and would get up to with cover like that.
Best to forestall that sort of thing before the teenaged smalltown rabble figured it out for themselves. This was supposed to be a food establishment, and somewhat... sanitary.
He'd given up hope of catching Clark at the party. He himself had thought he wouldn't be able to get away from the Luthorcorp function early enough to catch sight of his young friend, and apparently he'd been right. He sighed. He'd wanted to see what Clark had dressed up as, and maybe even join in the fun.
Well, as much as a Luthor could, anyway.
He hadn't exactly dressed up much himself, still in a dark black business suit and muted grey shirt, but he'd managed to swap the dress coat for a black leather jacket that wouldn't be amiss in either a club or a smalltown setting, one of his favorites, and a black cowboy hat to go with it.
Between the hat and the grey-tinted rectangular-lensed sunglasses, he felt invisible. So far, it didn't seem as though anyone had recognized him.
He stifled a laugh at the gullibility, or perhaps simply blind inobservance, of the townsfolk. Apparently it didn't take much.
He was about ready to go when a vision in silver and black -- and... green? -- slid right past him.
Lex stared.
Tall, dark green, and handsome, very male, broad shoulders. Confident walk, almost a stalk. That alone sent a shiver of interest down his spine, and he straightened. He turned a critical eye on the newcomer and appreciated the powerful, controlled, loose movement. Cataloged the touches that made this a custom-made outfit, but also the underlying clothing itself that told that it was all storebought-modified or homemade, though expertly done and with a lot of attention to detail -- there were no spiderwebbing cracks in the paint, and no spots that had accidentally missed notice. His lips twitched towards a smile as he noticed the kitchy antennae headband and then his eyes drifted down to the silver metallic-leather footwear -- ah, workboots -- so the man must be local.
Lex hadn't known that there was anyone in town like that. How very interesting.
...And, tearing his eyes away to glance briefly around the room, he wasn't the only one who'd noticed.
The man paused for only a moment before the dance floor, then stepped up and started to gyrate. He moved like metallic water, all flows, then like jagged crystal, all sharp edges. Starting and stopping and somehow conforming to the music... or, rather, like the music was conforming to him... Lex had never seen anything like it.
His silver hair drifted and shifted like a cloud, glinting under the lights. Silver jacket and boots catching the glare and winking out. Flashes of green skin hidden along lines in all sorts of places down his black-clad body, almost tantalizingly so.
He danced and danced, never slowing down.
Lex blinked as he realized that the smooth bastard wasn't even breaking a sweat.
He turned, and turned again, his lips twisting into a thin silver smile, before he tilted his head back and his face looked transported--
Lex forgot to breathe.
Lex slowly set his cup down with nearly-nerveless fingers, his eyes fixated on the alien being in front of him.
Oh my god.
That was Clark!
That... wasn't possible.
It couldn't be.
...But it was.
Lex slowly moved forward, drawn towards him almost hypnotically.
He'd seen Clark like this only once before.
Relaxed.
Self-assured.
Confident.
Standing tall and completely at ease with himself and his body.
He stopped at the center of the room, shaking himself. What was he doing? This was Smalltown America, USA. He couldn't approach a young man here on the dance floor.
Then he saw Lana out of the corner of his eye, staring at and practically drooling over Clark, who she obviously wasn't recognizing -- though god only knew how could she not? she must have been able to see his face from her vantage point, unlike him -- and felt the banked dark flames that never went out, that he tried to keep smothered deep down inside him, flare up.
Lex had tried to help Clark with Lana, time and time again. Case-in-point, the Talon around them. And until the very end she'd stuck with her bastard of a boyfriend who'd stripped and strung up Clark like an animal in a cornfield. And she knew it. And still chose him over Clark. And then continued to pine over him after he'd left her to literally fly away across an ocean to the other side of the planet, even. Into a warzone, because he preferred it to staying in Smallville. And that was really saying something.
She'd had more than a chance with Clark the last time he'd been acting this way, and hadn't been able to handle it, apparently left him in disgust and refused to associate with him over -- well, what Lex felt was comparatively mild misbehavior -- for quite some time.
No, she didn't deserve him.
And he didn't deserve that.
Lex glanced between them again, and wanted to shout in frustration as his co-owner in the building's venture started towards him.
Oh, to hell with it.
Clark deserved better than whatever response he would receive from Lana, either a slap in the face or ending up sloppy seconds; Lex was going to beat her to the punch.
Lex strode forward onto the dance floor, leaving broken couples tending to themselves in his wake, heading directly for Clark's small pocket of space.
He nearly paused at the edge, until Clark's eyes slid open and they locked gaze.
He moved forward two steps, nearby and close, but not too close, and picked up the movement of the beat, starting to sway. He knew how to dance, and dance well, but it was going to take some effort to match Clark's highly nonstandard moves, his grace and control joined with the music notwithstanding.
It would be worth it.
Clark tilted his head, still moving, not stopping his motion. His lips curled up slightly at the edges, and he looked him up and down, assessing.
Lex felt bare-skinned for just a moment, but shook the feeling off. He smiled back, wondering where his friend was.
Flash of teeth in an unrestrained, momentarily blinding, grin.
Ah, there he was.
Deep pools of green, not unlike the color of his new skin, bore into him.
Do you see me? his eyes asked. Do you?
Do you know me? Do you know what I am? they challenged, daring.
Yes, Lex saw him. He always had.
He was alien, different, other. And everybody who noticed and really saw him, wanted him. And Clark, he knew it.
Alienated? No. No, not cast out.
Not isolated. Self-removed.
Normal? Average? The thought nearly made Lex laugh.
Down to earth?
No, not earthbound. Not petty, not small-minded. Transcendent.
Incredible. Beautiful.
Untouchable.
Fuck that.
Lex reached towards Clark and his eyes narrowed as Clark... slid away.
He followed the movement, reached out again and... Clark shifted away. Again. And made it look intentionally unintentional.
To hell with that.
This time Lex moved forward aggressively and Clark... moved backwards away from him, along with him. But he wasn't shrinking away, it was more like a tidal flow, marshaling forces and--
Clark moved forward suddenly and Lex startled, found himself nearly stumbling backwards, barely turned it into a tiptoeing slide and swirl.
That... had been aggressive. Uncharacteristically aggressive. Nearly as aggressive as...
Their eyes locked again.
Oh.
Lex moved forward and the same thing happened. When Clark responded in kind Lex was almost unprepared again, had to dance backwards, shying away from him.
They twirled and oscillated and slid together and past each other, twin gazes never wavering from each other's eyes.
Lex felt like Clark was staring into his soul.
And this dance was not like sex, or heat, or anything that Lex could recall from his time in Metropolis.
But it was so easy, settling into a comfortable cadence. What was this?
It took three songs before he finally worked it out. Why it was familiar.
It was a fight.
This was like the fights he had with Clark.
He was having a fight with Clark.
Pushing like a shout, stepping aside and leaving things unanswered, pushing back in angry retaliation, the half-moves feinting a full-on rush or a beckoning slide were lies tasting of ashes in his mouth, back and forth and over and over but never gaining any ground, never getting any closer...
Lex got angry all over again.
When Clark moved towards him this time, Lex stood his ground, reached up, and caught Clark's chin with his left hand.
Clark stilled, eyes boring into his own, nostrils flaring ever so slightly.
Lex's eyes widened when Clark moved before he could react, smoothly and without hesitation -- brought his own hand up, curled it around the back of his head, and firmly but forcibly tilted Lex's head up from pressure applied at the base of his neck. He stilled at the touch, but was unable to suppress a shiver when Clark's thumb caressed the side of his head by his ear.
Clark's eyes shuttered slightly lower and his mouth slid into a thin silver sliver. He looked almost pleased.
Lex dropped his hand.
The music stopped.
The DJ make some noise about the set being over and a break in music, but Lex hardly heard it. Neither of them moved.
Clark caressed his head one more time before slowly moving his hand forward, along his cheek, towards his chin. It was almost a caress.
Almost.
Lex shivered all over again.
They turned together and left the dance floor, Clark more leading than following. Their gazes never dropped.
Lex felt himself struggling to keep up.
And Clark, amazingly, was... not quite stalking forward, but he was moving like a predator in a very territorial manner. His head was turned, tilted slightly as he looked back over his shoulder at him, out of the corner of his eye keeping his focus on Lex. His mouth was curled up at the edges, and he looked amused, but his eyes were very, very sharp.
That might not bode well.
Clark moved over to one of the smaller corner booths and the occupants scattered to the wind with barely a gesture from Clark, which was almost unnerving. Clark made to flop himself down casually on a seat, but Lex caught him by the elbow first and steered him farther back towards the entrance, back to the corner where he'd been standing earlier. It was a little quieter there, and he didn't want their conversation overheard.
Glancing back at him as they reached their destination, Lex realized that the amusement factor had apparently grown to epic proportions, and Clark's body language was practically screaming that he was merely allowing Lex to tow him around.
Lex refound his position, then thought the better of facing Clark like this with his back against the wall. He turned and slid slightly farther out into the room, which he realized was a good decision because Clark immediately followed his movement, casually leaning forward towards him across the pillar instead.
"I didn't see you earlier," Clark started, far too casually.
"I was here," Lex replied.
"Tucked away in shadow. That's not like you," Clark replied, gently touching a finger to the underside of the hat brim and raising it slightly.
"Maybe it's exactly like me."
Clark chuckled, and Lex knew he'd been right. He sounded exactly the same as earlier that month. Clark was high on whatever-it-was again.
And where the hell was Pete during all this? He'd been here earlier. Why hadn't he noticed Clark's backslide?
Hell, why hadn't he?
Or was he assuming too much? Was it possible that Clark had been drugged against his will or knowledge?
"Don't be silly, Lex, you make it a point to stand out... oh." Clark paused and showed his fangs in that grin that Lex wasn't sure he liked very much. "Ah, right. That's the mask."
"...The mask?" Lex asked, feeling strained.
"Yes." Clark's eyes glittered under the dim lighting. "You scream 'go ahead and look at me, I dare you! I don't care what you think!' at the top of your lungs, but," Clark leaned in, past him, and Lex felt warm breath puff across his ear, "what you don't want anyone to hear is the softer cry, 'look at me! notice me! how can you not see me!' because all anybody can see is the Luthor," and Clark pulled back, "when what you really want them to see is the Lex." Clark's suddenly frighteningly-dark gaze captured his own, and Lex suddenly found himself struggling to breathe.
"Maybe," Lex managed to get out, and the effort cost him dearly.
"Do you think I can see you?" Clark asked, his eyes suddenly glinting green-and-red.
Lex was barely able to respond, nodding once, but it was enough.
The force of Clark's gaze suddenly lightened up as he backed away slightly, and Lex breathed in and asked before he completely lost his nerve, "What is your mask tonight, Clark?"
Clark grinned that grin again. "I'm an alien," he replied.
"Yes, I can see that," Lex said quietly.
"Can you? Can you really?" Clark tossed back with an easy smile, and it sounded casual enough, but the intense watchful look he was getting completely belied it. It was a lie within a lie. This Clark was alien to him... and not. So was his usual Clark self, though in other ways completely, ways where somehow this Clark now seemed almost familiar. It made his head ache slightly.
"What kind of alien are you?" he tried again. Small talk should not be this hard.
"Oh, I don't know. The kind that gets dumped on a backwater planet like garbage? What kind of alien are you?" he smoothly replied. Verbal jujitsu in basic Clark form... except for the knife twist in the dark at the end.
"Human," Lex said simply, not sure how to take Clark's response -- garbage...?
"Well, I guess I'm not then," Clark answered.
"Good to know," Lex ended, dryly.
That got him a single barked laugh.
"Anything else I should know, Clark?" he added, hoping he wasn't accidentally going too far. Lex didn't want to push Clark too hard when he wasn't in control of his actions. He wasn't that desperate for answers. Yet.
"Oh, absolutely." And that seemed to be all Clark had to say on the matter, other than an amused, mysterious, there-and-fading Cheshire smile.
Ah, so he still had lines in the sand. That was... almost comforting. Lex let himself relax a bit.
"So, no rejoinders that we should go to Metropolis this time, Clark?" he quipped.
"This time?" Clark echoed quietly, then frowned at him and cocked his head. "Why would we go to Metropolis?" Lex almost felt relieved, up until Clark added. "You said the Luthorcorp masqued ball was boring. And not masqued. It's more fun here."
Oh, hell. He was definitely drugged. And possibly dangerous.
Ok, well, he'd learned his lesson from the last time. He wasn't leaving Clark alone, or taking him home.
Well, not to the farm, anyway.
"Not quite as fun here as elsewhere," he stressed very slightly, and Clark picked up on it right away. It seemed odd to him that Clark seemed more perceptive in this state than normally. Usually. For him. God, he needed a new name for Clark's type of normal.
"You want to leave?" Clark asked, leaning into his personal space.
"Yes," Lex replied, and somehow felt vaguely violated when Clark leaned in a little more. That was new. And unwelcome.
"Ok," Clark said. And Clark reached down and took Lex's hands by the wrists, and drew him forward, walking towards the door.
He was going at such a fast pace that Lex struggled to keep up. And he knew he had to keep up or he'd find himself being dragged -- Clark's had a steel vise grip on him. How was he doing this walking backwards? So surefooted going up and down stairs without watching where he was going?
They made it to the door and Clark shoved it open. Gave Lex a delighted version of the fang-grin, stepped outside... and they half-stumbled down the stairs together as Clark gasped and seemed to lose his balance once out in the cold, clean, crisp nighttime air.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The air outside hit Clark like a kick in the teeth.
He stumbled into Lex on the way down and clung to him for a moment before he lost strength in his fingers and dropped to his knees, then fell backwards against the stairs.
What had just happened?
He glanced down and remembered what he was wearing, felt unbelievably panicked at looking like this out in public. In front of other students. --And, oh god, what had he done on the dance floor?
He curled his arms around his sides and tried not to whimper. Why hadn't he gone out the window like Pete had said? The rest of it had been horrible, but that idea had been good.
He felt Lex plop down next to him and he shivered slightly, turned his head away from him. He'd talked alien stuff in front of Lex. To Lex. Lex would take one look at him like this and just know, he was sure of it.
Where had that feeling of power gone? That switch had flipped back over again.
"Clark."
Clark shook his head and wouldn't look at him. No way. Nope.
"Clark," Lex said, more softly.
Clark shifted away a little, or started to. He half-felt, half-saw the hand on his chin, tried to duck his head, still ended up turning to face him.
Kept his eyes down, half closed.
"Clark, look at me, please."
It was a quiet, unavoidable command, so he did. He couldn't not.
And all he saw in Lex's eyes was concern, for him.
He tried not to tear up.
"I don't--" He didn't know how to explain. "I didn't realize nobody else was going to dress up. I was-- I went straight to the bathroom. I-- I was going to leave, I swear." He felt like he was apologizing, like he needed to, though he had no idea what for.
"Ok, Clark. Ok," Lex soothed.
"I'm sorry."
"It's ok."
Lex finally let go of him, his soft grasp slowly letting go. Clark turned back straight, facing the street, and put his head in his hands.
After awhile, Lex's soft voice broke the silence.
"You weren't the only one to dress up, you know."
"Huh?" Clark said, looking back up. A voice in the back of his head belatedly started yelling, 'no, don't! it's a trick!'
Lex gestured to himself grandly.
Clark wondered if he looked as blank as he felt, but then he really looked at Lex for a moment, instead of just seeing all the individual pieces of what he was wearing, blinked at the whole picture.
"So, what am I?" Lex prompted.
"A space cowboy like me," Clark said without thinking, then blushed horribly red, he was sure of it.
Then Lex grinned at him, and Clark swore for a minute that he must be in space because they didn't have ground-level supernovas on Earth.
Wow.
"Got that in one," Lex ended with a smaller, still-happy smile.
"Wait, what? --Really?" Clark perked up.
Lex nodded.
"...Cool." And it kind of was.
He and Lex were aliens together. He could deal with that.
Lex stood and offered Clark a hand, helping him up. "I think I may need to have a talk with whomever owns the smoke machines," Lex offered, suddenly seeming infinitely patient somehow.
"...Why?"
"I think that the smoke might have affected you a bit... poorly."
"What?" The smoke? "Why?"
"You seem fine outdoors, and were somewhat fine when you first entered, from your own account. You only acted... differently... indoors in the main area. You didn't eat or drink anything that I saw," Clark nodded, "so that leaves environmental factors. You've been fine attending concerts here before. The only new unknown variable that remains is the smoke machines, thus they are the most likely the culprit."
Clark blinked, then frowned slightly. "I thought those things were safe."
"They were turned on a little high earlier, and the smoke they're supposed to release is generally white or grey, not colored."
"It isn't?" It had looked all sorts of colors to him.
"Generally the club lights are used to change the shade. I've been here long enough to see it for a period when the lights weren't being used. This smoke had a slightly red tinge, though I had thought I might have been imagining it at the time."
"It did?" Oh, wait--
Oh. Oh no. Not again!
"Running off to Metropolis," Clark muttered, running his hands through his hair.
Lex smirked slightly.
Oh, hell.
"Lex--" he started.
Lex held up a hand and shook his head. Clark quieted.
"Just tell me one thing," Lex asked.
"...Yeah?" Clark said reluctantly.
"Do you think anyone else will be adversely affected?" He paused. "Do I need to go in there and have them turn them off and air the place out?"
Clark looked in the windows and felt so far removed from everything. He knew what he should say.
He shrugged and stared at the ground. "I don't know. It's probably a good idea."
He could almost feel the weight of Lex's considering gaze.
"So, it's a drug to which only you are hypersensitive?"
Clark's head came up. "Wait, what?" he thought about that a little more and his eyes widened. "Why would anybody put a drug in a smoke machine?"
"Well, I believe it's more or less the 21'st century equivalent to spiking the punchbowl," Lex explained cooly.
Oh. So not good.
"If you think it's safe..." Lex gently prodded.
"I don't know, I swear." And it was true, even. "It's... it's meteor rock. I think." And he nearly bit his tongue after he'd said it. He knew he shouldn't have. He didn't know why he did. Maybe he was still a little affected? He had breathed it in, right?
"Meteor rock? The red kind?"
Clark nodded at the ground.
"Hmm," Lex added thoughtfully.
Clark could almost hear the gears turning, and stifled a groan. Yes, the class ring that I was wearing earlier that acted like a drug, Lex. Yes, the lead box with Lana's necklace that I get all weak-kneed around, Lex.
The lead box with the green rock that could hurt him--
Clark cursed inside his head over and over. Because this is exactly why you should always lie, stupid! Even on Halloween behind a mask or twelve.
He looked away from Lex, down the street towards home. If he started running at top normal human speed...?
"Do your parents know?" Lex asked quietly.
Clark's head whipped around. What? "Uh, yeah, they know. I told them," he clarified.
"Then why haven't you moved away?"
Huh?
Lex looked at him carefully, and he had an almost sad, pained look on his face. "If they know about your allergies to meteor rock, they should sell the farm and move. It's not safe for you here," he said, slowly.
Clark's mouth dropped open. Why would they sell the farm?! "But-- this is home!"
Lex waited. But what was he waiting for, he--
Then Clark got it.
And felt more than a little ill.
Not the meteor rock kind. Worse. Much much worse.
And he really didn't want to keep thinking about it, so he went for the distraction. "It's not safe for anyone here. Why do you still live here?" he asked.
"You asked me to stay," Lex reminded him.
Clark swallowed and looked away. He hadn't meant it that way, back then. Not if it'd mean Lex getting hurt. He'd never thought...
"I'm not sorry I did, Clark."
That just made it hurt even worse.
And why didn't everybody move away, anyway?
Lex sighed an actual sigh and glanced at the clock in the town square. "It's getting late, I should probably get you home," he said ruefully.
Trust Lex to remember his curfew. And normally he'd take him up on it and then ask him to stay like always, but...
Clark winced as he remembered the sheet he had to pick up. If Lex came home with him, he'd be expected to entertain, and how would he explain not taking the sheet off to his parents?
Lex noticed his recalcitrance and slid his hands into his pockets and asked, "Is there a problem?"
"Kind of."
Lex waited.
See, now, that wasn't fair, using silence like that. Usually Lex asked stuff straight up. That was a lot easier to deal with. Except... more lying.
Finally, he gave it up. "My parents don't know I dressed up like this before heading out."
Lex's eyebrows raised a good inch. "You snuck out of the house?"
"Sort of? I told them I was a ghost, and stowed the bedsheet once I was out," he admitted.
"How very teenage-rebellion of you," Lex approved with a slight smile.
Clark rolled his eyes, but actually felt kind of warm inside.
Which he really shouldn't, he knew, because breaking the rules should not feel like a good thing.
Too bad Lex usually made him want things he didn't have, then, and didn't even know he wanted until he did.
He was pretty sure that that was his dad's definition of a "bad influence".
...Of course, he was pretty sure that Lex's dad's definition of a bad influence was him, so it all evened out, he thought with a smile.
"Come on, then," Lex said, gesturing before turning and starting the other way up the street.
"What? Where are we going?" Clark said, jogging slightly to catch up.
"Back to the mansion. You can shower and change there. I think there's a spare set of clothes from the last time you used the pool," he added.
Yeah, that had not been fun. After that meteor freak attack had been resolved, his dad had shown up all up in arms over everything -- like there was really any totally safe swimming hole in Smallville -- and made him leave in his swim trunks right away. That had been embarrassing times a zillion.
He was gonna have to sneak-speed out to grab the turpentine from home, but that could actually work out. And, bonus -- more time with Lex! Except...
"Uh, but curfew is soon, Lex," Clark sighed.
But Lex had a smile like a man with a plan. "Did they know you were heading for the party?"
"Yeah?"
"And how long you'd stay?"
"No?"
"So I could've run into you and we could have been at the mansion for quite some time now."
"...Ok?" Clark didn't yet see where he was going with this.
"It may be a school night, but no-one would want to be out around town this late when adults might have been drinking--"
"Uh, actually, I don't have school tomorrow," Clark cut in. "They kind of decided to have an staff administration day this Friday."
"A three-day weekend for the teachers to nurse their hangovers?" Lex smiled.
Clark stifled a laugh as a cough. "Uh, not all of them? Pretty sure my English teacher is a teetotaler."
"Well, even easier then. Clearly" he drawled, "you have been at the mansion for some time," and Lex gave him a small grin here, "and we must not have been paying much attention to the clock's inevitable progression," he ended with a smirk.
"Oh no," Clark said, grinning as he played along. "What will we do?"
"Well, I think the responsible thing to do would be to call your parents and explain to them what happened," Lex continued, in his 'gotta act like an adult authority here' voice, "then apologize and negotiate out how the best thing to do would be for you to stay the night."
They made it to Lex's car, and Clark popped open the door and got in the passenger's seat while Lex slid into the driver's side over the door.
"Really?" Clark asked, hopeful.
"Really," Lex confirmed.
And Lex had work tomorrow and everything. This... was actually kind of a big deal.
A small voice nagged at him as Lex started the car, pointing out that maybe it wasn't such a good idea for him to be spending a bunch of time alone with Lex right after accidentally letting it out what the meteor rock could do to him. Both kinds.
He squashed that voice and squashed it hard. Lex was his friend and he worried about him. Maybe more than his parents did. His adoptive parents.
Clark took a deep breath in then out and put on his seatbelt.
"Um, Lex?" he asked as his friend moved out into the road and started the short drive to the mansion -- well, short when Lex was driving, anyway.
"Hmm?"
"You... didn't seem really surprised that I'd dressed up all crazy and kind of... dumb-looking like this."
There, he'd said it out loud.
Now he could shift uncomfortably in his seat for awhile.
"Clark, you don't look crazy or dumb," Lex chided.
Or not.
"I don't?" he asked dubiously.
"Clark, it's clear that you spent a great deal of time on your costume, and it's much better than many I've seen professionally done." And he sounded like he meant it, very matter-of-fact.
"But--?" Lex glanced over at him curiously and he tried to find the words for what he was feeling. "I guess it's... kind of weird that you're talking to me like..." Like he always did, even though he looked so... not himself right now.
Lex gave him short considering glances as he split his attention between the road and his passenger. Then he seemed to understand what he was trying to say. "You expected me to treat you differently based on how you look?"
"...Well, yeah?" Clark bit his lip absently. "Um, guess it sounds stupid when you put it like that," he said, feeling like a heel.
They were quiet for awhile, then:
"Dancing!" Clark burst out.
Lex glanced over, looking worried for a moment. "What?"
"You danced with me!"
Lex blinked several times. "Ah, well, yes," he said, and that was practically incoherent and speechless for Lex.
"Why did you dance with me?" he asked, because, well, that made no sense at all. They were both guys.
"Why did you dance with me?" Lex queried back.
Ok, that was annoying. Maybe he shouldn't do that to people so much.
"Well, because I was--" drugged, he started to say, but then stopped, because his mom had said last time that he wasn't a completely different person on the stuff. That he did things he wanted to do, and that those feelings had to come from somewhere.
So he crossed his arms and thought about it for awhile, then said, definitively, "I did it because I wanted to."
Wow. It was a good thing that they were at the mansion already and they'd both been wearing their seatbelts. Lex had slammed on the brakes really hard.
And was now staring at him intently, just as hard. "You wanted to dance with me?"
"...Yes."
Lex started laughing hysterically. He clutched at the steering wheel and nearly hit his forehead against it and laughed and laughed and... was he ever going to stop?
Ok, not doing wonders for his ego, right now.
He sat there and felt totally awful while Lex laughed until he cried and he finally couldn't take it anymore. He undid the seatbelt and grimly reached for the car door handle to get out of the car.
"Nn-- wai--t," Lex managed to get out, a hand on his shoulder. "i-- I. It. Mmph." he took a breath and was having trouble still. "Need a. Mmin--." He let out another laugh and was wiping tears away.
That was when Clark realized that he wasn't exactly looking happy.
He waited.
Lex finally calmed down and, well, didn't really look so good. "You... you wanted to dance with me?"
"Yes." Was that really bad?
"...Why did you want to?" Lex asked him quietly.
Clark felt a little squeamish all of a sudden, because that had sounded so plaintive and...
"I... I don't know. I just wanted to!" He felt worried. Maybe Pete was right about him and humans after all. He knew guys didn't dance with guys, but girls sometimes danced with girls and that was ok. He couldn't think why not, though, and nobody had ever told him why.
"I'm sorry, I just... I was drugged, right? When I'm on... that stuff... I just don't care. About anything. Ok?" He really didn't like talking about this, and squirmed in his seat again. "I just-- it stops mattering what anybody else thinks. I just do what I want, whenever I want. Which is bad." He probably shouldn't have to add the last bit there, but it was Lex. Sometimes it was good to be sure.
"So, you don't know?"
"No. I'm sorry. I... Look, I can just go--" Clark started.
"What? No, no, I," Lex waved at him, then must've realized how freaky his laughing like that had been and: "Clark, I wasn't laughing at you, I-- God. I was..." He grimaced and started to ghost his hand over his head, but knocked into his cowboy hat, and for a moment got a look like his wardrobe was out to get him. He sighed and readjusted it absently. "People do not want to dance with me, Clark."
Clark was flabbergasted. "Why not? You're a great dancer!"
For a moment Lex looked like he was going to lose it again, but he looked away and seemed to process that differently. "Thank you, Clark," he said. "You're a very good dancer, too."
"Uh, really not so much," Clark said, rolling his eyes.
"Clark, if anyone's told you otherwise, they were lying," Lex said intensely, slowly getting out of the car.
"No, that's-- I don't dance like that. Usually. Ever. Tonight was different."
"If you can dance like that once, you can do it again," Lex said.
"No, see, that was me, but not me," Clark tried to explain, getting out himself and slamming the car door. "I'm not like that, really. I worry too much about getting it right. I really can't. Not unless I'm..."
"...unrestrained?" Lex helpfully supplied.
"Well, yeah. And it would be a bad thing for me to dose on the red stuff just so I could, you know. A really bad idea."
"You couldn't just not care what other people think? Not even if you were dancing with no-one else around who would care about it?" Lex asked, sounding confused. Well, duh, Clark -- of course Lex would have a problem with that concept, he's the king of being able to tell people who think horrible things about somebody to go to hell. Not exactly a problem he should expect his friend to be able to understand. Knowing that, he got frustrated and tried a different tack.
"It's-- argh, look I can't dance with you anymore, ok? I know I'm not supposed to." He got a weird look from Lex. "Dance with guys. Guys don't dance together." Should he really have to be telling this to Lex? Lex knew practically everything about everything!
"Yes, they do," Lex said.
Clark blinked, then shook his head. "No, they don't. They--"
"Yes, they do," Lex insisted. "Sometimes, they do."
"Not here they don't!" Clark protested.
"Well, yes, that's generally true," Lex said. "But they do elsewhere."
"Where?"
"It depends on the time and circumstance."
Well, that was really helpful -- not. "I wish people would tell me these things," Clark griped, stomping up to the front door with Lex. Maybe they could have a talk about it sometime. Space cowboy to space cowboy.
Lex just smiled.
~*~*~*~*~*~