Fic: Must Be Dreaming, Part Two
Title: Must Be Dreaming
Series/WIP: Sequel to So Much Dreaming
Pairing: Clex!
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After being abducted by aliens and discovering that Jonathan Kent is alive, Lex must come to grips with his shifting relationship with Clark and an unexpected pregnancy.
Spoilers: Through S5, after Cyborg.
Warnings: MPREG!!
Part One
Part Two:
Jonathan Kent had always been an early riser. Post-abduction did not change that. It became clear to him before the sun had risen, however, that everything else had changed. Martha was up early as well, talking on her cell phone, discussing meetings, and arguing with her publicist. At one point, he was certain she was taking a call from Lionel Luthor, and she pitched her voice low as she spoke to him. Jonathan remembered what Lex had said regarding the two of them.
Martha noticed him coming in from his chores, covered the phone, and said, “Oh, sorry, honey. I’ll go start breakfast for you.”
She clipped quickly into the kitchen, in her business suit and heels, talking on the cell all the way.
Clark made his way down later that morning, looked into the kitchen, and headed out to the barn. When he saw his father, he commented, “I saw mom was making breakfast, so I decided to come out here and get a start on the chores. Hey, you’d don’t have to do that dad. I got it. Why don’t you go hang out with Ma?”
Lana called during breakfast, and Martha screened the call after raising her brows in question to Clark, who lowered his head to his plate and shook it vigorously.
Without sitting still more than ten minutes, Martha hopped up, grabbed some toast, and kissed Jonathan on the cheek, telling him she loved him and telling Clark she’d be home late. Jonathan stood, a bit stunned, and walked to the window. He noticed the limousine pulled up outside.
Before he could think what he would say, Jonathan found himself outside on the porch giving Lionel Luthor a big hello. He’d hoped for a heart attack from Luthor, but seeing the man flail backward in utter shock was a close second.
“I-I uh… can’t express to you what a pleasant surprise this is. I saw you buried.”
“Well, I got better,” he replied easily. Shrugging, Jonathan descended down the steps. “We’re gonna have to get a reporter to announce the story. Explain why I’m back, and why I won’t be taking the senate position back from my wife.”
“Jonathan…” Martha started, looking back to him.
“You go on. I’ll be here when you get back then we can talk about a few things. Don’t worry. I know you have a busy day ahead of you.”
They hugged and kissed in front of Lionel, and Martha headed back toward the limo with a smile on her face and a lighter step. Jonathan went back inside and sat down by his son.
“You’re going to have to fill me in, son. I’ve apparently missed a lot since I’ve been
gone.”
Not too much later, Lex dropped by looking a bit pale, though better than yesterday, and carrying a large stack of papers.
“Would you like some breakfast, Lex?” Jonathan offered, motioning for the young man to enter.
“No, I have to get back so I can ‘copter into Metropolis for a business meeting.” He set the pile of papers in front of Clark, who observed the tower and raised his brows questioningly.
“And uh… that is…?”
“Approximately an eighth of the reports I receive daily from projects regarding scientific studies.” Lex nodded as Clark reached over to look at one. Lex looked away casually with his hands in his pockets.
“They’re all the same. I mean… well, there are some differences I guess. Why do you use these, to keep up with productivity?” Clark asked.
“That, and to make sure they’re doing the research that they’ve been given money to do.” He creased his brow and watched Clark’s face.
“How can you possibly tell that from these?” Clark scrunched up his nose looking at report after report.
“I don’t. I have someone who does that for me, Anshul, and when he looks through all of them, he flags all the ones he thinks might need a specific inspection.”
“Then you go in and…”
“No, then my secretary Michelle goes through those and gets more information about the project and determines which ones need an extra personal visit.” Lex flared his nostrils, wet his lips, and touched his hand go his stomach, appearing a bit queasy. Jonathan figured it might be the smell of bacon grease that was bugging him, since he looked over to the stove with some irritation before continuing. “I try to visit each of the facilities regularly, but as you can see, there are quite a few, and often they get tipped off as to when I’m coming. Hopefully, I can get in a few surprise visits, but often I inevitably miss something that’s going on. I have employees who regularly report to me in labs we have deemed suspicious, but again, it’s a matter of luck and timing. I can’t catch them all.”
Clark’s eyes bulged. “You visit all of these places? And this is an eighth? When do you sleep?”
Lex shrugged. “In the jet. In the limo.”
“You aren’t serious,” Clark accused, his brows going askew.
“Whatever helps. Look, you said we should talk; I thought this might facilitate that. I don’t have much time right now, but we can definitely talk later this evening.”
Clark stared at the papers in amazement.
“Later?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“I’m not trying to impress you. I’m trying to make you understand the meaning of ‘LuthorCorp is a multinational company.’ It means that I have a lot of people to keep an eye on. A lot of people.”
“Yeah.”
Lex placed a hand on Clark’s shoulder and then wished Jonathan well and headed back out to his car.
Jonathan sat back down next to his son, who continued to read through the papers.
“Not a job I would want,” he commented. Clark glowered at the pile.
“The person who reads through all of these or the person who has to check up on thousands of employees to make sure they’re being decent people?”
“Either way. I like my cows.”
Clark turned to him with a smile and wrapped his strong arms around his father. “I missed you so much.”
“I know.”
“So what do you want to know?” Clark asked, picking up another piece of bacon.
***
“Are we boring you, Lex?”
Lionel’s voice cut into the cacophony of discussion in the boardroom and demanded immediate silence. Lex got the impression that his colleagues were intrigued and a little afraid of how Lex was going to react to his father’s intrusion.
“Well, Lionel,” Lex replied with an edge. “I have a personal project that is demanding my immediate attention, and I trust that all of my employees are quite capable of governing themselves while I’m indisposed. Or do I need to stay and play daddy while other matters go neglected?”
Mercy snorted loudly and indecorously. She sat sprawled in the plush office chair closest to Lex’s, looking like a dyke gang member someone had pulled off the street and shoved into a tailored men’s business suit. Lionel sat back in his chair with an unamused “hm.” Lex turned and faked answering his cell phone. This was the third time he’d had to leave the meeting. He was going to have to come up with a better means of covering. Barring that, put himself into seclusion somehow.
Right now, he desperately needed to piss. Again.
As he made a beeline for the nearest restroom, a woman who had been waiting outside of the conference room stood and stepped in front of him to catch his attention. Her face was squarish but elegant and framed with long, dark brown hair. She tilted her chin up to him importantly as she opened her mouth to speak in a low but clear voice, “Mr. Lex Luthor, I have to speak with you-“
“Make an appointment with my secretary,” he said shortly, brushing her away. His eyes followed her but a moment, just long enough to notice the slight but distinctly rounded tummy underneath her apricot colored spring dress as she stumbled backward.
Fuck fuck fuck.
He finished as quickly as he could and rushed back out into the hallways to find the pretty pregnant woman gone and his father waiting.
“I thought only women accompanied one another to the bathroom?” Lex remarked sarcastically.
“You’re taking drugs,” Lionel accused flatly.
“I assure you, I’m cleaner than I have ever been,” Lex replied with a roll of the eyes. Lionel put his hands in his pockets.
“You look horrible. You look strung out.”
“I do not.”
The older man took him by the arm back into the restroom, where he led Lex to a mirror. “You. Look. Horrible.”
Lex frowned at his own reflection. For all of the confidence he exuded, Lex rarely looked in the mirror. He had to admit, he didn’t blame his father for thinking he was using. He shrugged lightly. “Must be cancer.”
“Don’t even joke about that. Are you sick?”
“I’m not… no. I’m not, dad. Look.” Lex turned away from the drawn and pale version of himself. “You seem to be under the delusion that I work for you.”
“Lex-“
“I don’t. It is the other way around.”
“I’m still your father. I’m worried,” Lionel protested in an imperious tone.
“I’m sure,” Lex snipped curtly. “I don’t buy it. You’re curious, and you’re looking for an opening to take back this company, and there’s the end to it, isn’t it? I have something that I’m not letting you in on, and you want to know so that you can use it against me. Allow me assure you-- Firstly, I am not on drugs. Secondly, this is none of your fucking business. So if you could kindly see your way into ceasing your pretensions of good fatherhood, I think we might be able to continue business more efficiently.”
Lex hadn’t realized that he was yelling until the words were already out of his mouth. Or that he was now less than an inch away from his father’s face. Perfect.
Lionel only replied with a very quiet, “I understand,” then left the room without challenging Lex further. Lex felt a wave of nausea at the thought of his father so keenly interested in his ‘personal project.’
***
Lex practically collapsed into the sofa by his fireplace and tried to think of some way besides alcohol to put the day out of his mind. He hadn’t asked for this. He wasn’t ready. And god, the room was spinning now. He closed his eyes for a moment to make it stop.
When he opened them, Clark was shaking him and leaning in too close for him not to take a sniff of his scent. Oh… the only smell in the world that didn’t make him want to puke. But the shaking had to go.
“Relax, Clark. I obviously just fell asleep.” He rubbed his temple and made a move away from Clark before he started to hump his leg.
“You didn’t wake up for a minute. It scared me.” Clark sat next to him just as Lex jumped up. “Um…”
“I’ll be right back. Bathroom.”
Sadly, it was true, and he wobbled on his feet a bit as he left the office, causing Clark to stand up and look as though he were about to carry him there.
When he returned, Clark was sitting there looking anxious and awkward. “Sorry for my retreat. To what do I owe this pleasure? Or is this our ‘talk?’”
Clark motioned to two piles of papers on the coffee table. “I sorted them for you.”
“What?” Lex moved closer to inspect the papers. They were the reports he had given Clark that morning. “You read them all?”
“Yeah. Twice. Those are the ones I pegged. Or… well. Then Chloe read through them all and made her own pile. These,” Clark picked up a few flagged with colored paper. “Chloe hacked into their computers and found them doing some questionable stuff.”
Clark paused at the intense look on Lex’s face. “Chloe won’t go to the police. She never does, if I ask her to keep it quiet. I just thought you should know about these.”
Lex sat across the table from him and picked up the flagged papers. “What did you find?”
“A few not so good things. I think they started off as um… well, Chloe said that the patients had signed release forms, but on the later ones, there are no new forms, or they look copied… and she found some files that looked like they’d been hidden and didn’t have your sign off on them.”
“Really.” He looked up intrigued. “I’m paying my internal affairs people too much. She can get this that quickly? You think she’s been affected by the meteor rocks?“
”No, she just spent most of her childhood in front of a computer instead of with people.” Clark grinned.
Lex laughed. “It would be refreshing for her to get a significant other.”
“Yeah, I hear you.” Clark’s voice betrayed a little wistfulness. Lex continued to review the files. He marveled at what Chloe had found, convinced that she was some kind of technopath and Clark was simply oblivious, as per usual.
“Thank you. I can’t really tell you how much stress you’ve saved me by doing this.”
Clark spread his hands. “I tried. I sucked. I dunno, Lex. I mean if that’s your reason… you… I dunno. I don’t think I approve of all your experiments.”
“Care to parse that a bit for me?”
He shook his head and looked away. “You say that, when I accuse you of stuff, that it’s because there are a bunch of labs and you can’t keep track of them all. So, yeah, I get that now, and I can see where it would be impossible to keep track of that on your own. Maybe you should hire some other people to help you sort it out. But… you’re experimenting on people, and you’re making weapons!”
“How do think medical breakthroughs happen? We use animals first, and then people agree to have experimental treatments. It’s the scientific process. We aren’t trying to hurt them. The hope is that the treatments will work, or that we’ll learn enough to go back a second time and get it right. Science is all trial and error, Clark.”
Clark looked like he was thinking about that for a moment. He waffled a moment trying to decide if he should ask his next question. “Who’s Mutant L?”
“Why?” Lex returned guardedly. Clark sighed. Lex felt a stabbing pain in his head and stood to get some water.
“You’re using his blood a lot.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Lex opened a bottle of TyNant and tried to pretend it was scotch. “The properties of his body are especially useful, and we hope they will continue to be in the future. There have been several vaccines created from studies done on his blood already.”
“Is it from the mutant your dad was experimenting on three years ago?”
“Huh?” Lex turned. “You’re going to have to narrow that down. My father had a lot of projects, most of them against the patient’s will.”
“The one that made Adam… rise from the dead, or whatever the hell that was.”
Lex’s mouth twitched. “I haven’t even though of those samples for a long time. No, he’s not the same mutant.”
“Then why don’t you have his permission to experiment on him?”
Lex felt his heart begin to quicken. He suddenly felt lightheaded. He held onto the bar firmly. “Because he wishes to remain anonymous. His blood samples are given to researchers, and they have no contact with him. He’d like to help save lives, but he has a real problem with being labeled as a freak.”
He closed his eyes and tried to breathe more deeply. “You don’t believe me. You think that I’ve got him chained somewhere and that I’m stealing his blood like some kind of hairless vampire.”
“I don’t know.” Clark stood and came over to him. “Lex, look me in the eye.”
He did so and blinked wearily.
“You aren’t doing this against his will.”
“I assure you, that would be impossible for me.”
Clark gave him a watery smile, and Lex found himself wrapped in a hug. “Okay. So. I get the medical stuff. Kind of.”
“I’ll explain anything you’d like. All you have to do is ask. And by you, I mean you and not some overeager eco-terrorist kid you just met at college.”
“The weapons.”
Lex took another sip of water and sighed. “Unless you hadn’t noticed, we’re at war.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to create weapons.”
Lex restrained the urge to throttle him. “And there are… well, potentially hostile aliens. We need to be able to defend ourselves from them. That is-” Lex wobbled his head from side to side. “-without completely irradiating ourselves. I’ll be honest. It scares me to think we could destroy ourselves with our own weapons, but at the moment we don’t have a lot of choices.”
“I uh…” Clark walked a little ways away from him.
“I can try to get us out of some of the military work,” Lex found himself saying before he knew it. He paused and looked into Clark’s eyes. He hadn’t realized how much he really wanted to be out from the military’s thumb until now. “Some. I’m not always happy with those projects. But you know, when the government tells you to do something…”
“What can they do to you?”
“Fuck. Shut us down? Deport us? Call us terrorists? Detain us without trial indefinitely? This is the country we live in.” Lex stalked away from the bar.
“Will you try?”
“I think I want to. At least for the ones… that don’t seem as though they’re strictly for our protection. Sometimes…” Lex sucked in his cheeks a little. “Sometimes I get the impression the projects they field to us are more for controlling the population than protecting them… but some of them are designed to protect us from a potential alien invasion, and those… those I have to keep going, Clark.”
The two of them stared at one another in silence for quite a long time, until Lex put a hand to his head and made for the couch once again.
“I think it’s your bedtime,” Clark said gently.
“No, I… I should look over-“ Lex waved to his desk vaguely. “-that stuff before I sleep.”
“Come on. I’ve never seen your bedroom.”
“I haven’t needed a mother for some time, Clark. And if I did, I wouldn’t want that mother to be you. You’d look pretty odd in high heels and pearls.” Lex leaned back on the sofa. “What else did you want to talk to me about?”
“Nothing right now.” Clark sat next to him once again. Lex shivered as Clark put his hands onto his shoulders and began to massage them. “I’ll try harder to ask you what’s going on instead of just assuming you’re doing something wrong.”
“I’ll… attempt to be less evasive regarding business when you ask.” Lex closed his eyes and felt Clark’s breathing on the back of his neck. Clark was definitely smelling him. It felt good to be close.
“Good.”
“Clark?”
“Mmm.”
“What are you doing?”
“I uh…” Clark stood up suddenly. “Leaving. I was… you looked stressed. And I’m leaving now.”
Lex smiled wearily at him.
“Get some sleep, Lex. You really look exhausted.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.” Lex reached up and clasped his hand. “I’m glad we’re trying to make this work.”
“Me too.” Clark rocked on his heels boyishly before leaving. Lex looked over the materials in front of him. He wondered how hard it would be to get Chloe to stop hating him long enough to employ her.
Then he wondered whatever happened to those samples from the Adam case.
***
The third day after the abduction, Clark woke up to find his father in the kitchen making breakfast as his mother chatted on the cell phone with her publicist about who to set an interview with regarding Jonathan Kent’s return. He went out to do some chores before heading back into the kitchen, where his parents were doing a dance in front of the stove.
Clark sat down quietly, not wanting to disturb them. It was awfully cute how they did crazy things like impromptu dances, just because they loved one another.
“So, you are reapplying for next semester, aren’t you Clark?” Jonathan asked. Clark wrinkled his nose.
“I guess so.”
“What’s the hold up?” His father set a plate of pancakes down on the table.
“I guess I expected more out of college…” Clark concentrated on his pancakes.
Martha smiled supportively and gave Jonathan an knowing look. “You don’t like A&M.”
“Not much. But… I guess I can get my core classes out of the way? Then maybe I could get into MetU.”
“We could always get a student loan,” Jonathan suggested. Clark shrugged.
“I want to make sure that I’ll finish before I start borrowing money.”
“Well, just tell us what you want to do, hon.” Martha stood, kissed them both on the head and left the house, this time to her own car. “Oh, hi, Lana. Clark’s inside.”
Jonathan watched Clark visibly wince. “Going that well, hmm?”
Clark plastered on a fake smile as Lana stormed through the door. “Clark! …Mr. Kent?”
”Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” he told her with a dry smile. “Actually we’re putting out a press statement sometime today.”
Lana seated herself, breathless and wide-eyed next to Clark, who moved slightly away.
And so the spinning began.
***
Lex was quite irritable the next morning. On the way to work in the helicopter, he was sure he’d lost a few organs or at the very least his stomach lining. He’d been effectively regulated to the floor, trying to keep his dry heaving under control, and he’d nearly pissed his pants trying to wait in between Smallville and Metropolis. When he’d finally reached LuthorCorp tower, he could barely keep his eyes open. Dr. Tanaka had warned him to watch the caffeine, but when will alone didn’t keep him awake, Lex begged some tea off of his secretary, who seemed more sympathetic than he’d ever seen her. She kept poking her head in to check on him. By mid morning, he’d snapped at three people already for coming in late, not getting their files ready quickly enough, and… looking at him oddly.
If this kept up, Clark might have some real fuel for his accusations of him being evil.
He leaned back in his office chair and took several deep breaths. He could make it through this day. He could make it to his doctor’s appointment without maiming or killing anyone.
“Lex?” A throaty, self-important voice entered his ears.
“Hello, Lana,” he replied calmly, opening his eyes slightly. She seated herself in front of his desk and began talking without any other pleasantries. He drifted a bit, listening to her. Apparently Clark had rebuffed her advances and was lying to her about something. The story never changed. “I’m sure he doesn’t mean to hurt you. Sometimes these matters are just personal. You aren’t really part of the Kent family. Trust me when I tell you that they aren’t an easy group to break into.”
Lana looked a little confused. So often, Lex would simply repeat what he knew she wanted to hear. This was new. “But he should trust me, Lex. If we’re going to be together, we shouldn’t have any secrets.”
“Then maybe you and Clark really don’t belong together.”
“It isn’t that simple,” she said hotly.
“Look, you’ve been coming to me for three years about Clark’s lies. Either you get used to them and try to live with knowing that there is always going to be a side that he’s not going to share with you, or leave him. If you stay with him and continue to complain, you’re just going to make the both of you miserable.” Lex watched in a perverse pleasure as her face soured. “Really, is this something you want to pick a fight over? Jonathan’s back and healthy. It’s something to be thankful of.”
“It’s not like I’m not happy for Clark,” she replied defensively. Lana stood and walked away from him. “I thought that after all the times Clark has shut you out, you’d understand.”
“We’re trying to make amends.”
She spun around with an accusatory glare. “And you’re still trying to break us up?”
“I’m trying to give you good advice. It’s a pity you never take it.” Lex considered literally biting his tongue for a moment. That bitchy little comment had just shot right out of his mouth.
“Good advice that leaves me available for you,” she shot back.
Lex rolled his eyes. “Spare me your affection, Lana. I’ve seen what it does to a man. Have you ever had a boyfriend that didn’t end up dead?”
“You know, for a while, I was really upset that you suddenly weren’t around for me to talk to,” Lana said, as though removing her interest in him were a threat.
“I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you that I might do something because I had to, not simply to inconvenience you?” Lex’s rational side told him to stop, but part of him couldn’t. Didn’t want to in any way.
“WHAT?”
“I apologize. You were clearly worried sick about me,” he drawled.
“This isn’t about you!”
Lex rolled his eyes again and stood, quickly walking to her and placing hands on her shoulders.
“What are you doing? Don’t touch me!”
He continued to move her toward the door. “You have been bitching at me for years, years, about this relationship that is not working. Whenever you’re not with Clark, you act as though you want to be with him, and whenever you’re with someone else, you’re looking around at other guys who might be better or more wonderful or more honest, but Lana, honey, sometimes there’s only so much a man can give. Stop torturing yourself and declare celibacy because they’re no way you’re ever going to find a human male to your standards.”
“Excuse me?”
“Make up your fucking mind before you hurt him again, okay?”
Lex deftly shoved her outside of his office doors. His secretary Michelle looked up curiously. “Have someone escort Miss Lang out. She’ll need an appointment to see me in this office from now on.”
He didn’t let himself look too long on the expression of outrage on Lana’s face as he shut his office doors to her. Though it was a deliciously injured and self-important look.
“I’m going to pay for that,” he sighed. He walked slowly back to his desk, with the intent of paging Michelle for the rest of his day’s schedule. The next thing he knew, Mercy was hovering over him with an incredulous expression on her face.
“What… um…”
“You fainted. You have to get up before Daddy Lucifer gets here.”
“I didn’t faint,” he grumbled.
“Yeah, Boss. You decided to take a nap in the middle of your office floor.” She hefted his arm over her shoulder and proceeded to carry him to his desk. Lex shivered as she slid him back into his chair. “You need a sweater or something? You’re really cold.”
“I’ll manage until my father leaves.” He flexed his hands, wondering how a human body could get that cold that quickly. “After that… maybe a sweater would be good.”
Lex found himself on his lunch break wandering around a bookstore in hopes of finding something that would help him proficiently combat the symptoms of his condition. As good as it felt to cut loose on some people, he couldn’t keep doing it. He was feeling effectively lost. Certainly, he could have ordered a book online or just Googled it, but chances were, if his father didn’t already have his computer being watched, Miss Superhaxx0rz Sullivan would be willing to track where he had been searching for his father. Not for the first time, Lex wondered if the meta-human thing weren’t hereditary. There was something unnatural about getting a girl you had once tried to kill to work for you.
“Well. I think either you have more problems than I thought-“
Lex turned from the shelf he was crouched over to see the woman he’d brushed off earlier that week.
“-or you get hot from pregnant women. Either way, I’m guessing you don’t exactly want to be caught here.”
He set his eyes on her intensely. Instead of being intimidated, the woman laughed and slowly maneuvered herself onto the floor. Her almond-shaped eyes narrowed merrily, and her wide mouth quirked into a wicked smile.
“I’m playing with you. Nobody needs to know your business. Although, you’ll probably get better pictures of preggos on the internet.” She took the book from his hands, picked up another, and handed it to him. “I did call your secretary, by the way. Remember, you said I should make an appointment? Before I came even. The first day I could meet with you in person was about a year from now. I thought I would have to try something else.”
“I see.” Lex realized he was staring at her bump. “I’m terribly sorry.”
“Like you’re the only perv that stares at my gut all day? You’re not. At least you know to keep your hands to yourself.” Her voice was naturally a bit low, and Lex could detect a trace of a Hispanic accent.
“That must be a trial.”
She shrugged. “I imagine it gets expensive for them, having to go to the doctor when I break their wrists.”
Lex found himself smiling a bit. “I apologize for my rudeness earlier as well.”
“It didn’t seem personal.”
“May I ask your name?”
She offered her left hand. “Elena Luciano. Or Lena, if we get friendly. I’ll let you know.”
“Lex Luthor.” Now he was smiling in full. How good did that feel? “If you’d like I have… hmm. Thirty-two minutes of my lunch hour. We could discuss whatever you came to speak with me about?”
“Are you sure? You seem pretty stressed out.”
Lex blinked.
”I mean I don’t want to add to it. Are you sure?” She shook her head. “I’ve bewildered you. Okay, sure. Let’s chat. There’s a café over there where we could sit down.”
Lex set down the book and offered her a hand.
“I’m not so bad off yet. I can get up. Wait until I completely lose control of the muscles down there.”
He headed in the direction of the café. “So… I should be able to figure this out. They don’t stop working. They can’t?”
She grinned up at him with a crooked smile. “No, actually, they just… stretch out.”
“Oh. That’s makes sense.”
“I’ve heard rumors that you aim to know everything. Details about human pregnancy… didn’t really think it was up there on the list.”
“Not normally, no. Lately…” He shrugged. Elena took a seat and looked over him critically with her honey brown eyes. Lex suddenly felt self-conscious as he sat across from her. He smoothed the fabric over his stomach and berated himself for assuming she could possibly know.
“So. Yeah, why I came.”
“What? Oh, yes.”
“See, I own this business in Suicide Slums. I know it’s not the safest property ever, but I grew up there and unlike some, I got my degree so I could bring some money to the community that wasn’t coming in through drug dealers, you know?”
Lex nodded. “And we’re apparently taking over?”
She threw up her hands. “Now, see, I knew this wasn’t the best idea. You don’t even know what I’m talking about. I’m really sorry for barging into your personal space, but yeah. A year from now is when I could see you, and LuthorCorp is taking over in six months if I don’t do something.”
“I don’t mean to be cold, but that’s business.”
“Yeah, I get that. I do, believe me. But the thing is, it’s not like I’m behind on my rent or I don’t have my shop making money. We are making serious money, and we’re helping and giving back to the community. These rich college brats come to my place over the snotty little shops in better parts of the city. We’re fucking edgy, and they love it. But your company is buying the building, so my business and all the little businesses there that are trying to improve the neighborhood are going to get shut down for a McWhateva they put in there.”
Lex rubbed his finger over his mouth.
”And that’s bad for business for you. It’s bad PR to be tearing down small community businesses to put in chains. I think you know that. I’m not threatening you at all, but you know, I’m totally going to catch the ear of any reporter I can. I’m just telling you. You’ve really been tons better on PR than Lionel was back when I don’t know, I guess he thought he could do whatever he wanted and just shove the shmoozing on you because you were young and cute.”
Lex pressed his lips together thinking it over. A waitress came over to them. Elena ordered a muffin and some water. Lex absentmindedly ordered his latte.
“Are you going to eat lunch on your lunch break?” She demanded suddenly then covered her mouth. “Sorry. It’s none of my business. But are you?”
“I’m not particularly hungry.”
“Yeah, I got that from you earlier.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“The I-don’t-feel-great vibe. A little before and more so now,” she said seriously.
“Um...”
”I’m nosey, I know. Feel free to have caffeine for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” she said with a wave of the hand.
“Caffeine…” Lex pinched his mouth together, remembering that he needed to be cutting back on that.
“Not supposed to have caffeine?”
His brows rose questioningly at her.
“One cup couldn’t possibly hurt,” she said with a smile.
Lex sighed and looked her over. He pulled out his electronic planner. “I’m going to need a business plan. Let me know what’s going on down there: your numbers, future plans, and any advertising.”
“We go strictly on word of mouth.”
Lex nodded. “Fair enough, but you might need a little more. I’ll have my secretary find the file. Will it have your name on it or…?”
“Actually, probably Reggie Griggs. He’s the old guy who owns the building now. I’m not even asking you not to buy the building because I know retirement would be nice for him. I just think everyone could benefit if you decided to work with the neighborhood instead of tearing it down.”
“I’ll see what I can do… Are you busy this time next week… no. Two weeks from now… Friday?”
“Uh… not really... Oh… uh, well I can reschedule. I can’t thank you enough. I mean, for meeting me at all. For giving me a chance.”
“It’s good to keep touch with the little people now and then.” He smirked.
She tilted her head back and scoffed, “Yeah, cause I’m anything resembling little right now.”
The waitress stopped back by, and Lex gave her a winning smile. The girl giggled and tripped over another customer on her way back to the counter.
“Here. Have part of my muffin.”
“No, thank you,” he replied firmly. She was already splitting it in half with her hands.
“Come on. It’s the size of my head. And I have a big head!”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I bet you are.”
“Well, you’re eating for two.”
She made a small laugh. “So are… hm. Let me mommy you. I need the practice.”
“I’m guessing you’re about my age. That would be a disturbing relationship.”
She pulled a napkin out of the dispenser and set half of the muffin in front of him. “I’m three years older than you. See, I do my homework before tackling the Luthors. I met with your father once, back in the day when he was in charge.”
“And I’m guessing that didn’t go well.”
“Well enough that you might have had a little brother or sister, if I hadn’t had my knife with me.”
Lex averted his eyes. “Oh. Oh. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t see why you should be. You didn’t do it.” She frowned and reached over to caress his hand. “My papa’s in prison. I know it hurts when your parents are disappointing, but I try to keep in mind that… they’re really only who they can be. I wish my papa had taken us into consideration when he did the things he did, but that isn’t who he is. It’s sad, but I still love him, and I try to forgive myself for loving a man who probably doesn’t have enough in him to give back that intensely.”
“Do you ever worry? That you’re…”
“Going to be as pitiful a parent?” She pinched a bit of her muffin off. “Yes. A lot, actually.”
“And how do you cope with that?”
“I bitch to handsome billionaires who have no real reason to care about my problems.” She grinned and got a bit of a smile in return. “Oh, and I quit drinking and smoking as soon as I found out. I don’t know if I’ll be more like my mama or papa, but I’d rather be more like Nana Nan, you know. She was much more supportive. We weren’t really related, but… I think anything I know from parenting would be from her.”
Lex nodded and forced down a sip of his latte.
Bad idea. Bad bad bad.
He bolted for the restroom, hoping that this time too, she would be gone when he came out. To his surprise, after heaving for a few minutes, she was in the stall with him, rubbing his back and running a cold, wet handkerchief over his head.
“It’s okay. It happens to most of us, and we all get through it. It’s okay,” she muttered over and over. When he had finished, she reached over and flushed the toilet. She stood then returned with the handkerchief freshly wet, and sat next to him, looking attentive and worried, but asking no questions. He placed a hand over his stomach and rested his head against the stall, letting her put the cool cloth over his head again. He eyed her anxiously. “Your business is nobody’s business, honey. Don’t worry.”
For some reason he felt as though he could trust her. That he should. He hoped that feeling wasn’t wrong.
***
Getting a call from Clark had been a high point in an otherwise increasingly horrible day; however, as he knocked on the screen door, the small cluster of people milling around in the living room set off his alarms. He didn’t know why Lois and Chloe would be there if Clark had called him over. He started to back away before Clark could see him.
“Lex!” Martha headed toward the door. “Come in.”
“It seems like I’m breaking up a party.”
“Of course not.”
He found himself being led inside. “Look, if this is some kind of intervention, I’m not up for it today. How about tomorrow?”
Chloe’s eyes lit up in amusement. “Not an intervention at all.”
“Lana told me that you had a screaming fit at her in your office today,” Lois told him, putting her hands on her hips as though Lex needed to ‘splain himself.
“I didn’t scream,” he protested. But I wasn’t nice?
“And I told Lois that she should mind her own business, but….” Chloe stopped and looked at Lex. “Lana told us you fought, but she didn’t tell us you were sick. You look horrible.”
“So everyone tells me,” he snapped. Immediately he rolled his eyes at himself and smoothed a hand over his head. Softly, he said, “I apologize.”
“Okay, that accounts for the screaming.” Chloe eyed him critically.
“I didn’t exactly scream at you.”
“You raised your voice. That’s enough to count as screaming for Lana.” She tilted her head. Martha had covered her mouth in laughter, and Chloe began to give him that investigative look. Lex wanted to cross his arms over his belly. “Are you okay?”
“Bad day.” He tried to look casual, putting his hands in his pockets. “Then Lana showed up to tell me that Clark is an evil liar, but I was busy, so I showed her the door.”
“That all?” Clark asked. Lex glared at him. Clark winced at the look.
“I may have told her that she’s incapable of being happy in a relationship. It’s so hard to keep track of my evil deeds.”
“Wow. If you’re evil, I’m evil. I’ve told her that about thirty times.” Chloe patted his arm.
“Have you had dinner?” Martha asked. “With all of us here, we might as well. I got home pretty late.”
“I had a late lunch,” he lied.
“Whatever. I’m sure you had like, a blueberry or something.” Lois grabbed his arm and pulled him further inside. Lex’s mood was becoming increasingly more foul. Would Clark be angry with him if he bit Lois? “Eat with us. It wouldn’t kill you to put on some weight.”
“I’d consider it, I suppose,” he muttered, being led to the sofa.
“I’ll get it, hon,” Jonathan said.
“You got breakfast.”
“Yeah, but you’re clearly tired.”
“So are you.”
“How bout we order pizza?” Lois suggested.
“How about Chloe and I put our cooking skills to work, while you guys relax?” Clark suggested. Chloe raised her brows in an ‘oh… I’m cooking?’ face and followed him into the kitchen after he gave Lex a squeeze on the shoulder and ensured he was in a seat.
What did that mean? He turned and watched Clark leave then asked skeptically, “Clark can cook?”
“I’ve been teaching him a few things. I figure if nothing else, he should be able to fend for himself.” Martha sat closely to her husband.
“I bet we get PB and J,” Lois said.
Clark peeked his head around the corner. “I can cook better than you can.”
“You’ll make someone a great wife!” she shouted back.
“Better wife than you would.”
Jonathan shook his head at the exchange, and Martha laughed. “So, Lex do you think you’ll be running again when midterm elections come around?”
“Hm? No, I have a personal project that will be coming to fruition at that time, which will really need my full concentration.”
“Oh?”
He nodded, refusing to give any more information. Martha tactfully redirected the conversation and began to ask Lois about her new plans in life. He excused himself to the bathroom and came back to find he had missed nothing. Lois was still pontificating about her eventual greatness.
Lex almost groaned when he realized he was being shaken awake yet again. Clark peered over his shoulders in concern. “Guess you needed sleep more than food. Sorry.”
“No, I’m fine.” Lex looked up at Clark and began to stand. He felt the larger man’s hands helping him up and wondered how soon that would become a necessity. “Sorry to drop off on you.”
“You weren’t contributing much to the conversation anyway,” Lois said bluntly.
Lex darted away for another trip to the bathroom and returned as quickly as he could. Unfortunately, his arrival brought the turning of everyone’s head. He smoothed the front of his shirt and gingerly took a seat at the dinner table as Clark drew back a chair for him. Lois whistled. Clark winked back at her and wiggled his eyebrows, to her immense amusement. Lex had never heard a woman snort-laugh like that before.
“That’s enough.” Jonathan shut them down firmly. He had just been pulling the chair out for Martha when Clark had done that. Chloe giggled.
“They’re just doing a bit of a ritual reversal to reinforce cultural values,” she explained with a big smile.
Lois pointed at her in mock judgment. “Okay. You are no longer allowed to speak for twelve hours after your sociology class.”
Chloe pouted in dismay. “Aww.”
“Sorry, dad.” Clark brought several bowls to the table.
Lex felt a pinch in his stomach smelling the spaghetti sauce. “You made this, Clark?”
“I uh… put together the salad.”
Chloe beamed. “He stirred the sauce a couple of times. I boiled the spaghetti and opened the sauce can. Oh! And Clark cut up the bread and put it in the oven.”
She put her hand up, and Clark gave her a light high-five.
Lois bumped Lex’s shoulder. “He’s gone domestic on us.”
“So I see.” Lex accepted the pasta bowl and proceeded to put a modest amount on his plate.
“You have to eat more than that,” Lois informed him.
“Why is everyone trying to feed me today?” He shoved the plate at her.
“Because you have a skinny ass, that’s why.”
Lex rolled his eyes. He wouldn’t for much longer. He rolled up his sleeves, fussed with his napkin in his lap and hoped this would stay down. “Thank you for cooking us dinner.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Lois added with a mouthful of bread.
***
Clark watched Lex anxiously across the table. This had been the second time he’d gone to wake Lex up and had a hard time doing so. Clark had heard Lex’s heart beating rather quickly. It had slowed a bit now, and he seemed fairly alert, if still tired. He and Lois were trading barbs like a couple of catty girlfriends.
It occurred to him that Lana would be mad at him for leaving her out of their get together.
Clark could smell Lex across the table. Had Lex always smelled that incredibly good? It was freaking him out, but it also made him want to swap seats with Lois. Was she touching Lex’s hand?! Oh, no she was just stealing his butter knife.
“What?” Lex asked.
Clark started. He’d been staring. “I was just kind of lost in thought.”
“Ha. Bet that never happened before.” Lois grabbed the salt from across the table then offered it to Lex who shook his head.
Clark shrugged jovially. “I got lost in thought once before. Lex had to come in and find me. Wacky story. Tell you about it sometime.”
Lex finally cracked a smile, which made Clark grin widely.
***
“I appreciate the ride home,” Lex said, as they pulled up to the castle in the red truck. He looked over at Clark. “I could have driven myself, though.”
“You’re so tired. I didn’t want you to fall asleep at the wheel.”
“Your oscillations truly make me dizzy.”
“What?” Clark leaned over to listen, and Lex tensed inside, steeling his reserve against the scent of Clark’s body so close to him. Luscious. That was the word for it, clearly.
“It’s nothing. I should be getting to bed.” He started to get out. Clark caught his arm.
“No, tell me.”
Lex took a deep breath. “I’ve gotten the impression for a good part of the year that you hated me. Not a week before the abduction, you were accusing me of raising the dead for great evil…” He looked Clark in the eye pensively. “Now, well, at first, you come close and try to make amends. Next you’re organizing with Lois and Chloe to interrogate my intentions-“
“What? No!”
“And now you’re worried about me?” Lex raised a brow, not looking particularly angry, just confused and a little hurt.
“You have to understand, I thought Lois and Chloe would be gone by the time you got there! I just wanted you to get a chance to tell me what happened.” Clark shrugged his shoulders sheepishly. “You said you weren’t taking the helicopter. That gives me a coupla hours. I thought it would just be you and me, and I could ask what she said to you.”
“No, I took the train.”
“Oh.” Clark walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t mean for you to feel-“
“No, it’s okay. Just the overall tone of the day.” Lex rubbed his face and felt embarrassed.
“Really bad, huh?”
“It’s gotten better since I got home from work.”
“So you, uh... can’t keep up with my mood swings, huh? That’s what you mean by oscillations?”
“Ah ha ha. Your mood swings? Hm.”
Clark was rubbing his shoulders.
Oh, Lex, don’t let him in. “Do you want to come inside?” Did I really say that?
“No, I’m on deck for breakfast and house chores tomorrow.” Clark grinned at Lex’s questioning expression. “We’re rotating house duties. Dad figured it was only fair now that Mom had an important job. He says, we’re all busy, so we should all pitch in. We’ve always divided it up before, too. It was just like more stuff Dad and I did and stuff Mom did.”
“I honestly don’t know how the three of you keep that farm going by yourselves. Or how you were managing school while doing all of that work.”
“Sometimes I didn’t, I guess.”
“I want to offer you help for the farm, but I know your father wouldn’t take it.”
“Maybe not. He was really mad about me not being in school. He was kinda mad when I decided to go to A&M to begin with because he wanted me to get an education and not feel trapped on the farm.”
“You think he’d consider it so you could go away to school?”
“I don’t want to go far, though. A&M would be cheaper for core classes. I could transfer to MetU and get into the astronomy program.”
“That sounds like something that would be good for you.” Lex gazed out the window at the castle. He didn’t really want to go inside. It was always cold there, for some reason. “If nothing else, he might accept me paying your tuition. I could definitely get you in, although I’m not really an alumni. I took courses there concurrently with my high school classes at Excelsior.”
“You’re so smart.”
“Rich friends give expensive birthday gifts. Plus, I wasn’t able to give you anything at Christmas.”
“I mean, you taking college classes when you were in high school. Who does that?”
“Boys who have a penchant for getting in trouble when they get bored, I’d imagine.” He yawned widely. Clark opened his door, hopped out, and jogged around to the other side. With a bemused expression, Lex allowed Clark to help him down. He wondered, if Clark were this chivalrous not knowing he was pregnant, how would he act if he told him?
“I uh… I didn’t want you to fall.” Clark explained, looking anxious about his hand on Lex’s arm and hip.
“We could dance,” he suggested flippantly.
“Ha ha. Yeah, we could. Out here in the driveway.”
After a moment of silence, Lex placed his arm around Clark’s waist. “I lead.”
“What?” Clark’s face lit up in delighted surprise, as Lex began leading him in a waltz around the large driveway.
“You remember how, right? When I showed you-“
“For your wedding to Helen.” Clark looked down anxiously at their feet, but Lex guided him.
Lex bowed his head, letting the fabric of Clark’s flannel shirt brush softly against him. “I thought you might coax Lana into dancing.”
“It was really fun, you and me dancing around the barn. We probably would have. I really thought I could get back in time.” Clark leaned his face close to Lex’s head.
Lex could feel the breath on his scalp. “It would have been better if you’d showed up to protest the wedding instead of be my best man.”
“I really wanted to.”
Lex laughed and swung Clark into a dip, almost dropping him before Clark caught himself with his strong legs. “Oh?”
“I never liked Helen. She… seemed like an invader. She always sort of…”
“What?”
“Sneered at me. Like she was jealous or something.”
Lex grinned. “Lucas hated her too. He told me he wasn’t coming until I decided to marry someone decent.”
“Lucas? Man, I haven’t heard of him in years.”
“He can’t stand to be around Dad. Okay.” Lex stopped abruptly and leaned on his knees. “I’m way too tired for this.”
He felt Clark’s arms supporting him as they headed inside.
“I thought you weren’t coming in.”
“A few minutes couldn’t possibly hurt,” Clark declared.
Clark didn’t come running out of the mansion until fifteen ‘til three.
Jealous eyes watched in the bushes.
***
Chloe pecked away at the keyboard at her desk among the other Groundlings working at the Daily Planet. She yawned a bit, regretting having stayed up quite so late with Lois the night before, but socialization was good, or so people told her. Mostly Lois.
She heard Lana before she saw her. Clipping in her heeled boots down the stairs. Chloe took a deep breath and felt irrationally guilty for not taking her side and declaring Lex the evil of the world.
“Lana! Hey. Two days in a row. Aren’t I the lucky one?” Chloe said apprehensively. “Look. Okay, don’t take this the wrong way, but Clark called Lex over yesterday, and… I really think he just got mad at you because you were being harsh on Clark. They’ve been trying to make up their friendship since he got back. It probably struck a nerve.”
“You think so?” Lana’s face was tense. “Well, you see Chloe, I think there’s something wrong with Lex. The way he snapped at me, maybe it was motivated by loyalty, but he doesn’t just snap like that. He doesn’t. And… understand that I didn’t mean to spy on him, but last night Clark dropped him off back at his mansion.”
“Yeah, we had dinner at the Kents and Clark took him home.”
“I wasn’t watching long. They… went right in… but he had to practically carry Lex inside. I think he’s sick, or he’s taking some treatment that’s making him irrational.” Her voice oozed concern, and she pulled up a chair next to Chloe. “Is there any way we can find out what’s going on?”
“Huh. Well, now that you mention it, Lex did seem pretty beat last night. It’s the first time since he came back that I’ve seen him, but he’s definitely lost some weight. He went to the bathroom seven times. Exactly.” She turned her interest to her computer a little too quickly. “Not that I was counting, or anything.”
“So, how can we get some information?”
“He hasn’t been to the hospital lately, so… we’ll probably have to ask around, figure out which doctors he’s seeing, maybe look into which projects have his attention. He mentioned one personal project that seems to be occupying a lot of his thoughts…”
“Yeah?” Lana leaned over her shoulder and gave a little sigh.
“Don’t worry, Lana. He’ll be okay.”
”Oh, you know Lex. I’m sure he’s pretty indestructible. I’m just… concerned.”
Chloe nodded and started to look into her files. “I could also hack into the LuthorCorp security cameras.”
“That would be great,” Lana said excitedly. Chloe rubbed her shoulder.
”We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“I knew I could count on you.” She smiled stiffly and watched as Chloe went to work against the LuthorCorp software.
Series/WIP: Sequel to So Much Dreaming
Pairing: Clex!
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After being abducted by aliens and discovering that Jonathan Kent is alive, Lex must come to grips with his shifting relationship with Clark and an unexpected pregnancy.
Spoilers: Through S5, after Cyborg.
Warnings: MPREG!!
Part One
Part Two:
Jonathan Kent had always been an early riser. Post-abduction did not change that. It became clear to him before the sun had risen, however, that everything else had changed. Martha was up early as well, talking on her cell phone, discussing meetings, and arguing with her publicist. At one point, he was certain she was taking a call from Lionel Luthor, and she pitched her voice low as she spoke to him. Jonathan remembered what Lex had said regarding the two of them.
Martha noticed him coming in from his chores, covered the phone, and said, “Oh, sorry, honey. I’ll go start breakfast for you.”
She clipped quickly into the kitchen, in her business suit and heels, talking on the cell all the way.
Clark made his way down later that morning, looked into the kitchen, and headed out to the barn. When he saw his father, he commented, “I saw mom was making breakfast, so I decided to come out here and get a start on the chores. Hey, you’d don’t have to do that dad. I got it. Why don’t you go hang out with Ma?”
Lana called during breakfast, and Martha screened the call after raising her brows in question to Clark, who lowered his head to his plate and shook it vigorously.
Without sitting still more than ten minutes, Martha hopped up, grabbed some toast, and kissed Jonathan on the cheek, telling him she loved him and telling Clark she’d be home late. Jonathan stood, a bit stunned, and walked to the window. He noticed the limousine pulled up outside.
Before he could think what he would say, Jonathan found himself outside on the porch giving Lionel Luthor a big hello. He’d hoped for a heart attack from Luthor, but seeing the man flail backward in utter shock was a close second.
“I-I uh… can’t express to you what a pleasant surprise this is. I saw you buried.”
“Well, I got better,” he replied easily. Shrugging, Jonathan descended down the steps. “We’re gonna have to get a reporter to announce the story. Explain why I’m back, and why I won’t be taking the senate position back from my wife.”
“Jonathan…” Martha started, looking back to him.
“You go on. I’ll be here when you get back then we can talk about a few things. Don’t worry. I know you have a busy day ahead of you.”
They hugged and kissed in front of Lionel, and Martha headed back toward the limo with a smile on her face and a lighter step. Jonathan went back inside and sat down by his son.
“You’re going to have to fill me in, son. I’ve apparently missed a lot since I’ve been
gone.”
Not too much later, Lex dropped by looking a bit pale, though better than yesterday, and carrying a large stack of papers.
“Would you like some breakfast, Lex?” Jonathan offered, motioning for the young man to enter.
“No, I have to get back so I can ‘copter into Metropolis for a business meeting.” He set the pile of papers in front of Clark, who observed the tower and raised his brows questioningly.
“And uh… that is…?”
“Approximately an eighth of the reports I receive daily from projects regarding scientific studies.” Lex nodded as Clark reached over to look at one. Lex looked away casually with his hands in his pockets.
“They’re all the same. I mean… well, there are some differences I guess. Why do you use these, to keep up with productivity?” Clark asked.
“That, and to make sure they’re doing the research that they’ve been given money to do.” He creased his brow and watched Clark’s face.
“How can you possibly tell that from these?” Clark scrunched up his nose looking at report after report.
“I don’t. I have someone who does that for me, Anshul, and when he looks through all of them, he flags all the ones he thinks might need a specific inspection.”
“Then you go in and…”
“No, then my secretary Michelle goes through those and gets more information about the project and determines which ones need an extra personal visit.” Lex flared his nostrils, wet his lips, and touched his hand go his stomach, appearing a bit queasy. Jonathan figured it might be the smell of bacon grease that was bugging him, since he looked over to the stove with some irritation before continuing. “I try to visit each of the facilities regularly, but as you can see, there are quite a few, and often they get tipped off as to when I’m coming. Hopefully, I can get in a few surprise visits, but often I inevitably miss something that’s going on. I have employees who regularly report to me in labs we have deemed suspicious, but again, it’s a matter of luck and timing. I can’t catch them all.”
Clark’s eyes bulged. “You visit all of these places? And this is an eighth? When do you sleep?”
Lex shrugged. “In the jet. In the limo.”
“You aren’t serious,” Clark accused, his brows going askew.
“Whatever helps. Look, you said we should talk; I thought this might facilitate that. I don’t have much time right now, but we can definitely talk later this evening.”
Clark stared at the papers in amazement.
“Later?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“I’m not trying to impress you. I’m trying to make you understand the meaning of ‘LuthorCorp is a multinational company.’ It means that I have a lot of people to keep an eye on. A lot of people.”
“Yeah.”
Lex placed a hand on Clark’s shoulder and then wished Jonathan well and headed back out to his car.
Jonathan sat back down next to his son, who continued to read through the papers.
“Not a job I would want,” he commented. Clark glowered at the pile.
“The person who reads through all of these or the person who has to check up on thousands of employees to make sure they’re being decent people?”
“Either way. I like my cows.”
Clark turned to him with a smile and wrapped his strong arms around his father. “I missed you so much.”
“I know.”
“So what do you want to know?” Clark asked, picking up another piece of bacon.
***
“Are we boring you, Lex?”
Lionel’s voice cut into the cacophony of discussion in the boardroom and demanded immediate silence. Lex got the impression that his colleagues were intrigued and a little afraid of how Lex was going to react to his father’s intrusion.
“Well, Lionel,” Lex replied with an edge. “I have a personal project that is demanding my immediate attention, and I trust that all of my employees are quite capable of governing themselves while I’m indisposed. Or do I need to stay and play daddy while other matters go neglected?”
Mercy snorted loudly and indecorously. She sat sprawled in the plush office chair closest to Lex’s, looking like a dyke gang member someone had pulled off the street and shoved into a tailored men’s business suit. Lionel sat back in his chair with an unamused “hm.” Lex turned and faked answering his cell phone. This was the third time he’d had to leave the meeting. He was going to have to come up with a better means of covering. Barring that, put himself into seclusion somehow.
Right now, he desperately needed to piss. Again.
As he made a beeline for the nearest restroom, a woman who had been waiting outside of the conference room stood and stepped in front of him to catch his attention. Her face was squarish but elegant and framed with long, dark brown hair. She tilted her chin up to him importantly as she opened her mouth to speak in a low but clear voice, “Mr. Lex Luthor, I have to speak with you-“
“Make an appointment with my secretary,” he said shortly, brushing her away. His eyes followed her but a moment, just long enough to notice the slight but distinctly rounded tummy underneath her apricot colored spring dress as she stumbled backward.
Fuck fuck fuck.
He finished as quickly as he could and rushed back out into the hallways to find the pretty pregnant woman gone and his father waiting.
“I thought only women accompanied one another to the bathroom?” Lex remarked sarcastically.
“You’re taking drugs,” Lionel accused flatly.
“I assure you, I’m cleaner than I have ever been,” Lex replied with a roll of the eyes. Lionel put his hands in his pockets.
“You look horrible. You look strung out.”
“I do not.”
The older man took him by the arm back into the restroom, where he led Lex to a mirror. “You. Look. Horrible.”
Lex frowned at his own reflection. For all of the confidence he exuded, Lex rarely looked in the mirror. He had to admit, he didn’t blame his father for thinking he was using. He shrugged lightly. “Must be cancer.”
“Don’t even joke about that. Are you sick?”
“I’m not… no. I’m not, dad. Look.” Lex turned away from the drawn and pale version of himself. “You seem to be under the delusion that I work for you.”
“Lex-“
“I don’t. It is the other way around.”
“I’m still your father. I’m worried,” Lionel protested in an imperious tone.
“I’m sure,” Lex snipped curtly. “I don’t buy it. You’re curious, and you’re looking for an opening to take back this company, and there’s the end to it, isn’t it? I have something that I’m not letting you in on, and you want to know so that you can use it against me. Allow me assure you-- Firstly, I am not on drugs. Secondly, this is none of your fucking business. So if you could kindly see your way into ceasing your pretensions of good fatherhood, I think we might be able to continue business more efficiently.”
Lex hadn’t realized that he was yelling until the words were already out of his mouth. Or that he was now less than an inch away from his father’s face. Perfect.
Lionel only replied with a very quiet, “I understand,” then left the room without challenging Lex further. Lex felt a wave of nausea at the thought of his father so keenly interested in his ‘personal project.’
***
Lex practically collapsed into the sofa by his fireplace and tried to think of some way besides alcohol to put the day out of his mind. He hadn’t asked for this. He wasn’t ready. And god, the room was spinning now. He closed his eyes for a moment to make it stop.
When he opened them, Clark was shaking him and leaning in too close for him not to take a sniff of his scent. Oh… the only smell in the world that didn’t make him want to puke. But the shaking had to go.
“Relax, Clark. I obviously just fell asleep.” He rubbed his temple and made a move away from Clark before he started to hump his leg.
“You didn’t wake up for a minute. It scared me.” Clark sat next to him just as Lex jumped up. “Um…”
“I’ll be right back. Bathroom.”
Sadly, it was true, and he wobbled on his feet a bit as he left the office, causing Clark to stand up and look as though he were about to carry him there.
When he returned, Clark was sitting there looking anxious and awkward. “Sorry for my retreat. To what do I owe this pleasure? Or is this our ‘talk?’”
Clark motioned to two piles of papers on the coffee table. “I sorted them for you.”
“What?” Lex moved closer to inspect the papers. They were the reports he had given Clark that morning. “You read them all?”
“Yeah. Twice. Those are the ones I pegged. Or… well. Then Chloe read through them all and made her own pile. These,” Clark picked up a few flagged with colored paper. “Chloe hacked into their computers and found them doing some questionable stuff.”
Clark paused at the intense look on Lex’s face. “Chloe won’t go to the police. She never does, if I ask her to keep it quiet. I just thought you should know about these.”
Lex sat across the table from him and picked up the flagged papers. “What did you find?”
“A few not so good things. I think they started off as um… well, Chloe said that the patients had signed release forms, but on the later ones, there are no new forms, or they look copied… and she found some files that looked like they’d been hidden and didn’t have your sign off on them.”
“Really.” He looked up intrigued. “I’m paying my internal affairs people too much. She can get this that quickly? You think she’s been affected by the meteor rocks?“
”No, she just spent most of her childhood in front of a computer instead of with people.” Clark grinned.
Lex laughed. “It would be refreshing for her to get a significant other.”
“Yeah, I hear you.” Clark’s voice betrayed a little wistfulness. Lex continued to review the files. He marveled at what Chloe had found, convinced that she was some kind of technopath and Clark was simply oblivious, as per usual.
“Thank you. I can’t really tell you how much stress you’ve saved me by doing this.”
Clark spread his hands. “I tried. I sucked. I dunno, Lex. I mean if that’s your reason… you… I dunno. I don’t think I approve of all your experiments.”
“Care to parse that a bit for me?”
He shook his head and looked away. “You say that, when I accuse you of stuff, that it’s because there are a bunch of labs and you can’t keep track of them all. So, yeah, I get that now, and I can see where it would be impossible to keep track of that on your own. Maybe you should hire some other people to help you sort it out. But… you’re experimenting on people, and you’re making weapons!”
“How do think medical breakthroughs happen? We use animals first, and then people agree to have experimental treatments. It’s the scientific process. We aren’t trying to hurt them. The hope is that the treatments will work, or that we’ll learn enough to go back a second time and get it right. Science is all trial and error, Clark.”
Clark looked like he was thinking about that for a moment. He waffled a moment trying to decide if he should ask his next question. “Who’s Mutant L?”
“Why?” Lex returned guardedly. Clark sighed. Lex felt a stabbing pain in his head and stood to get some water.
“You’re using his blood a lot.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Lex opened a bottle of TyNant and tried to pretend it was scotch. “The properties of his body are especially useful, and we hope they will continue to be in the future. There have been several vaccines created from studies done on his blood already.”
“Is it from the mutant your dad was experimenting on three years ago?”
“Huh?” Lex turned. “You’re going to have to narrow that down. My father had a lot of projects, most of them against the patient’s will.”
“The one that made Adam… rise from the dead, or whatever the hell that was.”
Lex’s mouth twitched. “I haven’t even though of those samples for a long time. No, he’s not the same mutant.”
“Then why don’t you have his permission to experiment on him?”
Lex felt his heart begin to quicken. He suddenly felt lightheaded. He held onto the bar firmly. “Because he wishes to remain anonymous. His blood samples are given to researchers, and they have no contact with him. He’d like to help save lives, but he has a real problem with being labeled as a freak.”
He closed his eyes and tried to breathe more deeply. “You don’t believe me. You think that I’ve got him chained somewhere and that I’m stealing his blood like some kind of hairless vampire.”
“I don’t know.” Clark stood and came over to him. “Lex, look me in the eye.”
He did so and blinked wearily.
“You aren’t doing this against his will.”
“I assure you, that would be impossible for me.”
Clark gave him a watery smile, and Lex found himself wrapped in a hug. “Okay. So. I get the medical stuff. Kind of.”
“I’ll explain anything you’d like. All you have to do is ask. And by you, I mean you and not some overeager eco-terrorist kid you just met at college.”
“The weapons.”
Lex took another sip of water and sighed. “Unless you hadn’t noticed, we’re at war.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to create weapons.”
Lex restrained the urge to throttle him. “And there are… well, potentially hostile aliens. We need to be able to defend ourselves from them. That is-” Lex wobbled his head from side to side. “-without completely irradiating ourselves. I’ll be honest. It scares me to think we could destroy ourselves with our own weapons, but at the moment we don’t have a lot of choices.”
“I uh…” Clark walked a little ways away from him.
“I can try to get us out of some of the military work,” Lex found himself saying before he knew it. He paused and looked into Clark’s eyes. He hadn’t realized how much he really wanted to be out from the military’s thumb until now. “Some. I’m not always happy with those projects. But you know, when the government tells you to do something…”
“What can they do to you?”
“Fuck. Shut us down? Deport us? Call us terrorists? Detain us without trial indefinitely? This is the country we live in.” Lex stalked away from the bar.
“Will you try?”
“I think I want to. At least for the ones… that don’t seem as though they’re strictly for our protection. Sometimes…” Lex sucked in his cheeks a little. “Sometimes I get the impression the projects they field to us are more for controlling the population than protecting them… but some of them are designed to protect us from a potential alien invasion, and those… those I have to keep going, Clark.”
The two of them stared at one another in silence for quite a long time, until Lex put a hand to his head and made for the couch once again.
“I think it’s your bedtime,” Clark said gently.
“No, I… I should look over-“ Lex waved to his desk vaguely. “-that stuff before I sleep.”
“Come on. I’ve never seen your bedroom.”
“I haven’t needed a mother for some time, Clark. And if I did, I wouldn’t want that mother to be you. You’d look pretty odd in high heels and pearls.” Lex leaned back on the sofa. “What else did you want to talk to me about?”
“Nothing right now.” Clark sat next to him once again. Lex shivered as Clark put his hands onto his shoulders and began to massage them. “I’ll try harder to ask you what’s going on instead of just assuming you’re doing something wrong.”
“I’ll… attempt to be less evasive regarding business when you ask.” Lex closed his eyes and felt Clark’s breathing on the back of his neck. Clark was definitely smelling him. It felt good to be close.
“Good.”
“Clark?”
“Mmm.”
“What are you doing?”
“I uh…” Clark stood up suddenly. “Leaving. I was… you looked stressed. And I’m leaving now.”
Lex smiled wearily at him.
“Get some sleep, Lex. You really look exhausted.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.” Lex reached up and clasped his hand. “I’m glad we’re trying to make this work.”
“Me too.” Clark rocked on his heels boyishly before leaving. Lex looked over the materials in front of him. He wondered how hard it would be to get Chloe to stop hating him long enough to employ her.
Then he wondered whatever happened to those samples from the Adam case.
***
The third day after the abduction, Clark woke up to find his father in the kitchen making breakfast as his mother chatted on the cell phone with her publicist about who to set an interview with regarding Jonathan Kent’s return. He went out to do some chores before heading back into the kitchen, where his parents were doing a dance in front of the stove.
Clark sat down quietly, not wanting to disturb them. It was awfully cute how they did crazy things like impromptu dances, just because they loved one another.
“So, you are reapplying for next semester, aren’t you Clark?” Jonathan asked. Clark wrinkled his nose.
“I guess so.”
“What’s the hold up?” His father set a plate of pancakes down on the table.
“I guess I expected more out of college…” Clark concentrated on his pancakes.
Martha smiled supportively and gave Jonathan an knowing look. “You don’t like A&M.”
“Not much. But… I guess I can get my core classes out of the way? Then maybe I could get into MetU.”
“We could always get a student loan,” Jonathan suggested. Clark shrugged.
“I want to make sure that I’ll finish before I start borrowing money.”
“Well, just tell us what you want to do, hon.” Martha stood, kissed them both on the head and left the house, this time to her own car. “Oh, hi, Lana. Clark’s inside.”
Jonathan watched Clark visibly wince. “Going that well, hmm?”
Clark plastered on a fake smile as Lana stormed through the door. “Clark! …Mr. Kent?”
”Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” he told her with a dry smile. “Actually we’re putting out a press statement sometime today.”
Lana seated herself, breathless and wide-eyed next to Clark, who moved slightly away.
And so the spinning began.
***
Lex was quite irritable the next morning. On the way to work in the helicopter, he was sure he’d lost a few organs or at the very least his stomach lining. He’d been effectively regulated to the floor, trying to keep his dry heaving under control, and he’d nearly pissed his pants trying to wait in between Smallville and Metropolis. When he’d finally reached LuthorCorp tower, he could barely keep his eyes open. Dr. Tanaka had warned him to watch the caffeine, but when will alone didn’t keep him awake, Lex begged some tea off of his secretary, who seemed more sympathetic than he’d ever seen her. She kept poking her head in to check on him. By mid morning, he’d snapped at three people already for coming in late, not getting their files ready quickly enough, and… looking at him oddly.
If this kept up, Clark might have some real fuel for his accusations of him being evil.
He leaned back in his office chair and took several deep breaths. He could make it through this day. He could make it to his doctor’s appointment without maiming or killing anyone.
“Lex?” A throaty, self-important voice entered his ears.
“Hello, Lana,” he replied calmly, opening his eyes slightly. She seated herself in front of his desk and began talking without any other pleasantries. He drifted a bit, listening to her. Apparently Clark had rebuffed her advances and was lying to her about something. The story never changed. “I’m sure he doesn’t mean to hurt you. Sometimes these matters are just personal. You aren’t really part of the Kent family. Trust me when I tell you that they aren’t an easy group to break into.”
Lana looked a little confused. So often, Lex would simply repeat what he knew she wanted to hear. This was new. “But he should trust me, Lex. If we’re going to be together, we shouldn’t have any secrets.”
“Then maybe you and Clark really don’t belong together.”
“It isn’t that simple,” she said hotly.
“Look, you’ve been coming to me for three years about Clark’s lies. Either you get used to them and try to live with knowing that there is always going to be a side that he’s not going to share with you, or leave him. If you stay with him and continue to complain, you’re just going to make the both of you miserable.” Lex watched in a perverse pleasure as her face soured. “Really, is this something you want to pick a fight over? Jonathan’s back and healthy. It’s something to be thankful of.”
“It’s not like I’m not happy for Clark,” she replied defensively. Lana stood and walked away from him. “I thought that after all the times Clark has shut you out, you’d understand.”
“We’re trying to make amends.”
She spun around with an accusatory glare. “And you’re still trying to break us up?”
“I’m trying to give you good advice. It’s a pity you never take it.” Lex considered literally biting his tongue for a moment. That bitchy little comment had just shot right out of his mouth.
“Good advice that leaves me available for you,” she shot back.
Lex rolled his eyes. “Spare me your affection, Lana. I’ve seen what it does to a man. Have you ever had a boyfriend that didn’t end up dead?”
“You know, for a while, I was really upset that you suddenly weren’t around for me to talk to,” Lana said, as though removing her interest in him were a threat.
“I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you that I might do something because I had to, not simply to inconvenience you?” Lex’s rational side told him to stop, but part of him couldn’t. Didn’t want to in any way.
“WHAT?”
“I apologize. You were clearly worried sick about me,” he drawled.
“This isn’t about you!”
Lex rolled his eyes again and stood, quickly walking to her and placing hands on her shoulders.
“What are you doing? Don’t touch me!”
He continued to move her toward the door. “You have been bitching at me for years, years, about this relationship that is not working. Whenever you’re not with Clark, you act as though you want to be with him, and whenever you’re with someone else, you’re looking around at other guys who might be better or more wonderful or more honest, but Lana, honey, sometimes there’s only so much a man can give. Stop torturing yourself and declare celibacy because they’re no way you’re ever going to find a human male to your standards.”
“Excuse me?”
“Make up your fucking mind before you hurt him again, okay?”
Lex deftly shoved her outside of his office doors. His secretary Michelle looked up curiously. “Have someone escort Miss Lang out. She’ll need an appointment to see me in this office from now on.”
He didn’t let himself look too long on the expression of outrage on Lana’s face as he shut his office doors to her. Though it was a deliciously injured and self-important look.
“I’m going to pay for that,” he sighed. He walked slowly back to his desk, with the intent of paging Michelle for the rest of his day’s schedule. The next thing he knew, Mercy was hovering over him with an incredulous expression on her face.
“What… um…”
“You fainted. You have to get up before Daddy Lucifer gets here.”
“I didn’t faint,” he grumbled.
“Yeah, Boss. You decided to take a nap in the middle of your office floor.” She hefted his arm over her shoulder and proceeded to carry him to his desk. Lex shivered as she slid him back into his chair. “You need a sweater or something? You’re really cold.”
“I’ll manage until my father leaves.” He flexed his hands, wondering how a human body could get that cold that quickly. “After that… maybe a sweater would be good.”
Lex found himself on his lunch break wandering around a bookstore in hopes of finding something that would help him proficiently combat the symptoms of his condition. As good as it felt to cut loose on some people, he couldn’t keep doing it. He was feeling effectively lost. Certainly, he could have ordered a book online or just Googled it, but chances were, if his father didn’t already have his computer being watched, Miss Superhaxx0rz Sullivan would be willing to track where he had been searching for his father. Not for the first time, Lex wondered if the meta-human thing weren’t hereditary. There was something unnatural about getting a girl you had once tried to kill to work for you.
“Well. I think either you have more problems than I thought-“
Lex turned from the shelf he was crouched over to see the woman he’d brushed off earlier that week.
“-or you get hot from pregnant women. Either way, I’m guessing you don’t exactly want to be caught here.”
He set his eyes on her intensely. Instead of being intimidated, the woman laughed and slowly maneuvered herself onto the floor. Her almond-shaped eyes narrowed merrily, and her wide mouth quirked into a wicked smile.
“I’m playing with you. Nobody needs to know your business. Although, you’ll probably get better pictures of preggos on the internet.” She took the book from his hands, picked up another, and handed it to him. “I did call your secretary, by the way. Remember, you said I should make an appointment? Before I came even. The first day I could meet with you in person was about a year from now. I thought I would have to try something else.”
“I see.” Lex realized he was staring at her bump. “I’m terribly sorry.”
“Like you’re the only perv that stares at my gut all day? You’re not. At least you know to keep your hands to yourself.” Her voice was naturally a bit low, and Lex could detect a trace of a Hispanic accent.
“That must be a trial.”
She shrugged. “I imagine it gets expensive for them, having to go to the doctor when I break their wrists.”
Lex found himself smiling a bit. “I apologize for my rudeness earlier as well.”
“It didn’t seem personal.”
“May I ask your name?”
She offered her left hand. “Elena Luciano. Or Lena, if we get friendly. I’ll let you know.”
“Lex Luthor.” Now he was smiling in full. How good did that feel? “If you’d like I have… hmm. Thirty-two minutes of my lunch hour. We could discuss whatever you came to speak with me about?”
“Are you sure? You seem pretty stressed out.”
Lex blinked.
”I mean I don’t want to add to it. Are you sure?” She shook her head. “I’ve bewildered you. Okay, sure. Let’s chat. There’s a café over there where we could sit down.”
Lex set down the book and offered her a hand.
“I’m not so bad off yet. I can get up. Wait until I completely lose control of the muscles down there.”
He headed in the direction of the café. “So… I should be able to figure this out. They don’t stop working. They can’t?”
She grinned up at him with a crooked smile. “No, actually, they just… stretch out.”
“Oh. That’s makes sense.”
“I’ve heard rumors that you aim to know everything. Details about human pregnancy… didn’t really think it was up there on the list.”
“Not normally, no. Lately…” He shrugged. Elena took a seat and looked over him critically with her honey brown eyes. Lex suddenly felt self-conscious as he sat across from her. He smoothed the fabric over his stomach and berated himself for assuming she could possibly know.
“So. Yeah, why I came.”
“What? Oh, yes.”
“See, I own this business in Suicide Slums. I know it’s not the safest property ever, but I grew up there and unlike some, I got my degree so I could bring some money to the community that wasn’t coming in through drug dealers, you know?”
Lex nodded. “And we’re apparently taking over?”
She threw up her hands. “Now, see, I knew this wasn’t the best idea. You don’t even know what I’m talking about. I’m really sorry for barging into your personal space, but yeah. A year from now is when I could see you, and LuthorCorp is taking over in six months if I don’t do something.”
“I don’t mean to be cold, but that’s business.”
“Yeah, I get that. I do, believe me. But the thing is, it’s not like I’m behind on my rent or I don’t have my shop making money. We are making serious money, and we’re helping and giving back to the community. These rich college brats come to my place over the snotty little shops in better parts of the city. We’re fucking edgy, and they love it. But your company is buying the building, so my business and all the little businesses there that are trying to improve the neighborhood are going to get shut down for a McWhateva they put in there.”
Lex rubbed his finger over his mouth.
”And that’s bad for business for you. It’s bad PR to be tearing down small community businesses to put in chains. I think you know that. I’m not threatening you at all, but you know, I’m totally going to catch the ear of any reporter I can. I’m just telling you. You’ve really been tons better on PR than Lionel was back when I don’t know, I guess he thought he could do whatever he wanted and just shove the shmoozing on you because you were young and cute.”
Lex pressed his lips together thinking it over. A waitress came over to them. Elena ordered a muffin and some water. Lex absentmindedly ordered his latte.
“Are you going to eat lunch on your lunch break?” She demanded suddenly then covered her mouth. “Sorry. It’s none of my business. But are you?”
“I’m not particularly hungry.”
“Yeah, I got that from you earlier.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“The I-don’t-feel-great vibe. A little before and more so now,” she said seriously.
“Um...”
”I’m nosey, I know. Feel free to have caffeine for breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” she said with a wave of the hand.
“Caffeine…” Lex pinched his mouth together, remembering that he needed to be cutting back on that.
“Not supposed to have caffeine?”
His brows rose questioningly at her.
“One cup couldn’t possibly hurt,” she said with a smile.
Lex sighed and looked her over. He pulled out his electronic planner. “I’m going to need a business plan. Let me know what’s going on down there: your numbers, future plans, and any advertising.”
“We go strictly on word of mouth.”
Lex nodded. “Fair enough, but you might need a little more. I’ll have my secretary find the file. Will it have your name on it or…?”
“Actually, probably Reggie Griggs. He’s the old guy who owns the building now. I’m not even asking you not to buy the building because I know retirement would be nice for him. I just think everyone could benefit if you decided to work with the neighborhood instead of tearing it down.”
“I’ll see what I can do… Are you busy this time next week… no. Two weeks from now… Friday?”
“Uh… not really... Oh… uh, well I can reschedule. I can’t thank you enough. I mean, for meeting me at all. For giving me a chance.”
“It’s good to keep touch with the little people now and then.” He smirked.
She tilted her head back and scoffed, “Yeah, cause I’m anything resembling little right now.”
The waitress stopped back by, and Lex gave her a winning smile. The girl giggled and tripped over another customer on her way back to the counter.
“Here. Have part of my muffin.”
“No, thank you,” he replied firmly. She was already splitting it in half with her hands.
“Come on. It’s the size of my head. And I have a big head!”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I bet you are.”
“Well, you’re eating for two.”
She made a small laugh. “So are… hm. Let me mommy you. I need the practice.”
“I’m guessing you’re about my age. That would be a disturbing relationship.”
She pulled a napkin out of the dispenser and set half of the muffin in front of him. “I’m three years older than you. See, I do my homework before tackling the Luthors. I met with your father once, back in the day when he was in charge.”
“And I’m guessing that didn’t go well.”
“Well enough that you might have had a little brother or sister, if I hadn’t had my knife with me.”
Lex averted his eyes. “Oh. Oh. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t see why you should be. You didn’t do it.” She frowned and reached over to caress his hand. “My papa’s in prison. I know it hurts when your parents are disappointing, but I try to keep in mind that… they’re really only who they can be. I wish my papa had taken us into consideration when he did the things he did, but that isn’t who he is. It’s sad, but I still love him, and I try to forgive myself for loving a man who probably doesn’t have enough in him to give back that intensely.”
“Do you ever worry? That you’re…”
“Going to be as pitiful a parent?” She pinched a bit of her muffin off. “Yes. A lot, actually.”
“And how do you cope with that?”
“I bitch to handsome billionaires who have no real reason to care about my problems.” She grinned and got a bit of a smile in return. “Oh, and I quit drinking and smoking as soon as I found out. I don’t know if I’ll be more like my mama or papa, but I’d rather be more like Nana Nan, you know. She was much more supportive. We weren’t really related, but… I think anything I know from parenting would be from her.”
Lex nodded and forced down a sip of his latte.
Bad idea. Bad bad bad.
He bolted for the restroom, hoping that this time too, she would be gone when he came out. To his surprise, after heaving for a few minutes, she was in the stall with him, rubbing his back and running a cold, wet handkerchief over his head.
“It’s okay. It happens to most of us, and we all get through it. It’s okay,” she muttered over and over. When he had finished, she reached over and flushed the toilet. She stood then returned with the handkerchief freshly wet, and sat next to him, looking attentive and worried, but asking no questions. He placed a hand over his stomach and rested his head against the stall, letting her put the cool cloth over his head again. He eyed her anxiously. “Your business is nobody’s business, honey. Don’t worry.”
For some reason he felt as though he could trust her. That he should. He hoped that feeling wasn’t wrong.
***
Getting a call from Clark had been a high point in an otherwise increasingly horrible day; however, as he knocked on the screen door, the small cluster of people milling around in the living room set off his alarms. He didn’t know why Lois and Chloe would be there if Clark had called him over. He started to back away before Clark could see him.
“Lex!” Martha headed toward the door. “Come in.”
“It seems like I’m breaking up a party.”
“Of course not.”
He found himself being led inside. “Look, if this is some kind of intervention, I’m not up for it today. How about tomorrow?”
Chloe’s eyes lit up in amusement. “Not an intervention at all.”
“Lana told me that you had a screaming fit at her in your office today,” Lois told him, putting her hands on her hips as though Lex needed to ‘splain himself.
“I didn’t scream,” he protested. But I wasn’t nice?
“And I told Lois that she should mind her own business, but….” Chloe stopped and looked at Lex. “Lana told us you fought, but she didn’t tell us you were sick. You look horrible.”
“So everyone tells me,” he snapped. Immediately he rolled his eyes at himself and smoothed a hand over his head. Softly, he said, “I apologize.”
“Okay, that accounts for the screaming.” Chloe eyed him critically.
“I didn’t exactly scream at you.”
“You raised your voice. That’s enough to count as screaming for Lana.” She tilted her head. Martha had covered her mouth in laughter, and Chloe began to give him that investigative look. Lex wanted to cross his arms over his belly. “Are you okay?”
“Bad day.” He tried to look casual, putting his hands in his pockets. “Then Lana showed up to tell me that Clark is an evil liar, but I was busy, so I showed her the door.”
“That all?” Clark asked. Lex glared at him. Clark winced at the look.
“I may have told her that she’s incapable of being happy in a relationship. It’s so hard to keep track of my evil deeds.”
“Wow. If you’re evil, I’m evil. I’ve told her that about thirty times.” Chloe patted his arm.
“Have you had dinner?” Martha asked. “With all of us here, we might as well. I got home pretty late.”
“I had a late lunch,” he lied.
“Whatever. I’m sure you had like, a blueberry or something.” Lois grabbed his arm and pulled him further inside. Lex’s mood was becoming increasingly more foul. Would Clark be angry with him if he bit Lois? “Eat with us. It wouldn’t kill you to put on some weight.”
“I’d consider it, I suppose,” he muttered, being led to the sofa.
“I’ll get it, hon,” Jonathan said.
“You got breakfast.”
“Yeah, but you’re clearly tired.”
“So are you.”
“How bout we order pizza?” Lois suggested.
“How about Chloe and I put our cooking skills to work, while you guys relax?” Clark suggested. Chloe raised her brows in an ‘oh… I’m cooking?’ face and followed him into the kitchen after he gave Lex a squeeze on the shoulder and ensured he was in a seat.
What did that mean? He turned and watched Clark leave then asked skeptically, “Clark can cook?”
“I’ve been teaching him a few things. I figure if nothing else, he should be able to fend for himself.” Martha sat closely to her husband.
“I bet we get PB and J,” Lois said.
Clark peeked his head around the corner. “I can cook better than you can.”
“You’ll make someone a great wife!” she shouted back.
“Better wife than you would.”
Jonathan shook his head at the exchange, and Martha laughed. “So, Lex do you think you’ll be running again when midterm elections come around?”
“Hm? No, I have a personal project that will be coming to fruition at that time, which will really need my full concentration.”
“Oh?”
He nodded, refusing to give any more information. Martha tactfully redirected the conversation and began to ask Lois about her new plans in life. He excused himself to the bathroom and came back to find he had missed nothing. Lois was still pontificating about her eventual greatness.
Lex almost groaned when he realized he was being shaken awake yet again. Clark peered over his shoulders in concern. “Guess you needed sleep more than food. Sorry.”
“No, I’m fine.” Lex looked up at Clark and began to stand. He felt the larger man’s hands helping him up and wondered how soon that would become a necessity. “Sorry to drop off on you.”
“You weren’t contributing much to the conversation anyway,” Lois said bluntly.
Lex darted away for another trip to the bathroom and returned as quickly as he could. Unfortunately, his arrival brought the turning of everyone’s head. He smoothed the front of his shirt and gingerly took a seat at the dinner table as Clark drew back a chair for him. Lois whistled. Clark winked back at her and wiggled his eyebrows, to her immense amusement. Lex had never heard a woman snort-laugh like that before.
“That’s enough.” Jonathan shut them down firmly. He had just been pulling the chair out for Martha when Clark had done that. Chloe giggled.
“They’re just doing a bit of a ritual reversal to reinforce cultural values,” she explained with a big smile.
Lois pointed at her in mock judgment. “Okay. You are no longer allowed to speak for twelve hours after your sociology class.”
Chloe pouted in dismay. “Aww.”
“Sorry, dad.” Clark brought several bowls to the table.
Lex felt a pinch in his stomach smelling the spaghetti sauce. “You made this, Clark?”
“I uh… put together the salad.”
Chloe beamed. “He stirred the sauce a couple of times. I boiled the spaghetti and opened the sauce can. Oh! And Clark cut up the bread and put it in the oven.”
She put her hand up, and Clark gave her a light high-five.
Lois bumped Lex’s shoulder. “He’s gone domestic on us.”
“So I see.” Lex accepted the pasta bowl and proceeded to put a modest amount on his plate.
“You have to eat more than that,” Lois informed him.
“Why is everyone trying to feed me today?” He shoved the plate at her.
“Because you have a skinny ass, that’s why.”
Lex rolled his eyes. He wouldn’t for much longer. He rolled up his sleeves, fussed with his napkin in his lap and hoped this would stay down. “Thank you for cooking us dinner.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Lois added with a mouthful of bread.
***
Clark watched Lex anxiously across the table. This had been the second time he’d gone to wake Lex up and had a hard time doing so. Clark had heard Lex’s heart beating rather quickly. It had slowed a bit now, and he seemed fairly alert, if still tired. He and Lois were trading barbs like a couple of catty girlfriends.
It occurred to him that Lana would be mad at him for leaving her out of their get together.
Clark could smell Lex across the table. Had Lex always smelled that incredibly good? It was freaking him out, but it also made him want to swap seats with Lois. Was she touching Lex’s hand?! Oh, no she was just stealing his butter knife.
“What?” Lex asked.
Clark started. He’d been staring. “I was just kind of lost in thought.”
“Ha. Bet that never happened before.” Lois grabbed the salt from across the table then offered it to Lex who shook his head.
Clark shrugged jovially. “I got lost in thought once before. Lex had to come in and find me. Wacky story. Tell you about it sometime.”
Lex finally cracked a smile, which made Clark grin widely.
***
“I appreciate the ride home,” Lex said, as they pulled up to the castle in the red truck. He looked over at Clark. “I could have driven myself, though.”
“You’re so tired. I didn’t want you to fall asleep at the wheel.”
“Your oscillations truly make me dizzy.”
“What?” Clark leaned over to listen, and Lex tensed inside, steeling his reserve against the scent of Clark’s body so close to him. Luscious. That was the word for it, clearly.
“It’s nothing. I should be getting to bed.” He started to get out. Clark caught his arm.
“No, tell me.”
Lex took a deep breath. “I’ve gotten the impression for a good part of the year that you hated me. Not a week before the abduction, you were accusing me of raising the dead for great evil…” He looked Clark in the eye pensively. “Now, well, at first, you come close and try to make amends. Next you’re organizing with Lois and Chloe to interrogate my intentions-“
“What? No!”
“And now you’re worried about me?” Lex raised a brow, not looking particularly angry, just confused and a little hurt.
“You have to understand, I thought Lois and Chloe would be gone by the time you got there! I just wanted you to get a chance to tell me what happened.” Clark shrugged his shoulders sheepishly. “You said you weren’t taking the helicopter. That gives me a coupla hours. I thought it would just be you and me, and I could ask what she said to you.”
“No, I took the train.”
“Oh.” Clark walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t mean for you to feel-“
“No, it’s okay. Just the overall tone of the day.” Lex rubbed his face and felt embarrassed.
“Really bad, huh?”
“It’s gotten better since I got home from work.”
“So you, uh... can’t keep up with my mood swings, huh? That’s what you mean by oscillations?”
“Ah ha ha. Your mood swings? Hm.”
Clark was rubbing his shoulders.
Oh, Lex, don’t let him in. “Do you want to come inside?” Did I really say that?
“No, I’m on deck for breakfast and house chores tomorrow.” Clark grinned at Lex’s questioning expression. “We’re rotating house duties. Dad figured it was only fair now that Mom had an important job. He says, we’re all busy, so we should all pitch in. We’ve always divided it up before, too. It was just like more stuff Dad and I did and stuff Mom did.”
“I honestly don’t know how the three of you keep that farm going by yourselves. Or how you were managing school while doing all of that work.”
“Sometimes I didn’t, I guess.”
“I want to offer you help for the farm, but I know your father wouldn’t take it.”
“Maybe not. He was really mad about me not being in school. He was kinda mad when I decided to go to A&M to begin with because he wanted me to get an education and not feel trapped on the farm.”
“You think he’d consider it so you could go away to school?”
“I don’t want to go far, though. A&M would be cheaper for core classes. I could transfer to MetU and get into the astronomy program.”
“That sounds like something that would be good for you.” Lex gazed out the window at the castle. He didn’t really want to go inside. It was always cold there, for some reason. “If nothing else, he might accept me paying your tuition. I could definitely get you in, although I’m not really an alumni. I took courses there concurrently with my high school classes at Excelsior.”
“You’re so smart.”
“Rich friends give expensive birthday gifts. Plus, I wasn’t able to give you anything at Christmas.”
“I mean, you taking college classes when you were in high school. Who does that?”
“Boys who have a penchant for getting in trouble when they get bored, I’d imagine.” He yawned widely. Clark opened his door, hopped out, and jogged around to the other side. With a bemused expression, Lex allowed Clark to help him down. He wondered, if Clark were this chivalrous not knowing he was pregnant, how would he act if he told him?
“I uh… I didn’t want you to fall.” Clark explained, looking anxious about his hand on Lex’s arm and hip.
“We could dance,” he suggested flippantly.
“Ha ha. Yeah, we could. Out here in the driveway.”
After a moment of silence, Lex placed his arm around Clark’s waist. “I lead.”
“What?” Clark’s face lit up in delighted surprise, as Lex began leading him in a waltz around the large driveway.
“You remember how, right? When I showed you-“
“For your wedding to Helen.” Clark looked down anxiously at their feet, but Lex guided him.
Lex bowed his head, letting the fabric of Clark’s flannel shirt brush softly against him. “I thought you might coax Lana into dancing.”
“It was really fun, you and me dancing around the barn. We probably would have. I really thought I could get back in time.” Clark leaned his face close to Lex’s head.
Lex could feel the breath on his scalp. “It would have been better if you’d showed up to protest the wedding instead of be my best man.”
“I really wanted to.”
Lex laughed and swung Clark into a dip, almost dropping him before Clark caught himself with his strong legs. “Oh?”
“I never liked Helen. She… seemed like an invader. She always sort of…”
“What?”
“Sneered at me. Like she was jealous or something.”
Lex grinned. “Lucas hated her too. He told me he wasn’t coming until I decided to marry someone decent.”
“Lucas? Man, I haven’t heard of him in years.”
“He can’t stand to be around Dad. Okay.” Lex stopped abruptly and leaned on his knees. “I’m way too tired for this.”
He felt Clark’s arms supporting him as they headed inside.
“I thought you weren’t coming in.”
“A few minutes couldn’t possibly hurt,” Clark declared.
Clark didn’t come running out of the mansion until fifteen ‘til three.
Jealous eyes watched in the bushes.
***
Chloe pecked away at the keyboard at her desk among the other Groundlings working at the Daily Planet. She yawned a bit, regretting having stayed up quite so late with Lois the night before, but socialization was good, or so people told her. Mostly Lois.
She heard Lana before she saw her. Clipping in her heeled boots down the stairs. Chloe took a deep breath and felt irrationally guilty for not taking her side and declaring Lex the evil of the world.
“Lana! Hey. Two days in a row. Aren’t I the lucky one?” Chloe said apprehensively. “Look. Okay, don’t take this the wrong way, but Clark called Lex over yesterday, and… I really think he just got mad at you because you were being harsh on Clark. They’ve been trying to make up their friendship since he got back. It probably struck a nerve.”
“You think so?” Lana’s face was tense. “Well, you see Chloe, I think there’s something wrong with Lex. The way he snapped at me, maybe it was motivated by loyalty, but he doesn’t just snap like that. He doesn’t. And… understand that I didn’t mean to spy on him, but last night Clark dropped him off back at his mansion.”
“Yeah, we had dinner at the Kents and Clark took him home.”
“I wasn’t watching long. They… went right in… but he had to practically carry Lex inside. I think he’s sick, or he’s taking some treatment that’s making him irrational.” Her voice oozed concern, and she pulled up a chair next to Chloe. “Is there any way we can find out what’s going on?”
“Huh. Well, now that you mention it, Lex did seem pretty beat last night. It’s the first time since he came back that I’ve seen him, but he’s definitely lost some weight. He went to the bathroom seven times. Exactly.” She turned her interest to her computer a little too quickly. “Not that I was counting, or anything.”
“So, how can we get some information?”
“He hasn’t been to the hospital lately, so… we’ll probably have to ask around, figure out which doctors he’s seeing, maybe look into which projects have his attention. He mentioned one personal project that seems to be occupying a lot of his thoughts…”
“Yeah?” Lana leaned over her shoulder and gave a little sigh.
“Don’t worry, Lana. He’ll be okay.”
”Oh, you know Lex. I’m sure he’s pretty indestructible. I’m just… concerned.”
Chloe nodded and started to look into her files. “I could also hack into the LuthorCorp security cameras.”
“That would be great,” Lana said excitedly. Chloe rubbed her shoulder.
”We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“I knew I could count on you.” She smiled stiffly and watched as Chloe went to work against the LuthorCorp software.