FIC: 10 "Subtle" Ways to Tell Him He's Getting Fat 2/3
Title: Ten "Subtle" Ways to Tell Him He's Getting Fat 2/3
Rating: PG-13 with mature content
Warnings: Discussion of weight issues, therapy, and mental disorders
Summary: Clark notices that Lex has gained weight, and through the help of a savvy internet article, tries to subtly tell Lex that he needs to shed a few pounds. Things are always more complicated, however, as both of them are keeping secrets.
Author’s Notes: This was written for the Clexmas "Love Imperfect" Spring Fling 2010.
The glorious article is HERE.
I suppose I should alert readers that there's some BDA!Clark (although he has his reasons!!), and Oliver has some of his S8ish characterization.
Part Two
Clark found that their apartment was unlivable without Lex there. It was too empty and too cold, and not bright enough. It wasn’t their home anymore, if Lex didn’t come back. Just an empty space that Clark couldn’t fill on his own.
He was staying at the farm now with his folks, who couldn’t help themselves. They just had to try to convince Clark that Lex wasn’t really The One, or tell him that Lex had obviously overreacted (although he’d yet to tell them what the fight was about). Clark was a good boy. They always told him so. Always.
As Clark sat in front of an enormous farm breakfast with bacon, eggs, pancakes, and cut fruit, he thought about Lex hungry and frozen in a huge loft with nothing but a bowl of white rice and the company of his roommates.
“Don’t worry so much, Clark.” Martha smoothed her hand over the back of his hair and kissed his forehead.
Lex really didn’t eat as much as Clark did, and Clark had to admit that the only time he’d bothered noticing what other people ate was when Jodi Melville had been ravenously devouring her lunch back in freshman year. Though that had more to do with the sheer amazement that anyone would ingest the school food with that much gusto.
“Do you think Lex has an eating disorder?” Clark asked suddenly.
His parents looked at one another in confusion.
“Of course not,” Jonathan said, taking some low-sodium turkey bacon.
At the same time, Martha winced and said, “Maybe.”
She looked down at Clark, then took a seat beside him. Normally she didn’t take a seat until Jonathan was well out the door to start his chores. Instead, she turned to their son seriously. “What makes you ask, Clark?”
“I don’t know. I’m just... I never noticed before, and I guess that makes me a bad boyfriend, but Lex doesn’t take care of himself very well, and it was always so hard to get him to eat. Now he does, and he’s gained a little weight.”
“Well, that’s good.” Martha nodded her head. “Have you seen him throwing up? Or hiding food?”
“No.” Clark frowned. “Sometimes he just forgets to eat, or won’t eat. I made him dinner and he just picked at it.”
“Well, sweetheart, I did always wonder about him being so thin. I know it’s none of my business, but I worry about you boys. He didn’t always refuse food, though, just when he seemed stressed. Maybe you just help him handle the stress that he goes through.”
Clark poked his stack of pancakes, then tore the top pancake with his fork. “I don’t know if I do anymore.”
“Well, you’re not his mother. It’s not your job to feed him and wipe his ass.” Jonathan took a bite of his bacon, chewing it slowly, and Clark knew, pretending it was the real thing.
Martha pursed her lips at Jonathan. “But as his partner, Clark naturally wants to be supportive and care for him, in whatever way he can.” She sighed and looked to her son. “Maybe you aren’t the one to do that, though. Maybe Lex needs more than you can give him.”
“Maybe I just need to stop being an asshole.” Clark stabbed his stack, then started to violently cut it up.
“Pfft. I don’t think anything you could’ve done would warrant this kind of self-punishment,” Jonathan said.
“I tried to trick him into losing weight,” Clark informed them with a blunt edge.
His parents were silent for a moment. Martha spoke first, tilting her head to the side. “Trick him?”
“Laid out clothes for him that were too small, tried to get him to join a new fitness regime with me, served him small portions so he’d have to go back for more, except he didn’t, um... pinched his love handles while we were, er, together.”
Martha looked at Clark in dumbfounded shock. “Clark, why would you do that to him?”
Clark looked down in shame. He really did want someone to chastise him and tell him what to do, but it was still embarrassing.
Jonathan put his fork down. “Hold up, Martha.”
“Jonathan!” Martha still sounded scandalized. “What Clark is describing is cruel!”
“Yeah, I get that, and I agree, but Lex isn’t Clark’s girlfriend. He’s not going to be angry for the same reason a woman would.” Jonathan narrowed his eyes and looked at Clark. “He is still a man, right?”
Clark rolled his eyes. “Dad, I swear. He only dressed in drag that one time, and it was Halloween. There’s a big difference between that and being trans.”
“Tran what? Nevermind. The point is, I probably have some perspective on this,” Jonathan said. Martha looked at him curiously, and he held up a hand. “You never snuck around on me, but you did ask me to change. With good reason, of course. Still, the way I react to being told I have to watch my weight and eat low sodium crap is going to be different.”
“Lex eats healthy, though. Most of the time.”
“But he’s gained weight. It could just be his metabolism changing, or it could be a symptom of something serious. Son, there’s no reason for you not to bring it up. To his face. Just ask, and don’t screw around with doing all that crap behind his back,” Jonathan advised. “Look, if Martha had just started cooking with all the substitutes and tried to send me on extra errands so I’d have to move around more, I wouldn’t have been too happy with her, believe you me. But she didn’t. She was open about the changes that were going to be made, we had a discussion about it together, and now we go on walks together, for both of our health.”
“You know, he’s right. No one’s more stubborn than your father, but I bet if you had told Lex that you were worried about him and asked him if something was going on, you could have talked about it at least,” Martha added. “Just tell him that you’ve noticed, and you know he doesn’t usually keep weight on, even if he tries to eat more. He’s crazy about you, and wouldn’t want to see you worry.”
“I guess not. He was pretty open to clearing the junk out of the kitchen.” Clark sighed. “I don’t know that he’s going to believe me if I start talking about health now, though.”
Martha pressed her lips into a line. “Is it? About health, I mean. I haven’t seen him in a while. Are you still attracted to him?”
Jonathan rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Yes!” Clark said quickly. “I am. I mean it bothered me a little at first, and I’m not sure why. It was different, and Lex isn’t different. He doesn’t ever look any older. He looks tired, or stressed, but he doesn’t age and he doesn’t gain weight. But when we were last in bed to-”
“Ah!” Jonathan held up a hand. “I celebrate your truth, or whatever it is you kids call it these days, but I don’t need the details.”
“Jonathan!” Martha admonished.
Clark chuckled. “Just to answer your question... I am. I really am. I just went off the deep-end about this.”
“Well. If you’re going to go patch things up with him, you’re going to have to figure that out. Nothing is going to piss him off more than if you head up there and give him an apology he can’t believe in,” Jonathan advised.
Martha nodded and rubbed Clark’s back. He sighed and looked up at the bright sun in the sky. He couldn’t imagine facing the day without Lex rushing off to work in between kisses. But now he had to.
***
“I want to kill myself.”
Lex slumped back into Chloe’s orange microfiber sofa. His fingers curled over the front of his shirt, and he held himself rigidly, as though uncomfortable in his skin.
“Do you mean that?” Chloe came over, sat beside him, and offered him a spoon.
“No. Not really. Miranda took me off the Lexapro,” he joked darkly.
“I have to say, I couldn’t be happier about that particular change.” She dug into the tube of cookie dough with her own spoon, then offered it to Lex. He scowled and tightened his fingers around the fabric of his shirt.
“A little cookie dough isn’t going to make you break the scale.”
“It might.”
“For starters, you haven’t gotten fat. You just eeked your way of the underweight category on the BMI and assured yourself a few more years of your life.” She took a bite of the cookie dough thoughtfully. “And before you blame the Paxil, you should realize that this gain could be a positive one. You look good, Lex. You never ate enough, and you always looked a little frail, even if you had some muscle to you. Maybe once you settled with Clark and started eating regularly, your weight went up because you are healthier.”
“That’s all well and good, Chloe, but the best thing that’s happened to me, in a very long time, just ended because Paxil makes you fat. Where I sit on a scale as flawed as the BMI ranks somewhere below the dissolution of what I’d hoped would be lifelong.” Lex sighed and scooped out a little cookie dough. He nibbled it, then licked his lips. “Sometimes I just resent food.”
“Well, that’s healthy.”
“I wake up nauseated from my meds, then I get heartburn or dizzy if I don’t eat. So I have to think of something to eat, and actually make it and eat it. Then a few hours later, I have to do it all again,” Lex complained.
“Is the Paxil making you sick like Prozac did?” She frowned in concern and leaned against Lex.
He licked his spoon off and put his feet on Chloe’s coffee table. “The Prozac gave me anxiety attacks and took away my sex drive. Luckily that was prior to moving in with Clark, because he’s as frisky as an unneutered puppy. If it weren’t for the anxiety attacks, I could have lived with the side effects. The Zoloft was what made me very sick. And disoriented. And made me hear voices.”
“Don’t tell Pete I said so, but sometimes I think psychiatry is more like throwing a pancake at a wall than science. Especially regarding the meds. Let’s throw this at it and see what happens!”
“I know how you feel about it. I don’t mean to unload on you.”
“Hey.” Chloe pointed her spoon at Lex. “Just because my mom was institutionalized after she wandered off and abandoned us doesn’t mean you can’t talk to me about these things. I know better than anyone that you can’t just decide to get better, or just ‘work hard enough’ and make it happen. It’s just... a process. Overall, I am kind of glad they finally diagnosed my mom, and have been abled to get her on medication that helps. Last year she started recognizing me more often. I’m grateful for that.”
Lex twirled his spoon around and sighed. “I keep thinking that I should just go off the medication and try to do it on my own again. But when I bring it up, my therapist mentions, and probably rightly, how hard it was for me to handle daily things the last time I tried it. She’s been really patient, and I’m lucky that my insurance covers all of this.”
“Yay, Miranda. You know who would be good to talk about this with?”
“If Clark can’t handle a few pounds, I doubt he can handle a partner who’s fucked in the head.”
“You might be surprised. Besides, he’s handled you up until now, without knowing about it.”
Lex stared at his spoon and ran his finger along the edge. “There’s a discernible difference between how people treat you when they know you’ve had a hard life, and how they treat you when they know you go to therapy to deal with that trauma. Especially if they know that you’re medicated to take the edge off the worst of it. I can’t handle Clark looking at me like that. Like I’m broken inside. Sometimes I wonder why he even loves a man like me. We’re so very different, he and I. He’s so... normal.”
“Well.” Chloe put her arm around him. “As someone who loves you, in no small part because you are me, only with a penis-”
Lex chuckled.
“Clark is so not normal. Would a normal guy take relationship advice from an internet article that stupid?”
“They wrote it, didn’t they?”
“I’m not even sure it was for real. Who would do that besides Clark? Most guys who really have a problem with their girls getting fat are probably too insensitive not to say so. They’re also probably fat themselves.”
“Clark isn’t fat.”
Lex looked down and poked his abdomen. Chloe reached over and rubbed his belly.
“Stop thinking about it. You guys need to talk to one another, but he needs to apologize first. That was hurtful. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you.”
“Chloe, had you told me about this, I would have thought you to be joking.” He rubbed his temple and frowned irritably. “Hate this. I hate him. If he hadn’t been such a sociopath when I was growing up and gotten himself killed by a mobster, I wouldn’t need to stay in therapy, and then I wouldn’t have to cycle through different drugs in a game of side effects Russian Roulette, and I wouldn’t have to go on Paxil and start gaining weight for the first time since I was eighteen.”
Chloe gave him a squeeze and bowed her lips downward in sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks for taking me in. I know it’s hard for you to be in the middle of this.”
“Clark will understand. Hell, I think he’d rather you be with a friend, and know where you were, than for you to be somewhere alone.”
“Probably.” Lex rolled his eyes. “Why is he considerate about that?”
“Because men are from Mars.”
“Clark is, if anything, from another solar system. Maybe from the Andromeda galaxy.”
Chloe bit her lip.
***
“So. Tell me about your mother.”
“She’s fine.” Clark set down a plate of cookies on Pete’s desk. “She sends her baked goods.”
Pete grinned and reached over to take one of the cookies. “You said you had an emergency. What kind of emergency? Birth parent emergency?”
“No.” Clark chuckled. “Nothing like that.”
“Tell.”
Pete pointed to a chair, which Clark pulled over to the side of Pete’s desk. There, he sat back and began to detail the happenings of the last month. Pete frowned silently, occasionally scratching the back of his head. When Clark finished, he rested his hands in his lap and raised his brows at Pete hopefully. Pete remained quiet for a long moment, and then:
“Da-yum, Clark.”
Clark threw his hands up. “I know! I look back on it now and I want to kick myself. It wasn’t even that big of a dealt, but I was just... fixated on it.”
“How much weight did he gain?”
Clark pursed his lips at Pete. That was so not the point.
“Seriously. You know me. I like a little truck-butt. In women, anyway. Are we talking glandular dysfunction, mid-life metabolism change, or gained a whole other person?”
Clark rolled his eyes. “I dunno. Maybe fifteen pounds?” He winced at Pete dubious expression. “I know!”
“Well, we can definitely rule out the weight being the actual problem.”
“I knew that, Doctor Ross.”
“Shut up. You’re not a cruel person, man, and you’re not a douchebag. So something must have set you off to make you act this way. Something else that really, really is a problem for you.”
Clark rolled his shoulders. “I was hoping you could tell me what that was.”
“As one of the very few people to get out of Smallville without a mutation-- clairvoyant, I am not,” Pete said, shaking his head. He straightened up and grabbed one of this notepads. It helped him to think, if he could scribble down bits and pieces of their conversation. “Have you guys talked about your secret yet?”
“No.”
“How come?” Pete looked up. “You’ve known him for years. You know he has an ability himself.”
“I just don’t want him looking at me like...”
“Like I did when I first found out?” Pete sat up. “Lemme reiterate: I was a normal kid, whereas Lex never was.”
“I know you don’t like Lex-”
“I didn’t like Lex. When I was a teenager, and I didn’t get what having a a cruel bastard for a father would do to someone. Now, I don’t even know Lex. What I’m telling you is that you can’t expect Lex to react the same way that someone who had a stable family did, the way a ‘normal’ did. No part of his life has been normal. Do you think that you’re the most strange or traumatic thing that he’s had to deal with?”
“Is this really about me telling Lex my secret?”
“No, but I think you have issues for not telling him now that you’re living together and getting bizzay,” Pete informed him. He wrote something on his pad.
“Is that your official diagnosis? I have issues?”
“That has always been my diagnosis, even before I knew where you came from. Mr. I Think I’m in Love Because the Girl Makes Me Puke.”
Clark laughed.
He wrote on the pad again. “And you’re deflecting my question. Do you think that knowing your secret would be any more traumatic than the other things that I can only guess at? I’m sure he’s told you about some of what it was like to grow up in that house.”
“Not really. Lex doesn’t like to talk about that.”
Pete cocked his head to the side. “Do you ask?”
“Well. Not really.”
Pete thinned his lips.
“What?” Clark demanded. He hated when Pete did that. He had figured something out, and he wasn’t going to tell Clark, because he had to get it for himself.
“Okay, let me... Tell me about your relationship with Lex. You know that he’s a mutant. You knew that from the start, because you hit him with a car and he lived. Do you guys ever talk about that? Is he a part of any metahuman groups, or activism?”
Clark blinked and look out the window behind Pete. His head slowly started to shake. “He’s never mentioned any. We don’t really talk about that.”
“Why not?”
“Lex doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“Lex doesn’t like to talk about a lot of things,” Pete commented.
“What does that mean?” Clark paused, because he knew Pete wouldn’t answer. They’d moved from friendly talk to therapist and patient. So Clark sighed and put his feet up on the nearby couch. “Well, no he doesn’t. I know there are things that are hard for him to talk about, so I don’t make him. I don’t think that makes me a bad boyfriend.”
“It’s good that you extend your own feelings about privacy to him,” Pete affirmed. “Does Lex have anyone that he talks to?”
“Chloe, sometimes. I know she knows things that I don’t, because the two of them have worked on cases together. I don’t pry from her, either.”
“Why not?” “Because that would make me a hypocrite and a jerky friend to her.”
Pete scribbled on the pad and scratched the back of his head again. “Do you want to know what kind of abuse Lex has gone through?”
“Pete!” Clark looked at him indignantly.
“Why does that make you mad?”
“Because I don’t like to think about Lex getting hurt!” Clark snapped. He sat up and faced his friend. “Why would you bring that up? I know that there were probably bad things that happened to him, while he was with Lionel, and then in foster care until he got emancipated. That doesn’t mean we have to dwell on it!”
“What if he needed you to listen to it, though?” Pete leaned on his hand and watched Clark carefully. “Could you? Would it be too hard to listen about someone hurting him?”
“Of course I’d listen.” His voice was almost empty of strength. He wasn’t in the conversation at the moment, but trying to remember if Lex had ever tried to bring it up and been rebuffed. “What if Lex has needed me to listen? What if he tried, and I didn’t hear him?”
Pete shook his head. “Are you that oblivious?”
“I don’t know!”
Pete pushed back a smile. “You’re probably not. He’s probably not asked you straight out to sit down and listen. He probably, since he has a hard time talking about it, has a very hard time asking for someone to listen. Someone who comes from where he does, he’s going to be as armored as you are sometimes, about letting people in.”
“I don’t want our relationship to be like that. I don’t want it to just be us, going through the motions, like we don’t need each other and aren’t there for each other,” Clark protested.
“I don’t know who would want that.” Pete tapped his pen on the desk. “You have to commit yourself to being open to listen, if he tries. I don’t know that he has, though. That’s what I’m saying.”
“Would I be a jerk for trying to get him to talk about it?”
“No. I don’t think so, anyway. After what you did, though, he’s going to trust you even less. Before it was probably an irrational self-protectiveness, and that’s different from being in a situation in which you’ve actually hurt him.”
Clark pouted and slumped in his chair.
“I get the feeling that you think you can make your relationship with Lex normal if you try. The main problem with that is that he hasn’t been consulted, and neither one of you are normal. Pushing so much of yourself back means that neither of you can be entirely open with the other, and neither of you can entirely know what the other needs.”
Clark sighed heavily. “Do you think that we can fix this?”
“Maybe. If you can be honest with yourself why Lex gaining a little weight disturbs you so profoundly that it pushes you to acting irrationally.” Pete set his pen down and leaned back in the chair, narrowing his eyes at Clark. “So what is it? Because it isn’t the fat that you’re afraid of. And it is based in fear.”
Clark drew in a deep breath.
***
As Clark exited the building that held Pete’s office, his heart jerked spastically in his chest. He would recognized Lex’s fluid gait anywhere, and he was coming down the sidewalk at a decent pace. Clark didn’t have time to speed out of there without Lex or someone else seeing him disappear.
“Shit,” he whispered when he saw Lex lifting his head and stopping in his tracks. Clark rolled his tongue along the inside of his cheek. He wasn’t always particularly good at determining the best thing to do to diminish the hurt that someone was feeling, and he certainly didn’t want to keep twisting that knife that Lex felt in his back right now.
While Clark had been waffling, Lex had made the decision for him. He came storming up to Clark with a stern expression and a heart beating so rapidly that Clark was a little alarmed for him. Before he could say anything, Lex exploded.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I... Lex, calm down. I’m sorry!”
“Who talked to you?” Lex demanded, leaning forward. Then he pulled his shirt down and crossed his arms defensively.
Clark pushed his lower lip out. He hated that Lex felt self-conscious because of him. “Lex, I was just in the area, okay? I’m not here to hassle you. But I am sorry.” He paused, then whispered. “You look really good.”
“No, I don’t,” Lex replied through clenched teeth.
He wasn’t lying. Lex was pale, looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and may have even put on a few more pounds. But to Clark, just getting to see Lex at all was wonderful, after being away from him for so long.
“Lex, it doesn’t matter to me. Okay? It doesn’t. I was stupid, and thoughtless. Please say something?” Clark pleaded.
Lex rolled his eyes. “I hope you’re an invisible grunt at the Planet for the rest of your life, and you never have sex again. Immature? Maybe. Go away.”
“Lex-” “Go get started building your stupid picket fence. Maybe you can pick up an aspiring supermodel to date, or failing that, you could just go to an eating disorders group and pick one of those girls up. That would probably work out for you.” Lex’s hands were shaking, and he shoved them in his pockets. His eyes fixed on Clark with frustration, and his shoulders slumped forward. “Why are you still standing here?”
“Lex, I miss you. Don’t you miss me?”
Lex puffed out his cheeks and rocked on his heels. He sulked at the pavement. “No. I don’t.”
Clark tried to put a hand on Lex’s shoulder, only to be brushed off. Lex slipped passed him, and Clark looked at Lex turned from him. There was tension written in every line of his back.
“I’m gonna go, because you want me to. But Lex, I have to tell you-”
“You’ve done and said enough.”
Clark could hear Lex’s shaky breathing. It was rattling to see Lex so unravelled, and to know that he’d caused it.
“You shouldn’t punish yourself like this, Lex. Not for me. I still love you,” he said quickly. “But don’t do this to yourself just because of what I di-”
Lex spun around. “Get over yourself. Not everything on this planet revolves around the mild mannered Clark Kent.”
Pressing his lips together and feeling heavy in his chest, Clark slowly took a step back, then turned away and left. He couldn’t stay here arguing with Lex. Not when Lex was so obviously in pain.
Behind him, Lex’s shoulders went loose, and he walked into the building.
***
Lex scratched a dry patch on the back of his head as he sat in the waiting room and danced his right leg up and down. He was glad that his therapist Miranda was able to see him today, even if it meant running into Clark outside of the building. Funny how seeing Clark used to be a bright spot in his day, and now seeing him made the weight of all of his dysfunction just weighed him down until he didn’t want to get up.
Or that could have just been the fucking withdrawal.
He could hear some other doctors talking in the hallway. Several therapists shared this building, and his had only moved here a few month ago. His head was killing him, and he kept his eyes closed until he thought he heard his name. With a frown, he looked up and blinked at the doctors in the hallway. There was a black doctor standing there with... he couldn’t tell. Probably a woman, or a man with really long hair. His vision was a bit blurred at the moment, so he just rubbed his temples and covered his eyes until the receptionist called his name.
With a heavy sigh, he got up and went inside the office. Miranda was sitting at her desk wearing one of her flowy pants suits with her hair unbound and falling softly around her face and down her back. Lex met Miranda’s eye, almost sheepishly. She got out of her chair quickly and came up to him, closing the door and taking his hands. “Lex, this is why we don’t go cold turkey off of any of the SSRIs!”
He allowed her to give him a hug and then lead him to the sofa to lie down.
“I’ll try not to fall asleep on you.”
“That was one of the problems with the Paxil?” She sat in a soft chair beside the sofa and leaned forward on her thighs.
“It was. And that is a problem, because... I work? Now I can’t sleep at all.”
“All of our bodies are so different. It’s hard to tell how you’re going to react to any one drug.”
“You’ve told me that. You didn’t tell me that Paxil was going to make me blow up like a balloon,” Lex snapped. He moved his hands to glare at her.
Miranda seemed a bit surprised, but she folded her hands. “Is that one of the reasons you stopped taking it?”
Lex grimaced. “No. It was the fatigue. I could hardly work. Sometimes I felt like I was in a cloud. Not as bad as Zoloft, mind, but... still, to do scientific work, I need a clear head. I need my brain. It also made me bruise like a peach. I looked like a battered spouse. And the irritability, which is actually a lot worse now.” He rested his hands on his stomach. “I don’t like being fat, but the other symptoms I just can’t live my life with.”
“That’s understandable. How are you feeling about this? Are you willing to keep trying, or do you want to go off the meds entirely?”
Letting his head fall back, Lex stared at the ceiling. “I don’t know. I’ve been coming to you for years, trying to talk about my problems. Comparatively, we haven’t been trying the drugs for that long. It’s just hard to live with all of the side effects. I can’t control my brain, but I need to at least be able to control my body.”
“I’m thinking of putting you back on the generic form of the Prozac-”
Lex groaned and covered his eyes again.
“-and then prescribing you something else to deal with the symptoms,” Miranda finished. She quirked her mouth to the side sympathetically when Lex looked at her again. “I don’t like to do that, especially with patients who have struggled with alcoholism in the past. However, your tests show that your liver function is actually pretty good. You can buy some milk thistle capsules over the counter to help with that as well.”
Lex shot her a questioning glance.
“Milk thistle promotes a healthy liver. It’ll help your body process multiple drugs at once. Fluoxetine for the anti-depression, and then Abilify for the anxiety and irritability, and Seroquel so that you can sleep. How’s that sound?”
Thinning his lips, Lex rubbed his stomach. “I need to think about it.” He paused. “Herbal supplements? I didn’t realize you were such a hippy. I thought it was just heavy drugs you pushed here.”
Miranda smiled. “Sometimes. There’s something else I’m itching to prescribe for you, but not in pill form.”
Lex raised a brow. “First, what are the side effects of these new drugs you want to give me?”
Miranda stood and went to her desk to get some papers for Lex to look over.
“We’ll have to keep an eye on you while you’re taking multiple medications,” she advised.
“Weight gain is a side effect for Abilify too,” Lex complained.
“Not with the frequency of Paxil, in my experience.”
“If you knew about it, why didn’t you tell me?” Lex looked up at her crossly.
“You were underweight,” Miranda pointed out. “I didn’t think it would hold the same kind of risk for you as it would for a patient who was already at normal or overweight.”
“You should have told me,” Lex muttered.
Miranda’s face grew stern and she sat back down. “Do we need to talk about this? You said that you and your boyfriend broke up.”
“Yes. A few weeks ago. I’ve been staying with a friend. He... I just saw him. On the street. We fought.” Lex laid the papers down. “I was a complete bitch with him.”
“Well, you are coming down off your anti-depressant.”
“Yeah. I’ll blame that.” Lex closed his eyes and felt a tear coming down his cheek. “Dammit.”
“It’s okay. Tell me what happened,” Miranda urged.
“I already told my friend Chloe about it,” Lex said stubbornly.
With patience in her voice, Miranda reminded him gently, “You did pay for the hour.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d given him that reminder. Even after all the time he had spent in her office, it was still his inclination to tighten up and keep it all inside.
“Okay. So. I told you that Clark and I moved in together.”
***
Monday morning, Lex walked into work feeling a little less like something ground under Clark’s shoe. He doubted that the medication switch had done anything yet, but getting a few decent hours of sleep did wonders for his level of irritability. Knowing that he’d feel nauseated if he ate anything solid, Lex had managed to choke down a smoothie to ensure he made it through the morning with a clear head.
He set to work on getting his experiments underway, and didn’t look up until the other scientists walked in with a tall, blond man with a frat-boy’s haircut, a suit, and a chin-butt.
“Can I help you?” Lex asked. He looked up at the man dubiously. He was groomed like a boy, but Lex guessed that the man was older than he was.
“Lex Luthor!” the man-boy chimed.
Vivi and Sam motioned behind the man for Lex to stand to greet him.
“You have me at a loss. You know me, but I have no idea who you are.” Lex did stand, still wearing his protective glasses, and faced the man.
“Oliver Queen.” He offered his hand to Lex. “We met in school, I think. Didn’t you used to go to Excelsior?”
“For a time.” Lex frowned more deeply. The Oliver Queen he’d know had been a spoiled bully. “And what brings you to Cadmus Labs?”
“I just wanted to check out what you guys were doing here. A walk-through of all your little projects,” Oliver said cheerfully.
“Did Victoria ask you to come give her some advice?” Lex wanted to punch his obnoxious chin-butt.
“No. I came, because after acquiring Cadmus Labs, I thought I should figure out just what you squints are doing down here.” Oliver put his hands on his hips and looked around Lex’s lab. “And especially how you’re making Cadmus, and by extension Queen Industries, money.”
He looked down on Lex, then plucked the glasses off of his face. “There we go. You know, when we were in school... I was the fat kid. Funny turnaround. Guess we’re gonna have to get you out of this lab and moving around more, hm?”
Lex changed his mind. He didn’t want to punch Oliver’s chin-butt. He wanted to punch his cock.
***
Chloe walked side by side with Pete, who had run into her downtown and decided to tag along on the rest of her errands so they could catch up. They were, probably, opposites in their romantic lives, but quite similar with regard to career. Pete was happily married with twin girls, and Chloe was single. They were both very involved in their careers. Thus, Pete debriefed her on the family before they turned to talking about their jobs, and he ended up following her back to her apartment after she’d picked up dinner.
“So you think you’ll ever catch him?” Pete asked as they walked up the stairs in her building. Chloe called it her morning and evening exercise routine, since the elevator was broken.
“I don’t know. He’s slick, and he has some of the best connections in the world. Not to mention he’s richer than sin.” Chloe shrugged. “I’m going to do what I can. I’m off the radar now, because I have no powers to speak of, but he’s got my number. They’ll show up eventually, and even if they don’t, there are other people out there disappearing. The authorities don’t care because they’re all bigots. They’d rather have the metas off the streets, and they don’t care how it gets done.”
“This guy sounds like Lionel Luthor.”
Chloe paused to look at Pete with surprise.
“Was that over the top, considering you’re harboring his relationship-refugee son?” Pete scratched the back of his head. “I don’t mean anything by it.”
“No, I’m just surprised that I never saw that connection myself.”
“I’ve been out of the game for awhile. Lionel Luthor’s my benchmark for evil bastards. Anyone else I can dissect and assume a motivation for.”
“Lex says the man was just sadistic and driven by a need to have power and money, and therefore security.”
Pete shrugged his head to the side and continued up the stairs. “That sounds like an adequate explanation.”
“I don’t think that Lex will disagree with you on the evil bastard bit, though.” Chloe reached into her purse and pulled out her keys.
“I guess he wouldn’t. How is he? I... Um, I saw him at my office building the other day.”
Chloe raised her brows high. “Did you?”
“Yeah. He was in the office down the hall from mine, actually. Miranda King’s office. She’s good. I don’t know about the alternative treatments, but I have a lot of respect for her. I’m not sure if he saw me. He looked a little out of it.”
Chloe was silent for a moment. “He had a fight with Clark that day.”
“Clark told me about the fight. He didn’t mention Lex’s therapist.”
“Clark doesn’t know. And Lex doesn’t know about you, and Clark doesn’t know about the meds, and Lex doesn’t know about-” Chloe whistled and pointed upward. She opened her door and set her keys on the table. “It’s a great big circle of not knowing.”
Pete sighed and walked behind her to take her dinner into the kitchen. His ears caught the sound of someone in the other room, so he caught Chloe’s eye and jerked his head in that direction questioningly.
“Oh. Lex is... He usually works late.”
Chloe pushed her lips out, shut the door, and pulled off her jacket. Then she headed to the guest room. Pete followed after her, and since the door was open, she knocked on the doorframe. Lex was sitting on the floor, lotus position, with a jar of reduced fat creamy peanut butter next to him and a spoon in his mouth.
When he heard the noise, Lex looked up and flushed in embarrassment. He swallowed, then muttered defensively, “I’m hungry, but I can’t eat anything. I’m nauseated, and my stomach hurts. So I bought peanut butter.”
Chloe’s mouth pushed into a deep frown, and she came over to Lex’s side. “I can make some soup. That’s not beyond my culinary skill.”
“You don’t have to,” Lex replied quietly.
“It’s not a problem. I already have my dinner taken care of. All I have to do is boil some vegetable bullion and add those glass noodles.” She smoothed a hand over Lex’s head and then gave it a kiss. She knew that he must be feeling really low right now, because normally he would have higher defenses, even with her, if Pete were standing there. “Bad day?”
Lex breathed in and then out deeply, then stuck the spoon in the jar. “You remember how I told you that I used to go to this boarding school when I was young? My father sent me there because I was a little too smart for my own good, but mostly because he wanted me to ‘bond’ with the other spoiled rich kids, the ‘old money.’ There was one kid in particular there, and he was just... impossible. Older than me. One of the meanest individuals I’ve ever encountered, and he had all the other older boys on his side and all the teachers and staff wrapped around his finger, because of how influential his family was. I’m sure that now I could wax on about how it was all born of deep insecurity, but the truth is, at the time he was a monster, and he was particularly obsessed with making my life a living hell.”
Chloe sat cross-legged beside him, and Pete hung in the doorway, listening intently.
“What happened?” Chloe prompted.
“That guy? He’s my boss now. He bought Cadmus from Victoria Hardwick. He is just as big an asshole as he was back then, and I’m gathering that his intellect hasn’t developed a single iota since then either. I had to justify all of my projects to this man today. I’ll be lucky if I get to keep my job, let alone any of my really important work.” Lex licked his lips, then sucked them in and looked away. “And if I don’t have my job, I don’t have my insurance, and I don’t have... Fuck.”
“Lex, we’ll work it out. It’ll be okay. You have the medications you need for now, right? If the worst happens, we’ll deal with it,” Chloe assured him, rubbing his back.
“You know how they always say that the best revenge is living well?” Lex let out a humorless laugh. “I am terrible at revenge.”
“Who is this chucklefuck?” Pete asked.
They both looked up at him, and Lex seemed guarded but answered anyway, “Oliver Queen. Of The Queens of Star City.”
“Oh, my God.” Chloe ran a hand through her hair. “That’s the guy I’ve been trying to investigate.”
Lex stiffened his neck. “He’s the one who abducted you?”
“I... think so. I mean. Yes.” Chloe folded her hands in her lap and looked a little rattled. Pete had been trying to get her to talk to someone about that, but Chloe was so skittish about doctors that it was like talking to a wall. A bubbly wall bent on seeking justice.
Lex looked to Pete again, then back to Chloe. He seemed a bit more grounded now, the habitual gravitas returning to his countenance. He rested a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m probably going to get fired anyway. Is there anything I can get for you before then?”
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth.
comments posted there. Please comment there using OpenID or your DW account.
Rating: PG-13 with mature content
Warnings: Discussion of weight issues, therapy, and mental disorders
Summary: Clark notices that Lex has gained weight, and through the help of a savvy internet article, tries to subtly tell Lex that he needs to shed a few pounds. Things are always more complicated, however, as both of them are keeping secrets.
Author’s Notes: This was written for the Clexmas "Love Imperfect" Spring Fling 2010.
The glorious article is HERE.
I suppose I should alert readers that there's some BDA!Clark (although he has his reasons!!), and Oliver has some of his S8ish characterization.
Part Two
Clark found that their apartment was unlivable without Lex there. It was too empty and too cold, and not bright enough. It wasn’t their home anymore, if Lex didn’t come back. Just an empty space that Clark couldn’t fill on his own.
He was staying at the farm now with his folks, who couldn’t help themselves. They just had to try to convince Clark that Lex wasn’t really The One, or tell him that Lex had obviously overreacted (although he’d yet to tell them what the fight was about). Clark was a good boy. They always told him so. Always.
As Clark sat in front of an enormous farm breakfast with bacon, eggs, pancakes, and cut fruit, he thought about Lex hungry and frozen in a huge loft with nothing but a bowl of white rice and the company of his roommates.
“Don’t worry so much, Clark.” Martha smoothed her hand over the back of his hair and kissed his forehead.
Lex really didn’t eat as much as Clark did, and Clark had to admit that the only time he’d bothered noticing what other people ate was when Jodi Melville had been ravenously devouring her lunch back in freshman year. Though that had more to do with the sheer amazement that anyone would ingest the school food with that much gusto.
“Do you think Lex has an eating disorder?” Clark asked suddenly.
His parents looked at one another in confusion.
“Of course not,” Jonathan said, taking some low-sodium turkey bacon.
At the same time, Martha winced and said, “Maybe.”
She looked down at Clark, then took a seat beside him. Normally she didn’t take a seat until Jonathan was well out the door to start his chores. Instead, she turned to their son seriously. “What makes you ask, Clark?”
“I don’t know. I’m just... I never noticed before, and I guess that makes me a bad boyfriend, but Lex doesn’t take care of himself very well, and it was always so hard to get him to eat. Now he does, and he’s gained a little weight.”
“Well, that’s good.” Martha nodded her head. “Have you seen him throwing up? Or hiding food?”
“No.” Clark frowned. “Sometimes he just forgets to eat, or won’t eat. I made him dinner and he just picked at it.”
“Well, sweetheart, I did always wonder about him being so thin. I know it’s none of my business, but I worry about you boys. He didn’t always refuse food, though, just when he seemed stressed. Maybe you just help him handle the stress that he goes through.”
Clark poked his stack of pancakes, then tore the top pancake with his fork. “I don’t know if I do anymore.”
“Well, you’re not his mother. It’s not your job to feed him and wipe his ass.” Jonathan took a bite of his bacon, chewing it slowly, and Clark knew, pretending it was the real thing.
Martha pursed her lips at Jonathan. “But as his partner, Clark naturally wants to be supportive and care for him, in whatever way he can.” She sighed and looked to her son. “Maybe you aren’t the one to do that, though. Maybe Lex needs more than you can give him.”
“Maybe I just need to stop being an asshole.” Clark stabbed his stack, then started to violently cut it up.
“Pfft. I don’t think anything you could’ve done would warrant this kind of self-punishment,” Jonathan said.
“I tried to trick him into losing weight,” Clark informed them with a blunt edge.
His parents were silent for a moment. Martha spoke first, tilting her head to the side. “Trick him?”
“Laid out clothes for him that were too small, tried to get him to join a new fitness regime with me, served him small portions so he’d have to go back for more, except he didn’t, um... pinched his love handles while we were, er, together.”
Martha looked at Clark in dumbfounded shock. “Clark, why would you do that to him?”
Clark looked down in shame. He really did want someone to chastise him and tell him what to do, but it was still embarrassing.
Jonathan put his fork down. “Hold up, Martha.”
“Jonathan!” Martha still sounded scandalized. “What Clark is describing is cruel!”
“Yeah, I get that, and I agree, but Lex isn’t Clark’s girlfriend. He’s not going to be angry for the same reason a woman would.” Jonathan narrowed his eyes and looked at Clark. “He is still a man, right?”
Clark rolled his eyes. “Dad, I swear. He only dressed in drag that one time, and it was Halloween. There’s a big difference between that and being trans.”
“Tran what? Nevermind. The point is, I probably have some perspective on this,” Jonathan said. Martha looked at him curiously, and he held up a hand. “You never snuck around on me, but you did ask me to change. With good reason, of course. Still, the way I react to being told I have to watch my weight and eat low sodium crap is going to be different.”
“Lex eats healthy, though. Most of the time.”
“But he’s gained weight. It could just be his metabolism changing, or it could be a symptom of something serious. Son, there’s no reason for you not to bring it up. To his face. Just ask, and don’t screw around with doing all that crap behind his back,” Jonathan advised. “Look, if Martha had just started cooking with all the substitutes and tried to send me on extra errands so I’d have to move around more, I wouldn’t have been too happy with her, believe you me. But she didn’t. She was open about the changes that were going to be made, we had a discussion about it together, and now we go on walks together, for both of our health.”
“You know, he’s right. No one’s more stubborn than your father, but I bet if you had told Lex that you were worried about him and asked him if something was going on, you could have talked about it at least,” Martha added. “Just tell him that you’ve noticed, and you know he doesn’t usually keep weight on, even if he tries to eat more. He’s crazy about you, and wouldn’t want to see you worry.”
“I guess not. He was pretty open to clearing the junk out of the kitchen.” Clark sighed. “I don’t know that he’s going to believe me if I start talking about health now, though.”
Martha pressed her lips into a line. “Is it? About health, I mean. I haven’t seen him in a while. Are you still attracted to him?”
Jonathan rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Yes!” Clark said quickly. “I am. I mean it bothered me a little at first, and I’m not sure why. It was different, and Lex isn’t different. He doesn’t ever look any older. He looks tired, or stressed, but he doesn’t age and he doesn’t gain weight. But when we were last in bed to-”
“Ah!” Jonathan held up a hand. “I celebrate your truth, or whatever it is you kids call it these days, but I don’t need the details.”
“Jonathan!” Martha admonished.
Clark chuckled. “Just to answer your question... I am. I really am. I just went off the deep-end about this.”
“Well. If you’re going to go patch things up with him, you’re going to have to figure that out. Nothing is going to piss him off more than if you head up there and give him an apology he can’t believe in,” Jonathan advised.
Martha nodded and rubbed Clark’s back. He sighed and looked up at the bright sun in the sky. He couldn’t imagine facing the day without Lex rushing off to work in between kisses. But now he had to.
***
“I want to kill myself.”
Lex slumped back into Chloe’s orange microfiber sofa. His fingers curled over the front of his shirt, and he held himself rigidly, as though uncomfortable in his skin.
“Do you mean that?” Chloe came over, sat beside him, and offered him a spoon.
“No. Not really. Miranda took me off the Lexapro,” he joked darkly.
“I have to say, I couldn’t be happier about that particular change.” She dug into the tube of cookie dough with her own spoon, then offered it to Lex. He scowled and tightened his fingers around the fabric of his shirt.
“A little cookie dough isn’t going to make you break the scale.”
“It might.”
“For starters, you haven’t gotten fat. You just eeked your way of the underweight category on the BMI and assured yourself a few more years of your life.” She took a bite of the cookie dough thoughtfully. “And before you blame the Paxil, you should realize that this gain could be a positive one. You look good, Lex. You never ate enough, and you always looked a little frail, even if you had some muscle to you. Maybe once you settled with Clark and started eating regularly, your weight went up because you are healthier.”
“That’s all well and good, Chloe, but the best thing that’s happened to me, in a very long time, just ended because Paxil makes you fat. Where I sit on a scale as flawed as the BMI ranks somewhere below the dissolution of what I’d hoped would be lifelong.” Lex sighed and scooped out a little cookie dough. He nibbled it, then licked his lips. “Sometimes I just resent food.”
“Well, that’s healthy.”
“I wake up nauseated from my meds, then I get heartburn or dizzy if I don’t eat. So I have to think of something to eat, and actually make it and eat it. Then a few hours later, I have to do it all again,” Lex complained.
“Is the Paxil making you sick like Prozac did?” She frowned in concern and leaned against Lex.
He licked his spoon off and put his feet on Chloe’s coffee table. “The Prozac gave me anxiety attacks and took away my sex drive. Luckily that was prior to moving in with Clark, because he’s as frisky as an unneutered puppy. If it weren’t for the anxiety attacks, I could have lived with the side effects. The Zoloft was what made me very sick. And disoriented. And made me hear voices.”
“Don’t tell Pete I said so, but sometimes I think psychiatry is more like throwing a pancake at a wall than science. Especially regarding the meds. Let’s throw this at it and see what happens!”
“I know how you feel about it. I don’t mean to unload on you.”
“Hey.” Chloe pointed her spoon at Lex. “Just because my mom was institutionalized after she wandered off and abandoned us doesn’t mean you can’t talk to me about these things. I know better than anyone that you can’t just decide to get better, or just ‘work hard enough’ and make it happen. It’s just... a process. Overall, I am kind of glad they finally diagnosed my mom, and have been abled to get her on medication that helps. Last year she started recognizing me more often. I’m grateful for that.”
Lex twirled his spoon around and sighed. “I keep thinking that I should just go off the medication and try to do it on my own again. But when I bring it up, my therapist mentions, and probably rightly, how hard it was for me to handle daily things the last time I tried it. She’s been really patient, and I’m lucky that my insurance covers all of this.”
“Yay, Miranda. You know who would be good to talk about this with?”
“If Clark can’t handle a few pounds, I doubt he can handle a partner who’s fucked in the head.”
“You might be surprised. Besides, he’s handled you up until now, without knowing about it.”
Lex stared at his spoon and ran his finger along the edge. “There’s a discernible difference between how people treat you when they know you’ve had a hard life, and how they treat you when they know you go to therapy to deal with that trauma. Especially if they know that you’re medicated to take the edge off the worst of it. I can’t handle Clark looking at me like that. Like I’m broken inside. Sometimes I wonder why he even loves a man like me. We’re so very different, he and I. He’s so... normal.”
“Well.” Chloe put her arm around him. “As someone who loves you, in no small part because you are me, only with a penis-”
Lex chuckled.
“Clark is so not normal. Would a normal guy take relationship advice from an internet article that stupid?”
“They wrote it, didn’t they?”
“I’m not even sure it was for real. Who would do that besides Clark? Most guys who really have a problem with their girls getting fat are probably too insensitive not to say so. They’re also probably fat themselves.”
“Clark isn’t fat.”
Lex looked down and poked his abdomen. Chloe reached over and rubbed his belly.
“Stop thinking about it. You guys need to talk to one another, but he needs to apologize first. That was hurtful. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you.”
“Chloe, had you told me about this, I would have thought you to be joking.” He rubbed his temple and frowned irritably. “Hate this. I hate him. If he hadn’t been such a sociopath when I was growing up and gotten himself killed by a mobster, I wouldn’t need to stay in therapy, and then I wouldn’t have to cycle through different drugs in a game of side effects Russian Roulette, and I wouldn’t have to go on Paxil and start gaining weight for the first time since I was eighteen.”
Chloe gave him a squeeze and bowed her lips downward in sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks for taking me in. I know it’s hard for you to be in the middle of this.”
“Clark will understand. Hell, I think he’d rather you be with a friend, and know where you were, than for you to be somewhere alone.”
“Probably.” Lex rolled his eyes. “Why is he considerate about that?”
“Because men are from Mars.”
“Clark is, if anything, from another solar system. Maybe from the Andromeda galaxy.”
Chloe bit her lip.
***
“So. Tell me about your mother.”
“She’s fine.” Clark set down a plate of cookies on Pete’s desk. “She sends her baked goods.”
Pete grinned and reached over to take one of the cookies. “You said you had an emergency. What kind of emergency? Birth parent emergency?”
“No.” Clark chuckled. “Nothing like that.”
“Tell.”
Pete pointed to a chair, which Clark pulled over to the side of Pete’s desk. There, he sat back and began to detail the happenings of the last month. Pete frowned silently, occasionally scratching the back of his head. When Clark finished, he rested his hands in his lap and raised his brows at Pete hopefully. Pete remained quiet for a long moment, and then:
“Da-yum, Clark.”
Clark threw his hands up. “I know! I look back on it now and I want to kick myself. It wasn’t even that big of a dealt, but I was just... fixated on it.”
“How much weight did he gain?”
Clark pursed his lips at Pete. That was so not the point.
“Seriously. You know me. I like a little truck-butt. In women, anyway. Are we talking glandular dysfunction, mid-life metabolism change, or gained a whole other person?”
Clark rolled his eyes. “I dunno. Maybe fifteen pounds?” He winced at Pete dubious expression. “I know!”
“Well, we can definitely rule out the weight being the actual problem.”
“I knew that, Doctor Ross.”
“Shut up. You’re not a cruel person, man, and you’re not a douchebag. So something must have set you off to make you act this way. Something else that really, really is a problem for you.”
Clark rolled his shoulders. “I was hoping you could tell me what that was.”
“As one of the very few people to get out of Smallville without a mutation-- clairvoyant, I am not,” Pete said, shaking his head. He straightened up and grabbed one of this notepads. It helped him to think, if he could scribble down bits and pieces of their conversation. “Have you guys talked about your secret yet?”
“No.”
“How come?” Pete looked up. “You’ve known him for years. You know he has an ability himself.”
“I just don’t want him looking at me like...”
“Like I did when I first found out?” Pete sat up. “Lemme reiterate: I was a normal kid, whereas Lex never was.”
“I know you don’t like Lex-”
“I didn’t like Lex. When I was a teenager, and I didn’t get what having a a cruel bastard for a father would do to someone. Now, I don’t even know Lex. What I’m telling you is that you can’t expect Lex to react the same way that someone who had a stable family did, the way a ‘normal’ did. No part of his life has been normal. Do you think that you’re the most strange or traumatic thing that he’s had to deal with?”
“Is this really about me telling Lex my secret?”
“No, but I think you have issues for not telling him now that you’re living together and getting bizzay,” Pete informed him. He wrote something on his pad.
“Is that your official diagnosis? I have issues?”
“That has always been my diagnosis, even before I knew where you came from. Mr. I Think I’m in Love Because the Girl Makes Me Puke.”
Clark laughed.
He wrote on the pad again. “And you’re deflecting my question. Do you think that knowing your secret would be any more traumatic than the other things that I can only guess at? I’m sure he’s told you about some of what it was like to grow up in that house.”
“Not really. Lex doesn’t like to talk about that.”
Pete cocked his head to the side. “Do you ask?”
“Well. Not really.”
Pete thinned his lips.
“What?” Clark demanded. He hated when Pete did that. He had figured something out, and he wasn’t going to tell Clark, because he had to get it for himself.
“Okay, let me... Tell me about your relationship with Lex. You know that he’s a mutant. You knew that from the start, because you hit him with a car and he lived. Do you guys ever talk about that? Is he a part of any metahuman groups, or activism?”
Clark blinked and look out the window behind Pete. His head slowly started to shake. “He’s never mentioned any. We don’t really talk about that.”
“Why not?”
“Lex doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“Lex doesn’t like to talk about a lot of things,” Pete commented.
“What does that mean?” Clark paused, because he knew Pete wouldn’t answer. They’d moved from friendly talk to therapist and patient. So Clark sighed and put his feet up on the nearby couch. “Well, no he doesn’t. I know there are things that are hard for him to talk about, so I don’t make him. I don’t think that makes me a bad boyfriend.”
“It’s good that you extend your own feelings about privacy to him,” Pete affirmed. “Does Lex have anyone that he talks to?”
“Chloe, sometimes. I know she knows things that I don’t, because the two of them have worked on cases together. I don’t pry from her, either.”
“Why not?” “Because that would make me a hypocrite and a jerky friend to her.”
Pete scribbled on the pad and scratched the back of his head again. “Do you want to know what kind of abuse Lex has gone through?”
“Pete!” Clark looked at him indignantly.
“Why does that make you mad?”
“Because I don’t like to think about Lex getting hurt!” Clark snapped. He sat up and faced his friend. “Why would you bring that up? I know that there were probably bad things that happened to him, while he was with Lionel, and then in foster care until he got emancipated. That doesn’t mean we have to dwell on it!”
“What if he needed you to listen to it, though?” Pete leaned on his hand and watched Clark carefully. “Could you? Would it be too hard to listen about someone hurting him?”
“Of course I’d listen.” His voice was almost empty of strength. He wasn’t in the conversation at the moment, but trying to remember if Lex had ever tried to bring it up and been rebuffed. “What if Lex has needed me to listen? What if he tried, and I didn’t hear him?”
Pete shook his head. “Are you that oblivious?”
“I don’t know!”
Pete pushed back a smile. “You’re probably not. He’s probably not asked you straight out to sit down and listen. He probably, since he has a hard time talking about it, has a very hard time asking for someone to listen. Someone who comes from where he does, he’s going to be as armored as you are sometimes, about letting people in.”
“I don’t want our relationship to be like that. I don’t want it to just be us, going through the motions, like we don’t need each other and aren’t there for each other,” Clark protested.
“I don’t know who would want that.” Pete tapped his pen on the desk. “You have to commit yourself to being open to listen, if he tries. I don’t know that he has, though. That’s what I’m saying.”
“Would I be a jerk for trying to get him to talk about it?”
“No. I don’t think so, anyway. After what you did, though, he’s going to trust you even less. Before it was probably an irrational self-protectiveness, and that’s different from being in a situation in which you’ve actually hurt him.”
Clark pouted and slumped in his chair.
“I get the feeling that you think you can make your relationship with Lex normal if you try. The main problem with that is that he hasn’t been consulted, and neither one of you are normal. Pushing so much of yourself back means that neither of you can be entirely open with the other, and neither of you can entirely know what the other needs.”
Clark sighed heavily. “Do you think that we can fix this?”
“Maybe. If you can be honest with yourself why Lex gaining a little weight disturbs you so profoundly that it pushes you to acting irrationally.” Pete set his pen down and leaned back in the chair, narrowing his eyes at Clark. “So what is it? Because it isn’t the fat that you’re afraid of. And it is based in fear.”
Clark drew in a deep breath.
***
As Clark exited the building that held Pete’s office, his heart jerked spastically in his chest. He would recognized Lex’s fluid gait anywhere, and he was coming down the sidewalk at a decent pace. Clark didn’t have time to speed out of there without Lex or someone else seeing him disappear.
“Shit,” he whispered when he saw Lex lifting his head and stopping in his tracks. Clark rolled his tongue along the inside of his cheek. He wasn’t always particularly good at determining the best thing to do to diminish the hurt that someone was feeling, and he certainly didn’t want to keep twisting that knife that Lex felt in his back right now.
While Clark had been waffling, Lex had made the decision for him. He came storming up to Clark with a stern expression and a heart beating so rapidly that Clark was a little alarmed for him. Before he could say anything, Lex exploded.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I... Lex, calm down. I’m sorry!”
“Who talked to you?” Lex demanded, leaning forward. Then he pulled his shirt down and crossed his arms defensively.
Clark pushed his lower lip out. He hated that Lex felt self-conscious because of him. “Lex, I was just in the area, okay? I’m not here to hassle you. But I am sorry.” He paused, then whispered. “You look really good.”
“No, I don’t,” Lex replied through clenched teeth.
He wasn’t lying. Lex was pale, looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and may have even put on a few more pounds. But to Clark, just getting to see Lex at all was wonderful, after being away from him for so long.
“Lex, it doesn’t matter to me. Okay? It doesn’t. I was stupid, and thoughtless. Please say something?” Clark pleaded.
Lex rolled his eyes. “I hope you’re an invisible grunt at the Planet for the rest of your life, and you never have sex again. Immature? Maybe. Go away.”
“Lex-” “Go get started building your stupid picket fence. Maybe you can pick up an aspiring supermodel to date, or failing that, you could just go to an eating disorders group and pick one of those girls up. That would probably work out for you.” Lex’s hands were shaking, and he shoved them in his pockets. His eyes fixed on Clark with frustration, and his shoulders slumped forward. “Why are you still standing here?”
“Lex, I miss you. Don’t you miss me?”
Lex puffed out his cheeks and rocked on his heels. He sulked at the pavement. “No. I don’t.”
Clark tried to put a hand on Lex’s shoulder, only to be brushed off. Lex slipped passed him, and Clark looked at Lex turned from him. There was tension written in every line of his back.
“I’m gonna go, because you want me to. But Lex, I have to tell you-”
“You’ve done and said enough.”
Clark could hear Lex’s shaky breathing. It was rattling to see Lex so unravelled, and to know that he’d caused it.
“You shouldn’t punish yourself like this, Lex. Not for me. I still love you,” he said quickly. “But don’t do this to yourself just because of what I di-”
Lex spun around. “Get over yourself. Not everything on this planet revolves around the mild mannered Clark Kent.”
Pressing his lips together and feeling heavy in his chest, Clark slowly took a step back, then turned away and left. He couldn’t stay here arguing with Lex. Not when Lex was so obviously in pain.
Behind him, Lex’s shoulders went loose, and he walked into the building.
***
Lex scratched a dry patch on the back of his head as he sat in the waiting room and danced his right leg up and down. He was glad that his therapist Miranda was able to see him today, even if it meant running into Clark outside of the building. Funny how seeing Clark used to be a bright spot in his day, and now seeing him made the weight of all of his dysfunction just weighed him down until he didn’t want to get up.
Or that could have just been the fucking withdrawal.
He could hear some other doctors talking in the hallway. Several therapists shared this building, and his had only moved here a few month ago. His head was killing him, and he kept his eyes closed until he thought he heard his name. With a frown, he looked up and blinked at the doctors in the hallway. There was a black doctor standing there with... he couldn’t tell. Probably a woman, or a man with really long hair. His vision was a bit blurred at the moment, so he just rubbed his temples and covered his eyes until the receptionist called his name.
With a heavy sigh, he got up and went inside the office. Miranda was sitting at her desk wearing one of her flowy pants suits with her hair unbound and falling softly around her face and down her back. Lex met Miranda’s eye, almost sheepishly. She got out of her chair quickly and came up to him, closing the door and taking his hands. “Lex, this is why we don’t go cold turkey off of any of the SSRIs!”
He allowed her to give him a hug and then lead him to the sofa to lie down.
“I’ll try not to fall asleep on you.”
“That was one of the problems with the Paxil?” She sat in a soft chair beside the sofa and leaned forward on her thighs.
“It was. And that is a problem, because... I work? Now I can’t sleep at all.”
“All of our bodies are so different. It’s hard to tell how you’re going to react to any one drug.”
“You’ve told me that. You didn’t tell me that Paxil was going to make me blow up like a balloon,” Lex snapped. He moved his hands to glare at her.
Miranda seemed a bit surprised, but she folded her hands. “Is that one of the reasons you stopped taking it?”
Lex grimaced. “No. It was the fatigue. I could hardly work. Sometimes I felt like I was in a cloud. Not as bad as Zoloft, mind, but... still, to do scientific work, I need a clear head. I need my brain. It also made me bruise like a peach. I looked like a battered spouse. And the irritability, which is actually a lot worse now.” He rested his hands on his stomach. “I don’t like being fat, but the other symptoms I just can’t live my life with.”
“That’s understandable. How are you feeling about this? Are you willing to keep trying, or do you want to go off the meds entirely?”
Letting his head fall back, Lex stared at the ceiling. “I don’t know. I’ve been coming to you for years, trying to talk about my problems. Comparatively, we haven’t been trying the drugs for that long. It’s just hard to live with all of the side effects. I can’t control my brain, but I need to at least be able to control my body.”
“I’m thinking of putting you back on the generic form of the Prozac-”
Lex groaned and covered his eyes again.
“-and then prescribing you something else to deal with the symptoms,” Miranda finished. She quirked her mouth to the side sympathetically when Lex looked at her again. “I don’t like to do that, especially with patients who have struggled with alcoholism in the past. However, your tests show that your liver function is actually pretty good. You can buy some milk thistle capsules over the counter to help with that as well.”
Lex shot her a questioning glance.
“Milk thistle promotes a healthy liver. It’ll help your body process multiple drugs at once. Fluoxetine for the anti-depression, and then Abilify for the anxiety and irritability, and Seroquel so that you can sleep. How’s that sound?”
Thinning his lips, Lex rubbed his stomach. “I need to think about it.” He paused. “Herbal supplements? I didn’t realize you were such a hippy. I thought it was just heavy drugs you pushed here.”
Miranda smiled. “Sometimes. There’s something else I’m itching to prescribe for you, but not in pill form.”
Lex raised a brow. “First, what are the side effects of these new drugs you want to give me?”
Miranda stood and went to her desk to get some papers for Lex to look over.
“We’ll have to keep an eye on you while you’re taking multiple medications,” she advised.
“Weight gain is a side effect for Abilify too,” Lex complained.
“Not with the frequency of Paxil, in my experience.”
“If you knew about it, why didn’t you tell me?” Lex looked up at her crossly.
“You were underweight,” Miranda pointed out. “I didn’t think it would hold the same kind of risk for you as it would for a patient who was already at normal or overweight.”
“You should have told me,” Lex muttered.
Miranda’s face grew stern and she sat back down. “Do we need to talk about this? You said that you and your boyfriend broke up.”
“Yes. A few weeks ago. I’ve been staying with a friend. He... I just saw him. On the street. We fought.” Lex laid the papers down. “I was a complete bitch with him.”
“Well, you are coming down off your anti-depressant.”
“Yeah. I’ll blame that.” Lex closed his eyes and felt a tear coming down his cheek. “Dammit.”
“It’s okay. Tell me what happened,” Miranda urged.
“I already told my friend Chloe about it,” Lex said stubbornly.
With patience in her voice, Miranda reminded him gently, “You did pay for the hour.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d given him that reminder. Even after all the time he had spent in her office, it was still his inclination to tighten up and keep it all inside.
“Okay. So. I told you that Clark and I moved in together.”
***
Monday morning, Lex walked into work feeling a little less like something ground under Clark’s shoe. He doubted that the medication switch had done anything yet, but getting a few decent hours of sleep did wonders for his level of irritability. Knowing that he’d feel nauseated if he ate anything solid, Lex had managed to choke down a smoothie to ensure he made it through the morning with a clear head.
He set to work on getting his experiments underway, and didn’t look up until the other scientists walked in with a tall, blond man with a frat-boy’s haircut, a suit, and a chin-butt.
“Can I help you?” Lex asked. He looked up at the man dubiously. He was groomed like a boy, but Lex guessed that the man was older than he was.
“Lex Luthor!” the man-boy chimed.
Vivi and Sam motioned behind the man for Lex to stand to greet him.
“You have me at a loss. You know me, but I have no idea who you are.” Lex did stand, still wearing his protective glasses, and faced the man.
“Oliver Queen.” He offered his hand to Lex. “We met in school, I think. Didn’t you used to go to Excelsior?”
“For a time.” Lex frowned more deeply. The Oliver Queen he’d know had been a spoiled bully. “And what brings you to Cadmus Labs?”
“I just wanted to check out what you guys were doing here. A walk-through of all your little projects,” Oliver said cheerfully.
“Did Victoria ask you to come give her some advice?” Lex wanted to punch his obnoxious chin-butt.
“No. I came, because after acquiring Cadmus Labs, I thought I should figure out just what you squints are doing down here.” Oliver put his hands on his hips and looked around Lex’s lab. “And especially how you’re making Cadmus, and by extension Queen Industries, money.”
He looked down on Lex, then plucked the glasses off of his face. “There we go. You know, when we were in school... I was the fat kid. Funny turnaround. Guess we’re gonna have to get you out of this lab and moving around more, hm?”
Lex changed his mind. He didn’t want to punch Oliver’s chin-butt. He wanted to punch his cock.
***
Chloe walked side by side with Pete, who had run into her downtown and decided to tag along on the rest of her errands so they could catch up. They were, probably, opposites in their romantic lives, but quite similar with regard to career. Pete was happily married with twin girls, and Chloe was single. They were both very involved in their careers. Thus, Pete debriefed her on the family before they turned to talking about their jobs, and he ended up following her back to her apartment after she’d picked up dinner.
“So you think you’ll ever catch him?” Pete asked as they walked up the stairs in her building. Chloe called it her morning and evening exercise routine, since the elevator was broken.
“I don’t know. He’s slick, and he has some of the best connections in the world. Not to mention he’s richer than sin.” Chloe shrugged. “I’m going to do what I can. I’m off the radar now, because I have no powers to speak of, but he’s got my number. They’ll show up eventually, and even if they don’t, there are other people out there disappearing. The authorities don’t care because they’re all bigots. They’d rather have the metas off the streets, and they don’t care how it gets done.”
“This guy sounds like Lionel Luthor.”
Chloe paused to look at Pete with surprise.
“Was that over the top, considering you’re harboring his relationship-refugee son?” Pete scratched the back of his head. “I don’t mean anything by it.”
“No, I’m just surprised that I never saw that connection myself.”
“I’ve been out of the game for awhile. Lionel Luthor’s my benchmark for evil bastards. Anyone else I can dissect and assume a motivation for.”
“Lex says the man was just sadistic and driven by a need to have power and money, and therefore security.”
Pete shrugged his head to the side and continued up the stairs. “That sounds like an adequate explanation.”
“I don’t think that Lex will disagree with you on the evil bastard bit, though.” Chloe reached into her purse and pulled out her keys.
“I guess he wouldn’t. How is he? I... Um, I saw him at my office building the other day.”
Chloe raised her brows high. “Did you?”
“Yeah. He was in the office down the hall from mine, actually. Miranda King’s office. She’s good. I don’t know about the alternative treatments, but I have a lot of respect for her. I’m not sure if he saw me. He looked a little out of it.”
Chloe was silent for a moment. “He had a fight with Clark that day.”
“Clark told me about the fight. He didn’t mention Lex’s therapist.”
“Clark doesn’t know. And Lex doesn’t know about you, and Clark doesn’t know about the meds, and Lex doesn’t know about-” Chloe whistled and pointed upward. She opened her door and set her keys on the table. “It’s a great big circle of not knowing.”
Pete sighed and walked behind her to take her dinner into the kitchen. His ears caught the sound of someone in the other room, so he caught Chloe’s eye and jerked his head in that direction questioningly.
“Oh. Lex is... He usually works late.”
Chloe pushed her lips out, shut the door, and pulled off her jacket. Then she headed to the guest room. Pete followed after her, and since the door was open, she knocked on the doorframe. Lex was sitting on the floor, lotus position, with a jar of reduced fat creamy peanut butter next to him and a spoon in his mouth.
When he heard the noise, Lex looked up and flushed in embarrassment. He swallowed, then muttered defensively, “I’m hungry, but I can’t eat anything. I’m nauseated, and my stomach hurts. So I bought peanut butter.”
Chloe’s mouth pushed into a deep frown, and she came over to Lex’s side. “I can make some soup. That’s not beyond my culinary skill.”
“You don’t have to,” Lex replied quietly.
“It’s not a problem. I already have my dinner taken care of. All I have to do is boil some vegetable bullion and add those glass noodles.” She smoothed a hand over Lex’s head and then gave it a kiss. She knew that he must be feeling really low right now, because normally he would have higher defenses, even with her, if Pete were standing there. “Bad day?”
Lex breathed in and then out deeply, then stuck the spoon in the jar. “You remember how I told you that I used to go to this boarding school when I was young? My father sent me there because I was a little too smart for my own good, but mostly because he wanted me to ‘bond’ with the other spoiled rich kids, the ‘old money.’ There was one kid in particular there, and he was just... impossible. Older than me. One of the meanest individuals I’ve ever encountered, and he had all the other older boys on his side and all the teachers and staff wrapped around his finger, because of how influential his family was. I’m sure that now I could wax on about how it was all born of deep insecurity, but the truth is, at the time he was a monster, and he was particularly obsessed with making my life a living hell.”
Chloe sat cross-legged beside him, and Pete hung in the doorway, listening intently.
“What happened?” Chloe prompted.
“That guy? He’s my boss now. He bought Cadmus from Victoria Hardwick. He is just as big an asshole as he was back then, and I’m gathering that his intellect hasn’t developed a single iota since then either. I had to justify all of my projects to this man today. I’ll be lucky if I get to keep my job, let alone any of my really important work.” Lex licked his lips, then sucked them in and looked away. “And if I don’t have my job, I don’t have my insurance, and I don’t have... Fuck.”
“Lex, we’ll work it out. It’ll be okay. You have the medications you need for now, right? If the worst happens, we’ll deal with it,” Chloe assured him, rubbing his back.
“You know how they always say that the best revenge is living well?” Lex let out a humorless laugh. “I am terrible at revenge.”
“Who is this chucklefuck?” Pete asked.
They both looked up at him, and Lex seemed guarded but answered anyway, “Oliver Queen. Of The Queens of Star City.”
“Oh, my God.” Chloe ran a hand through her hair. “That’s the guy I’ve been trying to investigate.”
Lex stiffened his neck. “He’s the one who abducted you?”
“I... think so. I mean. Yes.” Chloe folded her hands in her lap and looked a little rattled. Pete had been trying to get her to talk to someone about that, but Chloe was so skittish about doctors that it was like talking to a wall. A bubbly wall bent on seeking justice.
Lex looked to Pete again, then back to Chloe. He seemed a bit more grounded now, the habitual gravitas returning to his countenance. He rested a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m probably going to get fired anyway. Is there anything I can get for you before then?”
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