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Here was the big thought of the day--do something, there's always some sort of secondary reaction to it. Not talking about the primary here--like say, dropping a bucket of paint during the biannual repainting of the barn leading to the grass below being a non-green color for awhile. That's different. That's your basic cause/effect, and you learn that, like, around birth, when crying equals feeding, changing, or entertaining. Or rather, in Clark's case, around age four, when he was grasping the English language and drawing pictures of red suns that made his parents awfully nervous, even if the pre-K teacher was amazed at what she'd called his 'original artistic mind'.
He hasn't drawn very much since then.
But the catch wasn't in that. At least usually, you could anticipate the direct effect of a cause--or at least recognize the well from which it sprang, to start mixing the metaphors and really give himself a headache. The real problem, as far as Clark could see, was those pesky things that happened because of Event A, but not necessarily in direct relation to it.
There was an awful lot of fall-out from his adventure with Eric, and not just the fact he learned some startlingly obvious things, like bruised ribs hurt like hell and there was something to be said for the ability to run really fast when late for school. And he had nosebleeds far too often, which was quite a bit less sexy than being clumsy around the meteor rocks, not to mention really gross.
Companionship, equality, though--God, that made it worth it, and something inside of him was twisting slowly tighter in the memory of being just one of the guys. Things he could do, things he could--God, he could do *normal* things, and if he'd know that grabbing that cord from Eric would have done it, changed it all back--
--well, there was a good chance he would have ducked and run. Damn (fuck) destiny. And he could say that, say it in his head as he never would in front of his father. Which, face it, didn't bode well for his future (current) responsibilities as the recipient of a great destiny either.
"Can I interrupt your brooding?"
Clark glanced up to see Lex leaning into the rails of the stairs. Rarely, or think about it, ever, in their acquaintance had he seen Lex look less Lex-like and not bothering to hide it. Exhaustion, bone deep, and a vague sort of glassy acceptance that was painfully familiar. He'd seen it on Eric's face in that second before the jump, felt it on his face with the first realization of the return of his powers.
Like there was nothing, nothing, that could make life suck more than it did right this second.
"Sure." Clark shifted over into the middle of the couch.
Lex crossed the room between them briskly, nothing tired in that--everything was in the eyes, the set mouth, and it was the first time in a long time Clark remembered that Lex was also six years his senior. Dropping in a single neat motion into the couch beside him, simple economy of movement as if a single unnecessary one would tip the edge over and he'd never be able to move again.
For a moment, there was a sort of silence that straddled the border between comfortable and meaningful; either Lex had something to say that he was trying to work up to, which was of all things unlikely--or Lex simply had nothing to say and merely looked meaningful. Very possible. Lex could probably look meaningful over pot roast, come to think of it.
With the stretch of silence, Clark began to get just a little curious--he knew a few things, though not much. The entire little hospital moment, with Lex being a bizarre combination of apologetic and some confused jumble of emotion that hurt to think about too hard. The fact Victoria hadn't come back to Smallville with Lex, which in itself was a pretty damn good thing, except--
"Lex?" The blue eyes came up, a little distant, a lot guarded. Waiting for something, though God knew what that would be. "You--" Okay? No, genius, that's not okay by any stretch. "--rough week?"
For a second, just a second, Clark wasn't sure if Lex even heard him--then it broke, and there was a smile. Oh, not a real one, but the effort was there to make it *look* real, and that was--well, that was something wasn't it? Go Clark.
"You could say that." And Lex just melted into the couch, smile twisting somewhere to the left, going interior. "Life sucks."
Clark couldn't help a little choked laugh at that--from twenty-one to ten, staring up at the ceiling like Clark did when he was looking for inspiration or at least a new object to focus on when the walls got too boring. Without thinking about it, he leaned a little closer and their shoulders touched as he followed Lex's gaze up.
"You need to clean your ceiling," Lex observed.
"I've noticed that. That family of spiders has been there for years, though--I think they have some rights under the law by now."
"It's charmingly rustic."
"That's a really cool way of putting it."
Lex chuckled softly. Relaxed even more, tension bleeding out of him into the couch--Clark could actually *feel* it happening.
"How are you feeling?" Lex sounded worried, which was nice. Clark turned his head a little, getting a clear view of Lex's profile, the tiny frown that touched his mouth. "From experience, when car and man collide, things take a downturn."
"Fine." The pain had disappeared the second he got all his powers back. Yippee and all that stuff. "Just achey."
"Figures." Lex stared at the ceiling again as if making a mental model for future musing. "I like this barn. I may need to have one built. I need someplace with atmosphere to brood."
Clark got an interesting visual--the very epitome of barns, possibly with air conditioning and heating, a plug for a laptop, and a much more comfortable couch. Maybe a shiny new tractor and really, really clean and sanitized straw for the ambiance. No itinerant spiders. It sounded like a pretty good idea--Clark would have to remember to ask for visiting privileges.
"Feel free to use this one until then. It's got a history of teenage misery in it. Lots of atmosphere."
Lex muttered something uncomplimentary about teenage angst, but Clark heard the humor beneath. It faded quickly, no surprise, and Clark wondered a little on Lex's silence. He wasn't really a talker, never had been--it made Clark curious how Lex dealt with things, other than purchasing expensive automobiles and breaking the speed limits regularly.
"You--are you okay?" And Clark wanted, desperately, to touch him, but there was nothing in him that seemed even vaguely welcoming. Little coiled space of air around him, almost solid, better than a wall. A wall was breakable, but Lex--well, Lex wasn't.
Lex turned his head just a little--and maybe that's when Clark started to worry, because Lex wasn't hiding a damn thing now. "Ask me that again in a few weeks." And this--this weird knowledge that Lex was letting him *in*. Not much, but a little. "Just now--I don't know yet."
"Do you--" Want to talk about it? Do what I do--stare at Lana's house meaningfully? It was there again, second time tonight, the feeling of how *young* he was. Really young, but on the other hand, he and Lex did have one thing in common.
They didn't share their problems. Little separate universes of space around them, created by not just Clark's secrets, but by Lex's nature. Never the two shall meet, or some junk like that. Normal people *could*, though. They could *talk*. Made sense, in a twisted sort of the-universe-has-a-hell-of-a-sense-of-humor way, that he felt closer to Lex than to Chloe and Pete combined, just because of that distance.
Friendship--or you know, what they had, were doing, might be doing at any given moment--shouldn't be based on how much you could conceal, how well you could hide. And the universe laughed a little and said, well, Clark Kent, that's *normal* relationships, remember? And you, aliensuperboyfreak, aren't at all normal. Take *that*.
Looking over, he caught Lex's gaze. Eyes dark like the sky right before a summer storm, everything in them some confused tangle of emotion that Clark didn't understand. Nothing to do with age or experience in this, at least. This was something Lex didn't understand either. Which put them roughly in the same place at the same time, and Clark dropped his gaze, sighing.
"There's a lot to be said for things being simple," Clark said, idly brushing straw off his shirt. Lex always reminded him what a mess he usually was. "I'd like--to see what it's like. To be--"
"Normal?" Clark forced himself not to jerk, but the voice hadn't been anything but understanding. Even without the suspicion of superpowers, he was a weird kid--in fact, weirder by most standards, if he thought about it. He got hung up in cornfields and saved people on a daily basis. He was known to be a friend to Lex, the single most unpopular person in Smallville with the possible exception of the weekly mutant serial killer. "Yeah, so a few thousand hours of prime-time television have been telling us for most of our lives."
"You don't believe it?" Clark couldn't imagine that, *not* wanting to be able to just--live life, like a person and not a potential source of destruction. Or, in Lex's case, without the name hanging like some sort of sword over his head. Without hiding anything, and God, he knew Lex had felt it, too. Every time his name got him those *looks*, every time he was automatically assumed to be doing the something wrong, just because of who he was.
"I did. For years." Slick traces of habitual bitterness coated his voice, not even conscious anymore, Clark thought. There was a frightening possibility that when he was Lex's age, he'd sound the same way. "But. Normal is overrated."
"You think?"
"I--don't know." And Lex was staring at the ceiling again. Frighteningly still, like something beneath the skin had come to a pause--or a decision. "Are you--come home with me."
Clark blinked and stopped himself at the last second from reaching out, fingers twitching against his jeans.
"I have something I want to show you." Lex was still looking at the ceiling, maybe for inspiration, or maybe just following the family of spiders in their odyssey across the wood. "Several things, actually."
"What?" Not that he was loathe to go--the loft was getting really old *really* fast, and Clark thought he'd reached his maximum on brooding tonight. How close normality had been, all gone forever and *damn*. *Fuck*.
"You'll have to come to find out."
Clark tried not to grin at the phrasing and Lex looked at him then--still tired, still looking as if something in the world had just seriously fucked with his head--but the smile was a lot more real.
"Lex--does it have something to do with what happened--" With Victoria. "--in Metropolis?"
Lex's head tilted a little, face unreadable, but Clark was learning Lexese at the gallop. Little battle going on beneath the surface, trying to make a decision that for anyone else would probably be nothing at all.
"Do you want to know?" And he sounded genuinely curious.
"Yes." No. Not if it would hurt, not if--. "If you want to tell me."
Another long look, not so much measuring as--what? Clark couldn't be sure. "Okay. In fact, I think it might explain--" Lex cut himself off, shaking his head. "Are you coming?"
Clark got to his feet and when Lex was standing, gave into temptation and touched him. Tense, like wire strung about one turn beyond the maximum possible, and God, what the hell had *happened*? For a horrible moment, he thought Lex would jerk away, but he made the effort, relaxing, and Clark took a breath, tightening his grip briefly before letting go.
"Okay," Clark answered softly. "Let's go."
Lex's office, of course, his ultimate comfort zone, which probably said a lot of things about that whole 'how Lex deals' thing that he was just beginning to get. Clark gingerly took a seat on the sofa, blocking out any and all images of the woman he had strong hopes of never, ever seeing again the one time he'd seen her on this couch. Lex was standing at his desk, flicking through folders and papers almost at random. Not that any of it was random--what looked like chaos to the average mortal was actually clever Lexian organization of his work space. Clark knew from experience that Lex could find anything he wanted by only reaching out. Symbolism in that, Clark was sure, and forced himself not to grin. This was a serious moment. An important moment, too.
Intense look on his face that may or may not have had anything to do with what he was looking at, and Clark saw a video tape make the top of one of the piles, before Lex circled back around and leaned against the wood.
"Which first? I need--" Lex's expression darkened a little and Clark saw the pale hands close convulsively on the edge of the desk, knuckles silver white with tension. "Somewhere to start."
"Okay." And no mistake, Lex was doing his distance thing, complete with newly constructed walls, which meant something was really, *really* up. "What happened--what happened with Victoria in Metropolis?"
"I destroyed her."
It was simple, cold, hard, falling between them like a brick, and Clark sucked in a little breath, knowing Lex was watching him for whatever reaction. One of Lex's pop quizzes, pass/fail only, forever testing the waters, only reacting once he was sure. Understanding that didn't make it any less difficult to get through it, though.
"What--did she do?"
"She and her father tried to take over LuthorCorp using some--information I left on my computer." Lex paused, head tilting. Still watching, and Clark hoped to God that whatever was showing on his face was the right thing.
Clark froze, rewinding to the day, that day in Lex's office, when he'd seen Victoria...then telling Lex and the thoughtful look on his face. "You--knew she was going to do that." Not accidental.
"What you told me was enough to guess she'd broken through the encryption." Lex pushed into the desk a little, sitting down on the edge. Still watching Clark, and the testing was in progress, no talking please, fill in all the circles completely. And here was Clark, who hadn't thought to bring the standard number two pencil or a useable mask. "I added a--something. For her to find. To use against me, if she chose to."
"It wasn't--it was a fake?" Obvious one. Lex had tested. Victoria had failed.
--"You think you know him?"--
"Yes."
Clark blew out a breath, wondering what effect that had had-- "I--I'm sorry."
"She betrayed me." Lex shrugged a little, but the look--Clark remembered what Lex had looked like in the loft. And Lex tested people, right, that's how he was, but--maybe he hadn't expected her to fail.
Did you love her, Lex?
Clark wasn't sure he was up to dealing with even the thought. He fixed his gaze on the rug and tried to think through everything. A lot to process, and he knew, *knew*, that Lex wasn't telling him everything. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But--God, this much. This was--well, a *lot*. This was the Lex equivalent of confession, and that was *really* new. Encouraging, even.
"Worried about her?" The slightest trace of a mocking grin and Clark wondered what showed on his face. "Don't be--she always lands on her feet." Clark felt rather than saw Lex move, and then something fluttered into his lap. Frowning, he picked up the glossy black and white, taking a moment to identify--ah yes, Victoria having sex, great, just what he needed, why.... Oh. *Oh*. Clark sucked in a breath, feeling the faint edges of flickered shock, something like anger just below, but--and God, this wasn't the kind of person he was, that couldn't be *relief* there in his head, could it? "I'm not sure what she charges, but the math says a couple of grande a fuck for the vice presidency. That should work out about right."
"God." Clark looked up, catching an unguarded look on Lex's face, blank other than that raw, glassy acceptance. Which Clark couldn't have achieved himself, ever, not for this, not after seeing this. Normal people needed *therapy* for things like--that. And Lex just--what? Went to his little underage friend--lover, say it, Clark--and God. Oh. Wow.
Lex had let him in. This was as close to vulnerable as Lex was capable of being, and it was a kind of sick pleasure to know that--and that every single bridge had been burned. She was never coming back, ever. Lex was letting him see *this*.
"Lex--" He had no idea what to say. Bizarre impulse to comfort Lex and grin and wish to God Victoria had never appeared in Smallville at all and--tell Lex that he'd never ever betray him, ever. That he'd always--
--"You call yourself my friend?"--
Clark let the photo drop to the sofa, blinking through the sudden and incredibly intense memory. By the fence. The hospital. Lex.
--"Things aren't always what they seem."--
"Lex, why--why--are you telling me?" Something heavy was lodged in his throat, forcing the words to come out around it.
"I trust you." Simple, almost devastatingly easy reply, that glassy look was receding at a shocking speed, replaced with something far closer to normal. The look he gave Clark, the one that no one else ever got, not even Victoria, and now she never would. Clark felt himself relax a little, leaning into the cool leather lines of the sofa. "So. Do you want to know the rest?"
Clark nodded, unable to help the little grin, lightheaded. Dismissing the uncomfortable question of Victoria and Lex--which wasn't a question at all, over, over, over--Lionel Luthor and his questionable parenting methods, his own even less honest friendship, everything into a little pile in the far back of his mind.
The stack of folders dropped by his side was not exactly what he expected--or, in fact, anything close. Clark frowned, picking up the video on top, and the smile was forgotten on his face as he read the timestamp neatly typed on the outside, the location just below.
From the museum.
That night.
Lex was still watching him, and Clark sucked in a breath, feeling his hands begin to shake as he picked up the folder. Flipping it open--technical stuff, some computer-designed drawings--
--easy to identify those. Clark shut the folder after a brief read of the information below, cold black print that. Just. Ended. Everything.
Before it had even really started.
"You had--you had the crash simulated." Strange, how steady his voice was. Clark let the folder fall shut and picked up the next one. Lex, very Lex, all of it, scientific method and examination of facts and the math that backed it up, rational columns down each page. Handwritten notes in the margins, fine, neat black print, things Clark hadn't even--God, even *guessed* Lex had ever seen. Copies of police records stapled onto different pages, every rescue and every questionable event and everything--*God*, everything. Here. Right here.
The catwalk, Phelan, the Porsche, the wall in Factory #3, the observations because Lex was a scientist and Clark had been his subject. His challenge. The other two folders were--the same thing, and Clark flicked through them, barely able to comprehend what he was reading other than what it meant. Documentation that was as good as a death sentence.
Clark's mind went strangely numb. Like wool wrapped thick around his head, slowing thought. Panic would have to come later.
"You--you said you believed me." It was--it was hard to look at Lex now, but Clark forced himself to, saw a strangely surprised look on Lex's face, but--it was moving too fast, one of Lex's tests, like Victoria, just the *fuck* like Victoria, all of it. Lexian manipulation and methodology all neatly categorized right here.
Right here, in his lap. His best friend, his--lover, whatever they were--and Lex was doing *this*.
"Clark, I started that after we met." That little edge of surprise was in his voice. "I had someone do some research--"
"Was it--that important?" He knew everything. Or enough to guess the rest, enough to make some assumptions, enough to....
--"You think you know him?"--
"I thought--"
Clark slammed the folder shut, the world going black and hot and that trapped feeling--that feeling he'd gotten when Lex first showed him the Porsche times, like, a thousand. Lex knew.
--"You call yourself my friend?"--
"What you said to me--when you were trying to kill me--it was true, wasn't it?" Not just the effect of those powers and wow, didn't this put an entirely new spin on Chloe too? Nausea, something he'd only been aware of around the meteorites, rose up sharp and biting in his stomach. This was--no. This couldn't be happening, not now, not when everything...
A glance at Lex's face showed utter confusion. But what he saw on the face didn't always match what went on behind the eyes, though. Should have guessed. Should have *known*. His father had tried to tell him, and he hadn't listened and God--they'd, they'd had *sex* and it was like--
Clark got unsteadily to his feet, the world trying to tilt beneath him. An effort just to stay upright.
"What are you going to do with it?" He was surprised at the sound of his own voice. The shaking terror, the betrayal--nothing there. He'd learned something from Lex after all. And lying--well, it'd always been easy.
"Do with it?" The frown was--seemed weird, right about now. "What can I do with it? I was--"
"Luthor lab, like-like what your father was doing on Level 3?" His palms were breaking out in cold sweat and he tightened them into fists, every nightmare he'd ever had made real and painful and vivid, racing through his mind too fast to comprehend, and--Lex.
Lex.
Silence, and Clark made himself look. Just to see, see how far this was going to go, how much he had to work with. He could--he could leave. Go somewhere else, run, hide--from a Luthor? Look at the files, Clark, he finds things *out*. There's nowhere far enough to run.
The blankness just pissed him off.
"Go ahead, Lex. I mean--I mean, Phelan didn't have any problems getting what he wanted. Dropped a fucking *generator* on me to--to make sure. Put my dad in jail. You want--you want to do the same? Make sure? Blackmail me? Cut me open and see how I work? Big, new research project? Get back in your dad's good graces, out of Smallville with your little discovery?"
"Make sure..." Lex's voice was soft, almost--dreamy? Disconnected, and the blue eyes didn't show anything, but weren't hiding anything either. Nothing--nothing at all.
--"Things aren't always what they seem."--
Shock. Pure, undiluted shock, and Lex leaned against the desk as if it was the one thing holding him upright, the first time Clark had ever seen Lex at an honest-to-God loss for words. Staring at him like he'd grown two heads or maybe antenna or something and--
The one thing he had always counted on, the one thing he was always sure of with Lex. Lex could lie, and Clark knew it, lie in ways Clark didn't even know about maybe, but not with his body, not to Clark, not knowing him as well as he did.
Oh *God*....
Lex. Hadn't. Known.
"You said--" Lex stopped, drawing in a sharp breath that hurt to hear, like broken glass, and that look was back, the one that had scared Clark in the loft, scared him even more now. This time, he'd put it there. "I believed you. I--wanted to be honest with you." Lex looked up, and Clark drew back, unable to help it. A little laugh, so bitter Clark felt himself recoil, and Lex shook his head sharply. "On par with my life--you lied to me, too. Jesus."
Oh. No. No.
"I don't--"
"I gave that to you so you'd know that I *stopped*." And there it was, just like the last nail in the coffin of everything that could have been. This hadn't been a test; this had been the real thing. "Because I didn't want to lie to you, because I wanted you--" Lex cut himself off, and the long fingers were clenched so hard into the wood of the desk that there would be fingerprints in it, Clark knew it.
And to his own sick horror, Clark was already trying to re-spin it in his head, reviewing the conversation to see--but there was no way. Assumptions were as good as nails, too. He'd said too much, hadn't let Lex say enough.
A quick glance up, and Lex was staring into the floor like he could drill straight through it. Long seconds where the only sound was Clark's breathing, raw and thick in the room, then Lex pushed away from the desk. Utterly expressionless, walking by Clark as if he didn't exist, out the office door.
Instinct carried Clark after, jogging a little to keep up with Lex's fast step. And no idea what to say, because--God, Lex had been *stalking* him, watching him for months, and God--
"Lex--"
And it was a second shock when Lex came to an absolute stop, turning so fast it was a little dizzying. It always surprised him, how fast Lex could move when he wanted to.
"Take it with you."
What? "Lex--"
"Get it out. All of it. Tape and files, take it all with you. You can check the computer--password LEX001f. I deleted everything Roger gave me--take the entire hard drive with you if you want." And Lex might have been one of his own suits of armor, for all the life Clark was feeling from him. Like he wasn't here at all, and rage would have been better, or anger, or maybe defensiveness, but--not this.
"You're--you're pissed when you were damn well *stalking* me?" This was just--wrong. "You wanted my--they were *my* secrets! You were--God, Lex, what the hell else did you do? It wasn't--" Clark trickled off, running out of words. Running out of everything, that glassy acceptance full force in him, too, he understood now, that feeling, what had to break inside you for that to happen.
--"You fuck me while you're lying to me? That's not friendship."--
"Yes. Exactly." And it was almost frightening--because Lex was beyond anything Clark had ever seen, in anyone. Right this second, there wasn't charm or Lexian manipulation or even anger--this was the Lex from the garage and the one Clark saw sometimes in his dreams carrying a gun and ready to kill him for every single lie. So still that there was nothing hidden, nothing at all. "There's nothing else here for either of us. Get out."
--"You call yourself my friend?"--
And Lex took the stairs two at a time, disappearing upstairs so fast he might have had some superspeed himself.
It made Clark sick, but he took the files. Tucking the tape in his jacket pocket in a daze, piling everything haphazardly and gathering it up meticulously against his chest, and at home, he dropped it in the loft, staring at the damning evidence of everything that had gone so very, very wrong.
A big part of him wanted to burn it, every bit, watch it personally and maybe that was the part that was still angry, still sick, still betrayed. He couldn't help sitting down, though--it would be useful, what he learned, he told himself--not to make the same mistakes, not to fail again, and God--
Paper after paper after *fucking* paper, his life and his secrets and Lex's secrets, too, Lex's hidden agenda for being his friend. Insanely neat and clean and his science teacher would be impressed with Lex's notation, Lex's observational skills, Lex's--
--Lex's girlfriend, lover, there it was, under everything else that he'd picked up so blindly, and Clark sucked in a breath, flicking it on top. Victoria and Lionel Luthor, glossy black and white, and what had Lex said? A couple of grande a fuck.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, *fuck*. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen.