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Lex won't recall the day of the week that he first nearly died in Smallville. It was a weekday, which he only knew because the office staff was waiting for him and they hadn't been forced to come in on a weekend to do so.
There are a lot of details that Lex won't recall. The sun was shining, but he doesn't know if the sky was clear or riddled with small, innocuous clouds. He knows the river was cold and deep and clean, but he can only really recall the warm press of Clark’s mouth against his, Clark's hand against his chest.
They'll tell him afterward that there was a roll of baling wire in the middle of the road that he swerved to miss. He will never correct them, never tell anyone he has no memory of any such obstacle in the road. What Lex remembers is the initial confusion when he first sees a cricket on his dashboard and the fear (for his sanity, for his safety), when the insect calmly told him, "You should probably slow down before you--"
As Lex walks away from the riverbank hours after the accident to get into the waiting rental car, all he'll remember from before the crash was the cricket's scream of terror and afterwards, Clark.
* * *
Nights in Smallville are quiet and loud. There's no traffic that runs by the mansion, but the sounds of the night are pretty consistent. Distant coyotes and owls, the night buzz of insects, the chorus of the crickets.
Lex doesn't sleep well in the night. He learns to rest in the hours of twilight at dawn and dusk, to make do with a nap at lunch and again in his office in the evenings (before he realizes that everyone in Smallville feels they should have access to him in his office at the mansion and it becomes another place in which he cannot let down his guard).
The crickets attempt to sing him to sleep, but Lex cannot relax when he hears the whispered lullabies that carry in from outside. The sounds of night aren't restful when there are voices that shouldn't be there. His only comfort is that after the first one he finds in the castle, none of the crickets intrude.
The one that serves as a lesson still hangs, pinned to the wall by the tip of his epee. There hasn't been another confrontation yet, but they still persist in singing to him in the night. At odd point throughout the daylight hours, Lex will turn to find a cricket within visual range. They are typically out of his immediate stabbing and stomping range, but they are there.
They have learned from the second one, and so has Lex, to some extent. It hadn't gotten out much more than a short message. "Stop looking too closely at the gift you were given." Lex is smart enough to have linked the warning to his research into Clark, into how the teen had survived when Lex is certain (from the evidence, not from memory) that he had hit him with the Porsche.
The castle seems safe, at least from the crickets, but then Roger Nixon appears to disturb Lex's peace. The moment the bastard is out of Lex's office, he starts digging into the man's history, only to hear a quiet voice try to talk him out of rash action.
"It's a dark road you're considering, Lex," the cricket continues. "And such a choice will taint you. You are better than this. There is a light in you, a light you can follow.” It hops after Lex when he nearly falls from his chair in his haste to get away. He stumbles toward the pool table, but the thing follows, not pausing even when Lex reaches out and picks up the cue ball. It makes a startled sound as it jumps to avoid the billiard ball Lex throws at it, but the 8 ball hits the mark on his second throw.
The cricket isn't dead, but its broken body wheezes and its attempts to speak are too weak to be understood. Lex considers it a mercy to finish the poor thing off. He's not expecting another voice to suddenly cry out, "What are you doing?"
Clark is there, seconds too late to stop the cricket from passing over into death. He crouches next to the little body and looks up at Lex with such betrayal that it breaks something inside of Lex to see it. "Clark?"
"How could you, Lex?" the teen asks. He scoops up the still form solemnly and holds it against his chest as he rises to his feet. "Why do you keep killing them?"
Because they were insects. Because they shouldn't have been able to speak at all. Because they made Lex fear for his sanity, which in turn made him fear for his future. Because if he slipped up and spoke back to something only he could hear, it would be no time at all before his father had him locked away.
To admit to any of that would be to make himself vulnerable to Clark, something he already is but still fears.
He asks his own question instead. "What are you doing here?"
"The crickets told me you were killing them! It's one thing to refuse to listen to them, Lex, but you can't--"
"He knows not what he's done," a new voice interrupts Clark. It is from someone, or something, behind Lex and low to the ground. It sounds aged and solemn. Lex wonders how quickly he could dance backward and crush a cricket beneath his heel. He wonders if Clark would cry out against him again. "Brother Clark, he knows us not, knows nothing of who we are. In his mind, we are but nothing to be discarded, ignored, and reviled."
"But, Father Jiminy," Clark tries to reply, but the stranger continues.
"It is you he will listen to, Brother Clark. It is you who must guide him. Six guardians assigned, there are, but our brethren cannot be the voice of conscience for one they fear. The loss of their brothers has been too much. It must be you."
"I'm not ready," the teen protests, but it was weak. His gaze has turned back to Lex, away from the thing on the floor behind Lex.
There is silence, and then Lex startles a little as the cricket hops past him and toward Clark. Lex keeps his heels on the tiled floor, but runs his eyes over the pool table and the rest of the room to see what tactical advantage could be had if, when, it becomes necessary to put another cricket to rest.
The cricket somehow finds purchase as it hops up from the ground. From Clark's knee to his hip to his hands, the thing rises in precise increments, until it stands and looks down upon the one Lex had just killed.
"Your training isn't complete, my boy, but you are ready. You must remember that to be his conscience, you must ignore your parents' teaching when it comes to Lex. You cannot guide him and lie to him; you cannot have his ear if you cannot speak the full truth to it.”
Lex flicks his eyes to Clark’s and finds his gaze caught. The teen radiates uncertainty and a measure of fear that Lex can sympathize with. He’s been worried about his sanity. It’s only in that moment that he realizes that he’s not alone. If he’s crazy, it’s a crazy Clark shares with him. This is what Lex will remember most clearly from the night, what he recalls first when he thinks of the car accident; a moment of connection, a tangible sense of shared experience, the birth of a possibility.