This story is part four of the Two Paths series by Jenn, found at http://seperis.illuminatedtext.com
The preceding stories need to be read first.
Much love to Jenn, whose baby this is, and thanks for the beta, and
love also to the PSG.
by Isilya
There's a whole lot of white space on the page in front of him, and it makes Clark restless. He shifts on the bed. His pillow must be the wrong shape, or maybe his elbows, because he just can't get comfortable. And the page is still blank. He pencils in a little star in the top right hand corner, leans forward until his nose is touching the page. The book smells like leather, like ink, like Lex. Clarks smiles a little at the memory, of the diary, still body warm, being pressed into his hand.
Lex had frowned a little, like he was preparing to go to war, and kind of perched on the very end of the bed.
"Somebody told me.." he had cleared his throat, " that it's good for teenagers to be able to express their feelings. Just -- keep it safe." Unspoken, that anything written could be dangerous, could kill.
Clark wonders what Lex expects him to write in the journal. Oh, it's a nice book, not that Clark has anything to judge by, but he likes the feel of it. The pages are thick and creamy, and the leather is as soft as one of Lex's gloves. He tries to write in it at night -- and he worries that the words are supposed to come more easily.
Then again, he's not sure he wants it all written down here, anywhere. Not in black and white, or pencil on cream. He doesn't want this strange thing that is his life neatly bound and sheathed in leather. Locked in a safe somewhere, a small dangerous novella of secrets.
Novella. He rolls the word around his mind. He's already done his homework for the night, a little American History and a little English Literature. He has to write an essay tomorrow on the first chapter of a book called Animal Farm. He forces himself to read word by word, letter by letter. Lex has stopped looking at him sharply when he emerges from study after ten minutes, but he still feels guilty when he cheats. And that slows him down enough to read a book a chapter at a time, though he's already guessed that the pigs in the -- novella will be men by the end.
He adds the date neatly underneath the star he's drawn. Dear Diary, he thinks a little bitterly, *today I went to find a pen in my *-- *in Lex's study*. *Only I managed to x-ray a drawer by mistake and read that the boy he hired to pretend to be me was shot in the head five times yesterday*. With meteor rock bullets.
His hand slips as he finishes the last digit, and now there is a thick dark line through the date. Clark thinks savagely of the shadows under Lex's eyes.
He spent the whole evening waiting for Lex to come home, wondering what the Clarkreplacement looked like, wanting to leave the house, leave the country and just run. But.
When Lex came come, he was grey with tiredness, the kind that Clark could feel was soaked into his bones. Clark had poured a lot of vodka into a glass of orange juice and put it on the sidetable next to the sofa, where Lex could reach it easily.
Lex had given him that look, and Clark had sat next to him. Silent for a while, and then just small talk. Just -- reminder that tomorrow was laundry day, and that he had gym class and then he'd told some story about the detention handed down to a classmate for hiding in the girl's locker room. Nothing like laying his head on Lex's chest and weeping about the boy who had been killed for him and his stupid secrets. Nothing like running out and slamming the door so that Lex could get on with his life.
He'd got up twice to top up Lex's drink, and found a blanket to throw over him when he fell asleep.
So. He flicks back through the pages before, all neatly dated and mostly empty. Scribbles up and down the margins in some, David Usher signed carefully on others. David Luthor signed too.
He has different handwriting for David Usher and David Luthor, because he thinks they are pretty different people. David Usher's more a Davy, after all. But he can't imagine anyone ever calling David Luthor anything but David. Davy has round letters, David's is more angular.
Clark can't remember what his own looks like anymore. He asked Lex, once, what his handwriting looked like, and Lex had exhaled sharply.
"You can't remember what your handwriting looks like?"
Clark had shifted nervously, feeling like he'd done something wrong.
"No, not really. Not before, well, David. And I don't have anything of mine from -- before."
Lex had just nodded, the nod that Clark knew meant he was thinking about other stuff. Oh, Lex was always attentive, but there were a lot of different levels. But three days later Lex had passed him something over breakfast.
"A napkin, Lex?" It was a neatly folded paper serviette with The Beanery stamped on it.
"Unfold it." Lex had smiled.
Lex, movies tonight? call me, C. was scrawled on the reverse side. Clark had bitten his tongue. He had remembered tucking the napkin underneath the windscreen wipers of a gleaming Porsche, had remembered melting snow along Smallville's main street and the smell of spice drifting out from the Talon. His eyes had slid shut.
"Something you wrote, Clark." Lex had sounded so pleased that Clark hadn't be able to tell him that Chloe had written the note for him, while he leaned over and let her write on his back.It was her pen, she'd protested, her Daily Planet pen, and she wasn't letting Clark crush this baby. She had threatened to draw a little love heart around Lex's name. He had blushed.
Clark had thanked Lex and tucked the napkin into the back of the diary. It had smelled a little of coffee at first, and cologne. He wondered where Lex had kept it all this time.
He turns his pencil to the side and shades a little bubble around the date. Ten more minutes, he tells himself, fighting his urge to go and check on Lex.
He writes; Today I and then he thinks, well, maybe just a quick look. X-ray through the walls, and Lex is still curled up on the couch. Clark watches the rise and fall of Lex's chest for a while, and it's almost, but not nearly, as soothing as curling up in bed next to him.
Lex doesn't like letting him do that anymore, stiffens when Clark creeps in next to him at night. That makes him feel guilty, but when it's dark and he's sleepy he can kind of squash the guilt back.
Fact, he sleeps better with Lex.
Fact, he really likes the smell of Lex's skin at night.
Fact, he's far away from home, and he's going to take his comfort where he can find it.
Besides, Lex's bed is too big for one person. It's obviously made for two.