Codes: Lex, Clark, AU
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Tempest
Summary: Or it could have happened this way.
by jenn
He and Clark are very, very drunk. That's the only thing that's registering right now.
No idea how it happened, or why, really, but could have had something to do with Dad's lightning visit and the pounding headache just behind Lex's right eye. The tips of his fingers are numb and tingling at the same time, like he's touching live current, and the faintest trace of iron clinging to the back of his tongue. Strange, off-feeling of balance being precarious but stable, like he could do a one-handed handstand right this second and never feel himself fall, not even when he hit the floor.
Three brandy bottles and broken glass somewhere to the left, splintered wood and chips of plaster, God knows from what, and the rug moves in lazy circles every time Lex lifts his head. Single moments come in flashes--Clark sitting on the floor watching the light filter through the stained glass in a riot of almost-living color, and the brandy bottle that shattered between his fingers. No blood. A lot of alcohol. Lethal. He knows his tolerance hair-fine, and Clark's--can't even be in the same league. Same fucking country, for that matter.
Loose sprawl of limbs beside him when he turns his head. Clark's staring at the ceiling, one leg bent and open wide, like it fell over at some point, bare feet and dress pants that have seen better days. Big hands splayed at his sides, fingers digging into the carpet like he's looking for something buried under expensive Indian weave from some forgettable jaunt across Asia.
"I can fly," Clark whispers, and the look on his face is light years from sixteen. Innocence like the memory of a first crush, fragile and meaningless. "Fly and run and break big things, Lex. Tear them to pieces. Want to, sometimes." His hands flex like he has something specific in mind. Or someone.
"Yeah." Tearing things, destroying things, Lex remembers when he jerked off after arson and that grand theft auto that resulted in a sixteen car pile-up in west LA. There's nothing like violence.
"Dad said--" Clark stops, a rush of breath and feeling, like words are something he's still working out the meanings of. How to put them together. "We're very drunk."
"High, too," Lex murmurs. There's a powdery, bitter-medical edge to his tongue, a little numb, not unpleasant, very recognizable. So. "When'd that happen?"
"Dunno." It's so hard to focus. Clark's turning his head *just* enough to see him, eyes too wide, too dilated, showing far, far too fucking much. I don't want your secrets this badly, Lex wants to say. He doesn't. "My dad wanted me to be normal."
"Coincidence. So does mine." Normal, not stratosphere level IQ and all the sexual inhibitions of a nymphomaniac, and it does come back to sex. Sometimes. Maybe just now.
He wants--stupid things. Like never to hear a helicopter again, because he's tired of the rush of pure exhilaration that brings him to his feet on instinct, some sort of fucking childhood conditioning that makes him sick and hot at the same time. Too many years in boarding school maybe, and higher authority being what it was and getting turned on by power. Pure power, the kind that doesn't come with multiple checking accounts and higher tax brackets. The only kind that really works. The only time his mind stops moving and everything stops being so fucking *much*.
"What's normal, Lex?"
Good question. This is normal. Alcohol, favorite vice of kids everywhere with unreasonable fathers, of anyone who wants escape with the knowledge of punishment after. There are so many better ways, Lex thinks, designer drugs and prescription painkillers, and some he even mixes himself when the lure of the lab is too much for him to control. Ways that don't show up in hangovers or in urine tests. Amateur effort. "Normal's overrated."
"You think?" Clark's voice is a slow slur, and Lex can feel the floor shift and moan when Clark pushes himself up. Crawls the space between them, dropping down close enough to touch. Too close, really, to avoid it, dark hair brushing his cheek and a long-fingered hand resting on his chest in thoughtful interest. Slowly, Lex lifts it, thumb pressed to palm, long fingers splaying.
"No blood."
The sound from beside him is like a moan or a giggle, maybe some slightly hysterical mix between.
"Invulnerable," Clark whispers. "Invulnerable, fast, strong, super sort of thing going on. I can *fly*, Lex. I did it today for hours. Let me show you."
It sounds like a wonderful idea, and a cliched one, where there's ambulances and eulogies involved, and anti-drug speeches later on given to full gymnasiums of grieving students. Buzz-killer. Stroking the warm palm with his thumb, Lex breathes out and watches the ceiling dance.
"Show me."
There's a rush of air at his side, and Clark's in view, hanging gently in the air like tiny strings are holding him in place. The dark eyes are shut tight, little lines around his mouth, and there's effort involved. Maybe. Kind of.
Lex still has his hand, feels the drag as Clark goes just a little higher. Arm stretched high and Clark opens his eyes, staring down at Lex. No light fills them, no cheery grin turning up his mouth, no sweet earnestness and faux honesty. Lex wonders if he's ever met this boy before.
"My dad's going to kill me for telling you." He says it so calmly, like when he gives Lex the vegetable prices or comments on the weather.
"Probably kill me." It's an interesting thought, slowly turned over and over in his head. Shotgun, bare hands, maybe. Woodchipper. Grave beneath waving corn, secret and warm and safe. There's something wrong with fantasizing about your own death. "I won't tell."
Clark sighs and comes back down, slow and easy, landing cloud-light beside Lex's body. Fingers curling around Lex's, eyes unfocused and they're so high. So drunk. So….
"I don't want to be me," Clark murmurs into the carpet, and Lex turns his head just enough to see the dark eyes are closed. Lashes perfect dark half-circles on pale gold cheeks, winter-light and still beautiful, like something out of some particularly good art book.
"Normal people can't fly," Lex answers, and he's still stroking Clark's hand. Why is that anyway? "Normal people--" Normal people had good lives, though. No nonsense about destiny and so forth. They're happy. Productive. Fucked-up in their own way.
There's no good reason to be this philosophical, and Lex lets both their hands rest on his chest.
"Normal people can't fly," Clark mumbles into the carpet in an eerie parody of Lex's voice, and the corner of the full mouth twitches under Lex's gaze, though his eyes never open. "Normal people can play sports and stuff." With a little sigh, Clark rolls closer, too close maybe. "Have girlfriends. Have *lives*. Real lives, not pretend lives. Not--like, two or three of them. Just--one."
Poor kid. Clark's mumbling himself off into semi-consciousness.
"When do you have--to be home?" He's the adult here, after all. Drunk and high minors sprawled on his office floor found by enraged Kent parent, news at six and ten. They'll never find Lex's body. Not that it matters, when Clark's hand slides free of his, crawling with the tips of long, blunt fingers up to his chin, covering his mouth.
"Don't have one," Clark murmurs, and Lex opens his mouth to answer. Splintered wood on the floor under his hands, and when he opens his eyes, he sees colors. Brilliant red and white and blue and the hot night outside, emergency vehicles in the distance, strobing red and white and blue and…and….
When he blinks, everything hazes again, the world narrowing down to Clark beside him.
"You'd think by now someone would have come up here to see if I'm okay," Lex tells the ceiling. "I--have their--their livelihoods in my hands, you know."
"I saw Nell, but she sorta didn't listen when I was explaining things," Clark says in a voice two steps removed from giggling. Strung out wire thin, breakable with just the right pressure, and Clark's fingers on his mouth are stroking unevenly. "Think she blames me?"
"Probably," Lex answers, turning his head just enough to see Clark's face. Dried wet streaks across his cheeks and. Destruction. Yes. "But. Can't save everyone."
"Yeah," Clark says reasonably, like Lex just made some really unique point never considered before now. "You're right. Not anyone."
"Everyone."
"Anyone." Clark's hand covers his mouth. There's a moment where air is an actual consideration, but Lex isn't sure he cares. "I hid them all in the cellar." A secret. "I buried it too."
Yes, but why is the question, though Lex hadn't gotten around to answering that. It had been bottle two, the one Clark broke.
"Tell me something Luthor. Like you usually do," Clark says, like asking for a present. "Tell me something your dad would say."
"Would have said," Lex corrects. "He would have said--would have said, why aren't you in Metropolis, Lex? Shape up, Lex. Quote Whitman at me because he knows how fucking creepy it is."
Clark sighs in annoyance. "What else? For this occasion?"
"Oh." Well, that's hard to think about. Lex gathers his mind, trying to pull the pieces together, but the few that regroup show--
"Lex?" A rough shake of his shoulder, and Lex blinks, staring up at Clark. Clark, who's shaking and oh, no, Lex is shaking, or maybe they both are. "Don't. Don't--think yet."
"Good idea." Wonderful idea, and Clark's head rests on his chest, warm and wet. It occurs to him to wonder now. "Is my dad in the cellar too?"
"Uh-huh." Hot breath on his throat, and Clark snuggles closer, like a huge puppy in need of some sort of scratching. Absently, Lex combs his fingers through the dark hair, coming away tacky with blood, straw dust, dirt.
There's a logical reason for it all, Lex thinks drowsily. He just doesn't want to remember it yet.