a Smallville story
by
Destina Fortunato
Author's notes are at the end of the story.
From time to time, Clark Kent returns to Smallville. It's not the same as it was when Martha and Jonathan were alive, when he could sit in his mother's kitchen and eat fresh-baked cookies, or chat with his parents about work at the Daily Planet. Those visits kept him grounded, and his father reminded him often that he was grown from Kansas farm stock, regardless of his otherworldly origins.
Now Clark is a tourist, flying elliptical patterns in the sky.
What keeps him away...well, answering that question would require him to lead an examined life, to mesh the boy he had been with the dichotomy of the two men he's become, so he doesn't try. Instead he circles the town, orbiting his past without coming too close.
The points of interest are always the same: the cemetery, where one by one his loved ones are coming home to rest; the open fields of the once-upon-a-time family farm; the Luthor castle, where youthful trust withered and died a painful death. He always drops low near the castle, daring the staff to see him. He wants to be seen. But they are blind to him, as blind as they were years ago when he walked through the front doors uninvited, and walked out again in the early morning hours, rumpled and guilty and as good as invisible.
Lex had wanted it that way, and he always got what he wanted.
Almost always.
Clark isn't sure, in hindsight, what the break point was. The schism is so far in the past Clark can barely recall its genesis, but at the moment he'd breathed life back into Lex, the lies were in the touch of their lips. Reciprocal lies; an insidious poison as thick as blood and as necessary to life as breath and blood ever were.
Once it all unraveled, they'd both had to leave the town. Once upon a time, Smallville helped define who they were, but they were each becoming something more. Smallville could not contain them any longer.
II.
Clark can't really figure out his reasons for calling a truce. Nor could he testify to Lex's motives in doing so. They'd been hurling thunderbolts at each other for so long it seemed second nature to doubt and mistrust every fragment of truth. Lex's offer had been tinged with amusement: *Don't you ever get tired of being so righteous?* It was not a barb, really; more of an observation. Clark has always had a hard time admitting the truth of it.
He alights on the roof of the castle and changes clothes. No reason to, other than the comfortable familiarity of old roles. It's nice to come home and throw on flannel, to abandon poly-cotton blends and indestructible skin for something softer. Maybe he shouldn't; maybe this is exactly the wrong place and time to shed his skin. These things have occurred to Clark, but he set them aside. If he knows Lex - and he likes to think he does, even now - Lex will appreciate the gesture.
In Metropolis, Clark finds it hard to breathe. The buildings are close and tall, and the only way out is up, to get above it all and pretend he won't have to go back. He can't love the city like he loved the town of his childhood; Metropolis might as well be Krypton, far from Earth. Smallville's twilight is of the quiet variety. Insects sing in the trees where birds settle for the night, and the air is open and free, not boxed in by the hard lines of skyscrapers and the press of overpopulation. Though there's nowhere on Earth Clark can find peace anymore, this is as close as he will ever come.
Lex doesn't really sneak up on him; he never could. Clark misses the days when he could still pretend not to hear, not to notice. Lex, however, seems to appreciate the absence of subtlety that comes with total revelation. Clark can hear him breathing; he's watching Clark in the shadow of the northeast turret, and his gaze has the weight of a thousand words. His presence grows heavier, until finally the press of all they've left unsaid makes Clark turn to face him.
The last time they were on the roof, Lex licked his way down Clark's body, looking for ticklish spots. He didn't find any, of course. Invulnerable, indestructible; no weakness to exploit. Back then, when there were no boundaries between them, it wouldn't have mattered. It's a memory Clark has tried hard to shake loose, but it's always in the forefront of his mind, even now.
"Funny how little I remember about this place. " Lex's voice sounds the same and yet different; it's deeper, with a tinge of bitterness to give him a rasp. "I could barely find my way up to the roof."
"It's only been ten years," Clark says, sure Lex is lying. Even if he believed Lex could forget, he's sure Lex wouldn't want to. Not when the memory of betrayal can lend such sharp sweetness to revenge. And then he realizes: he's always known how much time has passed, down to the day, even to the hour.
"One only remembers the things one thinks are important," Lex answers. Clark has no answer for that. He remembers all of it. If this says something about what's important to him, he won't give Lex the satisfaction of knowing it.
Lex's steps toward Clark are deliberate, measured; they are already weaving the sackcloth they will wear away from here. He stops several feet away, still a wiry bundle of energy and calculation. "I was sorry to hear about Martha," he says, and this is not something Clark expected. It changes the nature of the conversation before it's begun.
"Thank you for the flowers." White tulips; Clark expected lilies, but he keeps those thoughts to himself.
"It's the least I could do. She was always kind to me."
"You were good to my parents."
"I would have been, if they had allowed it." Lex shoves his hands in the pockets of his black leather coat. "I was good to their son, too. Before he turned on me, that is."
"I never..." Clark knows the danger of this kind of anger. It boils like acid, burning through his usual caution. He pulls back from the brink. "I wasn't the one who set this in motion."
"No?" Lex sighs. "This is an old argument, Clark. We've had it a thousand times."
The first two or three times, they'd resolved it with sex. When Clark closes his eyes, the scent of Lex's aftershave takes him into the past, straight to that moment when he forgave Lex for his obsession. How could he fault what he understood so well? The last hundred times, as lie compounded onto lie and they began to pull away, leaving pieces of themselves like so much detritus in the wake of their deceptions, they had stopped touching each other. Not that Clark ever stopped craving that touch. Such a thing isn't possible.
"Tell me, Clark. Doesn't it bother you that there could be disasters happening somewhere in the world while you're talking over these *important* matters with me?" Lex tilts his head; his eyes glitter with hard mischief. "Just out of curiosity - how do you sleep at night?"
It's a fair question, though Clark doesn't like the answer he must give. He's gone without sleep before, for weeks, even months. In the end, he knew the solution was a simple truth he must embrace, or else he would lose his mind. "I can't save everyone."
This causes the first shift of expression on Lex's face; the bland, cold look morphs into dark amusement. "Funny, I seem to recall telling you exactly that when you were still in high school." And he was right, of course; Lex had been the source of the lesson, in every way. "It's nice to see that you took something of me away with you."
"That's stretching it a bit," Clark says. Another lie. Clark isn't as patient with this game as he might have been ten years before. "Why are we here, Lex? You asked for this meeting."
"As I recall, it was you who asked for the meeting."
Clark narrows his eyes. "No, I - oh." Strange how he can remember so much, and this one moment was forgotten. The ten-year clause, they'd called it: ten years to the day after Clark graduated high school, they would meet here, and they would get on with the business of being together. It was Lex's condition on the relationship: Clark had to have a chance to attend college, to build a life apart from Lex's. Neither of them knew what was to come, back then. "I was young," Clark says defensively, as though that wasn't the entire point.
"And yet here we are, at my invitation."
"I can't believe you remembered."
"I can't believe you -- *you* -- forgot."
"I was so naive."
"You're still naive. And trusting, too." Lex is accurate with every weapon, including the remnants of friendship.
Clark pushes away his automatic paranoia. "Threats are beneath you, Lex."
"Threats? No, Clark. No, not at all." Lex lifts his right hand from his pocket. He's holding a thick, folded piece of paper, and when he holds it up, a smile ghosts across his face. "I come bearing gifts."
Clark reaches out for it without thinking. He has so little to fear from Lex that he's willing to be careless. In these ten years, Lex could have shouted Clark's secret from the rooftops, if that was his preferred brand of warfare. It isn't. Now they both know it. He unfolds the document and stares at it. "What - this is..."
"I've managed to surprise Superman. Imagine that." So smug; so sure of himself.
Clark barely notices. The deed to his parents' farm curls in his hands. For a moment, emotion chokes back all his questions, but then he gathers himself and asks, "Why?"
Lex levels a narrow, measuring gaze. Clark returns the look with steady curiosity. When Lex breaks the stare, erotic memories crowd close: war games played with teeth and hands, biting and bruising down the length of a long, pale, hairless body.
Lex turns his back to Clark before he speaks. "I had nothing to do with buying up your family's land. I didn't ask your mother to sell to LuthorCorp."
"Aren't you in charge of the place?" Clark's cynicism is a rare gem. Only Lex can make it shine.
"This is an anomalous remnant of my father's plans for the company. Certain things were set into motion before he died."
"Like putting my mother out of her home before she died, you mean?"
Lex flinches. For a moment, Clark remembers why he loved Lex, and why he can never hate him. "Clark, please believe me. If I had known, I would never have allowed it."
"You know, Lex, even when you're sincere, you sound like you're lying."
"That's something you have considerable experience with."
Clark nods. He has no real defense against such an accurate charge. He folds the deed and offers it back to Lex. "You know I can't accept this."
"I never expected to hear your father in everything you say, but I guess you proved me wrong again." Lex makes no move to take the deed. "It's yours, Clark. I don't have any other gifts to give."
"I couldn't accept them, even if you did."
"You never would," Lex says softly. He steps closer, within arm's reach. "You remember how I tried to give you things your father knew nothing about. Even then, you were just like him."
"I'm not *just* like my father," Clark says, in an equally soft tone.
"Of course not. No more than I'm *just* like mine." Lex's words are smooth, like warm oil, and caustic as battery acid.
Now it's Clark's turn to flinch.
For a time, they inhabit this mutual space in silence. Then Lex speaks - perhaps because it needs to be said, or perhaps because he garners some joyful satisfaction in saying it. "It's only fair to warn you, I'm going to destroy you."
Clark chuckles, surprising them both. "How is that different from what you've been trying to do the past few years? Ever since I put on the suit, you've been picking at me every way you can think of."
"We've had this discussion before, too," Lex says. He moves closer, so they are side by side. "I bring the balance, remember?"
"That's your opinion."
"Never saw any evidence to the contrary."
"Don't you think that's a thin foundation for a case in favor of killing me?" Previous attempts to take Superman down have been funny to Clark, but only because Lex's efforts lacked a certain depth of conviction. Now there's a shift in intent, or so it seems to Clark.
"I still don't know what you are." Lex's hands are folded in his lap, motionless there like two bloodless doves brought down in mid-flight. "I still believe I have a purpose."
"Maybe you do. But it's not this."
"You don't know that."
Clark sighs. "I never wanted to be your enemy."
Beside him, Lex nods slowly. "But you didn't want to be my friend, either. For us, there aren't any other options."
It occurs to Clark with sudden clarity: he's going to have to kill Lex to put an end to this. Thus there will be no end to it, because there are many things Clark can't - won't - do. Lex, for his part, appears to have thought that through already. "You don't believe I'm going to try to rule the world," Clark accuses.
"No." Lex clears his throat. "But the alternative is that I am, and I don't believe that either."
"And that's why you're obsessed with this?"
"I've been obsessed with...this...for so many other reasons. What's one more?" Lex smiles in a way that makes Clark shiver.
"So this is the last time we'll meet this way," Clark says. Lex doesn't answer. The conclusion to their friendship may as well have been encoded in their genes. Even so, sadness overwhelms Clark. He's never been able to graft back the pieces of his heart he gave to Lex, and Lex has never offered to return them.
When Lex turns and takes hold of his shoulders, Clark's only thought is that Lex should use all his strength. He wishes Lex would try to do damage, even though it's impossible. Lex doesn't disappoint him. For a moment they are tangled up in each other's arms, and then their mouths are locked together and Clark is devouring, being devoured, sinking into the taste and feel of a memory, into the flesh-and-blood reminder of what it is like to love with an open heart. Lex's bite against his lower lip makes him shiver with desire. There is no blood drawn; how could there be? But Clark's lips feel stained with it.
They separate from one another in slow motion. Clark's arms feel heavy when he lowers them from around Lex's shoulders. Nothing prepared the world for Superman; nothing prepared Superman for Lex Luthor.
"Don't be surprised when it begins," Luthor says, rubbing a fingertip across his lower lip. "Don't be taken off guard."
"I won't be," Superman answers.
For a fraction of a second Clark thinks Lex will come back into his arms, and he thinks he might allow it, if it happens. When the moment passes, Clark longs to call it back, but this is not his way. If his choices were for himself alone, there would be no choice at all.
This is how they part: Lex leaves first, with the refused gift in his pocket and the taste of Clark Kent on his lips. Clark watches him go. He throws himself into the sky and follows Lex's car down the long driveway, out to the main road and back to the life he's made without Clark. There's a sign at the end of the road: *Now Leaving Smallville.* Here Clark parts company with Lex.
So it was always meant to be.
III.
From time to time, Clark returns to Smallville. The points of interest are always the same: the cemetery, where one by one his loved ones have come home to rest; the open fields of the once-upon-a-time family farm; the Luthor castle, where youthful trust withered and died a painful death.
This is the last time he will make the journey.
He waits until long past dark, when the town entire is asleep. He's been here before a hundred times, mourning friends taken too soon, parents who shaped him, lovers he never appreciated with the respect they deserved. They are all here now.
Lionel would not have approved of the headstone, but Clark likes it. Elegant in its simplicity, though perhaps a bit strange to anyone who ever knew Lex Luthor: his name, and nothing more.
Clark stands by the grave of his bitter enemy until the sun is gathering strength at the horizon. Lex was eloquent in his love and loathing, and his gifts of desire came in strange shapes: an offer of a deserted farm as memento; an offer of death by Kryptonite, if ever Clark should tire of saving the world. Clark has little to offer in return. It is not enough to mourn such a man with empty hands.
In the moments just before dawn, Clark leaves his mark on the smooth granite, engraving his truth there: friend. When he takes to the sky, he flies straight into the scorching pale warmth of the sun. It's a poor substitute, but it will have to do.
End
All comments are welcomed.
destina@ix.netcom.com
Author's notes: When Hope invited me to write for Ground Zero, I couldn't resist the idea of putting some closure on Clark and Lex's relationship, and adding some commentary about their hometown. It's a shame her zine is off the 'net now, because there were some lovely stories there.
Back to The Body Eclectic
Back to Main Page