Chapter Text
May 21st was certainly a day for the record books.
It started when Clark half-woke up as Lex’s alarm went off and again slightly later when Lex laughed at him before kissing him goodbye and heading into the office. Clark officially got up around 10:30, and he felt vaguely guilty but couldn’t figure out why until he realized how early he’d used to get up.
And then it was him standing at the bathroom sink, toothbrush in hand and toothpaste in mouth, as he remembered his dad’s face best, it seemed, in the gloom of early morning or porchlight or his– his former Fortress of Solitude.
He remembered him with Mom in the kitchen.
Dad.
Dad.
God, he could still see his face, grinning, smiling, grimacing, disappointed.
He could still hear his voice, lecturing, commiserating, joking.
(He could still see his dad’s face, though; he could still hear his voice.)
Clark got cleaned up, and he ate some cereal he was sure Lex only stocked because of him, and then he called Adrianne. They talked about nothing and everything for almost an hour, and Clark agreed to meet her the next day at the downtown 16th Street mall, whatever it was currently going by. When he’d moved here, it’d been Crossroads, but then it’d just recently changed, and neither he nor Adrianne actually knew what it was now officially.
“Whoa,” Adrianne had asked, “does that mean we’re assimilating? Are we Metropolitans now, Clark?!”
Clark had laughed, not giggled, definitely not giggled. He’d said, “Resistance is futile.”
Adrianne had immediately said, “Ha! I knew you were a nerd!”
“Took you this long to figure that out? I mean, I did all the impressions, and I, uh, don’t really do anything exciting?”
“Well, you hide it well!” she’d said. “You’re all, uh, quiet and broody most of the time. Cut me some slack, will ya?”
Clark had smiled at her even though she couldn’t see it. He’d said, “I trust my secret is safe with you, fellow nerd, since you got that reference in the first place.”
After they hung up, Clark looked out the living room windows of Lex’s penthouse and abruptly realized something else: he came across differently here in Metropolis than he had in Smallville. Here, he wasn’t automatically a nerd or loser. Here, he was a rich boy and—aloof?
He was maybe Lex Luthor’s friend to a lot of strangers.
Clark still hadn’t exactly broken that news to Adrianne. He was sort of dreading it.
Truth be told, he was mildly surprised no one besides Chloe had really called him on it either, not Pete or his folks, not anybody from school, and not William or Mary.
Which actually pushed him into doing something he’d been putting off.
Around noon, Clark bit the bullet and went back to his grandparents’ house. After maybe 20 minutes, he’d cleared out everything he might need for awhile.
There was more of him back at the farm that was no longer his or his parents’ than there was currently at William and Mary’s house. This was just making it more official.
Mary was in the kitchen when Clark opened the front door and walked inside. She was busy the whole time he packed. She looked up sometimes, though, almost like she knew he was there.
She must’ve. Clark crossed the paths of a couple servants on his way in and out. He wasn’t secretive about packing.
But no one stopped him; no one called him on anything.
Clark was 16 years old—probably, for all intents and purposes.
His parents were dead.
And while Mary’s hair was still mostly red, and she bore a more than passing physical resemblance to Clark’s mom, she was nothing like her.
Clark knew she was trying, and he couldn’t, didn’t, want to imagine what she must be feeling, but Mary’s grief constantly made him feel worse than he already did. It reminded him his parents hadn’t actually died of natural causes, no matter what the official report said.
They’d done something. Clark felt it every time he thought about it, every time he thought about them or fell into thinking about them. They’d done something with the ship or to the ship, and now it was all gone. They were gone. And so was the ship.
Mary made him feel, rightly, guilty just with a look.
And Clark hadn’t even seen William in like a month.
Mary wasn’t his mom, and William wasn’t– he wasn’t anything.
In short, they didn’t care any more for him than he did for them. They might even kind of hate him or dislike him. He wouldn’t blame them. He’d kind of gotten their daughter killed.
Clark took away a box and a bag of stuff, and it was almost all stuff that was his, legitimately his, that he’d salvaged from home and tried to find a place for in that cavernous bedroom William and Mary had shoved him into.
He left his grandparents’ house, and he got into a cab like any normal person, and he sat quietly then paid and tipped and got out and went up in the private elevator, and he keyed into the penthouse and set down his box in the bedroom, their bedroom, and then he took his bag into Lex’s enormous walk-in closet.
Clark, at 16, basically, essentially moved out of his grandparents’ house and into his boyfriend’s deluxe apartment.
He moved in with Lex, Lex Luthor.
Clark pretty much gleefully dragged his stuff into Lex’s deluxe walk-in closet.
He kind of loved Lex’s closet.
He was maybe even kind of creepy about how often he walked through it too, but it was calming; it was all cool expensive suits and designer jeans and silky shirts and collections of sunglasses, watches, cufflinks, and shoes. Even Lex’s socks and handkerchiefs were cool. And his underwear. . .
It was like being backstage to some great show. It was Lex’s armory, in a way.
And Clark got to see it; he had Lex’s permission.
Back when he’d first been visiting and hanging out, Lex had given Clark a brief tour of the penthouse, and he’d flipped the lights on in the closet and said, “Here’s the staging area.” Then he’d laughed and turned off the lights, and Clark hadn’t even seen it, hadn’t dared until he was staying over one night and woke up to Lex kissing him goodbye.
Clark had snooped.
Board meetings were blue or navy or gray suits with odd little contemporary touches, like a pink shirt or a silver or orange tie or a purple polka dot handkerchief.
Lex had tie pins. He had special socks. He had—real sexy underwear.
Clark wasn’t up on fashion or anything, but he knew, just knew without a doubt, that Lex was stylish as hell.
Lex even had clothes for tennis, which he’d, “Christ, managed to avoid that farce for almost five years now, knock on wood.”
Clark asked if Lex worked out, and he’d gotten a leer.
“What, you can’t tell?” Lex asked, mock-insulted. He’d then rolled his eyes and pointedly finished his drink. He’d set down his tumbler and smirked at Clark and beckoned him over with a smile, a real smile.
Clark obliged, straddling Lex’s legs as he sat sprawled out on the sofa.
Lex asked, “You want me to flex?”
Clark had grinned and nodded.
Lex licked his lips and put on his drunken version of a serious expression, all furrowed brow and pursed lips. He extended his left arm and then curled his arm up high.
He flexed his bicep.
But he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, kind of loose, so Clark did the world a favor and he pushed up the super soft material of Lex’s shirt, and he ran his hand over Lex’s arm, his bicep, his silky smooth skin. Clark leaned over and kissed the muscle there.
Lex sucked in a deep breath and lifted his free hand up to Clark’s neck.
Clark said, whispered, really, against Lex’s arm, “I think you need to take your shirt off so I can properly appreciate your—physique.”
And for once, Lex didn’t shoot off some witty comeback. He just squeezed the back of Clark’s neck and kind of pulled him back a bit.
So he could; so he could take off his shirt and let Clark run his hands over his muscles.
Clark loved Lex’s body because it was Lex’s, but he also just really loved it because Lex was hot. He did work out, and it showed. Lex’s skin was smooth and, thanks to Clark and the meteors, almost completely hairless. He was pale, unfashionably so, but Clark knew that was a leftover of Lex being a redhead, only now he’d turned it into kind of a trademark.
One time, sitting in class and daydreaming, Clark had wondered if Lex hadn’t embraced his image as pale and bald and sleek and young just to separate himself from his father, a direct contrast to Lionel.
Clark thought it highly likely.
Lex reached out at one point, just after he’d tugged at Clark’s own shirt and made him take it off too, and with both hands he cupped Clark’s face and just—looked at him. He stared Clark right in the eyes and said nothing, not with words.
Then he smiled, a tiny smile, and he pulled Clark close with both arms, and all but threw them both right off the couch and onto the floor, Lex landing on top of Clark of course.
As they sort of wrestled and grabbed at each other, Clark let Lex take the lead. He folded.
Pinning Clark’s arms to the carpet with a triumphant, “Haa!” Lex then bent over and bit right into the fleshy part of Clark’s right shoulder, right at the top where the bones and tendons were closest. Then he smiled and laughed and ran his hands all the way up from Clark’s waist to his head and back down again.
He asked, in between kisses to Clark’s stomach, “And do you work out, Clark?”
Clark laughed and Lex grinned, and that was the last coherent thing either of them said for awhile.
Lex’s long-sleeved shirt that night was purple (purple Clark had gleefully stripped him of), and Clark loved Lex in purple, and he recognized him best in purple, but he’d also come to realize that Lex always wore purple when he had to meet his dad, purple and black and his Napoleon watch and the cufflinks with his initials engraved in onyx.
Lex wore purple when he was feeling good too, as it was his favorite color, but he wore a lot more of it when he felt bad or nervous or “just a bit uncertain as to how things might play out, Clark.”
Purple was Lex’s lucky charm, something to make himself feel better.
Clark—felt weird about appreciating him in it after learning that.
But just last week, Lex had pointedly dragged him into that ridiculously huge closet and said, as they stood in front of two empty sections and with Lex’s hand burning hot on Clark’s forearm, “This is your space.” He’d pulled Clark into a kind of hug, all skin-to-skin, chest-to-chest, and that deep voice right in his ear, and Lex had told him, “This is your home, too.”
He’d kissed Clark on the cheek then.
And Clark had frozen up. Oh, he’d been able to fake it; he’d turned and pulled Lex into a proper, full-mouthed kiss, but inside he’d been numb, shocked.
Clark recognized guilt, again, always. He’d got here by cheating. He always felt like he was cheating, stealing, pretending.
He really identified with Pinocchio.
But he’d been so damn grateful and happy too; home, here with Lex, of all people. Lex was a dream come true. Even when he was being a jerk, maybe especially when he was a jerk, Clark loved Lex to the moon and back.
Clark unpacked his bag of stuff and hung up the few shirts and pants he had in his two sections, his two suits, his tux. He put into the drawers his lame boxers and plain socks and boring old t-shirts and jeans. He slid onto the neat little shelves his two other pairs of shoes. He had three, total, but he was wearing his sneakers.
On the shelf above, Clark stashed his bookbag.
He moved in.
Clark put his iPod, earbuds, and charging cable in the bedside table on “his side” of the bed, and out in the living room Clark slid his tiny collection of books onto the bookshelf. They fit so neatly, so perfectly, his Gatsby snuggling right alongside Lex’s dog-eared “Goblin Market.” He slipped onto one of the movie shelves the few DVDs he’d brought from William and Mary’s that Lex didn’t, somehow, already own.
It was a big deal, a big step, and he knew he could’ve maybe called Chloe and talked about it. He was pretty sure she’d already guessed he was—with Lex. She’d gotten a certain look on her face back when they’d hung out at the mall. Clark thought maybe Lex might have touched him a bit too much or too long or too, uh, low to exactly pass as just ‘friends.’
Chloe was pretty savvy about that kind of thing, anyway.
Clark could probably kinda talk about it with Adrianne tomorrow too. She already knew he was with a guy.
She would maybe find it unbelievable that he was with The Lex Luthor, but she’d still, hopefully, be cool.
Pete, not so much. Clark didn’t even have the faintest clue how to even bring up any of this crap with Pete.
He was nervous about it, almost—scared.
Pete hadn’t met Clark’s grandparents, and Clark hadn’t talked about how school was here at all. He didn’t really know anything about Clark being—different. He probably still thought Clark was in love with Lana.
Pete was like a safety net. He was proof Clark had once been something like a real person. Clark was afraid if Pete knew, any of it, he’d bolt. He wouldn’t tell. Pete wasn’t like that. But he wouldn’t be Clark’s friend anymore. And Clark still really needed Pete on his side.
Who did that leave? Lana? Christ, Clark could never talk about any of this with Lana. That conversation was too horrifying to even contemplate.
What about, who, the teachers at school? Mrs. Etsemiller at Smallville High or Mr. Burke at North Metro?
Mr. fucking Jenks?
Barry downstairs who likely already thought Clark a complete bozo?
Maybe Pete’s parents, full of pity.
Or Whitney goddamn Fordman.
Who Clark hadn’t once idolized, hadn’t used to want to be and be close to.
It’d taken him awhile, but Clark had finally managed to acknowledge that he’d been crushing on more than just Lana. . .
A couple weeks ago, she’d emailed Clark, and in amongst her well-wishes and poetic turns of phrase was the tidbit that Whitney would be going to Metropolis U in the fall and the thinly veiled suggestion that wouldn’t it be cool if he, Whitney, maybe knew some people in the big city.
Whatever.
Ok.
Clark wasn’t bitter or upset still or anything.
Clark was, uh, trying real hard not to be petty, anymore. And Whitney had had some bad stuff happen this past year, with his dad and all.
But Clark could still easily, immediately, seamlessly recall every single second of how it felt to be blindsided into being the Scarecrow. He could instantly recall Whitney’s rage, feel his hands fucking jerking and pulling Clark around and the awful, terrible pain of Lana’s meteorite necklace closing around his neck as Whitney almost gleefully snapped it shut.
Clark wanted to be good, and he could forgive Whitney a lot. He had forgiven him. A lot. It was ok now.
But he couldn’t forget. He couldn’t forget that Lana’s boyfriend, Clark’s—golden god—idol had done that to him, deliberately. It made him not like Whitney, made him feel, stupidly, scared of him.
The whole Scarecrow business made him not like Lana as much either.
It was about respect, and they’d lost it.
Maybe he could confide in Tina Greer, while he was at it, right? Maybe Jared fucking Lyons.
And wasn’t that jerk a puzzle? Half the time, he looked at Clark like he wanted to murder him, and the other half. . .
When in doubt, Clark went walking. He’d just moved in with his boyfriend, and so for a few hours he just walked and didn’t think beyond, “Time to cross,” “New store,” “Hold up, cab, and let me just get this poor old guy across, jeez,” and, “Did they just catcall me? What the hell?”
Clark held open doors and awkwardly smiled. He acted as buffer to people just trying real hard to cross the street. He chuckled at an insanely adorable toddler dancing in-line at the bodega to a tinny Marvin Gaye song and happened to share a grin with another dude also laughing. He prevented a girl not much older than him from crossing the street unawares, stupid earbuds in her ears and that terrified, oh, shit, too late! expression all over her face.
Strangers made him feel more than his friends.
Clark walked for hours and hours until it was sunset and he felt mostly alive again.
Then he started heading home.
And he realized who he could talk to about all this stupid, neurotic stuff.
Subject, object, fellow weirdo:
Clark realized he could talk, and always kinda had, to Lex about pretty much everything.
They talked about Lana, about Whitney. Clark hadn’t mentioned the, uh, crush aspect, but then Lex wasn’t exactly subtle about how much he still wanted to wring Whitney’s goddamn neck. (He still referred to him as “the goddamn quarterback” and the Scarecrow as “honky-tonk crucifixion,” which Clark of course had definitely not laughed at.)
Clark talked to Lex about Chloe, about how bad he felt he didn’t live up to her expectations.
They even talked about Pete sometimes.
“I envy you,” Lex had said quietly, once, Clark’s head resting on Lex’s chest.
Clark had frowned.
Lex had said into the silence, bold as brass, “I never really—had friends like you do.”
Clark had moved closer, clung a little harder, burrowed deeper in Lex’s arms.
His boyfriend.
His cool, stoic boyfriend.
“Best friend,” Lex had said then snorted. It was an awful sound, painful to hear. “What I wouldn’t’ve given for any friend.”
Clark hadn’t known what to say. He’d squeezed Lex, hugging him as close as he could.
And he felt Lex look down at him. Lex had quietly said, confiding, “Sorry for the impromptu pity party.”
Clark had shifted, rolled to the side so he could look up and really see what was going on.
Then he’d known what he had to say, and he’d said it, himself for once bold as brass: “You’re my best friend, Lex.”
And eventually Lex had worked his way around to responding. After the shock and terror and love played across his face, emotions Clark could now read and appreciate and would never ever share or divulge, Lex had said, hand on Clark’s cheek, “You’re mine, too.”
Lex had breathed his name, “Clark. . . ”
No one had ever said his name like that.
No one had ever told Clark what Lex had.
Clark wanted to be as brave as Lex.
He talked with Lex about Adrianne and Lyons and Mr. Burke.
And he tried; he hinted, at best, but he’d mentioned a lot of his weirdness the last few months, slowly filtering it through, all subtle-like.
He wanted Lex to know. He trusted Lex.
Lex knew a lot of it, if not, still, exactly the full extent of Clark’s—weirdness.
Lex was handling it, honestly, real fucking well. He was doing a better job than Clark was.
They were getting there. Clark felt like maybe he himself was finally getting there.
Mom and Dad weren’t here anymore.
They were—dead. They’d died.
They were gone forever.
Clark had pretty much killed them; he’d all but led them to their deaths.
He’d killed his parents. He’d done that; he was an alien; he wasn’t human.
He’d killed his parents.
But he wondered if maybe Lex wouldn’t forgive him.
He’d even said something to that effect to Lex.
Clark said, “They died because of me.”
Lex’s hand had stopped petting him.
Clark whispered, “I still wish I’d—instead of them.”
Lex got angry and upset. He’d had tears in his eyes.
He’d held Clark so tightly that he would’ve bruised him if Clark were anyone else.
Clark had maybe said he’d wished he were dead or something to that effect a few times, and Lex had, uh, called him on it every time.
Lex didn’t know the whole story of course. He only had the facts he’d read or heard.
He hadn’t been exposed to the full picture of Clark’s—abject failure.
He still likely believed Clark was just feeling a—normal amount of, what, survivor’s guilt?
Guilt was something they had in common, though.
He probably thought Clark was just another meteor freak.
Clark knew Lex felt guilty, though, felt guilty about his family, felt guilty about his mom.
“I never told anyone,” Lex had written him.
Clark had wanted to write back: “I haven’t told anyone that I’m not– ”
Clark was not a good person, and that’s probably why he went out of his way to help others.
Lex was like that, too.
Fake it till you make it.
Lex’s dad was awful. He made Lex feel guilty. Clark had kind of figured out, just since he and Lex been together and seeing how Lex reacted to things, that Lex’s dad seemed to have pretty much convinced Lex he was awful too. He tore him down.
Clark had always known, in the abstract, that Lionel Luthor was awful, courtesy of all the rants from his dad, from Pete’s dad, from Pete, and all the articles printed in The Ledger and The Daily Planet. Lionel Luthor was bad fucking news.
But he was like a cartoon character villain, right up until Clark had met him. Then he was real.
He was Lex’s dad.
Just last week, Lex had come in in the afternoon, walking into the penthouse already jerking his tie loose. He’d tossed his briefcase onto the tiny, probably super-expensive, table right there by the door, and then Lex, the coolest, most stoic guy Clark had ever known, had stood right there and held his head in his hands.
He’d freaked out right in his own foyer.
Clark had been playing Final Fantasy XI on Lex’s Playstation 2.
He’d had a pretty good day, considering.
Clark had paused his stupid fucking video game and stood up. He’d asked, quietly, “Lex?”
And Lex had laughed into his hands, although Clark now kind of thought it was more of a scream.
“Hi, Clark,” he’d said, muffled.
Clark had licked his lips. And he’d sort of almost thought of moving closer. . .
. . . and then he was closer, so close. Lex’s suit jacket was pushed back with the force of air movement, and Clark had reached out and wrapped his hands around Lex’s wrists.
He’d said, in a whisper, suddenly, too abruptly, as he tried to gently pull down Lex’s arms, “Hi, Lex.”
Then he’d pulled Lex close, so close.
Later, Lex had his head in the fridge, and he told Clark that his father had stopped by the office.
Lex had said, “Dad made an appearance today.”
And that was it, but Clark was learning how to read between the lines.
Clark was a freak, an alien, but Lex was just really weird.
He made Clark feel normal.
He felt guilty and alone like Clark; he was supposedly odd like Clark.
Clark hoped he made Lex feel better. Lex wouldn’t tell him if it were otherwise, though.
Today was May 21st, and he and Lex were already tucked up into bed together now in the penthouse’s huge master bedroom, surreptitiously reading some reports (Lex) and studying Pre-Raphaelites (Clark), and Clark was kind of gearing up to making a sexy move on Lex, when Lex said, out of nowhere, so quietly and weird and in a voice Clark hadn’t ever heard from him before:
“I had a brother.”
Clark dropped his book into his lap; it just slid right through his fingers.
He breathed in, and he said, “Uh.”
God, they were both so weird.
Lex was almost as awkward as Clark, really.
Almost. Clark was pretty much the worst at being—human.
And he felt Lex close his eyes and shift backward in bed to rest his head back against his pillow. He felt Lex set down the papers he’d been reading.
Clark reached over and grabbed Lex’s right hand. Then he grabbed Lex’s left hand. Then he curled himself around him.
Lex breathed out, “Julian died of—SIDS.”
Clark whispered, “God, I’m sorry, Lex.”
Lex huffed a laugh, that laugh, that wounded sound that hurt to hear.
Lex said, “Nothing was the same after that. Mom was. . . ”
And Clark didn’t dare breathe.
Then Lex shook his head a little and said, “And Dad wasn’t even around anymore.”
Clark felt adrift, but he always kind of felt that way.
So he said what he wished someone would say to him.
He tied himself to Lex, Lex and his brother Julian and his poor mom, and Clark said: “That wasn’t your fault.”
Lex closed his eyes and pulled Clark close.
Neither of them was alone.
Clark wanted a lot of things, so much, but he also wanted nothing, really, besides being close like this, and he had it already, with Lex, now.
Clark stretched up and kissed Lex on the mouth, and he said, hoping Lex would get it, would remember, “You’re the best part of my day.”
Lex opened his eyes, and they were wet with tears. He put his hands on Clark’s face again, and Clark knew what he was saying.
They went to sleep, afterward.