FIC: Smallville - Night Chill

[fajrdrako_fic]

Title: Night Chill
Author: fajrdrako
Fandom: Smallville
Genre: Slash
Characters: Clark/Lex
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine, no claims, all property of Warner/DC.
Note: Spoilers for episode 2x01 "Vortex". Originally posted at the Smallville Slash Archives.


Night Chill

There were no ghosts in Luthor Manor until Lex Luthor brought them there.

He had places to hide, even from himself and his personal ghosts, inside the manor and out of it. Sometimes he needed to escape, to get away from the pressure building up inside his head. Too many thoughts, too many needs, and his damn father's eyes judging him with every fleeting idea. He tried to escape to the memory of impersonal words: "A primitive recursive term is a monotonic term whenever for each x, the unary function h x is a monotonic function."

Too many words, too many ideas, and they couldn't block out the feelings.

He tried to stop listening, but thoughts pursued him. Over-educated, self-educated when the teachers ran out of information, as they always did. Learning had always come easy. So had plotting, making plans, carrying them out. Building futures on the past, in elaborate patterns of happenstance and human nature. History, business, politics. The building blocks of the elemental tables; the crystalline precision of mathematics, the finer moves in chess.

Sometimes the thoughts pursuing him were cruelly playful: "Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account." When Clark Kent had revived him from the dead on a riverbank last hear, his intentions had been as good as any hell-paved highway. He had many resolutions, just as he had many bank accounts, some of them numbered and administered by dark-bearded men in Geneva with German accents. Some of the resolutions were both fueled and frustrated by the memory of Clark's large hands, his warm body, his intent gaze. Felled by those same memories, Lex had fanned them into fantasies, all of Clark, imaging a world in which Clark wanted him. In which Clark touched him.

He had nothing to fear in the dark. He had to believe that, or he was lost.

It was late. The Eve of All Saints. . . When he was a young child, he and his mother had made their private party of it. Costumes and candy - he didn't get to go trick-or-treating like other kids. He couldn't remember why not. Was it because the cold night air make the asthma worse? Or was it just another thing a Luthor didn't do?

They would read each other ghost stories and excerpts from ghost stories. Poe, Shelley, King, Barker, stories of increasing complexity as he aged. The most frightening ones were the ones he didn't remember, when he was very young, when he knew his father was the Enemy and he tried to hide when he knew he was coming. Sometimes he couldn't hide.

He was in the garden, without his coat. He wasn't shivering, not yet, but it seemed right that he should be cold in a dark garden on Halloween. Beautiful shrubs in the dark were amorphous unlovely blobs, and the trickle of the fountain sounded like rain. Trees made eery noises in the wind. The summer smells of flowers and grass had given way to the smells of decay and debris.

He could see well, with the large moon above, and the rest didn't matter. He remembered a drug he'd once given himself, that had melted his hands. He thought it had melted his hands. Afterwards he kept touching things - doors, walls, people, himself, just to prove he could.

Too many memories, of times he had cheated and times he had walked away from trouble, protected by insane luck and his father's power. Times he had done the kind of sex you can't wash away afterwards. Times he had failed to protect his friends. Times he had failed to protect himself.

He was Lex Luthor. He was going to conquer the world by the time he was thirty, but conquering the world was easier than conquering himself. There were still a few details to be ironed out.

He had wanted to be a scientist, not a warrior. When had that changed?

Perhaps when his father had brought the war down upon him. Perhaps when he had graduated from school? When he had awakened from death, on a rock, with sweet Clark leaning over him? Was it the day his mother died, or the day he had fallen in the middle of a cornfield, pursued by flaming green rocks?

He began to run. Running would warm him up, clear his head. Running was good; it served a purpose. He liked to be fit. Fitness made him desirable to the beautiful greedy women and the lovely, grasping men. They would pretend to want his body in any case, because they wanted other things from him, but it made it easier for everyone if he honed the body to its own freakish perfection. Not even a Victoria could love him, but then, he didn't want her love. Never had. Never would. It was all a game.

He'd wanted love from his father once. Maybe he still did, but never on Lionel's terms. He wanted his mother's love, but she was dead.

He wanted love from Clark. He killed the thought, and ran.

There was a pain, and he didn't realize at first what it was. A stitch in his side. He had been running for a long time. He began to jog, enjoying the touch of the wind against his sweating face. It was quiet. He felt alone in the world.

He was alone in the world.

The moon set. In the subsequent darkness he realized that he didn't know where he was, or what road he was running on. He was somewhere in Kansas. He had been running, and walking, and jogging, for a long time. He had done this before. The first time, he was seven years old, and they found him gasping on the ground a hundred feet from the front gates, unable to breathe. When he was twelve, it had been running away from school that did it - brave young man about to make his mark on the world, with two hundred dollars and a stolen credit card in his pocket. He'd stolen a hat, too, to cover his baldness, but they found him anyway, and took him back. That was the first time he'd met Phelan. Bastard.

He sank down on a soft patch of grass, his legs aching. He couldn't stand any more. Perhaps he had overdone the running. His father's voice mocked him: "Lex, Lex, you must learn moderation." To hell with moderation. He'd always wanted life in big doses.

He was shivering now, shivering hard. That was good, because it made it more difficult to think. He wrapped his arms around his legs, and put his head against his knees. He remembered his mother's voice, too: "You must wear a hat when it's cold, Lex, you don't have the protection of hair any more." To hell with that, too. He wasn't going to hide under hats, or in closets, or behind the family name.

Cassandra had died. Hamilton had died. Nixon had died when Lex pulled the trigger, silencing his mouth forever. To many people had died this year in Smallville He was founding his empire on a sinkhole of death. Yet he couldn't help thinking of it as a town full of life, because Clark was there. Clark had recalled him to life.

What was the point of it all? He was conquering the world: big deal. Would anyone care? Would anyone fucking notice, even? He'd be indistinguishable from those who ruled the world now. It wasn't as if he had any nearest and dearest, to lay the world at their feet.

There was only one person he wanted. Farm boy son of middle-class parents. Might as well lust after the moon. A gorgeous high school Astudent with the best ass in America and eyes as honest, as guarded, as changeable as the weather. Clark Kent, heroic enigma.

And it was damn typical that the object of his affections should appear at that moment beside him, as if summoned by thoughts. "Lex? Lex, is that you?"

"Hi, Clark," he said, conversationally. At least, that was what he meant to say, but his teeth were chattering so hard it didn't sound right. There was a rustling of Clark's clothing, and a coat, warmed by Clark's powerful body, settled around his shoulders. Lex started to laugh. What with laughing, and the warm Clark-scented coat around him, he was able to speak properly again. "Tum pius Aeneas umeris abscindere vestem."

"What?" said Clark.

"Pious Aeneas threw off his clothes. I didn't think you were fucking pious Aeneas, Clark. I thought you were fucking gorgeous Apollo."

"Are you sick?" asked Clark. His warm hand touched Lex's forehead in a brief, motherly touch. Lex wondered if he meant "sick" as a euphemism for "high" or "drunk".

"No. Don't worry about me. I never get sick." He shivered.

Clark was squatting in front of him. He could almost see the silhouette, large and beautiful, a dark shape in the greater darkness. "I to your place and no one could tell me where you were."

"I was running."

"You should at least have taken a jacket." Clark was still in motherly mode. Lex liked it. On reflection, he liked other modes of Clark better. Clark was so damned sexy, even now, when he was just a warm presence and a voice in the dark.

"Don't need one. Here, take your coat back." He tried to take it off, but Clark's firm hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"It's okay, I don't need it. Why were you running?"

Anyone else, and Lex would have said, "For exercise." Because it was Clark, he told the truth. "Running away from the castle. From my memories. Nunc mihi nihil libri, nihil litterae, nihil doctrina prodest."

"Stop going Latin on me," said Clark.

"Cicero. Saying that education was bunk."

"It's history that's bunk," said Clark. "Why are you running from memories?"

"I wasn't," said Lex. "I was running away from myself."

"Why?"

"Do you hate me, Clark?"

"No, of course not."

"I hate myself."

"Why?"

"Almost killed my father. Made him blind instead. Gave him power over me that way. Stupid, stupid. So stupid."

"You're stronger than he is," said Clark. "And I don't hate you."

Lex thought about that. The thought, more than the coat, made him feel warmer. "I can't see why it matters. I'm alone in any case. I hate Halloween," he said. "The universe is full of ghosts. Did you know, Clark, that the Phoenicians believed -"

"Shut up," said Clark.

Lex was surprised into momentary silence. Warm Kent lips pressed against his in a kiss - inexperienced, but not tentative.

Since this was an area where Lex had a great deal of experience, he led Clark slowly into the sensuality of it. Sharing the warmth of breath, such as they had once shared before in the previous October. Sharing taste and texture of mouth and tongue; neither avid nor frantic, but with something fierce lurking behind the gentleness of the pressure. It had been a year since that, but Lex remembered Clark's taste vividly.

Clark's hand ran itself along Lex's cheekbone. He pulled back a little. "Lex, I. . . ."

Lex waited, holding his breath. He wasn't sure what to expect. To be let down gently? To be reassured? Comforted? Humored?

Clark said, "You aren't alone. As long as I'm alive, you aren't alone. Do you understand that?"

Lex considered. "I can understand it. I can't believe it."

Clark's kiss this time was aggressive, betraying the fierce spirit behind it. Overbalanced, Lex almost fell, but was held in those strong, warm arms. When Clark released Lex's lips, he kissed his cheeks, his eyes, his throat, his scalp. Lex began to feel heat restored again within him, starting from his cock. He had dreamed of seducing Clark, but it had only been a dream. Did Clark have dreams of his own?

Clark held him in strong, warm arms. He spoke against his ear, the words hot and damp. "Can you believe that I want you?"

"Do you?"

"Too much."

Lex kissed Clark's lips, a light brushing of mouths. "I am dangerous, Clark."

"I know." Clark sounded amused. "So am I."

"I have ghosts, Clark. Memories that hurt."

"That's just history," said Clark. "We can deal with that. We gave a destiny together. Didn't you tell me that?"

"I did. You should have told me I was full of shit."

Clark laughed against his neck, nuzzling his ear. "It was the truest thing you ever said. Can we go back to your place now?"

"Sure."

"And go to bed?" Eager, teasing, Clark's blatant sensuality was making it impossible to think clearly. Lex liked the sensation. Clark's presence and his strength seemed to drive ghosts of thought away. Clark's courage was the greatest weapon against darkness Lex could imagine. Clark's kiss held the promise of a different kind of sex, an innocence regained, something new created by Clark's touch that was free of pain and doubt.

His mouth against Clark's hair, he whispered, "Why?" He meant: why me? Why now?

"Because," said Clark.

As far as Lex was concerned, this was a close to destiny as it needed to get.

He and Clark walked back to the Manor together, arms around each other as they walked.