From The Ruins (2/2)
Title: From The Ruins (2/2)
Pairing: shades of Clex, Mionel
Rating: PG
Length: 7149 words
Spoilers: Vessel/Zod, Sneeze, Arrow
Summary: Clark and Lex switch bodies in "Zod".
Part One: http://bagheera-san.livejournal.com/34139.html#cutid2
Clothes make the man wasn't a truism for no reason. Seeing himself and Clark dressed in sharp business clothing made Lex confident that they could present themselves to the LuthorCorp board and emerge, if not victorious, then at least unscathed.
Clark looked more comfortable in a suit than Lex would have expected, but maybe it was because it wasn't his own body and he was used to seeing Lex dressed formally. Lex, on the other hand, barely recognized himself out of the primary colours and jeans. He had found a grey suit, not too expensive, but not screaming bodyguard, either, and a boring blue tie, and then in a stroke of genius, had added a pair of wire-rimmed glasses with no proscription. It made Clark's ridiculously pretty face seem older and more professional, and if Lex slumped a little and didn't meet people's eyes, he was confident that most people would overlook him like they tended to do with young assistants of insanely rich men.
"I don't see why you have to make me look silly. I thought we were trying to impress your Dad," Clark said dubiously.
Lex was still experimenting with his hair. He spared Clark only a sideways glance. "By successfully impersonating someone we're not, we show him that we're in control of who we are."
Clark gave him a little smile that Lex hadn't seen since the earliest days of their friendship. It said, you're full of bullshit, and it had never failed to make Lex smile in return. It had been a very long time since anyone had reminded Lex that most of his acts were acts, since someone had played the court jester to his perfect Luthor heir. He couldn't return the smile now, because he wasn't sure if there really was an act - for there to be an act, there had to be truth, but Lex wasn't sure what the truth was, if there was a real Lex Luthor behind the mask, or if the mask had become the man.
But this was about appearances, not about truth.
*
They arrived last in the board room, breezing in while everyone else was already seated. The room with its dark marble floor and large, spotless glass table was impossibly clean, as if no disaster could touch this ivory tower, but the city beyond the large windows proved it a lie. They were only a thin pane of glass away from destruction.
Lex had been psyching Clark up till the last moment, when they stepped out of the elevator and slipped into their roles.
Let them do the talking for you. The less you say, the more nervous they'll be, and the more they'll talk. Don't show anything but approval or disapproval. Don't hesitate, don't explain your decisions. There were an infinite number of rules it seemed to Clark, and they all boiled down to having a perfect poker face.
"If nothing helps, think of opera," was Lex's last piece of advice.
Clark wasn't thinking of opera. He was trying to remember who was who of the men around the table, so he'd know whom to address when. He was thinking of dropping to his knees in front of Zod, and the look of triumph on Zod's face when he was fooled by Clark's act.
Clark could act. He wasn't a good liar, but he could act. He could pretend to be clumsy so well that Pete had never even suspected Clark cheated at basketball. He could play dumb so well that none of his math teachers had ever suspected that Clark was faster than your average pocket calculator.
If Clark could pretend to be human, then he could pretend to be Lex.
"We're not here to waste time, gentlemen," he said without much inflection, just repeating the lines Lex had given him in the elevator. He slid into the chair, picturing Lex's way of moving, smooth and understated. "Myers, your report, please."
One of the youngest men, bearded and bespectacled, rose from his chair, clearing his throat and launched into a stream of numbers and statistics that had no resemblance to the catastrophe that had happened the day before, and yet was supposed to represent it.
Lex was jotting down notes, and Clark remembered that he wasn't supposed to look at Lex. I'm an employee, Lex had said, without much of an explanation. Clark got it. Lex was hiding in plain sight, the way Clark usually tried to.
His eyes wandered to Lionel. Lionel wasn't listening to Myers, either. He was staring at the two of them, a mixture of calculating interest and disapproval playing on his face. Clark could tell that Lionel was just waiting for the chance to seize the reins.
"Enough," he said, interrupting Myers in mid flow. Okay, he had to tamp down the imperious tone a little. He sounded like himself on red kryptonite and not like Lex. Lionel was smiling. "Rowland, when can we expect production to resume?"
Lionel's eyes narrowed, flitting from Lex to Clark. Myers settled down as the middle-aged Mr Rowland started to speak, tapping a pen to the table. "Hard to say, Mr Luthor."
Clark said nothing, but he felt sweat break out on his back. Wait until they get nervous and talk, Lex had insisted, but every pause would invite Lionel to charge in.
"About seventeen percent of our employees are inconvenienced, hospitalized or haven't yet given a life sign. The roads are closed and we have to deal with property damage - "
Rowland was a short, balding man, heavy and lethargic looking, but the longer Clark stared at him, the wider his watery eyes got. The man was scared of him and his silence. "Three days until we can resume production. At least three months until we can get back to full capacity - "
There was a nudge on Clark's knee, too fast for anyone but Clark to notice. What did Lex want him to say?
"Make it one," Clark said, ready to face disbelief from the members of the board. But no one looked particularly surprised. Rowland even slumped in relief. Lionel leaned back in his chair, apparently having decided that it wasn't the right time for an intervention.
The board meeting was an hour long, but time was fast and slippery, the moments flowing into each other, accentuated by sharp thrills of adrenaline and long boring stretches of listening to interchangeable voices. Clark couldn't understand how anyone could want to do this. It was like watching paint dry in a tank full of sharks.
When it came to signing stuff, Clark let Lex take the papers from people, who gave the impression of sorting them when Clark was sure than he was speed reading everything. Clark's part was to pretend to skim the papers Lex handed him and then just sign, faking Lex's signature. Before the members of the board or Lionel had time to gather their wits for trickier questions, Clark got up, took his suitcase from Lex, and said, "I'm one a busy schedule. Expect my individual responses to your requests in your inbox," and left. He tried to make it a fast but ordered retreat, but it was more of a run. Once in the elevator, he let himself fall against the wall and gasped for breath.
Lex looked perfectly composed, but the look Clark got from behind the fake glasses was sharp as a scalpel.
"Considering how dreadful a liar you are, I'm a little surprised by your ability to act," Lex said coolly as he pocketed the glasses.
"Not being myself makes a difference," Clark said. He'd realized that every time he'd opened his mouth in the boardroom. He was lying, but he wasn't lying as Clark Kent. They weren't seeing him, they were seeing Lex.
"So it's the disguise," Lex mused, still critical. "I was beginning to wonder if you ever put much effort into lying to me."
"I felt guilty then, alright?" Clark snapped. "None of the people in there were my friends. They don't even know who I am and I don't want them to know who I am - "
"Did you want me to know who you are?" Lex interrupted, taking a step closer.
Clark exhaled harshly. "Of course I wanted to! Do you think I enjoyed lying to everybody?"
Lex's eyes narrowed and he was now seriously pushing into Clark's personal space. Clark felt more than crowded, he felt as if his edges were blurring once again, and the boundaries of his self started breaking down so close to Lex.
"Did you drop me clues, Clark? Did you seek me out because you knew I was going to try and take the truth from you? If you were scared of me finding out, you could have stayed away, but you never did. Even when our friendship was over you still kept pushing into my life -"
The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. "I thought being friends with you was worth the risk," Clark hissed and pushed past him towards the roof, where the helicopter was waiting to take them back to the castle. A hand on his wrist stopped him, holding him with an iron grip. He gasped at the sudden pain, and it loosened, but only marginally. Lex stared him straight in the eyes.
"Clark. I want you to understand this," he said, slow and dangerous. "I investigated you because I thought being friends with you was worth the risk."
"What the hell -"
"Our friendship could never have prevailed with your secret between us. I had the choice between watching it fall apart or doing something to save it."
"By abusing my trust?" Clark yelled, jerking his hand, trying to get out of Lex's grip. Lex didn't budge. His face had frozen over.
"You never trusted me, Clark."
"I -" Clark fell silent, all the steam going out of him in a painful breath. "I was waiting…," he said softly.
"For what?" Lex demanded. "For me to prove myself? How? How could I have proven myself? Or were you just playing games with me, like my Dad?"
You could have let it go, Clark almost said, but that was a horrible lie. If Lex had let go, Clark would never have surrendered his secret. Chloe let it go, and he only told her when he had to.
"You were, weren't you?" Lex asked bitterly. "All these years you played a no-win game with me!"
Clark's breaths were coming in big shaky gulps, as if he were filling his lungs with water. "It was a no-win game for me, too!" he cried. "What should I have done? I … I couldn't tell you the truth and I couldn't stop lying to you. The only way I could have stopped it would have been by walking away!"
After a moment, Lex faltered, like a fortress crumbling stone by stone. Clark couldn't stop shivering, he was almost sobbing, and still Lex hadn't let go.
"But you didn't," Lex whispered, understanding dawning in his voice. "You stayed. You kept pushing into my life even when all that was left of our friendship was a wreck…"
It wasn't Clark who moved into the hug, and it wasn't Lex. They just drifted closer, like two celestial bodies in a fatal dance, caught in each other's gravity and slowly approaching the point of their final collision. At last, Lex let go of Clark's wrist and wrapped his arm around him, and Clark sank against him, feeling as raw and exhausted as he hadn't since he was nine and fell asleep crying over a dead calf. Lex felt warm and smelled of safety, smelled like Clark should smell, like home.
*
The helicopter landed at the mansion, and they changed back into more comfortable clothes - Clark into what he considered Lex-casual, with dark slacks and a pastel shirt, and Lex into Clark's clothes he'd worn this morning, picking up the pair of new sneakers he had ordered to be brought to the mansion. He listened to his answering machine, but there was no message from either Lana or his Dad, which was expected in Lana's case and ominous in Dad's.
Then, since Lex had given his staff a couple of days off to deal with the aftermath of what the media had started calling the "Dark Thursday", they drove to the Kent farm.
Their car wasn't the only one parked in the yard.
"That's Dad's car," Lex said as they stopped and both stared at it.
"What do you think he wants?" Clark asked.
Lex frowned, then pulled the key from the ignition. It was time to stop running. Still, Clark's question was a good one. What did Dad want?
"Clark, how close are my Dad and your mother?" It wasn't a polite question, but too important to forego. Clark turned to him with shocked eyes.
"What? You mean - ?"
"I'm not insinuating anything here, Clark," Lex stopped him. "Does she trust him?"
Clark shifted uneasily, glancing at the farmhouse. "I guess so."
"Alright, I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. Lionel is attracted to your mother, Clark. I'd be mystified that any woman has managed to capture his attention for so long, but knowing your mother, I'm not. Maybe he even fancies himself in love with her."
A comparison lurked at the back of Lex's thoughts, one that he would never have voiced to Clark and didn't want to admit to himself, either.
"But - "
"I'm certain that your mother only sees him as a good friend. But he's biding his time, and once it becomes appropriate, he'll make a move."
"We need to warn her!" Clark's hand was on the door, ready to jump out and storm into the house. Lex seized his arm, firmly but without using his strength.
"No, Clark. That'd be a very stupid thing to do, just as you telling Lana that she can't trust me. She needs to realize this on her own. Knowing your mother, I'm confident that she will."
Clark ground his teeth, still tense. "But he's only using her to get at me."
"Quite the contrary," Lex replied, tamping down his irritation at Clark's usual self-centredness. This was just the reaction of an only child facing the fact that his mother had a life of her own. It was perfectly normal. "My father's interest in your mother is probably the one thing that keeps him from using his knowledge against you. He wants to stay in her favour, so he needs to play nice. And we have no choice but to play along, unless we want to drive him into a corner and face the consequences."
*
Clark was glad to have Lex with him to do the talking. He felt nauseous at the thought of Lionel moving into his Dad's place but he felt equally horrible at the thought of having to tell his Mom that one of her only close friends couldn't be trusted.
She looked happy when they walked in the door, giving both of them a quiet smile, and Clark wanted her to be happy, and not lonely and grieving. His Dad would have wanted her happy… just not with Lionel.
His eyes fell on Lionel, sitting at the table with the paper, and Clark wanted to throttle him. If he hurt her -
"Lex, Clark," Lionel greeted with a false smile, putting down the paper and getting up. "I was disappointed that you left so quickly. Your performance at the board meeting was… surprisingly excellent. I just told your mother how very pleased I am to see the two of you working together to such formidable results."
Clark expected Lex to answer with some barbed comment, rebutting Lionel's praise, but Lex was completely silent for a horrible second.
Martha beamed at all of them, putting down a bowl of salad and taking away Lionel's paper. "I'm proud of you, too."
Lex took a breath that fell just short of ragged, and Clark hoped he was the only one who noticed. Then he unfroze, pulled a chair and sat down at the table like a soldier jumping into the fray. "Were you, Dad? You looked a little uncomfortable in the meeting."
Lionel chuckled. "Oh, well, Lex, I was concerned at first. Your strategy seemed unreasonably risky to me - therefore I was all the more delighted to see it work out well."
Clark followed Lex's example, and sat down next to him, bristling at the thought of sharing a table with Lionel. When his Mom started setting the table for four, Clark was surprised for a second that the chair didn't break in his grip, but then he remembered that he had no super-strength.
"Does that mean we have your support?" Lex asked coolly.
Lionel leaned back, looking at his son in Clark's body, the distress on his face impossibly real even though Clark knew it had to be a fake. "Son, you have had my support for a long time now. I know we have had our differences, but I want nothing more than to bury them and be a family."
Lex smiled like a killer would smile at expertly done carnage. "Family."
"We may not all be related by blood," Lionel said, his voice gentle but his eyes cunning as he glanced from Lex to Clark, "but you, Clark and Martha are the people I care most about in the world. My connection to Clark's biological father being gone, or your little… ah… mix-up, doesn't change that in the least."
"Not kin, but kind, Dad?" Lex muttered.
"Exactly," Lionel smiled. "Will you be able to let go of the past, Lex? For future's sake?"
"And cast off my nighted colour? Of course, Dad," Lex said, returning the smile with mocking meekness. Lionel glowered, but only until Martha put the roast on the table.
The tension didn't lower throughout dinner. Clark answered monosyllabic to all questions, which left the brunt of the conversation to Martha and Lionel, who seemed oblivious to their sons' discomfort.
"Nighted colour?" Clark asked as he and Lex finally walked outside, both of them glad to get away from Lionel. "I think you went a little over board there, Lex. Your Dad didn't buy it."
"He wasn't supposed to. And that's Hamlet, Clark. It would have been your line, but since I wear your body, I thought it appropriate."
"I knew it was Shakespeare," Clark defended himself. "Just couldn't remember which. Speed reading doesn't make it any more interesting, you know?"
"Ah, I've missed your philistine view on things," Lex laughed.
"Yeah, sure, Lex. And my great manners and my taste in music." Clark grinned at him as they stepped into the barn. Things were still chaotic.
Lex returned the smile, unexpectedly sincere. "I missed you, Clark."
Clark lowered his eyes, touched and embarrassed all at once. "You know you're weird, right? No other guy would say stuff like that, " he muttered. "I missed you, too."
Clark would never have admitted it, but he admired Lex for being able to say things like that without being embarrassed. Still, Lex seemed to know when to stop with the heartfelt declarations. They started cleaning up the barn, talking about uncomplicated stuff, enjoying each other's company. It was the happiest Clark had felt since his Dad's death. Work on the farm never seemed like real work when you did it together with someone else. With Lex, who seemed to consider all of this some quaint, fascinating game and still tried to do everything as perfectly as possible, it had a special charm. It felt like playing pool at the mansion, only somehow more natural, and more grown-up, and most of all, more honest.
*
That evening, while Lex had already gone to resume his nightly disaster relief work, the farm got another visitor. Clark was glad to see Chloe's car and jogged outside to greet her, but when she got out of her car, she had a look on her face that kept him from hugging her.
"Oh my god," Chloe said slowly, staring at him. "It's really you. It's you in Lex Luthor's body!"
Clark laughed at her expression. "What's giving it away? The dirt on my designer pants?"
"No! Your grin!" Chloe accused. "It's your thousand mega-watt grin on Lex's face. This is so, so, so creepy!"
Clark's grin instantly subsided and that seemed to startle Chloe out of her shock. She gave him a wobbly, apologetic smile. "Look, I'd hug you, but this is really weird."
"Yeah, I know." Clark glanced nervously at his feet, then back at her. "Um, there's also… about before… when we…"
With a deep breath, Chloe said, "It was a one time thing. Adrenaline. The end of the world."
"Yeah. Yeah, the end of the world."
The awkward silence that threatened to settle was stopped by Chloe's next question, "So where's Lex?"
"In the city. He's using my powers to rebuild stuff and help people."
"Lex is the mysterious saviour?" Chloe sounded incredulous and delighted all at once. "I thought it was a hoax or some meteor freak gone good!"
"No, it's Lex," Clark confirmed.
"So… is that an end of the world thing, too? Or is Lex going down the Lionel Luthor path of reformed villainy now?"
His mood darkening instantly at the mention of Lionel, Clark shook his head. "We can't trust Lionel, Chloe. I think his whole change of heart might have been an act - or caused by his connection to Jor-El. It's gone now… and Lionel's definitely changed."
"Well, that sucks," Chloe said.
They walked inside together and settled down on the stairs to the loft. Chloe fell silent for a moment, and Clark could tell that she had something on her mind. He wondered if she felt as conflicted about the kiss as he did…
"Look, Clark, I hate playing messenger for you and Lana, or for Lex and Lana. I'm not going to try and tell you what to do, because you're not going to listen to me anyways. But I've got her sleeping on my couch, crying her eyes out all day, and I have to say, just leaving her at the hospital and not telling her anything was a pretty shitty thing to do."
Clark hung his head, feeling the pain of tense muscles all over his neck and shoulders. "I know."
"Well, good," Chloe said awkwardly. "Then maybe you'll understand that I couldn't just tell her nothing."
Clark froze, then jumped to his feet. "What did you tell her?"
Chloe craned her neck to stare up at him, then got up as well, taking a defensive step away. "Nothing! Jeez, Clark, do you really think I'd tell her your secret?"
Clark took a deep, relieved breath, then shook his head. He didn't know what to think anymore, what with the lines constantly shifting and friends becoming enemies and enemies friends. "No. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that."
"I told her that you and Lex got your issues worked out and that you're kinda… absorbed with each other right now. It was the only thing I could think of that wasn't a total lie."
"How did she take it?"
Chloe grimaced nervously, then admitted, "Not so well."
*
Clark continued to spend his nights at home since there was no immediate need to pretend to be Lex outside of the couple of meetings and phone calls he had to do. Lex was planning to have some charity functions in the near future where Clark would have to play him, but until then, Clark could keep a low profile. Lex, on the other hand, worked non-stop, doing his own job from his laptop in the mornings, assisting Clark with playing his part as Lex, and spending all afternoon and night running across the country, using Clark's powers to clean up their mess.
The fires in the city had by now all been extinguished, but now another problem emerged. The police was completely unprepared for this situation, and in large parts of the city, the damage had been big enough to completely incapacitate the infrastructure. There was no water in these neighbourhoods, no electricity, no public transport. People had had their homes destroyed and were wandering the streets or crowded one of the makeshift shelters and camps.
The looters roaming the streets reminded Lex of his time on the island, with their frightened, feverish eyes and their desperate greed. When it came to survival, every act, however gruesome, became justified in the name of self-defence. He couldn't arrest anybody, so he disarmed them, dropping knives and firearms off in a LuthorCorp warehouse in the outskirts.
Lex had taken to wearing special clothes for his nightly exploits, heavy boots and dark clothes as well as a pair of opaque sunglasses. Clark had laughed at his get-up and made silly jokes about capes, but Lex hadn't missed the shadow of envy on Clark's face. He wanted to be out here, too.
And Lex was getting increasingly frustrated with not being able to do his own job properly. There was so much that needed to be done in the city and needed to be done now, that required someone who couldn't just give money to charity, but who could pressure the authorities into changing things.
During the fifth night, Lex was getting increasingly tired. At first he barely noticed, only when he started to sweat it occurred to him that this was strange. Lex hated sweating and wasn't a great fan of summer or excessive sunshine in general, and imperviousness to heat was one of the really nice perks of Clark's powers.
It wasn't even hot though when he returned to the farm, the sun had just risen half an hour ago, and still Lex felt sweat beading on his upper lip and his shirt stuck to the skin between his shoulders. A gust of wind abruptly turned the heat into a shiver.
He wasn't hungry, didn't want much but to sit down and close his eyes for a moment. But he had to hurry, shower and change clothes, because there were calls to be made in the morning and he still needed to supervise Clark in case anything unexpected came up in the conversations and Lex had to give him cues.
"Lex?"
He realized he had been staring off into space as he stood half-way between the door and the kitchen table. Martha was giving him a worried look.
"You don't look so hot," Clark said.
Lex waved it away. "Just a little dizzy. I get headaches from time to time."
"I don't." Clark's tone was alarmed.
True… he hadn't had a headache since they'd switched bodies… Lex frowned, unable to concentrate. His nose was itching strangely, as if he'd been inhaling irritant chemicals.
Martha ambushed him with a hand to his forehead. She made a worried humming noise. "You're burning up. Sit down."
"Thanks, I think I'll skip breakfast," Lex muttered, and she shook her head in disapproval.
"Sit down. You don't look well."
Lex blinked, at her, then at Clark. "Is this normal?" he inquired.
"No!" Clark said. "Did you come across any meteor rocks?"
Lex shook his head and lowered himself on a chair. Martha was right, sitting was good. He felt less dizzy.
"I think you might be sick," Martha said.
"I don't get sick," they both said nearly in unison. She smiled at them, apparently none too worried. It was ridiculously soothing to Lex, more than any vote of confidence from a high-paid doctor.
"Well, Clark, you said that you lost your powers while you were in the Phantom Zone. That means your immune system was weakened as well."
Lex startled and suddenly wasn't so dizzy or soothed anymore. "This could be an alien virus," he realized out loud. "If this body can be affected by it, there's no telling what it could do to humans. How sure are we that Clark didn't bring other things with him from the Phantom Zone? Alien microbes or spores could wreak havoc on Earth's ecosystem. We need to test me. There's equipment that was used for the spaceship from the second meteor shower…"
*
The Kents, Lex realized after half an hour of arguing his case, were the most contradictory people he knew. Wholesome, healthy, law-abiding - and willing to commit just about every crime in order to protect an illegal alien. They never visited church, and Lex had never heard any talk of religion in this house or from Clark, but they had opinions of science that were downright medieval, at least when it came to the idea of taking Clark to a laboratory.
Of course his position was considerably weakened by the fact that he couldn't claim not to ever have experimented on humans… he really had to do something about Level 33.1 before there was any chance of Clark finding out. The place could easily be refitted to be far less morally reprehensible…
He at least understood their mistrust of doctors. The only doctor he'd ever trusted was a criminal with entirely predictable levels of untrustworthiness… well, and his murderous ex-wife number two.
So instead of going to LuthorCorp and possibly saving mankind with science, Lex had to lie on the couch and drink tea and try not to sneeze. Only covering his face with his hands that first time had prevented him from blowing the kitchen to bits. That had effectively ended the argument and Mrs Kent forced him to lie down.
After Martha left, Clark took over hovering duty.
"I can read my e-mail," Lex protested when Clark took away the laptop.
"You're the one who insisted you had alien Ebola," Clark said evilly.
"It's because you never got to stay home sick as a kid, isn't it?" Lex sniffed. "You're going to vicariously enjoy my suffering."
"That and it's been a while since I had anyone to play a mean game of Go Fish."
The rest of the day was spent with undignified activities like infantile card games and inhaling steam. It called forth long buried memories of Lex's childhood, when he had been sick all the time and his mother had enjoyed coddling him nearly as much as Clark. His life before the meteor shower had always seemed like a blurred, featureless dream to Lex, but now pieces of it resurfaced with crystal clearness.
To Lex's surprise, most of them were happy memories.
*
That night, Lex slept in Clark's body for the very first time. He woke in the dark, his shirt clingy with sweat, the sound of a gentle surf haunting his memory. The dream he'd had was incredibly familiar, but it slipped from his grasp the more he tried to remember it.
He padded barefoot to the kitchen and got himself a glass of water. The night air cooled his body, drying the hair that was plastered to his forehead. There were crickets out in the fields around the farm, a constant hum and whisper, rising and falling like a tide.
His mouth tasted bitter, as if the tap water was really salty seawater, but the more he drunk, the thirstier Lex got.
He lay down again and was asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. This time he dreamed of being tied down on a cold table, and light searing his eyes. The last he saw before he woke with a start was Milton Fine, melting into black crystals, laughing at him.
He realized it was a nightmare as he lay tangled in the blanket, shivering, sick, but sleep lapped at him like waves, a darker and more powerful current than before, and swept away consciousness before he could hold onto it.
When he woke the next morning, Lex felt fine. His body was rested and his mind clear as a sky after a storm. Everything had settled, not quite ordered yet, but calm.
He lay on the lumpy cushions and listened to Mrs Kent making coffee in the kitchen. He soaked in the scent of breakfast, Clark's old comforter, the sunlight filtering in through the curtains. Lex didn't usually indulge in escapist fantasies, but he knew that this one would stay with him for the rest of his life.
But it was a dream lived on borrowed time.
He got up, and quickly tidied up the couch, leaving the comforter folded on the coffee table. Then he slipped out the front door and speeded to the mansion. They had hidden the piece of Zod's device and Raya's crystal in different places, nearly impossible to find for someone without Clark's vision. Lex took both of them, studying them to confirm his suspicions.
He had asked Clark to read the Kryptonian letters on the object Zod had used to nearly destroy the Earth, but they were some form of code that made no sense to Clark.
But now Lex remembered. Not enough to read it, just the feeling. This piece meant power. More so, it was an actual power source. Images flashed in his mind, Zod walking up to Fine's ship -
He put the power source carefully on his desk and took a step back, then seized the crystal firmly in his hand and held it out in front of him. He felt the power coursing through him, faint tendrils, like sunlight being injected into his veins. It required perfect control of one's mind, pure concentrated will-power. He remembered how Zod had done it, the sensation of extending himself into the technology, of becoming one with it.
With a jolt of warmth, the crystal lit up. Light and heat began to rise from the broken piece of Fine's ship. Enough power to destroy the mansion, maybe the whole county. The power of a miniature sun, and all of it contained by Lex's will.
When it was done the power source crumbled to dust.
Lex knew that he held the key to world in his hands. Power and knowledge near infinite could be his once he reactivated the Fortress. He contemplated it for a long time, considering the possibilities, waiting to be tempted.
He considered what he could have if he took this, and what he couldn't have. He considered who he could be, and who he couldn't be.
He had to consider all this, carefully, because if he could make this one choice, then all choices that followed would be easy, whether he chose the one or the other path.
Then he went home.
*
"You couldn't have asked me before doing this?"
Lex had shown up just as Martha and Clark were starting to get worried about him, but when he told them what he had done, Clark looked increasingly angry. For once, Lex wasn't bothered by Clark's lack of trust. He had proven to himself that he could be trusted.
"I had an inspiration. I needed to test it immediately." And he had needed time to think, but Clark needn't know that. It was between Lex and himself, and it was done now. "I'm remembering things I had forgotten, but I don't know how long it'll last."
Clark's disapproving frown lessened, and Lex could see a softer expression shining through.
Martha, who had looked very pensive throughout Lex's explanation, spoke before Clark could. "You shouldn't hurry things too much. If repairing the Fortress means that you can return yourselves to your own bodies, then maybe you should take a day off. You've done nothing but work all this time, Lex, but Clark's powers are a wonderful gift. Jonathan was given them once, and I know he always wished he had had more time to experience them."
*
They hadn't agreed on a time, but Lex returned at sundown. He found Clark sitting on the stairs to the veranda, the Kents' dog curled up next to him. When Clark spotted him, there was more relief on his face than Lex wanted there to be, but at least it was relief and not surprise.
Clark scooted aside, and Lex sat down on the dusty stairs, letting the dog push her wet nose into the hollow of his hand, then gently petting her soft fur.
"So, what did you do?" Clark asked.
"Had a coffee in the Starbucks across from the Planet. They reopened today," Lex deadpanned.
Clark stared at him. "You're kidding."
"Actually, no. I've never been able to go anywhere but exclusive clubs and restaurants in Metropolis without being ambushed by reporters or stared at by the waiters." After a pause, in which Clark's expression only got more incredulous, Lex admitted, "I also ran across the Atlantic, wrestled lions in the Serengeti and read all the texts in the secret archives of the Vatican library. It'll take me years to process all the information I gathered today."
They were quiet for a long time, until the last rays of the setting sun cooled on their faces and the long shadows turned into twilight.
"Are you going to miss being me?"
Lex shook his head, wondering if Clark would ever fully understand. He got up and extended a hand. "Clark, the only way I can even get close to being you is by giving back what belongs to you."
Clark looked him straight in the eyes, and took the hand, letting himself be pulled to his feet. "Be yourself, Lex," he said when he stood.
Lex smiled at the heartfelt cliché. "I intend to."
He had things to prove, after all.
*
Clark was shivering, huddled close to Lex in the Fortress. The place was still shrouded in crimson darkness, and he regretted not having brought a flashlight or yet more warm clothes. Lex had been working with fullest concentration since they arrived, rerouting the crystals of the command console to find the correct combination that would respond to Raya's crystal.
Clark held it in his mitten-covered hands, feeling the hum of warm energy even through the layers of cloth.
"Let's try this," Lex decided, and Clark gave him the crystal crest. Lex held it out in front of the console and pulled one of the crystals from its slot. For a second, nothing happened, then the console lit up with a low hum and the crest started to shimmer and glow, lifting slowly from Lex's palm and floating in front of them. Light blossomed forth, and then exploded suddenly. The shockwave swept them off their feet and threw them backwards, and Clark had to shield his eyes from the impossible brilliance.
A moment later, it was all gone. The crest fell to the floor, depleted of its energy. The crystal spires of the Fortress were restored to their icy brightness.
Then Jor-El's voice rang out through the Fortress. "Kal-El. You have returned to your Fortress. Where did you acquire this crystal?"
"In the Phantom Zone," Clark called out. "I met a girl named Raya there. She said she knew you!"
Jor-El didn't reply for a long moment, then spoke again. "You have exchanged bodies with the human vessel for Zod. This was not my intention when I gave you the dagger."
Well, it would have helped if Jor-El had explained his intentions a little more clearly, then. How was Clark supposed to know what would happen when he attacked Fine with it? "It happened when I pulled Zod out of Lex's body."
"This would not have happened if you had finished your education," Jor-El admonished.
Impersonating Lex had taught Clark some things about bargaining. "I'll finish it if you change us back into our own bodies."
Again there was a long pause. The crystals blinked, as if the Fortress were busy. "There is no time for you to finish your education yet, Kal-El. Prisoners have escaped the Phantom Zone. You must defend Earth. I will now return you to your rightful body. Do you wish me to erase the human's memory?"
"No!" Clark yelled immediately, but Lex wore a thoughtful frown. He stepped closer to Clark.
"Tell him about Lionel," he whispered.
*
It was a week and a half after Jor-El had reversed the switch, and Lex was getting used to being himself again, in more than one way.
Night for night, more secrets of his memory became unlocked in his sleep. It was something about the switch, the AI of the Fortress had explained, that cured humans of all diseases and injuries. Apparently, memory loss was one of them.
Three days ago he had started to remember things that relieved him of any crisis of conscience he might have had regarding his Dad.
It wasn't as if Jor-El had hurt his Dad. Lionel looked happy. Martha looked happy. Clark looked… creeped out.
"Jor-El assured us that he's hundred percent cured of all anti-social impulses," Lex reminded Clark, trying not to sound as if he was enjoying this too much. They stood at the sidelines of the party, near the buffet, watching Lionel introduce Martha to the Metropolis high society.
Clark grimaced. "I still wish he'd keep his hands off my Mom."
"Enjoying yourselves?" Someone asked coolly from behind them.
Lana looked… expensive. She had her long hair done up, and was wearing a black dress. Her eyes shimmered as hard and cold as her new diamond necklace. Lex wondered who her date was, if they could afford that necklace. A few days ago, he had written her a long letter, apologizing for his behaviour in the hope that it would appeal to her love of old-fashioned gestures. Since she was talking to them, it might have had some minimal success.
"Lana," Clark stammered, sounding panicked.
She sized Lex up with a long look, ignoring Clark. "So you're still pretending to be friends? Good luck with that. I hope the Inquisitor is as easily fooled as I was."
"Oooh, this sounds interesting," someone said loudly from and Lois Lane pushed into their little circle, champagne glass in hand and leering. "What secret could Clark Kent and Lex Luthor have that would make a headline?"
Lana shot her an acid look, then quickly smoothed her face into a fake smile. "Oh, it's not really a headline," she said modestly. "More the society pages."
Lex decided he had heard enough. It was time for damage control before Lana got it into her head to start talking about Zod in public. "Lana, don't you think we should discuss this in private? I think there have been quite some misunderstandings - "
"Lex and Clark," Lana told Lois sweetly, "are dating."
Clark choked.
Lois crowed, "I knew it!"
Around them, people started clapping in response to Lionel's speech.
There was a loud snap and the lights went out.
A figure in green leather walked into the room, sporting a crossbow.
Lex stepped aside to let Clark jump into action, took another sip from his champagne and smiled at the chaos unfurling around him.
Pairing: shades of Clex, Mionel
Rating: PG
Length: 7149 words
Spoilers: Vessel/Zod, Sneeze, Arrow
Summary: Clark and Lex switch bodies in "Zod".
Part One: http://bagheera-san.livejournal.com/34139.html#cutid2
Clothes make the man wasn't a truism for no reason. Seeing himself and Clark dressed in sharp business clothing made Lex confident that they could present themselves to the LuthorCorp board and emerge, if not victorious, then at least unscathed.
Clark looked more comfortable in a suit than Lex would have expected, but maybe it was because it wasn't his own body and he was used to seeing Lex dressed formally. Lex, on the other hand, barely recognized himself out of the primary colours and jeans. He had found a grey suit, not too expensive, but not screaming bodyguard, either, and a boring blue tie, and then in a stroke of genius, had added a pair of wire-rimmed glasses with no proscription. It made Clark's ridiculously pretty face seem older and more professional, and if Lex slumped a little and didn't meet people's eyes, he was confident that most people would overlook him like they tended to do with young assistants of insanely rich men.
"I don't see why you have to make me look silly. I thought we were trying to impress your Dad," Clark said dubiously.
Lex was still experimenting with his hair. He spared Clark only a sideways glance. "By successfully impersonating someone we're not, we show him that we're in control of who we are."
Clark gave him a little smile that Lex hadn't seen since the earliest days of their friendship. It said, you're full of bullshit, and it had never failed to make Lex smile in return. It had been a very long time since anyone had reminded Lex that most of his acts were acts, since someone had played the court jester to his perfect Luthor heir. He couldn't return the smile now, because he wasn't sure if there really was an act - for there to be an act, there had to be truth, but Lex wasn't sure what the truth was, if there was a real Lex Luthor behind the mask, or if the mask had become the man.
But this was about appearances, not about truth.
*
They arrived last in the board room, breezing in while everyone else was already seated. The room with its dark marble floor and large, spotless glass table was impossibly clean, as if no disaster could touch this ivory tower, but the city beyond the large windows proved it a lie. They were only a thin pane of glass away from destruction.
Lex had been psyching Clark up till the last moment, when they stepped out of the elevator and slipped into their roles.
Let them do the talking for you. The less you say, the more nervous they'll be, and the more they'll talk. Don't show anything but approval or disapproval. Don't hesitate, don't explain your decisions. There were an infinite number of rules it seemed to Clark, and they all boiled down to having a perfect poker face.
"If nothing helps, think of opera," was Lex's last piece of advice.
Clark wasn't thinking of opera. He was trying to remember who was who of the men around the table, so he'd know whom to address when. He was thinking of dropping to his knees in front of Zod, and the look of triumph on Zod's face when he was fooled by Clark's act.
Clark could act. He wasn't a good liar, but he could act. He could pretend to be clumsy so well that Pete had never even suspected Clark cheated at basketball. He could play dumb so well that none of his math teachers had ever suspected that Clark was faster than your average pocket calculator.
If Clark could pretend to be human, then he could pretend to be Lex.
"We're not here to waste time, gentlemen," he said without much inflection, just repeating the lines Lex had given him in the elevator. He slid into the chair, picturing Lex's way of moving, smooth and understated. "Myers, your report, please."
One of the youngest men, bearded and bespectacled, rose from his chair, clearing his throat and launched into a stream of numbers and statistics that had no resemblance to the catastrophe that had happened the day before, and yet was supposed to represent it.
Lex was jotting down notes, and Clark remembered that he wasn't supposed to look at Lex. I'm an employee, Lex had said, without much of an explanation. Clark got it. Lex was hiding in plain sight, the way Clark usually tried to.
His eyes wandered to Lionel. Lionel wasn't listening to Myers, either. He was staring at the two of them, a mixture of calculating interest and disapproval playing on his face. Clark could tell that Lionel was just waiting for the chance to seize the reins.
"Enough," he said, interrupting Myers in mid flow. Okay, he had to tamp down the imperious tone a little. He sounded like himself on red kryptonite and not like Lex. Lionel was smiling. "Rowland, when can we expect production to resume?"
Lionel's eyes narrowed, flitting from Lex to Clark. Myers settled down as the middle-aged Mr Rowland started to speak, tapping a pen to the table. "Hard to say, Mr Luthor."
Clark said nothing, but he felt sweat break out on his back. Wait until they get nervous and talk, Lex had insisted, but every pause would invite Lionel to charge in.
"About seventeen percent of our employees are inconvenienced, hospitalized or haven't yet given a life sign. The roads are closed and we have to deal with property damage - "
Rowland was a short, balding man, heavy and lethargic looking, but the longer Clark stared at him, the wider his watery eyes got. The man was scared of him and his silence. "Three days until we can resume production. At least three months until we can get back to full capacity - "
There was a nudge on Clark's knee, too fast for anyone but Clark to notice. What did Lex want him to say?
"Make it one," Clark said, ready to face disbelief from the members of the board. But no one looked particularly surprised. Rowland even slumped in relief. Lionel leaned back in his chair, apparently having decided that it wasn't the right time for an intervention.
The board meeting was an hour long, but time was fast and slippery, the moments flowing into each other, accentuated by sharp thrills of adrenaline and long boring stretches of listening to interchangeable voices. Clark couldn't understand how anyone could want to do this. It was like watching paint dry in a tank full of sharks.
When it came to signing stuff, Clark let Lex take the papers from people, who gave the impression of sorting them when Clark was sure than he was speed reading everything. Clark's part was to pretend to skim the papers Lex handed him and then just sign, faking Lex's signature. Before the members of the board or Lionel had time to gather their wits for trickier questions, Clark got up, took his suitcase from Lex, and said, "I'm one a busy schedule. Expect my individual responses to your requests in your inbox," and left. He tried to make it a fast but ordered retreat, but it was more of a run. Once in the elevator, he let himself fall against the wall and gasped for breath.
Lex looked perfectly composed, but the look Clark got from behind the fake glasses was sharp as a scalpel.
"Considering how dreadful a liar you are, I'm a little surprised by your ability to act," Lex said coolly as he pocketed the glasses.
"Not being myself makes a difference," Clark said. He'd realized that every time he'd opened his mouth in the boardroom. He was lying, but he wasn't lying as Clark Kent. They weren't seeing him, they were seeing Lex.
"So it's the disguise," Lex mused, still critical. "I was beginning to wonder if you ever put much effort into lying to me."
"I felt guilty then, alright?" Clark snapped. "None of the people in there were my friends. They don't even know who I am and I don't want them to know who I am - "
"Did you want me to know who you are?" Lex interrupted, taking a step closer.
Clark exhaled harshly. "Of course I wanted to! Do you think I enjoyed lying to everybody?"
Lex's eyes narrowed and he was now seriously pushing into Clark's personal space. Clark felt more than crowded, he felt as if his edges were blurring once again, and the boundaries of his self started breaking down so close to Lex.
"Did you drop me clues, Clark? Did you seek me out because you knew I was going to try and take the truth from you? If you were scared of me finding out, you could have stayed away, but you never did. Even when our friendship was over you still kept pushing into my life -"
The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. "I thought being friends with you was worth the risk," Clark hissed and pushed past him towards the roof, where the helicopter was waiting to take them back to the castle. A hand on his wrist stopped him, holding him with an iron grip. He gasped at the sudden pain, and it loosened, but only marginally. Lex stared him straight in the eyes.
"Clark. I want you to understand this," he said, slow and dangerous. "I investigated you because I thought being friends with you was worth the risk."
"What the hell -"
"Our friendship could never have prevailed with your secret between us. I had the choice between watching it fall apart or doing something to save it."
"By abusing my trust?" Clark yelled, jerking his hand, trying to get out of Lex's grip. Lex didn't budge. His face had frozen over.
"You never trusted me, Clark."
"I -" Clark fell silent, all the steam going out of him in a painful breath. "I was waiting…," he said softly.
"For what?" Lex demanded. "For me to prove myself? How? How could I have proven myself? Or were you just playing games with me, like my Dad?"
You could have let it go, Clark almost said, but that was a horrible lie. If Lex had let go, Clark would never have surrendered his secret. Chloe let it go, and he only told her when he had to.
"You were, weren't you?" Lex asked bitterly. "All these years you played a no-win game with me!"
Clark's breaths were coming in big shaky gulps, as if he were filling his lungs with water. "It was a no-win game for me, too!" he cried. "What should I have done? I … I couldn't tell you the truth and I couldn't stop lying to you. The only way I could have stopped it would have been by walking away!"
After a moment, Lex faltered, like a fortress crumbling stone by stone. Clark couldn't stop shivering, he was almost sobbing, and still Lex hadn't let go.
"But you didn't," Lex whispered, understanding dawning in his voice. "You stayed. You kept pushing into my life even when all that was left of our friendship was a wreck…"
It wasn't Clark who moved into the hug, and it wasn't Lex. They just drifted closer, like two celestial bodies in a fatal dance, caught in each other's gravity and slowly approaching the point of their final collision. At last, Lex let go of Clark's wrist and wrapped his arm around him, and Clark sank against him, feeling as raw and exhausted as he hadn't since he was nine and fell asleep crying over a dead calf. Lex felt warm and smelled of safety, smelled like Clark should smell, like home.
*
The helicopter landed at the mansion, and they changed back into more comfortable clothes - Clark into what he considered Lex-casual, with dark slacks and a pastel shirt, and Lex into Clark's clothes he'd worn this morning, picking up the pair of new sneakers he had ordered to be brought to the mansion. He listened to his answering machine, but there was no message from either Lana or his Dad, which was expected in Lana's case and ominous in Dad's.
Then, since Lex had given his staff a couple of days off to deal with the aftermath of what the media had started calling the "Dark Thursday", they drove to the Kent farm.
Their car wasn't the only one parked in the yard.
"That's Dad's car," Lex said as they stopped and both stared at it.
"What do you think he wants?" Clark asked.
Lex frowned, then pulled the key from the ignition. It was time to stop running. Still, Clark's question was a good one. What did Dad want?
"Clark, how close are my Dad and your mother?" It wasn't a polite question, but too important to forego. Clark turned to him with shocked eyes.
"What? You mean - ?"
"I'm not insinuating anything here, Clark," Lex stopped him. "Does she trust him?"
Clark shifted uneasily, glancing at the farmhouse. "I guess so."
"Alright, I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. Lionel is attracted to your mother, Clark. I'd be mystified that any woman has managed to capture his attention for so long, but knowing your mother, I'm not. Maybe he even fancies himself in love with her."
A comparison lurked at the back of Lex's thoughts, one that he would never have voiced to Clark and didn't want to admit to himself, either.
"But - "
"I'm certain that your mother only sees him as a good friend. But he's biding his time, and once it becomes appropriate, he'll make a move."
"We need to warn her!" Clark's hand was on the door, ready to jump out and storm into the house. Lex seized his arm, firmly but without using his strength.
"No, Clark. That'd be a very stupid thing to do, just as you telling Lana that she can't trust me. She needs to realize this on her own. Knowing your mother, I'm confident that she will."
Clark ground his teeth, still tense. "But he's only using her to get at me."
"Quite the contrary," Lex replied, tamping down his irritation at Clark's usual self-centredness. This was just the reaction of an only child facing the fact that his mother had a life of her own. It was perfectly normal. "My father's interest in your mother is probably the one thing that keeps him from using his knowledge against you. He wants to stay in her favour, so he needs to play nice. And we have no choice but to play along, unless we want to drive him into a corner and face the consequences."
*
Clark was glad to have Lex with him to do the talking. He felt nauseous at the thought of Lionel moving into his Dad's place but he felt equally horrible at the thought of having to tell his Mom that one of her only close friends couldn't be trusted.
She looked happy when they walked in the door, giving both of them a quiet smile, and Clark wanted her to be happy, and not lonely and grieving. His Dad would have wanted her happy… just not with Lionel.
His eyes fell on Lionel, sitting at the table with the paper, and Clark wanted to throttle him. If he hurt her -
"Lex, Clark," Lionel greeted with a false smile, putting down the paper and getting up. "I was disappointed that you left so quickly. Your performance at the board meeting was… surprisingly excellent. I just told your mother how very pleased I am to see the two of you working together to such formidable results."
Clark expected Lex to answer with some barbed comment, rebutting Lionel's praise, but Lex was completely silent for a horrible second.
Martha beamed at all of them, putting down a bowl of salad and taking away Lionel's paper. "I'm proud of you, too."
Lex took a breath that fell just short of ragged, and Clark hoped he was the only one who noticed. Then he unfroze, pulled a chair and sat down at the table like a soldier jumping into the fray. "Were you, Dad? You looked a little uncomfortable in the meeting."
Lionel chuckled. "Oh, well, Lex, I was concerned at first. Your strategy seemed unreasonably risky to me - therefore I was all the more delighted to see it work out well."
Clark followed Lex's example, and sat down next to him, bristling at the thought of sharing a table with Lionel. When his Mom started setting the table for four, Clark was surprised for a second that the chair didn't break in his grip, but then he remembered that he had no super-strength.
"Does that mean we have your support?" Lex asked coolly.
Lionel leaned back, looking at his son in Clark's body, the distress on his face impossibly real even though Clark knew it had to be a fake. "Son, you have had my support for a long time now. I know we have had our differences, but I want nothing more than to bury them and be a family."
Lex smiled like a killer would smile at expertly done carnage. "Family."
"We may not all be related by blood," Lionel said, his voice gentle but his eyes cunning as he glanced from Lex to Clark, "but you, Clark and Martha are the people I care most about in the world. My connection to Clark's biological father being gone, or your little… ah… mix-up, doesn't change that in the least."
"Not kin, but kind, Dad?" Lex muttered.
"Exactly," Lionel smiled. "Will you be able to let go of the past, Lex? For future's sake?"
"And cast off my nighted colour? Of course, Dad," Lex said, returning the smile with mocking meekness. Lionel glowered, but only until Martha put the roast on the table.
The tension didn't lower throughout dinner. Clark answered monosyllabic to all questions, which left the brunt of the conversation to Martha and Lionel, who seemed oblivious to their sons' discomfort.
"Nighted colour?" Clark asked as he and Lex finally walked outside, both of them glad to get away from Lionel. "I think you went a little over board there, Lex. Your Dad didn't buy it."
"He wasn't supposed to. And that's Hamlet, Clark. It would have been your line, but since I wear your body, I thought it appropriate."
"I knew it was Shakespeare," Clark defended himself. "Just couldn't remember which. Speed reading doesn't make it any more interesting, you know?"
"Ah, I've missed your philistine view on things," Lex laughed.
"Yeah, sure, Lex. And my great manners and my taste in music." Clark grinned at him as they stepped into the barn. Things were still chaotic.
Lex returned the smile, unexpectedly sincere. "I missed you, Clark."
Clark lowered his eyes, touched and embarrassed all at once. "You know you're weird, right? No other guy would say stuff like that, " he muttered. "I missed you, too."
Clark would never have admitted it, but he admired Lex for being able to say things like that without being embarrassed. Still, Lex seemed to know when to stop with the heartfelt declarations. They started cleaning up the barn, talking about uncomplicated stuff, enjoying each other's company. It was the happiest Clark had felt since his Dad's death. Work on the farm never seemed like real work when you did it together with someone else. With Lex, who seemed to consider all of this some quaint, fascinating game and still tried to do everything as perfectly as possible, it had a special charm. It felt like playing pool at the mansion, only somehow more natural, and more grown-up, and most of all, more honest.
*
That evening, while Lex had already gone to resume his nightly disaster relief work, the farm got another visitor. Clark was glad to see Chloe's car and jogged outside to greet her, but when she got out of her car, she had a look on her face that kept him from hugging her.
"Oh my god," Chloe said slowly, staring at him. "It's really you. It's you in Lex Luthor's body!"
Clark laughed at her expression. "What's giving it away? The dirt on my designer pants?"
"No! Your grin!" Chloe accused. "It's your thousand mega-watt grin on Lex's face. This is so, so, so creepy!"
Clark's grin instantly subsided and that seemed to startle Chloe out of her shock. She gave him a wobbly, apologetic smile. "Look, I'd hug you, but this is really weird."
"Yeah, I know." Clark glanced nervously at his feet, then back at her. "Um, there's also… about before… when we…"
With a deep breath, Chloe said, "It was a one time thing. Adrenaline. The end of the world."
"Yeah. Yeah, the end of the world."
The awkward silence that threatened to settle was stopped by Chloe's next question, "So where's Lex?"
"In the city. He's using my powers to rebuild stuff and help people."
"Lex is the mysterious saviour?" Chloe sounded incredulous and delighted all at once. "I thought it was a hoax or some meteor freak gone good!"
"No, it's Lex," Clark confirmed.
"So… is that an end of the world thing, too? Or is Lex going down the Lionel Luthor path of reformed villainy now?"
His mood darkening instantly at the mention of Lionel, Clark shook his head. "We can't trust Lionel, Chloe. I think his whole change of heart might have been an act - or caused by his connection to Jor-El. It's gone now… and Lionel's definitely changed."
"Well, that sucks," Chloe said.
They walked inside together and settled down on the stairs to the loft. Chloe fell silent for a moment, and Clark could tell that she had something on her mind. He wondered if she felt as conflicted about the kiss as he did…
"Look, Clark, I hate playing messenger for you and Lana, or for Lex and Lana. I'm not going to try and tell you what to do, because you're not going to listen to me anyways. But I've got her sleeping on my couch, crying her eyes out all day, and I have to say, just leaving her at the hospital and not telling her anything was a pretty shitty thing to do."
Clark hung his head, feeling the pain of tense muscles all over his neck and shoulders. "I know."
"Well, good," Chloe said awkwardly. "Then maybe you'll understand that I couldn't just tell her nothing."
Clark froze, then jumped to his feet. "What did you tell her?"
Chloe craned her neck to stare up at him, then got up as well, taking a defensive step away. "Nothing! Jeez, Clark, do you really think I'd tell her your secret?"
Clark took a deep, relieved breath, then shook his head. He didn't know what to think anymore, what with the lines constantly shifting and friends becoming enemies and enemies friends. "No. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that."
"I told her that you and Lex got your issues worked out and that you're kinda… absorbed with each other right now. It was the only thing I could think of that wasn't a total lie."
"How did she take it?"
Chloe grimaced nervously, then admitted, "Not so well."
*
Clark continued to spend his nights at home since there was no immediate need to pretend to be Lex outside of the couple of meetings and phone calls he had to do. Lex was planning to have some charity functions in the near future where Clark would have to play him, but until then, Clark could keep a low profile. Lex, on the other hand, worked non-stop, doing his own job from his laptop in the mornings, assisting Clark with playing his part as Lex, and spending all afternoon and night running across the country, using Clark's powers to clean up their mess.
The fires in the city had by now all been extinguished, but now another problem emerged. The police was completely unprepared for this situation, and in large parts of the city, the damage had been big enough to completely incapacitate the infrastructure. There was no water in these neighbourhoods, no electricity, no public transport. People had had their homes destroyed and were wandering the streets or crowded one of the makeshift shelters and camps.
The looters roaming the streets reminded Lex of his time on the island, with their frightened, feverish eyes and their desperate greed. When it came to survival, every act, however gruesome, became justified in the name of self-defence. He couldn't arrest anybody, so he disarmed them, dropping knives and firearms off in a LuthorCorp warehouse in the outskirts.
Lex had taken to wearing special clothes for his nightly exploits, heavy boots and dark clothes as well as a pair of opaque sunglasses. Clark had laughed at his get-up and made silly jokes about capes, but Lex hadn't missed the shadow of envy on Clark's face. He wanted to be out here, too.
And Lex was getting increasingly frustrated with not being able to do his own job properly. There was so much that needed to be done in the city and needed to be done now, that required someone who couldn't just give money to charity, but who could pressure the authorities into changing things.
During the fifth night, Lex was getting increasingly tired. At first he barely noticed, only when he started to sweat it occurred to him that this was strange. Lex hated sweating and wasn't a great fan of summer or excessive sunshine in general, and imperviousness to heat was one of the really nice perks of Clark's powers.
It wasn't even hot though when he returned to the farm, the sun had just risen half an hour ago, and still Lex felt sweat beading on his upper lip and his shirt stuck to the skin between his shoulders. A gust of wind abruptly turned the heat into a shiver.
He wasn't hungry, didn't want much but to sit down and close his eyes for a moment. But he had to hurry, shower and change clothes, because there were calls to be made in the morning and he still needed to supervise Clark in case anything unexpected came up in the conversations and Lex had to give him cues.
"Lex?"
He realized he had been staring off into space as he stood half-way between the door and the kitchen table. Martha was giving him a worried look.
"You don't look so hot," Clark said.
Lex waved it away. "Just a little dizzy. I get headaches from time to time."
"I don't." Clark's tone was alarmed.
True… he hadn't had a headache since they'd switched bodies… Lex frowned, unable to concentrate. His nose was itching strangely, as if he'd been inhaling irritant chemicals.
Martha ambushed him with a hand to his forehead. She made a worried humming noise. "You're burning up. Sit down."
"Thanks, I think I'll skip breakfast," Lex muttered, and she shook her head in disapproval.
"Sit down. You don't look well."
Lex blinked, at her, then at Clark. "Is this normal?" he inquired.
"No!" Clark said. "Did you come across any meteor rocks?"
Lex shook his head and lowered himself on a chair. Martha was right, sitting was good. He felt less dizzy.
"I think you might be sick," Martha said.
"I don't get sick," they both said nearly in unison. She smiled at them, apparently none too worried. It was ridiculously soothing to Lex, more than any vote of confidence from a high-paid doctor.
"Well, Clark, you said that you lost your powers while you were in the Phantom Zone. That means your immune system was weakened as well."
Lex startled and suddenly wasn't so dizzy or soothed anymore. "This could be an alien virus," he realized out loud. "If this body can be affected by it, there's no telling what it could do to humans. How sure are we that Clark didn't bring other things with him from the Phantom Zone? Alien microbes or spores could wreak havoc on Earth's ecosystem. We need to test me. There's equipment that was used for the spaceship from the second meteor shower…"
*
The Kents, Lex realized after half an hour of arguing his case, were the most contradictory people he knew. Wholesome, healthy, law-abiding - and willing to commit just about every crime in order to protect an illegal alien. They never visited church, and Lex had never heard any talk of religion in this house or from Clark, but they had opinions of science that were downright medieval, at least when it came to the idea of taking Clark to a laboratory.
Of course his position was considerably weakened by the fact that he couldn't claim not to ever have experimented on humans… he really had to do something about Level 33.1 before there was any chance of Clark finding out. The place could easily be refitted to be far less morally reprehensible…
He at least understood their mistrust of doctors. The only doctor he'd ever trusted was a criminal with entirely predictable levels of untrustworthiness… well, and his murderous ex-wife number two.
So instead of going to LuthorCorp and possibly saving mankind with science, Lex had to lie on the couch and drink tea and try not to sneeze. Only covering his face with his hands that first time had prevented him from blowing the kitchen to bits. That had effectively ended the argument and Mrs Kent forced him to lie down.
After Martha left, Clark took over hovering duty.
"I can read my e-mail," Lex protested when Clark took away the laptop.
"You're the one who insisted you had alien Ebola," Clark said evilly.
"It's because you never got to stay home sick as a kid, isn't it?" Lex sniffed. "You're going to vicariously enjoy my suffering."
"That and it's been a while since I had anyone to play a mean game of Go Fish."
The rest of the day was spent with undignified activities like infantile card games and inhaling steam. It called forth long buried memories of Lex's childhood, when he had been sick all the time and his mother had enjoyed coddling him nearly as much as Clark. His life before the meteor shower had always seemed like a blurred, featureless dream to Lex, but now pieces of it resurfaced with crystal clearness.
To Lex's surprise, most of them were happy memories.
*
That night, Lex slept in Clark's body for the very first time. He woke in the dark, his shirt clingy with sweat, the sound of a gentle surf haunting his memory. The dream he'd had was incredibly familiar, but it slipped from his grasp the more he tried to remember it.
He padded barefoot to the kitchen and got himself a glass of water. The night air cooled his body, drying the hair that was plastered to his forehead. There were crickets out in the fields around the farm, a constant hum and whisper, rising and falling like a tide.
His mouth tasted bitter, as if the tap water was really salty seawater, but the more he drunk, the thirstier Lex got.
He lay down again and was asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. This time he dreamed of being tied down on a cold table, and light searing his eyes. The last he saw before he woke with a start was Milton Fine, melting into black crystals, laughing at him.
He realized it was a nightmare as he lay tangled in the blanket, shivering, sick, but sleep lapped at him like waves, a darker and more powerful current than before, and swept away consciousness before he could hold onto it.
When he woke the next morning, Lex felt fine. His body was rested and his mind clear as a sky after a storm. Everything had settled, not quite ordered yet, but calm.
He lay on the lumpy cushions and listened to Mrs Kent making coffee in the kitchen. He soaked in the scent of breakfast, Clark's old comforter, the sunlight filtering in through the curtains. Lex didn't usually indulge in escapist fantasies, but he knew that this one would stay with him for the rest of his life.
But it was a dream lived on borrowed time.
He got up, and quickly tidied up the couch, leaving the comforter folded on the coffee table. Then he slipped out the front door and speeded to the mansion. They had hidden the piece of Zod's device and Raya's crystal in different places, nearly impossible to find for someone without Clark's vision. Lex took both of them, studying them to confirm his suspicions.
He had asked Clark to read the Kryptonian letters on the object Zod had used to nearly destroy the Earth, but they were some form of code that made no sense to Clark.
But now Lex remembered. Not enough to read it, just the feeling. This piece meant power. More so, it was an actual power source. Images flashed in his mind, Zod walking up to Fine's ship -
He put the power source carefully on his desk and took a step back, then seized the crystal firmly in his hand and held it out in front of him. He felt the power coursing through him, faint tendrils, like sunlight being injected into his veins. It required perfect control of one's mind, pure concentrated will-power. He remembered how Zod had done it, the sensation of extending himself into the technology, of becoming one with it.
With a jolt of warmth, the crystal lit up. Light and heat began to rise from the broken piece of Fine's ship. Enough power to destroy the mansion, maybe the whole county. The power of a miniature sun, and all of it contained by Lex's will.
When it was done the power source crumbled to dust.
Lex knew that he held the key to world in his hands. Power and knowledge near infinite could be his once he reactivated the Fortress. He contemplated it for a long time, considering the possibilities, waiting to be tempted.
He considered what he could have if he took this, and what he couldn't have. He considered who he could be, and who he couldn't be.
He had to consider all this, carefully, because if he could make this one choice, then all choices that followed would be easy, whether he chose the one or the other path.
Then he went home.
*
"You couldn't have asked me before doing this?"
Lex had shown up just as Martha and Clark were starting to get worried about him, but when he told them what he had done, Clark looked increasingly angry. For once, Lex wasn't bothered by Clark's lack of trust. He had proven to himself that he could be trusted.
"I had an inspiration. I needed to test it immediately." And he had needed time to think, but Clark needn't know that. It was between Lex and himself, and it was done now. "I'm remembering things I had forgotten, but I don't know how long it'll last."
Clark's disapproving frown lessened, and Lex could see a softer expression shining through.
Martha, who had looked very pensive throughout Lex's explanation, spoke before Clark could. "You shouldn't hurry things too much. If repairing the Fortress means that you can return yourselves to your own bodies, then maybe you should take a day off. You've done nothing but work all this time, Lex, but Clark's powers are a wonderful gift. Jonathan was given them once, and I know he always wished he had had more time to experience them."
*
They hadn't agreed on a time, but Lex returned at sundown. He found Clark sitting on the stairs to the veranda, the Kents' dog curled up next to him. When Clark spotted him, there was more relief on his face than Lex wanted there to be, but at least it was relief and not surprise.
Clark scooted aside, and Lex sat down on the dusty stairs, letting the dog push her wet nose into the hollow of his hand, then gently petting her soft fur.
"So, what did you do?" Clark asked.
"Had a coffee in the Starbucks across from the Planet. They reopened today," Lex deadpanned.
Clark stared at him. "You're kidding."
"Actually, no. I've never been able to go anywhere but exclusive clubs and restaurants in Metropolis without being ambushed by reporters or stared at by the waiters." After a pause, in which Clark's expression only got more incredulous, Lex admitted, "I also ran across the Atlantic, wrestled lions in the Serengeti and read all the texts in the secret archives of the Vatican library. It'll take me years to process all the information I gathered today."
They were quiet for a long time, until the last rays of the setting sun cooled on their faces and the long shadows turned into twilight.
"Are you going to miss being me?"
Lex shook his head, wondering if Clark would ever fully understand. He got up and extended a hand. "Clark, the only way I can even get close to being you is by giving back what belongs to you."
Clark looked him straight in the eyes, and took the hand, letting himself be pulled to his feet. "Be yourself, Lex," he said when he stood.
Lex smiled at the heartfelt cliché. "I intend to."
He had things to prove, after all.
*
Clark was shivering, huddled close to Lex in the Fortress. The place was still shrouded in crimson darkness, and he regretted not having brought a flashlight or yet more warm clothes. Lex had been working with fullest concentration since they arrived, rerouting the crystals of the command console to find the correct combination that would respond to Raya's crystal.
Clark held it in his mitten-covered hands, feeling the hum of warm energy even through the layers of cloth.
"Let's try this," Lex decided, and Clark gave him the crystal crest. Lex held it out in front of the console and pulled one of the crystals from its slot. For a second, nothing happened, then the console lit up with a low hum and the crest started to shimmer and glow, lifting slowly from Lex's palm and floating in front of them. Light blossomed forth, and then exploded suddenly. The shockwave swept them off their feet and threw them backwards, and Clark had to shield his eyes from the impossible brilliance.
A moment later, it was all gone. The crest fell to the floor, depleted of its energy. The crystal spires of the Fortress were restored to their icy brightness.
Then Jor-El's voice rang out through the Fortress. "Kal-El. You have returned to your Fortress. Where did you acquire this crystal?"
"In the Phantom Zone," Clark called out. "I met a girl named Raya there. She said she knew you!"
Jor-El didn't reply for a long moment, then spoke again. "You have exchanged bodies with the human vessel for Zod. This was not my intention when I gave you the dagger."
Well, it would have helped if Jor-El had explained his intentions a little more clearly, then. How was Clark supposed to know what would happen when he attacked Fine with it? "It happened when I pulled Zod out of Lex's body."
"This would not have happened if you had finished your education," Jor-El admonished.
Impersonating Lex had taught Clark some things about bargaining. "I'll finish it if you change us back into our own bodies."
Again there was a long pause. The crystals blinked, as if the Fortress were busy. "There is no time for you to finish your education yet, Kal-El. Prisoners have escaped the Phantom Zone. You must defend Earth. I will now return you to your rightful body. Do you wish me to erase the human's memory?"
"No!" Clark yelled immediately, but Lex wore a thoughtful frown. He stepped closer to Clark.
"Tell him about Lionel," he whispered.
*
It was a week and a half after Jor-El had reversed the switch, and Lex was getting used to being himself again, in more than one way.
Night for night, more secrets of his memory became unlocked in his sleep. It was something about the switch, the AI of the Fortress had explained, that cured humans of all diseases and injuries. Apparently, memory loss was one of them.
Three days ago he had started to remember things that relieved him of any crisis of conscience he might have had regarding his Dad.
It wasn't as if Jor-El had hurt his Dad. Lionel looked happy. Martha looked happy. Clark looked… creeped out.
"Jor-El assured us that he's hundred percent cured of all anti-social impulses," Lex reminded Clark, trying not to sound as if he was enjoying this too much. They stood at the sidelines of the party, near the buffet, watching Lionel introduce Martha to the Metropolis high society.
Clark grimaced. "I still wish he'd keep his hands off my Mom."
"Enjoying yourselves?" Someone asked coolly from behind them.
Lana looked… expensive. She had her long hair done up, and was wearing a black dress. Her eyes shimmered as hard and cold as her new diamond necklace. Lex wondered who her date was, if they could afford that necklace. A few days ago, he had written her a long letter, apologizing for his behaviour in the hope that it would appeal to her love of old-fashioned gestures. Since she was talking to them, it might have had some minimal success.
"Lana," Clark stammered, sounding panicked.
She sized Lex up with a long look, ignoring Clark. "So you're still pretending to be friends? Good luck with that. I hope the Inquisitor is as easily fooled as I was."
"Oooh, this sounds interesting," someone said loudly from and Lois Lane pushed into their little circle, champagne glass in hand and leering. "What secret could Clark Kent and Lex Luthor have that would make a headline?"
Lana shot her an acid look, then quickly smoothed her face into a fake smile. "Oh, it's not really a headline," she said modestly. "More the society pages."
Lex decided he had heard enough. It was time for damage control before Lana got it into her head to start talking about Zod in public. "Lana, don't you think we should discuss this in private? I think there have been quite some misunderstandings - "
"Lex and Clark," Lana told Lois sweetly, "are dating."
Clark choked.
Lois crowed, "I knew it!"
Around them, people started clapping in response to Lionel's speech.
There was a loud snap and the lights went out.
A figure in green leather walked into the room, sporting a crossbow.
Lex stepped aside to let Clark jump into action, took another sip from his champagne and smiled at the chaos unfurling around him.