Archive of Our Own

Title: Relativity
Author: jenn ([email protected])
Codes: C/Lex, coda
Rating: PG-13
Series: Spaces #2
Spoilers: X-Ray, mild for Hothead
Summary: Lex is having a lousy night and Clark's trying to figure out why.
Author People are usually pretty happy during their successful blackmail/extortion ploys. Lex did not seem like a happy camper. Thank you, Molly and Beth. CLex smut is a GOOD thing.
Archiving: Yes.
Disclaimer: I don't own them or the pilot would have been shot for HBO late night.

Simple concept, even if wrapping his mind around the physics was hard as hell. You move faster, everyone else moves slower. Black hole theory, quantum physics, how many people could claim those seriously impacted their normal lives?

Ah, Clark could. He could count the ways. And the corn stalks he destroyed on a daily basis for that matter. He should seriously consider trying another way to get to school on time before the farmer who owned that particular field started getting a little too curious at the interesting shapes, or someone--say, Chloe--turned her bizarre deductive reasoning on the problem.

He couldn't count on her dismissing out of hand the idea that someone was redefining the laws of physics on a daily basis.

Anyway. Changing the rules of the universe aside, he had a paper to write and a need to escape home, if only for a little while, and forget for a few hours that he had yet another new and interesting ability to hide from the outside world, forget how Lana looked in Whitney's arms, forget--well, himself. Just the whole damn package of weirdness. Dad was being much more tractable about handing over the keys to the truck now--perhaps something in the line of parental guilt in denying him that new truck that still sat badly in Clark's stomach. Not that he'd expect people to forever pay him for his rescues, but still--certainly the first time it could be excused, and Clark's mouth still watered just from memory of it in his yard.

God, that truck. All the extras, leather seats, CD player, drive so smooth that it had been a toss-up on the way to Lex's if it would ever arrive at all or if Clark would take off into the great beyond with it.

Damn, he still wanted it. Screw the ethical considerations.

The Beanery was the only warm light on the street, and he found a parking space with relative ease, grabbing his backpack off the seat beside him and getting out into the cool fall weather. Small town rules meant you didn't lock your vehicle, but Clark's latest experiences with the good residents of Smallville had him practicing the art of safety. Spiderboys, coaches with delusions of grandeur, and certain nosy Chloes had taught him one thing--better safe than sorry. Always.

And speaking of things better safe than sorry....

Lana didn't work here anymore, which let him release a breath in relaxation as he walked in, swallowing the disappointment without too much in the way of difficulty. Lana was Lana, beautiful and untouchable, something distant to worship and drool over in the privacy of his thoughts. Seeing her as a waitress hadn't been easy. Some dreams--and was it so much to ask?--should stay pristine.

Glancing around, he spotted Chloe deep in interview mode with a tense looking town resident--ah, owner of that corn field--and quickly turned his gaze away, shying across the floor in search of an empty table in an quiet corner, somewhere he could enjoy company without actually having to be company. Clark had never been one to win awards for his social prowess and he didn't plan on starting now.

His corner. Far left, a little in the dark, so terribly inconspicuous that it had afforded Clark hours of interesting observations of the town residents when they thought no one was looking. Always a fun way to pass the evening while pretending to do homework. And here it was....

"Clark?"

In his corner.

"Lex?"

Not a place he'd think a Lex ever would occupy, as if he wanted to melt into the walls, looking like Clark often felt. The Lexes of the world belonged in the middle of the floor, holding court and flashing that smile that should be illegal to use in Kansas without a permit and looking as if they knew every secret you'd ever tried to keep. Not pressed into his chair as if he was trying to be invisible and, oddly enough, actually succeeding.

Instantly, like a switch thrown, that was all gone, and Clark got a slow, sardonic smile that sent a rush of heat up his spine.

Then Lex was back, coolly not-belonging in a corner of a small-town coffee shop, and how he managed to not-fit with such flair Clark had no idea and wanted to ask. Dark blue t-shirt rumpled, worn jeans, a smear of ink on one forefinger and still outclassing everyone in the place. No way to back out and walk away, no reason to, either. None that made any sense, anyway.

"In the flesh. Sit down." A kick of the chair that spun it out at Clark's side with perfect accuracy--Clark imagined if he'd tried that, it would have ended up buried in the store across the street. Slowly, he obeyed, dropping his backpack to the side of the chair and trying to find a safe way to rest awkwardly long arms and legs. God, puberty sucked. Coiling it all into the more or less correct spots, he lowered an arm onto the table and tried to find something to say.

His eyes fell on the folders stacked around Lex's elbow, the cell phone on and resting on easy reach, and not for the first time, he wondered why Lex came here to do work. The coffee sucked, the waitstaff couldn't get an order right if you asked for water, and certainly there was a cook in that massive house that could give Lex anything he wanted in the way of caffeinated beverages, probably with long foreign names that hurt to pronounce, too. Hell, Lex could fly to Italy to get his cappuccino, but he came here and drank bad coffee instead.

"Still working?" This was adulthood--you worked even when you weren't in the office. Reminded Clark of his father, who as far as he could tell, had never taken a day off without being forcibly removed from the farm proper by his mother. Dad called it a good work ethic. Mom called it an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Clark reserved judgement.

Clark also wondered, with something very like amusement, how his dad would take that comparison.

"Always." A tilt of his head before he pushed the folder back and reached for the cup by his elbow. "They're getting better--I got coffee this time."

If he wasn't mistaken, Lex looked tired. Tired and strangely wired, like someone who was running on nothing but adrenaline. The faintest trace of energy sheening him, almost visible to the naked eye.

"I heard that you were hiring," Clark said, and the smile he received was pure carnivore. An eyebrow quirked in amusement, and Lex seemed--younger. Discordant with the image of sophistication and bored nonchalance, but a thousand times more approachable. The disobedient son and the spoiled prince all at once.

"No pink slips, massive hiring--somewhere in Metropolis, my father's board of directors is making a suicide pact. If only I could see it."

Clark smiled, unsure what to say to that.

"Homework?" Nodding to the backpack over the rim of the coffee cup.

Clark nodded a little jerkily, ducking down to reach into his backpack--something vaguely strange about working on an English paper while Lex was deciding the fate of his company. Weird, even. But then, say it with pride, Smallville. He was sure Lex would find it odd to be sitting with someone who could break the sound barrier in land speed without breaking a sweat. Not that Clark had tried that yet--a little too noticeable--but he could feel the potential of it just beneath his skin like an itch. The desire to try it, to know for a fact what he only knew in theory.

So much damn potential, that sometimes he woke up feeling it flow through every nerve--and the floating thing, for that matter. He had to figure that out one day. Just to fly....

"What class?"

Clark glanced down at the notebook.

"English. Shakespeare." Of all the pointless things on earth, Clark rated knowledge of Shakespeare to be up there in the list. Right after anything that was called classical literature. Not that it didn't interest him--but his academic future depending on how well he interpreted a dead writer just didn't sit well. "Compare and contrast 'Romeo and Juliet' to 'Westside Story'."

"On a Friday night?"

On the surface, that did look pathetic. Clark stared at the notebook for a moment, weighing the pros and cons, then pushed it to the side.

"Like doing office work in a coffee shop?"

"Mea culpa," Lex answered with a grin, and shut the folder with a snap, leaning back in his seat. "What do you get up to on weekends around here anyway?"

Well--Clark had to think about that one. The arcade, dear God, even Clark was old enough--or bored enough with winning--to give up going there. Bars aplenty, but one look at Lex told him that the suggestion wouldn't appeal in the slightest. Country bars were just not a Lex place to be. Movies, driving, hanging out at friends' houses--catching the amused look on Lex's face, as if he could follow Clark's train of thought, Clark dismissed them all.

"What did you do in Metropolis?"

For a second, something flickered in Lex's face, skipping across it with edges of both nostalgia and remembered pain.

"This and that." A pause, then Lex reached down, finding a briefcase hidden beneath the table and packing his files away. Something in Clark sank to the bottom of his stomach, heavy as lead, as Lex dropped several bills on the table and stood up. Then that gaze caught his, pure intensity and pure knowledge, as if he could slip down inside Clark's soul and find any truth Clark hid if the mood moved him to do so.

"You coming or not?"

Easy question to answer. Clark reached for his backpack and matched Lex's smile.

It was getting toward the cold season, and Clark wished he'd grabbed his jacket as they crossed the street when the wind cut through his t-shirt, coming up on the slick plum jaguar waiting patiently beneath the golden-brown branches of one of the trees. Lex had his keys out, and the sound of the alarm was slightly jarring--Clark watched the lights on the car come on and glanced over to see Lex's shrug.

"City habits."

Security on the car. Frankly, if Clark owned a jag, he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to move more than a few feet from it, and he couldn't help caressing the metal of the hood. Beautiful. Something for any red-blooded American male to drool over and fantasize about. Brief images of picking up Lana in one of these took over and the fantasy was a pretty one, but not one that held on very long.

Reality was too damn good to mess with right now.

"Like it?"

Opening the passenger side door, Clark grinned over the top.

"God, yes."

Inside was just as good. Leather seats, beautiful fit--sufficient leg room, which Clark had learned was a privilege, not a right. Sitting back, he pulled on his seatbelt automatically, years of conditioning to be normal outweighing the fact that dying in an automobile accident was just about next to impossible for him.

Lex inches away, looking perfectly at home at the wheel of an expensive automobile. Everything Clark could ever have wanted to be in his life beside him, the knowledge that no matter how old he got, he'd never have that. Never have what Lex seeped like some sort of expensive cologne that Clark could breathe in all day.

"So Lana got the necklace, but I don't see her with you. Can I assume something went wrong?"

Thought froze briefly, rewinding to pick up the sense of the statement, then fast forwarding back to the present.

"Her choice." He tried not to let too much show--not his disappointment or his anger or the fact that honor had reared its head from somewhere in his gut and forced him to let Lana believe a lie. Another lie. God, truth was not Clark's friend. "I was--"

"Playing fair."

A strange quality in Lex's voice made Clark look at him as they passed by Smallville's city limits.

"That's how I am." Thinking now on Lex's less-than-really-subtle maneuvering--the talk with Lana, the necklace, the dislike of Whitney, almost flaunting the fact he was doing what Clark would not, could not do. He liked Lex, no question, and not just in spite of the fact that he knew on some level that Lex lacked the most basic scruples on behavior, the scruples that Smallville society and his parents had banged into Clark's head at an early age until they were as much a part of him as the color of his eyes and the genetics that made him not quite human.

In some way he couldn't define, he liked that Lex would do that for him. That he had someone like Lex, someone who didn't really give much of a damn for the way things were and would always be, someone who seemed under the impression that the social mores of Smallville were more of an inconvenience to be bypassed than an ironclad fact of life.

Free. The way Clark knew, somewhere in his bones, that he never would be.

"Understandable."

Clark shot Lex a glance.

"You don't understand, though."

Lex's head tilted, shifting gears until they were almost certainly breaking the speed limit and possibly some Indy 500 records. On the other hand, who would pull Lex Luthor over anyway? Local law enforcement had at least one family member working in the Luthor plant, one family member benefiting from Luthor money. The library, the school, the Church--it was there, an unwritten rule of life, that a Luthor could do things and say thing and be things that no one else could.

Which really explained Dad's hostility, considering the sheer number of speeding tickets accumulated by the Kent family over the years.

"No, not really, but that doesn't matter." Intense focus on driving, the cell phone in the space between them but turned off. "It matters to you."

Clark tried to read the expression on Lex's face and failed. Nothing there, nothing to read, or nothing Clark was old enough, sophisticated enough, to know to look for. Just that strange energy, the feel of the jaguar beneath him picking up speed with effortless ease, the outside world a black-grey blur of night around him, moving too fast to see, almost feeling like they were standing still.

Relativity again.

"Why are you out here, anyway? In Smallville?"

For a conversational gambit, it wasn't exactly the most tactful, but it was worth it to see that flare of color on perfect skin, the tightening of gloved hands on the steering wheel. Made Clark curious.

"Short form, misbehaving," Lex answered in an even voice. "Bad publicity to be averted by retiring the erring son into the middle of nowhere. No offense on your hometown, Clark." Quick, charming smile, almost but not quite natural. Clark found he liked breaking that cool, that composure. Wanted to see if he could do it again.

"Long form?"

That got him a quick glance and the jag swerved a little, before Lex corrected instantly and began to slow down. And slow down some more. Then come to a stop in the middle of the deserted road. No idea what Lex was going to do until--

"You want to drive?"

Was the sky blue?

"You're kidding." Had to be. No one handed over seventy grand automobiles to teenage kids. Of course, for all Clark knew, Lex had a fleet of these and could afford to see one or two destroyed, just for the amusement factor.

"Rarely." The driver's side door was pushed open and the gloved hands unfastened the seatbelt before getting out. Clark was still staring at the empty seat in shock. "Get going, farm boy."

He couldn't be more transparently eager if he started to bounce and he almost did, but instead, he managed to get his hands to his seatbelt and get it undone, getting out and crossing by the front of the car. Lex was pulling off the gloves as they met before the hood and dropped them in Clark's hand, bare fingers brushing over his palm almost incidentally. The wash of confusion was almost enough to silence everything else, but the touch still burned into his palm, warm and strangely familiar.

He felt himself caressing the fine leather. Driving gloves. Somehow, no matter how strange that concept really was in Smallville, it seemed appropriate now.

"They should fit."

Yes, they would. Clark pulled them on, still warm from the heat of Lex's hands, imagining he could feel the imprint of those long fingers in the material. So he had an active imagination. It fit.

"Clark?"

Driving. Right. Got it.

Slipping in the driver's seat, it was like coming home. Perfect fit of the seat, just a little maneuver of the tiny buttons to get the leg room, relaxing into it as if he'd been born to drive in expensive cars. Warm still from Lex's body and he took a moment to enjoy that--just a moment, no harm in that. Lex was beside him, buckling in, bare hands picking up the phone and tossing it into the glove compartment without a second thought and closing it with a kick from one booted foot. Had to be something significant in the fact that Lex was cutting off business for the night.

Or maybe Clark just wanted it to be significant. Even his own motivations were suspect here. Better not think too hard on it.

God--started, moving, like pure silk, erasing the memory of that truck like the fading of first love into naked lust. This was the car that Clark had been meant to drive, meant to own, meant to live with. Dear God, this was good. Pushing down on the accelerator, Clark almost shut his eyes at the restrained power beneath him, felt in the balls of his feet, the lines of his back, every nerve humming along in tune to the perfection of this moment.

"I want one of these." Peripherally, he caught Lex's smile and remembered who he was with. This could very well show up in his front yard and Clark just didn't think he had the strength to give this one back, no matter what his father said. Talk about domestic inharmony.... "I take that back." But he really didn't want to. He really, really didn't.

"You can drive it whenever you want." Lex was leaning against the window, staring out into the rushing darkness outside.

"You avoided my question."

Another little grin. Didn't fit very well with the Lex seen in public--younger, less assured, so very real. Someone who wasn't quite so--distant.

"Yes, I did." A pause, almost thoughtful. "I don't think you'd understand what happened, even if I explained." Clark almost opened his mouth to refute that, but stopped. They were testing the limits of their friendship, the questions Clark had always left unanswered, how much of a Luthor Lex really was, beyond the fascinating man who was making his life in Smallville and came to Clark's house for his mother's cookies and for something that was both leashed need and almost resignation. The blue eyes were fixed out the window, no expression on the handsome face. "Sometimes I don't understand. Why I think I can do anything without being my father's son and get away from who I am. Even here, it comes back to remind me."

Clark thought about that, wondered suddenly what it would be like. Speeding tickets forgotten, instant acceptance, doors opening for Lex in anything he wanted to do, just because he was a Luthor. It hadn't occurred to him that there was another part of it--the privacy that Clark took for granted, that let him keep his own secrets so well. The realization, slow and rather jarring, that someone would always notice Lex Luthor in Smallville, notice what he did, where he ate, how he acted.

How he left the coffee shop with a teenage kid and people would talk. Blinking, Clark's foot let up on the accelerator.

"Something wrong?"

Down foot. Think about that later. Dad'll be pissed, Mom'll be worried, and people might ask questions. Will ask questions.

"Nothing."

Fuck them.

"You couldn't lie your way out of a paper bag, Kent." Richly amused. But he didn't push, thank God, and Clark dismissed all thought. He was driving a Jaguar, for God's sake. This was the sort of thing you fantasized about. Staring at the road, he began to pick up speed again. "Take a left up here."

"Where we going?"

Reasonable question, Clark thought. Vehicle in motion plus one or more occupants equaled getting from point a to point b. Somewhere out here was a point b. Lex had never seemed the casual sort--nothing about this seemed casual.

"Nowhere. Somewhere not Smallville." Edges of anger, barely hidden. "Not so bad, though."

That was...interesting. Clark glanced at Lex, trying to read the mood. Thoughtful.

"What, the night life of Smallville too exciting for words?" Probably went to the best clubs, the best parties--God, Lex was a college graduate, he'd done things Clark could only imagine. If his imagination was even that good. Which it was.

Another one of those looks, that Clark didn't know what to do with, or if he should do anything at all. Just accept, just like he always did, proceeding naturally on course, though Clark didn't know where this was going or how it proceeded. Just that it was something, that scared him as much as it fascinated him, as Lex fascinated him.

Lex, who touched his arm, sending a sudden shock through him, making him hit the accelerator harder and okay, so Dad definitely had a point, he needed to work on his control.

"Let's stop here."

He thought about asking and decided not to. Brake, slow, be gentle with the car, Clark. Lex's hand still on his arm, warm and strong and there. Bringing it to a not-perfect stop and putting it in park. Lex was looking out the window with that intense expression again.

"Lex?" A pause, putting things together. The clothes, the words, the muted energy that seemed to need an outlet so badly even Clark could feel it coming off of him like heat. "It's not Smallville, is it?"

"No." Seatbelt stripped off like something filthy, pushing the door open and getting out, and Clark followed him out, watching him cross the street, coming on the shoulder of the road. Fields to the left and right. Nothing to see here, nothing at all, could be anywhere in any rural community in the country.

"Look to your right, you see the fiefdom of Luthor, and to your left, what we don't own. Yet. Which I'm currently negotiating to buy." Lex leaned back against the hood of the car, so still that Clark could now hear the wind rushing over the fields, soft and gentle, a low, familiar hum remembered from those long nights alone in the loft as a child, a teenager deep in fantasy and speculation and wonder.

There was something dangerous in seeing Lex like this--stripped of his defenses, emotions too close to the surface, too much revealed too fast. Something instinctive that told Clark that Lex didn't let it happen often. More, that Lex didn't welcome this sort of break, didn't welcome witnesses to it.

He thought about the look on Lex's face when he came into their kitchen after the bank robbery and the way he'd looked at Clark's father. The bitter knowledge that he'd been judged guilty just by association, by being born who and what he was.

You couldn't get away from who you were. Clark knew that, knew it every time he woke a foot above his bed or missed the bus or stopped his father's from losing a limb to errant machinery. He hadn't realized that Lex had ever wanted to, though.

"I'm sorry." For so many things--for only half-understanding whatever was going through Lex's mind right now, because it had to be more than Clark's father's disapproval or the papers with his face splashed across the front or the speculation of the town on the character of their newest resident. For whatever had driven Lex to run out on his own life, if only for a night, and whatever it was that Lex seemed to need that Clark had no idea how to give. Slowly, he took the steps that separated them and lightly placed a hand on the almost-hunched shoulder.

"You don't have anything to be sorry for." Low, almost gentle, a part of the soft wind and the feel of the corn moving. Leaning against the car, a bare breath between them, Clark listened to the wind, the sound of Lex's slow breathing beside him. "What do you want from me?"

Weird segue there, but of a piece with everything else, and damn, if only he could understand where this was coming from. Clark felt himself stiffen, almost move away, but a slim hand caught his with all that surprising strength that Lex just didn't ever appear to have, that didn't fit with the lazy image of the spoiled brat heir. Blue-grey eyes looking into his, before shifting off the car, stepping in front of him, so close the warmth of his body was a tickle against Clark's skin.

"Everyone wants something," Lex said, still soft, and a bare hand slipped over his face, anchoring low on his jaw, forcing Clark's head up, so he met that intense raw gaze. Something desperate in Lex's gaze, something that was looking for sense, a landmark, a boundary. Looking for Clark to be no different from anyone else in Lex's life. "That's the way the world works. Can't escape your mistakes and always be ready to pay for them. What do you want?"

What did he want? A dizzying variety of images blinked neon in his mind, from the truck in his yard to that moment in the cornfield, the necklace in a lead box, Lana--Lex's gifts, wrapped up neatly and handed over to pay a debt.

No idea how to explain to Lex that Clark didn't have to be bought. Pretty sure Lex wouldn't believe him if he tried.

The hand against his face tightened, tilting up, and Clark felt his heart stop, the entire moment just--just freeze, just like this. Potential like a hum in every muscle, every bone, the need to run and move and do and be. Wearing Lex's gloves, pressed against Lex's car, finding himself leaning forward, touch that mouth just once, just lightly, just to see if he remembered that touch, that taste, that moment in the river, if every dream since had been even close to accurate.

No, it hadn't. This was better.

"Clark." Almost a question that was answered when Clark reached for him, brushing gloved fingers over the smooth skin of his face, across Lex's shoulder. Wanting him closer and wanting to push thought aside, and wanting--God, so badly--everything he'd seen Lex ask with every look and every touch and every smile.

That was all it took. The car's hood was warm under his back, Lex's hand braced beside his shoulder, pinning his hand to the metal, a leg pressed between his knees, and a steady stare down at him that seemed to be searching. Then, so slowly, the touch of that mouth again, the trace of a tongue across his lips, the warm breath on his skin.

Being tasted with slow, deliberate patience, as if Lex had all night to do this, slipping between his lips to brush across his teeth in a quick, bright-hot feeling that tightened Clark's stomach, sent a rush of heat through his body. Coaxing Clark's mouth open and slipping inside, brushing tongue against tongue. The taste--better, warmer, softer, coffee and something like alcohol and Lex himself--and God....

Nothing else was real, could possibly be this real, this good. Sliding an arm around the body above him, pulling him down, trying to get even closer, under that skin, into that mind, find out what Lex needed and give it to him, let him know that this wasn't something that had to be bought. Anything he needed or wanted. Something Clark could do, show him....

Then it was over, Lex was a foot away and Clark shakily lifted himself on one elbow, hand going to his mouth, holding the taste. The light wind was suddenly cold in the spaces Lex had touched on his body.

"The word is jailbait." It hit Clark like an accusation. Sitting up, Clark watched Lex--a foot away in space, a mile away and counting in mind. What little Lex had let himself show tonight was disappearing rapidly beneath the defenses Clark could actually watch build in grey eyes. "Everyone wants something."

"Lex--" Not sure what to say or if he'd say anything or if he'd just cross the space between them and pull Lex down on the car, wrap himself around that perfect body and lose himself in the taste of that mouth. But the man looking back at him was already too far away, and that moment--that perfect moment--was gone.

They stared at each other for a stretch of time that could have been years or seconds, before Lex spoke again, and it was as if--

Bastard. Like nothing had happened.

"Let's get back."

the end

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