Antipathy Chapter 14, a smallville fanfic

Chapter Fourteen

It was as though watching that video, witnessing the terrifying cruelty that was being inflicted on her best friend, had lit some sort of metaphorical fire under Chloe. Her fingers blurred on the keyboard, and she had a brainwave of almost supernatural proportions. As she bypassed the security on this heavily protected website, she wondered, not the first time, if it wasn't her pure brilliance that fueled her hacking ability.

She had been part of Lex Luthor's laboratory once.

And she had confirmed that Clark was, indeed, in Lex Luthor's laboratory. She was close, closer than she'd ever been, to discovering the location of the laboratory. The information files were online, and she'd been working on getting through the same firewall for nearly two hours.

But she was close.

It was for that reason that she ignored the ringing telephone on her desk and her violently vibrating cell in her pocket. So Lana finally gave up calling and loaded her car with some self defense tools. In a fit of sudden paranoia, she paid a noisy customer at the Talon to turn her car on for her.

She drove, much over the speed limit, along back roads until she arrived at the Daily Planet, where she suspected Chloe was probably hard at work. Lana hadn't spoken much to Chloe since Clark had disappeared. She knew that Chloe knew more than she was letting on about where Clark had disappeared to, and was angry that Chloe was, not for the first time, covering for Clark.

Now, though, she needed help. She truly believed that Lex's first order of business, now that he was out of prison, would be to find a way to make her pay. Because of her, he'd been dethroned, humiliated, and left alone.

Little did she suspect that Lex's obsessive energy had shifted back to his first, more intense fascination. Clark was a mystery that Lex could never fully explain, and Lana's appeal, her unsolvable aspect, was that she could love someone like Lex.

Since she had confirmed his worst fears, that she had, all along, loved Clark, his attention—now more bitter, less wondering and mostly hate filled—was turned back to Clark. Clark, the enigma. Clark, that powerful, modest, selfless creature.

"Far most abundant," Lex said, matter-of-factly to the boy, who had been returned to his flat-out position on the operating table after another hopeless night in his cell, "was the green meteor rock. We've found that it has mutating properties on most humans, but haven't before witnessed the effect it has on you."

Lex fingered that dangerous remote in his lap, running his palm over the button that could cause Clark indescribable pain, and then over the one that would make it stop. The effect of the green rock was epitomized inside of the test subject; with this in his hand, Lex was all powerful. This button simplified Clark to the extreme: Clark on; Clark off.

Because of this, Lex had the sudden compulsion to level with Clark. To speak to him as they used to, eye to eye; he knew that he held, in his hand, the failsafe, that could switch Clark from super-powered-whatever to writhing-screaming-nothing. He reached towards Clark, who flinched away from him, and undid the shackles.

Clark sat up. At this angle, Lex could see what damage had really been done to his ex-best friend. The boy was pale, and thinner than Lex had ever seen him. His face, usually so pink and quick to smile, was hardened and distant, as though his feelings were buried deep beneath this visage; as though apathy were his only remaining defense.

Sean entered the room then, holding two boxes made of impenetrable lead.

"We did manage to find a few other varieties," Lex continued, holding out his hands. Sean placed in each the new box. Lex peered curiously at the labels.

"The silver, which you've previously been affected by, was curiously absent," he said. "But we found something else."

He opened the box swiftly, as though the element of surprise were crucial, and pushed it onto Clark's chest, knocking him back onto the table.

Lex expected him to scream. Lex expected him to writhe.

Clark threw his head back and gripped Lex's hand tightly, holding the rock to his chest; Lex, nervous now, was unable to get away, and his other hand, wrapped around the remote, somehow wouldn't move to press the button. His curiosity was so much stronger than his trepidation.

When Clark leaned forward again, and slowly looked at Lex, he was shocked to note that Clark's eyes, usually so honest and clear, were suddenly red. Just for a moment, they shone the same colour as the rock pressed to Clark's chest.

"You'll like this one, Lex," Clark said softly. "I know I do."

And the boy's voice was so unlike Clark's that a question, a stupid question, escaped Lex's lips.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"That's different," Clark said, all traces of despair gone from his voice. "Usually the question that you ask is, what are you?" He smiled, but it wasn't the trademark Clark Kent grin. It was a wide, cocky grimace. "I'm Clark Kent," he said, as though speaking to a stupid child. "I'm just Clark Kent, a little different. And it's not like you haven't met this Clark before. I came to your wedding party, remember? I made off with your girl." He wrinkled his nose and his eyes curved into twin mischievous smiles. "And made out with her."

Lex's mouth opened slowly as he made the connection. He took a breath, about to speak, about to ask his next probing question, but Clark, with the red Kryptonite still pressed to his chest and Lex's face so close to his, spoke first.

"I'm sure you hated getting my seconds," he said. "I broke Lana's heart and you scooped up the pieces and pretended that it was what you had desired all along. She wanted me," he paused, and chuckled, "you wanted me," he added. "You two made a hell of a pair. Acting as though you both hated me, while secretly wishing that you could duke it out with her, just fight over me; both of you refusing to accept that you'd been rejected." Clark closed his eyes for a second. These words felt better than anything he could have imagined right now. They felt better than freedom; they felt better than the sun. The red rock held to his chest and his nails digging into the back of Lex's hand, it was better than sex.

"Pale, lanky," Clark continued, his voice quiet, "you're nothing but a boy afraid to grow up because he knows he would be nothing but a disappointment; an abomination. So, you blame your failures on the weakness of others and rely on your money and creepy charm to lure girls into marriage after disastrous marriage."

That Clark was talking like this was shocking to Lex, but he steeled himself; they were only words, and no matter how they stung, he would not show it. He was Lex Luthor, and he would not break.

"Does it make you feel like less of a man," Clark hissed, "to know that the only way to fuck your wife was to rape her?"

Lex froze.

"The meteor shower left you bald and impotent," Clark continued. "You faked a pregnancy to trap Lana in a loveless marriage; you lied to her, and lied to her about lying to her, so that you could pretend to be better than me. At least—"

Lex wrenched his hand away, and the rock fell to the ground. The vivid red dulled into a dark maroon. Clark was silent for a moment.

"At least," he continued, his voice quiet and defeated once more, "at least I never told her that I was honest."

"How did you know?" Lex asked. He was livid, practically blinded with the anger, jealousy and self-loathing that he felt at the moment. Everything that had been thrown at him slid past him and the one part that stuck was Clark's last accusation.

The forged pregnancy.

"I overheard your father talking about his suspicions. I didn't believe it, and didn't want to mention it to Lana without first confirming it. I planned to, but then," Clark pushed himself up off the table and looked hard at Lex for a moment. "Then, you raped her and she lost the baby. She thought, I mean, that she lost the baby. So I didn't know. Now I do."

With shaking hands, Lex picked up the fallen rock. Clark sounded normal again; like an animal forced back into captivity, his eyes looked blank, hopeless. Lex turned to Sean. "Did you get all that?" he asked. "The shifted demeanor, the… hatred?"

Lex had never felt like this before; he had never felt as though someone had gotten the best of him. He turned back to Clark, and let his anger bubble forth.

"You have no idea what you're talking about," he yelled. This time, he knew better than to hit Clark; instead, he attacked the equipment in the sparse room. With a scream of frustration, he tore the heart monitor from the floor and threw it, so that Sean had to scuttle out of the way. The red rock, secured now in its lead box, was also heaved Sean's way, and it bounced off his chest, knocking him backward, so that the box landed, closed and harmless, on the floor near Clark's head.

He picked up the controller that could cause Clark so much pain, and spun a dial near the top that Clark had hitherto not noticed. Lex's rage, his need to destroy expensive equipment when he was angry, was not scary for Clark. This was.

Lex pressed the green button.

Expecting crippling pain, Clark tensed himself, but instead a warm bloom of hurt started at his chest, near where the Kryptonite was located and spread slowly to every tingling extremity. He shifted uncomfortably, not used to this lesser degree of pain, wondering if he'd lose consciousness, or if Lex would just leave him like this.

"Stand up," Lex said. His chest heaved as he reached forward and undid Clark's remaining restraints. Shaking slightly from the nauseating ache in his body, Clark pushed himself up. He was hurting too much to try to run right now. He could just barely keep himself from collapsing.

It was then that Lex let loose on him. He packed into every punch nearly six years of jealousy, years of a friendship gone to shit, years of wanting everything that Clark had. He hated that what Clark had said, even while under the influence of the red meteor rock, had affected him like this. But Clark's parents had never really loved him, and Clark had never really seen him as a friend, and Lana had always wanted Clark.

He punched Clark's face, his detest of that beautiful smile, his love of that smile, the sole reason he couldn't feel the pain of Clark's teeth smashing against his fist. He didn't notice that his own blood mixed with Clark's as he crumpled Clark with a blow to the stomach.

Lex fell to the ground beside Clark and twined his fingers in that long, brown hair. It didn't need to be said that he wanted that hair more than almost anything.

Their faces close together, Clark spat blood at him.

"I don't need to be dosed to know," Clark said, panting, "that you're less of a man if you need to have your ex-best friend captured by military men, locked up and tortured for weeks, but then still needs to have seven armed guards standing by before you even try to beat me down." He laughed, and blood spattered on Lex's face.

"Not to mention the fact that the meteor rock has me crippled and helpless."

Lex pushed his head away and took solace in the wince that Clark's face twisted into when his head hit the floor.

"Stand up," Lex said again.

Clark pushed himself to his feet and stood, wavering and defiant, to face Lex. Gesturing with his head, Lex indicated that Clark should remount the table where he had been fixed.

Once his legs were attached to the table again, Clark felt the soft flow of poisonous radiation die out. Almost immediately, the wounds on his face began to heal, but, like the surgical wounds on his chest, they only closed. His hands crept to his face and he felt that there were still scars, weaving angrily down from his left eye and straight back from his lip, like a cruel smile.

He stared at Lex. Silently, Lex stared back.

Finally, Lex spoke.

"We're more alike than you know," he said. Clark didn't reply.

"Together," Lex said, "we've managed to destroy the spirit of one Lana Lang."

"That was you," Clark said, the effort of speaking physically painful. Voice quiet, defeated, as though he'd already said this line, he said, "You raped her."

"She came to me broken," Lex said. "You broke her heart, Clark. Do you think that she would have given herself to someone like me otherwise? You knew what I was capable of. I might have been the car that hit her, but you pushed her in front of me."

"She's depressed, now?" Clark asked, forcing tears back and reminding himself of what he'd sacrificed for her, how he was trapped here, alone and helpless, because of her. He didn't care about Lana. She was just another flawed human, and though she seemed innocent, she had hurt him as badly as he'd hurt her.

Lex, Clark and Lana seemed to be three points of an ominous tower, each part beating at the other points, until the entire structure would be ready to collapse.

"She's a whore," Lex hissed. "She gets drunk every night, and she goes to clubs, and she fucks whatever pretty boy strikes her fancy."

Clark froze.

"You're lying," Clark said stonily.

"No," Lex replied, a trace of sadness entering into his voice. "So we're partners, you and I."

It was that, the flicker of regret in Lex's eyes, that convinced Clark that he wasn't lying. His stomach twisted as he imagined it—Lana grinding up against some faceless boy, her heavily painted face smiling seductively and long fingered hands tracing their way around Lana's scantly dressed body…

Lex watched Clark's face. His expression, usually such an accurate indicator of what was going on behind those green eyes, remained passive. His eyes were somewhere else, though. Perhaps imagining Lana's betrayal, perhaps pretending he was with her, and could protect her.

He opened, slowly, the second lead box. There was no change in Clark's face; if he felt the effects, he wasn't letting Lex know. The rock had the same chemical makeup of the other rocks, the only difference was that, instead of glittering emerald green, or venomous red, it was a threatening, deadly black.

Lex lifted from the box, and, in one swift motion, pressed it to Clark's chest.

Clark's eyes bulged.

Lex hoped he was in pain.