Twist Upside-down

by

Kelsey

Disclaimer: SV and Superman belong to so many people I'm not going to list them all here, okay? Just be assured they don't belong to me.

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay, RL intruded. I do intend to keep this going at an update at least every 5-7 days, but there are never any guarantees.

Author's Note 2: As you probably have noticed by now, I've decided that this definitely goes AU after 'Insurgence.' So, no parallel to canon after that.

Summary: When a deadly illness befalls Lex, Clark will stand at his side. But what will the effect be upon their relationship with each other and the rest of their loved ones? Clex.

Rating: Will change as we go. This chapter: PG

Chapter Seven - Fine

5 days earlier:

"C'mon, Lex, please? I'm worried about you."

Lex glanced up from his computer screen, trying for an indifferent look and really getting a distracted one. "Why?"

"Why?! Lex, you fall asleep at the drop of a hat, you bruise a million times easier than you used to, and now you're not eating!"

Lex gestured to the side of the desk. "I ate."

"One pear! It's three in the afternoon, and that's all you've eaten since this time yesterday!"

Lex sighed, closed his laptop and folded his hands on his lap, giving his attention to Clark. "I promise I'm fine. There's a lot going on right now, and I need to concentrate on business. It's been making me neglect sleep and food for a while. I'll start paying more attention to my health, though, you have my word."

Clark wasn't convinced. "Why do you bruise so easily, now, Lex? The other day I grabbed your wrist as you were heading out the door, and you had a circle of purple fingerprints for three days! I didn't grab you that hard."

Lex shrugged. "Maybe you did."

Clark knew more about the use of his strength than any other person on the planet, he was pretty sure. He had to know that much, if he was to know how to control it, lethal as it had the capability of being. He was a dangerous weapon, he had to know all of his limits perfectly, and he was satisfied that he did. "I don't think so."

"Really, I appreciate your concern, but it isn't necessary." Clark could hear Lex shutting down, pulling himself away as he spoke, his face becoming a blank mask, the same one he used during business dealings.

Sighing, the teenager sat down on the edge of his lover's desk and tried a different tact. "Just see your doctor? He can run a couple of tests, take some blood, make sure nothing's wrong and then you can tell me I told you so, okay?"

"I don't need to see a doctor."

"Maybe you don't. But I'm worried, and I won't stop being worried until I know I have nothing to worry about."

Lex looked up to meet Clark's eyes, and gave a wry little laugh. "No, I guess you won't. That just wouldn't be like you, would it?"

Clark smiled, things starting to look up for his cause. "Nope."

"That was a rhetorical question."

"I know." He let his tone drift faintly towards saucy.

There was a long pause where Lex didn't agree, but hadn't argued, yet. Then he spoke again.

"Maybe I just have the flu. In fact, I probably just have the flu, if I've even got anything."

"Then your doctor can tell you that." Clark wasn't backing off one centimeter. He was tired of lying awake at night wondering if Lex was okay.

Lex sighed. "Okay. But I can't fit him in for a few days, probably not until Tuesday, so do you promise to get off my back until the appointment?"

Clark nodded, and then leaned over to kiss his boyfriend quickly. "I promise." He grinned. "Now, can we get something to eat and just veg out in front of the television? It's a Friday afternoon, Lex, and you need food and rest, no matter what the cause of your exhaustion is."

"I'm not exhausted."

Clark cocked an eyebrow. "Oh? And the bags under your eyes and the fact that you were staring at the same screen for five minutes before you even noticed me is just, what? A fashion statement and a new fad?" He smiled to take the bite out of his statement.

Lex cocked an eyebrow back at him. "Yes, actually."

Clark laughed at his lover's total deadpan delivery. "I think you've got a future in acting, Lex."

He shrugged. "Maybe. Don't think anything will ever come of it, though. Lionel has to die someday, and then I've got to be around to inherit my billions."

Feeling vaguely alarmed that he wanted 'someday' to be as soon as possible, Clark abruptly pushed all thoughts of Lex's father into the back of his head and replied distractedly. "Guess so. Now, can we have food and rest and bad movies?"

Lex nodded and smiled. "You'll have to see if I own any bad movies," he teased lightly.

"Oh, because your taste is so impeccable."

The billionaire raised his eyebrow again, something that sometimes seemed like the only expression he made, and was certainly the only expression he made on a regular basis, and glanced up from reading something on his desk. "'Impeccable.' Nice SAT word, Clark."

"SAT's aren't 'til next year."

Lex shrugged. "So, you're getting a head start. Don't tell me you didn't learn that in preparation for some test or another." He seemed to be daring Clark to defy his statement.

The teenager shifted his weight where he was sitting on the desk, and nodded. "Yeah, I guess so. For the SAT's I mean. My English teacher makes a list of words he thinks might be on the SAT next year and hands it out to all the sophomores. I've been studying it." He looked almost embarrassed to admit it, and Lex realized that it was an instinctive reaction coming from being used to hanging out with his own age group. Instead of being impressed, like Lex was, most teenagers would have used this tidbit of information to brand his lover a geek.

"Well, good for you." Lex flipped open his laptop again and scrolled his cursor over to yet another file marked 'urgent' that he hadn't gotten around to reading yet. "I've got to finish something up, but you can get us some food and pick a DVD. I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Okay." Clark stood from the corner of the desk, picked up his backpack and bounded out of the room, his nervous energy having somewhat abated since Lex had agreed to see the doctor, but not enough so that he didn't still have extra to burn.

Lex's servants had the day off because Lionel was in Metropolis and the younger Luthor had wanted to savor the peace and quiet of his free day alone, or possibly (hopefully) with Clark. Lex never really knew if Clark would be free, chores on the farm were sometimes unpredictable, but he always hoped the teenager would drop in. He had gone out of his way to make sure Clark knew he was always welcome at the castle, and he wanted to see him!

Going to the refrigerator, Clark poked through all of the gourmet foods that Lex kept until he recognized sandwiches, wrapped in plastic wrap, obviously waiting for him and Lex, or perhaps just Lex, on the top shelf. Knowing the way Lex had been eating recently, he thought that they might be a day or two old, but Clark wasn't picky, and hopefully his lover wasn't in one of his finicky moods today, either.

Grabbing them and a couple of plates, Clark quickly x-rayed the cabinets in search of chips, which he found within a minute. Piling everything on top of each other, he headed for the 'entertainment room', where he knew Lex kept drinks in a mini refrigerator, so that he wouldn't have the make the trek from the front of the house to the back every time he got thirsty.

Setting everything down, Clark put two sandwiches on his plate and one on Lex's. He didn't really expect his lover to eat that much, given how appetite-less he'd been for the past few days, but he could hope. The chips he opened and stuck in the middle cushion of the couch, and then he wandered over to the fridge.

Lex never seemed to drink anything but coffee and bottled water, so he grabbed a cold water bottle and placed it by Lex's single sandwich. For himself, he dug deep into the back of the tiny refrigerator and pulled out a coke can. Then he walked to the door and called for his lover.

"Lex!"

Lex's answering voice was faint, from another wing of the first floor. "Yes?!"

"I've got the food ready! Are you coming?"

There was some electronic clicking and then the unmistakable sound of a laptop closing, and Lex's chair creaking as he stood up. "Yeah! Pick out the movie, okay? I'll be there in a minute."

"Okay!"

Setting the drinks down on coasters Clark knew Lex kept under the paper in his drawers by the couch, he headed over to a what looked like a large, flat cabinet. Opening it, he started to look through the hundreds of DVDs that were lined up, spines facing outwards, in the custom-made storage case.

Lex's soft footsteps sounded in the hall, and when they stopped, Clark turned around to see his lover plop himself exhaustedly on the couch and reach for his water. Well, at least he probably wasn't getting dehydrated, then, Clark thought, and immediately felt like a mother hen.

"Hey, what do you want to see?" He asked, trying to take his mind from concerned-hovering-boyfriend mode, for Lex's sake.

Lex shrugged. "Surprise me."

"Do you just want to pick a genre, then?"

"Less than thirty years old."

Clark turned to look at him. "That's not a genre."

Lex cracked a little bit of a smile. "No, but it's the only stipulation I'm putting on our movie-watching today, so enjoy it."

Reluctantly, Clark turned back to the shelves. He wasn't ever really sure what Lex liked to watch, except old movies, but apparently he wasn't even in the mood for those today. Quickly, his eyes skimmed the spines, looking for something he knew he wanted to see, or had supposed to have been good...

Action... no, he didn't really think that the slumped-over boyfriend with bags under his eyes waiting for him on the couch was probably in the mood for action. Comedy, then? Naw, he wasn't in the mood. Well, then they were stuck with something serious. What kind of thing did he want to see that lived in the 'drama' section of Smallville's only video store?

A light blue case caught his eye, and he read the title quickly. In French. But there was an English title below it: 'Come Undone.' Intrigued, he pulled it out and started to read the case.

Gay teenagers discovering themselves on the beach in France. Well, it couldn't be that bad, and if he owned it, that meant that Lex had at least, at some point, wanted to see it, right?

Hoping it wouldn't bore either him or Lex to death, Clark slid the disk into the DVD player below the huge flat-screen TV and settled back to munch on chips and sandwich.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two and a half hours later, as the movie was winding down, Clark took his eyes off the screen and met Lex's sleepy, baby blue ones. His lover had migrated from sitting next to him at the beginning of the movie, to leaning on him a little ways in, and then Clark had moved to curl up on the couch, and Lex had been leaning on him... however it had happened, the teenager was now semi-propped up in the corner of the couch, with his lover splayed across him.

"Comfortable?" He asked, slightly joking.

Lex closed his eyes and hummed. "Very."

"Want to get some rest?"

His lover opened his eyes again. "What time do you have to be home?"

Clark shrugged. "Curfew's at midnight on the weekend, so not until then, I guess."

Lex glanced at his watch. "It's six-thirty already."

The teenager rolled his eyes. "So we'll only get like, five hours of sleep, Lex. I think that's probably more than you've been getting in a night."

Lex didn't deny it, and Clark closed his arms around his lover, pulling him in tight. "Sleep. It'll be good for you."

"I thought you were going to lay off about that."

Clark raised an eyebrow. "Did I say something I wasn't supposed to? You admitted you weren't getting enough sleep. That's all I commented on."

Lex rolled his eyes. "Okay, smart-ass, I guess I could use some sleep." He squirmed slightly on top of his lover and sighed contentedly. "And you're a mighty good pillow."

"Glad to be of service."

Lex cocked one eye open, in a playful mood apparently, despite his exhaustion. "No, that's what you are when I'm not so incredibly sleepy."

Clark grinned back. "Well, then, get some sleep so I can be of service again later, when you won't fall asleep before you're half-undressed."

Lex yawned. "I should defend myself from that accusation."

"I notice you're not, though."

He shook his head. "Nope. Sometimes, sleep is more important than sex."

Clark pretended to gasp. "Lex! I didn't think anything was more important than sex!"

Meeting his eye, Lex countered. "If you hadn't eaten in two days and you were offered sex or food, which one would you take?"

A twinkle in his eye, Clark answered instantly and with a grin. "Food."

"I rest my case."

Smiling, Clark ran a hand over Lex's bald head and then gently down his cheek, leaving it there for a moment as his lover nuzzled into his palm, eyes closed and already halfway to asleep.

A moment later, something seemed to come to him, and he forced his eyes open. "Can you reach the remote?" He asked sleepily.

Clark nodded. "Yeah. Sleep, Lex."

"'Kay..."

[Prologue] [Sleepy] [Scared] [Bloody] [Stay] [Appetite] [Reality] [Fine]