Author's Note: Lex is 21, in this story anyway, but I'm pretty sure he's 21
in the show itself. Chloe is 16, my choice. I don't know if that's
borderline legal or absolutely illegal but well, never mind. Thanks for
pointing it out though :)
* * * * *
LEX
People might think that I've gone crazy.
I have to admit that I can't blame them, particularly at this moment when I have doubts of my own sanity. Having sat in this chair for the past hour, staring hard at a harmless bouquet of lilies, unmoving before me like a small flash of dazzling and lively white in the center of a big and unfriendly mahogany room, it doesn't leave much space for common sense.
Perfect example being one of my nosier housekeepers, passing this room several times in the past hour that I have sat here unmoving, casting discreet glances my way to determine if the figure in a chair is the stiff dead body of her boss or just a stiff boss. I tell her to leave me alone which she answers with a nod, the heavy clomps of her shoes echoing down the corridor behind her.
And I am left again to my own defenses. Lex Luthor vs. the lilies.
Beautiful lilies, my mind corrects. I ease my head to the left and right, relieving the ache that's threatening to permanently reside in my neck. Sometimes I can get a bit too obsessive, to the point where my body parts are only a necessity for me to converse to people with, not something that I should actually take care of. Even in the matter of staring at a bouquet of flowers.
I lean forward and tentatively take a sniff. The fragrance is, predictably, sweet. I rub a petal against my skin and savor the cool softness against my warm cheek.
In truth, despite what people might see, I have only just noticed the flowers. From the moment that I sat down here with these flowers to now, there were no lilies in my existence. Just a white blur that my gaze stayed transfixed on while my mind wandered elsewhere.
Nevertheless, Chloe would love to take a picture of this. Certainly the photograph would sell a fortune, considering that it's a well-known fact that such whimsical flower sniffing activities as these is not a common practice in the vicious Luthor environment, where we're fed poison for breakfast to see if we have the mental capacity to rearrange our blood molecules back to normal so we could be alive for the poison at dinner.
Actually, a whole truckload of scenarios comes to mind at the thought of Chloe's presence.
Allow me to put aside the R rated scenarios, for now.
She would be teasing me or making innocent comments dripping with sarcasm or simply, try very hard to drive me out of my mind.
She would wear clothes that would not be out of place in a trendier city, but called outlandish in a town like Smallville where the choices of cardigans as modeled by Lana Lang would be considered the highest point in fashion. Either that, or the garish red and yellow jackets that the football jocks insist on wearing come rain or shine.
Her hair would be messy and flip outwards in a carefully careless way. Her lips would be curved in a smile. Her eyes would be big and blue with life.
She would annoy me and at the same time, invigorate me.
And as per the conclusion of my secluded hour in a chair with a bouquet of lilies for company, she could just sit down in front of me and it would content me to just hear her breathe.
These are disturbing thoughts.
But it's a certainty in my mind as sure as it feels like a bullet to my brain.
And right now, sniffing these flowers because I find them as fragrant as I find Chloe refreshing, it puts another latch to my certainty, further proving a point that I have carefully chosen to disregard.
I have feelings for the maddening reporter who's out to ruin my reputation in an interview in an attempt to salvage her own.
And I'm left, irrevocably and annoyingly, clueless as to what I should do about it.
CLARK
I have a magnificent picture in front of me.
It's the town of Smallville in a portrait, framed by the barn walls, and I don't think that the greatest artist in the world could capture this feeling of peace and beauty.
Usually, peace worries me. It seems like every time I feel absolute contentment, something comes along and ruin it. Genetically impaired people, tragedies, crisis situations, waiting for me to save the day and save a life while I abandon my friends and family.
It just goes to show really, all towns have their dark secrets. Maybe not all of them are mutants affected by meteorite fragments, but all generally bad.
But today, I relish the peace.
Stretched out on my couch, idly fingering a yellow rose from the bouquet I bought for Lana, an idyllic view in front of me, I have this empowering positive feeling that nothing can go wrong, not tonight.
Because tonight, I'm going to the Prom with the most beautiful girl in Smallville, come mutant, tornado or rain.
Lana Lang. I can't pinpoint exactly when it was that I started liking her, but once I did there was no hope for me to stop. Befriending her seemed to make it stronger, because instead of an inane and bubbly airhead (Chloe's always saying that these are the three main characteristics a person must have to qualify as a cheerleader), I found a sensitive, caring and wonderful girl. And she has pain, kind of like mine, and just needed a hand to hold to get over her pain.
Which doesn't make her an inane or bubbly airhead, it makes her human.
And if her friends had enough faith in her, then she would have found her strength a long time ago, and wouldn't have needed me to prod her into blossoming.
Either way, I'm crazy about her. I didn't need the meteorite necklace to make me weak when I'm near her, her smile could do the job.
And I'm going to the Prom, tonight, with her.
I am definitely the luckiest guy in the world.
On the verge of drifting off to a fantasy of her in my arms, a voice jolts me back down to earth, "Clark?"
It also jolts me off the couch onto my face but thankfully not on the roses.
But not thankfully, the voice belongs to Lana.
"Clark!" She rushes to my side and I get up quickly, brushing myself off, and trying to act like that never happened, that I didn't just fall on my face in front of the girl of my dreams. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine!" My ego will be suffering for years though. "You just surprised me that's all."
She smiles impishly. "Sorry."
"No problem," I reply, and then not knowing what to do and not wanting to sit in case I fall down again, I put my hands in my pockets and smile at her. "What's up?"
What is it about Lana in this barn? The sun rays reflect off her dark hair, and shines on her face, and she looks so beautiful that I wish I could take a picture of her, to frame and keep me company during my hours of solitude up here.
"I need to talk to you," she says, staring up at me. As I look back at her expectantly, she takes her eyes off my face and starts walking slowly away from me.
Puzzling. "Lana?"
"It's about tonight."
"What about tonight?"
"It's just," she falters, closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.
A feeling of impending doom washes over me.
I try to keep the urgency from my voice. "What is it, Lana?"
"Whitney's back from Metropolis," she says, trying in vain to sound upbeat, but the look in her face betrays her. "He came back to surprise me."
I nod and keep my face expressionless. It must be a super alien talent, being able to do this when it feels like a thousand knives are stabbing me.
"I'm sorry, Clark," she says. "I have to go to the Prom with him tonight."
* * * * *
LEX
People might think that I've gone crazy.
I have to admit that I can't blame them, particularly at this moment when I have doubts of my own sanity. Having sat in this chair for the past hour, staring hard at a harmless bouquet of lilies, unmoving before me like a small flash of dazzling and lively white in the center of a big and unfriendly mahogany room, it doesn't leave much space for common sense.
Perfect example being one of my nosier housekeepers, passing this room several times in the past hour that I have sat here unmoving, casting discreet glances my way to determine if the figure in a chair is the stiff dead body of her boss or just a stiff boss. I tell her to leave me alone which she answers with a nod, the heavy clomps of her shoes echoing down the corridor behind her.
And I am left again to my own defenses. Lex Luthor vs. the lilies.
Beautiful lilies, my mind corrects. I ease my head to the left and right, relieving the ache that's threatening to permanently reside in my neck. Sometimes I can get a bit too obsessive, to the point where my body parts are only a necessity for me to converse to people with, not something that I should actually take care of. Even in the matter of staring at a bouquet of flowers.
I lean forward and tentatively take a sniff. The fragrance is, predictably, sweet. I rub a petal against my skin and savor the cool softness against my warm cheek.
In truth, despite what people might see, I have only just noticed the flowers. From the moment that I sat down here with these flowers to now, there were no lilies in my existence. Just a white blur that my gaze stayed transfixed on while my mind wandered elsewhere.
Nevertheless, Chloe would love to take a picture of this. Certainly the photograph would sell a fortune, considering that it's a well-known fact that such whimsical flower sniffing activities as these is not a common practice in the vicious Luthor environment, where we're fed poison for breakfast to see if we have the mental capacity to rearrange our blood molecules back to normal so we could be alive for the poison at dinner.
Actually, a whole truckload of scenarios comes to mind at the thought of Chloe's presence.
Allow me to put aside the R rated scenarios, for now.
She would be teasing me or making innocent comments dripping with sarcasm or simply, try very hard to drive me out of my mind.
She would wear clothes that would not be out of place in a trendier city, but called outlandish in a town like Smallville where the choices of cardigans as modeled by Lana Lang would be considered the highest point in fashion. Either that, or the garish red and yellow jackets that the football jocks insist on wearing come rain or shine.
Her hair would be messy and flip outwards in a carefully careless way. Her lips would be curved in a smile. Her eyes would be big and blue with life.
She would annoy me and at the same time, invigorate me.
And as per the conclusion of my secluded hour in a chair with a bouquet of lilies for company, she could just sit down in front of me and it would content me to just hear her breathe.
These are disturbing thoughts.
But it's a certainty in my mind as sure as it feels like a bullet to my brain.
And right now, sniffing these flowers because I find them as fragrant as I find Chloe refreshing, it puts another latch to my certainty, further proving a point that I have carefully chosen to disregard.
I have feelings for the maddening reporter who's out to ruin my reputation in an interview in an attempt to salvage her own.
And I'm left, irrevocably and annoyingly, clueless as to what I should do about it.
CLARK
I have a magnificent picture in front of me.
It's the town of Smallville in a portrait, framed by the barn walls, and I don't think that the greatest artist in the world could capture this feeling of peace and beauty.
Usually, peace worries me. It seems like every time I feel absolute contentment, something comes along and ruin it. Genetically impaired people, tragedies, crisis situations, waiting for me to save the day and save a life while I abandon my friends and family.
It just goes to show really, all towns have their dark secrets. Maybe not all of them are mutants affected by meteorite fragments, but all generally bad.
But today, I relish the peace.
Stretched out on my couch, idly fingering a yellow rose from the bouquet I bought for Lana, an idyllic view in front of me, I have this empowering positive feeling that nothing can go wrong, not tonight.
Because tonight, I'm going to the Prom with the most beautiful girl in Smallville, come mutant, tornado or rain.
Lana Lang. I can't pinpoint exactly when it was that I started liking her, but once I did there was no hope for me to stop. Befriending her seemed to make it stronger, because instead of an inane and bubbly airhead (Chloe's always saying that these are the three main characteristics a person must have to qualify as a cheerleader), I found a sensitive, caring and wonderful girl. And she has pain, kind of like mine, and just needed a hand to hold to get over her pain.
Which doesn't make her an inane or bubbly airhead, it makes her human.
And if her friends had enough faith in her, then she would have found her strength a long time ago, and wouldn't have needed me to prod her into blossoming.
Either way, I'm crazy about her. I didn't need the meteorite necklace to make me weak when I'm near her, her smile could do the job.
And I'm going to the Prom, tonight, with her.
I am definitely the luckiest guy in the world.
On the verge of drifting off to a fantasy of her in my arms, a voice jolts me back down to earth, "Clark?"
It also jolts me off the couch onto my face but thankfully not on the roses.
But not thankfully, the voice belongs to Lana.
"Clark!" She rushes to my side and I get up quickly, brushing myself off, and trying to act like that never happened, that I didn't just fall on my face in front of the girl of my dreams. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine!" My ego will be suffering for years though. "You just surprised me that's all."
She smiles impishly. "Sorry."
"No problem," I reply, and then not knowing what to do and not wanting to sit in case I fall down again, I put my hands in my pockets and smile at her. "What's up?"
What is it about Lana in this barn? The sun rays reflect off her dark hair, and shines on her face, and she looks so beautiful that I wish I could take a picture of her, to frame and keep me company during my hours of solitude up here.
"I need to talk to you," she says, staring up at me. As I look back at her expectantly, she takes her eyes off my face and starts walking slowly away from me.
Puzzling. "Lana?"
"It's about tonight."
"What about tonight?"
"It's just," she falters, closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.
A feeling of impending doom washes over me.
I try to keep the urgency from my voice. "What is it, Lana?"
"Whitney's back from Metropolis," she says, trying in vain to sound upbeat, but the look in her face betrays her. "He came back to surprise me."
I nod and keep my face expressionless. It must be a super alien talent, being able to do this when it feels like a thousand knives are stabbing me.
"I'm sorry, Clark," she says. "I have to go to the Prom with him tonight."