Spoilers: Incredibly mild ones for eps up to 'Zero'
Author's note : Thanks for the feedback so far folks…and as requested ;-), Lex does actually feature in this part (albeit in 'flashback' mode…i.e Clark's recollection of events up to the night of writing in the diary). Enjoy.
Clark stopped writing , allowing himself to stretch out his cramped writing hand, hearing it 'click'. A rotation of his neck gave the same result, and as he massaged his tense neck muscles, the physical sensations brought him back from the world of thought, emotion and memory that he had been making tangible on the pages before him.
Looking round he realised that it was really starting to get dark, and as familiar as his surroundings were, he couldn't helped but be a little spooked by the shadows of the meandering, creaking structure of the barn. He was about to get off the couch and go and turn on the lamp he had in the corner, when he spotted the candles and matches on the old, low table beside him.
Clark laughed at himself in the darkness.
Of course, he'd realised that he might chicken out of his task, should the opportunity to step away from the diary arise. He had known that any interruption in this long-needed confession of his would be fully taken advantage of, and he would go back to shying away from that proverbial line that he didn't want to cross.
You sure pick your moments of self-awareness Clark. He thought to himself.
For he had known himself all too well, at least in that respect, when he had sat down to write it all down. Now, just when he was about to truly start admitting things to himself, he was so tempted to run away. He would get up to turn the lamp on, then convince himself that this should probably wait till morning. He would go back to the house, watch some TV perhaps, all the while ignoring the diary he'd most like have hidden somewhere away from prying eyes. And in the harsh light of day, with his parents at home, his mom making breakfast, his dad telling him to do his chores, then the school day ahead of him, with his friends and homework….with all that, he knew he would convince himself that this past hour, all the things he was writing, they were all the result of some temporary insanity. This moment of solitude, of clarity, of complete honesty with himself would pass.
That was tempting. It was incredibly tempting. But only to his mind, and the part of him that was afraid. His heart, his emotions, his urges were all tempted by somethi-, no, somebody else. And at this moment, warm, snug and comfortable underneath the blanket, the blank pages of the diary in his hand beckoning to be filled, the pen in his hand…at this moment his heart won over his head.
He twisted round to light the candles, and for a moment he let his eyes adjust to their warm, flickering glow, as they cast unreal, animated shadows on the wooden beams.
He started to write again, admitting to himself why he had just been about to stop this journey of self-discovery. It was because up till now, he had only wrote about his feelings of being different, and his early experiences of recognising this difference, this - he smiled – this vulnerability.
But what he had failed to confront of course was that this thing…this, well, being gay…it wasn't just the fact that it was being different. It was how you were different…
Clark gave an irritated sigh. This was hard to write about. He was still so unfamiliar with these phrases…he had only an hour ago dared to use the word 'gay' in reference to himself and it still felt very strange, very…new. Unreal. It had been difficult finding the words for what he had written so far of course, but all that seemed fairly vague and abstract in comparison to this. He felt like he was going past a huge point of no return. It was more than a little discomforting to realise there was going to be another one after all he had gone through so far.
Here goes.
Being gay was about liking guys. There, he had said it. But the problem was, on that front there was a little confusion. This whole thing hadn't started with him admiring guys in the locker room, or hell, watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer and finding himself attracted to Angel rather than the pint-sized heroine, for goodness' sake.
Maybe if it had been something like that it would have been easier, more clear-cut. Attraction in that sense was purely physical, which Clark could have therefore linked more definitely with sexual preference.
But he just wasn't that type of guy. Maybe it was his sexual immaturity speaking, or even his emotional maturity, but it wasn't purely physical for him…in the beginning anyhow. It had been…a feeling. A look. A moment.
A moment when he had realised that he felt more for a friend than he should.
It had been just after that whole thing with Club Zero. Clark had been defiantly not assessing his feelings during the whole incident, from the pangs of concern he'd felt on seeing his friend very worse-for-wear after his treatment by his captor, to the panic he'd felt when Lex had first gone missing. He told himself that he would have felt all that for any of his friends…his fear had probably been no greater than when Chloe had been in hospital. Probably.
But one Friday evening, a little while after his rescue of Lex, Clark had been sitting in the coffee house, at their usual table. Chloe and Pete had hung out with him there for nearly two hours after school, laughing and joking about their classes, their friends, and the more radical theories Chloe had discovered when adding to the Wall of Weird.
But then Chloe had to go off to a babysitting job, and about five minutes later Pete was approached by a girl in his history class, who'd been sitting glumly near the counter for a while looking at her watch with the distinct impression of one who'd been stood up. Pete had eagerly agreed to go catch a movie with her, and had all but pulled on his jacket before he'd spotted the problem. The Clark-shaped problem languishing on the sofa with a cup of coffee.
"Oh, hey Clark man, I'm sorry –I don't wanna bail on you, but –"
But Clark had waved his apologies away, giving his friend what he hoped was a knowing grin.
"No, go, enjoy yourselves...I was gonna head home as soon as I'd finished this anyway."
Pete had flashed him a quick look of appreciation, and was quickly following his date out of the coffee house, glancing back only to mouth 'wish me luck'.
Clark smiled and nodded, watching them walk out the door, noting the way Pete draped his arm so casually across the girl's shoulders.
His smile faltered somewhat with a pang of those feelings…confusion, envy, loneliness. They were becoming familiar now.
He relaxed back into his seat, adjusting to the sudden absence of the animated conversation that had been present at the table for the past couple of hours. As he glanced around at the other customers, he spotted some guy sighing irritably as he used his cell-phone, obviously not getting a response. Clark suddenly recalled his frantic calls to Lex the week before, how he had tried all his contact numbers in a vain attempt to reach him and question him about the events three years ago at Club Zero. A slight frown appeared on his face as he absent-mindedly looked down into his coffee cup, cooling slowly in his hands.
When did that happen? He'd thought. When exactly did my friendship with Lex get so close? Lex was a 23 year-old son of a billionaire, a businessman in a world away from Clark's. And yet he, the teenage son of a farmer, perfectly suited to the small town life, with his close circle of friends and simple daily routine of classes and chores, knew Lex's home, cell and work numbers off by heart. Lex's servants knew him by name. While Chloe worked on the school paper, Pete was at football practice, and Lana and Whitney worked in their family businesses, Clark was spending an increasing amount of his after-school hours at a billionaire son's mansion.
He realised just how unusual his friendship must seem to his friends. Sure, he had saved Lex's life, but people save other people's lives all the time and don't end up several months later best friends with them. He realised that his dealings with Lionel Luthor's son should have come to a conclusion with the gift of the jeep, when all favours should have been repayed, and they should have gone their separate ways.
How the hell had it got this far? He thought as he sat there staring off into oblivion.
Hadn't it been only a couple of months ago that he'd found himself describing Lex to his parents as his 'best friend'. It had just slipped out naturally, and he hadn't thought about it much at the time. Then last week he'd asked incredulously whether his mother thought he could just cut Lex out of his life…He was classing this man whom he hadn't know a year on the same level as Chloe and Pete…
..but he wasn't on the same level was he? Clark's friendship with Lex was different…
He could never casually hang out with Lex, Chloe and Pete together. They looked at him as someone completely apart from their world, and Lex probably saw them likewise. He remembered how, well, business-like Chloe's interview with Lex had been that night of the robbery. Chloe had asked Clark to 'make an appointment' with Lex, commenting on how she might as well take advantage of "this inexplicable friendship you two have got going". And Lex had consented easily, but had treated Chloe in very much the same way he had treated Lana over the whole refurbishment of the Talon. Courteous, polite, slightly amused, but ultimately impersonally, adopting the standard image of the businessman, in control at all times.
Clark realised that as far as he could tell, the 'real' Lex only appeared around him. Could the Lex who'd shown great humility and concern when he'd visited him at the hospital after he'd hurt his arm, the Lex who'd spoken with a thick, sorrowful and confused voice to him and his parents when their cattle had been killed, the Lex whom he'd hauled up onto the collapsing ramp on Level 3 of the plant….could that Lex be the same cool, distant owner of the Plant whom the rest of the world saw?
He wondered then just how many people Lex let see him like he did….
Speak of the devil and he will appear. That apparently extends towards thinking, and friends, as at that moment Lex himself walked in through the door. Even back then, when the suspicions were still only lurking at the back of Clark's mind, even then he was shocked at just how happy he became on seeing Lex. It was like instant joy, as if he'd been anxiously waiting for him all this time and hadn't realised it. He felt suddenly like everything was right, like his evening was only now about to start.
He'd unconsciously sat up straight in his chair, his fingers clutching excitedly at the coffee-cup in his hands. He watched as Lex, dressed casually in a long dark jacket, and a white v-neck sweater that suited him far better than the harsh lines of his expensive suits. He stood casually at the counter, leaning in to give his order, before turning…and looking straight towards Clark's usual table.
Clark felt so inexplicably guilty for having been caught staring, and found himself concentrating so much on trying to keep a casual composure, that he nearly missed the wide grin that appeared on Lex's face, which he quickly toned down to a smile…
Lex turned and somewhat hastily took his coffee from the kid behind the counter, before making his way over to where his friend was sitting. As he had watched him approach Clark had again felt a smile coming over his face, and he felt as if all the tension was seeping out of him as Lex eased himself into the chair opposite him.
"Hey Clark." He'd said, looking at him with a smile on his face, as if amused at some private joke, as he slowly stirred his coffee. Clark had smiled back, placing his own now-cold drink down on the table.
" Hey lex. How's it going?"
Lex had given a brief little laugh.
" I came into a coffee house to drink alone on a Friday evening Clark. And unless you're waiting for a date, it looks like you're just as popular as me right now."
Clark shrugged.
"I dunno…I've been sitting here for.. "-wow, he thought, looking at his watch-"...half an hour holding a cold cup of coffee after my friend ditched me for his own date." He'd kept that grin on his face to try and show that he wasn't bitter.
Lex had raised an eyebrow, smiling.
"Well then, his loss is my gain, for hopefully you'll order yourself another coffee and keep me company." As Clark had stared back at his friend, his eyes bright, and his smile…well, playful, that's when the moment had come. That's when he'd realised that he was absolutely perfectly content to sit here, in the warmly-lit, intimate interior of the coffee house, talking with Lex as it grew dark outside, feeling as if the world was elsewhere, unimportant.
That's when he'd realised why his friendship with Lex seemed so much more different that with Chloe and Pete. It was on a whole other level. It was in a realm of its own.
Being with Lex made him happy in a way no-one else he knew could.
And as he had had smiled and nodded, and watched Lex's face fill with satisfaction as he turned to attract the waitress' attention, Clark had begun for the first time, to let some of those suspicions filter through…
TBC