Title: Accidentals
Rating: PG-13
to be safe
Notes: written for rheakurokawa in the Humamentathon, page 298. vaguely Clark/Lex, kind of on crack (heh!).
"I would have been a concert pianist, had my mother's influence ever overpowered my father's. It never did, but my lessons continued as long as I had free time. I made free time for those lessons. I clung to every bit of my mother that I could."
Clark nods understandingly, and Lex knows he truly does understand. They've known each other long enough for Lex to be sometimes transparent to Clark. And even vice-versa. But this is still only sometimes.
"I would have been a choirboy, if my father would have let my mother have her way." Lex looked at Clark in surprise.
"You sing?" Clark shrugged. "You sing. Will wonders never cease?" Clark shrugged again, this time shrugging and ducking and grinning as though trying to decide whether to be embarrassed, or to laugh. Lex laughed. He only got half the joke, he was certain, but that was something. Will wonders never cease? Not while Clark Kentis around.
Lex knows these things about Clark. Certainly not everything, and maybe not even enough, but Lex has figured a few things out.
Enough that Lex knows scooting closer to the boy under the stars isn't a bad idea at all.
------
"Clark, I'm sorry for prying." Lex lies through his teeth, lies like a dog and they both know it. He'll pry and keep prying because Clark won't trust him, and that's an insult to Lex. An insult that cuts him deeper than anything else, and there's nobody he'll admit that to, except maybe Clark. If he can get past this brick wall of Leave Me Alone.
"I wish you could be honest with me, Clark."
Clark looks at him with appeal, but resolved. I wish I could be honest with you, too. The "It's not you, it's me" method of breaking up. Lex has to remind himself that this is not actually breaking up.
"I know you feel the same way."
They've known each other long enough for Clark to be sometimes transparent to Lex. Much of their understanding lies in repetition of certain key phrases. It's practically thematic - the clear alto, the clarinet in a simple melody, and an indiscernable bassline: mild-mannered Clark Kent who is hiding something deep down there. The minor, sinuous tenor, with the occasional trills and flourish of soprano: Lex Luthor, always something going on unseen, still enjoys the flashy lifestyle. A symphony, of friendship and of failure, of distrust, of secrets, of give and take and give. And it keeps on repeating itself. Lex thinks of this particular moment as one of the more obvious recurrant motifs, and all part of a greater scene that keeps playing itself over and over again.
------
In the end, of course, Clark comes to ask for a favor. Something highly illegal or extremely difficult, and sometimes even both at once. Lex likes repaying Clark. It makes everything right again in his universe. It puts them on equal footing. What's more, this is Clark, and Lex can't refuse him. He knows that Clark knows this. He hopes it's just a subconscious knowledge, though, because then all the pretty-eyed pleading and adorable awkwardness is just manipulation, and Lex wouldn't be able to handle that from Clark.
Lex hates being suspicious of his best friend.
------
Someday, Lex likes to tell himself, he will write that symphony of Clark and him. He will call it The Saga of Clark Kent and Lex Luthor, or The Farmboy and the Billionaire, or something vague and in Latin; it will be many, many movements long (or so he hopes); it will be in F major and G# minor; it will be like writing down their story except more open to interpretation, and thus more accurate.
If he were his mother's son, he would write it, and spend most of his days and nights on that symphony. It would be the work that he poured his life into. But Lex knows he is not his mother's son.
Lex spends his life working with companies and corporations, doing research, fixing issues until things run smoothly and the way they should run. Lex is his father's son, and as his father's son, he will never compose a masterpiece of song. He will, instead, continue to tinker with the way things work until he is satisfied, until they work for him. He hates this and he fights it, but not for himself. For Clark. Because really, he never wants to make Clark work for him. Lex wants Clark the way he is, innocent farmboy, pure awkwardness and generosity. Nothing changed. Wonderful, just the way he is. And Lex would only screw that up.
He's coming too close already, and the afternoon Lex fully realizes this, he decides he needs a vacation.
------
Lex goes to his cabin in the vaguely mountainous wilderness, alone, to take some time off from Smallville and everything in it. He hopes getting back to nature will do it, but he's never been much of a nature boy. The city would have helped erase Smallville much better, but Metropolis always brings its own set of problems, and Lex just wants to relax.
He spends all of the first day listening to classical records, drinking scotch, and trying not to think about Clark Kent. It doesn't work.
The second day, he tries fishing and not thinking about Clark. Not only does that fail again, he manages to knock his tacklebox into the river. Lex is glad nobody is there to see that, except then he realizes Clark would have made it the most hilarious thing ever, and so he wishes Clark were there with him.
That night he has a dream about Clark and wakes up tangled in the sheets with the pillow over his head and a hard-on. Swearing violently doesn't help the situation at all.
------
The third day, Lex goes on a small hike. There is a rockslide, and guess who comes just in time. Lex gave up long ago on expecting Clark to follow the laws of physics and probability and nature in general, and came to rely on him like you can rely on a miracle. Always just in time.
"Let me live my life," he says from inside a slight fog, probably concussion-induced he realizes. Clark just nods, keeps carrying him. Never listens.
Lex finds himself unbelievably glad of this.
------
Someday, Lex tells himself, he will write that symphony. He is not his mother's son, but neither is he his father's son. Lex doesn't play at concerts, and he doesn't want to conquer the businessworld. Lex doesn't want to be anyone's son at all. Lex wants to be Clark's friend, and anything else is just a sidenote.