SUMMARY: Chapter Eight What is Clark's problem? Lex can't seem to help but pry.

WARNINGS: Rated Teen for language and sexuality. Veers into the realm of AU after the episode "Red" from Season 2. Because I just – LOVE red kryptonite!

DISCLAIMER: So many people own Superman and Smallville that I don't even know where to begin. We'll just sweepingly say Siegel and Shuster, DC Comics, and the show's creators. It's this twisted copyright situation, anyway. But I'm not making any money of them, rest assured. Just – playing with them. In my mind. It's not my fault they picked Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum, eh!

AUTHOR NOTE: My version of red kryptonite varies from the show's use. In comic canon, red kryptonite causes a different reaction each time Superman/Clark is exposed to it, and the results typically last 24 to 48 hours.

Slant

Chapter Eight

Lunch was a decidedly simple affair. Partially because Lex didn't know where half the food in the castle was, and partially because he confessed that Clark's stomach seemed to be literally speaking to him. Pizza, it said. Give me pizza.

After Clark managed to stop his laughing, he ordered pizza. At that point, Lex held his own, struggling (and failing) to conceal his amusement at "Lex Luthor" ordering extra-extra cheese in this very commanding voice to the guy on the other end of the line.

"I've always wanted to do that," Clark confessed.

"What, order extra-extra cheese pizza in my voice?" said Lex, amused.

"No. I –" Clark paused, looking thoughtful. His gaze flickered to his hand, then back up again to Lex, then away toward the multicoloured stained glass window. Shades of violet and blue decorated his cheeks. It was a strangely beautiful picture, and Lex realized abruptly his narcissism. Odd time to do so.

"What?"

Clark blinked. "I wanted to give an order the way you do."

Now it was Lex who blinked. Clark, aside from his obvious physical change, was having a few changes in personality as well. One of which was a fair degree of cursing and sardonic gazes. The other of which appeared to be a startling honesty. Lex found that he liked it, liked it so much that it worried him. Clark was more important to him then he sometimes was willing to admit, and this was one of the times it really hit him in the face, like a bucket of cold water being dumped over his head.

Obsession. Please don't let it be that. Because obsession with a sixteen-year-old boy is really, really not what Lex needs right now.

Not that he will ever need that.

Clark, meanwhile, had coloured a faint red. Lex stared at him for a moment. It's him, but blushing. Strangely bizarre, how young it makes him look. He's not that old, but so often he's felt much older than twenty-two. Clark seemed to realize he was blushing too, and ran a hand over his cheek.

"Omygod, I've got to see this!" and Clark jumped gracefully out of his seat on the couch, jogging over to the vast gilded mirror in the hallway, and peered at the remaining blush. Lex, bemused, followed him at Clark's naturally languid pace.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer."

That earned him a grin and… was that the hint of a tongue being stuck out? No, Clark was more mature than that, if (occasionally) not by that much. And the idea of sticking his tongue out as a gesture of childishness was far too absurd to ever imagine on Lex's face. Wasn't it?

"I see you managed to successfully navigate my closet." And was there a flicker of something in Clark's eye? No, nothing.

"How many clothes do you own, Lex?"

"A sufficient amount." Lex smirked, watching Clark roll his eyes. "What? Clark, it is necessary for a man of my stature in the business community to make a good impression. Repeats on the wardrobe do not make for a good impression."

Clark was astute enough to catch the loophole. "But if it it's a first impression, then they won't know what clothes you've worn before, right?"

"Any businessman worth his salt reads the society page." He thought about this for a moment. "Or has someone read it for him."

"Worth his salt? You sound like my dad." Lex snorted quietly, but not quietly enough for Clark not to overhear. "You did!"

"That's a first." Because him, Lex, have anything in common with a man of the earth like Jonathan Kent? Surely if Clark's father heard the comparison being made, his protest would be nothing short of aggressive denial. Possibly involving yielding some sort of farm equipment as weaponry. Briefly, Lex imagines the man cackling for all its worth, while running over Lex's body with a tractor. Multiple times.

"Well, as long as you don't decide to start spouting all of his home-grown wisdom." They both laughed at that, imagining Lex saying anything about the cows won't milk themselves.

This was… nice. Incredibly so. Lex couldn't remember the last time they'd been at ease together. Honestly, there had never even been a first time. Lex was all questions the moment he met Clark, and Clark was all avoidance. Destiny had a funny way of fucking things up.

As their laughter eased back into companionable silence, Lex considered his options. Whatever this phenomenon was, as close as it made them (in both the literal and figurative sense), it certainly couldn't last forever. But he feared that the moment he questioned Clark properly about it, the other boy would clam up.

The pizza arrived before he had a chance to approach Clark, and Lex found himself relieved. This whole situation was leaving him without his natural tact, and without any food in him he would probably blunder it even more spectacularly than he usually did.

Clark attacked the pizza with gusto, and seemed disappointed that Lex's body didn't want to accept more than five slices. Lex, on the other hand, was comfortably chewing his way through a seventh piece without a complaint. Clark's body must have had the metabolism of a racehorse to keep up with all the eating he obviously did.

When they both seemed to have eaten to their individual (or individual body's) satisfaction, Lex decisively pushed away the empty pizza boxes, noting the glimmer in Clark's (his) eye at the last box, which Lex had devoured completely by himself.

"Time to talk." Clark bit his lip, looking anywhere but at Lex. "Clark, we have to figure out what's going on." Shifting uncomfortably, pale blue eyes settled on Lex's own.

"Fine. We have a lot to talk about."

"Do you know what could possibly have caused this?"

"I love that whenever something strange happens, I'm the end-all, be-all of answers," said Clark bitterly, and if that voice didn't sound exactly like Lex's own when he was frustrated…

"Clark, I'm not trying to accuse –"

"Yes, you are." Lex paused, unsure of what to say. This directness from Clark was throwing him for a loop. Of course he was accusing Clark. When didn't the farmboy have some illicit connection to Smallville's strangeness, even if Lex couldn't empirically prove it?

He proceeded carefully. "The – situation involves both of us, so we are going to have to cooperate if we want to figure anything out. I'm not trying to accuse you, but if you do know something, it is not going to help either of us if you keep it to yourself."

"Fine. The same goes for you. Do you know anything?" And now Lex found himself less than a foot away from his own piercing gaze, another example of the farmboy's startling natural grace, as he moved bonelessly over the couch toward Lex. Clark seemed almost – afraid? Surely not fear in those eyes, but it seemed so close to it.

"Clark, I woke up this morning in your bed, in your body. I have no idea how it happened." Dear God, that hadn't sounded sexual in the least. Clark flexed his right hand, almost absentmindedly.

"What happened the night before?"

Lex hesitated. There wasn't an easy way of saying it, was there? He imagined it: Clark, I kept remembering the way you were propositioning yourself to me that time, the time you were high on god-knows-what, and how I wanted to offer you my penthouse and then get down on my knees and suck your cock. So I decided to drink away my troubles, and if it killed me, I'd be thankful. I'd never have to look at your face, your beautiful eyes again, and think about how weak you make me feel. Yes, it was definitely better to be evasive.

"You're asking me like you already know." Clark's eyelids flickered. "You do know already."

"I know what you did. I don't know why."

"Clark, I –"

And Clark exploded. "Three bottles, Lex! Three bottles, and one smashed. I don't know what kind of alcohol it was, but I know that you aren't supposed to have that much of it. That wasn't just enough to get drunk, that was enough to go into a coma! And I wake up in the morning, and I'm sick, and I'm afraid that something's happening to you and… and…" his shoulders slumped. "And I feel like it's my fault. Somehow, it's always my fault."

"It's not your fault, Clark. I was being – foolish." The words sounded pathetic, even to Lex's ears. Foolish would be drinking enough to get tipsy. And Clark was right. Enough of that drink was coma inducing, yet here Clark apparently was, healthy in Lex's body. Except there was a pained look in his eyes, and he winced. "Clark, are you still… Clark, what is it?"

"My head hurts… so, so fucking much."

That would explain the cursing. Lex always got particularly foul-mouthed after any sort of hangover-inducing drinking binge, when the pain was bad enough to make him want to double over. Obviously, he didn't engage in that sort of behavior often, but the one time this year he had, and Clark had to take the brunt of the injury.

"I'm so sorry, Clark. I was – I was reckless. I was upset…"

"Did it have to do with your father?" Again, Lex was startled by the astuteness. Clark was wrong about it today, of course, but so often it was Lex's father. And, really, what bad thing didn't have some connection to his father in the end?

"Indirectly."

"Lex, you… you shouldn't do things like that. Dangerous things."

"But Clark, I've been a thrill-seeker from the moment we met, remember?" Clark looked down, and inwardly Lex cursed. Brilliant time to be bringing up the very thing that created the rift in their relationship.

"I guess I shouldn't be getting on to you for that. If you hadn't been driving like a maniac, we might never have met." Clark looked back up, smiling shyly. Lex's mouth parted, but he couldn't for the life of him find a reply that wasn't the prelude to, in a word, sex. "I don't remember anything happening that might have caused it."

Lex was confused. Cause sex? What would cause – and then he realized that he was the only one thing about sex, that Clark was already back to the current topic of discussion, that is, the body-switching. The relevant discussion. Which was very much not about sex (to Lex's disappointment, and strangely enough, relief – narcissism only took a person so far, after all).

If Lex wasn't cracked before he sure as hell was cracked now.