Elseworlds (3/5) Part Two
Mar. 23rd, 2007 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Post got too large, had to split.
Part One can be found here!
Metropolis
At half past eleven, Clark put down the book he had been trying and failing to read and x-rayed the house to see if Lex had gone to bed.
Lex's skeleton wasn't anywhere in the house.
Okay, there were really a lot of rooms. Maybe he had missed it the first time. He concentrated and scanned the castle a second time, room for room.
Lex wasn't in the study anymore and Clark couldn't find it in any of the other bedrooms or bathrooms. The halls were empty, and the kitchen deserted. Even the help had left.
Apparently, Lex had left before Clark. That was odd, Clark thought, Lex hadn't sounded as if he was planning to leave the house tonight – but Lex was a bit weird anyways and Clark had his own plans.
Clark took his backpack with all the money and the fake ID, and put on his new sneakers. Then he opened the window, made sure that he would be able to climb back up the wall and jumped out, into the soft wet grass beneath.
*
The first thing Clark did was to run downtown into the part of Metropolis that was frequented by a lot of tourists and buy a map at a Metro station. After a moment's consideration, he bought a copy of the Daily Planet as well. The paper reported that the police were still looking for Clark and that the murderer still hadn't been found. There was a photo of him in the paper still and Clark was glad that the clothes he'd gotten at the castle were so different from his usual clothes.
He dared to go to an internet café and hardly even flinched under the suspicious look he got when the girl at the counter asked him for his ID. He presented Lex's fake ID. She glanced at it once, took his money and told him to choose a computer. With a sigh of relief, Clark chose the one in the furthest corner. Then he started his search for Chloe's address.
He found several pages when he looked for Chloe's name, one of which belonged to her highschool paper, the Watchtower. Apparently, Chloe had a taste for the weird and unexplained. Clark suspected she'd have a field day in Smallville.
He regretted having used his powers in front of her so blatantly now, but back then he had hardly been thinking straight, tired and hungry as he was.
Chloe's highschool was most likely near where she lived, so Clark ran to that part of the city.
It was close to midnight by then, but without his speed, Clark would probably have needed two nights to do all of this. It really was his most useful power, besides being the one he enjoyed the most.
Chloe's neighbourhood looked nice. It was quiet at this time, the streets lined with parked cars, some windows bright and welcoming, some already dark. Most houses had four stories, and looked older than the one's in Smallville; Clark thought that they had maybe been built at the beginning of the century, but they still looked nice.
From here on, it was mere foot work. He went from house to house, looking at the names on the post boxes for Sullivan.
He finally found one about three minutes after he'd begun, fifteen streets later. Jackpot: the sign said ‘G. + C. Sullivan’.
He considered ringing, but what if Chloe's parents were home? Instead he stole around the house into the backyard and settled down to x-ray it room by room. Chloe's room on first floor was easy to spot: the walls were covered in newspaper clippings, and she seemed to have at least three different computers, a scanner, a laptop, a printer and other electronic stuff Clark couldn't even identify. She wandered into the room sipping from a cup just then.
Clark seized his chance and picked up a pebble, taking great care not to throw too hard. It hit the windowpane with a small clang.
She went to the window immediately after the first pebble and glanced out, then opened it. First she looked, for some reason, at the tree close by, but then her eyes strayed down to where Clark stood. She squinted.
"Who's there?"
"Clarence," he called out in a half-whisper.
Chloe leaned out further. "Clarence? Oh! How did you get here?"
"I.. uh… was lucky?"
She said nothing for a moment. "Yeah, right," she snorted then. "Do you want to come in?"
"Your parents- ?"
"My dad's not home. He's doing overtime."
Something occurred to Clark. What if that was how Chloe got information about the corruption affair? "He isn't a cop, is he?"
Chloe laughed. "No, Cla – Clarence. My dad works for LuthorCorp."
Clark's eyes widened. Chloe's Dad worked for Lex's company! That was a really weird coincidence. He had to be careful about what he told her, then, so she wouldn't figure out where he lived now.
"Okay, I'm going to open the door," she said and vanished from her window.
The Sullivan's flat was nice, bright and cheery and a little disordered, just like Chloe. Clark always felt awkward in other people's places, but the friendly chaos had the same effect on him as the space and regal furniture in Lex's castle – he didn't feel like an elephant in a china shop here.
Chloe gave him a sheepish grin. "Yeah, it's a mess. Do you want something to eat? Drink?"
"No, thanks, I had dinner already," Clark replied without thinking, then realized his blunder as her brows shot up. She gave him a second look that lingered on his clothes a little too long.
"No more park banks, huh? What happened, did you mug a rich old lady?"
"No." Clark swallowed, trying frantically to think of a good story. "I'm, uh, sleeping at a friend's place. They think it's better if I don't go to the police just yet, too. That's why I'm here… I need to know more about the policeman and I thought you could help me…"
Now that he said it out loud it sounded silly to him. But Chloe just nodded seriously.
"Yeah, that's probably your best lead if you really want to find the murderer. Which you shouldn't, by the way, because you could get killed, and that means I shouldn't help you, but I'm gonna do that anyway, because who am I to talk about risk?" she grinned wryly. "Follow me into my lair."
Chloe's 'lair' was her room. Apart from her bed that was covered in a rainbow coloured quilt, it didn't look very much like a girl's bedroom. Not that Clark had ever been inside a girl's bedroom, but he had a telescope and a TV.
He wondered what had happened to the telescope in the fire.
His impression from the outside had been right. Every bit of wall was plastered with paper cuttings. The newest and biggest ones were about the Batman, the blurry image Clark had seen in the paper, and drawings, none of which looked very much like what Clark remembered.
The computer equipment Clark had seen with his x-ray vision looked even more impressive in reality. It looked almost futuristic to Clark.
"My Dad gets stuff from the company sometimes," Chloe remarked.
"You're really into computers, aren't you?"
"Computers," she said, turning around to Clark and spreading her arms wide to indicate the room, "are the secret of my success. You can find almost everything you're looking for with a computer. Except," she narrowed her eyes at the clippings, "the Batman, of course. He remains a mystery."
"Are you a hacker?" Clark asked dumbly.
She gave him a piercing look. "Sorta. You haven't got a problem with that, do you?"
Clark quickly shook his head. Even if he had had a problem with it, that look would have kept him from saying anything. She sat down in front of her computer. There was no other chair, just the bed and… well, a girl's bed. Clark couldn't just sit down on a girl's bed. So he remained standing.
Chloe started explaining. "I've tried to find out more about the cop myself. There are rumours that he was involved in some kind of corruption affair and he wasn't the only one. There's a Detective Samuel Phelan who seems to be part of it as well."
"A corruption affair? You mean the policeman was taking money from someone?"
"Yeah. Most likely from Morgan Edge, the biggest drug lord of Metropolis. The murderer could have been the guy who paid him and that must have been how they got into the argument. I'm going to try and find out more about this Phelan guy tomorrow, then I can tell you more. Until then, this is what I've got about the policeman."
She reached for her printer and pulled out a thick stack of paper, which she slid into an envelope and gave Clark. He took it and put it into his backpack.
"Maybe it's a good thing you haven't gone to the police so far," Chloe mused. "Who knows who else might be involved in the affair? If they think you saw or heard anything… are you sure you're safe at your… friend's?"
Clark nodded. As safe as he could get.
*
Morgan Edge studied the rocks Phelan had produced. Little green crystals, nothing remarkable.
"They're of alien origin, came with the meteor shower," Phelan explained. "Hamilton, the guy who sold them to me, says they've got all kinds of strange chemical properties, radiation and such – "
Edge dropped the rock and turned a furious eye on Phelan. "Radiation? You're saying the things are radioactive?"
"Harmless to humans!" Phelan assured him immediately, raising his hands as if to protect himself. The cop was a cowardly rat. Edge sneered at him.
"But not to the boy," Phelan went on, having regained his usual smoothness. "He can be harmed by them."
"You know, Sam," Edge said, loosening his tie a little, "I'm tired of your invincible-boy story. You botched a job. Clean up your mess. Make sure it doesn't happen again."
Cynthia, his secretary opened the door. "Mr Edge, Mr Luthor is here."
Edge sipped from his wine. "Let him in. You can go," he told Phelan. "And be grateful for the second chance. There won't be a third one."
Phelan paled and nodded. As he stepped outside, Luthor junior sidled into the room.
Lionel's boy was one of Edge's most important business partners. He had money, of course, and he had Lionel's brilliant mind, too. A pity that he had none of Lionel's drive, none of his ambition. Lionel had always lamented the boy's softness. And now that little Luthor was all grown up, it showed that along with his father's mind, he had also inherited Lionel's less commendable qualities – vanity and a tendency to whore around. Just look at that red hair, done pretty as a girl's and that foppish mauve shirt. Well, at least he had none of Lillian's silly morals.
Lex shook his hand. "Good to see you, Morgan."
Edge smiled genially and offered him a glass of wine. Lionel had preferred stronger liquor, but Lex was as indiscriminate in his drink as he was in lovers. He took it and glanced at the meteor rocks still spread out on the table.
"What have you got there?"
Edge waved the question away. "Just some rubbish Phelan dragged in to explain the mess he made."
Lex swirled the wine in his glass and picked up one of the rocks to hold it against the light. "Ah, yes, that. I read about it in the paper. I trust you'll take care of it?"
So careless. Morgan suppressed a sneer. "Don't worry about it, kid."
"So what have some pretty green rocks to do with two dead Kansas farmers?" Lex asked, sounding bored.
Edge grimaced. "Nothing, of course. Phelan says they're from Smallville. Meteor rocks. Ha! They're supposed to be able to hurt the boy – you know, the one we're still looking for."
Lex put down his wineglass and gave Edge a thin smile. "Interesting. Especially since I have the boy in my pocket, so to speak."
Edge perked up. Sometimes Lex could be unpredictable, and Edge didn't like it. He preferred his little pet Luthor by far. "What are you talking about?"
"He was walking the streets by the docks. I picked him up and took him home." That snake's smile again.
In his own way, Lex was a lot more depraved than Lionel, Edge thought. "Well, what are you waiting for?"
Lex leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs. He was still toying with the rock. "I want the boy. He won't go talking to the police, don't worry. Consider it a favour to me."
"Christ, Lex, do you have any idea what your father would say? Just because you can't keep it in your pants I'm supposed to risk my business?" Edge thundered.
The smile became colder by a few degrees. Lex held up the rock. "The boy won't go talking to the police because if Phelan's theory is correct – and I intend to test it with this little rock – then he won't leave my labs again. Does that satisfy you, Morgan?"
"You believe in Phelan's tale?"
Lex pocketed the rock. "Every word of it."
*
Clark hadn't planned to sleep in, but when he'd come back from his night's exploits it had been four in the morning and he wasn't used to setting an alarm – at home, either the noise of the animals or his Mom woke him up – so he forgot it.
Here in Lex's mansion it was always quiet, like in a tomb. He showered and since new clothes magically appeared, he put them on, not wanting to appear ungrateful. It was close to noon when he walked down the stairs in search for food. It was probably too late to meet Lex, he was a working man after all.
But Clark did find him, in a room adjacent to the study that was empty except for a suit of armour by the door and a couple of decorations along the wall – all weapons, from a large battle axe to sleek Japanese swords that looked as if they belonged in a samurai movie. There was a display of shuriken in all sizes and shapes, long wooden staffs, even a crossbow. The windows here weren't stained glass, but they were half-covered by dark burgundy drapes.
In the centre of the room, on thin mats, Lex was sparring with a tall Asian woman. They were both wearing loose uniforms of a dark material, tied with a belt at the waist, like something out of a kung fu movie. Clark watched in awe as they circled each other, sometimes launching into a quick flurry of blows and kicks. The woman had tied back her long black hair in a ponytail, Lex was wearing a bandana that was dark with sweat to hold back his hair. Both of them were utterly silent, breathing regularly, and their expressions were blank, almost serene.
She did something fast and terrifying with her arms and right leg and Lex was toppled to the ground where she pinned him for a second before rising and taking a step back. Lex got to his feet as well and they both bowed to each other. Clark realized that he had been holding his breath during their fight and slowly exhaled.
"Thank you, Woosan-sensei," Lex said. She merely nodded and turned around, walking past Clark without a glance at him.
Lex had already spotted Clark. The serene expression was gone, replaced by a sly, predatory smile. "Like what you see?"
"No, I'm just… you're really good," Clark blurted.
Lex raised his brows. He strolled past Clark. "I'm honoured by your expertly opinion, Clark," he mocked.
Clark flushed and turned around to follow Lex, only to see him reaching for one of those sleek Japanese swords.
"I meant it looked really impressive," Clark explained lamely.
Lex unsheathed the sword partly, displaying the silver blade to Clark. It looked really sharp. Really, really sharp, as if it was made to cut off heads. Lex studied it, then glanced up at Clark, the smile widening dangerously. "How about it? A little sparring between friends?"
And when had they become friends? Clark gulped. "I've never held a sword, Lex."
Lex sheathed the sword with a noise that made Clark flinch. He hung it back on the wall and sauntered on to the board of shuriken. "What a shame, Clark. How about a little throwing practice, then? You're pretty good at evading things, aren't you?"
Clark's eyes widened in alarm, but it was too late. Lex had spun around and thrown a tiny black star at him. Things slowed down for Clark, he saw it flying towards him, turning infinitely slow in the air, and he knew he could evade it with just a step, but he didn't. Lex was staring straight at him.
The shuriken whizzed past Clark's ear and impaled in the wall some feet behind him. Clark turned around to stare at it, then at Lex, who merely looked amused.
"Just a joke, Clark, relax." He bent down to retrieve a white towel from his bag and took off the bandana to mop his face, then slung it around his neck and untied his belt. Clark got a glimpse of a pale, muscled chest and a long scar running across a slender abdomen before he realized that Lex wasn't wearing anything beneath the robe and turned away with burning cheeks.
"Was the lady who left your girlfriend?" he asked to fill the embarrassing silence.
A startled laugh sounded from Lex's direction. "My - ? No, she's my teacher."
"Teacher? Oh. She's a martial arts teacher?"
There was the slithering sound of cloth on skin, and then a soft footfall. Clark couldn't help but turn around nervously, but thankfully Lex was already dressed in dark sweatpants and a loose grey shirt. They looked a lot better on him than sweatpants should look on people. He flung the towel onto his bag and walked past Clark to the door.
"No, she's an assassin."
"An assassin?" Clark yelped as he followed Lex. "You're joking again, right?"
Lex turned around on the stairs to gaze up at Clark with an even expression. "I'm perfectly serious."
Clark blinked. He still wasn't sure if he was supposed to believe Lex. And if it was true – an assassin! What kind of person had an assassin as their martial arts teacher?
"Have you had breakfast?" Lex inquired as they walked into the study. A servant was waiting at the door, and when Clark said, "No," the man left without Lex having to give an order.
Lex walked over to his glass desk and flipped open the notebook on it to check something, then closed it again to walk over to the couch. "Have a seat, Clark."
There was a vase without flowers on the black coffee table, and next to it some metal tablet with strange signs on it like Clark had never seen them before. For some reason, they exuded a strange fascination on him. He almost felt compelled to pick it up as he sat down opposite Lex, turning it this and that way. It didn't look as if it served any purpose, and it wasn't exactly decorative, either.
He caught Lex watching him and smiled shyly. "What's this?"
Lex glanced down at the tablet, then at Clark again. "Nothing. Just some knick-knack I picked up on my travels."
A young woman brought in a tray with coffee and breakfast on it and put it down between them. Clark watched her leave as quietly as she had entered.
"Doesn't it feel weird to have servants?"
Lex poured himself a coffee. "Not when you have had them all your life. It gets a little difficult when you get close to some of them – in some ways they're family, but they're still employees. After my mother's death, I was raised by my nanny. Pamela was the closest thing I had to family."
Clark noticed the use of the past tense. "Where is she now?"
Lex glanced up, brows raised. "Well, I don't need a nanny anymore, Clark. She left when I offered to pay her."
"Oh." Clark felt out of his depth, which was quickly becoming his normal state of mind around Lex Luthor.
There were croissants and butter and jam on the tray, but Lex was only having fruit salad and coffee. After a few bites, he got up and walked over to the shelves lining the wall next to his desk and picked up a small box. He returned to the couch and sat down again, offering the box to Clark. It was heavy, made of lead and looked very old.
"Pamela gave me this when she left," Lex explained. "She said my mother bought it in Morocco and gave it to her as a gift. It's supposed to be made from the armour of Saint George."
"Cool," Clark said, unable to come up with anything smarter. He opened the box and immediately dropped it in his lap. The meteor rock inside fell out of it. Clark bit his teeth, swallowing a groan, but he couldn't help squeezing his eyes shut and squirming. Only a thin layer of fabric separated him from the rock that turned his blood to burning poison.
Lex rose to his feet, rounding the coffee table. "Clark. Are you alright?" he asked calmly.
Clark pried open his eyes. He could hardly hold himself on the couch, he was sliding further down the leather, his head thrown back against the backrest and his knees shivering. "Please," he gasped.
Lex picked up the box and put it on the table carefully, then let his eyes rove over Clark's still writhing body. He laid his hand on the rock that had fallen onto the couch between Clark's legs and after a moment, took it away, putting it back into it's box. With his back to Clark he asked, "Do you need a doctor?"
Still panting, Clark quickly recovered from the pain and sickness, but the fear lingered. Why did Lex have a meteor rock? And what was that look in his eyes before he took it away?
"N-no," he stammered. "Just… a cramp. Sorry."
"Ah," Lex said. He returned the box to its place on the shelf. "Well, I have work to do. You're free to entertain yourself in the castle – everything that's mine is yours."
*
Shaken from the morning's events, Clark returned to his room. He didn't know what to make of Lex. He seemed nice at first, kind and generous, but there was a powerful undercurrent of danger in everything that he did. And yet Clark couldn't help but feel drawn to his every word and gesture. He had never met anyone like him.
He tried to distract himself by pulling the folder Chloe had given him out of his backpack. She'd printed out a lot of articles about the murder and what looked like the police report on the case. Then there was the dead policeman's file and some other data she had gathered on him. The statement his partner had given was there, as well as a lot of stuff Clark only skimmed through, like his school records.
And then there was Sam Phelan's file.
Clark dropped the papers. The sheets fluttered through the room, settling on the floor and the bed. Phelan's face smirked up at him from the purple covers.
Clark took a step back, a scream on his lips that didn't find its way out, and the echoes of gunshots ringing in his ears.
Phelan was the killer.
His face, as he pointed his gun at Clark and pulled the trigger, shot after shot, the bullets hitting Clark's chest like hail. The blood, warm on his fingers as he cradled his mother's body.
It took long moments of harsh breathing and clenching his hands so tight that coals would have become diamonds in his palms to calm down enough so he could move towards the bed again and pick up Phelan's file and find out which district he worked on.
Then Clark picked up his backpack and ran, not caring that it was in the middle of the day.
*
It took hours to find Phelan, and then it was almost accidental, as he walked towards his car in front of the police station in the seventh district. Clark was on the other side of a busy road, pedestrians all around him, and by now he was calm enough not to throw all caution into the wind and just jump over the roofs of the cars and tear open Phelan's car like a can of sardines and pull him out and –
He was calm. Calm and collected, like Lex and his assassin teacher in the ring. He would move in on Phelan slowly and then he'd be deadly.
Clark knew how he'd do it. With his heat vision, the power that had arisen from his body after the murder, like a weapon handed to him by destiny.
He followed Phelan's car, zipping from street corner to street corner, ignored by the incessant stream of people. On swift feet, contemplating revenge, reality became streamlined for Clark, pin-pointed towards his quarry, filtering out everything else.
Phelan's car left the busy road and drove down towards the docks. Clark followed it on the road beside the river, blind to the blue sky and the bridge sweeping across the water ahead of them, blind to the tourist boats and the breathtaking skyline on the other side of the river.
The car parked in front of a warehouse, between huge containers unloaded there by the ships in the harbour. The place was deserted, even in full daylight, and littered with human waste – plastic bags fluttering in the slight breeze, soda cans and food wrappers, like wrecks washed onto a shore of concrete. Phelan got out of his car and slammed the door shut.
Now. Now Clark would strike.
Phelan turned around, hasty and nervous, and stopped still as he saw Clark standing between the container towers.
When he reached inside his jacket, Clark unfroze. He zipped over to the man and seized him by the collar, slamming him down onto the hood of his car and then shaking him and slamming him down again for good measure. Phelan screamed and Clark thought he heard a crack of bone, maybe a rib, and god, he wanted it to be more than that, wanted it to be the man's spine –
"You killed my parents!" he yelled and realized that he was crying, hot tears running down his cheeks, salt in his mouth, his voice breaking. "You killed them!"
Phelan stared at him, eyes wide with terror, but Clark felt only pain, blinding, searing pain, and he needed to stop it, needed to -
Pain. Like a punch in the gut. No, a real punch. Clark staggered backwards, his stomach heaving and saw Phelan straighten with a wince. The man flexed his arm, smacked his lips, and by the time Clark didn't feel like he was going to throw up anymore, Phelan moved towards him and landed a blow against his chin that made Clark stumble and fall.
Phelan circled him. "Gotcha, you little freak." He dropped something on Clark's chest – no, please, no, not again, not another rock. He thrashed, but the strength went out of him like water out of a broken cup, and then all Clark could do was try to breathe, shallow rattling gasps as his body trembled and withered.
"So Mr Ross's secret formula does work," Phelan's voice rang out from above him, distant and distorted. "I was starting to wonder, you know, what with you being impervious to bullets and all – oh, Edge is gonna love this."
Clark's wrists were seized and something hard snapped shut around them – handcuffs – but Clark couldn't even try to resist. His body didn't feel alive anymore. He moaned weakly as Phelan grabbed his hair and yanked him up to tie something around his neck that made the pain even worse. Then he slumped back down, his head hitting the pavement hard. Phelan stuffed the chunk of meteor rock on Clark's chest into the back-pocket of Clark's pants for good measure and dragged him over to his car. Clark's cheek scraped against the concrete, but the burn was almost welcome compared to the slow icy rotting of his flesh.
With a curse, Phelan lifted Clark into the trunk and slammed the lid shut.
*
The car ride was endless to Clark, but like it had been with the scarecrowing, he got used to the pain after a while, his mind so dull that it almost didn't matter anymore that he'd failed again, that he'd die and Phelan would still be alive.
After a long time he noticed that the car wasn't driving anymore. Then he slipped into darkness, only to emerge from it at the stab of daylight hitting his face.
He squinted against it, then slowly adjusted.
Phelan was looking down on him, and next to him a heavy-built man in a suit with light hair.
And next to the stranger, Lex Luthor, wearing an expression of cool interest.
"All I see is a kid in cuffs," the stranger said gruffly.
"Trust me, he's a lot more than that," Phelan said. "We could make millions with this kid."
"Or you could earn yourself a favour from LuthorCorp," Lex said smoothly. "A big one."
Phelan glared at Lex, but the third man smiled a wolfish smile. "If he's worth that, Lex, then it would be stupid to sell him to you, wouldn't it? Let's make a deal. The boy's mine, but you can play with him anytime you want. If there are profits, we share them."
Clark's vision kept fluttering in and out, like a hummingbird. In one moment Lex was looking at him, in the next he shook the stranger's hand. They moved out of Clark's field of vision and two large men in suits heaved him out of the truck and onto a stretcher like a piece of meat.
*
There was another long drive, and then an endless succession of neon-lit ceilings above Clark as the stretcher was pushed through a building. He ended up in a large room with metal walls and glass cabinets full of medical looking things, and a row of desks that only vaguely reminded him of the chemistry lab in highschool. As they rolled him off the stretcher and onto a cold metal table, Clark got a glimpse of the white-tiled floor.
They undid his cuffs and cuffed him to the table instead, crudely, not like in a horror movie at all, where there would have been gleaming metal bonds tying Clark to the table at his hands and feet, and blinding lights glaring into his face. In this room it was mostly dark and quiet except for the flickering emergency light above the door and the humming of a large freezer after the men left.
Clark was dizzy. His tongue felt shrivelled and dry, his palate like a piece of parchment, his chest rattled with each breath. After some time, he curled around as far as the cuffs allowed him and heaved. It felt like his body was rejecting his intestines and trying to get rid of them by throwing up, but what came was breakfast and then just bitter saliva. This was what the tiled floor was for, Clark thought, all the better to clean up when it got dirty…
He jerked awake when the lights went on in the room, one by one, and the door opened.
Two men in black suits and ties entered, positioning themselves by the door, and then Lex Luthor slunk into the room, lithe compared to their bulk, like a snake in high grass.
He went straight to Clark. The door fell shut.
Lex stopped at a few feet distance. His pale was devoid of any emotion save a faint distaste.
Then he turned his back on Clark and walked over to one of the cabinets to retrieve what looked like a tissue box and pull out a pair of thin white plastic gloves that he snapped on with a practised move.
Clark jerked unwillingly against the cuffs as Lex returned, trying to get away from him. What was going to happen? Was Luthor going to cut him open like a corpse? The silence was chilling Clark, making him shiver.
But Lex had no scalpel, no knife. He started patting down Clark's shirt instead, then moved to his pants, sliding one of his hands under the small of his back to lift him up. When he felt the bulk of the meteor rock in Clark's back pocket, he reached inside and pulled it out, putting it on a metal tray. As he moved it away from Clark, it stopped glowing and pulsing and merely became a green rock.
He studied Clark. "Can you talk?"
The tiniest spark of hope surfaced in Clark's chest. Maybe Lex would help him. He tried to plead, but only a sandpaper dry moan came out of his mouth. Lex moved away again, and returned with a glass of water. The hope grew a little stronger. The latex of the gloves felt odd on his neck as Lex supported his head and held the glass to Clark's chapped lips, tipping it a little. A drop of water ran over Clark's tongue – and then Lex pulled the glass away.
"You came with the meteor shower, didn't you?" Lex asked.
Clark's head spun. He'd trusted this man –
"I think I haven't told you yet how my father was killed. He was struck by a meteor during the meteor shower in Smallville."
Clark winced, and he tried to pull away from the hand on his face, but he didn't have the strength. Fear, cold and ugly, renewed itself inside him. Lex was a madman. For some reason, he blamed Clark for the meteors and for his father's death.
You came with the meteors, didn't you…
Not on the same day. With the meteors. As if Clark were had fallen from the sky like…
The adoption papers. That was why Clark's adoption papers had to be faked –
"No," Clark groaned. "No."
It wasn't true. It couldn't be. Clark looked human. His parents had never said anything.
"Phelan says you can't be killed by bullets. What else can you do?"
Clark squeezed his eyes shut. He shook his head.
"You could make this so easy for yourself," Lex said softly, leaning in close. "Just tell me the truth. Otherwise I'll have to find out myself…"
A dry sob wrenched itself out of Clark's throat. "No."
Continued Here
Part One can be found here!
Metropolis
At half past eleven, Clark put down the book he had been trying and failing to read and x-rayed the house to see if Lex had gone to bed.
Lex's skeleton wasn't anywhere in the house.
Okay, there were really a lot of rooms. Maybe he had missed it the first time. He concentrated and scanned the castle a second time, room for room.
Lex wasn't in the study anymore and Clark couldn't find it in any of the other bedrooms or bathrooms. The halls were empty, and the kitchen deserted. Even the help had left.
Apparently, Lex had left before Clark. That was odd, Clark thought, Lex hadn't sounded as if he was planning to leave the house tonight – but Lex was a bit weird anyways and Clark had his own plans.
Clark took his backpack with all the money and the fake ID, and put on his new sneakers. Then he opened the window, made sure that he would be able to climb back up the wall and jumped out, into the soft wet grass beneath.
*
The first thing Clark did was to run downtown into the part of Metropolis that was frequented by a lot of tourists and buy a map at a Metro station. After a moment's consideration, he bought a copy of the Daily Planet as well. The paper reported that the police were still looking for Clark and that the murderer still hadn't been found. There was a photo of him in the paper still and Clark was glad that the clothes he'd gotten at the castle were so different from his usual clothes.
He dared to go to an internet café and hardly even flinched under the suspicious look he got when the girl at the counter asked him for his ID. He presented Lex's fake ID. She glanced at it once, took his money and told him to choose a computer. With a sigh of relief, Clark chose the one in the furthest corner. Then he started his search for Chloe's address.
He found several pages when he looked for Chloe's name, one of which belonged to her highschool paper, the Watchtower. Apparently, Chloe had a taste for the weird and unexplained. Clark suspected she'd have a field day in Smallville.
He regretted having used his powers in front of her so blatantly now, but back then he had hardly been thinking straight, tired and hungry as he was.
Chloe's highschool was most likely near where she lived, so Clark ran to that part of the city.
It was close to midnight by then, but without his speed, Clark would probably have needed two nights to do all of this. It really was his most useful power, besides being the one he enjoyed the most.
Chloe's neighbourhood looked nice. It was quiet at this time, the streets lined with parked cars, some windows bright and welcoming, some already dark. Most houses had four stories, and looked older than the one's in Smallville; Clark thought that they had maybe been built at the beginning of the century, but they still looked nice.
From here on, it was mere foot work. He went from house to house, looking at the names on the post boxes for Sullivan.
He finally found one about three minutes after he'd begun, fifteen streets later. Jackpot: the sign said ‘G. + C. Sullivan’.
He considered ringing, but what if Chloe's parents were home? Instead he stole around the house into the backyard and settled down to x-ray it room by room. Chloe's room on first floor was easy to spot: the walls were covered in newspaper clippings, and she seemed to have at least three different computers, a scanner, a laptop, a printer and other electronic stuff Clark couldn't even identify. She wandered into the room sipping from a cup just then.
Clark seized his chance and picked up a pebble, taking great care not to throw too hard. It hit the windowpane with a small clang.
She went to the window immediately after the first pebble and glanced out, then opened it. First she looked, for some reason, at the tree close by, but then her eyes strayed down to where Clark stood. She squinted.
"Who's there?"
"Clarence," he called out in a half-whisper.
Chloe leaned out further. "Clarence? Oh! How did you get here?"
"I.. uh… was lucky?"
She said nothing for a moment. "Yeah, right," she snorted then. "Do you want to come in?"
"Your parents- ?"
"My dad's not home. He's doing overtime."
Something occurred to Clark. What if that was how Chloe got information about the corruption affair? "He isn't a cop, is he?"
Chloe laughed. "No, Cla – Clarence. My dad works for LuthorCorp."
Clark's eyes widened. Chloe's Dad worked for Lex's company! That was a really weird coincidence. He had to be careful about what he told her, then, so she wouldn't figure out where he lived now.
"Okay, I'm going to open the door," she said and vanished from her window.
The Sullivan's flat was nice, bright and cheery and a little disordered, just like Chloe. Clark always felt awkward in other people's places, but the friendly chaos had the same effect on him as the space and regal furniture in Lex's castle – he didn't feel like an elephant in a china shop here.
Chloe gave him a sheepish grin. "Yeah, it's a mess. Do you want something to eat? Drink?"
"No, thanks, I had dinner already," Clark replied without thinking, then realized his blunder as her brows shot up. She gave him a second look that lingered on his clothes a little too long.
"No more park banks, huh? What happened, did you mug a rich old lady?"
"No." Clark swallowed, trying frantically to think of a good story. "I'm, uh, sleeping at a friend's place. They think it's better if I don't go to the police just yet, too. That's why I'm here… I need to know more about the policeman and I thought you could help me…"
Now that he said it out loud it sounded silly to him. But Chloe just nodded seriously.
"Yeah, that's probably your best lead if you really want to find the murderer. Which you shouldn't, by the way, because you could get killed, and that means I shouldn't help you, but I'm gonna do that anyway, because who am I to talk about risk?" she grinned wryly. "Follow me into my lair."
Chloe's 'lair' was her room. Apart from her bed that was covered in a rainbow coloured quilt, it didn't look very much like a girl's bedroom. Not that Clark had ever been inside a girl's bedroom, but he had a telescope and a TV.
He wondered what had happened to the telescope in the fire.
His impression from the outside had been right. Every bit of wall was plastered with paper cuttings. The newest and biggest ones were about the Batman, the blurry image Clark had seen in the paper, and drawings, none of which looked very much like what Clark remembered.
The computer equipment Clark had seen with his x-ray vision looked even more impressive in reality. It looked almost futuristic to Clark.
"My Dad gets stuff from the company sometimes," Chloe remarked.
"You're really into computers, aren't you?"
"Computers," she said, turning around to Clark and spreading her arms wide to indicate the room, "are the secret of my success. You can find almost everything you're looking for with a computer. Except," she narrowed her eyes at the clippings, "the Batman, of course. He remains a mystery."
"Are you a hacker?" Clark asked dumbly.
She gave him a piercing look. "Sorta. You haven't got a problem with that, do you?"
Clark quickly shook his head. Even if he had had a problem with it, that look would have kept him from saying anything. She sat down in front of her computer. There was no other chair, just the bed and… well, a girl's bed. Clark couldn't just sit down on a girl's bed. So he remained standing.
Chloe started explaining. "I've tried to find out more about the cop myself. There are rumours that he was involved in some kind of corruption affair and he wasn't the only one. There's a Detective Samuel Phelan who seems to be part of it as well."
"A corruption affair? You mean the policeman was taking money from someone?"
"Yeah. Most likely from Morgan Edge, the biggest drug lord of Metropolis. The murderer could have been the guy who paid him and that must have been how they got into the argument. I'm going to try and find out more about this Phelan guy tomorrow, then I can tell you more. Until then, this is what I've got about the policeman."
She reached for her printer and pulled out a thick stack of paper, which she slid into an envelope and gave Clark. He took it and put it into his backpack.
"Maybe it's a good thing you haven't gone to the police so far," Chloe mused. "Who knows who else might be involved in the affair? If they think you saw or heard anything… are you sure you're safe at your… friend's?"
Clark nodded. As safe as he could get.
*
Morgan Edge studied the rocks Phelan had produced. Little green crystals, nothing remarkable.
"They're of alien origin, came with the meteor shower," Phelan explained. "Hamilton, the guy who sold them to me, says they've got all kinds of strange chemical properties, radiation and such – "
Edge dropped the rock and turned a furious eye on Phelan. "Radiation? You're saying the things are radioactive?"
"Harmless to humans!" Phelan assured him immediately, raising his hands as if to protect himself. The cop was a cowardly rat. Edge sneered at him.
"But not to the boy," Phelan went on, having regained his usual smoothness. "He can be harmed by them."
"You know, Sam," Edge said, loosening his tie a little, "I'm tired of your invincible-boy story. You botched a job. Clean up your mess. Make sure it doesn't happen again."
Cynthia, his secretary opened the door. "Mr Edge, Mr Luthor is here."
Edge sipped from his wine. "Let him in. You can go," he told Phelan. "And be grateful for the second chance. There won't be a third one."
Phelan paled and nodded. As he stepped outside, Luthor junior sidled into the room.
Lionel's boy was one of Edge's most important business partners. He had money, of course, and he had Lionel's brilliant mind, too. A pity that he had none of Lionel's drive, none of his ambition. Lionel had always lamented the boy's softness. And now that little Luthor was all grown up, it showed that along with his father's mind, he had also inherited Lionel's less commendable qualities – vanity and a tendency to whore around. Just look at that red hair, done pretty as a girl's and that foppish mauve shirt. Well, at least he had none of Lillian's silly morals.
Lex shook his hand. "Good to see you, Morgan."
Edge smiled genially and offered him a glass of wine. Lionel had preferred stronger liquor, but Lex was as indiscriminate in his drink as he was in lovers. He took it and glanced at the meteor rocks still spread out on the table.
"What have you got there?"
Edge waved the question away. "Just some rubbish Phelan dragged in to explain the mess he made."
Lex swirled the wine in his glass and picked up one of the rocks to hold it against the light. "Ah, yes, that. I read about it in the paper. I trust you'll take care of it?"
So careless. Morgan suppressed a sneer. "Don't worry about it, kid."
"So what have some pretty green rocks to do with two dead Kansas farmers?" Lex asked, sounding bored.
Edge grimaced. "Nothing, of course. Phelan says they're from Smallville. Meteor rocks. Ha! They're supposed to be able to hurt the boy – you know, the one we're still looking for."
Lex put down his wineglass and gave Edge a thin smile. "Interesting. Especially since I have the boy in my pocket, so to speak."
Edge perked up. Sometimes Lex could be unpredictable, and Edge didn't like it. He preferred his little pet Luthor by far. "What are you talking about?"
"He was walking the streets by the docks. I picked him up and took him home." That snake's smile again.
In his own way, Lex was a lot more depraved than Lionel, Edge thought. "Well, what are you waiting for?"
Lex leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs. He was still toying with the rock. "I want the boy. He won't go talking to the police, don't worry. Consider it a favour to me."
"Christ, Lex, do you have any idea what your father would say? Just because you can't keep it in your pants I'm supposed to risk my business?" Edge thundered.
The smile became colder by a few degrees. Lex held up the rock. "The boy won't go talking to the police because if Phelan's theory is correct – and I intend to test it with this little rock – then he won't leave my labs again. Does that satisfy you, Morgan?"
"You believe in Phelan's tale?"
Lex pocketed the rock. "Every word of it."
*
Clark hadn't planned to sleep in, but when he'd come back from his night's exploits it had been four in the morning and he wasn't used to setting an alarm – at home, either the noise of the animals or his Mom woke him up – so he forgot it.
Here in Lex's mansion it was always quiet, like in a tomb. He showered and since new clothes magically appeared, he put them on, not wanting to appear ungrateful. It was close to noon when he walked down the stairs in search for food. It was probably too late to meet Lex, he was a working man after all.
But Clark did find him, in a room adjacent to the study that was empty except for a suit of armour by the door and a couple of decorations along the wall – all weapons, from a large battle axe to sleek Japanese swords that looked as if they belonged in a samurai movie. There was a display of shuriken in all sizes and shapes, long wooden staffs, even a crossbow. The windows here weren't stained glass, but they were half-covered by dark burgundy drapes.
In the centre of the room, on thin mats, Lex was sparring with a tall Asian woman. They were both wearing loose uniforms of a dark material, tied with a belt at the waist, like something out of a kung fu movie. Clark watched in awe as they circled each other, sometimes launching into a quick flurry of blows and kicks. The woman had tied back her long black hair in a ponytail, Lex was wearing a bandana that was dark with sweat to hold back his hair. Both of them were utterly silent, breathing regularly, and their expressions were blank, almost serene.
She did something fast and terrifying with her arms and right leg and Lex was toppled to the ground where she pinned him for a second before rising and taking a step back. Lex got to his feet as well and they both bowed to each other. Clark realized that he had been holding his breath during their fight and slowly exhaled.
"Thank you, Woosan-sensei," Lex said. She merely nodded and turned around, walking past Clark without a glance at him.
Lex had already spotted Clark. The serene expression was gone, replaced by a sly, predatory smile. "Like what you see?"
"No, I'm just… you're really good," Clark blurted.
Lex raised his brows. He strolled past Clark. "I'm honoured by your expertly opinion, Clark," he mocked.
Clark flushed and turned around to follow Lex, only to see him reaching for one of those sleek Japanese swords.
"I meant it looked really impressive," Clark explained lamely.
Lex unsheathed the sword partly, displaying the silver blade to Clark. It looked really sharp. Really, really sharp, as if it was made to cut off heads. Lex studied it, then glanced up at Clark, the smile widening dangerously. "How about it? A little sparring between friends?"
And when had they become friends? Clark gulped. "I've never held a sword, Lex."
Lex sheathed the sword with a noise that made Clark flinch. He hung it back on the wall and sauntered on to the board of shuriken. "What a shame, Clark. How about a little throwing practice, then? You're pretty good at evading things, aren't you?"
Clark's eyes widened in alarm, but it was too late. Lex had spun around and thrown a tiny black star at him. Things slowed down for Clark, he saw it flying towards him, turning infinitely slow in the air, and he knew he could evade it with just a step, but he didn't. Lex was staring straight at him.
The shuriken whizzed past Clark's ear and impaled in the wall some feet behind him. Clark turned around to stare at it, then at Lex, who merely looked amused.
"Just a joke, Clark, relax." He bent down to retrieve a white towel from his bag and took off the bandana to mop his face, then slung it around his neck and untied his belt. Clark got a glimpse of a pale, muscled chest and a long scar running across a slender abdomen before he realized that Lex wasn't wearing anything beneath the robe and turned away with burning cheeks.
"Was the lady who left your girlfriend?" he asked to fill the embarrassing silence.
A startled laugh sounded from Lex's direction. "My - ? No, she's my teacher."
"Teacher? Oh. She's a martial arts teacher?"
There was the slithering sound of cloth on skin, and then a soft footfall. Clark couldn't help but turn around nervously, but thankfully Lex was already dressed in dark sweatpants and a loose grey shirt. They looked a lot better on him than sweatpants should look on people. He flung the towel onto his bag and walked past Clark to the door.
"No, she's an assassin."
"An assassin?" Clark yelped as he followed Lex. "You're joking again, right?"
Lex turned around on the stairs to gaze up at Clark with an even expression. "I'm perfectly serious."
Clark blinked. He still wasn't sure if he was supposed to believe Lex. And if it was true – an assassin! What kind of person had an assassin as their martial arts teacher?
"Have you had breakfast?" Lex inquired as they walked into the study. A servant was waiting at the door, and when Clark said, "No," the man left without Lex having to give an order.
Lex walked over to his glass desk and flipped open the notebook on it to check something, then closed it again to walk over to the couch. "Have a seat, Clark."
There was a vase without flowers on the black coffee table, and next to it some metal tablet with strange signs on it like Clark had never seen them before. For some reason, they exuded a strange fascination on him. He almost felt compelled to pick it up as he sat down opposite Lex, turning it this and that way. It didn't look as if it served any purpose, and it wasn't exactly decorative, either.
He caught Lex watching him and smiled shyly. "What's this?"
Lex glanced down at the tablet, then at Clark again. "Nothing. Just some knick-knack I picked up on my travels."
A young woman brought in a tray with coffee and breakfast on it and put it down between them. Clark watched her leave as quietly as she had entered.
"Doesn't it feel weird to have servants?"
Lex poured himself a coffee. "Not when you have had them all your life. It gets a little difficult when you get close to some of them – in some ways they're family, but they're still employees. After my mother's death, I was raised by my nanny. Pamela was the closest thing I had to family."
Clark noticed the use of the past tense. "Where is she now?"
Lex glanced up, brows raised. "Well, I don't need a nanny anymore, Clark. She left when I offered to pay her."
"Oh." Clark felt out of his depth, which was quickly becoming his normal state of mind around Lex Luthor.
There were croissants and butter and jam on the tray, but Lex was only having fruit salad and coffee. After a few bites, he got up and walked over to the shelves lining the wall next to his desk and picked up a small box. He returned to the couch and sat down again, offering the box to Clark. It was heavy, made of lead and looked very old.
"Pamela gave me this when she left," Lex explained. "She said my mother bought it in Morocco and gave it to her as a gift. It's supposed to be made from the armour of Saint George."
"Cool," Clark said, unable to come up with anything smarter. He opened the box and immediately dropped it in his lap. The meteor rock inside fell out of it. Clark bit his teeth, swallowing a groan, but he couldn't help squeezing his eyes shut and squirming. Only a thin layer of fabric separated him from the rock that turned his blood to burning poison.
Lex rose to his feet, rounding the coffee table. "Clark. Are you alright?" he asked calmly.
Clark pried open his eyes. He could hardly hold himself on the couch, he was sliding further down the leather, his head thrown back against the backrest and his knees shivering. "Please," he gasped.
Lex picked up the box and put it on the table carefully, then let his eyes rove over Clark's still writhing body. He laid his hand on the rock that had fallen onto the couch between Clark's legs and after a moment, took it away, putting it back into it's box. With his back to Clark he asked, "Do you need a doctor?"
Still panting, Clark quickly recovered from the pain and sickness, but the fear lingered. Why did Lex have a meteor rock? And what was that look in his eyes before he took it away?
"N-no," he stammered. "Just… a cramp. Sorry."
"Ah," Lex said. He returned the box to its place on the shelf. "Well, I have work to do. You're free to entertain yourself in the castle – everything that's mine is yours."
*
Shaken from the morning's events, Clark returned to his room. He didn't know what to make of Lex. He seemed nice at first, kind and generous, but there was a powerful undercurrent of danger in everything that he did. And yet Clark couldn't help but feel drawn to his every word and gesture. He had never met anyone like him.
He tried to distract himself by pulling the folder Chloe had given him out of his backpack. She'd printed out a lot of articles about the murder and what looked like the police report on the case. Then there was the dead policeman's file and some other data she had gathered on him. The statement his partner had given was there, as well as a lot of stuff Clark only skimmed through, like his school records.
And then there was Sam Phelan's file.
Clark dropped the papers. The sheets fluttered through the room, settling on the floor and the bed. Phelan's face smirked up at him from the purple covers.
Clark took a step back, a scream on his lips that didn't find its way out, and the echoes of gunshots ringing in his ears.
Phelan was the killer.
His face, as he pointed his gun at Clark and pulled the trigger, shot after shot, the bullets hitting Clark's chest like hail. The blood, warm on his fingers as he cradled his mother's body.
It took long moments of harsh breathing and clenching his hands so tight that coals would have become diamonds in his palms to calm down enough so he could move towards the bed again and pick up Phelan's file and find out which district he worked on.
Then Clark picked up his backpack and ran, not caring that it was in the middle of the day.
*
It took hours to find Phelan, and then it was almost accidental, as he walked towards his car in front of the police station in the seventh district. Clark was on the other side of a busy road, pedestrians all around him, and by now he was calm enough not to throw all caution into the wind and just jump over the roofs of the cars and tear open Phelan's car like a can of sardines and pull him out and –
He was calm. Calm and collected, like Lex and his assassin teacher in the ring. He would move in on Phelan slowly and then he'd be deadly.
Clark knew how he'd do it. With his heat vision, the power that had arisen from his body after the murder, like a weapon handed to him by destiny.
He followed Phelan's car, zipping from street corner to street corner, ignored by the incessant stream of people. On swift feet, contemplating revenge, reality became streamlined for Clark, pin-pointed towards his quarry, filtering out everything else.
Phelan's car left the busy road and drove down towards the docks. Clark followed it on the road beside the river, blind to the blue sky and the bridge sweeping across the water ahead of them, blind to the tourist boats and the breathtaking skyline on the other side of the river.
The car parked in front of a warehouse, between huge containers unloaded there by the ships in the harbour. The place was deserted, even in full daylight, and littered with human waste – plastic bags fluttering in the slight breeze, soda cans and food wrappers, like wrecks washed onto a shore of concrete. Phelan got out of his car and slammed the door shut.
Now. Now Clark would strike.
Phelan turned around, hasty and nervous, and stopped still as he saw Clark standing between the container towers.
When he reached inside his jacket, Clark unfroze. He zipped over to the man and seized him by the collar, slamming him down onto the hood of his car and then shaking him and slamming him down again for good measure. Phelan screamed and Clark thought he heard a crack of bone, maybe a rib, and god, he wanted it to be more than that, wanted it to be the man's spine –
"You killed my parents!" he yelled and realized that he was crying, hot tears running down his cheeks, salt in his mouth, his voice breaking. "You killed them!"
Phelan stared at him, eyes wide with terror, but Clark felt only pain, blinding, searing pain, and he needed to stop it, needed to -
Pain. Like a punch in the gut. No, a real punch. Clark staggered backwards, his stomach heaving and saw Phelan straighten with a wince. The man flexed his arm, smacked his lips, and by the time Clark didn't feel like he was going to throw up anymore, Phelan moved towards him and landed a blow against his chin that made Clark stumble and fall.
Phelan circled him. "Gotcha, you little freak." He dropped something on Clark's chest – no, please, no, not again, not another rock. He thrashed, but the strength went out of him like water out of a broken cup, and then all Clark could do was try to breathe, shallow rattling gasps as his body trembled and withered.
"So Mr Ross's secret formula does work," Phelan's voice rang out from above him, distant and distorted. "I was starting to wonder, you know, what with you being impervious to bullets and all – oh, Edge is gonna love this."
Clark's wrists were seized and something hard snapped shut around them – handcuffs – but Clark couldn't even try to resist. His body didn't feel alive anymore. He moaned weakly as Phelan grabbed his hair and yanked him up to tie something around his neck that made the pain even worse. Then he slumped back down, his head hitting the pavement hard. Phelan stuffed the chunk of meteor rock on Clark's chest into the back-pocket of Clark's pants for good measure and dragged him over to his car. Clark's cheek scraped against the concrete, but the burn was almost welcome compared to the slow icy rotting of his flesh.
With a curse, Phelan lifted Clark into the trunk and slammed the lid shut.
*
The car ride was endless to Clark, but like it had been with the scarecrowing, he got used to the pain after a while, his mind so dull that it almost didn't matter anymore that he'd failed again, that he'd die and Phelan would still be alive.
After a long time he noticed that the car wasn't driving anymore. Then he slipped into darkness, only to emerge from it at the stab of daylight hitting his face.
He squinted against it, then slowly adjusted.
Phelan was looking down on him, and next to him a heavy-built man in a suit with light hair.
And next to the stranger, Lex Luthor, wearing an expression of cool interest.
"All I see is a kid in cuffs," the stranger said gruffly.
"Trust me, he's a lot more than that," Phelan said. "We could make millions with this kid."
"Or you could earn yourself a favour from LuthorCorp," Lex said smoothly. "A big one."
Phelan glared at Lex, but the third man smiled a wolfish smile. "If he's worth that, Lex, then it would be stupid to sell him to you, wouldn't it? Let's make a deal. The boy's mine, but you can play with him anytime you want. If there are profits, we share them."
Clark's vision kept fluttering in and out, like a hummingbird. In one moment Lex was looking at him, in the next he shook the stranger's hand. They moved out of Clark's field of vision and two large men in suits heaved him out of the truck and onto a stretcher like a piece of meat.
*
There was another long drive, and then an endless succession of neon-lit ceilings above Clark as the stretcher was pushed through a building. He ended up in a large room with metal walls and glass cabinets full of medical looking things, and a row of desks that only vaguely reminded him of the chemistry lab in highschool. As they rolled him off the stretcher and onto a cold metal table, Clark got a glimpse of the white-tiled floor.
They undid his cuffs and cuffed him to the table instead, crudely, not like in a horror movie at all, where there would have been gleaming metal bonds tying Clark to the table at his hands and feet, and blinding lights glaring into his face. In this room it was mostly dark and quiet except for the flickering emergency light above the door and the humming of a large freezer after the men left.
Clark was dizzy. His tongue felt shrivelled and dry, his palate like a piece of parchment, his chest rattled with each breath. After some time, he curled around as far as the cuffs allowed him and heaved. It felt like his body was rejecting his intestines and trying to get rid of them by throwing up, but what came was breakfast and then just bitter saliva. This was what the tiled floor was for, Clark thought, all the better to clean up when it got dirty…
He jerked awake when the lights went on in the room, one by one, and the door opened.
Two men in black suits and ties entered, positioning themselves by the door, and then Lex Luthor slunk into the room, lithe compared to their bulk, like a snake in high grass.
He went straight to Clark. The door fell shut.
Lex stopped at a few feet distance. His pale was devoid of any emotion save a faint distaste.
Then he turned his back on Clark and walked over to one of the cabinets to retrieve what looked like a tissue box and pull out a pair of thin white plastic gloves that he snapped on with a practised move.
Clark jerked unwillingly against the cuffs as Lex returned, trying to get away from him. What was going to happen? Was Luthor going to cut him open like a corpse? The silence was chilling Clark, making him shiver.
But Lex had no scalpel, no knife. He started patting down Clark's shirt instead, then moved to his pants, sliding one of his hands under the small of his back to lift him up. When he felt the bulk of the meteor rock in Clark's back pocket, he reached inside and pulled it out, putting it on a metal tray. As he moved it away from Clark, it stopped glowing and pulsing and merely became a green rock.
He studied Clark. "Can you talk?"
The tiniest spark of hope surfaced in Clark's chest. Maybe Lex would help him. He tried to plead, but only a sandpaper dry moan came out of his mouth. Lex moved away again, and returned with a glass of water. The hope grew a little stronger. The latex of the gloves felt odd on his neck as Lex supported his head and held the glass to Clark's chapped lips, tipping it a little. A drop of water ran over Clark's tongue – and then Lex pulled the glass away.
"You came with the meteor shower, didn't you?" Lex asked.
Clark's head spun. He'd trusted this man –
"I think I haven't told you yet how my father was killed. He was struck by a meteor during the meteor shower in Smallville."
Clark winced, and he tried to pull away from the hand on his face, but he didn't have the strength. Fear, cold and ugly, renewed itself inside him. Lex was a madman. For some reason, he blamed Clark for the meteors and for his father's death.
You came with the meteors, didn't you…
Not on the same day. With the meteors. As if Clark were had fallen from the sky like…
The adoption papers. That was why Clark's adoption papers had to be faked –
"No," Clark groaned. "No."
It wasn't true. It couldn't be. Clark looked human. His parents had never said anything.
"Phelan says you can't be killed by bullets. What else can you do?"
Clark squeezed his eyes shut. He shook his head.
"You could make this so easy for yourself," Lex said softly, leaning in close. "Just tell me the truth. Otherwise I'll have to find out myself…"
A dry sob wrenched itself out of Clark's throat. "No."
Continued Here
no subject
Date: 2007-03-23 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-23 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-18 08:43 am (UTC)I was ready to believe, like clark, thinking the worst of Lex, and that he sided up with phelan!