Thank GOD for that! Smallville would have been an enirely different show!Originally Posted by BlueSabby
Now to more serious matter- Chloe said to forget it? hmmm,......
this needs a quick update!
Thank GOD for that! Smallville would have been an enirely different show!
Now to more serious matter- Chloe said to forget it? hmmm,......
this needs a quick update!
i loved the flashback scene. The visual you created on the piano lovely. I like that Clark/Chloe lex are friends. Lana well ok she can be ok in a supportive friend kinda way LOL looking foward to much more. Maybe Chloe needs to start getting over her heartbreak by dating say someone like Oliver Queen to get Lex to realize his sexual feelings. Just a thought. Dagney
A/N: Blue: More yelling...and a few admissions.
A/N: Sabby: More stuff gets revealed and things get sorted out...kinda. Enjoy! We still do crave that feedbacky goodness.
During Clark’s rant, Lex had only once tried to interrupt. Seeing his outraged reaction to the Cliff’s notes, he wondered how Clark would have reacted if he’d heard the full version. Clark had also effectively cut off his first protest and Lex felt cornered. So he lashed out.
“Of course not. You’re an oaf, not exactly my type and you wear flannel. Plaid flannel.”
Using the moment that Clark was too busy gawping and trying to figure out what Lex’s answer meant, beyond the insult, Lex soldiered on.
“Never mind that you’re totally not one to talk. I know for a fact you kissed her, too, without being in love with her. So you can get right off that high horse you’re riding on.”
Clark was a little distracted by the slamming and huffing that Enrique was partaking in at the moment.
His employer was being very difficult indeed. The man was acting a fool, something that was very out of character for him. Enrique ‘closed’ one of the doors on the cabinet and then looked up. To find his eyes locked with Mr. Luthor’s.
“I wonder, sir,” he said, “If Mr. Kent’s hand has ended up where yours was.” Perhaps Mr. Luthor claimed to not remember anything but Enrique clearly remembered just how high up the limb was on Ms. Sullivan’s body.
Enrique didn’t bother to look at Mr. Kent. His employer was livid. “Enrique, one more word and you're fired.”
“I was drunk, she was drunk, it was my birthday.” His employer used that as an excuse again.
The decision made, Enrique threw down a napkin and spoke. “Ass. There's a word.”
Clark watched as Lex turned around a little and then closed his eyes. He turned back to Enrique. “You're fired.”
“Well,” Enrique said as he buttoned up his vest, “at least I'm not a fool. Good day sir. Mr. Kent.” He nodded at the boy before leaving the room.
Clark’s jaw was practically on the floor. He couldn’t believe what he’d just seen. He tried to process what he and Lex had been discussing before Enrique sabotaged his career.
He cleared his throat. “You’re right about one thing.” Lex seemed a little distracted but that brought him back to the conversation. “She was my best friend and I kissed her. Numerous times.” He paused. “She do that thing with her tongue with you?”
The exclamation of his name was out of Lex’s throat before Clark even finished his sentence.
“I was just curious,” Clark said. He looked down at the table and rubbed at a scuff on the top of it. “Guess you didn’t have sex with her though, eh?”
Lex couldn’t believe what had just happened. His butler had pushed him so far that he had to actually fire the man for his insolence. He’d lost his best employee and now Clark was sitting there talking about kissing Chloe and if that wasn’t bad enough, about fucking her. The girl had had enough trouble getting over the farmboy and the whole damn thing between them and now this and Lex was going to lose his mind.
“You fucked her?” His eyes narrowed as he looked at the farmboy. “You’re fired, too.”
Clark’s gaze shifted from his face to the floor, discomfort written all over it. Lex knew he’d hit a spot.
The younger man’s tone had changed from his righteous ranting right into the hesitant ‘I’m going to lie to your face any minute now’ tone he used when someone brought up his mistakes or idiosyncrasies. He mumbled something about drunk and not counting and only once and Lex’s blood pressure was going to go through the roof if he got any angrier. Clark’s next words almost sufficed to do the trick. “I don’t think we should be talking about this.”
“Oh really.” His voice was on the edge of wavering from the effort not to shout. “Right, of course,” he snapped. “When I fuck up, everyone is on my goddamn heels brandishing the pitchforks and torches, but when you fuck up, we shouldn’t be talking about this.”
Lex sneered in disgust, fed up with this entire situation and the fact that he had to explain his actions to someone who had absolutely no right to judge.
“And that is exactly why we’re not friends anymore,” he accused Clark as he sat up straighter on the couch, letting off some of the steam that had been building for years now. “This fucking hypocrisy and double standard bullshit that you’ve been pulling on me since the first time you couldn’t explain your actions without lying.” Lex remembered that day well. You didn’t forget the days where someone held a gun to your head and then caused you to dangle over an abyss of about a hundred feet. “And I know it’s all about your stupid fucking secret. Which by the way, I’ve almost got figured out anyway.”
Lex had mulled over it long enough to narrow it down to three options. Of course he’d like to know which of them it was, but he was pretty sure it could only be three things. Alien, meta-human or meteor mutant. Whichever it was, he had no idea why it justified lying into the face of someone you called friend.
In any case, he was done letting the farmboy give him a guilty conscience and waited for Clark to see what he had to say for himself for a change.
The gloves were off now. And Clark, amazingly, felt great about it. There was so much shit between him and Lex at the moment, both stuff that only had to do with them and things that Chloe was entangled with that it felt good to just scream at Lex. Like he’d been doing to Clark.
“Stupid secret,” he yelled, finally letting himself go, “Stupid secret? Ok. I'm an alien, happy now?” He saw Lex recoil just slightly as he yelled that piece of information at Lex. “At least I don't go around kissing my best friends and then pretending that it doesn't mean anything.”
Clark paused. “Anymore, I don't do that anymore.”
“And no, Ok, I didn’t fuck Chloe.” Now he saw Lex relax slightly. “I was just trying to prove something to you.”
Lex was still glaring at Clark, but his posture wasn’t quite as stiff anymore. Which had to do both with the fact that Clark wasn’t screaming anymore, and the fact that he’d admitted he hadn’t really fucked Chloe. And the alien bit finally being out in the open helped a little as well.
“You know, that alien business would be so cool if I wasn’t busy hating you right now,” he admitted grudgingly.
His geekish side would love to lay in on Clark with all kinds of questions and possibly a few amusing tests and experiments, but he really was too busy being angry for that fucking stunt and Clark’s hypocrisy.
“What the hell were you trying to prove with telling me that you fucked Chloe when she had a hard enough time getting over you in the first place? That you’re a hypocrite asshole from outer space? Congratulations, it worked.”
This whole discussion was rapidly becoming pointless if he had to keep repeating himself on the other matter. “And just because I kissed her, and liked it, doesn’t mean I have to be in love with her or that it means something. It was an accident and a mistake.”
“Thanks, I'll show you my heat vision later,” Clark said sarcastically. Part of him knew that he wouldn’t get anywhere with Lex. He was almost as hard headed as Chloe was. Which made things incredibly frustrating.
“Riiight. The fact that you kissed her means nothing. The fact that you looked ready to come across the table at me when I led you to believe I fucked her?” Clark shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sure that means nothing, too. Your reactions to her, both now and in the past, tell me all that I need to know, Lex, even if you’re not ready to admit it.”
Lex was actually getting red. Clark could see the small pinpoints of color start on his cheeks. “How do I react,” he asked, tightly.
Well, far be it from Clark to lie to Lex. Again.
“Like the thought of hurting her devastates you.” It was the most obvious. Then there was, “how you even fucking look at her.” It had always unsettled him. The intensity that Lex leveled in her direction. Chloe shrugged it off. It was just the way Lex was, she explained.
“Well of course I don’t want her to be hurt,” Lex defended himself. Devastated really was an exaggeration in his opinion. He didn’t do devastated. He did do pissed and offended, though. “And I don’t fucking look at her.” The way Clark had put emphasis on the word, he could only imagine what the farmboy associated with it.
He didn’t look at Chloe any differently than he did any of his other friends. He was sure he didn’t. So he looked her in the eyes and actually cared enough to show interest when she said something, whatever it was she happened to say. So what. That’s what one did with friends.
“She’s my best friend.” The statement came out with more conviction than anything else he’d said so far. “I care for her and of course I’d be ready to fucking strangle you if I thought you’d hurt her anymore than you already did. Not that I think strangling you would actually do any good.”
Clark leaned forward a little. “First off, yes, strangling me would do nothing but piss you off even more. You can also cross beating me to death, shooting me, dropping an anvil on my head, poisoning me with arsenic, stabbing me and setting me on fire off of your list. None would work.”
He sat back in his chair. “And you’re right about something else. You don’t look at her.” Clark cocked his head to the side, considering what a better word would be. “You gaze at her,” he said, nodding. “That’s a much better description of it.”
Now that he was talking, Clark realized the truth of his words. Lex might just have feelings for Chloe that he wasn’t aware of.
Lex’s words came out precise and tight. “I do not gaze at her.”
It made Clark grin.
“I’m lousy at dating,” Lex practically blurted out. “She’d hate me in a week flat and then where would I be?”
Oh, this was progress.
“So you now admit that you’ve thought about dating her? A woman who you claim to have only friendly feelings about?” Hanging around Chloe must have rubbed off on Clark. He felt like he was channeling her with all of the questions.
Lex felt like he was on trial and the goddamn opponent attorney had just fucked him over on a minor slip. There was only one thing left to do. Spin control.
“Of course I thought about dating her. She’s hot, smart, funny,” Lex rattled off her best attributes then turned the sword around. “You thought about dating her, too, and you were disgustingly in love with Lana all the while.”
That had been a while back, granted, and during the time Clark had played the on again off again game until Lana had exploded like a light bulb, but that didn’t mean it didn’t count.
“Why the hell can’t you just let this go, Clark? I’m not going to turn around, have a sudden epiphany and declare my undying love for Chloe, because this isn’t television and it’s just not the case.”
He liked Chloe, yes. She was his best friend and he wanted to have her in his life to snark and smile and help him through the worse days and share the good ones. However, that did not mean he was in love with her. Lex wasn’t in love with anyone. He’d bloody well know if he was in love with someone, wouldn’t he?
“When you start comparing yourself to me I think we can both agree that you are in a world of trouble.” Clark was able not to grin like an idiot. He saw that Lex was trying to figure something out on his own and he didn’t want to diminish that by making another jackassy comment.
Instead of laughing, he got a little more serious. “Lex, I do love Chloe and that’s why I am doing this. If you don’t love her, if you truly don’t,” he said, locking eyes with him, “that’s fine. She will get over you with enough time.”
Clark knew it was true. Yes, she would always feel something for Lex but it would fade. It just might take years instead of weeks.
“But,” he said, “If you’re not sure. If you doubt how you feel. You owe her at least a day of thinking that over. You owe her a whole lot more for saving you from that marriage. But I think she’d take a few hours of you thinking about what it is that you want from her.”
Lex often used people’s own words against them. It was his most annoying trait. “You admit that you care for her, don’t want to see her hurt, find her attractive and you say that she’s your best friend. What else do you need?”
His mind was working overtime now. “You’ve obviously thought about this already. You’ve come to this conclusion yourself and then gone in the opposite direction, I’d wager.” He had started dating Andrea rather abruptly. “Maybe right before you got involved with Andrea?”
Lex jerked slightly and his face changed. Clark didn’t know what it meant but it wasn’t important. He got to his feet. “I think I’ve said more than my fair share for the night. For the rest of the year maybe.”
He looked over at the cake. “I’ll call someone and have them come and get this.”
Clark walked through the doors and then popped his head back in. “We can talk about the fact that I can fly tomorrow. Night, Lex.”
Lex was too dumbstruck for a moment to say anything in return. Clark had just announced he’d be stealing his cake and offhandedly mentioned he could fly. And even worse he’d made Lex think.
“I really strongly dislike you right now, Clark Kent!” he yelled out into the hallway as soon as he was capable of forming a coherent sentence. “Fucking alien.”
And there was no way Clark was right about this. Lex didn’t believe in fairy tales or cinematographic conceptions of love, but surely he’d know it if he was in love with someone. He’d have to pick apart the pieces and see how they fit together because now he was dead set on disproving Clark’s theory.
Lex picked up his plate, added another piece of cake and settled down to think.
~~
Clark laughed as he heard Lex yelling after him. He felt good. He felt like Lex and Chloe might actually have a chance.
He opened the door of Luthor Manor and his smile slid off his face. Even though her back was to him, Clark knew it was Chloe in front of him.
“Chloe,” he said, softly. She jumped a little and then turned around. “Hi.” Her voice sounded soft and she looked very small.
“Clark,” she said, “do not look at me like that or you may find your crotch on the business end of my knee.”
“Got it,” he said. “He’s in the dining room.” He bent over and kissed her on the cheek before pulling her into a hug.
“Clark,” she said, and he heard the warning tone in her voice.
“I’m leaving,” he said, and then did so.
Chloe walked into the house and hung up her jacket. Strange that Enrique hadn’t come out to meet her once he heard that there was a new guest.
She was totally embarrassed about the way she’d acted. She toed off her shoes and then walked to the dining room.
Lex sat at the table, hunched over a piece of cake. She approached him silently. “It’s delicious,” she said.
His head jerked up from his contemplations at the sound of her voice and he couldn’t deny the double beat his heart had done there for a second.
Remembering the reason she’d run out earlier, which again he only knew thanks to Clark, Lex was out of his chair in a second, meeting her halfway. “I was an ass,” he apologized, wondering how he could fix this. “But I didn’t mean it.”
He looked her over carefully, trying to judge how bad he’d messed up. His jaw clenched involuntarily at the sight of her slightly red eyes. She’d obviously been crying. “You didn’t drive the whole time, did you?” It was a stupid thing to worry about when she was obviously in one piece in front of him but the question was out of his mouth before it had checked in with his brain for logic.
“Lex, you have to stop…”
Chloe couldn’t quite say what she meant. The obvious concern and worry and apologetic stance made her chest tight. It made her want him all the more.
She wasn’t sure that she could do this. Any of it.
She couldn’t tell him to stop caring about her but she couldn’t get him to care about her more.
After taking a shaky breath, she started again. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know. I know that you didn’t know. And I didn’t exactly handle it in the best way.”
That’s what she’d been kicking herself about. She hadn’t calmly explained to Lex what he’d done wrong and told him to stop. Nope, she’d just turned tail and run.
She had a sinking feeling that that would happen more often than not for a while. The question that he’d posed to her, if she could really continue seeing him as his friend, came back to her.
Things between them had been better and then they’d just gotten even murkier.
When she looked up at him she could see how unsettled he was. It couldn’t just be about the cake thing, could it? Did he think that she wouldn’t come back? No, she knew that this couldn’t be all about her running off.
“Lex, what’s wrong?” She stared up at him, seeing if she could get anything from his face.
‘Uh oh’. Lex tried to smooth out his expression. There was no way he could tell her what Clark and he had been talking about without upsetting her. And the last thing he wanted was for her to run straight back out that door again.
“I think I had too much cake.” It was a lie, but a convincing one, considering he’d polished off almost the entire ground tier of the enormous thing.
He wished he could tell her about Enrique. It would be an even more convincing reason for him to be this unsettled, but there was no way he could explain about Enrique because of the reason he’d had to fire the man.
Lex sank back into his seat and looked up at her, trying to figure out what else to do or say. Clark’s advice was still muddling around in his brain and he hadn’t had time to properly think about anything before she’d popped up in front of him. But now that she was here, he didn’t want her to go. He wanted to put things to rights.
“No sugar high for me, though.” Maybe this would have been easier to deal with then.
Chloe thought he was holding something back. But she wouldn’t push him. Maybe it was something that she didn’t want or need to hear. She pulled up a chair and looked at the cake.
“You ate that by yourself,” she asked incredulously.
Lex was not an indulger. She could have eaten all of that and it would have been in character. But for him to have done that… “Your stomach must not be very happy with you.” Before she thought about it, her hand had been placed on the aforementioned body part. She gave it a pat.
After pulling her hand back, she leaned back in her chair and said, “Lex, I’m not so sure this is going to work.”
It was her worst fear but it was something she had to vocalize.
“I don’t know if I’m equipped to deal with this. Again.” She had to tell him this. Had to explain. “I can’t guarantee that I’m not going to run out on you like I did tonight every time things get rough. I don’t think that it’s fair for you to have to deal with that.”
She snuck a glance over at him. “You shouldn’t have to apologize every time I have a little breakdown. So, I think that…”
“No.”
The word came out firm and decisive before she could even finish that horrible sentence. She was not going to break up with him over this. “I’ll try to be better at this. And if you have to run off every once in a while I can live with that. It’s not your fault that this happened and I know you have that instinct to run off when it gets too much. That’s okay.” But only if she came back again. It was not okay, however, to break things off and just leave and not come back.
Of course he’d seen this coming. He’d known their friendship didn’t have a chance after she’d confessed her feelings for him. But now that the moment was here, Lex wasn’t willing to give up without a fight. There had to be a way to keep their friendship. He’d try his damnest not to trigger any uncomfortable shit and she could run off whenever he accidentally did. But he was not willing to let her go.
The one word he’d spoken at first was all she needed. Lex may not love her but he wasn’t about to give up on her. The vehemence and emotion in his voice told her that. It also made her tear up a little.
“OK, Lex,” she said.
They needed a subject change. It didn’t matter that it would be totally forced. Anything was better than this. “So,” she said, “what are you wearing to the party?” It was totally and utterly lame. Possibly the lamest thing that she could say. Which was why she was going with it.
It got a small smile out of Lex and her hand crept over to steal the plate of cake that he hadn’t yet finished. She listened as he explained the intricacies of a tuxedo. That reminded Chloe. She needed a dress.
Lex was relieved that she’d agreed with his decision. He didn’t delude himself into thinking all was right and that things would be like they used to be, but the important thing was that she hadn’t insisted on leaving him. She would try and keep this friendship alive and there was nothing that was more important than that.
Re: The Tipping Point (R)
argH@ oh my god...
both of them need to be hit with anvils!!
obviously its not going to keep working if they keep not addressing the issues... and as much as lex is continually dependent on knowing that chloe comes back, maybe it
might be a GOOD thing, if she left for a while...
and then lex can eat his heart out with his emotions for chloe.... cause well, poor chloe tends to be doing that the most...
absolutely LOVED the angst... argh...its frustrating, but brings on only those good heart aches.. where (goddarnit there BETTER be a brighter ending!)
its the only thing keeping me at least a little bit above the emotional ride that we are reading about... (or else, the drama would just about kill me)...
ok, enough of my melodrama... PLEASE UPDATE when you can... the waits,
yes are worth it....
please remember we're dyiiiing here waiting
p.s LOVED clark and lex's confrontation about clark's alieness.... funny and
tragic at the same time...
Last edited by jem; 7th June 2007 at 22:53. Reason: wanted to say more..
i do so like green eggs and ham
i do so like them...sam i am
–Dr Seuss “Green Eggs And Ham”--
Excellent chapter. I think Chloe really needs to leave Lex so he can get an idea of what his life would be without her. More please.
Hanging around Chloe must have rubbed off on Clark. He felt like he was channeling her with all of the questions.
Brilliant, Brilliant chapter!
i'm with you on that one lj....
*hugs* Chloe, I know first hand how she feels... Loving someone who doesn't love you back sucks monkey balls, and it hurts alot too...
CC
"I am scared that I'm always going to be somebody's friend or sister or confidant, but never quite somebody's everything."
Hugs to Enrique, Clark, and of course the two of you. I don't think anything short of Lex admitting his feelings for Chloe are going to get Enrique working for him again.
I loved that Clark interspersed the details of his powers with telling Lex that he needs to examine his feelings for Chloe. Absolutely brilliant and now that is all out in the open. I loved how Lex took it too with his inner geek wanting to shine through. Pure genius trapping Lex into exposing his need to protect Chloe and his desire to date her.
It's great that Lex doesn't want to lose Chloe and will do anything to keep her, but why do I get the feeling that it's going to go downhill even more before it gets better. I think Chloe will be avoiding wearing white to the party, but I hope Lex is smart enough not to suggest it. But he is on a roll, so he's probably not.
is that a slip of the...mind? breaking up is such is such a couply term!
sneaky, sneaky clark, can't believe that clark actually lied about sleeping with chloe. and he finally told lex the truth about his origins, never imagined that he would tell lex that way but it was truly hilarious! the way he just blurted it out and i especially loved lex' reaction. their friendship(?) simply funny
and lex fired enrique! he better hire him back! chloe already noticed his absence. have i already said how much i loved enrique? he doesn't back down, not even to lex! that was just awesome.
i'm glad that clark somehow managed to break through lex...somewhat. i love the fact that chloe came back, despite the heartache she was still brave enough to come back! that girl is just awesome! more soon please!!!!!!
Great story I am loving the angst. The Clark and Lex relationship is fun too, I like how Clark is for once playing Lex at his own game and getting him to admit stuff that he would rather just ignore. But firing Enrique ouch that was harshLex needs him he is his only employee to stand up to him. My heart is breaking for Chloe and what she must be feeling but I am sure it won't be too long before Chloe is getting on with it and Lex is the one pining!!
PPMS.
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