trying to decide how to move forward with my smallville clex 4x01 rewrite fic “leave me empty, leave me whole”
if you’ve been reading, please see the descriptions of the options below and let me know what you would prefer i do 💜
split the next chapter into 2 chapters
don’t split the chapter
Voting ended onJul 14
split chapter 6 (what was meant to be the final chapter) into two chapters - the first of which would be posted hopefully in the next few days and be about 13k words, but it would cut off a little abruptly, since i would be forced to break up the scene; i would then still need to finish chapter 7 and have no idea how long that will take, but there would be another chapter in the meantime
don’t split chapter 6 - keep writing this never ending scene/chapter/fic until its conclusion and then post it all at once whenever it’s done so it is one cohesive (and massive) scene as intended
not sure anyone cares this much but i can’t decide so i would definitely like some input if anyone has an opinion 😅
if you haven’t read it yet and are interested, you can check out the fic here
Chapter Five of Scars Are Souvenirs You Never Lose is up :))
Come read, we got what you need (angst, mutual pining, + would it even be a fic I wrote if canonical voyeur Clark wasn't staring at Lex through his windows?)
Summary: After the events of Reckoning, Lana doesn't go to see Lex – Clark does. And he finds him with his finger on the trigger of his father's pistol, aimed directly at his own heart.
“If you keep touching me like that, I won’t be able to stop.”
Sorry this took so long! It took me a while to figure out when I wanted to set it and what the circumstances might look like and then it definitely got a little out of control. It's set in early season 4 and clocks in at almost 3k words. Enjoy a bit of fluff and almost smut!
From this prompt list
He didn’t mean for things to get this far.
That goes for a lot of things lately, so much of Clark’s life seems to be beyond his control but this—this has gotten out of hand.
Or rather—things are too far in hand. Specifically, Clark’s hands on Lex’s waist, pressing him up against one of the support beams in the barn. They haven’t even done anything yet, nothing that can’t be hastily taken back and then ignored but Clark looks into the broken open shock and wonder on Lex’s face and is immediately frozen to the spot. He can’t turn his back on him, not now that he knows he could have this.
Clark didn’t mean for any of this to happen. He didn’t invite Lex over. He didn’t invite Lex to stay when he said they needed to talk—well, okay, not entirely true but how was Clark to know that Lex would actually take him up on the offer to stay and help him finish his chores faster if he really needed to speak with him so badly?
Instead of coming back later or storming off in a huff, Lex stripped down to his shirtsleeves and picked up a rake and suddenly the chores that should have taken Clark a few minutes threatened to occupy his entire afternoon. Clark isn’t sure if his parents being out of town is lucky or unlucky in this instance. On the one hand, he doesn’t have to worry about the tense looks they give each other or the stilted conversation they are just barely capable of when the topic of Lex comes up. On the other, there is no one to interrupt them any time soon. Lex probably knew all of that when he decided to come over.
Which is the thing that doesn’t sit right with Clark no matter how good it feels to fall into work side by side with Lex, just to exist in the same space as him without some existential threat hanging over their heads, the world or someone they love’s livelihood held in the balance with every move they make. Clark can’t bear the thought that knowing everything about him, unraveling the mysteries held in front of his nose from the very beginning of their friendship, is the only reason Lex ever gave him the time of day. That it’s still the only reason he is here now.
But it does feel good. Clark can’t deny the way his chest went tight seeing Lex in an old pair of his dad’s work boots, sweat starting to make his shirt stick to his back, going through the motions of shifting hay bales or mucking out the horse stalls. It’s repetitive, physical labor that gets his heart rate up and his breath coming in pants. His cheeks have gone a little pink with the exertion.
Clark didn’t get to see too much of Lex, those few days he stayed at the farm after Lionel kicked him out. But he remembers vividly finding him in the barn that morning looking brighter than anything Clark had ever seen.
The images living side by side in his head, a kind of grief Clark thought he was learning to live with matched with deep aching want, paralyzed him. Lex was saying something, light and teasing, the way they used to talk to each other all of the time but that Clark hasn’t heard in months now.
He’s been too afraid to let Lex close to him again. Too afraid that he might wake up to find himself strapped to a lab table one day. Too afraid to find out that none of their friendship was real. Too afraid to find out that it was, that the man who was Clark’s best friend could also create a room like that. That Clark’s desperate need to protect himself paired with Lex’s obsessive search for the truth could have compelled him to create that.
None of that accounts for how they ended up here though, with Lex trying to control his breathing with slow breaths that do nothing to ease the relentless heartbeat Clark can hear so clearly. It doesn’t help Clark make sense of his hands on Lex’s waist or the way they slide up his sides, untucking his shirt from his pants just to feel warm skin underneath. The way his mouth goes dry, the way his gaze flicks from the look in Lex’s eyes down to his lips and back again, the way they’re parted ever so slightly as if just for him.
The answer to the question of how they got here is simple: Clark wanted him. He’s starting to think he might have wanted this for far longer than he realized.
They fell into work together, not even talking all that much though Lex had insisted it was important that they should. A few words exchanged as they moved from chore to chore, where to stand, what to hold, what went where. A comfortable silence they haven’t known for ages if ever.
And over an hour into working, Clark happened to look over at Lex, swiping sweat off of his brow before diving into work again, and he was utterly arrested by the picture he made. His one-time best friend, the stranger who built that room, the billionaire CEO, and Lex, the man that Clark still probably doesn’t know the half of but desperately wants to.
That Lex was here because of Clark. That he hadn’t said a word about Clark’s secrets or abilities, hasn’t backed him into a corner even though there is no one else around. That he stayed to help even though there are a million other things he could be doing, should probably be doing, rather than hang out with Clark. It was everything Clark had been missing for months now and all the more overwhelming because of its absence.
There has always been such an irresistible pull to Lex, a desire just to exist in his orbit. The way he looked at the world, the way he looked at Clark never failed to make him feel more alive. Like he could be more of himself, like he could know more of himself when he stood next to Lex.
Clark is learning a lot about himself today.
Like the fact that he likes making Lex speechless. He looks at Clark with a question he can’t bring himself to voice and only Clark has the answer. It gives him a heady rush of power, of victory, even though he has no idea what to do next. He could—he wants—
His hands make the decision for him, too eager to touch more of Lex now that he has him. He wants to trace every curve of muscle and each sharp bone. He wants so much more than what he has access to now so he steps in closer, his face mere inches away from Lex’s, their breath co-mingling in the air, and he sets his fingers to work one button at a time making his way down from Lex’s collar.
Lex watches him do it. He leans back into the beam Clark pinned him up against and stands perfectly still as though he has been fixed into position with rope about his hands and feet. It must take a tremendous amount of effort not to move, to hardly breathe, as though one false move might make Clark bolt—and to Lex’s credit, it might.
Because Clark doesn’t know what he is doing. He doesn’t know what Lex wants, what he is giving Clark access to. All he knows is that he wants more of him. That watching him from the sidelines for so long, wanting something more from him even when they are standing in the same room, is something he refuses to accept any longer.
Clark wants him, is tired of not having him. And from the way Lex stares as his shirt comes fully undone, Clark suspects he feels the same way too.
And then suddenly, Clark doesn’t have to suspect, he knows. Because as soon as Lex allows his shirt to come undone, exposing so much creamy, smooth skin that Clark has the strangest, strongest impulse to lick, Lex surges forward and captures Clark’s lips with his own.
That’s what it feels like—being captured, taken—he didn’t know a kiss could feel like this but of course Lex would be the one to teach it to him. His hands are braced against Clark’s shoulders, one hand about to make its way into his hair and Clark’s hands are still on Lex’s waist, like he could possibly contain the whole of him between the circle of this palms.
Then, as quickly as he made his move, Lex pulls back, eyes searching Clark’s face for a response.
Clark isn’t sure what he’s looking for. All he knows is that Lex kissed him and all he wants is to make sure that he does it again.
So he does, backs him up against the support beam where he belongs and kisses him soundly. He’s good at this, Clark knows he is. He might not have Lex’s experience and there are plenty of other areas flirting nearby in which he has no knowledge at all but he can do this. Lex helps him, tilting his head for a better angle, sucking Clark’s lower lip between his own, letting out a little hum like he’s enjoying himself that goes straight to Clark’s cock.
Lex fists his hands in Clark’s flannel to pull him closer and Clark takes that as permission to immerse himself deeper in Lex. His hands drift lower to Lex’s ass, the curve there fitting perfectly in the palm of his hand, tight muscle that Clark can’t help but squeeze. That elicits another noise from Lex, quickly becoming some of the best sounds Clark has ever heard. He wants to slip his hand into Lex’s back pockets, though they’re sewn closed and buttoned for clean lines, like he’s seen guys do to their girlfriends at football games and house parties. Clark has never quite seen the appeal of that kind of public display of claiming but he’s starting to get it now. More than that, he wants to slip beneath Lex’s carefully cultivated surface and live right next to his skin.
He trails his fingers up the exposed plane of Lex’s torso, his touch light and curious until he gets to the flat of his chest and lets his hand cup the barest swell of his pec right over that racing heart Clark can still hear in his ears louder than his own.
Lex pulls back then, as much as he can when there is no room for him to retreat to. It’s more of a turning his head to the side, and then angling his face so that he can look at Clark through his lashes. “If you keep touching me like that, I won’t be able to stop.”
For a moment, the thought of stopping seems so antithetical to Clark’s very being that he can’t really imagine what Lex is trying to warn him off. He watched Lex move through farm chores without complaint, looking so much like the best friend Clark once had and never got to enjoy the way he wanted to, and something in him snapped. No waiting, no holding back, not for one minute longer. The idea that Lex might let him, the miracle that Lex might want that too, means that Clark can see almost no reason they should ever do anything else. Kiss and touch and move against each other until their edges start to blur.
“Maybe I don’t want to,” Clark says. And really, there’s no maybe about it. The whole world has just opened up to him and he feels a little drunk with the possibility of it.
Lex smiles, and God, isn’t that a beautiful thing to see? Quick, with no time for him to temper it into something less vulnerable. Clark sees it and watches Lex try to master it. When he can’t, he closes the distance between them again and bites Clark’s lip hard to distract him.
When he pulls back again, the smile is still there but he has control over it, more sharp-edged and teasing than it was mere seconds ago. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Feeling more sure of himself than he is, Clark steps forward with one leg between both of Lex’s. He can feel just how hard they both are. All of it is frightening and new but the prospect lights Clark from within, excites him in a way that nothing else has recently, not football, not Lana, not high school. “I think I might.”
Lex shakes his head, not a refusal but disbelief. “What has gotten into you?”
“You,” Clark says. “I just want you.”
Saying that feels like stepping off of a cliff, with all of Clark’s fear of heights there to welcome him as he falls. He can’t put this kind of madness into words, too tangled up in all of the feeling in his chest. It’s like something clicked into place, all of the distance and distrust dissolved in an instant so long as they are together like this exactly where they belong.
Perhaps Clark sounds surer than he feels or perhaps—and the thought is terrifying and wonderful even inside of his own head—perhaps Lex wants this just as much as Clark does. He wouldn’t have thought it possible even minutes ago but as time goes on and Lex still hasn’t told him off or turned away, the explanation is only growing more likely.
The fear and hesitation is still there in Clark’s chest, the same reservations that have always kept him from getting too close to Lex, but something occurs to Clark that might put them to rest for a good long while at least.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” Clark asks.
Lex cants his head to one side. “What?”
“Before we started working, before I kissed you, you said you came here to talk.” Clark shrugs. “Maybe I’m finally ready to listen.”
They still haven’t separated, hands on each other, bodies pressed close even now. Neither one of them makes any move to separate.
With a steady gaze that fixes Clark to the spot as surely as Clark’s weight keeps Lex in place, Lex opens his mouth and then shuts it, trying to find the right words. Normally that look means he’s searching for the right lie, or just the right amount of truth but Clark suspects something else holds his tongue this time.
“I suppose I wanted to talk to you about this actually,” he says, nodding at their current position. “Though I have to admit, I didn’t think I’d get this far.”
“You wanted to talk about me kissing you in my parent’s barn?”
“I think you’ll find I kissed you first, thank you, but no. I wanted to talk to you about our friendship, whether or not you could see yourself…” Lex cuts himself off there. He swallows and bites at the inside of his cheek as though the prospect of saying what comes next is a painful, stupid, reckless thing that he knows he should regret even before he says it. He sighs. “I wanted to know if you thought we could be friends again.”
And perhaps Lex was right for all of that reluctance. Out loud, the question sounds childish, weak. But then, those are words other people might use to describe that kind of vulnerability. To Clark, they are everything he has wanted to hear coupled with the patience to back it up.
Not friendship but I’m going to keep investigating you. Not spending time with each other so that I can ask you needling questions about the secrets you try so hard to hide. But something more than that, something that makes Clark want to kiss him again. And is starting to make him want something more than that besides.
“I think you got your answer,” Clark says.
There is something young and hopeful in Lex’s face when he looks back at Clark. It reminds Clark in a way that doesn’t seem so painful anymore of the early days of their friendship. “Yeah, I think I have.”
They don’t manage to finish the chores until after the sun has set. Lex stays and the two of them scrounge up dinner from leftovers and watch a movie on the couch. Not once does Lex as about Clark’s abilities or the caves or Kryptonian artifacts but they do manage a lot more kissing and touching until they’re both breathless and seeing stars.
It might be the best day either of them has ever had.
an excerpt from the latest chapter of my fic in which Lex and Clark come to a shaky truce after Clark almost dies in Hidden (5x03)
Lex just—
Drew it.
He drew the emblem of his house.
Freehand.
Clark looks up at him, his stomach flip, flip, flipping. "How did you—"
"What does it mean?" Lex asks him.
"Where did you see that?"
Lex studies him. "In the caves. On that alien metal that was recovered from Miller's field. On that map to the stones. Among other symbols. An eight inside a diamond. That's how children learn the alphabet. Finding the familiar inside the unknown."
Clark wouldn't know. The ability to read Kryptonian as well as a slew of other alphabets was beamed into his head over the span of a few seconds. He didn't have to devote one minute of study to it. Lex is gonna be so mad when he hears that.
"It's not an eight," Clark says. "Or a diamond."
"Then what is it?"
There isn't a single word that does it justice. Not in English, nor in any language on Earth.
No, not a single word.
"It's the thing with feathers," Clark says, blushing, as Lex's eyes peel him apart then narrow.
And maybe Emily Dickinson had known a Kryptonian.
Because her thing with feathers that perches in the soul, her thing that sings the tune without the words and never stops at all—
It sounds a lot like—
"Hope?" Lex asks.
Read the rest of the new chapter linked above or start from the beginning
"This has been a rather long goodnight, you know," Lex teases, subtly peering around Clark's shoulder. "And your parents are watching us."
"Right," Clark says, feeling silly all of a sudden. His parents probably think he and Lex have attachment issues.
Well, that might be old news, actually, now that he thinks about it.
But still.
"Well. Goodnight," Clark tries, shifting his weight to make a quick getaway, but the way both of Lex's eyebrows lift stops him short. "What?" he hisses, afraid his parents will hear.
"If I kiss you, are you going to lose it again?"
If he—
"What?" Clark asks once more, this time a little too loud.
Lex shushes him, hand moving swiftly to cover his mouth. His eyes seem to focus with determination—as intense as Clark has ever seen them and darker than the night sky over their heads—and he takes the one necessary step needed to be wholly in Clark's space.
Lex never moves his hand.
Clark isn't sure he's ever stood so still in his whole life.
Chapters: 6/12
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent/Lex Luthor
Characters: Clark Kent, Lex Luthor, Martha Kent, Jonathan Kent, Chloe Sullivan, Lana Lang (DCU), Lois Lane
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Parallel Universes, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fake Marriage, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Character Swap, Identity Swap, Swapping Places with AU self, yeah there's no tag for that, Clark Kent Tells Lex Luthor the Truth, POV Clark Kent, Pining, Light Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Post 6x01, Episode: s06e01 Zod, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Kind Of, Guilt, that's synonymous with listing clark as a character but i'm putting it anyway, Multiverse, Mutual Pining, Past Clark Kent/Lana Lang, Past Lex Luthor/Lana Lang, Lex Luthor Needs a Hug, Clark Kent and Lex Luthor Reconciliation, sorry these tags are a mess whoops, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, the author discovered how to type em dashes and now she has a problem, Fix-It, Chapter Count is an Estimate
Summary:
This doesn’t change anything. They’re not really married. Even if they are in the bodies of two people who are. It’s not them. It will never be them.
And Clark isn’t about to forget everything that’s happened just because the version of Lex from this entirely different universe may have been someone Clark could love.
Someone Clark could have saved.
