Rating: PG-13
Summary: It all comes back around.
He came to with the hiss and whooshing sounds of machinery breathing
around him. His vision was a narrow tunnel gradually expanding beyond a
hazy film of weight. When it finally dawns on Lex that he's still
alive and the loose and airy feeling in his limbs is derived from
fantastic pain medication, he realizes he's in the hospital.
The sight of the bowed dark head against the stark whiteness of his
sheets is a surprise.
"Where?" He croaked.
His voice like a creaky door catches the attention of his visitor. The
beautiful dark hair should have given away his visitor, but the
effectiveness of the drugs was keeping Lex off his A game.
"Metropolis General."
Lex can't find the energy to laugh without choking, so he smirked
the familiar smile and turned narrowed eyes on Clark.
"Some traditions are best left behind."
"With you, Lex, there's always a serious need for
supervision." They laughed and Lex decided offhandedly to allow
Clark to stay. Somehow, the thought of Clark being there made him feel
better.
They don't really talk much after that, save for a few mumbled words
from Lex's direction for Clark to give him water or get a nurse to
augment his intake of pain medication.
When the silence is near it's heaviest, and Lex was on the verge of
drifting off into a new round of recuperative sleep when Clark blurted
out Lionel's name.
"What?" Lex sighed.
"I kept your father out of here." Clark shifted and turned to
get a better look at Lex. He looked tired and worn out just like Lex
felt. "Your dad wanted to make some decisions revolving around your
care…I think you would have had a problem with."
Lex's chest tightens, and this time it has nothing to do with the
stitches. Even with their friendship being less than amicable these
days, Clark still looks out for him. There's no doubt that his
father wanted the doctors to do something that he himself would have
protested against vehemently.
"Thank you." Lex whispered.
It's the bright lights beyond his window in the halls of the
hospital and the nurses' station that gives him more pause.
"Clark, what day is today?"
"It's Christmas Eve, Lex." He should have gathered that from
before, but somehow it doesn't seem important. But now, he wonders
about why Clark isn't with his parents. Surely, Clark could have
stayed until he woke up and returned home to the warm cheery smells of
gingerbread and hot chocolate and fresh pine. That was a far cry from
the silent halls reeking of disinfectant.
"I appreciate you being here, but you could go home now. I'm
sure your parents are missing you."
Clark's face clouds. "Well, I think they'll understand and
plus.." Clark smiles. "No one should be alone at Christmas."
Lex hasn't felt the urge to talk in a long time, but suddenly
he's almost overwhelmed with the urge to share his dream and dreams.
Some parts are deliberately left out and if Clark ever asks about them
later, if they're still friends then, he'll say it was the drugs
talking.
"I dreamed of my mother." Any other time than during a visit to
a local healthcare facility, Lex would have analyzed the validity of his
dream. He'd been dreaming of his mother more often now, but then
again, he often dreamed of her during times of great stress. The strange
prophetic quality of the latest made him worry.
Clark shuffled just a bit closer in his hospital recliner and looked at
Lex with alarmingly clear and focused eyes. It's too much like all
those times when he swore Clark was looking right through him. Now, he
was sure after years of incidences that his suspicion was true.
Having Clark gaze at him like this made him feel so vulnerable. When
Clark's stony look breaks into something soft and almost wistful,
Lex feels the type of relief that could easily be pushed off as being
pharmaceutically derived.
"So, did I." Then, Clark added. "My biological mother."
He'd only heard of Clark's biological dad in brief pieces of
lifted conversation. Martha Kent in some ways had become a sort of
supplement for his long dead mother. To think that there was some other
woman out there that took any space from her in Clark's heart made
him uneasy.
"If you tell me your dream was a few ghosts shy of a Christmas
Tale, I'll tell you--"
Clark smiled. "I think something greater is working on our
behalf." Large warm fingers find themselves wrapped around cool
slender ones. "Stuff of legends remember?"
Lex coughed groggily and smiled. "Yeah, I remember saying something
like that once upon a time." Lex gazed at the flashing Christmas
lights, his mind harkening back to the sleepy serenity of a dream world
where he awoke to smiles and a child's laughter.
It was everything that he lacked now. "We were friends once."
Clark's warm fingers lightly caress his own with a gentleness that
would belie the sight of such large hands. "There is no
`once'. I haven't given up on you yet. I hope you can do the
same for me."
Lex returned pressure and felt just a bit optimistic.
"It's Christmas after all. I guess anything can happen."
They sat in silence, neither disclosing what exactly brought the other
to Metropolis or what their respective mothers had said during their
sleeping moments.
Neither saw the pair of women watching from a far off corner. Their
smiles evident that the road for those two had been paved, it was up to
them to walk it together to overcome the obstacles for the future ahead.
Four years later
"This is all your fault!" Clark yelled as he wielded a spoon
full of super chocolate chip ice cream menacingly.
Lex looked up from his laptop. "How is this my fault?" Lex
sighed. They'd been having more of these arguments lately. "Tell
me how you running out of ice cream is my fault?"
Clark pouted stonily, dropping his spoon back inside the container.
"It's not about the ice cream, Lex. It's about Veronica
Mars. You know that's what I watch every Tuesday and it's the
only thing that makes this one--" He pointed to his belly. "Be
still so I can get a few hours of sleep."
"I can't help that the network cancelled the show."
Clark snorted indignantly. "Yes, you can. You are a Luthor, Lex
Luthor to be exact. If you want something done, it gets done! Dad said
`Lex can do anything!'" Clark imitated his father's
exaggerations to a tee. "No, but when I want you to be devious and
sneaky and use blackmail to keep VM on the air, what do I get? A preview
for Hidden Palms as a consolation prize."
Lex closed his eyes and counted to ten. He remembered how he got into
this situation once more. One, he loved Clark. Two, Clark was carrying
the next Luthor heir. Three, having a cranky super charged alien upset
with him did not make for a good night, week, month's sleep.
He wouldn't be foolish enough to admit that he had worked with the
network. Well mostly, to get the show taken off the air. It was just a
bit too much for him to see a show week after week about a pint sized
detective with cutesy blonde hair and a arsenal of wit fighting crime.
It was like arming Chloe with a camera, and as much as he loved Clark,
he couldn't tolerate one more round of hearing that annoying theme
song.
Lex did it for the benefit of his child. With that in mind, he moved
slowly over to Clark and took his hands in his. "Darling, as much as
it delights and kinda freaks me out that you like it when I do, the
world doesn't revolve around my machinations."
Clark's pout smoothly transitions into a suggestive smirk. "If
they only knew…"
Lex laid his hands upon the huge swell of Clark's belly and was
rewarded with the fluttering movement of his firstborn safe inside the
invulnerable body of his husband in forty states in the Union.
"You're alright though?"
Clark nodded absently. He pushed the container of ice cream in Lex's
direction as a piece offering, it wasn't pie, so he really
didn't worry about Lex actually taking the offer. "I'm fine,
just a little hormonal and hungry."
The carton was pushed away by Lex as he moved in to take Clark's
hands, which instead of receiving, he got Clark's large sock covered
feet instead. Only in this moment could he be happy with having his
beloved's feet in his lap and a possible chocolate ice cream stain
on his shirt sleeve.
As his fingers work through the knots and glide over the mounds that
used to be slim ankles, Lex took in the image of Clark resting as
comfortably as the big belly would allow and compared in unconsciously
to the memories of a dream years past.
Was that a look at a future not too long from now?
Hadn't it all been contingent on him just taking a chance?
Hadn't Clark followed him just as easily?
"What are you smiling about?" Clark asked. " Is it that
dream again? The one where our mothers work on us through our dreams to
get us together?" He teased.
One of Clark's lingering bad habits of lying by omission still hung
around. Clark had yet to fully admit that he had had a similar dream to
Lex's, but when Clark had learned of their impending parenthood, he
didn't take it as much of a surprise. Clark simply muttered
something about Lara and continued to celebrate along side Lex.
"No, I was just considering the Freudian ramifications of choosing
baby ducks or baby dinosaurs."
Clark smiled and rubbed his belly. He was in a position no other man
would find himself in. Being an alien, though, made the situation less
awkward. Starting a family with Lex was by far the best direction his
life had taken.
"I'm impartial to both."
They'd had their share of the knock down drag out fights, but then
they'd had their share of tender moments and share of situations
only a Luthor and a Kryptonian raised on Earth could understand.
"We always have tomorrow to decide." Lex offered.
Tomorrow after all offered the promise of something even better, even if
it was just the choice between ducks and dinosaurs.
The End