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seriousficTitle: The Villain Of The Story
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: R
Word Count: 2,982
Author’s Note: Betaed by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vagrantdream.
Characters/Pairings: Chloe/Davis, Clark/Lois, Lex
Last Part: Chapter 7
Next Part: Chapter 9
Summary: Davis learns the legend of Naman and Sageeth.
Lex moved the photograph at the edge of his finger, lazily dancing it around his desk. 24-hour surveillance. 24 hours of Davis Kent being a farmboy without a care in the world. He knew his suspicions alone warranted 33.1’s involvement. All it would take was a phone call. But he liked having something he could keep from the rest of his family. Whatever Davis was, he wasn’t some freak who got a power and started killing people. He was something special. A hero, maybe.
“Whatcha got there, Lex?” Clark asked, sauntering in like he owned the place. What made it even more annoying was that he somewhat did.
“Just a pet project.” Lex shuffled the photos away before Clark reached his desk. “And what brings you here today? Come to rub my head for luck?”
“Who needs luck? I have obscenely high cheekbones and a date with Lois Lane.”
“The same one from last month? I’d have thought she’d reached her expiration date by now.”
“She’s much more special than you realize.” Clark hopped up on Lex’s desk. “She has a lot of… moxie.”
“And now I know who to take with me if I ever time-travel to the 1940s.”
“Lex, I really like this girl.”
Lex didn’t need to look to know that Clark’s eyes had gone from sharp to puppy dog. He had fallen for that too many times to get burned again. “So I take it you won’t be attending the museum exhibit?”
And now Clark’s face would be scrunching. “Museum?”
“The big building with lots of old stuff that I’ve been talking about for the last week. You’re my plus-one. But I guess your latest fling comes first.”
“I told you, she’s not like that.”
“Wake up, Clark. They’re all like that. Because you’re rich. Because you have power. It’s Being A Luthor 101.”
“She’s not another Victoria.”
Lex looked up from his desk for the first time, eyes cutting into Clark, and the younger Luthor knew he’d pushed his brother too far. “Lex, I’m sorry, I just wanted you to be…” he trailed off into mumbling. “Happy for me.”
Lex stood up and fixed Clark’s collar. “Enjoy your date.”
***
Davis’s cell phone played the theme to that old Battleship Galaxy show, which really wasn’t as funny as Chloe had thought it was, but he kept it as a ringtone anyway. He dumped a bucket of cool water over his back and answered it as his own blood slid off him. “Hello?”
“Davis Kent?”
Davis shifted the phone to his other ear and reached for his overshirt. He suddenly felt exposed. “Mr. Luthor.”
“Please, call me Lex. Mr. Luthor is my father. And occasionally my brother.”
The shock of being dialed by a billionaire left Davis without a filter for his stupid questions. “How’d you get my phone number?”
“I own the phone company,” Lex answered matter-of-factly.
“Ah. Okay, uh, Lex, what can I do for you?” Davis asked as he strolled around his loft, away from the blood spreading on the floor.
“How do you feel about history?”
“I hear those who don’t learn from it are doomed to repeat it.”
“And you don’t want to be doomed, do you?”
***
Two hours later, Davis was in Metropolis, dressed in his Sunday best, staring at the icon of Alexander the Great with Lex Luthor. “How’d you like to ride into battle against someone wearing that?”
Lex grinned. “I’d prefer to slip something into his drink before he had a chance to put it on.”
“C’mon. You wouldn’t want to square off with your enemy mano-e-mano and see who’s better?”
“’Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.’”
“Sun Tzu.”
“Not bad for a farmboy.”
“Yeah, it really comes in handy when I’m milking cows.”
As much as Davis disliked the old city mouse/country mouse thing, he had to admit he was breathing rarified air. Even in the car ride over, he’d been impressed with the sheer number and sophistication of the cars they shared the road with. Even the smallest building could tower over Smallville’s water tower. He wished Chloe was there to see it.
In the museum, his father’s hand-me-downs looked particularly shabby. He tried to hold his arms so people wouldn’t notice the elbows in his jacket wearing thin. Lex, wearing a tailored suit like a second skin, led him from exhibit to exhibit seemingly at random, though always with an eye for Alexander or similar world-conquerors. He seemed more knowledgeable than the tour guide. The most Davis could say of her was that she was a natural blonde. Probably.
“I wonder what it was like,” Davis said, staring at a portrait of Alexander. “He gave orders to go to war, knowing thousands would die. How did he live with that?”
“I’m sure he had his reasons. Maybe he was touched by divine madness.”
“You’re saying it was his destiny?” Davis shook his head. “No. Too easy. At some point, he had to have made a choice.”
“Did he? Knowing how he was raised and the world he was born into, maybe he never even got a chance to say ‘this is what I want’.” Lex rubbed his lips with his thumb. “Still, he literally ruled the world. Who would say no to that?”
“Hey, deviled eggs.” Davis snatched one from a passing waiter. “So you think it was all the march of history, social movements, and Alexander was just in the right place at the right time?”
“I think one man can make a difference… so long as he has the right opportunity.”
“So we’re back to destiny.”
“I’m a Luthor. I make my own destiny. How about you, Kent?”
Davis played with his tie a little. “My dad didn’t want me to come here.”
Lex’s left eyebrow piqued. “So why did you come? After all, your father might be right about me.”
Davis panicked. “He didn’t say… he’s not… I don’t know.”
“Yes you do. You want to know if your world is all there is. Your father doesn’t want you to know there’s more.”
“Maybe I just wanted a kickass article for the school paper. ‘I spent the night with Lex Luthor’.”
Lex’s right eyebrow joined his left. “You might want to rethink your title.”
“Yeah, usually Chloe takes care of that. She’s my editor.”
“And do all your editors make your lips—“ Lex demonstratingly flicked a finger near his mouth—“pull up at the corners?”
Davis took a deep breath. Something about hearing Lex talk about Chloe made his protective streak surge.
“Kent, don’t listen to that man, he’s a shameless degenerate.” Clark Luthor ambled up to them with a truly epic straight face. “I should know, I taught him.”
Davis glanced over to Clark, who looked suitably awe-inspiring in a white tuxedo. Chloe’s cousin was tipsily hanging off his arm, overflowing from her low-cut dress with each deep breath. Davis felt a pang of hormones for her, but dismissed it as a false positive, like sunlight reflecting off the moon. The family resemblance was subtle, but there.
“Clark.” Lex was too surprised to riposte. “What are you doing here?”
“Do you really think I’d miss an exhibit on my homeboy…” his eyes darted away “—Alexander the Great?”
“But you weren’t invited.”
“We crashed!” Lois said in a drunken whisper, which wasn’t a whisper at all. “Oh, hi Davey. What’re you doing here?”
“Answering to Davis.”
“I did that once. It got really confusing.”
Clark introduced himself, offering his hand for a shake. Davis returned the favor. Unlike the understated firmness of Lex’s handshake, Clark went straight for the alpha male position. Soft hands, no calluses, never worked a day in his life… yeah right. Davis squeezed right back, deciding then and there that they weren’t going to be the best of friends.
“Hey, Clark, you wanna hold hands, I’m right here,” Lois said.
Clark pulled his hand out of Davis’s. “You saved my brother’s life. I suppose I owe you a thank you.” Clark belabored putting his hands in his pockets.
“I’m sure Lex would’ve done the same for me.”
“No. Probably not.” Clark winked at Lex.
“So, the famous Clark Luthor,” Davis said, voice deliberately light. He kept watching Clark’s eyes, looking for the telltale flicker of imminent violence. “I thought you’d be older. I wouldn’t be surprised to find you in line at the cafeteria.”
Clark gave Lex another ‘where did you find this guy?’ look. “I was home-schooled.”
“Oh. My mom thought about home-schooling me. She didn’t.”
Lois made another valiant attempt to break the tension. “So, this is how the infamous Lex Luthor spends his weekends.”
“I like to save the virgin sacrifices for weekdays. There’s less of a crowd.”
Clark cocked his head. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to save a bum from a runaway bus.”
Lois laughed out loud. “I have never heard it called that before.”
***
The night wore on, the string quartet changed their sheet books, Lois had more to drink, and Davis obliged Lex when the bald man slipped him martinis. His head a little cottony, Davis found himself walking with Lex through the lonely astronomy wing.
The amphitheatre was designed as a scale model of the solar system, with all the exhibits between orbits. The only light came from the miniature sun, which reflected off the planets and cast long shadows. Davis weaved between the various moon-booths. “So, Clark Luthor…”
“He’s adopted.” Lex undid his cufflinks and loosened his tie. “Very. In the plant, how’d you save me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you just made the right choice to lay off the fajitas.”
“And maybe there’s something you’re not telling me.” Lex twitched a smile. “Which is your right, of course. But if there is something more to you, be sure to watch your step out there. Heroes don’t always get the welcome they deserve.”
Davis looked back at Lex from behind the sun, its light forming craggy shadows on his face. “I’m no hero.”
“Say, I really hate to interrupt you two lovebirds,” a thick Metro accent broke in, “but Lex, I need a word.”
Lex turned to see Phelan, hiding behind his badge literally instead of the usual metaphor. It was clipped to his belt, revealed in the way he crassly leaned against the Earth model with his coat thrown back.
“Courtesy,” Lex drawled. “There’s a word you definitely need.”
“Get rid of the kid before I smell his breath and run you in for corrupting a minor.”
“He’s right, Davis,” Lex said. “You’d better leave Phelan and I to our business.”
“You gonna be okay?” Davis asked.
“He’s a cop. What could be safer?”
***
“So that’s why Chloe and you should slap tha skin-wagons,” Lois concluded. “Thanks for holding my hair, by the… way.”
“Any time,” Davis said. “No, I don’t mean that. Let’s go wash up.”
They went to the washroom’s sinks, where Lois successfully rinsed her mouth with water from Davis’s cupped hands.
“Because you’re a nice guy and Chloe should lose it to a nice guy, not like Wes Keenan, that jerk… me,” here Lois put a hand to her chest and somehow managed to miss. “I’m into bad boys. You’re not a bad boy, are you?”
“Not when I can help it.”
“Thas good. Because Chloe could use a good boy. Someone to keep her grounded, ya know? Someone ta take care of her. Now Clark, he takes good care a me. He’s my man of steel!”
“Oh, thank God I now know that.”
Lois shook her teeth in the faucet stream. “Did I vomit on anythin’ expensive?”
“No, I got these shoes very cheap.”
***
Davis found Lex again in the museum’s Native American exhibit. His eyes danced over the spears and tomahawks before he forced them to Lex, who was standing in front of what looked like a cave wall. His hands hung by his sides, an empty martini glass in one, as he looked down at a plaque.
“’Made possible by the generous donation of Lionel Luthor,’” Lex said in his slender, sarcastic voice. It lowered. “My brother found this behind a cave-in. He’s a man of many talents, Clark. Everything comes so easily to him.”
Davis stood off to Lex’s side, also drawn to the strange language written on the excavated rock. It was almost familiar, something about the precise geometry of the lines. One particular cave drawing, a two-headed beast colored red and blue, called to him. He actually reached for it before Lex stopped him.
“They do frown on that here,” Lex said. “You like it? It’s Naman and Sageeth.”
“Naman?” Davis asked.
“It means ‘Traveler’. Naman is the great figure of Kawatche prophecy. You know the story… the Chosen One, sent down from the heavens to protect the Earth.”
“Yes. Fell down in a rain of fire, so you can imagine how excited the Kawatche were about the meteor shower. As I recall, he has the strength of ten men, which he needs to hunt down the phantoms.”
“Phantoms?”
“Escapees from Kawatche hell. Supposedly, they can possess people, and Naman will ‘chase them out.’”
“Demons.”
“If you’d prefer.” Lex chuckled. “I apologize, Clark was always fascinated with this stuff. Personally, I found Sageeth more interesting.”
“Who’s he?”
“The red one. His name means ‘destroyer’. He and Naman used to be inseparable, but the prophecy says that one day Sageeth will turn against Naman and become the bearer of darkness. What I could never figure out is if Naman is so great, why would Sageeth oppose him? Then I started wondering when the people of Earth asked Naman to protect them. With all that power, he could be corrupted.” Lex looked at Davis. “You’d have to be pretty brave to stand against such a formidable enemy.”
“I’m not brave.”
“You never really know who you are until the fire rains down. In that instant, with that choice, you know what you’re made of.”
“What choice would that be?”
“Whether you accept your destiny or run from it.”
“And what did you choose?”
Lex smiled. “I chose to stand and fight. My destiny may not be the greatest, but I’ll fight it every step of the way if I find it lacking. How about you?”
“I don’t really have a destiny.”
“Maybe not. But you never did answer my question.”
Davis stepped away from the cave excavation. The Kawatche exhibit seemed to press in on him, every wolf figurine baying at him, every arrow pointed at him. “What question would that be?”
“Your editor. Chloe Sullivan, right? Nice girl. She seems to think that the meteors are responsible for more damage than Luthorcorp pollution, which I always appreciate. But what do you appreciate?”
“She’s a good friend.”
Lex circled him. “And how do you feel about your good friend?”
“I love her.” Saying that felt like torture devices were being taken off him. “It’s complicated.”
“Does she love you?”
He didn’t even have to think about it. “I hope so.” Admitting that brought the rush of gloom he’d expected, but also an unpredicted, unreasoning giddiness. He rubbed at his grin with the side of his fist.
“Then trust me, it’s simple. I’d be lucky if one woman out of the next hundred I meet was interested in me instead of my money. You’re young, honest, and you have a full head of hair. Just make it work. She could just be your destiny. And here ends my lesson on love. Next time, ask me about a coup d'état. It’s more my speed.”
“You shouldn’t—” Davis started, but it was already too late. His left hand was shaking. He balled it into a fist and walked off.
“I didn’t mean right now,” Lex called after him.
“It’s a school night,” Davis said, not turning back.
***
“’Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize,’” Davis quoted from memory. 1 Corinthians 9:24.
He whipped the rod over his shoulder, feeling its claws dig into his back. He didn’t even want to cry out, the pain was that bland. It was good that he could control it, shutting down pain could buy him precious seconds when he went about his work, but it also made him feel more lost. Wasn’t he at least entitled to his suffering?
“’Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.’”
He’d been weak. He’d stopped to consider a world where he wasn’t… this. A world where he and Chloe could… be. It wasn’t possible and he should stop letting himself be tempted. His work was so much more important—it just didn’t feel as important as a smile from her, a joke, a look. But how could he protect her if he was just a man, like he wanted to be with her?
“’Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air.’”
He whipped himself again. His wounds didn’t even have a chance to bleed before they closed up. He was getting stronger, faster, smarter. It was perverse. Like his body was rewarding him for each kill. He tossed the rod aside. Fifty bucks on eBay and within days it had outlived its usefulness. He thought about cutting himself, but sudden nightmare logic wondered what might get out if he opened his skin.
“’No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.’”
Author’s notes: This chapter covers 1x09 Rogue. Here, I wanted to again let the Davis/Chloe linger and let that angst build up. Davis is cutting himself off from Chloe and now he’s resorting to self-flagellation to try to feel some means of control over his life, almost punishing himself for still feeling this connection to Chloe. Not good.
I love writing the love/hate, trust/distrust relationship between Clark and Lex, and how Lex uses Davis almost as a pawn in this competition against Clark, sort of like “I don’t need you, look at this other friend I have, that’s how little you mean to me.” And Clark is at once being both insensitive to Lex and trying to get Lex to share his happiness about Lois. So some tension there, which is going to be of enormous importance later.
The self-flagellation was part of Davis’s descent that was always in my notes, so I originally put it in just to set Davis’s phone conversation with Lex apart from the usual “hi how are you”, then I moved it to the end of the chapter so you start out wondering what’s going on with the blood and the water, then Lois gets drunk and you file it away, then suddenly you think Davis is going to do something to resolve the Chloe situation and instead you see just how far he’s fallen.
And of course we have the two Sageeths, as it were, talking about what it would be like to fight someone wearing a Superman symbol instead of talking about what it would be like to wear one into battle, as Lex did with Clark in the episode.
Another thing I tried really hard to get right was the advice Lex would offer on Chloe. That went through a number of drafts, since it couldn’t be too obvious and I didn’t want everything in the chapter to circle around to Chloe, since it is about establishing this friendship between Davis and Lex, and the revelation of Naman and Sageeth. But in the end, I think I managed to shuffle everything around just so, where the chapter both moves the story forward and stops to offer some commentary on itself and how the characters are feeling.
Oh, and one little thing that I definitely overthought… in this chapter, Davis admits that he loves Chloe and originally he said that Chloe loves him as well. Well, I thought that was a little presumptuous of him, and how self-loathing and undeserving of love he thinks he’s become. I think the revelation that he hopes Chloe loves him, that he still wants to receive that affection, is as big a deal to Davis as stating that Chloe loves him.
Next chapter? Someone’s getting laid. No, I won’t say who.
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: R
Word Count: 2,982
Author’s Note: Betaed by
vagrantdream.Characters/Pairings: Chloe/Davis, Clark/Lois, Lex
Last Part: Chapter 7
Next Part: Chapter 9
Summary: Davis learns the legend of Naman and Sageeth.
Lex moved the photograph at the edge of his finger, lazily dancing it around his desk. 24-hour surveillance. 24 hours of Davis Kent being a farmboy without a care in the world. He knew his suspicions alone warranted 33.1’s involvement. All it would take was a phone call. But he liked having something he could keep from the rest of his family. Whatever Davis was, he wasn’t some freak who got a power and started killing people. He was something special. A hero, maybe.
“Whatcha got there, Lex?” Clark asked, sauntering in like he owned the place. What made it even more annoying was that he somewhat did.
“Just a pet project.” Lex shuffled the photos away before Clark reached his desk. “And what brings you here today? Come to rub my head for luck?”
“Who needs luck? I have obscenely high cheekbones and a date with Lois Lane.”
“The same one from last month? I’d have thought she’d reached her expiration date by now.”
“She’s much more special than you realize.” Clark hopped up on Lex’s desk. “She has a lot of… moxie.”
“And now I know who to take with me if I ever time-travel to the 1940s.”
“Lex, I really like this girl.”
Lex didn’t need to look to know that Clark’s eyes had gone from sharp to puppy dog. He had fallen for that too many times to get burned again. “So I take it you won’t be attending the museum exhibit?”
And now Clark’s face would be scrunching. “Museum?”
“The big building with lots of old stuff that I’ve been talking about for the last week. You’re my plus-one. But I guess your latest fling comes first.”
“I told you, she’s not like that.”
“Wake up, Clark. They’re all like that. Because you’re rich. Because you have power. It’s Being A Luthor 101.”
“She’s not another Victoria.”
Lex looked up from his desk for the first time, eyes cutting into Clark, and the younger Luthor knew he’d pushed his brother too far. “Lex, I’m sorry, I just wanted you to be…” he trailed off into mumbling. “Happy for me.”
Lex stood up and fixed Clark’s collar. “Enjoy your date.”
***
Davis’s cell phone played the theme to that old Battleship Galaxy show, which really wasn’t as funny as Chloe had thought it was, but he kept it as a ringtone anyway. He dumped a bucket of cool water over his back and answered it as his own blood slid off him. “Hello?”
“Davis Kent?”
Davis shifted the phone to his other ear and reached for his overshirt. He suddenly felt exposed. “Mr. Luthor.”
“Please, call me Lex. Mr. Luthor is my father. And occasionally my brother.”
The shock of being dialed by a billionaire left Davis without a filter for his stupid questions. “How’d you get my phone number?”
“I own the phone company,” Lex answered matter-of-factly.
“Ah. Okay, uh, Lex, what can I do for you?” Davis asked as he strolled around his loft, away from the blood spreading on the floor.
“How do you feel about history?”
“I hear those who don’t learn from it are doomed to repeat it.”
“And you don’t want to be doomed, do you?”
***
Two hours later, Davis was in Metropolis, dressed in his Sunday best, staring at the icon of Alexander the Great with Lex Luthor. “How’d you like to ride into battle against someone wearing that?”
Lex grinned. “I’d prefer to slip something into his drink before he had a chance to put it on.”
“C’mon. You wouldn’t want to square off with your enemy mano-e-mano and see who’s better?”
“’Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.’”
“Sun Tzu.”
“Not bad for a farmboy.”
“Yeah, it really comes in handy when I’m milking cows.”
As much as Davis disliked the old city mouse/country mouse thing, he had to admit he was breathing rarified air. Even in the car ride over, he’d been impressed with the sheer number and sophistication of the cars they shared the road with. Even the smallest building could tower over Smallville’s water tower. He wished Chloe was there to see it.
In the museum, his father’s hand-me-downs looked particularly shabby. He tried to hold his arms so people wouldn’t notice the elbows in his jacket wearing thin. Lex, wearing a tailored suit like a second skin, led him from exhibit to exhibit seemingly at random, though always with an eye for Alexander or similar world-conquerors. He seemed more knowledgeable than the tour guide. The most Davis could say of her was that she was a natural blonde. Probably.
“I wonder what it was like,” Davis said, staring at a portrait of Alexander. “He gave orders to go to war, knowing thousands would die. How did he live with that?”
“I’m sure he had his reasons. Maybe he was touched by divine madness.”
“You’re saying it was his destiny?” Davis shook his head. “No. Too easy. At some point, he had to have made a choice.”
“Did he? Knowing how he was raised and the world he was born into, maybe he never even got a chance to say ‘this is what I want’.” Lex rubbed his lips with his thumb. “Still, he literally ruled the world. Who would say no to that?”
“Hey, deviled eggs.” Davis snatched one from a passing waiter. “So you think it was all the march of history, social movements, and Alexander was just in the right place at the right time?”
“I think one man can make a difference… so long as he has the right opportunity.”
“So we’re back to destiny.”
“I’m a Luthor. I make my own destiny. How about you, Kent?”
Davis played with his tie a little. “My dad didn’t want me to come here.”
Lex’s left eyebrow piqued. “So why did you come? After all, your father might be right about me.”
Davis panicked. “He didn’t say… he’s not… I don’t know.”
“Yes you do. You want to know if your world is all there is. Your father doesn’t want you to know there’s more.”
“Maybe I just wanted a kickass article for the school paper. ‘I spent the night with Lex Luthor’.”
Lex’s right eyebrow joined his left. “You might want to rethink your title.”
“Yeah, usually Chloe takes care of that. She’s my editor.”
“And do all your editors make your lips—“ Lex demonstratingly flicked a finger near his mouth—“pull up at the corners?”
Davis took a deep breath. Something about hearing Lex talk about Chloe made his protective streak surge.
“Kent, don’t listen to that man, he’s a shameless degenerate.” Clark Luthor ambled up to them with a truly epic straight face. “I should know, I taught him.”
Davis glanced over to Clark, who looked suitably awe-inspiring in a white tuxedo. Chloe’s cousin was tipsily hanging off his arm, overflowing from her low-cut dress with each deep breath. Davis felt a pang of hormones for her, but dismissed it as a false positive, like sunlight reflecting off the moon. The family resemblance was subtle, but there.
“Clark.” Lex was too surprised to riposte. “What are you doing here?”
“Do you really think I’d miss an exhibit on my homeboy…” his eyes darted away “—Alexander the Great?”
“But you weren’t invited.”
“We crashed!” Lois said in a drunken whisper, which wasn’t a whisper at all. “Oh, hi Davey. What’re you doing here?”
“Answering to Davis.”
“I did that once. It got really confusing.”
Clark introduced himself, offering his hand for a shake. Davis returned the favor. Unlike the understated firmness of Lex’s handshake, Clark went straight for the alpha male position. Soft hands, no calluses, never worked a day in his life… yeah right. Davis squeezed right back, deciding then and there that they weren’t going to be the best of friends.
“Hey, Clark, you wanna hold hands, I’m right here,” Lois said.
Clark pulled his hand out of Davis’s. “You saved my brother’s life. I suppose I owe you a thank you.” Clark belabored putting his hands in his pockets.
“I’m sure Lex would’ve done the same for me.”
“No. Probably not.” Clark winked at Lex.
“So, the famous Clark Luthor,” Davis said, voice deliberately light. He kept watching Clark’s eyes, looking for the telltale flicker of imminent violence. “I thought you’d be older. I wouldn’t be surprised to find you in line at the cafeteria.”
Clark gave Lex another ‘where did you find this guy?’ look. “I was home-schooled.”
“Oh. My mom thought about home-schooling me. She didn’t.”
Lois made another valiant attempt to break the tension. “So, this is how the infamous Lex Luthor spends his weekends.”
“I like to save the virgin sacrifices for weekdays. There’s less of a crowd.”
Clark cocked his head. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to save a bum from a runaway bus.”
Lois laughed out loud. “I have never heard it called that before.”
***
The night wore on, the string quartet changed their sheet books, Lois had more to drink, and Davis obliged Lex when the bald man slipped him martinis. His head a little cottony, Davis found himself walking with Lex through the lonely astronomy wing.
The amphitheatre was designed as a scale model of the solar system, with all the exhibits between orbits. The only light came from the miniature sun, which reflected off the planets and cast long shadows. Davis weaved between the various moon-booths. “So, Clark Luthor…”
“He’s adopted.” Lex undid his cufflinks and loosened his tie. “Very. In the plant, how’d you save me?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you just made the right choice to lay off the fajitas.”
“And maybe there’s something you’re not telling me.” Lex twitched a smile. “Which is your right, of course. But if there is something more to you, be sure to watch your step out there. Heroes don’t always get the welcome they deserve.”
Davis looked back at Lex from behind the sun, its light forming craggy shadows on his face. “I’m no hero.”
“Say, I really hate to interrupt you two lovebirds,” a thick Metro accent broke in, “but Lex, I need a word.”
Lex turned to see Phelan, hiding behind his badge literally instead of the usual metaphor. It was clipped to his belt, revealed in the way he crassly leaned against the Earth model with his coat thrown back.
“Courtesy,” Lex drawled. “There’s a word you definitely need.”
“Get rid of the kid before I smell his breath and run you in for corrupting a minor.”
“He’s right, Davis,” Lex said. “You’d better leave Phelan and I to our business.”
“You gonna be okay?” Davis asked.
“He’s a cop. What could be safer?”
***
“So that’s why Chloe and you should slap tha skin-wagons,” Lois concluded. “Thanks for holding my hair, by the… way.”
“Any time,” Davis said. “No, I don’t mean that. Let’s go wash up.”
They went to the washroom’s sinks, where Lois successfully rinsed her mouth with water from Davis’s cupped hands.
“Because you’re a nice guy and Chloe should lose it to a nice guy, not like Wes Keenan, that jerk… me,” here Lois put a hand to her chest and somehow managed to miss. “I’m into bad boys. You’re not a bad boy, are you?”
“Not when I can help it.”
“Thas good. Because Chloe could use a good boy. Someone to keep her grounded, ya know? Someone ta take care of her. Now Clark, he takes good care a me. He’s my man of steel!”
“Oh, thank God I now know that.”
Lois shook her teeth in the faucet stream. “Did I vomit on anythin’ expensive?”
“No, I got these shoes very cheap.”
***
Davis found Lex again in the museum’s Native American exhibit. His eyes danced over the spears and tomahawks before he forced them to Lex, who was standing in front of what looked like a cave wall. His hands hung by his sides, an empty martini glass in one, as he looked down at a plaque.
“’Made possible by the generous donation of Lionel Luthor,’” Lex said in his slender, sarcastic voice. It lowered. “My brother found this behind a cave-in. He’s a man of many talents, Clark. Everything comes so easily to him.”
Davis stood off to Lex’s side, also drawn to the strange language written on the excavated rock. It was almost familiar, something about the precise geometry of the lines. One particular cave drawing, a two-headed beast colored red and blue, called to him. He actually reached for it before Lex stopped him.
“They do frown on that here,” Lex said. “You like it? It’s Naman and Sageeth.”
“Naman?” Davis asked.
“It means ‘Traveler’. Naman is the great figure of Kawatche prophecy. You know the story… the Chosen One, sent down from the heavens to protect the Earth.”
“Yes. Fell down in a rain of fire, so you can imagine how excited the Kawatche were about the meteor shower. As I recall, he has the strength of ten men, which he needs to hunt down the phantoms.”
“Phantoms?”
“Escapees from Kawatche hell. Supposedly, they can possess people, and Naman will ‘chase them out.’”
“Demons.”
“If you’d prefer.” Lex chuckled. “I apologize, Clark was always fascinated with this stuff. Personally, I found Sageeth more interesting.”
“Who’s he?”
“The red one. His name means ‘destroyer’. He and Naman used to be inseparable, but the prophecy says that one day Sageeth will turn against Naman and become the bearer of darkness. What I could never figure out is if Naman is so great, why would Sageeth oppose him? Then I started wondering when the people of Earth asked Naman to protect them. With all that power, he could be corrupted.” Lex looked at Davis. “You’d have to be pretty brave to stand against such a formidable enemy.”
“I’m not brave.”
“You never really know who you are until the fire rains down. In that instant, with that choice, you know what you’re made of.”
“What choice would that be?”
“Whether you accept your destiny or run from it.”
“And what did you choose?”
Lex smiled. “I chose to stand and fight. My destiny may not be the greatest, but I’ll fight it every step of the way if I find it lacking. How about you?”
“I don’t really have a destiny.”
“Maybe not. But you never did answer my question.”
Davis stepped away from the cave excavation. The Kawatche exhibit seemed to press in on him, every wolf figurine baying at him, every arrow pointed at him. “What question would that be?”
“Your editor. Chloe Sullivan, right? Nice girl. She seems to think that the meteors are responsible for more damage than Luthorcorp pollution, which I always appreciate. But what do you appreciate?”
“She’s a good friend.”
Lex circled him. “And how do you feel about your good friend?”
“I love her.” Saying that felt like torture devices were being taken off him. “It’s complicated.”
“Does she love you?”
He didn’t even have to think about it. “I hope so.” Admitting that brought the rush of gloom he’d expected, but also an unpredicted, unreasoning giddiness. He rubbed at his grin with the side of his fist.
“Then trust me, it’s simple. I’d be lucky if one woman out of the next hundred I meet was interested in me instead of my money. You’re young, honest, and you have a full head of hair. Just make it work. She could just be your destiny. And here ends my lesson on love. Next time, ask me about a coup d'état. It’s more my speed.”
“You shouldn’t—” Davis started, but it was already too late. His left hand was shaking. He balled it into a fist and walked off.
“I didn’t mean right now,” Lex called after him.
“It’s a school night,” Davis said, not turning back.
***
“’Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize,’” Davis quoted from memory. 1 Corinthians 9:24.
He whipped the rod over his shoulder, feeling its claws dig into his back. He didn’t even want to cry out, the pain was that bland. It was good that he could control it, shutting down pain could buy him precious seconds when he went about his work, but it also made him feel more lost. Wasn’t he at least entitled to his suffering?
“’Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.’”
He’d been weak. He’d stopped to consider a world where he wasn’t… this. A world where he and Chloe could… be. It wasn’t possible and he should stop letting himself be tempted. His work was so much more important—it just didn’t feel as important as a smile from her, a joke, a look. But how could he protect her if he was just a man, like he wanted to be with her?
“’Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air.’”
He whipped himself again. His wounds didn’t even have a chance to bleed before they closed up. He was getting stronger, faster, smarter. It was perverse. Like his body was rewarding him for each kill. He tossed the rod aside. Fifty bucks on eBay and within days it had outlived its usefulness. He thought about cutting himself, but sudden nightmare logic wondered what might get out if he opened his skin.
“’No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.’”
Author’s notes: This chapter covers 1x09 Rogue. Here, I wanted to again let the Davis/Chloe linger and let that angst build up. Davis is cutting himself off from Chloe and now he’s resorting to self-flagellation to try to feel some means of control over his life, almost punishing himself for still feeling this connection to Chloe. Not good.
I love writing the love/hate, trust/distrust relationship between Clark and Lex, and how Lex uses Davis almost as a pawn in this competition against Clark, sort of like “I don’t need you, look at this other friend I have, that’s how little you mean to me.” And Clark is at once being both insensitive to Lex and trying to get Lex to share his happiness about Lois. So some tension there, which is going to be of enormous importance later.
The self-flagellation was part of Davis’s descent that was always in my notes, so I originally put it in just to set Davis’s phone conversation with Lex apart from the usual “hi how are you”, then I moved it to the end of the chapter so you start out wondering what’s going on with the blood and the water, then Lois gets drunk and you file it away, then suddenly you think Davis is going to do something to resolve the Chloe situation and instead you see just how far he’s fallen.
And of course we have the two Sageeths, as it were, talking about what it would be like to fight someone wearing a Superman symbol instead of talking about what it would be like to wear one into battle, as Lex did with Clark in the episode.
Another thing I tried really hard to get right was the advice Lex would offer on Chloe. That went through a number of drafts, since it couldn’t be too obvious and I didn’t want everything in the chapter to circle around to Chloe, since it is about establishing this friendship between Davis and Lex, and the revelation of Naman and Sageeth. But in the end, I think I managed to shuffle everything around just so, where the chapter both moves the story forward and stops to offer some commentary on itself and how the characters are feeling.
Oh, and one little thing that I definitely overthought… in this chapter, Davis admits that he loves Chloe and originally he said that Chloe loves him as well. Well, I thought that was a little presumptuous of him, and how self-loathing and undeserving of love he thinks he’s become. I think the revelation that he hopes Chloe loves him, that he still wants to receive that affection, is as big a deal to Davis as stating that Chloe loves him.
Next chapter? Someone’s getting laid. No, I won’t say who.
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 05:03 pm (UTC)I really like what you did here with Davis saying he is a good guy as long as he can do something about it. And the whole demons thing is intersting. So it looks like he thinks that he's possessed.
Very intersting and intriguing. And bring on Chlavis. Pretty please with sugar on top! Update soon.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-23 10:41 pm (UTC)and ROGUE!!!! I consider "Rogue" to be one of the finest eps of s1. Seeing it reinvented with some Dex witticisms, and comments about spending the night :P makes me want to slide to the floor with joy.
I love how Lex is all calculated and wouldn't go to war unless he's won already and Davis is all primal wanting the strongest to win. I really wanna stick him in a period movie now.
And I like that Davis isn;t so stuck on Chloe he can't at least glance at Lois' boobs. Hee!
no subject
Date: 2009-07-24 01:08 am (UTC)Lex’s right eyebrow joined his left. “You might want to rethink your title.”
ah my dex heart is pleased :)
“And do all your editors make your lips—“ Lex demonstratingly flicked a finger near his mouth—“pull up at the corners?”
I really really love the lex/davis interaction here… and I loved that you spent time making it more of a plotline than oh here’s a chloe/davis ff (which I wouldn’t mind at all. But still)
Lex circled him. “And how do you feel about your good friend?”
“I love her.” Saying that felt like torture devices were being taken off him. “It’s complicated.”
yes he does… I’m a bit surprised that he said it this early on, but than again we knew he loved her when he first met her
She could just be your destiny.
oooohhhh ooohhh this so reminds me of the line davis said to chole in eternal “maybe there’s something stronger out there than my need to kill” love it’s LOVE…
awwww the self-harm hurts… poor guy, probably deosn’t think he’s worthy of love or loving chloe…
I kinda like drunk lois…
bring on ch. 9 :)
no subject
Date: 2009-07-24 07:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-24 04:18 pm (UTC)Lois and Lex, Chloe/Davis cheerleading squad. I always did love drunk!Lois and her big mouth. Knew it wouldn't be enough to make Davis throw caution and self-loathing to the wind, though.