Author: iep
Rating: R (methinks).
Warnings: AU!!
Spoilers: general spoilers, if any.
Disclaimer: I wished everyday that they could be mine.
But, how can they? (DARN!)
Summary: Everything has a beginning that starts in the
middle.
Pairings: CLex, et cetera.
Notes: Part of the ClexFest 7th Wave. This is the
first part of a series (hopefully). Grampa Kent made a
showing, as well as OCs here and there. Hopefully,
it's not too bad.
HUUUUGE thanks to Jen for the beta. And therefore, all
other mistakes remain stubbornly mine.





a. v. ante : inquiry

“Lex left two hours ago, Mr. Kent, and I don’t think
he’ll be back.” The young helper, David, told him when
he stepped back into the living room. His appointment
with the visiting doctor had stretched a five-minute
general checkup into a two-hour affair. He’s old, he
thought, a decrepit man with the scent of cemeteries
already beckoning none-too-gently.

“Yes, I noticed,” he said as he caught sight of the
faint tire marks on the driveway. The groundskeeper
would have a fit when he came back from his leave
tomorrow. But it would be a good entertainment for
some of the elderly there, he supposed. Abraham Kent
hobbled to his seat next to the games table, spotting
the steaming mug of cocoa Jones had undoubtedly
provided.

“It’s not everyday that I see a Ferari drive through
here,” David said.

“It’s not everyday that I hear someone call a Luthor
by his first name.” The cloud of warm cocoa scent was
comforting. “And how many times do I have to tell you
it’s Abe, not Mr. Kent?”

“We were quite good friends back in those days,” Jones
offered, rather wistfully. “He still remembered me
though.”

“Friends are hard to come by, these days. He did good
by remembering.”

“What was he doing here anyway?”

“He’s my future grandson-in-law,” Abraham managed to
let out a harsh chuckle. He wished it would be that
easy. Lex came to him that day, full of questions,
doubt, expectations and a good amount of hesitation.
They talked at length about all and sundry. His aged
mind still couldn’t fathom why Alexander Luthor would
come up to him and ask for dating pointers. But most
of all they talked, just talked for the sake of
talking. Abraham marveled how one could talk when one
put one’s mind to it. “Fancy that, Davey. And he’s
such a fine young man.”

“My grandfather could say that about him too once.” No
regrets. Almost.


*****


It was a similar setup: fireplaces, firelights,
memories and the number of people sitting on a rug.
Similar, but not the same: then the rug was mahogany
red, newly spread onto the marble floors, and an
obscure acquaintance sat by him in a deserted common
room.

“I was seven years, three months and fifteen days old
when I wondered whether everyone was born either
perfectly good or perfectly bad,” a sip of brandy,
“quite a pointless question, really. But,” a shrug,
“People are entitled to their life questions.”

“Did you?” a question from a friend he hoped he’d
never forget.

“Did I what? Found the answer?”

A reply came by way of a very vigorous nod that sent
black hair against the relative gravity of the drawing
room.

An angel came and sang to me
A sad song in my dreams;
It wasn’t rain that washed away
The touch of angel wings.

“Not yet.”

“Why not?” Clark asked, before helping himself to some
cold popcorns and a mouthful of tepid cola.

“Other than setting my mind on the obvious first? I’d
rather spend my time planning world domination. And
there’s also the immediate emergency of getting my
father off my back.”

The fire crackled, devouring sweet-scented logs. The
butler placed them there earlier in the afternoon,
when Lex was busy thwarting his father and Clark was
doing farm things. “Do you… uh…” Clark hesitated,
mulling over words, plausibility of reason and
believability. Lex sat waiting for the inevitable,
garnering faith and plausible answers. “Would you,”
deep breath, steady eyes, Adam’s apple bobbing up and
down, “Uh, never mind.”

“You were asking?”

“Forget it.”

“Right,” Lex had learnt early in his years the
appropriateness of pushing and withdrawing. He let
himself fall onto white furs watching the room tilt:
from the red-orange glow, to the marble fixtures, to
where the wall ended and the ceiling started, to
infinite possibilities trapped within roofs, floors,
and walls. “I will always have time for you,” he said.
“Always, for good or bad,” he added for good measure.
Clark had the modesty not to rise above the strangled
squeak.

“Well, imagine my relief hearing that.” Clark thought
his voice sounded too high-pitched, but Lex seemed not
to mind. Awkward was a word seldom used in the many
occasions they ‘communed’, but awkward it would seem.
Taking the thousand steps seemed utterly plausible,
for Clark at least. “Uh, oh, look at the time!”

Lex made no attempt to sit up. “Wouldn’t want your dad
to come toting guns after my pitiful ass, would we
now?” He burrowed deeper into the carpet, anticipating
the departure of a certain warmth.

“I don’t think it’s pitiful.”

“Says the boy who thought it too… how did you put it…
flat? Was that the word you used?”

“Icantremember,” Clark said, and clamped his mouth
shut. Lex was admiring Clark’s valiant attempt not to
blush.

“Of course,” Lex said, closing his eyes and smiling
slightly.

“Sure,” shuffle, footsteps muffled against fur,
footsteps on marble, the springs in the doorknob
coiling, recoiling, the slight creak of the door, cold
air from the corridor. “Thanks Lex, I’ll see you
around, huh?” a walk out of the threshold, the door
closing. “I’ll show myself out.” Click. Like that.
Abrupt.

“You do that, Clark. You do that,” the ceiling didn’t
reply, its name wasn’t Clark. Then he started
thinking. Thinking as he always did in the absence of
patience, temper, resources, friends.

I love my life of tears and woe
Love everything I’ve been
Then why do visions haunt me…

The fireplace, the firelight, the fur beneath him,
alcohol, darkness descending. Slipping into slumber
Lex thought about himself, his fledgling company, his
meeting in the morning, his luncheon, his dad, the
world, Clark, Clark’s chemistry exam, and himself.


*****


Three days came and went as three days always did:
three times twenty-four hours, with a smattering of
snacks. So much possibility if only he wasn’t stuck in
Smallville. His dad would blame this on Lex, no doubt.
His mom would blame it on normal teenage hormones that
tended to rebel, among other things she refused to
acknowledge. Clark wouldn’t be so quick to call
himself normal, and he would like to think that Lex
wasn’t such a bad influence. He would probably blame
it on heat and the cow that refused to be milked.

“Brooding, are we?” a voice Clark barely acknowledged
as Lex’s.

“Breeding?” Clark jerked, the sort of knee-jerk
reaction that sent him tumbling unceremoniously.
“Wha’? Oh, Lex. What breeding?”

“I was about to ask you that,” Lex said. “What’s in
your mind, Clark? I said ‘brood’, not ‘breed’.” And he
smiled, plopping down beside Clark in a manner almost
unsuitable for a pair of Armani trousers and… was that
Burberry’s trench coat he was wearing?

Clark hated – disliked – it when Lex looked smug. Not
always, but especially when Lex was smug over some
clumsiness, silliness, or general faux pas at his
expense.

“The Chaniago’s brood hen is breeding rather actively
this season, you know.” Clark said, “I’m thinking
ahead.” A crease on the forehead started an army of
other creases. Clark had the feeling that he wasn’t
making any impression, merely depressions. “Lame, I
know. Okay, my mind was somewhere else.”

Lex merely smiled, the truth came eventually. It
wasn’t what he was aiming for, but that too would come
in time. And for that, he was a patient man. “And, am
I invited to that somewhere else?”

Clark chose to look up and watched rainclouds forming
further afield. It would probably pour before the next
morning sun. “It’s not open to the public yet.” He
could already smell the wet earth, could already hear
it knock on windows and blinding his vision. “When it
is, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Even before you let your parents know?” Clark wanted
to tell Lex that his jealousy was unbecoming. But
Lex’s, eyes were fixed on the black formation making
its way steadily toward them, growing in might and
bulbous weight.

“Big possibility there,” Clark saw the dark clouds
too, overbearing and heavy.

“Really?”

“Well, seeing that they’ve already figured out so much
on their own, I guess…” Clark shrugged. “Well, you
know.”

They watched the clouds advancing, obliterating light
and casting shadows over gold, green and reds. One
shadow was sharper, darker and approaching very fast.

“Clark, is that your father coming for my pitiful
ass?” Lex said.

“Can’t see any guns on him,” both of them watched the
figure, approaching as quickly as an anxious father
could ever be.

“He might have a revolver under his shirt.”

“He doesn’t.”

“How can you be so sure?” time passed in loud ticks of
a Swatch ‘dress-down, cheapest-of-the-expensive’s
watch, the marching black clouds, and the mostly
harmless movement of Jonathan Kent.

“You’re afraid of my gun,” Jonathan stood in front of
them. Lex couldn’t exactly figure out the meaning
behind the seemingly friendly smile.

“Merely the man wielding it,” that was when Lex
spotted the hammer. “Or the hammer.”

“Dad?”

“Be thankful there’s a storm coming.” The hammer was
handed from father to son, the roof waiting patiently,
the storm clouds steady. “Homicide can wait until next
time.” It was a joke, a lame and private joke shared
between Jonathan Kent’s heart and brain. He admitted
grudgingly that Lex made his son happy, and his son’s
happiness made Martha happy. “And I’d be grateful if
the roof could be done any time before the storm
arrives.”

When the older Kent disappeared into the house and
Clark had propped the ladder, Lex was on his way back
to the mansion. His rearview mirror told him that
Clark never really needed the ladder.


*****


“You have beautiful eyes,” Jonathan said one day.

“Do you want to drown in them?” His wife replied,
merry shadows behind the scents of vegetable soup and
pies.

“Why would I want to do a thing like that?” her waist
was narrow, his hands fit around her as it was meant
to be. “I’d like to swim and lounge and live in them.”

She laughed and he basked in the warmth of it, her
voice, her touches, her breath against his, mingling.
Life could never be as perfect.

“Much like an eye worm then?” Life could never be
perfect.

“You know what I meant,” a nip, a giggle, a snatch of
carefree time in between chores, responsibilities and
fears.

A second passed as would a minute, and a minute would
turn into ten and it wouldn’t have mattered. “Jon,
unhand me for a while?”

“The pies. Of course.” Fingers, they are sometimes
made for lingering, fleeting touches. Even fingers
hardened by years of labor, even fingers used to
squeeze, hold so tight.

He sat on one of the chairs, leaned back and closed
his eyes. Letting his mind drift, and his ears trained
towards the blub-blubbu-blubbuh simmering pot of soup,
to the ting-ank-tunk-creak of utensils, oven doors and
tin. A brush of lips upon his brows, so fleetingly he
thought he was quite possibly dreaming. Yet he smiled.
His life was almost like a dream sequence, sometimes
waking only to a dream-like day. Surreal -- a
Smallville reality -- his in-law couldn’t quite
forgive him for his choice of residence, just as his
father couldn’t quite thank him enough.

But, fate wasn’t something one could choose, was it?
Like his life in general, his wife and his son?

“Hey,” the voice that wasn’t his or Martha’s sank
slowly into his contented brain, much like a dead leaf
slowly drowning. Listless.

“Clark?” urgency in a mother’s voice.

“Hmm?” Jonathan straightened up just in time to feel
the air shift as Clark settled on the other chair.
“Why so glum?”

“Mom, is Lex’s pie ready?”

“In a minute, darling. Why the hurry?”

A shrug, a smile, and Jonathan’s world came back into
clear perspective once more. Martha wasn’t anxious in
a bad sense of the word and, “School sucks?”

Clark looked up and smiled, “Yah, the usual. Only it’s
worse today with that substitute teacher.” His son
went on to rattle about his day: Chloe, Peter, his
friends and his teacher. Even as Jonathan slipped into
another contented daydream, he couldn’t help but
realize that Clark was deliberately avoiding any
mention of Lex. Maybe one day, Clark would forget
about Lex for his own good. He was still holding on to
that conviction. One day he would see the proof: be it
right or wrong.

The telephone rang just then. “I’ll get it!” Clark was
already up; the phone never managed a second ring.

“Gramps?”

Jonathan and Martha turned their heads to the general
direction of the phone then.

“What? Oh?”

And just like that the phone was dropped, swinging
away. A breeze that was Clark passed, the door opened.

“Clark my boy!” The five o’clock light brushed into
the kitchen, Martha was already making her way towards
the two figures framed by the doorway, while Jonathan
took his time to recover from shock. “Martha!” He
watched shadows mingled, breaths fused, he could feel
the smiles exchanged and the few stray happy tears.

“Jonathan, boy,” his father was descending on him as
quickly as old feet could carry, “You not happy to see
me? I know it’s very short notice.” Shadows surged
around him, descending like pie-smelling prophecy.

“Of course I’m happy to see you, dad. Just shocked.”
He stood up and embraced the wrinkled frame. “What
brings you here?”

“Doc told me I’m as good as dead so, you know,” a
shrug. A scrape of yet another chair, a sigh as old
bones settled over old wood. Mortality is a dangerous
weapon.

For a while at least there was comfortable silence.
“Anyway, I’ll be going then, Mr. Kent.” Foreign voice,
Jonathan caught a foreign shadow against his kitchen
wall.

“Oh, this is David Williams. He’s a helper at the
Home.” Nods, smiles, more nods, more smiles. “He’s
here to see a friend. I’ll see you around then,
Davey.”

“Right, I’ll be off then,” another nod. “It’s good to
meet all of you.” The door swung close.

“So, dad, you okay sharing Clark’s room?” Family
reunions best served with soup, coffee, tea and pies.
There’d be enough time for drama and picking
cemetery-lots later.

Lex’s pie never made it outside the Kent’s house.


*****


“Good day, Mr. Kent,” the butler greeted him with his
usual alacrity. “You can find Mr. Luthor in the
study.” And just like that Clark made his way, a
freshly baked ‘I am sorry for not coming last night’
pie in his hands. He walked slower than usual.

There was a foreign type of cacophony coming from the
study. One Clark was not accustomed to hearing on
Saturdays. Not the sounds Clark would associate with
business dealings, or Lionel-dealings, but that of
soft laughter, oomphs, aahs, chatters, and obscure
music. Clark hesitated for a while, until he heard
rustles and muffled footsteps he knew were Lex’s.

The door opened in front of him, slow and creaking, “…
supposed to be here by now,” Lex’s voice was clearer
now that he stood in front of Clark, head twisted
around to speak to the other occupant of the room.
“Clark!” hands shot out to grab Clark, “there you
are!” Clark found himself in the study, suddenly a
different, and foreign place to him. The room seemed a
lot less formal, the lights filtered in more readily,
the shadows seemed to be obliterated. Everything was
more pronounced, a bright thing that sucked Clark in.

Lex’s laugh lines, Lex’s guest’s languid pose, the
curtains drawn, the floor strewn with food and empty
bottles. “I brought pie.”

“David, Clark. Clark, David.” Lex was still tugging on
Clark’s shirtsleeves, depositing him on the foot of
the sofa, and the pie on an empty spot on the floor.

“We’ve met,” Lex’s guest, David, sat up.

“Of course,” Lex sat next to Clark, head lolled back
against the upholstery. “How’s your grandfather,
Clark?”

“All right, I guess.” Clark answered. His eyes were
fixed on David, who straightened up some more. David,
who passed a lingering touch upon Lex’s scalp, and
stood up.

“Right. Better head to bed now that someone’s here to
look after you.” David, who grabbed his backpack.
David, who wore the same clothes as when he showed up
on Clark’s doorstep.

Lex yawned, and shifted to lay his head on Clark’s
thighs, “You do that. You know where.”

“I’ll ask your butler,” the words came out in soft
choppy, chuckles. David, who talked and laughed at the
same time.

As the door swung open and shut, Clark found himself
in a deserted room, all spirit seemed to have left;
all sounds seemed to have disappeared through the
pores of the walls and windows and floors. Lex’s head
weighing upon his thigh, slipping into sleep.

Clark felt Lex shift a bit, snuggle deeply, and hum an
obscure apology-sounding noise. Clark saw light dance
upon the untouched pie, sitting proudly on the floor
surrounded by wrappers, bottles and debris.

Clark vehemently told himself that his jealousy was
unbecoming, and silence was deafening.


*****


Lex woke up to a pair of blue-green eyes. The owner
sat on the floor at the end of the study. Daylight had
gone to bed some hours ago, he noted, there was only
inky black outside the windows. Everything in the room
was reflected in its entirety on those windows. “Did I
sleep long?”

“Long enough. I won’t be surprised if Clark complains
about having cramps.” David’s head jerked a bit, but
Lex thought it was just his consciousness coming back
online. He became aware of the jeans beneath his head,
the scent of Clark, the soft breathing about him, and
the afghan around him.

“Been watching long?” Lex straightened up, indulged in
whatever stretch he would allow in front of friends,
and squinted – at nothing in particular. He thought he
would be expected to squint somehow.

“An hour or so.” A shrug, a small gesture towards the
coffee table.

Lex took in his surrounding. The floor had been
cleared around them, probably in the discreet and
silent ways only butlers and housekeepers could. A
plate of food and pie – Martha’s (reheated, of course)
– and a pitcher of juice had been placed on the coffee
table. His eyes returned to Clark, who slept as if
dead, half-leaning against the sofa.

“That too,” David said. “You guys looked like a
Renaissance painting. No. Something more decadent.”

“I’d rather you said Sonnenkinder-esque.”

“You would, wouldn’t you?” David rose. Lex fancied the
way the shadows shifted, drifted in the confines of
his study. “After all you’re a public schoolboy.”

“Have you visited La Pietra?”

“No,” was David’s answer, invading Lex’s personal
space. “I won’t travel that far only to meet a ghost,
however important you’d say it is.” David sat once
more, just by Lex’s left little toe. It was a long
time somebody other than Clark was that close to his
bad breath. “Why should I trek all the way to La
Pietra,” David asked again, “when I could just pay you
a visit?” Lex looked down. David’s profile
overshadowed that of Clark – so oblivious in his
sleep. “I’m still welcome, right?” David ventured once
more.

“What kind of a question is that, Dave?” Lex circled
him. Crouched and slid a hand under Clark, and then
another. “Help me move him onto the sofa.”

Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?
Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?
Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?
Or Love in a golden bowl?

“Just a question,” David took hold of Clark’s feet.
Lex thought about weighing scales, feathers and lead.
Lex thought Clark would float away from his grasp, but
Clark was solid underneath his hands.


*****


Clark didn’t wake until the morning, when the hearth
was beginning to die out and the sun crept slowly
upwards. Clark didn’t wait until the butler gave him
breakfast, nor did he wait for Lex to rouse and send
him back to the farm. Clark didn’t linger to catch
another glimpse of David, nor did he leave something
of his behind.

Seven days passed in a blur of Pete, Chloe, Lana, his
parents and Grampa Kent. It was also a
home-school-home-farm affair. There would be no
get-togethers at The Talon to discuss school and
takeovers, no unnecessary stopover to see the occupant
of the Castle, no loitering in Luthor’s garden helping
the gardener shift dirt.

Seven more days passed before Grampa Kent was sure he
could actually live another hundred years if he wanted
too. Although not exactly in Smallville where mutants
ran amok and so on and so forth.Oh, definitely not
Smallville, where he had to bunk with a moping
grandson who could move very fast and break houses.
Not that Grampa Kent had seen that last one himself,
but his intuition was seldom wrong. In fact, the one
time recently it did go wrong was when he had peed in
the middle of a bullet-vaganza somewhere in Germany.
(He’s that old now?!)

Grampa Kent also had the feeling that Lex Luthor had
ceased to be a prospective son-in-law. Well, in his
lifetime anyway.

A few more days passed, and just when Clark’s memory
of what David looked like began to fail him, his
Grampa announced that he would be heading back to the
Home, for he missed Ethel and Mary Jane, Howard,
Walter and the annoying Joseph (who’s supposed to be
dead forty years ago, anyway). Two hours after the
announcement, just as the last toiletries had been
packed away and the laces of his boots tied up, David
showed up on the doorstep. It must have been by some
cosmic joke that Clark was the one who opened the
door, after two odd weeks of running, hiding, and
avoiding.

It was not until another month, that the Kent farm
received a telephone call from the Manageress. The
Manageress of the Home of the Elderly, to be precise:
Abraham Kent died peacefully in his sleep.

(end ‘inquiry’)


*****




Notes :
1. I wasn’t aware of the name, or the place of
residence of Clark’s grandparents, especially, Clark’s
paternal grandparents featured here. I took liberty
with the name, and place, seeing that this is an AU
fiction of sorts. Although, I would be forever
grateful if someone could set me straight in this one.

2. “An angel came and sang to me… I love my life…”
sequence was shamelessly derived (read: stolen) from
Josef Skvorecky’s The Engineer of Human Souls
(Pøíbĕh inženýra lidských duší), London, 1984
(English Translation). In it, Skvorecky wrote it’s
performed by the Flamingo group and sung by a Marie
Rotterova. The name of the song is “The Long Black
Limousine.” Does Lex own a black limousine, I wonder?

3. The ‘Sonnenkinder’ dialogues between Lex and David
was heavily inspired by Martin Green’s Children of the
Sun : A Narrative of Decadence in England After 1918,
London, 1976. La Pietra is, for quite some time, the
residence of Harold Acton, one of the period’s more
heralded dandies. This is not to say that Lex is
overly dandy in the sense of Green’s depiction of the
sonnenkind that I understood, but it’s a
chocolate-melty-decadence, the struggle and
bittersweet poetry-like quality of life that I was
aiming for.

4. “Does the Eagle know…” sequence was Thel’s Motto
from William Blake’s The Book of Thel. Near the end
asked “Why a tender curb upon the youthful burning
boy?” Quite pointless, but I thought Lex would want to
let his mind wander off into tangents – probably like
a “clod of clay”?

5. “a. v. ante” stands for “ad valorem ante”, a kind
of informal note usually attached to some internal
reports circulated in my company. Roughly translated
as “the price to pay in proportion to value.” It sort
of lend its meaning to the story, that everything has
a price to be paid. The additional information such as
“inquiry”, “suspend”, “proceed”, and “discard”, among
others explained how the a. v. ante order should be
approached. This is the first in the “a. v. ante”
series.