Title: Three Day Weekend
Author: La Chatte Noire
Feedback: Dreamwardn@aol.com
Rating: R-NC17
Warnings: Character death and like it or not, incest.
Disclaimers: WB and the comic books own the characters and situations here. The song lyrics are from Nickelback's 'How You Remind Me' and are owned by the band and record label. All song titles are owned by their creators. I just had fun with it all.
Answers Challenge: Clark goes against everything that he has ever been taught by his parents and kills someone to protect the man he loves. How does Lex react and what are the consequences of Clark's actions on the rest of his life. (Jezebel)
Thanks to: Amanda for the beta, Shauna for the Mafia idea that landed on the cutting room floor, Grace for the encouragement.
Here goes nothing.

THREE DAY WEEKEND
La Chatte Noire

Friday

Clark wandered the halls of Castle Luthor, looking for his lover. It was unusual for Lex to be anywhere other than his office at this time of day. He was just passing the Weapons Room when he heard voices.

"Let me go you sick bastard!" yelled the unmistakable voice of his lover.

"You're the sick one here, son. You're the one who enjoys this shit. No Luthor ever takes it up the ass, much less enjoys it." The second voice was the harsh calm of Lionel. His last word was punctuated with a cry of pain from Lex.

At the shriek, Clark rushed in, anger boiling over. The sight was disturbing.

Both men were wearing what remained of fencing suits. Lex's was ripped in several places as if by the foil. He was bleeding from several of these scratches. His foil was thrown, forgotten to one side of the room. Lionel had Lex bent face forward screaming over a table and was thrusting into him harshly, without lubrication. His foil was in hand and he brought it down swiftly for another swipe at his son.

Before the foil fell, Clark had grabbed it from Lionel's hand and swiped it at him. It landed, creating a streak of dark red across his back. Before Lionel could react, Clark had grabbed him around the neck and thrown him across the room into one of Lex's sword displays.

Lionel gasped as a broadsword, ironically his favorite, sliced into him from behind. He looked up to see blurred fury as a force unknown picked him up again and threw him.

He heard the window before he felt it.

Just as he heard the thud of his landing outside before...

Actually, he never did feel the landing.

Bleeding on the ground, he looked up to see his son's lover. The angelic face was twisted in fury, the blocked sun behind him giving him a halo.

The halo of the angel of death.

His last thought was of how fitting it was that the angel of death would be the one to kill him.

-----

Oh, God, he hurt.

Lex had heard the clatter of swords as something, or someone was thrown against them. He didn't care. He had heard the gasp as sword cut flesh. He didn't care. He had heard the window crash and the soft thud soon after. He still didn't care. All he cared about was the fact that Lionel was off him. And that Clark was there to protect him. To heal him. To make sure this never happened again.

He felt Clark's hands on his back, soothing away the aches, stroking away the fear. He felt Clark check for injury and, finding nothing serious, helped him back into his clothing. He felt Clark help him stand up before he broke.

Lex wrapped his arms around his lover and cried. It didn't matter that Luthors don't cry. It didn't matter that grown men don't cry. It didn't matter that he hadn't cried in decade, since his mother's death. All that mattered was that he was here, Clark was here, and Lionel was gone. Speaking of which...

Lex stopped his crying and looked at the disaster around them. The most notable features were the bloody swords, the broken window, and the silence. He found the silence to be the most disturbing.

He looked up at Clark and was surprised by what he saw. In place of the soft innocence he had grown so used to there was an ancient quality, a harsh sadness that he had only seen once, in his own eyes, the day of his mother's death. "Clark, are you all right?" he asked softly.

Clark's answer was to wrap his arms tightly around the bald man and squeeze, burying his head in a thin shoulder.

Lex didn't mind. The pain anchored him, kept him in the here and now. Until, that is, he needed to breathe. When nothing else worked he gave Clark a swift kick in the knee.

Clark loosened his grip with an embarrassed "Sorry" and put Lex down.

Lex ran a hand through Clark's hair. The younger man nuzzled the hand, eyes closed. "I'll be all right, Lex," Clark mumbled into the hand. "Are you going to be all right?"

Lex gave a sad look. "I'll be fine, until I have to face my father again. God, I hate him."

Clark stiffened and gave Lex a look of confusion. He broke away from his lover and wandered to the open window. He looked down. He held his hand over his mouth and gasped at the scene beneath.

Lex got curious at Clark's reaction and came over to look. He gasped and looked at Clark.

"I killed him," Clark said softly. "I threw him out the window. I killed him. Oh, God." Clark panicked and ran as fast as his feet could carry him.

Lex blinked. In that space of time his friend and lover had disappeared. He called out for him but heard no answer. He sighed and looked down at the body of Lionel Luthor. "Now what?" he said to the body. "Killed by your son's lover. You know, the one you wanted to destroy. Ironic, isn't it?" He turned as he walked out of the room. "Just make sure you don't try to haunt me. You did enough of that in life."

-----

Clark ran as fast as his legs could carry him. It took less than a minute to reach home. It wasn't nearly enough time for the run to make him feel any better, but he had been taught to never run or hide from his problems.

Clark stood outside the kitchen and found his mother pulling pies from the oven. His father was no where to be seen. It didn't matter; he needed to talk now, to get this off his chest now.

The moment the pies were moved to the counter top, Clark burst in and wrapped his arms around his mother. He held her tenderly and cried all his pain and sorrow into her bosom. They sat on the kitchen floor and Martha allowed her son to hold her, to nuzzle her, to wail like a puppy trying to win back its mother's affections after it had done something bad. She stroked his hair and murmured nonsense words of comfort to her child, knowing that he would tell her what was wrong only when he was ready.

It was a half-hour later when Jonathon walked in from the field to find the scene little changed. Clark's wails had diminished into tortured sobs. They were still on the kitchen floor, still holding each other. Martha was still stroking Clark's hair. She looked up at her husband.

"Martha, what happened?" Jonathon asked.

Martha shrugged. "I don't know, Jon," she replied. "He just rushed in and started crying. I wish I knew what was wrong."

Clark slowed his sobbing enough to grind out, "Mom, Dad, we need to talk," in a voice hoarse from crying.

Jonathon and Martha exchanged worried glances. Jonathon sat down on the floor with them. He put a hand on Clark's shoulder and rubbed comfortingly. He glanced at both again and embraced them both.

Martha was worried. Clark hadn't needed cuddling like this for almost a decade, not since he learned English and lost that glint of eternal sadness in his eye.

Clark had stopped crying a few minutes before and seemed content with just lying in his parent's arms. He knew he had to tell them but didn't know how to start without having to tell them everything. He sighed and stood up.

He looked into the worried eyes of his parents. "There are some things I really need to tell you," he said sadly. The only way was to tell them everything.

The three of them moved to the kitchen table. Clark looked at the other two from behind hooded eyes as he brought the first matter to the floor. "Mom, Dad, I'm gay."

Martha gave her son a look and incredulously exclaimed "This is what you got so worked up over?! Thank God, I thought it was something serious. Don't worry about that. We still love you."

Jonathon sat back in his chair. Ok, so this was unexpected. It was understandable, but unexpected. Wait a minute...

"This doesn't have anything to do with Lex, does it?" Jonathon asked suspiciously.

Clark's expression became very guarded. "Actually, that's the next thing I was going to talk about. I've been seeing Lex for about 5 months now."

Martha put a hand on Clark's. "Do you love him?" she asked.

Clark answered quickly. "Yes. And he loves me back."

Martha sighed and gave her husband the evil eye. "Then that's all that matters, isn't it Jonathon." It wasn't a question.

"Hell no, that's not all that matters!" Jonathon yelled as he got out of his seat and began pacing the room as he ranted and raved. "He's a Luthor! He's a snake! He's just like his father! Speaking of which, what were you planning on doing when Lionel Luthor found out?! He's not going to be nice about this, he's-"

"DAD!!" Clark yelled, getting his father's attention. "Lionel's already found out, that's what I've been trying to tell you guys! The bastard was there at the castle today and do you have any idea what he was doing to his son?! He raped, yes RAPED his own son!! I walked in on it! Do you know what I did?! I-" Clark faltered. "I-" He faltered again before he finally ground out "I threw him out the window. One on the top story. He's dead. I killed him, Goddamnit, I killed the sick bastard." He sobbed silently and dropped his head onto the table. "I'm a murderer."

Jonathon and Martha glanced at each other with identical thoughts in their heads. What did our son do? Where did we go wrong? How did we raise a killer?

Clark kept his head laid in his arms as he sobbed quietly, silent question whipping through his head. What have I done? How did this happen? What's going to happen to me now?

Jonathon and Martha looked back at their son. Martha moved to sit beside him. She put an arm around his shoulders.

"Honey, why didn't you ever tell us?" Martha asked as she turned toward Clark to look into his eyes.

"What do you mean?" Clark asked.

"Why didn't you tell us you were seeing Lex? Or even that you were gay?"

"Because I knew the reaction I would get." Clark sounded almost emotionless.

"What kind of an answer is that?!" screamed Jonathon. "You've been lying to us for half a year now! You should have told us! You should have told us the moment it happened!"

"And why?" yelled Clark as he stood up to face his father. "So you could lecture me on your unfounded hatred for Lex?! So you could stand there and pretend to understand even half of what I'm going through? You don't even know what I am! I'm not the child you pulled from the spaceship anymore. I haven't been for years now. You just haven't had the guts to see it!" Clark finished and turned to storm out of the house.

"Clark! I forbid you to ever see that Luthor again!" yelled Jonathon after his son.

"I'm not going to see Lex right now, Dad, I'm going to my loft," Clark said, his voice dripping with venom. "As for later, there's no way you can stop me and you know it." Clark left, slamming the door off its hinges as he went.

Martha watched as Clark left the house. "He's right, you know," she said to her husband. "There is no way we can physically stop him."

Jonathon sighed. "I know, Martha." He turned to look her in the eye. "Where did we go wrong?"

"Maybe we didn't. Maybe there was no way to prevent this. You heard what Lionel was doing to his son. I don't blame Clark for what he did. I would have done the same thing."

Jonathon nodded. "So would I. I'm more worried about what part Lex played and the parts he will play."

"You don't think Lex somehow caused this?" Martha sounded exasperated.

"Surprisingly, no I don't." Jonathon sounded contemplative. "I wonder what's going to happen now. Who's going to take the fall?"

"You're right. I don't want to have to visit our son in prison and I know Clark isn't going to let anyone else take the blame, not without putting up a fight. We have to find a way to keep him from Lex's for a few days, just so things don't look suspicious."

Jonathon moved to gather his wife in his arms. "I don't know how we're going to convince him, but we have to try," he murmured into her hair as he held her close.

Saturday

In the morning, Clark awoke to a terrific need to see Lex. Moving as quickly as he could while staying completely silent, he slipped through the house. He made it all the way to the door before he was stopped.

"Clark, where are you going?" Martha asked cautiously.

"I'm going to Lex's," he answered without emotion.

"Clark, no, not after what happened," she answered quickly. "Your father and I want you to stay away for a few days, just until things blow over. We don't know who saw or what hap-"

She was cut off as Clark wrapped a hand around her neck and pressed her to the wall. She trembled in fear as the hand tightened to keep her there.

"I am going to Lex's," he said once again without emotion.

Martha nodded her head quickly before he let her go and walked out of the house. She watched through the screen as he sped off.

Dear Lord, she thought, what has he become?

-----

Clark sped through the corn as quickly as the whipping stalks would allow. The only thought in his mind was his need to see Lex, to prove to himself that his Love was alive and well.

When he stopped within view of the castle, he saw it surrounded by the Metropolis PD.

A wave of guilt and fear swept through him as he punched his code into the keypad at the gate. Since people were watching, he opted for a more normal entrance.

He got halfway up the drive before he was stopped. "Who are you, son, and what are you doing here?" the officer asked.

It took Clark only a few seconds to come up with a plausible answer. "My named is Clark Kent, sir, and I'm a friend of Lex Luthor. I heard about his father and I came by to see how he's doing."

The officer looked at him suspiciously. "How did you hear about Lionel Luthor's death?"

Clark glanced around and saw Lex mulling towards him. He sent out a look that caused Lex to quicken his pace.

"Well, young man?" asked the officer impatiently.

Lex appeared behind the officer. "He's here because I called him. I told him something had happened to my father."

Clark threw two cents in. "Lex asked me to come."

The officer turned to Clark. "Why didn't you say so?"

Clark widened his eyes and looked properly worried and innocent. "I didn't know Lionel had passed away. It's not something you expect."

With a glance at Lex, who had moved to stand next to Clark, arms brushing slightly with a protective look in his eyes, the officer nodded. "I understand," he said cautiously and stalked off.

After he was out of hearing distance, Lex sighed. He laid his head on Clark's shoulder. Clark relaxed slightly at the contact. He leaned into his lover slightly and murmured, "that was close."

"That it was," Lex replied softly.

"So how are you doing?" Clark asked.

"I got deeply drunk last night. That should be enough mourning."

"Lex? He was your father."

"Clark? You saw what he did to me. Do you really think he hasn't done that, or worse, before? No. I thank him for siring me but beyond that he was just another person who hated me. Just another obstacle to be overcome."

Clark nodded, shocked that a person could treat anyone in such a manner, much less their own child. He glanced beyond Lex for half a second and saw the officer staring at them. He looked back at his lover and said softly, "That guy is watching us." He stopped and a look of panic entered his eyes. "Lex, they'll be able to trace this back to me, won't they? I'm not safe anywhere."

Lex grabbed Clark's hand and held it, grounding the younger man. "No, they won't," he said softly, surely. "I'll explain later but I promise you they won't ever trace this to you."

Clark looked at Lex and nodded, panic still in his eyes. Lex noticed the officer's interest as well. He put a hand on Clark's shoulder in a gesture of friendship and said loud enough for the officer to hear, "Go home, Clark. This has been a shock and we both need time to adjust. Besides, you weren't here, you can't help to catch the killer in any way." He lowered his voice to a low whisper. "I mean that, you weren't here, it'll keep you safe. Go home. I'm sure your parents are worried."

Clark nodded and wrapped his arms around Lex in a deep hug. Lex returned the embrace.

After a time, Lex whispered in Clark's ear. "Clark this place is crawling with cops and this is now officially too long to be a 'just friends' hug. We need to let go. I don't want to, but we need to."

Clark sighed into his lover's neck. "Never wanna let you go," he murmured.

"Mmm, I know. I love you, remember that."

Clark groaned softly. He slowly unwrapped himself from around Lex. He gave a soft smile that didn't quite reach his eyes and walked away.

Sunday

Ignoring the inviting lights within the Kent household, Lex entered the barn to the chords of Nickelback's "How You Remind Me."

Clark was sitting on the couch, head in his hands as the music began to drone again. It was a dark yet accurate rendition of their relationship and he had listened to this one song 11 times so far tonight. He felt more than saw Lex standing next to him, just beyond his field of vision. He grunted a soft sound of invitation before Lex sat beside him.

"How are you doing?" asked Lex, concerned.

"'I said "I love you" and I swear I still do'," said Clark as the lead singer belted out the same line. "It kind of describes things better than I ever could," he said about the song.

"What do you mean?" asked Lex after a short pause.

"'This is how you remind me of what I really am'," Clark said, once again in time with the music.

Not good, thought Lex. This is not good.

It's not like you to say sorry
I was waitin' on a different story
This time I'm mistaken
For handin' you a heart worth breakin'

Ok, thought Lex. Something is seriously wrong.

And I've been wrong
I've been dumb
Been to the bottom of every bottle
These five words in my head
Scream 'Are we havin' fun yet?'

"Clark?" Lex asked, sounding as worried as he felt.

"I killed your father, Lex. I killed him to protect you," Clark whispered. "I love you that much but why did it have to happen?"

Lex wrapped his arms around his depressed lover. "Everything worth doing comes with a price. Sometimes the price is too high to pay without breaking a few rules."

Clark snuggled against the lean form holding him close. "That was one doozy of a rule," he joked weakly.

He can joke about this, thought Lex. That could be either a good thing or a bad thing. "And just for the record, I've broken a few rules for us as well."

Clark looked his lover in the eye, confusion and curiosity on his face. "Like what? Maybe you'll be able to join me in prison."

Lex leaned his forehead against Clark's. "Only if we get caught. And I've made sure we won't be."

Clark sighed. "Lex, only some cops can be bribed into silence. Not all."

"I didn't bribe anyone this time. I planted evidence that'll prove you weren't there. You know, security records, fingerprints, tangible evidence like that."

Much of Clark's dark mood lifted until he realized something. "Lex, they need someone to be the murderer. You and I were the only ones there. Not even the servants were in the castle that day. I am not going to watch you take the blame."

"You won't have to. I lined somebody else up to take the fall."

There was a pregnant pause as Lex's statement sunk in.

"What?" Clark asked in hushed tones.

"I had to," answered Lex quickly. "He had been planning something like this anyway and he was the only one who could-"

"Who?" whispered Clark.

"Dominic."

"Why?" demanded Clark.

"He was the only one, Clark. It was the only way. I was protecting you."

"Well maybe I didn't need your protection!"

"That's bullshit and you know it, Clark. You're a terrible liar with a secret to end all secrets. Do you have any idea what they would do to you? If the cops ever find you, you won't end up in prison; you'll end up as the star of an 'Alien Autopsy' video. Yet you never seem to realize that. You're innocent and naïve and you need my protection."

"Because the world is such a cold, hard, unforgiving place? We've had this discussion before, Lex. Let it go already!"

"If I had, you'd be handed a one way ticket to Area 51." Lex stood up. "I'm very grateful to you for getting rid of my father, I really am, but we both need space right now. Let's give this some time. But before you sit down to think, listen to this." Lex handed Clark a label-less CD in a clear case. "Goodnight Clark. Remember that I will always love you." Lex walked silently down the steps and into the night.

Clark let his head fall back into his hands. He sobbed once, very quietly, before resolving that he wouldn't cry. Not now, not ever again.

He sighed and reached for his stereo, which was restarting "How You Remind Me" yet again. He stopped the CD and opened the case Lex had given him. He drew out the disk and gazed at it before putting it into his system and pressing 'play.'

The CD started out with Bryan Adams singing "Everything I Do". It led smoothly into The Cure's "More Than This" and Savage Garden's "Truly Madly Deeply". It shifted gears with "Higher" and "Who's Got My Back Now?" both by Creed. As it started into "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls, Clark fell into a fitful sleep.

He had done his thinking. He still wasn't sure if he could return to Lex but he did love him, almost as much as he knew Lex loved him back. He also knew that there wasn't anything he could do to save Dominic, not without incriminating Lex or himself, but he did know that there were actions he could take to ensure that no other innocent had to suffer the same fate.

He didn't know how he was going to do it, but he had powers and he planned to use them.

END