ethrosdemon ||| Smallville

Lexicon 1: After the Fireworks
by ethrosdemon

EMAIL: naturallycalm@yahoo.com
Spoiler: Jitters
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Lex thinks.
Dedication: Zahra, here you go, mock me now. Yvette because if I weren't making those tapes for you, I wouldn't even be watching the show anymore. Lar, the lime pop-tart of my heart.
Note: I said no more fandoms. I said Xmen ate my brain this summer, and I wouldn't do that again after surveying the boxes of comics. I am a big fat liar. Stupid Connor O'Angel!

= = = = =

Victoria wasn't such a brilliant call, in hindsight. She has that perfect timing that some women seem to possess. The ability to pop up at exactly the second you don't want them to. But, she has her uses.

Just as I was about to pull Clark away from his friends, get a couple minutes for meaningless talk about parties and how Lana arrived alone, Victoria was at my elbow. And that was that. Clark started the self-loathing guilt loop, and he was beyond me. Standing in the middle of what will likely go down as the best Smallville High party of the year, and he can't even enjoy his social coup. Which is very Clark.

And it's amazing how what can be enticing about a person can also be the facet that makes you want to drown in a bottle of whatever's at hand. Whatever's at hand is Grey Goose, and it's spent long enough in the freezer to be syrupy on the pour. Bits of ice dissolving from the heat of my hand against the crystal of the glass. Victoria back on the road to Metropolis, because I `have gotten so boring lately, going to high school parties and drinking in the dark'. Fairly accurate, except the dark and the alcohol aren't remotely new, letting my guard down enough for her to know about it is, however.

Not that she'll ever mention tonight again. No, too fond of the society page.

Clark's probably standing in the rubble of his kitchen now, surveying the damage and regretting ever thinking about being popular. I could send over maid-service. But he would only send them away. Tell me later that he can't take gifts, even ones his folks would never know about and would save his ass. Because the principles are what matter. The thought behind the action.

Which I can find resonance with. To some degree. What underlies action, the motivations and compulsions of others, knowing those are what win the war. Being able to think ahead, anticipate because the bigger picture is so easy to see when you know what's in someone else's mind. Which is why I keep stumbling with Clark.

Keep making the wrong assumptions, the truck, help with Lana, the fireworks. Each time he sidesteps me. So obvious and open, the eager schoolboy on the surface. And yet. People who are unknowable are dangerous as a rule. Bad for business, distracting, disarming. But Clark has nothing to do with anything, no immediate threat, and lying to yourself is more dangerous than the threat from outside. The mystery is the appeal. Well, beyond the Adonis-in-sneakers package.

Why he carries the world like a millstone around his neck is what I don't get. The why of it all. There's something there, some trauma that's hush hush, some reason he feels compelled to save Smallville one victim at a time. Guilt over the world out of his control, and it could just be a serious saviour complex or megalomania, but that's too easy. Why, instead of any spark of rebellion, all he seems to feel is responsibility. Boiled down like that, he sounds like a fifty year old with a double mortgage and ten kids. Which if we also transported him to 1956 might come close to his vibe.

And that only makes my consuming fixation all the more ridiculous. Plus, perfectly terrible timing. Because all I need is a new, mind- fucking obsession. Where will Daddy dearest find to shunt me to this time? The arctic? A jungle riddled with tropical diseases? Smallville isn't the ends of the earth, even if I thought so at first. Besides, I would probably meet an Inuit I thought was intriguing and get shipped off to the plant in the middle of the Sinai after that. There will always be something around to obsess over, someone around, and Clark's better than most.



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