The Rescue Blues
by zahra

Email: frans_angel@hotmail.com
Feedback: You know that Pope question? The answer is yes.
Rating: PG
Spoiler: Hourglass
Dedication: To Yvette, P. Diddy & Lar for many reasons which I can not think of while inebriated *Special Dedication: to Ace for service, and kindness, above and WAY beyond the call of duty.*
Summary: Lex has it bad.
Note: The title is courtesy of Mr. Ryan Adams' ‘Gold' LP - the man is good. Note#2: Forgive my lack of betadness as it's 2am and I need to get this out before I go to bed.
Yvette's Lex Angst Improv: burn-ache-clarity-porcelain
The Six Second Smoulder Improv: ornate-elusive-tapestry

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He stares at the ornate thirteenth century tapestry hanging on the wall long after he's left the room. Long after he's left the hallway, the wing.

Elvis has left the building, ladies and gentlemen. At least it certainly feels that way to Lex.

The energy, the charisma, the elusive enigma is gone. It just left wrapped in a flurry of teenage angst and fleecy corduroy. Shit.

Was he that emotional at that age? He highly doubts it. He doesn't remember being that emotional ever. But then again, he's a Luthor. They don't do emotional.

Resting the bottle of designer water on his glass monstrosity of a desk, he sighs. It's a bad sign.

Lex doesn't sigh.

Sighing indicates a certain complacency. Stagnation and capitulation. Lex doesn't do capitulation. Lex doesn't stand still.

And yet, he has no idea where he's going... so he told Clark he didn't care. Didn't need a road map. Prevaricator.

Of course he wants to know how it's going to turn out. Of course he wants to know if he wins in the end. If he gets the golden goose. The golden boy.

So he lied.

Big deal. He does it every day. So why does this feel different?

Why the slow burn? The slight ache?

///I thought you weren't interested///

Not interested? In Clark Kent?

That's laughable. Tremendously so.

Small animals and children should be interested in Clark. Monks, lawyers and prostitutes, too. Everyone should be interested in Clark Kent and if only Lex felt the urge to laugh at this. If only he felt that that's what this situation called for. That this was something so trite and inane that he could laugh it all away.

But he can't. Not if this is what he's been reduced to because this is absolutely ridiculous. Sad. This is completely unacceptable. This dwelling. This living in the past.

But he just can't get around it.

He saved his life. Big deal. Big fucking deal actually.

Clark saved him. Saved HIM. Maybe he should have let him go. Let him drown. Then Lex wouldn't be in this state.

Borderline obsession. And it just keeps getting worse.

He can see with a startling clarity that this is going to go badly. He doesn't need to visit Clark's old woman to know he's in grave danger. All he had to do was look at the expression on his face. See the way his cheeks burned with untold desire and concern - and if that wasn't bad enough, he pouted at him.

He fucking pouted at him.

Like Lex doesn't have enough issues. Now he's got primal urges for a fifteen, sixteen if he's lucky, year old boy. A boy. A boy with skin like porcelain and eyes like Alaskan glaciers.

It's almost a shame that Lex has never been the best at self-control of this kind. Almost.

This is going to end extraordinarily badly. Badly like the car crash that he still can't understand walking away from.

Being lifted away from.

///I pulled you out///

Pulled nothing. There is an explanation for this. Lex knows there is. He knows that Clark is hiding it from him. Unfortunately this just makes him even more intrigued. Even more obsessed.

That this boy who wears innocence like his favorite red sweater could ever contemplate hiding something. That he could ever successfully do something which even hints at manipulation. Deception. It boggles Lex's mind.

It also arouses him tremendously. Maybe there is a dark side to this force.

After all, Clark isn't built for things like this. Lex knows this. All that beautiful purity. All that smouldering naivete can't just be a facade. A cover. It's too perfect. He's too perfect. But there's something else there. Something more.

Lex would bet the farm on it. Literally.

At first it was simply a matter of repaying a debt. But it became so much more so quickly that Lex feels a bit cheated. A bit used.

Now he's intrigued. Now he's in need.

Clark Kent has something that he wants, and Lex always gets what he wants. But he thinks that this time he may not get it the way he wants it.

He may get more than he bargained for and that thought requires something a bit stronger than Welsh spring water.

Clark saved him from himself. Now he's beginning to wonder who's going to save him from Clark.

-finis-