Title: After Lies

Author: MidKnight

Email: MidKnightslair@juno.com

Raiting: R

Fandom: Smallville

Pairing: Clex

Archive: Yes

Category: Angst

Disclaimer: If I owned the cast of Smallville I'd be either too busy or too tired to write. ^_^ Since I wrote this you can guess what that means.

After the shootout at the museum, after it was finally pointed out to him that he was bleeding, after the wound was wrapped and the ambulance howled, after hours of surgery, after arguing with the doctors while subdued under the still strong anesthesia and getting himself out of that sterile hell, Lex Luther found himself back in the mansion. With Clark no less.

The doctors made it part of the bargain, someone had to stay; after all the anesthesia had barely worn off and he was back in his own bed, in his own town. In case he needed something or got sick off the drugs used to put him under or just because he'd been shot.

"You can go home anytime you want to." Lex said, making it come out like an order. His very skin crawled that Clark was here in his room, right where he wanted him the most and also right where he wanted him the least.

"I'm supposed to stay here." Clark replied looking lost at the fury that had massed itself in Lex's voice a few seconds earlier.

"What's another lie?" Lex murmured under his breath, but Clark caught it and had the nerve to sound indignant.

"Hey!"

"Just go. Go home. Fuck if I care."

"I'm trying to take care of you."

Clark ran a hand through his hair. "I'm trying to be a friend-"

Cold gray eyed glare.

"Even I'm not low enough to put lying into the friend category, Clark." His voice was like the wind's quiet fury.

"I haven't-" Even though it was visible in his expression and body language. In disgust Lex reached for the nearest loose object and threw it at the boy with unerring accuracy. Clark had to duck to avoid the heavy crystal paperweight, which shattered on the stone hearth.

"Either stop lying or get the fuck out." Lex ordered. "I've been trying to help you Clark, you gave me my life, and all you do is lie. Maybe I'm not as dumb as this town; I've seen you do things, known you've done them. You save my life but you can't trust me." He reached for his bottle of pills, but couldn't grab it. Clark obliged him, and gave him a water glass, before settling both objects back down on the table.

"I'm sorry." Clark whispered.

"Shove it." Lex snorted, turning away from the boy, nestling into the blankets as best he could around the bandages and sling on his arm. "Just get out."

"I made your hair go away." Clark whispered. The sentence was so inanely strange Lex wondered if Clark had helped himself to the codeine as well,palming a few pills as he gave Lex a dose. "When I came here. I didn't know that so many people would be hurt, or else I wouldn't have come. I'll understand if you hate me."

Lex refused to move, hoping it looked like he'd fallen asleep.

"It only started a couple of months ago- I'd always been strong, never got sick, you know?" Lex understood; he hadn't been touched by disease since he was nine, since his hair fell out. Only slightly did he roll to the side, towards Clark, but still kept his back to the boy. "Then you came. And the accident- I kept thinking I remembered it wrong, that you hadn't hit me. There wasn't a mark on my body, but I remembered looking you right in the eyes as we went off the bridge. I knew I had to save you- you were there when the reality fell apart, when the truth came. I tore the car open and your seatbelt off; and nylon webbing is no mean thing." Lex turned a little more as Clark's voice took on a child-like consistency. "You were so limp- so pale. I knew I'd failed you, that I'd screwed up and you were dead, and I had to fix it because maybe you'd know why I wasn't dead too, because you were there. So I fixed you and brought you back and then I went home and put my arm in the shredder without a scratch and I knew." Clark sat on the edge of the bed suddenly, which made Lex roll more. "There were people out there hurt by me being here, by the rocks. Lana's parents were crushed to death beneath one, and Tina's bones got better but she used them the wrong way, and Sean was frozen until he had to have other people's body heat to survive, and the boy who was the scarecrow..." his voice trailed off. Lex rolled so that he was on his back but Clark didn't look at him; his expression was so lost. "Dad showed me things, this tablet and a spaceship; what I came here with I suppose." Clark turned suddenly, looking Lex in the eye. "But I couldn't tell you because you were supposed to know already. You where there at the beginning, when the truth came, you were here when I arrived; and then I saw how much you were already hurt by me and I couldn't bear to hurt you anymore with all of this." Clark's callused palm ghosted over Lex's head. "This would never have been if I hadn't come here." His eyes flickered to the bandages. "You would never have been shot."

"I don't regret any of it." Lex told him, which was a shocker. It made Clark laugh and Lex smiled slightly.

"Not even dangling over Level 3?"

"You pulled me up, you saved me. If you hadn't been here, who would have done it?" Clark wrinkled his forehead, thinking.

"I don't know."

"Well, then it's a good thing you're here. See?"

"That's only the codeine talking." Clark told him. "In the morning you'll be furious for not having hair to comb." Lex fought off the urge to find something to throw at Clark, and instead leaned up and made their lips meet.

"See? It's just like the riverbank. A good thing. A beginning."

END