Title: Lemon (Nourishment 3.9)
Author: Janet F. Caires-Lesgold
Feedback to: jfc@freeshell.org
Archive: Mailing list archives only--others please ask permission!
Category: Vignette, angst, Lex POV
Spoilers: A scene missing from "Delete"
Rating: R for language and implications of m/m sexual interaction
Pairing: Clark/Lex established relationship
Summary: What was sweet turns sour

DISCLAIMER: These characters do not belong to me. Smallville is the property of Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, Tollin-Robbins Productions, and Warner Bros. Television, and based upon characters originally created by Jerome Siegel and Joe Shuster. This story is just for the entertainment of my online friends and myself, not for any profit.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: The rest of "The Nourishment Series" can be found elsewhere on this archive - Enjoy!

AUTHOR'S NOTES, ADDITIONAL: This is for Isagel's MULTIFANDOM U2 SONG TITLE CHALLENGE, about which she stated: "The rules are simple: pick a song by U2, use the title of this song as the title of a fanfic, and use three lines from the lyrics in the text of the story. No altering of lines, and no songfic - the trick is to fit the lines from the song seamlessly into your own prose or dialogue. Other than that, anything goes - all pairings, all genres, all ratings, and, yes, all fandoms." Wish me luck.

DEDICATION: For Tiff, who is sick of my complaining, but would never say it.

COPYRIGHT: (C) Janet F. Caires-Lesgold, July 9, 2004, jfc@freeshell.org

Please don't redistribute or alter this story in any way without the express permission of the author. Thank you very much.

__________________

Clark used to be so innocent.

He was happy and untouched and perfect, at least until I came along.

Since he came to meet me in the city today, I felt it only fair to take him for coffee as we try to unravel what is going on with his friends' computers, which seem to have suddenly turned evil. My lover guzzles his coffee black, as always, but I have opted for a different beverage. Winter's chill is in the air, so I have ordered tea with lemon, which makes me feel a little warmer somehow. Maybe it's what my mother used to drink when it turned cold.

Our discussion is mostly Clark thinking out loud and me offering suggestions, so I have plenty of time to watch him. We have fooled around a little once or twice in the interim, but haven't had sex since that morning in his loft when he'd lost his sight. He can't know what was going through my head at the moment I came, because it was startling even to me.

Something about the blank gaze in his eyes that day made me disconnect the body beneath me from the loving young man I thought I knew. Suddenly, I was ashamed for taking my pleasure from him, for taking advantage of this fragile, damaged boy. Nonsense, I keep telling myself--there is nothing fragile about Clark. Of course, his eyes healed quickly, and now everything is back to normal. But somehow, it isn't.

No longer is he the carefree boy he once was. Bad things happen to him, only some of which are not my fault, and the damage shows. Not on his perfect body, but in his manner, in the ease with which he has learned to avoid direct questions, in the casualness of his lies. He once made me agree to let him keep secrets from me, but have his secrets become bigger than his truths?

I was first attracted to his incorruptibility, his purity and virtue, but these are mostly gone now. Is this all my doing? My father's empire taunts me from across the street through the window of the coffee shop. A man builds a city with banks and cathedrals, and these are the days when our work has come asunder. While my father builds up, I can only tear down.

My past was something to escape, and I was going to be redeemed by the love of my blessed boy's heart and soul. I see now that I cannot run away from who I am, and I feel like I'm holding onto nothing, like I'm slowly, slowly, slowly slipping under... This creation--this lying, smiling, corrupt toy--is all I have to show for my apprenticeship in Smallville.

And still I love him better than anything in this world or the next. What else do I deserve in my life? Here, Lex--you can have the most beautiful boy on earth, but you have to touch him, to defile him, to fuck him until he is just as warped, as decrepit, as ruined as you are. Congratulations. This monster belongs to you, because you built him with your own two hands, with your dishonest mouth and your unfaithful cock.

Clark sees none of this, as if he's still blinded from that accident. All he perceives is his boyfriend offering advice and ideas for solving the latest mystery of his life while sucking on a slice of lemon from his tea. A man dreams of leaving, but he always stays behind. This is where I belong, with the only lover left to me, because he's the one that I was always destined to have.

Clark, who is still beautiful, strong, and even happy, used to be so innocent, but he is as far from that as I could take him. My God, what have I done?

THE END